World Affairs Institute

The Peace Movement in JapanAuthor(s): BENJAMIN CHAPPELLSource: The Advocate of Peace (1894-1920), Vol. 70, No. 2 (FEBRUARY, 1908), pp. 38-39Published by: World Affairs InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20665437 .

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38 THE ADVOCATE OF PEACE. February,

twelve or thirteen million inhabitants. It has to-day twenty-five millions. How many will it have twenty five years from now, taking into consideration that the facilities for settlement are highly improved, that the in flux of foreign blood increases every day, and that our

far-away existence, hardly realized heretofore, begins now to be revealed to the world in full light ? " In the face of the events which constitute history, what does a generation or two signify? No more in the on ward march of the world than from to-day till to-morrow.

Why, then, speak so freely of the weak and of the

strong, of the small and of the great, in reference to na tions? In our times maturity for the peoples is often interwoven with adolescence. In this swift era the future invades the present. And the future is always full of inversions and surprises. But, in spite of all things, the

authority, the utility, the necessity of these assemblies, occurring periodically hereafter for the promotion of

peace, have achieved for them an irrevocable conquest. They cannot be prevented, frustrated, nor replaced. They are an open door for all time, through which the

rights of nations shall enter into effective operation little

by little. The field occupied in 1899 has been enlarged in 1907, and, in spite of all that has occurred, enlarged with glory, and, just as the first Conference made the second necessary, this one renders inevitable the con

vening of the third."

brothers " ; that Mencius taught, " Love brings under its

sway whatever hinders its power "

; that Laotsze wrote, "Recompense enmity by doing good"; that the Buddha

taught, "Never in this world does hatred cease by hatred. Hatred ceases by love." "

Peace, unweaponed, conquers every wrong." A platforrri was therefore sought broad enough to include all who desired the settlement of misunderstandings by other means than the arbitrament of the sword. So, on May 18, 1906, anniversary of the

Hague Conference, the Japan Peace Society was organ ized, with the Hon. S. Ebara, president, Judge Watanabe, vice-president, and many others of wide influence united in the purpose

" to secure and maintain the permanent and universal peace of the world by fostering intimate relations among nations and harmonious feelings among races, and especially by urging the use of peaceable means in settling international disputes."

Quite recently the Oriental Peace Society was formed in Kyoto, the ancient capital. The Mayor and eight hundred other prominent citizens attended its first meet

ing. The latter of two announced purposes of this new

organization ? to manifest to the West the peace-loving

nature and ideals of the Japanese and to prevent war with the United States ? gives us pause, especially when accentuated by

" the long and able address " of a uni

versity professor of law. " He showed, by a minute discussion of reasons offered to explain recent events, that the only explanation is race prejudice. He main tained that the troubles with the United States are only just beginning ; that the problem will grow graver until Oriental emigrants are placed on a basis of equality of treatment with those from Europe. One purpose of the

society is to bring this about without appealing to the sword. It was evident, however, that the speaker was not sanguine of success."

What does so strange a peace address mean ? It means that we are face to face with an immense question, the

greatest of centuries. India and China rising, with Japan, to national and Oriental consciousness, and the Pacific a mere Hellespont, a ferry ! Is the goal an acceptance of universal brotherhood, with content so large as to exclude race discrimination? Is the day really coming when statesmen will advocate measures seemingly disadvan

tageous to their own country, but for the best interests of mankind ?

He would be a daring prophet who should attempt to foretell the next ten years of the Orient. But this is certain : No ministry in Tokyo could live a month that would, in any slightest way, admit Japanese inferiority to any other people beneath the sun. When under extra

territoriality, how the nation chafed and galled until that mark of inferiority was forever removed! And now? The American press is rejoiced and surprised because, instead of limiting, Japan may wholly stop undesired emi

gration. But it fails to see, beneath this possible settle ment of the vexed question, the self-respecting dignity that declines to have a few received on sufferance. That

might tide over immediate difficulty, but it would not be a real settlement.

Is the only final solution that which the Kyoto pro fessor and the Japanese nation say it must be, and of which we all at times have a vision : a universal brother hood that rises above race prejudice; all men's good each man's rule ; statesmanship that advocates and carries

The Peace Movement in Japan. by the rev. benjamin chappell, . a., tokyo.

[The author of this article, who is at present spending a short vacation in this country, has been for eighteen years a missionary in Japan. He has been Dean of Aoyama College, and was one of the founders of the Council of the Friends of Peace and afterwards of the Japan Peace Society, which includes in its membership more than thirty missionaries and

nearly fifty prominent Japanese.?Ed.]

During the war with Russia a few Japanese and

foreigners in Tokyo organized the Council of the Friends of Peace and Arbitration. Its members, though of six different Christian denominations, were one in their belief that u all war is contrary to the teaching and spirit of Jesus Christ." They could not imagine the Man of Nazareth commander on a battlefield or standing by the shore and saying, as the enemy's ship goes down,

" That mine was in exactly the right place." What He could not approve they could not. So, while others shouted with the shouting crowds, they could but suffer with their suffering Lord. They were such persons as are called visionaries, but all know that those who in their

day were accounted extremists, who " linked themselves to a cause that had its conflict before it," have helped to

lay the foundations of our highest civilization.

They knew that nothing could be done toward peace while the nation was at war, except to prepare, by careful

thought and consultation, for opportunities when the war should end. They saw that, for general success, the movement should be in Japanese hands, and that it could not hope for wide favor unless placed upon a somewhat different platform from the Council's principle, that all war is wrong.

