The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1907-05-05

gloom as that which today pervades it.
wear ago when suddenly, almost
without warning, we found ourselves
plunged into this fateful war with JAP
an, Congress made its declaration
gravely; but throughout the country
there was a feeling almost of joy, only
slightly suppressed, that the time had
come forcibly to advance our trade
conquest to the Far East and take
that dominance of the Pacific Ocean
which for generations had been held up
by our publicists as our right by mani
est destiny. Today we find ourselves
chafing in leash, stung by series or
defeats that would be overwhelming
to g. less determined nation, blocked
and checked from retrieving our lost
fortunes and held only by a dogged
determination to bring all of our re-
sources to bear to save our national
pride and possessions.
All thoughtful men agree with me
that in these wonderful resources or
ours-the possession within ourselves
of all things needed for the waging OF
a. great war-we have that which Will
enable us finally to retrieve ourselves
but at all points we have met with
surprises-our own unpreparedness ana
the foresight of our enemies, that have
made it possible for them at once to
place US on the defensive, to seize all
of the strategic points and place US
under a handicap that will take up
years in time, millions in money and
ooHc Of lives fn overcome.
One wear ago we were more than the
equal of our adversaries on the sea;
immensely more efficient, numerically,
in men: in possession Of the strategic
points to govern the Pacific and sweep
it: too far removed from an enemy's
base to permit it to strike us, ana
vastly greater in wealth and the ST.
news of war. Today we are weaker IN
ships; our army is bottled up at home;
our possessions in the Pacific, once an
element of strength, have been turned
into bases for our enemies from Whlcn
they menace our coast-line; the Fan
anna Canal might as well not nave been
built, since it is today weakness 20
be protected rather than source OF
strength, and we retain only that
wealth which, sinew though it be, Is
paralyzed with fear and forebodings
of the morrow.
It is not my present purpose to set
down here more than a brief resume,
for future reference, Of the steps lead
ing I'D to this situation, to note in the
illuminating light of results those
things We should have done that were
left updone, and those things that we
have done that were better lett I'M
done. To some more vivid writer than
I will 1 leave the description of the
battle of Pearl Harbor Lochs, which
first awakened us to the gravity Of our
plight and to the seriousness of the
problem that lay before US. Looking
back now, it is easy to see that for a
decade-ever since the close OF the
Russian-Japanese War-we by our
1aissez-faire policy had been laying
ourselves liable for this judgment
while our enemies had been preparing
themselves to meet it.
It was at about that time I first WIS.,
tied Japan and saw many of the then
inconsidered trif1es that have since
grown into causes of war, which strain
ed our previously friendly relations,
and in which we blindly precipitated
the situation that now confronts US.
Well do I remember visiting the flour
mills of Osaka, in which the japanese
had adopted all of the most improved
nour-milHng machinery without gong
through the form of acquiring patent
rights, so that not in our own country
could such perfect and complete plants
be found. It did not seem to me then
this was in 1905-that this meant
other than a greatly increased con-
sumption of American wheat from our
northwestern wheat-fields, nor did
then connect the Chinese boycott, from
which American flour suffered prin-
cipaIy, with any concerted effort to
drive this American product from the
markets of the Far East.
In the arrogance of my Americanism
an arrogance which We are all re-
penting today saw only the far
sightedness of James J. Hill in per-
sistently teaching the Asiatics to
abandon their rice in favor of wheat.
in order TO create a new market for
the great fields tapped by his railroad
system as a feeder to his great steam
ship line, which, together with those of
the Pacific Mail, gave us the bulk OF
the carrying trade on the Pacific and
compensated US somewhat for our
chagrin on perceiving, when too late,
that all of our Atlantic trade had pass
ed into the hands of our commercial
rivals.
It is an old adage that foresight
is better than hindsight,'' and it is
hindsight view of all Of these things
that 1 am now taking. Had they APP
peared to me then as they do now, so
clear and all pointing in one direction,
L would have raised my voice to its
uttermost pitch to warn my country
men of what impended, though, truth |
to tell, I doubt that it would have been |
heard, for SO engrossed were we IN |
affairs of the moment that we could |
not look TO the future.
[ may seem to be laying undue stress !
upon this matter of wheat, but it was /
straw which should have shown the
direction in which the wind was blow
ing The close of the Russian-Japan~
csc war had left Japan in possession or
Korea and indirectly of Manchuria.
True, the terms of the treaty of peace
at Portsmouth had restored Manchurla
to China, but as a result of the Chinese
MAR fen Years before Japan had OBJ.