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Show JAPAN'S NEW PREMIER ONE OF HER GREA TEST J0UKrAUanjt By William Elliot Griffis Forcafrly of U' topcltU l'i-"ilr of Tokio. J.p.n KEI HAfiA, PREMIER OF JAPAN clamored for eitheY Tedres or war. envoy to make a treaty with Korea, graphic letters from the then un- .lapan sent a squadron ail.) had no To this country Kei Hara was sent known interior of Korea made both a fleet for dramatic impression and an as correspondent. His bright and .enratlon and a revelation. This state or tn:n his appetite for new hazard." of fortune. for-tune. It drove him into the Office, for the purpose. M we h -ways believed, of preparing himself ,10 the- neV.'-SpdP1- be a bigger man in the ne ' world. After several years of con rhtna at Tientsin, sular experience in China. J' he was in 1886 transferred to Vrm. ,A Captain of Industry While in Europe he was mWllljr impressed with the vflttness of me manufacturing and financial mterest He then realized fully what the world's commerce was and how much Japan had lost by centuries of hermitage her-mitage and how far behind she m lagged. He resolved thereupon to a captain of industry and to harness iournalism. trade and manufactures to the one car of national progress. . With this end in view Hara. though a northern man. born in Morioka Jo 1854, chose not Tokio nor Yokohama but Osaka as the scene of hi,: future labors. What Philadelphia, because of its situation near the sea. its teeming teem-ing industries, its vast shipbuilding interests in-terests and its progressive spirit, m the midst of a dense population and near the sources of raw material Is to the Middle States and the nation. Osaka is to the Japanese empire not only, but even to the Far East. It is the commercial center of both Japan and of the whole Orient. It .to he arsenal for the supply of its Russian " armies. For centuries Osaka was the focus of business under the feudal regime. All products, whether land or ocean borne, were then brought and sold here; but since 1870 manufac tures have rivaled trade. Tet whereas the writer in his former years saw not one chimney in the city (but only smokeholes in the kitchen rook), there are now nearly 7000 factories, grouped under sixty heads, and a forest of tall chimneys. Of banks that have each a capital of more than 1300.000 (one with more than J30.000.000) there are eighteen. Hara enjoyed early the favor of Prince Ito and Count Mutsu. both often in America, and served each of them as private secretary. He was active with these statesmen in cooperating co-operating to organize political parties. m T 1 T 1 gained, has helped powerfully to equ)p ,r.i for hif work as Premier. Sim, he has ' n 'he Imperial ., has Jeen minister to Korea, hearfjS I department and even in the cabij... r" ;,!way: making it his specialty to a,. r.i. - i sources of hj, country. Nevertheless, as we hav, I a!w..s believed, he could not leave hi, r firft love. So. more than once, he hat left honor and office to sit again it L " '. j ... , written word is power- !. To'! no voice speaks louder or r- r'ver ihe whole ea. pire than that from the Osaka Sbtmpo. i arlier r!ays he edited the, Osaii Mainlchi fDaily). - I Th" Pfi-yu Kai. or Society of th ;-. ,.r ;. of -he Constitution, had a: the last session K- seats; the other ft! groups 118. seau. resper, The last named cor.sistj h L as they p.eut Mj As the party with which Hara ha-B long been identified is that of thll large landed inters--? the great m&5 r facturers, the varied industrial e ments and of big business secera&r, t may be ca r.'ervative in pi and progressive in method; for t b 1 thoroughly modern on the econoob side. -rM New Economical Era From the political point of The or e may not yet affirm that 'afBEj I entered upon the era of govermiKc I by par-.:'- that i of r-.aking the ts. perlal ministers responsible to Oe Diet. On ' e or. omics, hoe- ever, of financial progress, of MM- ; ship with America and of hearty eo- there ct be no mistake. " No man r yet serve! -j, emperor ar - who so hjr r incar: ' - r-'-rposee the business ar. - of Jape. - -fonr, a .' Japa: "- " ?irt- tola oaoee costs. Nor does any Japanese, rj-. -- ' "tii L embodiment of commercial hnegr- ei Hara. the M n I bom north of Tokio" tc t-e:-e P mier of Japan. r CopyTlEht. 1918. by Public Leaser Co. VmiEN journalism in Japan was but an infant of days, that famous committee of men in power, from only-four only-four out of two hundred or more clans, tried to throttle it in its cradle. They found that the newspapers, when printed in the vernacular, made a new force to be reckoned with. Autocracy was then, in 1S74, the only power to enforce law, for the Constitution or representative government was not yet They found, however, that to suppress sup-press types and paper was a job compared com-pared to which the labors of Hercules were but fairy tales. As fast as one head of the hydra was cut off two heads grew out of the old stump. To stop John R. Black, the Englishman, from publishing in Japanese the Nichi Nichi Shimbun (day by day newspaper) the Government invoked the aid of the British plenipotentiary, Sir Harry Parkes. Then Black had to change his occupation or stick to English. Again the old Greek myth took on the form of a modern instance. When the cut stumps were cauterized and the hydra killed, Hercules dipped his arrows in the monster's gall and made wounds which were incurable and mortal. Evolution of a Giant When the feudal system was swept away, in lSl, there were 410,000 samurai, that is. educated gentlemen, heads of families, in the land. The Government civil, service, army, navy and police could absorb but a fraction of these. Some of the brightest of the residue exchanged the sword for the pen. Forthwith, Japan's rulers found that they must mend or end the new-form new-form of pernicious activity by men who took delight in fleshing their pens on salaried officers instead of trying new swords on dogs or beggars. Imprisonment, suspension or expulsion expul-sion from cities was ir. vain. So not a few men began to preach the faith they once destroyed. They became reporters, editors, newspaper proprietors proprie-tors or stockholders in publishing companies. Nor, in time, were cases rare that men high in office resigned from station, wealth and fame to drudge in editors' chairs. In a word, from being a wailing infant. Journal-ism Journal-ism in Japan had become a giant, moving the Japanese world. Of the story of the press, here epitomized. Kei Hara, the new Premier, is the incarnation. in-carnation. In the Foreign Office The boy Kei was a student in the School of Foreign Languages and Science, now the Imperial University, when the writer was professor of chemistry' and physics in that institution. institu-tion. While other lads had their eye upon promotion along the paths of diplomacy, politics or business, Kei kept his eyes fixed on the new force and practiced with the pen. Not content with the academic curriculum, cur-riculum, he took a course in the law school. Yet no sooner was he a graduate grad-uate and could write H. G. (Horitsu, law, and gakushi, doctor) or LL. D. after his name than he dropped his (translated) Blackstone and the Codes, whether of the seventh or the nineteenth nine-teenth century, and became a newspaper news-paper man. Soon he was known as the star reporter on the Hochi Shim-bun Shim-bun (Journal of Intelligence) in the capital. In those days to be a correspondent from a foreign country was the acme of ambition and considered quite equal to being managing editor of a metropolitan metro-politan daily. If not in Europe, then to the Asian continent. China or Korea! In 1876 some Koreans in a fort saw some peaceful Japanese sailors sail-ors surveying their waters. They tired on them, mistaking them for French or Americans, with whom they had had hostilities. Since her people |
