tonnage of the merchant marine has increased from 80,000 to over 500,000, while the total capitalization of stock companies and other commercial enterprises has advanced from $25,000,000 to over $250,000,000, or more than tenfold.

In the interview to which reference has been made his characteristic

trait as a lover of peace appears. He places this commercial development high above the warlike achievements of the nation, and he dwells upon the great value of credit in business affairs to a people. He recognizes that Japan has suffered in the past from its reputation of lack of honor and fair dealing among its mercantile class. He admits that the foreign merchants who followed Commodore Perry's coming found a low grade of commercial morality, but he justly asserts that the first foreign merchants with whom the Japanese came in contact were themselves not over-scrupulous in their dealings. He attributes much of this unfavorable reputation to the evils of the treaty-port system, The following extract from his interview will be of interest as giving a good epitome of the commercial and social changes which have taken place in recent years:

"Happily the conditions have changed. Class distinctions and treaty. ports are of the past. Merchants sit in the Diet; even the Eta, who had no class at all, has risen to that distinction. Intermarriage is legal between any two grades of society, so that the grades have practically disappeared. The samurai as a class do not exist, for with the abolition of the feudal system reason for their being disappeared. Even the forms of speech which formerly indicated differences in rank are modifying. In social relationships the old barriers are down. Japan is becoming democratic. In this process of readjustment the merchant class has profited greatly. The opportunities of trade, both from the national and the individual standpoint, have appealed to all conditions of men. . . . The sons of wealthy nobles are in counting-houses abroad studying foreign methods, prominent merchants are putting their sons in business colleges and are apprenticing them in foreign commercial houses, and the Government has established commercial schools of a high order throughout the Empire. The old-time merchant is gone, if not forgotten, and in his place is a new sort, trained and experienced, with the honor of this country and his profession at heart and an adequate idea of the value of integrity in commercial transactions. . . The reports of foreign Consuls in Japan indicate that decisions of the Japanese courts are just, and as extraterritoriality is a thing of the past, this should be an evidence of Japan's good faith and determination to maintain. a place high and honorable in the comity of nations."1

The disappointment and humiliation resulting from the forced retro'Marquis Ito's interview in the New York Independent Feb. 20, 1902.

cession of the Chinese territory occasioned a change of Cabinet, and Ito, notwithstanding he had been created a Marquis by the Emperor in recognition of his great services, was temporarily retired to private life. But he has twice since then held the office of Prime Minister, in 1897 and in 1900, the parliamentary system of government and the various party divisions having of late years brought about frequent changes of ministries. One of the latest reforms which Ito has sought to effect was the abolition of clan parties, which is a residuum of the old feudal system. He has made an effort to organize a party of modern methods with the enunciation of a specific policy or principles.

Although the Emperor often finds it necessary to yield to the demands of the parties and change his Ministers from time to time, Marquis Ito, even when not at the head of affairs, is seldom allowed to remain in private life. Following the deposition of the Emperor of China and the resumption of control by the Empress Dowager when a violent change in affairs was imminent, he was sent to Peking on a secret mission to the Imperial Court. The Boxer outbreak occurred too soon after his arrival to enable his mission to be effective, but the appointment indicates the high estimate which the Emperor places upon his services.

A short time ago he visited the United States for the fourth time, wher he was the chief guest of honor at the bi-centennial of Yale University, and received the degree of Doctor of Laws. From this country he passed to Europe, it being given out that his visit was for health and recreation. But the signature of the treaty of alliance between Great Britain and Japan which so greatly surprised the Powers occurred so soon after his arrival in London that the sequence of these two events naturally led to the inference that he had much to do with the consummation of the alliance which is destined to exercise such an important influence in the affairs of the Orient.

The war with Russia, in which his country is now engaged, was declared under the premiership of another statesman; but the Emperor has kept in close communication with the veteran adviser, by whom he has been guided in the trying crises of his illustrious reign, and it is not to be doubted that his experience and judgment will be availed of by his Sovereign in this crucial period of the Empire.

Marquis Ito has just passed his sixtieth year, and it is reasonable to anticipate that much important work is before him in life. But there are few, if any, living men who have accomplished so much for their country and race. His biography is the history of Japan for the past forty years. He has had worthy coadjutors in the making of this marvelous history, but in the temple of fame which modern Japan shall erect to its heroes. none will stand so high as Ito Hirobumi.

J

MAX NORDAU.

PARIS

APAN, somewhat paradoxically, is included in the forward movement

of the White Race which is to bring China under the influences of the

West. The authors of this movement imagine that they understand the reason for their action, and the forces of which they dispose. Deepseated, unconscious impulses, forces which escape the control of politicians and responsible statesmen, do not seem to play a part in the undertaking. It appears rather to be placed entirely in the sphere of clear consciousness and of voluntary effort.

A closer investigation will perhaps allow us to perceive that the unconscious and the instinctive are at work to-day as in the fourth and twelfth centuries, and that the inspirers of China adventure have scarcely rendered account to themselves of the deep roots and the more distant consequences of their action.

I.

Much of Darwin's teaching has been successfully attacked, but the law of the struggle for life has never been doubted by anyone. It pervades all life; astronomers even have tried to prove that the evolution of the heavenly bodies is governed by this principle.

Every living being, be it animal or plant, has the fundamental tendency to possess itself of the whole globe, and to use exclusively all its resources for the advantage of itself and its progeny. This impulse towards expansion and exclusive rule is limited, first, by unfavorable natural conditions, and second, by the similar impulse of other living beings. To the unfavorable natural conditions the living being must seek to adapt itself. It comes in competition with others of its kind in the struggle for existence. If one living being proves stronger than the other, the latter is expelled from its habitat or is destroyed. The victor maintains only so much of the globe as he can defend and utilize, and suffers the presence of the vanquished just in so far as he is of service.

The human species is subject to these elementary laws of biology just as much as are the microscopic algæ.

Man is the highest product of the evolution of life. His general power of adapting himself to circumstances, and the capacity of his central nervous system for development, render him more efficient in the struggle for existence than any other living being on the earth. He alone has approached near to the ideal of all living creatures, the exclusive mastery of the globe, and at some time he may attain this end. The animals which annoy him,

Copyright, 1904, Frederick A. Richardson, all rights reserved.

be they large felines or small cats, venomous serpents or locusts, he destroys. The animals which are useful or give him pleasure, be they cattle or singingbirds, goldfish or bees, he suffers to exist. In the vegetable world he rules as master. He tears up the natural forest and dries the marshes and cultivates plants in the place of reeds and trees. He has also taken up the struggle with microscopical plants, with bacteria and micrococci, and seeks to destroy the pathogenic among them and to develop the useful-the saccharomyces which prepare his beer, or Winogradski's root bacillus which transforms the nitrogen of the air into nourishment for plants.

The struggle for the exclusive rule of the globe is not only between the human species and all other living creatures, but it is also carried on within the human species itself, by the White Race against the Colored Races.

I will not now discuss the question as to whether the human species was originally unique, and in the course of its evolution differentiated itself into sub-species, or whether the races which to-day are dissimilar, descend directly from ancestors, who, when they reached the human phase of their evolution, were already of closely related but different species. Our globe is inhabited by various races of men, but the White Race is the most powerful, and asserts its pre-eminence.

Where the White Race first made its appearance palæontology and anthropology can as yet give no definite answer. It seems even in Europe to have been preceded by Colored Races, for the Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal crania are very unlike the skulls of white men, and the images of prehistoric men carved and engraved in ivory and deer-horn in the museum of St. Germain show clearly negro or negroid types in the face formation and in the shape of the mammæ on the female busts. Our negro-like predecessors in Europe were either completely driven out or destroyed by the White Race. The insignificant survivors mixed their blood with that of their conquerors. Their type sometimes emerges atavistically, because of arrests of development or degenerative processes, evident in the case of criminals. At the dawn of history Europe and Nearer Asia are almost completely under the rule of the White Race, and all of the recorded struggles of which these territories were the theatre are between White peoples and not between the White and the Colored.

Some of the peoples of the Mediterranean were the first white men to swarm over the frontiers of the territories earliest accredited to their race, and break into the lands of the Colored tribes. In pre-historic times, Arabs from nearer Asia and Berbers, who came either from Europe or from the vanquished Atlantis, took possession of North America. In historic times Phoenicians, Romans and Germans invaded and colonized North African

territories. The Negroes, driven by the Whites from the coast lands of the Mediterranean, retreated into the interior of Africa. Greeks subjugated Egypt, where there were but few Whites among the original inhabitants, and came for a time, under Alexander the Great, into armed conflict with mixed Yellow tribes inhabiting India. However, the White people remained during Antiquity and the Middle Ages in the territories where they were at the beginning of history.

By the end of the fifteenth century the great work of differentiation and territorial delimitation of the principal peoples of Europe was almost completed, and the White Race began to look beyond the limits of its inherited continent. The era of great sea voyages began. America was discovered.

The White and the Red Races came into conflict. The struggle between them lasted three centuries. In North America this conflict has practically been concluded for a century past. The wrecks of the aboriginal tribes in Canada and the United States are under the protective care of the Whites, the unchallenged masters of the country. In Mexico, Central America, and certain countries of South America, the struggle is yet without definite issue. Many Colored Races show inclination and capacity for higher civilization, and, with the help of education, an ability to maintain themselves against the white invaders. But here, too, the final result is not doubtful. Under the most favorable conditions the Colored people will mix with the Whites, and sacrifice their ethnical features. Under the pressure of adverse circumstances, they will awake to a consciousness of their individuality and, educated by civilization to jealous, exclusive nationalism, will try to resist by force the influence of the Whites. They are inevitably doomed to extermination. We therefore can say that America has been annexed by the White Race.

After America, Australia was invaded, and now there are no Colored people in Tasmania. There are only a few Colored people on the Continent; the Maoris in New Zealand and the Papuas on the Hawaii Islands are becoming civilized and will sooner or later be absorbed by the Whites; the Canaks of Micronesia are rapidly disappearing before the onslaught of civilization.

Africa lies near to, and has always been in constant communication with, the most advanced of the European countries; but, strange to say, it did not excite the desire of the White Race until after America and Australia were invaded. Until comparatively recent times the Whites have contented themselves with the annexation of the coasts and the carrying off of kidnapped Negroes to foreign countries. In the seventeenth century began the first serious move from the Cape against the countries settled by the Blacks. But it was reserved for the nineteenth century to see the whole