The Old World and Its Ways

The Anglo-Japanese alliance is everywhere defended as a guarantee of peace. I met yesterday a Japanese of some local prominence who has issued a plea for universal peace. He proposes the establishment of an international peace society and in earnest language sets forth the horrors of war and the material, as well as the moral, arguments in favor of peace.

Upon no element of Japanese society has the rising sun of a higher civilization shed its rays more benignantly than upon woman. The position of the mother was an honored one when she became the head of the family, but while the children cared for both parents with a generous filial devotion, the wife and daughter were under the almost absolute power of the husband and father. Marriages were arranged by the parents and the young people were allowed to see each other after the match was agreed upon. Theoretically, each had a right to protest if dissatisfied, but practically the girl's protest amounted to nothing.

The wife was not only the servant of the husband, but might also be the servant of the mother-in-law – the mother-in-law joke being here on the daughter-in-law instead of the son-in-law. The fact that the husband was permitted to keep as many concubines as he desired still further lowered the status of woman. The daughters were often sold into prostitution to relieve the indebtedness of the father, and while this custom is on the decline, there are still thousands of Japanese girls whose virtue is made a matter of merchandise in accordance with this ancient custom. There is recorded among the decisions of Ooka, sometimes called the Japanese Solomon, who lived three centuries ago, a case in which the release of a young woman from a house of ill-fame was the central feature. The report of the judge's decree shows a discriminating mind as well as devotion to justice. Incidentally, the record reveals the fact that there were Shylocks in those days who loaned on short time at high rates and exacted the pound of flesh. In this case, the usurer compelled the sale of the daughter in extinguishment of a debt of fifteen yen, which by rapidly accumulating interest, had reached the, to them, enormous sum of thirty-five yen (or $17.50). The righteous judge confiscated the house of the extortioner and with the proceeds redeemed the woman. By the aid of the missionaries, under the leadership of Rev. Murphy, of Nagoya, legislation has been secured making it unlawful for a girl to be retained in one of these houses against her will, and many have already been rescued. As the taking of a concubine is a matter of record it is possible for the newspapers to acquaint themselves with the domestic relations of prominent men, and some of the papers have assisted in creating a public opinion against concubines. This custom is certain to give way before the advance of western ideas.

One of the foremost leaders in the elevation of woman was Yukichi Fukuzawa, one of the greatest, as well as one of the most influential, of the men who have appeared in Japan. He was a journalist, an educator, an orator and a philosopher. He refused to accept any titles or decorations and was called "The Great Commoner." He founded a college, the Keio-Gijuku, to which many of the public men trace their ideals and their interest in national and social problems. He delivered the first public speech made in Japan for, strange as it may seem, the habit of public speaking does not reach farther back than twenty-three years. Until constitutional government was formed there was no place for the forum. Shortly before his death, Mr. Fukuzawa reduced his philosophy to the form of a code of morals which has made a profound impression upon the thought of his country. He presented "independence and self respect," as he defined them, as the "cardinal tenet of personal morals and living." He insisted upon the care of the body, the training of the mind and the cultivation of the moral nature. He was one of the first to raise his voice against hara-kiri and in his code of morals he says: "To complete the natural span of life is to discharge a duty incumbent on man. Therefore, any person who, be the cause what it may or the circumstances what they may, deprives himself by violence of his own life, must be said to be guilty of an act inexcusable and cowardly, as well as mean, and entirely opposed to the principle of independence and self respect."

Concerning woman his code of morals says: "The custom of regarding women as the inferiors of men is a vicious relic of barbarism. Men and women of any enlightened country must treat and love each other on a basis of equality, so that each may develop his or her own independence and self respect."

When this great man died in 1901 his widow was in receipt of letters from many women expressing their appreciation of his labors in behalf of the women of Japan. Some of these are reproduced in a life of Mr. Fukuzawa, recently issued, and show the deep gratitude which the women feel toward him. It is also interesting to know that Mr. Fukuzawa believed in the dignity of labor and taught that each person should be "an independent worker beside being his own breadwinner." While he taught patriotism, he also taught that the people of all nations "are brethren" and that "no discrimination should be made in dealing with them."

