University of Virginia Library oe .W5 -_ ress and social curre I 1g | i Ih i-ee ee et ts ee ci te ce eRe ayer i+ ¢ . ny - * ry ee alias ninth tee toe ad ieee ee eT et ee ee ) cer rateer tt ee io i TST WEST SPRINGFIELD EAST CLEVELAND INDIANAPOLIS ATLANTAFu s ee ed Oe ee eee eee ee oe. ee “ rer eee een ps reed bee ee ee ue , 4 oi a “ > om rs rs ee ed eS re re, ttt eee eee tae tk | Ceres Peepers er Tk * Fret 2ws eet ew se errr et Sad -eeeKoe (ss rr — “eeUNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA THE PkitSs AND SOuU.AL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Ly HARRY EMERSON WILDES A THESIS IN SOCIOLOGY PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY PHILADELPHIA 1927 B+ Ree neds Bye SeSed stetmie (RHd NV TS ye TENA G4 BIT EPO sed en aes cf PT TP TP eet Tee eT eee Te ee eS re ee es ee rere ei eT tte Te et tt ree Seber gacwes ee ree Te ee Pere et os et eee ees eycata amaep *etuPatrys 4c eve Pay ee ‘ ; rs - harar ’ 0 . ee ee ee eee 2+ eee eee ee ee ee ee eer r n Peat ee er ery ree eee ee ee eiahesTHE PRESS AND SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN A THESIS IN SOCIOLOGY PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY HARRY EMERSON WILDES Reprint from Social Currents in fapan. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1927 PHILADELPHIA 1927327784 COPYRIGHT 1927 By THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO All Rights Reserved Published August 1927 . ‘ c « ¢e ee ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ < ‘ as ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ qe ‘ . ‘ e «@ ‘ ‘ Composed and Printed By The University of Chicago Press Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.PREFACE No effort has been made in this study to present a connected history of Japan, but matters which seem to have received, in English, an insufficient treatment, or which are necessary for the proper understanding of certain phases of the press in relation to social progress, have, of course, been briefly noticed. In order to secure a uniformity of treatment and to avoid confusion the titles applied to certain distin- guished statesmen may not, in every case, coincide with the title used by them at each period of their lives. Viscount Goto, for example, has been known at different times as Dr. Goto, or as Baron Goto. Where promotion has been granted, the higher title is applied throughout, involving a minor measure of anachro- nism, but avoiding misunderstanding as to identity. Similarly, by ancient social custom, distinguished service has been sometimes recognized by posthu- mous ennobling. The emperor is unofficially notified that a distinguished man has died. Before the an- nouncement is made public, a title or a decoration may be granted. Count Takaaki Kato was raised from a viscountcy in such fashion. Marquis Okuma, likewise, was probably better known as Viscount or as Count during the major portion of his service. In histories, however, the higher title is applied in such [v]PREFACE instances, and has been thus used here in order to promote conformity. Because of the widespread belief in Japan that a persistent and vehement anti-Japanese bias has ani- mated many studies of Japanese affairs, a special ef- fort has been made to cull material from sources known to be most friendly to the Empire, and, so far as possible, to present Japan’s activities in the spirit in which those activities were undertaken. In this en- deavor the writer has enjoyed the benefit of close as- sociation, not only with foreigners whose friendliness to Japan is cordially indorsed by private subjects and by officials of the Empire, but also with Japanese of high official station. While not sacrificing fairness, the writer has endeavored to give to Japanese the benefit of every doubt. As a further safeguard against inaccuracy, as well as against the inclusion of frivolous or meaningless criticisms of Japan, a wide range of authorities has been cited. In the securing of these references, the writer is under particular obligation to Gilbert Bowles, of Tokyo, to whom no labor was too great in arrang- ing conferences with leading Japanese and in offering suggestion and advice. It was largely due to his influ- ence that editors, librarians, and scholars threw open their files for exhaustive analysis. The valued co-op- eration of President Kiroku Hayashi, of Keio Univer- sity, and of many members of his faculty and of the student body must also be gratefully acknowledged [ vi ] )PREFACE since it is owing to them that so wide a range of Japan- ese periodicals has been examined. The preponderance of evidence adduced on cer- tain contested topics has necessarily resulted in a per- haps unduly bulky series of “Notes” at the close of some chapters. As a device for better co-ordination, the writer has prepared an “Index to References,” which, it is hoped, may be of service in unifying and clarifying the whole. Finally, in conformity to a well-established and growing practice among foreign residents in China and Japan, the clumsy term “extra-territoriality” has been frequently replaced by the more commonly used term “extrality.”” No Western dictionary has, as yet, listed the contraction, but its use is general through- out the East and bids fair to become standard. HARRY EMERSON WILDES PHILADELPHIA May, 1927 [ vii |es ee CONTENTS _ Tue CULTURE CLASH OF EAST AND WEST . . THE PRESS SEEKS FREEDOM . PRESS TENDENCIES . THe ANTI-ALIEN TIDE 1 CENSORSHIP AND EXTRA-LEGAL SUPERVISION . . SAFEGUARDS AGAINST RADICALISM _ INTERNATIONAL NEWS AGENCIES . CORRECTING MISCONCEPTIONS . CREATING A PLEASANT IMPRESSION _ INTERPRETING JAPAN TO FOREIGNERS eT. XII. LTT: THE FRIENDLY FOREIGN PRESS . THE Japan Advertiser—AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER LIBELING THE JAPANESE . BIBLIOGRAPHY . APPENDIX INDEX TO REFERENCES GENERAL INDEX [ix] _ Ov Ww H \© COCHAPTER I THE CULTURE CLASH OF EAST AND WEST Misunderstandings of Japan may be inherent in the divergent social codes of East and West. It is dif- ficult, at best, for one people to appreciate another, but if the French fail to understand the German tem- perament, or if the British cannot comprehend the Celt, it is not surprising that Occidentals find it well- nigh impossible to understand the Orientals, whose environment and social heritage vary so widely from the accepted Western type (1).” But other, and not wholly unavoidable, factors aid the misconstruing. For nearly two generations the idea that Japanese are different from other peoples has been drilled into the minds of schoolboys. It per- haps originated in the days of Tokugawa isolation, through the lack of comparative data, but was later ordered by Prince Ito to be inculcated to promote the national unity (2). In consequence there is a Jap- anese conviction that they, descended from the plains of heaven, are of a nobler origin and under a special guardianship not accorded others.’ Since, therefore, 1 Numbers in parentheses refer to notes at end of each chapter. 2 Marquis Okuma, in his semi-official history, expounded this idea. “From the idea that Japan is the land of the kami (gods), her people have been led to believe that she is under the special protec- [|SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN the Empire, the Imperial Family, and indeed, the whole population of Japan are descended from the blood of gods and protected by it, the measuring of either Japan’s motives or of her practices by stand- ards applicable to men of baser breed cannot be com- prehended. Nor are the duties owed by foreigners toward Japanese identical with those that Japanese may owe to foreigners.* Aliens must make conces- sions, especially in affairs of etiquette and deference, unnecessary between Western peoples, in order that apparent, but unintentional, discourtesy may not of- fend the more delicately attuned sensibilities of Jap- anese. Again, a potent cause for misunderstanding may be traced to the cryptic language of the Japanese. Occidentals fail to recognize that an elasticity in the colloquial vernacular provides linguistic subtleties not comprehended by the Westerner. By peculiarities of sentence structure, by nice choice of honorifics, or by insertion of words carefully adjusted to the rank of listeners, delicate nuances may be expressed that tion of these heavenly beings. There is, of course, no theoretical cer- tainty for this belief, yet events which have occurred during her long career as the kami’s country have not unnaturally been attrib- uted to the favors of the unseen” (3). * The difference in attitude toward the appearance of antifor- eign items in the Japanese press and toward anti-Japanese items printed in the foreign press is a case in point, even after all allow- ances have been made for national complacency and for inertia. [2]THE CULTURE CLASH completely alter the meaning of a Japanese sentence. The differences are far more sharp, and, by the Jap- anese, are much more keenly apprehended, than the shades of meaning which are well known to exist in the technical phraseology of the diplomatic corps. Foreigners resident in Japan, and masters of the language, experience grave difficulty in distinguishing these overtones of rhetoric. Still more serious is the task for semipermanent residents, such as newspapet correspondents, unskilled in the finer differentiations of the spoken word.* News coming from Japan may sometimes fail, for this reason, accurately to repro- duce the spirit of the orator. Nor can translators al- ways apprehend in English the elusive praise bestowed by honorifics, nor express the slighting innuendo con- cealed in their omission. Words and phrases, moreover, even when accu- rately recorded, may not always convey the same im- pressions to the Oriental and the Occidental minds. Between Indo-European and Asiatic idioms a high linguistic discount rate exists. Overpraise and over- criticism cannot, therefore, always be accepted at face value, but must be evaluated at some rate of inter- ‘Of the foreign correspondents resident in Tokyo in 1924 and registered with the official International Press Association, only one professed an ability to speak or understand the spoken tongue. The one exception, himself soon thereafter transferred to Geneva, was far from fluent. “I studied Japanese,” he told the writer, “on my trip across the Pacific.” lelSOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN national exchange.° The customary Asiatic etiquette of self-deprecation and of undue praise of auditors requires an almost non-existent excellence of under- standing if the correspondent is to steer a skilful course and is to arrive, without prejudice, at an abso- lutely just interpretation. Further opportunity for mental confusions and for misinterpretation of Japan exists in the Japanese passion for what Dr. Gulick terms indirectness and nominality, and which he attributes to feudal prac- tices (4). The Westerner is puzzled, for example, when the Diet is described by Japanese as illustrating how public opinion sways the national policy, al- though the Throne, the Genro, and the Privy Council are, in reality, the source of all authority and of ad- ministration of the law.® The virtual independence from Parliamentary control, and indeed from each other, of the Genro, Privy Council, War Office, and the General Staff confuses Western comprehension of *The necessity for this is easily apparent to any Occidental who has heard political orations both by Anglo-Saxons and by Lat- ins. Japanese emotional oratory is quite comparable to that found in Provence or in Italy, or even in Greece. * Discussion of the peculiar status of the Genro holds no place in this study. It is well outlined by McGovern, King-Hall, and others. It is important to note, however, that this small junta of able and efficient men, knowing their own minds and quite free from Parliamentary control, could pursue undeviatingly a line of policy, especially in foreign affairs, despite diametrically opposing commitments made in the name of the Empire by ambassadors, foreign ministers, prime ministers, and the Diet itself. [4]THE CULTURE CLASH Japan’s foreign policy, whence most international mis- understandings are likely to arise. Western correspondents stationed in Japan are prone to accept statements made by Japanese officials as possessing precisely the same authority that would be possessed by similar remarks made by correspond- ing officials in the West. When official spokesmen said in 1922 that militaristic influences in Japan were obsolete and that army control had passed away, the correspondents in Japan, and readers in the West, assumed that Japanese political conditions had been revolutionized and that civilians were controlling Jap- anese affairs. Yet, almost simultaneously, the General Staff was acting independently to set up a buffer state in Eastern Asia (5). Few Japanese saw any incon- sistency involved between the action and the assur- ances of spokesmen. Such unfortunate coincidences cause foreigners to look on Japanese as sly, treacher- ous, and unreliable, though estimates by foreigners who live among the Japanese and know their charac- ter run diametrically counter to such harshness (6). The space limitations of the periodicals and the cost of cable tolls preclude a proper clarifying of the mis- conceptions spread by such discrepancies. Misunderstandings also are produced by a not un- common practice by leading Japanese officials of pro- fessing opinions at home quite out of harmony with those expressed by them in foreign lands. Patriotic pride, tradition, and the supposed safety of the state [5]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN impels the publicist to profess dual opinions on con- tested matters, blowing hot in Japan and cold in for- eign lands. At home he finds no difficulty in indorsing as truth the myths that pass as history in all the schools, nor in decrying democracy as dangerous; whereas at his foreign post the same man will unhesi- tatingly declare that Japan is eager to accept the Westerner’s conception of equality and freedom. Shunkichi Akimoto, for example, told Honolulu diners that Japan is “intensely democratic because governed by the power of public opinion,” yet in Tokyo he con- fessed that if he were to advance his free opinions on Japan’s rule in Korea he would probably incur the charge of treason (7).’ It is, however, seldom that direct contradictions are detected; more often the discrepancies are cloaked by delicate jocosities, discreet suppressions, or by a clever repartee. Deft emphasis upon some phrase which is a shibboleth to other peoples is artistically employed, and the implication is conveyed that, to Japanese as well as foreigners, the same emotional “Count Michimasu Soyejima, publisher of the official vernac- ular organ of the Korea government general, solemnly assured New Yorkers that “happily only a few jingoes in Japan say that Ameri- ca is selfish, worse than pre-war Germany, seeking world hegemo- ny.” But on arrival in Japan he told reporters that “Americans are crafty, underhanded, selfishly inhuman, and seek the hegemony of East and West.” Yet again, at a banquet of the Tokyo English- Speaking Society, he remarked that “America’s aspirations, how- ever they may appear to other nations, are fundamentally peace- ful” (8). [6]THE CULTURE CLASH content exists in all its potency. The same Prince Tokugawa to whom the Eta outcasts vainly called for aid in winning for them social, as well as theoretical, equality found no incongruity, before a banquet of Americans, in praising Lincoln as the man whom all Japan reveres. No opportunity is wasted for stress- ing the essential similarity of the ideals and practices held in common by both East and West. Dr. Inazo Nitobe, the Japanese Quaker who was under-secretary of the League of Nations, was an especial target for the Chronicle. “We cannot remem- ber Dr. Nitobe having ever been prominent in the peace movement in Japan. As the author of Bushido he extolled the military ideals of the Bushi. He has jus- tified all Japan’s wars, approved the annexation of Ko- rea and Formosa, was silent over the Twenty-One Demands, and advocates peace only when some thou- sands of miles away from Tokyo.”* The Chronicle is not alone in making charges of duplicity. The usu- ally friendly Japan Advertiser accuses Japanese offi- cials of holding dual sets of opinions and of speaking primarily for foreign ears. The Japan Times, always meticulous in turning the best light possible upon Japan, accused officials, in a front-page headline, of ®It is only fair to point out that in the final chapter of Bushi- do, Dr. Nitobe challenged the basic righteousness of military ideals, and that on at least one occasion he has attacked the administrative methods followed by Japanese officials in Korea. By and large, however, the Chronicle’s summary is not unjustified. [7]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN untruthfulness and of prevention of interracial un- derstandings (9). Patriotic pride adds to the prevalence of interna- tional uneasiness. That the Japanese are a proud race has grown into a catchword, whether the pride be due, as Dr. Gulick thinks, to overgrown ambition, self- sufficiency, and conceit, all linked together and con- ditioned by the consciousness of rapid high achieve- ment, or whether it be traceable to “compensation.” Its manifestations, often, as Dr. Gulick says, vocifer- ous, impracticable, and chauvinistic, create a sense of uncompromising disdain for the foreigner and an ex- aggerated loyalty to the emperor which leads the Jap- anese to resent the slightest hint or indirect suggestion of defect or limitation either in themselves or in the government which the emperor has granted to his peo- ple. The superiority of both the nation and of its citi- zens is coolly assumed, and the relative inferiority of other peoples is just as readily suggested (10). Coupled with excessive self-esteem is a repug- nance to the frank criticism common to the Anglo- Saxon peoples. A sensitive self-consciousness which, in the West, would be dismissed as morbid (perhaps even an inferiority complex), impels the Japanese to group their commentators either as pro- or anti-Jap- anese. The middle ground is seldom taken. The type of Englishman who casts unfavorable reflections upon the British rule in India, or of the American who finds fault with Philippine administration, is rarely [8]THE CULTURE CLASH. matched by Japanese who comment publicly in ad- verse tones upon the governmental trend in Formosa or Korea. Objection to Japan’s foreign policy as “cow- ardly” and “slavish” is allowable; indeed, its preva- lence has given rise to most “proofs” that Japanese newspapers are fearless in their opposition; but there is little public rebuke for undue truculence. In the early days of Japan’s intercourse with the Western peoples Sir Rutherford Alcock noted, in the preface to his Capital of the Tycoon, “an incorrigible tenden- cy of the Japanese to withhold from foreigners, or dis- guise, the truth on all matters, great and small.” Thir- ty years later Dr. Gulick could report, “A librarian refused to lend me a book, saying that foreigners might be freely informed of the good, the true, and beautiful of Japanese history, customs, and charac- ter, but nothing else” (11). That these discrepancies and these reluctances to speak the full truth weaken international confidence is inevitable. Those readers who follow critically and carefully the actions and the speeches of the Jap- anese are led to feel that Japan’s government is in- sincere and that no trust can be placed in anything her spokesmen say. The conclusions are, of course, glaringly unjustified; nor would any implication be well warranted that Western diplomats are always wedded to complete and exact veracity in all their ut- terances. Yet by such practices, whether in the Occi- [9]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN dent or in Japan, suspicion and loss of confidence can scarcely be avoided. The correction of these misconceptions and the mutual interpretation between the East and West pro- vides an opportunity for the press, both foreign lan- guage and vernacular, to mediate between the Jap- anese and the Occidental residents? in the solution of the interracial and the international conflicts which necessarily arise between dissimilar cultures living in a close proximity. As an intermediary for the intro- duction of the western mode of life the press was early recognized as a valuable and a necessary engine. The shogunate isolation did not prevent Japan from gaining knowledge of the West, in fact, the Sho- gun’s government, the Baku-fu, took every possible precaution to assure its being given information on the more important Western trends. One of the yearly duties imposed upon the Dutch merchants of Deshi- °In Tokyo some 1,200 American and British citizens dwell, while perhaps 3,000 English-speaking foreigners live in the Osaka, Kobe, and Kyoto section (12). The recognition of the need for for- eign-language papers to supplement the native papers is the expla- nation why Japan, almost alone among the nations of the world, has foreign language papers owned and edited by native citizens of the land to which the foreigners have come. It is the explanation, also, why among the Japanese the foreign-language press has been developed to a high degree. A single page in Excelstor or El Uni- versal is deemed sufficient for the English readers in Mexico, and only puny sheets serve the tourist in Paris and Berlin. Buenos Aires prints a better and a larger English paper; but in Japan the English-language press comprises journals which would grace a large-sized city in America. [ 10 ]THE CULTURE CLASH ma, near Nagasaki, was to supply the Baku-fu with current European news and with translations of the information contained in Occidental publications. A few-score copies of these reports were printed by the Baku-fu from carved wooden types, and were distrib- uted for the information of the higher government of- ficials (13). In studying press history in the Island Empire these bulletins sometimes breed confusion, for Jap- anese historians are prone to register as a “newspa- per” any official broadside thus prepared. The confu- sion is increased through the customary failure to point out that but one issue only of any particular title was ever published, through the tendency to at- tribute the issue to independent initiative rather than to Baku-fu promotion, and through the duplication involved in crediting the issue both to the government official superintending the publication and to the col- laborator who might be consulted concerning the rel- ative importance of the news. These defects in meth- od create a false impression of active rivalry in issuing news journals, cause some historians to multiply un- intentionally the instances of free journalism, and ex- aggerate the part played by the press in Japan’s social and political development. The most pretentious of the official bulletins was the Batavia Shimbun, printed for the Baku-fu in the latter weeks of 1861 by Heishiro Yorozuya. Like the other broadsides, this was not an original newspaper [x1]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN in the modern sense, but was merely a translation into Japanese of the contents of the September issue of the Dutch Batavia News. Since the Japanese translation made no pretense at an independent search for news, the importance of the Batavia Shimbun lies in its his- torical value as being a first attempt to regularize the collection of the news. Hitherto, except for the Dutch reports, information had reached the Baku-fu some- what irregularly, according to the chance receipt of new reports. The Batavia Shimbun introduced the practice of translating the contents of any important foreign newspaper arriving in Japan (14). The titles given to succeeding issues varied, in order to indicate the sources from which the news was drawn or the subject matters upon which the bulletins gave information. Later broadsides therefore bore such titles as Rikaigo Sodan (Universal Round-Ta- ble), Hong Kong Shimbun, or Kaigai Shimbun (Over- seas News). Like the Batavia Shimbun, all these were Baku-fu reprints of foreign papers. None possessed editorials, local news, or special articles written inde- pendently for the Japanese. Nor, of course, were reg- ular publication dates observed, since the dates of is- sue depended upon the arrival of sufficiently impor- tant news. Joseph Heco, “editor” or news-adviser for the Baku-fu, deserves to be regarded as the real father of Japanese journalism. He was an adventurous sailor, originally named Hikozo Hamada, who had been ship- [12]THE CULTURE CLASH wrecked, in 1850, while sailing from Harima to Yedo. He had been picked up by an American ship and had been carried by his rescuers to America. There he at- tracted the attention of philanthropists who changed his name, gave him an elementary education, saw to his naturalization as an American citizen, and inter- ested him in American life. After returning to Japan —with the Perry Expedition, according to his later associate, Ginko Kishida—he served as interpreter to the American consulate in Yokohama. Under the sobriquet “America” Heco, he was well-known as the best Japanese authority on American life, and for that reason had been appointed as the compiler of the Kaigai Shimbun (15)."° © Kaigai Shimbun seems to have been issued in 1862, although Heco gives 1864 as the date for its establishment. The confusion in dates indicates one of the tasks confronting the student of Jap- anese gazettes. Even those authorities who should be best acquaint- ed differ widely in chronology. Heco’s error of two years is a case in point. Another is the date of the Batavia Shimbun. Na- kagawa gives the date 1863; Kawabe and Courant say 1864; and Martin, acting probably on information received from Iichiro To- kutomi, says 1863. The actual date, 1861, is fixed by the fact that the paper contains an account of the eighty-fifth anniversary cele- bration of Independence Day in the United States. The news reached Batavia in time for publication on August 31, 1861, but could scarcely have reached Japan before October. The case of the oldest newspaper now existing is even more complicated. This is the Tokyo Nichi Nichi, said by Hanazono to have been founded March, 1868. Yet on another page he gives February 21, 1872, as the date of establishment, and photographs the inaugural issue in proof. The Nichi Nichi itself published a twenty-eighth anniversary issue in 1902, which would put the date as 1874, but, in the same [13]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Heco’s next step was to republish, in Japanese and for his own profit, additional items which had ap- peared in the American press and which were not se- lected for the Baku-fu news bulletins. With the aid of Senzo Homma and Ginko Kishida, a twelve-page paper, called Shimbunshi (News) was issued March 1, 1864. Like the earlier official broadsides, it was primarily a medium for translations, but it also had the broader scope of including local items and reports of market prices. Kishida supplied the latter informa- tion, and thus should rank as the pioneer reporter of Japan (17). According to Heco’s own story, Shimbunshi had probably the smallest circulation list on record, con- sisting of but two subscribers. “It was a strange fact,”’ writes Heco, “that although the native people were anxious to read the paper, they were afraid, I believe on account of the government and the law at that time, to subscribe for it or to buy it, so I had to give it away.” At no time did the circulation ex- ceed a hundred copies, and after the tenth issue, in 1864, it ceased to appear. Difficulties with the gov- ernment, as Heco hints, may have contributed to the issue, declared that it was founded October, 1871. In 1904 a thirty- seventh anniversary issue was distributed, implying that the date should be 1867, in which Courant agrees. Takahashi estimated 1871; while Sawada, speaking to the Japan Society of London, said the Nichi Nichi was begun in, 1867, although ten pages later he re- ports the origin as 1873 (16). [14]THE CULTURE CLASH suspension, for immediately after Shimbunshi ex- pired, both Kishida and Heco embarked upon hur- ried trips abroad, Heco going to the United States while Kishida fled to China (18). The next important vernacular paper, Bankoku Shimbunshi (News of the World) appeared under for- eign editorship, although, unfortunately for the pa- per, not under the aegis of extrality. It was owned and edited by Rev. Buckworth Bailey, the British consular chaplain, and Ajiki Zendo, a Buddhist priest. In reality, Bankoku, a high-grade journal printed upon foreign newsprint, marks the birth of the rell- gious press, since Bailey’s chief interest was in culling such news as might advance the progress of religion in Japan. Its first issue came in October, 1867, but, like its predecessors, Bankoku had no regular publication dates. Its technical importance rests upon the fact that it was the first native paper in Japan to print ad- vertisements, and in its consequent reduction of sub- scription price from the customary one momme charge (about 15 cents) to two sen (approximately one cent ) a copy. The paper proved popular and its circulation rose to upwards of 2,000 copies. But, from causes which will soon appear, Bankoku’s life was rather brief, ending in June of 1868 (19). A better paper, also foreign-edited, was the Ka- koku Shimbun (World News), founded by John Hart- ley, an Osaka merchant, in April, 1868. With this begins the long experimentation of the Japanese gov- [15]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN ernment in the manipulation of a controlled press, ostensibly free and independent in its ownership, but in reality directed from behind the scenes for propa- ganda purposes. Kakoku was accorded official sup- port from the Imperialist faction during the civil wars pursuant to the Meiji Restoration, and the paper was expected to print news items favorable to the Imperi- al cause. Since Hartley, by his commercial contacts, had a wider range of information than Bailey could procure, Kakoku ranked the older paper both in local and in business news. Economies in printing were possible for Kakoku because, through official sug- gestion, it was lent a copious font of metal types cast by Shozo Motogi of the Nagasaki Steel Works. All newspapers in Japan had hitherto been printed from wood blocks hand carved into the proper characters. But with the triumph of the Imperialistic cause Ka- koku was no longer thought to be essential. The type was withdrawn and in 1869 the paper was aban- doned (20). A second propaganda paper, Chugai Shimbun (Home and Foreign News) was published every five or six days by Shunzo “Shunsan” Yanagawa from February, 1868, until Yanagawa’s death some two years later. Since it was more frankly designed as a medium for publicity, Chugai Shimbun was permitted to print editorials, and thus it introduced this feature for the first time into any vernacular gazette. Usu- ally the paper contained ten pages, stitched in pam- [16]THE CULTURE CLASH phlet form and printed from wood blocks, and the price remained one momme. Because of its official patronage, however, the Chugai Shimbun prospered and its circulation rose to 1,500 copies. The success appears to have caused embarrassment, as an editori- al was inserted in which Yanagawa confessed his in- ability to solve the distribution problem. He there- fore asked his gracious subscribers to spare him trouble by themselves sending for their own copies (2i19): Yet another paper, the Koko Shimbun, was in- augurated in April, 1868, to serve Imperialistic inter- ests. Appearing every three or four days, this paper, edited by Genichiro Fukichi,** advocated forceful re- sistance to all enemies of Imperialist control. But, unlike Chugai Shimbun and Kakoku, Fukichi’s paper opposed not only the Tokugawa shogunate, but also waged fierce war upon the little group of Satsuma- Choshu clansmen who succeeded the Tokugawa as powers behind the throne. ‘‘We cannot be satisfied,” it said, “unless the Ministerialists are overthrown, and the sovereign rights are restored to the Emperor in fact as well as in name” (22). Fukichi was at once imprisoned by the ‘“‘Sat- Cho” oligarchy on the charge of inciting revolution. ™ Fukichi, another of the brilliant geniuses in which early Jap- anese journalism abounds, was a dramatist and diplomat. As a high official of the Shogunate, he had been four times sent abroad on missions and he was conversant with foreign ideas. [17]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN To silence Koko Shimbun, Bankoku Shimbun, Mo- shiogusa (Sea-Weeds) ,** and other papers believed to be unfriendly to the “‘Sat-Cho” rule, a special press ordinance was issued. This document, circulated in June, 1868, declared that no newspaper could be is- sued except by previous permission of the govern- ment. As no journal, except the official government protagonists, had been notified of this requirement, anti-administration papers had to be abandoned. This marks the first infringement by the government upon press freedom, and closes the preliminary period of Japan’s press history (23). No crime, it may be noted, is alleged against the anti-Ministry newspapers save that of printing, as Noguchi says, “‘certain delightful exaggerations” con- cerning “Sat-Cho” defeats in battle. It is noteworthy also that even yet commentators feel obliged to glide smoothly over any narration of the rude suppression methods used. In Marquis Okuma’s semi-official his- tory, Moshiogusa is described as having been aban- doned because the editor “found the transportation business more profitable than journalism,” and the Koko Shimbun is described as having a “peculiar po- litical color.” Hanazono remarks naively that “some people expressed surprise that Bankoku discontinued, since if so many copies were sold it must have earned a handsome profit.” Martin, who seems to have re- ceived his information from the editor of Kokumin, ~ Established April, 1868, by Kishida on his return to Japan. [ 18 ]THE CULTURE CLASH explains that Bankoku ceased because of “lack of readers and of other difficulties.” Koko Shimbun’s attitude is completely twisted by Kawabe, who says the editorials “glorified rebellion,’ and by Sawada, who implies that it earned Imperial disfavor. Both latter writers ignore the justice of the opposition to “Sat-Cho”’; and Sawada, in fact, excludes the Choshu clan entirely from his discussion of the matter (24). Soon after order was restored and the Imperial- ists, following Satsuma-Choshu leadership, came into undisputed administrative powers, the second period of journalism was enabled to begin. Beginning with the issue, on December 12, 1870, of the Yokohama Mainichi (Daily News) daily publication of newspa- pers replaced the somewhat intermittant issues of the past. Official aid continued, for not only was the Yo- kohama Mainichi openly assisted by the Yokohama district governor, Iseki, but it was also allotted the use of the Motogi steel type once lent to Hartley’s short-lived paper (25). But Yokohama, the foreign settlement, was not deemed the best site for a vernacular paper, and in 1879 the Mainichi was transferred to Tokyo. Subse- quent political changes deprived it of official favor, and, together with the competition of more strongly financed newspapers, caused the Mainichi to decay in circulation and in influence. At one time it was sold to Hochi, a competitor, but it did not lose its identity, and in 1914 the Mainichi again became an [19]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN official organ when Hochi sold it to Sanehiko Ya- mamoto, a member of the Tokyo Municipal Assem- bly. Since 1918 the Mainichi, now owned by H. Chi- ba, has been an evening paper of comparatively slight importance (26). Within a year after the establishment of the Yo- kohama Mainichi, thirty other journals, encouraged by the Mainichi’s early prosperity, sprang up in the Tokyo-Yokohama area. Most of these appear to have been founded either as administration organs or as mouthpieces for the views of prominent politicians allied to the Administration. Little attempt was made by any of these journals to discuss political affairs in a manner hostile to the ministerial policies, and the contents were almost always composed of official in- formation or of items favorable to the ruling cliques. Opposition papers or journals which did not enjoy a subsidy could not compete with favored periodicals controlled by ambitious politicians who, to quote To- yabe, edited them as ‘“‘diversions” (27).*° None of these papers equals in importance the Nisshin Shinjishi (China-Japan News), which ap- peared in Tokyo in 1872 under the editorship of John Reddie Black, an Englishman. This was undoubtedly “The Shimbun Zasshi (News Magazine), a weekly begun in June, 1871, is typical. It was “inspired” by Jiunichiro “Koin” Kido, and like the Mainichi, sought to enhance “Sat-Cho” hegemo- ny. Kido, however, concealed his connection with the paper, and the editorship was nominally held by two of his retainers (28). [ 20 |THE CULTURE CLASH the first true modern-style newspaper in the Japanese language, for although it was anticipated by both the Mainichi and the Tokyo Nichi Nichi, neither of the latter journals covered the news field with anything like the thoroughness of the Nisshin. Black’s paper, too, was free from the excessive filth which rendered older papers obnoxious to the foreign residents, and he took especial pride in carrying on “crusades” against the prevalence of indecent and objectionable street exhibitions. Local news was stressed, for Black, as an expert newspaperman—he owned and edited two English-language papers and a monthly maga- zine—realized the circulation value of the local items. Praise was freely accorded to the municipality, partly because of an official connection between Black’s pa- per and the government, and, more probably, because of the recognition that an official whose name is flat- teringly mentioned becomes a news source of future value (29). Black himself believed that the Nisshin Shinj- shi was founded at the instigation of the government, for his partner, F. da Roza, was in close alliance with the high officials, and through da Roza’s influence special favors were made available. An open connec- tion with the Sa-In, one of the three chief government departments, was soon established, and official mone- tary support was freely given (30). In spite of these advantages the Nisshin suffered difficulties. The type question rose to vex the editors. [ 21]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Black and da Roza had believed that a font of some two or three hundred boxwood characters would be sufficient; but in practice a need was felt for more than 1,200 wooden types, and eventually ten times that number were required. Black employed several men to carve out characters as they might be needed, but the expense was heavy. Eventually this drain was relieved when metal foundries began to “turn out type, one, two, or any number at a time, at a cost of one cent each” (31). Nor were many Japanese, outside official circles, aware of the proper purpose of a paper. It was even necessary to convince prospective purchasers that daily issues really implied fresh news each day and not reprinting of stale news of yesterday. Black was re- duced to canvassing from house to house for more subscribers. By 1874 the financial tide was turning for the Nisshin, but then occurred a series of events, reflecting no particular glory on any of the partici- pants, whereby the paper was extinguished. According to Black’s own story he was ap- proached by officials of the Sa-In and was asked to accept the secretaryship of a new bureau to be called the “popular representative deliberative assembly,” or house of representatives. The purpose evidently was to use Black’s influence and that of the Nisshin to work up sentiment for a more democratic govern- ment. Black consented, and he was appointed to this non-existent body for a two-year term. Since the ar- [22]THE CULTURE CLASH rangement was in contravention of a Japanese decree forbidding government officials from engaging in a private enterprise, Black was advised “for form’s sake” to withdraw his name from the Nisshin mast- head and to cancel its registration in his name. As soon as this was done, announcement was made offi- cially that the proprietorship and editorship of Jap- anese language papers was henceforth closed to for- eigners. Black was also given notice that his secre- taryship was terminated. On his attempting to rejoin the Nisshin he found the Press Law operating to pre- vent him. Thus a newspaper was allowed to die, which, in the opinion of Motosada Zumoto, was “the best and most strongly edited of Japanese newspa- pers” (32). The real motives for this action are still disputed. Probably a general tone of criticism which had de- veloped in the Nisshin had antagonized the govern- ment. Marquis Okuma’s narration points out that ar- ticles by Eiichi Shibusawa (now Viscount ) and Kaoru Inouye, later vice-minister of finance, had exposed political secrets. Others assume that either an edi- torial by Fukichi advocating extrality continuance, or appeals by Counts Goto and Itagaki for a national assembly, were responsible (33). Black, dissatisfied by his exclusion, then attempt- ed to establish a second Bankoku Shimbun as a ver- nacular paper under extrality protection. The Jap- anese authorities complained that such a precedent [ 23 ]IO. els SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN might incite disgruntled Japanese to attack the gov- ernment by hiring a complaisant foreigner as an edi- tor; and Sir Harry Parkes, the British minister, for- bade all British subjects from publishing or editing native papers. The precedent was later used to “‘kill” a British paper in Korea. NOTES* . Gulick, p. 19; Bryan, p. 17. . Rev. B. F. Shively, Christian Movement (1918), p. 215; Professor Kunitake Kime, in Okuma, I, 96; Ito, in Okuma, I, 127; articles on Shinto, Okuma, IT, 4o. . Okuma, p. 40. . Gulick, p. 146. . Chronicle, October 19, 1922. . Gulick, p. 121; Chamberlain (for a collection of opinions), p. 8. . Akimoto, Advertiser, January 22, 1919; in Tokyo, Adver- tiser, October 23, 1925; see also Chronicle, November 15, 1917, July 27, 1922. . “War in Twenty Years,” New York Times, May 21, 1925; “Few Jingoes,” zbid., July 16, 1925; see also “Taiyo,” Jan- uary, 1926; Advertiser, January 31, 1926; Osaka Mainichi, December 27, 1925. . Nitobe, in Chronicle, October 5, 1922; Advertiser, Novem- 9 ber 27, 1924, December 30, 1924; Japan Times, March 9, 1925. Gulick, pp. 49, 146. Gulick, pp. 125, 1390, 140; Chamberlain, pp. 253, 264. *All citations in this chapter referring to Okuma, Heco, or Young Japan are, unless otherwise noted, in Volume II of each of these works. 4]18. IQ. 20. Zi. 22. 23. 24. NS on THE CULTURE CLASH . Japan Times, December 11, 1924; Tokyo Statistical Bu- reau, Twentieth Annual Report, 1924, p. 148; Chronicle, January 14, 1926. . Mail, January 16, 1909; Okuma, pp. 393-94; Hanazono, D5. . Hanazono, pp. 4, 5; Sawada, p. 369; Noguchi, p. 141; Kawabe, pp. 38 f. . See Heco’s Autobiography; Byas (1916), p. 42. . Heco, p. 253; London Times, September 2, 1916; Nicht Nichi, March 9, 1902, November 10, 1902, November 10, 1904; Sawada, pp. 189f., 200; Hanazono, p. 8; Japan Yearbook (1924-25), pp. 276f.; Martin, p. 5; Kawabe, pp. 38 f.; Courant, 507 f. . Kishida, in Kobe Chronicle, May 24, 1899; Nakamura, p. 290; Courant, p. 507; Sawada, p. 189; Hanazono, p. 4; Okuma, p. 394; Mail, January 16, 1900. Heco, p. 253; Yomiuri, July 12, 1902; Kawabe, pp. 40f.; Courant, p. 507; Hanazono, p. 5; Noguchi. Young Japan, p. 60; Yomiuri, July 12, 1902; Okuma, p. 306; Hanazono, p. 7; Martin, p. 6; Kawabe, p. 41. Young Japan, p. 275; Hanazono, p. Io. Nakagawa, p. 373; Martin, p. 6; Zumoto, p. 113; Kawabe, p. 42; Hanazono, pp. 11-13. Mail, January 13, 1906; Sawada, p. 190; Kawabe, p. 61; Taiyo, February, 1906; Kuroda; Nakamura, p. 299; Han- azono, pp. I0, 34. See “Press Freedom in Japan,” American Journal of So- ciology, January, 1927. London Times, September 2, 1916; Okuma, pp. 393-95; Sawada, p. 190; Kawabe, pp. 61 f.; Kuroda; Higashi; Na- kagawa, p. 373; Yomiuri, July 12, 1902; Mail, August 30, 1902; Martin, p. 6; Hanazono, p. 7. . Longford, p. 176; Zumoto, p. 114; Kawabe, p. 42; Rivet- ta; Rai; Okuma, p. 396; Mail, January 16, 1909. [25]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN . Mail, November 26, 1887, September 1, 1900, November 3, 1900, February 7, 1903, December 15, 1906; ““Tsch’’; Higashi; Myojo, August, 1900; Byas. . Toyabe, in Okuma, p. 395; Taikan, October, 1918; Kawa- be, pp. 81 f. 28. Longford, Asiatic Society, XI, 205; Von Brandt; Sawada, 3; Okuma, p. 396; Young Japan, NS Orn NO a | p. 191; Hanazono, p. 2 Pp. 300. 29. Young Japan, pp. 364-70. 30. Ibid., p. 336. 31. Ibid., pp. 366—68. 32. Ibid., p. 372; Longford, p. 30. 33. Longford, p. 177; Okuma, p. 398; Kawabe, p. 61.CHAPTER II THE PRESS SEEKS FREEDOM Prior to 1872 the blight of Administration propa- ganda and the restrictions imposed upon independent gathering of news prevented the appearance of truly first-rank journalists, with the exception of Heco, the founder of the press, and of Black, the British pioneer of Japanese gazettes. None of the figures later to be commemorated as the giants of the Japanese newspa- per world had as yet appeared; nor, with the excep- tion of the Nisshin Shinjishi and the Tokyo Mainichi had powerful newspapers been established.* 1Kach year the Tokyo Nichi Nichi and the Osaka Mainichi commemorate the work of ten noted journalists whom these papers rank as worthy of membership in Japan’s newspaper “Hall of Fame.” It is a matter for regret that Heco is not included in the number, but J. R. Black is admitted, as the only foreigner. Black, however, was overlooked by the Japanese government when, in the spring of 1925, a long list of “foreigners who have served Japan” was honored by a memorial service at the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo. The ten newspapermen who are remembered by the Nicht Nichi and the Mainichi are: Shunzo Yanagawa, founder of Seiyo Zasshi and Chugai Shimbun; Ginko Kishida, of Shimbunshi, Moshiogusa and the Nichi Nichi; Joun Kurimoto and Mokichi Fujita of Hochi; Yukichi Fukuzawa of Jiji; Ryuhoku Narushima, of Choya; Tetsuo Suyehiro, of Shimbun Zasshi, who was imprisoned for insistance on free speech; Shuichi Numa, a government official who resigned in [27]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN In the decade from 1872 to 1882, however, the period when the stirrings of reform began to be ob- served, a number of new journals came to be begun. As in the previous years, the administration was re- sponsible for founding most of these, for government officials wished to use newspapers as mouthpieces for publicity; but the rise of opposition papers is a nota- ble phenomenon. By far the most successful of the government- inspired organs, and one of the few still flourishing, was the Tokyo Nichi Nichi, established in February, 1872. In reality this paper was the Koko Shimbun, revived after a four-year suspension to support the same ‘‘Sat-Cho” oligarchy which it had formerly de- nounced. Ginko Kishida, the editor, was now fully restored to official confidence and he made no secret of his desire to use the Nichi Nichi as an administra- tion organ. Indeed, the paper boasted, in 1875, that it was ‘“‘under the special protection of the Council of State.” Fukichi also, having changed his views, was added to the staff to represent the views of Prince Ito, Okuma, Okubo, and Kido (1). Fukichi’s journalistic cleverness marks him as a pioneer. To him is credited the introduction of signed editorials, the use of the margin of the paper as a pre- ferred place for printing advertisements, and the is- indignation at being prohibited from making public speeches and joined the Yokohama Mainichi; and Genichiro Fukichi, of the Nichi Nichi. [ 28 |THE PRESS Vs: BUREAUCRACY suing of gogai (extras). He cleansed the Nichi Nichi of the filthy items which, by all accounts, appear to have been found in all the native papers and against which Black had registered complaints. But his abili- ties could not secure his post, and when his influential friends fell into internecine strife, and Ito was de- feated, the Nichi Nichi lost its administration subsi- dies. A final blow was dealt when, in 1882, Fukichi’s own patrons, Ito and Okuma, transferred their favor to the Tokyo Jiji.2 The Nichi Nichi could not meet expenses, and in 1887 Fukichi was forced to resign. With his withdrawal the Nichi Nichi was restored to Ito’s favor and was the official mouthpiece whenever Ito was in power (2). In November, 1904, Count Takaaki Kato, for- mer ambassador to Great Britain and later Premier, bought the Nichi Nichi from the Ito interest. Kato wished to build the paper into a replica of the London Times. Although he was assisted by the wealthy Mit- subishi corporation, headed by his father-in-law, the Nichi Nichi failed to meet expenses. Six years later it *Ito’s displeasure against Fukichi was aroused by the latter’s publishing an exposé of Ito’s plan to sell government land in the Hokkaido to a private individual at much less than market value. A later editor, Chisen Asaina, also braved the Ito wrath by attack- ing that statesman’s “despotism” while in office. When Ito refused to mend his ways, Asaina resigned. Hanazono’s book, while frank- ly devoted to the interests of the Nichi Nichi, fails to mention Asai- na, though Asaina is regarded by Yone Noguchi as one of the three greatest editors Japan has ever had (4). [29]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN was transferred, through an intermediary, to the Osa- ka Mainichi, and became the Tokyo “sister” of the latter paper (3). The not uncommon Japanese custom whereby government departments or institutions may be rep- resented by a journalistic spokesman appears to have originated with the establishment, in the spring of 1872, of Yubin Hochi (Postal News) by the then postmaster-general Hisoka Mayejima. This official was motivated by a double purpose, for he wished not only to possess a friendly newspaper, but also to carry news to the less literate portion of the population. His paper, therefore, was designed to be written in the easy kana syllabary that would avoid the use of the more classical Chinese characters. Almost from the first, however, Hochi, as it came to be known, outgrew the original design and entered into active competition with the other “major” pa- pers. The educational purpose of the journal was thereupon transferred to a new gazette, established in February, 1873, and called the Hiragana Shimbun (Kana Paper). The latter paper died soon thereafter, but its influence and that of Mayejima is still to be seen in the customary practice, followed by virtually all the press, of attaching tiny kana symbols at the side of the Chinese characters which make up the body of all papers (5). Ten years after its establishment, Hochi also abandoned its peculiarly departmental mission and [30]THE PRESS VS. BUREAUCRACY was incorporated in the larger stream of political in- terpreters. In 1882 it was bought by Fumio Yano, formerly a secretary in the treasury and a close friend of Marquis Okuma. For over forty years the paper was regarded as the especial spokesman of that states- man, and it was the administration mouthpiece when- ever Okuma, or his supporters, was in power. Yano sold the paper about the time of the Sino-Japanese War to other friends of Okuma, but the journal has never quite won independence from official circles. In 1910 its president was Katsundo Minoura, a vet- eran politician and a former Cabinet minister. Mi- noura was succeeded by Dr. Juichi Soyeda, the first president of the Bank of Formosa and of the Japan Industrial Bank, former head of the Imperial Rail- ways, and a vice-minister. When Soyeda retired, in 1923, when Hochi passed out from Okuma influence, Chuji Machida, formerly of the Bank of Japan and an under-secretary of the Department of Communica- tions, became the president (6). To Japanese journalists Hochi has always been an object of great professional curiosity, for its vari- ous managements have been resourceful in their de- vices for creating circulation. In order to continue to appeal to its lower and middle-class clientéle which Mayejima had courted, Yano cut the subscription rate to 25 sen a month, or to about 12% cents. As a means for attracting a steady group of readers he in- troduced the plan of printing serials. Hiroshi “Gen- [31]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN sal” Murai and Zempichi Miki, to whom Yano sold the paper, sought to build up “‘a clean family paper of a liberal type,” and to that end endeavored once again to print a vernacular newspaper free from salacity. They made an especial appeal for women readers, and, as early as a quarter-century ago, employed women as staff writers, but did not dare at first to announce this publicly. “If it were known,” they said, “that women were the authors of the paragraphs read by the general readers, silly prejudice would de- stroy the effect of the writings” (7). One of Miki’s more daring and by no means un- successful efforts to build circulation consisted of splitting the paper into a morning and an evening edi- tion, the former printing foreign news, editorials. and a modern serial; the latter containing late cables, lo- cal news, and a novel of old Japan. Hochiis also cred- ited with having begun the first news bureau in Ja- pan (8). A recent service for which Hochi deserves the highest credit was its exposure of the hidden influ- ences governing the inner political circles of the Em- pire. Its disclosures, in January, 1925, of the wide ramifications of power held by the so-called “God of Onden” did much to purify Japanese social and po- litical conditions, even though it failed in its attempt to punish the “God” himself. *For a full account of this crusade, see the writer’s article in the World Tomorrow, June, 1925. [32]THE PRESS VS. BUREAUCRACY That the press might serve a social mission dis- tinct from governmental propaganda seems to have been first discerned by Seiko Motono, who, with two others, established Yomiuri (the Town Crier) in 1873. Like Mayejima, Motono’s avowed purpose was to reform society, and, like Hochi, Yomiuri resorted to the semicolloquial and easy style of writing in order to appeal to the masses of the people (9). Because Motono’s paper did not champion, at first, any of the government departments, and did not represent the views of influential politicians, it did not dare to touch on matters of political importance. Yo- miuri was confined to literary and to cultural affairs, and partook rather of the nature of a daily news-mag- azine than of the usual newspaper. For such a paper, devoid of official backing, the press laws were too re- straining to allow a full and impartial treatment of the news, and so, as was frequently remarked, the Yomiuri treated its news items in an incidental, and often in a casual, style (10). Motono’s detachment from the openly propagan- dist press and his retention of Yukio Ozaki (formerly of Hochi, and a famous liberal) on his staff gave to Yomiuri a reputation for radicalism and for “yellow- ness” which was wholly undeserved. Motono’s son was high in the diplomatic service, and, indeed, was envoy both to France and Russia, and Motono’s sym- pathies were enlisted on the side of the Conservatives. But the general reputation of the paper and the strong [33 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN competition by the better-financed Hochi prevented Yomiuri from becoming a highly paying property for some years after its foundation (11). To such financial straits was Yomiuri reduced that at one time, in 1908, it seriously considered con- verting itself into a private detective agency, using its reporters as special espionage agents to report the in- trigues, dissipations, and extravagances of those sus- pected of leading irregular lives. This bikoki, or “tale- bearing department,”’ was announced, but seems nev- er to have been actually operative (12). Motono’s control over Yomiuri continued nearly half a century, but the paper passed, at length, to Chu- jiro Matsuyama, formerly of the Tokyo Asahi. Mat- Suyama was fortunate in his financial backers, for he was able to secure a group of twenty millionaires, headed by Viscount Shibusawa, long president of the Tokyo Chamber of Commerce, and founder of numerous semi-official enterprises, Baron Kihachiro Okura, president of a vast chain of contracting enter- prises, and Baron Seinosuke Go, steel and colliery executive, to finance the undertaking. They lent him a million yen without imposing restrictive conditions. Yomiuri immediately jumped to the forefront as an organ of liberalism, stood firm against the censorship, attacked bureaucracy and militarism, denounced brib- ery in politics, and even ventured to demand home rule for Formosa. It undertook a new “campaign’’ to rid the press of the slanderous personal comment [34]THE PRESS VS. BUREAUCRACY which Black, Fukichi, and the Hochi editors had also tried in vain to banish. Its woman’s page, like that of its rival, Hochi, attained a special excellence, and its circulation leaped from 50,000 copies to approximate- ly three times that number (13). But the earthquake dealt a heavy blow to Yo- miuri. Matsuyama’s policy had antagonized a num- ber of his underwriters, one of whom he had accused of complicity in a railway scandal. New funds were refused the paper so long as Matsuyama should re- main the editor. On his resignation in February, 1924, Matsutaro Shoriki, a former chief of detec- tives, and the son-in-law of the metropolitan police chief, was chosen to succeed him. Mr. Shoriki, ac- cording to the general rumor in newspaper circles, was financed by Baron Go, the successor to Viscount Shibusawa in the Chamber of Commerce leadership. Fearing that the policy of the paper would swing im- mediately to the “right,” the entire staff of Yomiuri, with one exception, promptly resigned their posts (14). So far as circulation is concerned, the two great- est papers of Japan are the Osaka Mainichi and the Osaka Asahi, each of which claims more than a mil- lion circulation daily, but neither of which is willing to submit its claim to independent audit. These pa- pers dominate the industrial center of the Empire, and each of them maintains an extensive independent organization for securing special and exclusive news. [35]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Many editions of each are printed—the Asahi stat- ing that it issues thirty editions daily—printing plants are maintained in centers remote from Osaka, and local supplements are inserted to create a local ap- peal, not only in the suburbs of Osaka, but also in more remote regions such as Korea and Formosa. The older paper is the Osaka Mainichi (Daily), the direct descendent of the Osaka Nippo, established in 1875 but immediately suspended for its anti-ad- ministration attitude. In the summer of the following year the Nippo was revived with an attitude more fa- vorable to the ruling group, and, in 1883, changed its name to Mamichi. Five years later Hikoichi Motoya- ma, general manager of the Fujita Gumi, a very large mining, contracting, and farming corporation with close official connections, bought the paper. A new program of independence from politics and of devo- tion to commercial interests was adopted, and with the Fujita backing, the Mainichi proved itself enor- mously successful. Its rivals, with the exception of the Asahi, were soon driven off, and the vast Kwansai —the Kobe-Kyoto-Osaka area—became the monop- oly of the Asahi and the Mainichi (15). Expansion under the Motoyama direction has been rapid. As early as 1892 staff correspondents were stationed permanently in Europe and Australia, and special attention has been paid to foreign news. In order to procure speedier and more reliable news from Tokyo, special telephone connection has been [36]THE PRESS VS. BUREAUCRACY maintained by direct wires between the capital and Osaka since 1898. As a further advancement of the Tokyo service two Tokyo papers, the Mainichi Dem- po* and the Nichi Nichi, have been purchased, the for- mer in 1906 and the Nichi Nichi in 1910, and have been consolidated as the Tokyo “‘sisters” of the Osaka Mainichi. Special editions are regularly published in Nagoya (Chukyo Mainichi) for Central Japan, and in Moji (Sethu Mainichi) for the southern island of Kyushu. An ‘Economic Supplement” is a noteworthy feature of the paper. A Braille type Mainichi and an English edition (established 1922) supply other fields. Both the Mainichi and the Asahi are assiduous in promoting enterprises deemed likely to bring ad- vertisement to the paper. Sporting events, concerts, lectures, exhibitions, and other occasions of public in- terests are conducted under the “‘auspices” of one or the other journal, with the distinct understanding that news of the event will be “featured” only in the paper chosen as the patron. In addition to these numerous occurrences the Mainichi has dispatched a scientific expedition to investigate the coast-wise ocean cur- rents, and to explore Northern Saghalien for oil. A meteorological observatory has been set up on the roof of the publishing house, a music hall has been *This paper should not be confused with the Tokyo Mainichi. The Mainichi Dempo (Daily Telegraph) was a conservative com- mercial paper. [37]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN donated to Osaka, and traveling hospitals have been sent into the slum wards of Osaka. A Mainichi base- ball team, long well-known in Japan, toured the Unit- ed States in 1925. Although the Osaka Asahi (Rising Sun) was founded three years later than the Mainichi, in Jan- uary, 18709, it leaped more rapidly into the forefront. When it was four years old Ryuhei Murayama ac- quired a control which he has since maintained. Five years later, in July, 1888, he set up the Tokyo Asahi as his agent in the capital (16). Mr. Murayama has spared no expense in pushing his papers forward. Free extras have been lavishly distributed, especially on such occasions as the pro- mulgation of the constitution in 1889. Verbatim re- ports were printed of the first Diet sessions. The Osaka edition was the first commercial paper to em- ploy rotary presses. His staffs have consistently been brilliant and expensive, and correspondents have been distributed abroad more widely than have the writers for any other paper in Japan. Asahi’s foreign news has been always excellent and usually of a high de- gree of trustworthiness, although on some occasions, as in 1917—18, grave doubts have been cast on the au- thenticity of some dispatches. Close relations have been maintained with the London Times and with the leading papers of other lands. In addition to the newspapers the Asahi company publishes a number of allied publications. A Weekly [38]THE PRESS VS. BUREAUCRACY Asahi, a semi-monthly Sports Asahi, and a weekly ro- togravure Asahigraph represent its more important interests, but in addition there is also a series of monthly issues of Stage and Screen, Kodomo Asahi (Children’s Asahi), and Fujin (Women), the organ of the Western Japan Federation of Women’s Clubs. Asahi also patronizes the Kwansai Film Society, the Imperial Aviation Society, and other groups. It has maintained a radio broadcasting station and has ren- dered noteworthy service in the field of aviation. The first flights ever seen in Japan were given by Asahi in 1go1r, and the first regular intercity service, begun in 1923, was also an Asahi enterprise. In 1925 Asahi airplanes successfully completed a flight from Tokyo to London. In its policy the Asahi has been commendably in- dependent, and, like the Mainichi, has stood consist- ently for liberalism and for freedom from the censor- ship. Unlike its rival, however, Asahi has not cus- tomarily been addicted to jingoistic utterances, nor has it been as strongly antiforeign as has the Mazni- chi. In consequence, Asahi has at times been serious- ly punished by the government authorities. It gave the first news of Japan’s Twenty-One Demands on China, but, after being suppressed, was made to deny its own reports. Nevertheless it repeated the item some time later, and was again suppressed. For giv- ing too much information on the rice riots of 1918 it was suppressed for over twenty days. Moreover, it [39]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN has bitterly attacked the militaristic influence in the government and it opposed the Japanese incursion and occupation of Siberia (17). Asahi, therefore, earned the opposition of the bu- reaucrats and of those favoring “‘strong” governmen- tal action. Mr. Murayama was brutally assaulted by political ruffians, but, instead of punishing the cul- prits, the police arrested Mr. Murayama and threat- ened to prosecute the paper for defending revolution- ary principles. To save the paper from annihilation, Teruo “Sosen” Torii and Chujiro Matsuyama (later of Yomiuri) were dismissed as the responsible writ- ers, Mr. Murayama temporarily retired, and the two Asahi’s were obliged to apologize and to promise to support the government (18). Mr. Torii induced two noblemen to finance him in establishing a new paper, the Taisho Nichi Nichi. The first issue appeared in November, 1919, but the two larger Osaka papers bent every effort to defeat the paper, even signing an agreement that any adver- tisement appearing in the Taisho should be refused admittance to their own columns. The Taisho lost ¥600,000 within six months, and was abandoned. Later it was temporarily revived by a radical religious group, and when this sect was prosecuted the Taisho passed to labor interests. It failed to continue long (19). The Jiji Shimpo (Times), founded March, 1882, by Yukichi Fukuzawa, Japan’s Great Commoner, [ 40 ]THE PRESS Vs. BUREAUCRACY ranks among the very finest papers in Japan. Origi- nally it was employed by Prince Ito, Marquis Okuma, and other Progressists as an organ for the constitu- tionalist idea, but it soon developed into a far greater importance than a merely propagandist journal. A. Miyamori, the biographer of Fukuzawa, ranks the Jiji better than the London Times in that he thinks the Japanese newspaper “‘broader-minded, more im- partial, and with a keener sense of right and justice” (20). Fukuzawa’s paper brought important changes in- to journalistic technique. Jiji was the first paper to appear on seven days a week, omitting the usual holi- day after November, 1887. It long published a re- markable Thursday literary supplement, and in May, 1906, began a miscellaneous Sunday supplement. It was the pioneer in publishing cartoons, and, with Hochi, one of the first to employ women on the staff. It was the first to instal Hoe presses and to extend the nightly “deadline” from the customary eight- o’clock limit until one o’clock in the morning. It un- dertook to popularize Western science, art, and learn- ing (21), and has been perhaps the fairest paper in Japan toward foreign nations and toward foreign res- idents. It was the only Japanese paper to maintain an optimistic tone during and after the immigration disputes of 1924. When Fukuzawa died in 1901, the paper passed to Sutejiro Fukuzawa, second son of the founder and [41]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN son-in-law of Count Tadasu Hayashi, former ambas- sador to China and Great Britain. The latter connec- tion possibly explains the Jzji’s pre-eminence on mat- ters connected with foreign relations, for, from 1895 until 1911, Jiji was the spokesman for the Hayashi views. Masanori Ito, assistant editor of Jzjz, “scooped” the world on the news of the signing of the Four Pow- er Pacific Treaty at the Washington Conference. Jzjz still enjoys close friendships in official quarters, and has also accurate knowledge of trends in the commer- cial field through the younger Fukuzawa’s relation- ships with business leaders (22). Kokumin (the Nation), now the chief exponent of Japanese nationalistic ambitions, was founded in February, 1890, by lichiro, “Soho,” Tokutomi, at that time a follower of a Matthew Arnold liberalism. Kokumin was a bitter and truculent critic of the Ito ministries, and within its first six years was disci- plined no less than fourteen times, one offense calling for a suspension of 138 days. Its fearlessness, its bril- liance, and its aggressive policy won it friends, and from an original subscription list of about 2,000, Ko- kumin leaped to ten times as large a circulation by the close of the Sino-Japanese War (23). At a time when Japan was still subject to extrali- ty conditions, Mr. Tokutomi urged that the nation be permitted to cast deciding votes on every question which might affect the Far East and the Northern Pa- cific Ocean. He demanded that the Japanese navy be [ 42]THE PRESS VS. BUREAUCRACY supreme on the Pacific from Korea to the Philippines, and suggested that Japan either buy the latter archi- pelago from Spain or force its freedom by the aid of war (24). As many of Kokumin’s aims in domestic politics were identical with those expressed by Marquis Oku- ma, Kokumin became the organ of the latter states- man and of his Doshi-kai party. By 1905 the paper had so modified its original liberal attitude that it was defending the issuing of press laws whereby the free- dom of the press was almost completely ended. Mr. Tokutomi subsequently has become the foremost ad- vocate of the bureaucratic rule. In 1rg11 he was des- ignated as Imperial nominee for membership in the House of Peers (25). In his survey of the Japanese press, Professor Martin refers to Kokumin as having had the greatest influence of all the papers in Japan, and he designates Tokutomi as the leading native journalist. This high opinion echoes an earlier approval voiced by Captain Brinkley, congratulating Kokumin as ‘always en- lightened and moderate in tone,” and as trustworthy and judicious. The praise, in both instances, may be somewhat overdrawn, but there is no question of the Kokumin’s importance. The use of many illustrations and the adoption of the Hochi-Yomiuri scheme of easy writing has popularized the paper with the less erudite masses. Timely interviews on current topics have replaced the formalism hitherto the vogue in [43 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN vernacular newspapers, and even the germs of the modern “‘colyum” may be discerned in the daily para- graphs, ‘“Tea-Cups,”’ which Kokumin devoted to the lighter news (26). As its chief representative the yellow press boasts of the Yorodzu-Chuho, (10,000 Things) established in 1892 by Shuroku Kuroiwa. Yamato (1874) and Miyako (1885), the latter being the so-called “geisha paper,” are other representatives, but Yorodzu is by far the most virulent in tone. So staunch a friend of Japan as Captain Frank Brinkley had frequent occa- sion to rebuke the paper for its intemperate false- hoods, even to the extent of urging that Yorodzu ought to be hounded out of society. The Japan Ad- vertiser regards it as ““more anti-American in its poli- cy than any American paper, be it owned by Hearst or McCormick, is anti-Japanese” (27). On the plea that no newspaper could be financial- ly prosperous so long as it was honest, Yorodzu began, in 1911, an agency called Vyunensha to undertake in- vestigations on any topic, while another department Mambensha offered to transact any business whatever that might be intrusted to it. Like Yomiuri’s bikoki three years earlier, these plans proved unsuccessful and were abandoned (28). Yorodzu’s intense anti-Westernism does not, how- ever, equal that of Nippon, established 1889 by Mi- noru “Katsunan” Kuga. The latter paper long ve- hemently opposed all European and American ideas. [ 44 |THE PRESS VS. BUREAUCRACY Two of the leading publicists of modern Japan, Kazu- tomo Takahashi of the Foreign Office and of the Ja- pan Times, and Dr. Yujiro “Setsurei’”’ Miyake, editor of the magazine Nihon oyobi Nihonjin (Japan and the Japanese) are former members of the Nippon staff. The paper was sold in 1906 and was transformed into a banking journal representing the views of the offi- cial Bank of Japan (29). Business circles are also represented by Chugai Shogyo (Journal of Commerce), established by the Mitsui interests in 1876. Nine years later it became a daily paper. Its commercial and economic news is of the highest value, for, in addition to the usual press telegrams, it receives special dispatches from Mitsui agencies throughout the world (30). Owing to the stringency of press laws, the social- ist and labor press has been, at least for dailies, al- most non-existent. The nearest approaches have been on the part of Yorodzu, just before the Russo-Jap- anese War, when Kanzo Uchimura, an independent Christian leader, Toshihiko Sakai, a socialist, and Shusei Kotoku, later executed for attempting to mur- der the Emperor Meiji, wrote editorials denouncing war. These men were dismissed from the Yorodzu staff and the paper supported the conflict with Russia. The short-lived Taisho Nichi Nichi, under the editor- ship of Bunji Suzuki and Toyohiko Kagawa, labor leaders, maintained in 1920 a weak attempt to publish labor news. Nivoku, founded 1893, began a press [45]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN campaign in 1901 against the Mitsui financial inter- ests, and is credited with having brought about ameli- oration of the Mitsui attitude toward labor and with having caused the company to make a gift of ¥100,- ooo to charity. Niroku was also opposed to the Rus- sian War, and its editor was tried on charges of es- plonage. He was acquitted, but the paper abandoned its pacifist position. No other important evidences of either radicalism or of anticapitalism have been shown by dailies in Japan (31). Undoubtedly the press is winning steadily in its war against official ownership. Following the Res- toration, Japanese newspapers were almost invariably supported either by the government or by eminent officials. The Yokohama Mainichi, the oldest vernac- ular paper now surviving, was patronized by the gov- ernor of Kanagawa prefecture; the Tokyo Nichi Nichi announced with pride that it was under the special protection of the Cabinet; the Nisshin Shin- psht, the first modern vernacular gazette, was ad- mitted by its founder to have government support; Hochi was begun by the Postmaster-General as an or- gan for his own department. Not until the founding of Yomiuri, in 1873, was a truly independent journal established under native laws, and Yomiuri dared not delve deeply into politics. As late as 1883, Meiji Shim- bun was instituted by the Administration to present official views. This frank use of journalism for bureaucratic [ 46 |]THE PRESS VS. BUREAUCRACY propaganda was quite in accordance with the Jap- anese tradition. The line of policy pursued by the Tokugawa shogunate remained unbroken. But, with the promise of a constitution, and the revolutionary changes in government implied by such a document, new forces were thought necessary for journalism. Direct administration ownership virtually