86
THE OPEN DOOR.
(Daily Press, 28th July.)
The Tokyo correspondent of the Times repenta what we have said over and over again, simple, obvious truths, but seeming ly requiring repetition. Expressions of suspicion of our allies' intentions in China continue to appear, and most amazing aesumptions of what is Japan's duty there inspire and accompany them. The position of the commercial critic seems to be rather, like that of the girl who thus addressed her brother: "It is too selfish of you to go on eating that cake when you know I want it." We may be sure, the Times says, that the Japanese will not be troubled with altruistic scruples in their Asiatic policy. Why on earth should they? We hear much of the principle of the open door, to which Japan is pledged; but it is poss ble that there are misunderstandings as to what precisely that principle is, or what it demands. It certainly cannot imply that the Japanese are to holl open the door and bow their trade competitors through; yet some of the complaints heard lately
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
prietors, in order to evade Chinese jurisdiction, have borrowed the names of Japanese subjects The latter, of course, have nothing whatever to do with the opinions expressed by such journals: but if violent views are ventilated in their columns it is inevitable that foreigners. ignorant of the real state of the case, should suspect the Japanese of collusion, or even instigation, and suspicions of that kind may grow by aconmala tion into a source of embarrassment evən tå our own foreign rélations.
It ought to be sufficiently well known by now that while China has uo press laws, its officials have a short way with offending journalists; and to avoid this disability Chinese newspapermen were not slow to see the use of extraterritoriality. If they could obtain a foreigu figurehead for their enterprise, they could snap their fingers at officialdom. The same problem, it is statel, presented itself in Japan soine 40 years ago, but Sir HARRY PARKES quickly solved it by issuing, under the authority vested in him by Orders in Council, a notification penalizing the publication of any vernacular journal in the name of a British proprietor.
+
observance.
[August 6, 1908.
from enquiring too closely into the grounds of the accusation. He was hurriedly taken before a court-martial, wh›re he was given little or no opportunity of defending him- self, and the charges being announced to be proved he was condemned to be expelled from the army; and to mark the national disgust at so heinous a crime his expulsion was marked by every ceremony of contempt to which a soldier who hal once attained honourable distinction in his profession could be subjected. Naturally concluding from the circumstances that DREYFUS had met with his just desserts, although the English people looked in pity at the loss of eo honourable a reputation as he attained in the army of a friendly nation, they coincided in the expressions of contempt passed on him by his own fellow-officers and by the nation at large; and by and bye, as DREYFUS, without a word of remonstrance, a part of his dishonourable punishment
was sent to repent his supposed er me, and subjected imprisoned in the Isle du Diable, a lone island the living death of being
off the coast of South America, where none hut criminals of the blackest dye were ever immured. But DREYFUS, though condemned by the almost unanimous voice of his fellow- countrymen, had a few friends who left no stone unturned to vindicate his honour, and about, which cast serious reflections on the by and bye strange rumours begin to float
goo
to
England in those days showed the way in the Orient to all Occidental Powers, and Sir Harry's notification, though not du licated by the rpr sentatives of other States, who. indeed. had not competence to duplicate it, received He himself was roundly abus a had acted ul ra vires, and that his veto improp- by his own countrymen, who c'aimed that he
erly obstructed the free exercise of bread- earning pursuits which was guaranteed by though often mistaken, desire of the English 1 faith of his accusers. The philanthropic, treaty. But Sir Harry argue that the framers of the treaties never intended them to confor people to help a lame dog over the stil now came to the front, but in this instance it was privileges subversive of public prac and good
As a nation the order in Japan, and that an Englishman's right aided by another feeling. of free speech must be ex-rcised in the English English are accustomed from many centuria 3 stood to his guns, as was his wont, and the
and in his own country gusge
In short, he of constant practice to weigh the evidence, wisdom of his action ultimately came to be unireviewing the evidence herein the evidence more especially in a criminal case; and versally recognized, Indeed, if experience in Japan had not warranted such a veto, the condi- tions now existing in China would do so, for a number of journals published there in the names of foreign proprietors, and therefore exempt from Chiness official restraint, exercise freedom of speech to a degree for which public
pinion in China is certainly not prepared.”
