CHAPTER XVIII
AUSTRALASIA New Zealand and Australia are to-day the only spots in the world wherein the white race may expand without encroaching upon already existing and developed races. The extent to which they are taking advantage of their opportunities, the extent to which they are enlarging the scope and the quality of progressive civilization is the measure of their right to the maintenance of their exclusive "White-Australasia" policy. I confess at the outset that I am at a loss for an adequate argument against this policy. Narrow, selfish, dog-in-the-manger-like as it may be, we are faced with the other question: From time out of mind China and India have had two of the largest slices of the world's surface. What have they done with them? How can India and Asia, having littered up their domains with human beings, ask that more of the world be turned over to them for a repetition of the same ghastly reproduction? They have made it impossible, with their degradation of womanhood and their exaltation of caste and ancestry, for new life to start with anything like a decent chance. Is there not every reason to believe that permitted to take up quarters in the open spaces of the white man's world, they will do the same? True that the white man, in both of these cases, has wrested his lands from existing native tribes. But it was also true that, in New Zealand at least, and through Polynesia, the natives were immigrants who in their turn imposed on yet more primitive natives, as did the Japanese. Furthermore, no race on earth has been given a better opportunity to make good than has the Maori in New Zealand. The Australoid seems on the whole not equipped for the effort. There have been cases of Australian blacks making good. There is the case of the savage who after receiving an education became a Shakespearean scholar. But the exception only proves the rule. Furthermore, though there is bitter opposition to any white man marrying a native black woman in Australia—an opposition that is calling for legal action from some quarters so that such marriage will be in future impossible—still, the White-Australia policy is not aimed against the blacks. These will either take hold of themselves and make good, in time, or will die out. Be that as it may, there is no answer to the Asiatic demand for admission based on the argument about the white man's plunder. The only other argument is that, if this is the case, the white man must get out of Asia. There too, it seems to me, is a weak spot. The white man in Asia—as man to man—does not lower the standard of the civilization of the native; nor is he ever likely to migrate in numbers large enough to create a problem. Only politically, where a leeching-process exists, where native industries are destroyed by cheap foreign products (like that of cotton goods, which were forced upon the Indians by the British, to the utter ruination of the Indian textiles) has the havoc been serious. That is a real argument, and it is up to the Asiatics so to adjust their own affairs and to come together as to "oust" the white man,—a problem for the natives to solve for themselves. There is still another consideration. What of Japan? Japan has national unity, she is advancing. Is she, then, to be made an exception in the White-Australia policy? The answer is, Japan must do as she would be done by, an answer which will be enlarged upon in the chapter dealing with Japan. Having thus focused on the negative phases of this discussion, let us see what is written on the inner side of the Australasian shield. Before we can at all understand the motives that move Australasia in the direction she is going, and foresee the future, we shall have to know by what channels she came to be what she is, what ideals are parents to her being, and what ideals are her offspring. Strange as it may seem, Britain's interest in her south Pacific possessions have always been more or less mild. When the question of annexing New Zealand came up in 1839, the Duke of Wellington said in Parliament that Great Britain already had too many colonies. It is common knowledge that she gave them as much rope as they would take, that when she had the opportunity of acquiring the Samoan group in 1889 she let it slip, and that she took the Fiji Islands only after their chief, Thakambau, offered them in liquidation of unjust debts to America. In other words, it was New Zealand and Australia that held on to the mother country, instead of the reverse. And in order to understand the spirit of the Dominion and the Commonwealth, we must consider the reasons for their clinging to "home." Australia was first settled by men convicted of offences against Britain's then crude sense of justice; but New Zealand was devised as a colonial scheme under which every feature of British life was to be transplanted. When Europeans came to America, political and religious freedom was sought. When Great Britain went to New Zealand, eighty-five years ago, society was politically and religiously free, but industrial organization was awaiting an ambitious hand. In New Zealand it was not, as Havelock Ellis puts it so vividly, "the roving of a race with piratical and poetic instincts invading old England where few stocks arrived save by stringent selection of the sea." They did not come because of romantic longing, nor to escape oppression and restriction. The story of the development of New Zealand, from settlement and conquest of the Maories to the beginning of that legislation which has made it famous, is the story of conservatism. When the first shipload of colonists set out from England, their prospectus was a document of conservatism. The aim of the projectors was to transplant every phase and station and class of English life, to build in the other end of the world another England. THE MOUNTAINS ARE CALLED THE REMARKABLES
Farmer M—— had the reputation for being the worst boss in the Wakatipu (New Zealand) THE BLUE MOUNTAINS OF AUSTRALIA THE BLUE MOUNTAINS OF AUSTRALIA
Seen from this side they look more like gorges Doubtless the fathers of this scheme were seeking to overcome the fear of forced transplantation which had made of Australia a land of horror in anticipation, and hence they spread broadcast accounts of the sort of colony New Zealand was to be, which made it alluring. But such are the erring tendencies of human nature that Australia, intended to be the land of one of the worst forms of indentured and penal servitude and the perpetuation of unprogressiveness, set the pace for the entire world in untried liberalism in industry, while New Zealand, likewise advanced, has developed her latent conservatism in regard to imperialism to a marked degree. For apart from the experiments in labor legislation, New Zealand has never lost any of the dependence on England. She seems to be afraid of her isolation, lest, deprived of communication with the world, she should be forced into a condition such as that in which the white man found the heliolithic Maories. Canada might become a nation separate from Britain; so might Australia. But New Zealand has not even that proximity to a continent which made England what she is, for she is twelve hundred miles from her nearest neighbor. In consequence, the New Zealanders have always maintained a strong leaning toward the homeland, whereas in Australia early resentment alienated the settlers. The New Zealander to-day is the exact replica of the Englishman as we knew him; the Australian is a compromise between an Englishman and an American. The modern Australian on the east coast of the continent is as little an Englishman as possible. I have heard any number of Australians resent being called English. The last "convict" was brought to Australia in 1840; yet the Australians are very conscious of this stigma on them. The other day an English engineer told me that in Subiaco, one of the suburbs of Perth, it was impossible for one to join the tennis-club whose grandfather was born in Australia—lest that ignoble ancestor should have passed on some of the "taint" to his unfortunate offspring. Yet in the eyes of enlightened legislation, the taint involved is of course questionable. AUSTRALIA DENUDING HERSELF Photo from Brown Bros. AUSTRALIA DENUDING HERSELF It is therefore not to be wondered at that Australia kept growing farther and farther from England. In the early days each settlement maintained its own government, and so great was the jealousy among the settlements that they sought to bar one another even in the construction of railroads. Victoria built a broad-gage line, New South Wales, a narrower, and Queensland the narrowest,—not mere engineering accident due to any notion of superiority of the special line, but clearly and openly to make communication of one with another difficult. But by 1900 the settlements had outgrown their childish squabbling, and they became federated into the Commonwealth of Australia. Though this brought them together within Australia, it awoke New Zealand to the danger of being drawn into that union against her will. "The Melbourne Age" prophesied that in a quarter of a century they would be federated. "The fate and destiny of Australia and New Zealand were the same and they should be united in the defense of these distant lands that were held by people of the same thought and same political system." But there never has been much love lost between them. New Zealanders have been anathema in Australia, and Australians hadn't a ghost of a chance of getting a job in New Zealand. Nor was this a matter of different standards of living, except that they both discriminated against the Englishman. And not without reason, for the type of Englishman who set out for the Antipodes was one who generally had nothing to sustain him at home. To the Australasians he was virtually a foreigner, and foreigners of any sort are few in the far South, and are encouraged still less. Yet there is excessive pride in the fact that something like 98 per cent. of the inhabitants are British. In view of the economic departures they have taken from European conceptions, this would seem a paradox. But even among the workers, the psychological effect of "home" is apparent to the most casual observer. Though material security has been assured by the State, the result of much of the legislation in the Antipodes seems to me to have been something akin to the class system in England. The worker has become legally recognized as a worker, he has been given a minimum wage and protection against imposition, but any effort on the part of labor to crystallize its ideals is still obnoxious to the masses. There is not even any of the impulse found among American workers toward that rise in the social scale which is essentially bourgeois. There is a most decided tendency to accept the status of worker in the good old English fashion. Working-people do not regard themselves as "gentlemen" or as "ladies," these terms in New Zealand having the same significance they have in the old country. Deference to one who does not look like a laborer is pronounced, and the average workman is more ambitious for the "gentleman" than he is for himself. This spirit obtains much more in New Zealand than in Australia. Than dignity in labor nothing in the world could be more worthy. But if that dignity spells merely content, it lays society open to a renewal of the very class divisions industrial progress has sought to remove. The laborer is too content to remain a laborer actively to enter the lists against injustice. And in a short time you have those who refused to be doped by the talk of virtue in labor on the top, and the laborer at the bottom. Yet, socially and outwardly, there are not the gaps between the classes in New Zealand that are found in Australia. There are no great restaurants and pleasure places for the rich. All people visit the dainty little tea-rooms, and often workingmen come dressed in their working-clothes, with unwashed hands. In Dunedin the proprietor of one of the best tea-rooms handed out little cards to laborers with "Your Patronage is Undesirable" on them, but the public howled his practice out of existence. This is largely because the level of life in New Zealand is more even. The wealthy do not display themselves over-much, and the most obvious club life is that among the workers. Workingmen's clubs are equipped with very good libraries and reading-rooms, but also with tremendous circular bars fully as much frequented as the book-shelves. The result is that though, from a progressive point of view, New Zealand is outwardly tame and sober, from a consideration of health, the standard of life is universally good. Any great influx of peoples with standards of living that would of necessity demoralize this normality, would give the country a setback which might take generations to overcome. On the other hand, though the present state of affairs might continue indefinitely, unless New Zealand gains in numbers, her place among the influential members of the Pacific Ocean nations is certain to be strained, if not jeopardized. Torn between these economic enthusiasms of a small country and the restraining influences of a tradition that is essentially imperialistic, New Zealand has a pretty hard time of it. Naturally enough, she is holding on to her beloved mother country with an excessive amount of talk, while at the same time nibbling away at the ties that bind her. She is in the hardest position of any of the Pacific countries. By tradition adoring England and scorning Australia, emulating the one and trying to keep peace with the other, realizing that proximity makes her more than a brother of her continental kin, looking toward America for applause and assistance, New Zealand is shaping a policy that will probably become a patchwork of colors,—and most interesting to look at. AUSTRALIA IS NOT ALL DESERT AND PLAIN South Australian Government Photo AUSTRALIA IS NOT ALL DESERT AND PLAIN But Australia is cutting the waters with the force of a triple-screw turbine. And toward Australia we shall have to look for the leadership of British policy in the Pacific. Canada is too close to Europe and America ever to become the real leader in the destinies of the Pacific. The truth of this statement becomes manifest when one watches the inner workings of the island continent. Though New Zealand is more widely known for its great liberalism, there is really more freedom of thought in Australia, more freedom from traditional thinking, more boldness of expression. That was manifest during the war when the conscription issue came up. The New Zealand Legislature simply enacted a conscription measure. In Australia, the Government tried twice to force it through by way of a referendum, and twice it failed. William Morris Hughes, the Prime Minister, had gone to England to attend a conference, promising that conscription would never be proposed. He was wedded to voluntaryism. When he returned, Australians suspected him of having conscription up his sleeve. There was an outburst of indignation. Australians charged him with having had his head turned by fawning lords and ladies at "home" and with sidling up to a title himself. Australians are not very keen about rank; in that matter they are more like Americans. Hughes nearly committed political suicide by declaring himself in favor of conscription. It is said that he was warned by labor not to try to put it through without a referendum. What happened then illuminates the Australian character. For weeks the country was in as wild a state as pending civil war could produce anywhere. The feeling was tense. Conflicts and wrangling occurred everywhere. Up to the last night of the discussion it seemed as though there would be war. Then came the day of the vote. The quiet and the orderliness was one of the greatest boosts for democracy ever staged. Everything was bathed in sunny restfulness. Workingmen lay upon the grass of the public domain like seals. When they talked it was about anything but conscription. Conscription lost. It lost a second time the year after. Two main factors stood out against the sending of more men to Europe,—labor and Asia. PEOPLE ARE SMALL AMIDST AUSTRALIA'S GIANT TREE FERNS Photo from Brown Bros. PEOPLE ARE SMALL AMIDST AUSTRALIA'S GIANT TREE FERNS
See the group on the rocks at lower right-hand corner Almost immediately after the referendum the coal strike occurred. The situation became grave. To conserve fuel for industrial purposes, the Government prohibited the use of electricity and gas except during specified hours. Places of business on the main streets were lit with kerosene lamps, movies were closed, the ferry stations stood in semi-darkness. People conversed as though certain doom were impending. Things looked forlorn indeed. Shops and factories were closing down, throwing thousands out of work. One heard remarks about things heading for a revolution. Australia is reputed to have done wonders in the way of solving the problems of capital and labor, but there are as many strikes in that Commonwealth as in any other state. The country is crystallizing quickly and is bound to become more and more conservative. Despite the worthy democracy to be found there, every public utterance seemed to bear itself as though made by a lord. One is constantly aware of the presence of the crown, even though it has been removed, like the sense of pressure behind one's ears after having taken off one's spectacles. For notwithstanding its democracy, Australia is bound up in the monarchy. Revolution was hinted at every now and then, but at its mention one also heard the creaking of the bones of empire. It was evident and clear, though hardly spoken. One felt the security which comes from the accumulation of tradition and custom, but it was not comfortable. Even in Australia change seems to be regarded as synonymous with destruction. A marvelous structure, this British Empire, and fit for the residence of any human being,—but not an American. He is too dynamic, too restless, too eager for creation. And here is where we arrive at the point of meeting and of parting in our relations with Australia. America has determined upon keeping the country "white" against the invasion of Asia. So has Australia. But America has the inclusive tendencies of an empire; Australia the exclusive. America is heterogeneous; Australia is homogeneous. American strikes are regarded as importations, but what about the strikes in Australia? America has a population of 110,000,000 in an area but a little larger than Australia, while Australia has only a paltry 4,500,000. America is trying to amalgamate the diverse races it already has without taking in such people as the Asiatics, whose racial characters are so unyielding. But Australia is herself unyielding. Homogeneous as her population is, she has great difficulty in keeping it from disagreement. With a vast region not likely to be touched by labor in generations, Australia uses the same arguments against outsiders coming in as does America in regions already well developed. Keeping Australia "white" is the keynote of all Australian politics. For this reason half of the leaders waged war against Germany; while to keep Australia white, the other half stayed conscription. Labor is at the bottom of the "white" Australia policy. The most serious problem the country has to face is her insufficient population. Yet what labor is to be found there receives no more consideration than anywhere else in the world. It is no better off than elsewhere. There is less poverty simply because poverty is synonymous with over-population. To protect itself against invasion of cheap (not necessarily Asiatic) labor, Australia passed the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901. To speak of restricting immigration into a country containing only four and a half million seems suicidal, but Australia went at it without any trepidation and declared for the exclusion from "immigration into the Commonwealth ... any person who fails to pass the dictation test; that is to say, who, when an officer dictates to him not less than fifty words in any prescribed language in the presence of the officer" fails to pass in the judgment of the immigration officer. This is the crux of the Act; other than that, restriction is placed only on those diseased or incapable. In other words, this restriction places a person failing in the test on a level with the criminal, lunatic, and the leper. It is obviously a snare, for it means that an officer may spring any language he may choose on an immigrant. He may ask a Frenchman to write Greek, or a Greek Spanish, failure to comply giving the officer the power to exclude the applicant. The law has kept Australia white, but with pallor rather than purity. Veiled and unveiled, this White-Australia policy was at the bottom of the failure of conscription. The spirit which dominated both camps was fear of invasion. Argued the pro-conscriptionist: "If we do not stand behind the empire and the Allies in this war, Prussia or whoever may become her ally in future will swoop down upon us." Argued the anti-conscriptionist: "If that is the danger, then let us keep our men at home to protect us against this possible peril." The antis were more open. They pictured an invasion following the sending of men to Europe, and pointed to the importation of coolies for labor in Europe. One member of Parliament was fined a thousand dollars and made to enter into "cognizance and comply with the provisions of the Regulation" because he specified whom they were afraid of,—Japan. And to add grist to their mill, a hundred natives of the island of Malta (British subjects, mind you) appeared at the beautiful front door of Australia, Sydney Harbor, and asked for admission. They did not land. Even Indians are excluded, a deposit of five hundred dollars being required of any admitted, to guarantee his return. A transport has been fitted out in Java with native labor, but Australian workers refused to load it till the fittings were torn out and done over by Australian labor. Now, the White-Australia policy is, if you care to stretch a point, a humane attempt to avoid conflict. The Australians say to themselves and to the world: "We would rather call you names across the sea than scratch your eyes or pull your ears over a wooden fence." They point to the American Civil War and the present problem in the South as an example. They wish to save themselves future operations by avoiding the cancer and are willing to bear the burden of retarded development for this promised peace. Let us see how it worked out. It is interesting to note that in 1915, 890 Germans were admitted to Australia, and only 423 Japanese; in 1914, 3,395 Germans and 387 Japanese. The number of Germans for the two years previous was virtually the same, whereas that of Japanese fluctuated from 698 in 1912 to 822 in 1913, and 387 in 1914. From 1908 to 1915 the Germans entered in increasing numbers, while the Japanese decreased. Chinese gained admission in vastly greater number than the Japanese, exceeding them by 1,500 and 2,000 yearly. On the whole the preponderance of arrivals over the departure was seldom excessive, most of the steamers from the south bound for the Orient being taken up by returning Asiatics. With the vast regions of the island continent uninhabited and untouched, this movement of Orientals is only evidence of the check the Government keeps on invasion. The fallacy in the White-Australia policy is obvious. Its psychological significance was pointed to above,—a tendency on the part of Australians, though politically democrats, to revert to habits of thought inherited from England. England is an island kingdom, but the Englishman cannot forget this even when he has taken up his home on a vast continent like Australia. In this day and age of steel ships and submarines, with possibilities of the airship clear before us, for any one to think in an insular way is to lack the common sense of a King Canute. Australia has shown that even with an enemy recognized and fought she has been unable to remain unified in thought, yet she thinks that merely by excluding the Asiatic she will be able to maintain her integrity. Capital in Australia would be willing to admit the Oriental in order to reduce the cost of labor; but as soon as he becomes a factor in commerce—as in the case of the Chinese furniture-makers who exploit Chinese laborers and undersell Australian furniture manufacturers—Capital becomes wroth and shouts for the exclusion of the coolie. Labor, on the other hand, swaggering about the brotherhood of man and the common cause of labor throughout the world, becomes just as nationalistic when "foreign" labor threatens to undersell it. True that it would be easy enough to establish a minimum wage by law, so that no Chinese would be allowed to receive less than that wage for his work, but the principle doesn't work out so easily. Even with a minimum wage and an eight-hour day, the Chinese with his intense application to his job and his manner of living would threaten the white man. But have we not the same difficulty even among a given number of white men, where some are ready to undersell others? Australia, the experiment-station for labor legislation, is the last country where one would expect to find the exclusiveness which she condemns so vigorously. She has shown herself exclusive in her discrimination against the English workingman; she has even been exclusive in her attitude toward her neighbor, New Zealand (an exclusiveness, which is reciprocated, of course); and finally and foremost, she is exclusive of Asiatic and colored people. This exclusiveness has left a continent with barely the fringe of it scratched. To people like the Japanese, Chinese and Indians, this must indeed seem the height of selfishness. True, that sparse as her population is, Australia has done more to better the condition of her people than has Japan or China; and there is the rub. That mere excessive breeding gives a nation a right to invade other lands is a principle that no decent-minded man could tolerate for a moment. Only people to whom woman is merely a breeding-machine would advance such an argument. And in the chapter on Japan and the Far East I shall elucidate the basic facts in that contention for the elimination of a White-Australia policy. From the Australian point of view, though admitting that hardships are bound to result, admitting that ethically discrimination is unprogressive, the country is faced by the danger of sheer numbers. Idealistically the Australian policy is wrong. Individually, those of us who know the Japanese and the Chinese would just as soon live next door to them as to any other human beings. But as long as numbers are the racial ideal of the East, there is no solution that would not undermine quality if quality did not defend itself against quantity. I am ready to admit that there are many Australians who are as inferior to the Chinese as the coolie is to us. But the Australasian has one virtue: he does not breed like the Oriental. The problem of assimilation and Australianization is intricate and sometimes extremely unjust. There is the case of the young Chinese boy born and brought up in Port Darwin, North Australia. In every way he is an Australian citizen. To further his education and westernization, he came to America to study at Harvard, and here fell in love with a Chinese student born in Boston. Now, she is an American citizen. They are to be married. He has every reason for wishing to return to Port Darwin with his wife. But, says the Australian Immigration Law, you can't come in because you're a Chinese. "But I'm an American Citizen, and the wife of an Australian," she argues. "That doesn't matter. We exclude Indians, who are British subjects, from entering Australia, and we intend to exclude you. Australia is the only country in the world in which the white race is still free to expand, and we intend to keep it free for them." "What is America going to do about it?" I asked my informer. "What can she do? The only thing she could do would be to come to a clash of arms with us, and we intend to let the Chinese do their own fighting if they want to. We won't let Japanese who are American-born citizens enter Australia; we may seem a bit piggish about it, but we intend to hold to our own nevertheless." This question was up for the British Minister to decide upon, but at the time of writing no decision has yet been arrived at. That injustice such as the above is bound to result is obvious. But for generations to come the onus rests on the Orientals, and on those white men who would profit by either cheap or untiring laborers whose minds ask for nothing, and whose bodies are content with little. Though Australia's contribution to the intellectual welfare of the world has as yet been slim, the advance in political and economic thought has been exceedingly worth while. The freedom of the individual to go his way in life, to develop the best that is in him, the standard of general welfare and the quality of life as a whole so far excels the average of Oriental social life that Australasia is justified in trying to prevent the dilution of its concentrated comfort. We all know and admit that both China and Japan have civilizations, intellectual and artistic, the like of which might well be emulated in the West. But beneath it all is the dreadful waste of human life for which China and Japan must give answer before demanding of the West certain physical and material advantages which we have.
