Jinrikisha Days in Japan
and the Middle Ages to a constitutional Government and the nineteenth century of Europe and America, is a unique spectacle. This spectacle—this unparalleled effort of a people to lay aside what they were born to reverence and follow, because alien customs seemed to promise a greater good to a greater number—this spectacle, which should have challenged the admiration, the sympathy, and the generous aid of western nations—has been met almost by their opposition. A weaker people groping towards the light, learning by the saddest experiences, has been hampered, bound, and forced from its chosen way by the Christian nations, who have taken every shameful advantage of superior strength and astuteness. Unjust treaties were forced upon the Japanese at a time when they could not protest, and when they could neither understand nor foresee the workings of them. Backed by a display of naval strength, these treaties were pressed upon the little nation, and by the bully’s one argument a revision of these unjust agreements has been denied them for these thirty years; although the Japan of to-day, its conditions and institutions are, in no one particular, what they were at the time of the first negotiations. Pathetic have been the struggles of citizens and statesmen, while the most high-spirited of races has been forced to submit to political outrages or face the consequences of war—the imposition of yet harder terms by their oppressors. Limited in its revenues by these very treaties, Japan can the less consider war with unscrupulous western powers. The Government, in its efforts to secure foreign training for its people, has been fleeced, imposed upon, and hoodwinked, through its ignorance of foreign ways. Reluctantly admitting the perfidy of one people, the Japanese have turned to another. In consequence, they are berated for their fickleness and love of change, and taunted with the fact that American, English, and German
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