Japan: History

From LoveToKnow 1911

(Continuation from Japan)

The traditional story of prehistoric Japan indicates that the fix-st recorded emperor was an over-sea invader, whose followers must therefore have possessed some knowledge of Maritime ship-building and navigation. But in what kind of Comm uni canons, craft they sailed and how they handled them, there is nothing to show clearly. Nine centuries later, but still 500 years before the era of surviving written annals, an empress is said to have invaded Korea, embarking her forces at Kobe (then called Takekura) in 500 vessels. In the middle of the 6th century we read of a general named Abe-no-hirafu who led a flotilla up the Amur river to the invasion of Manchuria (then called Shukushin). All these things show that the Japanese of the earliest era navigated the high sea with some skill, and at later dates down to medieval times they are found occasionally sending forces to Korea and constantly visiting China in vessels which seem to have experienced no difficulty in making the voyage. The 16th century was a period of maritime activity so marked that, had not artificial checks been applied, the Japanese, in all probability, would have obtained partial command of Far-Eastern waters. They invaded Korea; their corsairs harried the coasts of China; two hundred of their vessels, sailing under authority of the TaikOs vermilion seal, visited Siam, Luzon, Cochin China and Annam, and they built ships in European style which crossed the Pacific to Acapulco. But this spirit of adventure was chilled at the close of the 16th century and early in the I7th, when events connected with the propagation of Christianity taught the Japanese to believe that national safety could not be secured without international isolation. In 1638 the ports were closed to all foreign ships except those flying the flag of Holland or of China, and a strictly enforced edict forbade the building of any vessel having a capacity of more than 500 koku (150 tons) or constructed for purposes of ocean navigation. Thenceforth, with rare exceptions, Japanese craft confined themselves to the coastwise trade. Ocean-going enterprise ceased altogether.

Things remained thus until the middle of the I9th century, when a growing knowledge of the conditions existing in the West warned the Tokugawa administration that continued isolation would be suicidal. In 1853 the law prohibiting the construction of sea-going ships was revoked and the Yedo government built at Uraga a sailing vessel of European type aptly called the Phoenix (Howo Maru). Just 243 years had elapsed since the founder of the Tokugawa dynasty constructed Japans first ship after a foreign model, with the aid of an English pilot, Will Adams. In 1853 Commodore M. C. Perry made his appearance, and thenceforth everything conspired to push Japan along the new path. The Dutch, who had been proximately responsible for the adoption of the seclusion policy in the I 7th century, now took a prominent part in promoting a liberal view. They sent to the Tokugawa a present of a man-of-war and urged the vital necessity of equipping the country with a navy. Then followed the establishment of a naval college at Tsukiji in Yedo, the building of iron-works at Nagasaki, and the construction at Yokosuka of a dockyard destined to become one of the greatest enterprises of its kind in the East. This last undertaking bore witness to the patriotism of the Tokugawa rulers, for they resolutely carried it to completion during the throes of a revolution which involved the downfall of their dynasty. Their encouragement ,of maritime enterprise had borne fruit, for when, in 1867, they restored the administration to the Imperial court, 44 ocean-going ships were found among their possessions and 94 were in the hands of the feudatories, a steamer and 20 sailing vessels having been constructed in Japan and the rest purchased abroad.

If the Tokugawa had been energetic in this respect, the new government was still more so. It caused the various maritime carriers to amalgamate into one association called the Nipponkoku yubinjokisen kaisha (Mail SS. Company of Japan), to which were transferred, free of charge, the steamers, previously the property of the Tokugawa or the feudatories, and a substantial subsidy was granted by the state. This, the first steamship company ever organized in Japan, remained in existence only four years. Defective management and incapacity to compete with foreign-owned vessels plying between the open ports caused its downfall (1875). Already, however, an independent company had appeared upon the scene. Organized and controlled by a man (Iwasaki Yataro) of exceptional enterprise and business faculty, this mitsubishi kaisha (three lozenge company, so called ~from the design on its flag), working with steamers chartered from the former feudatory of Tosa, to which clan Iwasaki belonged, proved a success from the outset, and grew with each vicissitude of the state. For when (1874) the Meiji governments first complications with a foreign country necessitated the despatch of a military expedition to Formosa, the administration had to purchase 63 foreign steamers for transport purposes, and these were subsequently transferred to the mitsubishi company together with all the vessels (17) hitherto in the possession of the Mail SS. Company, the Treasury further granting to the mitsubishi a subsidy of 50,000 annually. Shortly afterwards it was decided to purchase a service maintained by the Pacific Mail SS. Company with 4 steamers between Yokohama and Shanghai, and money for the purpose having been lent by the state to the mitsubishi, Japans first line of steamers to a foreign country was firmly established, just 20 years after the law interdicting the construction of ocean-going vessels had been rescinded.

The next memorable event in thischapter of history occurred in 1877, when the Satsuma clan, eminently the most powerful and most warlike among all the former feudatories, took ,the field in open rebellion. For a time the fate of the government hung in the balance, and only by a flanking movement over-sea was the rebellion crushed. This strategy compelled the purchase of 10 foreign stearilers, an these too were subsequently handed over to the mitsubishi company, which, in 1880, found itself possessed of 32 ships aggregating 25,600 tons, whereas all the other vessels of foreign type in the country totalled only 27 with a tonnage of 6500. It had now become apparent that the country could not hope to meet emergencies which might at any moment arise, especially in connection with Korean affairs, unless the development of the mercantile marine proceeded more rapidly. Therefore in 1881 the formation of a new company was officially promoted. It had the name of the kyodO unyu kaisha (Union Transport Company); its capital was about a million sterling; it received a large subsidy from the state, and its chief purpose was to provide vessels for military uses and as commerce-carriers. Japan had now definitely embraced the policy of entrusting to private companies rather than to the state the duty of acquiring a fleet of vessels capable of serving as transports or auxiliary cruisers in time of war. But there was now seen the curious spectacle of two companies (the Mitsubishi and the Union Transport) competing in the same waters and both subsidized by the treasury. After this had gone on for four years, the two companies were amalgamated (1885) into the Nippon yusen kaisha (Japan Mail SS. Company) with a capital of i,ioo,ooo and an annual subsidy of 88,000, fixed on the basis of 8% of the capital. Another company had come into existence a few months earlier. Its fleet consisted of 100 small steamers, totalling 10,000 tons, which had hitherto been competing in the Inland Sea.

Japan now possessed a substantial mercantile marine, the rate of whose development is indicated by the following figures:

Year. Steamers. Sailing Vessels. Totals.

Number. Tons. Number. Toni. Number. Tons.

7870 - - - 35 15,498 - II.. 2,454. - 46 17,952

7892 - - - 642 122,300 780 46,065 - - 1,422 168,365

Nevertheless, only 23% of the exports and imports was transported in Japanese bottoms in 1892, whereas foreign steamees took 77%. This discrepancy was one of the subjects discussed iii the first session of the diet, but a bill presented by the government for encouraging navigation failed to obtain parliamentary consent, and in 1893 the Japan Mail SS. Company, without waiting for state assistance, opened a regular service to Bombay mainly for the purpose of carrying raw cotton from India to supply the spinningindustrywhich had now assumed great importance in Japan. Thus the rising sun flag flew for the first time outside Far-Eastern waters. Almost immediately after the establishment of this line, Japan had to engage in war with China, which entailed the despatch of some two hundred thousand men to the neighboring continent and their maintenance there for more than a year. All the countrys available shipping resources did not suffice for this task. Additional vessels had to be purchased or chartered, and thus, by the beginning of 1896, the mercantile marine of Japan had grown to 899 steamers of 373,588 tons, while the sailing vessels had diminished to 644 of 44,000 tons.

In 1897 there occurred an event destined to exercise a potent influence on the fortunes not only of Japan herself but also of her mercantile marine. No sooner had she exchanged with China ratifications of a treaty of peace which seemed to prelude a long period of tranquillity, than Russia, Germany and France ordered her to restore all the continental territory ceded to her by China. Japan then recognized that her hope of peace was delusive, and that she must be prepared to engage in a struggle incomparably more serious than the one from which she had just emerged. Determined that when the crucial moment came she should not be found without ample means for transporting her armies, the government, under the leadership of Prince Ito and with the consent of the diet, enacted, in March 1896 laws liberally encouraging ship-building and navigation. Under the navigation law any Japanese subject or any commercial company whose partners or shareholders were all Japanese subjects, engaged in carrying passengers and cargo between Japan and foreign countries or between foreign ports, in their own vessels, which must be of at least 1000 tons and registered in the shipping list of the Empire, became entitled to subsidies proportionate to the distance run and the tonnage of the vessels; and under the ship-building law, bounties were granted for the construction of iron or steel vessels of not less than 700 tons gross by any Japanese subject or any commercial company whose partners and shareholders were all Japanese. The effect of this legislation was marked. In the period of six years ended 1902, no less than 835 vessels of 455,000 tons were added to the mercantile marine, and the treasury found itself paying encouragement money which totalled six hundred thousand pounds annually. Ship-building underwent remarkable development. Thus, while in 1870 only 2 steamers aggregating 57 tons had been constructed in Japanese yards, 53 steamers totalling 5380 tons and 193 sailing vessels of 17,873 tons were launched in 1900. By the year 1907 Japan had 216 private ship yards and 42 private docks,i and while the government yards were able to build first-class line-of-battle ships of the largest size, the private docks were turning out steamers of 9000 tons burden. When war broke out with Russia in 1904, Japan had 567,000 tons of steam shipping, but that stupendous struggle obliged her to materially augment even this great total. In operations connected with th~ war she lost 71,000 tons, but on the other hand, she built 722 ft. Next stands the kawasaki at Kobe, and in the third place is the uraga.

27,000 tons at home and bought 177,000 abroad, so that the net increase to her mercantile fleet of steamers was 133,000 tons. Ihe following table shows the growth of her marine during the ten years ending 1907: Steamers. Sailing Vessels. Totals.

Year. Number. ~ Number. Tonnage. Number. T~~e.

1898 - - - 1130 477,430 1914 170,194 3044 648,324

1899 -. - 1221 510,007 3322 286,923 4543 467,930

7900 - - - 1329 543,365 3850 320,572 5179 863,937

1901 - - - 1395 583,532 4026 336,528 5471 920,060

1902 - 1441 610,445 3907 336,154 5348 946,600

1903 - - - 1570 663,220 3934 328,953 5504 992,173

1904 - - 1815 798,240 3940 329,125 5755 1,127,365

1905. - 1988 939,749 4132 336,571 6f7o 1,276,320

1906 - - 2103 1,041,569 4547 353,356 6700 1,395,925

1907 -. - 2139 1,115,880 4728 365,559 6867 I,48f,439

With regard to the development of ship-building in Japanese yards the following figures convey information NUMBERS OF VESsELS BUILT IN JAPAN AND NUMBERs PURCHASED An ROAD

Built in Japan. Purchased abroad.

Year. Steamers. Sailing Vessels. Steamers. Sailing Vessels.

1898 -. - 479 1301 194 9

1899 -. - 554 2771 799 12

1900 -.. 653 3302 206 7

1901 -. - 754 3559 215 6

1902 -.. 815 3585 220 6

1903 -. - 855 5304 233 8

1904 - - - 947 3324 277 8

1905 -.. 1028 3508 357 II

1906 -. - 1100 3859 387 II

1907 -. - 1150 4033 419 12

In the building of iron and steel ships the Japanese are obliged to import much of the material used, but a large steel-foundry has been established under government auspices at Wakamatsu in KiUshiQ, that position having been chosen on account of comparative proximity to the Taiya iron mine in China, where the greater part of the iron ore used for the foundry is procured.

Simultaneously with the growth of the mercantile marine there has been a marked development in the number of licensed mariners; that is to say, seamen registered by the government as having passed the examination prescribed by law. Seamen. In 1876 there were only 4 Japanese subjects who satisfied that definition as against 74 duly qualified foreigners holding responsible positions. In 1895 the numbers were 4135 Japanese and 835 foreigners, and ten years later the corresponding figures were 16,886 and 349 respectively. In 1904 the ordinary seamen of the mercantile marine totalled 202,710.

There are in Japan various institutions where the theory and practice of navigation are taught. The principal of these is the Tokyo shOsen gakko (Tokyo mercantile marine college, established in 1875), where some 600 of the men now tIOfl of serving as officers and engineers have graduated. Well arners. equipped colleges exist also in seven other places, all having been established with official co-operation. Mention must be made of a mariners assistance association (kaiin ekizai-kai, established in 1800) which acts as a kind of agency for supplying mariners to shipowners, and of a distressed mariners relief association (suinan kyflsai-kai) which has succoured about a hundred thousand seamen since its establishment in I 899.

The duty of overseeing all matters relating to the maritime carrying trade devolves on the department of state for communications, and is delegated by the latter to one of its bureaus (the Kwansen-kyoku, or ships superintendence ~1t,1f7~~ bureau), which, again, is divided into three sections: t1o I raone for inspecting vessels, one for examining mariners, and one for the general control of all shipping in Japanese waters. For the better discharge of its duties this bureau parcels out the empire into 4 districts, having their headquarters at TOkyO, Osaka, Nagasaki and Hakodate; and these four districts are in turn subdivided into 18 sections, each having an office of marine affairs (kwaiji-kyoku).

Competition between Japanese and foreign ships in the carriage of the countrys over-sea trade soon began to assume appreciable dimensions. Thus, whereas in 1891 the portion carried in Japanese bottoms was only 13/4 millions sterling ComseUtlon against 123/4 millions carried by foreign vessels, the between corresponding figures in 1902 were 201/2 millions against a~13~~Ign 321/8 millions. In other words, Japanese steamers carried Ships only 11% of the total trade in 1891, but their share rose to 39% in 1902. The prospect suggested by this record caused some uneasiness, which was not allayed by observing that while the tonnage of Japanese vessels in Chinese ports was only 2%

in 1896 as compared with foreign vessels, the former figure grew to 16% in 1902; while in Korean ports Japanese steamers almost monopolized the carrying trade, leaving only iS% to their foreign rivals, and even in Hong-Kong the tonnage of Japanese ships increased from 3% in 1896 to 13% in 1900. In 1898 Japan stood eleventh on the list of the thirteen principal maritime countries of the world, but in 1907 she rose to the fifth place. Her principal company, the Nippon yusen kaisha, though established as lately as 1885, now ranks ninth in point of tonnage among the 2f leading maritime companies of the world. This company was able to supply 55 out of a total fleet of 207 transports furnished by all the steamship companies of Japan for military and naval purposes during the war with Russia in 1904-5. It may be noted in conclusion that the development of Japans steam-shipping during the five decades ended 1907 was as follows: Tons.

At the end of 1868 17,952

At the end of 1878 63,468

At the end of 1888 197,365

At the end of 1898 648,324

At the end of I907 1,115,880

There are 33 ports in Japan open as places of call for foreign ~ ~r~ steamers. Their names with the dates of their opening are as follow:

Name. Date of Opening. Situation.

Yokohama 1859 Main Island.

Kobe 1868 do.

Niigata 1867 do.

Osaka 1899 do.

Yokkaichi do. do.

Shimonoseki do. do.

Itozaki do. do.

Taketoyo do. do.

Shimizu do. do.

Tsuruga do. do.

Nanao do. do.

Fushiki do. do.

Sakai do. do.

Hamada do. do.

Miyazu do. do.

Aomori 1906 do.

Nagasaki 1859 KiCshiU.

Moji 1899 do.

Hakata lo. do.

Karatsu do. do.

Kuchinotsu do. do.

Misumi do. do.

Suminoye 1906 do.

Izuhara 1899 Tsushima.

Sasuna do. do.

Shikami do. do.

Nafa do. RiQkiU.

Otaru do. Yezo.

Kushiro do. do.

Mororan do. do.

Hakodate 1865 do.

Kelung 1899 Formosa.

Tamsui do. do.

Takow do. do.

Anping do. do.

Emigration.Characteristic of the Japanese is a spirit of adventure: they readily emigrate to foreign countries if any inducement offers. A strong disposition to exclude them has displayed itself in the United States of America, in Australasia and in British Columbia, and it is evident that, since one nation cannot force its society on another at the point of the sword, this anti-Asiatic prejudice will have to be respected, though it has its origin in nothing more respectablethan the jealousy of the laboring classes. One result is an increase in the numbel of Japanese emigrating to Korea, Manchuria and S. America. The following table shows the numbers residing at various placef outside Japan in 1904 and 1906 respectively: Number in Number in Place 1904.1906.

China 9,417 27,126

Korea 31,093 100,000

Manchuria 43,823

Hong-Kong 600 756

Singapore 1,292 1,428

British India 413 530 530

Europe 183 697

Number in Number in Place 1904.1906.

United States of America 33,849 130,228

Canada 3,838 5,088

Mexico 456 1,294

S. America 1,496 2,500

Philippines 2,652 2,185

Hawaii 65,008 64,319

Australasia 71,I29 3,274

Foreign Residents.The number of foreigners residing in Japan and their nationalities in 1889, 1899 and 1906, respectively, were as follow:

1889.1899.1906.

Americans -.. 899 1,296 1,650

British 1,701 2,013 2,155

Russians 63 134 211

French 335 463 540

Portuguese - - - 108 158 165

Germans 550 532 670

Chinese 4,975 6,372 12,425

Koreans 8 f 88 254

There are also small numbers of Dutch, Peruvians, Belgians, Swiss, Italians, Danes, Swedes, Austrians, Hungarians, &c. This slow growth of the foreign residents is remarkable when contrasted with the fact that the volume of the countrys foreign trade, which constitutes their main business, grew in the same period from 31/2 millions sterling to 92 millions.

Posts and Telegraphs.The government of the Restoration did not wait for the complete abolition of feudalism before organizing a new system of posts in accordance with modern needs. At first, letters only were carried, but before the close of 1871 the service was extended so as to include newspapers, printed matter, books and commercial samples, while the area was extended so as to embrace all important towns between Hakodate in the northern island of Yezo and Nagasaki in the southern island of KiUshifl. Two years later this field was closed to private enterprise, the state assuming sole charge of the business. A few years later saw Japan in possession of an organization comparable in every respect with the systems existing in Europe. In 1892 a foreign service was added. Whereas in 1871 the number of post-offices throughout the empire was only 179, it had grown to 6449 in 907, while the mail matter sent during the latter year totalled 1254 millions (including 15 millions of parcels), and 67,000 persons were engaged in handling it. Japan labors under special difficulties for postal purposes, owing to the great number of islands included in the empire, the exceptionally mountainous nature of the country, and the wide areas covered by the cities in proportion to the number of their inhabitants. It is not surprising to find, therefore, that the means of distribution are varied. The state derives a net revenue of 5 million yen approximately from its postal service. It need scarcely be added that the system of postal money-orders was developed pan passu with that of ordinary correspondence, hut in this context one interesting fact may be noted, namely, that while Japan sends abroad only some 25,000 annually to foreign countries through the post, she receives over 450,000 from her over-sea emigrants.

Japan at the time of the Restoration (1867) was not entirely without experience which prepared her for the postal money-ordet system. Some 600 years ago the idea of the bill of exchange was born in the little town of Totsugawa Postal (Yamato province), though it did not obtain much development before the establishment of the Tokugawa ~ shogunate in the I 7th century. The feudal chiefs, having then tc transmit large sums to Yedo for the purposes of their compulsor) residence there, availed themselves of bills of exchange, and thi shoguns government, which received considerable amounts ir Osaka, selected ten brokers to whom the duty of effecting the transfei of these funds was entrusted. Subsequently the 10 chosen broken were permitted to extend their services to the general public, and f recent Japanese historian notes that Osaka thus became the birth place of banking business in Japan. Postal money-orders weri therefore easily appreciated at the time of their introduction 11 1875. This was not true of the postal savings bank, however, ai institution which came into existence in the same year. It wa altogether a novel idea that the public at large, especially the lower sections of it, should entrust their savings to the government for safe keeping, especially as the minimum and maximum deposited at one time were fixed at such petty sums as 10 sen (23/4d.) and 50 sen (Is.), respectively. Indeed, in the circumstances, the fact that 1500 was deposited in the first year must be regarded as notable. Subsequently deposits were taken in postage stamps, and arrangements were effected for enabling depositors to pay money to distant creditors through the bank by merely stating the destination and the amount of the nearest post office. In 1908 the number of depositors in the post office savings bank was 8217, and their deposits exceeded 10 millions sterling. Thirty per cent. of the depositors belonged to the agricultural classes, 13 to the commercial and only 6 to the industrial.

Rapid communication by means of beacons was not unknown in ancient Japan, but code-signalling by the aid of flags was not introduced until the 17th century and was probably Telegraphs. suggested by observing the practice of foreign merchantmen. Its use, however, was peculiar. The central office stood at Osaka, between which city and many of the principal provincial towns rudely constructed towers were placed at long distances, and from one to another of these intelligence as to the market price of rice was flashed by flag-shaking, the signals being read with telescopes. The Japanese saw a telegraph for the first time in 1854, when Commodore Perry presented a set of apparatus to the shogun, and four years later the feudal chief of Satsuma (Shimazu Nariakira) caused wires to be erected within the enclosure of his castle. The true value of electric telegraphy was first demonstrated to the Japanese in connection with an insurrection in 1877, under the leadership of Saigo, the favorite of this same Shimazu Nariakira. Before that time, however, a line of telegraph had been put up between Tokyo and Yokohama (18 m.) and a code of regulations had been enacted. Sudden introduction to such a mysterious product of foreign science created superstitious dread in the minds of a few of the lower orders, and occasional attempts were made at the outset to wreck the wires. In 1886 the postal and telegraph offices were amalgamated and both systems underwent large development. Whereas the length of wires at the end of the fourth year after the introduction of the system was only 53 m., and the number of messages 20,000, these figures had grown in 1907 to 95,623 and 25 millions, respectively. Several cables are included in these latter figures, the longest being that to Formosa (I229 m.). Wireless telegraphy began to come into general use in 1908, when several vessels belonging to the principal steamship companies were equipped with the apparatus. It had already been employed for some years by the army and navy, especially during the war with Russia, when the latter service installed a new system, the joint invention of Captain Tonami of the navy, Professor S. Kimura of the naval college and Mr M. Matsushiro of the department of communications. The telegraph service in Japan barely pays the cost of operating and maintenance.

The introduction of the telephone into Japan took place in 1877, but it served official purposes solely during 13 years, and even when k ho (1890) it was placed at the disposal of the general e P LIes, public its utilities found at first few appreciators.

But this apathy soon yielded to a mood of eager employment, and the resources of the government (which monopolized the enterprise) proved inadequate to satisfy public demand. Automatic telephones were ultimately set up at many places in the principal towns and along the most frequented highways. The longest distance covered was from Tokyo to Osaka (348 m.). In 1907 Japan had 140,440 m. of telephone wires, 262 exchanges, 159 automatic telephones, and the approximate number of messages sent was 160 millions. The telephone service pays a net revenue of about 100,000 annually.

Agricul~ure.The gross area of land in Japanexcluding Formosa and Sakhalinis 89,167,880 acres, of which 53,487,022 acres represent the property of the crown, the state and the communes, the rest (35,680,868 acres) being owned by private persons. Of the grand total the arable lands represent 15,301,297 acres. With regard to the immense expanse remaining unproductive, experts calculate that if all lands inclined at less than 25 be considered cultivable, an area of 10,684,517 acres remains to be reclaimed, though whether the result would repay the cost is a question hitherto unanswered. The cultivated lands are thus classified, namely, wet fields (called also paddy fields or rice lands), 6,871,437 acres; dry fields (or upland farms), 5,741,745 acres, and others, 2,688,115 acres.

Paddy fields are to be seen in every valley or dell where farming is practicable; they are divided into square, oblong or triangular Rke plots by grass-grown ridges a few inches in height and on an average a foot in breadththe rice being planted in the soft mud thus enclosed. Narrow pathways intersect these rice-valleys at intervals, and rivulets (generally flowing between low banks covered with clumps of bamboo) feed ditches cut for purposes of irrigation. The fields are generally kept under water to a depth of a few inches while the crops are young, but are drained immediately before harvesting. They are then dug up, and again flooded before the second crop is planted out. The rising grounds which skirt the rice-land are tilled by the hoe, and produce Indian corn, millet and edible roots. The well-wooded slopes supply the peasants with timber and firewood. Thirty-six per cent. of the rice-fields yield two crops yearly. The seed is sown in small beds, and the seedlings are planted out in the fields after attaining the height of about 4 in. The finest rice is produced in the fertile plains watered by the Tonegawa in the province of ShimOsa, but the grain of Kaga and of the two central provinces of Settsu and Harima is also very good.

Not only does rice form the chief food of the Japanese but also the national beverage, called sake, is brewed from it. In color the best sake resembles very pale sherry; the taste s k is rather acid. None but the finest grain is used in a e. its manufacture. Of sake there are many varieties, from the best quality down to shiro-zake or white sake, and the turbid sort, drunk only in the poorer districts, known as n-igori-zake; there is also a sweet sort, called snirin.

The various cereal and other crops cultivated in Japan, the areas devoted to them and the annual production are shown in the following table:

1898.1902.1906.

Acres. Acres. Acres.

Rice 7,044,060 7,117,990 7,246,982

Barley 1,649,240 1,613,270 1,674,595

Rye 1,703,410 1,688,635 1,752,095

Wheat 1,164.020 1,210,435 1,107,967

Millet 693,812 652,492 594,280

Beans 2,503,395 1,488,600 1,478,345

Buckwheat. .. 450,100 414,375 402,575

Rape-seed. .. 377,070 392,612 352,807

Potatoes 92,297 105,350 140,197

Sweet Potatoes.. 668,130 693,427 717,620

Cotton 200,720 51,750 24,165

Hemp 62,970 42,227 34,845

Indigo (leaf). .. 122,180 92,982 40,910

1903.2905.1906.

Sugar Cane. ... 41,750 43,308 45,087

It is observable that no marked increase is taking place in the area under cultivation, and that the business of growing cotton, hemp and indigo is gradually diminishing, these staples being supplied from abroad. In Germany and Italy the annual additions made to the arable area average 8% whereas in Japan the figure is only 5%. Moreover, of the latter amount the rate for paddy fields is only 33% against 7~9% in the case of upland farms. This means that the population is rapidly outgrowing its supply of homeproduced rice, the great food-stuff of the nation, and the price of that cereal consequently shows a steady tendency to appreciate. Thus whereas the market value was 5s. 5d. per bushel in 1901, it rose to 6s. 9d. in 1906.

Scarcely less important to Japan than the cereals she raises are her silk and tea, both of which find markets abroad. Her production of the latter staple does not show any sign of marked development, for though tea is almost as essential an ~k and article of diet in Japan as rice, its foreign consumers are ea.

practically limited to the United States and their demand does not increase. The figures for the 10-year period ended 1906 are as follow: Area under cultiva- Tea produced tion (acres). (lb av.).

2897 147,230 70,063,076

1901 122,120 57,Q75,486

2906 126,125 58,279,286

Sericulture, on the contrary, shows steady development year by year. The demand of European and American markets has very elastic limits, and if Japanese growers are content with moderate, but still substantial, gains they can find an almost unrestricted sale in the West. The development from 1886 to 1906 was as follows: Raw silk produced yearly (Ib).

Average from 1886 to 1889. - 8,739,273

1895 19,087,310

1900 20,705,644

1905 21,630,829

2906 24,215,324

The chief silk-producing prefectures in Japan, according to the order of production, are Nagano, Gumma, Yamanashi, Fukushima, Aichi and Saitama. At the close of 1906 there were 3843 filatures throughout the country, and the number of families engaged in sericulture was 397,885.

