Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 6.djvu/240

RV 212 intervention irksome. His practice is openly based on the hypothesis that no Japanese is trustworthy, and he takes frequent occasion to proclaim his want of confidence in a manner that may be wholesome but is assuredly very offensive. His experience, it must be added, goes far to justify this distrust. He can show chapter and verse for saying that neither the moral sanctity of an engagement, nor the material advantage of credit, nor even the practical necessity of implementing every condition of a contract, is fully appreciated by the average Japanese tradesman with whom he has had dealings. In China there are associations of merchants whose chief object is to foster credit by a system of mutual insurance. Lest the business of the members in general should lose the benefit of public trust, a default on the part of any one of them is made good by the association en masse. In Japan also there are associations nominally formed with the same motive, but their apparent disposition in practice is to shield and abet a defaulting member, rather than to denounce him, when a foreigner is his victim. There are some considerations to be noted, however. One is that the Japanese frequenting the treaty ports and doing business with the foreign residents, belong to an inferior stratum of the nation. They established their footing at a time when all contact with foreigners was counted degrading or unpatriotic. For the most part they were men with-