A Nippon Statesman Tells How the
Britain of the East Looks Hopefully
to New Horizons.
The Japanese are winning fresh admiration for the cheerful optimism with
which they face the perplexing financial conditions following the war. In
the _Forum_ for January, Baron Shibuzawa expresses a sentiment general
among Japanese statesmen:
It would be out of tune with all things, for us, at this
hour, to be looking upon financial Japan after the war with
a sad eye. Nevertheless, as we are well aware of the
disturbances which the war has brought to our finances, we
must look to the best possible measures for restoring to
health and prosperity what the war has disturbed. That is
all. But the war and its conclusion have brought us one very
great and precious gift, namely, it has admitted us into the
household of the great economic world. In a word, it has
given a wider horizon to the economic circle of Nippon, and
has brought us into the very heart of the comity and
exchange of the economic interests of all human kind; and
has linked us, in a sense hitherto unknown to us, with the
markets of the world.