speed that is almost hectic. Nearly all the Chinese who come to America, either in an official or unofficial capacity, wear American clothes and seem to make it a point of pride to adopt American ways. When I found that many of the Chinese officials at the conference in Washington wore American clothes, spoke English perfectly, and had been educated in the United States, I was a little disturbed. I wondered to what extent they were really representative of Chinese culture. They represented China officially, but I wondered whether they represented China really. Especially did I wonder when I found that many of them were Christians. As individuals, we all prefer that other individuals should be Christians. But we all know that China is not a Christian country, and you can't help wondering whether Confucian China is truly represented by officials who have abandoned the native religion for Christianity. If

an American had gone to China when he was 15 or 16 years old, if he had spent all the formative years of his life in China, if his education were wholly Chinese, if, especially, he had taken on a Chinese religion, and if he then came back to the United States and set himself up as a representative of the United States, we all know that he would not be successful. We would refuse to regard him as typical American, as a representative American. If we were good-natured we would smile at him. If we took him seriously we would resent him. I kept thinking all the time that if some fine old Chinaman should stride into the conference room, looking like Li Hung Chang looked when he came here some years ago, wearing a queue and a gorgeous Mandarin coat, we would be justified in regarding him as truly a representative of China to a greater degree than, for example, the highly Occidentalized and more or less over-polished Welling

ton Koo, with his extremely up-to-date American clothes and Anglo-Saxon manner, and with his wife dressed in the very latest Parisian clothes. One or two of the other women with the Chinese delegation customarily wore their own beautiful national dress, and I never saw them without a sense of contrast and without thinking how much more impressive they were than those who had taken on rather too much of our American ways.

- In the broadest way, both the Japanese and the Chinese might well stop to consider whether they are wise in taking on American or European culture too rapidly. One of the essential parts of American and European civilization is our industrial system. On its economic side Western culture is based on the theory of quantity production of goods through a highly developed and artificially stimulated and “speeded-up" system of factory organization. A good many prophets in the Western world have come of late years to have an uneasy doubt whether this economic basis of our civilization is completely perfect. There are a few prophets who think that it may be just at the point of breaking down, or being greatly modified. This may or may not be; also it may or may not be that the Oriental philosophy of life, which is more leisurely, more serene, more devoted to reflection, and rather too little devoted to the production of material goods, is destined to endure. Only fate can tell which of these two cultures, on their economic and industrial side, is destined to triumph. Probably the end will be that each will profitably take on something from the other. Certainly those prophets among us who are increasingly doubtful of the perfection of our own Western philosophy of life would be glad to see us borrow a little of the serenity and poise of the Orient without taking on its fatalism. However, this is all a very big subject. All that need be said for the present is that our Oriental friends might profitably consider whether they had not better be a little cautious and sure-footed about the rapid and wholesale manner of their present disposition to take on Western ways.

What is going to happen in this contact of cultures in the Pacific Ocean, which Mr. Zumoto foresees, is a gradual borrowing of each from the other, a gradual absorption by each of what is good in the other. It is a process which if it goes on normally is perfectly wholesome and will be good for us both.

The process of absorption each from the other need not be hurried and most decidedly there is no reason to apprehend that either of the two races is going to go to war about it.

I have said that there is one aspect of our contrasting cultures, which, while it is not a thing to fight about, may, nevertheless, lead to war. I refer to the difference in form of government. Our form of government is democratic. The Japanese form is autocratic. Of course, we are not going to fight to make the Japanese take on democracy; neither are the Japanese going to go to war to make us take on autocracy. But it is a fact that a democratic form of government and an autocratic form of government don't get along very well together. They cannot be close neighbors without danger of war. And with all respect and affection for our Japanese friends, I wish to point out that the danger comes not from us but from them. An autocratic form of government is more efficient than a democratic form of government. Let us admit that frankly. If efficiency were the sole test of government, then Germany under the Kaiser had a better form of government than any of the Allies. The reason an autocratic form of government is more efficient than a democratic one is that it concentrates power in a few hands. A democratic form of government frankly does not set up efficiency as the measure of its success. The measure of success for a democratic form of government is rather the diffusion of power. It is the maximum degree of freedom from control over the individual. An autocratic form of government is characterized by the maximum degree of control in the part of the government over the individual.. When these two forms of government live side-by-side they are apt to clash. In all cases it is the autocratic government which is the aggressor. The Japanese form of government is much like the form that Germany had under the Kaiser. Indeed, on the administrative and military side, the Japanese have borrowed much of their culture from that portion of the Caucasian world that lies just east of the Rhine. That was not the best place to get it. They might much better have got it from us. I do not pretend to be familiar with the Japanese constitution in detail, but for the purposes of this article I can sufficiently describe the Japanese Government by quoting some sentences about it which I find in a book entitled

"Modern Japan: Its Political, Military, and Industrial Organization," by W. M. McGovern, Ph. D. In reading Mr. McGovern's book I discover, I think, a strong anti-Japanese prejudice; but this does not impair the value of the author's description of the Japanese Government which I take to be sufficiently accurate for the purpose of this article. Mr. McGovern says:

The government in Japan has more power over the Diet than the Stuarts had in England, than the Kaiser had in Germany. The cabinet

. . is responsible to the Emperor alone and has absolute control over the army, the navy, and the civil service, even with regard to finance. It has the whip hand over the Diet, inasmuch as in addition to a veto over all legislation in case of opposition between the Diet and the government, the former is unable to cut off money supplies. .

Another feature of great importance in Japan. is the Genro or Elder Statesmen. These are a small and influential group of men . . who exert a most important influence upon the Emperor and the State. . . . It is the Emperor and not the people who is the source of all authority Thus, for example, he has an absolute right

possessed by himself alone to determine the weighty matters of making war or peace and of concluding all kinds of treaties. . . As things are in Japan

the bureaucracy is practically independent of the Diet. A large section of the work of government is carried on even without the knowledge of the Houses. . . Should the Diet prove entirely obstreperous the government is in a position to completely ignore it.

These sentences from Mr. McGovern's book are enough to describe the Japanese form of government and to identify it as thoroughly autocratic.

Now the clear and unescapable fact is that an autocratic government like this in Japan goes to war more readily than a democratic government. It is true of Japan as it was of Germany, and the case of Germany was described by the ambassador who represented us in Berlin at the time the war broke out, Mr. James W. Gerard, who said:

Autocracy saw that if it were to retain its hold on Germany it must lead the nation into a short and successful war. This is no new trick of a ruling and aristocratic class. Whenever the people showed a disposition to demand their rights, autocracies have always turned to war as the best antidote against the spirit of democracy.

Now right there is the particular difference, and the only difference between Japanese and American culture, that is liable to carry

us into tearing each other's throats. America will never make an aggressive war on Japan. Democracies don't make aggressive wars. Peoples don't make aggressive wars; it is dominant classes that lead or mislead peoples into wars with each other. Where the peoples really control the government, aggressive wars aren't going to happen. Peoples know too well what war is, and that it is they who pay the cost of it. Peoples don't want to be conscripted to fight, nor to pay the taxes that wars entail. But where governments are in the hands of autocratic ruling groups, they have ever been willing to go to war for the purposes of the ruling groups.

If our Japanese friends want to make war between us completely impossible, let them get rid of their autocrats and run their govern