Page:The Independent (January 13, 1909, Page 95) The Japan of 1909 by J. H. de Forest.jpg

deavored, thru patient diplomacy, to secure China's co-operation as promised by treaty, to China's amazement Japan quietly cut off farther negotiations by nofifying Peking that the reconstruction of the road would be begun at once "without waiting for the co-operation of China."

This one act did more to arouse China from her attitude of "obstruction and procrastination" than anything since the Boxer movement. Undoubtedly the Chinese are a great and gifted people, but they have absolutely, on may say, no idea of the right way of carrying on international relations; nor does she want to learn. She is badly behind in the fulfilment of her treaty obligations with the nations, and Japan's action in this railroad affair is a sort of public warning that the policy of obstruction is unfitted to the international life of the twentieth century.

I have no doubt but the Japan consulted her ally and some other Powers before giving this ultimatum to China. and that Japan had ample approval of her act. Right here is one great difference between these two Eastern nations. Japan has from the first studied most carefully every phase of international law, and so she virtually never makes a mistake, whether it be in sinking an enemy's ships before any declaration of war, or in the practical treatment of that delicate problem of extraterritoriality. But China from the first has spurned international law, and consequently is always in hot water in her treaty relations It would meana new China if Peking would employ and be guided by an able international lawyer, as Japan always has done even to this day. It would save her endless humiliation and millions of money. and would with her a respect and confidence worthy of the great historic nation she is.

As to internal affeirs, Japan has had one of those generous crops of rice, 275,000,000 bushls. that make the farmers feel poor. This magnificent harvest is worth about $300,000,000, but the price having fallen nearly one-quarter, producers get a poor reward for their toil, and so business is generally dull.

This year is, we must confess, exceptionally unfortunate in the exposure of corruption in high places. The most astonishing discoveries were in connection with Nippon Suger Refining Company, a $6,000,000 trust, whose 50 yen stock was quoted at 80 yen, and whose dividends were 15 per cent., went to the bad, and dragged down in the mudsome twenty members of the Diet who have been condemned to fines and terms of imprisonment. It was a bad shock to the moral and financial world of Japan. This was folled by the exposure of rottenness in the Marine Products Company, whose president, a Lieutenant-General, has just been deprived of all titles and decorations, and condemned to seven years of imprisonment.

It is a strange coindence that this same year should bring to light similar scandal in the United States over same stuff, sugar. It brings a bitter sense of shame to this Bushido land to have the world know that among her statesmen and soldiers are men of such pitiable moral weakness, men who have fallen from the lofty ideals of the Samurai. There is a similar feeling of shame in Christian America that among our princely merchants there are some who carry out gigantic swindles, and in our municipal governments there is so much of abominable graft.

But in one respect Japan's feeling of shame produces a peculiar public sentiment as to the duty of the defaulters. They should commit suicide! The old Bushido sentiment is yet strong, and the story of the two presidents vividly illustrates it. The Suger Trust president was a fine spaciemen of a gifted and upright Japanese, who from inexperience with the financial world fell into unexpected disgrace. Baron Shibusawa had urged him to take the presidency of the company, and then when he committed suicide the Baron is said to have openly called him a fool, which blunt expression brought down on him a torrent of abuse. The papers then took up the question, one for. one against, suicide, but the Baron, so far as I know, was the only prominent man outspoken against suicide.

The accused soldier, however, being a Bushido-ite, was naturally expected to follow the code and do away with himself. Indeed, a member of the papers