Page:The Mexican Problem (1917).djvu/31

Rh such respect that exterritoriality and its courts were abolished at the opening of this century and native and foreigner trusted to the same justice. In other Asiatic lands special consular courts give the foreign merchant a standing advantage which destroys native credit and paralyzes native enterprise. Japan is a signal proof of the way an Asiatic land, if it be for a season protected, can reorganize its industry and create stable conditions out of which a new system can come, safeguarded and fostered by public order, courts creating confidence, and efficient sanitation.

It is no answer to say that the Japanese have special powers and a personal aptitude. Ask any man who knows the Far East as to the personal credit of Chinese and Japanese. Compare Persian and Japanese art when both were at work under similar conditions in the seventeenth century. I have known, boy and man, closely and intimately, a wide range of human beings. I have had at my table and been honored by the close personal friendship of men black, yellow, red, white, and many shades between. The Near East I know as do only those who speak its tongues, have known it in childhood, and mature years, read its literature, thrill to the genius of its various arts, and have the open heart and mind for