ended, al- though traces still survive in the domination of the chief newspapers in Seoul by the Korean government- general, in Formosa by the officials there, in the dic- tation to the Manchuria Daily News by the South Manchuria Railway, and, in Tokyo itself, in the close alliance between the modern Yomiuri and the Tokyo police. Political party domination succeeded after the waning of government dictation. The real advantage gained was the coming of an opposition press, for pa- pers could then comment critically upon administra- tive policies. In all affairs of purely political concern the Tokyo press remains in opposition to this day. Conflicts were less concerned with principles than with personalities, but the opportunity was opened for discussion. The press became the mouthpiece of individual leaders. Marquis Okuma employed the Hochi and Kokumin; Count Tadasu Hayashi used the Jiji; Viscounts Kanji Tani and Goro Miura had the Nippon; Count Kato edited the Tokyo Nichi Nichi, and Prince Ito found an outlet through the Nichi Nichi and several English-language papers. Perhaps [47]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN the most successful publicist today is Viscount Shim- pei Goto, whose supporters are scattered through the journalistic ranks. With the rise of industrialism the press has come to represent the interests of private enterprises rather than of individual politicians. The path is widening toward complete press freedom, for the papers need not now be instigated by political preoccupations. A counteracting influence, of course, is that at times semi-official corporations control the policies of cer- tain papers. Large holdings in the Osaka Mainichi are influenced by the Fujita Gumi, a firm which spe- cializes in official contracts; the Daido Electric Com- pany sways the Jiji, and Mitsui interests own the Chugat Shogyo. In recent years the Nippon Ginko (Bank of Japan) has dominated Nippon; the allied geisha houses expressed their views through Miyako, and Mitsubishi has controlled the Nichi Nichi. Unions of big business houses and of semi-official corpora- tions are still interested in English-language papers, and helped to found the Japanese Associated Press. Few papers even yet can assert themselves en- tirely free from official “inspiration” (although the Osaka and the Tokyo Asahi’s may be classed as inde- pendent journals), yet the trend of journalism is cer- tainly toward emancipation from government control. To this extent the progress of the press has been a healthy one, although conjectures may still arise as to whether the rate of progress has been as rapid as [48 ]THE PRESS VS. BUREAUCRACY might have been desired. The blight of Tokugawa pro- hibitions against individuality, the numbing by bu- reaucracy of resentment against infringement of lib- erty, the killing of initiative are evident in Japan’s journalism to the present day. Ww iets NOTES* . Tokyo Nichi Nichi, November 10, 1902, March 29, 19009, April 17, 1909; Mail, June 29, 1901, January 13, 1906; Longford, p. 176; Okuma, p. 401. . Okuma, pp. 397f.; Sawada, p. 191; Toyabe, in Tazyo, June, 1901; Mail, September 1, 1900, April 27, 1901, Jan- uary 13, 1906, June 27, 1906. . Taiyo, November, 1904; Japan Mail, March 4, 1911; “Tsch”: Independent Review, December, 1913. . Mail, January 13, 1906, April 29, 1911; Taiyo, November, 1899; Hanazono, p. 34; Noguchi. . Okuma, p. 401; Noguchi; Kawabe, p. 4; Hanazono, pp. 23, 30, 40. . Mail, December 3, 1887, December 2, 1899; Okuma, pp. 402, 412; Kawabe, pp. 76, 105; Clarke; Pooley, p. 18; Japan Chronicle, March 1, 1923. . Bungei, April, 1900; Waseda, June, 1896; Myojo, August, 1900; Okuma, p. 407; Low; Mazl, June 30, 1900. . Mail, June 27, 1896; Hanazono, p. 85; Byas. . Okuma, p. 399. . Taiyo, November, 1899; Bungei, April, 1911; Mail, April 29, 1905; Hanazono, p. 48; Japan Yearbook (1924-25), p. 283; Noguchi. Waseda, June, 1896; Mail, April 8, 1905, April 29, 1905; Porter, p. 510. *A]l citations from Okuma in this chapter refer to Volume IT of that work. [49 |]bd bd to ww NS VI SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Mail, September 5, 1908. Nthon-oyobi-Nihonjin, April, 1924; Hanazono, p. 86; Mail, December 2, 1899, April 29, 1905; Shunsaburo Ki- mura in Japan Chronicle, November 23, 1922. Nihon-oyobi-Nihonjin, April, 1924; Hanazono, p. 67. Dening (1913), pp. 94 f.; Mail, March 4, 1876; Kokumin, 4,00oth issue, May, 1903; Okuma, p. 399. Hanazono (the official source for this paper), pp. 41, 67, 94, 97. These references apply also for the next two paragraphs. Osaka Asahi, April 25, 1925. This is the official reference and will apply to the next three paragraphs. Okuma, pp. 404-06; Dening (1913), pp. 94f.; Waseda, June, 1900; Kokumin, 4,oooth issue, May, 1903. Osaka Asahi, August 22, 1914, January 24, 1915, August 19, 20, 1918; Japan Chronicle, September 10, 1914, Octo- ber 3, 1918; Advertiser, April 27, 10918. . Osaka Asahi, March 19, 20, 1918; Hanazono, pp. 54 f., 84; Advertiser, September 30, 1918, November 14, 1918. Chugat Shinron (Home and Foreign Review), July, 1920. . Life of Fukuzawa, pp. 107-10; Longford, p. 182; Okuma, Pp. 399-401; Kawabe, p. 76. . Mail, January 25, 1896, June 30, 1900, September 1, 1900, April 27, 1901; Nakamura, p. 300; Green; Martin, p. 27; Bungei, April, 1900; Waseda, June, 1806. . Jijt, June 21, 1895; Hanazono, pp. 8s, 88. Baba; Hanazono, p. 45; “Tsch”’; Mail, September 26, 1896, December 2, 1899; Waseda, June, 1896; Toyabe, Taiyo, February, 1906; Nakamura, p. 300. Manifesto, Kokumin, October 15, 1806. . Mail, April 27, 1901; Toyabe in Taiyo, February, 1906; Japan Yearbook (1926), Who’s Who, p. oo. Brinkley, Kokumin, 4,cooth issue; Byas; Martin, p. 38. [50]tS —™] THE PRESS VS. BUREAUCRACY . Mail, February 5, 1898, May 14, 1898, April 29, 1899, May 26, 1900, June 30, 1900, October 31, 1914; Advertiser, No- vember 27, 1924; London Times, September 2, 1916. . Mail, May 6, tort. . Taiyo, December, 1899; Mail, December 8, 1906; Naka- mura, p. 301; Hanazono, p. 45; Von Brandt; Okuma, p. 404. . Mail, November 25, 1876; Okuma, p. 402; Clarke. . Mail, April 27, 1901, September 9, 1905; Hanazono, pp. 49-50; Kawabe, p. 132; Low. [5z]CHAPTER III PRESS TENDENCIES In the retardation, or total absence, of other agen- cies for organizing public opinion and spreading in- formation, an increased importance accrues to the vernacular newspaper in Japan. Question is doubt- less legitimate concerning the correlation between the attitude of a journal on a given matter and that of its readers," but most authorities agree that in a rela- tively homogenous community there tends to be a closer correspondence between the tone sounded by a paper and the reactions of its subscribers. Japan, fairly compact and uniform in population, offers an admirable laboratory for the testing of this theory, especially as the fashion of newspaper reading is so thoroughly accepted by all people that, as nearly all the writers comment, it is exceedingly uncommon to find a man who does not read a daily periodical. The views expressed by journals in Japan should therefore be a factor in the making of the prejudices cherished by the people, and a study of the press “See George A. Lundberg, “The Newspaper and Public Opin- ion,” Social Forces, IV, 709; E. C. Hayes, “Formation of Public Opinion,” Journal of Applied Sociology (September, 1925), pp. 6-9; Robert E. Park, “Natural History of the Newspaper,” American Journal of Sociology, XXIX, No. 3, 273-809. [52]PRESS TENDENCIES spirit might be expected to throw light upon the atti- tude of Japanese toward social and political relation- ships. Most Japanese, interpreting their nation to the outer world, agree in stating that the press should be regarded as the influential factor working toward im- provement in social and political conditions. Dr. Ki- saburo Kawabe wrote a doctoral dissertation assert- ing that in politics, the press has been a potent factor. Foreign visitors are certain that the native journals have provided the dynamic impetus for the coming democracy, while Lajput Rai goes even further to contend that Japanese newspapers are “of greater power, perhaps, than the American or English press.” But foreigners of longer residence are skeptical that this great influence really does exist. Walter Dening, a widely read and keen observer, who for years conducted a weekly press survey for the Japan Mail, believed the press a very insignificant factor. “The public,” he believed, ‘‘is not really prejudiced against anybody or anything on account of what the newspapers have written. It cannot be said that in Japan the press is a true reflection of intelligent pub- lic opinion” (1), J Mr. Dening’s. remarks, it is’ true, were made in 1913, and were based on ghservations made in 1899. They are therefore’ opev. ta serious. abiection in that conditions may have changed, and that, as J. Russell Kennedy points out, the press, insignificant ten years [53]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN ago, may now be called the paramount influence in the Empire. As late as January, 1925, however, the influential Nthon-oyobi-Nihonjin, edited by ‘Setsu- rel” Miyake, was still convinced that Japanese news- papers are weak and unimportant because they hold no principles and because they pander to the multi- tude. The conclusions reached by Dr. Miyake almost exactly parallel the opinions reached ten years before by Shun Akimoto, a veteran newspaperman (2). Undeniably the press, and in particular the great Osaka papers, is far in advance of official circles in foreseeing social evolution and in clamoring for lib- eral ideas. Doubtless also it is true, as Kotaro Sugi- mura, of Tokyo Asahi, Tsunego Baba, formerly of Kokumin, and Mr. Kennedy contend, that the press is constantly increasing in its power. But it is diffi- cult to gauge how far this power may extend. Restric- tive press laws are invoked to crush too strong a criti- cism of the administration policy, and hence the inde- pendent editors refrain from championing measures of which the government will not approve. This limi- tation of the journalistic scope prevents the editors from suggesting causes doomed to failure in advance. Even in the field of domestic politics, where papers have a fteér range, few Quixotic plans are seriously urged. Déspite the ‘Osaka Asahi’s optimism that no governmerit ‘cat ‘ignore: ‘the :press ‘without courting danger to itsélf, the tecerit’ instances wherein the press has recently been flouted are numerous. The long and [54]PRESS TENDENCIES futile efforts to secure more liberal publication laws and to cheapen tolls on news transmission indicate the impotency of the press to gain its ends (3). One reason for this weakness is that the editors do not pretend to voice with accuracy the public sen- timent, for, as a rule, the people lack information on most public matters, and, moreover, are inarticulate. In 1924, the franchise holders failed to exceed 6 per cent of the population. Under such conditions the press is not a mirror, but a signboard for the people,- though it may be said with justice that the press more nearly represents the popular desires than any other source of information. Worry is expressed by Japanese lest the growth of press commercialism may sap newspaper influence before the journals are prepared to exert authentic pressure on officialdom. Opinion is well-nigh unani- mous that the papers have deteriorated from a for- merly high standard. Dr. Kazutami Ukita, an emi- nent historian, lichiro Tokutomi, Captain Brinkley, Dr. Juichi Soyeda, and other publicists aver that edi- tors were once recruited from the ranks of scholars and of Samurai, but that now “no class of men is re- garded with more abhorrence and contempt.” Dr. Ukita once wrote that it is no more possible to find a moral journalist than to find a moral burglar. Some- taro Sheba, of the Japan Times, and Mr. Matsui, the editor of Yamato, are agreed that present-day news- papermen possess no sense of self-respect (4). [55]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN This decadence the Japan Mail attributed to mea- ger pay, and it is still true that salaries are almost unbelievably low. Actual payments are, of course, not published, but they may be closely approximated by comparisons of results gleaned from private inquiry. Statistics gathered by investigators from 1888 to 1920 (when reduced to a common basis of yen per month) check with reasonable accuracy with the writ- er’s findings, made in 1925, that the average reporter starts with ¥50 per month, and that an average “good man’”’ may expect to draw from twice to three times that amount. “Stars” are paid perhaps ¥250. Nor is there much legitimate opportunity to increase the payments. Few “free-lance” men are to be found, and almost no space-workers, save the novelists and other special men. Correspondence for the country papers and writings for a “‘syndicate” are well-nigh unknown, for the great Tokyo and Osaka papers, cir- culating throughout the Empire, prevent effective competition on the part of smaller journals. Taken all in all, Mr. Sheba’s statement that Japanese news- papermen are underpaid to a degree unknown in other countries may be accepted as conclusive (5). In consequence of these low salaries, reliance upon outside incomes is quite common. As long ago as 1876 the Japan Mail suspected that the Nichi Nichi men were being carried on official pay-rolls. Forty years thereafter two editors, Kuroiwa, of Yorodzu, and Matsui, of Yamato, charged that papers ‘‘care- [56]PRESS TENDENCIES fully cooked their news” to please the influential moneyed patrons. In April, 1915, Nikonjin accused Marquis Okuma of corrupting eight Tokyo papers, while six years later investigation of a scandal in the Tokyo Gas Company disclosed that the corporation had paid out ¥88,o00 for bribing journalists, includ- ing a sum of ¥40,000 for “influencing favorable edi- torials.”” Only Jzji and Yomiuri printed this news, al- though, as the facts were spread upon court records, the charges were privileged news and were free from libel. Mr. Matsui declares that it is quite a common matter for newspapermen assigned to political head- quarters, government offices, large corporations, and similar news centers to receive allowances from such places. From the earliest days politicians in Japan have befriended favorable reporters and friendly pa- pers. Even yet, says Mr. Kennedy, whose knowledge of conditions is perhaps the best to be found in Japan, most of the big firms “assist in every possible way.” On few journalistic matters in Japan is there such unanimity as on the belief in political and industrial subsidization. ‘‘This is well to remember,” wrote the Japan Mail, ‘whenever readers find items in the press relating to banks and corporations.” The great ma- jority of newspapers in Japan, it said on another oc- casion, “are kept alive for some purpose other than mere pecuniary profit” (6). As a source of private revenue, blackmail is evi- dently not uncommon. A series of arrests in 1902 re- [57]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN lieved the evil to a great extent, but Yorodzu reported eight years later that the practice was revived. Mr. Kennedy believed that blackmail was still prevalent in 1925, although editors hasten to declare that of- fenders are promptly dismissed. The influence of advertisers upon the presenta- tion of the news is evidently slight, for the favor of the business man is more likely to be sought through rebates or secret discounts, according to the testi- mony of Dr. M. Ohta, vice-president of Hochi (7). It is noteworthy, however, that when the Hoshi Phar- maceutical Company, the second largest advertiser in Japan, was convicted, November, 1925, for smug- gling opium, there was an almost universal silence in the native press. That the silence was not altogether attributed to fear of breaking legal taboo against re- porting cases still on trial is evident by the immunity with which Hochi printed a fairly complete report of the proceedings. Other Japanese papers failed to mention the case. The Japanese themselves are far from satisfied with the quality of their press. For years their criti- cism has been bitter. The major faults which they be- lieve to underlie the press may be briefly summar- ized: (1) A lack of public spirit in seeking to correct injustice. (2) An unprincipled willingness to garble or manufacture news, or to accept reports as true without seeking to verify the rumors. (3) A reckless sensationalism, both in unimportant domestic affairs [58]PRESS TENDENCIES and in the gravest matters of international relation- ships. (4) A morbid preoccupation with sexual ab- normalities, a love of scandal, and an inordinate read- iness to exploit the most evil tastes. These charges, first formulated by Yukio Ozaki, a prominent liberal and a former Cabinet minister, are not restricted to a small and unrepresentative sec- tion of the press, but are applied generally to the en- tire body of the press, from the tiny local sheet to the great Osaka journals of a million circulation. Jap- anese and foreigners alike concur in the appraisal, and a most remarkable phenomenon is the compara- tive scarcity of articles or of speeches defending the press against attack (8). Nor are these charges merely echoes of long-dis- tant times when the press was undeveloped. During 1924 alone at least five reports, whose completeness as to names and details would warrant, in the United States at least, legal proceedings against either the culprits guilty of the charges or against the papers for criminal libel, were printed in the native press (9). All five reports alleged corruption or embezzle- ment by government departments and were specific and complete, yet none of them appears to have drawn an official inquiry, nor, more curiously, a “‘fol- low-up” from the paper publishing the charges. Irre- spective of the truth or falsity of these reports—and in the original they are thoroughly documented—the press appears to have lost interest in the matter. The [59]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN real dereliction in the matter, it is true, would seem to lie with the police and the judiciary in not taking ac- tion, but good journalistic practice in all countries would imperatively require a “follow-up.” Public conscience and newspaper duty seem to have been satisfied when once the fact is printed that suspicions are being entertained. Most native papers in Japan do not aim primari- ly at giving accurate reports, but seek rather for start- ling information that will win them circulation. For- ty-nine times out of fifty, said the Japan Mail, the extras put out by the journals prove to contain noth- ing but deception and misinformation. The weakness of the press in this respect received an international notoriety when, in 1908, the British Consul-General at Seoul wrote a letter to an Englishman, accused by the pro-Japanese newspapers of appropriating funds, that the mere fact of publication of such rumors ‘ought not to be considered as creating any presump- tion that there is the slightest basis of truth.” Al- though both the Seoul Press and the Japan Mail were bitter political opponents of the man to whom the let- ter was addressed, the justice of the implication was admitted (10). Much of the sensationalism is, of course, the ef- fect of harmless “faking” which seeks to make the paper interesting. The most remarkable stories gaily travel through the columns of the vernacular news- papers. The Osaka Asahi told of a boy who pushed a | 60 |PRESS TENDENCIES persimmon seed into his nostril. ‘The seed is now sprouting and green leaves are sticking out of his nose.” Jzji narrated that a girl’s tongue steadily con- tracted until, in despair of losing it, she submitted to a minor operation. After this the tongue began to grow again, and now it is the normal size. The Osaka Mainichi told of a Formosan aborigine who laid eggs which, when placed in the sun, hatched into serpents. “Every day,” quotes the Japan Times, “there is a most interesting accident, or fire, or robbery some- where, but the names, places, and details are tactful- ly omitted” (11). So long as “faking” is confined to minor matters, comparatively little harm is wrought, other than an undermining of confidence in press reliability. But there are indications also that “faking” has been car- ried on in affairs which would tend to injure interna- tional friendships. The definite and specific allegation that the United States gave official aid to Marshal Wu Pei Fu in his campaign against the pro-Japanese Marshal Chang Tso-lin in China; the elaborate ac- counts in at least six leading papers that the chief of the Department of Far-Eastern Affairs in the United States Department of State admitted lending Marshal Wu $1,000,000 in gold; the detailed account that an American colonel was recruiting 25,000 “refractory Koreans” for a rebellion against Japan; the reports that American spies were flooding to Manchuria are instances within the past two years of harmful [ 6 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN “faking.’’ Abundant evidence of similar fabrication against missionaries, business men, and diplomatic officers of foreign nations is easily secured (12). Nor would disclaimers be well founded that the innuendoes and open accusations of foreign belliger- ence, decadence, and guile have been unfairly chosen from a small section of an irresponsible press. Of those journals which may fairly be included among the major papers of Japan, either in circulation or in influence, only the Jzji fails to provide abundant evi- dence of antiforeign lying. And, even more impor- tant as a factor for good will, no daily paper in Japan possessing a prestige equal to that of the New York World, nor any periodical of the type of the Jnde- pendent or the Outlook, attacks these falsehoods or deprecates the antiforeign sentiment as consistently as the American journals just named assail anti-Jap- anism here. Pre-eminent among the charges leveled against the Japanese newspapers is that they are, for the most part, devoted to indecency. At least a page of almost every issue is given over to scurrility and to reckless libels on the character of men and women prominent in public life. Intimate details of private conduct, re- gardless of the truth, are freely published. This so- called “Third Page” is, in large part, devoted to the contributions of anonymous correspondents who util- ize the freedom of the press to satisfy a private griev- ance or to extort blackmail from their victims. By a [ 62 |PRESS TENDENCIES journalistic fiction the “Third Page” (the name is a misnomer, so far as actual position in the paper is concerned) is supposed to escape the eye of both edi- tor and censor, so that libel suits become the sole re- course for persons injured by the personalia. But libel laws are so notoriously weak that the number of ap- peals for redress by law is strikingly small. In a sur- vey covering a period of thirty years, the Japan Mail could discover no more than half a dozen actions brought for defamation of character. The Japanese, it would appear, prefer to take the stand that “Third Page” libels are beneath their notice. Yukio Ozaki, when mayor of Tokyo, declared that no amount of in- ducement would cause him to reply to any journal- istic libel (13). The condition of this ‘open sore,” to use the Ja- pan Mail’s branding, has been protested since the very beginnings of vernacular journalism. J. R. Black considered that the Yokohama Mainichi and the early Nichi Nichi were “‘so defaced with filth as to render them worse than contemptible in the eyes of foreign- ers, though they appeared to be enjoyed by Japa- nese.” The Mail, in 1876, had no higher opinion of its contemporaries, for it said: “The sooner the press of this country takes a lesson in decency the better. It is impossible to take up any one of the native jour- nals without finding paragraphs which the vilest print in Europe would not dare to publish.” That improve- ment was not effected is indicated by a protest, made [ 63 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN in 1889, that “the press is a cesspool of filthiness” (14). Conditions grew no better. The close of the nine- teenth century saw a flood of obscenity. Yorodzu un- dertook a series of explicit exposés of illicit sex rela- tionships of the most prominent Tokyo leaders, and followed this by detailed revelations of the amours of actors in the Yokohama bawdyhouses. Arthur Diosy, one of Japan’s most devoted friends, told the Japan Society of London that the native papers in Japan were printing “scurrilous and obscene matter worthy of the gutter press of Paris and worse.” No one in public life, he said, escapes the wholesale flinging of dirt (15). T. J. Nakagawa, writing in the Forum, lauded the Japanese press and denied that its sensationalism was as dangerous as that of the American “yellow press.” Captain Brinkley, Japan’s journalistic advo- cate, replied that “if the nature of the matter pub- lished be in question, the palm of immorality belongs to Japan.” Again, in 1908 and 1909 Captain Brinkley railed against the obscenity printed in the native pa- pers. Premier Terauchi, Dr. ‘“Setsurei’’ Miyake, and Yukio Ozaki also have complained that newspapers in Japan were guilty of indecency and immorality (16). The first real defense of the press against these charges appeared in the Japanese supplement of the London Times in 1916, when Professor Kazutomo Takahashi, then editor of the Japan Times, explained [ 64 |PRESS TENDENCIES that the native press had outgrown the days of scan- dalous personalities, ‘although minor papers are still betrayed into morbid sensationalism.” Unfortunately at just the time when copies of the London paper were arriving in Japan, the two largest papers in the Empire were publishing detailed accounts of the meth- ods used by Count Terauchi, the new premier, in se- ducing a Kyoto girl. Photographs and names of other Tokyo and Kyoto belles alleged to be supported by this statesman were also being printed (17). The autumn of the same year was marked by still another revealing incident of the ease whereby editors are enabled to escape the penalties for libel. Charges that students of neighboring schools in Oka- yama were conducting numerous Jiaisons, and that the girls’ school was permeated by perversion, were challenged by the parents of one girl student named in the reports. The editor escaped all liability by making the defense that he had not said the charge was true, but merely that the charge had been report- ed to him (18). Dr. Miyake, in an article written in 1922, re- newed his accusations of press immorality, and found support, in 1925, from Tsunego Baba and from J. Russell Kennedy. Motosada Zumoto, president of the International Journalists’ Association, while admit- ting that press immorality is rife, and, on the whole, increasing, nevertheless contends that Japanese pa- pers are no more indecent than are American or Brit- [65]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN ish journals. “It is a question of the point of view,” he told the writer. “Just as life in Japan is more frank and less furtive than life in western countries, so the news printed in the papers is more frank. It must be remembered that newspapers in the past were crudely written and that material which is the same as that which is presented today seemed more inde- cent then, but only because of the style in which it was written. It is not true that Japanese papers are indecent” (19). In consideration of these matters it is well to re- call that by the stringent press laws of Japan any ar- ticle deemed prejudicial to good morals may be for- bidden publication and that the newspapers in which such matter occurs may be suppressed or even perma- nently ended. Such instances, however, as the publi- cation, in the summer of 1925, of “‘revelations”’ of the sensuality of profligate sons of wastrel fathers, or the pointblank statement that certain noble youths named in the paper were driving their fathers to suicide, were not barred by the censors, although the details were such as would be classified as unprintable in any west- ern land (20). NOTES 1. Trans. Asiatic Society of Japan, XLI, part 1 (June, 1913), 96; Taiyo, December, 1899; Advertiser, September 16, IQI6. 2. Akimoto, in Japan Chronicle, December 3, 1914. [ 66 ]3. 4. 5- 6. ~ PRESS TENDENCIES Osaki Asahi, April 25, 1925; Otani, in Shinjudaz, Septem- ber, 1918. Dening, Taiyo, December, 1899; Japan Mail, December 13, 1913; Ukita, in Shinjudai, October, 1917; Soyeda and To- kutomi, Shinjudai, September, 1918; Sheba, Japan Times, March 8, 1924; K. Matsui, Chuo Koron, May, 1917; S. Shimada and Ki Inukai, quoted by Kawabe, pp. 81-84; Japan Mail, April 12, 1902. Ukita, op. cit.; Engard; “Tsch”; Masaoka; Chamberlain, p. 354; Green; Kawabe, p. 117{; Japan Times, June 2, 1924. Mail, May 6, 1876, May 29, 1897, December 13, 1913; Kuroiwa, Japan Mail, May 6, 1911; and also Chuo Koron, October, 1912; Masaoka, Ukita, Matsui, op. cit. ; Shimada, Taikan, October, 1918; Fumio Yano, Martin, p. 10; Osaka Asahi, April 25, 1925; Rai; Von Brandt; Keigetsu Omachi, March, 1903; Nihon-oyobi-Nihonjin, January, 1925; Ja- pan Herald, January 8, 1913; Japan Chronicle, April 15, 1917, September 26, 1918; Jiji and Yomiuri, quoted by Chronicle, September 8, 1921; W. E. Griffis, speech before Ethical Culture Society, Philadelphia, February 7, 1926. . Japan Advertiser, June 10, 1924. . Ozaki, Twentieth Anniversary Number of Niroku; Nihon- oyobi-Nihonjin, January, 1925; Miyake, in Nihon-oyobi- Nihonjin, February, 1922; Mail, November 7, 1903; Ad- vertiser, November 15, 1925; Tetsutaro Takita, Chuo Ko- ron, April, 1911; Takajiro Sugimori, Chuo Koron, March, 1924; Otani, Shinjudai, September, 1918; Sheba, Japan Times, June 2, 1924; Ku Hung-min, Advertiser, October 16, 1924; Byas; Goto, Tokyo Asahi, May 17, 1918. . Kokumin, January 11, 1925; Japan Times, May 6, 1924, August 20, 1924; Advertiser, November 6, 1924. [67 |4. SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN 10. Mail, October 22, 1898; Japan Times, May 23, 1918, Oc- tober 7, 1924; Letter, Cockburn to Bethell, Japan Mail, October 3, 1908; Martin, p. 24; Masaoka, Ukita, Ku Hung-min, op. cit; complaint of V. Pearson, of the Kobe and Osaka Press, and an editorial approval, Advertiser, Oc- tober 11, 1926. For a summary and a bitter protest, see Japan Times, Oc- tober 7, 1924. (a) “Savagry”: Yorodzu, June 21, 1924; Tokyo Nichi Nichi, June 26, 1924. (6) Klan control of U.S.A.: Osaka Asahi, June 22, 1924, Hochi, July 29, 1924. (c) Wu Pei Fu: Chuo, October 21, 1924; Japan Times, October 23, 1924, quoting Yomiuri; Yorodzu, October 17, 1924, De- cember 5, 1924; Osaka Mainichi, November 21, 10924; Chugai Shogyo, Osaka Jijt, Tokyo Asahi, quoted by Japan Chronicle, November 27, 1924, December 4, 1924, Decem- ber 11, 1924. (d) Colonel: Japan Times, December 15, 1924. (e) Missionaries: see Reinsch, pp. 331-33; Soye- Jima, Taiyo, January, 1926; Japan Times, October 23, 1924; Kabayama, Japan Advertiser, April 7, 1926; Zu- moto, Advertiser, December 7, 1925. (f) See also Hays- mier case, Chuo, July 6, 1926; Hochi, July 18, 1926; Ya- mato, July 11, 1926, etc. Mail, December 5, 1896, January 21, 1899, November 7, 1903, December 15, 1906, February 8, 1908, January 23, 1909, November 19, 1910, December 6, 1913; Martin, p. 23; Bryan, p. 246; Williams, p. 17; Zumoto, p. 114; Byas; Shakai Zasshi, June, 1900. Mail, June 3, 1876, December 28, 1889, December 6, 1913; Young Japan, p. 364. Yorodzu, in Japan Mail, February 4, 1899; Gulick, p. 279; Shakai Zasshi, June, 1900; Diosy, in Japan Society of . London, IV (1900), 136. [ 68 ]PRESS TENDENCIES . Mail, June 30, 1900, January 18, 1908, January 23, 1900, October 8, 1910; Miyake, Tazyo, February, 1911; Ozaki, in Niroku; Nakagawa, Forum, XXIX, 370-76; Terauchi, speech to governors, Advertiser, May 209, 1917. . London Times, September 2, 1916, December 16, 1916; Japan Chronicle, November 2, 1916, April 27, 1922; Chuo Koron, October, 1922; Martin, p. 23. . Japan Chronicle, November 2, 1916; see also April 27 ’ : ? /) 1922. Taiyo, February, 1922. . Japan Chronicle, July 2, 1925. [ 69 |CHAPTER IV THE ANTI-ALIEN TIDE Seventy years ago the Japanese, restless in the isolation of the Tokugawa shogunate, were casting eager glances toward the richer, if more material, culture of the West. Today the Japanese are gazing backward, with more or less regret, at their vanished past, convinced, it seems, that Western culture has destroyed the beauty of their handicrafts and has dis- pelled their ancient leisure of spiritual and intellectual preoccupation. In consequence, the old war, fought two genera- tions ago between the modernists and the champions of sonno-jot (loyalty to court and expulsion of the foreigner), is once more being waged by journalistic champions. The people do not fail in courtesy to for- eigners; the government is helpful to the last degree in aiding tourists and residents to understand Japan; but the press relentlessly opposes Westerners and all their works. However weak and unimportant the col- umns of the press may be in creating social attitudes, the persistence and the unanimity of the native press can scarcely fail to modify, in time, the Japanese opin- ion of the West. Great aid has been lent to the reactionaries by the [70]THE ANTI-ALIEN TIDE criticisms of Japan as voiced by foreigners, for Jap- anese are in accord that criticism of their nation springs either from envy, or from venality, or from ignorance of Japan’s peculiar spirit. Psychologists might read the supersensitiveness of the Japanese and their suspicion that the world is now arrayed in con- spiracy against the Empire as a symptom of a well- defined inferiority complex, or of oppression psycho- sis, and might understand the almost pathologic jour- nalistic craze to cast aspersion on the foreigners. At home the impression is sedulously fostered that the ideals of Japan should be regarded as a spe- cial thing apart, unique and perfect. An artificial his- tory has been built to serve the propagandist cause. The nation’s age is lengthened by carrying the pseu- do-annals back to 660 B.c., a thousand years before the Chinese exported culture to their eastern neigh- bors. Facts out of harmony with this “history” have been suppressed, according to the Japan Times, lest the official version be discredited, and professors in the universities are dismissed if they are found guil- ty of teaching other versions. Even in the mission schools, desiring to be accredited as equal to the gov- ernment institutions, this official history must be taught, and Christian teachers are compelled to have their pupils learn the divine descent of Japan’s rul- ers (1). Evasion and definitely false statements have been used to cloak the past events that are not deemed [71]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN creditable. Although no nation in all history, says Chamberlain, has shown less respect for its monarchs, and although in no other nation has the sovereign been so often the victim of murder, oppression, exile, and insult, Marquis Okuma, in his semi-official his- tory, declared: “There has never been a revolution nor an attempt at assassination of the monarch, such as has been only too common in other countries” (2).° A reactionary cult has risen to defend the funda- mental principles of Old Japan against the inroads of materialistic Occidental culture. Conservative nation- alists, resenting Japan’s rapid change, have set them- selves to reawaken interest in the racial traits.’ *Yet Marquis Okuma himself participated in the events of 1867 and 1868, and must have known of the anti-imperialistic movements of those years, and, later still, of the Kyushu rising. An excellent example of unfair presentation occurs in an article by Hisashi Asaho, of the Japan Federation of Labor. In writing on the social movements among Japanese students, he traces the origin of radicalism to the Great War, the Russian Revolution, and to capi- talistic development. Then he praises the Osaka Asahi for its at- tacks on militarism and bureaucracy, without mentioning either the attack on Mr. Murayama or the paper’s change in policy. He refers cautiously to the murder of arrested labor leaders by remarking that some of them “fell victims to unfortunate events.” He gives high praise to the student groups for the study of sociology, with- out mentioning that, at the time he wrote, the high-school groups had already been suppressed (3). * Modernism has, without doubt, brought undesired phenom- ena. Like the Athenian of old, the modern Japanese is an enthusias- tic welcomer of novelty. The long-haired, frowsy bearded artist, in velveteens and wide-brimmed hat, as portrayed in La Bohéme, could, in 1925, be met with in the student coffeehouses. Cocktails [72]THE ANTI-ALIEN TIDE The combined efforts of earthquake, American exclusion law, and the British plan to build a naval base at Singapore brought westernization to a sudden stop. The eagerness with which Japan had accepted foreign customs gave way to disdain of foreigners. Hochi, Kokumin, Vorodzu, and other papers called for a revival of Japan’s own national culture. “Back to the Kamakura period” became the slogan of those who pleaded for a simpler mode of life. Yomiuri, Mi- yako, and Yorodzu urged retention of the classic cere- monial costume as a matter for increasing national pride. Hochi stressed community festivals and ath- letic sports to promote the feeling of a national unity. The Tokyo Nichi Nichi warned Japan that too many students and professors were being sent abroad, and that the education thus secured was lamentable and inefficient (4). Foreign styles of dancing were denounced as pro- vocative of immorality. In Tokyo and Osaka all for- eign dancing was prohibited after ten o’clock at night; the police of Tokyo took down the names and ad- dresses of Japanese who attended the weekly dance of the Imperial Hotel; Osaka forbade minors and (kokutairu) took the place of tea. The business girl appeared, and bobbed-haired flappers, dressed in “foreign clothes,” tripped down the Ginza. The “blues” and other jazz were flourishing, and dance halls were filled with Japanese. Just before the Tokyo earthquake “café culture” touched its peak, and it was “high-collar” to be Western. [73]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN students to engage in foreign dancing, and required all others to register themselves before permission could be granted. With government approval, a bill to prohibit foreign dancing in all parts of Japan was introduced into the Diet in the closing hours of the session, but time was not available for passage (5).° The soshi and the ronin, Japan’s organized bands of political ruffians, misinterpreting defense of old customs into a fanatic patriotism, buttressed the re- action and secured strong reinforcement in the band- ed young men’s associations of the villages. Sword- dancers rushed into the ballroom of the Imperial Hotel to urge the erring Japanese to foreswear Amer- ican depravities. —The government was reluctant to antagonize these bullies, and thus the period, as both the Advertiser and the Osaka Asahi now agree, devel- oped into one of most intense reaction (6). * The foreign papers disagree, on details, concerning the inter- pretation of these movements. The Advertiser believes that the anti-dancing agitation was incited by geisha guilds and brothel keepers as a means for protecting their enterprises. The Chronicle sees a general antiforeign movement marked by too per cent tariff imposts on all importations used by foreign residents, by restriction of the legal profession to Japanese citizens only, by a reduction of English teaching in the schools, by attempts to eliminate the foreign merchants from Japan, and by a systematic campaign to discredit the service rendered to Japan by foreigners. The Times is con- vinced that the ban on foreign dancing is in the interests of main- taining Japanese morality. The vernacular papers are unanimous in reproving the younger Japanese for excessive frivolity and luxury, and look upon the anti-dancing ordinances as an attempt to restore normal attitudes (7). [74]THE ANTI-ALIEN TIDE Reprinting of excerpts from sensational Ameri- can sermons, muckraking novels, or books purport- ing to describe the excesses of “flaming youth” has kindled Japanese resentment against American “de- generacy.” The motion picture, with its scores of social practices widely diverging from the codes accepted by Japan (the most flagrant being, of course, excised by the censor), and the running comment by inter- preters, or katsuben, who explain the action to the audience, has added fuel to the Japanese resentment. In a well meant zeal to correct the general impres- sion that foreigners are of a lower moral standard than the Japanese, the anti-alien feeling has been un- wittingly promoted by some Western writers. Not un- naturally, the rebukes administered to the foreign “smart set” of the seaport towns have been construed by Japanese as applicable to all the foreign residents. In Japan, as in America, the living of two races, hav- ing different social backgrounds, in a close proximity, has been conducive to belief that the strangers are addicted to immoral practice. The presence of a for- eign colony* composed, to a large degree, of young, *In Japan, unlike China, the name “foreign colony” is some- what of a misnomer, since the passage by earthquake, and by Jap- anese repurchase, of the former settlements in Kobe and on the Yokohama Bluff. In Tokyo and other Japanese cities, foreigners are scattered throughout the entire city, tending, of course, to gath- er in certain districts, but forming no such entity as do aliens in the American cities. Foreigners foregather, therefore, in the clubs, and thus, to many Japanese, their life assumes an added secrecy and mystery. [75]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN unmarried men receiving (according to the Japanese wage-scales) a lavish salary has excited gossip and given rise to tales of “foreign orgies.”” Warm advo- cates of interracial peace, endeavoring to remove the causes of misunderstanding, have criticized some as- pects of the social life which would be normal in America, and their criticisms have been misinterpret- ed and misunderstood by Japanese. Nor is it fantas- tically improbable that the austerity of missionary life, in contrast to the gayer life of business men and diplomats, has tended to accentuate the supposed ex- cesses of the aliens. When, therefore, a series of anonymous letters in the Japan Mail accused foreigners of “scrambling with thieves and blacklegs in a gamblers’ den,” and when other letters told of “‘youths swallowed in the vortex that runs riot in a place like Fair Nagasaki,”® the irritation of the Japanese was increased, and a conviction was established that foreigners were unde- sirable (9). New proofs of foreign weaknesses were soon con- tributed. In rgro, Melville E. Stone, general manager * These letters, signed “B” were attributed to Rev. J. Ingram Bryan, for several years rector of All Saints’ Church, Kobe. He did not admit the authorship, but resigned from his charge. Dr. Bryan, from 1910 to 1917, was both editor of the Japan Magazine, the or- gan of the Tokyo Chamber of Commerce, and correspondent for the London Morning Post. He was, in 1924, author of Japan from Within. Another letter, signed “Dempo,” appearing in the New York Evening Post, and accusing Kobe foreigners of excessive drink- ing, was also said to have been written by him (8). [76]THE ANTI-ALIEN TIDE of the Associated Press, had visited Japan, and on re- turning to America an article purporting to have been written by him found its way into the National Geo- graphic Magazine under the title, “Race Prejudice in the Far East” (10). ‘How this article was obtained I do not know,” wrote Mr. Stone. “I have never, at any time, written for the magazine. I did make a private talk to per- haps fifty friends, and a portion of this talk was re- produced, with amendments, as though written by me.” Nevertheless Mr. Stone admitted that the arti- cle represented his views, and he made no attempt to disown responsibility for sentences which accused white residents of injustice toward the natives of In- dia, China, and Japan (11). Briefly summarized, these utterances accused the foreigners of refusing to admit to their social or ath- letic clubs any native, “whatever his culture or refine- ment.” In Yokohama a particular injustice was al- leged. “Land was freely given by the Japanese upon the sea-front at Yokohama for a foreign social club, and no taxes were asked upon the land by the Jap- anese authorities. But foreigners refused to pay taxes upon the buildings, and when, to allow for the growth of the city, the municipal authorities required the land, the club refused to evacuate unless an equally good plot was given them, with buildings and im- provements erected, equivalent to the old, and com- pensation given them in addition.” Finally, Mr. Stone [77]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN declares that Asians had been corrupted by the whites. ‘Even now there are Japanese cities of from 100,000 to 1,000,000 population where there is no semblance of police control and where crime is scarcely known.” The reprinting of this article in the Mai stirred protests from the entire foreign community. Columns were devoted daily by the foreign press to attacks upon Mr. Stone. A special meeting of the American Peace Society adopted a memorial pointing out that every foreign club in Japan possessed Japanese mem- bers of equal standing with the white members; that the Yokohama United Club, the only one “‘on the sea- front,’ had purchased its land outright, and that, when the Club was moved, the municipal government had not paid for improvements; that bribery and cor- ruption had been prevalent in Japanese cities not yet penetrated by the whites; and that no Japanese cities free from police and free from crime existed. The Asiatic Society of Japan also protested against the stigma cast by Mr. Stone upon the white residents, and called upon Mr. Stone to retract his remarks (12))’ Opinions differ as to the reception granted to these complaints by Mr. Stone. J. Russell Kennedy, then the correspondent for the Associated Press, as- sured the writer that Mr. Stone had retracted. ‘Mr. Stone sent me a letter of retraction, but the newspa- pers refused to print it,’ said Mr. Kennedy. “I in- serted it as a paid advertisement in the Japan Chron- [78]THE ANTI-ALIEN TIDE icle, Japan Advertiser, Mail, and Times. The letters published by the Advertiser were full of abuse direct- ed not only against Mr. Stone but also against me, for, although I was at the time serving on twenty-nine different international committees, I had many ene- mies among the foreign residents.” Searches among the files of old newspapers fail, however, to reveal the advertisement. On the other hand, Mr. Stone de- clares: ‘“There was a demand on the part of Euro- peans resident in Japan that I retract my statements. I not only declined to do so, but had more to say on the subject, and there the debate came to an end” (13).° The origin of slurs against the foreigners residing on perpetual leaseholds in Yokohama, Kobe, and Na- gasaki is due, according to Professor MacLaren, to the widespread Japanese belief that these residents are evading taxes. In consequence, he thinks, these cities have been held in more or less contempt by Japanese officialdom, and distinguished visitors are taught by the officials “to regard their respectable °In May, 1911, a pamphlet, privately printed by Mr. Stone and distributed to the Associated Press, declared that in his original speech Mr. Stone had expressly excluded the Yokohama United Club from his remarks concerning social clubs which refused to accept Japanese members. The National Geographic Magazine made no such exclusion, but embraced in its strictures every social club “from Bombay to Yokohama.” As authority for his comments on the cor- rupting influences of white residents, Mr. Stone cited passages in The West in the Far East, by Rev. S. L. Gulick (15). [79]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN fellow-countrymen in Yokohama and Kobe as a crew of tax-dodging, carousing, dishonest merchants.” Mr. Stone’s explanation of the sources of his information corroborates the view, for Mr. Stone declared that his information had been procured from “a Harvard graduate, now a minister of the Japanese crown.” Various other writers, the latest of them being T. J. MacMahon in The Orient I Found, continue to cast calumny upon the seaport foreigners (14). A year following the appearance of the National Geographic article, conditions in Korea gave rise to new accusations against foreign residents. Mission- ary workers were accused of instigating revolution, and of conspiracy to murder Governor-General Count "The only “Harvard graduate, now a minister of the Japanese crown” was Viscount Kentaro Kaneko, now a member of the Privy Council. The reactions of the Japanese to the non-taxable perpetu- al lease lands are peculiar. Mr. Kawakami, in Japan and World Peace, remarks that “The Japanese are grieved that their first expe- rience with an international court to which they had looked up with profound respect was disappointing. [The leaseholds had been tak- en before the Hague tribunal and the Japanese contention was de- nied.] They wonder whether an equitable judgment can ever be meted out to an Asiatic nation by a tribunal in which a majority of the judges are men identified with Occidental Governments.” Yet in the contemporary reports of the decision there is no such wonder. The Mail wrote: “Japanese journals accept the House Tax decision with equanimity and in excellent spirit.” The arbitra- tors, incidentally, were Louis Renault, professor of law at the Uni- versity of Paris, and Iichiro Motono, Japanese ambassador at Paris. The umpire was Gregors Gram, formerly a Norwegian Cabinet Min- ister (16). [ 80 ]THE ANTI-ALIEN TIDE Terauchi. Eighty Koreans, sixty of whom were Chris- tian, were arrested. At their first court hearing, A. Bolljahn, a Japanese government employee, was as- signed by the Associated Press to send dispatches to Mr. Kennedy in Tokyo, by whom they were relayed to the American newspapers (17). When none of the accusations made in court against the American missionaries appeared in the re- ports sent to American newspapers, the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions furnished copies of its pri- vate cablegrams to the New York Herald, giving full details of the murder and sedition charges. The Board then asked Mr. Stone why news of these accusations had not been cabled to America by the Associated Press, and was informed that the reports of the po- litical conventions at Chicago and Baltimore had left no space for Korean news. The conventions, how- ever, had adjourned ten days before the Board tele- grams were published in the Herald (18).° *The Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions now refuses either to deny or to confirm these statements. The writer twice ap- plied to the secretary, Rev. Arthur J. Brown, giving the substance of the above paragraphs and inquiring whether the records of the Board would substantiate the files of the Herald. Dr. Brown re- plied by referring the writer to his Mastery of the Far East and to a pamphlet, The Korean Conspiracy Case, neither of which touched on the matter in question. In a subsequent letter Dr. Brown wrote: “The questions regarding the press reports involved embarrass- ments at the time, which, at this late date, thirteen years afterward, with a better understanding, a different personnel, and changed con- ditions, I do not feel like reviving” (20). [ 82]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Still a third charge directly leveled against Mr. Stone’s policy in the treatment of Far Eastern news is made by the late minister to China, Dr. Paul Reinsch, who asserts that the Associated Press, through Mr. Stone, held up the publication of news that Japan had made ““Twenty-One Demands” on China, and that, at the end of two weeks, when the report was categori- cally denied by the Japanese Embassy at Washington, Mr. Stone “killed” the news and rebuked his Peking representative, F. F. Moore, for not sending “‘facts, instead of rumors” (19).° It seems well-nigh incredible that relief workers in the time of earthquake stress should have been the butt of antiforeign slander, yet various newspapers did malign the foreigners who helped the refugees.*° Protests by the British consul and by the ambassador himself brought neither punishment, retraction, nor apology. Charges against foreigners may evidently be printed with comparative impunity. No Japanese "Since the Washington Conference of 1921, Mr. Moore has been an American adviser to the Japanese Foreign Office, serving, in alternation with Dallas L. McGrew, at both Tokyo and Wash- ington. In the Chinese Civil War of 1927 he was the Shanghai cor- respondent for the New York Times. ” The papers stated openly that crews of foreign steamers de- liberately drowned men seeking refuge, and that the women were taken on board ship, and, after having been raped, were flung back into the sea to drown. The Japan-American Commercial Weekly gave the number of women thus violated and murdered as fifty. A Formosan paper even went so far as to name a British ship on which, it said, the outrages had occurred. [82]THE ANTI-ALIEN TIDE newspaper seems to raise a word of protest against the grossest libels, nor is official rebuke administered to the offending papers (21). Constant reiteration, both by foreigners and Jap- anese, of the wickedness of alien residents seems to have resulted in the past two years in an unusually large number of interracial disputes. Each misunder- standing, doubtless, is of itself unimportant, but in the aggregate they bulk large and they give a far from reassuring portent for the future. The foreign community has been besmirched as a “hotbed of vice and licentiousness” on the authority of ‘‘a high police official,’ who, in the columns of the Advertiser, denied that he had ever issued such a statement. Kokumin, the leader in this drive, report- ed that a list of more than thirty “depraved foreign- ers” had been compiled by the metropolitan police, and that vigilant surveillance would be kept upon their movements. An old canard, accusing two members of the British Embassy of having beaten a policeman into unconsciousness, was revived by this newspaper, which added that when one of its reporters visited the Embassy, he had ascertained that the entire staff was in the habit of going home drunk every night. Exactly the same tale had been published four years before by Kokumin (22). Another version of the “unprovoked assault upon a gendarme” was told eight months before by the en- tire Tokyo press in connection with the Brazilian [83 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN ambassador, who inadvertently attempted to cross a road to his home while the Prince Regent’s motor car was approaching sixty yards away. During four days the press blazed with abuse of the diplomat on the ground that he had wantonly insulted the Divine Im- perial Family. The police authorities eventually ex- onorated the ambassador, but not the slightest steps were taken to withdraw the sharp rebukes adminis- tered to him by the press, nor to grant him an apology. A month later the Brazilian diplomats, together with the Italian and Mexican attachés, were specifically named in court as guilty of habitually immoral prac- tices. The Advertiser gave as its opinion that the na- tive press was by no means loath to manufacture evi- dence against either foreigners or Japanese (23). These attacks are all the more deplorable as indi- cating a marked change in the tone of the Japanese press. In October, 1917, Dr. Toyokichi lyenaga, man- aging editor of the semi-official East and West News Bureau, in deploring “‘the insane attacks of American yellow journals on Japan,” praised the restraint of the Japanese gazettes. From some papers, he admit- ted, the attacks had evoked response, but “the respect- able and influential papers remained undisturbed and simply ignored the extravagances of American yellow journalism” (24). The Advertiser is somewhat less convinced, but feels that from 1922 until the early weeks of 1924 a better relationship was becoming apparent. “It was [84]THE ANTI-ALIEN TIDE not uncommon up to about two years ago,” the Adver- tiser said, “‘for the Japanese daily journals to rant bit- terly against the ‘criminal motives’ of the United States. Many of them seized upon the most trifling and insignificant incidents to magnify them into grave indictments of American espionage activities. Some even openly advocated a resort to arms. There is no such outburst now of virulent denunciation” (25). The constant printing of provocative remarks in Japanese newspapers seems to confirm neither the tribute paid by Dr. Iyenaga to Japanese editorial re- straint nor the Advertiser’s optimism. The general tone adopted by the press can scarcely fail to preju- dice Japan’s relationships with Western peoples.** The constant impact of suggestion from authorities possessing such prestige as newspapers and public men must eventually be registered in Japan’s con- sclousness. “It is quite true that the whole of the anti-exclusion law agi- tation in Japan was carried on in complete peacefulness. Only one instance of disorder seems to have occurred, an attack upon the Pe- ruvian consul at Kobe by a Japanese who mistook him for a North American. But it is also true that the only general press restriction was against the publication by the foreign press of this particular news item. No ban was laid upon violent denunciation of the Unit- ed States, nor upon the Yorodzu’s open clamorings for war, nor upon the reactionary leaders, Mitsuru Toyama and Ryohei Uchida, who demanded the chastisement of “America the peace-breaker.” Reports, moreover, from widely scattered regions of Japan bore tes- timony, at Christmas time in 1924, that placards advertising a gov- ernment loan bore legends warning against a coming war with a “Trans-Pacific neighbor” (26). [85]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Strong opposition to the United States is, natur- ally enough, the predominant note during 1924. Un- der the provocation of the Immigration Bill, scarcely a newspaper, regardless of its political affiliation, failed to characterize the United States as “insincere,” “unjust,” “arrogant,” “inhuman,” or “bellicose.”’ Nor could it be expected that these slurs would cease im- mediately upon the signing of the law. These accusa- tions by excited Japanese may readily be pardoned as the outbursts of an inflamed public mind (27). Official publicists did strive to mollify the irrita- tion against the United States, but simultaneously, and probably unintentionally, they also rubbed salt into the hurts inflicted by America. Two prominent ed- itors, sent to the United States to discuss the Far-East- ern situation, returned to Japan with assurances that anti-Japanism was rampant in America. Although at least one of his lectures at the University of Chicago had won the approbation of the New York Times, Count Michimasu Soyejima told reporters that he had been unwelcome. ‘Every lecture that I made was at- tacked and held up to ridicule. This so greatly disap- pointed me that I declined many invitations on the pretext of illness.” Motosada Zumoto reported that the American press desired to convince its readers that Japan was preparing for war. The propaganda, he declared, emanated from naval circles, and, in par- ticular, from Secretary Wilbur (28). It is difficult also to understand why, in recent [ 86 |THE ANTI-ALIEN TIDE months, the missionaries have been especially singled out for criticism. Foreign missionaries have been the warmest friends of Japan; none has supported exclu- sion; and all have consistently upheld the Japanese contentions; yet publicists have constantly assailed their character. Those in Korea were accused of in- stigating murder and sedition. Count Soyejima re- ports that mission schools are planned especially for anti- Japanese propaganda purposes. Mr. Zumoto told the Tokyo Rotarians that the very presence of the missionaries was “‘an implied insult to the great moral and religious forces which have built up our noble civilization,’ and that “Christianity, a religion of the masterful, exclusive, and imperialistic type,” had come to Asia “in a spirit of arrogant superiority.” Count Aisuke Kabayama gave an interview in which he stated that the missionaries were men “‘mediocre in mental caliber,” unable to make a living in any other way. A missionary in Korea, who had marked a thief with silver nitrate, was misrepresented in the press as having lynched the culprit and as having branded him for life. A powerful demand was raised for laws to keep the missionaries under strict surveil- lance (29). So long as reasonable doubts could still be enter- tained as to the passage, the signing, or the date of en- forcement of the exclusion act, there were sporadic bursts of confidence, particularly by Jzji and the Nichi Nichi, that all was well between Japan and the United [ 87]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN States. Appeals were written to the Japanese to pre- serve their Samurai tradition of calmness, courtesy, and magnanimity in the face of persecution. Hochi was a brilliant leader in the fight against an economic boycott of American commodities. Yet the undercur- rent of opposition steadily grew stronger. Yorodzu told its readers, ““Mr. Borah insisted that Japan must be crushed because she wanted to join the League of Nations. Many other insane fire-eaters in the Ameri- can Congress unanimously advocated the punishment of Japan.” Yorodzu also wrote that the United States was endeavoring to “tyrannize over the world as an insane despot” (30). War, however, as a solution for the American- Japanese imbroglios was seldom urged. Ten years be- fore, Shigeo Suyehiro, Kozui Otani, and a portion of the Japanese press advocated that Japan fight the United States in reprisal for the immigration insults, but, with the exception of the always belligerent Yo- rodzu, the press seems more content with innuendo than with pleas for overt acts.** The late spring of * Chugai Shogyo in 1917, and the Tokyo Nichi Nichi and the Osaka Mainichi in 1926, saw no immediate prospect of a war against the United States. As in the Western nations, much of the war talk is stirred up by the appearance of sensational books and magazine articles. Chauvinist literature, aiming at the students of preparatory schools, was on the increase in 1916, probably as a re- flection of the Great War. Magazines like Yamato Damashii, Nip- pon Ronin, Nippon Seinin (Young Japan), Dai Nippon, Bukyo Sekai (Military Chivalry), and others were common. Chuo ran a serial, “Sulin Emi” (“War by Air and Submarine”), evidently pre- [ 88 ]THE ANTI-ALIEN TIDE 1926, however, saw a recrudescence of war talk, when Vice-Admiral Reijiro Kawashima and Teisuke Aki- yama, former editor of Niroku and “the power behind Japanese politics,” both issued calls to arms (31). “The United States is an evil spirit menacing the existence of Japan,’ Admiral Kawashima wrote. “A war with the United States is an absolute necessity. A Japanese-American conflict is decreed by Heaven.” Mr. Akiyama told “‘Santaro,” of the Advertiser, that although war cannot solve international problems, and while a full understanding of Buddhism is the only way to peace, a war with America would be a moral tonic for Japan. ‘“‘I wish to stir up the revenge- ful feelings of the Japanese against the United States,” he said. “I could almost wish that every Japanese had made up his mind to go to war. It would be a scourge to whip up somnolent Japan into a spiritual awakening.” Japan, according to Mr. Akiyama, has been going downhill since the Russian war, with a de- cadent tendency, a dying sense of Bushido, and a “sinking to the depths of moral and spiritual degra- dation.” ‘The American peril calls up the dying soul of Japan from premature death.” dicting a war with a “Pacific power,” but its completion was for- bidden by the censor. “Nichinan’” Fukumoto urged that Japan annex the Philippines, and Reiyo Higuchi wrote a volume entitled Japan’s Subjugation of the World. lichiro Tokutomi’s Young Men of Taisho and the Empire’s Future, General Sakurai’s Human Bul- lets, and General Tsunematsu Sato’s prediction of a war with the United States were other chauvinist productions (32). [ 89 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Simultaneously with the anti-American outbursts, an increasing truculence was manifested toward Great Britain. Rumblings of dissatisfaction with the for- mer Anglo-Japanese Alliance had been heard even during the continuance of the Great War, when pub- licists and papers in Japan criticized their ally’s ac- tions and its attitudes. Yamato ran a series of strong editorials condemning the British for selfishness, disloyalty, lack of high ideals, and cowardice. ‘““The French are holding 543 miles of line,” the Osaka Mainichi wrote in 1916, “‘the Belgians 18, and our Ally, Great Britain, only 31. When will the war be- gin?” Such men as Professor Tatebe, of Tokyo Im- perial University, Saburo Shimada, speaker of the House of Representatives, and K. Kodera, a member of Parliament, condemned the Anglo-Japanese Alli- ance as harmful to Japan, dead in spirit and danger- ous in operation. ‘‘Setsurei”” Miyake described it as a robber compact whereby the further the British should aggress in India the more aggression should be permitted to the Japanese in China. Ryosuke Shima- tani, writing in Premier Okuma’s own magazine, de- clared that Great Britain, in reality, hated the Jap- anese and was intending to form an alliance with the United States against Japan. Three years later the Osaka Asahi repeated the accusation that the British were antagonistic to Japan (33). The prolonged discussion concerning the estab- lishment of a British naval base at Singapore evoked [90]THE ANTI-ALIEN TIDE new warnings that the British were preparing to make war on Japanese. For more than two years a new anti- British propaganda raged. Masanori Ito, associate editor of Jiji, struck a favorite note by writing: “Bri- tain lacks the vision of international peace and has sadly forfeited her prestige as a lover of peace.” Tat- sue Moriyama, in January, 1925, declared: “It is the way of British diplomacy to exploit a rising nation, and having taken from it all that she can get, to pro- ceed to bring pressure upon it by chicanery and art- fulness. Artfulness marks everything she does.” The conservative Jiji dug from its files an essay of Yuki- chi Fukuzawa: “British people in Asia are of a dif- ferent race from those at home. They are like lions or tigers toward Indians, whom they appear to regard as no better than beasts. They are exceptionally cruel, wayward, and warlike. That is why I hate them. My intention is to overrule such tyranny and injustice with such vigor that they may be completely eliminat- ed from this world” (34). Additional impetus to anti-Britonism was provid- ed by the Chinese riots, in the late spring of 1925, against European privilege and extrality. Although Marquis Okuma, nine years before, had written that the Chinese were immoral and were too degenerate for Japanese to consider them as equals, and although not long before the press references to the Chinese Minister had been accompanied by the title, ‘““His Ex- cellency Damn Fool,” the anti-European riots were [oz]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN approved by the Japanese, and the government of the Empire gave promises of conformity to Chinese wishes for economic independence. The responsibility for the Chinese anger was thrown by nearly all the Jap- anese newspapers upon the British. Minoru Maida, formerly Asahi correspondent in London, wrote that “of all the powers the avarice of Great Britain has been most boldly pronounced.” In an article which the Advertiser termed a “futile smoke-screen,” Hochi said, “All the reports connected with the Shanghai riots which come from British sources appear to lay the blame upon Japan. The British news agencies dis- torted facts so as to turn the troubles to their own ac- count. They do so only to excite the resentful feelings of the Chinese against the Japanese. They have been accustomed to such Machiavellian strategy” (35). Orders from the censor forbade newspaper men- tion that the Chinese were incensed against the Jap- anese, but no embargo has been laid against the printing of anti-British paragraphs. Dr. Honda’s ex- planation, in the Spectator, insinuates that the author- ities are not averse to stirring up dangerous popular impression. ‘‘Official elements,” he said, “do not deny what the popular press asserts, that the Singapore proposal aims unequivocally at Japan as the next prospective enemy.’* Thus they seem to fasten on ** Singapore is as far from Japan as Gibraltar is from New York, but Japan feared that the new naval base was constructed for strategic purposes as a base for an attack upon Japan. A deci- [92]THE ANTI-ALIEN TIDE Britain the grave responsibility of provoking the next disastrous war” (36). More probably the anti-alienism of Japan is now displayed in hopes of bringing to Japan the headship of an Asiatic federation against white aggression. “The whites,” says Kokumin, “are robbers. They have long been brutally and cruelly unjust.” The in- fluence of Japan, the Nichi Nichi thinks, will, in the future, control the fate of Asia. The time will come, Yamato said in 1925, when Japan will wage herculean struggle against the Anglo-Saxon races on the plains of China, and the Mainichi warned the world what fate befell those nations who purposely and unneces- sarily insulted Dai Nippon (37). Pan-Asianism as a means of escape from Western domination seems not to have attained pronounced development, however, prior to the consideration of the 1924 Exclusion Act. The fleeting press references prior to 1924 were, for the most part, hostile to the plan.** Pan-Asianism was so weak in 1917 that the sion, made in 1926, to strengthen the Indian fleet and to build a sub- sidiary naval base in Ceylon was also made a signal for renewed at- tacks upon the British policy of aggression. ** Dr. Masataro Sawayanagi, imperial nominee to the House of Peers, president of the Imperial Educational Society, and president of the Japan Peace Society, was an early advocate. Writing in Kokumin he approved of an Asiatic Monroe Doctrine, under Jap- anese control, tolerating no interference. It would result, he said, in isolating Japan, but the isolation would be honorable. Japan should therefore set herself to such further development of her military, in- [93]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Osaka Asahi felt itself correct in stating that no Jap- anese approved of such a scheme, and Yomiuri com- mended Midori Komatsu for writing that the move- ment was chimerical. Even as late as June, 1924, the Fabian leader, Hatsunosuke Hirabayashi, warned Ja- pan that scheming for an Asiatic league was cowardly and selfish (38).*° Undoubtedly, since 1924, the Pan-Asiatic League has been advancing, partly as an outcome of the ex- clusion law, and, less certainly, by reactions to the writings of the Nordicists. Among the converts to the movement are the Tokyo Nichi Nichi, which now warns Asia against the white peril, and the Osaka Mainichi which warns the Chinese against American propagandists. Only an Asiatic federation, under Japanese direction, says the Mainichi, can save the Orient from Western rule (39). The latter pronouncement marked the real begin- ning of a prolonged press campaign assuring the Chi- dustrial, and other arts as would compare favorably with the status of European nations and America. Kozui Otani believed that Japan was suffering from ills which could be remedied only by war with the United States and China and by Pan-Asianism (40). * Dr. Isoo Abe, veteran Socialist and head of the Fabians, called the plan “sheer folly,” a description indorsed by Juko Shiga, a well-known geographer, who added that Pan-Asianism was a dream of the mentally blind. Genzo Ichikawa, president of the Tokyo First Girls Higher School, condemned Pan-Asianism as “ag- gression prompted by passionate excitement which would prove calamitous” (41). [94]THE ANTI-ALIEN TIDE nese that Japan had neither territorial nor political designs upon Chinese integrity; and that, if Japan had ever been unfair toward China, the injustice was completely ended, never to be revived (42). Additional impetus toward Pan-Asianism was pro- vided by approving editorial comment in Yomiuri, Hochi, and Yorodzu, followed by the public adher- ence to the cause of Hiromi Chiba, editor of the To- kyo Mainichi, Asakichi Tanaka, vice-president of Ya- mato, Chozaburo Kotaka, president of the Jiyu News Agency, Masajiro Kimura, M.P., president of Mazyu, Hoshio Mitsunaga, president of Nippon Dempo, Ko Shimomura, editor-in-chief of the Asakis, Hikoichi Motoyama, president of the Mainichi Company, Ma- sataka Ohta, vice-president of Hochi, Matsuo Ka- name, managing director of Yorodzu, Tetsuya Naka- jima, president of Tokyo Yukan Shimbun, and Kiroku Hayashi, president of Keio University (43). Varied arguments were marshaled to prove the need for federation. Originally the basis was the self- defense of Asia against white domination. This was elaborated into a thesis that, since the whites detest all colored peoples, Asiatic unity was essential for the preservation of peace.*® Other advocates, headed by the Mainichi, upheld the federation as a barrier to ‘6 This argument was criticized by thoughtful writers, notably President Hayashi and Choko Ikuta, the translator of Ibsen, on the eround that the federation itself might be considered as aggression. They continued, nevertheless, to expound the cause as a defense against race prejudice (45). Lo5 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Anglo-Saxon tyranny, whose destruction was the most pressing need and duty for Japan, while still other Supporters argued that Oriental culture and Asiatic unity were needed both for Asia’s own reconstruction and for the rejuvenation of the world (44).