the
south-east of Nippon. Its two million inhabitants are distributed among
houses and streets which present curious intermixtures of Japanese and
European architecture, customs, or science. The jinrikisha notably has
been displaced largely by tramcars which, carrying all passengers at a
uniform rate of four sen, make it possible to travel ten miles for a
penny. It is an industrial city, but on account of occasional
earthquakes no very large buildings line the thoroughfares. The
traveller can here observe to advantage the strange characteristics of
the most stoical race upon earth, or can contrast, if he will, the
courteous, imperturbably serene disposition of the most martial nation
of the East with the present disposition of the most rabidly bellicose
nation of the West. When Japanese and German, indeed, met in conflict
before Tsing-tao in the autumn of 1914, there was seen, in the Japanese
soldier, during a campaign of peculiar hardship and difficulty, a
revival of the qualities of the old Samurai, with his quiet courage, his
burning patriotism, his patience, his habitual suppression of emotional
display singularly distinct from those of the modern Goth. Nor was the
statesmanship which brought about that conflict less admirable. Japan's
alliance with Great Britain was at once a solemn pledge and the guiding
principle of her foreign policy. August 1914 found British interests
and the vast trade that centred at Hong-kong in danger: German armed
vessels prowled the seas, and the German naval base of Tsing-tao was
busy with warlike preparations. Great Britain appealed to Japan to free
their joint commerce from the menace. The Japanese Prime Minister, Count
Okuma, might well hesitate, however, before recommending intervention.
Was he the right minister to direct a war? He was nearer eighty than
seventy years old, and recently had been for seven years in retirement:
his Government had a minority in the Diet, and to the Genro his name was
anathema: he claimed the allegiance of no party, and the powerful
military and naval clans, Choshiu and Satsuma, were openly hostile. He
had been raised to power a few months before by public demand for
progressive government. There were considerations other than domestic or
personal, indeed, which might have tempted some statesmen to hold their
hands. To temporize while events revealed themselves in Europe would be
safer than immediate action; while to remain neutral might lead to the
tra