CHAPTER XIX
JAPAN AND ASIA When I completed the final section of my book "Japan: Real and Imaginary," last year, and sent it to the publisher, I was not a little worried lest the movement of events in the Far East proceed so rapidly that the cart upon which I was riding slip from under me and leave me to rejoin the earth as best I could. So fast did things run that I thought surely there would be a revolution in Japan, or at least universal manhood suffrage, and that without doubt Japan would withdraw from Shantung. I am afraid I shall have to confess that the wish was father to the thought. So far nothing has happened in that intricate island empire seriously to affect any of the generalizations in that book. Nor have any criticisms from my Japanese friends come forward so that I might now be able to alter my position in any way. However, enough has happened to make it necessary for me to extend and enlarge upon some of the phases of the Japanese situation as they now obtain. In my former book I handled Japan as an integer, avoiding implications. Here I shall attempt to show how the Japanese phase of the problem of the Pacific affects the three important elements round the Pacific,—America, Australasia, and Asia. Under that head I shall have to begin where I left off in "Japan: Real and Imaginary," with the question of emperor-worship and its natural offspring, Pan-Asianism and the so-called Monroe Doctrine of Asia; with the ingrowing phases of it, democracy in Japan, and the Open Door without; with Japan's new mandates and what she is doing with them; with the fortification of the Bonin Islands and the Pescadores. At the very outset, let me crystallize in one short paragraph the essence of the whole situation. We have in Japan now a heterogeneous nation whose ideals are essentially those of imperialism, the political grip on the people being based on the worship of the emperor. The outward consequence of this is that the entire nation is fairly united upon the questions that affect the nation as a whole, such as Pan-Asianism, the leadership of Asia. But if that were all, Japanese rulers would have things pretty much their own way. This strange consequence results, however,—that having been stimulated to feeling that a Japanese is the most superior person on earth, the populace, in this pride, is demanding greater recognition for themselves as individuals. Hence that which the military and naval parties in Japan win in their hold upon the people through increased pride of race, they lose in the enhanced difficulty which comes from a restive population. Added to which are the numerous alien elements that aggression has inherited,—a rebellious Korea and Formosa, a boycotting China, and a native element that sees itself being flaunted by world powers and unable to obtain recognition of racial equality. It is Japan's misfortune that she is still unable to live down her reputation. With all her might she is trying to stand up to the world as a man, and not as a pretty boy such as she has been regarded heretofore. Hence, it is necessary, that after having paragraphed the make-up of Japan, I do the same with the attitude of the world toward Japan. Wherever I have gone I have been asked a certain type of question that seems to me to hold the mirror up to Japan. The questions are generally these: What business is it of ours, after all, what Japan does in Asia? Isn't it only the conceit of the white man that makes him regard himself as superior to the Japanese? Isn't it true that the Japanese haven't any room for their surplus population? Or, the more knowing, those who have read up on the subject—like the man who signed a contract with a publisher to produce four boys' books at once, one of which was on Shintoism in Japan—assume this attitude: "Let them adore their emperors; it's a charming little peculiarity." There is still a third group. It belongs to the adolescent class, to the age of boys who threaten to lick other boys with their little finger, or "I'll fight you with my right hand tied behind my back," and has been fed by the romancers who portrayed everything Japanese as petite and charming. The Miles Gloriosus, suffering from political second childhood, asserts: "America could wipe the floor with Japan with one hand, just as she could Ecuador." This statement was made by an Englishman with remarkably wide international experience. Now, until Japan lives down this reputation she will be forced to make as big a showing of her might as is safe, and until then we shall doubtless have ample reason for shouting for an increased navy and an increased army. In other words, as long as we continue to publish the impression that Japan need not be regarded seriously, so long will Japan have to continue to convey the impression that she might become a menace. To deny that Japan is a disconcerting problem is to stick one's head in the sand. But Japan is no more of a menace to us than we are to her. Japan is not simply going to walk across the Pacific and slap us in the face. If any such catastrophe takes place over there, it will be a conflict. "A conflict supposes a violent collision, a meeting of force against force; the unpremeditated meeting of one or more persons in a violent or hostile manner" with another, according to Crabb. On the other hand, it is equally true that those who urge and stimulate war talk with Japan are playing into the hands of special interests that are too narrow in their thinking and too broad in their avarice, and make war inevitable. There is only one solution, and that is the presentation of facts. But facts alone are sometimes worse than figures. They lie like a trooper. Hence we are in the habit of saying: It is an honest fact. Facts are the most irresponsible things in the world, and without the motives and the spirit that underlie every circumstantial thing in life, they are the source of all conflict and all sorrow. Therefore, let us consider the questions that appear to be typical enough to clarify the situation, but with the motives and spiritual factors included in the answer. First of all, then, is it really any of our business what Japan does in Asia? I shall have to split this question in two. The "our" side of the matter will have to be answered in the succeeding chapter on America in this Pacific Triangle. Here I shall handle it by inverting it. Is it any of Japan's business what interest we take in Asia? This may sound like a pugnacious question, but it is asked with all due respect to Japan. It raises the question of the Open Door in China, of Pan-Asianism, of the misnamed Monroe Doctrine of Asia. We have come to a new stage in the history of the world. People with a developed sense of justice no longer admit that a man may declare himself monarch of all he surveys without consideration of the rights of the inhabitants of the "surveyed" areas. When, during the war, everything was being done to placate Japan, a certain "understanding" was reached between Secretary Lansing and Viscount Ishii. While declaring for the Open Door it acknowledged the precedence of propinquity over distance, of time, place, and relationship. That is, it admitted that Japan was nearer the continent of Asia geographically than was America. A very remarkable observation it was. Certainly had that not been put in black and white, "understanding" would never have been possible. But what was the result of that "understanding"? Japan immediately translated it into a "Monroe Doctrine of Asia." Here, then, was a fact. Japan most decidedly is nearer Asia than are we. Ergo, Japan has the right to set herself up as the god and little Father of China, to declare the Mikado Doctrine of Asia. But is there any parallel whatsoever? Not only no parallel, but an apparent contradiction in the use of the Monroe Doctrine from the American angle; for that pronouncement involved non-interference in European or foreign affairs. If we adhere strictly to the Monroe Doctrine we have no right to set any limitations for Japan. Our concern is only with the Americas. Even the amount of understanding involved in the Ishii-Lansing agreement is in violation of our doctrine of isolation. On the other hand, we virtually pledged ourselves to keep our own hands off South America, Hence, the Monroe Doctrine, if applied to Asia by Japan, would mean the denouncement of the Twenty-one Demands made on China in 1915, the withdrawal of Japanese troops from Shantung and Siberia, the return of independence to Korea,—and then the demand on the part of Japan that all European powers abstain from further extension of their influence on the continent of Asia. If ever a Monroe Doctrine of Asia was really declared, it was in the principles of Hay in his Open-Door policy. If Japan should set herself up as the guardian of Asia in this wise, she would never raise the question of whether we have any business in Asia or not. It would not be necessary. And Japan would be able to enjoy the fruits of propinquity to her heart's content. Then Japan would truly be the sponsor for a doctrine that could be called the Mikado's Doctrine of Asia and its worth would recommend itself to the respect and admiration of the world. But this, of course, is a dream, and in the words of a worthy Japanese author who "deplored" in his book "the gross diplomatic blunder which Japan made in 1915 in her dealings with China" and the "atrocities perpetrated in the attempt to crush the Korean uprising": "Manifestly, the dawn of the millennium is still far away. We have to make the best of the world as it is." Into these criticisms of Japan's foreign policies one could read the usual white man's conceit,—asking that a yellow man make such sacrifices as no white man has ever made. There is nothing further from my mind. There is only a groping down into the depths of Japanese practices to discover, if possible, a real basis for the justification of her Pan-Asiatic pretensions. To me, Oriental civilization is something to conjure with. There is in the Far East more art and beauty than there is in America. When Europe was so poor as to make the Grand Moguls laugh at the simple presents which Englishmen brought them, to remark with scorn and truth that nothing in Europe compared with the silks and gold and silver of the East, the white man was humble. He wandered all over the world in search of riches which were unknown to him except by hearsay. His dominions never extended over such vast spaces as seemed mere checker-boards to Oriental monarchs. But the white man had his ships, his latent genius, and these he has developed to where his realms now so far outstrip the realms of old as thought outstrips creation. With these the white man has secured for himself a place in the world which the brown and the yellow man now greatly envy. But the Asiatics have much to look back upon and be proud of. How much of this splendor is Japan's? A great deal! But not as much as the splendor of China, nor as much as that of India. Japan is to the East what England is to Europe. Japan is building up her ships and her material arts to such an extent that she is destined to wield and does now partly wield the same influence in Asia that England wields in Europe. But is that to be her sole contribution? Is that to justify her place as leader of Asia? Let us see. In Europe to-day there is no crowned head who really rules. The monarch, where he does exist, is the memorial symbol of the nation's past. But the basis of rule is the people. The extent to which democracy exists in fact is not for this chapter to discuss. The slogan of rulership is democracy. Even China calls itself a republic. Round the Pacific alone are three great republican or democratic countries—Australia, New Zealand, America—whose people are reaching for greater and greater independence in the working out of their own destinies. But what have we in Japan? We have a monarchy with a "constitutional" form of government. The monarch is said to have held his power from the beginning of time. He is literally regarded as a descendant of the gods who created Japan,—which was then the world entire. The myth of his origin would not be very different from any other myth of the origins of rulers, were it not for the recent developments in the history of Japan. At the time of the restoration of the previous emperor to power, it was decided by the rebellious daimyo that the long-neglected mikado, he who for hundreds of years had had absolutely no say in the government of his lands, should be restored to power. That is to say, because there was no one daimyo who could himself take the leadership and become shogun, they determined to rule with the tenno as nominal leader, but themselves as the real rulers. Other than in the superstitious reverence of the ignorant masses for the symbol of the tenno—whose person they had never seen—that lowly illustrious one might just as well have been non-existent for all the say he had in his country's affairs. So far, the situation might not be different from that in England, but England's Parliament is in the control of the Commons, while Japan's Diet—both upper and lower houses—is at the mercy of the cabinet, which, though ostensibly responsible to the emperor, is actually in the control of the genro and the military and naval clans. The worship of the emperor, on the other hand, is made part of the political function, the better to cow the masses into reverential obedience to the wishes of the actual rulers. JAPAN'S FIRST REACTION TO FOREIGN INFLUENCE JAPAN'S FIRST REACTION TO FOREIGN INFLUENCE SECOND STAGE IN WESTERNIZATION SECOND STAGE IN WESTERNIZATION
Some of my students leaving Kobe for a cross-country hike The basis for this theocratical grip on the people is Shintoism. With the Restoration in 1868, Shintoism, that ancestor-worshiping cult, was revived as the spiritual core of the new empire; Buddhism was sent packing, and all the cunning of pseudo-historians was resorted to to bolster up this effete and primitive national ideal. "Let them worship their old emperor," say some, largely those with a love of pageantry in their unconscious. And no one could raise an argument against this if that was where it ended. If it merely meant the binding together in a communal nationalism the thought and devotion of the people, it would be a desirable performance. But the natural result of an artificially stimulated nationalism based on a myth and a deception is that it becomes proselytic in its tendencies. It is not satisfied with its native influence, but begins to reach out. In other words, it takes upon itself the duty of making the entire world one, just as religion and democracy seek to convert the world. And Shintoism is a short step to Pan-Asianism. Pan-Asianism is the logical consequence of Shintoism. What is Shintoism? In this connection, none is more authoritative than Basil Hall Chamberlain, Emeritus Professor of Japanese and Philology at the Imperial University of Tokyo, and author of numerous scientific works on Japan. In "The Invention of a New Religion" he says (page 6): Agnostic Japan is teaching us at this very hour how religions are sometimes manufactured for a special end—to observe practical worldly purposes. Mikado-worship and Japan-worship—for that is the new Japanese religion—is, of course, no spontaneously generated phenomenon. Every manufacture presupposes a material out of which it is made, every present a past on which it rests. But the twentieth-century Japanese religion of loyalty and patriotism is quite new, for in it pre-existing ideas have been sifted, altered, freshly compounded, turned to new uses, and have found a new center of gravity.... Shinto, a primitive nature cult, which had fallen into discredit, was taken out of its cupboard and dusted. THIRD STAGE IN WESTERNIZATION THIRD STAGE IN WESTERNIZATION
This is not England, but Shioya, Japan FOURTH STAGE IN WESTERNIZATION FOURTH STAGE IN WESTERNIZATION
This is not Manchester, but Osaka, Japan Thus Shintoism, a cult without any code of morals, in which nature was worshiped in primitive fashion, was made the basis of the national ideal. There is nothing in Shintoism that might with the greatest possible stretch of imagination become the ideal of any other nation in the world. However much Japan might assume the economic leadership of Asia, it would never be because she could obtain a following for her Shinotistic ideals. "Democracy" has become a rallying cry even to the Japanese, but there is nothing in Shintoism that might counteract that appeal. "What about Bushido?" Japanese will ask. Regarding this, it is also well to read what Professor Chamberlain has to say: As to Bushido, so modern a thing is it that neither Kaempfer, Siebold, Satow, nor Rein—all men knowing their Japan by heart—ever once allude to it in their voluminous writings. The cause of their silence is not far to seek: Bushido was unknown until a decade or two ago! The very word appears in no dictionary, native or foreign, before the year 1900. Chivalrous individuals of course existed in Japan, as in all countries at every period; but Bushido as an institution or a code of rules, has never existed. The accounts given of it have been fabricated out of whole cloth, chiefly for foreign consumption. An analysis of medieval Japanese history shows that the great feudal houses, so far from displaying an excessive idealism in the matter of fealty to one emperor, one lord, or one party, had evolved the eminently practical plan of letting different members take different sides, so that the family as a whole might come out as winner in any event, and thus avoid the confiscation of its lands. Cases, no doubt, occurred of devotion to losing causes—for example, to Mikados in disgrace; but they were less common than in the more romantic West. And when it is further taken into consideration that Bushido, or the so-called code of the samurai, was the ideal of a special class, a class that held itself aloof from contact with the heimin, or common people, whom it at at all times treated with contempt, and cut down even for no other reason than that of trying the edge of a new sword, one sees how utterly unacceptable it would be to peoples of other races and nations asked to come to the support of its standards. And according to one Japanese spokesman in America, only by methods that "had the appearance of browbeating her to submission by brandishing the sword" was China brought to accept the infamous Twenty-one Demands. I search my memory and experience earnestly trying to find a basis for Japan's leadership in Asia that is not materialistic, and I cannot find any. Energy and intellectual capacity Japan has. Her present leadership in practical affairs is a great credit to her. In time, when greater leisure will become the possession of her teeming millions, there is doubtless going to appear much more that is fine and valuable in the fabric of the race. For Japan has fire. Her people are an excitable, flaming people who may burst out in a spasmodic revulsion against their commercialization. But for the time being, her only right to a voice in the destinies of Asia is found in her industrial leadership of the East, but that is a leadership which is fraught with more menace to Japan than to the world. Let us review hastily the results of this preËminence. From being one of the most admired nations in the world, Japan has suddenly become the object of almost universal suspicion. To a very great extent, commercial jealousy is playing its part in this change. But that is not all, by any means. There is as much enmity between British and American traders in the Far East as there is between Japanese and American, or any other two groups of nationals. But the animosity toward Japan is deeper than that of mere trade. It lies at the bottom of much of the seeming equivocation of Japan's best foreign friends. I was talking recently to one of the leading members of the Japan Society in New York, and said of myself that I deplored being regarded as anti-Japanese in some quarters, because I was not. "But," spoke up this Japanophile, "the majority of the members of the Japan Society are anti-Japanese, or pro-Chinese, if you will." They are trying their best to defend Japan, it would seem, and to cement bad relations with good, but the result is that the ground of many sympathizers of Japan is constantly shifting, though perhaps unconsciously. It is due, I presume, to the disappointment of people in that, having regarded Japan as worthy of their sympathy and adoration, they are now finding that all is not as well as it might be. Then there is that peculiar twist to Japanese psychology that somewhat unnerves the Westerner. This is not a language difficulty, though it is best illustrated by a linguistic example. A Canadian in Kobe told me that he felt a strange shifting in his own mentality as a result of the study of Japanese, something queer entered his thinking processes. This is of course absurd as a concrete argument, but it indicates that which I am striving to uncover in the Japanese mind and method which works upon the Western mind, and puzzles and perplexes the white man in his relations with the Japanese. And in the wider fields of Japanese life, it makes us tighten our muscles when we survey and weigh the expressions of the best Japanese minds, expressions by which they hope, earnestly no doubt, to better our relations with them. Take, for instance, the growth of democracy. As I have said, when I left Japan it was with a sense of revolution impending. Agitation had got so far out of bonds that it seemed nothing but complete collapse of the Government could follow. The agitation has gone on, violent expressions are often used, democracy is hailed and Japanese "propagandists" abroad assert with a boldness that is inexplicable their faith in democracy and their hatred of militarism and bureaucracy. But democracy in Japan is virtually non-existent. Japan is to-day no nearer liberalism than Russia was in 1905. One dreads to make parallels, when one thinks how it was that Russia got rid of her czars, that the dreadful war in Europe alone made it possible for a change in the Russian Government. Is it going to take such a war to accomplish this in Japan? Some of the most ardent Japanese in America boldly answer, "Yes." Again, China! Many Japanophiles will say that our love of China is based on our trade with her, and her own weakness to resist it, while at the same time pointing to our enormous trade with Japan as proof of friendship. That is false. True, that, compared with Japan, China is no "menace" to America. But though China is the root of our problem, there is something in the nature of the true Oriental that makes him charming, jovial, childlike and lovable. Japan is, of course, not truly Oriental. Japan is essentially Malay, mixed with some Oriental and a little Caucasian. But in the two and a half years of my residence in Japan I did not once come across a white person who had that same unexplainable admiration for the native that is the outstanding characteristic of white men in China. Be that as it may—and that is, after all, a personal matter—that which enters into the Sino-Japanese problem is the attitude of the Japanese to the Chinese. None was so ready to exalt the Japanese as were the foreigners after the Boxer uprising in 1900. Then the Japanese were hailed for their helpfulness and their dexterity. But the manner of Japanese in China to-day goes against the grain of people. They ask themselves constantly: For nearly seven years Japan has promised faithfully to withdraw from Shantung, and her promises are as earnestly being expressed to-day. Is it, then, so hard to remove troops? Not so hard to move them in, it seems. Those of us who listen to Japanese promises are from Missouri. Japan in conjunction with the Allies sent troops to Siberia to "protect" Vladivostok. Each of the Allies were supposed to send seven thousand troops. Japan sent close to one hundred thousand. She has earnestly promised to withdraw them ever since. Why are they not withdrawn? Then comes the hardest thing of all to reconcile with her promises,—Japan's actions in Korea. It is easy to sentimentalize over the fate of nations. Korea's independence is a slogan that doesn't mean much, though Korea claims four thousand years of civilized existence. An independent Korea doesn't offer very great promise, even if one is constrained to sympathize with her aspiration for independence. Korea might just as well be an integer of the Japanese Empire. She had ample time in which to expel foreign intriguers and denounce her own grafters, for the sake of independence, years ago. But what has that to do with Japanese atrocities in Korea? What has that to do with the action of Japanese merchants who, according to Japan's own envoy to Korea, Count Inouye, acted worse than conquerors. Count Inouye said: All the Japanese are overbearing and rude in their dealings with the Koreans.... The Japanese are not only overbearing but violent in their attitude towards the Koreans. When there is the slightest misunderstanding, they do not hesitate to employ their fists. Indeed, it is not uncommon for them to pitch Koreans into the river, or to cut them down with swords. If merchants commit these acts of violence, the conduct of those who are not merchants may well be imagined. They say: "We have made you an independent nation, we have saved you from the Tonghaks, whoever dares to reject our advice or oppose our actions is an ungrateful traitor." Even military coolies use language like that towards the Koreans.