4 ideas
Kume argued that Europe's overwhelming wealth was not ancient or innate. Britain's industrial prosperity, and the railways, steamships and factories that dazzled the envoys, dated mostly from after 1800, and had spread across the continent only in the preceding forty years.
In Berlin in March 1873, Bismarck told the Japanese envoys at a dinner that great powers honor international law only when it benefits them and switch to force when it does not. He added that Prussia had built its strength as a small, weak state surrounded by predators. The envoys recorded the speech as a candid confirmation that treaty equality would come from national power, not appeals to legal principle, and it hardened their resolve to build up the state before seeking treaty revision.
Rather than taking Britain or America as the template, Kume paid close attention to Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland. These were small, resource-poor states that had become prosperous and independent among large powers through industry, trade, education and national cohesion.
Kume observed that Western societies treated trade, manufacturing and the pursuit of profit as honorable activities that produce national power. This inverted the Confucian ranking that placed merchants at the bottom of society. He concluded that Western strength rested on a population energized to produce and exchange goods, backed by institutions that protected property and spread practical knowledge. Japan would therefore need to change social values, not merely import machines.