* * *
How strongly she has been able to develop them in one direction, the present war with Russia bears startling witness. But it is certainly to the long discipline of the past that she owes the moral strength behind this unexpected display of aggressive power. No superficial observation could discern the silent energies masked by the resignation of the people to change,—the unconscious heroism informing this mass of forty million souls, the compressed force ready to expand at Imperial bidding either for construction or destruction. From the leaders of a nation with such a military and political history, one might expect the manifestation of all those abilities of supreme importance in diplomacy and war. But such capacities could prove of little worth were it not for the character of the masses,—the quality of the material that moves to command with the power of winds and tides. The veritable strength of Japan still lies in the moral nature of her common people,—her farmers and fishers, artizans and labourers,—the patient quiet folk one sees toiling in the rice-fields, or occupied with the humblest of crafts and callings in city by-ways. All the unconscious heroism of the race is in these, and all its splendid courage,—a [463] courage that does not mean indifference to life, but the desire to sacrifice life at the bidding of the Imperial Master who raises the rank of the dead. From the thousands of young men now being summoned to the war, one hears no expression of hope to return to their homes with glory;—the common wish uttered is only to win remembrance at the Shokonsha—that "Spirit-Invoking Temple," where the souls of all who die for Emperor and fatherland are believed to gather. At no time was the ancient faith stronger than in this hour of struggle; and Russian power will have very much more to fear from that faith than from repeating rifles or Whitehead torpedoes.* Shinto, as a religion of patriotism, is a force that should suffice, if permitted fair-play, to affect not only the destinies of the whole Far East, but the future of civilization. No more irrational assertion was ever made about the Japanese than the statement of their indifference to religion. Religion is still, as it has [464] ever been, the very life of the people,—the motive and the directing power of their every action: a religion of doing and suffering, a religion without cant and hypocrisy. And the qualities especially developed by it are just those qualities which have startled Russia, and may yet cause her many a painful surprise. She has discovered alarming force where she imagined childish weakness; she has encountered heroism where she expected to find timidity and helplessness.**
[*The following reply, made by Admiral Togo Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese fleet, to an Imperial message of commendation received after the second attempt to block the entrance to Port Arthur, is characteristically Shinto:—
"The warm message which Your imperial Majesty condescended to grant us with regard to the second attempt to seal Port Arthur, has not only overwhelmed us with gratitude, but may also influence the patriotic manes of the departed heroes to hover long over the battle-field and give unseen protection to the Imperial forces."… [Translated in the JAPAN TIMES of March 31st, 1904.]
—Such thoughts and hopes about the brave dead might have been uttered by a Greek warrior before the battle of Salamis. The faith and courage which helped the Greeks to repel the Persian invasion were of precisely the same quality as that religious heroism which now helps the Japanese to challenge the power of Russia.]
[**The case of the Japanese officers and men on the transport Kinshu Maru, sank by the Russian warships on the 26th of last April, should have given the enemy matter for reflection. Although allowed an hour's time for consideration, the soldiers refused to surrender, and opened fire with their rifles on the battleships. Then, before the Kinshu Maru was blown in two by a torpedo, a number of the Japanese officers and men performed harakiri…. This strong display of the fierce old feudal spirit suggests how dearly a Russian success would be bought.]
* * *
For countless reasons this terrible war (of which no man can yet see the end) is unspeakably to be regretted; and of these reasons not the least are industrial. War must temporarily check all tendencies towards the development of that healthy individualism without which no modern nation can become prosperous and wealthy. Enterprise is numbed, markets paralyzed, manufactures stopped. Yet, in the extraordinary case of this extraordinary people, it is possible that the social effects of the contest will prove to some degree beneficial. Prior to hostilities, there had been a visible tendency to [465] the premature dissolution of institutions founded upon centuries of experience,—a serious likelihood of moral disintegration. That great changes must hereafter be made,—that the future well-being of the country requires them,—would seem to admit of no argument. But it is necessary that such changes be effected by degrees,—not with such inopportune haste as to imperil the moral constitution of the nation. A war for independence,—a war that obliges the race to stake its all upon the issue,—must bring about a tightening of the old social bonds, a strong quickening of the ancient sentiments of loyalty and duty, a reinforcement of conservatism. This will signify retrogression in some directions; but it will also mean invigoration in others. Before the Russian menace, the Soul of Yamato revives again. Out of the contest Japan will come, if successful, morally stronger than before; and a new sense of self-confidence, a new spirit of independence, might then reveal itself in the national attitude toward foreign policy and foreign pressure.
—There would be, of course, the danger of overconfidence. A people able to defeat Russian power on land and sea might be tempted to believe themselves equally able to cope with foreign capital upon their own territory; and every means would certainly be tried of persuading or bullying the government [466] into some fatal compromise on the question of the right of foreigners to hold land. Efforts in this direction have been carried on persistently and systematically for years; and these efforts seem to have received some support from a class of Japanese politicians, apparently incapable of understanding what enormous tyranny a single privileged syndicate of foreign capital would be capable of exercising in such a country. It appears to me that any person comprehending, even in the vaguest way, the nature of money-power and the average conditions of life throughout Japan, must recognize the certainty that foreign capital, with right of land-tenure, would find means to control legislation, to control government, and to bring about a state of affairs that would result in the practical domination of the empire by alien interests. I cannot resist the conviction that when Japan yields to foreign industry the right to purchase land, she is lost beyond hope. The self-confidence that might tempt to such yielding, in view of immediate advantages, would be fatal. Japan has incomparably more to fear from English or American capital than from Russian battleships and bayonets. Behind her military capacity is the disciplined experience of a thousand years; behind her industrial and commercial power, the experience of half-a-century. But she has been fully warned; and if she chooses hereafter to invite her own ruin, it will not have [467] been for lack of counsel,—since she had the wisest man in the world to advise her.* [*Herbert Spencer.]
To the reader of these pages, at least, the strength and the weakness of the new social organization—its great capacities for offensive or defensive action in military directions, and its comparative feebleness in other directions—should now be evident. All things considered, the marvel is that Japan should have been so well able to hold her own; and it was assuredly no common wisdom that guided her first unsteady efforts in new and perilous ways. Certainly her power to accomplish what she has accomplished was derived from her old religious and social training: she was able to keep strong because, under the new forms of rule and the new conditions of social activity, she could still maintain a great deal of the ancient discipline. But even thus it was only by the firmest and shrewdest policy that she could avert disaster,—could prevent the disruption of her whole social structure under the weight of alien pressure. It was imperative that vast changes should be made, but equally imperative that they should not be of a character to endanger the foundations; and it was above all things necessary, while preparing for immediate necessities, to provide against future perils. Never before, perhaps, in the history of human civilization, did any rulers find themselves [468] obliged to cope with problems so tremendous, so complicated, and so inexorable. And of these problems the most inexorable remains to be solved. It is furnished by the fact that although all the successes of Japan have been so far due to unselfish collective action, sustained by the old Shinto ideals of duty and obedience, her industrial future must depend upon egoistic individual action of a totally opposite kind! * * *