[1] The atrocities in Korea committed by the Japanese in the uprising of 1919 would parallel the most exaggerated reports of what happened to Belgium. Yet America's treaty with the Kingdom of Korea, ignored when Japan annexed the empire in 1910, has never been abrogated. Where is Bushido in Japan, that it does not rise in indignation at these atrocities? It has done so, but so faintly that it might just as well have saved itself the effort. Apology after apology, but atrocity following each apology with the same inexorable ruthlessness of fate. Likewise, the massacres in Nikolajevks, and Chien-tao are still unanswered. They require a public apology of some sort. If I am charged with deliberately selecting things derogatory to Japan, I can only say that nothing, in my mind, that Japan may have done for the good of Korea and of the world, none of the virtues which Japan possesses can ever counterbalance these crimes. Yet intelligent Japanese write: Fortunately, a change of heart has come to the Mikado's Government ... there will be established ... a School Council to discuss matters relating to education. [No mention is made of the up-rooting of the native language.] The step may be slow, but the goal is sure. Korea's union with Japan was consummated after the bitter experience of two sanguinary wars and the mature deliberation of the best minds of the two peoples. The italics are mine. Who were these minds? No mention is made of the assassination of the Korean Queen by Japanese, later "exonerated." In other words, now that the lion has eaten the lamb he is going to tell the lamb the best way in which he can be digested, for they are "discussing matters" to their mutual advantage. One is inclined to become bitter in the rehearsal of such facts, the feeling being induced by the evasive apologies of rhetoricians. But these outstanding facts must be faced if any true judgment can be formed of Japan's position in the Far East: If it is her aim merely to dominate in Asia, then Japan has set out to do it masterfully. But if the leadership of the yellow race is her aim, if Pan-Asianism means the uplifting of all Oriental races now under the heel of the white race, then Japan has chosen the most unfortunate line of action. She is running an obstacle race in which the silken garments of Bushido are likely to suffer considerable wear and tear. Credit Japan deserves for her administrative ability. Certain it is that no country in the Orient to-day has the same capacity to rule that Japan has. In international affairs, Japan has proved herself a match for the shrewdest diplomats of the Western world. It is not to be marveled at that the yellow races should be willing to yield her her position and her prestige. Thousands of Chinese who could not afford a Western education are now being educated in the universities of Japan; many Indians are doing likewise. In the simple matter of road-building, Japan has done what few Oriental countries seem to have the capacity to do. It is natural that the Orient should look to Japan for leadership in government and industry, in direction and help. But is Japan giving it? The experiences of Tagore in Japan are not reassuring. He turned from Japan as from a gross imitator of the West from which he had escaped. He expressed keen disappointment at what he saw in modern Japan. In the "New York Times," recently, there was an article by a Chinese called "The Uncivilized United States," the thesis of the writer being that the Americans lacked the gentlemanliness of the English. The Chinese was obviously a great admirer of the Japanese and repeated over and over again that the Tokugawas were great rulers because they advocated the rule by "tenderness of heart"; but he, too, despaired of the modern Japan, of its great industries and little heart. That, of course, has been the oft-repeated criticism of America from older countries, and need not discourage Japan. But Japan is making that greater error of believing that a world which has won civil liberty and enlightenment after so many centuries of strife, has builded for the masses at least a semblance of economic freedom and democracy, is going to yield all this blithely to an antiquated ideal of Oriental imperialism that has not even the virtues of Oriental mysticism to recommend it.
CHAPTER XX
AMERICA 1 Johnny Appleseed, whose real name was John Chapman, ended his career at Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1847. Step by step he made his way over the wilderness, winning the good-will of the pioneers and the devotion of the Indians, and planting apple-seeds which time nourished into orchards. Johnnie Appleseed has been glorified by Vachel Lindsay,—and with him, not a little of the richness of life that went into the make-up of America. Unfortunately, Johnny Appleseed died in Indiana, at the early age of seventy-two. Had he lived twice as long he would most likely have reached the coast. By most he was regarded as rather a queer character, but there were men who felt the current of greatness in his being, and to-day Johnny Appleseed might well be hailed as the symbol of America. For if the virtue of England lay in that process of selection which was the result of "the roving of a race with piratical and poetic instincts invading old England where few stocks arrived save by stringent selection of the sea," how much more is the hardihood of pioneering the very bone and marrow of America. For the sifting process here did not end merely by the crossing of the Atlantic. To those who broke through the fears of the Atlantic, lanced the gathering ills of Europe, that Eastern ocean was only the symbol of a tradition. The way has been kept open by the passage of millions of men and women and children who, year after year, for four centuries, have been invading young America. But what is that coming compared with the arduous reaching out across the wilderness of this vast continent itself, a reaching that left its mile-stones in the form of log cabins, graves, and roaring cities. Following the trade-winds or beating up against the billows of the Northern seas was a joyous pastime compared with the windless waiting and tireless pressing on of the prairie schooner. The conquest of the mountains, of the Mississippi, of the treeless plains, of the desert, and of the rocky barriers in the farthest West is a story replete with tragic episodes, and it is destined to become the dominating tradition of America. It is a strange story, and because it was essentially so lowly in its early impulse, because it was seemingly a secondary phenomenon, snobs and cynics dispose of it with indifference. The movement westward was undertaken by men of small means and little culture. Pathetic in its simple requirements, seeking fortunes that always lay on the fringe of fortune, moving on with a restlessness that seemed to despise rest and ease, it still left in its wake sorrows that approached tragedy but never felt it. If "Main Street" is a necessary corrective, "The Son of the Middle Border" is the crystallization of an unconscious ideal. This westward movement is a vivid rehearsal of a belated migration that tells the tale of man's first yielding to the mobile impulse in his nature, an impulse that has made of him the conqueror of the globe. These thousands of Johnny Appleseeds were not utilitarian seekers after wealth alone; in them was the unconscious mother principle yielding to the forces that were fathering a new race. And that new race has come. Centuries of arduous trial and tribulation have molded it. Go where you will, except for some slight differences in tonal expression, there is one people. Beneath their Americanism are the crude complexes resulting from a war between refinement and the unkind forces of nature. The pioneers had all known what civilization meant, but circumstances thwarted their inclinations. They brought with them a respect for woman which no other people had known so well. Primitive and Oriental people—and many European races of to-day—do not have the same exalted notion of woman, simply because they have developed along with women whose functions of life were determined by the savage circumstances. But Americans found themselves in the continent with few women, and those in danger of savage ruthlessness. Hence they became doubly concerned for their welfare, even to the point of sentimentalism. So, too, with regard to personal liberty. The pioneer knew what his freedom meant to him, and fought for it as a lion or a tiger fights for his. Too frequently his own freedom could be bought only at the expense of others around him. The word itself became a magic with esoteric properties. Hence we find throughout our West a fanatical regard for the term "freedom" that sometimes works itself into a frenzy of intolerance. So fine are the achievements of our coast states, on so high a level is the standard of life, that men cannot see the exceptions. When such are pointed out to them there arises in their unconscious a fear of those horrible days, a something which terrified their childhood and which must be downed as the ghost of a crime one imagines himself to have committed. Hence, not to be "with" certain people in the West in the shouting adulation of their state or their city or their orchards is a worse sacrilege than counteracting one prayer by another ritual. The winning of the West was the aim of all the pioneers. For years and years they were faced with the most obvious threats to its consummation. Mountains, climate, savages, European jealousies, lack of population,—everything that spelled despair stood before them. But an uncomprehended passion drove them on. Perhaps it was the recrudescence of intolerance which marked the early settlers in the East. Perhaps it was the lack of opportunity resulting from overcrowding after the advertisement of the desirability of life in America. It may have been any one of a dozen possibilities that kept men and women moving on and on and on,—nor always, by any means, the yielding to ideals. But on it was and on it continued till the Pacific was reached. This, superficially, is the accepted story of the development of our West. I have attempted neither criticism nor laudation. It is an unavoidable approach to the discussion of America's place in the Pacific, an approach which even the most Western of our Westerners is not always prone to take cognizance of. But within it lies the kernel of future American life. To some, like the founders of the State of Oregon, it was more defined. Some as early as 1844 realized that to the nation which developed the coast lands belonged the spoils of the Pacific and in its hands would lie the destinies of the largest ocean on the globe. The opening of the Panama Canal has placed the Pacific at the door-step of New York, and fulfilled the dream. But to the vast majority of people on the coast to-day, occupation and development of those enormous areas seem to carry with them opportunity, but little responsibility. They have one concern which is akin to fear, and that is of the Japanese. They only vaguely grasp the significance of their fate. They do not see that they have hauled in a whale along with their catch and that unless they are skilful they will drag the whole nation into the sea with them. But if they have forgotten the vision for the appearance of the catch, what about the East? The East is as indifferent to matters pertaining to the Pacific and the West. Its face is turned toward Europe. We think that America is a nation, but the utter ignorance of one section with regard to another, the lounging in local ease, is appalling. Easterners are like the philosopher who when told that his house was on fire, said it was none of his business, for hadn't he a wife to look after such things! These are strange phenomena in a democracy. People think that they discharge their duty by voting, but how many people are in the least concerned with the problems that will some day light up the country like a prairie fire? Westerners are generally much more acquainted with Eastern affairs. As unpleasant as is the promotion publicity of Los Angeles, it is a much more healthful condition than the seeming ignorance of New York in matters pertaining to Los Angeles. Yet while the East is aflame over affairs in Europe—the Irish Republic, for instance—it probably thinks that Korea is the name of a Chinese joss over which no civilized man should bother to yap about. This indifference is not to be found in the man on the street alone. That man is often uninformed simply because the dispensers of information are uninformed. There is much he would want if he knew its value to him. And so while we are becoming embroiled in European affairs another and henceforward more sinister problem is threatening to back-wash over us. It was while in such an apathetic state that America changed her status from a continental republic to a colonial empire. Few Americans have ever taken any interest in their insular possessions. Hawaii and the rest had fallen to the lot of the Government, and would sooner or later be returned; that was the sum and substance of their outlook on the whole affair. That the Monroe Doctrine ceased to be a real factor with the acquisition of these outlying possessions, that we virtually abrogated it, did not seem to matter much. At large, the notion was that American altruism would never involve the country in any difficulty. But whatever a man's motives, once he has stuck his tongue against a frozen pipe only a tremendous outpouring of altruism will ever detach it. America began her adventures in the Pacific when she urged young men to go West. Now we have the whole continent, we have Hawaii, the Philippines, Pago Pago, Samoa, and Alaska,—a hefty armful. Are we going to let these things go, or are we simply going to drift to where they drag us into conflict with others who want them and want them badly? We cannot merely blow them full of democracy and then wait for any one who wishes to to prick the bubbles. For it must be borne in mind that the issues are clear. The Pacific cannot remain half-citizen and half-subject. Every time we stir up within a small island the self-respect of individuals, we destroy the balance of power between an expression of the wills of people and the wills of autocracies. Is America going to set out to make the world safe for democracy in Europe and then withdraw just when Europe needs her help most? Is she going to continue to make treaties with small nations like Korea and then when Korea is devoured body and soul simply overlook the little fellow as though he had never existed. Let me make the case of Korea clearer by a parallel. We had a treaty with the Kingdom under which we had assured her that in the event of any other power interfering with her independence we would exert our good offices toward an amicable solution. Then came the Russo-Japanese war. Korea received a pledge from Japan that her sovereignty would be protected if she permitted Japanese troops to pass over her territory. Korea, at the risk of being devoured by Russia for violating neutrality, acceded to Japan's request. Five years after the Russo-Japanese War, Korea was annexed by Japan, and we said never a word in her favor. Nor have we ever denounced our treaty with Korea. But here is the parallel. Belgium refused to let Germany cross her territory. Because of Germany's invasion of Belgium, Great Britain entered the war. What if Great Britain now decided to annex Belgium? What if America did so? Yet Colonel Roosevelt, who was so vociferous in his denouncement of the Wilson Administration for its early neutrality in the face of the rape of Belgium, himself condoned the annexation of Korea by saying that inasmuch as Korea was unable to defend herself it was not up to us to rush to her assistance. In other words, our treaty was only a scrap of paper which was to be in force if the other high contracting party was strong enough to have no need for our aid. Is America going to drag China into world wars with promises of friendship, and then concede Shantungs whenever diplomatic shrewdness shows her to be beaten? Is she going to promise the Philippines independence, allow her governor-generals to withhold their veto power for years so that the natives may the better handle their own affairs, and then simply let any who will come and undermine or explode the thing entire? This is not meant to imply by any manner of means that America is to display force and employ it for the sake of democracy. It is not navies nor armies that will count, but principles. It is America's duty as a free country to encourage freedom and discourage autocracy. And in that spirit, and that alone, can she justify her place in the sun. On several occasions she has done so, though only those in which the Pacific are involved need reference here. 2 Apropos of the Philippines: Two factors and two alone are involved. It is not a question of whether America shall or shall not hold on to the islands. In that America has given her word. The Philippines will become, must become, free. There, as elsewhere, it is not our concern whether one group or another gains the upper hand. It is not our concern that the Filipinos, being Malay-Orientals, will evolve a democracy that is not compatible with our notions of democracy. Our concern is, and has been repeatedly stated to be, only the welfare and happiness of the Filipinos. McKinley, Taft, Roosevelt, Wilson,—all have considerably discoursed upon Filipino independence and Filipino welfare. We have recently been on the very verge of granting independence, but, unfortunately, oil has been discovered by the Standard Oil Company, and the question will doubtless now depend on the amount of oil there is. If a great deal, then fare thee well Filipino independence! However, the real reason for our being in the islands is neither the altruistic concern for the democratization of the people, nor to protect the immediate interests of sugar, tobacco, or oil-handling capitalists. The one and only basis for our action should be the extent to which Filipino independence or our protectorate ministers to the peace of the Pacific. If an independent Philippines will allay the suspicions of Japan, then they should be independent. But Japan would have to give more than the usual promise of her word that she would keep her hands off the Philippines. The extent to which her word may be relied upon can easily be determined. One need only mention Korea, Shantung, Siberia, the Marshall Islands. We say to Japan: "As soon as you live up to the promises in your treaty and other relations with these Orientals, we shall be able to accept your further promises in regard to the Philippines." Yet it must not be overlooked that Japan saw our coming to the Philippines with apprehension. Japan is an Oriental nation and cannot understand any one doing anything out of pure goodness of heart. Fact is, neither can we. Let the most honest man in the world offer any other a solid-gold watch and that other would suspect something was wrong. We declared to the world that we had only the best intentions toward the Philippines—to democratize them. To Japan that was like holding up a red flag to a bull. What, you are going to create a democratic sore right in my neighborhood? That will never do. It might be catching. And Japan is not interested in contracting democracy as yet,—that is, official Japan. Even liberal Japanese are doubtful. When in Japan, I interviewed the democratic M.P., Yukio Ozaki. He turned, without question from me, to the subject of the fortification of the Philippines. He pleaded that the forts be dismantled. In the event of that plea failing, what could Japan do, he asked, other than proceed to fortify the Marshall Islands? Yet at that time Japan had not even been granted a mandate over these islands. The logic of his appeal is irrefutable. But this is a sort of vicious circle. Who is to begin, and whom shall we trust? One thing is certain,—that in that whole problem of the control of the islands of the Pacific, whether by annexation, protection, or mandate, lies the seed of the future peace of the Pacific. And unless in each and every case the natives are given the best opportunities of self-development, that nation responsible for their arrested condition is going to be the nation upon whose conscience will rest the sorrows of the world. In regard to the Philippines, this must be remembered,—that we are dealing with human beings, not problems and principles. The stuff one generally reads about foreign places might be just as descriptive of the inhabitants of Mars. Little wonder that those for or against independence or protection fail to win their case! We must remember that for twenty years we have been building up the hopes of children whom we taught in our schools, with our money and our ideals. They are now, many of them, active men attending to the work of the Filipino world. They are our foster-children and would be fools not to want to live their own lives in their own way. Our policy in regard to them must be a negative one; from now on it cannot be positive. All we can say to them is what we cannot and will not permit them to do; we have no right henceforth to say what they must do. We can say that we will not permit them to invite any other nation whose governmental ideals are likely to threaten ours. The world must continue on its road toward the greater and greater liberation of peoples, hence we cannot permit them to step back toward any form of imperialism. We cannot permit them to invite unlimited numbers of Orientals who might swamp them. They must maintain the Philippines for the Filipinos, with as much generosity thrown in as will not endanger that. We must remember that our effort in the Philippines is the first in which any government has attempted to treat its subject natives with any degree of equality,—legally, if not socially. If the world is to move on toward greater freedom—which is needed, Heaven knows!