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The Review of Reviews. 



individual interest always gives way to the national. 

 The Japanese recognise to the full . the duliei of 

 patriotism as well as the rights and advantages of 

 citizenship. 



Dr. Nitobe says, " Our patriotism is fed by two 

 streams of sentiment — namely, that of personal love 

 to the monarch, and of our common love for the soil 

 which gave us birth and provides us with hearth and 

 home. Nay, there is another source from which our 

 patriotism is fed : it is that the land guards in its 

 bosom the bones of our fathers." And do not the bones 

 of Britain's ancestors lie in British soil ? 



WESTERNISATION TO SAVE THE NATION. 



japan has never known schism and division in time 

 of crisis. Even during the feudal times, with constant 

 internecine struggles, it needed but a national peril 

 to consolidate the whole nation around the Emperor. 

 " Why," it may be asked, " did so national a people 

 wish ever to adopt the civilisation of the West ? " The 

 Japanese never wished, nor do they wish now, to 

 replace their own civilisation by Western ideas. They 

 adopted many of the ideas of the West in order to 

 enable japan to remain Japanese and not the play- 

 ground of all foreigners. Exclusion and resistance alike 

 had failed, and the intense patriotic nationalism of the 

 Japanese, which taught them that they must meet the 

 foreigners on an equality, led them to take this step. 

 It was an affirmation of nationalism, not a negation, 

 and in it the Japanese scored their greatest success as 

 a nation. The old fundamental ideas remain as a rock 

 upon which is builded the house of modern Japan. 

 Being a nation in reality, and not merely a collection 

 of individuals, Japan has caught up, in forty odd years, 

 the start of centuries possessed by the Western world. 

 Japanese subjects are the elements that make up the 

 Japanese Empire, and this sentiment is held to-day as 

 much as it ever was hundreds of years ago. its effects 

 may be seen in the granting to the people of Japan, by 

 the free will of the Emperor, since the Kestoration, of 

 the Constitution according full private and public 

 libertv. It must not be overlooked that these conces- 

 sions, these limitations of the powers of the Emperor, 

 were not forced from the sovereign by wars or rebel- 

 lions, but were the natural outcome of the relations 

 between governing and governed. 



THE RESULTS OF NATIONAL SOLIDARITY. 



Where has this practical patriotism, this intense 

 national solidarity, led Japan, and what proofs are • 

 there that such national impulse is superior to the 

 isolated action of several millions of people.' The war 

 with Russia has demonstrated, beyond the powers of 

 argument, the fallacy of the artificial barriers between 

 races and between continents. No longer can the white 

 races of Europe sit above the .salt while the nations of 

 .Asia sit below. Japan, a brown race, a nation of Asia. 

 has demonstrated her right to sit above the .salt, and 

 as she has done so by the force of arms. Western 

 civilisation acknowledges her right. .She is an example 

 of the tact that a nation does not become great because 



of the colour of its population or because of its 

 geographical position, but because of the power 

 within it. It is due to the unceasing labour, the 

 unwearying effort of the Japanese people to make 

 Japan great and themselves worthy of a great Japan. 

 Unless the •^leople of a nation — the people, mind you, 

 not a class — are prepared to do this, they have no 

 hope of permanent greatness. If Japan's triumph 

 demonstrates one thing more than any other, it is 

 the absolute necessity for national efficiency, achieved 

 by the unanimous effort of all the people. Japan 

 teaches the world the lesson that thoroughness and 

 efficiency, broad-mindedness, and a readiness to learn 

 are possessions which far outweigh any artificial 

 superiorities raised up by an arrogant cluster of 

 differing nations as a standard whereby they may 

 judge others. 



THE WIDER MEANING OF NATIONAL DEFENCE. 



.Such is but one result of Japanese national solidarity, 

 and the Japanese do not exercise their national 

 impulses save after due thought and along the most 

 practical lines, for regulated patriotism is a force, 

 unregulated it would be chaos. 



" With regard to matters of national defence, a 

 single day's neglect may involve a century's regret." 

 In this short sentence the Emperor of Japan sums 

 up the national policy and feeling of his country. By 

 national defences in Japan, however, is not meant 

 the mere naval and military bulwarks with which 

 European nations have been content to fortify them- 

 selves, and which, in their point of view, constitutes 

 the only interpretation of national defence. In Japan 

 the term has a much wider and, it must be confessed, 

 a much truer meaning ; it is taken to include the pre- 

 servation to the country of everything that might be 

 threatened by foreign influences. The safeguarding 

 of Japanese trade by an efficient Consular service, 

 or of Japanese maritime enterprise by a navigation 

 bounty, is just as much a part of the national defences 

 as the pre\'cntion of invasion by a foreign foe. 



PATRIOTISM AND LOYALTY. 



Patriotism alone is an immense national force, 

 both because of its uni\-cr.sal character and because 

 of its practical nature ; but when it is allied with 

 loyalty to the Emperor and religious veneration, 

 it becomes almost omnipotent in mundane affairs. 

 The coimtry they love and the Emperor they reven 

 have both existed when the ancestors of the present 

 generation lo\ed and revered the ancestors of, their 

 ruler, and the influence and the spirits of the ancestors 

 will always be an enormous factor in maintaining the 

 close union between patriotism and loyalty. 



The result of this feeling of religious patriotism has 

 been that there is no weak link in the national cham. 

 The military authorities can count with certainty on 

 the bravery and devotion of the armies on the field 

 of battle ; the central Government can lav a«ide all 

 care as to any disaffection or disloyalty at home. 