lan
almost indicate that such is the idea of some of their commercial competitors. The attitude is an absurd one to take, and where complaints of Japanese over-reaching are obviously based on such views, they should be promptly laughed out of court. If we have a fair field and no favour, if we mutually bar hitting below the belt, then let the contest go on ; but don't let us whine during its progress that our opponent has a longer reach. But it must be confessed that there has been a good deal of hitting below the belt, of which the Japanese might justly complain. Russian agents appreciate the power of even a low-class newspaper, and while in their own country they muzzle' the press as far as possible, it is notorious how in the Far East they have been dis-, tributing largesse, for which, to the disgust of the rest, there seem to have been many hands held out. The result has been that in North China, as in Korea, the dishonesty, avarice, lust for expansion, and general lack of fairplay of Japan has been proclaimed | from the housetops, Some of the mud
(Daily Press, 30th July) sticks, and no doubt unbribed journals have i been impress by it; and tired of the romantic in the story of DREYFUS and his There is a considerable element of the chorus of praise of all things Japanese that was fashionable a dozen months ago, they of the most distinguished soldiers of his faithful ACHATES Colonel PicqUART One lend colour to the libels by "ifs"
and "buts" and half-hearted hints that perhaps
day, he seemed destined to attain the all is not as it should be. There has been, highest hon urs of the army; persually a however, one circumstance which may almost
man of high motive, he was above making himself by popular arts the įdol of the +xcusably have given rise to the oft-staled
crowd, and above all he was a conscientions suspicions that Japanese were encouraging the anti-European movement in China. It Jew; and these two disqualifications pro- is nexcusable for any who know the real cured him a host of enemies amongst the relationship of China and Japan, the gulf upper ranks of the French army. So that divides them, and the impossibility of distasteful did his rising reputation become the Japanese consenting to associate them-mongst these classes, and so little did he selves in any movement, which would imply
"
!
their being on
Asiatics". a level with "Asia for the Asiatics" never Such a cry as arose save in the fertile imagination of a young Daily Mail correspondent. The cry <f “China for the Chinese" is real enough, and about on a par with "India for the Indians". But if there be such a cry in Japan, it is nothing like so modest. It will be "the universe for the Japanese for as Captain BRINKLEY truly says, their aim is to be great in the whole world, not in one half of it ouly". But for those who are ignorant of the situation, and who generalise from isolated particulars, it is perhaps easy to go innocently astray, as the following extract from the Jiji Shimpo
L'AFFAIRE DREYFUS..
lead himself to the arts of the popular hero, that his rivals found comparatively little difficulty in trumping up a series of charges against him, and even succeeded in per- suading some of those in authority that he had been engaged in what in a soldier's eyes is the greatest and most diehondurable of crimes-that of selling abroad the inner- most secrets of the military organisation of his country. Being a Jew, it was hastly concluded that he could be no true French- man at heart, and though on the other hand he was known to be sufficiently wealthy to be above the temptation of trafficking for filthy lucre his country's secrets, the mere fact of his being charged with so abominable a crime by those who were apparently in a position to form a There are, too, among newspapers edited and judgment, not altogether unnaturally dis- owned by Chinese subjects a few whose pro-tracted the attention of his country inen
will show
Maitre
for the accusation semed particularly s'endr. That a deliberate judgment given by a carefully chosen court-martial should be reviewed in a sceptical spirit by another nation, however friendly, gravel on the susceptibilities of the French as a nation; and not impossibly tended to render a review of the judgment mors difficult. Amongst a section of the people it, how. ever, acted as a spur to their exert ons to rehabilitate DREYFUS, whom they felt to be ing was hostile to Englan, and un loubtedly unjustly condemned. Sill the general feel-
between the two peoples. By degrees the increased the jealousy which ha | intervened
efforts of DREYFUS' friends, assistel, there is little doubt, by the persistence of British public feeling as to the inlequiry of the evidence brought forward by his necnsers, resulted in a review of the cas`, LABORI, DREYFUS' able defender, aided by the courageous and self-sacrificing persistence of his friend Cnel PICQUART, so far convinced the Court of Cassition that the verdict was practically reversed, even if not formally quashe i, and DREYFUS was permitted to retur, without, however, either he or his friend PICQUART being restored to rank. But the revision did more, for it showed that disgraceful and dishonourab'e crimes, amounting to forgery and perjury, had been committe, to bring about the fist verdict. One of those more immediately implicate), to
save further enquiries, actually committed suicide.
The irritation caused throughout the country, partly by some supposed intended insult on the part of Great Britain, was however, so in ense that the Government of the day did not feel itself justifi d against public feeling in once reinstating DREYFUS, and its necessary conco·nitant putting back Col. PicQUART. Gradually, however, the feeling that after all the people of England right, and
at
were