—we must not let the Philippines be an example of the failure of democratic management of natives. 3 In all this some may discover implications that our hold on the Philippines should be maintained purely for strategic reasons. That may be the purpose of the imperialistically minded. There may be some who will read into this fear of Japan or a bellicose attitude irritable to her. Neither interpretation would be accurate, for behind all this are certain historical factors which prove that whatever use statesmen may make of world situations, evil designs will be frustrated so long as the circumstances which created the primary conditions were not evil. Specifically, because the earlier relations between Japan and America were brought about through essentially good motives, these later developments can be kept to a sane path. And severe as may be our present criticisms of Japan, so long as the purposes behind them are good, they can have only a desirable result. When Commodore Perry went to Japan in 1853, his only desire was to open that country to trade. It may seem now that for the sake of peace in the Pacific it would have been better had he been guided by the spirit of conquest. Had Japan been conquered in the early days, she would never have come to the fore as a possible menace. But she was not. It does not follow, however, that that was unfortunate, for the earliest relations between Japan and America were amicable and basically altruistic. The relations between us have continued to be amicable, but altruism has slowly given way to envy and jealousy. But the point that is missed in all this reference to these cordial relations of the past is that inasmuch as America was a great moral influence upon Japan in the early days, she might continue to be that to-day. Cock-sure as Japanese statesmen have become, and pugnacious as some Americans seem toward Japan, a strong moral attitude will still do more to check hostility than all the shaking of sabers and manoeuvering of dreadnaughts. We need the Philippines more as a base for democratic experiment than as a fortified zone. We need them as one needs a medical laboratory for the manufacture of serums in the time of plague,—for the manufacture of the serum of political freedom, of the rights of people to develop and to learn to be free. And this experimental station should stand right there at the door of Japan—and of British and French concessionists, if you please, in China—and of China itself, for none of them has any faith in this educating of natives and making them your equals. Only down below the line, in New Zealand and Australia, far from where it can really affect Japan, is that experiment being carried on. And more than all else, when Japanese imperialism is spreading its wings, when Japanese bureaucracy is throwing out its chest in pride and telling its poor, impoverished people, "See what I am doing for YOU," we need that serum station in the Philippines where a solution of democracy and freedom may continue to be made,—be it ever so weak. And it needs to be injected into Japan. Some of it is already working in that empire. Japan needs more, it needs to be reinforced. Democracy in Japan is struggling for a foothold. Let the germs of democracy persist in the Philippines and be rushed to the island empire. And let America stand as a great moral force, impressing upon Japan that the rights of the people shall not be suppressed. But that will never be unless the people in America who stand for liberalism, for true democracy, for all that America has hitherto meant wake up to the seriousness of the situation in the Far East and cease to turn from it with sentimental notions about Lafcadio Hearn's Japan. There are two Japans. Both of these Japans are watching America closely. They are watching the actions of America in the Philippines, they are following in the footsteps of America in China. That need not be taken too literally, for there are two meanings to it. One example points in one direction, another in another. But one or two by way of illustration will do. When America returned the Boxer Indemnity Funds to China for educational purposes a new precedent was established in international affairs. No other nation had the moral courage to follow suit. But just at the close of the war, Japan, having replenished her exchequer considerably, unloosened her purse-strings and returned the balance of the indemnity funds to China. It was a case of thrifty self-denial, a tardy giving back of gold that none of the powers were really entitled to. As misguided and foolish as the Boxer Uprising was, still had it been a little better organized, none of the evils from which China is suffering to-day would obtain. China should have been as wise in her method as she was in impulse. However, it is good to see Japan doing so much. She should be encouraged. Again, seeing that American missionaries—and others—are influencing China in the direction of Occidental culture, Japan is following suit. Here it is likewise a tardy giving back to China what Japan took from her centuries ago, for Japanese Buddhism is only the sifting of the Buddhism that made its way from India by way of China and Korea. Still, it is worth noting that intellectual and moral precedents are often as forceful as more materialistic weapons. Observing the influence that doctors and hospitals wield in China,—the Rockefeller Foundation, for instance,—the Japanese are following suit and establishing hospitals in the interior. Educational and industrial work likewise will lead the way for educational and industrial work by Japanese in China. Witnessing the force of friendship in America's relations with China, the public in Japan is protesting against the antagonizing of this gigantic neighbor to whom the Japanese bureaucratic wolf has been making such grandmotherly pretentions. And indeed there is much good reason for the protest, for the Japanese merchant who expected so much juice in that Chinese plum found that because of antagonism, because of the rape of Shantung, the plum momentarily became a lemon, to use a vulgar expression. Japan, after the "peace" Conference contemptuously handed over what didn't belong to it but a duped assistant in the prosecution of the war against Germany learned that there are more ways than one of killing a cat. And China proceeded to gnaw at the vitals of the Japanese bureaucratic wolf in a most telling fashion. China declared a boycott of Japanese goods that was so effective that it brought about a financial slump in Japan from which she is not yet fully recovered. China was of course forced to yield. One cannot live on sentiment, and when Japanese goods are the nearest and cheapest at hand, what could China do? If only Japan could see the real significance of this she would at once withdraw all her nefarious demands on China, proceed sincerely and honestly to win the friendship of China, and then undermine the very ground of every foreign trader because of her propinquity. But bureaucrats are blind. They are moles that move underground. The ground of China is all broken up on that account. One of these days the Chinese giant will clumsily step, not in the wake of the mole, but on the mole itself. Inadvertently, of course; giants are such clumsy things! 4 These, then, are some of the ways in which Japan has and has not followed in the footsteps of America. Let us follow the Chinese giant a bit, and see what blundering paths he has pursued. Unfortunately, he has had his mind too much on the American colossus to observe the mole. And so he blundered into accepting a republican form of government. A vain Malvolio, he thought he was being honored with blue and yellow ribbons on his enormous legs, but to stretch the metaphor a little farther, it turns out that these alien Lilliputians are strapping him securely down to earth. The ribbons and the Lilliputian bands are the foreign-built and foreign-controlled and operated railroads which have been talked of with sanctimonious metaphors to make them palatable. And now China parades herself before the world as a republic. That is some of the influence of America. The Republic of China is our own handiwork. Is it anything to be proud of? Poor China is a battered republic, with hands outstretched, appealing to us for help. As I write the newspapers tell of the appeal of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, recently elected President of the South China Republic. After surveying what he regards as the situation, exposing the Peking government, declaring that but for its intriguing with Japan there would have been unity between North and South, and that the Northern militarists were profiteering in food during the recent famine, and charging them with a string of other crimes, he adds: Such is the state of affairs in China that unless America, her traditional friend and supporter, comes forward to lend a helping hand in this critical period, we would be compelled against our will to submit to the twenty-one demands of Japan. I make this special appeal, therefore, through Your Excellency, to the Government of the United States to save China once more, for it is through America's genuine friendship, as exemplified by the John Hay doctrine, that China owes her existence as a nation. Now let us listen to the word from Japan on American diplomacy in China. The "Asahi Shimbun" said: Of all the foreign representatives in Peking the American was the least known previous to the revolution. A lawyer by profession, he was not credited with any diplomatic ability or resource. Yet he will reap more credit than any of the others on account of the ability and energy which he has displayed. But what have our Government and our diplomacy done to counteract the American influence? Our interests in China far exceed those of any other country, and yet our officials have allowed themselves to be outplayed by a diplomatically untrained lawyer. China, which ought to look to Japan for help and guidance, does not do so, but looks to America. The inertia of the Kasumigaseki has given Mr. Calhoun an opportunity to restore American prestige in the neighbouring country. Japan has done nothing to gain the good-will of China, and America is constantly veering her ship with its treasury of Chinese good-will more and more in the direction of Japan. We had in Japan a man of unusual gifts and sagacity. Mr. Roland S. Morris, American Ambassador under the Wilson administration, though avowedly a friend of Japan, certainly had a most unenviable position to maintain. He seemed peculiarly fitted for his post, for during his years in Japan, notwithstanding the innumerable missions that moved like settings on a circular stage, and the infinite number of dinners that fall to the lot of distinguished foreigners in Japan, he never seems to have got political indigestion. And doubtless he is to-day a friend of China. With an eye to the "special interests" of Japan, Dr. Paul S. Reinsch was permitted to throw up his hands in despair. We were not doing much to save China from being Shantung-ed. Because Mr. Crane once undiplomatically expressed himself in ways unwelcome to Japan, he was recalled before he got beyond Chicago. Several years later, Mr. Crane succeeded in smuggling himself through to China as American Minister, and as far as may be seen, he did noble work in connection with the Famine Relief last winter. Now we have dispatched a Japanophile to China. Dr. Jacob Gould Shurman was so strongly impressed with the schools of Japan that he gave up Cornell University to go to China and help Japanize the Celestial. At least, that is the mood in which he left America. A man who knows him well and is close to the inner circle of American financial affairs in China assured me the other day that Shurman would not be in China six months before he would completely reverse his sentiments, and regard Japan's work in China as it is regarded by every one there who is not a Japanese official. Poor deluded, short-sighted Japan! She could have China as a plaything if she only went about it properly. Propinquity could put special interests in last year's list of bad debts if Japan sincerely, honestly, firmly made a friend of China, threw the doors wide open,—and then laughed a hearty, healthy laugh at the efforts of white men to outwit her in Asia. Propinquity has made Japan Oriental, it has given Japan a script that opens the doors for her more than for any other alien: Oriental methods, Oriental concepts, Oriental customs and requirements give Japan a better chance in China than all her millions of soldiers and dreadnaughts ever will. Yet the little mole loves it underground. 5 Thus we are blindly following the Japanese mole. We are catering to Japanese "sensitiveness" by sending diplomats with a list in the direction of Japan now. Presently, I presume, we shall withdraw our diplomats from China as we did from Korea, and forget about it. But, then, of course, we sha'n't. Things in the Far East are not going to pan out so easily, not in the matter of China and Japan. Ever since the first American clipper flirted with Chinese trade, American interests have been involved in the interests of China, and they will continue to be so involved. Without ordinary, decent, honest trade among nations, the relationship of peoples ceases to have its reason for existence. Just imagine a world of nothing but tourists! But decent trade is not the forcing of opium on a country against its will, as Britain forced it on China in the early days and as Japan forces it to-day. Decent trade is not the impoverishing of native industries by the introduction of cheap products from Japanese, European, and American factories. Neither is decent trade altruism. The spirit of really decent trade may be found, though not yet fully defined, in the motives behind the consortium; but, then, that scheme has not yet been proved workable. Its future remains to be seen, and I shall later describe it as far as it has gone. It has been admitted, even by the most prejudiced—and by Japanese—that America's practices in the Far East, and China in particular, have been essentially well-principled. The Philippines are restively seeking independence, but they cannot claim that America's protectorate has been discreditable. One could go on all the way through to the return of the Boxer Indemnity, and the only serious charge that can be made with truth is that altruism has often been accompanied by indecision and inefficiency. The question that now faces the world is whether the effect of Western democratic governmental methods, which seem to have made a sudden, yet vital, impression on the minds of the Chinese, shall become effective with time, or shall be uprooted by another Oriental country for whom we have expressed constantly the most affectionate regard. We do not love a child less because it needs correction; correction, we realize, is the necessary accompaniment of growth. Japan needs to be shown the error of her ways; not in high-flown moral terms, but in just plain, everyday examples of the impracticability of her doings in China. Thus, having been instrumental in the opening of Japan to the world; having acquired possessions in the Pacific which must remain the outposts of democratic management of native peoples; having set an example of disinterested, generous treatment of unwieldy China; having stood by as her friend, as her preceptor, her sponsor; having, in a word, made that inexplicable journey from the Atlantic to the farthest reaches of the Pacific, let the robin say of Johnny Appleseed: To the farthest West he has followed the sun,
His life and his empire just begun....
CHAPTER XXI
WHERE THE PROBLEM DOVETAILS 1 I have come now to the most delicate and most difficult task in the whole problem, that of the dovetailing of nations. Twice has this phase of the subject come before us: once when we met it in that welter of racial experiments, Hawaii and the South Seas in general; and again in that great outpost of the white race, Australasia. But in the one it is too localized, and the other too much in anticipation. In Hawaii it is hard to say which race has justly a prior right to possession; in Australia the problem is only imminent. But in California and the entire West the impact of the two races of the Pacific has taken place. Nothing but a just solution can possibly be any solution at all. Let me therefore define the problem at the very outset, lest that which is really irrelevant be expected, or insinuate itself into the discussion. Primarily, the problem of Japan in America is not a racial one. Primarily it is political, and hinges upon the rights of nations. Secondarily, it is economic, and only in so far as the political and economic factors are unsolvable can the problem become a racial one, and terminate in conflict. All attempts at handling the situation which do not take into consideration these two factors would be like crossing the stream to get a bucket of water. For nothing can be done without reciprocity, and reciprocity is the last thing that Japan would ever consent to, as it involves a transformation in her political philosophy and the relinquishment of her own position from the very outset. Hence, before we can even approach the consideration of facts in California, we must get clearly in mind exactly what Japan is doing within her own territories. Japan is the appellant. Japan demands that her people be given free entry the world over. We are not asking her to let our people enter Japan and her possessions as laborers and agriculturists. Hence, before she can make her plea at all rational, she must show that she herself is not discriminating in the identical manner as the one she objects to. Now, in only one or two instances have I seen that question emphasized. In all the literature I have read emanating from Japanese sources, in the lectures of its propagandists here, I have never seen it faced fairly and squarely. The actions of Japan are ignored or glossed over. The protagonists of Japan in California—Americans, mind you—make of it purely an American issue, as though discrimination were a fault peculiar to ourselves. Two blacks don't make a white, but neither do two blacks quarrel with each other for being black. The questions in the order of their importance then are: Does Japan permit the free entrance of alien labor? Does Japan permit the ready purchase by aliens of agricultural land? Does Japan make the naturalization of aliens easy? Does Japan permit the denaturalization of its people abroad? Now, these are all political problems, for the simple reason that the very economic conditions of Japan make them unnecessary. That is, Japanese labor is essentially cheap labor, and owing to the great crowding there would be little likelihood of any great influx of Korean or Chinese labor were the bars not raised fairly high. And the bars are high. The number of Koreans admitted is greater largely because Koreans are now subjects of the mikado, but even they are kept in check by Japanese objections to their entrance, and conflicts between Japanese and Koreans are not unknown. Chinese are permitted to enter Japan only by special permission from the local authorities, as provided for in a regulation in force since 1899. Forgetting the two hundred and fifty years during which the doors of Japan were sealed; forgetting that even after the opening of Japan a foreigner had to obtain a special passport to travel from Kobe to Kyoto, a distance of forty miles inland; forgetting all the psychological factors that have by no means broken down the crust that still closes most of Japan to alien possession or acquisition, one is still amazed at this discrimination against fellow-subjects and Chinese, to whom the Japanese are in some essential way, at least, related. But let us see what happens to these people when they do get in. Let me quote a statement in the bulletin of the East and West News Bureau, a Japanese propaganda agency located in New York. In Japan proper the Korean laborers are estimated to number about 20,000. Compared with Japanese laborers they are perhaps superior in point of physical strength, but in practical efficiency they are no rivals of the latter. They feel that they are handicapped by strange environments and different customs, which partly account for their low efficiency. But experienced employers assert that the Koreans are markedly lazy, and that their work requires overseers, which naturally results of curtailment of their wages. According to inquiries by the Osaka police on conditions among Korean laborers in the city, many of them have been thrown out of employment on account of the economic depression; that they are mostly engaged in rough work, such as carrying goods around or digging holes, etc., as unskilled laborers. It states that they are indolent and have no interest in work which requires skill and attention; they are simply contented as cheap laborers. This quotation is illuminating in many ways. First, it strikes me as being anything but fair play on the part of Japanese in America to send out such discriminating and unkind accounts of a people whom they have now taken in as fellows in an empire, and whom they are "trying to assimilate." Secondly, it is not quite true, for Japanese manufacturers are going to Korea with their factories. If Korean laborers are efficient in Korea, why not in Japan? But the fact of the matter is that the Japanese, quite naturally, are not going to give the best jobs to Koreans with their own men round about. Now let us see what the British Vice-Consul at Osaka has to say of Japanese labor, in a report to Parliament. Admitting that external conditions have much to do with the poor quality of the Japanese workman, and that in time and under better conditions he will improve, the vice-consul says: "The standard [of intelligence] shown by the average workman is admittedly low," while some of his sub-captions are: "Docility," "Apathy," "Cheerfulness," "Lack of Concentration," "Scarcity of Skilled Labor," and under the caption "Why Wages are Low" he says: "Labor is plentiful and inefficient." It is seen, therefore, that the opinion of the vice-consul in the matter of the Japanese is similar to that of the Japanese in regard to the Korean; and so it goes. The point in the whole question, to my mind is, that Japanese discriminate as much against other races as they are discriminated against. Not until Japan lays low the chauvinistic notions about the superiority of the most inferior Japanese to the best foreigner can we expect that other nations will set to work to remove the obstacles toward a clear understanding. In America the very reverse is true. No one ever asserts that the Japanese is inferior to a white man. What is said is that the white man is essentially an individualist who at maturity starts off in life by himself, whereas the Japanese is bound by all sorts of notions of ancestor-worship which submerge him completely in the group. Furthermore, as a group the Japanese are able to overcome the greatest odds that any individual can raise against them. The nature of that group-consciousness will be analyzed in the answer to some of the other questions. 