Page:Political Condition of Japan.djvu/25

 became a large shareholder. Of course both companies at once engaged in bitter competition. But the government was astonished and used all sorts of devices to prevent it. At last it became clear that the two companies under the protection of the government must destroy each other, and they were finally amalgamated into one. But all these foolish extravagances result in public expense and a public debt. The natural consequence is overtaxation, and the fearful poverty of the country. In many provinces of the empire people are starving, and all sorts of cruelties and hardships endured.

The regular business of the government is very slow. Even in such cases as the publication of a scientific work, it takes six months or one year before permission is granted to the author. If a prisoner waiting for his trial wants to send a letter to his friend, it takes one or two weeks to send it to a place a few yards outside of the prison. The reason is that the civil servants, who are selected by mere official influence, are not only incompetent, but are not obliged to attend to their business. The incompetency of the Japanese officials will be easily seen in an instance which recently occurred in this country. The other day the Japanese government sent a Commissioner of Patents to the United States, and when he was asked by an educated American about the construction of the Japanese clock, he could not answer anything about it. The Commissioner of Patents who does not understand the construction of a clock is a curious but fair specimen of the civil servants employed by the Japanese government. With these civil servants, knowledge of their duties, and doing their work for the benefit of people, are not at all important. They obtained their positions by flattering their superiors, so they must keep their positions by the same means. Their whole attention is directed to one question, namely: who is the influential official?

It is a well-known fact with these civil servants that their private call at the residence of an influential official is far more important than their close attention to the business in public offices. They are constantly talking about the changes, promotions of officials, their resignation, etc. Thus, they are quite inattentive to their public duties.