only to Italy, but to all the Baltic States and thence to the Near East and the Mohammedan countries.

But what Austria does will depend upon Germany. A union of the two countries may delay any change for a time, since that will give Austria food, raw materials, and coal. But France will not permit this union, fearing additional strength of Germany. The Austrians and the Germans wish the union. The time may come when they will take the affairs of their countries into their own hands. If the reactionaries or nationalists lead in such a movement, the Entente will crush them. But if the Communists attempt it, they will be

successful, because they will be supported by the working classes of France and Italy. Under the present social-democratic governments, nothing will be done; because these governments are bowing their heads to the Entente. They are the moderates.' And, strangely enough, one finds developing in them the same slave traits of subject countries, the same resignation, evasion of facts, and the same use of their intellects to manufacture excuses for their inactivity and slavery. They may call it politics; but it is cowardice and slavery; and while they may remain a little longer in power, they do so at the expense of their souls and the soul of the nation.

AMERICAN life is realistic, utilitarian, epicurean, more inclined toward comedy than tragedy, rational, and, above all, a life of common sense. Japanese life, on the contrary, is eccentric, sentimental, and essentially pessimistic.

Japanese life is local, provincial, insular. It is in no way international. One proof of this is that, when the country people come to town, it is usually possible to tell from the patterns of their clothes, the stripes in them, and from their methods of speaking, just what particular part of the country they come from. In America no one can tell a country person from anyone else.

The fourfold division of societysamurai, farmer, artisan, and merchant

which prevailed from early days in Japan has so stamped the members of each group with class individualities, that even to-day it is very easy to tell to which hereditary rank a person belongs.

In Japan, even on a journey of five ri

12 miles the standard of weight and measurement varies. The kin standard 160 momme (1 lbs.) in one place is 100 momme, in another 120 momme, in still another 160 momme. Rice, for instance, is sold in bags supposedly of uniform content. But in one

place the hyo (bag) contains four to (call the to a peck, for example, and the hyo a bushel), in another five to, six to or even as low as three to. Beans and barley are also about as inconsistently measured throughout Japan.

Take, as another instance of these provincialisms, the measurement of cloth, which varies for different materials. Silk and wool are measured with shaku of different lengths, and in town and country these shaku vary. While, confusion on confusion, the shaku of cloth measure, about 141 English inches, is one fourth longer than the shaku of ordinary linear measure.

Even to-day when the old feudal clans have been abolished for almost fifty years, people will still introduce and speak of themselves as members of 'such and such a clan.' Men of high position are still written of in the newspapers as the 'leaders of such and such clans.' This is all nonsense and is only to be explained as an example of the boasting of the Japanese people about themselves.

The Japanese are too nationalistic. They know nothing of other countries. They are not good at learning other languages. In America the poorest speakers of English are the Japanese. Even the Chinese, Koreans, and Filipinos learn English quicker and better than we do. In the Imperial University in Tokyo, the professors who know English, German, and French, all three, are very few indeed, while almost all professors in America can speak two or three languages beside their own. In Japan, those professors who can read foreign languages cannot speak them, and even if they can speak them, they do not know how to write them properly. There are very few educated men in Japan who can speak three or four languages; while in America even the laboring man finds no difficulty in

We are always talking in Japan of 'disappointed love.' That is to say, a man complains that someone else has married the girl he wanted to have for a wife. I call this 'dumb love,' not 'disappointed love,' for instead of speaking out, such people usually sit dumb, while someone else goes away with their loved one, and then they sit around dejected and complaining, and often commit suicide because of 'disappointed love.' Nonsense! The Japanese people need a little more realism; they are too sentimental. They are a very humane people, but they are too partial, and they despise everything which is not pleasing to their sentimentalities. It is beyond their power to discriminate between public and private functions. If a man makes a violent attack on another from the political platform, the man attacked immediately cuts off any social relations there may have been between them. But in America such is not the case. Public and private affairs are separate things, and a man may attack his best friend in public for some political matter, and yet they still remain good friends. But the Japanese cannot act so impartially. Politics and social affairs are different this is common sense, and every laborer, even in America, knows this.

Here is a story that illustrates a great difference between Japanese and American character. On an American railway a Japanese laborer, operating a hand-car, accidentally ran into and injured an American laborer working on the track. The American sued the com

pany for damages, and the Japanese was summoned into court because he was responsible for the accident.

On the day of the trial, the American, meeting the Japanese in the courtroom, smiled and greeted him with 'How do you do?' but the Japanese violently turned his head away and indulged in several very audible snorts of rage. Which was very silly, because it was the American's right to call the Japanese into court. But the Japanese was wounded in his amour propre, and thought the law-suit a quarrel, and that he had to act as if it were one.

The Japanese, even at home, do not realize that it is every man's privilege to go to court to right a wrong; that such trials smooth and soften mutual hard feeling. The Japanese are too sentimental. I should like to see them become a little realistic.

The Japanese do not know how to enjoy life. They resent being obliged to live in difficult surroundings. They are too quick to resent any criticism or failure to understand their point of view. If a man praises them, they think him a man of excellent taste and exalt him as a god. But if he criticizes them, there is nothing too bad for them to say of him. With them 'absolute is absolute,' there are no half-way houses of opinion. Naturally, individuality is very little recognized in Japan. And at the same time the Japanese have no training at harmonizing social conditions and relations.

If a foreigner speaks Japanese badly, the Japanese laugh at him; but Americans do not laugh at Japanese who speak poor English. The Japanese must give up the belief that they are the most superior people of the Far East. There have been changes in the world since the European war which cannot be ignored. The hereditary notions which all Japanese are so fond of must be forgotten, sent to the scrap-heap, and

their possession not considered so transcendentally wonderful.

World-competition is free, and society too becomes more free of hereditary notions every day. People must realize that a time is coming when all the world will be one in idea. If the Japanese do not wake up to this idea soon, the brilliant epoch they so fondly think is coming to Japan will never be realized. Now let us take a look at America.

The minds of the Americans are far from profound. Their ideals are untrained. They prefer comedy to tragedy, but vaudeville to comedy, and even more than vaudeville they 'love' the 'movies.' They do not demand that things should be 'deep,' but bright, pretty, and cheerful. Everything must be simple, not complicated. If things cannot be like this the Americans do not like them and will have nothing to do with them. Musical comedy is decidedly to their taste, but Shakespeare's Hamlet is little to their liking, although they flock to see The Merchant of Venice and Romeo and Juliet.

From morning to night the Americans are always laughing and smiling. When they have their photographs taken, they show all their white teeth and always laugh. They are a very busy people. Anyhow, even if they are not busy, they make a mighty big pretense of having something to do. When the head of the family comes home at night from his day's work, he is usually informed that he is going to the theatre. But if the play chosen is is not cheerful, he will not go, but begs to be excused.

The traditions of the American people are the Christian traditions; America is a Christian country. The national conscience and the national morals are founded on Christian thought. There are great church movements in America, but these movements are not always healthy. They are often hysteri

cal and vainglorious, and from their 'popular' tendencies the churches in America have become common, devoid of intellectual force. The whole tendency of such 'popularization' of the Christian Church in America has been to deprive the Church of any active leadership in the world of thought and ideas. The thought and ideas of the Church are too obstinate, too shallow, and too vain, to obtain any following among the thinkers; university students never go to church, and in fact have no confidence in it.

The American clergy know little of religion; their sermons are dry and uninteresting, and have no influence upon the minds of the church-goers. The reason for this is that the clergy have little cultural experience, and the tendency to realism and popularization is so strong, that but little thought is ever given in the pulpit to the question of spiritual life, but argument is always devoted to doctrinal dogma, and all is