Griffis explains the larger success of the Jesuit missions of the sixteenth century partly by the resemblance between the outer forms of Roman Catholicism and the outer forms of Buddhism. This shrewd judgment has been confirmed by the researches of Ernest Satow (see Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, vol. ii. part 2), who has published facsimiles of some documents proving that the grant to the foreign missionaries by the Lord of Yamaguchi was made that they might "preach the law of Buddha,"—the new religion being at first taken for a higher form of Buddhism. But those who have read the old Jesuit letters from Japan, or even the more familiar compilation of Charlevoix, must recognize that the success of the missions could not be thus entirely explained. It presents us with psychological phenomena of a very remarkable order,—phenomena perhaps never again to be repeated in the history of religion, and analogous to those strange forms of emotionalism classed by Hecker as contagious (see his Epidemics of the Middle Ages). The old Jesuits understood the deeper emotional character of the Japanese infinitely better than any modern missionary society: they studied with marvelous keenness all the springs of the race-life, and knew how to operate them. Where they failed, our modern Evangelical propagandists need not hope to succeed. Still, even in the most flourishing period of the Jesuit missions, only six hundred thousand converts were claimed.
[3] A recent French critic declared that the comparatively small number of public charities and benevolent institutions in Japan proved the race deficient in humanity! Now the truth is that in Old Japan the principle of mutual benevolence rendered such institutions unnecessary. And another truth is that the vast number of such institutions in the West testifies much more strongly to the inhumanity than to the charity of our own civilization.
VII
The idea that Japan would throw open her interior to foreign industrial enterprise, soon after the beginning of Meiji, proved as fallacious as the dream of her sudden conversion to Christianity. The country remained, and still remains, practically closed against foreign settlement. The Government itself had never seemed inclined to pursue a conservative policy, and had made various attempts to bring about such a revision of treaties as would have made Japan a new field for large investments of Western capital Events, however, proved that the national course was not to be controlled by statecraft only, but was to be directed by something much less liable to error,—the Race-Instinct.
The world's greatest philosopher, writing in 1867, uttered this judgment: "Of the way in which disintegrations are liable to be set up in a society that has evolved to the limit of its type, and reached a state of moving equilibrium, a good illustration is furnished by Japan. The finished fabric into which its people had organized themselves maintained an almost constant state so long as it was preserved from fresh external forces. But as soon as it received an impact from European civilization,—partly by armed aggression, partly by commercial impulse, partly by the influence of ideas,—this fabric began to fall to pieces. There is now in progress a political dissolution. Probably a political reorganization will follow; but, be this as it may, the change thus far produced by outer action is a change towards dissolution,—a change from integrated motions to disintegrated motions."[1]
The political reorganization suggested by Mr. Spencer not only followed rapidly, but seemed more than likely to prove all that could be desired, providing the new formative process were not seriously and suddenly interfered with. Whether it would be interfered with by treaty revision, however, appeared a very doubtful question. While some Japanese politicians worked earnestly for the removal of every obstacle to foreign settlement in the interior, others felt that such settlement would mean a fresh introduction into the yet unstable social organism of disturbing elements sure to produce new disintegrations. The argument of the former was that by the advocated revision of existing treaties the revenue of the Empire could be much increased, and that the probable number of foreign settlers would be quite small. But conservative thinkers considered that the real danger of opening the country to foreigners was not the danger of the influx of numbers; and on this point the Race-Instinct agreed with them. It comprehended the peril only in a vague way, but in a way that touched the truth.
One side of that truth ought to be familiar to Americans,—the Occidental side. The Occidental has discovered that, under any conditions of fair play, he cannot compete with the Oriental in the struggle for life: he has fully confessed the fact, both in Australia and in the United States, by the passage of laws to protect himself against Asiatic emigration. For outrages upon Chinese or Japanese immigrants he has nevertheless offered a host of absurd "moral reasons." The only true reason can be formulated in six words: The Oriental can underlive the Occidental. Now in Japan the other face of the question was formulated thus: The Occidental can overlive the Oriental[2] under certain favorable conditions. One condition would be a temperate climate; the other, and the more important, that, in addition to full rights of competition, the Occidental should have power for aggression. Whether he would use such power was not a common-sense question: the real question was, could he use it? And this answered in the affirmative, all discussion as to the nature of his possible future policy of aggrandizement—whether industrial, financial, political, or all three in one—were pure waste of time. It was enough to know that he might eventually find ways and means to master, if not to supplant, the native race; crushing opposition, paralyzing competition by enormous combinations of capital, monopolizing resources, and raising the standard of living above the native capacity. Elsewhere various weaker races had vanished or were vanishing under Anglo-Saxon domination. And in a country so poor as Japan, who could give assurance that the mere admission of foreign capital did not constitute a national danger? Doubtless Japan would never have to fear conquest by any single Western power: she could hold her own, on her own soil, against any one foreign nation. Neither would she have to face the danger of invasion by a combination of military powers: the mutual jealousies of the Occident would render impossible any attack for the mere purpose of territorial acquisition. But she might reasonably fear that, by prematurely opening her interior to foreign settlement, she would condemn herself to the fate of Hawaii,—that her land would pass into alien ownership, that her politics would be regulated by foreign influence, that her independence would become merely nominal, that her ancient empire would eventually become transformed into a sort of cosmopolitan industrial republic.
Such were the ideas fiercely discussed by opposite parties until the eve of the war with China. Meanwhile the Government had been engaged upon difficult negotiations. To open the country in the face of the anti-foreign reaction seemed in the highest degree dangerous; yet to have the treaties revised without opening the country seemed impossible. It was evident that the steady pressure of the Western powers upon Japan was to be maintained unless their hostile combination could be broken either by diplomacy or by force. The new treaty with England, devised by the shrewdness of Aoki, met the dilemma. By this treaty the country is to be opened; but British subjects cannot own land. They can even hold land only on leases terminating, according to Japanese law, ipso facto with the death of the lessor. No coasting-trade is permitted them—not even to some of the old treaty ports; and all other trade is to be heavily taxed. The foreign concessions are to revert to Japan; British settlers pass under Japanese jurisdiction; England, in fact, loses everything, and Japan gains all by this treaty.
The first publication of the articles stupefied the English merchants, who declared themselves betrayed by the mother-country,—legally tied hand and foot and delivered into Oriental bondage. Some declared their resolve to leave the country before the treaty should be put in force. Certainly Japan may congratulate herself upon her diplomacy. The country is, indeed, to be opened; but the conditions have been made such as not only to deter foreign capital seeking investment, but as even to drive existing capital away. Should similar conditions be obtained from other powers, Japan will have much more than regained all that she lost by former treaties contrived to her disadvantage. The Aoki document surely represents the highest possible feat of jiujutsu in diplomacy.