Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 1.djvu/43

 share of danger. The Japanese officer has this fine quality, that to a hereditary love of fighting he adds the zeal of a professional soldier. His heart is in his calling. He loves his uniform, has no aim in life higher than the discharge of his duty, and possesses the capacity for obedience which lies at the root of power to command.

There is nothing decrepit about such a nation. It is old in years, but the infused blood of Western civilisation has renewed its youth. The first result of its début on the world's stage has therefore been territorial expansion, a fact sufficiently significant to stand at the head of these pages.

Japan would go far if she were not crippled by a heavy handicap, want of money. She has been called the "England of the East;" but she differs radically from England in this vital respect that whereas Imperial England has only to follow whither the capital of commercial and industrial England overflows, industrial and commercial Japan is quite unable to utilise the opportunities which Imperial Japan creates. In China and Korea, Japanese diplomacy or Japanese armed strength has won valuable privileges and opened wide fields, but they remain to this day almost entirely unfruitful. Even in the home country the development of many promising enterprises is delayed for lack of funds. Everything is on a petty scale. There is not throughout the length and breadth of the land a factory or a tradal organisation that would be counted of even mediocre importance