Glimpses of Japan and Formosa

Real enlightenment and emperor-worship are hardly compatible, complains a missionary in Formosa. He should have had no difficulty in recognizing, in far less time than he has probably spent there, that for all its outward garb the government of the island, if not of Japan itself, is a real shogunate still, a feudal type of thing, in which all men bow low before their official superiors, in which there is never any of the hearty frankness of modern life. The slowest-minded people ever to reach high estate are also the tightest little people on earth; compared to the Japanese the Chinese are open and aboveboard, as well as brilliant and overflowing with the sense of humor.

There is no free press in Taiwan; the barriers against one are mainly secrecy and dictatorship. If the government is concerned, there is virtually no chance of getting any news, or at least correct news; if it is outside news, and in the slightest degree concerns the government, a strict censorship will see that it is not shared with the public. Such information as one may find in Formosan papers, therefore, is true in just so far as the government wishes the truth to be known. "It is undesirable," said a recent governor-general, "to see in newspapers comments and criticisms concerning the administration. " No doubt American politicians often feel the same way about it. The same mikado-appointed autocrat dissolved a society of Formosans who planned to introduce governmental reforms, with the placid remark: "To establish a legislature in Taiwan is against the constitution of Japan, and the constitution has never been amended. Any movement aiming at the conclusion of the laws of Japan from this island is against peace and order. The constitution of Japan allows freedom of speech and the organization of political societies, _but_ people under a constitutional government should be moral and gentlemanly in their acts, and it is accordingly the duty of the state to correct persons who are unable to take such a gentlemanly and moral attitude. " A number of such persons, whose lack of gentlemanly morals consisted in attempting to organize one of the political societies permitted by the constitution, are being corrected in the big "model" prison of Taihoku, and incidentally learning to work with their hands instead of their heads.