Monday, September 27, 2010

Basil Hall Chamberlain

Yes, we repeat it, Old Japan is dead and gone, and Young Japan reigns in its stead, as opposed in appearance and in aims to its predecessor as history shows many a youthful prince to have been to the late king, his father. The steam-whistle, the newspaper, the voting-paper, the pillar-post at every street-corner and even in remote villages, the clerk in shop or bank or public office hastily summoned from our side to answer the ring of the telephone bell, the railway replacing the palanquin, the iron-clad replacing the war-junk, these and a thousand other startling changes testify that Japan is transported ten thousand miles away from her former moorings. She is transported out of her patriarchal calm into the tumult of Western competition, a competition active right along the line, in diplomacy and war, in industries, in shipping, possibly even in colonisation.

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