JAPAN, before it started upon its career of world conquest at the expense of its neighbors, consisted of more than 500 islands which follow a semi-circle reaching all the way from the peninsula of Kamchatka in the north to the coast of the Chinese province of Kwang-tung in the south, a distance equivalent to that between the North Cape of Europe and the center of the Sahara Desert in Africa.

Of these islands, which vary in size between the whole of England and Scotland and Manhattan,518 are inhabited by some 60,000,000 people. The total number of Japanese, according to the latest statistics, is over 90,000,000 but that takes in 20,000,000 Koreans and several Polynesian islands which have been Japanese territory since the recent Great War.

For all practical purposes, however, it is sufficient to remember the names of Honshiu, the main island in the center, Hokkaido, the next biggest island in the north, and Shikoku and Kyushiu, the two big islands immediately south of Honshiu. The capital is Tokio, with over 2,000,000 inhabitants, situated in a fertile plain in the center of Honshiu.The harbor of Tokio is Yokohama.

The second largest city is Osaka, in the southern part of the same island, the center of the important Japanese textile industry. North of Osaka lies Kioto(Tokio is merely Kioto turned around),the ancient capital of the Empire.Other cities, whose names you will occasionally encounter in our newspapers, are Kobe, the port of Osaka, and Nagasaki on the southern island of Kiushiu, the most convenient port for all vessels coming from Europe.

As for the word Yedo, which you will often find in your history books, it is merely the ancient name of the city of Tokio during the period when it was the residence of the Shoguns. When the Shoguns lost their power in the year 1866,the emperor moved from Kioto to Yedo, the city was rebaptised Tokio, and it began that extraordinary development which has made it one of the biggest cities of the modern world.

But all these towns live in constant peril of being wiped out. The Japanese islands, which are merely the outer edges of the great Asiatic mountains,(the Japanese Sea, the shallow Yellow Sea and the East China Sea are of very recent date, like the North Sea which turned England into an island),are part of the volcanic ridge that stretches from the island of Sakhalin to Java in the Dutch East Indies, and they are in almost constant motion.The seismographic observation statistics of Japan reported 27,485 earthquakes between 1885 and 1903.That gives an average of 1447 per year or four per day.Of course, most of these are of no particular importance.A slight shiver in a teacup, a rattling of a chair against the wall and that would be all.But one gets some idea of the danger to which this island region is exposed when you realize that Kioto, the ancient capital, was shaken 1318 times during the ten centuries of its existence.Of these 1318 shakings,194 were classified as“strong”and 34 as absolutely“destructive”.The earthquake of September,1923,which destroyed the city of Tokio almost completely and which killed more than 150,000 people and lifted certain small islands a couple of feet in the air, while sinking others below sea-level, was of such recent date as still to be remembered by all of us.

People often associate earthquakes with volcanic disturbances. Some of them are undoubtedly the result of volcanic eruptions.But most earthquakes are caused by a sudden sliding among those layers of rocks which lie beneath the soil on which we live.When such layers move only two or three inches, the result is a commotion which may merely upset a few trees and shrubs but which, if it takes place in exactly the right spot(the wrong spot would be better)may cause a catastrophe like that of Lisbon in 1755,when 60,000 people were killed, or Canton in China in 1920 when the number may have been as high as 200,000.According to the conservative estimate of one of the greatest seismological experts, the earthquakes of the last forty centuries, the so-called“historical period”of man, have cost the lives of 13,000,000 people, which, when all is said and done, is quite a considerable number.

Earthquakes, of course, may happen almost anywhere. Only a year ago the bottom of the North Sea was severely shaken by an earthquake, and the mud flats of the islands at the mouth of the Scheldt and the Rhine trembled sufficiently to give the clam-diggers a moment of great uneasiness.Yet the North Sea region is as flat as a pancake.The Japanese islands, on the other hand, are situated on the top of a high ridge which on the eastern side descends into one of the deepest holes in the bottom of the ocean our scientists have so far been able to locate.The famous Tuscarora Deep descends to over 28,000 feet, which is only 6000 feet less than the record depth between the Philippines and the Marianas or Ladrones.It surely is no mere accident that more than half of all the disastrous earthquakes of Japan have taken place along the eastern shores where the coast makes a sheer drop of about six miles.

The Japanese, however, like most people who live in earthquake belts, lose little sleep on account of this eternal menace to their safety. They till their fields and play with their children and eat their meals and laugh at Charlie Chaplin just like the rest of us.The experience of ages has taught them to build a kind of cardboard house which is perhaps a little draughty in winter but which causes the minimum of danger when it comes tumbling down about its owner's ears.Of course, when they want to imitate the west and build sky-scrapers as they did in Tokio, then the damage runs into the hundreds of millions.But, generally speaking, Japan has adapted itself better than any other country to this inevitable geological handicap.Just as, generally speaking, they seem to have succeeded in making life a much more harmonious and agreeable adventure than most of the nations of the west.I am not thinking of the pretty postal cards with little geisha girls drinking tea underneath a cherry tree, or the toy gardens of Madame Butterfly.I am merely repeating what all travellers have told us who visited Japan before it gave up its ancestral customs and habits and manners(the manners especially seem to have been exquisite)and tried to turn its islands into suburbs of Chicago and Wilkes-Barre.As that incredible change from the old Japan unto the new has had a very decided influence upon our own safety and happiness and will continue to do so in an increasing manner, we ought to know at least a few things about these people who, whether we like it or not, will be our neighbors as long as the Pacific does not run dry.

Japanese history is of much more recent date than Chinese. The Chinese calendar goes back to 2637 B.C.(about the time Cheops was building his little pyramid)but the oldest Japanese chronicle dates back only to 400 A.D.At that time the present so-called Japanese race was already in existence.Strictly speaking, however, there is no“Japanese race”,for, like the English, the Japanese are a mixture.The original inhabitants were the Ainos who were gradually driven to the more remote northern islands by three successive waves of invaders from southern China and the Malayan peninsula, from central China, and from Manchuria and Korea.As a result, the original civilization of Japan was really an extension of Chinese civilization, and whatever the Japanese knew they had learned from the Chinese.

Their relations with China grew even more intimate when Japan followed the Chinese example and allowed herself to be converted to Buddhism. But when a new creed replaces an older one, the new creed cannot help being influenced to a certain extent at least by the older one.That is a lesson all missionaries have been obliged to learn, whether they preached Christianity, Mohammedanism or Buddhism.

The first Buddhist apostles who reached Japan in the sixth century of our era found that the Japanese had developed a religious system of their own which had grown out of the soil, so to speak, and which was very well suited to their needs. It was called Shinto-ism from the word Shinto which seems to be the equivalent of our expression“the divine pathway”.It was a much nobler creed than the spook and devil worship so prevalent all over the rest of Asia.It accepted the world as a unit of indestructible force and taught that we are responsible for whatever use we make of that force, because, no matter how insignificant the result may be, it will be a permanent result.The present official creed of Japan is a mixture of Buddhism and Shinto-ism.It lays great stress upon one'sduty towards the community at large.Like the Englishman, the Japanese, who is also essentially an island-dweller(without necessarily being an insular person),has a very sincere and deep-seated conviction that he owes his country certain very definite duties.Shinto-ism also lays stress upon the respect due the ancestors.But it does not carry this veneration to the point of absurdity which turns so much of China into a vast cemetery where the dead rule the living and where the grave-yards occupy the space that should be used to raise food for the living.

But the great cleavage between Chinese and Japanese civilization did not take place until much later, not until the latter half of the sixteenth century when, after an endless period of quarrelling and fighting between little independent potentates who paid no more attention to their emperor than a knight of the Holy Roman Empire did to his, the government fell at last into the hands of a man of power.

Eight hundred years before, in far away Europe, the Major Domos or house-stewards of the old Frankish kings had pushed their masters into a monastery and had then taken it upon themselves to rule the country. As they were much better fitted for the job than the men they replaced, nobody had objected.The Japanese people, having endured civil war for almost four centuries, did not care who ruled them as long as they got peace.And so they did not object or rush to the defence of their hereditary rulers when the highest official of the imperial court, the head of the rich and influential Tokugawa family, made himself the dictator of the country.This Japanese Major Domo promoted the Emperor to a sort of deity on earth, the spiritual father of all the Japanese, but of such remote spiritual perfection, he must forever remain invisible to the mass of his subjects.

