With this belief firmly rooted in the minds of the great majority of the people, it is no wonder that all those who have not the good fortune to be born Japanese appear to them not only as foreigners, but as Gentiles. The statesmen of New Japan are profuse in their assurances that it is the desire of their people to form a unit, on terms of equality, in the great family of nations.
This assurance is echoed by many Japanese writers; it is in accordance with the spirit of the tolerant, all-embracing, gentle Buddhist faith, brimming over with sympathy for all living creatures; it is also in agreement with the calm, placid tenets of the Chinese philosophy that, with Buddhism, has to such a great extent moulded the thought of Japan. Yet those statesmen and writers know full well that in this respect neither Buddhism, nor Chinese philosophy, nor the cosmopolitan spirit of the middle period of the nineteenth century, nor the brotherhood of man inculcated by true Christianity, has succeeded, to any appreciable degree, in causing the Japanese to look upon foreigners as brothers, or even on the same plane with their own heaven-descended race.
LADY AT HER TOILET: BY A JAPANESE ARTIST
The reckless bravery of the Japanese, their contempt for death, are closely related to the slight value they set upon human life and to the national delight in tales of bloodshed. Co-existent with the mildness of their manners and the placid tenor of their domestic life, there is found, deep in Japanese hearts, a wild delight in carnage, the legacy, naturally most cherished amongst those of the warrior class, of centuries of internecine warfare. The sword, “the living soul of the Samurai,” is still held in reverence as the instrument not only of national defence against the foreign foe, but of vengeance and of the chastisement of one looked upon by the wielder of the weapon as an enemy to the State. Hence the indulgence with which political assassination is still regarded by the masses in Japan. As the brutal instincts, inherited from primeval ancestors, often become manifest in an English-speaking crowd watching a football match or a boxing contest, so, in Japan, the old savagery reveals itself, time and again, at fencing bouts, the excited cries of the combatants recalling the bad, wild days of yore.
JAPANESE ON A PILGRIMAGE
This fierce spirit seems incompatible with the noble generosity towards prisoners of war, and the tender care of the enemy’s wounded and sick, that redounded to the glory of the Japanese in both their great struggles in our time, the wars against China and against Russia. It is difficult to believe that savagery can survive in the breasts of people capable of organising such an admirable institution as the Red Cross Society of Japan, whose noble work, in war and peace, is one of the chief glories of New Japan; but it must be remembered that the young Great Power still feels itself to be undergoing probation under the eyes of an observant and critical world. The natural instinct of the Japanese warrior would lead him utterly to destroy the foe who dared to oppose his Emperor’s will, and it requires the application of the most severe discipline to make him understand that on his exercise of humane forbearance to the vanquished depends, to a great extent, his nation’s good repute among the Powers.
This desire to stand well in the opinion of foreign nations has been so thoroughly inculcated in the people of New Japan that every individual brought into contact with foreigners beyond the boundaries of his native land feels that the honour of Japan is dependent on his behaviour, even in minute particulars. Hence the high reputation for excellent conduct enjoyed by Japanese students and others residing, or travelling, abroad.
