The other dangerous rival is the Jap. If one were to go into detail and write regarding the Japanese methods of business, it is probable that much of it would subsequently be suppressed. The Japanese in business in China is not the soul of honour. He has to be watched. It is not possible here to speak at length on the unprincipled and shady tactics employed in China--and particularly in the north and in Manchuria--by Japanese traders. One and all seem to be alike, all endowed with that secret and clannish spirit permeating all Eastern nations, with a big dash of some peculiar virtue of unscrupulousness, and they have brought themselves into a position of the most favoured nation in the Chinese Empire. Japan has determined to get the trade by any means. Once in a Chinese city in the interior, where doors were closed to foreign trade, I saw the largest store on the street was Japanese. Business is not done there, they say in self-defence, but a show is maintained so that goods of the same kind may be secured from Tokio! The Jap is in everything, he is everywhere--to be first he cuts under, for he has little reputation to lose. Yet he is as good in his own opinion as the best-bred European, and he lets you know it. No man, however, unblinded by prejudice, can study the progress of Japan in China, can look upon its amazing national advance with either admiration or respect. I have met him in the interior, in Yunnan and Szechuen, prospecting {29} quietly for minerals, tapping goldfields and iron beds that are lying waste, seeking out the best centres for the opening up of trade, finding out what there is a demand for, and marking out the strategic centres from whence his trade may be handled to the disadvantage of every one. The Jap, as I have said, is everywhere, in everything--rarely, however, to be trusted. But no matter how many the rivals, I should think that no two nations have better prospects for the securing of China's new trade than Great Britain and the United States. It needs alertness, however. {30} CHAPTER III GENERAL EXPECTATIONS