%7 Although the press is now enthusiastic for Pan- Asianism, the government is not prepared to risk the “The last-named coterie was well represented in a symposium published by WNihon-oyobi-Nihonjin. Mitsukawa Iwada wrote: ‘The function intrusted to the yellow race is to create a universal civilization common to all the world. It would be necessary, how- ever, for the yellow race to hold a world-wide sway in order to make all civilization its own. It will be more natural ana more steady a progress to make every continent a unit of an international federa- tion. Asiatics are, therefore, recommended to follow a principle of Asia for the Asiatics as a step toward the realization of internation- alism.” Keikichi Ichida said: ‘The Japanese are under the very great responsibility of guiding other Oriental nations toward recov- ery of their independence. The recovery of Asia from the grasp of Europe appears only a remote possibility, but indomitable and in- defatigable energy will steadily draw such an opportunity nearer.” Takuo Kamiya held out the hope, “Japan’s radiant brilliance will bring all Asia under it to restore Asiatic vitality and also to save the white nations from ruin.” Support was granted to Pan-Asianism by Hindu residents of Japan. Rash Behari Bose wrote, in Kazzo, that “Pan-Asia was the cry of an awakened people at the nightmare of the worship of white civilization.” A.S. Bamral, in an impassioned speech, delivered the peroration to the Hyogo Commercial School: “Gentlemen of Asia awake, arise and agitate. Let all the oriental nations unite, and with the united wisdom, culture, and wealth of the East, make America realize her worst folly. Let prayers to the god of battles float upward. May the numberless gods of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Shintoism annihilate and destroy the pride of arro- gant America. May the Asiatic banner float over the whole world” (46). [ 96]THE ANTI-ALIEN TIDE Western opposition by giving public approbation to the movement. A Conference of Asiatic Peoples, held at Nagaski in August, 1926, met hindrances in the re- fusal of the government to grant facilities. The Af- ghan delegate was refused admission to Japan, the po- lice harassed the meeting, and the Japanese delegates announced their fear of speaking frankly. Viscount Shimpei Goto, Baron Giichi Tanaka, and Major-Gen- eral Yasunosuke Sato, who had been announced as sponsors for the meeting, repudiated their connection with the group (47). The clashing aspiration of Chinese, Korean, Jap- anese, and Hindu delegates also interfered with unity. Because of the geographical features of the continent, and of the consequent long isolation of the Asiatic peoples, diversities were found in race; language, cul- ture, and religion. No common interests were discov- ered save opposition to the West, and the Nagasaki conference could therefore find agreement only on such material needs as a railway to connect the Orient with Turkey, a Pan-Asiatic bank, and an Asiatic de- velopment company. Despite the plea of Rash Be- hari Bose for an Asiatic renaissance and for a hearty and sincere co-operation between all Asiatic peoples, little was achieved for revival of the Asiatic culture. In Japan, however, the hope that Pan-Asianism may eventually prove effective has called forth a whole- some appeal for self-purification in order that the Em- [97]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN pire may be better fit to exercise its duty of acting like an elder brother towards its fellow-Orientals. Yet, while the unity among the Eastern peoples is being strongly stressed by nearly all the Japanese newspapers, the reading masses are being taught to look upon the Westerners as heartless monsters seek- ing to devour Eastern independence. More and more, Japan, whether through ignorance or fear or through political ambition to control her neighbors, seems will- ing to cast aside the West in order to link herself with Orientals. The press, which might have served as leader and interpreter toward interracial understand- ing, has fallen victim to insularity, to distorted vision. and to unwarranted and contemptible prejudice. Its present tactics imperil the friendships of the world, without materially aiding in promoting Eastern unity. NOTES 1. Japan Times, March 10, 1924, May 9, 1925, December i 5, 12, 18, 19, 1926; Advertiser, October 7, 1926, January IQ, 1927. 2. Pooley, Japan at the Cross-Roads, p. 41. 3. Kaizo, September, 1925. 4. (a) Customs: Hochi, April 18, 1926; Kokumin, April 6, 1926; Yorodzu, January 8 and 27, 1926, March 10, 1926. (6) Students: Nichi Nichi, March 19, 1926. (c) Cos- tume: Yomuuri, January 21, 1926; Miyako, May 9, 1926; Yorodzu, August 10, 1926. . Hochi, March 5, 1926; Advertiser, March 6, 8, 10, 10, 1926. V1 [98 ]a | THE ANTI-ALIEN TIDE Advertiser, October 8, 1925, January 2, 1926; Osaka Asahi, December 31, 1925. . Advertiser, March 10, 1926; Chronicle, April 22, 1926, May 13, 1926; May 20, 1926. For article on the elimina- tion of the foreign middleman, see W. M. Kirkpatrick, of Messrs. Samuel Samuel & Company, Advertiser, April 7, 1926. _ New York Evening Post, May 22, 1911; Mail, February 24, 1912; Japan Magazine, June, 1913. . Mail, July 1, 8, 15, 22, 1911; Chronicle, July 27, 1911, No- vember 28, 1912. . National Geographic Magazine, December, 1910, pp. 977- 83. . Mail, August 12, 10, 19I1I. . Mail, April 29, 1911, August 12, 19, IgIt. . Fifty Years a Journalist, M. E. Stone, p. 308. . MacLaren, Japanese Government Documents, p. 298. . Circular, dated May 16, 1911. . MacLaren, Japanese Government Documents, pp. 57-59; Mail, May 27, 1905, June 3, 1905. . Mail, April 24, 1912; S. Yoshino, Chuo Koron, June, 1916. . New York Herald, July 13, 14, 15, 21, 22, 26, 1912, De- cember 14, 1912. . Mail, April 1, 1915; Reinsch, pp. 132, 141; Pooley, p. 148. . Letters dated October 30, November 14, 1925. . Japan-American Commercial weekly, October 27, 1923; letters, R. E. Kozhevar, agent for the Peninsular & Orien- tal Steamship Company, to R. G. Forster, British consul at Kobe, dated November 15, 1923; reply, Forster to Kozhe- var, dated December 31, 1923; Chronicle, September, 1923—January, 1924; see also letter from Forster in Osaka Mainichi, January 23, 25, 30, 1923. [99]bt “J nN tN b) Ww NS 1 SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN . Kokumin, August 29, 1922, September 13, 1926. Kokumin, Tokyo Asahi, Yamato. Hochi, January 9, 19026: Osaka Mainichi, January to, 1026: Hochi, January 12, 1926; Advertiser, January 9, 13, 1926; October II, 1926; Chronicle, February 4, 1926. . New York Times, October 16, IQI7. . Advertiser, March 13, 1924: K. Horiye, Chuo Koron, Aug- ust, 1926. But, for earlier inexactitudes. see the Mail, August 15, 1914, rebuking Osaka Mainichi and Kobe Vu- shin Nippo for alleging an imminent attack by the United States on Japan; Mukden Daily News, August 9, 1914, criticized, with other papers, for similar offense by the London Morning Post, April 4, 1915; The Tokyo Asahi, June 7, II, 12, 1917, deliberately garbled a note of Presi- dent Wilson, and was followed by Kokumin, and by Ya- mato, June 12. See also attacks upon American motives for entering the war, made by “Koson” Asada and Michi- taka Sugawara, former minister of finance. Tatyo, Septem- ber, 1917, and by Marquis Okuma. Shin-Nthon, Septem- ber, 1917. Chronicle, May 8, 1924, January 1, 1925; placards, Chron- icle, December 25, 1924; interview with Mrs. Gurney Bin- ford, missionary of Society of Friends at Shimotsuma. (a) Insincere: Osaka Asahi, February 22, 1924, March I4, 1924, June 30, 1925; Tokyo Nichi Nichi. April 15, 1924; August 3, 1926; Soyejima, Taiyo, January, 1926; Yamato, November 23, 1925. (b) Unjust: Nichi Nichi, May 28, 1924; Chugai Shogyo, June 14, 1924; Yorodzu, June 21, 1924. (c) Arrogant: Yomiuri, March 2I, 1924, April 30, 1926; Osaka Mainichi, May 30, 1924, November 29, 1924; Chugai Shogyo, December 2, 1924, August 21, 1926; Ya- mato, December 7, 1924; May 21, 1926; Nichi Nichi, Au- gust I, 1926, November 21, 1926; Tatyo, January, 1926; [ 100 ]THE ANTI-ALIEN TIDE Yorodzu, July 7, 1919. (d) Inhuman: Nichi Nichi, Febru- ary 19, 1924, August 1, 1926; Osaka Mainichi, May 30, 1924; Yamato, November 23, 1925. . Soyejima, New York Times, July 17, 1925; Yamato, No- 2 ) ? /> a> , vember 23, 1925; Zumoto, Advertiser, October 3, 7, 1925, November 13, 17, 1925, December 17, 1926. . Osaka Asahi, June 4, 1924; Uchimura,Chronicle, June 12, 1924; Kagawa, Advertiser, April 29, 1925; Kokumin, Oc- tober 14, 1926; Soyejima, Taiyo, January, 1926; Kaba- yama, Advertiser, April 7, 1926; Zumoto, Advertiser, De- cember 7, 1925, March 1, 9, 1926; Shibusawa, Japan Times, December 26, 1926. . See the following for specified dates in 1924: Nichi Nichi, April 10, June 24, 26; Jiji, May 27; Mainichi, June 10; Osaka Asahi, July 1; Chuo, June 17; Miyako, May 28; Yomiuri, June 10; Yorodzu, September 22, October 3; Hochi, June 17-30. . (a) Pro-war: Suyehiro, Chuo Koron, October, 1916; Ota- ni, Chuo Koron, February, 1917; Kawashima, Nazkwan, May, 1926; Akiyama, Advertiser, May 26, 27, 1926; Yo- rodzu, April 15, 1924; Mainichi, May 30, 1924; Chuo, De- cember 20, 1925; Chugai Shogyo, August 21, 1926; Yama- to, December 6, 1924, May 21, 1926; Mainichi, December 29, 1925; “Nijuroppo Gwaisho,” Gazkan, January, 1925; Osaka Asahi, April 17, 1924: Yomiuri, December 109, 1924; VYorodzu, June 19, 20, 1924. (0b) Anti-war: Yo- miuri, February 9, 1924, July 12, 1924; Advertiser, July 1, 1916, August 20, 24, 27, 1916. . Chugai Shogyo, August 3, 1917; Osaka Mainichi, April 1, 1926; Tokyo Nichi Nichi, August 19, 1926; Chuo, August 19, 1916; Fukumoto, Kwaigai (Overseas), September, 1916. [ ror |Ww wat SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Far East, February 19, 1916; Pooley, p. 27; Miyake, Ni- hon-oyobi-Nihonjin, February, 1916; Shimatani, Shin Ni- hon, August, 1916; Osaka Mainichi, March 11, tro16. Ito, Gatkwan, January, 1924; Moriyama, Chronicle, Janu- ary 15, 1925; Hochi, June 11, 1925; November 109, 1926; Jiji, January 10, 1925; Chuo, November 109, 1926; Chugai Shogyo, November 20, 1926; Yamato, March 12, 1927. (a) Okuma, Shin Nihon, July, 1916; Maida, Kaizo, Au- gust, 1926; Hochi, June 11, 1925; Kokumin, June 18, 1925; Advertiser, June 12, 1925; Chronicle, July 2, 1925; ‘“Bababaku shu” (H. E. Damn Fool), Chugai Shogyo, April 6, 1924; Obata, ex-minister to China, Gaiko-Jiho, April, 1924. (06) Anti-Chinese slurs disclaimed by Chuo, April 29, 1924; Kokumin, May 21, 1924; Tokyo Asahi, Novem- ber 19, 1924; Yorodzu, April 3, 1924; Juko Shiga, Nihon- oyobi-Nihonjin, November, 1924; Tsuneo Yonechiyama, Shina, May, 1925. . Spectator, May 2, 1925. Kokumin, June 18, 1925; Tokyo Nichi Nichi, April 23, 1924; Yamato, December 1, 1924, December 29, 10925, Osaka Mainichi, May 30, 1924; Hochi, June 11, 1925; Ad- vertiser, October 3, 1925. Kaizo, June, 1924; Tokyo Asahi, January 5, 1917; Yo- miuri, in Chronicle, April 12, 1917. Tokyo Nichi Nichi, April 27, 1924; Osaka Mainichi, May 2, 1924. Otani, Chuo Koron, February, 1917; Sawayanagi, Chroni- cle, December 7, 1916. Abe, Kaizo, June, 1924; Shigo, Nihon-oyobi-Nihonjin, No- vember, 1924; Ichikawa, Nihon-oyobi-Nihonjin, Decem- ber, 1924. See 35 b, above. Kaizo, June, 1924; Advertiser, July 27, 1926. { 102 |THE ANTI-ALIEN TIDE 44. (a@) Defense: Yomiuri, July 12, 1924; Hochi, July 1, 1924; Tokyo Nichi Nichi, April 22, 1924, July 15, 1924, October 6, 1924; Y. Kasuya, Speaker of House, Jzjz, No- vember 26, 1924; Hochi, September 12, 1924; Kokumin, June 18, 1925. (6) Unity: Tokyo Nichi Nichi, July 15, 1924, October 6, 1924; Chuo, February 12, 1924; Osaka Mainichi, May 19, 1924; Hayashi, Chronicle, May 1, 1924; Ikuta, Kaizo, June, 1924. (c) Tyranny: Tokyo Nichi Nichi, August 6, 1926; Hochi, July 14, 1926; Ya- mato, August 15, 1926; Tokyo Asahi, August 8, 10, 1926. (d) Reconstruction. Takanobu Murobushi, Kazzo, May, 1926; Mainichi, December 2, 16, 1924; Yorodzu, June 17, 1924. 45. Hayashi, Chronicle, May 1, 1924; Ikuta, Kaizo, June, 1924. 46. Nihon-oyobi-Nihonjin, December, 1924; Kaizo, June, 1924; see also United States of India, Vol. III, No. 4 (De- cember, 1925); Bamral, Chronicle, June 26, 1924. 47. Advertiser, August 3-7, 1926. [ 103 |CHAPTER V CENSORSHIP AND EXTRA-LEGAL SUPERVISION Effective machinery for checking libel and salaci- ty, and even for impressing on the editors the need for closer scrutiny, is, indeed, available. Failure to in- voke the laws at hand may fairly be regarded as con- ferring at least a tacit government approval both to the careless and indecent writings of “Page 3” and to the more serious press challenges to international peace. The selective character of censorship admin- istration in punishing a few press blemishes commits the government to the charge of tolerating all the others which it permits to go unchallenged. From its earliest beginnings the press has under- gone a constant and a rigid supervision, and the free- dom of the press has at all times been carefully cur- tailed. Not only has the government controlled the press by subsidizing editors and by establishing offi- cial journals, but by successive press laws it has pro- hibited the publication of certain categories of the news. The need for this was felt to be pronounced when the clash of cultures, following Japan’s awaken- ing, portended danger to the Empire unless the gov- [ 104 |CENSORSHIP AND SUPERVISION ernment could guide press programs with exceeding care. The bureaucrats of New Japan feared the disrup- tive effects of a complex Occidental culture upon a nation regimented by the shogunate. The promulga- tion of opinion, the revelation of “political secrets”’ and comment upon “anything, however trifling, con- nected with our foreign intercourse” was categorical- ly prohibited.* In seeking to evade the government’s restriction, the press resorted to ironic praise of the administration, to allegories and to veiled allusions to the despotism practiced by the ministries of Persia and of Turkey. Wholesale suppressions of newspa- pers and imprisonment of editors resulted, and addi- tional restrictions, couched purposely in vague lan- guage, were imposed upon the press. The constitution of the Empire, granted in 1890, did accord press free- dom, “within the limits of the law,” but by imperial ordinances during the Sino-Japanese and after the Russo-Japanese wars the grant was nullified. Slight improvements have, of course, been visible, but in 1925 a ban was laid against discussing any matter ‘undermining the existing governmental and econom- ic system.” The older methods of suppression are no longer needed. The more recalcitrant newspapers, such as “For a complete discussion of the press laws, see the writer’s “Press Freedom in Japan,” American Journal of Sociology, Janu- ary, 1927. [ 105 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Choya and Akebono, have been cut off by past press laws, or persecuted into uniformity, or acquired by interests more friendly to the ruling cliques. By in- terpretation of embargo power the whole press of Ja- pan has been reduced, so far as foreign relations or Home-Office matters are concerned, to a virtually semi-official status. When similar views have been expressed by pre- vious observers, the customary response from Jap- anese has been that such conclusions were drawn from obsolete experience, and that conditions are now so changed that past incidents are no longer typical. There seems, however, to have been no visible relax- ing of the system. As late as February, 1926, the To- kyo police “grilled” officials of Phi Beta Kappa on suspicion that the society was radical. Much suspi- cion was occasioned, said the Advertiser on February 2, because the group adopted a Greek title, although no Greeks were members. The International Rotary, Tokyo branch, has also been obliged to prove its dis- association from the Moscow International. Contin- ued watchfulness by censors and police induces a tendency to overcaution in the editor. Given a defi- nite censorship provision in the laws, the necessity for striking out offending items will progressively dimin- ish. The writer constitutes himself the censor, for the peril of the censorship lurks less menacingly in actual mutilation of the news than in the disinclination to publish news that may, by chance, be banned as radi- { 106 |CENSORSHIP AND SUPERVISION cal or unpatriotic. An air, however false, of optimism and content will permeate the paper. The operations of the censorship, when flat pro- hibitions are necessary, are quite direct and quite de- void of explanation. The classic method, now no long- er used, is that of sending the formal note which Brownell records as having been dispatched under the press law of 1887: “‘Deign honorably to cease honora- bly publishing august paper. Honorable editor, hon- orable publisher, honorable chief printer, deign hon- orably to enter august jail” (1). This form is obsolete, but the notice received by the Japan Times in 1923 is parallel in briefness, if not in courtesy: To the Japan Times and Mail, No. 8136. Date, December, 27, Twelfth year of Taisho. Publisher Sometaro Sheba. You are hereby notified that the above issue is considered against peace and order and in conformity with 23d clause of news- paper law its sale and distribution are under this date prohib- ited. The Ministry of the Department of the Interior also or- dered the same to be confiscated. Dated December 27, Twelfth year of Taisho. (Signed) KurAner Yuasa, Chief of Metro- politan Police. Warnings against publication are equally vague. In June, 1925, the press received a notice reading: “The press is warned against publishing such news regarding the riots in China as may tend to disturb diplomatic relations or seriously prejudice Japan’s in- [ 107 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN terests from the point of view of maintaining peace in Korea, Manchuria, and other colonies.’” Much of the traditional vagueness, and perhaps some of the inaccuracy, of the Japanese press may spring from the failure of officials to define exactly the kind of news that will be censored.* Circumlocu- tory writing is fostered by the editors, since it is nec- essary to protect the paper by printing as much news as possible for the sake of forestalling a “scoop” by other journals, while evading every possible objection from the censor. Hochi offers an almost classic illustration. Men- tion was forbidden of the murder of Bin Gen Shoku, a Korean. Hochi, in telling of the return of Bin’s body, wrote: Bin Gen Shoku suddenly decided to return to Korea. There was nothing lacking at the station. The Premier, Home Minis- ter, Minister of Communications, and the Minister of Railways said goodby to Mr. Bin. Escorted by the station-master, Mr. Bin entered a second-class compartment especially reserved for him, and decorated with wreaths. When the train was about to start, Dr. Midzuno, chief of the civil service of Korea. advanced * The status of Manchuria is inaccurately given. *The Japan Chronicle was fined and suspended for printing the following: “A crime was committed concerning which extras have been issued by the Japanese papers and at whose scene a huge crowd collected.” No names, locations, nor details of the crime were given, nor was the nature of the crime specified. Papers published outside Kobe were circulating unmolested in the city with full re- ports of the affair (3). [ 108 ]CENSORSHIP AND SUPERVISION a few steps toward the compartment where the Korean gentle- man was, and greeted him without a word. He was evidently considerably moved, and tears were in his eyes. It is typical of the lack of unity of the censorship that full details of this murder were printed in Korea, the one place, it would seem, where publication would wreak the gravest danger (2). A careful study of Japan’s successive press laws will disclose a steady trend toward granting freedom, within specific limitations, for the press, and thus may justify the statement that newspapers in Japan “enjoy as large a measure of political liberty as does the press of England or America” (4). But there are limitations to be noticed. By spe- cific legislation, certain kinds of news may not be printed. Reports of preliminary examinations of sus- pected criminals, reprints of confidential documents, disclosures of proceedings of executive sessions of governmental bureaus, news believed to be subversive of public morality or to be provocative of disorder, and matters which reflect upon the dignity of the im- perial house are all forbidden publication. These are definite, and, for the most part, understandable, al- though the last three categories are susceptible of an elasticity of interpretation that arouses caution in the editor. A recital of topics under the official ban in 1922 will indicate the scope covered by these six restric- tions. Prohibitions were issued against printing labor [ 109 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN songs, comparisons between the Prince Regent and the Prince of Wales, the reasons for the suicide of a prominent politician, the contents of letters dropped by a murderer, the search for an American spy report- ed by Kokumin to be in Japan, bulletins upon the Em- peror’s disease, reports of a Japanese expedition sent to investigate American mines and forestry, an explo- sion at the Foreign Office, undue sensationalism in re- porting the financial and economic crisis, Korean ban- dits in Manchuria, Korean unrest, the meeting of the Diplomatic Advisory Council concerning the policy to be adopted toward Russia, desertion of Japanese to the Bolshevist ranks in Siberia, the disinheriting of the rightful heir to the Korean throne, renunciation of titles by certain Korean peers, strike of Korean po- licemen, exaggerated strike news, closing of a Korean school (5). The steady rise of an indefinite, and sometimes unofficial, elasticity permits the written law to grow more liberal without yielding in the slightest practical degree to the persistent clamor for press freedom. Well-wishers of Japan are free to boast of her jour- nalistic independence and to assure their audiences that there is no censorship imposed save on troop movements during war time, on crime news where publication will aid the criminal, or on impairing the imperial dignity. “Newspapers,” as Mr. Hugh Byas says, “can say pretty nearly all they want to say” (6). [ r10 |CENSORSHIP AND SUPERVISION It is, of course, well known that radical utterances will certainly be barred; in fact, as K. Mochizuki, a prominent Diet leader, said in 1909, the “Press law almost gags a speaker or a writer possessing radical inclinations” (7). Matters bordering on radicalism are not, however, so readily classified. For many years the Osaka Asahi, and its sister paper, the Tokyo Asa- hi, were consistent upholders of liberal ideas. In pur- suance of their policy they opposed bureaucracy and aggressive militarism, and, in 1918, resolutely object- ed to Japanese intervention in Siberia. These attitudes offended the Administration, and when the Osaka pa- per protested against suppressing the news of the 1918 rice riots, an indictment was laid against the paper for disturbing public peace. The court, in se- cret session, ordered the Asahi to disclaim its liberal views, to print a public apology for its opposition to the bureaucrats, and to dismiss nine members of its staff who were suspected of favoring republicanism for Japan (8).* “ While the trial was in progress, Ryuhei Murayama, a man of seventy years, was set upon, bound, and attacked by seven young Ronin, or political ruffians. Their motive, they announced, was to avenge Japan upon the Asahi for articles which they described as contrary to the traditional policy of the Empire. They were arrest- ed, convicted at a secret trial, and were sentenced to imprisonment, but the execution of their sentence was postponed, and they virtu- ally escaped all punishment. Murayama was obliged to retire tem- porarily from the presidency of the Asahi as a means of showing his contriteness for the liberalness of his paper (9). [oe]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN The Osaka Asahi’s public apology was most dis- tasteful to its Tokyo staff. The latter published a manifesto of protest against “the craven attitude” of Osaka, the attempt to impose “new principles which manifestly embody the belated ideas of militarists and bureaucrats upon the Tokyo Asahi,” and the “de- spicable actions of the Tokyo colleagues who seek to curry favor by truckling to the wishes of the bureau- crats.”” Needless to say, the men responsible for this outburst, twenty-four in number and representing the entire political and economics staff of the Tokyo Asahi, resigned en masse. Suspicion was prevalent, and was even voiced in the Diet, that one of the writers complained about was himself a secret agent of the Cabinet who had de- liberately penned the offending articles as a means for compelling the Asahi to recant under penalty of final suppression. It is quite true that, to a certain degree, there is freedom of discussion for the press, but it is also quite as true that in the administration of the law restric- tions exist which go far beyond the actual letter of the statute. No one can foretell how far, in actual opera- tion, the censor may extend his power. Cabinet minis- ters, responsible, under the Japanese constitutional system, neither to the Diet nor the people, may, at their pleasure, enjoin the publication of articles be- lieved by them connected even remotely with any tendency thought likely to modify the political, the [112]CENSORSHIP AND SUPERVISION economic, or the social system, or with military or naval matters. No argument is allowable, nor, in case of error, is redress available. The methods utilized possess all the greater dan- ger because they may be indirectly exercised under cover of a “warning,” a “suggestion,” or “advice.” The traditional vagueness, both of the Japanese lan- guage’ and of Japanese legislation, afford ample ad- ditional opportunity for extra-statutory regulation whose extent is not always readily acknowledged. The “advice” tendered a conference of Tokyo edi- tors by Police Director Hideyoshi Arimatsu, now a privy councilor, soon after the passage of the 1909 Press Law is a case in point. As his construing of the prohibition in the law against disturbing morals, or public peace, he gave the editors warnings against publishing news likely to disturb financial and eco- nomic conditions, and against resorting to the use of lotteries or voting contests as circulation builders. He also insisted upon “special care in publishing matters likely to affect diplomacy” (10). “Advice” has become a vital factor in the exten- ° The Peace Preservation Law of 1926 prohibits any society likely to destroy the national constitution (kokutai). Premier Wa- katsuki was called upon in the Diet to explain this term. At first he described it as “national polity under an unbroken line of emper- ors,” but this was challenged because no one could possibly change the past. Then he took refuge in negatives, and said “kokutai means not depriving the Emperor of his sovereign rights.” Finally he told the Diet, “It is anarchy to attempt to alter kokutai,” without at- tempting to explain further what kokutai might be (12). [113]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN sion of press restrictions, particularly when it can be exercised by such methods as will not definitely com- mit the government to any specific embargo on the news. A favorite device is to send a policeman, or other attaché, in plain clothes to the editors to warn against publishing items whose general knowledge is not convenient to officials. These men do not always proffer their credentials, nor give their orders in writ- ten form, but often, in the case of foreign publica- tions, command a Japanese employe to tell the editor that certain news must not be printed (11): Although officially these verbal messages are not regarded as embargoes, but as purely cautionary no- tices, editors hesitate to disregard the warning thus conveyed. The journalists are quite aware that the very warning indicates the readiness of the authori- ties to stop the distribution of any journal which of- fends, and the desired co-operation of the papers is thus readily attained. The censorship has not actually come into play, nor is there record kept in administra- tive headquarters of any action by officials; yet vir- tually all the pressure has been brought to bear that could legally be invoked. The verbal warning, there- fore, is a favorite device, for no one may be held re- sponsible for its abuse, no appeal against it may be taken to a higher quarter, and no signed orders are required, yet the recipients dare not disobey. Thus evils are facilitated. No protection is afford- ed against impostors who may seek to censor news, nor [114]CENSORSHIP AND SUPERVISION are warnings uniform throughout the Empire, or the Main Island, or even throughout the same city. Local policemen announce restrictions according to their fancy and without incurring censure. No real guar- anty is offered that rival papers may not avail them- selves of the device of plain-clothes “officers” to as- sure for themselves exclusive publication of important news. Nor is redress available if the officials, through overanxiety or undue officiousness, mistakingly sup- press news that later is discovered to have been legal- ly printable. Evidence exists that verbal warnings have been used to discriminate in favor of the vernacular ga- zettes against the English-language press. The Japan Chronicle complained that news of the stealing of the American flag from the American Embassy was em- bargoed for the Chronicle on three different occasions, but was permitted to be published in the Yushin Nip- po, the Osaka papers and the English edition of the Osaka Mainichi. Other instances have also been re- corded tending to show a similar discrimination (13 ).° The decision as to the publication of particular news items seems to be drifting into the hands of local police officials. Provinces vary in the degree of se- ° This is partially due to journalistic technique. For the most part there is little independent search for news by the foreign-lan- guage press, but translations are made from the vernacular organs. News which first appears in the latter may later be embargoed. Thus a seeming discrimination may be suspected. The above case and others cannot, however, be so explained. [115]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN verity and of frequency concerning these prohibitions and suggestions. The authorities are cognizant that the situation is unsatisfactory, and at one time the former vice-minister of Home Affairs, Chuji Shimoo- ka, announced a plan for céntralized control. But the plan was never carried into operation. In fact, the problem has grown more complex, for instances within recent years indicate that official de- partments are censoring each other. In June, 1016, Tokitoshi Taketomi, minister of finance, gave out an interview concerning an Inter-Allied Conference at Paris. Several papers printed his remarks and were suspended. When Kokumin and the Osaka Mainichi protested, they were informed by the premier, Mar- quis Okuma, that the newspapers were at fault “for having published the news without thinking of the effect that the statement would have on Japanese di- plomacy.” Dr. Ichiki, the Home Minister, added the remarkable explanation: “Mr. Taketomi’s statement, so long as it remains a statement, is not injurious to public peace, but it becomes injurious when it is pub- lished” (14). In the same month the provincial edition of Jiji was suspended for reprinting the arguments used by lawyers in a bomb-explosion case. The next morning other papers, printing precisely the same news, were not interfered with. When Jiji protested and called attention to the fact that similar arguments made in a bomb-explosion case in 1883 had been allowed to pass [116]CENSORSHIP AND SUPERVISION the censor, Okuma replied that the suspension was due to the insincere arguments made by lawyers for the mitigation of penalty for their clients. “The pri- mary duty of a lawyer,” Marquis Okuma declared, ‘Gs to make clear the right according to law, so that the people may know how to behave themselves. Oth- erwise the lawyers are dangerous.” Sixty lawyers and thirty-six newspapers protested against the J7ji pun- ishment, only the pro-administration Tokyo Mainichi defending the action of the government (15). Twice, at least, have papers been suppressed by underofficials of the censorship for printing news offi- cially released for publication by the Foreign Office, and twice the navy department has been overruled by the local police of Kobe. On one occasion newspapers were suspended for quoting Premier Okuma’s own re- marks concerning China (16). In theory, only the Emperor is immune from crit- icism, but in practice the sanctity extends toward princes of the blood, and, indeed, toward all objects used by the imperial family. The press worked itself into a fury in 1925 because a trophy donated by the Prince Regent had been “defiled” by exhibition in a Manila shoestore window. All matters affecting the entire imperial household are subjected to especially close scrutiny, for it is the entire family, not merely the Emperor himself, which is regarded as of super- human ancestry. All stem from the goddess Amatera- su-omikami, who herself sprang from the left eye of [117]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Izanagi, the sun god’s father. Intrusions upon the dig- nity of the imperial blood partake, therefore, not only of lése majesté, but may readily be regarded as as- saults upon the very foundation of the state, or even as sacrilege itself. This is the basis for that “inner loyalty,” which, as Mr. Sawada and Mr. Clarke agree, governs even the inner thinking of the Japanese (17). No real reform is possible in inner Japanese gov- ernment while this belief still lingers of imperial in- violability. Unscrupulous politicians are by no means reluctant to avail themselves of this mighty engine to crush down hostile critics. A charge of forgery raised against Prince Ito and Count Hijikata, minister of the imperial household, was countered by the arrest of the accusers for daring to assert that the imperial seal had been wrongfully used." The Twenty-sixth Cen- tury, an Osaka publication, was annihilated, and the newspaper Vippon was suspended for publishing the charge. Ito and Hijikata remained totally unscathed, and no investigation appears to have been made into the justice of the charge. Similarly, Daikichiro Taga- wa, former mayor of Tokyo and a former department of justice secretary, was imprisoned for five months for having stated that the choice of Count Terauchi as premier in 1916 had been made by the Elder States- men and not by the untrammeled decision of the Em- peror. Hochi had already been suspended for a simi- "Dr. Kawabe is careful in reporting this affair, merely stating that “dark secrets were disclosed” (20). [118 |CENSORSHIP AND SUPERVISION lar offense. The Kobe Herald was suspended, and its editor imprisoned, for suggesting that the Emperor’s “inexperience” as a ruler might have been a contribu- tory factor for the rice riots of 1918 (18). Twice during the imprisonment and trial of Dai- suke Namba, who attempted to shoot the Prince Re- gent, was the Japan Times suspended for disrespect toward the imperial house. On the first occasion the stupidity, perhaps induced by panic, of the metropol- itan police appears to have been responsible. The offi- cial police version of the attempted shooting was print- ed by the Times under a seven-column streamer head- line, “Shoot at Prince Regent.” In conformity with po- lice injunctions the Times purposely blurred its type wherever the words ‘‘Prince Regent” appeared. Nev- ertheless the issue was suppressed for disrespect to- ward the imperial house. Again, in attempting to show the remorse of Namba for his crime, the Times re- marked on his changed attitude in jail. “It is even said that he most reverently partook of a piece of cake granted to the prisoners in commemoration of the imperial wedding.” The paper was again suspend- ed as “injurious to public peace” (19).° * Evidently the Times learned its lesson. When Namba was ex- ecuted it hinted of ‘‘an extraordinary outburst on the part of Nam- ba, the details of which have been prohibited by the police censor from publication.” Again, on the following day, it reported: “The doomed man hurled one last defiance, the particulars of which have been barred by the police.” A curious incident was the embargo on [119]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Isolated complaints against censorship adminis- tration appear sporadically when particularly fla- grant instances of news suppression appear,’ but no persistent campaign of opposition against the censor- ship appears to have been conducted by the vernacu- lar gazettes. It is noteworthy also that in no case has a protest proved effective when registered by an indi- vidual paper, and but slight successes have been re- corded when journalists have united to oppose the censor’s methods. Twice, in 1918, the combined newspapers thought it necessary to protest against restrictions. The first instance was in May, when Viscount Shimpei Goto, the foreign minister, warned a conference of govern- ors to use especial care in “leading and instructing” the press. This declaration was resented by some of the newspapers, particularly as feeling was already running high against Viscount Goto for his alleged partiality in giving news to foreign correspondents the news of the imperial portraits lost from a public school. The news was embargoed, for fear of admitting that carelessness had occurred toward the Emperor, for almost exactly eight years (21). ” Among the more important protests may be noted Jiji’s pro- test, in 1913, against the ban on publishing excerpts from the Secret Memoirs of Count Hayashi; Osaka Asahi’s opposition, in 1914, to the embargo on printing a song from Tolstoy’s Resurrection; Koku- min’s fight, 1914, against the Foreign Office policy; Osaka Main- ichi’s protest against the embargo on reprinting excerpts from a book published by Premier Okuma’s own firm; Osaka Shimpo’s ob- jection, 1921, to the suppression of a feminist article written by the principal of a girls’ school, etc. (23). [ 120 |CENSORSHIP AND SUPERVISION that was not being released to the Japanese. “We are entirely ignored by the authorities,” wrote “Koson”’ Asada in Taiyo. “At times we have been given treat- ment similar to that accorded to the most dangerous German spies.” The Tokyo Asahi, Yorodzu, and Se- kai Koron agreed with Asada (22). Reporters assigned to the Foreign Office demand- ed that Viscount Goto define his meaning of “lead and instruct,” but received the curt reply that the mean- ing might be left to their own good judgment. The reporters, acting individually and not as agents for their papers, passed a resolution calling Viscount Goto “arrogant,” and the minister retorted that the press was irresponsible. He demanded an apology from the reporters, and announced that no news would be given out by the Foreign Office until the retraction should be secured.*® Yomiuri, Chugai Shogyo, and Ko- kumin supported him, while Jiji, the Tokyo Asahi, and others renewed their criticisms. The matter end- ed when the Minister agreed to issue an announce- ment that “leading and instructing” was to be con- strued “‘in a good sense,”’ and that news was not to be suppressed. The “leading and guiding” controversy was, how- ever, a mere matter of definition of the Japanese word 1° Dr. Kawabe describes this as a boycott of the Foreign Office by the reporters, stating that the Foreign Office was compelled “to telephone each newspaper whenever it wished to give out news, whereupon an office boy was sent to receive the printed reports” (24). [ r2r |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN shido, and had become complicated as a result of wounded pride on both sides. It could be settled. therefore, by a compromise between other govern- ment officials and the proprietors of the papers. But in August a more serious dispute arose. Rice riots ap- peared in the larger cities, and, ostensibly for the purpose of localizing the disturbances, news of the disorder was embargoed. Since the rioting was wide- spread, some notice of the matter had to be taken by the press, and on the morning of the fifteenth the To- kyo papers appeared with large-type, leaded apologies for their lack of news. The Shunjukai, an organization of newspaper men, met and demanded a withdraw- al of the embargo order by the next afternoon. The government’s answer was to issue an official ver- sion of the riots and to compel the press to print no other information on the disturbances. A SOp was thrown to the Shunjukai, a day after the expiration of their “ultimatum,” by permitting the press to publish “reports of actual facts, if they are reliable and ac- curate, without exaggeration or coloring intended to instigate further rioting.” The official bulletins were, “The government’s immediate answer was the suspension of the Weekly Chronicle for publishing matter which had already ap- peared in the daily issues of the paper without having been cen- sored. “It looks as though the authorities wished to prevent news from going abroad,” said the Chronicle, “since the Weekly circu- lates largely overseas.” Kawabe says merely: “The Shunjukai re- quested a loosening of the censorship by 3:30 in the afternoon of the sixteenth, and secured it” (27). [122]CENSORSHIP AND SUPERVISION however, continued as a guide, and few papers ven- tured to print additional information. As late as Sep- tember 2, newspapers in Kobe, Osaka, Tokyo, and elsewhere were still protesting at the continuance of news suppression. No relief was secured until late in September, when the Cabinet fell as an aftermath of armed conflicts between the troops and rioters (25). Fear of the passage of a peace preservation bill reawakened the press to a consideration, in 1925, of the limitations on its freedom. The Osaka Asahi, Yo- miuri, Chugai Shogyo, and Jiji took the lead in fight- ing the whole thought-guidance program of which this bill appeared a harbinger, but the Chugai Shogyo soon veered to a support of the reactionary measure. Yo- miuri was emphatic that “the government is digging its own grave.”’ Even the Japan Times, fearful as it was of radical propaganda, protested against the bill, with the argument that such oppressive measures were the best aid for communism and anarchy. The protests were of no avail. The Diet passed the peace preservation bill, and, by the wording of the law, all adverse comment or protests were precluded (26). Protests have been averted through the perfec- tion by the government of a technique of voluntary censorship, akin, in essence, to verbal warnings, but salving the pride of journalists by allowing them to participate in conferences on news control. An early instance occurred four months before the Russo-Jap- anese War began, when twenty-eight Tokyo editors [123 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN were called into the war office to be reminded that caution was desirable in printing news concerning Japanese maneuvers. The war office, according to a friendly paper, assured the press that all proper news would be furnished to the editors, and suggested that no news secured from any other source be published in Japan. The continuance, at least at scattered inter- vals, of the voluntary conference is revealed in edi- torials printed by such periodicals as Kokumin, Ya- mato, and the Japan Times. That these conferences readily degenerate into meetings wherein the govern- ment dictation as to news may be handed to the press, in the absolute certainty that disregard of the sugges- tion will bring suppression, is evident from Hochi and Yamato. Editors like Kotaro Sugimura, of the Tokyo Asahi, and Tsunego Baba, of Kokumin, agree that when such conferences are assembled, “we meet to receive our orders as to what we may not print” (28). So far as international affairs are concerned, the voluntary censorship derives an added sanction from that “inner loyalty” which impels the Japanese to put the nation’s case before the world in the best light. A firm conviction that favorable publicity is more de- sirable than unpleasant fact finds ample reflection in the opinions of the press. Captain Brinkley, of the Mail, Motosada Zumoto, and the editors of Yamato, Jiji, and the Tokyo Asahi have all subscribed assent to some such thought as that which Yukio Ozaki, Ja- pan’s most prominent Liberal, once voiced in the Diet [124]CENSORSHIP AND SUPERVISION (29): “If this is a true statement, the incident was a national disgrace, and it is the duty of every respon- sible statesman to himself and to his Emperor to keep such matters from the public knowledge.”** The at- titude of Japanese may, perhaps, be best epitomized in the laconic words of the Japan Mail: “A patriotic press should agree to withhold whatever may be eas- ily misunderstood to the detriment of Japanen(3it)ea Diplomatic affairs are held especially subject to restraint on publication. As early as 1899, when ex- tra-territorial privileges were being abolished, the For- eign Office told the Nippon that the lack of tact among the newspapers of the Empire was the greatest handi- cap to the successful conduct of a foreign policy. Dr. Kazutami Ukita is reluctant to place confidence in the opinions of the public. “Who knows,” he says, “but that there may be an irretrievable mistake on the 2 Viscount (then Baron) Shimpei Goto had issued a pamphlet disclosing alleged facts concerning Japanese activities in Shantung, Manchuria, and Mongolia. The pamphlet alleged breaches of in- ternational law by Japanese consuls and military men, related that Japan had seized Chinese warships, manned them with Japanese sailors, and sent the ships to aid the rebels against the Chinese gov- ernment, and charged that Baron Kihachiro Okura had donated ¥1,000,000 as a war fund for this purpose, with the connivance of the Japanese general staff. Viscount Goto was accused, in the Diet, of publishing this pamphlet, and narrowly escaped from censure from that body. The Tokyo Asahi complained that the “pamphlets might easily have been reproduced in the foreign press” (30). 13 Ts this a commentary on what may be meant by the demand made by the Mail, that Japanese subjects must each and all assist in making the true spirit of Japan better known to the world? [125]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN part of the government if it follows popular sentiment with regard to foreign relations?”’ His remarks have found indorsement from such men as Setsuzo Sawada, Tsuneo Matsudaira, ambassador to the United States, Masanao Hanihara, former ambassador to this coun- try, Count Tadasu Hayashi, projector of the Anglo- Japanese Alliance, and by Baron Iichiro Motono, for- merly ambassador to Russia. Baron Motono’s words are unmistakable. “Our newspapermen lack system- atic knowledge of what is going on abroad. They only know how to censure their diplomats for incapacity. The Japanese press has the singularly bad habit of trying to expose certain matters which, from the very nature of the case, had better be kept secret. Careless exposure would only tend to complicate relations and to hamper the otherwise smooth processes of diplo- macy. The people ought to rest assured that their national honor and interests are well guarded”’ (225 [t is only in the event of failure of the general embargoes, advice, press conferences, and “inner loy- alty” to prevent publication of news items that the direct action of the censorship must be employed. Japanese apologists are therefore quite correct in their assertions that the enforcement of the police power and of the censorship is growing less severe, and that the days of wholesale suppressions are gone forever. Foreign observers also give assent to this, Rivetta, in 1904, stating that seizures of newspapers [ 126 |CENSORSHIP AND SUPERVISION are extremely rare, while Lajput Rai agreed that cen- sorship is invoked only in extremities. The ascertainment of the trend of suppression is hampered by the discontinuance of publishing statis- tics giving the number of issues confiscated. In for- mer years, when the numbers were furnished, at least a thousand issues yearly were suppressed. The low- est number was in 1904, when 216 papers lost an is- sue. Riots in 1905 swelled the total to 1,653, while in 1906, 1,809 issues were forbidden. The last pre-war year, 1913, Saw 1,110 Suppressions (33). Reasonable doubts may therefore be entertained as to whether the government employs the censorship in an efficient manner. Offenses against public moral- ity are not always prevented, nor are penalties invari- ably imposed upon editors who offend against either morality or the public order. Only slight evidence ex- ists to justify contentions that the worst phases of censorship administration are now past, and that press liberties are advancing with rapidity. Decline in the actual number of suppressions as shown by sta- tistical tables is no clear indication, because no meas- ure is available to gauge the caution of editors on other than political affairs. The very fact that cen- sorship control is passing to the civil authorities rath- er than remaining in the hands of military leaders is an ominous portent, for the former seem more prone to utilize suppression either in an active or a passive manner. There is comparatively slight demand for [127 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN military and naval intelligence, and the laws regard- ing treason are too strong for editors to risk publish- ing such news. On matters relating to diplomacy, a well-developed patriotism and an “inner loyalty”’ re- strain the press from printing harmful information. It is chiefly in the field of news affecting the Home Office that unwise publicity is now most feared. Data on the proletarian unrest is vital news that editors, despite the hazards of press publication laws, will rush to seek. The authorities are far more fearful of the radicals at home than they are of any foreign spies. In the number of embargoes issued, the Home Office far exceeds the other three departments priv- ileged to censor news. Similarly, there is danger in the transfer of the censor’s function to the local police officials, for the central bureau is more tolerant in permitting news. Without knowledge of the Tokyo attitude on any given matter, the provincial administrator dares not run the risk of angering his superior. He embargoes news that seems in any way to smack of danger. He will not be so severely reprimanded for his overcau- tion as for permitting one dangerous thought to be disseminated. The tragic incidents** pursuant to the Tokyo earthquake afford a glaring instance of the failure of “For details of the riots and murders at this time, see the writer’s “Japan’s Struggle for Democracy,’ (June, 1925). ? in World Tomorrow [128 |CENSORSHIP AND SUPERVISION embargoes to protect the public safety. If any time might be selected to justify the operation of a censor- ship, the public apprehension that malcontent Kore- ans were about to murder helpless Japanese would seem to warrant the suppression of rumors of Korean “plots.” Yet while the government—as Mr. Sheba, of the Japan Times, publicly declared—was wireless- ing its warnings against forthcoming Korean insur- rection, the publication of reassuring items in the press was consistently embargoed. Failure to check the spread of frenzied rumor served only to heighten the terrors felt by victims of the earthquake and the fire, and hundreds of Koreans were massacred by excited Japanese (34). Two weeks after the earthquake, when the panic had subsided, the most prominent Japanese radical, Sakae Usugi, together with a woman and a nine-year- old boy, were murdered by Captain Masahiko Ama- kasu while the prisoners were confined in jail. The corpses were hidden in a well, and mention of the murder was suppressed. When publication was per- mitted, some weeks later, official bulletins announced that Usugi and “two other dangerous anarchists” had been executed. The Tokyo Asahi protested, three years later, at the issuance by the government of mis- leading ‘“‘facts” on this affair (35).° 5 Captain Amakasu, after confessing his guilt, was punished by light imprisonment for two years and a half. [129 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN The present censorship, by its always vague and sometimes drastic nature and by the uncertainty of its administration, supplemented by the extra-legal resort to conferences, advice, and verbal warnings, too severely curbs the Japanese editor. Ambiguity and loosely-worded items are his chief recourse, and these, in turn, too often offer opportunity for harmful innuendo, and perhaps for blackmail. In the existing State of journalism, with libel laws so weak as to pro- vide little real redress for injured persons, and with an undeveloped sense of editorial responsibility, some form of censorship may be desirable, but in any case it is at least questionable if the weapon should be in- trusted to unchecked bureaucrats. In a government described by Ambassador Mat- sudaria and by Count Soyejima as tending toward democracy, machinery might rather be provided for inculcating upon the editor some measure of responsi- bility for his own writings. In Japan today, by virtue of the semi-official nature which the censor’s office thrusts upon the press, the burden of editorial func- tioning is lifted from the editor, without imposing up- on the censor any penalty for inefficiency or error. As conducted in Japan, the censorship leads only to fears of secret plotting, exaggerates the force of whispered rumor, gives semi-official sanction to all news not barred by administrative action, and fails, in prac- tice, to prevent the most mischievous falsehoods (36). Domestic news, thus closely supervised, is thor- [130]CENSORSHIP AND SUPERVISION oughly untrustworthy, because no perfect picture is presented of conditions in Japan. Neither the Japa- nese themselves nor foreigners can learn the truth about the Island Empire from the press. Those mu- tual understandings which underlie the maintenance of peace between the nations are stunted by the Japa- nese bureaucracy. Within Japan itself the national solidarity is weakened by the failure of the press to give a full appreciation of existing situations. Official interference breeds a rising discontent against the government, and this, in turn, provokes a more re- lentless bureaucratic pressure. The vicious circle cre- ates a need for yet more impregnable defense against the spread of dangerous ideas. NOTES ei . Heart of Japan, p. 129. . Seoul Press, February 24, 1921; Chronicle, February 24, 1921. 3. Chronicle, August 25, 1922, September 28, 1922. . (a) Japanese press is free. Rai, p. 142; Longford, p. 183; Zumoto, p. 117; Low; Courant, p. 510; Clarke, p. 248; Sawada, p. 196; Japan Mail, January 21, 1888; January 2, 1904; MacMahon, The Orient I Found; Tokyo Mainichi, June 26, 1916. (b) Strictly censored. Northcliffe, London Times, April 19, 1922; Sheba, Japan Times, June 2, 1924; Brownell, p. 129; Martin, p. 22; Osaka Mainichi, June 7, 1925; Yomiuri, November 27, 1924; Yorodzu, December 6, 1924; Tokyo Asahi, August 8, 1917, July 5, 1919, No- vember 9, 1919; Osaka Asahi, July 31, 1917; Chugai Shog- yo, June 26, 1916; Lawton, Empires, pp. 796-97. In 1926 [131] LS) osCoo ~ IO. DL SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN several papers condemned the censorship, e.g., Tokyo Asahi, March 20, July 16, July 30, August 6, September 19; Miyako, March to, August 7; Kokumin, July 29; Ya- mato, August 1; Advertiser, August 11; Hochi, August 12. The Chronicle and the Advertiser (to a less extent) have fought the censorship for years. See Manchester Guardian, June 9, 1921; Miyako, March 16, 1927. Chronicle, April 20, 1922. See also Tokyo Asahi, April 1, 1920. (a) “Old Arbitrariness Is Gone,” Brinkley, New Japan, p. 649; Byas, p. 27; Lloyd, p. 177; Rai, p. 142; Williams, p. 37; Japan Mail, January 2, 1904. (0) “Only for Troop Movements,” Zumoto, p. 117; Hanihara, p. 671; Low; Rai, p. 142. (c) “Only for Crime,” Zumoto, p. 117; Clarke, p. 248. (d) “Only for Emperor,” d’Autremer, p. 125; Low. (e) “Press is Independent,” Byas, p. 47; Zumoto, in inter- view. Mochizuki, Chronicle, July 15, 1900. For the Asa/i case see Osaka Asahi, August 19, 20, 1918, December 1, 1918; Hanazono, p. 45; Saito, in Diet, Janu- ary 22, 1919; Chronicle, October, 1918—February, 1919. Advertiser, September 30, 1918, November 14, 1918. Chronicle, June 3, 1900. For this and the next two paragraphs the writer is indebted to interviews with prominent newspapermen, both Jap- anese and foreign, who prefer anonymity. . New York Nation, April 15, 1925. Chronicle, March 23, 1922, June 28, 1923, July 20, 1924; Advertiser, May 25, 1918. Chronicle, June 18, 1914; Taketomi, Osaka Mainichi, June 28, 1916; Kokumin, June 25, 1916, June 30, 1916. . All in June, 1916. Jiji, June 21, Yamato, Jiji, Mainichi, June 23, Okuma and China: Advertiser, June 24. [132]NS Ww CENSORSHIP AND SUPERVISION _ Osaka Jiji, April 14, 1920; Advertiser, May 25, 1918, De- cember 19, 1925, January 14, 1926. _ Constitution, chap. i, Art. 3; Sawada, p. 196; Clarke, p. 249; d’Autremer, p. 125. From the Kojiki, or record of ancient events, quoted by Official Guide to Eastern Asia (published 1914 by Imperial Japanese Government Rail- ways), p. lvii. For the Manila affair, see Advertiser, June, 1925. _ (a) Hijikata case, Japan Mail, October-December, 1896. (b) Tagawa. Brown, p. 302; Advertiser, March 15, 1917. (c) See another “anti-clan” case, in November, 1905, Jim- min, November 13, Yomiuri, November 15, Tetkoku Bun- gaku, November 10. (d) For a fourth case, Kobe Herald, January 8, 20, I9gI19. . Japan Times, December 27, 28, 1923, September 15, 16, 1924. . Kawabe, p. 123. . Japan Times, November 13, 14, 1924. Portrait case, Chronicle, April 16, 1925. _ For the Goto incident, see the following for specific dates in May, 1918. Kokumin, 16th, Yomiuri, Tokyo Asahi, Yorodzu, May 17, Yorodzu, May 23, Advertiser, May 16- 23; Taiyo, June, 1918; Seika Koron, June, 1918; for a re- vival of the case, Japan Times, March 8, 1924. . Osaka Jiji, June 20, 1916; Kokumin, September 19, 1914; Tokyo Nichi Nichi, April 29, 1920; Osaka Shimpo, July 3, 1921; Hayashi, Jntroduction, pp. 31-32; Osaka Mainichi, June 28, 1916; Osaka Asahi, June 24, 1914; Jz, Septem- ber 17, 1013. . Kawabe, pp. 153-58. _ See the following for specific dates, August, 1918. Jzjz, Vorodzu, August 12; Kokumin, Nichi Nichi, Tokyo Asahi, August 15; Yomiuri, August 16; Chuo, August 15, Adver- [133 |Ww GW - Ww Ww Ww VI SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN tiser, August 18; also Chronicle, September 2, 1918; King- Hall, pp. 140, 151. . New York Nation, April 15, 1925. But see Miyako, March 16, 1927; Advertiser, March 11, 1927. . Kawabe, p. 162; Chronicle, August 22, 1918. . Japan Mail, October 3, 1903; Kokumin, September 1o, 1914; Yamato, June 15, 1919; Japan Times, October 3, 1924. . Advertiser, June 28, 1917. In July, 1917, see Tokyo Asahi, July 13; Chugai Shogyo, July 2; Osaka Asahi, July o. See above. Also Official Gazette, June 30, 1917. . Japan Mail, November 8, 1913. . Ukita, in Okuma, I, 190; Hayashi, pp. 290, 292; Sawada, pp. 196-97; Motono, in Yomiuri (Fortieth Anniversary issue) November, 1913, repeated by Sekai, July 1, 10916; Matsudaira, Philadelphia Public Ledger, December 6, 1925. . Japan Yearbook, 1911; Chronicle, July 19, 1917. . Japan Times, October 23, 24, 1923, December 109, 21, 1923, March 8, May 1, June 2, 1924. For the official view see Ja- pan Yearbook (1924-25), pp. 241-42, Manchester Guardi- zan, October 11, 1923, New York Times Current History, October, 1923; for conflicting views by Roderick O. Math- eson, see McClures, Vol. LVI, No. 1 (January, 1924); Current History, May, 1927. . Japan Yearbook (1924-25), pp. 243-44; Chronicle, Feb- ruary 14, 1925, May 28, 1925; Tokyo Asahi, August 6, 1926; Current History, May, 1027. . Matsudaira, Philadelphia Public Ledger, December 6, 1925; Soyejima, New York Times, July 8, 1925.CHAPTER VI SAFEGUARDS AGAINST RADICALISM Whether through positive enactment or through interpretation of the law, through “inner loyalty” or fear of punishment, the censorship within Japan is absolute. The press dares not offend. Officialdom cannot, of course, effectively caulk every tiny seepage of undesirable news items, but means exist for limit- ing the greater volume of illicit news. To the rulers of a society based, as is Japan’s, up- on a faulty economic system, administered by what even the Japanese admit to be a scandalously corrupt political cabal, where restive tenant farmers, an un- derpaid urban proletariat, and an unemployed intelli- gentsia are suffering depression, too close a scrutiny of the foundations is disquieting. The danger of an overturn becomes pronounced with the increasing re- alization that the cost of maintaining such a social system is greater than its worth.* *Japan’s gains since the war with Russia have by no means been impressive. In medicine and in some fields of science alone has Japan kept herself abreast of the world, while in literature, music, and sculpture her recent efforts have been barren. In her art, her architecture, and her drama, the mingling of Oriental with Occiden- tal forms has stifled her old excellence without materially aiding her new efforts. By her diplomacy, Japan has been plunged into a sea of militarism by incursions into Asia which, like Plantagenet Eng- [135 |]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Among the masses, it is thought by Japanese offi- clals, “dangerous thoughts” are rife. Perhaps the Communists are not as influential in the instigation of their revolutionary theories as might be indicated by the published opinions of bankers, politicians, and newspaper men, but that unrest exists in several strata of Japanese society is clearly evident. But no leaders are available to guide the masses in their blind struggle for more liberty. The older liberals are age- ing men, and few new prophets are arising to replace them. Yukio Ozaki, the radical of forty years ago, is still the only leading figure now. Peace preservation laws and press restrictions stifle free expression, and hireling ruffians, in the guise of super-patriots, ter- rorize the minor publicists. Nor will any independent movement be accorded hearty welcome in a land where every group must submit itself to searching supervision by police, and where, until the summer of 1926, labor unions were officially illegal.” land’s into France, have enormously increased the military budget without yielding any great advantages which might not have been won more cheaply in peaceful ways. Although herself poor and lacking in such essential raw materials as iron, oil, cotton, wool, and rubber—even lacking sufficient food itseli—she has followed the mercantilist ideas of wealthy nations rich in natural resources. The almost inevitable result has been a decline in her prosperity and a rise in unemployment. *To reduce the possibilities that undesirables may reach the impressionable masses, the mails, telephones, and telegraphs are stunted. High fees and shortage of equipment confine the telephone to less than 1 per cent of the population in Japan proper and to a [136]SAFEGUARDS AGAINST RADICALISM Perhaps the scarcity of well-trained leaders for the commoners may be a product of the educational policy long followed by the Japanese, who have sought to guarantee constructive progress by the choice of safe and well-tried leaders for the democratic cause, and by the careful inculcation of acceptable attitudes in the minds of scholars. Secondary education is con- fined to comparatively small numbers of selected stu- dents, and, before entrance into universities, these small numbers are scaled still further downward.° Once enrolled in college, the students are pro- tected against too revolutionary doctrine. The oldest and one of the most influential universities does not permit its students to draw books from the well- much less percentage in Korea and the dependencies. Mail deliveries are frequent and efficient, but the rates are high. Until 1926 a fee of 20 sen (equivalent at the contemporary exchange to 8 cents) was charged for foreign postage, a rate 60 per cent higher than that charged by the United States on letters to Japan. Domestic postage rates were 3 sen, which is lower than the corresponding American rate, but which, at the Japanese wage scale of ¥30 a month for postal clerks, ¥48 for railway men, etc., is proportionately far higher. *In March, 1923, 6,630 boys sought entrance into the six pub- lic middle schools of Tokyo, but only 881 were accepted. For the twenty-three private schools 21,970 applications were received, of which 5,832 were enrolled. The Imperial University and its allied schools had 9,489 applications, but admitted only 2,447. Fourteen other Tokyo universities had 28,244 applications and admitted 18,- 640. Of 17,047 girl applicants for entrance into middle schools, 5,074 were accepted. Out of 1,282 applications for the two women’s universities, 671 were granted (1). [137]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN stocked library until their senior year, and then only in connection with the subjects of their graduation theses. Associations for the study of social problems are forbidden by the Ministry of Education to con- sider certain “dangerous” topics, such as socialism. Sociology as a pursuit for college groups is frowned upon, and the study is forbidden to all high schools. Since success in Japanese communities depends to an unparalleled degree upon the possession of a univer- sity diploma, the students are extremely careful to re- press whatever recalcitrance they may feel toward the authorities. The future leaders of Japan are thus painstakingly selected and are carefully directed in their proper thought. Nevertheless, despite the hand-picked student body, the schools were active in the encouragement of democratic thought. The notice boards of all the uni- versities were filled with bulletins of new societies to study “sociology.’”’ Many of them, no doubt, such as the New Man movement led by Professor Sakuzo Yoshino of Tokyo Imperial, or the Fabian Society which followed Professor Isoo Abe, of Waseda, were merely coverts to conceal socialists and other “dan- gerous thinkers,” but all were viewed with grave sus- picion. An official order from the Minister of Educa- tion, Ryohei Okada, issued in April, 1926, prohibited the formation or the meeting of any such societies, forbade even the private reading or discussion of “studies concerning dangerous thoughts,” and refused [138 ]SAFEGUARDS AGAINST RADICALISM permission for the holding of any interuniversity con- ferences on the social studies (2).* Thirty students of the Doshisha and the Kyoto Imperial universities were arrested, and, six weeks later, fifteen more, from other universities, were ap- prehended. All were members of the Kenkyu-kai (So- ciety for Studying Sociology) and all were accused of either possessing, translating, or distributing books by Stalin, Marx, Engels, and Edward Bellamy. They were also opposed to military training and had en- deavored to assist the outcast Eta and the labor unions to unite. An embargo on the news of these ar- rests was laid in January, 1926, and was not removed for eight months (3). Eight months more elapsed be- fore the case was brought to trial. Then, on the second day of the hearings, the case was still further post- poned because the students protested at the alleged biased attitude of their judge. From the students, attention was next turned to professors. Chugai-Shogyo took the lead in this cam- paign. “We think students are involuntarily capti- vated by radicalism because of the influence of their lecturers. Not a few professors advocate radical prin- ciples. Let the fountain head be purified and the stream will become pure.” The idea proved immedi- *For a full account of this movement for student control and for the text of the edict issued by the Mombusho, or Ministry of Education, see the writer’s “Japan Returns to Feudalism,” in the Nation (October 27, 1926). [139]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN ately popular, especially as two professors in the Hok- kaido Imperial University had recently been arrested for helping to instigate a street-railway workers’ strike. The Tokyo Asahi, in a curious editorial, an- nounced that “students who receive financial aid of any kind should in no way be free to take part in so- cial movements,” though it believed the question de- batable concerning self-supporting students. Jiji be- lieved that “conceited students were merely showing off. Their vainglorious professors should be reminded that their duty is research and thinking and not par- ticipation in social movements.” Yomiuri indorsed the Okada plan and asked for a thorough survey into the soundness of the social thoughts held by the in- structors. Upon the news that forty-five students had been arrested for disseminating radical writings, members of the Privy Council expressed opinions that not only should the teachers of these men be dis- missed, but that the presidents of the Tokyo and the Kyoto Imperial universities ought to offer resigna- tions (4).° Dr. Araki, of Kyoto, it is understood, did contemplate such action, but his retirement was not required. ° A similar campaign for the control of teachers’ opinions was projected in 1920. At that time Jiji assured its readers that “there is no freedom of study in official schools. Scholars should confine themselves to their desks and not try to put their ideas into prac- tice.’ The Tokyo Nichi Nichi opposed this as tending to make Ja- pan “mentally slack,” but although the police were reported by Chuo to be considering a survey of professorial thought, no action [140 ]SAFEGUARDS AGAINST RADICALISM As a bulwark against the disruption introduced by foreign thought and against the influence of un- sound lecturers, the numerous patriotic societies were centralized under the common bond of an intensified nationalism. Ostensibly the object was to celebrate February 11, the national holiday, by promoting a stronger national unity, but practically, according to Yamato, Tokyo Nichi Nichi, Osaka Mainichi, and the Asahi’s, the plan was really to create a stronger de- fense against labor movements, radical ideas, and modernist reformations. The Nichi Nichi and Ya- mato discerned an antiforeign trend and warned against bringing such an immense fund of organized patriotic feeling under government control, Kokumin, Yorodzu, Miyako, Hochi, and Chugai Shogyo all ap- proved the merger as a means of winning back once more to the fundamental principles upon which Japan was founded, and which, they said, had made her great. Chugai Shogyo went even further to suggest that the department of education be commissioned to prepare a textbook on national history which would dispel radical ideas and give a proper basis for incul- cation of the national spirit. Hochi suggested the es- tablishment of a government daily newspaper to ful- fil the same function (5). was taken at the time. The distribution of a translation of William Morris’ News from Nowhere, which was suppressed by the police, seems to have given the initial impetus for the 1920 agitation (6). [141 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN With the press efficiently controlled through the operation of the peace preservation law, the police were free to concentrate upon the prevention of per- haps more revolutionary movements among the pro- letariat. Great anxiety existed lest Russian influence might lead to outbursts in Japan. As a preventative, not only was the Russian Embassy carefully guarded, but when, in September, 1925, four Russian trade- union delegates visited Japan on their way home from a conference in China, hundreds of police were de- tailed to prevent unauthorized Japanese from com- municating with the visitors. Railway platforms along the line from Shimonoseki to Tokyo were heavily guarded with uniformed and plain-clothes gendarmes, a special police watch was set over the approach to the Tokyo apartments of the delegates, and a police anteroom was established in order that all prospec- tive callers might be closely examined as to their mo- tives for seeking interviews. As an additional precau- tion, hundreds of labor leaders were arrested the night before the arrival of the Bolsheviks and were not re- leased until after the unionists had left the city (7). Nevertheless, G. Matsumura, director of the po- lice bureau, felt his precautions against radicalism to be incomplete because socialism was still believed to be spreading. A Farmer-Labor party, warned that “no approach to Sovietism would be tolerated,” re- jected radical suggestions from its platform only to find itself dissolved by the police because its projec- [142]SAFEGUARDS AGAINST RADICALISM tors “lacked sincerity of purpose, were of unsavory character, had hidden motives, and were associated with labor unions.”” Dr. Washio and the Japan Times both protested at the decision, the latter pointing out that ‘‘no allowance seems to have been made for the purging of radicalism from the party,” and intimat- ing that the police had misunderstood the wording of the party platform. The Osaka Mainichi thought the reasons for suppression to be “vague, mysterious, and unconvincing,” while the Osaka Asahi dubbed the government’s undue nervousness as not only coward- ly but comical (8). Two weeks later the tiny Fabian Society, organ- ized in April, 1924, was disbanded by the authorities, the singing of the Soviet anthem was forbidden, a Russian novelist visiting Japan was subjected to the same experiences as his labor-leader predecessors, much to the dislike of Jiji, and even Kokumin, and in May, 1926, a special section was set up within the metropolitan police for watching over the radical and labor movements (9). A final step was taken with the drafting of a bill intended to control religious and moral teachings. The status of such teachings has long been held in low repute by certain sections of super-patriotic Japanese, partly because of the rising influence of the mission- ary teachers from America and Europe and partly because of the waning moral influence exerted by the Shinto and the Buddhist priests. In March, 1926, [143 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN therefore, following two editorials by Miyako and Yorodzu, the Minister of Education drew up a bill for the control of Christianity and all other creeds. Article 3 of the suggested bill reads (10): ‘When the religious doctrines propagated or the religious rites and ceremonies performed are regarded as subversive of public peace and order and public morals, or as contrary to the obligations of Japanese subjects, the controlling government office can change, cancel, or amend them.’” Men like Motosada Zumoto, Count Aisuke Ka- bayama, ‘“Kanzo” Uchimura, a leading ‘“independ- ent” Christian publicist, and Toyohiko Kagawa, the foremost Christian social worker, have all, within re- cent months, given testimony to show that Christian- ity falls under the criticism of such a law. Hochi, Kokumin, and Tokyo Nichi Nichi all agree that con- trol over religious doctrine is essential if pernicious doctrines are to be controlled. Representatives of vir- tually all religions except Shinto, which is expressly excluded by the bill, united in opposition to the meas- ure. Bishop Kogoro Uzaki, president of the Federa- tion of Christian Churches in Japan, believed it a glaring discrimination against the Christians, and de- nied that Christianity was given equal treatment with the Buddhists. E. Kubokawa, secretary of the Zojo Buddhist Temple, protested against the measure as destructive of religion because of undue surveillance, * A similar bill was beaten by the Peers in 1900. [144]SAFEGUARDS AGAINST RADICALISM supervision, and interference with religious rites. Sev- eral months were devoted to a study of methods whereby a religion control bill might be safely drawn, but the bill failed to come to a vote. The Ministry of Education announced, however, that a similar propo- sal would be officially renewed in the Diet of 1928 (Ge Government control of religion, schools, meet- ings, and communications did not, however, afford sufficient guaranty against the importation of disturb- ing news from overseas. The problem which devolved upon the government was difficult, for all past history had shown that bureaucrats are impotent in efforts to prevent the infiltration of undesired ideas, but, by analogy to the development bonuses freely granted to essential enterprises, a preferential treatment for the entrance of approved information could be readily accorded. The isolation of Japan from the important sources whence instigations toward either democracy or radi- calism might flow renders her particularly reliant for her news upon smooth operations of the cable and the radio. By controlling these instruments, the govern- ment might thus assure itself a supervision over the form in which world-news would be received. If, at a later time, discrepant information found entrance to Japan through mails »r word of mouth, the impact, already stamped by government approval, would be extremely difficult to evadicate. Innumerable minor (145 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN items, unimportant in themselves but tending, in the mass, toward inculcation of a satisfactory impression, would never be discussed following their initial pre- sentation. Thus, while in constant public speeches Japanese deplore that foreigners, knowing little of Japan, mis- interpret the little that they know, and while they point out that Japanese know more about the West than Occidentals know about Japan, it is not really doubtful on whom the onus for this lack of common understanding should be laid. To foreigners residing in the East, the remedy seems rather in the hands of Japanese officials than in those of Western peoples. Bureaucracy, of course, prefers few channels of pub- licity, and, by uniform and rigid supervision over cables, mails, and radios, the Empire of Japan has barred the free exchange of news. From early Meiji days, exclusive monopoly over cable lines has been the Oriental rule, taught, like so many other Oriental methods, by the Russians and the British. Through pressure by the Tsarist diplo- mats, exclusive cable-landing rights were granted, in 1870, to the Great Northern China and Japan Exten- sion Telegraph Company (a Danish firm in which the Russian Crown was financially involved (12). The Japanese, however, managed to evade their treaty obligations. As early as 1883, the government, by skillful bargaining, was enabled to lay down a cable from Nagasaki to Vladivostock, and eight years [ 146 }SAFEGUARDS AGAINST RADICALISM later it bought up the Northern line from Moji to Tsushima in the Straits of Korea. The latter line was built originally as an emergency alternative to the Nagasaki-Vladivostock cable. The Moji-Tsushima section was supplemented by a link from Tsushima to Fusan in Korea, where it was intended to meet the Korean land lines, and thus connect with the Russian system in Siberia (13). Japan’s purchase of the Moji-Tsushima cable and its construction of a Vladivostock span was in pursuit of a policy, since carried out unfailingly, to control the entry of all wire communication into Japanese ter- ritory. The international situation was of such a na- ture in 1902 that Japan could not withstand the Rus- sian pressure for renewing the Northern’s lease, but the extension was definitely limited to ten years, and notice was served that at the conclusion of the period the Japanese would either purchase the cables to Shanghai and Vladivostock, or would construct rival lines herself. The same ultimatum was also issued concerning the Tsushima-Fusan section of the Ko- rean cable line (14). Under threat of competition, therefore, and the consequent fear of disruption of its pooling arrange- ments, the Northern sold its Japan rights in 1912. Since the Northern’s exclusive rights in China are re- tained until 1930, Japan is still dependent on North- ern favor for her cable lines to Europe. The breaking down of Russian diplomatic pres- [147]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN sure after the Russo-Japanese War afforded Japan, however, an opportunity to set up other cable lines entering the Empire. A naval line from Sasebo, the great naval base, to Dairen was carried on to Chefoo by an agreement made between the Chinese and the Japanese governments, and hence immune from the commercial monopoly accorded to the Northern in- terests. This line was opened in 1909. A war depart- ment cable from Yokohama to the Bonins could be built both as a military necessity and as internal tele- graphic service, and furthermore, the Bonin Islands could be used by other cable companies on the plea that the Northern concession applied only to the ter- ritory of Japan proper. The latter line was built in 1905 (15). In spite of these weakenings of the Northern’s hold, its Chinese monopoly is still effective, and Japan, although owning and controlling telegraphs and cables linking it with China by sea or through Korea and Manchuria, cannot send a single commercial tele- gram directly to its neighbor without permission from the Northern. Ample cable facilities are thus afforded between Japan and Europe. Four lines link Nippon to the Asiatic mainland, and of these four, three are doubled lines. The Sasebo-Dairen-Chefoo system is probably intended more particularly for naval purposes than for commercial uses, although it is used for business in times of peace. From Asia land wires are readily [148 ]SAFEGUARDS AGAINST RADICALISM accessible to Europe. Moreover, once Shanghai has been reached, submarine cable lines afford a valuable supplement, affording quadruple cables as far as Singapore, a triple line from thence to Aden, and quadruple lines from Aden into London. In contrast to these facilities the services to America are meager. Prior to 1903 no direct service was provided. A British cable, opened in 1902, was available from Canada to Australia, but involved too round-about a transmission (from Australia to Ba- tavia, to Hong Kong and Nagasaki) to be desired for cheap and quick use from the Orient to the United States. In 1903, however, a cable laid by the Com- mercial Pacific Cable Company was opened up from San Francisco to the Philippines by way of Guam. Access to Japan was thus provided via Manila to Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Nagasaki. During the Russo-Japanese War, when there was fear that Rus- sia, by cutting cables, might be able to isolate Japan, a secret spur was laid from Yokohama into Guam to tap the transpacific cable. This was the first direct line from the Orient to the Western Hemisphere (16). Negotiations over the building of this spur dis- close the willingness of the Japanese to sacrifice effi- cient service for the sake of securing to themselves complete control of cables. George G. Wood, general manager of the Commercial Pacific Cable Company, relates that the original intention of the company was to build a line directly into Yokohama, staffing the [149]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN branch with experienced cable operators and utilizing modern and efficient methods. The Japanese govern- ment, however, refused permission for the Company to approach closer to Japan than the outlying Bonin Islands. From Yokohama to the Bonins the cable line was placed under the control of government officials, and the cost of building was defrayed from the secret war budget of the Empire (17). To draw off the Chinese messages, a cable line was laid from Guam to Shanghai, landing at the lat- ter port under the terms of an agreement whereby the Shanghai-Guam link enters the general cable pool. This line, like the Guam-Yap-Menado service to the Celebes, was set up by Dutch and German interests. By the Treaty of Versailles both cables were taken over by the Allied and Associated Powers and were by them mandated to the other members of the pool, the United States acquiring the Yap-Guam line, Japan securing the Yap-Shanghai, and Holland retaining the Yap-Menado cable (18). No competition may therefore enter into the transpacific cable services until the expiration, in 1930, of the monopoly landing privileges conceded by Chinese authorities. Pooling arrangements avert the worst evils of unrestricted competition. Moreover, Anglo-Danish cable interests now possess at least three-quarters of the capital stock of the only “‘Ameri- can” cable company, according to the testimony of Mr. Clarence H. Mackay, president of the Commer- [150]SAFEGUARDS AGAINST RADICALISM cial Pacific enterprise. This foreign ownership, it has been asserted, was responsible for the refusal of the state department in 1920 to approve the application of the Commercial Pacific Cable Company for dupli- cation of its line from California to Midway Island, via Honolulu. Had such a duplication been secured, the plan contemplated a new spur line from Yoko- hama into Midway, and the sole devotion of the new cable to messages between Japan and the United States (19). Cable congestion during the Great War and the subsequent demands for new cables as relief turned the attention of Japan to the possibility of substitut- ing radio for wire communication. The laying of an- other line to Guam, according to estimates made by the foreign communications service, would entail a cost of ¥8,600,000. For less than half that sum a transpacific radio equipment could be provided (20). Experiments in the use of radio had begun as early as 1903, between Nagasaki and Formosa, but wireless had not been consistently employed. One en- thusiastic writer speaks, however, of the use of radio by Togo in the Battle of Tsushima as having brought victory to the Japanese against the Russian fleet. By 1912 regular wireless was in use between Formosa and Japan, and three years later, between the Hok- kaido and Kamchatka. Wireless was maintained sole- ly as a government monopoly, civilians being forbid- den to establish stations. In 1915 these restrictions [x51]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN were somewhat modified, but so little latitude is still accorded private operators that only three private transmission stations of any power were operating ten years later (21). Two new wireless stations were constructed for exchanging messages with the Radio Corporation of America. A navy department station at Iwaki, built in IgIrI, transmits to Bolinas, California, while a newer station, Fukuoka, opened in 1927, picks up messages originating at Marshall, California. A re- lay plant is available at Honolulu to assist transmis- sion (22). Thus the exchange of information was facilitated, but factors were still present to hinder free exchange. The old hand methods and the slow-speed circuits used did not permit the sending or dispatching of more than fifteen words a minute, while other me- chanical limitations reduced the time of operation to less than nine full hours daily. Much less than 10,000 words a day, or less than 700 average messages, could thus be interchanged (23). Nor have later improve- ments seriously bettered this condition; the only large-scale station since opened, at Osaka, 1923, be- ing devoted to the European field. Funabashi, a for- mer receiving station, built in 1916, was abandoned in April, 1927. Japan’s limitation in the matter of exchanging in- formation with America is in especial contrast to the rather ample facilities provided between the United [152]SAFEGUARDS AGAINST RADICALISM States and China. Prior to the Great War this latter service had been meager, but after the entrance of the United States into the war, a full daily budget of news was transmitted by the Committee of Public In- formation in conjunction with the navy wireless sta- tion at San Diego. This service ended with the con- clusion of the war, and for nearly a year the Far East was again without adequate provision of either cable or wireless communication to America (24). In December, 1919, after energetic efforts made by Paul S. Reinsch, American minister to China, sec- onded by Victor S. McClatchy, of the Sacramento Bee, Lindsay Russell, president of the Japan Society of New York, and several former ambassadors, a new service of news was made available for China. The navy agreed to dispatch press messages from San Francisco to Manila at a rate of six cents a word. At Manila the news was again radiocast to the American legation at Peking and to the French station at Shang- hai. Entrance into Japan is possible, however, only through the rather narrow and expensive gateways of the existing cable lines and wireless stations of the Empire (25). In order to relieve congestion the Japanese gov- ernment projected, in 1924, a comprehensive system of new construction. Under the direction of Viscount Eiichi Shibusawa and a committee of officials, the Nippon Musen Denshin (Japan Wireless Company) was organized to extend and unify the wireless sys- [153 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN tem. Little doubt exists either that Musen Denshin holds semi-official privileges or that considerable gov- ernment financial support has been accorded to it. Of the total capitalization of ¥20,000,000, one-eighth at least is subscribed by the government in the form of the Iwaki plant and of sites for other stations. On the 46,000 government shares, it is expressly stipu- lated that no dividends are to be paid for ten years unless the company proves exceptionally prosperous. The company itself announced that it was to enjoy semi-official rights and that it was afforded the official support of the Department of Communications (26). Further announcements made evident the fact that Musen Denshin is intended “on behalf of the government” to exchange messages with all the lead- ing wireless stations of the world, to manufacture and to supply radio equipment, and to undertake wireless enterprises abroad. These privileges are to constitute a monopoly right, and the government retains the right of supervision (27). Thus the arrangements for radio extension in Japan seem designed to perpetuate the essential fea- tures characteristic of Japan’s official attitude toward the exchange of news. Since competition in the field of high-power overseas transmission is forbidden, an absolute censorship may be enforced. Embargoes laid on news at home may also be exercised on outbound messages passing over cable lines or through the air. Whatever news may be transmitted may therefore be [154]SAFEGUARDS AGAINST RADICALISM regarded as officially tolerated, if not, indeed, ap- proved, by government authority. Official “inspiration”’ may also be suspected in the case of news arriving through the air. The methods pursued in organizing Musen Denshin closely paral- lel those followed at the founding of Kokusai Tsu- shin, the national news agency. Not only is Viscount Shibusawa the leading figure in establishing both en- terprises, but the supporting committees in both cases are identical in official position, if not in personnel. Musen Denshin, however, is much more frank in operation; for while Kokusai consistently disclaimed intention of disseminating news, the Musen Denshin has begun to radiocast a daily summary of news sup- plied by the Department of Communications and by the Tobo News Agency, a semi-official bureau. Even the wording of the inaugural announcements made on behalf of Musen Denshin is reminiscent of the Ko- kusai, for S. Koshino, manager of the news agency, repeats the phrasing of the Kokusai founder: “The service is In no way connected with, nor dependent upon, any government department, but is an ordinary news service built up on a purely commercial basis. For the present the news will be distributed gratis, but it is not planned to continue to give the service free of charge” (28). Musen Denshin’s monopoly rights in the manu- facture and supply of radio equipment are not looked upon with favor by those familiar with the history of [155]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN telephone development in Japan. Similar privileges under similar direction by the Department of Com- munications have resulted in a policy of undermanu- facture. Under pre-earthquake conditions the de- mand for telephones was far in excess of supply, and at the close of 1922 more than 280,000 applications were outstanding. The working telephones numbered some 415,000, or an average of approximately one telephone to every 180 people, according to the report of the Director-General of Communications; while in the United States and Canada the numbers were one telephone to each 13 and each 11 people, respectively. As each applicant for telephones was required to de- posit a sum ranging from ¥5 to ¥15, the sum held in trust on this account amounted to more than ¥3,000,- ooo. Applicants were required to wait, at times, many years before the service could be accorded them. Fears are freely expressed that Musen Denshin’s priv- ileges may portend a similar restriction in radio de- velopment (29). Plans of the Musen Denshin, approved by the Communications Department, call, however, for ex- tensions to the service. Of the twelve official wireless stations in the Empire, two only are now available for overseas transmission, the rest being devoted to ship- ping uses. Seven special stations, used for the army, for the navy, and for railway purposes, are not in- cluded in this list since they have not been, and prob- ably could not be, turned into commercial channels. [156 |SAFEGUARDS AGAINST RADICALISM To supplement the overseas facilities a new station is to be constructed near Tokyo for communication with Asia and the South Pacific; another, in the Na- goya district, will link itself with Nauen and Paris; while Iwaki is to be reconstructed and improved to afford better service with America. These new con- structions are scheduled for completion in 1928 (30). For the present, at least, these plans exist chiefly on the blueprints, and in actual practice neither Mu- sen Denshin nor the Department of Communications are welcoming opportunities to expand news services across the sea. Undoubtedly Japan’s complaints of being misinterpreted have roots in the congestion of her wire and radio equipment, and in the heavy tolls exacted for transmission. The commercial rate, by air or cable, from San Francisco to Japan is $0.72 a word, almost identical with the British charges by the London-to-Shanghai cable which extends twice the length of the Pacific span. A “press rate” of $0.18 a word is also offered, but is seldom used because cable- grams thus sent are subject to delays. Newspapers customarily employ the “urgent” rate, for which the charge is triple the ordinary toll (31). Five years ago, in 1922, a committee of Ameri- can newspaper publishers, including the responsible heads of the New York Tribune, Times, and World, the Chicago Tribune, the Philadelphia Public Ledger, the United Press, International News Service, and the Universal Service, organized attempts to secure [157]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN improved news service in the Pacific field. Failing to secure a promise from the Japanese government that it would erect a station in Japan to exchange news with a newspaper wireless plant to be set up in Cali- fornia, the newspaper publishers proposed to build stations of their own on both sides of the ocean. Since this plan would meet with opposition as being con- trary to the monopolistic scheme pursued by the Jap- anese, the American publishers offered to subscribe a fund for building a radio in Japan which would be turned over to the Japanese government for official operation and complete control. The only condition attached to this offer of providing Japan with a com- plete wireless station free of charge was that the sta- tion should be used solely for transmitting news. This offer was made in June, 1926, but no reply was sent by the Communications Department to the publish- ers. A similar offer of a free wireless plant to be de- voted to news purposes was also made by Japanese newspaper publishers of Tokyo and Osaka, but with- out avail (32). Flat refusals, on the score of insufficient plant fa- cilities, met an offer made in February, 1926, by Ma- jor-General Harbord, president ofthe Radio Corpo- ration of America, to reduce the press rate from $0.27 to $0.10 a word. The Japanese refused co-op- eration, although appeals to it were registered by the Nijuichinichikai, an association of the leading edi- tors and publishers of Japan, by the heads of the [158]SAFEGUARDS AGAINST RADICALISM great news agencies, Nippon Dempo and the Rengo- sha, by representatives of such important newspapers as Chugai Shogyo, Jiji, Hochi, Yomiuri, and several others, and by the annual convention of the Japanese Newspaper Association. Major-General Harbord’s offer was publicly renewed at the Geneva Conference of the International Press Association in August, 1926, without eliciting consent. The press rate was cut, in November, to $0.18, but the Harbord proposal for a further cut was denied (33). Japan’s government seems therefore to constitute the only real obstacle to securing lower press rates, and such misunderstanding as proceeds from lack of proper information of Japan must necessarily be laid at Japan’s door. Through her artificially inflated ca- ble rates, Japan has made herself virtually isolated from the main news currents of the world (34). A more modern version of her old seclusion policy has been created, with the concomitant result, unknown in Tokugawa days, of making her suspected and sus- picious. With such a background at the outset of its life, the prospect for a liberal administration of the Musen Denshin is far from auspicious. NOTES 1. Twentieth Annual Tokyo Statistics (1924), pp. 242f., 27 20t. Le) . Hochi, May 7, 1926; Advertiser, May 15, 1926; Tokyo Nichi Nichi, March 28, 1926, May 9, 1926. [159]Ww U1 ~ IO. Lele 12. SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN . Osaka Asahi, December 2, 1925; Advertiser, September 17-21, 1926, April 6, 1927; Chuo, September 16, 1926; Miyako, September 17, 1926; Philadelphia Public Ledger, October 11, 1926; Kokumin and Yorodzu, March 6, 1927; Tokyo Asahi, April 7, 1927. See the following for specified dates in 1926: Chugai Shogyo, May 12, August 31; Jiji, September 17; Yomiuri and Tokyo Asahi, September 19; Advertiser, September 4; for the Privy Councilors, see Jiji, September 16; Hok- kaido case, Chronicle, April 15. . See the following for specified dates in 1926: Hochi, Au- gust 12; Chugai Shogyo, August 31; for the national holi- day, see the press of February 11-12. . See the following for specified dates in 1920: Chuo, March 8; Tokyo Nichi Nichi, March 4, 11; Jiji, March 9; Utopia, in Advertiser, March 7. See the following for specified dates in September, 1925: Advertiser, 21-26; Osaka Asahi, 21-22; Jiji and Hochi, 23. . Japan Times, November 24, 1925, December 2, 1925; Osaka Asahi, December 6, 1925; Mainichi, December 11, 1925; Washio, in Advertiser, December 11, 1925; Matsu- mura, Advertiser, May 3, 1926. See the following for specified dates in 1926. Advertiser, January 28, March 24, May 3-4; Jiji and Kokumin, March 21; see also, for Fabians, Chronicle, December 24, 1925. Advertiser, May 30, 1926. See the following for specified dates in 1926: Uzaki, in Advertiser, June 2; Kubokawa, Advertiser, June 3; Jiji, July 22; For Uchimura, Kagawa, Zumoto, and Kaba- yama, see Notes on chapter iv, No. 29; See also New York Nation, October 27, 1926. See Great Northern Cable Company advertisement, Lon- don Times, July 19, 1910; Interview with Gordius Neilson, Chronicle, September 26, 1912. [ 160 |IQ. 20. 2ik. 22. 277. 28. 20. 30. SAFEGUARDS AGAINST RADICALISM . Japan Yearbook (1924-25), p. 391 f. . Mail, June 22, 1912; Chronicle, November 21, 1912. . Chronicle, January 21, 1909; O. Crewe-Read, Advertiser, March 18, 1927. . Mail, July 28, 1906, September 2, 1906; G. G. Wood, Far Eastern Review, March, 1920. . Wood, op. cit. . Acheson, p. 17. Treaty of Versailles, Part VIII, Annex VII. Hearings, Senate subcommittee on Interstate Commerce, Senate Bill No. 4301 (1921), p. 269. Chronicle, July 11, 1918. Huggins, Far Eastern Review, July, 1922; Advertiser, Oc- tober 23, 1925. Boucheron, Far Eastern Review, November, 1921; Ad- vertiser, October 23, 1925. . Wood, op cit. 24. 25. 26. Reinsch, p. 159; Sacramento Bee, April 15-18, 1910. Wood, op. cit.; Bee, op. cit. Official Prospectus of Musen Denshin; Far Eastern Re- view, June, 1925. Far Eastern Review, June, 1925; Chronicle, July 16, 1925, October 29, 1925. Far Eastern Review, June, 1924; Advertiser, June 9, 1925, June 10, 1925; October 3, 1925. Japan Yearbook (1926), p. 346; Advertiser, March 21, 1924; Cf. Japan Times, February 3, 1918. Far Eastern Review, June, 1925; Chronicle, February 7, 1924, May 8, 1924, June 4, 1924, July 16, 1925, October 29, 1925, July 20, 1926. . Advertiser, January 30, 1924, April 4, 1924, January 13, 1926, April 9, 1926, July 27, 1926, September 9, 1926; W. L. Rogers, Annals, American Academy, March, 1924; Mar- tin, p. 35; Reinsch; Iwanaga in interview. [ 161 |Ww GW WwW 5 hee SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN R. O. Matheson, in Advertiser, July 17, 1926; Japan Times, June 8, 1926. Advertiser, June 2, 1926; August 22-23, 1926, September 5, 1926. Karl A. Bickel, Advertiser, January 29, 1924, and April 2, 1927; Miles W. Vaughn, Advertiser, March 24, 1926; Fe- lix Morley, Advertiser, December 12, 1925; Nijuichinichi- kai, Advertiser, July 13, 1926; Japan Newspaper Associa- tion, Advertiser, July 27, 1926, August 13, 16, 1926; edi- torials in Advertiser, May 16, 1924, June 1, 1924, April 16, 1926, June 2, 1926, August 27, 1926; New York Times, July 6, 1926; Editor and Publisher, July, 1926; Chronicle, February 28, 1924; Tokyo Asahi, July 6, 1926.CHAPTER VII INTERNATIONAL NEWS AGENCIES* The policies pursued by the great international news agencies fitted accurately into Japan’s pattern. For purposes of economy and efficiency and to elim- inate the old wasteful competition in news-gathering, the world has been divided into geographical and po- litical units, each served by its own particular agency. Thus the Associated Press in the United States, Reu- ters’ in the British Empire, Havas in France, and smaller corporations in the other news fields have reciprocity agreements for exchanging news. And, as the news agencies encouraged the formation of still other branches, as a means of further cheapness and efficiency, the path was clear for Japanese to win con- trol in their own territory. For many years the Orient was unrepresented in this network of co-operation, but as the cables to the East were chiefly British-owned,’ the Asiatic news + Direct quotations in this chapter, unless otherwise credited, are taken from interviews which the writer had with John Russell Kennedy, June 6, 1925, or with Yukichi Iwanaga, January 26, 1925. * The trans-Siberian land wires were, of course, existing, but were more important as a threat of competition and as a potential weapon for compelling the British cable lines to continue in the pool than as an actual engine of news transmission. The items sent [ 163 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN field fell as a fief to Reuter. British commerce and diplomacy were thus, to some extent, advantaged, for the British point of view was always stressed in East- ern ports. 3ut difficulties were involved in this arrangement. Although as early as 1876 the Reuter agency sup- plied a service of some 350 words a day to the Japan Mail, the cost of cabling, partly because of the com- parative scarcity of co-operating newspapers in Japan and partly because of the excessive cabling charges on the Nagasaki-Shanghai line, was much too burden- some to be endured. The service was, accordingly, abandoned, and from 1877 until 1882 the foreigners in Japan were forced to glean their international news from Shanghai papers sent by post (1). To remedy this situation the Reuter correspond- ent in Yokohama resorted to a practice which, with slight modifications, is still followed at small way- ports along the Europe-Asiatic sea route. Finding that no paper was willing to buy exclusive rights, he offered a joint news-bulletin for private subscription. This plan was continued for five years (2). In 1882 the Mail, which was then enjoying an improved financial status because of its connections with the administration, arranged again for an ex- clusive Reuter service, with the privilege of subletting by telegraph were much more likely to reflect political and diplo- matic pressure from the Tsarist court, while the cable was the me- dium for sending general news and trade communications. [ 164 |INTERNATIONAL NEWS AGENCIES concessions for the news to non-competing papers. But since the Mail was a morning paper, the after- noon gazettes preferred to “lift” its cables, and, by slight recasting of the wording, to republish them as ‘special cables” to themselves. The Mail was there- fore left to carry on the service unassisted until, in 1888, the Official Gazette agreed to share expenses. Probably the contribution of this paper was in the na- ture of an administration subsidy. For a few months after the founding of the Advertiser, in 1890, this pa- per also bought a license; but finding that “the pos- session of exclusive morning publication would not make a difference of ten new subscriptions in a year,” refused to continue its participation (3). Neither the price nor the quality of Reuter news was pleasing to the Japanese. Too much minor infor- mation on petty questions of British politics was sent, while more important matter® failed to reach Japan. The cost, moreover, was still high, for Yokohama was obliged to pay two shillings a word for British news which Shanghai was getting for but sixpence. The Mail proposed that the government reduce the cable charges and accord a special press rate, offering in turn to pledge the papers not to use code messages. The offer was refused by the authorities (4). * E.g., news of the Jameson Raid and of the diplomatic tension between Great Britain and the United States over the Venezuela question ; and of the decision of the British to grant a subvention to the Canadian Pacific steamship line for a transpacific service. [165 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN When news of the refusal was announced, the Mail declared that, under existing circumstances, “‘no paper in Yokohama not subsidized by the government can afford telegraphic service. It gave up its franchise for exclusive Reuter news (5). The Mail’s defection was replaced by a syndicate of Yokohama business men, organized under the di- rection of the Japan Gazette and the Japan Herald. The latter papers were thus enabled to print tele- grams before they had been published in the Mail; and, since Yokohama time is in advance of Western Europe, the evening papers were able to gain a full day in reporting cable news. But once again the cost was too exorbitant, and the coalition was allowed to lapse (6). During the greater part of 1897, Japanese papers, both those printed in English and the vernacular journals, had to be content with receiving “essential items” cabled from the Shanghai papers. Experienced “expanders” padded out the skeletonized news, but mistakes were common. The telegrams were so abbre- viated as to constitute a sort of code; condensations defied the skill of even highly educated men; and mis- spellings, together with the total lack of punctuation, made the task of transcribing almost an impossibility. It was with some relief, accordingly, that the Jap- anese welcomed the signing of a new news-service contract for the Reuter news. This time the intermediary was the newly found- [ 166 |INTERNATIONAL NEWS AGENCIES ed Japan Times, organized by Motosada Zumoto, for- merly chief translator of the Mail, with the strong support of Prince Ito, the Tokyo Chamber of Com- merce, and the largest shipping firm. For a year and a half the Times continued its monopoly, with Mr. Zu- moto’s cable service supplying other papers with the news. Then, as a means of lessening expense, the Times invited Jiji to co-operate in the arrangement. This marks the first permanent effort made by Japan- ese newspapers to participate in a Reuter foreign news service, although the Tokyo Nichi Nichi had shared directly in such an enterprise for a brief period some years earlier, and although the Official Gazette had for a short time carried on the burden with the Maul. A few weeks later, in June, 1899, the Maz/ re-entered into Reuter service by taking over an interest in the Jiji-Times arrangement. Soon other papers also joined, and, since the opening of the century, the for- eign news has been received directly from the Reuter offices by all the metropolitan newspapers of Ja- pan (7). But Reuter service was not wholly satisfactory to the Japanese. As a commercial enterprise, working along a great stretch of cable line, it delivered to Ja- pan only that news for which there was a general de- mand by all the papers of the chain. Comparatively little effort was expended in collecting Oriental news for distribution to the West, although the more start- ling news, or items referring to important interna- [ 167 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN tional relations, would be gathered. To those active partisans of Japan who wished the best elements in native culture to be persistently made known to Eu- rope and America, Reuter was a disappointment. In fact, suspicions of a pro-British bias were widely en- tertained by Japanese. To counteract the misinterpretation which other nations were believed to hold about Japan, the sup- plying of abundant favorable information was seen to be important. Reuter was too loath to wire to Eu- rope articles of sound informational content unless some vivid news appeal was inherent in the context. Nor was it reluctant to carry unpleasant messages whose publication patriotic Japanese would have pre- ferred to hinder. By studying the press history of other lands the Japanese were satisfied that the ma- jor nations each possessed news agencies, under gov- ernment control, for filtering the news. Reuter’s was believed to be a British foreign-office adjunct; Havas, Wolff, and Stephani were held to be the property of French, German, and Italian bureaucrats; the Asso- ciated Press was thought to represent the views of the United States. The conviction was encouraged in Ja- pan that the Island Empire must also own and oper- ate her own news agency. This view was strengthened by misinterpretation of speeches made in Tokyo by Hamilton Holt, editor of the Independent, and by Melville E. Stone, of the Associated Press (8). The presence of a highly skilled [ 168 |INTERNATIONAL NEWS AGENCIES news-agency official, known to be friendly to Japan, afforded an excellent opportunity for inaugurating the control of news exported from the Empire. This man was John Russell Kennedy, the Far- Eastern representative of the Associated Press. Com- ing to Japan in 1907, after having been for fifteen years assistant to Mr. Stone, Mr. Kennedy had quick- ly won the friendship of the leading figures in Jap- anese political and economic life. “I soon became friendly with the leading spirits,” Mr. Kennedy told the writer. “Count Tadasu Hayashi, the foreign min- ister, Henry W. Davidson, the American adviser to the Foreign Office, and Prince Ito were especially friendly. In his very first interview with me, Prince Ito made me his confidant, and I respected his trust. I conceived the idea that the duty of a correspondent was, not to send unpleasant news of petty quarrels, nor of trifling corruptions, but to weld together East and West. There was at the time no other correspond- ent in Japan, save Captain Brinkley, of the London Times.” Almost from the outset of his service with the As- sociated Press in Tokyo Mr. Kennedy shared offices with Henry Satoh, the Reuter agent. In fact, as Mr. Kennedy says, Satoh was the second-in-command, for the more important dispatches both to Reuter’s and to the Associated Press, according to Mr. Kennedy, were written by the latter correspondent himself. Letters written by Baron Herbert de Reuter reveal the dis- [169 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN pleasure of the Reuter agency at this situation. Satoh was replaced as Reuter’s correspondent, and Andrew M. Pooley was sent to Japan as his successor. Mr. Pooley was under explicit instruction from de Reuter to sever all connection with the “pushful” Mr. Ken- nedy, who, according to de Reuter, was actuated by “pure outflow of vanity and the desire to pose before the world as the source of news,” and who would, de Reuter said, if given opportunity, ‘‘stretch it to his personal profit and aggrandizement”’ (9). Nor was the foreign community in Japan entirely pleased with Mr. Kennedy’s activities. Suspicions came to be held that Mr. Kennedy was currying fa- vor with the Japanese at the expense of his own com- patriots. Certain articles had been printed in the Japan Advertiser accusing foreign holders of perpet- ual leases with seeking to evade taxes. The manu- script was said to have been in Mr. Kennedy’s hand- writing, although at the time both he and the Japan Advertiser denied the statement. The Japan Chroni- cle and the Japan Gazette persisted in reiterating that Mr. Kennedy was the author of “tax-dodging” arti- cles, and the Chronicle challenged Mr. Kennedy to prove his innocence. Sixteen years later, in convers- ing with the writer, Mr. Kennedy admitted that he had written the editorials, and added that the editor of the Advertiser had himself sent the manuscript to the Chronicle (10). At a still earlier date Mr. Kennedy had been un- [170]INTERNATIONAL NEWS AGENCIES der journalistic fire because certain dispatches sent from Korea by him were believed to have distorted news in a fashion friendly to Japan but antagonistic to a British journalist. An alleged secret ownership, or at least ability to direct management, of the Ja- pan Advertiser was also resented. Mr. Kennedy had bought the Advertiser soon after arriving in Japan, but because of his connection with the Associated Press he resigned from the Advertiser in April, 1909. The Gazette and the Chronicle continued to insist that he retained control of the paper until after the publication of the “tax-dodger” editorials (11). Credence was added to rumors that Mr. Ken- nedy was unduly friendly with Japanese officialdom when, in March, 1911, he was awarded the decoration of Third Class Order of the Sacred Treasure ‘‘in con- sideration of his services since 1907 in conveying ac- curate information regarding the Far East through the Associated Press and in materially helping to cor- rect false statements in the yellow press. This is a very emphatic mark of favor” (12). Rumors that Mr. Kennedy was to be withdrawn from Tokyo to become the Associated Press corre- spondent at St. Petersburg appear to have aroused apprehensions among the Japanese lest the activities of their country be poorly reported thereafter. Inti- mations had been current among the Japanese that other foreign correspondents were cabling to their [171]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN papers information tending to discredit Japan’s mo- tives and menacing her stability. Although some of the more important correspondents believed that Mr. Kennedy was responsible for the circulation of these rumors, both Mr. Kennedy and the gentleman to whom he was said to have made the damaging re- marks categorically denied the accusation (13). Mr. Pooley, on the other hand, was known to have sent to Reuter articles unsatisfactory to the Jap- anese. He had imputed that the Tokyo government was manipulating the gold reserve; he had published in Shanghai the secret memoirs of Count Hayashi, al- though these memoirs had been censored in Japan and although all copies of the manuscript had sup- posedly been confiscated. He had made a speech de- nouncing public men and newspapers for their excit- able remarks, and had announced that such remarks would certainly be cabled to the West. And, finally, Mr. Pooley had complained that his dispatches had been consistently “interfered with, suppressed, mu- tilated, and delayed” (14). Nor was Mr. Kennedy anxious to leave Japan. Believing that the Empire had no warmer friend and that newcomers for the Associated Press would have to go through the same feeling of race prejudice that he himself had overcome, he feared for the stability of Japanese-American relationships if he were to sev- er his connection with Japan. When, therefore, he was invited, as he relates, by Count Aisuke Kabaya- [172]INTERNATIONAL NEWS AGENCIES ma, of the Nippon Steel Foundry, and Dr. Eijiro Ono, governor of the Industrial Bank, to organize the Ko- kusai Tsushin, the national news agency, he willingly accepted. The financial backing promised for the agency was most impressive. The Nippon Ginko (Bank of Japan), Yokohama Specie Bank, and the Japan In- dustrial Bank, all semi-official in their status, sub- scribed to the capital stock. The Nippon Yusen Kai- sha, the largest shipping company, and the South Manchuria Railway, both of which are also semi-offi- cial, contributed, as did the Mitsubishi and the Mitsui corporations. Viscount Elichi Shibusawa, organizer and chairman of the Tokyo Chamber of Commerce, Soichiro Asano, president of the Toyo Kisen Kaisha, Seihin Okeda, managing director of Mitsui Bank, and Dr. Juichi Soyeda, president of the Bank of Formosa, and later of the Japan Industrial Bank, were also ac- tive in the founding of the agency (15). Much doubt exists concerning the part played by the government in establishing the Kokusai. The two Osaka papers stated flatly that the Foreign Office was co-operating with the semi-official banks and cor- porations. The Mainichi added that the Korea gov- ernment general was also lending its official aid. The Tokyo Jiji, usually well-informed on matters in the Foreign Office, stated that the share contributed by the government was to be not less than ¥100,000 (16). [173]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Yukichi Iwanaga, general manager of the Koku- sai, and later of the Rengosha, admitted that his agen- cy had been established with a fund contributed by the government, but added that the subsidy was now withdrawn and that the news agency in 1925 was not receiving official contributions. Mr. Kennedy, on the other hand, denies that such money has ever been contributed: ‘‘Of the original capital, not a yen came from any government agency,” he told the writer. “It was all listed as coming from the pockets of men like Ono, Shibusawa, and the bankers, all of whom could well afford to subscribe the amount. Of course, I can- not guarantee that the money which they put up was entirely their own, but there has never been at any time a dollar of government money given to Kokusai on any pretext. I tell you this on my honor as a gen- tleman and a journalist.’ With ample capital assured, Mr. Kennedy then proceeded to London and New York, where, by hold- ing out the threat of competition, he induced Reuter’s and the Associated Press to withdraw from the Jap- anese news field. Motives of economy helped also, for, as Mr. Kennedy avers, the Associated Press was spending upwards of $25,000 yearly to gather news in “Mr. Kennedy told Baron de Reuter that the government had wished to give money, but that he, Mr. Kennedy, had dissuaded it as likely to jeopardize the Kokusai independence. The government was therefore looking with favor on the enterprise and would give its utmost support in all respects, ‘except hard cash from the admin- istration, which was not acceptable” (17). [174]INTERNATIONAL NEWS AGENCIES Japan, which Kokusai was willing to supply for less amounts. Baron de Reuter’s report on the methods used to persuade the Reuter Agency to leave Japan is vivid and exact: ““Mr. Kennedy pointed out that our position must be difficult, if not impossible, seeing that within a brief space the National Agency, by mere force of circumstances, was bound to become the center toward which everything journalistic would naturally gravitate; and, much as our service would be appreciated, it could not hold its own against a direct service from London or New York, made espe- cially for the behoof of the Japanese people” (18).° Reports on the progress of the Reuter negotia- tions were, Mr. Kennedy remarks, submitted to the Japanese Embassy at London and were transmitted by it, in the diplomatic code, to Viscount Shibusawa. The latter wired back his assent to the terms, and suggested that the contract be submitted to Marquis Katsunosuke Inouye, ambassador to Great Britain, before being finally signed. When the Marquis’ con- sent had been obtained, Mr. Kennedy, although as- serting himself to have had “no more authority than ° Mr. Kennedy denies this flatly. “There was no threat of an independent service to Japan, but there was fear that Wolff, the German agency, might compete. If de Reuter wrote that any such threat had been made by me the letters are probably forged. Nor is it true that the Japanese Embassy in London supported me in my negotiations with de Reuter save by lending me the use of its diplo- matic code.” [175]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN a rabbit,” signed the agreement for Kokusai Tsushin- sha. By this and later contracts, Reuter’s, Havas, the Associated Press, Stephani, the Russian agency, and others agreed to exchange news to and from Japan exclusively with the new Kokusai agency. A curious secrecy veiled the progress of these ne- gotiations. No official statements were given out at the time of signing; in fact, the columns of the Japan Mail, then regarded as the mouthpiece of the syndi- cate, contained almost no reference to the proceed- ings. Two days after the contract was signed, Baron de Reuter sent a message to Mr. Pooley urging him not to publish any information, ‘“‘as the mercantile community and bankers who are contributing to the National Agency wish to remain in the background for the time being; for fear of their connecting there- with being misconstrued as an attempt to create an instrument for their political ends, which is, of course, not the case” (19). The same secrecy also cloaked the arrangements whereby, in April, 1926, the Koku- sal was transformed into the Rengo-sha. Originally the Kokusai agency seems to have been intended as a clearing-house for news both entering and leaving Japan (20). Viscount Shibusawa, and Y. Motono, owner of the Yomiuri, impressed the need for sending “truthful” news abroad, and praised the clause in the Reuter-Kokusai contract which gave to Kokusai the right to send exclusive messages to Reu- [176]INTERNATIONAL NEWS AGENCIES ter and the other agencies.° The official establishment and registry of Kokusai gave as its purpose the acting as an “intermediary for exchange of news” (21). But as general manager of the agency, Mr. Ken- nedy soon realized that Kokusai would certainly be open to attack as a purely propaganda agency if it were actually to export news to other countries. The Jiji, Nichi Nichi, Osaka Asahi, Advertiser, Chronicle, Herald, and Gazette were all opposed to using Ko- kusai for supplying correspondence to the Western nations (22). A plan was therefore substituted where- by Kokusai was to collect news within Japan, and, after “clarifying and filtering” (to use Mr. Kennedy’s own explanation), to deliver the items to resident rep- resentatives of both Reuter and the Associated Press. There was to be absolute freedom for the representa- tives to gain whatever additional information they might desire, and no compulsion upon them to export the news which they did receive. This system relieved Kokusai of responsibility for the actual dispatch of news abroad and allowed ample opportunity for inde- pendent audit or extension of the news. It also freed Kokusai, according to both Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Iwanaga, of the charge of circulating propaganda in the interests of Japan. ® This also is denied by Mr. Kennedy. The belief is common, he says, but is based on a report of the Kokusai inaugural dinner which the Chronicle printed, “several weeks after the dinner occurred. It did not seem worth while to deny it at the time.” But the same re- port also appeared in the Mail the day after the dinner. 07777]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN The distinction is, however, a somewhat academic one, since for nearly ten years Mr. Kennedy himself was both general manager of Kokusai and resident representative of Reuter. On January 30, 1914, two days before the Kokusai monopoly was to become ef- fective, Andrew M. Pooley, the Reuter representative, was arrested and imprisoned on a charge of black- mail. Opinions differ as to his guilt or innocence— for the case is inextricably bound up with a bribery case involving Japanese naval officers and an arma- ment supply firm—but in any case Mr. Pooley was supplanted as the Reuter correspondent. The task of representing Reuter was allotted to Mr. Kennedy. As the general manager of Kokusai, Mr. Kennedy ex- ported no dispatches, but as the Reuter agent he pre- pared perhaps three-quarters of the outgoing news. In his capacity as Kokusai general manager, Mr. Kennedy became indignant that “foolish and irre- sponsible statements persisted in making the Kokusai news agency the correspondent for Reuters. They are scarcely worth denying. Kokusai has never attempt- ed to pose as the correspondent for Reuters. No greater mistake would be made, nor a surer way be found to create distrust and a breach of relations which are now so firmly welded” (23). Mr. Pooley was arrested on January 30, but news of the arrest or of the so-called Naval Scandal Case in which the Pooley affair was involved was not sent out by Mr. Kennedy until February 3. Meanwhile both [178]INTERNATIONAL NEWS AGENCIES the China Press and the North China Daily News had complained to Reuter’s that Japanese news was being deliberately suppressed. Mr. Kennedy replied in a letter stating that no authority to transmit cables had been received by him until February 3; but in another letter, sent to the Public Procurator, Mr. Kennedy admitted that he had been appointed sole representative in Japan for Reuter’s on January 31. News of the arrest of Mr. Pooley was even later in reaching London. On January 29 the London Times reported that Mr. Pooley had been named in the Jap- anese Diet as being implicated in the naval scandal. This was probably sent by Mr. Pooley. On February 3, after the arrest and after Mr. Kennedy had taken over the Reuter agency, a Reuter dispatch to the Lon- don Times narrated that politicians were making un- supported charges against Mr. Pooley, “Reuter’s cor- respondent.” No mention was made of the arrest, nor was any dispatch received by the Times to this effect during the entire month of February. Finally, after Earl Grey had referred, in the British House of Com- mons, March 17, to his receipt of a dispatch from the British ambassador in Tokyo announcing Mr. Pool- ey’s detention, a Reuter dispatch reported, March 23, the release of Mr. Pooley on bail. It was the first intimation by Reuter cable that he had even been arrested. The dispatch, moreover, continued to refer to Mr. Pooley as “Reuter’s correspondent in Tokyo.” [179]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Nothing of this affair appears to have been printed in the New York Times (24). Kokusai’s subsequent history indicates an in- creasing control over the news. Soon after its incor- poration in March, 1914, it bought the Japan Times and the Japan Mail. These two papers were merged in 1917. Six years later, in November, 1923, Mr. Ken- nedy resigned from the managership of the agency. Nominally, he gave as his reason the desire to rest; in reality, he says, he resigned in protest against re- strictions imposed upon his power as “‘absolute auto- crat of Kokusai.” Moreover, Mr. Kennedy says, he resented the demands of the founders that Kokusai be used for propaganda purposes. “The original formers of Kokusai understood that the company was intended as a propaganda agency. Nevetheless this policy was not my intention, and so long as I was connected with Kokusai I pre- vented its being used for any such purpose. The founders were disappointed and would not give any more capital to the company.” On Mr. Kennedy’s withdrawal, Yukichi Iwanaga, formerly an official of the South Manchuria Railway and former head of the Imperial Railway Secret Serv- ice, was made manager. His previous experience in journalistic work had been a four years’ term as “pro- prietor and editor of a magazine to translate foreign comments both pro- and anti-Japanese.” The origi- nal Kokusai-Reuter contract, drawn up by Mr. Ken- [ 180 |INTERNATIONAL NEWS AGENCIES nedy, was renewed for another ten-year term, and, as Mr. Iwanaga explained, “the bonds of co-opera- tion between Reuter and Kokusai were drawn still tighter.” Less than thirty months thereafter Kokusai was officially abandoned as a news agency through a re- organization which, in April, 1926, merged Kokusai with the frankly official Tobo Tsushinsha‘ into the Nippon Shimbun Rengo-sha (Japanese Newspapers’ Associated Press). The reorganization ostensibly freed the news agencies from suspicion of being dom- inated by either the government or by the semi-offi- cial corporations acting as intermediaries for the gov- ernment. Kokusai had been headed by Count Aisuke Kabayama, whose Japan Steel Corporation had, since Kokusai was formed, held contracts to supply the navy with armor-plate. Its directors had been Messrs. M. Kuchida, of the Mitsubishi Bank, Masayasu Na- ruse, of the Jugo Bank, Umekichi Yoneyama, the “Tobo (Eastern News Association) was organized by Akira Ariyoshi, now the Japanese minister to Switzerland, while he was consul-general at Shanghai during the Great War. It was purely a Foreign Office agency, according to Count Michimasu Soyejima, re- ceiving an annual allowance of from ¥200,000 to ¥400,000 for the exchange of news with China and Russia. Among the special priv- ileges which Tobo is believed to have received is the privilege of transmitting news along the Yang-tse River by aid of navy radio equipment installed on Japanese ships. Mr. McClatchy understands, from interviews in China, that Tobo has permitted Chinese papers to register themselves under its protection as Japanese subjects, and thus enjoy extrality rights (26). [181 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN president of the Mitsui Trust Company, and Y. Iwa- naga. As councilors, the Kokusai retained Viscount Eiichi Shibusawa, Jonnusuke Inouye, former presi- dent of the Yokohama Specie Bank and former min- ister of finance, and Dr. Ejijiro Ono, governor of the Industrial Bank. Nearly every man, if not, in- deed, all of them, had close connections with official circles. The news of Kokusai was therefore always suspected by foreign newspaper men residing in Ja- pan as tainted by the official points of view. The Rengo organization dispelled much of this suspicion. Each of eight of the larger newspapers (Hochi, Chugai Shogyo, Tokyo Nichi Nichi, Tokyo and Osaka Asahi’s, Osaka Mainichi, Kokumin, and Jiji) contributed a representative to the Rengo direc- torate, together with men appointed from the former Kokusai and Tobo boards. Mr. Iwanaga was re- tained as managing director, and the former Kokusai staff was retained in its entirety. Rengo was an- nounced to have become a non-profit-making news association intended to eliminate ‘‘the unnecessary existing competition between news agencies and news- papers, or between one newspaper and another,” to reduce expenditures by co-operative gathering of “certain uniform physical news sent home through a common channel,” and to correct the “lack of inter- est by Japanese in foreign news occasioned by inade- quate foreign reports, high press rates, and defects in organization of foreign news agencies” (25). [ 182 |INTERNATIONAL NEWS AGENCIES To guard against misrepresentation by his for- eign associates, Mr. Iwanaga has long planned the stationing of Japanese correspondents in the leading news centers. More than a year before the establish- ment of Rengo, Mr. Iwanaga had told the writer that ten young men were being trained in the Kokusai of- fice for this purpose, in order that ‘“‘all news which comes to Japan may be seen through the eyes of Jap- anese.”” Rengo offered an opportunity to send these men abroad, since part of the Rengo program was to unify, as far as possible, the sending to Japan of spe- cial correspondence. Although the Rengo purpose was announced as designed to “preserve the charac- teristics of each paper as much as possible,” the spe- cial correspondents of such papers as the eight co- operating journals, it was hoped, could be pooled into the common service of the Rengo papers. The special men in training under Kokusai could then be sent abroad, co-operatively, to territory not already cov- ered by the special correspondents of the Japanese gazettes. The high ideals voiced by the Rengo founders were, however, somewhat discounted as a result of methods followed at the inauguration of the plan. No intimation of the merger seems to have been released to foreigners until after all the details had been for- mulated. Indeed, to many foreign residents, the first news of the Rengo did not come until press cable- grams began to bear the Rengo imprint in the place [ 183 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN of Kokusai. The Advertiser printed an announce- ment, on April 30, that the Rengo had been warmly welcomed by such Americans as Frank B. Noyes and Kent Cooper, of the Associated Press, Vice-President Dawes, and Postmaster-General New, Judge Gary, and Adolph Ochs of the New York Times, but no pre- vious announcement seems to have been printed that a merger was in contemplation (27).° Nearly a month thereafter special inaugural ban- quets of the Rengo, held at both Tokyo and Osaka, commemorated the establishment of the new agency. Both banquets were patronized by high officials who praised the Rengo as an “impartial and accurate news service.” Premier Wakatsuki complimented the “self- sacrificing spirit of the different newspapers and news- agencies which admirably subordinated their individ- ual interests to the consideration of the common aim (28). An interview with Mr. Iwanaga indicated that Rengo, like Kokusai, has resolved to concentrate, in conjunction with the radio, postal, and cable admin- *In the United States the only news published on this matter by the New York Times or by the Public Ledger-Evening Post service, was an Associated Press dispatch from Tokyo on April 27 announcing that a Japanese associated press had been formed. A somewhat more extended cable, but with few more details, was pub- lished on the following day. Neither cablegram, however, would seem sufficient to warrant the rather fulsome praise given to the Rengo by the prominent men whose indorsement was cabled to Japan. [ 184 |INTERNATIONAL NEWS AGENCIES istrations, on “clarifying and filtering” the news en- tering Japan. “We receive skeletonized cables from Reuter’s and the Associated Press,” Mr. Iwanaga ex- plains, ‘then we interpret the cablegrams in order to satisfy the needs of our Japanese readers. Fourteen of the larger Tokyo and Osaka papers are directly supplied by us with a daily service, the other news- papers being cared for by the items which we give to the Teikoku agency for distribution. In this way we control 80 per cent of the news entering Japan. We alone are responsible for the selections which we make from the news that Reuter gives us, and for news which we choose to publish.” The relative cheapness of this Rengo service, coupled with the excessive tolls charged for incom- ing cablegrams, has exercised a restraining influence on the great Japanese newspapers that might prefer to maintain special correspondents in foreign lands. Even when a staff man has been sent abroad, the Reuter-Rengo version is, in many cases, the only in- formation to be cabled to Japan. Under the high cost of cabling, the special representative refrains from duplicating items which the Reuter-Rengo service is certain to dispatch. Under such conditions the strength of Rengo is reinforced and its selection of the news becomes a matter of the utmost concern, for when the great newspapers give the news in only the form in which it comes from Rengo they are made the mouthpieces of the Rengo policy. [185 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Only in a few instances have there been suspi- cions that either Kokusai or Rengo has deliberately distributed news which it knew to be untrue, and in almost every instance close scrutiny has exonorated the news agency. The operation of the censorship, the working agreements with other news agencies, the invocation of embargoes, and the ability to withhold news received from outside sources obviates the need for mutilating news. Neither Kokusai nor Rengo has engaged in cen- soring the news, for, in normal times, at least, most news contains no special bias, and may be handled “Straight.” But, in emergencies or on special occa- sions a news agency or a correspondent may easily convey a wrong impression by selection of the facts or of the angle from which the facts are viewed. This practice is much harder to control because perver- sions, when contained therein, are more insidious. With the passing of the independent correspondent from the larger Japanese newspapers, Rengo is af- forded an unexampled opportunity to obscure, to min- imize, or completely to suppress opinions which the Rengo staff may wish to damage; and, by keeping certain viewpoints to the fore, may greatly aid the causes which Rengo favors. Its great advantage of initial presentation of the case, and its facilities for placing its dispatches in hundreds of newspapers where the Rengo version will be unquestionably ac- cepted constitute the Rengo the most powerful sin- [ 186 |INTERNATIONAL NEWS AGENCIES gle agency in Japan for stimulating national emo- tions regarding foreign intercourse. Its latent poten- tialities for welding Japanese opinion, and the rela- tive ease of governing its policies (through the eight co-operating journals which, so far as foreign matters are concerned, are already responsive to semi-official pressure) are much too important for the official minds to overlook. Though the name Rengo is now attached to all foreign news published in Japan, the name is never used abroad. The Associated Press and Reuter’s print, with their own indorsement, all news arriving from Japan as though it had been specially collected by their agent in the Empire. The foreign reader has no means of sifting out reports gathered independ- ently from those supplied by Rengo for the use of Reuter or Associated Press men. The outer world, as Dr. Walter Williams says, may thereby gain a false conception of conditions in Japan. Dependent for their news upon the maintainence of close relations with official bureaus of the government, neither Reu- ter’s nor the Associated Press is likely to distribute news displeasing to officialdom,® and hence depend- °Mr. Herbert Bailey brilliantly outlined the plight of Reuter’s in this connection: “In recent years Reuter’s has become nothing but a presenter of official news, handing out to the world the views of foreign governments and refusing to handle anything that would endanger its relations with those governments. No one can point to any revelation of the designs and works of foreign governments that would have roused the ire of such governments. In every part of [ 187 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN ence grows upon the distribution of such news as the Rengo may supply. The conclusions of Dean Wil- liams, in his survey of the world-press, apply as well to Rengo as to Kokusai (29): “Kokusai, while osten- sibly a business enterprise of certain individuals, is closely affiliated with the Japanese government. It is rather the expression of the news as the Japanese government would wish the world to know it than of the news as it actually happens.” Since Kokusai held, indirectly, a monopoly over the export of news to many foreign countries from February, 1914, until the arrival of a Reuter corre- spondent in February, 1925,° a study of the news that left Japan might throw a valuable light upon Ja- pan’s foreign intercourse, and in particular upon Anglo-Japanese relations. The attempt by Mr. Ken- nedy to represent Mr. Pooley as continuing as Reu- the world, Reuter’s is held in reverence by the foreign offices of all governments as the most agreeable receptacle of what they have to say” (30). * Strictly speaking, of course, Kokusai was not the Reuter cor- respondent, but Mr. Kennedy was both Reuter correspondent and general manager for Kokusai. On Mr. Kennedy’s retirement, in No- vember, 1923, Kokusai employees “filled in” for Reuter until the arrival of a special Reuter correspondent, Captain M. D. Kennedy, in February, 1925. The Reuter service supplies virtually the whole of the British Empire with Oriental news, and the retention of two offices by Mr. Russell Kennedy was of importance to the British Do- minions, since his service covered the period of the discussions over the renewal of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and of the naval base at Singapore. [ 188 ]INTERNATIONAL NEWS AGENCIES ter’s representative for two months after Mr. Pooley had been replaced by Mr. Kennedy himself is per- haps a minor incident, but one which readily may be identified. Another minor instance of the unreliability of Kokusai service during this long period was the failure to record the arrest of George L. Shaw, a Brit- ish merchant accused of offending against the internal safety of Japan, until more than a month had elapsed after his arrest (31). Much more important is a series of dispatches sent out from Tokyo to vindicate Japan from accusa- tions of aggressiveness toward China. Reports that Japan had opened negotiations with China for ‘“Twen- ty-one Demands” leaked into the European press. Mr. Kennedy immediately telegraphed a denial, pur- porting to be issued from the Foreign Office, and stat- ing that the information was “absolutely without foundation.”’ Six months later another Reuter mes- sage quoted the Foreign Office as indorsing this de- nial and as accepting it as an official statement. Re- searches into the Official Gazette, where all official statements are presumably recorded, failed to dis- close any such announcements (32). At the Versailles Peace Conference, Mr. Kenne- dy, as Kokusai correspondent, again denied attempts by the Japanese to intimidate the Chinese delegates, asserting, as on the occasion of the ““Twenty-one De- mands,” that the accusations were the work of Ger- man propagandists (33). [ 189 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN The most notorious inexactitude of Kokusai ap- peared in 1921, when Lord Northcliffe, then tour- ing the world, sent a dispatch from Hong Kong to the London Times protesting against Japanese duress over Chinese delegates appointed to the Washington Disarmament Conference. A Kokusai-Reuter dis- patch, sent from Tokyo a week later, while Lord Northcliffe was in Korea, denied, on Lord North- cliffe’s authority, that the Hong Kong dispatch had ever been issued. ‘‘No such cable will appear in the London Times,” the alleged denial said, ‘‘and this is proof that no such cable was sent.”” The “denial” was flatly repudiated by Lord Northcliffe in the London Times (34). The last important erroneous cablegram sent out by Kokusai-Reuter under the Kennedy régime con- cerned the possibility of indemnification by insurance companies for losses suffered in the Tokyo-Yokoha- ma fire and earthquake of 1923. Despite the rather general adoption, after the Messina catastrophe in 1906, of clauses exempting the companies for such disasters, special laws in Japan were thought by some to require insurance underwriters to pay in full. As many of the Japanese companies had re-insured their policies with foreign, and especially with British, companies, the decision concerning the liabilities of insurance companies was a matter of great concern. The dispatch from Tokyo, therefore, of a Reuter dispatch, soon after the earthquake, stating that the [ 190 |INTERNATIONAL NEWS AGENCIES various Japanese companies had decided to pay the full insurance losses without regard to the protective “earthquake clauses” was construed by some obsery- ers as an effort to recoup a portion of the losses from the British underwriters. Later investigation dis- closed that no such announcement had ever been au- thorized by the Japanese authorities, but at no time was the Reuter dispatch contradicted, corrected, or explained by Reuter’s Tokyo agent (35). The questionable accuracy of past news from Reuter in Japan has evidently tended to discredit Japanese items received in foreign lands, and may have been an influential factor in creating that reluc- tance of the world to receive Japanese news which the Japanese so earnestly resent. Editors in Peking, Lon- don, and Calcutta reported to the writer that they distrusted Japanese dispatches, and the London cor- respondent of the Osaka Asahi laid the cause directly at the door of Reuter-Kokusai itself (36). More recently the Rengo-Reuter service has not been so burdened by attacks. Its bitterest opponents in the past credit it with good intentions, although fearing that it must inevitably be influenced by Jap- anese official wishes (37). Whether the new policy brought in by Mr. Iwanaga, or the functioning of the semigovernmental Tobo service, or a more complete understanding of the service by its quondam critics is responsible for the increased confidence cannot now be ascertained. [191]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN The service rendered by Rengo in exchanging British, French, Italian, American, and other news for items about Japan is supplemented by the Nippon Dempo Tsushin (Japan Telegraph News Agency), which was established in July, 1901, ‘‘as a means for correcting the considerable disadvantages which Ja- pan was suffering as a result of foreign control over the news imported and exported by Japan (38). For a time the Nippon Dempo was distributor for the Reuter news among the Japanese vernacular newspapers, but in 1907 it linked itself with the Amer- ican United Press under an agreement very similar to that concluded later between Kokusai and Reuter’s. Most of the Transpacific news now received by Nip- pon Dempo arrives by mail, because of the high cost of cable and radio charges, and the Nippon Dempo has accordingly been among the leading ad- vocates for reduced cable rates. In 1919 Nippon Dempo brought to Japan the messages sent out by the Central News, of London, and also introduced the Transocean wireless news from Nauen, although the latter is now distributed by Teikoku Tsushinsha (Im- perial News Agency). Nippon Dempo has been a pioneer in making alliances for Latin-America, South Sea Island, and French news, having subscribed in 1923 to the Pertinax service of l’Echo de Paris, and in 1925 to l’Agence Radiotelegraphique de Indo-Chine et du Pacifique. It inaugurated a Moscow service in [192]INTERNATIONAL NEWS AGENCIES 1923, and has been active in a photographic exchange for Japanese newspapers (39). Newspaper men regard Nippon Dempo as a semi- official agency, alleging that it receives a subsidy of ¥5,000 a month (40). Its prestige was badly shaken when, in 1925, it misrepresented Ambassador Kopp, the newly arriving Soviet envoy, as announcing his intention to spread communist propaganda in Japan, but that the agency is highly regarded by the govern- ment was evident by the gift from the Emperor to Hoshio Mitsunaga, president of Nippon Dempo, of a gold cup in recognition of the news agency’s contri- butions to the nation (41). In August, 1926, however, Nippon Dempo, through S. Oikawa, filed formal complaints with the press commission of the League of Nations, alleging that discrimination had been shown “‘in certain coun- tries” against independent news agencies in favor of the “official agencies.”” At Nippon Dempo’s suggestion the commission adopted resolutions favoring equality of treatment. The Nippon Dempo complaint was spe- cifically applied to Japan by an editorial in the Japan Advertiser (42). Prior to its amalgamation with Kokusai to form the Rengo agency, Tobo was regarded as a propagan- da news bureau for influencing Chinese factions. Its unreliability and its possibly harmful operations were evident in February, 1926, when it sent out from Swatow a canard that the entire Chinese legation staff [ 193 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN at Moscow had been arrested, and again, somewhat later, when the Tobo correspondents, then included in the Rengo ranks, were charged with having distribut- ed to the Chinese papers propaganda favoring the Manchu faction in a Chinese civil war. In June, 1925, Tobo was permitted by the government to radiocast a 200-word daily summary of Far Eastern news from the navy wireless station at Iwaki (43). Smaller agencies include Teikoku Tsushinsha (founded in 1894 by a merger of Fukuzawa’s Jiji Tsushinsha, 1887, and the Shimbun Yotatsu Kaisha, Fumio Yano’s advertising agency, 1889); Tokyo Tsushin, founded in 1890 as a bureaucratic organ for the late Prince Kiyoura; and the Jiyu Tsushin (Liberal News), founded by Toru Hoshi, former min- ister to the United States and minister of communica- tions, in 1896, as an adjunct to’his Japanese ‘“Tam- many Hall.” The Jiyu is now controlled by Keisuke Mochizuki, minister of communications in 1927 (44). NOTES . Cf. files of Japan Mail for 1876, January 20, 1877. . Mail, January 18, 1896. Oo . Mail, January 18, 1896, February 8, 1806. . Mail, February 27, 1897. Ibid. . Mail, February 14, 28, 1896, February 27, 1897. . Mail, February 28, 1896, June 17, 1899, July 1, 1890. ncn LP OW ~ / [194]IO. ir. 2. 13: 14. 15. 16. yp 18. IQ. 20. 21. 