Feb. 20.
The following terse and pregnant account of some of the forces at work in Japan is by one who has been well placed for some time past to see the rival workings of those forces. It should be welcomed by all friends of the Japanese people for the sharp distinction it draws between them and the overweening intolerance of a coterie of narrow minded reactionary militarists who at present dominate Japan's policy and have drawn upon her that obloquy and suspicion, which her 30 much deplore. The same distinction has more than once been suggested as supplying "the key to Japan's policy tu these columns notably at the time of the defeat of Viscount Uchida's strenuous attempts to persuade the Cabinet to cancel its reservation of Manchuria and Mongolia as an exclusive sphere of Japanese interest and to join frankly with the Consortium in tts financial policy towards China—or rather Peking. Our contributor to-day shows clearly why the suffrage movement ts so strongly resisted by the militarist faction in the Cabinet.
"The world generally and particularly the Far East, is faced with the necessity for correctly interpreting Japan's _policy towards China.
'The Imperial Government has made every protestation of its good will' and just intentions toward its weaker neighbour. But its conduct has gone far to the creation of world-wide suspicion, by an aggressive attitude to inferiors and a non-committal attitude when dealing with the Greater Powers.
February 11, the great national holiday of Japan, saw a reflexion in Japan, mirrored in the people," of the new doubts which begin to assail them of their Government's integrity. The people of Japan. without doubt, have been living in a fool's paradise for some time, fondly imagining that their country, thanks to representation in the Diet, was ruled by the people and for the people. Their disillusionment has been slow and is not yet complete, but the day is at hand when autocracies must fall in line with the rest of the world; when the masses will no longer suffer in ignorance.
Japan as a whole is too prone to fall down and worship brass buttons''; too easily led by cuning politicians, who play upon the intense patriotism of the people, in order to use that tremendous force for their own ends. The Labour Conference at Washington was a crying example of the way in which the people's representative was chosen by the Government re-gardies of popular feelings.
The Japanese is an industrious and a generally sober man. By nature he has no inclination towards insensate hatred of his brothers, the Chinese. But he has been deceived by official newspapers into the belief that Japan is in danger from China. He is patriotic, therefore he at once conceives an animal-like suspicion of China; and when the high cost of living and its consequent hardships are misrepresented to him as the direct outcome of the Chinese boycott, he is naturally inflamed. "It is an indisputable fact that any animodity, which exists in Japan against China, is solely the work of those whose business it is to create trouble and give the desired opportunity to the Militarist Party, who through their ma-climations have unjustly earned for Japan the unenviable title of The Germany of the Far East."" The Premier, Mr. Hara, makes use of all sorts of fine-sounding phrases, when speaking of the two burning questions: Suffrage and China. They please the people, as they believe he is for the people. Yet he is but the biassed arbitrator between retrogression and progression, biassed in favour of the former.
The success in the near future of the universal suffrage movement in Japan, is " foregone conclusion, so great are the forces behind the movement. On February 11, Tokio presented an extraordinary change from its usual peaceful complacency. Inflammatory literature was being scattered broadcast; little knots of men were seen everywhere excitedly discussing the situation, until they were quietly dispersed by the swarms of police who patrolled the city.
Japanese militarism has seen the writing on the wall, and will not give up its ambitions without some struggle. It has received great impetus by the period of prosperity through which the country has passed, but the false pedestal on which it stood has been shattered by the enlightenment that has permeated the walls of officialdom and ignorance, which, in the past, surrounded Japan.
China will see a marked change in Japan's attitude as soon as the Japanese have destroyed the cancer at home.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.