2 But to return to Japan: That Japan has no occasion for fear of a serious invasion of aliens is evident from recent figures that show that there are only 19,500 foreigners there, of whom 12,139 are Chinese, 2,404 Britons, 1,837 Americans, 687 Russians, 641 Germans, and 445 French. These figures are, however, unreliable, and antedate the Russian Revolution. However, the question here pertinent is whether any of these would be permitted to engage in such industries as the Japanese engage in here; for instance, agriculture. That can be answered in the negative. The Japanese land law, however generous it may seem from mere reading of the statutes, does not extend that privilege to foreigners. The first proviso of the law is that the person desiring to own land in Japan shall be from a country wherein Japanese are permitted to own land. In other words, if America does not allow a Japanese to acquire land, no American can do so in Japan. As it stands, therefore, no Japanese can complain if American laws make a similar ruling. The second provision excludes from any and all ownership, in any and all circumstances, the Hokkaido, Formosa, Karafuto (Sakhalin), or districts necessary for national defense. Considering that every other inch of ground is held in plots of two and a half acres per farmer, to whom they are the beginning and end of subsistence, the privileges innocently extended are mighty short. The law virtually excludes all right to any agricultural lands that any foreigner might be able to avail himself of. There is one kind of real property foreigners do wish to own, and that is property for business purposes. But they cannot own that, even; they may only lease it on long leases under conditions that are frequently a hardship and often enough insecure. They may lease land under the so-called superficies lease, but that means virtually evading the law, and is always expensive. Even ordinary leases are frequently encroached upon, as foreigners in the ports are only too well aware. While I was in Kobe, Japanese were forcing foreign business firms out of the former foreign settlement, which fully fifty years of white men's toil had converted from a worthless bit of beach land into one of the most up-to-date "suburbs" in the Orient, and which is now the best part of Kobe. This was done by calling in leases, by making the rents prohibitive, and by "buying out" foreign lease-holders at almost exorbitant rates, just as the Japanese buy out white men in California. One British druggist, Dr. Richardson, sold for $225,000 a corner plot for which he had paid $12,500. He made a great profit in the deal, but the process by which he, and others, were bought out is indicative of the methods of the Japanese. For behind many of the real-estate dealers was the Government, making loans at most favorable rates of interest with the sole object of getting back into Japanese control as much of the port plots as possible,—cost what it might. Even men of lifelong residence in Japan must form themselves into corporations with their wives and some Japanese as members, in order to own the land upon which their residences are built. Some of these cases I investigated for the "Japan Chronicle" and learned from the priest of the Catholic Church that pressure was constantly being exerted upon him to make him relinquish his hold upon the ground on which the church stands, because it is in the heart of the business section. He said he did not know how long he would be able to hold out against them. How corrupt landlords may overstep the bounds is illustrated by a case reported in the "Chronicle" of February 10, 1921. The editor says: The notorious Clarke lease suit is a case in point. This was a lease for twenty-five years, renewable for a further term of similar duration. A syndicate of Japanese was organized which purchased the land, knowing of the burdens upon it, with the hope of worrying the lease-holder either into paying more rent or into selling the lease for an inadequate sum. Suit after suit was brought in various names, until at last a court was found to give judgment raising the rent on the ground that taxes had increased and the value of surrounding properties had expanded since the lease was made. In justification of a judgment upholding this decision, the Osaka Appeal Court declared that there was a local custom in Kobe which permitted a landlord to raise the rent in certain circumstances. No evidence was produced in support of this contention, which was clearly against all contract law and rendered lease agreements meaningless. The result was that the gang of speculators who had banded themselves together to despoil a foreigner were successful. The holder of the lease was forced to sell and the syndicate profited greatly. If the argument is raised that you will find bad people everywhere, and that one cannot take the poorest type of person and set him up as the example, let us recall the case of the Doshisha University. There, because of these selfsame land and property laws, The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions placed the million dollars' worth of property in the hands of Christian Japanese directors. Presently the Government brought pressure to bear upon these directors, and they yielded to their Government. In February, 1898, they virtually ousted the foreign owners, turned the institution into a secular college, and saw nothing dishonest nor immoral in the action. Japanese have of course come to a better understanding of the rights in such cases, nor am I trying to impugn the integrity of the "better-class" of Japanese. I am merely bringing evidence to prove that not only are Japanese laws with regard to the ownership of land by foreigners as discriminatory as those of California, but their interpretation is a serious handicap to aliens in Japan. In America the fight is not to prevent Japanese from taking hold of land for business purposes, but to prevent them from monopolizing farming-lands, which, as Mr. Walter Pitkin has shown so clearly in his book, "Must We Fight Japan?" are rapidly passing out of American hands because of our vicious shallowness in agrarian matters. I am not as yet bringing up the question of fairness, justice, generosity, or the rights of over-crowded Japan. I am merely making parallels which seem to me telling. 3 Does Japan make the naturalization of aliens easy? As far as the letter of the law goes, there appears nothing in the eyes of a layman that might stand in the way of a man, already married and with children, from becoming a Japanese subject. There is no legal discrimination against any race or color. But notwithstanding that there now are 20,000 foreigners in Japan, and that the number throughout the years must have been much greater, there are on record only nine cases of foreigners having been naturalized between 1904 and 1913; two English, two American, five French; and ten cases of adoptions by marriage into Japanese families. These, to my knowledge, do not include men previously married. They are all cases of men who have married Japanese women, or of women who have married Japanese men. There have been 158 Chinese who became naturalized. This does not indicate that naturalization is easy—except by marriage—and the general consensus of opinion is that it would take a man fully fifteen years to become naturalized in the due process of law. Furthermore, the restrictions attached to the acquisition of Japanese nationality take all the sweetness out of the plum, for even after you have gone through the regular processes and have been permitted to sit "amongst these gods on sainted seats," there are still exalted pedestals beyond your reach. You may not become a Minister of State, President, or Vice-President, or a member of the Privy Council; an official of chokunin (imperial-appointment) rank in the Imperial Household Department; an Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary; a general officer in the army and navy; president of the Supreme Court, of the Board of Audit, or of the Court of Administrative Litigation; or member of the Imperial Diet. Nor are the professions in all cases open to you. However, this is a minor matter compared with that of the inability on the part of any Japanese to accept another nationality without official consent. If he resides abroad after his seventeenth birthday he cannot in any circumstances become a citizen of that other country unless he has completed his military service. Women may freely relinquish their nationality through marriage; not so men. If men are born abroad, they must make a voluntary request for denaturalization between the ages of fifteen and seventeen, but such other factors are involved that only a negligible number of American-born Japanese have ever attempted to rid themselves of their ancestral connections; and there is one case on record in which the Government refused on a technicality, for the child had applied for denationalization according to Western reckoning, whereas Japanese count the child's age as from the day of conception, not birth. In view of this, then, there seems no point whatever in the fuss made about Japanese being barred from citizenship. Again, I am not discussing the advisability of this restriction, but merely trying to brush aside many of the webs that have been spun for the netting of sympathy. The relations between Japan and America are thus involved in an infinite number of petty political regulations on each side, and nothing but a complete sweeping away of all restrictions on both sides would ever assume even the semblance of justice. But how far is Japan ready and willing to go in this denationalization of herself? The most casual study of her nationalistic aims and aspirations answers that question. That the problem is essentially a problem for Japan to solve is self-evident. That it is political and not racial, and that this political problem is rooted in Japan's economic condition, is likewise clear. For no nation loses its nationals except when the conditions at home are worse than those abroad, worse than those of the country to which her people wish to emigrate. Australia and New Zealand find it almost impossible to lure out British laborers, while Germany's desire for room was largely for the utilization of her mechanics and scientists and others whom she had trained in such large numbers that she hadn't enough work for them at home. Two changes in the structure of world economics have accentuated a condition of racial conflict which have hitherto been virtually non-existent. Religious and political conflicts have always obtained, but the color line has been drawn only in very recent times. As long as black and yellow people have been of a lower order and have been willing to serve the white, there was never any serious disorder between them. The color line is not marked even in Europe to-day, for the same reason that it is not marked in Japan. Europe is herself too crowded to be a desirable immigration station. Whatever the causes of conflict may have been, to-day it is clear that they lie in the endeavor on the part of white labor to maintain a better standard of living than Oriental labor has yet attained. And in exactly the degree to which certain Oriental labor groups have risen above others, the conflict becomes manifest,—to wit, the objection on the part of Japanese labor to Korean and Chinese coolies. No serious conflicts take place between Fijian laborers and Indian coolies, because the Fijian maintains his standard under competition, that being lower than the Indian's. We have therefore to study the problem of Japanese in America, the so-called race conflict, not so much as it develops here but at its source, Japan. And there, if I read Japanese conditions aright, the problem is political and psychological in the main. Japan has come very far along material modernization; she has virtually stepped up to the front rank of nations. But the most casual observation reveals that that is only so in part, that the advance is made as a government, not as a people. That government is rooted in antiquated notions, is vicious in many of its aspects, and is opposed to even the most conservative developments of Western countries. That government refuses to recognize the social forces that are at work within Japan for the leveling upward of classes. And there is the rub. 4 Glancing over the history of the nineteenth century, we realize that all nations have passed through a continuous struggle of the masses for betterment of their conditions, political and social as well as economic. During the greater part of that century Japan lay dormant, its masses mentally mesmerized. The sudden impact of the West has stunned the people more than awakened them. Only part of the social body is coming to life,—a limb, an essential organ. To be generous, I might say the brain is working, though from many of the actions of Nippon that would seem doubtful. But certain it is that whether it is the brain or merely the spinal column, instead of limbering up the rest of the body as rapidly as possible, it is trying to retard it. Hence, the feverish condition of the country. This is not mere speculation. As I have said, only such countries as have an inferior economic condition suffer from the exodus of their laboring people. That exodus takes place for several reasons. From Europe it has come because of the hunger for religious freedom, to escape political oppression, or merely to get a new start in life. And though we have few political or religious exiles in America from the Land of the Rising Sun, they come because of an unconscious desire for relief from Japanese social domination. I am convinced that that which most Japanese so prefer in America is that sense of individual freshness, that desire for individual expression, for freedom from the clutch of family and oligarchy. It is unconscious, and without doubt few Japanese when brought face to face with the issues would admit it, so deeply ingrained is the education and training at the hands of the political administrators. Only here and there is some such statement made, with an eye to the press and the galleries. Were Japan to extend to the masses greater freedom, there would be plenty of work for them at home. There is scientific advancement to be made. Japanese are frightfully behind in the scientific habit. I have been told by a friend at one of our greatest institutions of medical experimentation that with but one exception the Japanese who come there have to be constantly dismissed for their incompetence. There was no anti-Japanese sentiment in the mind of the person who made this statement. Japanese still need generations of training to acquire the scientific spirit. Their historians prove this. In the business of life Japanese have plenty of work at home which could easily absorb all the man-power, both masculine and feminine, at their command, without the necessity of shipping any of it abroad. But the vulgar acquisition of wealth, the vulgar acquisition of political prestige in the world, the vulgar appeal for equality which no man or nation with true dignity and self-respect would mouth to the extent that Japanese officialdom has mouthed it, the vulgar wearing of its sensitiveness on its sleeve,—it is these with which bureaucratic Japan is preoccupied. While, at home, every effort on the part of Japanese to secure manhood suffrage, to arise to the dignity of true men, of which the masses are as capable as any race on earth, is discouraged. On the one hand pleading, in mendicant fashion, for racial equality abroad; on the other, refusal to give the people at home racial equality. On one hand it is asserted loudly that "The Japanese do not like to be regarded as inferior to any other people. In no country will they be content with discriminatory treatment";[1] on the other, Prime Minister Hara answers the demand for the franchise with the maudlin fear that it would break down "distinction." So that the problem of Japan and the world is largely a political problem which she must face at home. Raising the standard of living; increasing the economic welfare of the masses; extending the rights of the people who are clamoring for it in sections, not only to the intelligent elements but down to the very eta; cleansing the social pores of the empire,—these will in themselves automatically solve the problem for the world. The people don't want conquest. They are not aggressive. But the misguided leaders,—there's the rub. 5 As to Japan in America—or, more specifically, the Japanese in California—the problem is for us to solve. I once heard an American sentimentalist who practises law, and hence assured an audience he ought to know what he was talking about, say that the trouble in California was that the Japanese will work and the American is an idler and won't work. Why he wasn't howled out of the auditorium I don't know. That America has reared this vast continent and made it one of the most productive countries in the world did not seem to enter the head of this lawyer. Yet the Japanese problem will not be solved by exclusion alone. We hear constantly that the reason for the conflict is that Japanese as groups and as tireless workers are able to outwork Americans; and, in certain special types of industry, that is proved. But were the conditions made more acceptable to Americans in those industries, and were we to devise mechanical means of production suited to them, it would not be long before Japanese labor would find it extremely unprofitable to come here, just as it finds it unprofitable to go to Manchuria and Korea, where it has to compete with the cheaper Chinese and Korean labor. Laws and restrictions can always be evaded, and the price of vigilance is more costly than the gain. But those laws that are basic in the condition of life no man can evade. The Gentlemen's Agreement has not worked because gentlemen themselves seldom work. It has not worked because it has denied America the right, as all nations claim it, to determine who shall or shall not come in. Gentlemen never exact such agreements from their friends. They realize that a man's home is his domain, to be entered only on invitation. Furthermore, the agreement is not mutually retroactive. It says that Japan has a right to decide the issue, and promises not to permit coolie labor to enter America. I shall not enter the statistical controversy as to whether flocks of Japanese have or have not evaded the agreement. An agreement such as that should be evaded, and was loose enough to make evasion simple. That is enough of an argument. Japan pleads for room on account of the tremendous increase in her population every year. When a great appeal is made, the number is stated as 700,000 or 800,000, according to the emotional condition of the appellant. Professor Dewey contends that the Japanese Government, in its own records, admits to only some 300,000 or 400,000 a year. Whether the increase in California is or is not as stated, on one side or the other, matters little. Japan's grounds for appealing for room are sufficient. If the increase is so disgustingly large in Japan, it stands to reason that it would be as large, if not larger here, where economic opportunity makes increase possible and desirable. Every child born in America is a handle worth getting hold of. But on the other hand, it is also true that wherever Japanese better their standard of living their birth-rate falls, as with every race. In which case there is only one answer to Japan's appeal for more room: Better your standard of living and you will not need to invade our house. That disgusting process of breeding which aggressive nations indulge in should be decried from the house-tops. It is no great mark of civilization to breed like mosquitos. Mosquitos need to reproduce by the millions because their eggs are consumed by the millions by preying creatures. Civilization makes it possible for those born to survive. (See Appendix D.) Some students of Far Eastern affairs, like J. O. P. Bland, urge that Japan has a right to the occupation of Siberia; and none will gainsay that. But the fact is that though free to go both to Korea and Manchuria, Japanese have not gone to these regions even to the extent of one year's increase in population during the last ten years. Where, then, is the argument? As has been shown, they do not go as settlers because cheap continental labor makes it unprofitable. They go as business-men, as the advance-guard of the empire, as the rear-guard of the army. No one has ever raised a voice against the migration of Japanese to these unpopulated regions—with the exception, perhaps, of the natives. But ever and always one feels the hand of imperial Japan behind each little man from the empire, and that hold on her nationals is the thing that vigorous nations resent, because it threatens to impair their status. That is what California and the sixteen other states who share her views feel. They are conscious of some subsidy behind every extensive purchase of land. From somewhere Japanese get enough money to buy anything they want. It is always the paternalistic arm of the Government round every little son of Nippon, or the embrace of his family. That is where the problem begins and that is where it ends. If only some chemical substance could be discovered that, when poured over the Oriental, would separate him from the mass, he would be as good a fellow as can be found anywhere in the world. But that was what always irritated me in my relations with Japanese in Japan. I never met a man I liked but that in order to enjoy association with him I had to tolerate his group. If I started off anywhere with one, I soon had a retinue. That racial clannishness is to be found everywhere, but nowhere is it more sticky than in ancestor-worshiping Japan. Consequently, in whatever manner the problem is finally solved here in America, one thing is agreed upon by both Japanese and anti-Japanese,—that those here will have to be redistributed over the country, their clannishness broken up. That is a problem which affects not only the Japanese. However, nothing that is now done should in any way be retroactive so as to deprive any single Japanese of the fruits of his labor. Whatever solution is found for the Japanese problem in America, one thing is certain,—that no war will ever be fought because of Japanese immigration to America. Japan, as has been shown, would have to readjust her own political thinking to such an extent as virtually to revolutionize conditions in Japan in order to make an issue of the citizenship problem and the matter of alien landownership here. Such a revolution would considerably reduce the scope of the issues, they would fall apart and virtually cease to exist. If we are looking for the causes of a possible conflict in the Pacific, they must be sought not in California but in China. The dovetailing of the angle of our triangle in America is contingent upon the dovetailing of the angle of the triangle in Asia. The one in America can be dislodged only by a wrenching apart of the angle in Asia. Japan's hegemony in Asia is a serious matter. Japan is an industrial nation now. She is entitled to access to unused resources in China. Propinquity accedes this, but propinquity precludes the necessity of submerging China in the process. The Open Door in China means peace in the Pacific. We leave it to time to determine what the walling up of that door would mean.
