DOES HATE INCREASE EFFICIENCY OF ARMIES?
Southern Newspaper Takes Issue With an English Naval Critic Who Avers That It Does.
E. T. Jane, the English naval critic, says the reason the Japanese defeated the Russians was that the Japanese hated the Russians and longed to kill them, whereas the Russian soldiers felt no consuming hatred against their ant-like enemies. The Columbia (South Carolina) State takes issue with the theory, as follows:
Mr. Jane is wrong, both as to his facts and as to his theory. First as to his facts:
The Japanese did not hate the Russians. They fought with tremendous fury at times, but it was a calculated fury, never a whirlwind of blind passion. Never for a single moment in the long struggle did they show such fury as to lose sight of the essential principle of modern warfare, complete self-protection. Nor did they show any passion on the field of battle, such as slaughtering wounded men, or mutilating the dead; yet the Russians were guilty of both atrocities.
When Russian prisoners were taken to Japan they were treated with so much consideration and kindness that they were happier than they had been within their own lines in Manchuria. Witness, again, the magnanimous and truly magnificent treatment accorded Stoessel and his garrison and Rojestvensky and his captured officers and men.
The Bravest Are the Tenderest.
Not from the beginning to the close of the war did the Japanese exhibit any hatred of the Russians. They fought like knights, like bushi—
The knightliest of the knightly race,
That since the days of old,