JAPAN
circumstances of happy augury. Its results have been successful thus far. Difficulties, it is true, have not been altogether absent. The Japanese have made some mistakes, and the mere novelty of the experiment predisposes the conservative foreigner to be hypercritical of its working. Never before, since the crown of civilisation was placed upon the head of the Occident, have Western Christians passed under the jurisdiction of Oriental "pagans." This unprecedented act of trust on the part of Occidental Governments did not signify a corresponding access of confidence on the part of Occidental subjects and citizens. It is a hard but a true saying that the average European or American looks down upon the Japanese people, approaches the contemplation of all their acts with a spirit of condemnation or condescension, and considers that he practises praiseworthy self-denial when he pays to Japanese laws or their guardians even a moiety of the deference that he would intuitively render under like circumstances in a Western country. Administration can never achieve more than a success of sufferance when the ruled stand upon a plane higher than that conceded to the rulers. But it has been shown, at all events, that the measure of tolerance which foreigners are prepared to display is sufficient for the working of the novel system, and that all the sinister predictions once so freely uttered about the vindictive advantage which the Japanese would certainly
40