This arrangement lasted almost two entire centuries. The Shoguns(for that was the title by which these dictators were known and it meant as much as our“commander-in-chief”)ruled in Tokio and the Emperors idled their time away behind their costly screens in the silent palace of Kioto.It was during the Shogun era that Japan adopted that strict feudal system which was to influence the character of her people in so profound a way that even today, after almost eighty years of industrialism, the Japanese are still feudalists at heart, and contemplate the problems of life from an angle that is totally different from that of their European and American competitors.It took some time to perfect the details of this new arrangement, but after the year 1600 Japanese society was divided definitely into three different groups.The highest of these castes consisted of the Daimyos, the members of the feudal nobility, the big landowners.The second one consisted of the Samurai, hereditary warriors corresponding to the knights of medieval Europe.All other people belonged to the third class, that of the Heimin or commoners.

This System was not ideal but history has quite convincingly taught us that the mass of the population is never deeply interested in any theory of government. All the average citizen asks is,“Does it work?Does it guarantee me peace and quiet and give me the assurance that whatever I have gained through my own efforts and in the sweat of my brow will actually belong to me and that no one can take it away from me without due process of law?”

And for more than two centuries the system did work. The shogun was recognized as the political leader of the state.The Mikado was worshipped as the spiritual head of the nation.The Daimyos and the Samurai, forced to adhere to a very strict code of“noblesse oblige”,either did what was expected of them or were politely requested to disembowel themselves according to the most solemn rites of harakiri.And the subjects labored at their different trades and professions.

Even then the country was getting to be slightly over-crowded. Often the people were obliged to subsist on very little.But they had always been very sober and frugal in their tastes and did not ask for much.And Nature appeared to be a faithful friend.The Kuro Siwo(which means the Blue Salt Current, a sort of second cousin to our own Gulf Stream)which started in the equatorial region just north of the Dutch East Indies, then flowed past the Philippines and then crossed the Pacific to bestow its blessings upon the west coast of America, provided the country with an even climate.A narrow strip of cold water just off the Japanese east coast prevented the country from enjoying quite as mild a temperature as California, but even so it was much better off than continental China.

Everything, so it seemed, was in favor of a normal and rational development of those blessed islands when a certain Mendes Pinto, a Portuguese navigator who had lost his bearings, appeared upon the scene and upset the entire future course of Japanese history. For the Portuguese not only visited distant countries to trade with them, but also to bring them the enlightened blessings of their own religious system.

At first, unless all chronicles have agreed to lie upon this one point, the Christian missionaries, whose headquarters were in Goa in India and in Macao near Canton in China, were received with great courtesy and were given every opportunity to explain the advantages of their own creed over that which for so long had ruled supreme among the Japanese. They preached their gospel and they made many converts.Then other missionaries, belonging to a different religious order, arrived from the nearby Philippine Islands which belonged to Spain.They too were welcomed, but the Shogun began to feel uneasy about their presence when he discovered(what native prince has ever failed to make that discovery sooner or later?)that these holy men were invariably accompanied by less holy men, garbed in iron armor and carrying strange iron rods that would send heavy leaden bullets through as many as three common Japanese soldiers at the same time.

It is only during the last fifty years that we have begun to understand the Japanese point of view about the very painful incidents which thereupon happened. These incidents have given the Japanese a reputation for cold-blooded cruelty which did not seem in the least in keeping with what we had learned about them from other sources.The decision of the Shogun to close Japan against all further activities on the part of the Christian missionaries was not the result of any sudden dislike on his part for the people from the west.It was caused by fear, by fear lest the whole country be rent asunder by religious strife and its riches be despoiled by the captains of those same merchantmen that carried the messengers of peace and good-will to the shores of Japan and then departed without paying for the goods that had been ordered to provide a return cargo.

