POSTAL AND OTHER MEANS OF COMMUNICATION
The advancement of a nation, may,
I think, be accurately gauged by the facilities it
possesses or has developed for the communication of
its inhabitants, either by personal intercourse or
those other means which science has of late years
discovered or evolved for the transmission of thought,
whether on business or otherwise the letter
post, the telegraph, and the telephone. I accordingly
purpose briefly describing the extent to which, in
these respects, Japan has assimilated and utilised
Western ideas.
I have already touched on the matter
of railway communication, so I will not again refer
to it in any detail. I may, however, remark that
although railways in Japan have done much to open up
the country and provide for more frequent and rapid
intercourse between man and man, they still lack much
in the matter of European ideas of comfort. There
are three classes of carriages, and the fares of each
are extremely low. The gauge is narrow; the carriages
are open, as in America, with one long seat running
down each side and a shorter one at the end. In
the first-class carriages tea is provided, a kettle
and tea-pot wherein to make the beverage being placed
on the floor between the seats for the use of passengers.
No doubt ere long the Japanese will be more impressed
than they appear to be at present as to the necessity
for express trains, high speeds, Pullman and restaurant
cars, as well as for other now indispensable characteristics
of English and American railways. The initial
railway line in Japan was that between Yokohama and
the capital. It was popular and well patronised
from the first, in contradistinction to the record
of railways in China, where the initial line that
between Shanghai and Wusung had to be bought
up and pulled up by the Chinese authorities, in view
of the number of Chinamen who persisted in committing
suicide by placing themselves in front of the train
as a protest and a most effective protest,
it must be admitted against the introduction
into their country of this contrivance of the “foreign
devils.” The contrast in the manner in
which the introduction of railways was received in
China and Japan respectively is, I think, characteristic
of the difference in the disposition and mental attitude
of the people of the two countries.
A postal service modelled on that
of Europe was inaugurated in Japan in 1871 by the
introduction of a Government letter post between Tokio,
Kyoto, Osaka, and Yokohama. Arrangements had,
of course, long previously existed for the transmission
of official correspondence throughout the country,
but private letters were conveyed by private carriers.
The following year the official postal service was
extended to the whole of Japan, but not till twelve
months later were private carriers abolished and the
post-office, with all its various ramifications, constituted
a State monopoly. Postcards, embossed envelopes,
newspaper wrappers, and all the paraphernalia so
far as they had then been developed of
European post-offices were adopted by the Japanese
postal authorities, and caught on with the people with
surprising rapidity. In 1875 mail steamers were
established between Japan and the Chinese ports, and
the next year Japan, which at that time had, as I
have elsewhere mentioned, to view post-offices established
in the treaty ports, herself planted Japanese post-offices
in both China and Korea. The Postal Union was
joined in 1877, and from that time the Japanese post-office
has developed, pari passu with the post-offices
of European countries until at the present time it
is in some respects ahead of them in the matter of
enterprise and the facilities it affords. The
Inland Parcel Post was established in 1892, and it
has had a marked effect in the opening up of the country
and the familiarising of the people with many commodities,
principally European, of which they had previously
no knowledge. At the present time there are considerably
over 6,000 post-offices. About a thousand millions
of letters and postcards a favourite means
of communication are handled yearly.
The number of parcels at present sent through the
post amounts to about eleven millions annually.
Every description of post-office business
as known in Europe is not only transacted in Japan,
but, so far as results go to show, each new phase
seems to fill a distinct want on the part of the people.
Take the matter of postal orders for example, the
introduction of which in this country was so vigorously
opposed by the banking community, but a facility which
has proved of incalculable utility and convenience
to the mass of the public. Postal orders, when
introduced into Japan, quickly came into favour.
In the first year only a certain number of offices
were authorised to issue and to pay these orders.
This number has now been largely increased, and many
millions of postal orders are at present annually
sold in Japan. The International Postal Order
Service has also assumed considerable dimensions, and
has largely aided, I think, in the industrial and
commercial development of the country.
Post Office Savings Banks were established
in Japan as far back as 1875. The object, as
in this country, was to encourage thrift among the
mass of the people. The maximum deposit in one
year of any depositor is limited to 500 yen (about
L50). The Post Office Savings Bank has been largely
utilised, and both the number of depositors and the
sums deposited continue to grow on a scale which shows
that the utility and benefit of this institution are
greatly appreciated by the Japanese people. At
first the Savings Bank was worked at a loss; it took
time to develop, while in its infancy banking methods
were probably not as well understood by the Japanese
authorities as they now are. At the present time
the Post Office Savings Bank in Japan is so worked
that it not only pays all its expenses but returns
a profit to the national exchequer. In this respect
it very favourably compares with the Post Office Savings
Bank as administered in this country, which is not
only worked at a loss, but, owing to various causes,
has entailed a liability, nominal though it be, on
the British taxpayer.
Telegraphs were first introduced into
Japan in 1869, and, as was the custom at that time
in almost all countries, the telegraph followed the
railway. The first line was between the capital
and Yokohama. As time progressed some steps were
taken in the direction of developing the system, but
it was not until 1878 that the telegraph service in
Japan was placed on a proper footing. In 1879
the International Telegraph Union was entered.
At the present time Japan is covered by a network
of telegraph wires, and every important island is in
communication with the capital. Telegrams may
be sent either in the Japanese or European languages.