The emperor sent him, just before his death, fifty thousand yen as a recognition of his eminent services, but he immediately turned the sum over to the Keio-Gijuku.

The Jiji Shimpo, the newspaper established by Mr. Fukuzawa, is still conducted by one of his sons, with whom we had the pleasure of dining. Another son is an instructor in the Keio-Gijuku.

Newspaper development has kept pace with the development in other directions. Tokyo, the capital, has sixteen daily papers with sufficient circulation to make them known as large papers. Besides these, there are magazines, periodicals and papers published in English. The Kokumin Shimbun is known as the government organ while most of the others are regarded as independent. The Tokyo Times is an excellent paper published in English. There is a weekly publication called the Economist, with a circulation of five thousand, which deals with commercial, financial and economic questions. Yokohama has papers published in both languages and the same is true of the other large seaport towns.

All the cities are supplied with daily papers published in Japanese. At Kagoshima, a city of about fifty thousand, situated at the southern extremity of Kyushu Island, I found a prosperous daily paper called the Kagoshima Shimbun. (Shimbun means daily newspaper.) It has a circulation of nine thousand six hundred, six thousand being in the city.

At Osaka I noticed a building elaborately decorated. In front were large flags on bamboo poles and smaller flags strung on cords, while Japanese lanterns were present in profusion. As none of the buildings around were decorated, I inquired and found that the decorated building was the office of the Osaka Asahi News and that the paper was celebrating the withdrawal of the governmental order which for two weeks had suspended its publication. The issue for that day contained a large sized picture of the Goddess of Liberty. When rioting occurred at Tokyo just after the treaty of peace with Russia, an order was issued authorizing the arbitrary suspension of any newspaper containing utterances deemed incendiary. Under this order the Asahi News received notice to suspend publication until permission was granted to resume. The withdrawal of the notice was duly celebrated and the paper announced that its readers, rather than the paper, had reason to complain of the suspension. This paper has the largest circulation of any in Japan, about two hundred thousand, and the order suspending it has been the subject of much editorial criticism.

Besides the newspapers which are conducted as business propositions, there are papers supported by associations formed for the propagation of various reforms. For instance, a paper called Romaji is published monthly at Tokyo – Japanese words being spelled with Roman letters, in the place of the present Japanese characters. A society was formed some twenty years ago for the purpose of urging this reform and a paper advocating it was published for three years, but finally suspended from lack of support. This fall the Romaji was established and hopes for a better fate. While this reform would be very acceptable to foreigners who are trying to learn the language, the movement does not seem to have gathered much momentum.

In one of the leading papers, the Hocho Shimbun, Mr. Gensai Murai, a novelist of distinction, published a continued story running daily through six years. It is not yet completed, having been suspended during the war. In this story the writer presents a large amount of information on national, political, economic and social questions, at the same time putting in enough fiction to sustain the interest.

Progress along some other lines will be treated under special heads. I find that there is some tendency here to resent the statement that Japan has borrowed largely from other nations. Some native writers insist that New Japan is but the natural development of Old Japan. There is a measure of truth in this, because there is no growth except from a living germ; and yet it can not be denied that Japan has appropriated to her own great advantage many foreign ideas, and it is not to her discredit that she has done so. Both individuals and nations borrow; imitation, not originality, is the rule. It will humble the pride of anyone to attempt to separate that which he has learned from others from that which he can claim as his own by right of discovery.