22. INTERNATIONAL NEWS AGENCIES . Mail, November 18, 1911, November 22, 1913; Japan Times, October 4, 1914. . Letters, filed in Tokyo District Court. De Reuter to G. Blundell, dated September 29, 1911; De Reuter to Pooley, dated September 8, 1912, November 30, 1912, January 18, 1913; Pooley to De Reuter, dated November 5, 1912, November 7, 1912; F. W. Dickinson to Pooley, dated June 25, 1912. Advertiser, August 3, 4, 7, 10, 1909. Japan Gazette, Au- gust 11, 1909; Japan Chronicle, July 15, 1909; August Q—-II, 1909, September 16, 1900. Chronicle, op. cit. See also Chronicle, September 21, 1911. Mail, March 4, IgIt. Advertiser, March 4, 1911; Chronicle, April 24, 1913; Honda, Nihon-oyobi-Nihonjin, March, 1916. Mail, May 3, 1913; Japan Gazette, December 20, 1913; Advertiser, December 20, 1913; Frankfurter Zeitung, Feb- ruary 13, I9QI4. Bulletin, Teikoku Koshinjo (Imperial Credit Bureau) ; Jiyu Tsushin Bulletin, January 21, 1914; Chronicle, June 19, 1913, August 28, 1913, January 15, 1914. Quoted in Chronicle, August 17, 1913, September 11, IQ13, January 15, 1914. Letter, De Reuter to Pooley, dated November 26, 1913. Ibid. Letter, De Reuter to Pooley, dated November 28, 1913. Mail, February 21, 1914, April 11, 1914; Honda, Nzhon- oyobi-Nihonjin, March, 1916; Letter, Kennedy to North China Daily News, reprinted in Mail, March 7, 1914. Mail (daily edition) April 3, 1914; Chronicle, April 9, 1914. For registry, see Mail, April 4, 1914. Japan Gazette, December 20, 1923; Mail, February 21, 25, 1914; Hansen. [195]N Ww Ww Ww On wn Ww ~~] » 38. . Suyeo Nakano, Advertiser, April 8, 1924. SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN . Kokusai circulars, issued December, 1918, October, 1920, November, 1923. For the Pooley case, see Mail, July 18, 23, 1914; Gazette, December 20, 1913; Advertiser, De- cember 20, 1913; Frankfurter Zeitung, February 13, 1914; Hansen; Chronicle, December 19, 1913, January 1, 1914, July 23, 1914. . Letter, Kennedy to North China Daily News, reprinted in Mail, March 7, 1914, and again July 18, 1914; Letter, Kennedy to N. Ohara, public procurator, dated June 23, IQI4. . Advertiser, May 18, 1926. . Diplomatic Review, March, 1925; Advertiser, June 10, 1925. . Advertiser, April 30, 1926. . Advertiser, May 18, 1926; Chronicle, June 3, 1926. . Williams, p. 35; Honda, Nihon-oyobi-Nihonjin, March, 1916; Martin, p. 33. . London Nation and Athenaeum, December 8, 1923. . Proceedings, British House of Commons, August 16, 1920; London Times, August 9, 1920. . London Times and New York Times, January 209, 31, 1915; London Times, June 11, 1915; See also London Times, October 25, 1915; Japan Chronicle, November 4, IQIS. . Advertiser, January 12, 14, IgI0. . London Times, October 29, 1921, April 19, 1922; North China Daily News, October 29, 1921, November 5, 1921. . London Times, September 14, 1923. . Osaka Asahi, April 24, 1919. Letter, V. S. McClatchy to the writer, dated October, 1925;Chronicle, November 19, 1925, June 24, 1926. Mitsunaga, in Advertiser, November 12, 1925. [ 196 |40. 4I. 42. . Diplomatic Review, March, 1925; Advertiser, June 10, 44. INTERNATIONAL NEWS AGENCIES Hanazono, p. 81; Wilfred Fleisher, in New York Times, May 31, 1925. New York Times, April 24, 1925, May 31, 1925. Advertiser, August 21, 22, 24, 1926. 1925; McClatchy, Germany of Asia, article 4. Mail, June 27, 1896. [197]CHAPTER VIII CORRECTING MISCONCEPTIONS For many years Japan has concentrated upon pre- vention methods for checking the creation of unfor- tunate impressions regarding her political and social life. At home the negative device of censorship and news embargo is considered as effective, but consid- erable confusion has arisen in the effort to produce abroad the favorable opinion which the Japanese so much desire. Many Japanese quite honestly regret that in the spreading of the truth about Japan the government has always been unduly laggard. ‘““The best side of Japan is still invisible to foreign eyes,” the Japan Mail wrote in 1913. “It is sincerely to be hoped that every citizen will do what he can to make the nature and the fine achievements of Japanese civilization better known, especially to the English-speaking peo- ples” (1). Publicly this method of “inspiring” pleasant feel- ings is referred to as “giving accurate information of Japanese life and civilization”; but hostile foreign critics brand it propaganda (2). Despite the fre- quency with which waves of remarkable editorial unanimity sweep over the vernacular gazettes, there [ 198 |]CORRECTING MISCONCEPTIONS is no reason to suspect a deliberate attempt to dictate to the press by other methods than “advice” or con- ference decisions, but crude efforts to distribute gov- ernment opinions through the press were frequent in the early days of journalism in Japan. The Western editors residing in Japan have not yet freed them- selves from early complexes which were then estab- lished. A smoother technique was perfected during the Russo-Japanese War, when, by the aid of Motosada Zumoto, the Foreign Office distributed daily bulletins containing official information to war correspondents who were kept immobilized in Japan. So effective were these communiques, Mr. Zumoto told the writer, that in several instances British and American news- papers recalled their correspondents rather than pay unnecessarily for additional private information that could not be secured. The successful operation of this plan, together with the example set by Russian propaganda systems at the Portsmouth Peace Conference, induced Count Tadasu Hayashi, former minister to China and Great Britain, and former foreign minister, to set up a suc- cession of press bureaus to furnish news on diplomatic topics. By 1920, through the efforts of Count Michi- masu Soyejima, these were united into a Johobu (In- telligence Bureau) in the Foreign Office modeled largely on the plan of the pre-war German press bu- reau. Its purpose, as stated by Count Yasuya Uchida, [199 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN foreign minister at its inception, was to collect and to disseminate intelligence of a diplomatic character and to correct mistaken reports concerning Japan. Baron Kijuro Shidehara, foreign minister (1924-1927) hints at additional activities which are not detailed (3). Inquiry at a government department presuma- bly well qualified to answer failed to elicit more spe- cific information, but an approved statement was fur- nished to the writer; ‘“The Bureau is engaged in (a) the collection and classification of information from foreign countries, and in its distribution to interested bureaus; (5) arranging for lectures on foreign rela- tions in universities, schools, and in public and private associations; and (c) the giving out of news, either through the issue of occasional important official statements or through interviews with press corre- spondents who raise particular questions relating to the subject,” etc. Observers of its policies consider that the Johobu employs its ability to supply or to withhold verified international news as a weapon for the control of Japanese newspapers and of foreign correspondents. Journalists who show a willingness to mirror its opin- ions may from time to time be offered tidbits of ex- clusive news that will enhance their journalistic rep- utations, and may even, it is hinted, be permitted to participate in the distribution of whatever secret serv- ice funds the Johobu may enjoy. Newspaper men [ 200 |CORRECTING MISCONCEPTIONS who do not thus co-operate may find grave difficulty in securing official information, lose what Mr. Hedges terms their best source of news, and may thus lose prestige with their subscribers. Together with the censorship, this news monopoly becomes an influen- tial factor in rendering the press virtually semi-of- ficial. Even though Johobu news is totally unbiased and quite free from propaganda, it suffers from suspicion as coming from an interested source. The more in- tense the effort to secure monopoly of news of inter- national interest, the more the news will be distrusted as presenting half-truths only, as suppressing the less desirable aspects of a situation, or as freely colored. The Johobu has not succeeded in escaping such sus- picion, and both the large Asahi papers have regis- tered complaints against it as an inefficient agent. Count Soyejima, its sponsor, also has attacked the Johobu, alleging that it has confined itself to the pub- lication of inferior news magazines’ filled with stale and superficial information, and that it has wasted no less than ¥1,500,000 a year in subsidizing foreign journals and in supporting the Tobo news agency for propaganda in China and in Russia. At times, accord- ing to Count Soyejima, the expenses of the Johobu *These bulletins are the Gazji Iko (Foreign Intelligence), Shina-Jiho (China Review), and Rokoku Geppo (Russian Re- ports). Less than 500 copies are circulated. [ 201 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN have gone as high as twice that sum for propaganda purposes alone (4).° Since, therefore, the Johobu has failed to popu- larize Japan’s policies or to clarify them even to the satisfaction of the Japanese, the tendency appears to replace the bureau by a series of formal weekly con- ferences with newspaper men, and to rely once more on personal relationships, news-distributing agencies, and on the retention of selected spokesmen “whose names assure fair treatment.”’ Baron Shidehara, speaking in the House of Peers, declared that the Jap- anese administration recognizes that propaganda has proved ineffective for promoting good, and that no open effort will be made to spread it in the guise of news (5). Newspaper ownership and official “inspiration” are not, of course, the only vents whereby expres- sions favoring Japan may find their way to other ? According to authoritative statements of the highest credence, no English-language paper in Japan receives a subsidy. The same authority declines to place itself on record concerning the vernacu- lar press, or concerning English-language papers in China or the United States. The statement that English papers in Japan are without subvention must be construed literally, since neither the Seoul Press of Korea, nor the Manchuria Daily News of Dairen de- nies that it receives subsidies from either official or semi-official treasuries. So far as the vernacular press is concerned, a preliminary statement, approved by a cabinet minister, told the writer that two journals were regarded as having semi-official status. A second let- ter, on the following day, corrected the first statement by declaring that this status was merely a political contingency subject to change with shiftings in factional alignments. [ 202 |CORRECTING MISCONCEPTIONS peoples. To afford a different approach to wholly dif- ferent classes other instruments may be employed. Official hospitality has been remarkably devel- oped as a means for helping to produce the favorable impression which the Japanese desire. Distinguished visitors, eminent in any field, are warmly welcomed and are féted bountifully. Strict attention to their pe- culiar needs, a readiness to please them and to intro- duce them to places or to men whom the visitors may wish to meet, and the provision of skilled couriers and guides kindle in the guest a warmer feeling to- ward the Japanese and function toward a better un- derstanding between the East and West. Sight-seeing programs are carefully compiled and most punctili- ously executed, but independent investigation is not encouraged. Foreign residents, in fact, believe that the official entertainments are purposely prolonged in order to prevent unauthorized research. Lord Northcliffe’s visit to Japan in r921 affords an excellent example of the care devoted to distin- guished visitors. From the moment of arrival in Ja- pan he was attended by Masujiro Honda, who es- corted him throughout Korea and Japan and who acted, Dr. Honda later said, as Lord Northcliffe’s source of information on Japanese political activities. Dr. Honda’s apparent detachment from daily jour- nalism lent an air of independence to his attitude and accentuated his disinterested views, although, as Dr. [ 203 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Honda wrote, he was ‘‘somehow officially connected with the Foreign Office” (6).° The writings of the native press throughout the period of Northcliffe’s visit reveal curious concurrent circumstances. The Great War had led him to oppose the continuing of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, and Lord Northcliffe was regarded as anti-Japanese be- cause of his criticisms of the Japanese attitude to- ward China. On his arrival a sudden outburst of news appeared, of just the type likely to persuade a foreigner that Japan was facing problems that only a strong mind could master. Koreans, Russians, Chi- nese, and Socialists were featured glaringly as plot- ting against the welfare of the nation.* It is reasona- ble to suppose that Dr. Honda did not permit them to escape Lord Northcliffe’s notice (7). One duty of Japanese diplomatic representatives is in correcting news reports which give a violently distorted picture of Japan. In such a duty, the Yorod- * Joseph I. C. Clarke tells glowingly how Dr. Honda and Mr. Zumoto painstakingly and carefully mapped out every detail of a three months’ sight-seeing trip in Korea and Japan in order that Mr. Clarke might meet the “highest and lowest in official life” to secure material for a volume on Japan at First Hand. The trip was originally suggested, Mr. Clarke reveals, by Dr. Juichi Taka- mine, whose “letters worked miracles” in opening up opportunities for interviews (8). ‘Three bandit raids, a rebel plot, a murder, and attempted ar- son were accredited to the Koreans. The Chinese were accused of banditry and murder, the Russians of kidnapping, and the Socialists of a riot and a plot. [ 204 ]CORRECTING MISCONCEPTIONS zu intimated, strict veracity is not a prime considera- tion. ‘Not only should ambassadors and ministers challenge and refute every allegation contrary to the interests of their country, but competent persons should also be stationed abroad to supplement the efforts of these officials in this line.” As long as half a century ago, the Japan Mail was impelled to criti- cize the unthinking zeal of some officials for spreading baseless “news” concerning a rebellion in the south- ern island of Japan. “Telegrams conveying an en- tirely false impression have been forwarded to Jap- anese legations throughout the world to be circulated abroad,” the Mail disclosed (9). If, therefore, an article severely criticizing Jap- anese interests appears in English or American news- papers, it is not uncommon for immediate denials to be written either by the Japanese diplomatic repre- sentatives or by such officially independent spokes- men as Kiyoshi Karl Kawakami, Dr. Toyohiko Iye- naga, Chuge Ohira, Tokio Yokio, Gonnosuke Komai, or Kinnosuke Adachi.° None of these men are en- rolled upon the roster of the embassy nor of the For- *In his Manchuria: A Survey, published 1925, and in his other recent writings, Mr. Adachi has, curiously, adopted a Japanese practice rather than his former Westernized custom. His name is now reversed, and his writings are accredited to, and sometimes copyrighted by, “Adachi Kinnosuke.” This is, of course, Japanese, but may cause confusion by leading some unwary student to sus- pect a “Mr. Adachi” and a “Mr. Kinnosuke” as both writing books. [ 205 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN eign Office, but they have been assiduous in correcting misconceptions that affect Japan adversely.° The advantages of such a system are profound. As these representatives of independent Japanese public opinion have no official connection with the government, their speeches and their letters to the press serve as ballons d’essai to test out foreign reac- tions before Japan is definitely committed to any course of action. If their statements are well re- ceived, Japan will profit, for a good impression will have been secured. But, if in attempting to refute an anti-Japanism, or to sound out sentiment, the pub- licist has stirred up an undesired reaction, or has mis- stated facts, no embarrassment need be entertained by the officials, since these men hold no official status and represent no view other than their own. The plan of stationing public men at strategic points in foreign lands is probably an adaptation and improvement of an old-time Chinese custom whereby influential foreign correspondents in Peking were sometimes retained as “advisers” to government de- partments. Their task was not so much to give infor- mation to their chiefs as to assure the Chinese that the proper kind of news was being sent to their home papers. Japan had herself experimented with the plan °*Some of these men are now retired, some have returned to Japan, and others have died. The personnel is under constant change; but these men, together with the late Dr. Juichi Takamine, have been the most prolific spokesmen. [ 206 |CORRECTING MISCONCEPTIONS when she retained Captain Brinkley, of the Maz, as shipping expert for the Nippon Yusen Kaisha; but when the better foreign journals and the large news agencies forbade their correspondents from engaging in dual service, Japan revised her methods. As early as 1904 she arranged to send out representatives to plead her cause in Western Europe and America, and the system was still more developed within recent years." The testimony of distinguished Japanese or of independent residents familiar with Japan, or an offi- cial embassy denial possesses sufficient news value to secure its instant publication as a “follow-up” to the article which evoked response, and any of these an- swers carries with it enough authority to check the bad impression of the original attack. If the denial refers to items originating in Japan, there is but little likelihood, at the existing cable rates or radio tolls, "Viscount Suyematsu visited Great Britain during the Russo- Japanese War, while Viscount Kentaro Kaneko, former Cabinet member and privy councilor, was sent to the United States, togeth- er with Dr. Masujiro Honda. Viscount Kikujiro Ishi, then the di- rector of the Communications Bureau, was “dispatched to San Francisco in connection with the anti-Japanese riots in 1907,” ac- cording to the semi-official Japan Year Book, 1926. In 1908 Ishii was made vice-minister of foreign affairs. In 1913, Dr. Juichi Soye- da, former vice-minister of finance and first president of the Japan Industrial Bank and of the Bank of Formosa, was sent to the Unit- ed States “in connection with the anti-immigration agitation.” Mr. Zumoto twice visited the United States as aide to Viscount Shibusa- wa, 1915 and 1921. Dr. Shogoro Washio, of the Advertiser, was sent to Europe in 1919, with Viscount Goto (10). [ 207 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN that it will be refuted by rebuttal, unless the item is of the very first rank of importance. Libels unfavora- ble to Japanese interests may safely be discredited in London or New York in the assurity that several weeks must necessarily elapse before corroboration can be found.* By this time the news will have grown so “cold” that there is little value in reviving a sub- ject stale and minor in importance. In consequence, unfriendly correspondence from Japan not already rectified by wire or radio may readily be counteracted. The practice proves most convenient whenever small matters are to be corrected, but on occasion reports of the utmost magnitude may be so treated. A recent instance is that in which Mr. Iyemasu Toku- gawa, first secretary to the London embassy, denied reports concerning post-earthquake massacres of Ko- rean residents of Tokyo. In a letter to the Manches- ter Guardian Mr. Tokugawa denied that Koreans had been murdered wantonly, and then proceeded to re- late, “according to official information reaching this Embassy,” the gist of the rumors of Korean atrocities circulated during the earthquake panic period. Ar- son, rape, and murder® committed against innocent * The fastest service between Yokohama and London requires forty days by sea, and sixteen days, if all connections are made per- fectly, by land. The swiftest transpacific steamer requires nine days for transit. ° These charges were repeated by K. K. Kawakami in the New York Times Current History, and by Roderick O. Matheson, of the [ 208 |CORRECTING MISCONCEPTIONS Japanese were laid at the door of Korean revolution- ists (11). A more effective ally of Japan is the type best rep- resented by Rev. Sidney L. Gulick, a former mis- sionary and a former teacher in the Doshisha, a mis- sion university of Kyoto. Dr. Gulick’s tendencies are conservative and his hopes are centered on advancing Japan through the development of education and re- ligion. Both movements, he believes, are flourishing and both hold ample promise of service to interna- tional good will, but only if the present peaceful trend of Japanese officialdom shall be continued. To pre- vent the halting of this progress, Dr. Gulick feels that American activities which irritate the Japanese should certainly be modified, even at the cost of sacrificing minor prejudices in the United States. He is well aware of certain weaknesses in the Japanese charac- Japan Times, in McClures. As the Japanese government had placed embargoes upon all cable references to the Korean rumors and had not lifted the restrictions until after Mr. Tokugawa and Mr. Ka- wakami had printed their replies, it would appear as though the government had disregarded its own censorship by sending out the news to embassies (12). How Mr. Kawakami gleaned his informa- tion is not clear. The massacres occurred in the early days of Sep- tember, and Mr. Kawakami’s article must have gone to press not later than the middle of the month. No letters could have reached him; and while, as correspondent for the Osaka Mainichi, he may have received a private cablegram in violation of the censorship, the similarity of his article to that of Mr. Tokugawa’s invites invidious conjecture. [ 209 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN ter,*° and has thoroughly expounded their social, psy- chological, and economic background in his Evolution of the Japanese; but his penchant for the Japanese is strong. His efforts for a better understanding of the American-Japanese relations cannot be too highly praised. Two peace societies have also been established for the purpose of promoting friendship between the Japanese and Occidentals. Both were begun in tort, the American Peace Society in Japan planning to per- suade the United States of her injustice, while the Japan Peace Society was to work for the encourage- ment of Japan’s faith in America’s good will. In the search for effective aid in carrying out their purposes both sides sought support in official circles, Marquis Okuma becoming president of the latter body.” Neither group has proved effective. No record can be found of any protests filed by the Japan Peace Society against antiforeign agitation in Japan; nor has it deprecated the ‘““Twenty-One Demands” on China which its own president dispatched. No official *In his White Peril (1905), Dr. Gulick intimated that Jap- anese lapses from the moral code were due to white example. * Baron Sakatani, former finance minister, was vice-president, and later headed the Society. Other directors were Yukio Ozaki; Dr. Masaharu Anezaki, of Tokyo Imperial University and former exchange professor at Harvard; Saburo Shimada, speaker of the House of Representatives and editor of the Tokyo Mainichi; Gil- bert Bowles, missionary, since 1901, from the Society of Friends; and J. Russell Kennedy. [ 210 |CORRECTING MISCONCEPTIONS action was begun by it for armament reduction by the Japanese. The Far East, indeed, declared in 1915 that the Society was nothing but ‘“‘a heavily subsi- dized government movement to allay American fear of Japan.” One constructive measure alone appears to its credit. In 1919 the Japan Peace Society sent a committee to Korea to investigate alleged atrocities said to have been committed by the Japanese. Its re- port condemned the Japanese government-general as incompetent, and urged that more attention be paid to the observance of old Korean customs. It protested against teaching the Koreans of the mythological mil- itary exploits of the Japanese Empress Jingo against Korea. On the other hand, the report ascribed, as the cause of Korean unrest against Japanese rule, “‘mis- understanding of the spirit in which Korea had been annexed” (13). The American Peace Society in Japan, led by Gilbert Bowles and J. Russell Kennedy, has held more closely to the purpose of its foundation. It has sedulously cultivated the belief that immigration laws, California land legislation, and the like were the work of political agitators, and that such injustices were not to be construed as the measured judgment of the masses of right-thinking Americans. It has held forth the hope that repeal of discriminatory leg- islation may be looked for as soon as Americans ap- preciated how they were being misled by selfish dema- [ ar |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN gogues. Protests and memorials to Congress have supplemented the work of this society in Japan. Both groups are now virtually merged into the Ja- pan League of Nations Association, under the guid- ance of Viscount Shibusawa and of Prince Iyesato Tokugawa.’* The independent enterprises of the Peace Society now center in a Student Association and a Women’s Peace Society, which constitute the channels whereby the Youth Movement and the fem- inist ideas are imported to Japan. One of the most helpful functions of the women’s association, as stat- ed by its leaders, is the holding of teas, receptions, and other entertainment for tourists arriving in Japan in order that the true nature of Japanese home life may be visible to the outside world. Another activity, conducted by the students and by the Peace Society, is the arrangement of speaking tours for Western lib- erals of the type of Bertrand Russell, Harry F. Ward, and Henry Hodgkin. Little progress is, however, being made. Not only do the peace preservation laws and other legislation effectively forbid active democratic or liberal propa- ganda, but, in the words of Gilbert Bowles, the ex- clusion law has made the task impossible. “At pres- ent we are virtually standing still, and are unable to foresee an immediate advance.” ‘‘For counteracting 2A minority of the Japan Peace Society, led by Dr. D. Taga- wa, protested against this merger fearing lest the Society would com- pletely lose its identity and destroy its influence. [212 |CORRECTING MISCONCEPTIONS the suspicion of Japan born of ignorance and of false information disseminated in America by agencies hos- tile to Japan,” the Japan Society of New York was begun in 1907.'* According to its membership leaf- lets, the principal activities of this association have been the giving of receptions, luncheons, and dinners to distinguished Japanese, the arrangement of lec- tures, art exhibitions, and the promotion of trade re- lations. Special editions of newspapers, magazines, and books devoted to the interests of Japan have been distributed among its members. In short, the theory of Japan societies in New York, London, Boston, and elsewhere is very similar to the motive of the New York Evening Post in issuing a “Japan Supplement” as “an undertaking of good will and mutual interpre- tation.”’ With the enthusiastic co-operation of Amer- ican and British leaders, “‘a more accurate knowledge of the people of Japan, their aims, ideals, arts, sci- ences, industries, and economic conditions” has been diligently spread. Lindsay Russell, the founder of the New York branch, may be numbered among the most ardent pro-Japanese publicists. Visiting the Orient in 1911, he delivered speeches warmly praising Japan’s ad- ministration of Korea and Manchuria, disavowing ** This bugbear of an organized opposition to Japan constantly appears in the speeches and the writings of the pro-Japanese. To its machinations are credited all criticisms of whatever sort which are distasteful to Japan. [213 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN American ambitions in those regions, and urging the Japanese to proclaim an Asiatic Monroe Doctrine. Six years later he revisited the East, received the Sec- ond Class Order of the Sacred Treasure from the Emperor, and made a series of addresses justifying Japan’s activities in China (14). At Tokyo he characterized China as “bankrupt politically, morally, and financially.”” He recommend- ed that it should be placed under the receivership of Japan, ‘the most high-minded, competent, and un- selfish nation interested in China.” Americans were reminded that “the United States has small interests in China, and in the face of Japanese competition can never hope to be bigger.’”’ In consequence of his re- marks the American Association of North China ca- bled to the American Asiatic Society a public protest that the Russell speech was “unjust, untrue, and con- trary to the Open Door.” It also asked the Japan Society to disavow its president’s remarks, but no ac- tion was taken by the latter group. Mr. Russell, how- ever, made a statement that he had not intended to imply that China was insolvent, and that his speech had been intended as constructive criticism. His comments on Manchuria have also called forth strong dissent, particularly on account of his too narrow delineation of the Japanese possessions. “This small Gibraltar section which Japan cannot af- ford to see in hostile hands while China is unable to [214]CORRECTING MISCONCEPTIONS hold or defend it, in which is located some three or four hundred miles of the roadbed of the South Man- churia Railway (with some twenty feet on either side of the rails), constitutes geographically all Japan’s leased rights in Manchuria,” Mr. Russell told the New York Evening Post (15). Official publications of the railroad admit, how- ever, to some seven hundred miles of company lines, while in addition the sites of railway stations “‘have, in most cases, sufficiently extensive tracts of land to lay out towns therein.’”’** Mr. Russell’s estimates would limit the company to less than 4 square miles of land, although the company took over 69 square miles in 1907 and added nearly twice as much addi- tionally prior to the appearance of Mr. Russell’s ar- ticle (16). Mr. Russell furthermore implied that pro-Ger- man interests were coloring the news sent from Pe- king in order to embroil Japan with the United States, with Great Britain, and with China. These charges had already been refuted, a year earlier, by G. Bron- “The land held at Mukden, for example, is about two miles long and a mile and a half in width. Changchun is almost as large. To this must be added, as part of Japan’s leased rights, the entire territory of Liaotung, some hundred miles in length and twenty miles in width. Nothing was said in Mr. Russell’s article about the 108,300 Chinese governed by the railway, nor of the railway guards, who give the right-of-way the appearance of an army of occu- pation. [215]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN son Rea in answering a supposed speech by Rev. Sid- ney G. Gulick (17).*° Mr. Russell’s interpretation of the origin of anti- Japanese news was later modified. “Japan has been made a storm center,” he said, “because American soldiers in the Philippines see red every waking hour, because missionaries in the Orient regard Japan as ‘Peck’s Bad Boy,’ and because of the presence of two [sic] nations in China.” He still remained con- vinced that Japan has done but little to place her story before the world. “Let a libel be published against England, France, Russia, or Germany, and at once, from a thousand throats, there spring denials and a statement of the facts. But one may publish any misstatement or canard against Japan with com- parative impunity. In the United States there are only a few Japanese who can or will write effectively in defense of Japan. Their instinctive reserve handi- caps them. Bushido, the old Samurai spirit of silence under attack, restrains them” (18). By one means or another these agencies assure the Empire that pro-Japanese opinions will find the readiest acceptance overseas. Complete control by Japanese officials over the quicker means of interna- 15 “With one exception,” said Mr. Rea, “the newspaper corre- spondents at Peking are most loyal and patriotic Britons. The ex- ception is the American correspondent of the Associated Press who is married to an English girl. Can we imagine these men filing into the compound of the German Legation in Peking and taking their instructions ?” [ 216 |CORRECTING MISCONCEPTIONS tional news transmissions guarantees the initial pres- entation of the news in a light most favoring the Jap- anese desires. Western minds have been prepared to accept the Japanese interpretation by the constant reassurances of press supplements, unofficial spokes- men, and Japan societies. Tourist visitors, fresh from escorted trips to gardens, temples, and Noh dances, bear testimony of the cultured life and peace- ful aims which thinking Japanese enjoy. Peace-pro- motion groups, intent upon elimination of the cruder forms of anti-Japanism, voice a sentimental hope that nothing further will be done to vex the Japanese, and, in order to allay the interracial hatred, make little mention of the rising antiforeign tide or of the anti- missionary feeling in Japan. Because of their convic- tion that Japan receives an unjust treatment from the West, earnest publicists associated with such groups have welcomed all suggestions of her probity with an uncritical acceptance which might not be granted al- ways to similar American assurances.*® As represen- tative of an unreasoning superfriendship such support is equally as dangerous to proper understanding be- tween the East and West as is the unjustifiable and irrational suspicion which both East and West abhor. Both the soft sentimentalist and the jingo hater are similarly blind and ignorant, but the Japanese have *’ It is largely for their ears that the myth has been invented of a doughty, clever, Nippon achieving in a summer’s afternoon all that Western Europe has taken centuries to learn to do. [217]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN been alert to use them both, the one as a recipient of soothing unction, and the other as a final proof of her continued need for militaristic and undemocratic rule. No independent source of news is now available wherewith to check the accuracy of news items from Japan. Diplomats are silenced by the requirements of their duty. Business men are either reluctant, as the Japan Times complains (19), to issue statements for fear of injuring their sales, or, more often, lack the necessary training in dispassionate scholarship. The missionary group, remembering its arrests and persecution by the Japanese in recent years, and fear- ful lest the present antimissionary movement may re- sult in overturning all its life-work, is hesitant to jeop- ardize its future by making public comment on dis- puted points of politics. A tiny group of foreign correspondents accredited by leading British and American newspapers affords the only avenue for truthful comment on Japan. But foreign correspondents also have been brought within the circle of official “inspiration.” An International Press Association, founded in 1909 by Motosada Zumoto,” exerts a quiet pressure which few correspondents are able to withstand. Promoted with the objects of protecting the public “from un- 17 An International Association of Journalists had been in ex- istence since 1898 (23). For both groups bureaucratic assistance has been granted. Prince Ito, Marquis Okuma, Prince Katsura, Premier Wakatsuki, and other officials have been enthusiastic patrons, but the granting of government aid has always been denied. [ 218 |CORRECTING MISCONCEPTIONS scrupulous newspapermen who misrepresent Japan”’ and of endeavoring “‘to improve the standards of cor- respondence from Japan to outside journals,” this Association, acting with official approbation, has be- come a Clearing-house for news (20). Since nearly all the correspondents are unlearned in the language, news for export may be properly recast before it is presented to them for dispatch abroad. Its potential power to withhold news from those correspondents who are judged “unscrupulous” is a factor in secur- ing a uniformity of correspondence which will be sat- isfactory to the authorities. Nor is it possible for correspondents to evade the services of this Association. Registration with the Press Association is essential, for unless the corre- spondent is enrolled with this official agency his mes- Sages are particularly vulnerable to denials by de- fenders of Japan. Such free-lance correspondents may be classified abroad as men of no importance, and their dispatches may be discredited as of slight reliability, for reference to the membership rolls of the Association will disclose that the writers are pre- sumably of no consequence in Tokyo. There is indi- cation to suggest that this mode of disparaging un- pleasant news about Japan has been resorted to by attachés of at least one embassy (21). Recalcitrant correspondents, too, may easily be brought to book by the release of official interviews and statements through the Press Association (in a [219 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN manner which was made the basis for complaint be- fore the Geneva session of the International Press Conference in August, 1926 (22), by the granting of priority in radio and cable service to Association members or by the operations of the censorship. A steady narrowing of the scope available for “staff cor- respondents” in Japan is evidenced, since the out- break of the Russo-Japanese War, by the gradual withdrawal of such correspondents. Not even the great news agencies are now independently represent- ed by trained journalists in Korea or Formosa. The news, in consequence, is now almost entirely in the control of men whose chief consideration is the spread- ing of encouraging reports about Japan. NOTES 1. Mail, November 22, 1913. . Mail, January 24, 1914; Honda, Nihon-oyobi-Nihonjin, March, 1916; Soyeda, Shinjudai, September, 1918; Soye- jima, Diplomatic Review, April, 1925; Japan Times, March 9, 1925. . Hayashi, Memoirs, pp. 226 f., introduction to Memoirs, p. 12; Soyejima, op. cit.; Speeches in House of Peers, Soye- jima and Shidehara, February 2, 1925; Uchida, speech to Peers, February 23, 1921. 4. Osaka Mainichi, October 5, 1924; Osaka Asahi, March 4, 1920 (see also April 24, 1919) ; Soyejima, speech to Peers, February 2, 1925. . Shidehara, speech to Peers, February 2, 1925. . Honda, Spectator, May 2, 1925; Northcliffe, London Times, April 19, 1922. NS Ww Or v1 [ 220 |—“I CORRECTING MISCONCEPTIONS . Chronicle, November 10, 17, 24, 1921; December 1, 1921. . Clarke, My Life, pp. 375 ff. 9. Mail, June 2, 1877; Chronicle, May 19, 1904, October 9g, IO. airs I2. 13. I4. rh 16. 17. 18. IQ. 20. 27 22% . Mail, June 28, 1808. 1919; Bethell, in Chronicle, May 19, 1908; Interview with Mr. Zumoto. See Japan Yearbook (1926), ““Who’s Who” section. Sakatani, New York Times, September 27-29, 1916; Man- chester Guardian, October 11, 1923; Northcliffe, London Times, April 19, 1922; Tokugawa, National Review, July, 1922; Advertiser, August 2, 1922. Current History, October, 1923; Matheson, McClures, January, 1924 (but see implied retraction in Current His- tory, May, 1927); Japan Times, October 23-24, 1923, De- cember 19, 21, 1923, March 8, 1924. Far East, July 17, 1915; Mail, February 7, 1912; Korean report, Gokyo, June 20, 1919; also in Jiji, July 4, 19109; Interview with Gilbert Bowles. Mail, November 18, 1911; Advertiser, May 25, 1917, June EQL5. LOLs | Uly, O51 17, 1On7- New York Evening Post, July 24, 1917. “South Manchuria Railway: Its Origin, Development, and Phenomenal Rise,” Dairen, press of Manshu Nichi Nichi, June, 1924, pp. 55, 57f. Far Eastern Review, September, 1916; New York Evening Post, July 24, 1917. New York Times, October 16, 1917; ‘‘Peck’s Bad Boy,” New York Times, May 15, 1925. Japan Times, November 27, 1924. Mail, June 5, 1909, December Io, r1g10. Chronicle, July 8, 1909, June 10, Igro. Advertiser, August 21-22, 1926. [ 221 |CHAPTER IX CREATING A PLEASANT IMPRESSION As a device for introducing Japan to the favora- ble notice of the world, the issuance of ‘‘Japan supple- ments” has proved popular. These usually take the form of special sections issued in conjunction with the regular numbers of the periodical which sponsors them; but occasionally whole issues of the newspa- pers or magazines may be given over entirely to the interests of the Japanese. Such supplements possess no true news value, in the ephemeral sense of the term, but they do serve to illumine better the spirit and the ideals professed by Japanese (1). The plan seems to have originated, for Japan at least, with R. P. Porter, of the London Times, who had devoted his energies largely to an extension of the supplement idea to South America and to Tsarist Russia. Issues promoted by him in the interests of these countries had shown themselves fruitful sources of advertising for the London Times, and were be- 1 Mr. Porter was the founder of the New York Press, and con- ducted the paper from 1887 to 1894. He was director of the elev- enth census. From 1906 to 1909 he was principal North American correspondent for the London Times. As the director of supple- ments for the Times he issued no less than twenty-seven Russian supplements between 1909 and 1917. [ 222 |CREATING A PLEASANT IMPRESSION lieved to have promoted international understanding and good will. Captain Brinkley, of the Japan Maul, who was also the London Times correspondent in Ja- pan, therefore intimated to the Japanese that similar supplements descriptive of Japan might be beneficial both to the London Times and to the Empire. ‘One supplement,” he said, “could accomplish more in in- troducing the true Japan to Anglo-Saxon notice than all the books ever printed” (2). The suggestion was enthusiastically welcomed, and in 1910, after six months’ close co-operation be- tween Mr. Porter, Captain Brinkley, and Japanese officialdom, the first London Times Japan Supple- ment was issued.” Few later supplements equal the first Times supplement either in size or in diversity of content. Thirty-four separate topics are discussed, and nearly every subject dealt with in later supple- ments is exhaustively treated. Agricultural and labor problems are the only important topics not separately considered, but many aspects of both questions are embodied in other portions of the supplement. As in many of the later supplements, the tenor of all the articles was highly laudatory of Japan, for the Japanese point of view was taken throughout. Cap- tain Brinkley himself, a known protagonist of Jap- * Originally this supplement appeared in conjunction with a Japan-British exhibit in London. Later, in a revised and somewhat extended form, it was republished as a book, entitled Japan, the New World-Power. [ 223 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN anese interests, wrote six of the articles; and that many of the other pages were compiled in Japanese government bureaus was admitted by the same au- thority. Even the seventy-two pages of advertise- ments were “designed to introduce Japan to the notice of foreign nations,” and they were “‘all accompanied by descriptions and statistics of an exhaustive and in- structive character” (3). The success of this supplement convinced the Japanese that great services could be expected from such a medium, and plans were immediately drawn for extending the practice to America. The San Fran- cisco Chronicle offered a favorable opportunity for spreading information concerning Japan in a section where the truth was badly needed, and in October, IQII, a supplement entitled Commercial, Financial, and Industrial Japan was issued in conjunction with a Sunday issue of that paper. As a rather curious con- trast to customary journalistic practice, no advance intimation seems to have been announced by the Chronicle that such a supplement was about to ap- pear; no editorial notice was given of its inclusion; nor was any reference made thereafter to the fact that such a “stunt” had been accomplished. Officials of the Japanese government were impor- tant contributors to the Chronicle supplement. Baron Korekiyo Takahashi, governor of the Bank of Japan, Viscount Eiichi Shibusawa, father of Japan’s finan- cial system, Toshitake Okubo, director of the depart- [224]CREATING A PLEASANT IMPRESSION ment of Agriculture and Communications, Buyei Na- kano, president of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, Zeko Nakamura, governor of the South Manchuria Rail- way, Viscount Goto, president of the Imperial Gov- ernment Railways, Chuji Shimooka, head of the ag- ricultural bureau, and other leaders contributed arti- cles dealing with their own departments. Assurances were given that the newspapers of the Empire have no personal scandals included in their columns. J. Russell Kennedy was a copious contributor to the Chronicle supplement, particularly regarding Ko- rean matters. Commerce, local administration, and the progressive policies of Governor-General Terau- chi were enthusiastically praised by Mr. Kennedy, and high praise was accorded the missionaries, who, according to Mr. Kennedy, were the readiest class of people to “pay tribute to the work done by the Jap- anese administration” in governing the peninsula. The last statement is of peculiar interest in view of the accusations then current in Japan that foreign missionaries had been conspiring with Koreans to kill Governor-General Terauchi and to free the peninsula from Japanese rule.® °Mr. Kennedy’s articles on Korea were probably excerpts from a book which he seems to have intended to publish. Each article ends with the reminder that it is “copyright by J. Russell Kennedy, Tokyo, Japan.” Five articles out of six contributed by him on Kore- an affairs begin with chapter numberings, as though taken directly from a book or manuscript. No mention is made, however, of the source from which the excerpts were taken. [225]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Nearly four years elapsed before supplements were again issued. Meanwhile the Great War had broken out, and after the capture of Tsing-tau, opin- ion in Japan was sharply divided as to the attitude which the Empire should take toward Great Britain and the other allies. A wave of anti-Ally, and in par- ticular anti-British, sentiment swept over the vernac- ular press from the summer of 1915 until March, IQI6. News of these attacks reached Great Britain and caused resentment. Counteracting influences were deemed essential, and during the latter half of 1916 five more supplements were issued by the London Times. Much space was devoted to refutations of the British idea that Japan was faltering in loyalty to the Allies, and Premier Okuma, Privy Councilor Ken- taro Kaneko, Viscount Ishii, ambassador to Great Britain, and other prominent members of the official class deprecated the anti-British agitation as unrepre- sentative of true Japanese beliefs. Since no such arguments were necessary in Amer- ican papers, the United States being still a neutral, attention was diverted, in the New York Evening Post Japan supplement of the same year, toward the furtherance of better relations between Japan and the United States. The contributors were somewhat changed from the Times issue, but Viscount Shibu- sawa, who had written in the London Times in July to disown “irresponsible journalists whose views are no [ 226 |CREATING A PLEASANT IMPRESSION index to national sentiment,”’ now wrote, in Decem- ber, on the essential harmony between the ideals of East and West as shown by these same journalists. He was ably aided in the Post supplement by Dr. T. Iyenaga, director of the East and West News Bu- reau, and by Lindsay Russell, then president of the Japan Society of New York (4). Immigration takes on a vital interest in the Post issue, although it had been barely mentioned in the fourth Times supplement. Dr. Sidney L. Gulick wrote, frankly “looking at the question from a point of view fairer to Japan.’”’ Nathaniel Peffer pointed to Hawaii as an example of successful assimilation. No space was given to the California opposition. The somewhat one-sided attitude of the Evening Post might have been forecast, in view of the an- nouncement made by the Post itself. After stating that the supplement was to be issued twice yearly, “‘as an offering of peace,” the Post said that the section was “‘designed in some slight measure to offset those Hessians of the Press who sieze upon outward dif- ferences of race to play upon passions more easily aroused than allayed.’”* “No more Japan supplements appear to have been issued by the Evening Post. Newspapermen in Japan speculate as to the cause of the cessation. Those less friendly to Japan point out that the Post printed an article by David Lawrence in which views critical of Japan had been expressed. As Mr. Lawrence was, at the time, believed to be in the confidence of President Wilson, the strictures written by him were thought by the Osaka Asahi and others to be [227]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Another four-year period passed before supple- ments were again issued by any periodicals of first- rank importance; but with the calling of the Wash- ington conference on naval armament and on Pacific problems a new recourse was had to journalistic aid for the Japanese cause. In 1921 the London Times is- sued its seventh Japan supplement, and the Manches- ter Guardian also put forth a Japanese edition. In the following year the Literary Digest devoted an entire issue to Japan, and four special numbers of the Trans- pacific were given over to Japan’s dependencies. Of all these supplements, the Times was evidently the one which was most acceptable to the Japanese. In the very first sentence of the leading article, Count Hayashi, the new ambassador to Great Britain, de- nied that Japan had been a militaristic or an impe- rialistic nation. ‘“Too much has been said,” he wrote, “about military Japan, well-meaningly or otherwise, and often she has been misrepresented. Now I assure you, Japan has won the thankless reputation of being a militarist and imperialist nation, which allegation, I assure you, events will disprove in fulness of time.” In other articles writers dilate upon Japan’s good deeds in Korea and Formosa, pointing out that the official views. A cool reception was given by the vernacular press to the Evening Post supplement; and by the Osaka Asahi, Mr. Law- rence’s article was termed “selfish and egotistic.” This fact, the crit- ics of Japan assert, resulted in the failure to arrange for more Japan supplements in the Evening Post (5). [ 228 |CREATING A PLEASANT IMPRESSION Japanese accepted reluctantly the stewardship over those dominions, and even alleging, according to J. J. O’Brien Sexton, that Japan had at one time consid- ered selling Formosa to another nation. The Guardian is less effusive in its praise. Al- though the cover bears the phrase, “‘Published by ar- rangement with the government of Japan,” and al- though the sections dealing with foreign affairs are written by the Premier, the Foreign Minister, and the head of the publicity bureau, the views of Japanese liberals are freely stated. Professor S. Yoshino, who was credited with radical ideas, and Dr. Danjo Ebina, president of the Doshisha University, challenge the officials to relieve the bureaucratic pressure on the na- tion. Here again, however, Korean and Formosan matters are discussed only by the governor-generals of the dominions, and Ryotaro Nomura, president of the semi-official South Manchuria Railway, writes that Japan has neither territorial nor economic ad- vantage in that Chinese province. Home Minister T. Tokonami contributes a re- markable article to the Guardian in which he “ex- plains” the Japanese attitude regarding “dangerous thoughts”: ‘The ideas which our government regards as dangerous are equally so regarded by pretty well all other governments. There is no attempt to inter- fere with the progress of ideas or the study and in- vestigation of any new doctrines of philosophy. All that is done is an endeavor to arrest popular propa- [229 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN ganda in a few cases. Anyone may study Marx, Kro- potkin, Bertrand Russell, or indeed any writer of ad- vanced theories.” In the same supplement “An English Journalist in Tokyo” (probably, according to internal evidence, Hugh Byas) flatly contradicts the Minister by saying that the press of Japan is under a perpetual censor- ship, and that such books as Norman Angell’s Why Freedom Matters, Andrew M. Pooley’s Japan at the Cross-Roads, a life of Bebel, and other books had been denied the right to circulate. A copy of the Ja- pan Advertiser, he said, was suppressed for republish- ing an alleged manifesto from Japanese Socialists to Socialists in Europe. Three entire issues of the Japan Times devoted their entire contents to complaints against the Amer- ican immigration policies and to pleadings for a bet- ter mutual understanding. Because it judged the American-Japanese situation to be “very delicate,” it wished a frank exchange of views, and printed 50,- 000 copies of a special “Japan to America” issue on expensive glazed paper in order to give to the United States the results of a survey conducted by the Japan Times. A second issue, six months later, followed the dispatch of invitations to prominent Americans resid- ing in Japan to express themselves “‘with the utmost candor and freedom” regarding American-Japanese relations. ‘We need no soft-soap articles,” said the Times in its appeal. “Hard and unvarnished facts, [ 230]CREATING A PLEASANT IMPRESSION unpalatable as they may be, are the only things that will accomplish the desired remedy. The Japanese people will willingly listen to any constructive criti- cism and friendly advice.” Two weeks later the Times renewed its call, rebuking foreigners for hesitating to respond through fear of possible business reprisals. Forty-one Americans, all but five of whom were mis- sionaries, responded. Nearly all of them expressed the warmest appreciation for Japan and the deepest sympathy, but they held forth no hope of repeal of immigration laws. The third supplement contained similar expressions from representative Americans living in the United States (6). The discussion of immigration problems as given by the Literary Digest is perhaps a more impartial presentation of the matter, concluding, as it does, with a plea for both sides to study the matter “with honest eyes.” None of the treatments of immigration, as given in the supplements, approaches either in scope or in dispassionate attitude to the standard set by the volume on Present-Day Immigration issued by the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Another principle reason motivating the appear- ance of supplements appears to have been a supposed necessity for justifying Japanese administration in Korea and Formosa. Both British and American sup- plements reiterate the inevitability for Japan’s an- nexation of Korea “for the security of the Far East,” and nearly all the editions praise the material progress [231 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN enjoyed by Korea under Japanese rule. Mr. Kenne- dy’s articles in the San Francisco Chronicle offer the fullest treatment on this score. His explanation of the justice of the annexation is peculiar. “No objection to the annexation has been raised by any power. It might be well to let the matter there rest.” The sixth London Times supplement was largely devoted to the Korean theme, while Dr. Rentaro Midzuno, of the government-general’s office, portrayed Korea’s awak- ening in the Guardian. For the Evening Post, former Foreign Minister Y. Uchida, Hamilton Holt, and K. K. Kawakami defended Japan’s rule in the peninsula, the argument of Mr. Kawakami being, “Korea should rightfully be Japanese because of a fifteen years’ sac- rifice of life and treasure” in the vain attempt “‘to put the Korean house in order.” The Literary Digest, con- forming to its usual practice of presenting both sides of a contention, quotes Rev. Arthur Judson Brown, director of the United States Presbyterian Foreign Mission Board, and B. Lenox Simpson (Putnam Weale) as favoring the absorption of Korea, with Henry Chung and the editor of the Japan Chronicle in protest. Dr. T. Iyenaga explains that Japanese de- plore former atrocities committed by them in Korea, and that the government, by a change of heart, is in- troducing liberalism. The Digest closes with the ref- erence from the Japan Year Book that “in 1919 the riots in Korea were due to idlers, rowdies, and native Christians.” [ 232]CREATING A PLEASANT IMPRESSION The same intimation that the evils suffered by Korea at the hands of Japan are things of the past and that the Japanese administration has undergone a change of heart is put forth in the special Korea number of the Transpacific, with the further informa- tion that Japanese rule is accordingly no longer re- sented by Koreans. The contributors to this number are almost entirely Japanese belonging to the official class. The Administrative Superintendent of Korea, the Governor-General and his secretary, the Director of the Japanese Colonial Bureau, the President of the Oriental Development Company, the Governor of the Bank of Chosen, and high officials of the Seoul Cham- ber of Commerce and of the Western Korea Indus- trial Railway expatiate on the improvement of Korea under Japanese control and insist that continued Jap- anese rule is essential to continued progress. Only one Korean, the editor of Dong-a Daily, is a contribu- tor to the Korea edition of this magazine. In a short essay he bewails that the blessings received by native Koreans under the Japanese rule “are nothing more than the crumbs remaining after the dinner.”’ Similar treatment of Formosan, Manchurian, and Chinese problems is given in numbers of the Trans- pacific devoted to those regions. Formosa receives far less attention than Korea in the supplements, possibly because of the less dra- matic character of Formosa’s independence agita- tion, but two London Times supplements consider [ 233 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN phases of the Formosan problem. Both issues accord- ed high praise to the Japanese police stationed there, and recounted the successful endeavors by Japan to transform a formerly turbulent possession into a clean, modern, and prosperous community. Viscount Goto, former governor-general, who is still believed to enjoy lucrative holdings in Formosa, claimed for Japan a foremost place among the world’s colonizing nations. ““No massacres, no torture, and no excessive cruelty has stained Japan’s record,” he wrote. The Tokyo Nichi Nichi took violent exception to this sen- tence as a misrepresentation of fact (7). Other slanders which, in the opinion of the sup- plement editors, call for refutation include the com- mon charges that Japan is militaristic, that her gov- ernment is oligarchial, undemocratic, and financially incompetent, that women are ill treated, and that ed- ucation is inefficiently administered. These matters are discussed in nearly all the supplements. Count Hayashi’s disclaimer that Japan is mili- taristic in its inclinations has already been noticed as being published in the seventh Times, and the first, fourth, and sixth Times supplements also deny mili- taristic influence. Dr. Iyenaga told the Evening Post that the navy of Japan is intended only for defense of her Asiatic interests, and Marquis Okuma, in the same issue, informed American readers that Japan would never permit a militarist to head the govern- ment. The San Francisco Chronicle and the Liter- [ 234]CREATING A PLEASANT IMPRESSION ary Digest also assure their readers that Japan is peacefully inclined. Professor Yoshino strikes dis- cord when, in the Guardian, he confesses that Japan has formerly been militaristic in tendency, although by 1921 militarism was waning and must soon give way. More division of opinion is afforded by discus- sions of the nature of the Japanese government. The San Francisco Chronicle admitted that Japan was far from democratic and that such parliamentary insti- tutions as existed were administered by the bureau- crats. Captain Brinkley, in the first London Times supplement, and Dr. E. W. Clement, in the sixth Times supplement, describe the government as “an imperialism evolving towards constitutionalism.” Dr. Rokuichiro Masujima, an honorary member of the New York Bar and founder of Chuo University, writes: “The Japanese sovereign is superhuman be- cause he is absolutely virtuous and above all human temptation, and he would not condescend, as history has shown, to do otherwise than good to his people.” Marquis Okuma and Dr. Kazutami Ukita of Waseda assure Americans that Japan is highly responsive to the desires of popular opinion. The Literary Digest holds that “the Japanese are ardent converts to the ideas of Western democracy” (8). The Guardian, two London Times supplements, and the Evening Post all congratulate Japan on the rapid progress achieved for woman’s rights. Jinzo [235 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Naruse, president of Japan Woman’s College, contrib- utes two of these articles, and Madame Ozaki writes a third (9). All the articles are optimistic in tone, and all point to the rapid and steady progress achieved by women in Japan. Little is said, however, concerning the extent of licensed prostitution, of divorce legisla- tion, or of other disabilities against which women in Japan protest. The Literary Digest account is non- committal and is based on secondary sources of unim- portant value. The last of the specially disputed subjects, educa- tion, was discussed five times by the London Times, three of the articles being written by Baron Dairoku Kikuchi, formerly minister of education. Walter Den- ing and Y. Takenobu, editor of the Japan Year Book, are other writers for the Times (10). The San Fran- cisco Chronicle gives a full description of the cultural and technical education available, while in the Guar- dian Dr. Sanae Takata and E. E. Speight give the only available survey of Japan’s educational needs and of the psychology of the student mind. No exten- sive treatment of the educational problem seems to have been given by supplements printed in English in Japan until, in October, 1925, the Advertiser began the publication of two-page “write-ups” of the lead- ing universities. Certain other topics of greater or less importance receive only passing comment in the supplements. From other than purely commercial interest in Japan, [ 236 ]CREATING A PLEASANT IMPRESSION little is said of Saghalien, Manchuria, or the Pacific Islands. Japan’s relations toward China are barely noticed, although several of the supplements appeared in the year when agitation over the ““Twenty-One De- mands” was most intense. The London Times had nothing to say on Sino-Japanese affairs, and the Eve- ning Post published only Dr. Iyenaga’s plea for the strengthening of China as a protection for Japan, and Hamilton Holt’s suggestion that Japan be made the spokesman for China. ‘‘Above all,” said Mr. Holt, “we should avoid taking sides with either of these countries against the other.” Japanese religion, science, agricultural problems, public utility relations, charity, sport, village life, the family system, and journalism are topics which one or another of the supplements considers briefly, but no great emphasis is placed upon them, nor are any of them frequently the subject for discussion. The Guardian is most active in analysis of Japan’s social organization, while the London Times specializes on sport, charity, and theology. Such subjects, however, are not usually productive of the kind of misconcep- tion which the Japanese desire to see eradicated. Writers for the supplements turn rather to finance, shipping, industry, and foreign trade in order to im- press upon the world the economic soundness of the Japanese Empire (11). By far the most complete early treatment of the economic situation is that con- tained in the first London Times supplement, but a [237]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN very comprehensive modern treatment of these mat- ters is included in the great 534-page Reconstruction Number of the Far-Eastern Review, issued in June, 1925, “as a monument to the Japanese engineer.” Thorough articles describe city services, markets, flood and fire prevention, transportation, architec- ture, radio, and other topics. The writers sometimes fail to discriminate sharply between plans under way and those which have been merely suggested; and the articles are open to criticism in that they seem to as- sume that undertakings postponed through lack of funds are certain of ultimate completion. Several ar- ticles “gush” too freely, notably those concerning the Emperor Meiji “revered by his subjects to a greater degree than any other ruler of modern times,” and Mitsui, ‘‘where business is humanity.” The Reconstruction Review evidently promised advertisers that reading matter would be inserted in conjunction with advertising, for the Yokohama Spe- cie Bank, Mitsui, Mitsubishi, the Daido Electric, and the Shibaura and Hitachi engineering works’ all en- joy fulsome encomiums. Present-Day Japan, compiled by the Asahi news- papers expressly “to introduce Japan and the Japa- nese in a true light” and to correct the “sensa- tional and exaggerated reports of mischievous press reporters,” discusses Japan’s phenomena somewhat ° The latter two enterprises purchased full-page advertisements for their first appearance in any supplement. [ 238 ]CREATING A PLEASANT IMPRESSION more superficially than the supplements heretofore described. It consists of 77 pages of advertisements, 6 of rotogravure, and 24 of reading matter, and was intended for distribution by the Asahi aviators on their flight to Europe. It has also been scattered free- ly by Japanese shipping companies, tourist agencies, and consulates. This supplement complements the Reconstruction Review by devoting much space to cultural affairs, such as the theater, music, literature, the arts, and sciences, neglected by the Far-Eastern Review’s issue. All the articles are highly laudatory of Japanese ability, a characteristic sentence reading: “The fact that the Japanese have had the power to assimilate in half a century the Western civilization, which has had a history of three centuries, attests to the superior quality of the Japanese.” The Advertiser and the Japan Chronicle essay far less comprehensive programs, reflecting much more narrowly the immediate journalistic needs of the mo- ment wherein they were issued. The Advertiser de- voted issues to descriptive details of the Prince Re- gent’s wedding, to an encyclopedic treatment of the industrial, economic, educational, and recreational facilities of Osaka, and to the commemoration, in 1926, of the Swedish Crown Prince’s visit to Japan. The issues are thoroughly optimistic in tone, even to the point of transforming the “dull mud banks” of the Osaka canals into waterways “‘quaintly attractive by night.”” The Japan Chronicle’s Kobe Jubilee Sup- [239]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN plement is little more than a history of foreigners in the Kobe settlement, with little stress on social, eco- nomic, or political aspects, and with no attention paid to cultural development. Next in importance to Present-Day Japan, the Guardian and the London Times supplements offer the most comprehensive epitomes of cultural Japan. The latter supplements give copious treatment to Jap- anese prints, garden-building, flower-arrangement, lacquer work, sword-making, and drama, while as a further means for increasing the pleasant impression, prose rhapsodies have appeared in the same media on Japan’s scenery and on the “quaint beauties of Jap- anese cities” (12). A brief study of the advertising revenues received by those supplements may cast some light upon the motives actuating the appearance of the journalistic aids to the understanding of Japan. It should, of course, be acknowledged at the outset that the meth- ods of financing these publications are not laid open to the public, and that any deductions drawn must necessarily be circumstantial. Prima facie evidence that the supplements enjoy a subsidy from govern- ment or from semi-official sources might be disclosed, but final proof lurks undiscovered, if indeed it exists at all, in the complex bookkeeping of the agencies in- volved. But, while this lack of confirmation is frankly recognized, it is, none the less, true that surface man- [ 240 |CREATING A PLEASANT IMPRESSION ifestations seem to indicate official encouragement for the issuance of special supplements. Certainly there can be but little doubt that the 108-page Present-Day Japan, the 534-page Reconstruction Review, and the 96-page first London Times supplement were directly inspired by hopes of profitable advertising contracts. Every journalist realizes that it is advertising alone which makes such supplements profitable, for the in- creased subscriptions resulting from the announce- ment of a supplement are trifling in comparison with the greatly increased costs of production.® And that the Japanese government has viewed with favor, if it has not actually contributed financial aid to these en- terprises, is indicated by the admission of the Guar- dian that its supplement, at least, was “published by arrangement with the government of Japan.” In view of the dependency of supplements upon their advertising, a scrutiny is necessitated of the kind of advertising which was gained. The first Lon- don Times supplement carried little advertising which was acknowledged by the paper. The Yokohama Spe- cie Bank, the South Manchuria Railway, the Nippon Yuson Kaisha, all of which may be included among semi-official enterprises, contributed virtually all the paid advertising which may fairly be attributed to the * The San Francisco Chronicle sacrified even the hope of great- ly enlarged circulation by failure to announce in advance its inten- tion of publishing a Japan supplement, and by neglecting after- ward to call attention to the fact that it had been published. [ 241 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN publication of a special Japan supplement. Nor are these included in the supplement itself, for they ap- pear in the regular pages of the Times. But there are forty-seven pages of official infor- mation in the first London Times supplement dealing with governmental machinery, finance, commerce, ag- riculture, public works, mining, railways, education, religion, official monopolies, prisons, and the colonies. These pages conclude the supplement and are not marked as advertising, but peculiarities of type face and of special border treatment indicate to the ob- servant newspaperman that half the supplement (less one page) has been prepared outside the editorial office of the Tzmes. Color is lent to this suspicion when, in later is- sues, precisely similar material is plainly marked as advertising. Three pages in the fourth Tzmes supple- ment, four pages in the sixth, five pages in the Asahi Present-Day Japan, and four pages in the Evening Post are presented in identical fashion to the first London Times supplement and are admitted to be paid material. They deal with foreign trade, factory legislation, Korea, Formosa, Manchuria, and Tokyo reconstruction, and, in the case of the Evening Post, with an “official compilation of statistics and rev- enue.” On the other hand, two pages descriptive of “Japan’s Commercial Museum” in the third Times supplement, and three pages on “Japan’s Foreign Trade” in the fifth, appear with exactly the same [ 242 ]CREATING A PLEASANT IMPRESSION marks of differentiation from the accompanying text, but without the label of advertising. The Literary Digest also offers a similar problem. At the close of its reading-matter section a long dia- logue, entitled “What Is Japanese Democracy?” is printed. It purports to record a conversation between “Franklin Clay,” an American newspaperman, and “Shigeru Matsumoto,” a Japanese business man. Matsumoto is equipped with press cuttings from arti- cles by ‘‘Adachi, a Japanese correspondent for the New York World,” to show that “‘ Japanese are ardent converts to the ideas of Western democracy.” Con- trary to the established policy of the Literary Digest in discussing disputed matters, one side only of the problem is given, and Franklin Clay is very easily convinced. From the context, from its position in the maga- zine, and from the special type face, suspicion might arise that ‘“‘What Is Japanese Democracy?” is an ad- vertisement. There is no specific acknowledgment of its status given by the magazine, and a letter of in- quiry sent to the editor of the Literary Digest has not received attention. Nor does the full page of data concerning ‘“‘Ja- pan’s Foreign Trade” which appeared in the Japan- to-America issue of the Japan Times indicate the source from which it was derived. The material is not identical with the acknowledged advertisements in the London Times and Evening Post, but it bears [ 243 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN similar distinguishing features which might cause it to be regarded as a paid insertion. The Japan Times, however, assures its readers that the entire supple- ment contains but one advertisement, and as that one is obviously the page taken by the Imperial Hotel, it must be assumed that the data on Japan’s foreign trade is intended to be received as legitimate news in spite of its peculiar typographical appearance. In spite of this disclaimer, the evidence appears reasonable that for other supplements, if not for the Japan Times, unacknowledged advertisements may have been inserted in response to private arrange- ments made between the publishers and the advertis- ing interests, and that the editors desire their readers to appreciate that such writings stand on somewhat different footing from the accompanying matter pre- sented in a normal fashion. This is a convention well understood among newspaper men, although the ne- cessity for it has not been so pronounced in recent years as it was prior to the birth of higher codes of journalism. Direct gifts to the papers of additional funds for publication of supplements have seldom been ac- knowledged openly, although the Japan Advertiser, on the occasion of its Swedish supplement, declared it to be the “gift of Swedish residents of Japan” for the purpose of making Sweden better known. A pos- sible form of indirect official assistance to special supplements might, however, conceivably consist of [244 ]CREATING A PLEASANT IMPRESSION advertising contributed by semi-official agencies or through municipalities. Such agencies are fairly com- mon in Japan, for subsidies are granted from the treasury to favored industries, and funds from the im- perial household have been invested in many enter- prises. Seven banks possessed of special imperial char- ters entitling them to preferred status, and, from a strictly commercial point of view, virtually immuniz- ing them from competition, regularly place advertise- ments in the supplements, although but rarely ap- pearing in the daily press or in other periodicals than the Far-Eastern Review. The Yokohama Specie Bank, the banks of Chosen and Taiwan, the Indus- trial Bank, Hypothec Bank, Hokkaido Colonization Bank are lavish purchasers of space. The first three, in particular, are generous to supplements. The rail- ways also advertise heavily, although from a com- mercial standpoint little real advantage might accrue to them that would not be obtained without the ad- vertising. The Imperial Government Railways take full pages in the Evening Post, Transpacific, San Franctsco Chronicle, and the Japan-American Japan Times, with two full pages in the Reconstruction Review. The South Manchuria Railway requires three pages in the Reconstruction Review, a page in the Guardian, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Trans- pactfic, and almost a page in the Literary Digest." "It was the only Japanese company to advertise in the Digest. [245 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN The Tourist Bureau, owned jointly by the railways, hotel associations, and the steamship lines secures a page in the fifth London Times supplement and in the Guardian. The Formosan and Korean railways also buy space at intervals in supplements. The tobac- co monopoly appeared fleetingly in the Transpacific for April, 1922; the Oriental Development Company secures an advertisement in the Message Times and Wedding Advertiser, and regularly advertises in the semi-official Seoul Press. Special advertising favors seemed to have been given to the Asahi Present-Day Japan, whose pur- pose, as announced, was to reform Western concep- tions of Japan. Public enterprises like the Ishidega- wa Municipal Park, the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the Seoul Clearing House, the Chosen Produce Associa- tion (‘under the special protection of the Governor- General”), each contribute an eighth of a page in ad- vertising. Twelve local electric power companies add probably unfruitful advertising to the Asahi total. Six tram lines, three makers of tabi (Japanese socks worn in no other country in the world), Formosan brick, paper, salt, beer, and fruit interests, and three semi-official Korean banks find in the Asahi publica- tions their first necessity for advertising. The San Francisco Chronicle, in addition to the regular adver- tisers which appear in other supplements, enjoys the patronage of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the Tokyo [ 246 |CREATING A PLEASANT IMPRESSION Electric Light Company, the Imperial Hotel, and others. The Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Okura, Furukawa, Su- zuki, Kuhara, Sumitono, and formerly the Takata in- terests almost invariably appear in supplement ad- vertising, although they appear but sparingly in the daily press. That some of these buy space at govern- ment pressure in return for government contracts and concessions has frequently been charged by foreign journalists residing in Japan, but no proof can be of- fered for the contention of these critics that the firms contribute to an advertising “slush fund.” The ad- mission of the Takata Company, in the San Francis- co Chronicle, that the firm held contracts for the imperial Japanese government presents but flimsy evidence to support belief that these companies are compelled to purchase space. Their advertisements are, however, distributed in a manner which might seem strange to students of sound commercial strategy. Shipping firms, even those recognized as having semi-official status, advertise in better accordance with commercial needs. The Reconstruction Review, however, boasted six pages of Japanese steamship ad- vertising, in contrast to half an inch purchased by British shipping interests, and to the half-page pur- chased by the only American shipping firm to ad- vertise. An example which might serve to indicate that [247]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN advertisements have been used for purposes of poli- tics appears in the history of the Far-Eastern Re- view, the publisher of this supplement. The Review, a monthly magazine issued in Shanghai, is owned by George Bronson Rea, a writer who at one time was thought so anti-Japanese that “no Japanese would ever have dreamed that he would ever have anything good to say of their country.” At the Versailles Peace Conference Mr. Rea was converted to pro-Japanese convictions, and so marked a change occurred in the policy of his paper that W. H. Donald, the editor, twice disclaimed responsibility for articles appearing in the magazine. He then resigned, and Mr. Rea was termed by the Japan Times “the staunchest friend Japan possesses in the world” (13). Prior to the remarkable change in policy, the Far-Eastern Review printed eighteen pages of pre- sumably semi-official Chinese advertisements, while few Japanese companies bought space. After Mr. Rea’s conversion the Chinese advertisements sloughed away, and were at once replaced by Japanese. Within the year the eighteen Chinese pages were transformed into nineteen pages of semi-official Japanese agencies, including the Bank of Japan, the Bank of Chosen, and the South Manchuria Railway. At the close of 1924, thirty-seven pages of pro-Japanese advertise- ments appeared, from the semi-official sources alone, but not a single page remained of Chinese official cor- porations. 