CHAPTER XXII
AUSTRALIA AND THE ANGLO-JAPANESE ALLIANCE 1 The tempest in the European teapot has become a tornado in the Pacific. Small as the Balkans are, they were the stumbling-block in the way of the downward expansion of the European powers. The tragedy in Europe has left Europe in the background. Civilization is rapidly veering round in the direction of the Pacific. There are little nations to-day whose possession is as fraught with unhappy consequences as anything in southern Europe ever was. Yet we hear innocent dispensers of information assure us that Yap is only a little speck in the Pacific over which no one would think of going to war. They forget that America nearly went to war with Germany in 1889 over the Samoan Islands, which then meant much less to her. And the settlement in Europe at the Peace Conference has greatly enhanced the position of the present powers in the Pacific. Until very recently two developments in Pacific affairs had not been given as much prominence in the press as they deserved. One, the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, and the other the British Imperial Conferences, held every other year since 1907. Just in proportion as the Imperial Conferences have become, as it were, a super-Parliament to Great Britain, so has the Anglo-Japanese Alliance waned. And just as the so-called mandates over the various island groups in the mid-Pacific congeal from lofty aspirations to concrete management there are emerging in the Pacific the identical antagonisms that made of the little group of states in Southern Europe the cause of the conflict. The Anglo-Japanese Alliance was formed in 1902. Its aim was to oust Russia, and to guarantee British interests in China. Later on it was revised to include Japanese protection over India. But consonant with that agreement there blossomed in the British Empire a new thing to be reckoned with,—an independent Australian navy. That navy has by no means matured, it is not and cannot for years to come be a great consideration in the Pacific, but it has been from the start prophetic and explanatory of much that is taking place to-day. It is at the bottom of the problem, because it is the beginning of Australian independence, of her rise to nationhood. Let me rehearse the historical incidents in connection with this development. Now, until the advent of that navy all the colonies had been paying certain sums yearly toward the maintenance of the British Navy,—Canada, Australia, New Zealand alike. But with the federation of the Commonwealth, Australia began to agitate in no mistaken terms for a navy of her own, to be built and manned by Australians, and kept in Australian waters, rushing only in an emergency to the support of the empire. Canada decided otherwise,—i.e., to build her own ships, but to merge them with the home fleet; New Zealand continued the old scheme. Being twelve hundred miles away from Australia, her isolation and her inadequate resources and population made her more timorous. With Australia the construction of a separate little fleet was the beginning of a straining at the leash. Then came the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, which, while it allayed the fears of the Australians somewhat, intensified certain other phases of the problem, such as the White-Australia policy. The Russo-Japanese War did nothing to allay apprehension on the part of the Australasians. For years both the Dominion and the Commonwealth were absolutely obsessed by the naval question. Sir Joseph Ward, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, championed a single, undivided imperial navy; the late Mr. Alfred Deakin of Australia stood out strongly in favor of an independent navy. Seeing little hope of a very strong concession from England, Deakin extended and urged an invitation, in 1908, to the American fleet to visit Australia. He admitted that his object was to arouse Britain to fear an Australian-American "alliance." The thrust went home. The English "felt that it was using strong measures for an Australian statesman to use a foreign fleet as a means of forwarding a project which was not approved by the Admiralty." But even Sir Joseph Ward let himself go to the extent of declaring that they welcomed America as "natural allies in the coming struggle against Japanese domination." And when at last the American fleet came to Australia, it received an ovation such as still rings in the conversation of any Australian with an American. For an entire week Sydney celebrated. Melbourne followed suit; New Zealand could not but take up the cue. Every one pointed with pride to the similarity between the Australian and the American. Australian girls virtually threw themselves into the arms of American sailors. It is even said that many a sailor remained behind with an Australian wife. Not even the Prince of Wales (now King George) was given such an ovation. After that visit, so cordial was the attitude of Australians that everywhere they talked of floating the Stars and Stripes in the event of—what? In the event of pressure from Downing Street or from Tokyo. The Australian temperament is not one which buries its grievances or harbors ill-feeling. The Australian speaks right out that which is on his mind. And though much must be discounted because of this bubbling personality, almost primitive in its extremes, nothing that affects Australia can long be ignored by us. Frankly, the situation is this: Australia is set on her so-called White-Australia policy. Australia made it clear to England that, alliance or no alliance, she would never swerve from her policy of excluding Japanese and Chinese. When the American fleet appeared, knowing the exclusion of Orientals practised in America, Australia felt that bond of fellowship which comes from common danger. And everything was done to develop friendship; America became the pattern for everything Australian. Never particularly fond of the Englishman, at times discriminating against him as much as against the Oriental, advertising that "No Englishman Need Apply" when looking for labor, afraid of the little yellow man up there,—Australia naturally looked to America as a possible defender. But along came the European war. Great Britain was in danger. America held aloof. Then everything changed. The wave of anti-American sentiment in Australia was much more pronounced than in New Zealand. This was a strange anomaly, for inherently New Zealand is much more imperialistic. But it was characteristic of the Australian. There was almost a boycott against American goods. One firm published a scurrilous advertisement which the American Consul-General at Melbourne showed me and said he had sent to Washington. For a time it looked rather serious, but in view of the Australian character, its importance was not very great. It was the impetuosity of a little boy, disgruntled because his opinion was not feared. Many said openly: "We were so fond of America and thought you were our friend. From now on we don't want anything from you. We don't want your protection." Yet, as late as December 8, 1916, the Sydney "Morning Herald" said editorially: "And those of us who think of a possible run under America's wings forget that her strength at present is proportionately no greater than our own [Australia's]. She is not ready for either offence or defence and she knows it. This being so, can we ask Great Britain," etc. The feeling toward America at that time was only commensurate with the petty jealousies that now rankle somewhat because of fear that America has taken to herself too much credit for the accomplishment of victory. But then it gave that stimulus to navalism in the South that the Australians wanted; further, it gave birth to the movement for greater independence in imperial affairs, which for twenty-five years had determined the policies of the several states. Just recently a New Zealand navalist, writing in the "Auckland Weekly News" (New Zealand), brought up the dread specter "balance of power" again, calling attention to the fact that inasmuch as Japan is a great naval power and America is increasing her naval strength, it is for democratic Australasia to see to it that Great Britain does not lag behind with its fleet in the Pacific,—to maintain the balance of power. And the further sad fact was revealed that Australasia (seen in the expression of this one individual at least) did not care particularly whether, in the event of conflict, they were on the side of America or Japan. Feeling did not take the same turn in New Zealand. That little country continued in its more imperialistic tendencies, was content to be a finger in the great hand of empire. In 1909, at the Imperial Conference, Mr. Joseph Ward sprung a surprise by offering a battle-cruiser to the Government without consulting his constituents at home. For this he was knighted. But the New Zealanders were in a mood to make him pay for it himself when he returned. Mr. (now Sir Joseph) Ward was severely criticized for what he did. He was ridiculed even by the university lads during their "Capping Carnival." They took him off in effigy and carried a little boat with a sign saying: "This is the toy he bought his crown with." Upon his return from the conference he lost his Prime Ministership and a "conservative" government came into power. Later developments so justified him that he became a sort of political idol for a while. When the cruiser visited New Zealand, in 1913, the excitement knew no bounds. THOMAS W. LAMONT © Underwood & Underwood WELLINGTON KOO Photo by Brown Bros. LORD LANSDOWNE AND BARON TADASU HAYASHI
The "Fathers" of the Anglo-Japanese alliance THOMAS W. LAMONT © Underwood & Underwood PRINCE ITO
Japan's foremost statesman assassinated in Korea, October 26, 1909 WELLINGTON KOO Photo from Adachi DR. SUN YAT-SEN
President of South China Republic Germany was always regarded as a potential enemy. The colonies had always arched their backs at the proximity of German possessions in the South Seas. When in 1889 Samoa was the bone of contention, the colonies were rather eager to have America take it, in preference to the Germans. Then, as Japan came to the fore, America as a potential protection became more and more obvious to Australasians. The Panama Canal intensified their conviction. They looked forward to a combination of British and American power for the furtherance of peace as they conceived it should be maintained, and consciousness of their own destiny in the Pacific was stimulated. Suddenly they were brought close to the United States. The anti-Japanese riots in California, the annexation of Hawaii, the protectorate over the Philippines all pointed to the Australasians lessons for their own guidance. They could not expect from England the same keen interest in racial questions which manifested itself in America. America demonstrated the dangers of having two unmixable races like the white and the black together; Hawaii showed them that Asiatic immigration is a breeder of trouble. They do not seem to see that circumstances are not the same, that the pressure of population has become much more keen, that industrial conditions in the world to-day are altogether different from what they were when Great Britain refused to have her American colonies put down the kidnapping of Africans; that America to-day has 110,000,000 people and has encouraged them to come from every country in Europe, as Australia does not. Australia looks only at the most obvious phase of the problem,—that certain people are not happy together. Whether or not she over-estimates her own strength against the pressure of changed conditions, remains to be seen, but she is pursuing her own course with a certain steadfastness that is at once a pathetic blindness and a courageous self-assertion. In a country whose political outlook is essentially generous, whose labor experiments have been extremely costly to her, it strikes one as a great contradiction of principle. How can a labor government be so utterly opposed to the extension of ideal opportunities to laborers from other lands seeking to enjoy them? How can she be so utterly capitalistic on a national scale when nearly everything within her own ken is laboristic? The explanation of this enigma lies in a certain measure in the manner in which Australia has set about making herself independent of her mother country and, while working indirectly for the break-up of the empire, is becoming imperial in her own small way. All these counter currents must be seen clearly before understanding can follow. They whirl about the pillar of imperialism—England—and have come out clearly since the war. They hinge upon the mandates over the South Sea Islands. THOMAS W. LAMONT © Underwood & Underwood THOMAS W. LAMONT WELLINGTON KOO © Underwood & Underwood WELLINGTON KOO
Chinese Ambassador to Great Britain YUKIO OZAKI, M.P. AND EX-MINISTER OF JUSTICE Photo from Adachi YUKIO OZAKI, M.P. AND EX-MINISTER OF JUSTICE
The most prominent Liberal in Japan 2 While, as has been shown, Australia has for twenty years pursued a course that threatens to lead toward separation from England, New Zealand has bound herself closer and closer. Australia, however, has been extremely shy of any semblance of rupture. She does not want to break away. She feels her isolation too much. But what she wants is in a sense the rights that American states have within the Union. She wants to be independent, to be able to develop in her own way, to expand, if necessary, without danger of attack. This spirit is inherent in the Australian temperament. When I told any Australian that I was traveling and tramping on "me own," he could not understand it. He could not go without a mate. He wanted to be sure that if he got into any scrape and was with his back to the wall, his mate was there to help him. Still, he wanted to fight alone. It did not seem to occur to any of these people that a civilized man might go the wild world over and not have occasion to fight. And this trait comes out in Australian international relations. She wants to pursue the White-Australia policy contrary to sentiment in England, to develop her own navy, to hold the whole continent against the time when full nationhood will have become a reality. But for the time at least she will not declare her independence of Great Britain. She will not even give Britain the imperial preference in trade which would compensate her for her trouble. But she did show in the last war that she realized her responsibilities. In the Boer War it was said that her assistance was merely for the sake of giving her men adventure and practice for possible later use in her own defense. And in this war conscription was defeated because, as it was openly declared, it was not certain what the turn of affairs in Europe might be. It was felt imperative that the men be not all gone and the continent left undefended. And that contingency was voiced by the Premier of Queensland as involving—Japan. To the outsider, Australia's attitude seems extremely selfish, but to enthusiastic young Australia, with the wide world before her, with a future that looks as promising as that of America, it seems the only logical one. And as long as her potential enemies do not take the trouble to show by deeds that they are not enemies, her reasoning is not unjustifiable. But a strange thing has happened to Australia. She has got what she was after, and now she hardly wants it. She fought for the imperial conference method of settling imperial affairs. Australians have time and again declared that though an empire, they are a nation first and foremost. That the empire represented too heterogeneous a list of peoples for them to forget that an Indian, though part of the empire, is still an inferior as far as they are concerned. And Australia realized that the mother country could not see eye to eye with her on that score. Yet she insists on the Anglo-Japanese Alliance remaining in some form acceptable to her and to America. How is that to be? What has happened since peace was declared? Australia and New Zealand were loudest in the protest against the return of the South Sea Islands to the Germans. New Zealand soldiers had taken Samoa; the Australian navy—what there was of it—had cleared the neighboring seas of German raiders. But though they asked that Germany be deprived of the possessions, and though the leaders thundered for a New Zealand mandate over Samoa and an Australian mandate over New Guinea, the people realized that they did not particularly care for the burden of looking after these lands. Mr. Hughes of Australia urged annexation. The people as a whole preferred that Great Britain should annex them and guarantee the dominions against possible dangers from enemy control. They felt they could not stand the cost of governing them. They were even not averse to their being turned over to America. They have come to realize that they were much better off before the war, when they merely contributed their small quota to the support of the navy; now Great Britain has intimated that she can no longer maintain that navy without their full share in its costs. Besides, the mandate over the islands is not going to be simple. 3 Before giving consideration to the developments which not even the Australasians had anticipated, let us look upon the gains they have made. They have acquired some new possessions which make of them an empire within the empire, as it were. The islands of the south Pacific are to be ruled as though they were an integral part of New Zealand and Australia, yet they have their own facets just as the Dominions had their own problems within the empire. They afford them certain commercial advantages: copra and cocoa from Samoa, phosphate from Nauru, which alone has an estimated deposit amounting to forty-two million tons. Nauru is of utmost importance to them because they are extensive agricultural countries. It has been agreed that Great Britain take 42%, Australia 42%, and New Zealand 16% of the export. The South Seas as a whole supply 14.7% of the world's copra supply, and this may yet be greatly increased. But this is nothing compared with the advantages they afford as ports of call. Further, if the plan of linking the islands together by wireless is effected, they will become an outer frontier for the Antipodes of inestimable value. There is even a faint suggestion of binding them together into one separate governmental entity,—a buffer state, as it were, between the big powers in the Pacific. But what are these few assets compared with the greatly extended line of defense now left to the Dominion to keep up? What is that to the great problem of how to develop the native races? Australia is interested in developing Queensland, a tropical region, not the distant island beyond. The question of labor is bad enough for themselves, without having added regions to worry about. Throughout the Pacific the problem of where to secure man-power is pressing. Hawaii cries for labor; Samoa is in a similar state; Fiji is troubled with the indentured Indians now there. Go where one will, the islands would yield readily enough if cheap labor were available. But Australia and New Zealand are not willing to exploit these islands at the expense of cheap Asiatic labor which evolves into a racial problem as soon as its returns become adequate. As for the mandates both labor and capital in the South Seas are not keen about these war orphans. A further problem is, what will happen when the policy applied to island possessions conflicts with the course permitted by the law of the mandate? What is worse yet, the mandate over the South Seas has brought Japan closer by hundreds of miles to both New Zealand and Australia, and has thrown open the question of admission of Asiatic people to these islands. The Australasians feel that they are obliged to protect not only themselves from Asiatic competition, but the native races as well. If they are to carry out the provisions of the mandate to rule the islands for the good of the natives, they feel that they cannot introduce Asiatic labor, which undermines the natives economically and morally every time it is attempted. These are some of the problems Australasia inherited from the Peace Conference. How have they affected the relations of New Zealand and the Commonwealth of Australia with Great Britain? They have put a new strain upon the empire as such; they have put an added strain upon the relations between Japan and Great Britain; they have driven a wedge into the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. Further, the whole question of mandates as it pertains to the Pacific has completely opened new sores. The island of Yap, which has been in the press so much of late, is an example. A blow at so vital a factor in world relations as cables would be like a blow on the medulla oblongata. Yet under that new and misleading term, "mandate," Yap became Japanese, and the near future is not likely to know just what was done when Germany's colonies were apportioned under its ruling. Yet what is fair for Great Britain and the Dominions should be fair for Japan, and if mandate means possession for one it ought to mean it for the other. But where do we come in and where the peace of the Pacific? Already, as stated elsewhere, Japan has had in mind the fortification of the Marshall Islands. She is proceeding to fortify the Bonin Islands and the Pescadores. She is, according to a very recent rumor,—and rumors are really the only things one can secure in such matters,—establishing an airship station on the southeast coast of Formosa,—not on the west, which would shorten her distance to China, but on the east, cutting down mileage to the Philippines. And we? Well, we know what we are about, too. Hence, the sooner such matters as mandates are defined, the better for the world. 4 How would these things work out with the new British arrangement as to the control of the Dominions? We have seen that behind the whole struggle for the development of an Australian navy was the desire for greater independence. As long as the war lasted, no troublesome topics were broached. Now that the war is over, one may expect the feathers to begin to fly. The Dominions are not stifling their desire for greater and greater freedom. They were involved in a colossal war without ever having been consulted. They feel that now they have earned their right to express judgment on international affairs. They realize that nothing could be done effectively if Downing Street were hampered by several wills at work at the same time. Yet it is obvious that the people of the Dominions are concerned first with their own affairs, as nations, and are devoted to Britain only in a secondary manner. They are now conscious of their power, and are determined to wield it. They have made and are doing everything to continue to make friends on their own, by whom they mean to stand through thick and thin. At the Peace Conference they were not inferior to any of the deliberators, and signed the Peace Treaty as virtual members of the League of Nations. "But," asks the Wellington "Evening Post," "are the Dominions ever to cast an international vote against the Mother Country on a question relating, say, to the future of the Pacific regarding which their interests and wishes might rather harmonize with those of the United States?" Mr. Massey, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, on the other hand, held "that the Dominions had signed the Treaty not as independent nations in the ordinary sense, but as nations within the Empire or partners in the Empire." But to show how complicated the whole position was, a Mr. W. Downie Stewart, M.P., pointed out that When New Zealand signed the Peace Treaty ... she took upon herself the status of a power involving herself in all the rights and obligations of one of the signatories.... That means that she may have created for herself a new status altogether in the world of foreign affairs, and instead of being an act to bring together more closely the component parts of the Empire, it may be that it was the first and most serious step toward obtaining our independence and treating ourselves as a sovereign power. And in connection with Samoa he says the time may come when, having been recognized as an independent power, they will be told "we look to you in future, whenever a question of internal affairs arises, to act as an independent power, making peace or war on your own initiative." Prime Minister Hughes, of Australia, however, has been steering a middle course. He points to the dangers lying ahead, and to the absolute necessity of keeping close to Britain. He urges that the alliance with Japan be renewed, but in such a way as to leave no danger of losing America's friendship. But he shows that the spirit of independence is still uppermost in Australia. Declaring that "The June Conference has not been called to even consider Constitutional changes," he adds: "It it is painfully evident from articles which have appeared in the press and in magazines ... that to a certain type of mind, the Constitution of the British Empire is far from what it should be." But though Hughes is to-day the leader of Australia, it is not because he has the country back of him. It is rather because there is unfortunately no better man on hand. He has never cared much for consistency, and even in the matter of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance there is a suggestion of yielding that makes one feel uncertain. He has declared that at the present conference the question of a reorganization of the Government so as to give the Dominions a direct share in the control of imperial affairs is not even being thought of, but it is evident in his speech that that question is going to be delayed only because more pressing matters, such as the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and Imperial Naval Defense, must be dealt with first. In other words, as spokesman he realizes that "little" Australia, with its five million people and its vast continent has asked too much of its parent to be allowed to stand alone. So he is pouring oil on the troubled waters by trying to devise an Anglo-Japanese Treaty "in such form, modified, if that should be deemed proper, as will be acceptable to Britain, to America, to Japan, and to ourselves." But there is a third consideration in this whole question, and that is Japan. What is Japan going to say about it all? For some time Japanese have been rather cool in their enthusiasm over the alliance, because it seems to them to have outlived its usefulness and because Article 4 absolves Great Britain from assisting Japan in the event of war with America. The "Osaka Asahi," one of the most influential of Japanese journals, has boldly advocated its abrogation. The reason for both British and Japanese indifference is obvious. Russia and Germany are out of the way. British mercantile interests are not at all satisfied with Japanese methods in China. The alliance has been disregarded twice,—when the Sino-Japanese Military Agreement was signed, and when the Twenty-one Demands were made. Furthermore, the alliance never protected Japanese interests when they came in conflict with the interests of the colonies, nor has it prevented British interests from suffering in the Far East. As a protective alliance it has little more to do except to guarantee Great Britain against Japan and Japan against Great Britain. China is extremely antagonistic, because she deems herself to be the worst sufferer. She is the main point under consideration, yet she has not been consulted. Hence she has done everything in her power to arouse public opinion against its renewal. Nevertheless, Japan has been concerned enough for the renewal of the alliance to make a departure from her age-long attitude toward the imperial family that is extremely interesting if not illuminating. The recent visit to England of Prince Hirohito, heir to the throne, while meant to widen his grasp of world affairs, was certainly intended also to arouse public feeling there in favor of Japan and the alliance. This was the first time that any Japanese prince of the blood had left Japan. He hobnobbed with the common people, a thing unheard of in Japan. But if he succeeded in winning popular approval for the alliance, it was doubtless worth while from the Japanese point of view. Otherwise the risk would not have been justified, for such visits are not without their dangers. It is interesting to recall that when Nicholas, Czarevitch of Russia, made a tour of the world upon the completion of the Siberian Railway, in 1891, he passed through Japan. An attack upon his person by a Japanese policeman nearly brought down the wrath of the czar upon Japan, and there was much explanation. While Japan was anxious to have the alliance renewed, she argued that England was more in need of it than she. America, she said, had somewhat eclipsed England. Japanese feel that England must now lean on Japan as never before. They felt this when the alliance was formed. Count Hayashi, in his "Secret Memoirs," quotes a statement attributed to Marquis Ito, as follows: It is difficult to understand why England has broken her record in foreign politics and has decided to enter into an alliance with us; the mere fact that England has adopted this attitude shows that she is in dire need, and she therefore wants to use us in order to make us bear some of her burdens. Ito was then playing Russia against England. To-day England is being played against America, and the colonies are eager to utilize the feelings of Japan and America for a greater Pacific fleet and for their own augmented freedom within the empire. There is much talk of a secret agreement existing between Japan and Great Britain. Even if there were, Great Britain would be able to live up to it, in the event of war between Japan and America, only at the risk of losing her colonies. However, that need not be taken as a serious check, for though Great Britain wants her colonies, she does not want them enough to forego all other considerations. On the other hand, a good deal of the pro-American feeling in the colonies cannot be accepted too easily, for, as we have seen, when America remained neutral they forgot blood relationship in their criticism. To-day there are interpretations of the alliance which would put Great Britain in exactly the same position toward her younger "daughters" for which Australasia condemned America in 1914-17. But both the psychological and material elements in the situation point to an absolutely united front in Australasia for America in event of all the talk about war with Japan coming to a head. That is best illustrated by a statement in the "Japan Chronicle." The editor says: "As we have repeatedly pointed out, it is unthinkable that Britain should join Japan in actual warfare with America. No Ministry in England which deliberately adopted such a policy would live for a single day." And the colonies, from Canada to Australia, will echo that sentiment, as they did boldly at the Conference. But it seems that with so much of the world vitally interested in maintaining peace in the Pacific there should be no difficulty at all in so doing. The colonies are sincere in their desire for amity with America; nor is it merely a matter of common language. No one who has taken the trouble to inquire into Far Eastern affairs finds the handicap of language even the remotest cause of misunderstanding. Actions speak louder than words, and none but the ignorant can now misread what is going on in Asia. Let but those actions coincide with the promises made, with the spirit of the alliance and with the constant expression of amity and good-will, and we shall see the mist of war in the Pacific clear as before the glories of the morning sun. There seems, therefore, no justification for the renewal of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. It is to all intents and purposes virtually dead. Alliances on the whole have proved themselves treacherous safeguards. Is there not something which can be substituted for them? Cannot coÖperation among nations replace intriguing misalliances, with their vicious secret diplomacy? One way has been launched, and in the succeeding chapter its character will be analyzed.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE CONSORTIUM FOR FINANCING CHINA 1 If all goes well, the open shop in international finance is a thing of the past; at least so far as China goes. On May 11, 1920, exactly eighteen months after the signing of the armistice, Japan formally declared her willingness to enter the new consortium for lending money to China, and on October 15, following, representatives of the British, French, Japanese, and American banking-groups met in New York and there signed the provisions by which they are for the next five years going to finance China under what is known as the Consortium Agreement. For a full year after the signing of the armistice, Great Britain, France, and America had been ready to act in consort in the matter of future loans to China, but Japan insisted on excluding from the terms of the agreement international activity in Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia. These two provinces have virtually become Japanese territory. Into these she has extended her railroads or added to those built by Russia, and over these she watched as a hen over ducklings. And because she strenuously sought to manoeuver the Allies into admitting her prior rights to these regions, the consummation of the Consortium Agreement was delayed and delayed. Japan finally yielded, at the same time claiming that the powers conceded her special interests; while they, through their chief representative, Mr. Thomas W. Lamont, claimed that Japan waived these interests. We shall presently see what happened, but in the meantime it is obvious that both yielded and both won out,—and that no nation is to-day sufficiently powerful and self-contained to be able to stand apart from the rest of the world. The closed shop in international finance has been ushered in, and the union of world bankers is now known as the Consortium. In a chapter it is hardly possible to make more than a hasty survey of so intricate a stretch of history. China before the war with Japan was free from debt, but in order to meet the indemnity demanded by Japan she was compelled to raise money abroad. The scramble among the foreign powers to advance this money gave China certain advantages. Her own capitalists had money enough to pay off this indemnity immediately, but they did not trust their government and hoarded their funds. They knew that with the Oriental system of "squeeze" only a fraction of it would succeed in freeing their country. Another factor conspired to introduce alien domination over China,—her lack of railroads and modern industries. She had wealth, man-power, everything that an isolated nation could possibly desire, but she was no longer an isolated nation, and she had nothing that an active nation among nations needed for its very existence. Instantly, along with the loans, came concessions for railroad-building, and the development of China began. So deeply was China getting embroiled in alien machinations that five years later, seeing that the young emperor himself, Huang-Hsu, was head-over-heels in love with Western ways, the reactionaries precipitated the Boxer Uprising in 1900. This only resulted in another overwhelming indemnity, which China has not yet succeeded in paying off. Consequently, more loans had to be made, and more urgent still became the necessity for means of transportation and for the modernization of industry. The Russo-Japanese War, which ordinarily might have meant a modicum of relief to China, only succeeded in entrenching her enemy much more securely at her very door, and another period of alien scrambling over Chinese loans set in. CoÖperation among various groups of foreign bankers regardless of nationality was not unknown, for absolute competition would most likely have been fatal. But thoroughly thought-out getting together was, in view of the existing jealousy among nations, inconceivable. Still, to such a pass had this suicidal competition come that by 1909 a consortium was proposed which aimed to include Russia, Japan, Germany, France, England, and America. It began to work, but Secretary of State Knox made a proposal for the neutralization and internationalization of the Manchurian railway system which met with a cold no from Japan. Shortly afterward Japan made an agreement with Russia which completely frustrated Knox's proposals, and the thing virtually fell through. In 1913, President Wilson took the matter in hand. He refused to become a party to a scheme which, in his estimation, instead of working for the rehabilitation of China and the Open Door bound her helplessly. And ever since China has been getting "the crumby side" of every deal. For the plan as it then existed had no provisions against the pernicious practice of marrying China to one power after another with concessions, without giving any guaranty of the preservation of her dower rights,—freedom in her industrial and political affairs. Russia then was Japan's "natural" enemy. Russia was threatening the "very existence" of Japan. Yet when Knox's proposal came up, Japan was ready to unite with Russia in order to keep the others out of Manchuria. She had to use that argument to save her face. Bear this in mind, for we shall presently see that a second time Japan used this argument in order to keep the consummation of the consortium in abeyance. It was more than a plea for special interests because of propinquity; it was a plea that the peace and safety of the empire demanded it. Propinquity! The pin in that word has pricked nearly every one who has shown any interest in China, no matter where. Japan used propinquity as a justification of her annexation of Korea, breaking her word to that kingdom in so doing. Yet Japan contends that she never has broken her word. Japan is a nation true to her word, but, like many another nation, is loose in her wording. She has guaranteed the Open Door in Manchuria and Mongolia,—and Korea. In Korea the door is shut, and Japan has made entrance to the other spheres of little advantage. Ill-content with penetration of these regions, she has, by means of her railroads there, sought to divert the course of Chinese trade from Shanghai through Manchuria and Korea and Japan. In this there is nothing intrinsically wrong. But she goes farther and tries to exclude consortium activity in other fields in these two provinces. But that these are not the only slices of China she is after,—that they are, in fact, only stepping-stones for the final domination of the great republic,—is attested to by certain well-known facts in Far Eastern affairs. Japan and her friends assert she never has broken her word; her enemies declare she is sinister and not to be trusted. Neither statement is correct. Her methods may sometimes be sinister, but no one who follows events in the Far East is unaware of them, and Japan has taken no pains to conceal them. Actions speak louder than words. But has Japan actually never broken her word? We have already referred to Korea, whose independence Japan has guaranteed by published treaty. During the war Japan carried out the requirements of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, but Article V reads: The High Contracting Parties agree that neither of them will, without consulting the other, enter into separate arrangements with another Power to the prejudice of the objects described in the Preamble of this Agreement.
