Part 3

“Irresponsible rhetoric,” the reader may think, and indulged in the more freely because the writer chose to employ the English tongue, which is yet unknown to the majority of his countrymen. But these considerations do not apply to the official utterances of an ex-Premier (Count Okuma) and his Minister of Education. The former, who is not chary of autobiography, in a speech which created some sensation confessed that as a young man he had been too dazzled by the splendour of Western civilisation to appreciate the seamy side of material progress, but recent experience of popular movements and public affairs had convinced him that the supreme need of all classes, if their prosperity were to continue, was a return to the higher morality of the past. Mr. Hayashi, who may be thought to have interpreted his duty of directing national education too literally, put the matter in a nutshell. “Let us suppose,” said he to a popular audience, “that Japan in the course of a thousand years or so were to become a republic. If the same Mammon-worship should exist then as exists now, it is certain that the Vanderbilt or Jay Gould of the day would be elected President.” Few nations care to be lectured in this way, even by Ministers of Education. The result was a violent agitation, fomented in the patriotic Press, which demanded the resignation of one who could be so disloyal to his sovereign as to hint at a possible republic ten centuries ahead. The rash moralist found it expedient to resign. Assuming, however, as one is perhaps entitled to assume, that the speaker had chiefly in mind the venality of politicians, I doubt very much either the extent or the heinousness of the evil denounced. Reduced to detail, the charges amount to this: that electors and deputies have been known to sell their votes and to advocate measures from which they have made preparations to derive financial benefit. Such evils are inseparable from the infancy of representative government, and persist in veiled form in its maturity. The Unionist member of the Salisbury-Chamberlain party who has been called upon to vote successive bounties or remission of taxes to landed proprietors and clerical tithe-payers is guilty of somewhat similar acts, with this trifling difference: that instead of rewarding his supporters with money from his own purse, he draws upon the State treasury. It would not be surprising if Japanese politicians were more openly corrupt than our own, for most of them take American politics as the nearest and most friendly school of democracy--a school where self-seeking is avowedly the first duty of a public man, and where the prizes fall to the cleverest manipulator or servitor of plutocratic trusts. But, as a matter of fact, neither Tammany nor Panama is yet transplanted to the banks of Sumidagawa. The laws aimed at electoral bribery are stringent and frequently enforced. Accusations of corruption are invariably followed by official inquiry. It is evident, then, that if the offender be sometimes clever enough to evade discovery, at least public opinion is neither cynical nor depraved. A stronger negative argument is furnished by the fact that the Liberals and Progressives (as the two anti-ministerial parties were called until the fusion in 1898), who had been excluded until that year from office, though constituting on more than one occasion a majority in the Lower House of the Diet, did not accuse the Ministers who launched Japan on the sea of parliamentary government of either misgovernment or dishonest finance. Nepotism was the sum and substance of their complaint. The Chōshi men monopolised the chief posts in the railway department, the Satsuma men held control of army and navy: in a word, the ascendency of the pre-revolutionary clans survived the revolution. But, when their own turn came in the summer of 1898 to divide the spoils of office, to which they had been summoned by the astuteness of Marquess Ito, prompt to cover personal chagrin at his own defeat by advocacy of his opponents’ claims to Imperial recognition, the followers of Counts Okuma and Itagaki found it impossible to reconcile the claims of contending office-seekers. Indeed, so bitter did the dissensions become, that the alliance was dissolved, and the first Ministry based on a majority in the Lower House disbanded before the Diet met. Power has since reverted to the same men, whose sagacity has made Japan triumph alike over armed foes and treaty-allies. Seeing that no more than eight per cent. of the population have votes, participation in home politics is confined to a comparatively small circle; and not to all of them, since most of the merchants with whom I conversed on the subject were content to leave their interests in the hands of the authorities, and expressed great resentment at the action of the _sōshi_ or professional agitators employed by politicians to cajole or threaten a constituency. It is inevitable at present that place and power should be the goal of all parties, and that politics should present the aspect of a scramble for office. There is no dividing-line between political parties, as elsewhere. No one desires to return to the feudal _régime_, or to tamper with the Constitution, or to limit the royal prerogative. In the face of national danger it is easy for all parties to unite, since nothing divides them but such questions as the incidence of taxation and the distribution of posts. In the course of time, should the last vestige of acquiescent docility on the part of the toilers be swept away, the industrial sphinx will pose its question to the Japanese as to all other modern communities; the rich will be ranged against the poor, the socialist against the conservative. But, as things are now, even the loss of diplomatic prestige occasioned by the triumph of Russia in Manchuria, of which the blame cannot justly be assigned to isolated Japan, is counterbalanced by the careful development of military and commercial resources which would seem the crowning duty of the Emperor’s advisers. The increasing prosperity of the country is the best answer to malevolent critics, and, if the charge of spiritual decadence in politics is to be sustained, weightier evidence must be produced than the writer has been able to discover.

