JAPAN'S WARD OFFICE.

Evening Post, Volume LXVII, Issue 55, 5 March 1904, Page 9

JAPAN'S WARD OFFICE.

THOROUGH ORGANISATION. In his recently published and highly interesting book on tho problems of the Far Eaat, Lord Curzon, the Vjceroy of India, pays a tribute to the splendid efficiency of the Japanese War Office. "Judging from the pait it took in tho recent Chinese war," he states, "its organisation could not be moio thorough. China soon began to feel that her enemy had been preparing for the war for a long. time. Japan had launched herself with a suddenness and success that showed* bow übiquitous and exhaustive had been her preparations. Skilled topographers in disguise had mapped out the nigh roads of china, nnd had plotted their anjlles over the high loads of Korea, Hvdrographioali survey* had acquainted the Japanese with every inlet iti tho Korean coast, mid had furnished the chartrooni of every vessel in her navy with hitherto unpublished map.^. Her spies wero everywhere — in the council chambers, the messrooms and the ranks of the enemy, and thoy kept the home office supplied with all part?culitr3. Her mobilisation proceeded with a, smoothness and rapidity that excited the admiration of the European military attaches, and tho preßs waa manipulated ! with a masterly control that would be | impossible in Europe. Immediately on the declaration of war, in short, Japan moved with a sytrtein and sweep that were irresistible. Her Intelligence Department might have been engaged upon, as it certainly had been pieparing for, a campaign of years." , A dominant note in tho Japanese character, Lord Cmvon states, is v lovo of absolute independence. "Every year she becomes more, self-providing aiid le;<s depondent upon others. Six yean ago she imported 67 per cent, of her lequiiements. She now only imports 25 per cent. She has instructed herself so elficudously that she can now all but dispense with outside tuition. Her rnilways were built and originally run by foreigner*, but now there is nob a hinglo alien employed upon them. In her cotton mills, where the produce of over half a million spindles is challenging the demand of the Far Eautorn market, theie i< a similar notablo absence. Her soldiers fljrht with rifles patented and manufactured, not in Europe, but in Japan. Every cartridge, shot and shell, even the Maxim guns, are of Japanese origin. Less than six Europeans aie now eucajjod in the arsenals. In 1887 Jauan

posse.ssed but few steamboats, and those were captained and engineered by Englishmen and Scotchmen. Now she has sovfial first-rate lines of steamers miming all over the world, and oflicm-d cjilirely by natives. The skill of her urtilieer.% the low rate of wages and the long hours for which they aro contont to work, gave Iht nn enormous ndvuntnge over the* half-dcTeloped Chinese market. Sho quickly realised this, ami now her energy and enterprise aro pushing her into other ntiivWota. Tho J;iiianc«o may lulnuro the met hods of the West, but thoy want to kot-p Japan to themselves."