Notwithstanding this clear stipulation, Japan immediately after capturing Kiao-chau from Germany, without consulting Great Britain as herein provided, issued the Twenty-one Demands on China. Of these Group V alone would have made a vassal state of China had she accepted them. Knowledge of these were kept from Britain completely, but when they finally leaked out, Japan vociferously denied them. Downing Street was not pleased, but there was much to be done in Europe just then. In 1918, Japan a second time made an arrangement with China without consulting her ally, Great Britain. This time it was the Sino-Japanese Military Agreement. At the moment Russia withdrew from the war and released the German prisoners, and that was the excuse for imposing combined military action under Japanese officers. As though this were not enough, when the success of Germany on the western front was at its height, Count Terauchi, Prime Minister and arch-plotter in China, came out with a statement published by Mr. Gregory Mason of the "Outlook" to the effect that it was not unlikely that some understanding, if not alliance, might be effected between Japan, Russia and Germany. And the rumors of such an understanding having been actually arrived at, have since been shown to have had just foundation. Furthermore, since 1917, according to "Millard's Review" for April, 1920, Japan has lent China about 281,543,762 yen or thereabouts, privately, for political and industrial purposes, for reorganization, railway construction, munitions, canal improvements, flood relief, wireless, forestry, war participation, and other undertakings. These things must be recalled in considering the new consortium, as they show what led up to its final consummation. These actions of Japan indicate encroachment upon China to the extent of virtually closing the Open Door. In this regard, the alliance has had a dual effect: while it makes possible for Japan to go as far as Britain would dare go, and even farther, on the other hand it tends to keep Japan in check. Hence, the state of mind of the Japanese on the subject of the treaty has been contradictory. They have regarded its renewal and its abrogation with about equal anxiety. From a moral point of view, they dare not stand alone in the world, being the only great autocracy remaining. Conscious of their power and twitching under the restraint which the alliance imposes, yet needing its support, they are trying to make it appear that Great Britain needs it fully as much. As far as Great Britain goes, the alliance was formed chiefly to guarantee the interests of the empire, but also the Open Door and China's integrity. That is, that Japanese Yen and British Sovereigns should have full freedom to go to China to earn a living. Let us see what the various treaties and understandings purport to accomplish. The Anglo-Japanese Alliance assures "The preservation of the common interests of all Powers in China by insuring the independence and integrity of the Chinese Empire and the principle of equal opportunities for the commerce and industry of all nations in China." The Root-Takahira Understanding declares: "The Policy of both Governments [Japanese and American], uninfluenced by any aggressive tendencies, is directed to the maintenance of the existing status quo in the region above mentioned and to the defense of the principle of equal opportunity for commerce and industry in China." In other words, without an alliance, America has secured from Japan an understanding guaranteeing the integrity of China and the Open Door for her pet, the Dollar. Hence, except for the fact that it made no promises to the effect, "My Ally, right or wrong, but still my ally," this agreement says that the American Dollar has as much right to earn a living in China as the Yen has. But in the meantime the Yen has been having it all his own way, for the Sovereign and the Franc and the Dollar were very busy doing things in Europe. And in good Oriental fashion the Yen has been breeding, and breeding rapidly. He was going to China, as we have seen, by the million and keeping China's interests and integrity, which all had guaranteed, in a very feverish state, notwithstanding alliances and agreements born and in embryo. This, at bottom, is what the whole Far Eastern problem is,—all of the governments seeking opportunities in China and mutually binding and barring one another from aggression and concessions. They have all guaranteed China's "integrity," but none, except America, has actually lived up to the agreement, and China's integrity is rapidly ceasing to be an integer. Now, if that were all there was to it, debate would be childish, but integers, like the atom, are not easily divided without creating something new. The atom becomes an electron; and the integer, when a nation, becomes a source of international conflict. Hence, it is of the utmost importance that China remain an integer. The Anglo-Japanese Alliance has failed to maintain China's integrity. The Root-Takahira Agreement seemed to cover the ground well enough, but that it was not sufficient is proved by the later necessity on the part of Mr. Lansing to supplement it by his so-called "understanding" with Viscount Ishii. However, that the Ishii-Lansing Agreement is loose and inadequate was obvious on the face of it and it was shown to be absurd when the Consortium Agreement was being negotiated. It seems that Secretary-of-State Lansing, realizing that his "agreement" with Ishii was being translated into a Monroe Doctrine of Asia, as it was never intended to be, fostered the new Consortium Agreement in order to throw a ring round the Ishii-Lansing Agreement and define its limitations. With the very first approach the promoters of the consortium made to Japan, Japan, as we have seen, began eliminating from its scope everything that propinquity permitted, threatening not only the consortium but the various previous agreements. I state these facts not to condemn Japan, but to delve into the psychology of the powers who, at the Peace Conference at Versailles, came to the conclusion that the only solution for the situation in the Far East was a coÖperative scheme. They must be borne in mind in order to understand why Japan withheld from concurring, and finally yielded. 2 America was viewing all this with no little apprehension. Matters in the Far East were extremely precarious at the time she entered the war. It was in order to reassure Japan and merely as a restatement of issues that the Ishii-Lansing Agreement was made. Japan's propinquity was recognized. But it was also recognized that the Open Door was being walled up. Hence, the American Government, which had withdrawn from the Sextuple Consortium, suggested that a new consortium agreement be made in which the four leading powers take equal part. These powers had been drawn closer together during the war, and that concord was to be taken advantage of before it had a chance to dissipate. At the time that I wrote the article on "Lending Money to China" for the "World's Work," August, 1920, the whole consortium scheme was shrouded in mystery. Since then the correspondence that took place between the powers has in part been published. The way it developed is worthy of being outlined. The American bankers had been asked by the Government to enter the proposed consortium. They were not over-enthusiastic about it, for at the time they felt they had enough demand at home and in Europe for such funds as they could command. They realized that at that time (July, 1918) they would be expected to carry, with Japan, both England and France, but they agreed that "such carrying should not diminish the vitality of the membership in the four-Power group." But they did stipulate that "One of the conditions of membership in such a four-Power group should be that there should be a relinquishment by the members of the group either to China or to the group of any options to make loans which they now hold, and all loans to China by any of them should be considered as a four-Power group business." Lansing replied to the bankers, accepting their stipulations, obviously his main intention in working for the consortium being, as I have said, to encircle the problem with a view to defining its limitations so as to make it impossible for Japan to interpret his agreement with Ishii too broadly. These communications were transmitted to the British Foreign Office, prompting a reply from Mr. Balfour on August 14, 1918, wherein he inquired whether it was the intention of the American Government to enter the $100,000,000 loan to China for currency reform which was then under consideration and toward which Japan had already made two separate advancements; and whether it was the intention of the United States to confine activities to administrative loans or to include industrial and railway enterprises as well. Lord Reading made inquiry of the State Department and determined that both types of loans had been considered. It is obvious from these communications that both Japan and Great Britain wished to retain their special interests in regard to the existing railway and industrial loans, and balked at their being pooled with those of the consortium. But England was ready enough from the beginning to forego these. The United States held "that industrial as well as administrative loans should be included in the new arrangement, for the reason that, in practice, the line of demarcation between those various classes of loans often is not easy to draw." Everything went along smoothly until Japan was consulted, and then it was found that while she was willing enough to enter into a consortium for the whole of China, she was emphatically unwilling to have Manchuria and Mongolia included. From the very beginning, the American, British, and French banking-groups and governments most decidedly refused to accede to Japan's demands in this matter, declaring that such a rendering would simply open up the sores of spheres-of-interests and concession-hunting, and completely nullify the purposes and intentions of the consortium. The Japanese argument is amusing. When Japan first encroached upon Manchuria and Mongolia, it was because of danger to her safety from Czarist Russia. Now she was face to face with Bolshevist Russia, and she trembled for her safety in these terms: Furthermore, the recent development of the Russian situation, exercising as it does an unwholesome influence upon the Far East, is a matter of grave concern to Japan; in fact, the conditions in Siberia, which have been developing with such alarming precipitancy of late, are by no means far from giving rise to a most serious situation, which may at any time take a turn threatening the safety of Japan and the peace of the Far East, and ultimately place the entire Eastern Asia at the mercy of the dangerous activities of extremist forces. Having regard to these signals of the imminent character of the situation, the Japanese Government all the more keenly feel the need of adopting measures calculated to avert any such danger in the interest of the Far East as well as of Japan. Now, South Manchuria and Mongolia are the gate by which this direful influence may effect its penetration into Japan and the Far East to the instant menace of their security. The Japanese Government are convinced that, having regard to the vital interests which Japan, as distinct from the other Powers, has in the regions of South Manchuria and Mongolia, the British Government will appreciate the circumstances which compelled the Japanese Government to make a special and legitimate reservation indispensable to the existence of the state and its people.... The utter fallacy of this is obvious. The consortium was not a miracle-worker. Its efforts would necessarily extend over a series of years; its principals were as opposed to Bolshevism as Japan was. But there was Japan,—bureaucratic, imperialistic Japan,—shedding tears over the prospect of what might happen to her people from Bolshevism if the consortium were permitted to take a share in the development of Manchuria and Mongolia,—to which she has no right other than that of her might. No pressure such as could be said to be in the nature of an ultimatum to join the consortium was exerted, of course, but it was obvious that unless Japan withdrew her objections the consortium would not materialize. Japan made an effort to get the other powers to make some written statement or accept her formula securing to her these special rights; but the others were adamant. Japan specified just what she feared,—the construction of other railroads. The United States replied: The American Government cannot but acknowledge, however, its grave disappointment that the formula proffered by the Japanese Government is in terms so exceedingly ambiguous and in character so irrevocable that it might be held to indicate a continued desire on the part of the Japanese Government to exclude the American, British, and French banking groups from participation in the development, for the benefit of China, of important parts of that republic, a construction which could not be reconciled with the principle of the independence and territorial integrity of China. It is interesting to note that in all these communications, the Japanese Government is constantly referring to its own special interests and dangers, whereas the others repeat and repeat their concern for the integrity of China. It may be, after all, that the Japanese Government is the more honest, though America's stand is unchallengeable. I have dwelt sufficiently, I believe, with the emanations from behind departmental doors. The human elements are much more interesting. Suffice it to say that Japan held out for a long, long time, and things seemed hopeless. At last, after an understanding with all those concerned outside Japan, Mr. Thomas W. Lamont went to the Far East as spokesman for the other powers, to carry on negotiations with Japan. Unfortunately—whether by design or not I have no way of telling—an American business mission also went to Japan at that time, upon the invitation of Baron Shibusawa, popularly known as the "Schwab of Japan." Everybody got these two parties mixed, but I have since been very earnestly assured that Mr. Frank A. Vanderlip, who headed the business mission, had nothing whatever to do with Mr. Lamont's mission. Be that as it may, it was certain even from the twin-reports that while the business mission was being lavishly entertained, Mr. Lamont was seeing all that he wanted to see, and saying all that he wanted to say. The mission was discussing with Junnosuke Inouye, Governor of the Bank of Japan, and Baron Shibusawa, and others such questions as Japanese immigration, the Shantung situation, the invasion of Siberia, and the submarine cables. All that the world at large got as to the decisions arrived at was the fact that views were exchanged in a friendly manner, and some delightfully amusing articles from the pen of Julian Street who was the scribe of the occasion. In the meantime, Lamont, who seems to be a man for whom a dinner has little attraction, left the impression on the Japanese Government that Japan and Japan alone would lose by holding back. When he left Japan, to go to China, the Japanese Government was still determined on securing from the powers exemption for Manchuria and Mongolia. But a series of subsequent events helped Japan to make up her mind. First and foremost among these was the financial slump in Japan, which was seriously embarrassing. This was followed by financial stringency in Manchuria and the eagerness of the directors of the South Manchurian Railway,—who are at present involved in a far-reaching scandal for a loan which could not be floated in Japan and which was sought in America. Third, as either cause or effect, was the situation in China. China, on account of Japan's courtship of the Peking militarists and the rape of Shantung, had instituted a boycott of Japanese goods the bitterness and force of which Japan had learned to respect. These circumstances alone might have been enough to drive a nation to desperation; but a sensitive nation like Japan would suffer these things a thousand times over in silence. One thing Japan cannot stand, and that is the distrust of the world. And the Lamont party found from the moment it left Nagasaki for China until the moment it set foot again in Shimonoseki on its return that there was not a white man nor a yellow man who had a good word to say for Japan. Japan was an isolated country socially,—isolated a thousand times more definitely than she is geographically. And the good sense of the Japanese has brought them to a realization that that does not pay. Japan wants the good-will of the world, and she wants it sorely. When Mr. Lamont arrived in China he did not find the same atmosphere he had found in Japan. The fact that he had been in Japan first added to the suspicions of the Chinese. They had many things to ponder over and be suspicious about. China remembered the processes of westernization which she had had to answer with the Boxer Uprising in 1900. But China has never forgotten the return of the Boxer indemnity by the United States. In Peking some students threatened to stone the hotel at which Mr. Lamont stopped. A few came as special representatives of the student body, according to one report, and quizzed Mr. Lamont for two hours. They left apparently satisfied. Their strong plea was that no loans be made to the Government until peace between North and South was established. The press of China and the people of China were divided. Some of the Japanese, who owned papers in China, sought to alienate the sympathy of the Chinese for America; some tried other tactics. The Chinese militarists in Peking who had tasted of the flesh-pots of Nippon were not over-anxious to put themselves on a diet. Chinese patriots saw in the new consortium a rope of a different fiber. The consortium party found itself double-crossed by obvious agencies. In a measure this was justified all the way round, for the undertaking was shrouded in secrecy on many points which could not but discredit it in the eyes of many. Perhaps this was unavoidable, but it was none the less natural that China should be wary. In her own sort of way, China was taking inventory. The last loan of $125,000,000 only arrived in China as $104,851,840 after deductions for underwriting had been paid. And before the sum can be paid off, it will have cost China $235,768,105 by way of interest and commissions. And China knows that only a small part of this tremendous sum had gone into actual constructive work. Yet China needs assistance. Railroads are the world's salvation and China's crying need. But for lack of railroads, China would to-day be the most powerful nation on earth, financially and politically. And the fact that her railroads are short while those of other countries are long makes of her a prey to those tentacles of trade against which she is helpless. China has to-day only about 6,500 miles of railroad: she needs 100,000. She who built the rambling wall has still only foot-paths. She needs 100,000 miles of highway. Her canals, which a thousand years ago kept the country open to trade and partially free from famine, have fallen into disrepair. She needs telegraphs, telephones, wireless. If only the money she borrowed went into such enterprises China would repay the world a thousandfold. It was therefore natural that China should be suspicious, and likewise natural that she should be willing to be convinced. What young China wanted most was definite and outspoken assurance that her integrity as a nation would not be jeopardized. The leading Chinese newspapers expressed their gratitude at repeated, assurances of due respect being given to Chinese public opinion and promises to refrain from interfering in her internal affairs. But others, like the China "Times," said: The British plan to control our railroads jointly, and the American plan is to monopolize our industries jointly, while the Japanese plan to monopolize all our railroads, mines, forestry, and industries. Any one of these plans will put our destiny in their hands. It also declared: "Although it has been reported that Japan will make certain compromises, it is hard to say to what extent these will go." To this Mr. Lamont said: "It now remains for the Japanese Government formally to confirm this desire [of the bankers to join]. If they fail to do so and if Japan remains outside the consortium, I should think that Japan might prove to be the chief loser." He next made it clear to China that she would first have to establish peace if she is to be helped. Aside from the reorganization of the currency, the consortium is going to see to it that a sufficiently safe audit system is established, so that it will be sure that all loan expenditures go as far as they should into the properties themselves. Further, the Chinese Government, in order to save some cash, refused to pay on certain bearer bonds which had come back rather curiously. These were formerly German property bonds on the Hukuan Railway loan which Germany had evidently sold off before the war. They had now come back by way of England and America. The Chinese Government wanted proof of transference on bearer bonds. Mr. Lamont pointed out to them that this action would totally discredit them and that the ability to secure further investments would be very slim unless these were redeemed. Mr. Lamont then returned to Japan. Then it became known that the Japanese Government had finally given its consent. In Japan, opinion ranged from imperialistic chauvinism to liberal recognition of the consortium as a way out of the mess. On May 11 things came to a head. Mr. Lamont stated on his return to America that: The fact that Japan has come into the Consortium for China without reservations should be made clear. The agreement that the Japanese banking group with the approval of its government, signed at Tokio, leaves nothing to be desired on this point; but in Japan, while there was perfect readiness by all authorities to announce that an understanding had been reached, there seems to be some reluctance to make public any statement that the Japanese Government had withdrawn its reservations as to Manchuria and Mongolia. It is only fair, therefore, that every member of the American banking group and American investors generally should clearly understand the facts. Still Viscount Uchida, the Foreign Minister, insisted: While other powers can afford to regard the new Consortium solely as a business matter Japan is otherwise situated, since her vital national interests, such as national defense and economic existence, are apt to be involved in enterprises near her border. When the three other governments expressly declared to Japan that they not only did not contemplate acts inimical to her vital interests but were ready to give assurance sufficiently safeguarding them, the Japanese Government decided to confirm the Paris agreement. What Japan expected the powers to say other than just that is a matter for diplomats to play with. To the common person this statement is absolutely meaningless. It is a generalization which leaves the door open for Japan to object to loans for any work which she feels will jeopardize her national life or vitally affect her "sovereignty." Any railroad scheme which might become a competitor by diverting freight from Manchurian lines owned by Japan would be a menace to Japan's sovereignty. For instance, it seems understood that among these vital interests are certain loans to Chinese capitalists