48 |CREATING A PLEASANT IMPRESSION That the heaviest advertisements by semi-official corporations occur in papers most friendly to Japan proves only that the advertisers prefer to benefit their friends and not their enemies. Their certainty to ad- vertise in any special supplement which explains Ja- pan may be a tribute to their patriotic fervor. In any case, the outside critic is not privileged to constitute himself the final judge on corporation advertising pol- icy, although his judgment may be better on the com- mercial value of the media employed. But neither is it inexplicable that captious foreigners are honestly con- vinced that companies which fail to purchase space in ordinary daily issues are coerced into buying space in supplements. It is notorious that foreigners resid- ing in Japan are singularly credulous of tales which purport to prove that propaganda flourishes, and that they are willing to make conclusions on very super- ficial evidence. Such aid to propaganda papers, it is true, has been admitted in the past, and it is freely admitted by government officials in Japan that both business interests and the government itself are oper- ating under codes divergent from the Western ethics. The lavish distribution, gratis, of these supplements, and of such volumes as Kinnosuke Adachi’s Man- churia by Japanese consulates and by semi-official agencies intensifies suspicion that the publications are not issued for purely commercial purposes. But that the inclusion of the advertisements is due to more than patriotic zeal or mere coincidence is not [249 ]to Ww nm [ SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN established as a fact, however much the prima facie evidence may breed suspicion. NOTES List of important supplements: London Times, First, July 7, 1910; Second, June 3, 1916; Third, July 15, 1916; Fourth, September 2, 1916; Fifth, October 14, 1916; Sixth, December 16, 1916; Seventh, June 16, 1921; New York Evening Post, December 30, 1916; Japan Chronicle, Kobe Supplement, 1918; San Francisco Chronicle, October 22, 19011; Manchester Guardian, June 9, 1921; Literary D1- gest, Japan Number, January 7, 1922; Transpacific, Spe- cial Numbers, Korea, April, 1922; Shanghai, June, 1922; Formosa, August, 1922; Manchuria, October, 1922; Japan Times, “Japan to America,” October 1, 1924; “America to Japan,” December 20, 1924; “A Message from America,” June 20, 1925; ‘““Franco-Japanese Trade Mission,” May 9, 1925; Japan Advertiser, ‘““Prince Regent’s Wedding,” June 10, 1924; “Osaka Exposition,” April 12, 1925; “Swedish Supplement,”’ September 109, 1926; ‘“Sesqui-Centennial Number,” October 10, 1926; Far Eastern Review, “Recon- struction Number,” June—July, 1925, Volume XXI, No. 6; Tokyo and Osaka Asahi, “Present-Day Japan,” the Over- seas Asahi, April 25, 1925. . Japan Mail, February 12, 19to. . Mail, August 27, 1gIo. . Third London Times. . Osaka Asahi, January 4, 1917. . Japan Times, November 11, 27, 1924. . Third and Fourth London Times; Japan Chronicle, De- cember 28, 1916. . Masujima, Fifth London Times; Okuma and Ukita, New York Evening Post. [ 250]IO. isk 12. CREATING A PLEASANT IMPRESSION Naruse, Fourth London Times, and Evening Post; Mme Ozaki, First London Times. (All in London Times). Kikuchi, in First, Second, and Fourth Supplements; Dening in First Supplement; Take- nobu, in First and Sixth supplements; S. H. Wainwright, Fifth Supplement. (a) Religion: First and Fifth London Times; Literary Digest. (b) Science: F. Omori, First London Times ; Eve- ning Post; Literary Digest. (c) Agriculture: J. W. Rob- ertson Scott, Second London Times. (d) Public Utilities: Isoo Abe, Second London Times. (e) Charity: First and Third London Times. (f) Sport: First and Second Lon- don Times. (g) Villages: Manchester Guardian. (h) Fam- ily: Guardian. (7) Journalism: Takahashi, Fourth Lon- don Times; Byas, Sixth London Times; Guardian; San Francisco Chronicle. (7) Finance: Brinkley, First London Times; Sakatani, Second London Times; Soyeda, Sixth London Times; other articles, unsigned, in Third, Fourth and Fifth London Times, Guardian, Evening Post, San Francisco Chronicle. (All in London Times supplements, unless otherwise not- ed). (a) Prints: Third, Fourth, Sixth. (6) Architecture: First, Fifth. (c) Gardens: First. (d) Flower Arrange- ment: Fifth, and Literary Digest. (e) Tea: Second, and San Francisco Chronicle. (f) Art: First. (g) Lacquer: Fourth. (/) Swords: Sixth. (z) Scenery: First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth. (j) Cities: First, Second, Sixth. (2) Legends: Fourth, and Literary Digest. (1) Drama: First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Guardian, San Francisco Chronicle. . Japan Times, March 6, 1924; Far Eastern Review, ‘“‘Con- tents Table,” February, 1920; March, 1920, p. 153. [251]CHAPTER X INTERPRETING JAPAN TO FOREIGNERS The foreigner in Japan, in his ignorance of Orien- tal languages and social customs, is isolated and be- wildered to a degree incomprehensible to western travelers in any Occidental land. In any foreign na- tion the presence of aliens illiterate in the vernacular will, of course, evoke a need for publications which interpret the spirit and ideals of the engulfing hosts and which will enable the expatriates to keep abreast of progress in the motherland; but in the East the foreigner is even more dependent, for it is but rarely that a Westerner can read the Oriental writings.” But the wall erected around the Empire by the written language is but one barrier which the foreign- er must overcome. His circle of acquaintances is nec- essarily limited. Even for the Japanese the social life is not extensive, for official preferment and imperial decoration represent the only avenues to intergroup relationships. The foreign merchant’s circle of ac- quaintances is seldom larger than the small group of 1The number of foreigners who read Japanese with fluency is quite unknown, but certainly is small. In 1875 the Japan Mail be- lieved that less than five aliens could read the native journals. The number is, of course, much larger now, but 1o per cent of the for- eign residents would be a most extravagant conjecture (1). [252]INTERPRETING JAPAN business men with whom he comes in contact; the diplomatic circle is a most constricted orbit; while the foreign teacher and the missionary, enjoying some- what larger numbers of friendships among the Japa- nese, are by no means widely known.’ Under these conditions the foreign language press becomes a real necessity to link the East and West. Its importance as a social force and as a propa- ganda agency has long been known to able native edi- tors and to the government, but no agreement has ever yet been reached concerning what réle the for- eign papers ought to play. The Japanese conception of the function of the foreign press has been well summarized by Motosada Zumoto, editor of the Herald of Asia: “Once the for- eign editor has cast in his lot with the Japanese he should be content to accept the circumstances. As a conductor of a newspaper property, the foreigner, unlike the Japanese, is only here on sufferance. The foreigner coming to Japan has to choose whether he 9 2 Dr. James H. Cousins, formerly of Keio University, dis- courses upon the remarkable separation between the Oriental and the Occidental staffs of that institution. The former, many of whom are fluent in English, flock by themselves; eight foreign teachers, four of whom are versed in vernacular Japanese, constitute another clique. Rarely is there sustained conversation between the two groups. More mingling may be possible in missionary circles, but, during a full year in one of the older and more influential Tokyo establishments, six experienced residents, five of whom were fluent in spoken Japanese, gained less than a dozen new enrolments for purposes other than cheap study of the English language. [253]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN will be a friend or a foe of this country; he cannot be wholly neutral and sit on the fence. The parading of a nation’s ills in public may be a wholesome journalis- tic practice if undertaken by a citizen of the country thus ridiculed, but it is hardly becoming on the part of foreigners, nor likely to prove acceptable to the country thus treated” (2).° This conception has, on the whole, been accepted as just by the Japan Times and by the Japan Mail, but has been strenuously opposed by the Japan Chronicle and by the Japan Advertiser. The last- named, particularly during the editorship of Frank H. Hedges, championed the “golden mean”; but the Chronicle, together (in the years before the Tokyo earthquake) with the Japan Herald and Japan Ga- zette, waS a militant protagonist for complete press liberties (3). Virtually all Japanese newspapermen agree that the English-language press has consistently misrep- resented the East.* Yukichi Iwanaga, manager of the Rengo news agency, may be quoted as a typical com- mentator: “The East is very badly interpreted to the West by the existing foreign press. I do not wish to disparage my clients, but I cannot deny that the * The words, printed in the Herald of Asia, exactly duplicate an editorial published six years earlier in the Japan Mail (4). ‘The Advertiser might claim exemption from this charge, since, according to Mr. Hedges, it is primarily intended to give Western news to Japanese. [254]INTERPRETING JAPAN foreign press does not work well in Japan.” This failure is no new complaint. As long ago as 1897, Captain Brinkley wrote that the general record of the foreign press during thirty years “has been emphatic- ally repellant from the Japanese point of view.” Nev- ertheless, twenty years before his Japan Mail had complimented the ‘‘local foreign press” and had said that Japan owed it a very deep debt of gratitude. “Tt has fulfilled two important duties: First, it has painted for the West a picture, fair and truthful on the whole, of the progress, conditions and aspirations of this Empire. If not absolutely flattering, no one can say that the more winning features have not been placed in the best light, or that a kindly shade or drapery has not here and there been so disposed as to deserve the gratitude of the nation. Secondly, it has very fairly reflected to the Japanese government the opinions entertained by foreigners of its course of ac- tion” (5). Among the principal arguments advanced to prove poor mirroring by the foreign press are that the alien newspapers are given over to sensationalism and inaccuracy, that they assume the inferiority of Japa- nese, and that they deliberately print propaganda in Occidental interests. In a lengthy editorial on the “Force of Evil,” the Japan Times seeks to show how a “nagging attitude” develops (6): There are daily sheets and weeklies that cater to foreign residents only and live by dishing up local news and things in [255]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN general in such a manner as would suit only the prejudiced pal- ates of non-natives. These publications interpret all that comes within their observation only in such a way as would whet dis- trust in, and animosity against, the people of the country where they are published. They declare with indignation that they write exactly what they see and hear, with no desire whatever to harm anybody. Precisely so; but the eyes with which they see and the ears with which they hear are prejudiced and dis- eased and convey nothing correctly to them but what comes from their own people or race. These newspapers are in the habit of engaging their writ- ers in England, America, or some other country, offering them a salary which sounds quite large. Those journalists find the condition of things far different from what they had imagined at home, and the feeling of dissatisfaction and general cussed- ness weighs so heavily upon them that everything they observe presents itself in a hue and shape as ugly as the condition of mind in which they find themselves. Regardless of the justice of this particular ap- praisal, it is undeniable that the mechanics of a Far- Eastern foreign language paper do not conduce to good journalism. The newspapers are seriously un- derstaffed and lack trained reporters.® There is no ©The Advertiser and the Chronicle rarely have more than six foreigners on their active reportorial staff, and few of these are available for general reporting. Probably less than half speak Jap- anese, and fewer still can read the written language. A contributory factor to the Advertiser’s weakness is its custom of engaging com- paratively untrained men. Its staff is usually recruited from the graduating class of the University of Missouri School of Journalism, whose dean, Dr. Walter Williams, has been retained for consultation by the paper. The graduates are, of course, well-trained academi- [256 |INTERPRETING JAPAN effort to make original investigation into local hap- penings, and scarcely any search for independent news. At times of crises, or when some item of great interest appears, a few interviews are solicited, but customarily the foreign press follows the example set by the Japan Mail, which boasted that it had not printed three original interviews in twenty-five years (7). Reporters are occupied in “re-writing” news clipped from the American or British gazettes. As with the vernacular organs, “follow-ups” are rare. For its local news, the foreign papers rely upon “tips” from government officials, statements issued by official sources, or translations from the native press. At times a fairly close entente may be ar- ranged between an English-language paper and a ver- nacular journal; such as was the case, in 1924, be- tween the Advertiser and the Jiji; but usually the translations supply the bulk of news. The dependency of the English-language press upon those employees who interpret for the editors the spirit of the vernacular newspapers brings an un- due prominence upon the men who hold these key positions. Native editors are well-nigh unanimous in discrediting translators as men unable to make a live- lihood in vernacular newspaper work. Mr. Zumoto, himself for many years translator on the Mail, con- cally, but lack the background of sustained active training in street work or in “digging” news. Their unfamiliarity with Oriental con- ditions is obvious. [257]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN demned translators as men “who do not understand Japanese newspapers or Japanese politics. There is no career ahead of them, as there would be for a newspaper worker on a Japanese newspaper. They give a totally false impression of Japan.” Mr. Sheba, of the Japan Times, admits that good translators are difficult to find, and says that even the best transla- tors find difficulty in analyzing the truth of Japanese news writings. In common with a number of other commentators, he finds that “Japanese reporters are untrained, careless, and prone to sensationalism. For this reason it is not safe to translate their articles.” Anglo-Saxon editors are equally certain that their translators are trustworthy and reliable. They cite the case of Mr. Zumoto and of Dr. Takahashi, both of whom were formerly translators on the Mail, and who were later editors of the Japan Times and offi- cials of the government. A. Morgan Young, editor of the Chronicle, declared that two of his own transla- tors had been taken over by the Foreign Office, and that one other man had been sent to Europe by the Osaka Mainichi. The Advertiser staff contains the name of Dr. Shogoro Washio, a foremost political philosopher, and of Shunkichi Akimoto, the Yomiuri correspondent at the Versailles Peace Conference, who was highly praised for his efficiency, in 1925, by Prince Iyesato Tokugawa. The Times has also had a number of eminent university professors as trans- lators on its staff.INTERPRETING JAPAN The propensity of foreign-language papers to criticize Japan drew adverse comment, in 1908, from W. T. R. Preston, Canadian trade commissioner, in the National Review. After attributing their ‘“anti- Japanism” to the detention of military correspond- ents in Japan during the Russo-Japanese War, and after alleging that their inactivity so embittered the writers that they sought an outlet by penning criti- cisms of Japan,° Mr. Preston wrote: Some newspapers printed in foreign languages are con- trolled and edited by notorious anti-Japanese influences. These individuals have no stake in the Empire except residence. Their organs continually impugn Japanese character, administration, and authority. The government is ridiculed; the administration is pronounced incompetent; the public finances are alleged to be on the verge of bankruptcy; veiled hints are given that for- eigners need not look for justice in legal tribunals; the authori- ties are accused of spoliation of foreigners. Nothing whatever is left undone to weaken respect for authority at home or to de- stroy public confidence abroad. Japanese are referred to as “Japs” or “natives,” phrases which are as objectionable to them as “Cockney” is, applied to an educated Englishman (8).7 This attack was followed by an interview in which Mr. Preston expressed belief that, unwittingly, but ‘‘as sure as night follows day, they [the foreign pa- * Anti-Japanism in the foreign press far antedates this war. "The writer has examined files of the foreign journals pub- lished in Japan extending over many years. Careful watchfulness for an instance in which the abbreviation “Jap” was used revealed no use of that term. The word “native” was employed, but evident- ly in no derogatory sense. [259]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN pers] are giving occasion for a serious antiforeign sentiment among the Japanese” (9). The Herald and the Chronicle, incensed by these remarks, accused Mr. Preston of unfairness toward the foreigners residing in Japan, and intimated that he was not “strictly honest.’”’ Both papers were sued for libel and found guilty. The papers were both fined and were compelled to insert apologies as advertise- ments in ten vernacular newspapers. This was said to have been the first instance in Japanese press his- tory that a newspaper was ordered to pay damages on a libel conviction (10).° More certainty exists regarding the origin of the foreign language press than of the vernacular news- papers. Despite the fact that the English-language papers antedate the Japanese newspapers, much more attention seems to have been devoted to main- taining complete files. From its inception the foreign press endeavored to expound and to interpret the Orient to the tran- sient Occidental resident, for the initial number of the Nagasaki Shipping News and Advertiser, issued June 22, 1861, was planned “‘to satisfy a craving for more knowledge about Japan and its interesting people.” The Nagasaki foreign community was, however, too small to support the venture, and so the paper was * The Chronicle’s fine was paid by the proceeds of a voluntary contribution made by foreign merchants in Kobe. Mr. Preston was soon after promoted, and left Japan. | 260 |INTERPRETING JAPAN transferred to Yokohama, where it took the name of Japan Herald, the first number of the revised journal being issued November 23, 1861.° Inspection of the first Yokohama issue reveals that cable news, clipped from the Singapore papers, gave London telegrams of September 18,?° and that for local news the Herald reported a fire that had de- stroyed a quarter of the houses in the Japanese sec- tion of Yokohama. The paper seems to have been financially successful, but its founder, an auctioneer named Schoyer, preferred to devote his attention to his regular business, and sold to the firm of Hansard and Keele. When Hansard was obliged, on account of his health, to return to England, both he and Keele sold their interests to John Reddie Black, but the Hansard name was retained for its advertising value (11). Black converted the paper into a four-page daily October 1, 1866, with the motto, “Onward, Press On- ward.” Little news was published, and on many days the Herald consisted of nothing but advertising, al- though the paper bore an editorial note priding itself on being “interesting to the general reader by leaders, discussions, local intelligence, and by frequent no- * Seven years later a Nagasaki Times and Shipping List was published, which, after a year, was removed to Kobe in 1869 and merged with the Hiogo News. Both papers were later sold to the Kobe Chronicle. *’ An American cablegram reported that General Garibaldi had refused an offer to become commander-in-chief of the federal armies. [ 261 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN tices of the people, their government, laws, literature, manufactures, and of the natural productions” (12). Black’s leaders possessed an editorial power for both foreigners and Japanese. In his Memoirs, he tells how a group of politicians sought his aid to free a returned diplomatic mission which had been impris- oned for failure to accomplish its task. Black wrote an editorial urging that the envoys be released, and, although only half a dozen Japanese were subscribers to the Herald, Black believed that his leader had been instrumental in restoring freedom to the prison- ers) (13): Rivals suspected that Black’s influence was de- rived through the close relationship between the Her- ald and the British legation, whose paid advertise- ments comprised a large part of the news. Through these and other advertisements the Herald returned the remarkable profit of $12,000 yearly; but Black’s other business commitments were less successful, and in July, 1867, the Herald was put up for bankruptcy auction. The sale did not actually occur, however, since A. T. Watkins, a son-in-law of Hansard, discov- ered flaws in the transfer papers given by his father- in-law, and claimed title to the Herald. The claim was upheld by the British Consular Court, and the Herald changed its ownership, retaining Black as an employee (14). Watkins’ régime was not successful. Within three months an insurrection in the staff, caused, according [ 262 |INTERPRETING JAPAN to rumor, by Watkins’ short temper and irascibility, led to the withdrawal of virtually all the employees. A rival paper, the Japan Gazette, was founded with Black as editor and E. J. Moss as manager. Watkins sold the Herald to J. H. Brooke, an Australian poli- ticlan,** and moved to Kobe, where, in January, 1868, he set up the Hiogo and Osaka Herald. Brooke was a man of fiery energy and of dread- naught enterprise, and in his thirty-five years’ con- trol over the Herald caused that paper to be known as the most constant critic of the Japanese. Because he was convinced that several generations must elapse before the lives and property of foreigners could safe- ly be intrusted to Japanese law, he argued vehement- ly against the abolition of extrality privileges (16). In order to counteract his diatribes the government was constrained to give financial aid to several other foreign-language dailies. Captain Brinkley, ot the Mail, was an especial advocate assisted by the admin- istration for the purpose of combating Brooke’s ideas. Brooke died in 1902, and two years later the “ Unlike his predecessors in Japanese journalism, Brooke had enjoyed a previous journalistic experience. At eighteen he had edit- ed a Lincolnshire weekly, but he had left newspaper work to study science and had become lecturer at the London Polytechnic. He is said to have been one of the early experimenters in the collodion process of wet-plate photography. Later he had emigrated to Aus- tralia, where he was elected to the Victoria Legislative Council, and at thirty-five had been Minister of Land. He came to Yokohama in 1862 (15). [ 263 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Herald was auctioned (over the bid of the aged E. J. Moss) to_a syndicate of German residents. With Thomas Satchell, now of the Chronicle, as editor, the Germans utilized the Herald as the English-language adjunct to their own Deutsche-Japan Post, estab- lished in May, 1902. The anti-Japanese attitude of the Herald was continued, violent criticisms being published of Japanese administration of Korea and of supposed exploitation by the Japanese of Yoko- hama foreigners. Mr. Satchell left the Herald for the Mail in 1910, and was succeeded by Charles A. Par- ry, the holder of a bitter antimissionary complex. An editorial written by Mr. Parry intimating that mis- sionaries habitually misrepresented facts stirred up such an outcry in Japan that the suppression of the Herald was narrowly averted, Mr. Parry resigning from the staff (17). At the outbreak of the Great War, both the Her- ald and the Deutsche-Japan Post were finally sup- pressed as against public peace. An exultant editorial in the Japan Mail greeted the decision with charac- teristic lack of restraint. ‘“The Japan Herald has been a disgrace to foreign journalism. Its methods have been the methods of the thug. The Japan Herald has been as effective and annoying as the viperish shrill- ings of some sideway slut.” The abuse, due, accord- ing to the Mail, to the Herald’s alliance with the “forces of evil” arrayed against Japan, seems scarcely just, although the constant criticisms of the Herald [ 264 |INTERPRETING JAPAN had roused opposition even in the minds of foreigners residing in Japan (18).*” Closely allied to the Japan Herald in ihe critical attitude toward the Japanese was the daily Japan Ga- zette, established by J. R. Black October 12, 1867, after the secession from the Herald. Like the Herald, the Gazette was published at Yokohama, and it was the first foreign evening daily in Japan.’* Successive changes in ownership deprived the Gazette of the ad- vantages of unified policy long enjoyed by the Her- ald, Mail and Chronicle. Black sold his paper to a syndicate of Yokohama business men, whose person- nel was altering continually. L. D. K. Adam, now of Rengo, who was editor from 1906 until the Gazette’s extinction in the 1923 earthquake and fire, was never able to overcome the disadvantages of his shifting owners. Like the Herald, however, the Gazette’s record “ The Chronicle, a purely British organ, edited by a man whose son, a volunteer, was killed in action, protested at the strictures of the Mail, and also against the decision to suppress the Herald. It asked the Japanese to permit the Herald’s editor, H. G. Ball, a British subject, to establish a new paper, the Japan Daily News, but permission was refused. Ball, and Martin Oswald, of the Post, were given one week to leave the country (109). “Black says that the Gazette forced the Herald to change from a weekly to a daily paper, but copies of the daily Herald exist bearing dates of at least a year before. Hanazono agrees with Black, but Hanazono’s entire chapter on the foreign press is copied ver- batim from Young Japan, sometimes without crediting the source (22). [ 265 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN was one of consistent criticism of Japan. As early as 1887 it condemned the government for press censor- ship. It upheld extrality, defended foreign holders of perpetual Yokohama leases against expropriation, and accused the Japanese of misrule in Korea. To- ward the end of its existence the Gazette suffered from the competition of the Advertiser and the Japan Times, and, after reducing its size in 1918, suffered a death blow in the earthquake. For fifty-four years, ending in 1923, it published a valuable “Japan Direc- tory” of foreign merchants engaged in the import trade (20). An important, though short-lived, journal was the weekly Tokyo Times, established in 1877 by Ed- ward Howard House, formerly a New York Herald correspondent. According to Captain Brinkley, House was “unquestionably the most brilliant writer ever connected with journalism in the Far East.’™ Through the influence of Marquis Okuma, then a cabinet minister, House received a government grant for the support of his paper, and was guaranteed a 4 House taught English, at a school later absorbed into the Imperial University, from 1868 to 1873. He was war correspondent in Formosa in 1876. He was also a dramatist, having collaborated with Dion Boucicault in Colleen Bawn, and was for five years lessee of St. James Theater in London. As a musician he trained the Im- perial Band and was a founder of the Meiji Musical Society, later the Imperial Conservatory of Music; as a novelist, he wrote Yone Santo, a Child of Japan, on the theme of mixed marriage. Stricken with paralysis in 1883, he was granted a pension until his death in IQOI (23). [ 266 |INTERPRETING JAPAN subsidy for at least a year, provided he attacked Sir Harry Parkes, the British minister. House’s paper launched such persistent attacks against this diplo- mat that, as the Mail wrote, “the name Tokyo Times stinks in the nostrils of British residents” (21). Other purposes are also evident. The Tokyo Times was the only foreign paper to uphold the Im- perialists in the Satsuma Civil War, and was alone in stressing the need for immediate abolition of extral- ity. It demanded the return to Japan of the indemni- ties exacted by the Powers for expenses incurred in bombarding Shimonoseki in 1863, and, through House’s efforts, the Japanese believed, the American portion was remitted. But the maturing of plans whereby Captain Brinkley might acquire the Japan Mai caused the Tokyo Times to be discontinued at the close of its year. As one of the first foreign publicists to be re- tained upon an English-language journal for the bet- ter propagation of Japanese interests, House’s poli- cles were the model for other editors. In an early is- sue he promised that “the Times will not prostitute its columns to the uses of malice, spite, or greed,” but almost at once he began to berate his contemporary rivals as venal and perverse. In June, 1877, the Mail referred to the Tokyo Times as a “pharasaical print whose weekly task it is to poison, so far as its feeble powers permit, the minds of the people against for- eign intercourse.” At the time of House’s death, the [ 267 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Mail, then in the Times’ position as government pro- tagonist, paid House tribute as “the first to make the public reflect about Japan and its rights. He was Ja- pan’s pioneer friend” (24).”° Except for the Japan Chronicle, foreign papers in the Kwansai territory (Kobe-Osaka-Kyoto) have not been as successful as in the Tokyo-Yokohama (Kwanto) region. The numbers of foreign residents seem approximately equal, and normally the Kwan- sai papers might expect an advantage, so far as Eu- ropean news is concerned, of an earlier reception of the foreign mails. Since mail boats ordinarily delay at Kobe from twelve hours to a day or more, this prior reception would permit a Kwansai editor to clip from European letters and exchanges important news relating to Japan and to sell his paper in the capital at least a day before his Tokyo-Yokohama rival. For American news, the Kwanto paper would be similarly benefited, but until recent years the more important news, so far as the foreign press in Japan was con- cerned, originated in Europe and Great Britain rath- er than in the United States. But the handicap of dis- tance from the capital proves, in practice, too great for Kwansai papers to overcome. Soon after the rebellion that had disrupted the ‘6 Although House received, in 1883, the Second Class Order of the Sacred Treasure in recognition of his services, neither the name of House nor of his paper is mentioned by either Hanazono or Kawabe in their press histories. He was, however, honored by the government in the Meiji Shrine festival of 1925. [ 268 |INTERPRETING JAPAN Japan Herald, A. T. Watkins started the Hiogo and Osaka Herald, of Kobe, the first English weekly in the Kwansai. This was inaugurated January 4, 1868, a week before the formal opening of Kobe to foreign commerce. The new venture was comparatively prof- itable, but again the autocratic temperament of Wat- kins incited a secession. Filomena Braga, a Portu- guese compositor, left the Herald to establish, April 23, 1868, a rival weekly, the Hiogo News. The new paper was of the same size as the Herald, but was considerably cheaper, being printed on a small copy- ing press, and the older paper withered (25).*° Within a year the News passed into two other ownerships. Braga sold the paper to James E. Wain- wright, an American auctioneer, who brought to the paper the American consular advertising, and Wain- wright passed it on to Frank Walsh, the first English master-printer to open his own plant in Japan.’7 The paper, enlarged in size and at a higher price, was con- verted into a daily. In 1885 John Creagh, a solicitor, became the editor, and three years later bought the paper. Within a few weeks Creagh resold to a syndi- cate of Kobe business men, by whom the paper was *In April, 1869, it was sold to Frederic M. Crutchley, a solici- tor, but soon died. ‘Walsh had been employed at his uncle’s printshop in Shang- hai, but had come to Japan in 1868 to found the Nagasaki Times and Shipping List. This was moved to Kobe and was merged with the Hiogo News. In 1888 Walsh returned to England, where he died in 1914. [ 269 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN transferred in 1898 to Robert Young, of the Kobe Chronicle. Young detailed B. A. Hale, later of the Hong Kong Daily Press, as editor, and the News be- came an evening paper. A few months later a fire de- stroyed the entire plant of the News, burning nearly all the files, and the paper was amalgamated with the R Chronicle.’ Among the smaller Kwansai foreign journals the most prominent is the Kobe Herald, founded in 1886 by Alfred W. Curtis and edited by him, with but one intermission, until 1926.1° For a two-year period, 1917-19, the editorship was held by J. S. Willes, for- merly literary editor of the Japan Times. During his régime the Kobe Herald reprinted an article, original- ly written by Bertram Lennox Simpson (Putnam Weale) for the Shanghai Gazette, suggesting that the rice riots in Japan were partially occasioned by the Japanese Emperor’s inexperience in governing. For this suggestion, which Mr. Willes called “a his- torical truism which could offend no one with a suffi- cient knowledge of the English language,” the Kode 47The name is still retained as a subtitle of the daily Japan Chronicle. ” Mr. Curtis came to Japan in 1873, at the age of fifteen. He became chief of the correspondence bureau of Mitsubishi, trans- ferring to the Nippon Yusen Kaisha in the same capacity when the latter company was organized in 1885. On the recommendation of Captain Brinkley, also an attaché of the N.Y.K., he was transferred to Kobe to establish the Kobe Herald as a counterfoil to the anti- Japanese Hiogo News. [270]INTERPRETING JAPAN Herald was convicted for casting aspersions upon the imperial house and for incitement to riot. Willes was sentenced to ten months’ imprisonment and to a fine of ¥200. On appeal the sentence was reduced to three months, but Willes had left the country. A sim- ilar prosecution, alleging libel, was brought by the Japanese Consul-General in Shanghai against Colin Henry Lee, editor of the Shanghai Gazette, but was dismissed as harmless to good international relations by the British Consular Court (26). The Kobe Herald is, in general, a loyal supporter of the Japanese government, but on two other occa- sions has run foul of the press laws, once for publish- ing news concerning fleet movements in the Russo- Japanese War, and again for comparing the bureau- cracy of Japan with that of Tsarist Russia (27). The paper is of restricted influence, and its most notable achievement was the publication of an illus- trated Russo-Japanese War supplement which holds a high place among the English-language reference works of that period. In June 1926 the Kobe Herald was merged with the Far-Eastern Advertising Agen- cy under the title of the Kobe and Osaka Press. Douglas M. Young became the managing editor, but Mr. Curtis remained as editor. The appraisal value of the Kobe Herald was set at ¥25,000 (28). Three minor papers, none of which was in the Kwansai, included the Tokyo Independent, issued during 1885 only by Dr. F. W. Eastlake; the Rising [271]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Sun and Nagasaki Express, founded, in February, 1876, by W. L. Lewis, and still existing as the Naga- saki Press; and the Japan Press, published for three days during April, 1915, by Shunkichi Akimoto “to let the world know truthfully what is going on so as to avert the calamity of being misunderstood and suspected.” Mr. Akimoto was struck down by an as- sailant and the paper went into bankruptcy (29). Two English-language papers have been started to defend Japan against supposed journalistic at- tacks. The older of these, the Seoul Press, now the only existing English-language paper in Korea, was founded in December, 1906, to offset the strictures of the Korea Daily News, an English edition of the Daz Han Mai-il Shinpo. Acting under orders from Prince Ito, then the Japanese resident general in Korea, Mo- tosada Zumoto, Prince Ito’s secretary, launched a series of daily attacks upon the Korean paper on the ground that the Dai Han was seditious in demanding complete independence for Korea from Japan. Mr. Zumoto’s efforts were successful; the Dai Han and the Korea Daily News were both suppressed, and their editors were sentenced to imprisonment. Mr. Zumoto left the Seoul Press in 1909, and was succeeded for a time by Dr. Masujiro Honda; but the latter soon withdrew to join Mr. Zumoto’s Oriental Information Bureau in New York.” Isoo Yamagata, *” Dr. Honda, formerly principal of St. Margaret’s school, To- kyo, was a Japanese government representative in the United States [272]INTERPRETING JAPAN formerly conductor of the Yorodzu’s English column, took over the editorial duties until, in 1922, he re- turned to the Yorodzu and to the editorship of an English-language Christian monthly in Japan. Shi- gero Miyoshi, former chief of the foreign section of the Formosan government, replaced Mr. Yamagata as the Seoul Press editor. Toward Koreans, the Seoul Press is professedly friendly, but it believes them to be “mostly ignorant and prejudiced” and says that they are “slowly rising from a decadent and slavish temperament.” Accord- ing to the Press, Koreans “frequently overvalue themselves and put forth claims such as they scarce- ly deserve. It is not surprising that those knowing their real value cannot help but be disgusted and of- fended at their conceit.’ Only one-half the Korean “students” in Tokyo, the Press believes, are real stu- dents “in the true sense of the word,” the rest being malcontents or idlers sponging on the govern- ment (30). The chief purpose of the paper is frankly to pop- ularize the Japanese administration of Korea, espe- cially among the foreigners residing in the peninsula. Mr. Miyoshi, its editor, admits quite frankly that at the present price of five sen a copy, and with a circu- during the Russo-Japanese War. Later he was research attaché in ancient culture and civilization for the imperial household. Until his death in 1925 he was a frequent contributor to the Japan Adver- tiser, writing under the pen name of “A Japanese Pacifist” (31). [273 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN lation which he estimates as ‘Oh, much less than 1,000,” the Seoul Press cannot endure without finan- cial assistance from the government or from semi- official corporations. “It is very difficult,” he says, “to maintain a foreign-language paper in Japan, and still more so in Korea. Only foreigners buy it. Neith- er Koreans nor Japanese students subscribe.” A flash of independence characterized the Seoul Press for a few months during the editorship of Isoo Yamagata. The paper pleaded for a more brotherly feeling by Japanese toward Koreans, and urged re- laxation of the oppressive laws restricting freedom of speech. It warned against the abuse of the police spy system, and cited the Russian débacle as a possible parallel unless reforms were introduced. Nearly all these views were expressed immediately before a speech in which Mr. Yamagata told a missionary con- ference that he had been ashamed of himself for hav- ing defended the militarist régime of Governors-Gen- eral Count Terauchi and Viscount Hasegawa. Mr. Yamagata announced at that time that he intended to resign his post if the military tactics were contin- ued: (32): Nevertheless within two months the Press was defending the burning of mission schools and the murder of unoffending Christian Koreans. These “unpleasant scenes,” the Press said, “were unavoid- able,” and ‘our troops were perfectly right.” “It [274]INTERPRETING JAPAN was war on a small scale and war is Hell, as General Sherman once remarked” (33). On three occasions the Seoul Press has declared that testimony hostile to Japan’s rule in Korea has been deliberately fabricated by American mission- aries. An alleged conspiracy to murder the Governor- General, it declared in 1912, had been hatched in mis- sion buildings with missionary aid. Again, in 1919, immediately preceding Mr. Yamagata’s speech, the Seoul Press accused Rev. Henry G. Welborn of lying when he told the San Francisco Examiner that mis- sionaries were attacked and beaten by Japanese sol- diers. In 1920 the same accusation was laid against two members of the Canadian Presbyterian Mission who narrated stories of alleged Japanese atroci- ties (34). With the improved governmental systems intro- duced by Governor-General Viscount Minoru Saito, the Seoul Press, according to foreign residents, has modified its attitude. Lest it be accused of anti-Chris- tianity, it now prints a daily Bible text at the editorial masthead (35). The other foreign-language paper established by the Japanese to give a proper interpretation to the opinions of Japan is the English edition of the Osaka Mainichi, established “in honor of the visit to Japan of the Prince of Wales,” in April, 1922. The issue was originally designed to reproduce, in English, the contents of the Japanese edition, the Dai-Mai, but re- [275]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN striction of its size to four pages until late in 1925 prevented that ambition from being satisfied (36). Not only is the English Mainichi not a replica of the Dai Mai, but, on several occasions the general tone expressed by the two papers has been discord- ant. The Japanese edition seems to have shown a greater measure of hostility to foreigners than has the younger paper. This was noticeable when the Dai Mai was accusing a Norwegian of attempted rape, and also when the Japanese edition published libelous attacks upon the crews of ships engaged in earth- quake relief work.” The English Mainichi also soft- ened the strictures against foreigners published by the Dai Mai at a time when the city of Kobe was dis- cussing the municipalization of a recreation ground maintained, under treaty rights, by the Kobe Rowing and Athletic Club. Similarly, the English Mainichi omitted mention of the “religious club” in Kobe where foreigners, according to the Kobe supplement of the Dai Mai, danced naked in order to enter Heav- en (37). The first appearance of the English edition was “It is possible that the unexpected success of the Japan Times under Mr. Sheba may have hindered the Mainichi in its plan of be- ing the chief English-language spokesman for the Japanese. A sister English-language paper, issued by the Tokyo Nichi Nichi, failed after a two years’ life. ” These attacks accused the crews of refusing to rescue Jap- anese men, and outraging more than fifty Japanese women, who were afterwards flung into the sea to drown (38). [ 276 |INTERPRETING JAPAN accompanied by an editorial announcement that “hitherto English-language papers, being edited by foreigners, fall far short of representing the real so- cial and political conditions, sentiment, and charac- ter of the Japanese people, so far as English-language papers have been owned by other nations or sub- sidized by the Japanese government.” In view of this criticism it is interesting to note that a careful survey of the contents of the Mainichi carried on throughout the month of November, 1925, revealed only ten items not equally well reported by either the Chron- icle or the Advertiser. No record was kept of the number of items in which the Mainichi was deficient. These ten items in which the Mainichi was supe- rior reported an exhibition of Tokyo primary-school craftwork under the auspices of the Mitsukoshi De- partment Store; an exhibition of home products by the Japan Women’s University; a plan by the Kobe Social Service Bureau to lend umbrellas free of charge; a plan to open a public pawnshop, market, and lodging-house in Osaka; a lecture, under Main- ichi auspices, by Dr. Ku Hung-min on “True Politi- cal Economy”; an indorsement of kana as a means for writing Japanese; praise of the Braille edition of the Mainichi; the Meiji University English-Speaking Society debate, under Mainichi auspices; the forma- tion of an association to study conditions in Man- churia; and a report that Dr. Kusano, of Keio, had succeeded in isolating the germ of measles (39). [277]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN The month selected may, of course, have been ex- ceptional, although no reason is apparent for so thinking; but in any case the Mainichi seems to have fallen somewhat short of its announced intention. Certainly the history of the paper fails to justify the high promise held out for it in the first number issued, when Count Takahashi, the premier, declared that it “will go far toward the removal of all prevalent mis- understandings and suspicions concerning our coun- try.” This was indorsed in the same issue by Count Uchida, the foreign minister. Baron Den, the gover- nor-general of Formosa, wrote: “It is proper that Japan should have two or three first-class English pa- pers published here which will secure readers every- where in the world so as to interpret Japanese views by Japanese.” NOTES 1. Mail, April 17, 1875. 2. Herald of Asia, March, 1920. 3. Advertiser, February 6, 1924; December 5, 1924; Inter- views with Messrs. Zumoto, Iwanaga, Sheba, Bowles, Hedges, Sugimura; Preston, National Review, July, 1908. 4. Mail, January 24, 31, 1914. 5. Mail, May 20, 1876, April 3, 1897. 6. (a) Sensational: Messrs. Sheba and Zumoto. (0) Inac- curate: Dr. Nitobe. (c) Propaganda: Mr. Zumoto. (d) Assumed superiority: Mr. Takahashi. For general criti- cism on all these heads, see MacLaren, p. 238; Mazl, No- vember 18, 1911; Japan Times, March 3, 1925. 7. Mail, April 3, 1897. [278 ]18. 10. 20. 21. INTERPRETING JAPAN . National Review, July, 1908. . Mail, October 3, 1908. . Mail, May 29, 1909; June 2, 4, 1909. . Japan Herald, July 18, 1867; George W. Rogers, in Mail, December 5, 1903. . Japan Herald, January 1, 1867. . Japan Herald, June 24, 1865; Young Japan, I, 340. . Japan Herald, July 9, 12, 18, 1867, August 3, 1867, Janu- ary 9, 1902. . Mail, January 11, 1902; Chronicle, January 15, 1902. . Mail, January 11, 1902, February 11, 1905. . (a) Korea: Mail, December 23, 1905. (b) Merchants: Mail, October 3, 1908, February 20, 1909. (c) Mission- aries: Japan Herald, July 22, toto. Mail, September 19, 1914; Chronicle, September 17, 1914. Mail, September 19, 1914; Chronicle, September 24, 1914. (a) Japan Gazette, January 31, 1887. (b) Foreign Press: Mail, November 13, 1897, February 5, 12, 1808. (c) Leases: Mail, April 23, 1910. (d) Residents: Mail, Oc- tober 3, 1908, April 29, 1911. Mail, December 2, 1876, December 21, 1901, January 4, II, 1902; Mason, New East, II, 243. . Young Japan, Il, 87 f.; Hanazono, p. 20. . Mail, December 21, 28, 1901; Mason, op. cit. . Mail, January 27, 1877, June 30, 1877, December 21, 1901. . Young Japan, II, 108; Chronicle, “Kobe Supplement”; Chronicle, January 28, 1909, November 10, 1914. . Mail, May 14, 1904; Chronicle, April 19, 1917, April 10, 1919; Kobe Herald, September 30, 1918, January 8, 20, IQIQ. . Kobe Herald, September 27, 1904; Chronicle, April 26, IQI7. . Mail, April 16, 1904; Advertiser, February 8, 1926. [279]2 Ww Ww Ww U1 Ww on Ww W Oo SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN . Mail, February 19, 1876, February 18, 25, 1905; Adver- tiser, June II, IQIS. _ All in Seoul Press. (a) Ignorant: October 10, 1919. (0) Disloyal: October 5, 7, 1919. (c) Conceited: October 5, 1919. (d) Students: March 19, 1925. 31. Advertiser, November 26, 1925. All in Seoul Press, during 1919. (a) Brotherly: Septem- ber 26. (b) Freedom: September 4, 28, October 1, 4. (c) Spies: September 9, 10, October 8. (d) Yamagata speech: September 27. . Seoul Press, December 7, 11, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 25, 28, 1920. Speech by Kiyoshi in Peers, January 22, 1921. _ San Francisco Examiner, August 15, 1919; Seoul Press, September 8, 9, 1912; September 10, 1919; December 7, IO, 1920. . Interviews with S. Miyoshi, W. W. Taylor, of Seoul, Dr. R. M. Wilson, of Kwanju; Dr. Swallen, of Pyengyang; letter, Rev. J. G. Holdcroft to Gilbert Bowles, dated May 18, 1925. _ Interview with Naoshi Kato, editor of Osaka Mainicht, English ed., and Katsuji Inahara, editor of Tokyo Nicht Nichi, English ed. Osaka Mainichi, November 21, 1924. . Chronicle, November 6, 27, 1924, January 7, 1926. . See Notes, chapter iv, Nos. 21, 22. _ See Osaka Mainichi on the following dates in November, TO2A ol ot 2) oO, 20, 20,CHAPTER XI THE FRIENDLY FOREIGN PRESS Perhaps the best-known foreign paper was the Japan Mail, edited for many years by Captain Frank Brinkley.’ It was the offspring of the original Japan Times, a weekly established in September, 1865, by * Captain Brinkley was born in Ireland in 1841, and was edu- cated at Dublin University and at Woolwich Military Academy. He came to the East as aide-de-camp to his cousin, Sir Richard Mac- Donald, then governor of Hong Kong. He first arrived in Japan with a detachment of British legation guards in 1867, but, except for a brief visit to Peking as a member of Prince Ito’s staff when negotiations were pending over Korea, never thereafter left the country. After mastering the language, Captain Brinkley taught at the Marine Artillery College in 1871, and five years later was made professor of mathematics at Kobo Daigaku (Imperial Engineering College, later a part of Tokyo Imperial University). He wrote a twelve-volume “Oriental Series” on history, literature, religion, cus- tums, art, and ceramics, being the recognized authority on the last- named subject. He contributed the article, “Japan,” to the ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, wrote a historical romance, a Guide to English, Self-Taught, for Japanese, and published a Jap- anese-English dictionary. He was married in 1878 to Yasuko Tana- ka, daughter of a Mito samurai. As a special mark of imperial fa- vor, he was granted the Third Class Order of the Sacred Treasure and the Second Class Order of the Rising Sun with Double Rays, thus ranking among the three hundred highest personages in Japan. In view of this recognition it is somewhat pathetic that in Hana- zono’s history of Japanese journalism, Captain Brinkley is men- tioned only as “a friend of Japan who died in Japan,” and that [ 281 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Charles Rickerby, of the First Yokohama Bank.’ With the aid of Ernest Satow, of the British legation, Rickerby used the Times to advocate the overthrow- ing of the shogunate and the establishment of a strong central government with whom the foreigners might hold more friendly intercourse (1). The Times was also a strong supporter of an improved harbor for the city. When the Meiji Restoration supplied a responsi- ble national authority, the close connection between the British legation and the Times dissolved, and two years later Rickerby sold the Times to W. G. Howell, a Shanghai merchant, and to Inspector-General-of- Customs Lay. By them the name was changed to the Japan Mail Daily Advertiser, and the paper was is- sued daily. The Times, however, languished, and Howell sold to G. C. Pearson, from whom the paper was transferred in January, 1881, to Captain Brinkley. By his thorough knowledge of the vernacular speech and writing, by long connections with the cul- tured groups of Japanese, and by his marriage to a Japanese, Brinkley came into contact with perhaps a he was omitted entirely from the list of “foreigners who have served Japan” in the Meiji Shrine ceremonials of 1925. He died in 1912 (2). 2In 1878 Rickerby founded a second Japan Times, over the protests of the Mail, which claimed the right to use the title. The second Times was short-lived, being sold to the Mail within a year (3). [ 282 |THE FRIENDLY FOREIGN PRESS higher type of Japanese than those known to other editors. He thus came to absorb more friendly senti- ments toward the Japanese than those in vogue among his rivals. This attitude, according to his close friend and associate, Walter Dening, induced the government, through Prince Ito, to assist the Mail by guaranteeing it a minimum circulation,’ while in ad- dition to the editorship, Captain Brinkley, as adviser to the Nippon Yusen Kaisha and the Foreign Office, received ¥10,000 a year from each of these two agen- cies as a subvention for the Mail. He denied, how- ever, that his “birthright of free speech” had ever been limited by any arrangement with the govern- ment, and he pitied those editors who were ‘‘delib- erately shackled in a self-appointed slavery” (4). Following out a plan announced early in his ed- itorship that he had “no intention of taking the taste of a majority of our readers as the sole criterion of what shall or shall not be printed,” he used the Mail primarily as a high-class propaganda organ. He staunchly advocated abolition of the old unequal treaties, was the chief foreign protagonist in both the Chinese and the Russian wars, promoted the plan for an Anglo-Japanese alliance, and fervently upheld * J. Russell Kennedy says, “Brinkley was given the Mail, lock, stock and barrel, by the government.” *His appointment in 1892 as correspondent in Japan for the London Times aided materially in his efforts to win the friendship of the English-speaking world for the Japanese contentions. [ 283 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN the Japanese contention whenever it was in any way assailed. He consistently denied the right of foreign- ers to engage in controversy on matters of Japanese domestic policy; nor was he convinced that the for- eign press was necessarily a blessing to Japan. In fact, he instigated rumors, later credited by him to Jiji, that the abolition of extrality would give the Jap- anese an opening for debarring foreigners from jour- nalism in Japan. Though professing not to believe that these rumors were portents of intended action, Brinkley pointed out that “Japanese experience with the foreign newspapers has not been at all calculated to inspire a desire for their continued existence.’ His only comfort was, as always, for the foreigner to “trust the Japanese government to deal liberally” (5). Distrusting foreign residents sometimes suspect- ed Brinkley of deliberately misrepresenting foreign sentiments in order to enhance his own value as a me- dium for favorable publicity for the Japanese. When Yokohama foreigners believed themselves exempt from paying taxes on certain properties for which they held perpetual treaty rights—a belief later up- held by a Hague Tribunal—the Mail referred to them as defying legal taxes. The American minister at Tokyo, Colonel Buck, reported that the Maz not only quoted the United States as approving of the tax, but that it continued to repeat the statement [ 284 ]THE FRIENDLY FOREIGN PRESS after he had personally denied that approbation had been given. On the eve of the arrival in Japan of the American ‘“Round-the-World Fleet,” the Mail re- printed a jingoist article by Captain Richmond Pear- son Hobson predicting an imminent naval conflict be- tween Japan and the United States. A week later the Mai disavowed approving of the article, but wrote that it had been copied to provide ‘‘an excellent en- tertainment.” The Preston articles in the National Review, and Melville E. Stone’s attacks on foreign residents in Oriental lands were reprinted with ap- proving comment (6). The sharpest darts of Captain Brinkley were, however, reserved for rival foreign-language papers which did not share his pro-Japanese opinions. Two of them were publicly declared, when patriotic emo- tions were running highest during the Russo-Japa- nese War, to be insidious enemies sympathizing with the Russians. The Japan Gazette, the Herald, and the Hiogo News were dealt the lie direct. His Yoko- hama contemporaries were branded as “diseased journals.” A prolonged verbal battle, reminiscent in tone of the American frontier journalism, but far more delicately executed, was waged for years with Robert Young of the Japan Chronicle. These two journals refused to exchange copies for review, but *Identical phrasing was used by the Japan Times, twenty- eight years later, to describe newspapers unfriendly to Japan (8). [ 285 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN none the less commented freely on each other’s fail- ings (7).° Brinkley enjoyed controversial writing. He had a knack of filling in the body of his editorial with subject matter somewhat foreign to the point under discussion, but permitting him to shift the argument to some position more easily defended by himself. Insertion of saving clauses at the beginning and the ending of his editorials afforded him a shelter against the charge of evading the points at issue. Then, if challenged by his adversaries, he could ridicule his critics as “perverted mischiefmakers,” “crafty liars,” “harlequin tricksters,” or as “distorters of the truth engaged in the black art of deceit” (9). ® As descriptive of the methods followed, the following repar- tée, appearing in January, 1898, on some unimportant topic now wholly forgotten, is illustrative: “The Mail is economical of truth.” “The Chronicle is more courteous than careful.” “The Mail is ex- tremely loose and careless in its use of fact.” “The Chronicle should devote more time to reading matter which it undertakes to contro- vert.” Discussions between Brinkley and the Chronicle (which he almost always referred to as the “Kobe Quibbler’’) invariably de- generated into verbal wrangles in which the issues were swallowed in obscurity long before the debates closed. ™In 1897 the Chronicle made accusations that low salaries paid to government officials promoted “squeeze” and bribery. The Mail replied by inviting it to name one specific instance that would prove the accusation. The Chronicle then cited instances of bribery in a Niigata textbook scandal, Formosan concessions, the Yokohama waterworks, Tokyo water-pipe contracts, Tottori repairs, the Ha- matsu post-office, the Ishikawa public works, and others. Captain Brinkley then remarked that ‘this marshaling of cases, some of which have been proved in courts of law and some of which rest on [ 286 |THE FRIENDLY FOREIGN PRESS Any assertion that Japanese morality was of a lower standard than that of Westerners stirred from the Mail immediate objection. When Rev. A. B. Scherer hinted at “widespread dishonesty and aban- doned impurity” because Japan officially profited by licensed prostitution, and because it ‘‘tolerated the sale of young girls,” Captain Brinkley rose to the de- fense. Admitting a comparative lack of morality among the middle-class traders, he absolved the high- er grade of merchants, officials, gentlemen, and stu- dents as “‘punctilious in their sense of honor.” In de- nying that the Japanese government tolerated the sale of young girls by their parents, Captain Brinkley wrote: “Abandoned impurity does not thrust itself under one’s eyes as in almost all Occidental cities. Japanese gentlemen do not indulge in impure talk, nor do their papers parade obscenity.* Mr. Scherer forgets that every European or American who visits this country regards it as axiomatic that he belongs to a superior race” (10). mere rumors, are matters of public knowledge, and while they un- doubtedly show that grounds exist for impugning the integrity of Japanese officials, we cannot think they warrant wholesale accusa- tions. Fuller testimony should be given.” Later the Mail refused to give the matter additional consideration, since “the Kobe Chronicle knows no more about the matter than everybody else knew al- ready.” By this time Brinkley had effectively smothered the charge of undue parsimony in the salary schedules (11). * Yet Captain Brinkley was assiduous in denouncing the “Third Page” as “an open sore.” Incidentally, in what countries do the gentlemen speak in such a strain? [ 287 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN The Mail categorically denied, at all times, every implication of Japanese misgovernment. Reports of Japanese atrocities in Korea were denounced as “Shocking lies” and as “iniquitous falsehoods” due to the “hostile orchestra of the Japan Herald, Japan Gazette, and Japan Chronicle,’ who “perpetually trifle with the truth.’® ‘Will the day never come,” the Mail once asked, ‘“‘when journals in Europe and America may be trusted to speak about affairs in the Far East with some measure of accuracy and dis- crimination?” (12). Throughout Captain Brinkley’s editorship the Mail stressed the cultural and literary phases of Jap- anese life. On artistic matters he was himself an ac- knowledged master. Dr. E. J. de Becker, the most eminent foreign lawyer in Japan, reviewed current legislation, while for literary appreciations he relied upon Walter Dening, a former evangelist. Dening’s contribution was an invaluable fortnightly summary of the Japanese magazines, both general and reli- gious. No other foreign paper in Japan has ap- proached the Mail in excellence so far as these themes are concerned. The Mail was also fortunate in pos- sessing the services of James Ellicott Beale, the first * Accusations made by Dr. E. J. Dillon that Japanese troops had helped to loot Peking were dismissed with the reminder that Dr. Dillon was “in a sick and nervous condition inconsistent with the formation of sound judgments” (13). [ 288 |THE FRIENDLY FOREIGN PRESS thoroughly trained newspaper man to be engaged on any foreign-language paper in the country.”° After Captain Brinkley’s death, in 1912, the ed- itorship passed to Thomas Satchell, and the Mail was moved to Tokyo. Mr. Satchell resigned in the fol- lowing year, and was succeeded by Rev. J. Ingram Bryan, who, in turn, was replaced by J. M. Barnard, formerly of the Pall Mall Gazette and of the North China Daily News. In 1914 a half-interest in the Mail was purchased from the Brinkley estate by J. Russell Kennedy, at a cost of ¥9,000, on behalf of the new Kokusai Tsushinsha. The new management at- tempted to retain the Brinkley style, but the old savor disappeared and the Mail degenerated. It was merged with the third Japan Times, October, 1917. The present-day survivor of the Japan Mail is the Japan Times, the third paper of that name, begun in February, 1897, by Motosada Zumoto at the sug- * Dening came to Japan for the Church Missionary Society, but, in 1882, left the ministry because of religious doubtings. For a time he was editor of the Japan Gazette, but in 1885 was appointed an instructor at the Sendai High School. Beale, a Cornishman, was a printer, and later a reporter for London Sporting Life. In 1875 he was made manager of the Hong Kong Daily Press, but joined the Mail in 1881 with Captain Brinkley, remaining until 1897. He was in reality editor of the paper, for Brinkley remained much of the time at home in Tokyo, rarely visiting the offices, and sending his “copy” by messenger to Beale at the Yokohama office. On leaving the Mail, Beale became secretary of the Yokohama Chamber of Commerce until 1910. In 1912 he returned to England, where he died in 1914 (14). [ 289 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN gestion of President Yamada, of the Nippon Yusen Kaisha, Yukichi Fukuzawa, of the Jzji, and the To- kyo Chamber of Commerce."* Beginning, perhaps, under a misapprehension that foreign-owned journal- ism would be prohibited after extrality was ended, the Times, with the approval of Viscount Aoki, then foreign minister, soon joined the Mail as the spokes- man for the Foreign Office (15). Mr. Zumoto ably edited the T7mes from 1897 un- til 1904, when, at the solicitation of Prince Ito he 4 Mr. Zumoto, a Yale graduate, was chief translator on the Mail from 1885 to 1895. He became private secretary to Prince Ito, and went with that statesman to Korea when Prince Ito became resident-general there. As part of his assignment, Mr. Zumoto es- tablished the Seoul Daily Press in 1906, in order to combat the anti- Japanese Korea Daily News and the Dai Han Mai-il Shinpo. Large- ly through his indefatigable efforts the rival editor was convicted of instigating sedition and was imprisoned. Mr. Zumoto received the high Korean decoration of Tai Keuk “for meritorious services to the residency-general.” He was then transferred to New York, where he established the Oriental Information Bureau “to furnish intelligent information to the American people with regard to Far- Eastern affairs.” In April, 1916, he established the English-language weekly, Herald of Asia, “to give an independent view regarding Japanese domestic and foreign policies.” The next year he won a seat in the Diet, but failed of re-election. Early in 1919 the Foreign Office made him publicity manager for the Siberian Expedition; and when the Herald of Asia was destroyed in the Tokyo earth- quake, Mr. Zumoto was assigned to revise the official school text- books in history for the Department of Education. On several oc- casions he has visited international conferences as a representative of the Japanese journalists, and was Japan’s spokesman at the Wil- liamstown Conference of 1925. He founded, and has long been president of, the International Press Association of Tokyo (16). [| 290 |THE FRIENDLY FOREIGN PRESS resigned in order to become the official press attaché at the Foreign Office. While the war continued, Mr. Zumoto wrote the daily press communiques, he told the writer, not only for the Foreign Office, but for the army and the navy. “Prince Ito really desired to give my services free of charge to the London Express in order to counteract a dangerous anti- Japanese propa- ganda in Great Britain, but the Foreign Minister ad- vised that I be retained as the official publicity rep- resentative,” In r911 Mr. Zumoto rejoined the Times, but not as editor, and remained connected with that paper until the Tzmes was sold to Kokusai in 1914. Dr. Ka- zutomo Takahashi, also a former translator for the Mai and for the Foreign Office and a professor at Keio University, edited the paper from Mr. Zumoto’s departure in 1904 until 1918. Successive leasings of the paper passed the Times from one control to an- other (once to men so unskilled in journalism that they sold the files as waste paper) until, in Febru- ary, 1921, it was befriended by a Kokusai-Chamber- of-Commerce-Mitsui syndicate, and by the Foreign Office. Like the Advertiser, the Times is particularly concerned lest.radicalism win control. Labor strikes, it thinks, are dangerous. When the employees of the Nippon Yusen Kaisha struck, in 1924,” for a greater “For a full account of this strike and of the part played there- in by Yonejiro Ito, see the writer’s “Industrial Democracy in Ja- J J [ 291 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN measure of industrial democracy, the Tzmes was a powerful defender of the company. “If such muti- nous spirit and wanton disregard for authority is al- lowed to prevail, all commerce and industry will go into complete demolition, Japan itself will disappear, and Bolshevism will reign supreme” (17). Socialists, according to the Times, “are associ- ated with law-breaking, and, it is generally believed, would try to carry their subversive ideas into execu- tion every time they can take advantage of any mis- fortune that may befall the country.” The Times, therefore, regularly reports the discovery of bomb plots, although it half deprecates the use of police spies as a means for uncovering the evidence (18). Slight aid is rendered by the Tzmes toward bet- tering the condition of the Eta (or the outcasts); but on the contrary, the Times assists in spreading ru- pan,” Nation, (February 11, 1925). The Bolsheviks, of course, win little sympathy from the Times. In 1918 the Times paid its respects to Lenin and Trotzsky as ‘‘making their ways on their miserable bellies to Brest-Litovsk, a sight to make the strongest stomach turn and the meanest spirit rise in revolt.”” The same men, with Krylenko, were further described as “‘the greediest mongrels of the scavenger pack, wriggling their way, ventre a terre, hither and yon at the bid- ding of the Kaiser,” and as “the men who have sold their nation.” The Times went on to warn Japan of German spies walking the “open thoroughfares of Japan and flaunting their ribald and filthy contempt of all that is decent and human and right.” By implica- tion, in 1925, the Times held the shock of the Bolshevik rebellion as responsible for the mental illness of the Japanese Emperor (21). [ 292 |THE FRIENDLY FOREIGN PRESS mors that the Eta are really Bolshevists, and that they plan to murder prominent Japanese (19).?