VII
WHAT IS JAPAN?
Washington, Nov. 15.
Of all the national delegations assembled here in Washington, the most acutely scrutinized, the most discussed and probably the least understood is the Japanese. The limelight gravitates toward it, moved, one feels, not so much by an extreme respect as by an inordinate curiosity.
Of only one other people—I write as a spectator from overseas—does one feel the same sense of the possibility of dramatically unexpected things, and that is the Americans. The Japanese, we feel, we have not found out, and the Americans, we feel, have not found out themselves. Already the Americans have sprung one great surprise upon the conference. Britain, France, Italy and the other powers in attendance are comparatively calculable—so far as their representation goes. But Japan is different; it is not built upon the same lines, it follows different laws.
I went on Sunday night to the press reception at the Japanese headquarters. The Ambassador is a buoyant man of the world, speaking excellent English and thoroughly acclimatized to an American press gathering. But many of the Japanese faces about him set my imagination busy, putting them back into the voluminous robes and the sashes holding the double swords with which I had first met them long ago in Japanese prints, and which would have become them so much better.
Admiral Kato spoke in Japanese and Prince Tokugawa in English; they welcomed the Hughes proposals with warm generalities and hopes for peace—as we all hope for peace—with insufficient particulars. I got no conversation with any Japanese; they were not talking to us; they did not want to talk; it was a reception of hearty politeness and no exchanges. I found myself falling back upon an earlier impression.
Some weeks ago I had a very illuminating talk in my garden at home with two Japanese visitors, Mr. Mashiko and Mr. Negushi, who had come to discuss various educational ideas with me. And they told me things that seem to me to be fundamentally important in this question. “We build up our children,” said Mr. Mushiko, “upon a diametrically different plan from yours. We turn them the other way round. Obedience and devotion are our leading thoughts. All our sentiment, all our stories and poetry, the traditions of centuries, teach loyalty, blind, unquestioning loyalty, of wife to husband, of man to his lord, of every one to the monarch.
“The loyalty is religious. So far as political and social questions go, it is fundamental. But your training cultivates independence, free thought, the unsparing criticism of superiors, institutions, relationships. Perhaps it is better in the end and more invigorating; but it seems to us wild and dangerous. * * * We begin to have a sort of public opinion, but it is still diffident and timid.”
An American and an Englishman, he said, cared for his country because he believed it belonged to him. A Japanese cared for his country because he believed he belonged to it. One could not pass from one habit of mind to the other, he thought, without grave risks and dangers. It is easier to destroy obedience than to create responsibility.
I was reminded of that conversation the other day by a remark made by a fellow journalist on the train to Washington: