TOPICS OF THE DAY.
JAPAN AND INDIA.
AGOOD deal too much attention has been paid to the speech of Count Okuma, the Japanese ex-Premier, reported in all Monday's papers. In the first place, it is now stated that the speech has become altered and intensified in the process of reporting and translation. But even if this were not so, we must remember that all countries have their Jingo orators. We must not expect, because the Japanese statesmen are as a rule very discreet in their utterances, that Japan is wholly exempt from the enfants terribles of politics. Again, the mere fact that a man has been a Prime Minister must not be held to give any special sanction to his words, though no doubt it is to be regretted that one who has occupied high office should indulge in foolish talk. We are convinced, however, that the Japanese Government will repudiate in the strongest possible way, not only Count Okuma's words, but his sentiments, and we are quite sure that such repudiation will be bond fide. For ourselves, we may say that we dwell upon the speech, not because, in our opinion, it is of special political significance or importance in itself, but rather because it gives us a convenient occasion for saying something which, we hold, needs to be said about Japan and India. Undoubtedly a good many people in this country of what we may term the anxious • political temperament are inclined to think that the rise of the Japanese power, and the tremen- dous naval and military strength which the Empire of the Mikado has been proved to possess, are a menace to India, and that our tenure of our Indian possessions is less secure than it was owing to the emergence of Japan as a Great Power. No doubt in a sense the rise of a new military Power in Asia may be said to threaten India, but only in the sense that a dog's possession of a bone is, logically speaking, threatened by the presence of all other dogs who are strong enough to make a good fight for the bone. Therefore, when a new and powerful dog comes on the scene, the dog with the bone is more threatened than when the new dog was, so to speak, not in being. There is also another way in which the rise of Japan has, or rather may for the moment seem to have, strengthened the forces opposed to our occupation of India. Unquestionably the fact that Japan has fought a European Power, and vanquished her in a way in which no European Power has been vanquished by an Asiatic for the last four hundred years, has excited all Asia and stirred emotions which have hitherto been dormant. Thousands of men throughout India who have heard of Japan's victories—a number great in itself, though perhaps not one in ten thousand of the population —have asked and are asking themselves : " Why cannot we in India do what the Japanese have done? Why should not we too show that the Indian Asiatic is not only cleverer in brain, but more versatile in the application of science, braver at heart, and more efficient in organisa- tion than the European ? "
Beyond, however, the fact that there is another Great Power in the world, and one very strong in men and arms, and that a certain section of Indian opinion has been excited by an Asiatic triumph, we do not believe that the risk of our being turned out of India has been in any way increased by Japan's victories. If we look coolly at the suggestions contained in Count Okuma's address, we shall see how unsubstantial they are. He is reported to have spoken as follows :— " Being oppressed by the Europeans, the three hundred million people of India are looking for Japanese protection. They have commenced to boycott European merchandise. If, therefore, the Japanese let the chance slip by and do not go to India, the Indians will be disappointed. If one will not take gifts from Heaven, Heaven may send one misfortune. From old times India has been a land of treasure. Alexander the Great obtained there treasure sufficient to load one hundred camels, and Mahomet and Attila also obtained riches from India. Why should the Japanese not also stretch out their hands towards that country, now that the people are looking to the Japanese ? The Japanese ought to go to India, the South Ocean, and other parts of the world. The time has arrived for the Japanese to pluck up their spirit and act."
Now if this means anything, it means that Japan is to abandon her Alliance with us, and take upon herself the task, first of protecting, and then apparently of plundering—why else talk of treasure ?—the people of India. But such incitements to rebellion, granted they were tried— which, of course, we do not grant, for we have perfect confidence in the loyalty and seriousness of the Japanese— would be perfectly useless to Japan unless Japan were able to send an armed force into India to back up the insurgents who were acting in her interests. Japan, how- ever, could not possibly send troops into India by land unless she had first conquered either Russia in Asia or else China. Considering that iu spite of the splendid heroism of her troops and the efficiency of her commanders, Japan only managed after a year's bard fighting to penetrate two or three hundred miles into Russian territory— assuming Manchuria to be for the moment Russian territory—the prospect of her reaching India through either the Russian Pamirs or Herat is, it must be admitted, somewhat remote. Again, we see no reason to suppose that the Chinese are inclined to place them- selves under the rule of Japan, but rather the reverse. If the awakening of China comes—and we are by no means disposed to say that it will not come—it will be quite as much an awakening against Japan as against Europe and the Western races. For all practical purposes, if Japan were to want to invade India (again we apologise for an hypothesis so absurd), it must be by sea. But invasions of that kind can only be made by those who possess the command of the sea. As long, then, as we command the sea, neither Japan nor any other Power, except Russia, can possibly invade India. If we do not keep command of the sea, it matters very little what Power it is that drives us out. If not Japan, it would certainly be another.