Steam is the same to-day that it was ages ago, and yet millions watched it escaping from the kettle with no thought of its latent power. One man showed mankind the use to which it could be put and all the rest profited by the idea. Shall we refuse to ride upon the railroad or cross the waters in an ocean greyhound for fear of employing the conception of another? Electricity is not a new agency. The lightnings have illumined the sky from the dawn of creation, and the people saw in them only cause for fear. A few decades ago one man thought out a method by which it could be imprisoned in a wire, and now widely separated lands are united by telegraph lines, while cables traverse the ocean's bed. Shall we refuse to read the news that the current carries or reject a message from home because we must employ an idea which sprang from another's brain? He is stupid who rejects truth, no matter from what source it comes; that nation is blind which does not welcome light from anywhere and everywhere. It is to the glory, not to the shame, of the land of the Rising Sun that her people have been quick to obey the injunction, "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good."

CHAPTER V.

INDUSTRIES, ARTS AND COMMERCE

The basis of Japanese industry is agricultural, although each year shows a decreasing proportion engaged in the tilling of the soil. Rice is the principal product, but owing to the large amount consumed at home it is not the chief export. As this crop needs an abundance of water, the rice fields occupy the low lands and the mountain gorges. Sometimes the narrow valleys that pierce the ranges are so terraced as to look like steps, and at this time of the year when the crop is being harvested, they resemble golden stairs. The men and women work together in the field, and in many places we saw them standing almost knee deep in mud, cutting the grain with old fashioned hand-sickles. The rice is tied in bundles somewhat smaller than our wheat sheaves, and hung over poles or laid along the edge of a terrace to cure. If the threshing is delayed the grain is stacked, not as we stack wheat and oats in the United States, but in little columns with the heads of the sheaves tied to a pole in the center. Sometimes the stacks are built around a living tree. The grain is separated from the straw by means of a long toothed comb, and at this season innumerable groups of persons are busily engaged at this work. The yellow heaps of rice in the hull, looking from a distance like wheat, can be seen from the train and from the country roads. Straw mats are used to keep the grain off the ground and, I may add, the mat is in evidence everywhere in Japan and is used for all sorts of purposes.

The cultivation of the tea plant is an industry of no small magnitude, although not so universal as the cultivation of rice. The tea fields occupy the higher levels and add an interesting variety to the landscapes. At one point on the railroad between Yokohama and Nagoya the hillsides are covered with tea plantations, if such tiny farms can be called plantations. The tea plant is something like our gooseberry and currant bushes in size, but the foliage is much thicker. The leaves vary widely in value, from the cheaper grades, which are exported, to the Uji which costs what is equivalent to five or more dollars per pound.

Some cotton is grown here, but the cotton plant as we saw it is small compared with our plant, and the tillable area is too limited to admit of the growing of cotton on a large scale.

Tobacco is cultivated to some extent, but the sale of manufactured tobacco is a government prerogative.

Raw silk is by far the most valuable export, thirty-five million dollars' worth having been sent abroad last year. Three-fifths of the entire export goes to the United States, the remainder to Europe, with France as the largest European purchaser. As fifteen million dollars' worth of silk fabrics went abroad also, as against five million dollars' worth of tea and four million dollars' worth of rice, it will be seen that the cultivation of the silk worm and the mulberry tree is extensively carried on. The silk worms are kept indoors and the leaves brought in to them. When put outdoors the silk worms are devoured by birds.

Fruits grow here in great variety. We have found everywhere apples of excellent quality, raised in the northern parts of the islands, while the southern islands produce oranges, bananas and pineapples. The apple tree was imported from America about thirty-five years ago; now apples are exported to China and Siberia. The most popular orange is the tangerine, or kid glove orange as it is sometimes called; many of these are exported.

There is a kind of fruit called the ban-tan grown on the island of Kyushu. It looks something like the grape fruit, but grows considerably larger and has a thicker skin; the meat is pink in color, sweeter and less juicy than the grape fruit. Pears grow here; one variety looks like a russet apple in shape and color. Peach trees are sometimes trained as we train grape vines on an arbor, so that the orchard seems to have a flat roof of foliage.