Well, I have taken a bird’s-eye view of the Japanese as they appear to the resident alien, because his protesting voice is generally drowned in the joyful ejaculations of passing travellers. I have put aside for the moment my own prepossessions, which were only strengthened by intercourse with natives of every class, in order that the dark side of the shield might not be veiled. Dishonest traders aided by tortuous enactments, and mistrustful teachers suspicious of Western propaganda, insubordinate inferiors and incompetent officials--all these constitute grave stumbling-blocks to happiness; But it would not be fair to ignore the facts which promise a brighter future. There are many firms whose integrity is unquestioned, many journalists who try to stem the current of national misunderstanding by sagacious counsel. Experience and fuller knowledge are sure to prove wholesome correctives. The anti-foreign bias, though real and formidable, is based on the fear of half-understood eventualities. Closer intercourse and wider education will cause wisdom to spread down from the rulers to the ruled, who are not yet on familiar terms with our conceptions of trade and government.

It is to be hoped, when the nation feels thoroughly at home in its new house, equipped from garret to cellar with the latest improvements and occupied by a tenant-proprietor whom no conceivable machination of jealous neighbours can dislodge, that even the foreign lodger will be permitted to exercise his calling without the slightest hindrance or disability.

So much for the world behind the scenes, of which a glimpse has been vouchsafed to the reader. It will be seen that those who sustain _rôles_ in the daintiest of comediettas are also cast for a problem-play; that they are no more exempt from envy, hatred, and vanity than other sensitive artists; that their professional dislike to alien amateurs, who add insult to injury by expecting the deference due to higher national status while competing for the pence and plaudits of the same public, is very human and not without excuse; that, in spite of these infirmities, they may be industrious bread-winners and excellent performers. After all, the proper place for sightseers is the front of the house. Let us go there, and forget the intrigues of the green-room, in which we have happily no concern. We have come many miles to witness the play; let us give it undivided attention.

NOTE TO “BEHIND THE SCENES.” CASSANDRA JUSTIFIED?

Though time and space had so muffled the protesting shrieks of Cassandra that I could no longer hear her whirling prophecies or follow her sorry fortunes from day to day in the chivalrous Press of the treaty-ports, I never lost interest or sympathy in her loudly predicted future. I would picture her borne with streaming eyes and hair from her extra-territorial temple; I would ask myself whether she had yet been borne off into bondage unspeakable by some Japanese Agamemnon. News travels slowly, and I was forced to content myself with the most meagre reports, when one day came a letter with the Yokohama postmark, in which the writer took exception to some statements made by me in a lecture to the Playgoers’ Club on the subject of Japanese theatres, and improved the occasion by despatching much irrelevant information on the subject of Japanese iniquity. I owe a heavy debt of gratitude to Mr. F. Schroeder, the editor and proprietor of _The Eastern World_, for those letters and pamphlets. They assure me of the welcome fact that Cassandra is alive and free, and protesting more loudly than ever. I gladly give publicity to the incidents and speculations recorded in them, for, while they seem to justify honest apprehension on the part of Cassandra’s friends, they also contain indications that Agamemnon is by no means so subject to Thersites as the foes of Far Eastern democracy would have us believe.

The question which raises most speculation, on account of the uncertainty of the law to be applied, is also the most important. It concerns leasehold. Hitherto foreigners had supposed themselves to hold land under a perpetual lease on payment of a lump sum to the vendor and of annual ground-rent to the Government. But, when a recent application was made to the local court in Yokohama for the registration of the transfer of property so held from one British subject to another, the Court replied that it had no power to register such a transfer, offering instead to describe the property as a perpetual superficies. The offer was refused and the point submitted to the British Minister. If it should be decided that the foreign owner is no more than a superficiary, the ground at a distance of more than thirty feet below the surface tacitly reverts to the Government, which of course would have the right to sell it for mining purposes, for the construction of tunnels or reservoirs or what not, provided that the surface were neither entered nor broken. A change so radical in the conditions of holding land, which the purchaser may thus have acquired under a misapprehension, is serious enough, but more serious still will be its effect on future purchasers. By the newly codified law authorisation is refused to leases of longer than twenty years’ duration. What foreign firm, desirous of a permanent footing on Japanese soil, would erect buildings and establish itself on land liable to be resumed by the owner at the end of so short a period? How easy for native traders under such circumstances to strangle or arrest the business of alien competitors! Should a score of years demonstrate the growth of too successful rivalry, they have merely to bring such pressure to bear on the lessor as would prevent renewal of the lease.

