Out of the East (14 page)

In short, it was wisely decided that the foreign religion, besides its inappropriateness to the conditions of Oriental society, had proved itself less efficacious as an ethical influence in the West than Buddhism had done in the East. Certainly, in the great jiujutsu there could have been little to gain, but much to lose, by a patriarchal society-established on the principle of reciprocal duties, through the adoption of the teaching that a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife.
³

The hope of making Japan Christian by Imperial edict has passed; and with the reorganization of society, the chances of making Christianity, by any means whatever, the national religion, grow less and less. Probably missionaries must be tolerated for some time longer, in spite of their interference in matters altogether outside of their profession; but they will accomplish no moral good, and in the interim they will be used by those whom they desire to use. In 1894 there were in Japan some eight hundred Protestant, ninety-two Roman Catholic, and three Greek Catholic missionaries; and the total expenditure for all the foreign missions in Japan must represent not much less than a million dollars a year,—probably represents more. As a result of this huge disbursement, the various Protestant sects claim to have made about 50,000 converts, and the Catholics an equal number; leaving some thirty-nine million nine hundred thousand unconverted souls. Conventions, and very malignant ones, forbid all unfavorable criticism of mission reports; but in spite of them I must express my candid opinion that even the above figures are not altogether trustworthy. Concerning the Roman Catholic missions, it is worthy of note that they profess with far smaller means to have done as much work as their rivals ; and that even their enemies acknowledge a certain solidity in that work—which begins, rationally enough, with the children. But it is difficult not to feel skeptical as to mission reports : when one knows that among the lowest classes of Japanese there are numbers ready to profess conversion for the sake of obtaining pecuniary assistance or employment; when one knows that poor boys pretend to become Christians for the sake of obtaining instruction in some foreign language; when one hears constantly of young men, who, after professing Christianity for a time, openly return to their ancient gods; when one sees—immediately after the distribution by missionaries of foreign contributions for public relief in time of flood, famine, or earthquake—sudden announcement of hosts of conversions, one is obliged to doubt not only the sincerity of the converted, but the morality of the methods. Nevertheless, the expenditure of one million dollars a year in Japan for one hundred years might produce very large results, the nature of which may be readily conceived, though scarcely admired; and the existing weakness of the native religions, both in regard to educational and financial means of self-defense, tempts aggression. Fortunately there now seems to be more than a mere hope that the Imperial Government will come to the aid of Buddhism in matters educational. On the other hand, there is at least a faint possibility that Christendom, at no very distant era, may conclude that her wealthiest missions are becoming transformed into enormous mutual benefit societies.

The idea that Japan would throw open her interior to foreign industrial enterprise, soon after the beginning of Meiji, proved as fallacious as the dream of her sudden conversion to Christianity. The country remained, and still remains, practically closed against foreign settlement. The Government itself had never seemed inclined to pursue a conservative policy, and had made various attempts to bring about such a revision of treaties as would have made Japan a new field for large investments of Western capital. Events, however, proved that the national course was not to be controlled by statecraft only, but was to be directed by something much less liable to error,—the Race-Instinct.

The world's greatest philosopher, writing in 1867, uttered this judgment: "Of the way in which disintegrations are liable to be set up in a society that has evolved to the limit of its type, and reached a state of moving equilibrium, a good illustration is furnished by Japan. The finished fabric into which its people had organized themselves maintained an almost constant state so long as it was preserved from fresh external forces. But as soon as it received an impact from European civilization,—partly by armed aggression, partly by commercial impulse, partly by the influence of ideas,—this fabric began to fall to pieces. There is now in progress a political dissolution. Probably a political reorganization will follow; but, be this as it may, the change thus far produced by outer action is a change towards dissolution,—a change from integrated motions to disintegrated motions."
¹
The political reorganization suggested by Mr. Spencer not only followed rapidly, but seemed more than likely to prove all that could be desired, providing the new formative process were not seriously and suddenly interfered with. Whether it would be interfered with by treaty revision, however, appeared a very doubtful question. While some Japanese politicians worked earnestly for the removal of every obstacle to foreign settlement in the interior, others felt that such settlement would mean a fresh introduction into the yet unstable social organism of disturbing elements sure to produce new disintegrations. The argument of the former was that by the advocated revision of existing treaties the revenue of the Empire could be much increased, and that the probable number of foreign settlers would be quite small. But conservative thinkers considered that the real danger of opening the country to foreigners was not the danger of the influx of numbers ; and on this point the Race-Instinct agreed with them. It comprehended the peril only in a vague way, but in a way that touched the truth.

One side of that truth ought to be familiar to Americans,—the Occidental side. The Occidental has discovered that, under any conditions of fair play, he cannot compete with the Oriental in the struggle for life: he has fully confessed the fact, both in Australia and in the United States, by the passage of laws to protect himself against Asiatic emigration. for outrages upon Chinese or Japanese immigrants he has nevertheless offered a host of absurd "moral reasons." The only true reason can be formulated in six words:
The Oriental can underline the Occidental
. Now in Japan the other face of the question was formulated thus:
The Occidental can overlive the Oriental
²
under certain favorable conditions.
One condition would be a temperate climate; the other, and the more important, that, in addition to full rights of competition, the Occidental should have power for aggression. Whether he
would
use such power was not a commonsense question: the real question was,
could
he use it? And this answered in the affirmative, all discussion as to the nature of his possible future policy of aggrandizement—whether industrial, financial, political, or all three in one—were pure waste of time. It was enough to know that he might eventually find ways and means to master, if not to supplant, the native race; crushing opposition, paralyzing competition by enormous combinations of capital, monopolizing resources, and raising the standard of living above the native capacity. Elsewhere various weaker races had vanished or were vanishing under Anglo-Saxon domination. And in a country so poor as Japan, who could give assurance that the mere admission of foreign capital did not constitute a national danger? Doubtless Japan would never have to fear conquest by any single Western power: she could hold her own, on her own soil, against any one foreign nation. Neither would she have to face the danger of invasion by a combination of military powers: the mutual jealousies of the Occident would render impossible any attack for the mere purpose of territorial acquisition. But she might reasonably fear that, by prematurely opening her interior to foreign settlement, she would condemn herself to the fate of Hawaii,—that her land would pass into alien ownership, that her politics would be regulated by foreign influence, that her independence would become merely nominal, that her ancient empire would eventually become transformed into a sort of cosmopolitan industrial republic.