But it may be said :—" Though Japan cannot, of course, hope to drive us out by the direct method as long as we command the sea, might not she do so indirectly by foment- ing disturbance ? We cannot count upon her remaining our ally for an indefinite period, and if she ceases to be our ally, what is to prevent her sending her clever emissaries throughout India with the cry of Asia for the Asiatics ' ? " Our answer to such doleful prognostications is that they rest upon the false assumption that Asiatics are all one, and that because a man is a Japanese he will therefore be welcomed by all Indians as a man, a brother, and a deliverer. We see no such symptoms of freemasonry amongst white men, and we are very doubt- ful whether there is any such bond amongst Asiatics. To begin with, such a bond is not very visible in India itself. To be a native of one part of India is by no means a pass- port to popularity in other parts. The Sikh is not willing to do the bidding of the Bengalee, or the Bengalee that of the Mahratta, or the Madrasee that of the Pathan or the Burman, even though the educated among them may be able to offer very cogent arguments for co-operation, and may occasionally and for certain purposes be able to obtain some small measure of co-operation. Take the matter a stage further•. We have never heard that the Chinaman is specially popular in India. Indeed, there is evidence to show the contrary. The assumption of superiority generally assumed by the Chinaman in India is resented, not liked, and we see no reason to believe that if large numbers of Japanese were to spread themselves through India in order to organise their Asiatic brethren against the white man they would be welcomed as enlightened philan- thropists whose whole desire was to help a people rightly struggling to be free. It is much more likely that they would be regarded with a good deal of jealousy and disfavour, and that their habit of command and assump- tion of leadership would make them objects of suspicion. The uneducated millions would know nothing about them, and would probably regard them with the stupid and ill-founded contempt which the uneducated are inclined to feel towards small men ; while the educated, who have been able to read the accounts of what has happened in Formosa, and still more in Korea, would be inclined to think that there was danger in a " freedoni " obtained through Japanese help. Suppose the Japanese who came to deliver remained to rule ? Might it not well be that the little finger of the Japanese would prove thicker than the loin of the Englishman ? As long as it is all a matter of theory—as long, that is, as the Japanese can be talked about vaguely as the champions of Asia and the deliverers of the East—we have no doubt that eloquent gentlemen from Calcutta and Bombay will continue to wax enthusiastic about them. But such eloquence is very different from the actual establishment of Japanese influence in India.
If the British people are wise, they will shut their ears against all sensational and " viewy " talk as to this or that influence which is going to drive us out of India. We shall remain in India as long as we are capable of holding it and the native population as a whole are incapable or not desirous of combining to drive us out, and not one moment longer. At present there is no indication that we have lost the power of rule, or, again, that the inhabitants of India have the least desire to drive us out, or any capacity of combining to accomplish that work. Our rule in India, no doubt, is to some extent in the nature of a miracle, but it is one of those miracles like that which preserves a man's eyesight in face of a thousand risks run by day and night. There is no reason why it should not continue for another hundred and fifty years. Further than that no wise man will care to look. We, at any rate, refuse to be pessimistic about India. The machinery of our rule is thoroughly sound and efficient, if we take it as a whole, and, what is more, is still inspired by the true principle,—the desire and the resolve to govern in 'the interests of the governed, and to allow no other con- siderations, whether of sentiment or of interest, to interfere with that resolution.. While that lasts, and while we refuse to make any concessions to folly, ignorance, or guile, we are safe. Winds and tempests may no doubt arise for a time to shake our dominion, but they will not uproot it.
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