The _Tamba Maru_ case, which originated in a somewhat ignoble squabble between the English third officer and the Japanese quartermaster of a Nippon Yusen Kwaisha steamer, assumes quite Homeric proportions in the pages of an _Eastern World_ brochure. It certainly affords food for reflection on the methods of Oriental justice when racial prejudice intervenes, but the sequel shows that in Japan at any rate an appeal lies from prejudiced judges and partial witnesses to substantial wisdom and common-sense in high places. The facts are few and stirring. Horace Robert Kent had reported Umeseko Toyomatsu for smoking while on duty. His inexperienced eye had mistaken the glow of a jewel in the latter’s ring for the glint of a cigarette. Fearful of losing his captain’s good opinion and his place on board, the injured innocent invaded the mate’s cabin with his cap on and flashed the exculpating jewel in that officer’s face. Hand-to-hand scuffling ensued, of which contradictory accounts are naturally given, with the result that Toyomatsu received a black eye, was put in irons, and released at once to mollify his comrades, while Mr. Kent was bitten five or six times in the thigh and hidden by his prudent skipper from the vengeance of the crew. Each brought a charge of assault against the other. At the trial the evidence of eye-witnesses seems to have been entirely eclipsed by the opinions of medical gentlemen, who deserve the honours of the verdict. Dr. Sagara opined that a black eye (the organ not even being closed up) would prevent a sailor from work for more than twenty days, and would take from three to four weeks to heal completely; Dr. Fujise compared the wounds in the thigh of the third mate with the shape of the quartermaster’s teeth, and found that they almost completely coincided, but was still unable to assert that they were caused by biting. Sentences: six months’ rigorous imprisonment for the Englishman, five days’ detention for the Japanese. The inequality of the punishments was quickly remedied. The Tōkyō Court of Appeal quashed the decision of the original tribunal, and reduced the sentence from six months’ imprisonment to ten days’ detention. I dwell at some length on this trivial case of common assault for two reasons. First, it is satisfactory to remark how promptly an excess of partial severity was corrected; secondly, I feel sure that Mr. Kent is the only foreigner on whom the evil foretold by Cassandra has fallen within six months of the coming into operation of the treaties. Otherwise I should have received other and more indignant pamphlet-homilies on the baneful fulfilment of prophecy.

Finally, my informant calls attention to recent cases of official bribery and corruption. He cites the name of Mr. Koyama Konosuke, M.P., who was charged in Parliament with receiving a bribe of 2000 _yen_ from the Government of the day (1899), and who, so far from denying it, sued in a court of law for the remainder of the money due to him. Being called upon by his constituents to resign, he replied with a threat of exposing implicated colleagues, and apparently retained his seat. Both Houses of the Legislature would seem to be tainted by similar practices, for _The Japan Mail_ (of April 10, 1900) has a paragraph, headed “The Peers Scandal,” to the following effect:

“It is now alleged that no less than twenty-four members of the House of Peers are implicated in the bribery scandal connected with the Religious Bill affair. Some of them are alleged to be desirous of hushing up the matter, but their fellow-members insist that something must be done to clear the reputation of the House. It is impossible to tell how much truth there may be in these rumours.”

It is obviously “impossible” for a foreigner to collect such proofs of corruption as would be good evidence in a court of law, nor, if possible, would it be worth his while. The cry of _vendu_ is so freely bandied by a factionist Press, that, remembering the famous legend of a Dreyfus syndicate, one hesitates to pin faith on vague paragraphs. Moreover, whatever foundation of fact underlie the charges, it should be borne in mind that parliamentary government has only existed for ten years, and it would not be reasonable to expect in a decade those virtues which were of very slow growth in our own Mother of Parliaments. Corruption at Pretoria or St. Petersburg is no bar to “the sympathies of the civilised world” (outside Anglo-Saxondom), and in any case these evils may safely be left for correction to those whom they most immediately concern. The Japanese Press is conscious of them, anxious to deal with them; the laws are stringent enough, if difficult to enforce. One notes them as a factor in Japanese politics to be neither exaggerated nor ignored, and turns to consider less purely domestic matters.