Lacquer, vegetable wax and tobacco are also important staples of production. The figures for the ten-year period, 1897 to 1906, are as follow:

Lacquer Vegetable Tobacco (ib). wax (Ib). (Ib).

i897 344,267 25,850,790 110,572,925

1906 668,266 39,714,661 101,718,592

While the quantity of certain products increases, the number of filatures and factories diminishes, the inference being that industries are coming to be conducted on a larger scale than was formerly the case. Thus in sericulture the filatures diminished from 4723 in 1897 to 3843 in 1906; the number of lacquer factories from 1637 to 1123 at the same dates, and the number of wax factories from 2619 to 1929.

It is generally said that whereas more than 60% of Japans entire population is engaged in agriculture, she remains far behind the progressive nations of Europe in the application /t~tuhI~of scientific principles to farming. Nevertheless if we improve- take for unit the average value of the yield per hectare meats, in Italy, we obtain the lollowing figures:

Yield per hectare Italy 100

India 5

Germany 121

France 122

Egypt 153

Japan 213

In the realm of agriculture, as in all departments of modern Japans material development, abundant traces are found of official activity. Thus, in the year 1900, the government enacted laws designed to correct the excessive subdivision of farmers holdings; to utilize unproductive areas lying between cultivated fields; to straighten roads; to facilitate irrigation; to promote the use of machinery; to make known the value of artificial fertilizers; to conserve streams and to prevent inundations. Further, in order to furnish capital for the purposes of farming, 46 agricultural and commercial banksone in each prefecturewere established with a central institution called the hypothec bank which assists them to collect funds. A Hokkaid colonial bank and subsequently a bank of Formosa were also organized, and a law was framed to encourage the formation of co-operative societies which should develop a system of credit, assist the business of sale and purchase and concentrate small capitals. Experimental stations were another official creation. Their functions were to carry on investigations relating to seeds, diseases of cereals, insect pests, stock-breeding, the use of implements, the manufacture of agricultural products and cognate matters. Encouragement by grants in aid was also given to the establishment of similar experimental farms by private persons in the various prefectures, and such farms are now to be found everywhere. This official initiative, with equally successful results, extended to the domain of sericulture and tea-growing. There are two state sericultural training institutions where not only the rearing of silk-worms and the management of filatures are taught, but also experiments are made; and these institutions, like the state agricultural stations, have served as models for institutes on the same lines under private auspices. A silkconditioning house at Yokohama; experimental tea-farms; laws to prevent and remove diseases of plants, cereals, silkworms and cattle, and regulations to check dishonesty in the matter of fertilizers, complete the record of official efforts in the realm of agriculture during the Meiji era.

One of the problems of modern Japan is the supply of cattle. With a rapidly growing taste for beefwhich, in former days, was not an article of dietthere is a slow but steady Stock. diminution in the stock of cattle. Thus while the num~ breed ~ her of the latter in 1897 was 1,214,163, out of which total 158,504 were slaughtered, the corresponding figures in I9o~ were 1,190,373 and 167,458, respectively. The stock of sheer (3500 in 1906) increases slowly, and the stocks of goats (58,694 in 1897 and 74,750 in 1906) and swine (206,217 in 1897 and 284,708 in 1906) grow with somewhat greater rapidity, but mutton and porli do not suit Japanese taste, and goats are kept mainly for the sake of their milk. The government has done much towards the improvement of cattle and horses by importing bulls and sires, but, on thi whole, the mixed breed is not a success, and the war with Russif in 1904s having clearly disclosed a pressing need of heavier horse~ for artillery and cavalry purposes, large importations of Australian American and European cattle are now made, and the organizatior of race-clubs has been encouraged throughout ,the country.

Forests.Forests occupy an area of 55 millions of acres, or 600/ of the total superficies of Japan, and one-third of that expanse namely, i8 million acres, approximately, is the property of the state It cannot be said that any very practical attempt has yet been mad~ to develop this source of wealth. The receipts from forests stoo at only 13 million yen in the budget for 1907f 908, and even tha figure compares favorably with the revenue of only 3 million:

derived from the same source in the fiscal year 1904-1905. Thi failure to utilize a valuable asset is chiefly due to defective communi cations, but the demand for timber has already begun to increase In 1907 a revised forestry law was promulgated, according to whic]

the administration is competent to prevent the destruction a forests and to cause the olantin~ of olains and waste-lands, or th re-planting of denuded areas. A plan was also elaborated for systematically turning the state forests to valuable account, while, at the same time, providing for their conservation.

Fisheries.From ancient times the Japanese have been great fishermen. The seas that encircle their many-coasted islands teem with fish and aquatic products, which have always constituted an essential article of diet. Early in the 18th century, the Tokugawa administration, in pursuance of a policy of isolation, interdicted the construction of ocean-going ships, and the peoples enterprise in the matter of deep-sea fishing suffered a severe check. But shortly after the Restoration in 1867, not only was this veto rescinded, but also the government, organizing a marine bureau and a marine products examination office, took vigorous measures to promote pelagic industry. Then followed the formation of the marine products association under the presidency of an imperial prince. ,Fishery training schools were the next step; then periodical exhibitions of fishery and marine products; then the introduction and improvement of fishing implements; and then by rapid strides the area of operations widened until Japanese fishing boats of improved types came to be seen in Australasia, in Canada, in the seas of Sakhalin, the Maritime Province, Korea and China; in the waters of Kamchatka and in the Sea of Okhotsk. No less than 9000 fishermen with 2000 boats capture yearly about 300,000 worth of fish in Korean waters; at least 8000 find a plentiful livelihood off the coasts of Sakhalin and Siberia, and 200 Japanese boats engage in the salmon-fishing of the Fraser River. In 1893, the total value of Japanese marine products and fish captured did not exceed 13/4 millions sterling, whereas in 1906 the figure had grown to 53/4 millions, to which must be added 3~ millions of manufactured marine products. Fourteen kinds of fish represent more than 50% of the whole catch, namely, (in the order of their importance) bonito (katsuo), sardines (iwashi), pagrus (Sal), cuttle-fish and squid (tako and ika), mackerel (saba), yellow tail (burl), tunny-fish (maguro), prawns (ebi), sole (karei), grey mullet (bora), eels (unagi), salmon (shake), sea-ear (awabi) and carp (koi). Altogether 700 kinds of aquatic products are known in Japan, and 400 of them constitute articles of diet. Among manufactured aquatic products the chief are (in the order of their importance) dried bonito, fish guano, dried cuttle-fish, dried and boiled sardines, dried herring and dried prawns. The export of marine products amounted to 900,000 in 1906 against 400,000 ten years previously; China is the chief market. As for imports, they were insignificant at the beginning of the Meiji era, but by degrees a demand was created for salted fish, dried sardines (for fertilizing), edible sea-weed, canned fish and turtle-shell, so that whereas the total imports were only 1600 in 1868, they grew to over 400,000 in 1906.

Minerals.Crystalline schists form the axis of Japan. They run in a general direction from south-west to north-east, with chains starting east and west from Shikoku. On these schists rocks of every age are superimposed, and amid these somewhat complicated geological conditions numerous minerals occur. Precious stones, however, are not found, though crystals of quartz and antimony as well as good specimens of topaz and agate are not infrequent.

Gold occurs in quartz veins among schists, paleozoic or volcanic rocks and in placers. The quantity obtained is not large, but it shows tolerably steady development, and may possibly be much increased by more generous use of capital and God. larger recourse to modern methods.

The value of the silver mined is approximately equal to that of the gold. It is found chiefly in volcanic rocks (especially tuff), in the form of sulphide, and it is usually associated with gold, copper, lead or zinc. ver.

Much more important in Japans economics than either of the precious metals is copper. Veins often showing a thickness of from 70 to 80 ft., though of poor quality (2 to 8%), are found bedded in crystalline schists or paleozoic sedimentary opper. rocks, but the richest (10 to 30%) occur in tuff and other volcanic rocks.

There have not yet been found any evidences that Japan is rich in iron ores. Her largest known deposit (magnetite) occurs at Karnaishi in Iwate prefecture, but the quantity of pigiron produced from the ore mined there does not exceed 37,000 tons annually, and Japan is obliged to import from the neighboring continent the greater part of the iron needed by hei for ship-building and armaments.

Considerable deposits of coal exist, both anthracite and bituminous The former, found chiefly at Amakusa, is not greatly inferior to thc Cardiff mineral; and the latterobtained in abundance in Kishi and Yezois a brown coal of good medium Coa quality. Altogether there are 29 coal-fields now actually worker in Japan, and she obtained an important addition to her sources oJ supply in the sequel to the war with Russia, when the Fushun minn near Mukden, Manchuria, were transferred to her. During the i years ending in 1906, the ,market value of the coal mined in Japaz grew from less than 2 millions sterling to over 6 millions.

Petroleum also has of late sprung into prominence on the list o her mineral products. The oil-bearing stratawhich occur mainl~ in tertiary rocksextend from Yezo to Formosa, but Petrole m I the principal are in Echigo, which yields the greater Dart of the petroleum now obtained, the Yezo and Formosa well being still little exploited. The quantity of petroleum obtained in Japan in 1897 was 9 million gallons, whereas the quantity obtained in 1906 was 55 millions.

Japanese mining enterprise was more than trebled during the decade 1897 to 1906, for the value of the minerals taken out in the former year was only 33/4 millions sterling, whereas the corresponding figure for 1906 was II millions. The earliest mention of goldmining in Japan takes us back to the year A.D. 696, and by the 16th century the country had acquired the reputation of being rich in gold. During the days of her medieval intercourse with the outer world, her stores of the precious metals were largely reduced, for between the years 1602 and 1766, Holland, Spain, Portugal and China took from her 313,800 lb (troy) of gold and 11,230,000 lb of silver.

Copper occupied a scarcely less important place in Old Japan. From a period long anterior to historic times this metal was employed to manufacture mirrors and swords, and the introduction of Buddhism in the 6th century was quickly followed by the casting of sacred images, many of which still survive. Finding in the 18th century that her foreign intercourse not only had largely denuded her of gold and silver, but also threatened to denude her of copper, Japan set a limit (3415 tons) to the yearly export of the latter metal. After the resumption of administrative power by the emperor in 1867, attention was quickly directed to the question of mineral resources; several Western experts were employed to conduct surveys and introduce Occidental mining methods, and ten of the most important mines were worked under the direct auspices of the state in order to serve as object lessons. Subsequently these mines were all transferred to private hands, and the government now retains possession of only a few iron and coal mines whose products are needed for dockyard and arsenal purposes. The following table shows the recent progress and present condition of mining industry in Japan:

GOLD SILVER Co Quantity. Value. Quantity. Value. Quantity.

oz. oz. Tons.

1897.. 34,553 136,834 1,809,805 208,206 19,722

1901 -. 82,517 330,076 1,824,842 211,682 26,495

1906.. 90,842 363,715 2,623,212 243,914 37,254

IRON COAL PET

Quantity. Value. Quantity. Value. Quantity Tons. Tons. Gallons.

1897.. 35,178 103,559 5,229,662 1,899,592 9,248,8C

1901 -. 46,456 123,701 9,025,325 3,060,931 39,35I,9(

1906.. 85,203 268,911 12,980,103 6,314,400 55,135,81

ANTIMONY MANGANESE

Quantity. Value. Quantity. Value.

Tons. Tons.

1897 - - 1,133 27,362 13,175 8,758

1901 - - 529 f3,481 15,738 10,846

1906 - 293 22,862 12,322 51,365

The number of mine employees in 1907 was 190,000, in round numbers; the number of mining companies, 189; and the aggregate paid-up capital, 10 millions sterling.

Induslries.In the beginning of the Meiji era Japan was practically without any manufacturing industries, as the term is understood in the Occident, and she had not so much as one joint-stock company. At the end of 1906, her joint-stock companies and partnerships totalled 9329, their paid up capital exceeded 100 millions sterling, and their reserves totalled 26 millions. It is not to be inferred, however, from the absence of manufacturing organizations 50 years ago that such pursuits were deliberately eschewed or despised in Japan. On the contrary, at the very dawn of the historical epoch we find that see tions of the people took their names from the work carried on. by them, and that specimens of expert industry were preserved in the sovereigns palace side by side with the imperial insignia. Further, skilled artisans from the neighboring continent always found a welcome in Japan, and when Korea was successfully invaded in early times, one of the uses which the victors made of their conquest was to import Korean weavers and .dyers. Subsequently the advent of Buddhism, with its demand for images, temples, gorgeous vestments and rich paraphernalia, gave a marked impulse to the development of artistic industry, which at the outset took its models from China, India and Greece, but gradually, while assimilating many of the best features of the continental schools, subjected them to such great modifications in accordance with Japanese genius that they ceased to retain more than a trace of their originals. From the 9th century luxurious habits prevailed in KiOto under the sway of the Fujiwara regents, and the imperial citys munificent patronage drew to its precincts a crowd of artisans. But these were not industrials, in the Western sense of the term, and, further, their organization was essentially domestic, each family selecting its own pursuit and following it from generation to generation without co-operation or partnership with any outsider. The establishment of military feudalism in the 12th century brought a reaction from the effeminate luxury of the metropolis, and during nearly 300 years no industry enjoyed large popularity except that of the armourer and the sword-smith. No sooner, however, did the prowess of Oda Nobunaga and, above all, of Hideyoshi, the taik, bring within sight a cessation of civil war and the unification of the country, than the taste for beautiful objects and artistic utensils recovered vitality. By degrees there grew up among the feudal barons a keen rivalry in art industry, and the shoguns court in Yedo set a standard which the feudatories constantly strove to attain. Ultimately, in the days immediately antecedent to its fall, the shoguns administration sought to induce a more logical system by encouraging local manufacturers to supply local needs only, leaving to Kioto and Yedo the duty of catering to general wants.

