FIFTY YEARS OF NEW JAPAN.* Tam work is the most
authoritative that has ever been published in English on the progress of modern Japan. No nation has crowded so much change into half-a-century, and few nations can have looked back on the record of their accomplishments with so much satisfaction. Less than sixty years ago the Japanese decided to allow foreign ships to visit their harbours and to open their country to the trade of the world ; it is only forty-three years since the Shogunate was superseded and the supreme power was restored to the Imperial house ; and it is only twenty-one years since the Constitution was inaugurated. While China has slumbered on, conservatively in love with her immemorial customs, Japan has performed the extraordinary feat of planting in the East Western habits of thought, Western civilisation, Western government.
The various chapters in these two volumes are by writers who are experts in their own subjects, and the whole work has received, we understand, an official imprimatur. Some pages are marked by what seems to be an official discretion, and a few subjects on which we looked for information are not dealt with at all. There are inevitably a great many repetitions • Fifty Years of New Japan (Kaikoku Gojunen Shi). Compiled by Count Shigenobu Mums.. English Version Edited by Marcus B. Huish. 2 vols. London Smith, Elder, and Co. [23s. net. J
where the subjects overlap ; but we do not regret these, because they emphasise what the Japanese regard as the most salient facts, and because one sees how an innovation in one branch of life may bear on affairs in nearly all other respects.
The fifty years with which the writers originally professed to deal are from 1854 to 1904, and therefore most of the essays brought the facts up only to the beginning of the Russo- Japanese War; but for the English edition the information has been carried as near to the present date as possible. Count Okuma has dedicated the book to King Edward. It is likely to be a long time before it yields its place as the indispensable work on Japan.
What chiefly strikes us throughout is the moderateness, the cool-headedness, and the reasoned optimism of the writers. There is from beginning to end not a word of bitterness ; nothing more judicial could be imagined. Thus it is amusing to read :—
" The bombardment of Kagoshima by the British squadron in 1863, and of Shimonoseki in the following year by the combined squadrons of England, France, America, and Holland, were serious incidents : strictly speaking, both were unwarranted, but they served an important purpose, for they tended more than anything else to disillusionize the misguided seclusionists of their fatal errors. The two powerful clans of Satsuma and Chasha were at that time the foremost champions of the exclusive policy, and the hard knocks they sustained opened their eyes to the fallacy of their position. They were now forced to admit the necessity of establishing friendly relations with foreign countries."
As a matter of fact, Japan has never had much reason to complain either of Great Britain or of the United States;
both countries have always taken a sound view of the wisdom of restoring the Imperial power, and it was not till the last few years that the bearing of certain American States towards Japan became a matter of offence. In a similar spirit of polite optimism the writers speak most indulgently of a good deal of past political evil in their country, because it has been the stepping-stone to improvement. Christianity, again, is given enthusiastic praise, not so much as a religion as the instrument of such reform as the reconstitution of the prison system. It seems even in foreign lands to require the Christian spirit of an Elizabeth Fry to save the prisoners of the State from that mental and bodily degradation which should never be the object of any just penal code. The chapter on Christianity in the second volume is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable in the book. It states in the plainest fashion the reasons why Christianity has suffered something of a decline :—
"Partly owing to theological controversies within, and partly owing to objections from the educationalists without, the Christian Church of Japan now sank into a state of inactivity. From 1892 onwards, its progress was not marked by any salient feature. In fact Japanese Christendom has presented deplorable signs on all sides during the last sixteen years, the most noteworthy of them all being that a number of the so-called Christian leaders have gradually cooled in their affections towards the Church. Some who were once renowned captains of the Church retired from its work quite early and placed themselves in business circles. Others drifted into politics, no one knows when. Yet again, others, young and accomplished, representing progressive Christianity, withdrew from their churches. Some of these did not hesitate to say that they could find better means of improving their spiritual nature by reading such writers as Emerson or Carlyle at home than by attending church. Not a few of the theological students, educated in mission-schools of different denominations, fell away. Christian educationalists felt a constantly increasing want of able pupils in their schools. How was it that the Japanese Christian Church, which for a time had the brightest prospects before it, was thus reduced to a state of dull inactivity ? It is by no means a com- plete explanation to ascribe it solely to theological controversy, opposition on the part of the educationalists, and unfitness of foreign missionaries for the circumstances and conditions of Japan. There were two still greater factors. They were nothing less than a rise in the standard of the people's manner of living, and the general trend of Western Christendom. Wealth and the scale of living of the Japanese nation has altered to an extent almost unequalled in the whole world."
We must also draw attention to the pages on Shinto. It is often said that Shinto is not a religion, but a superstition which the Government sagaciously keep in existence as a useful piece of machinery for governing people less enlightened than themselves ; and whether that be just comment or not, Shinto can scarcely be disentangled from politics. But the writer of the essay here argues that the religion of ancestor. worsh ip, with its great doctrine of chivalry (bushido) embedded
in it, is a religion in the truest sense, and one worthy of the purest souls and the highest intellects. The shortest chapter on religious beliefs is that on Buddhism ; but it must not be supposed that its length is the measure of the importance of that religion in the life of Japan.
The account of the development of the fiscal system is also most instructive. The reform of the Land-tax—by this reform the payment in produce was abolished—was the nucleus to which all other reform adhered. Formerly all land was owned by the State, except in the case of certain nobles, but the Government, unlike British Liberals of the new style, discovered that the contentment of the people was dependent on rights of private ownership. Thus " the right to sell and purchase land having been definitely given to the people, their properties became secure, and this has naturally fostered a self-governing spirit, and as a result land has been constantly improved." The railways, on the other hand, have all been nationalised, and though this may seem a con- tradiction in ideas, we have to remember the extraordinary dissimilarity between Japanese and British conditions. In Japan there has been little opportunity for enterprising persons to win their way through to commercial and political success by instinct and pluck rather than by ordered design; it has been a case of a Government of intellectuals deliberately imposing upon a comparatively ignorant people alien systems which indeed are for the nation's good, but which the nation could scarcely have been expected to invent.
Another very interesting chapter is that on the Japanese language. We do not suppose that it would be possible to give a more lucid summary of a complicated subject. We can only mention some of the other subjects, such as the Army and the Navy, the Law, shipping, industries, the political parties, medicine and education, and foreign rela- tions. We said at the beginning that we were left uninformed on certain matters. The most important of these is the material progress of the people. Less than sixty years ago the Japanese were living ignorantly, but happily enough, we believe, in an enclosed paradise. The islands are fanned by various breezes, mostly temperate ; the land brought forth all that was necessary for simple subsistence ; and the seas teemed, and still teem, with a wonderful variety of fishes. Suddenly this paradise was thrown open to the world ; Japan entered into the comity of nations, and is now counted among the first-class Powers. But what of the people ? How much has the standard of comfort been raised ? What has been the effect on wages and rent, on the hours of labour, and on the cost of living generally ? Whatever the answer to those questions may be, the leaders of Japan have no thought of looking hack. The reply to Commodore Perry's question whether the Japanese would allow foreign ships in their harbours is still in the affirmative, only more so. " The Japanese people and State," says Count Okuma in his concluding words, " should unite in cultivating foreign intercourse more closely than ever."
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