The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-05-09

ever there is a Christian community
that is, where the missionaries have
been at work-almost every family
not actually poverty stricken has, at
least one foreign room" in the house
This room always has a carpet, a few
chairs, table and sometimes Byen
a bed. The presence of these things
means that the missionary created a
demand by bringing the eXistence Of
common Western conveniences to the
minds of the japanese. At first these
articles were all imported. but now
most of them are made in this coun>
try. but with imported machinery.
The missionary in Japan has not only
carried the light to the japanese in
a spiritual sense, but in the actual
physical form of a kerosene lamp. The
ancient lamp of Japan, vessel filled
with vegetable oil in which fiOated a
rude wick, was fit only to show how
dark it was To read by il was TO invite
blindness. The missionaries, the first
foreigners to get to the interior, car
ried kerosene and lamps with them. The
practical advantage of this strong,
clear light was instantly recognized by
the people and they asked how they
could have lamps, too. As result,
the kerosene lamp is almost as uniVer-
sal in rural Japan as it is in rural
America, while in the cities it is eV-
eryWhere The Standard Oil Company
has a tremendous business in Japan,
as have also the Japanese oil concerns
This business undoubtedly would have
followed the opening of Japan to for
eign ideas, even if there had never
been a missionary, but the fact that
the missionary was twenty years in
the interior before the foreign traders
were permitted to go there, means that
the immense business of today was
built by twenty years sooner than it
would have been, had there been no
missions.
In China, where everybody wears
cotton, there was no such thing as a
cotton mill until a missionary built a
small spinning mill to give employment
and support to his band of Chinese
students. Out of this beginning has
grown considerable number of spins
ming mills in China. Missionaries IN
the New Hebrides discovered the ar
rOWrOot of which the natives knew
nothing and the annual trade is now,
worth several hundred thousand dol
lars. How trade has penetrated into
darkest Africa through the opening
made by the great missionary Living
stone, is known to all the world. That
the interior and remote reaches Of
China are being brought closer to the
ports by traffic in foreign supplies, is
directly due to the missionaries; for
by their agency alone was the demand
for foreign. goods created in those in
land places.
ho oct
cannot be disputed but at the same
time the commercial set and the mis-
sionary set in any Oriental port have
an entirely different point of view and
are often at loggerheads on local ques-
lions. The missionaries in Japan, for
instance, are nearly all so thoroughly
pro-Japanese that they partake of the
fanatic loyalty of the natives them
selves to the Imperial government. The
commercial foreigners in Japan, on the
other hand. are almost unanimous in
their criticism of japanese methods
and practices. It was the missionary |
which was largely responsible |
for the Revision of Treaties which in
1899 brought Japan into the most fav-
ored nation class. This revision was
bitterly opposed by many of the COM |
mercial class.
But differ as they will, the mission |
airy realizes and admits that commerce !
has given him the means to come to !
the land where he is working for the !
of his holy cause, and /
that he owes much to the presence of !
the foreign commercial spirit. The /
business man, also, if he be fair, will !
confess that it was the missionary who i
first created the tiny demand for for /
eign trade upon which has been built /
the great superstructure of the import |
business of the Japan of today. And |
most business men in the East will say |
that the money spent on missions has |
been more than repaid in advantage to
commerce, leaving out of the question |
the results in education, civilization and |