But before this reform had approached maturity, the second advent of Western nations introduced to Japan the products of an industrial civilization centuries in advance of her own from the point of view of utility, though nowise superior in the application of art. Immediately PER LEAD the nation became alive to the Value. Quantity. Value, necessity of correcting its own in Tons. feriority in this respect. But the 869,266 746 10,343 people being entirely without 1,625,244 1,744 24640

3,007,992 2,721 49,690 models for orgamzatfon, without financial machinery and with 1OLEUM SULPHUR

out the idea of joint stock V~lue. Qu~ntltY. V1lue. enterprise, the government had 0 44,389 13,138 33,588 to choose between entering the 0 227,841 16,007 38,612 field as an instructor, and leaving o 314,550 27,406 61,386 the nation to struggle along an OTHERS arduous and expensive way Value. Total Values, to tardy development. There ~ could be no question as to which 3,863 3,345,662 course would conduce more to 41,338 10:839:783 the general advantage, and thus, in days immediately subsequent to the resumption of administrative power by the emperor, the spectacle was seen of official excursions into the domains of silk-reeling, cement-making, cotton and silk spinning, brick-. burning, printing and book-binding, soap-boiling, type-casting and ceramic decoration, to say nothing of their establishing colleges and schools where all branches of applied science were taught. Domestic exhibitions also were organized, and specimens of the countrys products and manufactures were sent under government auspices to exhibitions abroad. On the other hand, the effect of this new departure along Western lines could not but be injurious to the old domestic industries of the country, especially to those which owed their existence to tastes and traditions now regarded as obsolete. Here again the government came to the rescue by establishing a firm whose functions were to familiarize foreign markets with the products of Japanese artisans, and to instruct the latter in adaptations likely to appeal to Occidental taste. Steps were also taken for training women as artisans, and the government printing bureau set the example of employing female labor, an innovation which soon developed large dimensions. In short, the authorities applied themselves to educate an industrial disposition throughout the country, and as soon as success seemed to be in sight, they gradually transferred from official to private direction the various model enterprises, retaining only such as were required to supply the needs of the state.

The result of all this effort was that whereas, in the beginning of the Meiji era, Japan had virtually no industries worthy of the name, she possessed in I 896that is to say, after an interval of 25 years of effortno less than 4595 industrial and commercial companies, joint stock or partnership, with a paid-up capital of 40 millions sterling. Her development during the decade ending in 1906 is shown in the following table: Reserves Number of Paid-up capital (millions companies. (millions sterling), sterling).

1897 6,113 53 6

1901 8,602 83 12

1906 9,329 i07 26

What effect this development exercised upon the countrys over-sea trade may be inferred from the fact that, whereas the manufactured goods exported in 1870 were nil, their value in 1901 was 8 millions sterling, and in 1906 the figure rose to over 20 millions. In the following table are given some facts relating to the principal industries in which foreign markets are interested: COTTON YARNS

Operatives. Quantity Remarks.

Spindles.

Male. Female, produced.

lb This is a wholly 1897 768,328 9,933 35,059 216,913,196 new industry in 1901 1,181,762 13,481 49,540 274,86f,380 Japan. It had 1906 1,425,406 13,032 59,281 383,359,113 no existence before the Meiji era.

WOVEN GooDs Operatives. Market value Remarks.

Looms.

Male. Female, of products.

Millions sterling. It is observable I897 947,134 54,119 987,110 19 that a decrease 1901 719,550 43,172 747,946 24 inthenumberof 1906 736,828 40,886 751,605 36 operativesiscon - current with an increase of pro duction.

MATcHES

o Operatives. Quantity Value. Remarks.

~i produced.

~ Male. Female.

Gross. This is an 1897 269 21,447 26,277 24,038,960 654,849 altogether 1901 261 5,656 16,504 32,901,319 926,689 new indus 1901 250 5,468 18,721 54,802,293 1,551,698 try. Japan ese matches now hold the leading place in all Far- Eastern mar kets.

FOREIGN PAPER (as distinguished from Japanese)

.~ Operatives.

_______________ Quantity Value. Remarks.

0 _________________

produced.

~ Male. I Female.

lb Had not 1897 9 164 109 46,256,649 300,662 Japanese fac 1901 13 2.635 1,397 113,348,340 714,094 tories been 1906 22 3.774 1,778 218,022,434 1,415,778 established all this papermust have been im _______ __________ ________ ported.

In the field of what may be called minor manufacturesas ceramic wares, lacquers, straw-plaits, &c.there has been corresponding growth, for the value of these productions increased from i4 millions sterling in 1897 to 34 millions in 1906. But as these manufactures do not enter into competition with foreign goods in either Easterr or \Vestern markets, they are interesting only as showing thi development of Japans producing power. They contribut~ nothing to the solution of the problem whether Japanese industries are destined ultimately to drive their foreign rivals from the markets of Asia, if not to compete injuriously with them even in Europe and America. Japan seems to have one great advantage over Occidental countries: she possesses an abundance of dexterous and exceptionally cheap labor. It has been said, indeed, that this latter advantage is not likely to be permanent, since the wages of labor and the cost of living are fast increasing. The average cost of labor doubled in the interval between 1895 and 1906, but, on the other hand, the number of manufacturing organizations doubled in the same time, while the amount of their paid-up capital nearly trebled. As to the necessaries of life, if those specially affected by government monopolies be excluded, the rate of appreciation between 1900 and 1906 averaged about 30%, and it thus appears that the cost of living is not increasing with the same rapidity as the remuneration earned by labor. 1 he manufacturing progress of the nation seems, therefore, to have a bright future, the only serious impediment being deficient capital. There is abundance of coal, and steps have been taken on a large scale to utilize the many excellent opportunities which the country offers for developing electricity by water-power.

The fact that Japans exports of raw silk amount to more than 12 millions sterling, while she sends over-sea only 34 millions worth of silk fabrics, suggests some marked inferiority Silkon the part of her weavers. But the true explanation weaving. seems to be that her distance from the Occident handicaps her in catering for the changing fashions of the West. There cannot be any doubt that the skill of Japanese weavers was at one time eminent. The sun goddess herself, the predominant figure in the Japanese pantheon, is said to have practised weaving; the names of four varieties of woven fabrics, were known in prehistoric times; the 3rd century of the Christian era saw the arrival of a Korean maker of cloth; after him came an influx of Chinese who were distributed throughout the country to improve the arts of sericulture and silk-weaving; a sovereign (Yuriaku) of the 5th century employed 92 groups of naturalized Chinese for similar purposes; in 421 the same emperor issued a decree encouraging the culture of mulberry trees and calling for taxes on silk and cotton; the manufacture of textiles was directly supervised by the consort of this sovereign; in 645 a bureau ot weaving was established; many other evidences are conclusive as to the great antiquity of the art of silk and cotton weaving in Japan.

The coming of Buddhism in the 6th century contributed not a little to the development of the art, since not only did the priests require for their own vestments and for the decoration of temples silken fabrics of more and more gorgeous description, but also these holy men themselves, careful always to keep touch with the continental developments of their faith, made frequent voyages to China, whence they brought back to Japan a knowledge of whatever technical or artistic improvements the Middle Kingdom could show. When Kito became the permanent metropolis of the empire, at the close of the 8th century, a bureau was established for weaving brocades and rich silk stuffs to be used in the palace. This preluded an era of some three centuries of steadily developing luxury in KiOto; an era when an essential part of every aristocratic mansions furniture was a collection of magnificent silk robes for use inthesumptuous NO. Then, in the 15th century came the Tea Ceremonial, when the brocade mountings of a picture or the wrapper of a tiny tea-jar possessed an almost incredible value, and such skill was attained by weavers and dyers that even fragments of the fabrics produced by them command extravagant prices to-day. KiOto always remained, and still remains, the chief producing centre, and to such a degree has the science of color been developed there that no less than 4000 varieties of tint are distinguished. The sense of color, indeed, seems to have been a special endowment of the Japanese people from the earliest times, and some of the combinations handed down from medieval times are treasured as incomparable examples. During the long era of peace under the Tokugawa administration the costumes of men and women showed an increasing tendency to richness and beauty. This culminated in the Genroku epoch (1688-1700), and the aristocracy of the present day delight in viewing histrionic performances where the costumes of that age and of its rival, the Momoyama (end of the 16th century) are reproduced.

It would be possible to draw up a formidable catalogue of the various kinds of silk fabrics manufactured in Japan before the opening of the Meiji era, and the signal ability of her weavers has derived a new impulse from contact with the Occident. Machinery has been largely introduced, and though the products of hand-looms still enjoy the reputation of greater durability, there has unquestionably been a marked development of producing power. Japanese looms now turn out about 17 millions sterling ,of silk textiles, of which less than 4 millions go abroad. Nor is increased quantity alone to be noted, for at the factory of Kawashima in Kito Gobelins are produced such as have never been rivalled elsewhere.

Commerce in Tokugawa Times.The conditions existing in Japan during the two hundred and fifty years prefatory to the modern opening of the country were unfavourable to the development alike of I~ational and of international trade. As to the former, the system of feudal government exercised a crippling influence, for each feudal chief endeavoured to check the exit of any kind of property from his fief, and free interchange of commodities was thus prevented so effectually that cases are recorded of one feudatorys subjects dying of starvation while those of an adjoining fief enjoyed abundance. International commerce, on the other hand, lay under the veto of the central government, which punished with death anyone attempting to hold intercourse with foreigners. Thus the fiefs practised a policy of mutual seclusion at home, and united to maintain a policy of general seclusion abroad. Yet it was under the feudal system that the most signal development of Japanese trade took place, and since the processes of that development have much historical interest they invite close attention.

As the bulk of a feudal chiefs income was paid in rice, arrangements had to be made for sending the grain to market and transmitting its proceeds. This was effected originally by establishing in Osaka stores (kura-yashiki), under the charge of samurai, who received the rice, sold it to merchants in that city and remitted the proceeds by official carriers. But from the middle of the 17th century these stores were placed in the charge of tradesmen to whom was given the name of kake-ya (agent). They disposed of the products entrusted to them by a fief and held the money, sending it by monthly instalments to an appointed place, rendering yearly accounts and receiving commission at the rate of from 2 to 4%. They had no special licence, but they were honorably regarded and often distinguished by an official title or an hereditary pension. In fact a kake-ya, of such standing as the Mitsui and the Konoike families, was, in effect, a banker charged with the finances of several fiefs. In Osaka the method of sale was uniform. Tenders were invited, and these having been opened in the presence of all the store officials and kake-ya, the successful tenderers had to deposit bargainmoney, paying the remainder within ten days, and thereafter becoming entitled to take delivery of the rice in whole or by instalments wrthin a certain time, no fee being charged for storage. A similar system existed in Yedo, the shoguns capital. Out of the custom of deferred delivery developed the establishment of exchanges where advances were made against sale certificates, and purely speculative transactions came into vogue. There followed an experience common enough in the West at one time: public opinion rebelled against these transactions in margins on the ground that they tended to enhance the price of rice. Several of the brokers were arrested and brought to trial; marginal dealings were thenceforth forbidden, and a system of licences was inaugurated in Yedo, the number of licensed dealers i being restricted to 108.

The system of organized trading companies had its origin in the 12th century, when, the number of merchants admitted within the confines of Yedo being restricted, it became necessary for those not obtaining that privilege to establish some mode of co-operation, and there resulted the formation of companies with representatives stationed in the feudal capital and share-holding members in the provinces. The Ashikaga shoguns developed this restriction by selling to the highest bidder the exclusive right of engaging in a particular trade, and the Tokugawa administration had recourse to the same practice. But whereas the monopolies instituted by the Ashikaga had for sole object the enrichment of the exchequer, the Tokugawa regarded it chiefly as a means of obtaining worthy representatives in each branch of trade. The first licences were issued in Yedo to keepers of bath-houses in the middle of the 17th century. As the city grew in dimensions these licences increased in value, so that pawnbrokers willingly accepted them in pledge for loans. Subsequently almanack-sellers were obliged to take out licences, and the system was afterwards extended to moneychangers.

It was to the fishmongers, however, that the advantages of commercial organization first presented themselves vividly. The greatest fish-market in Japan is at Nihon-bashi in Tokyo (formerly Yedo). It had its origin in the needs of the Tokugawa court. When Iyeyasu (founder of the Tokugawa dynasty) entered Yedo in 1590, his train was followed by some fishermen of Settsu, to whom he granted the privilege of plying their,trade in the adjacent seas, on condition that they furnished a supply of their best fish for the use of the garrison. The remainder they offered for sale at Nihon-bashi. Early in the 17th century one Sukegoro of Yamato province (hence called Yamato-ya) went to Yedo and organized the fishmongers into a great gild. Nothing is recorded about this mans antecedents, though his mercantile genius entitles him to historical notice. He contracted for the sale of all the fish obtained in the neighboring seas, advanced money to the fishermen on the security of their catch, constructed preserves for keeping the fish alive until they were exposed in the market, and enrolled all the dealers in a confederation which ultimately consisted of 391 wholesale merchants and 246 brokers. The main purpose of Sukegoros system was to prevent the consumer from dealing direct with the producer. Thus in return for the pecuniary accommodation They were called fuda-sashi (ticket-holders), a term derived from the fact that rice-vouchers were usually held in a split bamboo which was thrust into a pile of rice-bags to indicate therr buyer.

granted to fishermen to buy boats and nets they were required to give every fish they caught to the wholesale merchant from whom they had received the advance; and the latter, on his side, had to sell in the open market at prices fixed by the confederation. A somewhat similar system applied to vegetables, though in this case the monopoly was never so close.