Such were the ideas fiercely discussed by opposite parties until the eve of the war with China. Meanwhile the Government had been engaged upon difficult negotiations. To open the country in the face of the anti-foreign reaction seemed in the highest degree dangerous ; yet to have the treaties revised without opening the country seemed impossible. It was evident that the steady pressure of the "Western powers upon Japan was to be maintained unless their hostile combination could be broken either by diplomacy or by force. The new treaty with England, devised by the shrewdness of Aoki, met the dilemma. By this treaty the country is to be opened; but British subjects cannot own land. They can even hold land only on leases terminating, according to Japanese law,
ipso facto
with the death of the lessor. No coasting-trade is permitted them—not even to some of the old treaty ports; and all other trade is to be heavily taxed. The foreign concessions are to revert to Japan; British settlers pass under Japanese jurisdiction ; England, in fact, loses everything, and Japan gains all by this treaty. The first publication of the articles stupefied the English merchants, who declared themselves betrayed by the mother-country,—legally tied hand and foot and delivered into Oriental bondage. Some declared their resolve to leave the country before the treaty should be put in force. Certainly Japan may congratulate herself upon her diplomacy. The country is, indeed, to be opened; but the conditions have been made such as not only to deter foreign capital seeking investment, but as even to drive existing capital away. Should similar conditions be obtained from other powers, Japan will have much more than regained all that she lost by former treaties contrived to her disadvantage. The Aoki document surely represents the highest possible feat of jiujutsu in diplomacy.

But no one can well predict what may occur before this or any other new treaty be put into operation. It is still uncertain whether Japan will ultimately win all her ends by jiujutsu, although never in history did any race display such courage and such genius in facing colossal odds. Within the memory of men not yet old, Japan has developed her military power to a par with that of more than one country of Europe; industrially she is fast becoming a competitor of Europe in the markets of the East; educationally she has placed herself also in the front rank of progress, having established a system of schools less costly but scarcely less efficient than those of any Western country. And she has done this in spite of being steadily robbed each year by unjust treaties, in spite of enormous losses by floods and earthquakes, in spite of political troubles at home, in spite of the efforts of foreign proselytizers to sap the national spirit, and in spite of the extraordinary poverty of her people.

Should Japan fail in her glorious purpose, her misfortune will certainly not be owing to any lack of national spirit. That quality she possesses in a degree without existing modern parallel,—in a degree that so trite a word as "patriotism" is utterly powerless to represent. However psychologists may theorize on the absence or the limitations of personal individuality among the Japanese, there can be no question at all that, as a nation, Japan possesses an individuality much stronger than our own. Indeed we may doubt whether Western civilization has not cultivated the qualities of the individual even to the destruction of national feeling.

On the topic of duty the entire people has but one mind. Any schoolboy will say to you, if questioned about this subject: "The duty of every Japanese to our Emperor is to help to make our country strong and wealthy, and to help to defend and preserve our national independence." All know the danger. All are morally and physically trained to meet it. Every public school gives its students a preparatory course of military discipline; every town has its
bataillons scolaires.
Even the children too young to be regularly drilled are daily taught to sing in chorus the ancient songs of loyalty and the modern songs of war. And new patriot songs are composed at regular intervals, and introduced by Government approval into the schools and the camps. It is quite an experience to hear four hundred students chanting one of these at the school in which I teach. The young men are all in uniform on such occasions, and marshaled in military rank. The commanding officer gives the order to "mark time," and all the feet begin to beat the ground together, with a sound as of a drum-roll. Then the leader sings a verse, and the students repeat it with surprising spirit, throwing a peculiar emphasis always
on the last syllable
of each line, so that the vocal effect is like a crash of musketry. It is a very Oriental, but also a very impressive manner of chanting: you can hear the fierce heart of Old Japan beating through every word. But still more impressive is the same kind of singing by the soldiery. And at this very moment, while writing these lines, I hear from the ancient castle of Kumamoto, like a pealing of thunder, the evening song of its garrison of eight thousand men, mingled with the long, sweet, melancholy calling of a hundred bugles.
¹

The Government never relaxes its efforts to keep aglow the old sense of loyalty and love of country. New festivals have lately been established to this noble end; and the old ones are celebrated with increasing fervor each succeeding year. Always on the Emperor's birthday, His Imperial Majesty's photograph is solemnly saluted in all the public schools and public offices of the Empire, with appropriate songs and ceremonies.
²
Occasionally some students, under missionary instigation, refuse this simple tribute of loyalty and gratitude, on the extraordinary ground that they are "Christians," and thus get themselves ostracized by their comrades—sometimes to such an extent that they find it unpleasant to remain in the school. Then the missionaries write home to sectarian papers some story about the persecution of Christians in Japan,
"for refusing to worship an Idol of the Emperor!"
³
Such incidents are, of course, infrequent, and serve only to indicate those methods by which the foreign evangelizers manage to defeat the real purpose of their mission.