They have here, too, persimmons as large as apples and as solid. We found these on the table in all parts of the island and there are several varieties. The grape is cultivated in Japan, but we did not see grape vines in such profusion as they are seen in southern Europe, along the lakes in western New York or in California. And, in this connection, I may add that wine is not used here to the extent that it is in some other countries, the national drink, sake, being made from fermented rice. Ordinarily this beverage contains from eleven to fourteen per cent of alcohol, but there is a stronger kind called shochu, which contains as much as fifty per cent of alcohol. It is evident, however, that liquor by any other name can be as intoxicating as our whisky, and we found at Tokyo a national temperance society with branches throughout the empire. Mr. Ando, the president of this society, is a Japanese gentleman of great earnestness and intelligence, who was converted to Christianity a few years ago when he was representing his country in Honolulu. While, as I have stated in another article, I have seen no evidences of drunkenness, Mr. Ando informs me that his society has ample work to do. I carry back with me a badge which the society gave me on learning of my total abstinence habits. I have only mentioned the leading products of the field, but I can not leave the cultivators of the soil without a word concerning the gardens. They are so cute, occupying as they do the little nooks and corners that can not be utilized for the large crops. There does not seem to be a square inch of ground wasted. The vegetables are planted in rows which are either straight or curved, never crooked, and we have scarcely seen a weed. Fertilizer is extensively used, being kept in stone or cement vats protected from the weather by a straw colored shed. Near the cities the soil is enriched by the refuse from closets which is collected and carried away during the night. The introduction of sewage systems has been somewhat impeded in some cities by the fact that sewage would be an expense while closets are now a source of profit. It must be confessed, however, that the present system tends to make fresh vegetables unpopular with the tourist.

Most travelers land at Yokohama and depart at Kobe, or land at Kobe and depart at Yokohama, these being the two principal ports. As these are about 300 miles apart, one has a chance to see much of the farming land from the railroad. The side trips from Tokyo to Nikko, from Yokohama to Miyanoshita and from Kyoto to Nara, give additional opportunities for seeing the farmer at work, but the ride from Kobe west to Shimonoseki surpasses any of these in interest and in beauty of scenery. As this route leads along the sea coast as well as through densely populated valleys, there is greater variety. Now one skirts the inland sea, with its numerous islands, its transparent waters, its little harbors and its fleets of fishing boats; now he winds his way along a stream with falls and rapids and spanned by frail foot bridges or by stone wagon bridges. On the one side he sees a bamboo grove and on the other a tiny graveyard or a little hill dedicated to a Shinto shrine – stone steps ascending along a shaded path from the sacred gate, which invariably marks the entrance to holy ground. In passing over this railroad route one gathers a large amount of information concerning the industries of the sea coast, as well as those of the inland, and besides one can visit the Shimonoseki Strait which is of historic interest to Americans. The Sanyo railroad, which connects Kobe and Shimonoseki, is well equipped and well managed and has built an excellent hotel, The Sanyo, at Shimonoseki for the accommodation of its patrons. From this point a steamer runs to Fusan, the nearest Korean port, where direct connection is made for Seoul, the Korean capital. From Moji, just across the strait from Shimonoseki, one can take a train to Nagasaki, the western seaport of Japan. At Shimonoseki one is shown the house in which Marquis Ito and Li Hung Chang drafted the Japanese-Chinese treaty in 1894.

Mining is an industry of considerable importance here. Gold, silver and copper are found in paying quantities. More than six million dollars' worth of copper was exported last year. One of the gold fields on the island of Kyushu, near Kagoshima, gives promise of considerable richness. Coal is found in such abundance that the exports of this commodity have amounted to nearly ten million dollars in a single year. A hard quality of smokeless coal has recently been discovered in western Japan.

The islands also produce a number of varieties of valuable woods. The camphor tree grows to an enormous size, a gigantic statue of the Goddess of Mercy in one of the temples at Kamakura being carved from a single camphor log. The value of the camphor exported from Japan last year exceeded a million and a half dollars. Among the hard woods suitable for carving, cherry seems to be the most popular.