It will be observed that this federation of fishmongers approximated closely to a trust, as the term is now understood; that is to say, an association of merchants engaged in the same branch of trade and pledged to observe certain rules in the conduct of their business as well as to adhere to fixed rates. The idea was extended to nearly every trade, 10 monster confederations being organized in Yedo and 24 in Osaka. These received official recognition, and contributed a sum to the exchequer under the euphonious name of benefit money, amounting to nearly 20,000 annually. They attained a high state of prosperity, the whole of the cities supplies passing through their hands.2 No member of a confederation was permitted to dispose of his licence except to a near relative, and if anyone not on the roll of a confederation engaged in the same business he became liable to punishment at the hands of the officials. In spite of the limits thus imposed on the transfer of licences, one of these documents commanded from 80 to 6,400, and in the beginning of the 19th century the confederations, or gilds, had increased to 68 in Yedo, comprising 1195 merchants. The gild system extended to maritime enterprise also. In the beginning of the 17th century a merchant of Sakai (near Osaka) established a junk service between Osaka and Yedo, but this kind of business did not attain any considerable development until the close of that century, when 10 gilds of Yedo and 24 of Osaka combined to organize a marine-transport company for the purpose of conveying their own merchandise. Here also the principle of monopoly was strictly observed, no goods being shipped f or unaffiliated merchants. This carrying trade rapidly assumed large dimensions. The number of junks entering Yedo rose to over 1500 yearly. They raced from port to port, just as tea-clippers from China to Europe used to race in recent times, and troubles incidental to their rivalry became so serious that it was found necessary to enact stringent rules. Each junk-master had to subscribe a written oath that he would comply strictly with the regulations and observe the sequence of sailing as determined by lot. The junks had to call en route at Uraga for the purpose of undergoing official examination. The order of their arrival there was duly regiitered, and the master making the best record throughout the year received a present in money as well as a complimentary garment, and became the shippers favorite next season.

Operations relating to the currency also were brought under the control of gilds. The business of money-changing seems to have been taken up as a profession from the beginning of the 15th century, but it was then in the hands of pedlars who carried strings of copper cash which they exchanged for gold or silver coins, then in rare circulation, or for parcels of gold dust. From the early part of the 17th century exchanges were opened in Yedo, and in 1718 the men engaged in this business formed a gild after the fashion of the time. Six hundred of these received licences, and no unlicensed person was permitted to purchase the avocation. Four representatives of the chief exchange met daily and fixed the ratio between gold and silver, the figure being then communicated to the various exchanges and to the shoguns officials. As for the prices of gold or silver in terms of copper or bank-notes, 24 representatives of the exchanges met every evening, and, in the presence of an official censor, settled the figure for the following day and recorded the amount of transactions during the past 24 hours, full information on these points being at once sent to the city governors and the street elders.

The exchanges in their ultimate form approximated very closely to the Occidental idea of banks. They not only bought gold, silver and copper coins, but they also received money on deposit, made loans and issued vouchers which played a very important part in commercial transactions. The voucher seems to have come into existence in Japan in the 14th century. It originated in the Yoshino market of Yamato province, where the hilly nature of the district rendered the carriage of copper money so arduous that rich merchants began to substitute written receipts and engagements which quickly became current. Among these documents there was a joint voucher (kumsai-fuda), signed by several persons, any one of whom might be held responsible for its redemption. This had large vogue, but it did not obtain official recognition until 1636, when the third Tokugawa shogun selected 30 substantial merchants and divided them into 3 gilds, each authorized to issue vouchers, provided that a certain sum was deposited by way of security. Such vouchers were obviously a form of bank-note. Their circulation by the exchange came about in a similar manner. During many years the treasure of the shogun and of the feudal i In ~I725, when the population of Yedo was about three-quarters of a million, the merchandise that entered the city was 861,893 bags of rice; 795,856 casks of sake; 132,892 casks of soy (fish-sauce); 18,209,987 bundles of fire-wood; 809,790 bags of charcoal; 90,811 tubs of oil; 1,670,850 bags of salt and 3,613,500 pieces of cotton cloth.

chtefs was carried to Yedo by pack-horses and coolies of the regular postal service. But the costliness of such a method led to the selection in 1691 of 10 exchange agents who were appointed bankers to the Tokugawa government and were required to furnish money within 30 days of the date of an order drawn on them. These agents went by, the name of the ten-men gild. Subsequently the firm of Mitsui was added, but it enjoyed the special privilege of being allowed 150 days to collect a specified amount. The gild received moneys on account of the Tokugawa or the feudal chiefs at provincial centres, and then made its own arrangements for cashing the cheques drawn upon it by the shogun or the daimyo in Yedo. If coin happened to be immediately available, it was employed to cash the cheques; otherwise the vouchers of the gild served instead. It was in Osaka, however, that the functions of the exchanges acquired fullest development. That city has exhibited, in all eras, a remarkable aptitude for trade. Its merchants, as already shown, were not only entrusted with the duty of selling the rice and other products of the surrounding fiefs, but also they became depositories of the proceeds, which they paid out on account of the owners in whatever sums the latter desired. Such an evidence of official confidence greatly strengthened their credit, and they received further encouragement fromthe second Tokugawa shogun (1605-1623) and from Ishimaru Sadatsugu, governor of the city in 1661. I-fe fostered wholesale transactions, sought to introduce a large, element of credit into commerce by instituting a system of credit sales; took measures to promote the circulation of cheques; inaugurated market sales of gold and silver and appointed ten chiefs of exchange who were empowered to oversee the business of money-exchanging in general. These ten received exemption from municipal taxation and were permitted to wear swords. Under them were 22 exchanges forming a gild, whose members agreed to honor one anothers vouchers and mutually to facilitate business. Gradually they elaborated a regular system of banking, so that, in the middle of the 18th century, they issued various descriptions of paper-orders for fixed sums payable at certain places within fixed periods; deposit notes redeemable on the demand of an indicated person or his order; bills of exchange drawn by A upon B in favor of C (a commoh form for use in monthly or annual settlements); promissory notes to be paid at a future time, or cheques payable at sight, for goods purchased; and storage orders engaging to deliver goods on account of which earnest money had been paid. These last, much employed in transactions relating to rice and sugar, were generally valid for a period of 3 years and 3 months, were signed by a confederation of exchanges or merchants on joint responsibility, and guaranteed the delivery of the indicated merchandise independently of all accidents. They passed current as readily as coin, and advances could always be obtained against them from pawnbrokers.

All these documents, indicating a well-developed system of credit, were duly protected by law, severe penalties being inflicted for any failure to implement the pledges they embodied. The merchants of Yedo and Osaka, working on the system of trusts here described, gradually acquired great wealth and fell into habits of marked luxury. It is recorded that they did not hesitate to pay 5 for the first bonito of the season and 11 for the- first egg-fruit. Naturally the spectacle of such extravagance excited popular discontent. Men began to grumble against the so-called official merchants who, under government auspices, monopolized every branch of trade; and this feeling grew almost uncontrollable in 1836, when rice rose to an unprecedented price owing to crop failure. Men loudly ascribed that state of affairs to regrating on the part of the wholesale companies, and murmurs similar to those raised at the close of the 19th century in America against the trust system began to reach the ears of the authorities perpetually. The celebrated Fujita Toko of Mito took up the question. He argued that the monopoly system, since it included Osaka, exposed the Yedo market to all the vicissitudes of the former city, which had then lost much of its old prosperity.

Finally, in 1841, the shOguns chief minister, Mizuno Echizen-noKami, withdrew all trading licences, dissolved the gilds and proclaimed that every person should thenceforth be free to engage in any commerce without let or hindrance. This recklessly drastic measure, vividly illustrating the arbitrarinessof feudal officialdom, not only included the commercial gilds, the shipping gilds, the exchange gilds and the land transport gilds, but was also carried to the length of forbidding any company to confine itself to wholesale dealings. The authorities further declared that in times of scarcity wholesale transactions must be abandoned altogether and retail business alone carried on, their pur_pose being to bring retail and whole~!e prices to the same level. Fhe custom of advancing money to fishermen or to producers in the provincial districts was interdicted; even the fuda-sashi might no longer ply their calling, and neither bath-house keepers nor hairdressers were allowed to combine for the purpose of adopting uniform rates of charges. But this illjudged interference produced evils greater than those it was intended to remedy. The gilds had not really been exacting. Their organi. zation had reduced the cost of distribution, and they had provided facilities of transport which brought produce within quick and cheag reach of central markets.

Ten years experience showed that a modified form of the old system would conduce to public interests. The gilds were re established, licence fees, however, being abolished, and no limit set to the number of firms in a gild. Things remained thus until the beginning of the Meiji era (1867), when the gilds shared the cataclysm that overtook all the countrys old institutions.

Japanese commercial and industrial life presents another feature which seems to suggest special aptitude for combination. In mercantile or manufacturing families, while the eldest son always succeeded to his fathers business, not only the younger sons but also the apprentices and employees, after they had served faithfully for a number of years, expected to be set up as branch houses under the auspices of the principal family, receiving a place of business, a certain amount of capital and the privilege of using the original house-name. Many an old-established firm thus came to have a plexus of branches all serving to extend its business and strengthen its credit, so that the group held a commanding position in the business world. It will be apparent from the above that commercial transactions on a large scale in pre-Meiji days were practically limited to the two great cities of Yedo and Osaka, the people in the provincial fiefs having no direct association with the gild system, confining themselves, for the most part, to domestic industries on a small scale, and not being allowed to extend their business beyond the boundaries of the fief to which they belonged.

Foreign Commerce during the Meiji Era.If Japans industrial development in modern times has been remarkable, the same may be said even more emphatically about the development of her over-sea commerce. This was checked at first not only by the unpopularity attaching to all intercourse with outside nations, but also by embarrassments resulting from the difference between the silver price of gold in Japan and its silver price in Europe, the precious metals being connected in Japan by a ratio of I to 8, and in Europe by a ratio of I to 15. This latter fact was the cause of a sudden and violent appreciation of values; for the government, seeing the country threatened with loss of all its gold, tried to avert the catastrophe by altering and reducing the weights of the silver coins without altering their denominations, and a corresponding difference exhibited itself, as a matter of course, in the silver quotations of commodities. Another difficulty was the attitude of officialdom. During several centuries Japans over-sea trade had been under the control of officialdom, to whose coffers it contributed a substantial revenue. But when the foreign exporter entered the field under the conditions created by the new system, he diverted to his own pocket the handsome profit previously accruing to the government; and since the latter could not easily become reconciled to this loss of revenue, or wean itself from its traditional habit of interference in affairs of foreign commerce, and since the foreigner, on his side, not only desired secrecy in order to prevent competition, but was also tormented by inveterate suspicions of Oriental espionage, not a little friction occurred from time to time. Thus the scanty records of that early epoch suggest that trade was beset with great difficulties, and that the foreigner had to contend against most adverse circumstances, though in truth his gains amounted to 40 Or 50%.

The chief staples of the early trade were tea and silk. It happened that just before Japans raw silk became available for export, the production of that article in France and Tea and Italy had been largely curtailed owing to a novel Silk.

disease of the silkworm. Thus, when the first bales of Japanese silk appeared in London, and when it was found to possess qualities entitling it to the highest rank, a keen demand sprang up. Japanese green tea also, differing radically in flavour and bouquet from the black tea of China, appealed quickly to American taste, so that by the year 1907 Japan found herself selling to foreign countries tea to the extent of 13/4 millions sterling, and raw silk to the extent of 123/4 millions. This remarkable development is typical of the general history of Japans foreign trade in modern times. Omitting the first decade and a half, the statistics for which are imperfect, the volume of the trade grew from 5 millions sterling in 18733 shillings per head of the populationto 93 millions in 1907or 38 shillings per head. It was not a uniform growth. The period of 35 years divides itself conspicuously into two eras: the first, of 15 years (1873-1887), during which the development was from 5 millions to 9~7 millions, a ratio of I to 2, approximately; the second, of 20 yearS (1887-1907), during which the development ,was from g.7 millions to 93 millions, a ratio of ~1 to 1~.

That a commerce which scarcely doubled itself in the first fifteen years should have grown nearly tenfold in the next twenty is a fact inviting attention. There are two principal causes: one general, the other special. The general cause was that several years necessarily elapsed before the nations material condition began to respond perceptibly to the improvements effected by the Meiji government in matters of administration, taxation and transport facilities. Fiscal burdens had been reduced and security of life and property obtained, but railway building and road-making, harbour construction, the growth of posts, telegraphs, exchanges and banks, and the development of a mercantile marine did not exercise a sensible influence on the nations prosperity until 1884 or 1885. From that time the country entered a period of steadily growing prosperity, and from that time private enterprise may be said to have finally started upon a career of independent activity. The special cause which, from 1885, contributed to a marked growth of trade was the resumption of specie payments. Up to that time the treasurys fiat notes had suffered such marked fluctuations of specie value that sound or successful commerce became very difficult. Against the importing merchant the currency trouble worked with double potency. Not only did the gold with which he purchased goods appreciate constantly in terms of the silver for which he sold them, but the silver itself appreciated sharply and rapidly in terms of the fiat notes paid by Japanese consumers. Cursory reflection may suggest that these factors should have stimulated exports as much as they depressed imports. But such was not altogether the case in practice. For the exporters transactions were hampered by the possibility that a delay of a week or even a day might increase the purchasing power of his silver in Japanese markets by bringing about a further depreciation of paper, so that he worked timidly and hesitatingly, dividing his operations as minutely as possible in order to take advantage of the downward tendency of the fiat notes. Not till this element of pernicious disturbance was removed did the trade recover a healthy tone and grow so lustily as to tread closely on the heels of the foreign commerce of China, with her 300 million inhabitants and long-established international relations.

Japans trade with the outer world was built up chiefly by the energy and enterprise of the foreign middleman. He acted the The Foreign part of an almost ideal agent. As an exporter, Middleman, his command of cheap capital, his experience, his knowledge of foreign markets, and his connections enabled him to secure sales such as must have been beyond reach of the Japanese working independently. Moreover, he paid to native consumers ready cash for their staples, taking upon his own shoulders all the risks of finding markets abroad. As an importer, he enjoyed, in centres of supply, credit which the Japanese lacked, and he offered to native consumers foreign produce brought to their doors with a minimum of responsibility on their part. Finally, whether as exporters or importers, foreign middlemen always competed with each other so keenly that their Japanese clients obtained the best possible terms from them. Yet the ambition of the Japanese to oust them cannot be regarded as unnatural. Every nation must desire to carry on its own commerce independently of alien assistance; and moreover, the foreign middlemans residence during many years within Japanese territory, but without the pale of Japanese sovereignty, invested him with an aggressive character which the antiOriental exclusiveness of certain Occidental nations helped to accentuate. Thus from the point of view of the average Japanese there are several reasons for wishing to dispense with alien middlemen, and it is plain that these reasons are operative; for whereas, in 1888, native merchants carried on only 12% of the countrys over-sea trade without the intervention of the foreign middlemen, their share rose to 35% in 1899 and has since been slowly increasing.

