Excerpt from Japan by the Japanese: A Survey by Its Highest Authorities

It was with a knowledge of this need, and the impossibility of any foreigner to supply it, that I conceived the idea of in ducing the Japanese to do it themselves. I went to Japan for this purpose, and suggested to several of their leading men that they should undertake the production of an authoritative account of their country for the information of the outside world. The idea was taken up with enthusiasm, and at a gathering in Tokyo I was honoured by being requested to under take the collecting, editing, and arranging of the work. I men tion this because I feel that I owe the readers of this book some explanation as to why the name of a non-japanese appears in a book, which, as its very title makes clear, is written by the Japanese. The difliculties of collecting the materials for such a book were not small, and much time had to be spent in the work. The war and the necessary preparations for the war prevented some of the contributions arriving, and changes were made necessary in others. At best the book must be considered as a trial essay, to be improved and enlarged later. Nobody can be more aware of its omissions, its faults, than myself, to whom, indeed, to a certain extent many of them are due. But, as it stands, I venture to claim that it is a unique work of great interest. To have secured the record of a country's progres written by the men who are now guiding her destinies is no small thing, and in no other great country would it have been possible. Some of the statesmen who responded to my appeal for special contributions have selected their most immrtant public utterances for inclusion in the book. This they have done because they felt that in these deliverances they had expressed their views on vital national questions so thoroughly that to write on them again would only entail repetition.

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