Page:Japan by the Japanese (1904).djvu/125

The form of a State may be compared to that of a human body. The State as an organization has a skeleton, muscles, and blood like the human machine. As the human body has a skin to protect the inner, more delicate, and vital organs from outside dangers, the State has the army and the navy as protective agencies. The skeleton of a State consists in the Constitution, the foundation of a State, and the laws whereby it is derived, including the criminal, the commercial, and the civil laws and other codes of executive functions and rules. The muscles which cover the skeleton and make it effectual, and the blood which vivifies and preserves the whole, may be called the economic state.

As to the first constituent, the skeleton Japan is already provided with. The Constitution has been issued, and laws and codes have been brought to a certain perfection, and we now possess a complete skeleton of a State. As to the protective covering of that skeleton, we have won the recognition of the world as a first-class Power.

We have, then, at least two things towards the completion of a perfect body—namely, skeleton and flesh. But in the point of muscle and blood, which I term the economic state, it is far from being complete. It does not require much study to find out that, in spite of the satisfactory development of our codes of laws and of our military system, the economic condition of our country is most discouraging. The price of stocks was raised on the day following the announcement of the Anglo-Japanese treaty, but within a week or two they again fell. This is a symptom of the suffering of the nation from lack of healthy blood and muscle, for the seat of the organic function of our State is the change in the value of stock. Thus the condition of the State is very much like that of a human