The Jesuit influence had been strongest in the island of kiushiu, nearest to the Portuguese settlements in China. At first the Fathers had humbly spoken of the Prince of Peace.As soon as they had gained the upper hand, they began to destroy Japanese temples, demolish Japanese images and force thousands of peasants and nobles to accept the cross at the point of the gun.

Then the strong man of Japan, saw all this and realized what the inevitable end must be.“These priests,”so he announced,“came here preaching virtue, but their virtue is only a means of concealing their pernicious designs against our Empire.”

On July 25th of the year 1587,five years after a first Japanese embassy had paid its respects to the Pope and to the Kings of Spain and Portugal, all Christian priests were banished from Japanese territory. Merchants were given permission to visit Japan as before, but under supervision of the government.The Portuguese Jesuits left.Their place was immediately taken by Spanish Franciscans and Dominicans from the nearby Philippines.They came disguised as special ambassadors to Hideyoshi.Their trick was discovered.Nevertheless, they were treated with courtesy but were told not to preach.They disobeyed this order, built themselves a church in Yedo and began to baptise people all over the land.Next they built a church in Osaka.Next they appropriated a church in Nagasaki which had belonged to the Jesuits.Next they turned openly against their rivals, the Jesuits, and accused them of having been too conciliatory in their methods of bringing the Good Tidings to the Japanese.In short, they committed every error of judgment and taste to be found in the repertory of professional fanatics.When they were finally deported by government orders, they returned as fast as they were expelled.After years of futile warnings, the Japanese, who thus far had shown the utmost patience and tolerance towards these unwelcome Spanish friars, came to the conclusion that nothing could save them but the most drastic of measures.

Rather than witness a repetition of that civil war which had been so disastrous to their country during the previous four hundred years, they voluntarily closed their country against all further foreign aggression;and those Christian missionaries who disregarded that edict were put to death.

During well-night a century and a half Japan remained in a state of voluntary exile from the rest of the world. Almost, but not completely.One little window remained open through which a great deal of Japanese gold flowed westward and through which at least a few scraps of western science penetrated into the interior of that strange country.The Dutch East India Company had been a rival of the Portuguese for Japan's commercial favors.But the Dutch were traders, pure and simple, and had but little interest in other peoples'souls.Neither did the English.For a long time it was a toss-up which of the two nations would win out.But the English managed rather badly on this occasion, and lost.

After the execution of the last of a series of Portuguese diplomatic missions sent to Japan, an inexcusable official murder, the Dutch too were deprived of many of their former privileges. But as long as their Japanese venture paid an annual dividend of almost eighty percent, they decided to hang on.They were forced to reside on the little island of Deshima, a square rock 300 yards long and 80 yards wide, situated in the harbor of Nagasaki and hardly big enough to exercise the dogs they brought with them to keep them company.They were not allowed to bring their wives and were never permitted to set foot on the mainland.

They must for once have exercised the patience of the angels(not exactly a national characteristic)for the slightest infringement of any of the hundreds of regulations, laid down by the Japanese authorities, brought immediate reprisals. One day the East India Company decided to build a new storehouse.The date, according to the custom of the times, was painted on the facade with the usual prefix A.D.or“anno Domini”.As this was a direct reference to the Dominus of those Christians whom the Japanese had come to regard as we ourselves regard Bolshevist agitators fresh from Moscow, the Shogun gave orders not only to remove the offensive letters but to tear the entire building down and raze it to the ground and to remind the Dutch of that terrible edict of expulsion of the Portuguese which had ended with the words:

“As long as the sun warms the earth, let no Christian be so bold as to come to Japan and let all people know that if King Philip himself or even the very God of the Christians break this commandment, they shall pay for it with their heads.”The officials of the Dutch East India Company seem to have taken the lesson to heart, because Deshima remained in Dutch hands for 217 years. During those 217 years there was a steady drain of Japanese gold and silver, for the Dutch were cash traders and whatever the Japanese ordered from abroad had to be paid for on delivery.