Indirect confirmation of my impression that Christianity was losing ground in the country is furnished by the elaborate report of the American Board of Foreign Missions, of which the rose-coloured conclusions at first sight suggest the contrary. Stress is laid, for instance, on the fact that a prominent Christian was elected to the present Diet by a majority of five to one in Buddhist Kyōto; but there is nothing to show that the election turned on doctrinal issues. One Japanese Christian was appointed “moral teacher” in the Sugamo penitentiary, with the result that all the rest, Buddhists by faith, resigned. Political reasons probably caused this appointment, for Sugamo is the prison to which all foreign delinquents will be sent under the new _régime_. The Board complains of strong opposition to the teaching of the elements of the Christian religion, not only in public but also in private schools, centred in the Education Department, and attributes it to widespread agnosticism, which, so far as it desires to conserve Buddhist influence, does so for ulterior social and intellectual ends. But I find the clearest proof of simultaneous success and failure in the admission that Christianity maintains its hold by practical philanthropy. Schools for neglected and criminal children, schemes for relieving discharged prisoners, benevolent works of all kinds, are promoted and carried out by Christians. Of goodness of this sort the kind-hearted Japanese are thoroughly appreciative, but it is the works, not the faith, which they admire. Holders of all creeds, or of none, must sympathise with this aspect of missionary effort; but it results, and perhaps happily, in a closer union of hearts than of minds.

I conclude with a quotation from the _Jiji_, one of the most influential Tōkyō papers--a quotation which speaks for itself and accords with the sorrowful vaticinations of Cassandra:

“_Decrease in the Number of Foreign Residents._--Quite contrary to expectations, there seems to be a gradual reduction in the number of foreigners residing in Yokohama, where they are more numerous than in any other part of the country. It is anticipated that the statistics will perhaps show some reduction for two or three years. The reason is supposed to be: (1) foreigners prefer Hongkong or Shanghai to Japan, owing to the difficulty of finding opportunities for gaining as large profits as formerly; and (2) their unfamiliarity with the Japanese law, which imposes undue restraint upon their movements. As a matter of fact, they have been surprised by the imposition of heavy taxes of various kinds, never dreamt of previously. Moreover, in consequence of the coming into operation of the new tariff, they have been deprived of their profits on certain kinds of goods, such as liquors, cigars, &c. This is shown by the circumstance that the foreign merchants who have given up or are going to give up business are mostly dealers in these goods. In future foreigners who may be induced to come to this part of the world can only be, in consequence of the operation of the new treaties, those who have other objects than business and who will take the place of the present residents, who will certainly leave in the near future.”

RELIGIOUS PLAYS

RELIGIOUS PLAYS

The traveller who witnesses a “_Nō_ Dance,” hastily improvised for his amusement at the Maple Club of Tōkyō, or who chances upon a pantomimic duologue in grotesque costume, rendered on a rough platform to divert the crowd before a temple at the _matsuri_--half fair, half festival--can really form no idea of the exquisite little dramas which for more than five centuries have been performed privately in the houses of Japanese nobles and are still enacted at rare intervals to an invited audience. The common term “_Nō_ Dance” is rather misleading, since it only suggests the rhythmic posturing of the characters--very graceful, it is true, and pregnant with meaning for the initiated--but ignores other factors, such as the words, the story, and the music, which contribute quite as memorably to the total effect. Operetta will not do, since the choric strains, which stimulate attention and intensify emotion with their staccato accompaniment, are subordinate throughout. If, then, that may be styled a play which revolves on a single episode and relates to no more than three or four persons, a very close parallel lies between these and the religious plays of Europe. In both you find the same reverence for the past, dictating the devout demeanour of actors and audience; in both a minute traditional interpretation, governing the diction, the action, and the dress; in both a perpetual association of the scenes depicted with sacred legends and the spirit world. But whereas Christianity yields one and the same drama, once in a decade, to the peasants of Oberammergau, the Shintōist Pantheon, sanctifying national history and full of deified heroes, appeals to both patriotic and religious instincts through the medium of an art sometimes immature but always refined.

The roots of this musical pantomime reach far back into mythological times. The figure of the Terrible Female of Heaven, stamping on an inverted tub to startle the Sun Goddess from her cave, is generally invoked on the threshold of inquiries into the origin of _Kagura_, or temple-dancing. Grotesque and venerable, it is not illuminating. More startling to me is the statement of a modern authority that “in the eighth century, in the later period of the Nara dynasty and at the beginning of the Heian period, combining the Korean and the Chinese music with the native, a certain perfect form of Japanese music came to exist.” To comprehend this “perfect music,” as rendered on drum, fife, and flute, esoteric education is required. But it may be admitted that certain Wagnerian effects of terror and suspense and tumultuous agitation are thumped and wailed into the auditor, while his ocular attention is absorbed by deliberate phantoms. Very deliberate are the phantom dancers, whether their theme be simple or complex. On the dancing stages at the Shintō temples of Ise and of Omi, on the four platforms of the Kasuga Temple at Nara, the subject was naturally mythological or had relation to the temple’s own history. Such songs as went with the dance were simple, short, and primitive. They would be heard at Court ceremonies, too, for the union of Church and State was close. They were sung by members of privileged families, who guarded and transmitted from father to son the professional secrets of their “perfect music.”