Of all the trees, however, the bamboo is the most useful. Just at this time when the returning soldiers are being welcomed, it is present everywhere in the form of flag poles, and there is nothing that equals it for this purpose; long, slender, light and strong, it is just the thing for flags and banners, and when a little plume of leaves is left at the top, it is still more beautiful. The bamboo is used for water pipes and for fences, for furniture and picture tubes, for dippers, baskets, fishing poles, flower vases, candlesticks, wicker work, etc., etc.

In wood carving the Japanese have long been skilled. Specimens of work done hundreds of years ago and testifying to their taste, no less than to their deftness of hand, may be seen in their ancient palaces and temples.

Stone cutting is also an ancient industry here. There is an abundance of stone and granite, while the lanterns, Korean lions and sacred gates have furnished subjects for many a chisel. Osaka seems to be the center of the stone cutting industry.

The iron industry is represented by an increasing number of establishments. In many instances workmen have been brought from abroad and employed until Japanese artisans were sufficiently trained to take their place. Much of the iron work is still done in little shops and by hand, although machinery is being imported in large quantities.

I visited a tannery at Kagoshima and found that the proprietor had spent seven years in America learning the business, and that on his return he had taught native help each branch of the business. He is now turning out an excellent product.

One of the most promising industries in Japan is cotton spinning. There are a number of factories already in operation and new ones are building. I visited one of the plants of the Osaka Nippon Boseki Kaisha at Osaka. This company has about seventy thousand spindles and the mills employ nothing but native labor. Foreign artisans were used in the beginning, but are no longer needed. A great many women are employed and some children; for the latter a school is maintained for two hours a day in the building. Cotton yarn is now selling for about forty cents a pound and is becoming one of the leading articles of export; China is the largest purchaser. Some idea of the growth of this branch of industry can be gathered from the fact that the exports of cotton yarn amounted to less than four thousand dollars in 1891 and 1892; in 1896 it had grown to over two millions, in 1898 to over ten millions, and during the last two years it has averaged about fifteen millions.

At Osaka I also visited a brush industry and found that from bones, imported from the slaughter houses of America, and from bristles, purchased in Russia and in China, they made tooth, nail and hair brushes for export to both Europe and America. Here, too, they have dispensed with the foreign labor which they employed in the beginning.

Earthenware is manufactured in abundance and of every variety. The exports of porcelain and earthenware reached almost two million dollars last year. In Kyoto we visited a pottery and found two rooms in which the finished product was displayed; the first contained beautiful specimens of Japanese skill, graceful in shape and dainty in decoration; the second was filled with big pieces in loud colors and of inferior workmanship. These last articles, we were informed, were made especially for the American trade.

Some beautiful porcelain work is done in Kyoto, the decoration representing a high degree of artistic skill.

One of the most famous kinds of china produced by Japan is known as Satsuma ware, the glazing of which is of a peculiar tint and has a crackled appearance. The secret of the manufacture of this ware was brought from Korea by the captives taken in war some three hundred years ago, and the industry still flourishes in Japan, although it has perished in Korea. Kagoshima is the center for Satsuma ware, and a colony of Koreans living near there, as well as Japanese manufacturers, produce excellent specimens.

Lacquer work has been done in Japan from time immemorial, samples of which, centuries old, can be seen in temples, palaces and museums. When gold and silver are used in connection with the lacquer the product is often very valuable.

The bronzes produced in the little shops scattered over Japan give play to the artistic taste which one finds here. Osaka and Kyoto are noted for their bronzes. Sometimes various metals are inlaid in the forms of flowers, birds, animals and landscapes, producing a most pleasing effect. Then there are damascene factories and places for embroidery and for pictures made in cut velvet, etc., etc.

No one can pass through Japan without being impressed with the taste, which seems to be national, and with the delicate skill which has been handed down from generation to generation. And nothing, in my judgment, more clearly exhibits this union of taste and skill than the Cloisonne work. Upon a metallic base, as a vase, placque or box, an artist draws a design; this design is then outlined with fine wires of gold and silver, then enamels of various colors are filled in. When the enamels are hardened and the whole polished, the product is a thing of marvelous beauty.