THE HISTORY OF COMMERCE
vring in distant waters without accident, and evidently possessing all the qualities of a fine fighting force. In the war with China this navy showed its capacity by destroying or capturing, without the loss of a single ship, the whole of the enemy's fleet, whereas the latter's superiority in armour and armament ought to have produced a very different issue. On the other hand, a visit to Japanese factories often shows machinery treated carelessly, employés so numerous that they impede rather than expedite business, and a general lack, of the precision, regularity and earnestness that characterise successful industrial enterprises in Europe and America. Achievement in one direction and comparative failure in another, whereas the factors making for success are similar in each, indicate, not incapacity in the latter case, but defects of standard and experience.
The vast majority of the Japanese have no adequate conception of what is meant by a highly organised industrial or commercial enterprise.[1] They have never made the practical acquaintance of anything of the kind.[2] For elaborating their military and naval systems, they had close access to foreign models, every detail of which could be carefully scrutinised, and they availed themselves freely of the assistance of foreign experts, French, German, and British. But in the field of manufacture and trade their inspection of foreign models is necessarily superficial, and they are
225
