BOOKS OF THE DAY
Men in Ivory Towers
Ten Years in Japan. By Joseph C. Grew. (Hammond & Hammond.
15s.)
"A CONTEMPORARY record drawn from the diaries and private and official papers" of the United States Ambassador to Japan during the momentous years between the "Manchurian Incident" and Pearl Harbour must of necessity be of the highest interest: it deserves the widest public. The mixture of private and official documents is unusual, but presents a singularly complete picture of the opinions, behaviour and character of the author. Perhaps tact obliges him to praise every action, letter or telegram from the State Department, or is that Department invariably right? "I am right, I think you'll say, to argue in this kind of way, and you are right and we are right and all is right too-loo-ral-lay :? runs as a refrain through the official correspondence revealed.
Modern conditions require diplomats to have the most varied and incompatible virtues : sincerity and cynicism, suavity and toughness are rarely combined in the same person. Mr. Grew emerges as a sincere and sauve man, trying to present an objective view to his government and endeavouring in his personal contacts to be both objective and cordial. Perhaps one of the most loathsome features of totalitarian regimes is their hatred of objectivity.- "So and so cannot rid himself of his objective outlook" is a commonplace abusive remark in their circles. Mr. Grew, when meeting promi- nent Japanese, is alwan willing to make a sincere effort to see their point of view ; he tries hard to dub them "perfect gentlemen." Has he not met many of them in the unreal world inhabited by diplomats where all are assumed to be gentlemen? In considering them to be gentlemen, however, is he really being objective? Or has he not rather projected into their minds the results of his own complicated upbringing? Is not this a type of objectivity which borders on wishful thinking, and, to be truly objective, must one not understand the premises upon which are built the traditions in which the Japanese are caught? From the evidence in this book it would not seem as though Mr. Grew had got down seriously to the study of the basic elemehts of Japanese psychology and outlook ; indeed he hints throughout that only the green think they understand the Japanese, while those who live there long profess ignorance: this reads like an excuse. Further, Mr. Grew would not seem to know the language (in so far as it is possible fiat anyone to know it). The book, as a result, has a superficial air throughout, despite the ex- cellent, if unimaginative, recordings of events of the deepest import- ance.
What is this tradition? It is based on a realist acceptance of the universe. Separated from the rest d the world on their islands at the extremity of Asia, the Japanese view themselves as a race apart. Traditions assigifed divine origins to the race and, in particular, to the imperial family. The Japanese, therefore, considers all that matters to him to be the greatest glory of his race and of his Emperor who sums up the race. The individual is important only as a drop in the stream of the race; as long as he swells that stream his task is achieved. The Japanese race is considered to be as different from others as cats from dogs. Consequently from the point of view of a Japanese what the aggregate of Japanese does must inevitably be right, since for him there exists no criterion by which the Japanese as a whole could be judged by others. With this exclusively racial outlook, helped by centuries of isolation and by the formidable barrier of a truly surrealist language, the Japanese cannot achieve an objective outlook. The sophisticated persons among whom Mr. Grew moved were doubtless cynical and worldly wise : they doubtless spurned or used for their own political purposes the legends con- cerning the divine origins of the race and the imperial family, but they, as surely, clung to the all-importance of their race. To them being a Japanese is a religion in itself to which all else is subordinate. Treason is sacrilege as well, and the Japanese who errs by following too far Western paths of thought is a heretic. Bearing this in mind it is possible to see how a race, "heirs to a fine aesthetic legacy, endowed with a taste for elegance and a feeling for good manners," can at the same time be, when viewed in the light of our own tradi- tion, so treacherous, cruel and barbaric. The cultivated gentlemen who move through Mr. Grew's pages would consider it right in the most fundamental sense to achieve any increment to the might of Japan by whatever means.
Thus there runs through Mr. Grew's book a certain naivety which gives charm, but sometimes, too, sadness to his pages. As a back- ground there is the shallow superficiality of diplomatic life, wherever it is led. The story of the visit paid by one of the Ambassador's colleagues in top hat and short black coat and the dilemma in which Mr. Grew in consequence found himself when returning the call— whether to wear a short black coat and bowler hat or morning coat and top hat—is not meant seriously and is intended to amuse: to this reviewer, at least, it seems profoundly tragic. It might be a symbol of the absurdity of life within the ivory towers in which relations between nations are conducted by persons securely insu- lated from the passions and grim realities of life, and out of touch so often with all but colleagues. Mr. Grew does peep out from the tower and he does allow the warmth of human friendship to creep into it : he tried very hard—" a parfit gentle knight" in the best European tradition assuming that others share his virtues. As a mine of information, the book can be most highly recommended: those in search of interpretation of Japan must look elsewhere.
PETER BLACK.
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