ife, but
that humour which is only exercised at the expense of others, in my
opinion, needs reprobation. As I have said, Japan among nations has
been subjected to too much of it, and it is to be hoped that in future
writers about the country will endeavour to avoid making their little
jokes, or serving up afresh the antiquated chestnuts of the foreign
community.

The future of Japan may, I think, be considered under some half-dozen
headings: The physical improvement of the Japanese race; Its moral
advancement; Its intellectual advancement; Japan's national future;
Her political future; and finally, The influence of the Japanese
Empire on other Far Eastern races and on the world generally.

As regards the physical improvement of the race, I admit this is a
somewhat difficult subject in regard to which to make any forecast.
The stature of the Japanese is undoubtedly small, and the chest
measurement small likewise. At the same time, any one moving about
Japan must have noticed the fact that there are quite a large number
of very tall men and women in the country, and that a goodly
proportion of the inhabitants compare favourably in their physical
attributes with European people. As I have observed elsewhere in this
book, the dietary of the Japanese race has for many centuries back
been almost entirely a vegetarian one. I know very well that
vegetarianism has its advocates, and some of the arguments put forward
in support of it are plausible if not convincing. At the same time, I
think, it cannot be denied that those races which have been in the
habit of eating meat for many centuries have, as regards physique,
demonstrated that whether man was or was not intended to be a
carnivorous animal, his development into a carnivorous animal has at
any rate succeeded in enhancing and developing his physical powers. Of
late years there has been possibly as the result of intercourse with
Europeans, a large increase in the number of the inhabitants of Japan
who eat meat. This tendency on the part of the population is growing,
and I believe in the course of comparatively few years there will be a
radical change in the dietary of the people. This change, if it be
effected, must, I would suggest, have a material influence on their
physique. We all know that food is essential for the building up of
the human frame and its maintenance, and I think there are few people
who would question the fact that the condition of the human frame,
whe