Like every other means of communication, the telegraph
has been rapidly adopted by the Japanese people, and
it now forms such a part of the national life that
it is almost impossible to imagine the country without
a telegraph system. There are about 2,600 telegraph
offices in Japan, and over twenty million messages
are annually despatched therefrom. I think it
will be admitted that especially in view
of the difficulties occasioned by the necessity of
the operators in the telegraph offices being conversant
to some extent with the characteristics of two absolutely
different descriptions of languages the
progress made by Japan, and the development and extension
of the telegraph service of the country, have been
really remarkable.
When the question of introducing telephones
into Japan came up for consideration it was treated
somewhat more practically than was the case with reference
to a similar matter in this country. There was
there as here a difference of opinion as to whether
telephonic communication should be left to private
enterprise or be constituted a Government monopoly.
After somewhat prolonged investigation it was decided
that the telephone service should be set up and worked
by the Government, and in the year 1890 the first
telephone, that between Tokio and Yokohama, was opened.
At first, strange to say, this new device of Western
civilisation appears somewhat to have hung fire, and
no general demand sprung up for the fitting of the
telephone to private houses. It required, as
indeed was the case in this country, some education
of the people in regard to the paramount advantages
of always having this means of communication at hand.
The process of education in this respect was not prolonged.
Before the telephone had been many years in the country
the demand for its installation in houses and offices
became so great that the Government had to obtain a
special grant of money in order to carry out the necessary
work. According to the latest returns there are
somewhere about 350 telephone offices open to the
public, while the approximate number of messages transmitted
is about 150,000,000. The time is not far distant
when, as I think will also be the case in this country,
the telephone will be deemed to be an indispensable
adjunct of almost every house in the towns of Japan.
In connection with the means of communication
one or two remarks in reference to tramways may
not be out of place. These are entirely, or almost
entirely, electric, and have certainly, if we are to
judge by the patronage accorded to them, been very
favourably received by the Japanese people. According
to the latest returns I have available there were
twenty-two tramway companies in Japan, which between
them, in the year 1904, carried the very respectable
total of over 73,000,000 passengers. All of these
lines save one are electric. The first electric
tramway, that in Kyoto, was opened in 1895, so that
the development of the country in this direction has
proceeded rapidly. The Tokio Electric Tramway
Company pays a dividend of 11 per cent., and although
this is a record which some of the other lines have
not yet attained, and may not possibly attain, nevertheless
these matters must not be altogether looked at from
the point of view of dividends. The shareholder
very probably regards them from that standpoint, but
I suggest that the facilities given to a town may
be as great or even greater by a tramway paying 2,
or 3, or 5 per cent. as by one paying double that
figure. Indeed, large dividends are often earned
by cutting down expenditure or abstaining from expenditure
designed to increase the facilities of passengers.
There is every prospect of electric tramways
being extended to every town of any importance in
Japan, and I am confident they will greatly aid in
the industrial development of the land.
I cannot leave a consideration of
the means of communication in Japan without making
some reference to that somewhat peculiar vehicle which
is by so many persons deemed to be essentially characteristic
of the country, although, as a matter of fact, I believe
it is of comparatively recent introduction, having
been introduced either by a European or an American;
I refer, of course, to the jinricksha. Before
Japan became to so great an extent the objective point
of the globe-trotter, and Europe, through the medium
of numerous books, was rendered conversant with everything
relating to the country, nothing more struck the imagination
of the new arrival in Japan than the sight of this
extraordinary vehicle a kind of armchair
on wheels with two shafts, pulled by a man scantily
clad and with extremely muscular legs. Whoever
was the individual responsible for the invention of
the jinricksha, he certainly conferred a great boon
on all foreigners resident in Japan before railways
and tramways and other means of communication
became as prevalent as they now are. The long
distances traversed by the man between the shafts
of a jinricksha and the speed he attained and maintained
were almost a marvel to the foreign visitor.
It was possible to get about the country in one of
these vehicles quite as fast as any horse-drawn vehicle
could convey one, and quite as comfortably. I
have heard it stated that the men who pull these vehicles
unduly develop their legs at the expense of other
portions of their body, and that the speed at which
they run and which they certainly keep up for extraordinarily
long periods has extremely injurious effects on their
constitution, so that they are, as a rule, not long-lived.
I am not aware, nor have I been able to ascertain,
whether such statements are mere theories or have any
foundation in fact. This much I will say, that
the Japanese jinricksha-runners are an extraordinary
class in reference to the speed which they attain
dragging a goodly weight for a very long distance.
It does not seem likely that the jinricksha, acclimatised
as it has been in Japan, will be ousted by other modern
contrivances for getting about the country. It
is still very much in evidence, and it is universally
admitted by those who have had experience of it to
be a most comfortable means of locomotion. Why
it has never come into favour, at least to any extent,
elsewhere than in Japan I have never been able to understand.
Certainly jinrickshas can be hired at Shanghai, and
they are to be seen at one or two other places in
the Far East, but it may be regarded as a distinctly
Japanese vehicle, although, as I have said, there
is nothing Japanese about it excepting its adaptation
in the country.
I remarked at the commencement of
this chapter that we may properly gauge the progress
of a nation by the facilities it possesses or has
developed for inter-communication personally and otherwise.
I hope the few remarks I have made on this head may
enable my readers to form some idea as to the position
of Japan in this matter. I have not wearied them
with statistics, but I have, I think, said enough to
show that in everything relating to communication,
whether it be the locomotion of the individual or
the facilities given to him to communicate his wishes,
desires, aspirations, sentiments, Japan is now well
in line with all the other great civilised Powers,
and has reason to be proud of the progress she has
made and the manner in which she has adapted to the
requirements of her people the ideas and inventions
she has obtained from Europe and America.