Review of Reviews, 1/10/13. 



LEADING ARTICLES. 



791 



up. An officer by the light of a lantern 

 inspected them and marked all the 

 strongest looking on the forehead. These 

 were all executed at dawn. But the 

 methods of fighting of the Taiyals in 

 the north are even more terrible, and it 

 used to be a common sight to see Jap- 

 anese soldiers commit suicide when 

 ordered to the hills rather than face 

 these men there. Naturally Shinji Ishii 

 would omit reference to such things ! 



HOW JAPAN WILL WIN. 



Dr. J. Ingram Bryan writes without 

 mincing his words, and we quote the fol- 

 lowing from his article in The Japan 



Magazine : — 



It is now coming to be understood by the 

 nations of the world, and no less by Japan 

 herself, that racial rivalry is going to be the 

 crucial international problem of the future, 

 if it is not already well to the fore and de- 

 manding solution. The prospects at preseni 

 are that the contest is to be one between the 

 East and the West ; between the so-called 

 yellow races and the white; and there is an 

 equal certainty that Japan will be the leader 

 of the hosts of the East. 



Japan's best hope for the future lios in the 

 fact that as yet she has not contracted the 

 decimating western disease of artificial steri- 

 lity ; and so long as Japan remains thus free, 

 she is sure to win. Owing to the pestilence 

 and famine of past ages, Japan did not in- 

 crease in population to any great extent. 

 But since her adoption of modern methods of 

 fighting disease, she has not only recovered, 

 but is fast outstripping her teachers, and to- 

 day she has by birth alone a population in- 

 creasing at the rate of over half a million a 

 year. There is an old Japanese legend which 

 says that once the god Izanami became angry 

 at the goddess Izanagi, and threatened that 

 the population should die at the rate of a 

 thousand a day; but the goddess replied that 

 she would increase the birthrate to fifteen 

 hundred a clay. Hence the Japanese conclude 

 that the excess of births over deaths will be 

 always at least five hundred a day. 



Japan's present territory is insufficient to 

 accommodate her enormously increasing popu- 

 lation. There is plenty of room in the world 

 for all, if the inhabitants of the earth are 

 humane enough to live and let live. But if 

 greedy nations are going to give way to 

 selfishness and race prejudice, and hold lands 

 which they will neither use themselves nor let 

 others use, then there is going to be trouble. 



Undoubtedly a hit at us in Australia, 

 where birthrate is low and territory 

 vast ! 



SLAVERY IN ANNO DOMINI 1913, 



Joseph Burtt gives evidence in the 

 < 'ontemporary of the continuance of 

 "Slavery in Anno Domini 191 3." He 

 was sent out to Portuguese West Africa 

 to inquiie into the conditions of col- 

 oured labourer, and gives appalling 

 figures of mortality amongst the " free " 

 labourers imported to S. Thome and 

 Principe : — 



After studying slavery for five months in 

 the islands, I went over to Angola to see slav- 

 ing, and followed the ancient slave route that 

 runs due east from Benguella till I stood by 

 the banks of the Zambesi, half-way across the 

 continent. It was 1906 when I trudged over 

 the very place where Crawford had written so 

 passionately of the slave caravan. What had 

 sixteen years of the Brussels Act done in these 

 plains? As the exports of S. Thome had in- 

 creased enormously, slaving was still going 

 on to supply it. Slavers were more careful 

 in my time than when Crawford wrote, but 

 they did not hide all the skeletons and 

 shackles, and in that district T saw heaps of 

 shackles. Now these great blocks of wood, 

 with holes for hands or feet, are proof con- 

 elusive of slaving, for no free man in Africa 

 ever wore a shackle. Africa does not change 

 so easily. Everything that counts here, law, 

 progress, civilisation, is nothing there. 



It would appear that the planters are 

 asking for 26,000 more labourers to 

 fully develop the resources of the 

 islands : — ■ 



Where is that labour coming from? To 

 answer this all-important question we must 

 go to the people concerned. Our Government 

 may issue White Books and Societies may 

 confer, but it is the planters who are at the 

 helm, and who are likely to remain there. I 

 think that their views on the matter are very 

 clear. Steamer after steamer is licensed to 

 import labour from Angola. In a single issue 

 of a Government paper last April, two boats 

 were empowered to bring over 800 labourers. 

 More than this, the planters have recently 

 founded an Emigration Society, authorised 

 by law, and backed by men to whom the 

 islands have proved to be treasure-houses of 

 wealth. 



Last March open recruiting from Angola 

 >i again, after a cessation of three years, 

 and the beat " Ambaca ' : brought over 112 

 1111 11 and eight women to S. Theme. Knowing 

 thai the Angolan dreads S. Thome as he 

 dreads death, I ask : 



"Are these labourers free, or are thev 

 slaves?" 



If they are slaves, the old abuses have 

 begun again, and Portuguese West Africa has 

 turned her back on civilisation. 



