It was only last week at a banquet that Mrs. Wood, wife of the United States Military Attaché at the legation here, was asking Baron Komura, Minister of Foreign Affairs, if it was true that the Japanese government had made an appropriation to buy back the heirlooms which needy Japanese of good family had sold abroad.
“No,” said Komura, “we are too poor. What is gone is gone. It may be that some private parties are buying them up, but not the government. I have heard that even some of the temple relics, their most prized bronzes and lacquers, have gone. The people forsake the old gods, the priest gets poor, the curio man comes with gold and away go the musty monuments of centuries.”
At this moment, with an almost sinister frown the Marquis Ito interrupted. “What’s that?” he called. The conversation was repeated. The inscrutable eyes closed, then he opened them with a squint and said to Mrs. Wood:
“America can have all the relics Japan has—her bronzes, gilts, ivories, lacquers, silks, her temples, everything but the land and the people—for gold. We want American gold.”
“Couldn’t America buy Japan?” asked Mrs. Wood, playfully.
The old man mused a while. Finally he said:
“I have no doubt that America has the enterprise to build a ship large enough to float our island to the Golden Gate and anchor it there, but if you do that I bid America beware that we do not annex her!”