and corporations. And doubtless Japan would right now much rather have the millions which she has sunk in China in her own hands. But if these loans are recognized, what guarantee is there that even under the nose of the consortium further "loans" will not be made? Is it likely that Japan will relinquish her hold on the South Manchurian Railroad, which in her opinion is of strategic importance? If the consortium is to have no say in such vested interests, obtained before its conclusion, how is it going to secure itself against these very interests being used as a means of breaking up the unity of the cooperative enterprises? How is so sweeping a clause going to be kept within bonds? If Japan is left in full control of the Manchurian railways, if the consortium has not really dissolved the Sino-Japanese Military Agreement, if Japan is to control the German-built railways in Shantung, how is the consortium going to better things in the Far East? There is altogether too much silence on many points in the consortium project for the world to have any real assurance. Secret diplomacy having been discredited, it seems that bankers have themselves broken into diplomacy. Of course, individuals have a perfect right in this modern world to discuss whatever matters they like,—and governments, too, for that matter,—but it should seem that the people as a whole whose money, whose happiness, and whose lives are involved have a right to know to the last detail what has been traded off in the making of the consortium. China evidently was placated by Lamont with full explanations of what the consortium intended. In brief it was this: The agreement calls for the pooling of all such interests of the several powers in China as had not been already developed separately, in a "full and free partnership." In this way it is hoped that future spheres of influence will be eliminated, jealousies between the powers be done away with, and Chinese grafters be prevented from pitting one power against the other for their own selfish ends. Chinese complain that now they will not be able to secure loans on a competitive basis and that therefore they are being more surely strangled. That is partially true. But it is also true that corrupt Chinese officials have been keeping China and the world in turmoil for their own greedy ends. Both of these things must be stopped if peace is to obtain in the Pacific. The guarantees given to China were to the effect that in no circumstances would the consortium undertake such private enterprises as banking, manufacturing, or commerce, but would devote itself entirely to the construction of railroads, the laying of highways, and the reorganization of China's currency. The consortium was to make loans to the central or provincial government only, but as a condition of their advancement, peace between the North and South was urged. The consortium was not to interfere in the domestic affairs of China. Loans were to be made only with the approval of the governments behind the bankers. Nor, of course, can you compel any one to borrow money from you, wherein China has the whip hand. Herein lies a very important possibility. China has plenty of money. Its bankers hoard enough to clean up the country's debts in no time. But they cannot trust their governmental officials; they never have trusted them. But just lately these bankers have been awakening to the wisdom of foreign financial methods, and are adopting them. This may be the first good result of the consortium. On the other hand, should the terms of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance displease China, she may refuse to recognize the consortium. What then? China has set out to strangle the alliance, which was formed without consulting her. But we speculated enough in the last chapter to show that should the consortium really work, the Anglo-Japanese Alliance would cease to have any functional value. But there are dangers in the consortium,—and even in the coÖperative development of China. If Japan joins whole-heartedly in the consortium, she may be the greatest gainer. For here are all the powers mutually developing China, laying railways, and opening up the resources of the country. Who, more than Japan, is going to tap China's unlimited raw supplies,—the coal in Shansi, for instance, which is enough to supply the world's needs for a thousand years? And should Japan in the end still seek the hegemony of the East, she could utilize these railroads and resources for her own aggrandizement. Who could stop her? Have not the separate governments given Japan their assurance that she "need have no reason to apprehend that the consortium would direct any activities affecting the security of the economic life and national defense of Japan?" There is, it is said, only little left to be told, but that little may be more than enough. But if China is really helped to strength and independence, then the greatest menace that has ever faced mankind will have been averted, and China, a country with the oldest culture in the world, will have been won back to civilization. Not in emasculated alliances but in a healthy cooperation will the peace of the Pacific be preserved. And the consortium, as things are in the world, is the first example of international good sense known to modern history. Now, the Consortium Agreement is not an idealistic scheme. The powers recognize that the future peace of the world depends on how they manage their affairs in China. If the consortium throws all secrecy to the winds and comes out openly and at all times for the principles on which it was formed and for which the several governments have guaranteed their protection to these banking-groups, what use is there going to be for the alliance? Perhaps, to paraphrase President Wilson's statement when he went across the Atlantic with his challenge for the freedom of the seas, Great Britain and Japan may now have to say to the world: "Gentlemen, the joke's on us. Why, if the consortium works in China there is going to be no need of an alliance!"
CHAPTER XXIV
UNCHARTED SEAS We have taken a long journey together. The main routes along the Pacific which are the highways of our past and future intercourse have been inspected. But the great Pacific basin is not yet everywhere safe for navigation. There is, I understand, a scientific expedition now at work thoroughly charting every inch of that wonderful watery waste. There is, I know, a scientific body under the directorship of Professor Gregory of Yale for the thorough research of ethnological materials among the races of the Pacific. But aside from the efforts of individuals, politically and socially and hygienically, there is nothing going on to bind the peoples together. I had nearly forgotten that a year ago we did send out a political expedition to the Far East, a Congressional expedition which spent four days in Japan and, I daresay, a week in China. Otherwise, we are still at the mercy of individual scribes, who, like myself, have their own points of view, their own motives, and their own reactions. For years I have read religiously every interview reported in the press, with spokesmen for one country or the other on the Pacific. The mass of clippings I have accumulated I have time and again sifted carefully for some word or sign that might indicate the real problem. But I have failed to find any. I cannot lay the responsibility on the press. It rests with the individuals who have been asked to give their opinions. But as far as substance goes, they may all best be illustrated by a sentence from the speech of Viscount Uchida, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, delivered before the Imperial Diet. I have the speech as it came to me from the East and West News Bureau. The sentence I have selected, for the translation of which the Viscount is of course not responsible, is this: "It is true that this friendly relationship is not without an occasional mingling of incidents; that is almost inevitable in any international relations." All speeches such as these are remarkably free from definition. Speech after speech is reported, all plead for understanding, but in none of these is any basis for understanding given. Sentiment will not dissolve international suspicion. Right here I should like to make it clear that Japan is not the only nation that is being maligned, as some would have us believe. Exclusion is practised not against Japan alone, though in other cases it is practised in a different manner. The Honolulu Chamber of Commerce excludes white men from entering its sacred sanctums nearly as much. Unless you are approved by the chamber, you will find it very difficult to take up a profession. As I look back over my years of wandering in the farthermost reaches of the Pacific I recall incident after incident that is indicative of what is toward. Wherever competition is rife, the competitors lay themselves out to be courteous and friendly, but in the long runs that dissect the waters of that ocean, so secure have many of the steamship companies felt that decency has frequently been forgotten. The carelessness of the rights of the unhappy voyager who merely pays for a privilege on the Union Steamship Company is not conducive to international good feeling. The lack of common courtesy on the part of many of the employees of this company is proverbial even among the Britons in Australasia. Peoples in the goings and comings gain their impressions of countries very often from such samples as are forced upon their attention en route. And over the bars in the distant lands compatriots give vent to recriminations of the compatriots of other nations in a manner not flattering to either. One of the most unfortunate features of the whole problem of the Pacific is that only too often the men who are accountable for the most serious sources of dislike are men who at home would be kept in check by a healthy fear of social ostracism. But once a white man enters trade in an Oriental port as a clerk or salesman, he seems to consider it his bounden duty as a representative of his country to run down the natives as viciously as he dare. I have seen white men who at home would hold their tongues lest they offend some decent woman's ears with their vile language assume an air of superiority toward the men amongst whom they are living that is certainly not conducive to international amity. I have heard them express a longing for a chance some day to come back and "lick" these natives that, considering the human sufferings involved, is at the very depths of unrighteousness. Nor is this feeling directed against Orientals only. I have heard serious statements from Americans against the British that are not only unjustifiable but astounding. And the British themselves maintain a lordly superiority to all others. The boast that "the sun never sets on English soil" is illustrative of a certain provincialism among Britons that is not healthful from an international outlook. Britons generally take such routes hither and thither as leave them always within the British Empire, and the result is a dull point of view with regard to foreign lands. To be regarded as a foreigner is a source of great irritation to a Briton; he cannot stand this "slur" when passing through America. Even within the British dominions themselves there are childish prides that make understanding impossible,—the New Zealander being against the Australian and both against everybody else. These antagonisms more than all else are at the bottom of the confusion obtaining to-day in the Pacific. Their utter folly and futility are simply suicidal. Were it not better that we study carefully the social and political ideals of every race on the Pacific and see in what manner such changes may be effected as will preclude conflict? Is not America's preËminence in the Pacific to-day due to her return of the Boxer indemnity, to her attempt at winning the sympathy of the Filipino, to her friendship for China? Cannot the sympathy and the emulation of races supplant their enmity and jealousy? In the manner in which the various peoples of the Pacific turn to their problems lies permanent peace. There is already a considerable veering round of national conceptions toward the recognition of our common welfare being dependent on mutual development, as in the case of the consortium. One gets tired of the perennial expressions of felicitation of the "leaders" of states, of the sentimental balderdash which emanates from international "functions" of the world's "best" people, who don one another's garments and pledge one another eternal affection, of those who assure us that the fact that one nation has placed with "us" an order for the latest type of electrically driven super-dreadnaught indicates the love and fellowship obtaining between us. Only four years ago, Viscount Bryce admitted that "Most of us, however, know so little about the island groups of the Pacific, except from missionary narratives and from romances, like those of Robert Louis Stevenson, that the recent action of the white peoples in the islands is practically a new subject, and one which well deserves to be dealt with." And despite all those speeches, despite all the international societies—that exist, it seems, only to entertain celebrities, not to uncover misunderstandings that they may truly be corrected—real irritation comes from the average man's notions, and to him should attention be directed. Those vast spaces to which Viscount Bryce referred, once regarded with such awe, are now criss-crossed with a veritable network of steamers. They have made short shrift of the distances between the East and the West. We may invite one another across for week-ends, but not necessarily for life, and the impressions each brings away with him will go toward making up the sum total of what is going to be the thought of the Pacific. Are we to navalize the Pacific or to civilize it? Are we to convert every projecting rock into a menace, or are we to be honest navigators exposing every treacherous island for the safety of all races? Are we to scramble for interests in the Pacific, or are we to help races there to rise to strength and independence, so that each will be a healthy buffer against aggression? The "Valor of Ignorance" is not to be met with the blindness of force. I sought to obtain a bit of information once from a dispenser of "understanding" located in New York, but he tried to lead me off the scent. It was not, he feared, to his country's credit that such and such facts be known. He was very sensitive, and gave me no assistance. This covering up of our weaknesses before the eyes of our neighbors is certain to lead to disaster. This putting our best foot forward, only to have the other ready for a nasty kick, is not going to bring about amity. If there is an ideal worthy of emulation in any race in the Pacific, we ought to know and honor it. If there is a sore which needs scientific political treatment, let us attend to it. Our problems are well defined, if we will but look for them; our obligations are clear, if we will but undertake them courageously. We are not going to solve our problems as we did with the coming of Japan into the range of the world,—by adulation. To-day we are suffering from the effects of having made the Japanese feel that they are perfect and to be adored. The problem is one of unadulterated education, of education in the simple arts of self-support among the primitive people, and self-government among the more advanced. But if our efforts are to be fruitful we must avoid abstract education which leads to hair-splitting. It is to be education in the fundamentals,—education in the use of hands and brain for self-support and mutual happiness founded on justice. It is to be education of ourselves as well as of those we wish to elevate. But the problem is even deeper than that. Merely elevating other races will not preclude conflict. Germany was well educated and on a level with, if not in many ways superior to the nations roundabout her. Her very development created friction. And the talk of Japan as a menace is largely due to the fact that Japan has grown out of the lowly state in which her exclusionists had placed her for two hundred and fifty years. As yet China is no "menace," for China has still her teeming hordes who curtail one another's usefulness. Nor, as I have said in the chapter on Australasia, will the problem of our relationship with the people of the Pacific be solved by the effort of labor to keep up its own high standards by the exclusion of those of lower standard. Nor will the problem be solved by our assuming more and more protectorates over simple nations unused to the tricks of diplomacy. Our problem will be solved only by working assiduously for international coÖperation. Our problem will clear away when all nations establish departments open to civil-service appointments of people who will enter the field of education and uplift work without other compensation possible than that of an honest salary. There should be a Department of Education for the Pacific in which the people of the United States do out of their own funds what we did in China out of the moneys paid in the Boxer indemnity. This department would study the races of the Pacific with a view to finding what are the special requirements of each particular people and how they can be supplied. There should be a Bureau of Social Hygiene and Sanitary Engineering recruited from the American student body with luring pay, drawing thousands of young physicians and engineers out into the various Pacific islands to study the questions of the eradication of disease and the care of body and mind. There should be a Bureau of Civics and International Law carrying to the peoples of the Pacific whose simplicity lays them open to the chicanery of political parasites the simple truths of human relationships as we understand them. So the entire fabric of civilization might be spread over the waters of the Pacific. But to guard against the possibility of some sword piercing it and rending it must come the voice of civilization calling shame upon the present practices of any nation now operating in the Pacific in other than pacific ways. All this must be done not by America alone, but by all the people now in a position to coÖperate. Just as Japan codified her laws and changed them in conformity with those of the West, so as to regain full rights over foreigners in her own territory, so must all the nations reorganize their laws in conformity with the best interests of all. There must be judges in all lands who know the laws of other lands as well as their own and an attempt be made to bring them all in greater conformity to a universal standard of justice, of right and wrong. There must be educators set to work studying the educational systems of nations on the Pacific so as to bring the methods more and more in line with one another. There must be departments of health advising one another how so to remedy conditions as to eliminate the danger of spread of plague. It is not enough that we have an excellent department of health vigilant in the exclusion of plague; our department of health should co-operate with that of Japan and of Australasia, and of every island in the Pacific. In other words, we must realize that the problems of every group anywhere in the world affect for good or ill our own welfare. Our problem in the Pacific is therefore ten times more complicated than that which faced the powers in Morocco, Africa and Persia. While the diversity of nations was great in Europe, in the Pacific it is greater. But while the relationship in the Balkans was in some cases close, not only in sheer propinquity, but in development, in the Pacific not only is the blood running in the veins of the races in many cases extremely alien, one to the other, but the distances separating them in space and in development make coÖperation and getting together difficult. This makes it easier for selfish nations to place themselves as wedges between them. The scramble after mandates in the Pacific indicates the recognition of their importance. But in inverse ratio,—in so far as the races of the Pacific have none of the irritating intimacy which obtained in Europe, the problem is clearer. The repetition of the intrigues which Germany, through her daughter on the Russian throne, could carry out, is here impossible. Only once in my knowledge has royal intermarriage been attempted and it proved a failure. The Japanese changed their law against the marriage of their royalty with royalty of another race in favor of Korea—and to forestall a Japanese-Korean union we are told, the Ex-Emperor of Korea committed suicide. Insurrection followed. The marriage has since taken place, but Korea is no longer an independent empire. The more pronounced differences of race should perhaps be recognized, but recognized with sympathy. Each race then presents its own problems. But over all must come recognition of the commonalty of man. This does not mean international fawning and flattering of one another. Racial equality must be admitted, but not as Japan sponsored it,—with the existence of her own castes and classes, and the oppression of Korea,—but in full recognition of the latent possibilities in all peoples. Japan regards herself as infinitely superior to all mankind. So do we. But that must be replaced by realization of the historical worthiness of Orientals as well as Caucasians. We have in the Pacific, as has been seen, a great number of races in varying degrees of development. Most of them know little of one another and hate one another less. They have never been close enough for serious conflict, and they need never be. We can instil into them through educational channels a regard for one another which all the love-potions in the world could not pour into the races of Europe, inured to war and slaughter and religious bigotry. There is still one great obstacle in the way of a peaceful solution of the problems of the Pacific, an obstacle that can be overcome only by a rapid evolution or revolution. Even as the forces for the greater liberation of the people are at work in China, now bound no more by her own swaddling-clothes of imperialism, so must they be encouraged in Japan, whose bureaucracy is to-day entangling not only her own liberal elements, but a greater number of nations in the Pacific. Jingoists speak of the yellow peril as though it were a single thing, elemental and simply conquerable. But it is not very different from the peril of imperialism everywhere. In the working out of the problems of the Pacific, Japan is the farthest from our ken. Our relations with Australia and New Zealand and with Canada—apart from Great Britain—are already more or less intimate. Just as Japan is beginning to realize that she must make China her friend, so must we four Western nations on the Pacific realize the fullness of the possibilities in coÖperation. There should be an exchange of opinion, a greater supply of news from one to the other,—news of personal, educational and geographical value, in the nature of local news. With these four countries as a nucleus and the same thing going on between China and Japan, the problem of the East understanding the West will be simplified. But we must show that we appreciate the fine points in the Oriental civilizations, while the Orient will have to remove from its conscience the hatred of the foreigner. The millennium? Not in the least. Just the beginning of our groping toward human commonalty.
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