Really the dullest foreigner could not have believed that a
people of forty millions, uniting all their energies to achieve
absolute national independence, would remain content to leave the
management of their country's import and export trade to aliens,
--especially in view of the feeling in the open ports. The
existence of foreign settlements in Japan, under consular
jurisdiction, was in itself a constant exasperation to national
pride,--an indication of national weakness. It had so been
proclaimed in print,--in speeches by members of the anti-foreign
league,--in speeches made in parliament. But knowledge of the
national desire to control the whole of Japanese commerce, and
the periodical manifestations of hostility to foreigners as
settlers, excited only temporary uneasiness. It was confidently
asserted that the Japanese could only injure themselves by any
attempt to get rid of foreign negotiators. Though alarmed at the
prospect of being brought under Japanese law, the merchants of
the concessions never imagined a successful attack upon large
interests possible, except by violation of that law itself. It
signified little that the Nippon Yusen Kwaisha had become, during
the war, one of the largest steamship companies in the world;
that Japan was trading directly with India and China; that
Japanese banking agencies were being established in the great
manufacturing centres abroad; that Japanese merchants were
sending their sons to Europe and America for a sound commercial
education. Because Japanese lawyers were gaining a large foreign
clientele; because Japanese shipbuilders, architects, engineers
had replaced foreigners in government service, it did not at all
follow that the foreign agents controlling the import and export
trade with Europe and America could be dispensed with. The
machinery of commerce would be useless in Japanese hands; and
capacity for other professions by no means augured latent
capacity for business. The foreign capital invested in Japan
could not be successfully threatened by any combinations formed
against it. Some Japanese houses might carry on a small import
business, but the export trade required a thorough knowledge of
business conditions on the other side of the world, and such
connections and credits as the Japanese could not obtain.
Nevertheless the self-confidence of the foreign importers, and
exporters was rudely broken in July, 1895, when a British house
having brought suit against a Japanese company in a Japanese
court, for refusal to accept delivery of goods ordered, and
having won a judgment for nearly thirty thousand dollars,
suddenly found itself confronted and menaced by a guild whose
power had never been suspected. The Japanese firm did not appeal
against the decision of the court: it expressed itself ready to
pay the whole sum at once--if required. But the guild to which it
belonged informed the triumphant plaintiffs that a compromise
would be to their advantage. Then the English house discovered
itself threatened with a boycott which could utterly ruin it,--a
boycott operating in all the industrial centres of the Empire.
The compromise was promptly effected at considerable loss to the
foreign firm; and the settlements were dismayed. There was much
denunciation of the immorality of the proceeding(1). But it was a
proceeding against which the law could do nothing; for boycotting
cannot be satisfactorily dealt with under law; and it
afforded proof positive that the Japanese were able to force
foreign firms to submit to their dictation,--by foul means if not
by fair. Enormous guilds had been organized by the great
industries,--combinations whose moves, perfectly regulated by
telegraph, could ruin opposition, and could set at defiance even
the judgment of tribunals. The Japanese had attempted boycotting
in previous years with so little success that they were deemed
incapable of combination. But the new situation showed how well
they had learned through defeat, and that with further
improvement of organization they could reasonably expect to get
the foreign trade under control,--if not into their own hands. It
would be the next great step toward the realization of the
national desire,--Japan only for the Japanese. Even though the
country should be opened to foreign settlement, foreign
investments would always be at the mercy of Japanese
combinations.
(1) A Kobe merchant of great experience, writing to the Kobe
Chronicle of August 7, 1895, observed:--"I am not attempting to
defend boycotts; but I firmly believe from what has come to my
knowledge that in each and every case there has been provocation
irritating the Japanese, rousing their feelings and their sense
of justice, and driving them to combination as a defense."
V
The foregoing brief account of existing conditions may suffice to
prove the evolution in Japan of a social phenomenon of great
significance. Of course the prospective opening of the country
under new treaties, the rapid development of its industries, and
the vast annual increase in the volume of trade with America and
Europe, will probably bring about some increase of foreign
settlers; and this temporary result might deceive many as to the
inevitable drift of things. But old merchants of experience even
now declare that the probable further expansion of the ports will
really mean the growth of a native competitive commerce that must
eventually dislodge foreign merchants. The foreign settlements,
as communities, will disappear: there will remain only some few
great agencies, such as exist in all the chief ports of the
civilized world; and the abandoned streets of the concessions,
and the costly foreign houses on the heights, will be peopled and
tenanted by Japanese. Large foreign investments will not be made
in the interior. And even Christian mission-work must be left to
native missionaries; for just as Buddhism never took definite
form in Japan until the teaching of its doctrines was left
entirely to Japanese priests,--so Christianity will never take
any fixed shape till it has been so remodeled as to harmonize
with the emotional and social life of the race. Even thus
remodeled it can scarcely hope to exist except in the form of a
few small sects.
The social phenomenon exhibited can be best explained by a
simile. In many ways a human society may be compared biologically
with an individual organism. Foreign elements introduced forcibly
into the system of either, and impossible to assimilate, set up
irritations and partial disintegration, until eliminated
naturally or removed artificially. Japan is strengthening herself
through elimination of disturbing elements; and this natural
process is symbolized in the resolve to regain possession of all
the concessions, to bring about the abolishment of consular
jurisdiction, to leave nothing under foreign control within the
Empire. It is also manifested in the dismissal of foreign
employes, in the resistance offered by Japanese congregations to
the authority of foreign missionaries, and in the resolute
boycotting of foreign merchants. And behind all this
race-movement there is more than race-feeling: there is also the
definite conviction that foreign help is proof of national
feebleness, and that the Empire remains disgraced before the eyes
of the commercial world, so long as its import and export trade
are managed by aliens. Several large Japanese firms have quite
emancipated themselves from the domination of foreign middlemen;
large trade with India and China is being carried on by Japanese
steamship companies; and communication with the Southern States
of America is soon to be established by the Nippon Yusen Kwaisha,
for the direct importation of cotton. But the foreign settlements
remain constant sources of irritation; and their commercial
conquest by untiring national effort will alone satisfy the
country, and will prove, even better than the war with China,
Japan's real place among nations. That conquest, I think, will
certainly be achieved.