The Many-Featured Face of Japan
By SIR FREDERICK WHYTE
ASIA escapes all our categories. And, of the Asiatic countries none is more baffling to measure by Western standards than. Japan : peculiarly so, because there is much in her many- featured face that seems to partake of our own qualities. It is hardly untrue to say that whenever we believe we have found a phenomenon in Japanese life which resembles our own, be it liberalism or fascism, militarism or patriotism, we have no sooner pinned it down with a European formula than we find it escaping from our grasp and assuming .a shape which does not correspond to its Western counterpart. Some say that Japan is the Britain of the East : Lowes Dickinson saw in her " Greece without the intellect": others, again, find in her mili- tary tradition the semblance of Prussia. They are all true, and all untrue ; and I have often felt that.we must divest ourselves of much of our mental clothing, as a man strips before he can swim, in order that we may approach the East free from hampering pre-conceptions.
This picture of passing from one element into another, as from air into water, suggests a test by which to measure the merit of those who set out to explain the East to the West.. And few there are who survive it. Keyserling contrived to give the impression that at least he knew he was undergoing it : there are pages in Lafeadio Hearn which bear witness to his ability to rid himself of Europe before he tried to probe Japan ; and it so happens that two of the authors now under review can claim that they are also among the few who need not greatly fear the exacting test. Sir George Sansom, whom we congratulate on his honour.in the Birthday List, is known to every student of the Far East as a. well-, equipped authority, who gave us, in his Japan :, A Short Cultural History, the best modern volume on the subject. And though the present volume is only an official report to the Department of Overseas Trade, it owes its quality as a record of the economic condition of Japan in 1934 to Sir George's penetrating understanding of the country, in which he serves as Commercial Counsellor to the British Embassy. The second author is Mr. Upton Close, who says of himself that he " has no theory to espouse, no axe to grind, no person to please, no hate to tickle." Both of them, and for that matter, Herr Gunther Stein too, are at pains to disabuse, their readers of many current misconceptions about Japan, and to present the truth, as far as it is given them to see it. The kernel of that truth is that, in the economic field at all events, Japan possesses competitive ability of a high order, which will continue to be the mainstay of an expanding foreign trade after the temporary advantages of a depreciated, currency and low wages cease to operate so heavily in her. favour. I do not agree with Herr Stein when he says that Japan is the only country that would greatly profit by the removal of the existing restrictions on foreign trade. Nor is it possible to accept his hyperbole that Japan may, soon, become " the largest exporter in the world " ; but both he, and Sir George Sansom do well to remind us that, in manu-, factured goods Japan now takes nearly 10 per cent. of the export trade of the world. Apart from this criticism, Herr Stein's examination of the whole problem is pertinent, dile, and timely ; and he concludes that neither the low yen, nor cheap labour, nor .even the comparative impoverishnient of many world markets, is any more than a contributory agent in Japan's • successful challenge in foreign trade, but that the Economic Conditions in Japan. By Sir George Sansom, (H.M. Stationery Offi6e. 3e: 6d: )=Behind the 1Facent Japan. By Upton Close. (Hurst and Blackett. Ws.) In Japan. By-Giinther Stein. (Methuen. 7s. 6d.)
decisive factor is the organized and scientific purpose that runs through her whole economic enterprise.
But, for every reader who will take the trouble to digest the Sansbin Report and Herr Stein's compact little bOok, there will be a score who will read Mr. Close with pleasure and enlightenment. Mr. Upton Close is a lively writer who can draw on wide reading and many years of pemonal experience. His book is packed—sometimes too loosely packed—' with both and to such good effect that, of the fifty-odd modern 'voltimes on Japan that I have read in the past few years, this book of his stands out, in virtue of the personal quality Of the writing and of the vivid glimpses of Japanese life which appear on many of its pages. As an essay in English style it has little claim to distinction ; and yet, Mr. Close has an aptitude for telling and accurate phrase which fastens the attention of the reader just when the looseness of his writing is beginning to tempt one to skip whole pages at a. jump. The truth is that, with all its glaring faults, this book comes nearer than any other of our time to success in the difficult enterprise of describing Japan as she is. This is not the Japan of the cherry-blossom, the tea ceremony and the pretty pictures of Mount Fuji, though, be it said, these are not ignored by Mr. Close. It is the Japan of power and money, of heroism and corruption, of Araki and Manchukuo : the Japan of the divine mission in East Asia. In a serried gallery of por- traits we see the powerful figures of Japan in crisis ; Saionji and Toyama, Matsuoka (a little too much of him) and Kagawa, Takahashi, Saito, Hirota, Ugaki, Makino, Konoye, half a dozen plutocrats, many soldiers, among whom I miss an authentic portrait of Doihara, though the likenesses of Asaki and his school are well done. In all these, often inaccurate in detail but authentic in result, the reader is given successive " close- ups " of personalities, touched with illuminating detail, out of which the face of Japan begins to disclose itself. And here Mr. Upton Close justifies his title ; for the virile• and con- tradictory qualities thus revealed in scores of individuals are, in fact, the elements " behind the face of Japan which mould its national features.
Mr. Close has a chapter on " Individualistic and Noncon- formist Japan " in which he says that " Japanese history is sprinkled with examples of a sublime ability to disobey " and that " reverence for authority and individual initiative exist in proportion, making a formidable leadership towards world conquest." Here he is open to challenge. If this thesis were true, Japan might indeed emulate Rome and England in Imperial destiny. But, is it true ? In the supreme modern test of individual quality in a crisis—namely, in the air—the Japanese fall short. They are capable of great feats of courage, endurance and fortitude. Self-immolation and sacrifice at the bidding of an almost spiritual motive is their second nature ; but there are inexorable limits in the Japanese character to this heroic nonconformity, which Mr. Close discovers in them, and the true individualist will ask whether the picture he gives of individualist and nonconformist Japan is correctly drawn. This doubt vitiates one of his vital con- clusions, and introduces a factor of disconcerting, not to say disabling, uncertainty regarding the future of Japan's self- appointed mission. Compared with any of the great nations of the modern world Japan has never had to face supreme danger or supreme destiny. When she does, it will be time enough to say that she has the innate power to survive. Mean- while, the issue here is not the fundamental quality of Japan, but the merit of Mr. Close's book. And of that the reader will have little doubt.
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