Analysis of Japans foreign trade during the Mei~i era shows that Baja ~e, during the35-yearperiod ending in 1907, imports exceeded of Trade exports in 21 years and exports exceeded imports in I

years. This does not suggest a very badly balance trade. But closer examination accentuates the difference, for when the figures are added, it is found that the excesses of exports aggregated only I I millions sterling, whereas the excesses of imports totalled 71 millions, there being thus a so-called unfavourable balance of 6o millions over all. The movements of specie do not throw much light upon this subject, for they are complicated by large imports of gold resulting from war indemnities and foreign loans. Undoubtedly the balance is materially redressed by the expenditures of the foreign communities in the former settlements, of foreign tourists visiting Japan and of foreign vessels engaged in the carrying trade, as well as by the earnings of Japanese vessels and the interest on investments made by foreigners. Nevertheless there remains an appreciable margin against Japan, and it is probably to be accounted for by the consideration that she is still engaged equipping herself for the industrial career evidently lying before her.

The manner in which Japans over-sea trade was divided m 1907 among the seven foreign countries princi- Trade with pally engaged in it may be seen from the following Various table: Countries.

Exports to Imports from Total ~ (millions). ~ (millions). ~ (millions).

United States - - 133/4 83/4 22

China 83/4 63/4 i~

Great Britain - 23/4 113/4 14

British India -. - 13/4 73/4 9

Germany - -. 13/4 43/4 6

France - -. 43/4 3/4 5

Korea 33/4 13/4 5

Among the 33 open ports of Japan, the first place belongs to Yokohama in the matter of foreign trade, and Kobe ranks second. The former far outstrips the latter in exports, but the case is reversed when imports are considered. As to the percentages of the whole trade standing to the credit of the five principal ports, the following figures may be consulted:Yokohama, 40%; Kobe, 356; Osaka, 10; Moji, 5; and Nagasaki, 2.

VI.GOVERNMENT, ADMINISTRATION, &C.

Emperor and Frinces.At the head of the Japanese State stands the emperor, generally spoken of by foreigners as the inikado (honorable gate1), a title comparable with sublime porte and by his own subjects as tens/ti (son of heaven) or tenn (heavenly king). The emperor Mutou Hito (q.v.) was the 121St of his line, according to Japanese history, which reckons from 660 B.C., when Jimmu ascended the throne. But as written records do not carry us back farther than A.D. 712, the reigns and periods of the very early monarchs are more or less apocryphal. Still the fact remains that Japan has been ruled by an unbroken dynasty ever since the dawn of her history, in which respect she is unique among all the nations in the world. There are four families of princes of the blood, from any one of which a successor to the throne may be taken in default of a direct heir:

Princes Arisugawa, Fushimi, Kanin and Higashi Fushimi. These families are all direct descendants of emperors, and their heads have the title of shinno (prince of the blood), whereas the other imperial princes, of whom there are ten, have only the second syllable of shinno (pronounced zoO when separated from shin). Second and younger sons of a shinnO are all zoo, and eldest sons lose the title shin and become wO from the fifth generation.

The Peerage.In former times there were no Japanese titles of nobility, as the term is understood in the Occident. Nobles there were, however, namely, kuge, or court nobles, descendants of younger sons of emperors, and daimyo (great name), some of whom could trace their lineage to mikados; but all owed their exalted position as feudal chiefs to military prowess. The Meiji restoration of i86~ led to the abolition of the daimyos as feudal chiefs, and they, together with the kuge, were merged into one class called kwazoku (flower families), a term corresponding to aristocracy, all inferior persons being heimin (ordinary folk). In 1884, however, the five Chinese titles of ki (prince), ko (marquis), haku (count), shi (viscount) and dan (baron) were introduced, and patents were not only granted to the ancient nobility but also conferred on men who had rendered conspicuous public service. The titles are all hereditary, but they descend to the firstborn only, younger children having no distinguishing appellation. The first list in 1884 showed ii princes, 24 marquises, 76 counts, 324 viscounts and 74 barons. After the war with China (189495) the total grew to 716, and the war with great, and to, place.

Russia (19045) increased the number to 912, namely, 15 princes, 39 marquises, 100 counts, 376 viscounts and 382 barons.

Household Department.The Imperial household department is completely differentiated from the administration of state affairs. It includes bureaux of treasury, forests, peerage and hunting, as well as boards of ceremonies and chamberlains, officials of the empresss household and officials of the crown princes household. The annual allowance made to the throne is 300,000, and the Imperial estate comprises some 12,000 acres of building land, 3,850,000 acres of forests, and 300,000 acres of miscellaneous lands, the whole valued at some 19 millions sterling, but probably not yielding an income of more than 200,000 yearly. Fqrther, the household owns about 3 millions sterling (face value) of bonds and shares, from which a revenue oi some 250,000 is derived, so that the whole income amounts to three-quarters of a million sterling, approximately. Out of this the households of the crown prince and all the Imperial princes are supported; allowances are granted at the time of conferring titles of nobility; a long list of charities receive liberal contributions, and considerable sums are paid to encourage art and education. The emperor himself is probably one of the most frugal sovereigns that ever occupied a throne.

Departments of St ate.T here are nine departments of state presided over by ministersforeign affairs, home affairs, finance, war, navy, justice, education, agriculture and commerce, communications. These ministers form the cabinet, which is presided over by the minister president of state, so that its members number ten in all. Ministers of state are appointed by the emperor and are responsible to him alone. But between the cabinet and the crown stand a small body of men, the survivors of those by whose genius modern Japan was raised to her present high position among the nations. They are known as elder statesmen (genro). Their proved ability constitutes an invaluable asset, and in the solution of serious problems their voice may be said to be final. At the end of 1909 four of these renowned statesmen remainedPrince Yamagata, Marquises Inouye and Matsukata and Count Okuma. There is also a privy council, which consists of a variable number of distinguished menin 1909 there were 29, the president being Field-Marshal Prince Yamagata. Their duty is to debate and advise upon all matters referred to them by the emperor, who sometimes attends their meetings in person. -

Cieil Officials.The total number of civil officials was 137,819 in 1906. It had been only 68,876 in 1898, from which time it grew regularly year by year. The salaries and allowances paid out of the treasury every year on account of the civil service are 4 millions sterling, approximately, and the annual emoluments of the principal officials are as follow :Prime minister, 960; minister of a department, 600; ambassador, 500, with allowances varying from 2200 to 3000; president of privy council, 500; resident-general in Seoul, 600; governor-general of Formosa, 600; vice-minister, 400; minister plenipotentiary, 400, with allowances from Li 000 to 1700; governor of prefecture, 300 to 360; judge of the court of cassation, 200 to 500; other judges, 60 to 400; professor of imperial university, from 80 to 160, with allowances from 40 to i2o; privy councillor, 400; director of a bureau, 300; &c.

Legislature.The first Japanese Diet was convoked the 29th of November, 1890. There are two chambers, a house of peers (kizolcu-in) and a house of representatives (shugi-in). Each is invested with the same legislative power.

The upper chamber consists of four classes of members. They are, first, hereditary members, namely, princes and marquises, who are entitled to sit when they reach the age of 25; secondly, counts, viscounts and barons, electedafter they have attained their 25th yearby their respective orders in the maximum ratio of one member to every five peers; thirdly, men of education or distinguished service who are nominated by the emperor; and, fourthly, representatives of the highest taxpayers, elected, one for each prefecture, by their own class. The minimum age limit for non-titled members is 30, and it is provided that their total number must not exceed that of the titled members. The house was composed in 1909 of 14 princes of the blood, 15 princes, 39 marquises, 17 counts, 69 viscounts, 56 barons, 124 Imperial nominees, and 45 representatives of the highest tax-payersthat is to say, 210 titled members and i6o non-titled.

The lower house consists of elected members only. Originally the property qualification was fixed at a minimum annual payment of 305. in direct taxes (i.e. taxes imposed by the central government), but in 1900 the law of election was amended, and the property qualification for electors is now a payment of LI in direct taxes, while for candidates no qualification is required either as to property or as to locality. Members are of two kinds, namely, those returned by incorporated cities and those returned by prefectures. In each case the ratio is one member for every 130,000 electors, and the electoral district is the city or prefecture.

Voting is by ballot, one man one vote, and a general election must take place once in 4 years for the house of representatives, and once in i years for the house of peers. The house of representatives, however, is liable to be dissolved by order of the sovereign as a disciplinary measure, in which event a general election must be held within 5 months from the date of dissolution, whereas the house of peers is not liable to any such treatment. Otherwise the two houses enjoy equal rights and privileges, except that the budget must first be submitted to the representatives. Each member receives a salary of 200; the president receives soo, and the vice-president 300. The presidents are nominated by the sovereign from three names submitted by each house, but the appointment of a vice-president is within the independent right of each chamber. The lower house consists of 379 members, of whom 75 are returned by the urban population and 304 by the rural. Under the original property qualification the number of franchise-holders was only 453,474, or 11.5 to every iooo of the nation, but it is now 1,676,007, or I5~77 to every 1000. By the constitution which created the diet freedom of conscience, of speech and of public meeting, inviolability of domicile and correspondence, security from arrest or punishment except by due process of law, permanence of judicial appointments and all the other essential elements of civil liberty were granted. In the diet full legislative authority is vested: without its consent no tax can be imposed, increased or remitted; nor can any public money be paid out except the salaries of officials, which the sovereign reserves the right to fix at will. In the emperor are vested the prerogatives of declaring war and making peace, of concluding treaties, of appointing and dismissing officials, of approving and promulgating laws, of issuing urgent ordinances to take the temporary place of laws, and of conferring titles of nobility.

Procedure of the Diet.It could scarcely have been expected that neither tumult nor intemperance would disfigure the proceedings of a diet whose members were entirely without parliamentary experience, but not without grievances to ventilate, wrongs (real or fancied) to avenge, and abuses to redress. On the whole, however, there has been a remarkable absence of anything like disgraceful licence. The politeness, the good temper, and the sense of dignity which characterize the Japanese, generally saved the situation when it threatened to degenerate into a scene. Foreigners entering the house of representatives in Tokyo for the first time might easil misinterpret some of its habits. A number distinguishes eac member. It is painted in white on a wooden indicator, the latter being fastened by a hinge to the face of the members desk. When present he sets the indicator standing upright, and lowers it when leaving the house. Permission to speak is not obtained by catching the presidents eye, but by calling out the aspirants number, and as members often emphasize their calls by hammering their desks with the indicators, there are moments of decided din. But, for the rest, orderliness and decorum habitually prevail. Speeches have to be made from a rostrum. There are few displays of oratory oreloquence. The Japanese formulates his views with remarkable facility. He is absolutely free from gaucherie or self-consciousness when speaking in public: he can think on his feet. But his mind does not usually busy itself with abstract ideas and subtleties of philosophical or religious thought. Flights of fancy, impassioned bursts of sentiment, appeals to the heart rather than to the reason of an audience, are devices strange to his mental habit. He can be rhetorical, but not eloquent. Among all the speeches hitherto delivered in the Japanese diet it would be difficult to find a passage deserving the latter epithet.

From the first the debates were recorded verbatim. Years before the date fixed for the promulgation of the constitution, a little band of students elaborated a system of stenography and adapted it to the Japanese syllabary. Their labors remained almost without recognition or remuneration until the diet was on the eve of meeting, when it was discovered that a competent staff of shorthand reporters could be organized at an hours notice. Japan can thus boast that, alone among the countries of the world, she possesses an exact record of the proceedings of her Diet from the moment when the first word was spoken within its walls.

A special feature of the Diets procedure helps to discourage oratorical displays. Each measure of importance has to be submitted to a committee, and not until the latters report has been received does serious debate take place. But in ninety-nine cases out of every hundred the committees report determines the attitude of the house, and speeches are felt to be more or less superfluous. One result of this system is that business is done with a degree of celerity scarcely known in Occidental legislatures. For example, the meetings of the house of representatives during the sessIon1896-1897were 32, and the number of hours occupied by the sittings aggregated 116~ Yet the result was 55 bills debated and passed, several of them measures of prime importance, such as the gold standard bill, the budget and a statutory tariff law. It must be remembered that although actual sittings of the houses are comparatively few and brief, the committees remain almost constantly at work from morning to evening throughout the twelve weeks of the sessions duration.

