Page:(Commercial character) The Joseph Fisher lecture in commerce, delivered at the University of Adelaide (IA commercialcharac00jessrich).pdf/28

24 ""Japan is said to be the hot-bed of perils innumerable to the white races of the world. The latest alarm seems to be the birth of a new mechanical science in Japan which will relegate all our old world machinery to the scrap heap, if we European engineers do not give ourselves a mental shake and educate ourselves up to the scientific standard of Japan in machinery.""

Imagine Tokyo and Kyoto instructing Europe in engineering science, and yet those of us who have studied the art of Japan—not of course the globe trotters' art—can well understand that a country which produces work so perfect will reach mechanical excellence in any direction to which the genius of the people may be influenced. It may astonish some of our political wiseacres to be told that nations are very human and that our attitude towards the outside world is not calculated to engender the friendly feelings on which commercial relations are founded. It may come as a shock to our national vanity to be informed that we are still embryonic in some of our methods and crude in a proportion of our results, and yet it is pretty evident that the ratio of those who hold this opinion, of those who hold any opinion about us at all, is, it is to be regretted, not a small one. Truth to tell, our attitude towards the outer world is not conciliatory; in fact, to my mind it is almost frankly and childishly churlish. We are for the moment realizing the truth of Burke's celebrated definition of party government—

"Party is a body of men united for promoting by their joint