Reripic of Eei-ietrs, l/'6f06. 



Leading Articles. 



497 



THE NEW JAPANESE PREMIER. 



In the Contemporary Review Mr. J. Takegoshi, 

 M.P., eulogises the Marquis Saionji, recently created 

 Premier of Japan. The appearance of his Cabinet 

 is •• the dawn of a new era." The Marquis belongs 

 to an illustrious and aristocratic family. More than 

 half of his fifty-five years have been spent in 

 Europe. From his eighteenth to his thirty-third year 

 he lived in France, chiefly in Paris apparently, and 

 returned to Japan •' a pure Parisian." Not un- 

 naturally, therefore, he is a devotee of European 

 civilisation. 



When he returned to his country he found things 

 tending to be somewhat reactionary ; and, low as was 

 the then status of journalism in Japan, he, a noble- 

 man connected bv ancestry with the Imperial 

 family, started a Liberal daily in Tokvo, through 

 the medium of which he preached Constitutionalism. 

 He is still, or was till he organised the new Cabinet, 

 leader of the Constitutionalist Association in Japan. 



Already he had served in the Marquis Ito's Cabi- 

 net, and even been acting Premier during his 

 chief's illness : and his coming into power now, after 

 Count Katsura, is regarded by the Japanese writer 

 of this article as " the victory of democracv against 

 bureaucracy, of party government against clan gov- 

 ernment, of European progressivism against Asiatic 

 conservatism.' Mr. Takegoshi says: — 



As I waa chef de cabinet to Marquis Saionji wlien he was 

 Minister of Education some rears ago. I presume to know 

 a great deal of his character and thouglits. He is not only 

 a politician, but also a reformer. Especially are his views 

 on education radical and broad. His aim is to emancipate 

 the Japanese people from the yoke of Asiatic thouglits and 

 make tliem citizens of the world. 



I may say witliout e.xaggeration that of the numerous 

 Japanese politicians he is the one best acquainted witli 

 the conditions of Europe. Moreover, he is calm in temper, 

 lucid in reasoning, wide in knowledge, and bold in judg- 

 ment. He is almost a Frenchman in his thouglits and 

 tastes, so mucli so that lie is often styled " grand seig- 

 neur " by Tokyo people, and his drawing-room is called 

 hig salon. Yet lie is not one-sided. He is one of the most 

 devout believers in the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. He may 

 not say much, hut h.is genuine integrity to fulfil his words. 

 Accordingly Great Britain may also welcome his Cabinet. 



A PEN'PORTRAIT OF COUNT WITTE. 



Perceval Gibbon gives in Blackivood a sketch of 

 Sergius Witte, whom he describes as a diplomatist 

 lost among facts, a trafficker in words, who is face 

 to face with the brutality of unglozed actualities. 

 '• It has broken him." The chief interest of the 

 paper lies in its portraiture of the Count: — 



He is almost contemptuously casual and careless in all 

 matters that concern liis attire and outward appearance. 

 He has the completest. most unconscious disdain for t! ese 

 trifles, and his clotlies hang on him fortuitously. But all 

 this is the mere supplement to the face that crowns llie 

 whole. Hairj' and hard, with a beard ill-kept and a mous- 

 tache "u djablf, the same ruggedness pervades it that 

 characterises his every feature. It is stolid, direct, and 

 deeply lined; there is nothing of compromise in tlie ex- 

 pression, no art of grace, no stud.r in the cast, of it. So 

 looms some oppressive village elder; so stares the man who 

 is given to blurting forth the obviotis: and so looks 

 Count "Witte, who is neither. Tlie head is remarkable in 

 that it is quite flat behind, rising from the neck to the 

 crown with no curve. And then, there are the eyes. Tl'ey. 



and they alone, betray the fact that in this man there 

 dwells a spirit not manifested in the grossness and crude- 

 ness of his aspect. Shrined under heavy brows, they are 

 pale and indeterminate in colour, but lit with a spark 

 that is eloquent enough. They are lambent, inscrutable, 

 mesmeric; they are the eyes of an Oriental, wise with an 

 infinite subtlety, discriminating pitilessly, discerning in- 

 fallibly, probing without ruth or scruple to th* core of 

 each matter that invites them. They redeem the face and 

 the person and set them at a discount; in them lives the 

 real Sergius Witte, the artist in the statesman, the wolf 

 or the weasel in the man. the genius in the artisan. If it 

 were anything but living truths, immune from doubt and 

 double-dealing, that he had now to handle, how these twin 

 fires would go to the heart of the thing and grip at once 

 upon its weakness. 



After this mav be given a good story he tells of 

 Alexander III. : — 



"Do you reall.y think that W"itte resembles me?" he 

 asked, for it was commonly said that this was the case. 

 The Grand Duke nodded. " H'm." pondered the Emperor. 

 " Well, in that case, he won't waste any time before his 

 mirror." 



"PIONEERS! PIONEERS!" 



Under this title " Ignota," in the Ji'eslmiiister 

 Revim.', reminds us that last month there passed 

 awav two of the grandest nineteenth century pio- 

 neers, one well known and a woman. Miss Susan B. 

 Anthony, the other little known, and a man, Ben 

 Elmv, of Congleton, Cheshire, known to many as a 

 writer under the pseudonym of '' Ellis Ethelmar." 



Mr. Elmy's experience as a manufacturer led him 

 in the eighties to support the fiscal policy of Mr. 

 Chamberlain, then know as "Fair Trade": — 



But his strong social instincts and large human sympa- 

 thies drove him steadily forward in the direction of the 

 most advanced Socialism, and he realised as fully and 

 leenlv as do the leaders of the Independent Labour Party 

 of to-day that neither Free Trade nor Fair Trade alone 

 could solve our social problems, or assure the well-being 

 nf humanity. He further saw most clearl.y that no jnst 

 Socialism could be built upon the existing legal, social, 

 and political subjection of women; so that to his mind, 

 for the greater part of his life, the woman question and 

 the social question were but two asiiecta of the same 

 question, each for ever insoluble without the just solution 

 of the other. 



Thinking that women would distrust books written 

 on the woman and the sex questions avowedly by a 

 man, he adopted a feminine pseudonym — a precau- 

 tion fullv justified by the result. Though in his life 

 he had much disappointment, yet the uprising of 

 labour and the position of women generally during 

 the last few years of his life were such as he had 

 hardlv dared to hope. 



What Next? 



In the Ninetccirth Century for April a fanatical 

 Tariff Reformer attempts to reply to Lord Avebury's 

 article in favour of good relations with Germany. It 

 is unnecessarv to quote more than one sentence from 

 this " reply " : — 



It may be asserted, without fear of contradiction, tliat 

 Germany made the South .\frican war. Had Germany not 

 sednously cultivated the Boer connection, enoourageii Boer 

 ambitions, and flattered Mr. Kruger to the top of his bent, 

 the Transvaal war would not have occurred. The South 

 -African war cost us £250.000.000. and we may thank Ger- 

 man.v for t!ie loss of that enormous sum. 



