gely, if not
altogether, owing to the lack of good horses in the country. The
Japanese horses have not been conspicuous for quality, while the
number available has not been anything like sufficient to enable the
cavalry to be brought up to a proper condition of strength and
efficiency. The Japanese military authorities have long been sensible
of this fact, and the late war amply demonstrated it. With its usual
thoroughness, the Government has, as soon as possible after the close
of the war, taken steps to remedy this weak point in its military
system, and quite recently two delegates of the Ministry of
Agriculture have been despatched to Europe on a horse-purchase
mission. Ten million yen have, I understand, been apportioned for the
purpose of improving the national breed of horses, and the delegates
have been instructed to purchase suitable animals for breeding. The
Japanese Government has almost invariably been successful in anything
it has undertaken, and I venture to predict--it is scarcely a
hazardous prophesy--that the horse supply of the country will ere long
be put on a satisfactory footing and the cavalry be rendered as
efficient as every other branch of the Japanese Army.

There is no fear of a military autocracy in Japan. The recent war
proved not only the bravery of the rank and file of the Army, but the
high military talent of the officers. The art of war had evidently
been studied from every point of view, and was diligently applied. The
Japanese talent, in my opinion, consists not in a mere mechanical
copying, but in a practical adaptation of all that is best in Western
civilisation. The tactics and strategy displayed during the war with
Russia showed originality in conception, brilliancy and daring. If
that war did not discover a Napoleon among the Japanese generals, it
can at least be said that Japan has no need of a Napoleon. As I have
said, there is no fear of the development of a military autocracy in
that country or the uprising of a general with Napoleonic ideas and
ambition. The generals who justly earned distinction during the recent
war are singularly modest men, with no capacity for self-advertising
and no desire whatever for self-aggrandisement. They are not only
content but anxious, now that the war is over, to sink into obscurity.
History will, however, not permit of that. Their achievements in the
recent campaign will long afford subject-matter for study and the
instruction of the military