Divisions of the Empire.The earliest traditional divisions of Japan into provinces was made by the emperor Seimu (131190), in whose time the sway of the throne did not extend farther north than a line curving from Sendai Bay, on the north-east coast of the main island, to the vicinity of Niigata (one of the treaty ports), on the north-west coast. The region northward of this line was then occupied by barbarous tribes, of whom the Ainu (still to be found in Yezo) are probably the remaining descendants. The whole country was then divided into thirty-two provinces. In the 3rd century the empress Jingo, on her return from her victorious expedition against Korea, portioned out the empire into five home provinces and seven circuits, in imitation of the Korean system. By the emperor Mommu (696707) some of the provinces were subdivided so as to increase the whole number to sixty-six, and the boundaries then fixed by him were re-surveyed in the reign of the emperor ShOmu (7237 56). The old division is as follows I. The Go-kinai or five home provinces i.e. those lying immediately around Kyoto, the capital, viz.:

Yamashiro, also called Joshu Izumi, also called Senshi Yamato ,, Washe Setisu ,, Sesshu Kawachi ,, Kashu II. The seven circuits, as follow:

I. The TOkaido, or eastern-sea circuit, which comprised fifteen provinces, viz. :

Iga or Ish Kal or Kshyi Is ,, Seishi Sagami ,, Soshyi2

Shima ,, Shinshu Musashi ,, Bushyi Owari ,, Bishu Awa ,, BOshi Mikawa ,, Sans/lu Kazusa ,, Soshu TOtOmi ,, Ens/li Shimosa ,, SOshu Suruga ,, Suns/li Hitachi ,, Joshu Izii ,, Dzushu 2. The TOzand, or eastern-mountain circuit, which comprised eight provinces, viz. :

Omi or GOshi KOzuke or Joshu Mino ,, NOshu Shimotsuke ,, Yashu Hid-a ,, HishU Mutsu ,, Os/li Shinano ,, Shins/li Dewa ,, Ushu 3. The Hokurikudo, or northern-land circuit, which comprised seven provinces, viz. :

Wakasa or Jakushi Etchiu or Esshu Echizen ,, Esshu Echigo ,, Esshu Kaga ,, Kashi Sado (island) ,, Sashu Nob ,, NoshU

4. The Sanindo, or mountain-back circuit, which comprised eight provinces, viz. :

Tamba or Tanshu Hki or Hakushu Tango ,, Tanshe Izumo ,, UnshuT

Tajima ,, Tanshu Iwami ,, Sekishi Inaba ,, Inshi 0/ri (group of islands)

5. The Sanyodo, or mountain-front circuit, which comprised eight provinces, viz. :

Harima or Bans/li Bingo or Bish Mimasaka ,, Sakushu Aki ,, Geishi Bizen ,, Bishu SumS ,, BOshu Bitcniu ,, Bishu Nagato ,, C/los/la 6. The NankaidO, or southern-sea circuit, which comprised six provinces, viz.: Ku or Kishi Sanuki or SanshO

Awaji (island) ,, Tanshu Iyo ,, Yoshu Awa ,, As/li Tosa ,, Toshi The names given in italics are those more commonly used. Those in the first column are generally of pure native derivation; those in the second column are composed of the Chinese word s/li, a province, added to the Chinese pronunciation of one of the characters with which the native name is written. In a few cases 1)0th names are used.

7. The Saikaido, or western-sea circuit, which comprised nine provinces, viz :

C/li kuzen or ChikushC Higo or Hish Chikugo ,, Chikushu Hiuga ,, Nissh Buzen ,, Hoshu Osumi ,, Gushu Bungo ,, Hoshu Satsuma ,, Sass/lu Hizen ,, Hishfl III. The two islands, viz.:

I. Tsushima or Taishi 1 2. I/li or Ishe Upon comparing the above list with a map of Japan, it will be seen that the main island contains the Go-kinai, Tokaido, TOzandO, Hokurikua;o, SanindO, Sanyodo, and one province (Kishu) of the NankaidO. Omitting also the island of Awaji, the remaining provinces of the Nankaido give the name Shikoku (the four provinces) to the island in which they lie; while Saikaido coincides exactly with the large island KiushiO (the nine provinces).

In 1868, when the rebellious nobles of Osh and Dewa, in the TOzandO, had submitted to ,the emperor, those two provinces were subdivided, Dewa into Uzen and Ugo, and Osh into Iwaki, Iwashiro, Rikuzen, Rikuchu and Michinoku (usually called Mutsu). This increased the old number of provinces from sixty-six to seventy-one. At the same time there was created a new circuit, called the Hokkazdo, or northern-sea circuit, which comprised the eleven provinces into which the large island of Yezo was then divided (viz. Oshirna, Shiribeshi, Ishikari, Teshibo, Kitami, Iburi, Hiaka, Tokachi, Kushiro, and Nemuro) and the Kurile islands (Chishima).

Another division of the old sixty-six provinces was made by taking as a central point the ancient barrier of Osaka on the frontier of Omi and Yamashiro,the region lying on the east, which consisted of thirty-three provinces, being called KwantO, or east of the barrier, the remaining thirty-three provinces on the west being styled Kwansei, or west of the barrier. At the present time, however, the term KwantO is applied to only the eight provinces of Musashi, Sagami, KOzuke, Shimotsuke, Kazusa, ShimOsa, Awa and Hitachi,all lying immediately to the east of the old barrier of Hakone, in Sagami.

Chu-goku, or central provinces, is a name in common use for the Sanindo and Sanyodo taken together. Saikoku, or western provinces, is another name for Kiushiu, which in books again is frequently called Chinsei.

Local A dministrative Divisions.For purposes of local administration Japan is divided into 3 urban prefectures (fir), 43 rural prefectures (ken), and 3 special dominions (c/b), namely Formosa, HokkaidO and South Sakhalin. Formosa and Sakhalin not having been included in Japans territories until 1895 and 1905, respectively, are still under the military control of a governor-general, and belong, therefore, to an administrative system different from that prevailing throughout the rest of the country. The prefectures and Hokkaido are divided again into 638 sub-prefectures (gun or kbri); 60 towns (s/li); 125 urban districts (chO) and 12,274 rural districts (son). The three urban prefectures are Tokyo, Osaka and KiOto, and the urban and rural districts are distinguished according to the number of houses they contain. Each prefecture is named after its chief town, with the exception of Okinawa, which is the appellation of a group of islands called also RiOkiO (Luchu). The following table shows the names of the prefectures, their areas, populations, number of sub-prefectures, towns and urban and rural divisions :

-t -t 2. ~ .~

4- u~ .a a Areain ../l~ ~ .~ ~

Prefecture. sq. m. Population. ~ 5, E- ~

TOkyO.. - 749~76 1,795,128 2 8 I 20 157

Kanagawa. 927.79 776,642 II I 19 202

Saitama. 1,585.30 1,174,094 9 42 343

Chiba -. f,94385 1,273,387 12 69 286

Ibaraki. 2,23567 1,131,556 14 I 45 335

Tochigi - 2,854.14 788,324 8 I 30 145

Gumma. 2,427.21 774,654 II 2 38 169

Nagano - 5,088.41 1,237,584 i6 I 22 37!

Yamanashi 1,727.50 498,539 9 I 7 235

Shizuoka. 3,002.76 1,199,805 13 I 38 306

Aichi - - 1,864.17 1,591,357 19 I 74 592

Miye -. 2,196.56 495,389 15 2 19 325

Gifu - - 4,001.84 996,062 18 I 42 299

Shiga -. I,54o~3o 712,024 12 I 12 190

Fukui - - 1,621.50 633,840 II I 9 171

Ishikawa. 1,611.59 392,905 8 I I6 259

Toyama - 1,587.80 785,5548231 239 The above 17 prefectures form Central, Japan.

Niugata - 4,914.55 1,812,289 i6 I 47 401

Fukushima 5,042.57 1,057,971 17 I 37 388

Miyagi. - 3,223~II 835,830 16 I 31 172

Yamagata 3,576.89 829,2io II 2 24 206

Akita -. 4,493~84 775,077 9 I 42 197 2 This is not the population of the city proper, but that of the urban prefecture.

.i~ .~

e.~ ~

Area in ~ ~

Prefecture. sq. m. Population. ~ 0~ E- ~

Iwate.. 5,359.17 726,380 13 I 23 217

Aomori. 3,617.89 612,171829 159

The above 7 prefectures form Northern Japan.

KiOto -. 1,767.43 931,576 18 I 20 260

Osaka -. 689-69 1,311,9091-9213 289

l~ara - - 1,200.46 538,507 10 I 18 142

Wakayama 1,851.29 681,572 7 I 16 215

Hiogo 3,318.31 1,667,226 25 2 29 403

Okayama - 2,50904 1,132,000 19 I 29 383

Hiroshima 3,103.84 1,436,415 f6 3 27 420

Yamaguchi 1,324.34 986,161 II I 10 215

Shimane - 2,597.48 721,448 16 I 14 276

Tottori - - 1,335.99 418,929 6 I 8 227

The above 10 prefectures form Southern Japan.

Tokushima - 1,616.82 699,398 10 I 2 137

Kagawa 97646 700,4627212 166

Ehime - - 2,033.57 997,481 12 I i8 283

Kochi - - 2,720.13 6I~,549 6 I i4 183

The above 4 prefectures form the island of Shikoku.

Nagasaki. 1,401.49 821,3239215 288

Saga - - 984.07 621,011 8 I 7.127

Fukuoka - 1,894.14 1,362,743 19 4 38 340

Kumamoto 2,774.20 1,151,401 12 I 33 331

Oita - - - 2,400.27 839,485 12 28 251

Miyazaki - 2,904.54 454,7078991

Kagoshima - 3,58976 1,104,631 12 I 380

Okinawa - 935f8 469,2035252

The above 8 prefectures form Kiushiu.

HokkaidO - 36,328.34 610,155 88 3 19 456

Local Administrative System.In the system of local administration full effect is given to the principle of popular representation. Each prefecture (urban or rural), each subprefecture, each town and each district (urban or rural) has its local assembly, the number of members being fixed in proportion to the population. There is no superior limit of number in the case of a prefectural assembly, but the inferior limit is 30. For a town assembly, however, the superior limit is 6o and the inferior 30; for a sub-prefectural assembly the corresponding figures are 40 and 15, and for a district assembly, 30 and 8. These bodies are all elective. The property qualification for the franchise in the case of prefectural and sub-prefectural assemblies is an annual payment of direct national taxes to the amount of 3 yen; and in the case of town and district assemblies, 2 yen; while to be eligible for election to a prefectural assembly a yearly payment of io yen of direct national taxes is necessary; to a sub-prefectural assembly, 5 yen, and to a town or district assembly, 2 yen. Under these qualifications the electors aggregate 2,009,745, and those eligible for election total 919,507. In towns and districts franchise-holders are further divided into classes with regard to their payment of local taxes. Thus for town electors there are three classes, differentiated by the following process: On the list of ratepayers the highest are checked off until their aggregate payments are equal to onethird of the total taxes. These persons form the first class. Next below them the persons whose aggregate payments represent one-third of the total amount are checked off to form the second class, and all the remainder form the third class. Each class elects one-third of the members of assembly. In the districts there are only two classes, namely, those whose payments, in order from the highest, aggregate onehalf of the total, the remaining names on the list being placed in the second class. Each class elects one-half of the members. This is called the system of o-jinushi (large landowners) and is found to work satisfactorily as a device for conferring representative rights in proportion to property. The franchise is withheld from all salaried local officials, from judicial officials, from ministers of religion, from persons who, not being barristers by profession, assist the people in affairs connected with law courts or official bureaux, and from every individual or member of a This is not the population of the city proper, but that of the urban prefecture.

company that contracts for the execution of public works or the supply of articles to a local administration, as well as from persons unable to write their own names and the name of the candidate for whom they vote. Members of assembly are not paid. For prefectural and sisb-prefectural assemblies the term is four years; for town and district assemblies, six years, with the provision that one-half of the members must be elected every third year. The prefectural assemblies hold one session of 30 days yearly; the sub-prefectural assemblies, one session of not more than 14 days. The town and district assemblies have no fixed session; they are summoned by the mayor or the head-man when their deliberations appear necessary, and they continue in session till their business is concluded.

The chief function of the assemblies is to deal with all questions of local finance. They discuss and vote the yearly budgets; they pass the settled accounts; they fix the local taxes within a maximum limit which bears a certain ratio to the national taxes; they make representations to the minister for home affairs; they deal with the fixed property of the locality; they raise loans, and so on. It is necessary, however, that they should obtain the consent of the minister for home affairs, and sometimes of the minister of finance also, before disturbing any objects of scientific, artistic or historical importance; before contracting loans; before imposing special taxes or passing the normal limits of taxation; before enacting new local regulations or changing the old; before dealing with grants in aid made by the central treasury, &c. The governor of a prefecture, who is appointed by the central administration, is invested with considerable power. He oversees the carrying out of all works undertaken at the public expense; he causes bills to be drafted for discussion by an assembly; he is responsible for the administration of the funds and property of the prefecture; he orders payments and receipts; he directs the machinery for collecting taxes and fees; he summons a prefectural assembly, opens it and closes it, and has competence to suspend its session should such a course seem necessary. Many of the functions performed by the governor with regard to prefectural assemblies are discharged by a head-man (gun-ch) in the case of sub-prefectural assemblies. This head-man is a salaried official appointed by the central administration. He convenes, opens and closes the sub-prefectural assembly; he may require it to reconsider any of its financial decisions that seem improper, explaining his reasons for doing so, and should the assembly adhere to its original view, he may refer the matter to the governor of the prefecture. On the other hand, the assembly is competent to appeal to the home minister from the governors decision. The sub-prefectural head-man may also take upon himself, in case of emergency, any of the functions falling within the competence of the sub-prefectural assembly, provided that he reports the fact to the assembly and seeks its sanction at the earliest possible opportunity. In each district also there is a head-man, but his post is always elective and generally non-salaried. He occupies towards a district assembly the same position that the ubprefecture head-man holds towards a sub-prefectural assembly. Over the governors stands the minister for home affairs, who discharges general duties of superintendence and sanction, has competence to delete any item of a local budget, and may, with th~ emperors consent, order the dissolution of a local assembly, provided that steps are taken to elect and convene another within three months.

The machinery of local administration is completed by councils, of which the governor of a prefecture, the mayori of a town, or the head-man of a sub-prefecture or district, is ex officio president, and the councillors are partly elective, partly nominated by the central government. The councils may be said to stand in an executive position towards the local legislatures, namely, the assemblies, for the former give effect to the measures voted by the latter, take their place in case of emergency and consider questions submitted by them. This system of local government has now been in operation since 1885, and has been found to work well. It constitutes a thorough method of political education for the people. In feudal days popular representation had no existence, but a very effective chain of local responsibility was manufactured by dividing the peopleapart from the samuraiintQ groups of five families, which were held jointly liable for any offence committed by one of their members. Thus it cannot be said that the people were altogether unprepared for this new system.

