"Olaf Stapledon - Collected Stories" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stapledon Olaf)

Kawamura responded with amiable indignation, asserting his claim to be an amateur of letters, and
adding that if no one thought about ships and other practical matters, no one would have leisure to enjoy
Chinese literature.

Thus far the talk had avoided the subject which was in all our minds, the international crisis. By common
consent we had spoken only of personal matters, of a Kawamura nephew who was studying in Canton
and of Betty's young sister, at an Orientalised school in London. But the conversation was now definitely
turned to the differences between East and West. Our guests generously praised the courage and
enterprise which, within eighty years, had changed Britain from a feudal to a modern industrial community
of the first rank. To this I politely replied that we had but copied what Japan's genius had created. For
had not the Japanese been the pioneers of mechanical invention and commercial organization during four
of the most momentous centuries of human history? "If at the dawn of our era, after Rome's fall, we
English had been as great seamen as the Japanese have always been, we might have forestalled you. But
though Nordic sea-rovers contributed to our racial stock, we did not preserve their maritime habits. Nor
did the continent of Europe." The words slid easily from my lips, but they were startling news to my mind.

Mrs. Kawamura remarked that in the East there was now a strong conviction that commercialism and
mechanization had in fact done more harm than good. It had blinded the great majority to all that was
most desirable in life. Were not the English now in grave danger of ruining their own admirable native
culture in their haste to dominate the world with their new industrial power? "To us," she said, "it seems
terrible that, in spite of our tragic example, you should plunge blindly into the modern barbarism and
grossness from which we ourselves are only today struggling to escape. And now, just when we are at
last finding the beginnings of peace and wisdom and general happiness, when the Chinese nations are at
last outgrowing their age-old enmities, when all the Yellow Peoples are becoming reconciled even to the
half-European but mellowing culture of Russia, must we be drawn into this terrible quarrel between
yourselves and New Nippon? If there is war, how can I ever think of you two dear English people as my
enemies?"

At the mention of New Nippon, I remembered with a shock of surprise the great independent Federation
which included the whole of North America. This vast community was formerly the most successful of
Japan's colonies and had since become the mightiest of all the "Eastern Powers."

"But why," I asked, "should you come in at all? This quarrel is so remote from you. You have no longer
any European possessions except Gibraltar, which you are in the very act of selling to us. Your empire
has fallen from you, and you are happier without it. Your reduced population makes you far less
dependent on foreign trade than formerly. Your traditional championship of the oppressed should induce
you to side with us, or at least not against us. And what have you to gain by coming in? Your social
conditions are the envy of the East, and of the West also. And though you are politically eclipsed, you
share with North China the cultural leadership of the world. War will simply destroy all this. If you come
in, you will merely be used as a tool by your more powerful and less civilized kinsmen. But why should
there be any question of your coming in?"

"Why indeed?" said Mr. Kawamura. Then, after a pause, "The true reason, I think, is this. Though we
have lost our empire we are still bound to it. Our former dominions in South Africa and South Nippon"
(by this name I knew he referred to Australia) "and our ally the Maori Kingdom, have a firm hold on us.
Such foreign trade as we have (and we do still need foreign trade) is nearly all of it trade with them. Well,
some of those former dominions are terribly frightened of your rising power. They have large unoccupied
territories; while you and your inseparable allies the Irish are over-crowded. We have long ago learned to
control the growth of our population, but you persist in refusing to do so. Inevitably then you must
expand. Together with Ireland, and with the support of your European dependencies, you constitute a