Page:The Independent (January 13, 1909, Page 96) The Japan of 1909 by J. H. de Forest.jpg

 urged upon him this course, but he replied that having been misled by his andvisers, and not being conscious of any guilt, he felt no call to do harakiri. I think there is a rather wide feeling of disappointment that the General did not follow the ancient code, and thus save his name and family from this reproach. The fact is, Japan is midway between her old Samurai ideals and the larger and universal morality. So that the papers on both sides of this question call the General a coaward--if he does and if he donesn't. It seems that those who have studied in the West have caught the larget view and see that the old code of honor can no longer be defender! One of these men who had studied at Yale wrote a sincere and powerful protest against this Bushido solution of disgrace. but he was roundly called down by many writers of the old school, who, however, did not sign thir names to their rejoinder.

The great fire in Osaka that burned over 12,000 hourses in August, has called out another side of Japanese morality. One of the licensed quarters of the social evil, containing 744 women. was burned out, and at once the moral forces of the city, under the leadership of the Christians, made a monster move to prevent the rebuilding of these seductive houses in the heart of the city where they are a menace to the students and business men. At first the movement was laughed at as visionary and impracticable by the city authorities. But when enthusiastic mass meetings resulted in petitions signed by ten of thousands that were carried right over the heads of the city authorities to the Premier and the two Ministers of Education and of the Home Department, the moral victoruy was won. Bushido in the Tokugawa age was in many respects a noble moral code, and it actually kept the social evil out of two or three provinces in the interior. But it never would have dreamed of handling this problem in a commercial city by an appeal to the moral sentiment of the nation thru the Premier, as was successfully done in Osaka. Let the West take notice that the moral life of Japan is not to be measured by the commercial failures of this year, but by the higher moral standards that are being more and more recognized widely thru the Empire.


 * SENDAI, JAPAN.