In this way, too, Europe got an occasional bit of news from these hermits of the Pacific. These stories are agreed that conditions in the Empire were far from satisfactory.Japan was rapidly becoming an object lesson of the doctrine that no nation can ever hope to be completely sufficient unto itself.Towards the end, too, the youth of Japan were beginning to grow increasingly restive.They had heard vague stories about the wonderful science of western Europe.They began to book-leg scientific and medical works by way of Deshima.They spelled out queer Dutch words and learned that the world at large had been moving at a terrific pace while Japan alone had stood still.

Then in 1847 the King of Holland sent a trunkful of scientific books to the court of Yedo as a present, together with a map of the world, warning the Japanese against the further folly of isolation. All this time commercial relations between China and Europe and America were rapidly on the increase.Vessels bound from San Francisco for Canton sometimes suffered shipwreck on the Japanese coast and the sailors, being without consular or diplomatic protecton, fared rather badly.In 1849 the captain of an American man-of-war threatened to bombard Nagasaki unless eighteen American seamen were returned to him at once.Once more the King of Holland warned his Japanese colleague against the gangers of continuing a policy that could only lead to disaster.These letters from the Hague merely expressed what all the world had long since known.Sooner or later, Japan would have to open her doors to western commerce, and if she refused to do so peaceably she would be obliged to do so by force.

Russia, which was pushing further and further down the coast of Alaska, was slowly making plans to increase its hold upon the western Pacific. The only country that could act without being suspected of having territorial ambitions was America.In 1853 Commodore Perry with four warships and 560 men entered one Japanese bay.This first visit caused such a panic as Japan had never experienced.The Emperor officially invoked the aid of Heaven and as soon as Perry was gone(he remained only ten days to deliver a letter from the President to the Emperor)the Dutch were requested to furnish a warship, forts were manned, old Portuguese guns were mounted and everything was done to prepare for a second visit of these steam-propelled monsters from the east.

All over the country the people took sides. Most of them were in favor of isolation at all costs, but others declared for the policy of the open door.The Shogun, belonging to the latter, lost much of his power and was denounced as a“friend of the foreigners”.But in the end it was the Emperor who benefited most from that ever-famous visit of Admiral Perry.

The Shogunate, as the undisputed head of an absolutely feudal system of government, had long since outlived its own usefulness, as had those Daimyos and Samurai who still insisted upon carrying their swords as if they lived in 1653 instead of 1853 and were still actually engaged in the laudable task of suppressing civil war. It was time for a change all along the line.

By mere chance it so happened that the Emperor, who was then the nominal head of the nation, was also a young man of extraordinary ability and great intelligence. He prevailed upon the Shogun to resign and once more took hold of the reins of government.He let himself be persuaded that further isolation meant suicide, and now welcomed all foreigners as cordially as before that he had repelled them.And the Meiji, or era of enlightenment which he inaugurated, changed Japan from a sixteenth century feudal state into a modern, industrialized nation.

To ask whether such a complete reversion of feelings on such a tremendous scale is ever a good and desirable thing for any people is to pose a useless question. Factories and large armies and large navies and coal mines and steel foundries may make for happiness or they may not, I don't know.Some say yes and others say no.It will always depend a great deal upon the individuals in question.The Russians, ten years ago, nursed their souls and loved their saints.Today they burn their saints in the kitchen stove and their souls now dwell with perfect contentment in the exhaust pipe of an engine.

Personally I believe that such developments are absolutely inevitable. In themselves they are neither absolutely good nor absolutely bad because they are necessary and are part of that development by which we hope to set ourselves free from the worries of hunger and the fear of economic uncertainty.That the machine who is both the father and the mother of such a change, also destroys a great deal that is desirable and beautiful, no one will dare to deny.That the Japan of beautiful landscape would have been a much more interesting country to visit than the Japan of the Japanese standard oil and the Tokio gasworks, is undoubtedly true.But beautiful landscape are dead and gone and the Tokio housewives prefer cooking on gas to cooking over a slow charcoal fire;and that is the answer.

Fujiyama, the venerable white-haired volcano which has not spoken a word since 1707,where formerly little children offered flowers to a wayside shrine. The holy deer in the temple park hurt their feet on tin cans thrown away by careless picnic parties.

But Fuji knows—some day, this too will come to an end.