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Lafcadio Hearn - Kokoro
brief, as they dislike the service required of them. Even the apparent eagerness of educated Japanese to
enter foreign employ is generally misunderstood; their veritable purpose being simply, in most cases, to
fit themselves for the same sort of work in Japanese business houses, stores, and hotels. The average
Japanese would prefer to work fifteen hours a day for one of his own countrymen than eight hours a day
for a foreigner paying higher wages. I have seen graduates of the university working as servants; but they
were working only to learn special things.
IV
Really the dullest foreigner could not have believed that a people of forty millions, uniting all their
energies to achieve absolute national independence, would remain content to leave the management of
their country's import and export trade to aliens, - especially in view of the feeling in the open ports. The
existence of foreign settlements in Japan, under consular jurisdiction, was in itself a constant
exasperation to national pride, - an indication of national weakness. It had so been proclaimed in print, -
in speeches by members of the anti-foreign league, - in speeches made in parliament. But knowledge of
the national desire to control the whole of Japanese commerce, and the periodical manifestations of
hostility to foreigners as settlers, excited only temporary uneasiness. It was confidently asserted that the
Japanese could only injure themselves by any attempt to get rid of foreign negotiators. Though alarmed
at the prospect of being brought under Japanese law, the merchants of the concessions never imagined a
successful attack upon large interests possible, except by violation of that law itself. It signified little that
the Nippon Yusen Kwaisha had become, during the war, one of the largest steamship companies in the
world; that Japan was trading directly with India and China; that Japanese banking agencies were being
established in the great manufacturing centres abroad; that Japanese merchants were sending their sons to
Europe and America for a sound commercial education. Because Japanese lawyers were gaining a large
foreign clientele; because Japanese shipbuilders, architects, engineers had replaced foreigners in
government service, it did not at all follow that the foreign agents controlling the import and export trade
with Europe and America could be dispensed with. The machinery of commerce would be useless in
Japanese hands; and capacity for other professions by no means augured latent capacity for business. The
foreign capital invested in Japan could not be successfully threatened by any combinations formed
against it. Some Japanese houses might carry on a small import business, but the export trade required a
thorough knowledge of business conditions on the other side of the world, and such connections and
credits as the Japanese could not obtain. Nevertheless the self-confidence of the foreign importers, and
exporters was rudely broken in July, 1895, when a British house having brought suit against a Japanese
company in a Japanese court, for refusal to accept delivery of goods ordered, and having won a judgment
for nearly thirty thousand dollars, suddenly found itself confronted and menaced by a guild whose power
had never been suspected. The Japanese firm did not appeal against the decision of the court: it expressed
itself ready to pay the whole sum at once - if required But the guild to which it belonged informed the
triumphant plaintiffs that a compromise would be to their advantage. Then the English house discovered
itself threatened with a boycott which could utterly ruin it, - a boycott operating in all the industrial
centres of the Empire. The compromise was promptly effected at considerable loss to the foreign firm;
and the settlements were dismayed. There was much denunciation of the immorality of the
proceeding(1). But it was a proceeding against which the law could do nothing; for boycotting cannot be
satisfactorily dealt with under law; and it afforded proof positive that the Japanese were able to force
foreign firms to submit to their dictation, - by foul means if not by fair. Enormous guilds had been
organized by the great industries, - combinations whose moves, perfectly regulated by telegraph, could
ruin opposition, and could set at defiance even the judgment of tribunals. The Japanese had attempted
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