6th May. THe April number of The Orient opens with a leading article with the above heading, in which the writer has attempted to put aside sentiment and give the naked truth about Japan's relations with the outside world. "Has Japan," he asks, "profied by her contact with the rest of the World? If she has, to what extent? Are her treaty allies in full possession of the facts which should ensure perfect fairness of treatment on their part as well as Japan's own And, finally, does the history of the Meijiera, the Oriental Victorian Age, justify us in assuming that we are doing well by, and have been done well by, those who, at the cannon's mouth, compelled us to relinquish our self-imposed seclusion? Our limits will scareely permit us to answer these questions seriatim; and yet in view of the speedy opening of the whole Empire to foreign residence and the abolition of extraterritoriality; their discussion is both timely and imperative." The article is well worth reading by those who think that Japan cannot be sufficiently grateful to Great Britain and the other Powers for leading her into the light of Western civilisation; many of us, however, wish Japan had never been led into the light; we liked Japan and the Japanese much better before they were transformed into Occidentals.
The Ovient's answer to the first question is in the affirmative, as far as material profit is concerned; spiritually, it says, there is very undeniable decadence. The spirit of Ruskin descends upon the writer and he says: "Open ports, huge ficers of steamers, thousands of miles of rails, telephone and telegraph wires, a navy ranking at least seventh in the world's list, a consolidated postal system, flourishing banks and all else of like nature are nothing more than signs of material progress. Like our allies, we have grown worldly-wise, and have come to view the Almighty Dollar with a feeling akin to veneration. People point, and with justice, to the tremendous social revolution of the Restoration days; but where we have got rid daimio and shomio, of hutamoto and samurai, have we not plutocrats and bureaucrats as potent and unconscionable as the most tyrannical of the one-time feudal barons? The outcast pariahs—the ea—no longer exist in law or name; but they exist in fact. The operatives of the Osaka mills, the wretched human shambles of the prostitute quarters, the sick and suffering poor—are these not social pariahs and even worse? We miss the sternly martial virtue of the days of yore: the unbending dignity of the true, the real, yamato damashii. Better the yamabushi and rona of pre-Meiji days than these carpet-knights of the present,- who break their lances for no better cause than the venal smiles of a singing-girl or the applause of a twice-bought constituency." This is the opinion of a Japanese, vigorously written ina foreign tongue without any foreign assistance; and most of those who know something of old Japan and new Japan, and are not entirely blinded by the glamour of material progress, will goa long way in agreement with him. goes on to own that the merchant was unfairly repressed in the days of old, but he is taking his revenge now; he is now at the head, and the result is a reign of unbridled corruption, nepotism, and indulgence in every form of vice. Religious faith is entirely dead; "Christian ministers and propagandists are now magnates in the banks or on Change: Buddhist priests re-enter the ranks of the laity or else lead lives so at variance with the dogmas they are supposed to have embraced, that they make their false courses stink in the nostrils of right-thinking people! And Shin-foism? In many places a m-re name or symbol; the Veriest sepulchre of dry boi absolutely without lite or elevating principles, except it be in theer ver in practice!" This is what Japan has gained by throwing off her isolation.
How stands it with her foreign relations? After the war with China the world stood aghast with wonder at what Japan had done. But the Tripartite Alliance soon pricked that bubble, "and since then our astutely inefficient diplomatists abroad have seen to it that almost every laurel has been plucked from our wreath. We are a cipher in Corean politics a mere bogey in China, whose real nature is known to be far from fearsome; a nonentity in the councils of European nations." No Western nation, the writer adds, wants an alliance with Japan, and while the Japanese Court goes into mourning when a European royalty dies, " only Spain and one or two third-rate Powers made a return in kind on the decease of H. M. the late Enipress Dowager.". Only the United States returned their share of the Shimonoseki indemnity. "We are still classed as Mongolians in Canada and the United States. Ethnologists and anthropologists may declare in the most emphatic terms that the Japanese area Turanian and not a Mongoloid people; yet the wise-acres of the American and Canadian Supreme Courts set science at defiance and classify our emigrants with the yellow-skinned Chinese. Could grosser injustice be done a nation? And wherein, for example, lies the superiority of the Polish Jews or the offscourings of the Russian steppes—the unden:' ly Mongoloid Cossacks—that they should be given that free
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.