° Three weeks after the Home Office and the met- ropolitan police announced that red propaganda was lessening in the Empire, the Times visualized ‘five million workers in Japan” as being “rapidly carried to the Left, many being professed Communists and others anarchists.” Five days later it warned against a radical mass-meeting planned by the Fabian Soci- ety. It urged all radio subscribers to tune in when the official broadcasting station placed “Giovanni, Gio- vanni,” the Fascist marching song, on the air, and asked them to learn the music (20). Koreans also are suspected of plots against Ja- pan. Although the Times realizes that the constant printing of unsubstantiated rumors of Korean discon- tent precipitated a panic-stricken pogrom against Koreans in the post-earthquake days, it cannot re- frain from continuing to publish additional rumors. Not only were the worst libels against Koreans re- printed twice, after Mr. Sheba had confessed, over his signature, his shame at having believed them, but throughout 1924 plots to spread Sovietism, to bomb buildings, and to murder prominent Japanese are fre- quently ascribed to Korean instigation. These re- ports usually consist of vague dispatches, without ** Under the headline “Eta Advocate Recognition of Red Re- public,” the reader finds only a forecast that an Eta convention may discuss the matter (22). [293 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN names, dates, places, or details specified, and with- out any source of authority being mentioned. As typ- ical of the Korean “plots” given front-page “scare heads” in the spring of 1925, the following is cited (23): “Police Fear Korean Plot.” The article states that the police bureau warns against newly arrived Koreans and “anti-Soviet Jews.” They are said to be in touch with 3,000 members of a Korean secret society in Hawaii: ‘There is much going back and forth. The report is vague as yet, but the authorities fear that some plan is being incubated against Ja- pan.” This article ran for a column on page I, with a breakover of another third of a column on an inside page. Constructive news about Korea is lacking. That Korean wives have a “divorce fad” (no statistics are given); that a newly arrived Korean lost his family of ten, but that he would never think of looking for them in a bathhouse; that trains in Korea are forced to halt because Koreans make a practice of sleeping on the tracks: and that Governor-General Saito is ruling beneficially constitutes the bulk of Korean news in the latter half of 1924 (24). The sole item available to show that Koreans and Japanese seek a better mutual understanding was published in February, 1925. It described the arrival in Tokyo of a Korean mission representing “an im- portant movement for securing a heart-to-heart un- derstanding with and the cultivation of harmony be- [ 294 |THE FRIENDLY FOREIGN PRESS tween Koreans and Japanese. The union is very young and is at present not possessed on any con- structive plan of work. The present mission is to call on prominent Japanese and to obtain their views on the problems of Korea and to make them a guide.” This item was followed the next day by a front-page account headed, “Koreans with Drawn Daggers At- tack Imperial Hotel,” giving details of angry crowds and of disorder which the writer, who was present at the Hotel at the time specified, failed to observe. No arrests seem to have been made, although the Times relates that police broke up the mob (25)."* In spite of its own record, the Times once more ventured, in February, 1925, to impress upon its readers the danger of believing irresponsible rumors concerning the Koreans. Like the Seoul Press, the Japan Times prints ex- tended theological discussions. In November, 1923, its letter columns were crammed with contributions on the topic, “Was the Earthquake the Result of Sin?” In January, 1924, under a double-column headline, it carried a “dialogue” between “The Fath- er, “The H. G.,” and “The L. J. C.” in the “Council Chamber of the Trinity,” in which the earthquake, fire, and tornado that burned alive 42,000 refugees at Honjo, Tokyo, was described as being planned (27): “The appearance of reports such as this has a close correla- tion with the time when large tourist parties are arriving in Ja- pan (26). [295 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN In the words of “The L. J. C.,” the Honjo fire was ‘“‘something to make these poor heathens realize Hell. Suppose we caused tens of thousands to be burned alive, such a sacrifice might become a blessed advantage to the nations and the missionaries.” “The Father” answers, “Your reasoning is indubitable, I agree.” “The H. G.” enters, saying, “I think that will be all right.”” The ‘“‘dialogue” ends with the stage direction, “All Three rising, ‘Our will be done on earth, Amen.’” No letters whatever were printed by the Times for ten days following this “dialogue,” nor at any time were letters printed touching on this topic. On social topics the record of the Times is good. It has consistently opposed licensed prostitution, and has strongly urged that the “new Tokyo must be a clean Tokyo, with neither vice nor graft.” It has attacked bribery, urged the improvement of labor contract laws regulating girl factory workers, and has attacked the ‘‘medieval repression” of the Depart- ment of Education. The JTizmes desires Japanese school histories to be free from myth, but has itself perpetuated the tale of the “Precious Throne, found- ed by the Emperor Jimmu in 660 B. c. and continued in unbroken line, uninterrupted, undisputed, and un- opposed.” A very remarkable departure was a strong editorial, November, 1924, warning that Formosa was suffering from “maladministration of justice, un- duly strict censorship, and antiquated government.” [ 296 |THE FRIENDLY FOREIGN PRESS The T7mes insisted that unless reforms were at once provided, Formosan “revenge will not only be irre- sistible, but most destructively vindicative.”’ This editorial followed close after a special tour of the is- land undertaken by Roderick O. Matheson for the Japan Times, in which he found only rosy prospects for good feeling and gratitude for Japan’s services in governing the island (28). Under the editorship of Sometaro Sheba, former- ly a newspaperman in Hawaii, the Japan Times has, within the past five years, shot forward rapidly. Equipped with a high-speed press, the largest and best equipment of all the foreign papers in Japan, the pressroom turn-out has risen from 2,032 copies on the day before the Tokyo earthquake, to 6,300 at the end of 1924.*° An analysis of this increased circulation revealed that 55 per cent of the gain was by foreign subscrip- tions, and 45 per cent by Japanese. Of the new Japa- “Press run” is, of course, not identical with “paid circula- tion,” but the Times is unique among foreign-language papers in Japan in giving any public estimates of its sales. It is especially in- dignant that the Advertiser claims “double the combined circula- tion of all other foreign dailies published in Japan,” and offered to bet ¥1,000 that the Advertiser’s sales were smaller than the Times’ alone. The stakes were to be divided among the Japan Red Cross, the Tokyo Union Church, and the American School in Japan. The Advertiser took no public notice of the challenge, prefering to be- lieve, as its editor privately said, that the Times was not a “foreign daily.” The Chronicle also declined to aid the Times in refutation of the Advertiser’s claim (31). [297]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN nese subscribers, approximately 80 per cent were mercantile establishments, and the remainder stu- dents. The Times estimated that its circulation could be classified as 25 per cent among foreigners, and 75 per cent among Japanese, of whom 85 per cent were in the business or official classes, and the remainder students (29). The peculiarly friendly relations which the Times has enjoyed with leading diplomatic and in- dustrial leaders was evident when, in 1925, it sought to find a president. In February, Tokichi Tanaka, former vice-minister for foreign affairs, and former chief of the Intelligence Department, assumed the post, but resigned in May upon his appointment as ambassador to Russia. He was succeeded by Yone- jiro Ito, former president of the Nippon Yusen Kaisha. The willingness of men of such rank to as- sociate themselves with a journal of 6,000 circulation was deemed a high approval of the 77mes as an agent for international relations. But the close associations with high officials have not been devoid of misinterpretation. So prominent a newspaper and political figure as Mr. Mochizuki ac- cused the Times of being a ‘“‘Foreign Office journal,” and the charge has been repeated by the Japan Ad- vertiser and by the Fourth Estate. The charges were denied, however, by the Times, which insisted that it is “unsubsidized, unbribed, and under no obliga- tions.” It pointed out that similar charges of receiv- [ 298 |THE FRIENDLY FOREIGN PRESS ing subsidies have been made against the Advertiser as “an organ of the Moscow Soviet,” and against “the unctuous Chronicle” as a recipient of German gold. “These rumors,” said the Times, “are, of course, absurd.” In conversing with the writer, Mr. Sheba was indignant at the suggestion that his paper was suspected of receiving subsidies (30): “I have absolutely no subsidy. I would not have undertaken the management of this paper under any such condi- tions. I learned from my newspaper work in Hawaii that a subsidized newspaper cannot prosper and that it sacrifices the respect and the confidence of its readers. I believe in conducting a newspaper fairly and above board and by fair methods. I will tell you frankly who my backers are. They are Mr. Ito, Mr. Yamashina, of the Chamber of Commerce, and the Mitsui Bussan Kaisha.” Foreign newspapermen in Japan remain con- vinced, however, that the Times still receives a sub- sidy. A new press, capable of printing a newspaper of 50,000 circulation, was acquired by the Times in Jan- uary, 1925, after having been imported from the British Army of Occupation newspaper in Vladivos- took by the Japanese War Office. Both Frank H. Hedges, of the Advertiser, and A. Morgan Young, of the Chronicle, declare that this press was a free gift by the War Office, the General Staff, or the Foreign Office, to the Japan Times. A high official of a certain government department, who forbade mention of | 299 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN either his name or of his office but who would cer- tainly be foremost among those best qualified to give information on the subject of subsidies to foreign- language papers, was not so sure that the Tzmes does not receive financial aid from official sources: “You must remember that the system in Japan has always been different from that in your country,” he ex- plained. “In America they shrink from the idea of the government’s intermeddling in business or from its giving monetary assistance, especially to a news- paper; but in Japan the newspaper may be regarded as a public necessity which should rightfully be as- sisted from the public funds when such sums are needed. I should not be at all surprised if the Tzmes is on the Foreign Office subvention list at present.” Save for its labor and Korean news, the pages of the Times have been reasonably accurate. It did, however, publish a long detailed “Special Cable to Japan Times,” describing the signing of the Locarno treaties and appearing on the streets of Tokyo five hours before the treaties had actually been signed (32).’° As an organ of opinion it has lacked effective- ness, although its roster has contained at times a number of proficient journalists.** Among its greatest 46 This difference is, of course, net, allowing for actual differ- ence in time between Tokyo and Locarno. 7 Among its staff have been listed Professor Y. Takenobu, of Waseda, former translator for the Mail and publisher of the Japan Year Book; Shun Akimoto, translator for the Advertiser, corre- spondent for Yomiuri at the Versailles Peace Conference, and for- [ 300 |THE FRIENDLY FOREIGN PRESS contributions have been the publication of a number of special supplements discussing fully the Japa- nese reaction to the American immigration laws, giv- ing reassuring comments by Americans to the Japa- nese, and aiming at “a frank exchange of views.” Be- cause it judged the American-Japanese relationship to be “very delicate,” the Times, regardless of ex- pense, published 50,000 copies of one of these special Japan-to-America issues on costly paper for wide dis- tribution in America. Similar supplements have been issued for explaining Japanese conditions to the Rus- sians, and in commemoration of a French trade mis- sion to Japan. NOTES *1. G. W. Rogers, December 4, 1903; J. P. Mollison, Janu- uary 16, 19009. 2. October 29, 1902; Dening, in Japan Chronicle, November 7, 1912; Hanazono, p. 6s. 3. March 27, 1897. mer editor of the Japan Press; Thomas Cowen, founder of the Ma- nila Times and of the China Times of Tientsin, and a correspond- ent for the London Times in the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars; Francis McCullough, former war correspondent with the Rus- sian armies, captured at Port Arthur and brought to Japan as a prisoner of war; Percy Whiteing and Daniel Langford, professors at Keio University ; and Roderick O. Matheson, formerly news edi- tor of the Advertiser, later, of Kokusai, and correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. *Citations in Nos. 1-14, inclusive, are taken from the Japan Mail, unless otherwise noted. [3or ]Ww Co i Ww SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN May 28, 1910, October 29, 1912; Toyo Jiro, October, 1921; interviews with Messrs. Kennedy and Zumoto. (a) Treaties: November 12, 1884, January II, 1902. (b) Foreign Press: January 7, 1888, May 28, 1910. (c) Extrality: February 27, 1897, November 13, 1897, Feb- ruary 5, 12, 1898; Jzji, April 6, 1897. (d) Propaganda: April 3, 1897, May 26, 1900, May 4, 1904, July 2, 1910, December 17, 1910, October 29, 1912. Independent from majority: November 12, 1884, November 2, 1912. (f) “Trust Japan”: April 3, 1897. (a) Buck: April 5, 12, 1902; Chronicle, May 28, 1902. (b) Leases: April 5, 12, 19, 1902. (c) Hobson: October 17, 24, 1908. (d) Preston: September 18, 1908. (e) Stone: April 29, IgII. (a) Enemies: May 1, 1904, October 1, 1904. (0) Liars: September 25, 26, 1908, October 3, 1908. (c) Diseased: July 31, 1897. (d) Quibblers, March 18, 1890. Japan Times, March 3, 1925. October 30, 1912. (c) Tricksters: 1902, April Evasion: Tokutomi, in Kokumin, Mischief-makers: April 1902. (d) Craftiness: April ro, October 24, 1908 (a) (b) October 3, > a 25, IQ, 1908. 1906. (e) Distorters: October 14, 1905. 6, 10, 18 July 1, 307, August 10, 1897; Chronicle, July 3, 1807, 3 25, 1507. August 1904. (0b) Lies: 1903, Decem- December 23, November 7, 1903, January 16, April 20, 1912. (c) Triflers: November 7, ber 23, 1905, May 4, 1912. (d) Orchestra: 1905; May 19, 1906, December 15, 1906, May 30, 1908, August 22, 1908, October 3, 1908. (a) February 23, 1901. December 11, Beale, October January 14, 17, 1915. Dening, in Chronicle, 1913; 19, 1912; Chronicle, [ 302 |THE FRIENDLY FOREIGN PRESS *15. Mail, February 27, 1897; Interviews with Messrs. Ken- nedy, Sheba, Zumoto. 16. Mail, May 15, 1909; interview with Mr. Zumoto. 17. September 23, 1924. 18. (a) Lawbreakers: October 12, 1923. (b) Bombs: Jan- uary 17, 18, 22, 24, 1924, May 6, 1924, August 6, 1924, September 5, 16, 1924. (c) Spies: October 20, 1924. 19. July 11, 12, 1924. 20. September 23, 1924; October 15, 20, 1924; for radio, see November 20, 1925. 21. March 1, 1918, May 9, 1025. 22. March 3, 1924. 23. (a) Sheba’s apology, October 24, 1923. (6) Libels on Koreans: December 109, 21, 1923, March 8, 1924, June 2, 1924. (c) Sovietism: July 10, 1924, October 24, 1924. (d) Revolts: March 25, 1924, December 17, 1924. (e) Banditry: August 1, 11, 12, 1924. (f) Bomb plots: Jan- uary 7, 18, 24, 1924, March 7, 1924, May 16, 1924, June 6, 1924, September 25, 1924. (g) Murderous Koreans: August 19, 1924, September 26, 1924, January 14, 1925, February 27, 1925, April 20, 1925. 24. (a) Divorce: July 3, 1924. (b) Lost: October 10. 1924. (c) Trains: August 27, 1924. (d) Saito: September 26, 1924, October 24, 1924, January 14, 1925. 25. February 14, 15, 1925, December 29, 30, 1926. 26. February 2, 1925. 27. January 12, 1924. 28. (a) Vice: June 8, 1924, July 26, 1924, December 1, 1924. (b) “New Tokyo”: November 21, 1923. (c) Bribery: May 6, 1924. (d) Education: October 22. 1924, Decem- ber 9, 1924. (e) Myths: March to, 1924, December 1, *Citations in Nos. 15-32, inclusive, are taken from the Japan Times, unless otherwise noted. [303 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN 5, 12, 18, 19, 1926. See Bunkichi Horioka, Nihon oyobi Han Taiheiyo Minsoku no Kenkyu (Japanese and the Pan-Pacific Races), Tokyo, January, 1927. (f) Jimmu: May 0, 1925. (g) Formosa: November to, 1924. . February 2, 1925. . December 12, 1924; Mochizuki, in Chronicle, July 5, IQI7. . Circulation figures, November 5, 1924, December 5, 1924; Challenge, January 31, 1924; Chronicle, February 7, 1924 . December I, 1925.CHAPTER XII THE JAPAN ADVERTISER—AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER The Japan Advertiser, the only American paper in Japan, was founded at Yokohama in 1890 by Mei- klejohn, a master-printer. For its first year no news was carried, the paper serving only as an advertising bulletin, but in 1891 Meiklejohn was joined by Rob- ert Hay, a reporter of the Japan Gazette, and under Hay’s direction the paper speedily assumed a leading place among the English-language journals (1).* Meiklejohn and Hay continued in association un- til, in 1895, the Advertiser was sold to James R. Morse, founder of the American Trading Company, and he, in turn, transferred the paper shortly before the close of the century to Arthur May Knapp, a for- mer Unitarian missionary. Under Knapp’s proprie- “Meiklejohn left the United States to join the Japan Mail. After a few months on that paper, he left the Mail in 1873 for the Japan Herald, and five years later became printer for the short- lived Tokyo Times. When this paper ceased publication, Meikle- john continued as a job printer. Hay had been since 1883 on the staff of the Mail and of the Gazette. He claimed to have been the first shorthand reporter to arrive in Japan. When Morse bought the Advertiser, Meiklejohn returned to the United States, where he died in 1904. Hay rejoined the Mail as managing editor, dying in 1909 (2). [305 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN torship the paper had a series of financial difficulties, drawing at one time so close to actual bankruptcy that the American Association of Yokohama was called upon to save the paper from extinction. Early in 1909 Knapp sold the paper to a syndi- cate of American business men headed by E. W. Fra- zar; but as the purchasers desired to remain in the background, the stock of the Advertiser was osten- sibly transferred to the name of J. Russell Kennedy, then the correspondent for the Associated Press. A tangled series of financial operations followed, ac- cording to the narration by Mr. Kennedy himself: “Knapp sold to me, acting for Frazar and other Americans. I owned the stock for them,” said Mr. Kennedy in speaking to the writer. “Then I sold the stock to George W. Scott, an Englishman who was backed by Takata & Company, and when the Ta- kata’s purpose was fulfilled, Scott offered to give the paper away as a dead loss. No foreign paper in Ja- pan can make money without outside support, and, as he had no subsidy, Scott offered me the paper as a gift. I found Benjamin W. Fleisher in Yokohama, and as he was a protégé of mine—I had given him his first job in Japan—I took Fleisher to Scott. Scott, however, refused to sell to Fleisher, but at my insist- ence gave the paper to him for ¥30,000. He ad- vanced Fleisher ¥3,000 as a first payment, and gave him ten years to pay the balance.” These transactions were conducted, for the most [ 306 |THE JAPAN ADVERTISER part, under cover, and are not recorded in the official history of the Advertiser, published as a serial in April, 1924. Mr. Kennedy’s connection with the pa- per was not disclosed until his resignation was an- nounced in April, 1909. Even then, it is suspected, Mr. Kennedy retained an interest in the paper, al- though, as an Associated Press correspondent, such connections are frowned upon by the news-gathering association. This connection was surmised when in August, 1909, three editorials, entitled “Dangerous Tax Dodgers,” “It Is to Laugh,” and “In Self-Defense” appeared. They were attributed by the Japan Ga- zette to Mr. Kennedy’s authorship, although the Ad- vertiser denied that he had written the articles. E. le Harrison, then editor, resigned in protest at the dis- claimer, and sent the original manuscript, in Mr. Kennedy’s handwriting, to the Chronicle. In 1925 Mr. Kennedy admitted to the writer that the edito- rials had been written by him (3). No subsequent changes in ownership took place. The Advertiser was moved to Tokyo in 1913. Edi- torial changes, however, have been frequent. E. J: Harrison,” editor from 1907 to 1909, was succeeded * Harrison was a colorful personality. Coming to Japan in 1897 for the Japan Herald, he later transferred to the Japan Times and the Japan Chronicle, was correspondent during the Russo-Japanese War for the London Daily Mail, and, after peace was declared, joined the Advertiser. He left the paper in 1907 to become secre- tary for Mr. Kennedy, but soon returned to the Advertiser. After [307 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN by Cecil Grey, of the London Standard, who arrived in Japan in August, 1909, held the editorship for one week, and returned at once to London. J. N. Pen- lington, an editor of the Far East, followed Grey’s brief tenure, remaining until March, 1912, when he again rejoined the magazine. Charles R. Hargrove, former acting correspondent for the London Times at Washington, succeeded Penlington and remained as editor until 1914, when he returned to the Tzmes. He was replaced by Hugh Byas, former subeditor of the London Times Weekly. Byas remained until July, 1917, resigning to join the New East, and was succeeded by Gregory Mason. The latter retired in the following April, after a somewhat stormy editor- ship, and Mr. Byas returned to the Advertiser until, in 1922, he became the Advertiser correspondent in London. R. Lewis Carton then combined the func- tions of London Times correspondent with that of ed- itor of the Advertiser, and remained until his contract was terminated by the earthquake. When publication was resumed, in January, 1924, Frank H. Hedges, formerly of the Washington Star and later Peking again resigning he was the New York Herald correspondent, and then, in 1913, went to Vladivostock to join a Russian paper. During the Great War he was successively an officer in a Chinese coolie labor battalion, a member of the British propaganda bureau at Archangel and British consul at Kovno. He was one of the few foreigners to become so proficient at judo (Japanese wrestling) as to gain the coveted black belt of mastery. He has written two books on modern Japan (4). [ 308 ]THE JAPAN ADVERTISER correspondent of the Advertiser, took over the posi- tion until November, 1926, when Mr. Byas returned to the editorial chair. Mr. Byas’s place at London was filled by F. A. McKenzie, war correspondent, from 1900 to 1910, of the London Daily Mail, editor of the London Times Weekly from t1g10 until 1914, and Chicago Daily News correspondent at Moscow prior to 1926. Mr. McKenzie is the author of several books upon Korean problems (5). For the United States, the Advertiser’s impor- tance cannot be overemphasized, since, until late in 1923, virtually all the Japanese news received by American newspapers from sources other than the Kokusai-Associated Press service was filtered through the Advertiser office. Its staff members were the spe- cial correspondents for the New York Times, the Public Ledger-New York Evening Post syndicate, the United Press, Central News of London, St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Christian Science Monitor, New York World, and other papers. Since the earthquake, special correspondents, not connected with the Ad- vertiser, have been stationed in Japan by several journals, and the dependency of the United States upon Advertiser news has not been as absolute as in the past; but except for the Ledger-Post and W orld, the newspapers just mentioned were still supplied, in 1926, by Advertiser employees. Because of this dependency the singular ill-for- tune which has pursued the Advertiser’s news affects [ 309 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Japanese-American relations, for the staff members of the paper cable overseas the news as printed in the Advertiser. Soon after Mr. Mason’s accession to the post, a sensational article, published under a two-col- umn headline, announced that Russian anarchists had twice attempted to murder Senator Elihu Root, then a special commissioner to the Kerensky govern- ment in Russia. The article, written by Mrs. Mason, was at once repudiated by Hugh A. Moran, a member of the Root party, by the British, French, and Italian military attachés of the mission, and by three fellow- travelers with Mrs. Mason. In an official statement the Russian Embassy accused the Advertiser of mis- quoting an interview with the Embassy’s First Secre- tary and of violating pledges and distorting facts. The Advertiser answered that the Embassy made ‘unqualified misstatements,” and declared that de- nials were the result of attempt to “‘soft-pedal the news.” Three denials of the sensational report were sent to the Chronicle, and one to the Japan Gazette, since, as Mr. Moran explained, the Advertiser re- fused to print a statement of correction without mu- tilations which completely destroyed the meaning of the statement. ‘‘Persisting in such a story, and bol- stering it up with misquoted interviews,” said Mr. Moran, “descends to the depths of perfidy” (6). It is possible that the Advertiser, in its search for sensation, has sometimes carried its policies beyond the limits of good taste. Following the Messina earth- [310]THE JAPAN ADVERTISER quake, the Advertiser wrote that residents of Tokyo and Yokohama were conjuring up uncomfortable vi- sions of a similar catastrophe in Japan. “Nor can it be said that these fears are without foundation. Sat- urday’s playful tremor may perhaps be regarded as a rehearsal or a curtain-raiser; the real drama has yet to be staged, and staged it will be.” A week later the Advertiser published gruesome “‘details” attributed to a “maimed and battered survivor in a European hospital” of an earthquake which would, in the fu- ture, annihilate both Tokyo and Yokohama. Protests from the Mail against this “prophecy” were met by rejoinders from the Advertiser that the objectors were “overexcited,” “unnecessarily calo- ric,” and “neurotic” (7). Four months after the great Tokyo earthquake had occurred, and but three days after a second sharp Shock had been felt, new earthquake predictions were repeated by the Advertiser under a two-column front- page headline. On the day set for the calamity a front-page article reminded Tokyo readers of the ac- curacy of predictions. Seven months later the Ad- vertiser preened itself with an editorial stating that it had refrained from publishing earthquake predictions because “they seemed exceedingly vague and unscien- tific, although those making the predictions are among Japan’s most eminent seismologists” (8). The war period was especially subject to misun- derstandings. In the first month of the war the Ad- [311]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN vertiser told of two captured German cruisers at Hong Kong, “with their upper works completely shot away” and with blood stains where “streams of red had issued from the scuppers, staining the vessels’ sides to the water-line, bearing mute witness to the number of lives that must have been sacrificed.” This story was accepted on the unsupported testimony of one C. L. Powell, a traveler from China, and pictures of the crippled ships were printed to verify the tale (Q). Resemblance of the pictures to those of Russian warships at Port Arthur caused residents in Japan to challenge the whole story as a “fake.” Faced with the album in which the original picture had been pub- lished, the Advertiser admitted the deception but en- deavored to exculpate itself by saying: “There can be no doubt that it is an excellent photograph of crip- pled ships,” and that “there are a couple of old gun- boats at Hong Kong used for target practice which would make a grim picture of the ruin caused by a naval battle and might mislead an observer.” In the same month the Advertiser carried an ex- citing story of the pursuit of the liner “Nile” across the Pacific by German submarines. The story arose because of the arrival of the “Nile” at Yokohama nine hours ahead of schedule, but passengers and crew alike denied the truth of the sensational re- ports (10). Similar carelessness, in the summer of I916, [312]THE JAPAN ADVERTISER caused fright among the summer residents of Karui- zawa, a popular mountain resort for missionary fam- ilies. In reporting that burglars had murdered two Methodist missionaries, the Advertiser printed a warning from its Karuizawa correspondent: “We have felt much too safe at Karuizawa. With the pres- ent methods of police patrolling and with household protection which is practically nil, a few robbers could murder any number of households and no one would be the wiser.” The correspondent then pro- ceeded to warn every household to keep an automatic pistol, and urged that military officers be detailed to teach foreigners how to shoot “‘as a measure of armed preparedness.” In an editorial published on the same day the Ad- vertiser deprecated the spread of “nervousness and funk” which residents of Karuizawa were feeling, and praised the Karuizawa police as the most efficient of any country town, but the editor, the then cor- respondent of the Central News of London, cabled only the plea for armed preparedness to London. So distasteful was the Advertiser’s comment to the Ka- ruizawa community that Rev. A. Oltmans, of Meiji Gakuin, was moved to write a protest for the “un- warranted impressions conveyed by the Advertiser correspondent” (11). In the following month, however, the Advertiser printed terrifying reports on an infantile paralysis “epidemic” at the same resort, based on the discovery [313]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN of two cases of the disease, causing the Karuizawa physicians to issue a protest manifesto to the paper; and again in September a “cholera scare’ was an- nounced. On this occasion the Advertiser announced that guests of the Karuizawa Hotel had been forced to move out of that hostelry to the Mampei Hotel be- cause of the prevalence of disease, and the Karuizawa Hotel could secure retraction of the libel only by in- sertion of a paid advertisement of correction. Ten days later the Advertiser printed a retraction, but in an inconspicuous location and in an unapologetic manner (12). Reluctance to correct libels based on hasty ac- ceptance of unverified reports seems to have been fairly common with the Advertiser during one portion of its life. A few days after the ‘‘cholera scare”’ the Advertiser reprinted an alleged interview from the San Francisco Examiner, purporting to quote George R. Allen, of Yokohama, as declaring that Japan, Rus- sia, and Germany were forming a triple alliance, and quoting as Mr. Allen’s authority the Nippon Adver- tiser (a non-existent paper) and the Japan Adver- tiser. On the strength of this “interview,” the Japan Advertiser referred to Mr. Allen as the “King of Liars,” and called on him to produce proof. Mr. Allen wrote a letter protesting that the Examiner interview was a fabrication and that he had already repudiated the statement falsely attributed to him. This was printed by the Advertiser under the caption, “A Weak [314]THE JAPAN ADVERTISER Explanation,” and a second letter was dismissed with the brief footnote: “The Advertiser is only interested in this matter in so far as it referred to the Nippon Advertiser and the Japan Advertiser.” No word of re- gret was printed by the paper for having dubbed Mr. Allen “King of Liars.” Colonel Paul G. Ossipaev, of the Russian General Staff, protested at a later date because the Advertiser quoted him as advising Japan to withdraw from Siberia. Because the Advertiser re- fused to print his letter of denial, Colonel Ossipaev was obliged to write his explanation to the Chronicle (13).° On other occasions the Advertiser has undergone severe criticism. It misquoted an editorial of the Syd- ney Morning Herald, representing the Australian pa- per as assuming aggressive anti-Japanese views. It published an alleged special dispatch from Paris de- scribing the signing of the Versailles Peace Treaty, giving complete circumstantial details four days be- fore the event took place. The dispatch was attri- buted to the Foreign Office, but in the correction the blame for the error was thrown upon “a Tokyo news- * That the Advertiser did, at times, print retractions is wit- nessed by its printing, on the front page, in December, 1916, correc- tions of two items previously published by it. One error was as- cribed to misleading information received from the Yokohama police. In 1917 it apologized to the Pacific Mail Steamship Com- pany for having said that the steamships would give 1,000 tons of cargo space free to the Red Cross each month. The proper figure was one ton (14). [315]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN agency.” The correction, incidentally, was “buried” in a small and inconspicuous paragraph (15). As late as April, 1925, the Advertiser was careless in its interpretation of the news. Under the headline “Ambassador Kopp Says Pact Is But Scrap of Pa- per,” the Advertiser wrote that the arriving Soviet envoy had announced his intention of spreading com- munist propaganda, but toward the end of the article, in type finer than that used in the “lead,” the Adver- tiser’s own correspondent at Shimonoseki quotes Mr. Kopp as denying any such intention. The false asser- tion, but not the denial, was cabled by the Adver- tiser’s reporter to the New York Times. Uncertainty is also felt concerning an interview with General Man- ager Iwanoff of the Chinese Eastern Railway, in which M. Iwanoff is quoted as declaring that Russia would help the United States to fight Japan. This in- terview was repudiated by M. Iwanoff in a letter to the Advertiser stating that he had refused to comment on political or diplomatic matters to the Advertiser correspondent. Denials were also sent to the Japan Times by both M. Iwanoff and by the Soviet Ambas- sador (16). Under prevailing conditions of newspaper tech- nique, where speed of publication is the primary de- sideratum, any journal will at times print items which it has not thoroughly substantiated. Rumors received from ordinarily responsible sources will not in every case be given prior investigation. Nor can errors in [316]THE JAPAN ADVERTISER judgment be regarded as a factor unduly militating against a paper’s policy. Of the major English-lan- guage papers in Japan, the Advertiser probably de- serves the palm for carelessness and unreliability; but its major fault, and one for which there seemingly is small excuse, is its unwillingness to make correction for its errors when they are pointed out. Happily, this fault has been most visible in the issues of a decade past, but traces may be found in recent times in its treatment of the Kopp and Iwanoff affairs. As a medium for understanding the cultural life of Japan the Advertiser is invaluable. A one-year sur- vey of the paper, made in 1924, discloses a veritable encyclopedic treatment of local customs and social practice. Shunkichi Akimoto’s daily column, various- ly entitled, gave timely and prolific descriptions of the various religious and popular festivals, discoursed upon the story of the “Seven Gods of Good Luck,” described the decorations and the fittings of a Japa- nese house, revealed the curious encounters met in rambling about the Tokyo suburbs, and clarified a host of other matters of enlightenment to foreigners. Pen pictures of the more prominent Japanese states- men were included, and in 1925 a series of articles on conditions in Korea won high praise from Prince Iyesato Tokugawa, president of the House of Peers (17). Other aids to a cultural appreciation of Japan in- cluded nineteen essays on vernacular literature, writ- [317]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN ten, for the most part, by Dr. Shogoro Washio, thirty critiques of Japanese art by Dr. Masujiro Honda; a series of articles on “Yamato, Cradle of Japan,” giv- ing the traditions of Japan’s first province; various “Tokyo Reminiscences,” published almost daily for two months: a biweekly summary of religious thought in Japan, inferior, however, to the type introduced by Walter Dening in the Mail; five thorough analyses, by Professor E. W. Clement, of the Tokyo Higher Normal School, on the history of the Diet and of the Taisho era (1912-24); a treatise, with explanatory discussion, by Dr. A. J. Neville Whymant on the oceanic origins of the Japanese; and thirty-three arti- cles by Suyeo Nakano on the history of Japan’s for- eign intercourse from the earliest times. Weekly col- umns on “Stage and Screen,” new books, Ainu eth- nology by Ven. Dr. John Batchelor, the most eminent authority on the subject, and a “Far-Eastern Sketch Book,” by Frank H. Hedges, rounded out the cultural contributions of the Advertiser during 1924. Among the more notable contributions of former years were Dr. E. J. de Becker’s weekly summaries of supreme court decisions in 1916, the forty or more travel sketches of unfrequented corners of Japan written in 1918-19 by Charles A. Parry, Professor Clement’s papers on “Constitutionalism in Japan,” published in 1919, Hugh Byas’s painstaking survey of the con- tents of the native press in 1916, and, at all times, the [318 |THE JAPAN ADVERTISER reprinting of the more important articles on Japanese affairs published in America and Great Britain. This catholicity does not extend to the more con- troversial subjects likely to draw unfavorable notice from the censor. Such matters as the labor, feminist, and youth movements are avoided, save for sketchy and innocuous accounts, sometimes laboriously hu- morous, but more often as despondent in tone as the assertion made by Dr. Washio: ‘Nearly all univer- sity students or young women are going loose in the streets, cafés, motion picture houses, and Marunouchi offices” (18). In order to escape the censor the Advertiser goes to perhaps extreme lengths in commenting on the la- bor, radical, and Socialist demands. Rarely is an occa- sion lost for putting the views of these classes in an unfavorable light, even at the cost, at times, of seem- ing to confuse inextricably labor unionists, Commu- nists, Anarchists, Pacifists, and Socialists. The news “features” them in conjunction with bomb plots, riot- ing, and “dangerous thought.” Frequent headlines tell the reader that police and secret service men are ‘watching reds”; May Day parades are predicted to be bloody; labor groups are “nests of Communists”; and labor speeches invariably are reported as “‘in- flammatory harangues” urging revolution. Because Manabu Sano, a Socialist formerly on the faculty of Waseda, had spoken in a Fukuoka public hall, the Advertiser branded the Fukuoka Higher School as [319 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN having a radical Socialistic tendency. It reported in the columns, and cabled to the New York Times that four Russian labor leaders visiting Japan had “strutted from the station waving a red flag and sing- ing the banned Internationale.” In discussing E. A. Ross’s theory that the world must reduce its birth- rate or suffer from starvation in the future, the Adver- tiser explained that “he has been ousted from many universities for his ultra-radical views” (19). Indeed, the Advertiser feels that radicals are giv- en too much leeway in Japan. Under the pseudonym ‘A Marxian,” a special correspondent wrote in Octo- ber, 1924: ‘“‘The great stumbling-block in the path of Communism in Japan is the extreme leniency of leg- islation regarding freedom of speech and publication. The restrictions are so lenient that many Commu- nists, for the sake of both bread and fame, often seek to spend a few months in jail. By so doing, they court notoriety and enhance their own reputations with the public and the publishers. In prison it is possible to live peacefully under sanitary conditions. Who in Japan is really suffering from heartless persecu- tion?” (20). In other ways the paper is too cautious in its treatment of the news. When Marquis Okuma sup- pressed newspapers for reprinting arguments made by lawyers in a bomb-explosion case, the Advertiser was most guarded in its references both to the case it- self and to the news of the suppressions. It persist- [320]THE JAPAN ADVERTISER ently “toned down” the news regarding the attempt of Viscount Goto to “lead and guide” the periodicals. In the Kobe Herald case, the Advertiser took its cue from the Herald, but delayed the news from two to four days in order that it might see what action was taken by the authorities. If the Kobe Herald’s items passed the censor, then the Advertiser “lifted”? what the Kobe journal had already published. When China, at the Versailles Peace Conference, alleged that Japan was threatening the use of force unless a Sino-Japa- nese agreement were concluded, the Advertiser failed to give the news, contenting itself with the bare state- ment, “China is fussed up over something.” Three days later it declared that “English papers carried heated reports of the purported wishes of Japanese officials,” without giving more details as to the nature of the Japanese desires. In all these cases other for- eign papers in Japan were printing fairly full reports. Yet in spite of all its care the Advertiser has at times run foul of censorship, notably in 1917, when a full page appeared in blank, and in the following year, when it was suspended for publishing news supplied to it by the Foreign Office (21). Restraint in utterance and insistence on the need for suspended judgment has been characteristic of the Advertiser editorials, but opens it, sometimes, to criti- cism for trying to support both sides at once. Its care- fully balanced arguments carry water on both shoul- ders, as, for example, when it advised against com- [321]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN menting on the Hanihara “dangerous consequences”’ note “until the full text is received,” and yet in the same editorial informed its readers that ‘““Mr. Hani- hara has seen fit to fling an insult at the United States.” Three days later, before the full text had been received, the Advertiser changed its mind and wrote a protest against the ‘“‘childishly resentful ac- tion of the Senate.” The editorial policy, however, was one of consistent opposition to the exclusion pol- icy (22). In a heated editorial denouncing Lenin as a “curse in human form,” the Advertiser added, as an afterthought, ‘“Time may revise this judgment.” It urged Japan to cut her gold reserve on notes by 50 per cent, but three days later thundered against infla- tion of the currency. In March, 1924, it surveyed the reconstruction policy and alleged in four “blind arti- cles” that “personal ambition and political considera- tions were taking precedence over national needs,” and that progress had been insignificant. In June, however, in a special supplement, it told of the re- markable rebuilding work, and in December made announcement that Tokyo was now restored to pre- earthquake appearance. A year and a half thereafter Tokyo papers were complaining that no reconstruc- tion worthy of the name had taken place (23). Because the Advertiser has “a predilection for law and order that amounts to a passion,” it is vehe- mently opposed to the freedom granted to political [322]THE JAPAN ADVERTISER thugs and ruffians, particularly when these so-called ronin and soshi cloak their nefariousness under the guise of superpatriotic feeling and ultra-nationalist emotion. The Advertiser has been active in condemn- ing the growing use of these bullies, and has accused them of assassination and assault. But even on this point the paper wavers. It attacked the “self-ap- pointed, self-anointed youths who set themselves up as final and omnipotent dictators of Japan’s national spirit and who by force regulate the private affairs of individuals,” but a few months later printed a not un- favorable three-column survey of the ronin ideals, only to attack them again on Christmas Day, 1925, as “assassins and mayhem-menacers.” For the leader of the ronin, Mitsuru Toyama, the Advertiser has little but praise, believing him a ‘‘most romantic reac- tionary” who is “medieval but sincere.” It berated Japanese for hero-worship of this leader two days after the Advertiser itself had praised him as “‘a mod- ern Robin Hood.” Eleven days thereafter, under a double-column headline, the Advertiser printed a three-column tribute to Toyama, couched in phrases of an adulatory nature. When rvonin wrecked the forms prepared for the Advertiser’s first Monday sup- plement, in February, 1925, the more intense oppo- sition of the paper ceased temporarily, but by March, 1926, the Advertiser was again designating ronin as degenerate samurai, and was comparing them unfa- vorably with the Ku Klux Klan (24). [323 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN The paper has by no means refrained from criti- cal remarks about Japan. It believes that the psy- chology of the Japanese is dominated by conservative and nationalistic tendencies; that feudalism is still dominant; that public opinion either does not exist at all, or can be ignored by the ruling factions; that present-day Japan is apathetic and devoid of vision; and that the progress of the nation, during fifty years, has been due to “lucky breaks.” It believes that poli- tics are so corrupt that it is inconceivable that they may be rendered worse, and doubts whether a fair election has ever yet been held. It scores the false mythology which masquerades as history, and criti- cizes Inazo Nitobe’s Bushido as a misleading book (25). In more specific matters, the Advertiser has at- tacked the telephone and tram-car service, opposed high motor taxes, rebuked the low trade morals of certain Japanese, referred to the government’s reluc- tance to punish profiteers, “for whom Japan is a veri- table Paradise,” mourned the inadequacy of library facilities, and criticized the building of luxurious theaters while schools continue to be housed in bar- racks. It is opposed to militarism, and believes that school military training will destroy liberalism and that the cult of supernationalism will carry the Em- pire away from the world-current of affairs. But the Advertiser has receded notably from the views ex- pressed by it in 1909 when it commented on the play, [324]THE JAPAN ADVERTISER An Englishman’s Home, by writing: “Personally, we should rather remain a flanneled fool at a wicket or a muddied oaf at a goal, than become a uniformed fool in a barrack or a muddied oaf under the hoof of a non-commissioned officer” (26). In 1915 and 1916 the Advertiser was a potent fac- tor in stirring protest against a flood of anti-Ally sen- timent which was filling the columns of vernacular newspapers. It pointed out the increasing number of chauvinist magazines which were appearing, and com- mented that, since these were not suppressed by the authorities, there must be official sanction for the anti-American and anti-British sentiments expressed. It reprinted excerpts from a Chuo serial, “Air and Submarine Warfare,” which predicted an armed con- flict in 1938 between Japan and “Bokoku,’* and by thus drawing attention to the serial succeeded in hav- ing further publication stopped by Chuo, “because the Advertiser misunderstood our purpose.” It was unsuccessful, however, in seeking to prevent the pub- lication of Japan’s World Conquest, published two months later by Reiyo Higuchi (27). For the most part, however, the Advertiser allows the burden of its criticism to be written by Japanese members of its staff, ‘““Saito-man,” “Santaro” (Shun- kichi Akimoto), Tojiro Katakura, Dr. Washio, or “The Japanese word for the United States is Beitkoku, and for Russia, Rokoku. [325 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Setsuo Uenoda.® Thus Mr. Uenoda protests that Japan is too much fettered by the past, and that the Japanese, with feudal minds, are trying to employ the Western tools. “We feel and do not think. We lose enthusiasm too quickly.” Mr. Katakura protests against election bribery; ‘“Santaro” attacks the bu- reaucracy and demands freedom of thought, saying that Japan is spiritually barren and that the authori- ties are lacking in literary taste. He also condemns Japanese religion, scholarship, finance, and economics as full of sham and implies that foreign pressure alone has caused the Empire to progress. Dr. Washio con- demns the House of Peers, of whom he says “the great majority are a species of decadent men noted for their uniformly smooth faces and leisurely man- ners,” declares that the social and administrative measures of the Japanese government are the most in- efficient in the civilized world, and announces that modern Japan “has made a mess of life in the name of progress.” He is particularly bitter in denying that Eastern life is either spiritual or beautiful. So severe- ly has Dr. Washio attacked his people that on two occasions the editor of the Advertiser felt obliged to insert editorial notes softening the strictures (28). Another outlet for criticisms of Japan appears in the “Letters to the Editor,” by which the Advertiser 'It is uncertain how much duplication these names contain. The practice of employing pen names is exceedingly common, and the same writer may be using a number of pseudonyms simultane- ously. 26 |THE JAPAN ADVERTISER sets great store. Dr. Whymant’s rejoinder to a lec- ture praising Japan’s culture is historic: Japan is marching away from culture. She barred Rodin’s “Kiss,” dramatics in the schools, and the nude in art, and is about to condemn the dance. The normal Japanese brain is a simmering stew-pan into which are drabbed periodically new snatches of meat from the outside world. The stewing goes on piecemeal and what is done to rags clings round the new and prevents it from assimilating with the rest. Japan a thousand years ago was a thousand times more cultured than it is today. There is in Japan too much talk about culture and civilization and not enough solid work put into understanding what other nations mean by these terms (29). This practice of transferring sharp rebukes to the responsibility of Japanese writers or of letter-writers rather than allowing them to be delivered in the name of the paper has served to free the Advertiser from the worse ill-will that is voiced against the Chronicle. It is doubtful if the Chronicle has written libels more bitter than those of the Advertiser, but the latter cer- tainly escaped the calumny heaped upon its Kobe rival. In fact, the Advertiser’s editorials receive high praise from Japanese, and have even been reprinted by “Kwazan” Kayahara in his magazine as models for the native press to follow (30). NOTES* 1. For a serial history of the paper, rather sketchily done, see issues of April, 1924. *All citations in this chapter, unless otherwise noted, are taken from the Japan Advertiser. [327]— = a | _ | Oo on . May 3 16. 20. SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN . Mail, June 18, 1904, July 24, 19009. . August 3, 4, 7, 10, 1909. 4. Mail, January 6, 1912, August 2, 1913; Chronicle, August Ig, 1909, September 2, 1909, April 23, 1914, June 23, 1921. I, 1917, July 2, 1917, December 31, 1916, October II, 1926. July 27, 1917, August 3, 8, 28, 1917; Japan Gazette, July 28, IQI7. March 18, 25, 1909; Maul, April 3, 1909. . January 18, 20, 29, 31, 1924, July 1, 1924. . August 21, 1914; Chronicle, September 3, 1914. August 12, 1914; Mail, August 13, 1914. . July 17-19, 1926; Oltmans, July 22, 1916; Mail, July 19, 1916; London Telegraph, July 18, 1916. 2. August 14, 16, 1916, September 2, 12, 26, 1916; Japan Ga- zette, August 17, 1916. (a) Allen: San Francisco Examiner, September 24, 1916; Advertiser, October 22, 24, 26, 1916. (b) Ossipaev: Feb- ruary 27, 1920; Chronicle, March 11, 1920. . February 22, 1916, July 13, 1917. ‘yume’ 20.4 7, 1919, November 16, 1920; Sydney Herald, December 23, 1920. (a) Kopp: Advertiser and New York Times, April 24, 1925. (b) Iwanoff; November 16, 24, 1925; Japan Times, November 23, 25, 1925. . Tokugawa, November 17, 1925. February 13, 1925, October 14, 1925. (a) For labor headlines, see the following issues in 1924: February 7, 14, March 5, 7, 11, May 24, June 6, 29, Sep- temper 17, November 26, 29, December 9, 16. (6) Ross: March 109, 1924. (c) Sano: November 30, 1925. (d) La- bor: September 23, 1925. October 31, 1924. [ 328 |ZL. 24. 25. NS “I THE JAPAN ADVERTISER (a) Bomb case and Okuma: June 24, 1916. (b) China: February 6, 10, 1919. (c) Censored: June 30, 10917, May 23, 1918. . (a) Hanihara: April 15, 18, 1924. (6) Exclusion: Janu- ary 31, 1924, May 28, 1924, June 10, 1924, etc. . (a) Lenin: January 24, 1924. (b) Gold: February 16, 10, 1924. (c) Reconstruction: March 9-12, 1924, June 1o, 1924, December 24, 1924. See also Tokyo Asahi, Chuo Yorodzu, Miyako, Kokumin, all for September I, 1926; Chuo, September 10, 1926. (a) Law and order: August 13, 1926. (b) Terrorists: March 12, 1926. (c) Anti-ronin, February 7, 1924, Octo- ber 9, 1924, December 4, 1924. (d) Toyama: February 10, 12, 16, 23, 1924, September 17, 1924, May 20, 1925, August 13, 1926. (e) Youths: April 9, 1924, October 9, 1924; May 20, 1925, December 25, 1925. (f) For recent increases in ronin, see Hochi, April 30, 1926. (a) Conservative and feudal: February 18, 1926, March 3, 1927. (6) No public opinion: September 16, 1916, April 23, 1926. (c) Apathy: Transpacific, September 13, 1924. (d) Complacency: May 22, 1924, July 5, 1924. (e) Corrupt: March 18, 1924, April 2, 1924, February 17, 1925, March 11, 1925, May 10, 1925; (f) Myths: Febru- ary 18, 1926, April 3, 1927. (g) Nitobe, January 14, 1926. (h) Lucky breaks: January 1, 1925; see also Marquis Okuma, Jiji, February 11, 1910. . (a) Telephones: March 11, 1924. (6) Trams: Transpa- cific, September 13, 27, 1924. (c) Motor tax: March are 1924. (d) Profiteers: August 23, 1924; Transpacific, Au- gust 16, 1924. (€) Morals: April 20, 1924. (f) Libraries: September 6, 1926. (g) Schools: January 20, 1925. (h) Militarism: January 26, 1909, November 12, 14, 25, 1024. . (a) Uncensored, September 12, 1016. (6) Chauvinism: July 1, 1916, August 24, 1916. (c) Chuo serial: August [329 |to CO _ Kavahara. Naikwan, November, 1925. 2 ; ’ ’ S SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN 20, 24, 27, 1916. (d) Higuchi: October 28, 1916, Decem- ber 14, 1916. . (a) Uyenoda: April 2, 1926, March 3, 1927. (0) ‘“San- taro”: March 1, 9, 16, 1924, December 24, 1924, January 16, 1925. (c) Katakura: May 2, 1925. (d) Washio: on Peers, March 12, 1924, November 25, 1924; on govern- ment, May 2, 9, 1924; on the “mess,” July 29, 1924, Octo- ber 28, 1924. Notes by Advertiser editor, January 25, 1924, March 3, 1924. _ (a) Whymant: October 17, 22, 1924. Reworded by Setsuo Uyenoda, November 24, 1926. (0) for letters on cruelty to dogs in Tokyo public pounds, see Advertiser, February 13, 16, 1927, March 16, 1927, April 3, 1927.CHAPTER XIII LIBELING THE JAPANESE Despite the friendliness with which the Mail, the Times, the Seoul Press, the Manchuria Daily News, and other English-language papers have viewed Ja- pan, a tradition has grown up among the Japanese that the foreign press is hostile to the nation. Doubt- less it is true, as Dr. Takahashi thinks, that many for- eigners have been unable to rid themselves of com- plexes gained before the abolition of extrality in 1899 (1). In early days the foreign papers were convinced that foreigners must stand together for protection of their interests against the Japanese. The special rights enjoyed by foreigners immune from the native laws could scarcely fail to rouse a feeling of superior- ity among the alien residents. But with the abolition of extrality, special advan- tages were no longer held. Thirty years of submission to Japan’s legislation and the replacement of the older foreign residents by new men sent out from overseas might normally be expected to diminish the belief in white superiority which might have been aroused by extra-territoriality. Moreover with the passing of the Japan Gazette, the Japan Herald, and the Korea [331]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Daily News, the daily instigation by the press was much reduced. Yet Japanese still feel antagonism toward the for- eign press. Two days before he sailed for Honolulu to represent Japan’s press at a Pan-Pacific congress, Motosada Zumoto told the writer that Japan had shown extraordinary patience with the foreign press, and especially with the Japan Chronicle: “Tf that paper had been published in San Francisco and had attacked the government there as bitterly as it at- tacks our government, infuriated mobs would have burned down the building. But Japanese are too mild- spirited.” The only foreign-language paper now definitely regarded by the Japanese as hostile to their country is the Japan Chronicle, founded October 2, 1891, as a four-page journal entitled Kobe Chronicle.* Like the Japan Herald and the Mail, the Chronicle, during the major portion of its existence, was a “one-man sheet.” Its founder, and for over thirty years its editor, was Robert Young, an Englishman.” Tt was the second newspaper to bear the name. The first Kobe Chronicle had a brief existence as a parody paper in 1876, when it was established to give “news” of a hotly contested mu- nicipal council election (3). 7 Young was formerly a compositor, and later a reader for the Saturday Review. He first came to Japan in 1888 in answer to an advertisement of the Hiogo News, but that paper’s policy of “stud- ied insolence and wanton discourtesy toward everything Japanese” repelled him. Having made the acquaintance of Captain Brinkley [332]LIBELING THE JAPANESE To Young the bitterness expressed by the Hiogo News and other papers sheltered behind extrality rights seemed fraught with danger, in that the anti- Japanism voiced by these privileged aliens would be reflected in the vernacular gazettes, and thus provoke disastrous international hatreds. Young’s object in establishing the Chronicle was to express a journalis- tic spirit more generous, and, as Young believed, more ’ truly representative, toward the Japanese. He favored the abolition of extrality, believing that as treaty re- vision was inevitable, the better plan for foreigners would be to concentrate on securing proper safeguards for alien lives and property rather than on dissipation of their energies in uncompromising opposition ((2))) Announcement of his program highly gratified the Japanese officials, for the new paper would not only reinforce the efforts of the Japan Mail, but would provide an organ in the Kwansai, where anti-Japan- ism among foreigners was felt to be pronounced. Through the aid of Captain Brinkley, a subsidy of ¥5,000 a year was promised to the Chronicle.* through letters contributed by Young to the Japan Mail, in which Young severely criticized conventional religion, Young applied to Captain Brinkley for advice concerning the founding of a paper (4). “No secret has been made of this subsidy, for both its receipt and its discontinuance at the close of the year have been freely ac- knowledged. Its payment, however, affords an opportunity for crit- ics of the Chronicle to accuse it of venality. J. Russell Kennedy, Motosada Zumoto, and others informed the writer that Young turned anti-Japanese because the payment was withdrawn. The [333 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN The success of Young’s ambitions was attested by an editorial written in April, 1897, by Captain Brink- ley, praising the “spirit of justice and fairness that pervades the writings in the Chronicle,” and appre- ciating that the Chronicle “has studiously refrained from any display of prejudice or contempt toward the Japanese” (6). But as Japan gained self-government, Young’s repugnance to what he deemed coercion, privilege, and intolerance caused him to veer the Chronicle from a thoroughgoing indorsement of the Japanese to a more critical appraisal. The swing was complete when, after the abolition of extrality, the Chronicle defended foreigners from the supposed ag- gression of the Japanese. The reversal of the Chronicle’s original design was not a shift in policy, Young contended, but was merely a restating of old principles. Like Earl Cur- zon, Robert Young remained convinced that a fun- damental antiforeign feeling dominated the ruling classes of Japan. He used the Chronicle to maintain and strengthen solidarity among the foreign residents. ‘The interests of the Western nations in the Far East are really the same,” he wrote, ‘‘and the success of Japan Times believes that the Chronicle’s criticisms are due to the Kobe paper’s desire to hide the fact that it was subsidized. Innuen- does have also been made that the Chronicle was a German propa- gandist, due, according to A. Morgan Young, to the marriage of Robert Young’s sister-in-law to a German (5). [334]LIBELING THE JAPANESE civilization will only be achieved by these nations working hand in hand” (7). Before the Chronicle was six years old it had be- gun to assail certain abuses in the government, espe- cially in the administration of the judiciary, the po- lice, and the penal system, beginning a campaign which has never since been relaxed, although little support has been accorded by the other foreign-lan- guage journals (8). Young’s intense fear that militarism might grow led him to bitter and persistent opposition to Japa- nese imperialism, and strengthened the conviction that the Chronicle was anti-Japanese.* His ridicule of the cherished myths of Japanese history and his accu- sations that Japan’s ancient records were literary forgeries repelled other readers. By the supersensi- tive and overpatriotic Japanese, Young’s outspoken hatred of bigotry, hypocrisy, and blind sentimentality could only be explained as due to deeply felt hostility against the Empire. His earnest championing of Ko- rean independence, and his long-continued fight for better government in that peninsula were outgrowths of his fierce antagonism against suppression of liberty and against cant, sham, and slushy optimism. Press freedom was another ideal for which the * Young pointed out that he was no less firm against the iden- tical evils which he perceived in the British treatment of the Boers, the Irish, Hindus, and Egyptians than he was against Japan’s ad- ministration of Formosa and Korea (9). [335]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Chronicle fought unceasingly. Probably no other pa- per in Japan has been as active in its protests against embargoes, suppressions of the news, misrepresenta- tions of the truth, or persecutions of newspaper men. Dr. Lucy Salmon pays it tribute by remarking, “In no other single paper examined have so many articles been noted that have dealt so thoroughly and so per- sistently with the general fundamental questions af- fecting the press of all countries.”” Dean Walter Wil- liams admitted it among the hundred best newspapers in the world, and Joseph I. C. Clarke considered it “the best-written English daily in the Orient” (10). Mechanically considered, the Chronicle also takes high rank among its foreign-language contemporaries in Japan, although the Advertiser probably outranks it in news connected with the American field. Its cable news, received through Rengo and Reuter’s, has been uneven in the past, for, because of the monopoly by Mr. Zumoto, the Chronicle, from 1899 until 1905, was obliged to rely upon independent services, first in conjunction with the Asa@hi’s and later with the Jiji’s.” In July, 1897, a Weekly Chronicle was founded, chiefly for the purpose of foreign circulation. The Chronicle was the first commercial journal in Japan to use the linotype, introducing the machines in No- vember, 1903, and being preceded only by the O ficial ° The Asahi-Chronicle service scored important “beats,” includ- ing the first news of Queen Victoria’s death, but the inability to se- cure co-operating journals made the expense exorbitant. [336]LIBELING THE JAPANESE Gazette. On the death of Robert Young, November, 1922, the ownership passed to his chief associate, A. Morgan Young, who is, despite the name, no rela- tive. Associated with the latter Young is the veteran Thomas Satchell, formerly of the Japan Herald and the Japan Mail, and translator of Toyohiko Kagawa’s novels of the Japanese proletariat.° The Chronicle is the correspondent in Japan for the Manchester Guardian, the Baltimore Sun, and a number of Aus- tralian papers. In view of the almost universal opinion in Japan that the entire foreign press, and in particular the Japan Chronicle, is hostile to Japan, a close examina- tion of the contents of the foreign-language press was undertaken to ascertain the justice of the charge. The year 1924 was chosen for investigation, since at that time international disputes had reached a maxi- mum of frequency and of intensity, and since hostile bias would be most evident at such a period of crisis. Corroborative and illustrative material was then added from journalistic files of other years. Refer- ences made by the foreign-language press which seemed to slight the Japanese (in any matter other than financial or economic policy) were listed care- *For a time the Chronicle employed Thomas Cowen, who, over the signature “F. A. G.,” conducted a column famous for its sidelights on the foreign colony. He was acting editor of the paper during Robert Young’s absence in England. [337]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN fully and were then compared with comments culled from journals known to be more friendly to Japan. The columns of the native press disclose that Japanese are by no means averse to criticism of their country if the manner of the presentation is not deemed objectionable. Among themselves the tenets of convention require the publicist to imply a deca- dence in the populace that renders them unworthy of their ancestral glory. When writing of the mission of Japan, or of their nation’s history, the tone is one of grandeur mingled with the sad regret that, save for the Emperor and his close relatives, no Japanese may be compared to heroes of the past. Judged, therefore, by their own writings in the native press, the Japanese are conceited meddlers, corrupt and glaringly defective, insincere and fickle, lacking public spirit, gullible and easily swayed by demagogues because of shallow-mindedness and lack of insight, arrogant yet cowardly, sunk deep in in- dolence and self-indulgence, an exhausted race which has too greedily gulped down all things new and Occidental (11). Uncritical acceptance of these self-appraisals would classify the Japanese as a most ill-favored lot, but virtually every Westerner resident in Japan un- derstands that such an acceptance would be most cruelly unjust. No one could fairly estimate the Japa- nese by the measure of comments made under the lash of custom. Nor does any foreign-language paper [338]LIBELING THE JAPANESE use terms at all comparable to these in any articles written of the Empire or of its people. The foreign editor, however rushed by journalistic exigency and however moved by strong emotion, seldom accepts the conventionalized modesty at its face value. The Oriental penchant for polite self-deprecation is well known, and allowances are almost always made in foreign-language editorial sanctums for the virulence of native opinion concerning native failings. But also it must be recognized that the Oriental mind, like any other, will prefer that criticism of a native failing come from domestic critics rather than from alien commentators. The marked inferiority complex which Dr. Gulick believes to be inherent in 95 per cent of the people (12) resents libels from a foreign source and insists upon a more than full recog- nition of the native virtues. Probably it is true that Occidental editors, scrupulously wishing to be fair, may add a heavy premium to Japan’s self-rating and yet fall far below the standards which the Oriental may accept as satisfactory. The double standards which critics are expected to observe may be, in larg- est measure, responsible for international misunder- standings. To Japanese the alien press becomes intolerable when it states that politics in Japan are bought and sold in open markets, and that intimidation of the voters or of officials is so common as to excite but little surprise; but virtually every great vernacular [339]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN organ echoes precisely the same criticism. No foreign- language journal has called the Diet of Japan “a hell where ugly fights and quarrels are the usual proce- dure.” Jiji, the most restrained of Japanese newspa- pers, thus condemns the popular legislative body of the Empire; and it is equally intense in opposition to the corruption of municipal law-making bodies. Nor would any foreign-language paper dare to say, as does the Yomiuri, that Japan is a century behind Great Britain in development, nor that, as Mr. Tokutomi, editor of Kokumin, declares, ‘Japan has reached the crossroads where reform or revolution must now be undertaken” (13). In matters of international relations the Japanese are similarly more intense in opposition to the policies of their government. The flood of imprecations con- tinually launched against their diplomatic staff gives a strong impression of Japanese press independence. It is noticeable, however, that the criticism is almost invariably against Japan’s ‘“weak-kneed,” “fawning,” “effeminate,” or “cowardly” activities toward foreign lands, and that almost never is greater moderation or more conciliatory action urged upon the government. Japan’s “‘jingo press” comprises all the major Tokyo and Osaka papers eminent either for their circulation or their influence (14). None of the foreign papers take so virulent a stand upon such matters, nor do they so unanimously urge the government to initiate “strong” policies. [340]LIBELING THE JAPANESE Their unwillingness to co-operate with the Foreign Office in the latter’s desire to demonstrate an essen- tially peace-loving policy in the face of overwhelming journalistic pressure is a cause for constant lamen- tation. The Chronicle’s reluctance to admit that mili- tarism has had its day, and that Japan is now essen- tially a democracy earns for the Kobe paper a vast amount of animosity. At frequent intervals the Chronicle points out that military influences still hold the saddle, and that the sanctity of war is still taught in all the public schools. In public speeches made for foreign ears the tendency among the publicists of the Empire is to stress the pacifistic trends of Japan’s pol- icy. Such speeches almost always draw the charge of “insincerity” from the Chronicle, and the frequent instances in which military influences have carried their contention within recent months are always carefully set forth for readers of the paper (15). Powerful support is offered to the Chronicle’s contention by those who, like Yukio Ozaki and Mar- quis Okuma, attribute Japan’s progress to the ac- ceptance of the principle that might makes right.’ The Asahi’s and the Jiji frequently assail the more evident manifestation of militaristic influence in the schools. Protests against heavy military and naval ‘ At the time of their writing both gentlemen were officials of the Japan Peace Society, Okuma being president and Ozaki a di- rector. [341]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN budgets have been common in the press. But the Chronicle alone has been consistent in a journalistic opposition to the military spirit (16). In educational affairs the foreign press is dis- tinctly less critical than is the native publicist. The Chronicle, and to a less intense degree, the Adver- tiser, attacks the suppression of individual thought and opposes the highly regimented system of exami- nations: but both these charges are made more loudly by the Japanese. The Osaka Asahi, for example, re- gards Japanese education as “lower even than the standard of a third-class power”; Yorodzu believes that nothing in the world is so old-fashioned as the existing educational régime; Chuo and the Osaka Mainichi are agreed that the teaching force is ineffi- cient; Yamato feels that politics have spoiled the schools; and in the fall of 1926 a veritable chorus rose from Japanese newspapers against the alleged reactionary tendencies of the Minister of Education. Neither the Advertiser nor the Chronicle have been sparing in denunciation of the school authorities, but it is quite conservative to say that their comments have been but mild contrasted with the savage criti- cisms made by Japanese (17). So far as business affairs are concerned, the for- eign press fault-finding seems also to be less irksome than that of the Japanese themselves. There is, of course, a variation to be recognized in the type of criticism made. In the instances wherein the Chron- [342]LIBELING THE JAPANESE tcle is most concerned the objections which are made are for the most part definitely laid against some one specific firm for some specific action; whereas the vernacular critics are more inclined to overlook the individual instance and to draw more general indict- ments. The worst general complaints voiced by the Chronicle accuse the Japanese of inefficiency, reck- lessness, and disregard of scientific principles. Soi- chiro Asano, president of the Toyo Kisen Kaisha and one of the leading industrialists of the nation, goes much farther by declaring that Japan is still, indus- trially, an infant. Ginjiro Fujiwara, of the great Ojji Paper Mills, gives a complete assent to Mr. Asano’s verdict. Other business men, like Dr. Juichi Soyeda, formerly president of the Japanese Railways, and Tominosuke Kamitono, president of the Nagoya Chamber of Commerce, indorse the opinion of the Chronicle. The Seoul Press, some years ago, summed up the matter by ranking Japan’s industry among the fourth-class nations. The Tokyo Asahi, as late as July, 1926, sweepingly condemned Japan because the learned men lacked intellect, and could do no more than copy foreign models (18). On political shortcomings, education, business ef- ficiency, and similar topics comparative unanimity of opposition may be found in both the vernacular and the foreign-language press; but there are certain other subjects upon which criticism is not customarily [ 343 |]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN cast by native journals. The great government de- partments which share control over the internal ac- tivities of the Empire are freely criticized in private by both foreign residents and Japanese, but, save in the Chronicle, the defects are not often subjects for press comment. The Department of Communications, for ex- ample, is a frequent target for the Chronicle, but sel- dom is attacked by native organs. Its inefficiency in operating telephones and postal systems is self-evi- dent, the latter being below the pre-war standard, though the charges are double or perhaps triple the former rates. The telephone department, according to the Chronicle, employs “highwaymen methods,” delaying new installations for years unless subscrib- ers are willing to pay heavy premiums for immediate service. In the spring of 1926 a sum of ¥1,300 was charged for preferential installation, and in conse- quence a group of telephone brokers had sprung up with which some agents of the Department were co- operating. Fifty men were fined for conspiring to mulct subscribers, and officials of the Department were found to be conniving in the scheme. Except for mild rebukes made by Yamato, few Japanese editors seriously complained of the abuse. The Chronicle had for years been thundering its charges that the tele- phone and postal services were thoroughly dishon- est (19). Failure to provide street lighting, sanitary sew- [ 344 |LIBELING THE JAPANESE age systems, and scavenger services is another com- mon grievance for the Chronicle. It persists in point- ing out the correlation between Osaka’s high infant death-rate—“‘the highest in the world’’—and the pol- luted milk supply. Dr. Nakata, of the Osaka Medical University, supports the Chronicle’s ‘“‘crusade,” but few other papers lend the Chronicle support. They are quick, however, to approve the Chronicle for praising Japan’s efficient water system (20). Fear of the police and repugnance against the extra-legal methods commonly believed to be prac- ticed by it are generally expressed quite freely by the Japanese in private conversation, but scarcely any rebuke appears in print save in the columns of the Chronicle. Admitting that the personnel is honest— though Suyeo Nakano, of the Advertiser, says that the force is graft-ridden—and that it is so efficient that greater personal security is made possible than in New York or Chicago, the Chronicle proceeds to draw up a powerful indictment. In the opinion of the paper the police department is permeated with obso- lete Chinese ideas, using the system of incommuni- cado ordeals, employing torture, and extorting con- fessions. The police, according to the Chronicle, are the greatest law-breakers in Japan (21). Inquiry appears to confirm most of the Chron- icle’s accusations; but, to quote K. Sugimura, of the Tokyo Asahi, “we do not print editorials against the police because their weaknesses are taken for grant- [345 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN ed.” Tsunego Baba, former assistant editor of Koku- min, complains because the police give out false news, partly to enhance their own reputation, and partly as ballons d’essai which may be disowned as fictitious if the desired results are not obtained. In April, 1926, the Osaka Mainichi denied that Japan may be consid- ered as governed by legal principles so long as the police were permitted to assume supreme authority. The Tokyo Asahi had already urged that police power be curtailed, and Yorodzu had predicted a revolution unless police officials were restrained. None of these papers, however, criticized the methods which are al- leged to be employed (22). An exception to this statement must be recorded in the case of the protests made against the police spy system. In October, 1924, Chuo, Yorodzu, Tokyo Asahi, Miyako and the Japan Advertiser echoed the earlier protests of the Chronicle against this abuse, but no permanent change in policy seems to have been effected, nor was any punishment publicly visited up- on those who had misused police spies for wrongful purposes (23). Recurrent “crime waves” bring charges of ineffi- ciency from such papers as the Tokyo Nichi Nichi, Yamato, and Chugai Shogyo, but no paper accepts the Chronicle’s explanation that the police are too en- grossed in political persecutions to devote time for running down criminals. (The English Mainichi does suggest that at scenes of violence the police may stir [346]LIBELING THE JAPANESE up violence.) Nor is any other paper than the Chron- icle convinced that the Japanese police show antifor- eign tendencies (24). Two types of explanation may be offered for the peculiar reluctance of the vernacular press to criti- cize adversely the operations of government depart- ments in control of internal matters. The more popu- lar, if not the more important, reason is that the ed- itors are in wholesome dread of the power of arbi- trary suspension vested in the Home Minister and hence print nothing that may call down his wrath. The vague wording of the censorship provisions and the even more cloudy phrasing of peace preservation laws afford him ample power to wreak vengeance on offending journals. A second explanation postulates a lack of social interest by the press. Editors belong to social groups which do not customarily run foul of the more crude police methods, and hence are not personally interested in abuses. Just as in America, the “third degree,” while universally condemned, is not a matter for constant newspaper reiteration, so, in Japan, one finds a charity of omission or a friendly silence. There is apparent disinclination to probe deeply into the genesis of Formosan and Korean dis- content, and there is a seeming indifference to the commission of injustice. Few, if any, Japanese news- papers send reporters to the dependencies to send back descriptive articles criticizing the authorities, nor are recalcitrant Koreans given the freedom of [347 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN press columns as frequently as insurgent Filipino leaders are given leave to write in the United States. Perhaps the bitterest items in the Chronicle are those referring to the morals of the Japanese. It holds that jealousy is rampant; that offices are permeated by nepotism, cliques, and spies; that, except in judo contests, sportsmanship is at an exceedingly low level; and that the Japanese are savage in their cruelty toward animals. In this connection the Chronicle often cites the treatment of an elephant which for many years has been so tightly chained as to be un- able to lie down or to take a single step. Twenty-five years ago the plight of this poor animal was noted by the Japan Mail, and again, ten years ago, Hochi re- ported that the Nihon Jindokai (Japan S. P. C. A.) had again protested at the continuance of the torture. After the earthquake of 1923 the elephant was moved from Uyeno Park to Asakusa Park, but the old bru- tality was renewed. Yamato protested, but without avail (25). The Chronicle believes that this treatment is typi- cal of the Japanese attitude toward animals. A series of experiments conducted by the aviation corps, in which live monkeys were dropped from airplanes “to observe the internal reactions,”’ was denounced by the paper, and the suggestion was made that aviators be substituted for the monkeys. The permission to load the tiny Japanese horses with legal weights twice [ 348]LIBELING THE JAPANESE those allowed to the larger horses of the British Em- pire was also censured (26). By the spring of 1926 the Advertiser joined the Chronicle in protest against the inhumanity of Japa- nese. The former was indignant that the Jindokai had dropped to but six members, and it expressed sur- prise that so few complaints were registered against mistreatment. Its particular anger was kindled when, in August, 1926, a bear cub in the zoo was tortured to death by being bound helpless, “‘its mouth pried open, the teeth beaten down by hammers, and pieces of flesh dug out with pincers.” Both the Nihon Jin- dokai and the Tokyo Asahi, a member of whose staff was present at the time, also protested, but the au- thorities seemed satisfied to accept the explanation that the bear had choked himself to death upon a rope. Chuo, one of the few papers to comment edi- torially upon the outrage, contented itself with using the affair as an allegory of the situation between capi- tal and labor, and made no effective protest against the brutality involved. The “‘bestiality of treatment” inflicted on dogs in the Tokyo city pound drew severe condemnation, in the spring of 1927, from the Jindo- kai. Stray dogs, it was said, were cruelly maimed, were fed on repulsive food, and were then clubbed to death (27). All these incidents recall the judgment made by Rev. S. L. Gulick, that “the longer one lives in the country, the more he is impressed with certain aspects [349]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN of life which seem to evidence an unsympathetic and inhumane disposition” (28). After years of almost single-handed war on li- censed vice, the Chronicle was reinforced, in 1925 and 1926, by almost all the native press. The Chron- icle had stated constantly that the police were linked with brothel keepers and were being paid by them. Legally, the girls might free themselves by applying to the police authorities, but in practice, said the Chronicle, the police forced girls back into slavery. All this was long denied by Japanese, and the Chron- icle’s insistence was cited as a proof of its strong anti- Japanism, but in May, 1926, a sudden change ap- peared in journalistic policy. The Osaka Mainichi, admitting all the Chronicle had said, demanded a re- vision of the license system with a view toward its eventual abolition. Chugai Shogyo, Yamato, Ko- kumin, Osaka Asahi, and other papers branded li- censed vice as shameful to Japan. Except for Ko- kumin, which in 1916 had criticized the system, none of these papers had previously been active in the anti- vice campaign. Sekai and Tokyo Asahi had opposed the abolition of licensed quarters (29). Perhaps it is an indication of the rising power of the press that within three months the director of po- lice affairs in the Home Office was predicting that the licensing of vice would eventually disappear. He, too, admitted that the Yoshiwara system had been guilty of abuse and that the inmates had been exploited and [350]LIBELING THE JAPANESE abused. Even Miyako, the so-called “geisha paper,” branded prostitution as a national shame, although it was not convinced that it would be expedient or prac- ticable to abandon it (30). Except for the Chronicle, none of the papers holds a consistent record of opposition to this evil. The Ad- vertiser’s policy was to ignore the matter whenever possible, and although the Times had flashes of objec- tions, it was by no means as steady nor as forceful in its protests. The sudden shift of attitude by other pa- pers is a tribute to the Chronicle and a rebuttal to the Slanders that the Chronicle was motivated only by anti-Japanism in its long “crusade.” The Chronicle is alone in its opposition to the abuse of the opium traffic, which it alleges that Japan protects. It constantly refers to official statements that Japan is the largest importer of Java coca leaves and of raw Persian opium, and points out that no rec- ords indicate where or in what form the raw drugs are finally consumed. It was the only paper to report in full detail the trial of Hajima Hoshi, president of the largest Japanese drug firm, for smuggling opium into Formosa, and was one of the few journals to report that he had been fined a million yen.* Hochi alone among the Japanese papers took any notice of the trial. All other papers were content to indorse the speech made by Yotaro Sugimura, Japanese delegate to the Geneva Opium Conference, in which he said, *Ten months later the decision was reversed, on appeal. [351]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN ‘We are a nation of Samurai. With us honor is more important than anything else.” They seem to have made no effort to investigate the share of Japan in violating opium agreements (31). Basing its opinion on the alleged immorality and cruelty of the Japanese, the Chronicle scoffs at the popular conviction of a “spiritual” Asiatic civiliza- tion superior to the “material” West. It violates all Japanese mores by railing against the “beautiful Japanese customs” and by stating that if cruelty and immorality is its fruit, the national spirit—the almost sacredly revered Yamato Damashii—had better be abandoned. It asserts that Bushido, the code of chiv- alry, is in reality a myth, recently invented by Dr. Inazo Nitobe, and warns that Japanese history has been “cooked” for propaganda purposes (32). Such assaults cannot fail to rouse the resentment of the Japanese, but it must be recognized that the Chronicle is by no means without the backing of au- thority for many of its statements. Basil Hall Cham- berlain, long professor of philology at the Tokyo Im- perial University, wrote a volume on The Invention of a New Religion to describe the comparatively recent origin of both Bushido and Shinto. Baron Yoshiro Sakatani, former finance minister, believes that Ya- mato Damashii means no more than the national spirit of any other land. Dr. Gulick holds that the “beau- tiful Japanese customs” have led the nation to stag- nation, declares that past historians have distorted [352]LIBELING THE JAPANESE facts, and states that present-day historians are for- bidden to teach variations from the authorized dis- torted text. When, in October, 1926, Dr. Tetsujiro Inouye, professor emeritus of Tokyo Imperial Uni- versity and member of the House of Peers, published his book on Japan’s National Constitution and the National Morals, he was forced to retire the volume from circulation and to destroy all copies for having written that the original mirror and sword given to the emperors were no longer in existence, but that the articles kept in the imperial palace were replicas. Ob- jection was also made to Dr. Inouye’s suggestions that the message of the sun goddess to the emperors was mythical, and that the sun goddess herself was not a living person. The Japan Times also has admitted that “mythology has been dressed up as fact,” and that heterodox instruction has been punished. The fear of decadence, as stated by the Chronicle, is not uncommon in Japan. “In all respects,” wrote ‘““Kwazan” Kayahara, “Japan is at a standstill and is about to crumble.” Marquis Okuma reported in 1919 that Japan had been stagnating thirty years. Sanji Muto, Kanegafuchi Mill president, placed his own country far behind the West in the formation of char- acter. Ten years ago Kokumin and the Osaka Main- ichi bewailed the decay of morality among the women of Japan. In August, 1926, Chugai Shogyo and Yo- miuri complained that medical morality was low, that doctors were too avaricious, and that they sometimes [353 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN violated girls intrusted to their care. Prince Saionji, last of the Genro, complained that Japan lacks mor- al principles available for daily life, although well- stocked with morals suitable for national emergen- cies. Vorodzu and Miyako thought, in 1926, that “religion in Japan is rotten with corruption.” J. In- gram Bryan, former editor of the publication spon- sored by the Tokyo Chamber of Commerce, appraised the sense of “universal and eternal righteousness” in Japan as five hundred years behind the Anglo-Saxon standards, while the Tokyo Nichi Nichi fell into deep despondency: “Let us ask ourselves if Japan has at- tained any spiritual achievement, Yamato Damashu excepted, which can be shown to the world. Japan has no phase of civilization of which she can well be proud” (33). Of minor importance, but tending to aggravate the feeling against the Chronicle, are its suggestions that the Japanese are inefficient builders and poor sailors; that the bread is “pretty awful’; that the tea is unlike the Ceylon curing; that, although personally clean, the Japanese permit foreign-style houses and street railways to be filthy; that the language is too cumbersome; and that there exists “a passion for in- accurate statistics.” On none of these, except the last, is confirmation found among the native papers (34). Probably it is true that the particular criticisms made by the Chronicle might be endured, as are those listed by the Advertiser and the Times, were it not [354]LIBELING THE JAPANESE for the exasperating persistency with which the Kobe paper reiterates its grievances. It is often customary in the East for the frank acknowledgment of a fault to be considered as almost equivalent to an effort to remedy the defect; but of this convention the Chron- icle, unlike the other foreign papers, has no concep- tion. Less than the editors of any other journal do the editors of the Chronicle have an understanding or a sympathy for Oriental social codes. They carry British attitudes and British prejudices into their re- lations with the Japanese, and the resultant clash of cultures cannot but cause confusion. The cumulative harping of the Chronicle on abuses which the Japa- nese admit but do not end is more insufferable than the single and more biting slurs appearing in the other foreign-language papers. It is the attitude and the editorial tone assumed by foreign-language papers, rather than the detrac- tions actually published, which irritate the Japanese. The alien slurs are by no means as virulent as many of the remarks which the Japanese newspapers print concerning either their own nationals or the foreign- ers,’ and the anti-Japanism of the foreign press could very readily be matched by much worse parallel criti- * The “filthy Western habit of eating cheese” disgusts the Main- ichi; while the addiction among Japanese to the wearing of gold teeth calls forth an indignant editorial protest from the Tokyo Asahi. The time is not long past when a foreign party to a lawsuit lost his case because the court was perceptibly shocked by the testi- mony that he had kissed his wife in public Gs): [355]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN cisms by the vernacular gazettes against the citizens of other lands. Many Japanese, at least in private, will accept the strictures of the foreign press as jus- tifiable and proper, whether the press comments con- cern domestic policy or the administration methods followed in the dependencies. But these are isolated and, perhaps relatively unimportant, instances. The reputation of the alien press for anti-Japan- ism proves, then, on examination, to be based pri- marily on its unyielding attitude toward certain moral questions, on its objections to the policy of certain government departments which have won, for one reason or another, a ‘“‘sacred cow” position, and on its unwillingness to accept as thoroughly authentic the customary glamor cast over Japan’s history. The con- clusion seems well warranted that, were the foreign- language press to consent to voice the customary ap- probation for views which may be semi-official, no serious objection would be raised against the printing of worse libels than are now permitted. By and large the Advertiser and the Times have taken this posi- tion, but the Chronicle remains stiff-necked and re- sisting.*° For this chief reason, therefore, it is the 10 The Advertiser steers a safe and quite conservative course. On one occasion it permitted a staff correspondent to write, Abi al advance my free opinion, I may, and most probably shall, incur the charge of treason.” In a series of articles which followed the writer then gave high praise to Japanese administration in Korea, winning a special letter of commendation, for his “truthful presentation of the facts,” from the president of the House of Peers (36). [356]LIBELING THE JAPANESE Chronicle which bears the burden of official displeas- ure and which is made to bear the brunt of criticism from the publicists friendly to Japan. wo mn — Ww NOTES . London Times, September 2, 1916. . Chronicle, October 2, 1801. . Mail, February 5, 1876. . Chronicle, October 2, 1891. . Chronicle, October 16, 1922; Japan Times, July 13, 1913, March 3, 1925; Mail, March 19, 1910, July 25, 1918; Ost Asiatische Lloyd, February 15, 1910. . Chronicle, November 9, 1916. . Chronicle, February 5, 1902, March 16, 1902, April 16, 20 , 23, 1902. . Mail, August 22, 1806. 9. Chronicle, July 7, 1921, September 1, 22, 1921. IO. ile Newspaper and Authority, p. 88 n. (a) Conceit: G. Fujiwara, Taiyo, June, 1925; R. O. Math- eson, Current History, May, 1927. (6) Corrupt social life: Kokumin, February 7, 1924; Tokyo Nichi Nichi, Decem- ber 24, 1924; Tokyo Asahi, November 12, 1924; Yamato, October 2, 1925; Chugai Shogyo, July 31, 1926; Yorodzu, March 13, 1926. (c) Lack public spirit: Kokuwmin, Febru- ary 7, 1924; Kazutami, “Wamin,” Ukita, Jitsugo-no-Ni- hon, February, 1925; Osaka Mainichi, November 16, 1924; Matheson, op. cit. (d) Fickle, shallow, frivolous: Kaya- hara, Naikwan, August, 1925; Miyake, Gaikwan, January, 1925; Kojiro Sugimura, Chuo Koron, August, 1924; Pro- fessor En Kanai and Baron Mitsunojo Funakoshi, Jitsugo- no-Nthon, February, 1925; Kamio Chiba, Bunka Seikatsu, September, 1924; Osaka Mainichi, June 16, 1924; Yamato, October 2, 1925. (e) Rude and arrogant: Miyake, Gaik- [357]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN wan, May, 1926; K. Mitsukawa, Gaikwan, March, 1924; Dr. Isoo Abe, Kaizo, June, 1924; T.-Yonechiyama, Shina, May, 1925; Juko Shiga, Nihon-oyobi-Nihonjin, November, 1924; Ozaki, Chronicle, October 16, 1924. (f) Cowardly: Kokumin, February 7, 1924, April 4, 1924; Tokyo Nichi Nichi, December 24, 1924; Ozaki and Chiba, op. cit. (g) Self-indulgent: K. Horiye, Chuo Koron, October, 1924; Hitoshi Ashida and Soyeda in Jitsugo-no-Nihon, Febru- ary, 1925; Osaka Mainichi, November 16, 1924; Jijt, No- vember 6, 1924; Chiba and Matheson, op. cit. (h) Too eager for West: Kayahara, Nazkwan, August, 1925; Toyo Keizai, June, 1924; Yorodzu, October 27, 1924; Shibusa- wa, Japan Times, December 28, 1926; Uenoda, Advertiser, November 24, 1926. See also notes, chapter iv, No. 4. . Gulick, p. 140. (a) Politics bought and sold: K. Horiye, Kaizo, February, 1924, October, 1924; T. Tagawa, Taiyo, August, 1924; Toyo Keizai, June, 1924; Naikwan, December, 1924; Oza- ki, in Taiyo, May, 1926, and in Advertiser, April 1, 1924; Kokumin, February 24, 1917, January 1, 1924, October 8, 1924; Hochi, February 5, 1924, April 10, 1926; Osaka Mainichi, May 11, 1925; Osaka Asahi, April 25, 1925, May 12, 1925; Chugai Shogyo, July 31, 1926; Japan Times, May 6, 1924; Washio, Advertiser, March 18, 1924, April 2, 1924, April 17, 1926. (b) Intimidation: Osaka Maini- chi, November 2, 11, 1924; Washio, Advertiser, February 16, 1924, December 4, 1924. See Notes, chapter xii, No. 24 b-f. (c) Representative government is impossible, be- cause party leaders are unprincipled: Professor Shinkichi Uyesugi, Advertiser, February 8, 1924; Ki Inukai, Ad- vertiser, February 14, 1924; Ozaki, Advertiser, April 1, 1924, and Zaiyo, May, 1926; Horiye, Kaizo, February, 1924; Sanji Muto, Taiyo, May, 1926; Osaka Mainichi, No- vember 16, 1924, August 24, 1926, March 30, 1927; Ko- [358]14. To: LIBELING THE JAPANESE kumin, August 26, 1926; Tokyo Nichi Nichi, December 9, 1924, March 27,.1927; Osaka Asahi, April 25, 1925. (d) Parties ignore labor and farmers: Tokyo Asahi, November 12, 1924; Tokyo Nichi Nichi, December 9, 1924; Osaka Asahi, April 25, 1925; Kokumin, October 8, 1924; Horiye, Kaizo, February, 1924. (e) “Diet is a hell”: Jiji, March 7, 1926; cf. editorials in the Tokyo press during the dis- orders following scandal charges in the Diet in the closing days of the 1926 and 1927 sessions, especially Osaka Main- icht, March 13, 1926, March 30, 1927; Tokyo Nichi Nichi, March 14, 1926, March 26, 1927. (f) Corrupt city govern- ment: Kokumin, January 11, 1925; Jiji, October 11, 1924, November 6, 1924; Tokyo Nichi Nichi, September 18, 1924, October 8, 1924; Osaka Mainichi, November 16, 1924; Tokyo Asahi, November 12, 1924. (g) “Japan is at the cross-roads,” Tokutomi, in Advertiser, April 10, 1924. Diplomats are fawning, cowardly, weak: Kayahara, Naik- wan, April, 1926; Tokyo Nichi Nichi, April 24, 1924; To- kyo Asahi, August 16, 1917, June 25, 1924; Hochi, August 15, 1917, December 17, 1924; Osaka Asahi, April 6, 1924, December 21, 1924; Kokumin, April 18, 1926 (but com- pare the patience shown toward China in the civil war of 1927 in the face of more severe provocation which would formerly have brought from the press demands for in- stant action). (a) Militarism is over: Dr. Ku Hung-min, Osaka Maini- cht, November 1, 1924; Prince Yamagata, Boston Tran- script, October 13, 1921; Advertiser, April 26, 1924; To- kyo Asahi, November 10, 1924; Osaka Asahi, October 1, 1924; Osaka Mainichi, November 12, 10, 1924. (b) Japan is still militaristic: Ozaki, Naikwan, December, 1924, and World Tomorrow, June, 1925; Okuma, Shin-Nihon, May, 1915; Chronicle, April 10, 1924, September II, 1924, No- [359]IQ. SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN vember 20, 1924, May 28, 1925, May 8, 1925, December 3, 1925. (All dates are in 1924.) Osaka Asahi, October 1 and 15; Tokyo Asahi, October 17, 18, 30, November 25; Miyako, December 5; Chuo, October 30, November 8; Hochi, No- vember 12, Jiji, October 6, and 17, November 29, Decem- ber 16; Osaka Mainichi, October 8. Ozaki and Kayahara, Nazkwan, December, 1924; Mathe- son, Current History, May, 1927; Bryan, p. 191; Cham- berlain, p. 48; Gulick, p. 222; T. Murayama, Fudocho, March, 1927; Osaka Mainichi, October 27, 1924, Novem- ber 16, 1924, December 16, 1924, March 18, 1925; Tokyo Nichi Nichi, November 13, 14, 1924, August 18, 1926; Osaka Asahi, July 20, 1924, April 13, 1926; Tokyo Asaht, November 17, 1924, August 18, 1926; Chuo, September 24, 1924, October 10, 1924, August 5, 1925; Yomiuri, Decem- ber 27, 1924, April 18, 1926; Yamato, December 29, 1924; Japan Times, March 11, 1924, October 22, 1924, Decem- ber 9, 1924; Kokumin, August 15, 1926; Advertiser, March 18, 1924, October 7, 16, 22, 1924, March 12, 13, 1925, March 18, 1927; Washio, Advertiser,February 26, 1925; Uyenoda, Advertiser, November 24, 1926. . Inouye, Taiyo, October, 1924; Asano and Fujiwara, Tazyo, June, 1925; Soyeda and Kanai, Jitsugo-no-Nihon, Feb- ruary, 1925; Mochizuki, Advertiser, December 24, 1924; Seoul Press, July 23, 1912; Matheson, Current History, May, 1927; Osaka Mainichi, November 3, 1924, October 5, 1925; Tokyo Nichi Nichi, November 5, 1925; Yomuurt, November 15, 1924; Tokyo Asahi, July 23, 1926; Shoda, in Chronicle, April 10, 1924, in Transpacific, August 16, 1924. (a) Post-office: Jiji, November 24, 1924, December 18, 1924, July 8, 1926. (b) Trams: Yomiuri, July 17, 1916: Chuo, August 14, 1916. (c) Telephones: Yamato, Sep- [ 360 |20. 21. 22. 20. 28. 29. LIBELING THE JAPANESE temper 20, 1926; Matheson, Current History, May, 1927; Advertiser, March 21, 1924. (d) Traffic laws: Advertiser, April 12, 20, 26, 1926. (a) Lights: Jzji, December 15, 1925, August 4, 1926. (b) Roads: Yomiuri, November 6, 1918, March 2, 1920, De- cember 26, 1925; Jzji, January 31, 1919, February 25, 28, 1920. (c) Nakata: Chronicle, September 17, 1925. (d) Sanitation: Yamato, December 23, 1918. For the best summary of the Chronicle’s charges, see issue of February 1, 1923; see also Advertiser, May 18, 1905, June 6, 1923, November 29, 1924; Osaka Mainichi, April II, 1926; Yorodzu, March 29, 1927. Yorodzu, October 8, 1924, March 29, 1927; Tokyo Nichi Nichi, January 13, 1927; Osaka Mainichi, April 11, 1926, September 16, 1926. . For an account of the “police spy case,” see New York Na- tion, April 15, 1925. . Osaka Mainichi, January 21, 1925. . (a) Jealousy and cliques: Hirozo Mori, Jitsugo-no-Nihon, February, 1925; Matheson, Current History, May, 1927; Osaka Mainichi, August 24, 1926; for denial, see Okuma, I, 208. (6) Cruelty, see Mori, op. cit. (c) Elephant: Mail, October 27, 1900; Chronicle, December 28, 1916, January 24, 1924, March 27, 1924. (a) Horse: Advertiser, July 4, 1926; Matheson, op. cit. (b) Monkeys: Chronicle, October 16, 23, 1914, November 13, 1924, December 25, 1924, February 18, 1925, Decem- ber 23, 1925. 7. (a) Bear cub: Advertiser, August 12, 15, 1926. (b) Dogs: Advertiser, February 13, 16, 1927, March 16, 1927, April 2. 10277. Gulick, pp. 129, 132. Japan Times, November 21, 1923, July 7, 1924, December I, 1924, March ro, 1925, May 18, 1925, June 25, 1925; [ 361 |ww Os W NO GW Ww SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Osaka Mainichi, November 13, 1924, April 3, 1925, Sep- tember 16, 1926; Tokyo Asahi, May 12, 1916, August 12, 1926; Sekai Koron, May 12, 1916; Kokumin, September 12, 1916. In May, 1926, the following papers, on the speci- fied dates: Osaka Asahi and Yamato, 1; Advertiser, 9; Osaka Asahi and Chugai Shogyo, 13; Kokumin, 15. Miyako, August 4, 1926; Advertiser, March 13, 1926, May 3, 1926, August 7, 1926. . Hochi, November 10, 1925; Sugimura, Chronicle, Novem- VI ber 27, 1924. . “A. T. C.” in Japan Times, May 28, 1925; Gulick, pp. 64, 205; Times, March 10, 1924; Okuma, I, 41. . Sakatani, Advertiser, August 19, 1917; Okuma, Jiji, Feb- ruary II, 1919; Women, Kokumin, September 15, 1916; Osaka Mainichi, March 13, 1917; Decadence: A frequent theme for Kayahara’s Naikwan. Cf. articles in this maga- zine by Ozaki, December, 1924, Kayahara, December, 1924, August, 1925; Saionji, August, 1926; Asano, Tazyo, June, 1925; Chiba, Bunka Seikatsu, September, 1924; Muto, Jitsugo-no-Nihon, February, 1925; Washio, Adver- tiser, January 31, 1924; Fukuda, Taiwan Nichi Nichi, Au- gust 23, 1923; Bryan, Chronicle, May 19, 1921; Tokyo Asahi, November 12, 1924, March 10, 1925; Tokyo Nicht Nichi, December 24, 1924. Medical men: Chugai, Shogyo, August 11, 1926; Yomiuri, August 31, 1926, October 16, 1926; Yorodzu, March 13, 1926; Miyako, March 25, 1927. . Statistics: Kokumin, May 13, 1916. Ships: Jiji, March 25) 1027. . Gold teeth: Tokyo Asahi, May 16, 1926; approved by Ad- vertiser, May 22, 1926; Japanese are ungentlemanly, Mi- yake, Gaikwan, May, 1926. Japanese are unpleasant look- ing, Yorodzu, May 8, 1926. . Advertiser, October 23, 1925. [ 362 ]BIBLIOGRAPHY Except for fugitive magazine or newspaper citations, the history of Japanese journalism has never been adequately treat- ed, either in Japanese or in English. In the latter tongue a num- ber of partial treatises have been attempted, sometimes limited, as is Dr. Kisaburo Kawabe’s Press and Politics in Japan, to some specific phase of journalism, or sometimes designed, like Kanesada Hanazono’s Development of Japanese Journalism for the advertising of some specific newspaper, in Mr. Hanazono’s case, the Osaka Mainichi. One general feature discernible jin several essays Is a tend- ency to gloss over unpleasant episodes; another is a lack of at- tention to the application of the censorship or to the uses of the embargo; still another is the failure to treat adequately of the foreign news supply, or even of the machinery for gather- ing news; and a fourth weakness is the uncertainty as to chron- ology. It is not uncommon to find half a dozen different dates assigned for the founding of some important newspaper, like the Tokyo Nichi Nichi. Occasionally the work may be written to stress some particular tendency of the press, such as press freedom, which is emphasized by Mr. Zumoto and by Mr. Sawada; the unanimity of foreign policy, which Mr. Sawada thinks important; or the progressive liberalization of Japan through press influence, which is the theme for Dr. Kawabe. No book, magazine, or newspaper, in the writer’s experience, has devoted more than a very small space to the foreign-lan- guage press. For this reason the writer was obliged to rely to an unusual degree upon personal interviews with Japanese editors and pub- licists, whose contributions cannot be adequately listed in a [ 363 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN bibliography. They are, however, credited to their proper ori- gins in the bibliographies which close each chapter of the study. To avoid needless duplication, the writer has omitted, in the appended bibliography, all mention of works listed in the very admirable and complete “List of Books on Japan” com- piled by William Adams Slade, chief of the division of bibliog- raphy in the Library of Congress, and published in the Far East number of the Annals of the American Academy of Po- litical and Social Science (CXXII [November, 1925], 227-40). “Les journaux japonais,” Annales de l’Extreme Orient, VI (Paris, 1884-85), 31. “Japanese Journalism,” Waseda Bungaku, June, 1896. “Literature in Japanese Newspapers,” Bungei Shimbun, April, 1QOO. “Blackmail in Newspapers,” Shakai Zasshi, June, 1900. “Japanese Journalism,’ Myojo, August, 1900. “Tokyo’s Daily Press,” Sekigake Shimbun, September, 1913. “Newspapers as Cat’s Paws of Business,” Independent Review, December, 1913. “Osaka Asahi and Osaka Mainichi,” Teikoku Koshinjo, March, 1924. AsapA, “Koson,” “Goto and the Press,” Tazyo, June, 1918. BEARD, Miriam, “Japan’s Lively Press,” New York Tumes, August 10, 1924. BAILEY, HERBERT, “Reuter as Propagandist,” Nation and Athe- naeum, London, December 8, 1923. BELL, A., “Adventures in a Japanese Newspaper Office,” J/lus- trated World Outlook, December, 1916. BENT, S1vas, “A New Pacific Cable,” Asza, March, 19109. BLACK, JOHN R., Young Japan (Yokohama: Kelly & Walsh, 1883), 2 vols. BoUCHERON, Pierre H., “Trans-Pacific Radio,’ Far-Eastern Review, November, 1921. [ 364 ]BIBLIOGRAPHY BRINKLEY, CAPTAIN FRANK, “New Japan,” in Historians’ His- tory of the World, Vol. XXIV (London: The Times, 1908). BRowNELL, C. L., The Heart of Japan (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1903). Byas, HucH, “Journalism in Japan,” London Times, December 16, 1916; “Press of Japan,” Transactions of Japan Society (London, 1923-24), XXI, 4off; “The Tokyo Newspa- pers,” Advertiser serial during 1916. CourANT, Maurice, “La Presse periodique japonaise,” Jour- nale Astatique, ome series (Paris, 1898), XII, 504-30. DENING, WALTER, “Modern Literature in Japan,’ Transac- tions 95th International Congress of Orientalists, (London, 1892), II, 660-63; “Japanese Literature,’ Transactions Asiatic Society, Vol. XLI, Part 1 (Yokohama, June, 1913); “Influence of Newspapers,” Taiyo, December, 1899. ENGARDE, W. A., “Japanese Journalism and Typography,” Jn- land Printer (Chicago, December, 1888), VI, 200. FENTON, FRANcEs, Influence of Newspaper Representations upon the Growth of Crime and Other Anti-Social Activity, University of Chicago Press, 1911. FRIED, ALFRED H., “The Press as an Instrument of Peace,” Proc. Universal Races Congress (London: King & Son, IQII). GALLEGHER, Patrick, “Marquis Saionji Moves,” Asia, Septem- ber, 1923. GREEN, THomas E., “Making a Japanese Newspaper,” Nation- al Geographic, XXXVIII (October, 1920), 327-34. HakusHo, Masamuno, “Modern Japanese Literature,” Chuo Koron, May, 1926. HANIHARA, MASANAO, “Japan,” in These Eventful Years, Vol. I (London and New York, 1924). [ 365 ]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN HANAZANO, KANESADA, Development of Japanese Journalism (Osaka: Mainichi Company, 1924). HANSEN, Dr. N., ‘“‘Japan’s Foreign News Service,” Living Age, CCCII (Boston, October 15, 1921); Series 8, 163-65; re- print from Die Grenzboten, Berlin, August 3, 1921. Hayasut, Count Tapasu, Secret Memoirs, edited A. M. Pooley (New York: Putnam, 1915). Heco, JoserH, Narrative of a Japanese (Yokohama, no date), 2 vols. HicAsu1, KanisuH1, “Short History of Early Meiji Journal- ism,” Taiyo, August, rgot. Hott, HAMmILTon, “Journalism in Japan and America,” Inde- pendent, December 28, rort. Honpo, Masvuyiro, “Japanese Journalism,’ Nzhon-oyobi-N7- honjin, March, 1916; “Early Journalism in Japan,” Chron- icle, May 6, 1920. HoriokA, BUNKICHI, Japan and the Pan-Pacific Races (Tokyo, 1927). Hosuino, T., Economic History of Manchuria and Chosen (Seoul: Chosen Ginko, 1920), 2 vols. Hucorns, H. C., “Electricity in Japan,” Far Eastern Review, July, 1922. Hype, ARTHUR M., “Western Learning in Japan before the Coming of Perry,” Historical Outlook, XV (May, 1924), No. 5, 195-200. INuKAr, K., “Old-Time Newspapermen,” Daigaku Hzoron, August, I917. “JAPANESE Epitor,” “Newspapers of Japan,” Inland Printer, Chicago, August, 1906. Kato, Hrroyuxt, “Journal of Kokumin Eigaku-kwai,” Japan Mail, December 28, 1880. KAWABE, KisABuRO, Press and Politics of Japan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1921). [ 366 |BIBLIOGRAPHY KAWAKAMI, Ktyosui Kart, “Japan’s Ordeal through Earth- quake and Fire,” New York Times Current History, Vol. XIX (October, 1923), No. 1. Komatsu, Minortr, “Japan in Korea,’ Chuo Koron, July, IQ16. KuropA, Kosurro, “War Correspondents in Japan,” Bunsho Sekai, September, 1906. Kurorwa, S., “Newspaper Profits,” Chuo Koron, October, IgI2. Lawton, LANcELort, Empires of the Far East (Boston: Small, Maynard, 1912); “Japan’s Monopoly of Publicity,” Acad- emy, XXCVI, 474-75. Lioyp, Rev. AktHuR, “Books in Japan,” Proc. Asiatic Society of Japan, Vol. XX XVII, Part I. Low, A. M., “Yellow Press of Japan,” North American Re- view, Vol. CXKXCV, August 16, 1907. MacLaren, W. W., “Japanese Government Documents,” Transactions Asiatic Society, Vol. XLII (Tokyo: May, 1914), Part I. MacMauon, Tuomas J., The Orient I Found (New York: Appleton, 1926). McCratcuy, V. S., The Germany of Asia (Sacramento: the Bee, April, 1919). Martin, FRANK LEE, Journalism in Japan, Bulletin, University of Missouri, Vol XIX (1918), No. 10; “In the Land of the Gogai,” Advertising News, XXVII (New York, July, 13, 1918), 26-28. Masaoxa, Getyo, Dark Side of Newspaper Affairs (Tokyo: Shinseisha, 1gor). Mason, W. B., “Foreign Community in Early Meiji Times,” New East, II, 243; III, 301 ff. MATHESON, Roperick O., “Through the Inferno of the Jap- anese Earthquake,” McClures, Vol. LVI (1920), No. r. ——. “The Myth of Japanese Efficiency,” Current History, Vol. XXVI (May, 1927). No. 2. [ 367 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Matsur “HAKKEN,” “Journalistic Ethics,’ Chuo Koron, May, IQI7. Mrvaxke, Yuyjrro “Setsure!,” “Page Three,” Tazyo, February, to11; “Press and Pressmen,” Nihon-oyobi-Nihonjin, Jan- uary and February, 1922. Morira, Tatsuo, “Schools and the Class War,” Kaizo, Octo- ber, 1926. Moroyama, Hrxorcut, “Newspapers of Osaka,” Japan, XIV, No. 11 (November, 1925), 109. Murayama. Ryvuuetr, “Growth of Osaka Stimulated by Its Press,” Japan, XIV, No. 11 (November, 1925), 53: Naxacawa, T. J., “Journalism in Japan,’ Forum, XXIX (May, 1900), 370-76. NAKAMURA, C., “Present State of Japanese Journalism,” Japan vangelist, V (Tokyo, 1898), 299-300. NAKANO, SuvEo, “Japanese Press,” serial in Advertiser, March 26—April 18, 1924. NEISWANGER, WiLLraAM A., “Japan’s Struggling Labor Move- ment,” New York Times Current History, December, 1926. Nirope, Inazo, “Japanese Colonization,” Japan Magazine, April, 1920. Nocucut, Yong, “Journalism in Japan,” Bookman, XIX (April, 1904), 50-54. NorRTHCLIFFE, VISCOUNT, “Watch Japan,’ London Times, April 19, 1922. Omacut, KetcEetsvu, “Japanese Newspapers,” Kokumin Liter- ary Supplement, March, 1903. Ozax1, YuKIO, “Japanese Newspapermen,” Niroku (20th An- niversary Issue), November, 1912. Pootey, ANDREW M., Japan’s Foreign Policy (London, Put- nam, 1920); Japan at the Crossroads (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1917). [ 368 |BIBLIOGRAPHY PowELL, E. ALEXANDER, “Are We Giving Japan a Square Deal?” Atlantic, October, 1921. Preston, W. T. R., “Fair Play for Japan,” National Review, July, 1908. Rat, LALA Rajpat, “Japanese Press,” Modern Review (Calcut- ta: August, 1916). REINSCH, Paut S., An American Diplomat in China (New York: Doubleday, Page, 1922). “RoJIN SENSOKU,” “Japanese Reporters,” Chuo Koron, March, IQI7. “REKIZAN,” “Foreign Press in Japan,” Tomi-no-Nihon, March, IgI2. Ritter, H., Protestant Missions in Japan (Tokyo, 1808). RIVETTA, PrETRO SILvio, “Japanese Journalism,” Nuovo Anto- logica, quoted in American Review of Reviews, June, 1914. Rocers, W. L., “Effect of Cable and Radio Control on News,” Annals American Academy Political and Social Science March, 1924. I Ross, Epwarp ALswortH, “Suppression of Important News,” Atlantic, April, rgt1o. SALMON, Lucy Maynarp, Newspaper and the Historian (New York: Oxford Press, 1923): Newspaper and Authority (New York: Oxford Press, 1923). SATOW, Sir E., “Jesuit Mission Press in Japan,” Transactions Asiatic Society, Vol. XXVII (Tokyo, 18009), Part 2. SAWADA, SETSUzO, “Newspapers in Japan,” Transactions Japan Society of London, XI (1913), 188 ff. SEIRAN, O., “Earliest Newspapers in Japan,” The Orient, Han- set Zasshi Transformed, XIV (Tokyo, 1899), Part VI, 24-31. SIEBOLD, A. von, “Die Japonische Presse,” Ostasien, VII (Ber- lin, 1895), Part 82, 409-10. [ 369 |SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN Soyeyima, Count Micutmasv, “Inconstant America and Rest- less Britain,” Taiyo, January, 1926; “Pacific Relations,” Taiyo, April, 1926. STonE, MELVILLE E., “Race Prejudice in the Far East,” Na- tional Geographic, December, 1910; M. E. S.—His Book (New York: Harper, 1918). Sucrmort, Kajrro, “Fundamental Principles of Social Devel- opment,” Chuo Koron, March, 1924. SucimuRA, Hrirotaro, “New Tendencies in the Newspaper World,” Chuo Koron, March, tgro. TAKAHASHI, KaAzutTomo, “Journalism in Japan,” London Times, October 2, 1916. TAKASHIMA, S., “Journalism in Japan,” Far East, II (Tokyo, 1897), 649-56. TaxipA, TETSUTARO, “Press in Europe and America,” Chuo Koron, April, tort. ToxuGaAwa, IyemMasu, “Watch Japan, Please,” National Re- view, July, 1922. TOYABE, SENTARO, “Japanese Journalism,’ in Okuma, Fifty Years of New Japan, II, 393-410; Shuntei, “Government Editors,” Taiyo, January, 1905; Shunko, ‘Styles of News- paper Writing,’ Zazyo, February and May, 1906; “Japa- nese Editors,” Taiyo, December, 1899, and April, r9or. “TscH,” “Die Presse in Neu Japan,” Magazin fuer Literatur, Jahr 67, Part 38 (Weimar, October 24, 1898), p. 808. Uxita, Kazutamt, “Newspapers and Newspapermen,” Shin- judai, October, 1917. Von Branpt, “Die Eingeborene Tagespresse in China und Japan und ihre Vorlaeufer,’’ Cosmopolis, Internationale Revue, VIII (Berlin, 1897), 557-71, 853-60. Von WENCKSTERN F., “Bibliography of the Japanese Empire,” Vol. I (London, 1895); Vol. II (Tokyo, 1907). [370 ]BIBLIOGRAPHY WILpes, Harry Emerson, “Industrial Democracy in Japan,” Nation, February 11, 1925; Reprint, Advertiser, May 8, 1925; “Japan Keeps the Peace,” Nation, April 15, 1925; Reprint, Advertiser, June 9, 1925; “Japan Returns to Feudalism,” Nation, October 27, 1926; “Japan’s Struggle for Democracy,” World Tomorrow, June, 1925; see also Japan Chronicle for reprint, July 2, 1925; “Press Freedom in Japan,” American Journal of Sociology, January, 1927. WILLIAMS, Dr. WALTER, The World’s Journalism, Bulletin, University of Missouri, Vol. XVI, No. 6. Woop, GeorcE G., “Japan’s Cables,” Far Eastern Review, March, 1920. Yamacarta, Isoo, “Newspapers in Japan,” The Orient, Hansei Zasshi Transformed, XIV (Tokyo, 1899), Part IX, 7-11; Part X, 12-18. YOSHINO, SAKUzO, “Japan in Korea,” Chuo Koron, June, 1916. “X. Y. Z.,” “Tokyo Newspapers,” Bunsho Sekai, October, 1906. Zumoto, Mortosapa, “Journalism in Japan,” Transactions Ja- pan Society, VI (London, 1904), Part II, 108-22, reprinted in Japan by the Japanese, edited A. T. Stead (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1904). [371]LE Ww YI ri; APPENDIX LEADING FOREIGN-LANGUAGE PAPERS IN JAPAN Nagasaki Shipping News and Advertiser (weekly), Schoy- er, June—-November, 1861. Sold to Japan Herald. . Japan Herald, Schoyer, November, 1861-1914. Suppressed as pro-German. . Japan Commercial News (Portuguese weekly), F. da Roza, 1863-1865. Plant sold to Japan Times I. . Japan Times I (weekly), C. Rickerby, September, 1865- 1871. Name changed to Japan Mail. . Japan Gazette, J. R. Black, October, 1867—September, 1923. Plant destroyed in earthquake. . Hiogo and Osaka Herald (weekly), A. T. Watkins, January, 1868-1869. Failed. . Hiogo News, F. Braga, April, 1868-1898. Sold to Japan Chronicle. . Nagasaki Times and Shipping List (weekly), F. Walsh, 1868-1869. Sold to Hiogo News. . Japan Mail (really a continuation of Japan Times 1), 1871-1917. Merged with Japan Times III. . Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express, W. L. Lewis, February, 1876, to date. Name changed, in 1888, to Nagasaki Press. Ostasiatische Zeitung (German weekly), Sutor, 1876 only. Failed. Tokyo Times (weekly), E. H. House, 1877 only. Failed. . Japan Times II (weekly), C. Rickerby, 1878-79. Sold to Japan Mail. . Argus (Portuguese weekly), August, 1881-1882. Failed. . Tokyo Independent (weekly), F. W. Eastlake, 1885 only. Failed. [372]APPENDIX 16. Kobe Herald, A. W. Curtis, 1886 to date. 17. Eastern World (weekly), F. Schroeder, 1890-1923. Plant destroyed in earthquake. 18. Japan Advertiser, Meiklejohn, 1890 to date. 19. Japan Chronicle (formerly Kobe Chronicle), R. Young, October, 1891, to date. 20. Japan Times III, M. Zumoto, February, 1897, to date. 21. Deutsche-Japan Post (German), A. Madlung, May, 1902- 1914. Suppressed as pro-German. 22. Seoul Press, M. Zumoto, December, 1906, to date. 23. Japan Press, S. Akimoto, April, 1915, only. Failed. 24. Herald of Asia (weekly), M. Zumoto, April, IQI16—1923. Plant destroyed in earthquake. 25. Osaka Mainichi, Mainichi Company, April, 1922, to date. 26. Tokyo Nichi Nichi, Mainichi Company, April, 1923-1925. Failed. CIRCULATION OF THE FOREIGN PRESS No papers, other than the Japan Times, publishes an esti- mate of its circulation, and hence any determination of the dis- tribution of the papers admits of only vague conjecture. In ° the want of a more nearly perfect estimate, a crude maximum may be set by listing the circulation figures claimed in the spring of 1925 by rival editors (see p. 374). No one conversant with Far Eastern newspapers would be- lieve these figures to be conservative. Perhaps in all Japan there are no more than 10,000 foreign inhabitants at the outer limit able to read an English periodical. It is. of course, true, as Naoshi Kato, editor of the Mainichi, and Sometaro Sheba, of the Times, remark, that many Japanese buy English-lan- guage papers to learn the foreign point of view or to study the language more intensively. Mr. Kato believes that half his circulation is thus accounted for, while Mr. Sheba estimates that 75 per cent of his subscribers are Japanese. But it is [373]SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN questionable whether those Japanese who read for the sake of increased proficiency might not be more attracted to the for- eign-edited Advertiser or to the Chronicle than to the Mainichi or to the Times, which are sometimes guilty of “near English.” Those who subscribe for the sake of learning foreign viewpoints would almost certainly prefer to purchase papers which print more foreign comment than do the Times or Mainichi. CIRCULATION FIGURES Osaka Mainichi . : ; : : j ; : ; . 26,000* Tokyo Nichi Nichi . . . te. ae h . « - 20@007 Japan Times ; : : : : ‘ : ‘ : « ,.0300T Japan Chronicle : : : : ; ; . . ., _ aooo Seoul Press . ; : : : : ; : : ‘ : 1,000f Japan Advertiser : . 10,000§ Kobe Herald, Nagasaki pees Manchuria Daily N CWS, = 3,000]| Total: —. : 3 : : : ‘ : : ; . 69,300 * These figures undoubtedly contain a large free list, particularly as the Nichi Nichi failed soon after the estimate was given to the writer by the editor. t “Actual pressroom run, January 31, 1925.” t The editor says ‘‘Well below 1,000.” § This i is the basis used in soliciting advertisements. The front page of the Advertiser carried in its “ears” for many years the two boasts: “Largest circulation of all foreign dailies in the Far East,’ ’ and ‘ ‘Double the combined circulation of all the other foreign dailies published i in Japan.” These slogans were printed less regu- larly during 1926, following persistent challenges from the Japan Times. The daily pressroom run in June, 1925, of the Advertiser was unofficially, and perhaps unreli- ably, stated to the writer as about 1,900 copies. A very generous estimate. It is probably nearer the truth to conclude that many Japanese purchase the Mainichi or the Times because of some other motive than the undiluted desire for news. Mr. Hedges, of the Advertiser, suggests that business firms with government contracts have been known to subscribe for a hundred copies daily at a rate of ¥100 a month in order indirectly to subsidize a favored journal. Reports are also met that some government departments, such as the Foreign Office, General Staff, Home Office, War Department, or the Secret Service, may pay a sub- [374]APPENDIX sidy by paying in advance for subscriptions which are never meant to be delivered. Such subsidies have certainly been distributed in the past, for the Chronicle, the Mail, and the Times are known to have received government assistance. Foreign Minister Ijuin told the correspondents, in 1922, according to Mr. Hedges, that the Foreign Office had been paying the Japan Times ¥20,000; to a Shanghai editor whose paper suddenly changed its policies, ¥10,000; and various amounts to other journals. Ijuin went on to say that the subsidies were no longer paid by the Foreign Office, but that they had been taken over by the General Staff. Information on this matter is very closely guarded, and no authentic statements can be secured from persons in au- thority. [375]INDEX TO REFERENCES (Roman numerals indicate chapters. Arabic numerals refer to number of the specific note. For full titles of books, newspapers, and magazines referred to, see Bibliography.) Abe, IV, 41; IX, 11D; XIII, 11E Acheson, VI, 18 Akimoto, I, 7; III, 2; XII, 28B Asada, IV, 25 Asano, XIII, 18, 33E Ashida, XIII, 11G Bickel, VI, 34 Boston Transcript, XIII, 15A Boucheron, VI, 22 Brinkley, II, 26; V, 6A; IX, 11J Brown, V, 18B Brownell, V, 1, 4B Bryans lS ny TU 13; XD 17: 33E Bunge, Il, 7, 10, 21 Bunka Seikatsu, XIII, 11D, F, G, 33E Byas, I, 15, 16, 26; II, 8, 26; PT 8; 135), OAS Bs bxe rol Chamberlain, I, 6, 11; III, 5; ATT, 17 Chiba, XIII, 11D, F, G, 33E Chugai Shinron, I, 19 Chugat Shogyo, III, 12; IV, 27B, C, 31A, 32, 34, 35A; V, 4B, 20; VI, 4, 5; XIII, 11B, 13A, 20, 33D Chuo, III, 12; IV, 30, 31A, 32, 34, 35B, 42, 44B; V, 25; VI, 3, 6; XII, 23, 27C; XIII, 16, 17, 19B Chuo Koron, III, 4, 6, 8, 17; IV, 17, 25, 31A, 40; XIII, 11D, G Clarke, IT, 6, 30; V, 4A, 16C, 17; VIII, 8 Courant, I, 16-18; V, 4A Current History, V, 34-35; VILI, 12; XIII, rrA, C, G, 17-10, 2sA, 26A, 33E D’Autremer, V, 6D, 17 Dening, Il, 15, 16; Ill, 4; IX, 10; XI, 2,4 Diosy, ITI, 15 Diplomatic Review (Gaiko Jiho), IV, 35A; VII, 26, 43; VIII, 2, 3 Editor and Publisher, V1, 34 Engarde, III, 5 Far East, IV, 33; VIII, 13 Far Eastern Review, VI, 16, 17, 21=23, 25-28, 30; VIII, 17: EXCer 13 Forster, IV, 21-22; X, 38 Frankfurter Zeitung, VII, 14, 23 Fudocho, XIII, 17 Fujiwara, XIII, r1A, 18 Fukuda, XIII, 33E Fukumoto, IV, 32 Funakoshi, XIII, 11D Gaikwan, IV, 31A, 34; XIII, 11D, E, 35B [377]Gokyo, VIL, 13 SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN XII, 4, 0, 138; 20 254-7, Green, IT, ar; Il, s 9, 11E, F, 15B, 18, 20C, 2I, Griffis, III, 6 F sae - ih Gulick, Der: 4, 6: ro; 1r* LL, 1 : caer Sata LO eae Ll 02, 17, 20, 34 Mes +a Japan Herald, a 6: %, II-TA, Hanazono, I, 13-14, 16-22, 24, 7 28; U, 4, 5; Sa ae Io, Japan Magazine, IV, 8 22-22, 20, 31; » O% -. 40; z X sea XT y 2 Japan Mail, I, 13, 17, 22, 24-20; Peete ep co. II, 1-4, 6-8, 10-13, 15, 21, 23, Hansen, VU, 22-23 25, 27-31; III, 4, 6, 8, 10, 13- Higashi, I, 24, 26 16; IV, 8, 9, II—12; 16-27; 10; Hochi, If1, 12; IV, Ay 5, 23 30 25; V, 4A, 6A, ee 28, sar 34, 35A, 37, 444, V, 4B; VI, x14, 16; VIL, 1-87 12a, Vino gc. ae ak; XI, 20-24, 44; VIII, 1, eg; 13-14, 11H, 13A, B, 14, 16, 31 20, 23° LX, 2753 x I, 4-7, Horiye, IV, 25; XIII, 11G, 13A, Q-II, 157-21, 23 eee 20, 26-20; ew XI, 1-16; — 2, 4, 7, 10-11, SLL 450; Fes 7 4 > naw oes s . Independent Review, I, 3 Japan Times, c 9; 12; Tile aaa Japan Advertiser, I, 7-9; Il, 1 8-12; IV, 1 , 29; V, 4B, 19, 21- a: es alge : 22, 28, 34; VI, 8, 20, 32; VII, TS: 27- 1LL I) 7-10, G2, 10; ree E PN ER Ch ee, > 8: VIII, 2, 12, 193 Ls 1. Oya: IV, s—7, 23-25, 28-20, 31A, B, ) ae , oF ac A 27 a7: V B . Ke 0; Mele oo T 1-425 XII, 16B; oJ* Ol) 43; 47; »4 >» 9; 13, XIII. H. A oe a 1Is—18, 22, 25, 29; VI, 2-4, 5, 11M, 1344, 17, 29, 32 6-11, 21-22, 28-29, 31-34; Japan Year Book, I, 16; II, 10, 9, 31-34 I VII, O, 13-14, 23; 25-28, 33; 25; V, 33 eave 13, 29; WAHTE 38-59, 2 -43; VII, x Bie a IO 1, 3, 28-29, 31, XII, 1, Jéji, Il, 22; IM, 6; IV, 30, 34, 3, ieee Sain 1G, oe eRe CG. 4A; V, 15, 23, 25; VI, 4, 6 67 15sA, 17-19, 21, 260A, 27A, B, Of; 215 VIL 333 as osH: 29-31, 33A, E, 354A, 36 XIN, x11G, 136; B; 16; 20n; SORE LOO Ce n Commercial 20A, B, 33B, 34B Weekly, IV, 21, X, 38 Jimmin, V, 18C oR Chronic I5 37 7193125175 — Sitsugo-no-Nthon, Xi, 1G: iT. ); SLL. 0: ey id G Q orA B or z, 15, 254, D, 33E 18, 20; ay, 5, 7) 9, ‘21, 23) 26, 20; Sty 354 A; 38, 40, 44B, 45, Kagawa, IV, 29; VI, 11 46; V, Oe or ne. 13-14, 21, mis a 9 . 25) 27, 33> 355 VI, 4, Q; 12, Kazz0, IV, 3, 354; San “a 14-15, 20, 27, 30, 34; VII, 10- 44B, D, 45-46; XII, 11h, II, 13, 15-16, 21, 23, 28, 32, 13A, C, D 373 VII, 7, 5, 2. in 2; 73 Kawabe, I, 14, 16, 18-19, 21-22, X, 15, 18-19, 25-27, 37-395 24-25, 27, 33; LU, 5, 6, 20, 31; XI, I, 2, 6A, II, 14, 30-31; It, 4; 55 V, 20, 24, 27 [378 |INDEX TO REFERENCES Kobe Herald, III, 10; V, 18D; X, 26-27 Kobe Yushin, IV, 25 Kojiki, V, 17 Kokumin, II, 15-16, 24, 26; III, 9; IV, 4, 22-23, 25, 20, 35A, B, 37) 2, 44A; V, 4B, 14, 22-23, 25, 28; VI, 9; X, 38; TOA; Al, 23) OX. aH: C, F, H, 134, C, D, F, 14, 17, 29, 33C, 34A Kozhevar, IV, 21; X, 38 Literary Digest, IX, 1, 11A, B 12D, K Lloyd, V, 6A London Morning Post, IV, 25 London Nation and Athenaeum VII, 30 London Telegraph, XII, 11 London Times, I, 16, 24; II, 27; Mi 7; V, 483 Vi, 12: Vil Bind2, S435; VELL 6; a2: IX, 1, 4, 7-12; XIII, 1 Longford, I, 25, 28, 32, 33; II, 1, 20; V, 4A Low, II, 7, 31; V, 4A, 6B, D , ? Manchester Guardian, V, 4B, 34; VIII, 11; TX, 1, 11G-J, 12L Martin, I, 16, 19, 21, 24; II, 21, 26; JIT, 6; 10; 13, 17; V, 4B: VI, 31; VU, 29 Masaoka, III, 5, 6, ro Matheson, V, 34-35; VI, 32; VIN; 225) Sol rAS CC: (G: 17-19, 25A, 26A, 33E McClures, V, 34; VIII, 12 McLaren, IV, 14, 16; X, 6 Mitsukawa, XIII, r1E Miyake, III, 8, 16; IV, 33; XIII, irD, E, 35B Miyako, IV, 4, 30; V, 4B; VI, 3; XII, 23; XIII, 11H, 16, 30, 33F Miyamori, II, 20 Mollison, XI, 1 Mori, XIII, 25A, B Morley, VI, 34 Mukden Daily News, IV, 25 Murobushi, IV, 44D Muto, XIII, 13C, 33E Myojo, I, 26; II, 7 Natkwan, IV, 31A; XII, 30; ATT 1D) He 4A. 14, 1b: 17, 33E Nakagawa, I, 21, 24; III, 16 Nakamura, I, 17, 22; II, 21, 23, 29 National Geographic, IV, 10 National Review, VIII, 11; X, 3, 8 New East, X, 21, 23 New Japan, V, 6A New York Evening Post, IV, 8; VILE 25; 17 Xen, Soar b. J New York Herald, IV, 18 New York Nation, V, 12, 26; VI, 11; XIII, 23 New York Times, I, 8; IV, 24, 25, 2877V, 305 Vill a4 Wal icoe 40-41; VIII, 11, 18; XII, 16A Nthon-oyobi-Nihonjin, I1, 13-14; ITT, 6; 85 IV, 33, 458.41, ao: 46; VII, 13, 20, 29; VILLI, 2: XIII, 11E Niroku, Ill, 8, 16 Nitobe, I, 9; X, 6B; XII, 25G Noguchi, I, 14, 18; II, 4, 5, 10 North China Daily News, VII, 20, 24, 34 Okuma, Fifty Years, I, 2, 3, 13, 17, 19, 24-25, 27-28, 33; II, 1, 2; 5-73.93 15-10), 20; 29) 20; V, 32; XIII, 25A, 32 [379]Omachi, ITT, 6 Omori, [X, 11B Osaka Asahi, II, 16-18; III, 127 LY, 0, 274, 20-31; Ue iy 8, 23, 20; V1, 3, 7, 8; V VAN eAt ke Te ONL, CUD; r415A, 16, 17, ae Osaka Jiji, III, 12; V, 16, 23 Osaka Mainichi, I, 8; IL, 12; LV. 27, a7 )e 20; 31A, 32-33, 37, 39, 44B, D; WeaaAo Bra 15. 23° VI,.8; ViTl, 47%, 36; 38-30; XU, r1C, D, G, 13A- GOEL. sA, 16-18, 21-22, 24, asA, 29, eG Osaka Shimpo, V, 23 Ost Asiatische Lloyd, XIII, 5 Ozaki, III, 8, 16; XIII, r1E, 13A, C, 15B, 17, 33E 92 hw “53 “3 ‘ Philadelphia Public Ledger, V, 2-20 VL. 3 Pooley, II, 6; IV, 2, 9, 17-19, 23 Porter, I, 11 Present Day Japan, IX, 1 Preston, X, 3, 8; XI, 6D 19, 33; VII, Rai, I, 25; III, 6; V, 4A, 6A, B Reinsch, III, 12; IV, 19; VI, 24, 31 Rivetta, I, 25 Rogers, G. W., X, I1; Rogers, W. L., VI, 31 rot Sacramento Bee, V1, 24-25 San Francisco Chronicle, TX, 1, 111-J, 12 E, L San Francisco Examiner, X, 34; XII, 13A Sawada, I, 14, 16-17, 22, 24, 28; IT, 2; V, 4A, 17, 32 SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN [ 380 | Scott, EX, 11€ Seikai Koron, V, 22, 32; XIII, 29 Seoul Press, V, 2; X, 30, 32-34; XIII, 18 Shakai Zasshi, Ill, 13, 15 Shina, IV, 35B, 42; XIII, 11E Shinjudai, III, 3, 4, 8; VIII, 2 Shin-Nihon, IV, 25, 33, 354; XIII, 15B Shively, I, 2 Soyejima, III, 12; IV, 27A, 28- 29; V, 36; VIII, 2, 4 Spectator, IV, 36; VIII, 6 Sydney Herald, XII, 15 Taikan, I, 27; LI, 6 Taiyo, I, 8, 22; Il, 2-4, 10, 23; Ze 20% LU ts A; ‘2, 16, 19; IV, 25, 27A, C, 20; Vida; XII, rrA, 13A, G; 28; 435 Teikoku Bungaku, V, 18C Teikoku Koshinjo, x 15 Tokyo Asahi, Ill, 8, 12; IV, 25, 355, : 38, was 44C; V, ques 22,25; 20,353 Vly 45 343 IX, 1; Ml 22" Sl oe 13D, 14-18, 29, 33E, 35A Tokyo ee Nichi, I, 16; II, Ill, 12: LV, 4, 27A—D; Zo; ay 37> a 44m C; v, 23, 2535 VI, 265 30 - XIII. Tbh H, 13CG-hy 14; 17-18, 22, 33E Toyabe, I, 27; Il, 2, 23, 25 Toyo Jiro, XI, 4 Toyo Keizai, XIII, 11H, 13A Transpacific, IX, 1; XII, 25C, 26B, D; XIII, 18 Mach? 1 26: 1.35 437 tbh as United States of India, IV, 46 Vaughn, VI, 34INDEX TO REFERENCES Versailles, Treaty of, VI, 18 von Brandt, I, 28; II, 29; III, 6 Waseda, II, 7, 11, 16, 21, 23 Wildes, I, 23; V, 12, 265 Vile nr. VII, 37; XIII, 23 Williams, III, 13; V, 6A; VII, 2 Wood, VI, 16-17, 23, 25 World Tomorrow, XIII, 15B Yamato, IIl, 12; IV, 23, 25, 27A, C, D, 28, 31A, 37, 44C; V, 4B, 055) SLU) 1B DD: t7- 10C. 20D, 29 Yomiuri, I, 18-10, 24; III, 6, 12; IV, 4, “Li Cr 39; 31A-B, 38, 44A; V, 4B, 18C, 22, 25, 28, 32; VI, 4; XIII, 11H, D7 Lo: 19B, 20B, 33D Yonechiyama, IV, 35B, 42; XIII TIE Yorodzu, III, 12, 15; IV, 4, 27B, C, 30, 31A, 35B, 42, 44A, D; Vii48s 22,208 Xa 23; XIII, 11B, H, 21-22, 33F, 35C Yoshino, IV, 17 Young Japan, I, to, 20, 28-32; Til, 14; X, 13, 22, 25 3 Zumoto, I, 21, 25; III, EZ, 13° IV, 28-20; V, 4A, 6B, C, E; Vilsrr; Vill o= xe 3) OAs G: XI, 4, 15-16 [ 381]GENERAL INDEX (Additional reference to items prefixed by an asterisk will be found in the Index to References.) *Abe, Dr. Isoo, 94 n., 138 Adachi, Kinnosuke, 205, 243, 249 Advertisements, 15, 58, 240-49 Agriculture, 135, 142, 143, 237- 42 *Akimoto, Shunkichi, 6, 54, 80, 258, 272, 300 N., 317, 325, 326, 356 n. Akiyama, Teisuke, 46, 89 Amakasu, Masahiko, 129 Anglo-Japanese Alliance, go, 188 N., 204, 283 Anti-Alienism, 2 n., 8, 39, 41, 44, 61, 62, 70-103, 141, 210, 217, 200, 325, 334, 338 Anti-Americanism, 6n., 44, 61, 62, 74, 75, 80, 81, 84-90, 230, 231, 275 Anti-Britonism, 73,82, 83, 90-93, 188 n., 226, 267, 276 Anti-Japanism, 2n., 8, 44, 71, 87, 172, 206, 207 n., 213, 216, 254-50, 259, 263-65, 284, 201, 315; in foreign press, 324-27, 331-50 Arrogance, 255, 287, 331, 338 Art, 135 N., 239-40, 288, 318, 327 Asaina, Chisen, 29 n. *Asano, Soichiro, 173, 343 Associated Press, 78, 163, 168, 109, 171, 172, 174, 176, 177, 184, 185, 187, 306, 307, 309 Baba, Tsunego, 54, 65, 124, 346 Banking, 31, 45, 48, 57, 173, 174, 176, 181, 182, 207 n., 224, 233, 234, 237, 238, 241, 242, 245, 248, 259, 282, 322, 326 Bankoku Shimbunshi, 15, 18, IQ, 23 Becker, Dr. E. J. de, 288, 318 Bikoki, 34, 44 Black, John Reddie, 20-24, 27 29, 35, 63, 261-63, 265 Blackmail, 57, 58, 62, 130, 178 Bose, Rash Behari, 96 n., 97 Bowles, Gilbert, 210 n., 211-12 “Brinkley, Captain Frank, 43, 44, 55, 94, 124, 169, 207, 223, 235, 255, 263, 267, 270 n., 281- 89, 333-34 *Brown, Rev. Arthur Judson, 81 n., 232 *Bryan, Rev. J. Ingram, 76 n., 289 Bureaucracy, 34, 40, 43, 46, 40, EOS), LIT; 112, 130; 140) 14 145, 1460, 194, 229, 271, 326 Bushido, 7, 216, 324, 352, *Byas, Hugh, 230, 308, 309, 318 , Cabinet, 46, 112, 123, 207 n. See also under titles of officials in- cluded Cables, 146-51, 157, 163, 185, 220; tolls, 5, 55, 157, 159, 164, 165, 182, 185, 192, 207 Cartoons, 41 [ 383 ]Censorship, 6, 34, 63, 92, 104- 16, 135, 154, 172, 186, 198, 201, 209 N., 220, 230, 319, 321, 347, 363; conflicting, 116; in- efficiency of, 127-31; protests against, 34, 39, 120-23, 266, 336; voluntary, 123-24 *Chamberlain, Basil Hall, 352 “‘Changed conditions,” 5, 95, 106, 232, 233, 235 Chauvinism, 8, 39, 86, 88, 89, China, Intimidation of, 95, 189, IO0, 204, 237, 256M., 321; Twenty-one Demands upon, 7, 39, 82, 189, 210, 237 Christianity, see Missions, Reli- gion Chugai Shimbun, 16, 17, 270 *Chugai Shogyo, 45, 48, 121, 123, 159, 182, 346 Circulation, 14, 15, 17, 22, 32; 297-98, 374 *Clarke, Joseph I. C., 204 n., 336 “Clay Franklin,” Clements, Dr. E. Commerce, 237, 242, 343; Communications, ministry 30, 31, 46, 154-58, 104, 344 Conceit, 324, 338, 44 ‘Far of, Correspondents: foreign, 3-5, 169-72, 177-79, 188n., 199, 200, 206, 207, 218-20, 259, 266 n., 308, 300, 337; staff, 36, 183, 185, 186, 313, 314 Corruption, 32, 44, 57, 59, 78; 135, 169, 178, 286 n., 296, 298, 322, 324, 338-40, 345 Cruelty, 348-50 Culture, 135n., 236, 239, 240, 288, 317, 318 SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN [ 384 | Curtis, Alfred W., 270-71 Custom, 2, 4, 70, 74, 88, 252, 338, 339, 352, 355 Dat Han Maz-Il Shinpo, 272, 290 0. Dancing, 73, 74, 327 Decadence, 55, 73, 74, 273) 292, 326, 327, 338, 353, 354 Democracy, 6, 130, 137, 138, 145, 212, 234, 235, 243, 341 *Dening, Walter, 53, 236, 283, 288, 289 n., 318 Diet, 4, 43, 74, I12, 113 0., 124, T2eNn., 145, 179, ZIG, 4xe, 326, 340 Diplomats: alien, 82-84, 218, 253, 262, 267, 282; denials by Japanese, 5, 82, 205-8, 209 ., 26, 228, 341; Japanese, 210, 22 4n., 175, 161 N., 194, 239, 249, 262, 271, 298, 340 Discrimination: against foreign press, 23, 115, 284, 290; against Japanese, 120, 121, 193 Divorce, 236, 294 Donald, W. H., 248 Drama, 135 D., 239, 240, 318, 324 “Dual opinions,” 5-7, 341 Earthquake, 35, 73, 128, 129, 190, IOI, 265, 266, 276, 290 N., 205, 296, 297, 300, 322; libel- ling relief workers, 82, 276; massacres of Koreans, 128, 129, 208, 209 1., 293; predic- tions in Japan Advertiser, 311 Editorials, 12, 16, 28, 286 Education, 1, 93 0., 209, 212, 229, 234, 236, 242, 253, 258, 266 n., 281n., 290N., 291, 3000., 318, 324, 327, 342, 343; control Over, 72 0., 137; 138, 139, 149, 145; criticisms of, 73, 273, 296,GENERAL INDEX 326, 338, 341-43; Ministry of, 138, 144, 145, 236, 342 Embargo, 85n., 92, 106, 109, 110; Li2-lOy 01O mr 120m 122, 126, 128, 129, 139, 154, 186, 198, 363 Emperor, 4, 71, I10, 113 n., 117, 118, 125, 235, 245, 270, 273 n., 2920D., 338, 353; divinity of, 2, 71, 84, 117, 118, 235, 296; lése majesté against, 84, 117, 118, 270, 353; loyalty to, 8, 118, 124, 126, 128, 135 Eta, 7, 139, 293 Ethnology, 1, 318 Extra-territoriality, 15, 23, 42, 125, 263, 266, 267, 283, 284, 290, 331, 333, 334; in China, gr, I8r n. Fabians, 138, 143, 293 Family system, 237 *Far Eastern Review, 238, 230, 241, 245, 247, 248 Feudal-mindedness, 71-74, 141, 296, 324, 326, 342 Finance, 234, 237, 242, 259, 322, 326; Ministry of, 31, 116, 182, 207 0. Fleisher, Benjamin W., 306 “Follow-up,” 59, 60, 257 “Force of Evil,” 255, 264 Foreigners, 2, 10, 75-78, 240, 252, 253, 259-60 Foreign Office, 45, 110, 117, 120, 127, 125, 160, 173, 18 n., 188n., 189, 199, 200, 205-6, 229, 258, 283, 290-01, 298-300, 315, 341, 374, 375; Policy of, 4, 5, 9, 202, 363 Formosa, 7, 36, 220, 242, 246, 266n., 278, 286n.; Bank of, 31, 173, 245; Government of, 6, 47, 228, 229, 231, 233, 234; criticisms of, 9, 266, 296, 297, 347 Fukichi, Genichiro, 17, 23, 28, 29; 35 Fukuzawa, Yukichi, 27n., 40, 41, QT, 290 Geisha, 44, 48, 74 n. General Staff, 4, 5, 299, 374, 375 Genro, 4, 118, 354 Gogai, 29, 38, 60 Goto, Viscount Shimpei, 48, 67, 97, I20, I2I, I25n., 207n., 225, 234, 321 Government, 34, 112, 113 n., 118, 135-37, 145, 140, 234, 235, 242, 243, 249, 288, 296, 318, 326, 349; 344 *Gulick, Rev. Sidney L., 4, 8, 9, 209, 210, 216, 227 Hanihara, Masanao, 126, 132, 322 Harrison, E. J., 170, 307 Hayashi, Kiroku, 95 Hayashi, Count Tadasu, 42, 47, 120 N., 126, 169, 172, 199, 228, 234 Heco, Joseph, 12-15, 27 Hedges, Frank H., 201, 254, 209, 308, 318, 374, 375 Hiogo News, 261 n., 269, 270, 285, 332 D., 333 History, “‘official,” 6, 9, 71, 141, 2II, 290 N., 290, 324, 335, 338, 352, 353, 356 *Hochi, 19, 20, 27 N., 30-35, 41, 43, 46, 47, 58, 118, 144, 159, 182, 348, 351 Holt, Hamilton, 168, 232, 237 Home Office, 116, 128, 229, 347, 359, 374 [385 ]Honda, Dr. Masujiro, 92, 195, 196, 203, 204, 207 N., 220, 272, 318 Hoshi, Hajima, 58, 351 House, Edward Howard, 266-68 Housing, 317, 354 Immigration, 41, 73, 85 n., 86, , 211, 227, 230, 231, 302, 322 Imperial Hotel, 244, 246, 295 Inaccuracy, 58, 60-62, 189-91, 193, 194, 234, 255, 258, 275, 255, 300, 310- ‘17, 319, 320 73 9; 345 343 Inconsistency, 4- Industry, 237, 242, 290, “Tnferiority Complex,” 8, 71, 255, 339 Information Bureau, 199-202, 229, 290 Inouye, Jonnusuke, 182, 360 International Press Association, 218-20, 290 N. Ishii, Viscount Kikujiro, 207 n., 226 Ito, Masanori, 4 2, OI Ito, Prince, 1, 28, 29, 41, 47, 118, 167, 169, 2180., 272, 281 0., 283, 290 Ito, Yonejiro, 291 n., 298, 299 Iwanaga, Yukichi, 161, 163, 174, 180, 182-85, 254, 278 Iyenaga, Dr. Toyokichi, > 297 929. 292 927 205, 227; 232, 234, 237 84, 85, *Japan Advertiser, 79, 106, 165, I7I, 244, 240, 250 0., 257; 258, 200, 2970., 295, 209, 300 N., 305-27, 339; anti-Jap- anism of, 177, 230, 324-27; 342, 345, 340, 349, 351, 354, 356; cultural value of, 236, 239, 277, 317-193 inaccuracies of, 309-17, 319, 320 SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN [ 386 ] *Japan Chronicle, 78, 115, 254, 256n., 258, 261n., 264, 265, 268, 270, 285, 286, 288 n. , 2900, 332-37; anti- Japanis sm of, Tres 177, 232, 260, 288, 327, 332- 36, 341-56; cultural value of, 239; 277 *Japan Gazette, 166, 171, 254, 263, 265, 266, 285, 288, 289 n., 395; 331 *Japan Herald, 166, 177, 254, 260-65, 269, 285, 288, 305 0., 331, 337 * Japan Mail, 53, 79, 125 0., 164- 07; 176, 177N., 180, 254, Zale 258, 2603, 204, 265; 267, 281-91, 300 N., 305 331-33) 3373 cultural eine a 288, 318 Japan society, 213, 214, 217, 227 *Japan Times, 45, 79; pe az 167, 180, 230, 231, 2 -46, 248, 249, 254, 258, 26s 270, 276 0., 85, 289-301, 331, 6; Koreans in, connections of, 290, 201, 2 ee social value - , “ v 29, 40-42, 47, 48, eee 73, 177, 182, Justice, 118, 250, 33 , 347 Count Aisuke, 68, 173, 181 Toyohiko, Kabayama, 87, 144, 172, *Kagawa, Rev. IOI, 337 Kaneko, Viscount 80 n., 207 n., 226 Kato, Count Takaaki, *Kawabé, Dr. 268 n., 363 Kawakami, Kiyoshi Karl, 80n., 205, 208 n., 209 N., 232 Kentaro, 29; 47 Kisaburd, 53;GENERAL INDEX Kayahara, 359, 300 Kennedy, J. Russell, 53, 54, 57, 58, 65, 78, 79, 81, 155, 163 n., 169-72, 174, 175, 177-80, 188- QI, 210N., 211, 225, 232, 283 n., 289, 306, 307, 333 0. Kishida, Ginko, 13, 14, 18n., 270., 28 *Kobe Herald, 270, 271, 321 Koko Shimbun, 17-19, 28 *Kokumin, 42-44, 47, 110, I4I, 144, 182 Kokusai, 48, 155, 173, 174, 176- 78, 180-84, 186, 188-93, 280, 291, 301 N., 309 Kopp, Ambassador, 317 Korea, 36, 43, 190, 203, 220, 242, 246, 281 n., 300; annexation of, 7, 200, 222° Bank of, 233, 245, 248; Conspiracy Case, 80, 81, 87, 274, 275; government-gen- eral of, 6, 213, 228, 2209, 231, 233; criticisms of government- general of, 9, 264, 266, 335, 356 n.; massacres by Japanese In, 128, 129, 208, 209 n., 211, 288, 293; “plots” in, 129, 204, 208, 209, 272, 273, 293-95, 347; propaganda in, on., 24, 47, 171, 173, 272-75, 290n., 317; repression in, 108-10 Kuroiwa, Shuroku, 44, 56 “Kwazan,” 327, 353, 121, 193, 310, Labor, 136, 139-43, 291, 2093, 296, 300, 319, 320; massacres of leaders, 72 n., 128, 129 Language, 2, 3, 30, 33, 43, 252, 256 n., 277, 282, 354 Leases, perpetual, 77-80, 170, 266, 284 Libels, 59, 63, 65, 82, 83, 84, 104, 130, 200, 313, 314, 339 Liberals, 33, 34, 39, 43, 49, 54, 124, 130, 194, 212, 232, 363 Library, 138, 324 *Literary Digest, 228, 231, 232, 234-36 Literature, 41, 135 Nn., 239, 262 288, 317, 326, 335 *London Times, 41, 169, 179, 222, 301 N., 308; Supplements, 222, 223, 226-28, 232-37, 240— 43, 246 McClatchy, V. S., 153, 181 n., IQI Mails, 136 n., 146, 184, 344 *Manchester Guardian, 228, 220, 232, 235, 237; 249, 337 Manchuria, 47, 202 n., 214, 215, 233, 237, 242, 249, 277, 331 Mason, Gregory, 308, 310 *Matheson, Roderick O., 297, 301 N. Matsudaira, Tsuneo, 126, 130 Matsui, ‘““Hakken,” 55-57 Matsuyama, Chujiro, 34, 35, 40 Mayejima, Hisoka, 30, 31, 33 Medicine, 135 n., 353 Meiji, Emperor, 45, 238, 282 Merchants, foreign, 74n., 218, 231, 252, 260N., 266, 283 Militarism, 5, 7, 34, 40, 42, 112, (25. 027, 0400. 1307 21s 228, 234, 235, 274, 324, 325 335, 341, 342 Midzuno, Dr. Rentaro, Misunderstandings, 1-10, 146, 157, 159, 170, 211, 252, 254-56, 277, 282, 284, 298, 338, 339, 354; corrections of, 10, 168, 108, 232 196-221, 220, 244, 227. 2p: 246, 272, 277, 278, 286-88, 290 Nn. [ 387]Missions 76, 209, 218, 225, 231, 274; hostilities to, 62, 80, 81, 87, 144, 145, 216-18, 225, 232, 253, 264, 275, 296, 313; schools, 71, 87, 253 0., 274 Mitsubishi, 29, 48, 173, 181, 238, 247, 270 0. Mitsui, 45, 46, 48, 173, 182, 238, 247, 291, 299 Mitsunaga, Hoshio, 95, 193 *Miyake, Dr. Yujiro, ‘‘Setsurei,”’ 45, 54, 64, 65 *Miyako, 44, 48, 141, 144, 346 Mochizuki, K., r11, 194, 298, 360 Morality, 72-76, 109, 113, 144, 287, 324, 347, 348, 353, 354,356 Motono, Baron Iichiro, 80 n., 126 Motoyami, Hikoichi, 36, 95 Murayama, Ryuhei, 38, 72N., III 0. Music, 135 0., 239, 266 n. 40, Nationalism, 1, 16, 17, 42, 141, 228, 235, 324 News: agency, 163-97, 202, 207, 220, 363; controlled, 48, 57, 180, 185, 187, 188, 200, 201, 220; distorted, 3, 58, 170-72, 186, 189-91, 205, 219, 227, 256, 264, 284; exchanging, 154, 163, 169, 176-78, 182, 183, 187, 188, 192, 200, 301; favorable, 124, 167, 168, 184, 198, 255; “filtered,” 168, 177, 186; in- spired, 48, 57, 120-22, 124, 141, 171, 176, 187, 188, 198-202, 204, 205, 207, 213, 218, 257, 283, 321, 346; suppressed, 125, 168, 172, 179, 180, 201 Newspapermen, 55-57, 122, 130, 226, 244 *New York Evening Post, 226-28, 232, 234-37, 242, 245, 309 126, 213, 243; SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN [ 388 ] *New York Times, 180, 184, 300, 316 *Nihon-oyobi-Nihonjin, 45, 54, 57 Nippon, 44, 45, 47; 118, 125 Nippon Dempo, 95, 158, 192, 193 Nippon Yusen Kaisha, 167, 173, 207, 241, 270N., 283, 290, 291, 298 Nisshin Shinjishi, 20-23, 27, 46 *Nitobe, Dr. Inazo, 7, 324, 352 Northcliffe, Lord, 131, 190, 203, 204, 221 Obscenity, 21, 29, 32, 34, 58, 62- 66, 82-84, 104, 109, 127, 130, 225, 276, 287 n. Official Gazette, 134, 165, 167, 189, 336, 337 Ohta, Dr. Masataka, 58, 95 Okuma, Marquis, 18, 23, 28, 20, 31, 41, 43, 47) 57, 72, 99, OT; TOO; 10; IIL7, -1Z20n 3210. 218 n., 226, 234, 235, 266, 320, 329, 341, 359, 362 Okura, Baron Kihachiro, 125 0., 247 Ono, Dr. Eijiro, 173, 174, 182 Opinion, public, 4, 6, 53, 55, 187, 206, 235, 324 Opium, 58, 351, 352 *Osaka Asahi, 35-40, 48, 720., Q2, III, 112, 123, 141, 182, 238, 336; quoted, 54, 60, 61, 90, 94, 173, 177 *Osaka Mainichi, 27 0., 30, 35- 25, 46, 115, L4t, 1562, 200 0.. 258, 275-78, 363; quoted 61, 90, 173 Otani, Kozui, 67, 88, 94 n. *Qzaki, Yukio, 33, 63, 124, 136, 210 N., 341 34; Pan-Asianism, 93-97, 214GENERAL INDEX Parry, Charles A., 264, 318 Peace, 78, 93 n., 113 n., 123, 136, 142, 210-12, 217, 235, 341, 347 Police, 35, 47, 106, 113, 117, 119, 126, 128, 136, 140 n., 142, 143, 234; 274, 293, 205, 313, 315 N., 319, 335, 345-47, 350 *Pooley, Andrew Mabel, 170, 172, 176, 178, 179, 188, 1809, 230 Premier, 4, 218 n., 229, 279 *Present Day Japan, 122, 238-42, 246 Press, 10-24, 106, 237, 253-77, 284, 285, 318; administration, 6n., 16-21, 27-39, 35; 46-48, I4I, 272, 290; deterioration of, 52-56, 58, 59; 84, 85, 125; 126, 130, 226, 244, 318; equipment of, 256, 257, 297, 299, 316; independence of, 9, 15, 18, 33, 46, 47, 82, 178, 340, 363; irre- sponsibility of, 4-7, 9, 21, 29, 32-34, 57-66, 82-85, 104, 109, E22) £25-27, 130, 17%, 225) 226, 244, 276, 287n., 345; labor, 40, 45; laws, 18, 23, 33, 43, 45, 48, 54, 55, 66, 104, 105, 107, 109, II0, 113, 127, 128, 136, 254, 271, 274, 320, 335, 336; mission of, 10, 33, 169, 253; Opposition, 20, 28, 33, 47; propagandist, 16, 17, 28-31, 41, 48, 124, 141, 168, 184, 198, 272-75, 283; subsidized, 21, 28-30, 56, 57, 104, 164-66, 173, 174, 193, 201, 202, 211, 220, 240-50, 263, 266, 267, 274, 277, 283, 298-300, 306, 333, 374, 375; Suppression of, 6, 15, 17- 19, 23, 28, 36, 39, 42, 105, 106, III, 112, 116-20, 122n., 124, 126, 127, 135, I410., 143, 172, 179, 189, 230, 264, 271, 272, 290 N., 325, 347 *Preston, W. T. R., 259, 260, 285 Prisons, 242, 320, 335 Propaganda: American, 61, 86, 87, 94, 213, 255, 277; British, 255, 262, 277, 282, 299; Ger- man, 189, 215, 216, 264, 292 n., 299; Japanese, 4, 6, 16, 17, 27, 170, 171, 176, 177, 180, 193, 194, 198-202, 204, 205, 207, 208, 213, 234, 239, 249, 253, 273, 278, 290 N., 291, 298, 352; Russian, 193, 199, 299, 316 Radicalism, 33, 40, 46, 72 n., r11, II3D., 116, 117, 128, 120, 131, 135-43, 204, 220, 239, 291-93, 319 Radio, 146, 151-59, 181 n., 184, 194, 207, 220, 238, 293 *Rai, Lala Rajpat, 53, 127 Railways, 180, 238, 242, 245, 246, 343 Rea, George Bronson, 216, 248 Religion, 1, 2, 32, 143-45, 209, 237, 242, 317, 318, 326, 333 n., 354; anti-Christianity, 87, 274, 270, 295, 296 Rengo, 48, 159, 174, 176, 181-88, 254, 265, 336 Reuter, 92, 163-70, 172, 174, 181, 185, 187-92, 336 Reuter, Baron Herbert de, 169, 170, 1740., 175, 176 Riots, 39, 91, III, 119, 122, 123, 127, 270 Ronin, 40, 74, 111 N., 136, 323, 339 Russell, Lindsay, 153, 213-16, 227 Saito, Baron Minoura, 275, 294 Sakatani, Baron Yoshiro, 210 n., 220 25T. 352: *San Francisco Chronicle, 224, 225, 232, 234-36, 245-47 [ 389 ]2 Satchell, Thomas, 264, 289 Satsuma-Choshu, Science, Semi-officialism, 34, 36 130, 154, 174, 188, IQI, 200, 202, 240, 241, 248, 240, 356 Sensationalism, 17-20, 28 135 N., 237, 239, 343 173) 193, 244, 44, 58-61, 255, 258, 292-95, 310-14, 319 Sensitiveness, 2, 8, 254, 332, 338, 355, 350 * Seoul Press, 60, 202 n., 246, 272- 75, 290N., 331 Sheba, Sey 55, 50, 67, 107, 129, 131, 258, 276 n., 278, 293, 297, 299 Shibusawa, Viscount Eiichi, 23, 34, 35, IOI, 153, 173-70, 182, 207 N., 212, 224, 220, Shidehara, Baron Kijuro, 200, 202 Shiga, Juko, 94 n., 102 Shimada, Saburo, 67, 90, 210 Nn. Shimbunsht, 14, 15, 27 nN. Shimooka, Chuji, 116, 225 Shogunate, 1, 10, 17, 47, 49, 7°, 105, 159, 282 Sociology, 72 n., 138, 139 South Manchuria Railway, W734, TOO, 255, 225,. 220, 245, 248 Soyeda, Dr. Juichi, 31, 55, 207 N., 220, 251, 338, 343 *Soyejima, Michimasu, 6n., 86, 87, 181 N., 199, 220 Spokesmen, 5; 3°, 46, 47, 86, 202, 205- 201. 2 283, 290 Stone, Melville E., 77-82, 168, 169, 28 Sugimura, Kotaro, 54, 124, 345 47, 241, 173; 7) 217; 272 SOCIAL CURRENTS IN JAPAN [ 390 |] 2175 222-50, Supplements, 301 213; Tagawa, Dr. Daikichiro, 118, 212N., 358 Takahashi, Dr. Kazutomo, 45, 64, 251, 258, 278, 291, 331 Takahashi, Korekiyo, 224, 278 Takamine, Juichi, 204n., 206 n. Takata Company, 247, 306 Takenobu, Professor Y., 236, 300 0, Tax, 170, 171, 284, 307 Teikoku Tsushin, 185, 192-94 Telephone, 136 n., 324, 344 Terauchi, Count, 64, 65, 81, 118, 225, 274, 275 “Thought-Guidance,’ 123-25, 130, 137-40, 145, 326, 342 Tobo, 155, 181, 182, 191, 193, 194, 201 Tokugawa, Iyemasu, 208, 209 Tokugawa, Prince Iyesato, 7, 212, 258, 317, 350 Nn. Tokutomi, Iichiro, 55, 89 n., 302, 340 *Tokyo Asahi, 34, 38-40, 48, 54, III, 112, 121, 124, 125 N., 141, 182, 201, 238, 245, 336, 346, 349 Tokyo Chamber of Commerce, 34, 35, 76n., 167, 173, 290, 291, 299 Tokyo Mainicht, 19, 21, 27, 37 D-; Q5. 007, 210 nt *Tokyo Nichi Nichi, 130. 21, 27 n., 28, 20, 37, 46-48, 50 1 932 TAI, 144, 107, 177, 182, 234; 276 n., 346, 363 Tokyo Stock Exchange, 225, 246 Tokyo Times, 266, 267, 3050GENERAL INDEX Tourists, 203, 204, 212, 217, 239, 246 Toyama, Mitsuru, 85, 323 *Trans-Pacific, 228, 233, 245 yper tr; 10, 175 19% are a2 242-44 Uchida, Yasuya, 199, 232, 278 Uchimura, “Kanzo,” 45, tor, 144 Ukita, Kazutomi, 55, 68, 125, 134, 235, 357 Utilities, public, 237, 238, 242, 240, 324, 344, 345, 354 Uyenoda, Setsuo, 326, 330, 358, 360 Vagueness, 113, 130, 143, 347 Vice, 34, 74 n., 236, 287, 296, 319, 359; 351, 353; 354 Vote, 55, 339 Wakatsuki, Reijiro, 113 n., 184, 218 n. War: Ministry of, 4, 124, 148, 2909, 374; predictions of, 85, 86, 88, 89, 91, 93, 96 n., 285, 325 Warnings, press, 107, 112-16, 123, 124, 126, 130, 199 Washio, Dr. Shogoro, 143, 207 n., 258, 318, 319, 325, 326, 358, 360, 362 Watkins, A. T., 262, 263, 269 Weale, Putnam, 232, 270 Whymant, A. J. Neville, 318, 327 *Williams, Walter, 256 n., 336 Women, 32, 35, 39, 41, 120n., 212, 234, 236, 287, 296, 310, 353, 354 Yamagata, Isoo, 272-75 *Vamato, 44, 56, 90, 124, I4I, 346, 348 Yamato Damashii, 6-8, 70-74, 88, 125 N., 227, 326, 352-54 Yano, Fumio, 31, 67, 194 Yokohama Mainichi, 19, 28n 46, 63 Yokohama Specie Bank, 173, 182, 238, 241, 245 "Yomiuri, 33-35, 43, 44, 46, 47, 57, I2I, 123, 159, 258, 300 n. *Yorodzu-Chuho, 44, 45, 56, 58, S55 121, 140, 14a) 208" 205, 273, 342, 346 *Yoshino, Dr. Sakuzo, 138, 2 235 Young, A. Morgan, 258, 299, 334 0D., 337 Young, Robert, 232, 265 n., 270, 285, 332-35, 337 Youth Movement, 212, 319 "? 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