They also remembered that war is inconsistent not

only with Christianity, but with the ethics of the East ; that Confucius said, "Within the four seas all are

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1908. THE ADVOCATE OF PEACE. 39

measures seemingly disadvantageous to one's own country but for the best interests of mankind as a whole ; " that man to man, the world o'er, shall brothers be, and a' that " ?

What the solution will be is a large question that needs

patient and high thinking, but when seen the fear is whether this nation will be Christian enough to do it. Even if the Japanese were given a thrashing, that would not settle anything. Of no nation under,the sun is it more true than of them that " Nothing is settled until it is settled right."

On the morning after Port Arthur's retrocession to

Russia, I could almost feel the air palpitate with rage as Japanese friends said to me, "It is not right." And with the same indignation and wrath all Japan trembled that day and until, in the old way, they made it right. When, during those terrific months, the Occi dental opened his daily paper, he asked, with increasing tension, Will Port Arthur fall? But the Japanese never asked that question, never! "Port Arthur must fall," they said.

But, in order that America may recognize what she believes to be right, Japan is not going to war. She is not only too level headed and long headed for that, but the very thought would be painful. Every step that she has taken for many years has brought her nearer to America and England and has strengthened mutual re

spect and friendship. To break so strong a bond would

require a great wrench, and that wrench is not going to take place. But they will, with Oriental patience, hold to their position and show the same admirable qualities upon the field of diplomacy that they have shown upon the field of battle, and, as they always do, "win out" at last.

At a farewell meeting when leaving Japan, a professor, speaking for the faculty, said to me, "

Say to the West for us that we have not the big-head. We feel that what has been done is but a small part of our task. Say that our desire and purpose is, by education and in all other ways, to make ourselves worthy to stand beside the foremost Christian nations of the world." Many so mis understand the Japanese. They think of them as crouch

ing, like wild beasts, ready to pounce upon their prey at the first opportunity. They do not know how peace loving the Japanese, and all the peoples of the Far East, are. Let us trust them, and our trust will be answered by the honor of a Samurai.

And these men who hate war, yet have displayed such noble qualities while engaged in it, whose centuries of

training have made it natural to sink self utterly in any cause espoused, are to be re?nforcements, leaders in the world movement for international peace.

Japan and America are to be rivals only in the early meaning of the word, dwellers on opposite shores, the ocean not for separation, but for union, each the other's friend and helper. Thus the manifest Divine purpose shall be fulfilled, that each shall give to the other some

thing, not material only, but of the highest, which the other lacks, and together bring in a higher civilization than either could reach alone ; for, not only they without us, but also we without them, shall not be made perfect.

The Pacific Christian Advocate says that if war ever comes between the United States and Japan it will have been precipitated largely by our own people.

Carnage or Commerce? BY SAMUEL P. BUTLER.

Address delivered before the Husiness Men's Club of Cincinnati.

To the student of modern trade conditions it seems incredible that Commerce and War were long looked upon as inseparable twins. The havoc and bloodshed on which War fed was thought to be the most bracing diet for Commerce. Fact is, they should have been im

placable enemies from the first, and the mercantile world has passed over a long, funereal and rocky road to learn that truth at last.

In the Middle Ages, when Europe for five centuries had but two industries, the Church and the Sword, Com merce was crucified between them. When these clouds lifted, and the day of better things in life and literature and progress began to dawn, a reviving Commerce soon was stabbed to the vitals by the deadly doctrine that money is the only wealth; that the salvation of any country depended on importing few commodities and much gold ; that when a nation saw its gold going out faster than it came in, her statesmen were under bonds to sharpen their swords for war with the offending neighbor. In Buckle's foot notes we read that, as late as 1743, the great Lord Hardwicke told the House of Lords that " if our gold is diminished, it is time to seize the ships and blockade the ports of the nation guilty of this theft." ..." One of the consequences of peace with France will be the utter ruin of our trade."

This heathenish trade idol was everywhere worshiped. It precipitated seven-tenths of Europe's wars for two centuries and a half.

In 1776 Adam Smith hammered this pewter deity into bits. On the same rubbish heap he pitched that

long-sanctified dogma about the balance of trade, and the notion that one country could only get rich at the expense of another. To this pile of junk we add in our

day the patriotic heresy that " trade follows the flag." WAR A COMMERCIAL BLIGHT.

During the forty years of peace that succeeded Water loo, Europe's commercial men had the first good chance since the Middle Ages to do some thinking without the smell of gunpowder in their counting-rooms, and the one great result of it was a wider demand for permanant international peace than had ever entered into the mind of man before. Merchants had learned that war was not the goose that laid the golden egg for them. From every nation came appeals for "peace, more peace, and as long as it can be made."

All social forces were then at work to cement a lasting international truce, when several crowned and uncrowned disturbers in England and France made a tiff between Russia and Turkey the pretext for a general war in

Europe, and that dream palace of peace vanished into thin air. Sixty years have passed over the battlefields of Crimea. Mighty changes have been wrought in

Europe's economic and industrial conditions. They have literally been born again. Let us gaze at the contrast drawn by Jean de Bloch, the great Polish economist and financier.

" Consider," he says,

" what the nations of Europe were a hundred years ago and what they are to-day. Before railways, telegraph and steamships were invented,

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