The Army.The Japaneseas distinguished from the aboriginal inhabitants of Japanhaving fought their way into the country, are naturally described in their annals as The Ancient a nation of soldiers. The sovereign is said to have System.

been the commander-in-chief and his captains were known as o-omi and o-muraji, while the duty of serving in the ranks devolved on all subjects alike. This information is indeed derived from tradition only, since the first written record goes back no further than 712. We are justified, however, in believing that at the close of the 7th century of the Christian era, when the empress Jito sat upon the throne, the social system of the Tang dynasty of China commended itself for adoption; the distinction of civil and military is said to have been then established for the first time, though it probably concerned officials only. Certain officers received definitely military commissions, as generals, brigadiers, captains and so on; a military office (hybu-sh) was organized, and each important district throughout the empire had its military division (gundan). One-thirdsome say onefourthof the nations able-bodied males constituted the army. Tactically there was a complete organization, from the squad of 5 men to the division of 600 horse and 400 foot. Service was for a defined period, during which taxes were remitted, so that military duties always found men ready to discharge them. Thus the hereditary soldierafterwards known as the samurai or bus/tidid not yet exist, nor was there any such thing as an exclusive right to carry arms. Weapons of war, the property of the state, were served out when required for fighting or for training purposes.

At the close of the 8th century stubborn insurrections on the part of the aborigines gave new importance to the soldier. The conscription list had to be greatly increased, and it came to be a recognized principle that every stalwart man should bear arms, every weakling become a bread-winner. Thus, for the first time, the distinction between soldier and working man i received official recognition, and in consequence of the circumstances attending the distinction a measure of contempt attached to the latter. The next stage of development had its origin in the assumption of high offices of state by great families, who encroached upon the imperial prerogatives, and appropriated as hereditary perquisites posts which should have remained in the gift of the sovereign. The Fujiwara clan, taking all the civil offices, resided in the capital, whereas the military posts fell to the lot of the Taira and the Minamoto, who, settling in the provinces and being thus required to guard and police the outlying districts, found it expedient to surround themselves with men who made soldiering a profession. These latter, in their turn, transmitted their functions to their sons, so that there grew up in the shadow of the great houses a number of military families devoted to maintaining the power and promoting the interests of their masters, from whom they derived their own privileges and emoluments.

From the middle of the 10th century, therefore, the terms samurai and bushi acquired a special significance, being applied to themselves and their followers by the local magnates, whose power tended more and more to eclipse even that of the throne, and finally, in the 12th century, when the Minamoto brought the whole country under the sway of military organization, the privilege of bearing arms was restricted to the samurai. Thenceforth the military class entered upon a period of administrative and social superiority which lasted, without serious interruption, until the middle of the ~9th century. But it is to be observed that the distinction between soldier and civilian, samurai and commoner, was not of ancient existence, nor did it arise from any question of race or caste, victor or vanquished, as is often supposed and stated. It was an outcome wholly of ambitious usurpations, which, relying for success on force of arms, gave practical importance to the soldier, and invested his profession with factitious honor.

The bow was always the chief weapon of the fighting-man in Japan. War and bow-and-arrow were synonymous terms.

Tradition tells how Tametomo shot an arrow through eapons. the crest of his brothers helmet, in order to recall the youths allegiance without injuring him; how Nasuno Michitaka discharged a shaft that severed the stem of a fan swayed by the only, sind; how Mutsuru, ordered by an emperor to rescue a fish from the :alons of an osprey without killing bird or fish, cut off the ospreys eet with a crescent-headed arrow so that the fish dropped into the alace iake and the bird continued its flight; and there are many;imilar records of Japanese skill with the weapon. Still better tuthenticated were the feats performed at the thirty-three-span ialls in KiOto and Yedo, where the archer had to shoot an arrow hrough the whole length of a corridor 128 yards long and only i6 ft. ugh. Wada Daihachi, in the 17th century, succeeded in sending 3133 arrows from end to end of the corridor in 24 consecutive hours, eing an average of over 5 shafts per minute; and Masatoki, in 1852, nade 5383 successful shots in 20 hours, more than 4 a minute. The Lengths of the bow and arrow were determined with reference to the :apacity of the archer. In the case of the bow, the unit of measurenent was the distance between the tips of the thumb and the little finger with the hand fully stretched. Fifteen of these units gave the Length of the bowthe maximum being about 71/2 ft. The unit for the arrow was from 12 to 15 hand-breadths, or from 3 ft. to 33/4 ft. Driginally the bow was of unvarnished boxwood or zelkowa; but subsequently bamboo alone came to be employed. Binding with :ord or rattan served to strengthen the bow, and for precision of flight the arrow had three feathers, an eagles wing being most esteemed for that purpose, and after it, in order, that of the copper pheasant, the crane, the adjutant and the snipe.

Next in importance to the bow came the sword, which is often spoken of as the samurais chief weapon, though there can be no doubt that during long ages it ranked after the bow. It was a single-edged weapon remarkable for its three exactly similar curves edge, face-line and back; its almost imperceptibly convexed blade; its admirable tempering; its consummately skilled forging; its razor-like sharpness; its cunning distribution of weight, giving a maximum efficiency of stroke. T he 10th century saw this weapon carried to perfection, and it has been inferred that only from that epoch did the samurai begin to esteem his sword as the greatest treasure he possessed, and to rely on it as his best instrument of attack and defence. But it is evident that the evolution of such a blade must have been due to an urgent, lung-existing demand, and that the katana came as the sequel of innumerable efforts on the part of the sword-smith and generous encouragement on that of the soldier. Many pages of Japanese annals and household traditions are associated with its use. In every age numbers of men devoted their whole lives to acquiring novel skill in swordsmanship. Many of them invented systems of their own, differing from one another in some subtle details unknown to any save the master himself and his favorite pupils. Not merely the method of handling the weapon had to be studied. Associated with sword-play was an art variously known as shinobi, yawara, and jujutsu, names which imply the exertion of muscular force in such a manner as to produce a maximum of effect with a minimum of effort, by directing an adversarys strength so as to become auxiliary to ones own. It was an essential element of the experts art not only that he should be competent to defend himself with any object that happened to be within reach, but also that without an orthodox weapon he should be capable of inflicting fatal or disabling injury on an assailant. In the many records of great swordsmen instances are related of men seizing a piece of firewood, a brazier-iron, or a druggists pestle as a weapon of offence, while, on the other side, an umbrella, an iron fan or even a pot-lid served for protection. The samurai had to be prepared for every emergency. Were he caught weaponless by a number of assailants, his art of yawara was supposed to supply him with expedients for emerging unscathed. Nothing counted save the issue. The methods of gaining victory or the circumstances attending defeat were scarcely taken into consideration. The true samurai had to rise superior to all contingencies. Out of this perpetual effort on the part of hundreds of experts to discover and perfect novel developments of swordsmanship, there grew a habit which held its vogue down to modern times, namely, that when a man had mastered one style of sword-play in the school of a teacher, he set himself to study all others, and for that purpose undertook a tour throughout the provinces, challenging every expert, and, in the event of defeat, constituting himself the victors pupil. The sword exercised a potent influence on the life of the Japanese nation. The distinction of wearing it, the rights that it conferred, the deeds wrought with it, the fame attaching to special skill in its use, the superstitions connected with it, the incredible value set upon a fine blade, the honors bestowed on an expert sword-smith, the traditions that had grown up around celebrated weapons, the profound study needed to be a competent judge of a swords qualitiesall these things conspired to give the katana an importance beyond the limits of ordinary comprehension. A samurai carried at least two swords, a long and a short. Their scabbards of lacquered wood were thrust into his girdle, not slung from it, being fastened in their place by cords of plaited silk. Sometimes he increased the number of swords to three, four or even five, before going into battle, and this array was supplemented by a dagger carried in the bosom. The short sword was not employed in the actual combat. Its use was to cut off an enemys head after overthrowing him, and it also served a defeated soldier in his last resortsuicide. In general the long sword did not measure more than 3 ft., including the hilt; but some were 5 ft. long, and some 7. Considering that the scabbard, being fastened to the girdle, had no play, the feat of drawing one of these very long swords demanded extraordinary aptitude.

Spear and glaive were also ancient Japanese weapons. The oldest form of spear was derived from China. Its handle measured about 6 ft. and its blade 8 in., and it had sickle-shaped horns at the junction of blade and hilt (somewhat resembling a European rcinseur). This weapon served almost exclusively for guarding palisades and gates. In the 14th century a true lance came into use. Its length varied greatly, and it had a hog-backed blade tempered almost as finely as the sword itself. This, too, was a Chinese type, as was also the glaive. The glaive (naginata, long sword) was a scimitar-like blade, some 3 ft. in length, fixed on a slightly longer haft. Originally the warlike monks alone employed this weapon, but from the 12th century it found much favor among military men. Ultimately, however, its use may be said to have been limited to women and priests. The spear, however, formed a useful adjunct of the sword, for whereas the latter could not be used except by troops in very loose formation, the former served for close-order fighting.

Japanese armour (gusoku) may be broadly described as plate armour, but the essential difference between it and the European Armour. type was that,whereas the latter took its shape from the body, the former neither resembled nor was intended to resemble ordinary garments. Hence the only changes that occurred In Japanese armour from generation to generation had their origin in improved methods of construction. In general appearance it differed from the panoply of all other nations, so that, although to its essential parts we may apply with propriety the European terms helmet, corselet, &c.individually and in combination these parts were not at all like, the originals of those names. Perhaps the easiest way of describing the difference is to say that whereas a European knight seemed to be clad in a stlit of metal clothes, a Japanese samurai looked as if he wore protective curtains. The Japanese armour was, in fact, suspended from, rather than fitted to, the person. Only one of its elements found a counterpart in the European suit, namely, a tabard, which, in the case of men of rank, was made of the richest brocade. Iron and leather were the chief materials, and as the laminae were strung together with a vast number of colored cordssilk or leatheran appearance of considerable brilliancy was produced. Ornamentation did not stop there. ,Plating and inlaying with gold and silver, and finely wrought decoration in chiselled, inlaid and repouss work were freely applied. On the whole, however, despite the highly artistic character of its ornamentation, the loose, pendulous nature of Japanese armour detracted greatly from its workmanlike aspect, especially when the horo was addeda curious appendage in the shape of a curtain of fine transparent silk, which was either stretched in front between the horns of the helmet and the tip of the bow, or worn on the shoulders and back, the purpose in either case being to turn the point of an arrow. A true samurai observed strict rules of etiquette with regard even to the garments worn under his armour, and it was part of his soldierly capacity to be able to bear the great weight of the whole without loss of activity, a feat impossible to any untrained man of modern days. Common soldiers were generally content with a comparatively light helmet and a corselet.

,The Japanese never had a war-horse worthy to be so called. The mis-shapen ponies which carried them to battle showed qualities of War-horses. hardiness and endurance, but were so deficient in stature and massiveness that when mounted by a man in voluminous armour they looked painfully puny. Nothing is known of the early Japanese saddle, but at the beginning of historic times it approximated closely to the Chinese type. Subsequently a purely Japanese shape was designed. It consisted of a wooden frame so constructed that a padded numnah could be fastened to it. Galled backs or withers were unknown with such a saddle: it fitted any horse. The stirrtip, originally a simple affair resembling that of China and Europe, afterwards took the form of a shoe-sole with upturned toe: Both stirrups and saddle-frame were often of beautiful workmanship, the former covered with rich gold lacquer, the latter inlaid with gold or silver. In the latter part of the military epoch chain-armour was adopted for the horse, and its head was protected by a monster-faced mask of iron.

Flags were used in battle as well as on ceremonial occasions. Some were monochrome, as the red and white flags of the Taira Early and the Minamoto clans in their celebrated struggle Strategy during the 12th century; and some were streamers and TactIcS.emblazoned with figures of the sun, the moon, a dragon, a tiger and so forth, or with religious legends. Fans with iron ribs were carried by commanding officers, and signals to advance or retreat were given by beating drur~s and metal gongs and blowing conches. During the military epoch a campaign was opened or a contest preluded by a human sacrifice to the god of war, the victim at this rite of blood (chi-matsuri) being generally a prisoner or a condemned criminal. Although ambuscades and surprises played a large part in all strategy, pitched battles were the general rule, and it was essential that notice of an intention to attack should be given by discharging a singing arrow. Thereafter the assaulting army, taking the word from its commander, raised a shout of Ei! Ei!to which the other side replied, and the formalities having been thus satisfied, the fight commenced. In early medieval days tactics were of the crudest description. An army consisted of a congeries of little bands, each under the order of a chief who considered himself independent, and instead of subordinating his movements to a general plan, struck a blow wherever he pleased. From time immemorial a romantic value has attached in Japan to the first of anything:

the first snow of winter; the first water drawn from the well on New Years Day; the first blossom of the spring; the first note of the nightingale. So in war the first to ride up to the foe or the wielder of the first spear was held in high honor, and a samurai strove for that distinction as his principal duty. It necessarily resulted, too, not only from the nature of the weapons employed, but also from the immense labor devoted by the true samurai to perfecting himself in their use, that displays of individual prowess were deemed the chief object in a battle. Some tactical formations borrowed from China were familiar in Japan, but their intelligent use and their modification to suit the circumstances of the time were inaugurated only by the great captains of the 15th and 16th centuries. Prior to that epoch a battle resembled a gigantic fencing match. Men fought as individuals, not as units of a tactical formation, and the engagement consisted of a number of personal duels, all in simultaneous progress. It was the samurais habit to proclaim his name and titles in the presence of the enemy, sometimes adding from his own record or his fathers any details that might tend to dispirit his hearers. Then some one advancing to cross weapons with him would perform the same ceremony of self-introduction, and if either found anything to upbraid in the others antecedents or family history, he did not fail to make loud reference to it, such a device being counted efficacious as a means of disturbing an adversarys sang-froid, though the principle underlying the mutual introduction was courtesy. The duellists could reckon on finishing their fight undisturbed, but the victor frequently had to endure the combined assault of a number of the comrades or retainers of the vanquished. Of course a skilled swordsman did not necessarily seek a single combat; he was equally ready to ride into the thick of the fight without discrimination, and a group of common soldiers never hesitated to make a united attack upon a mounted officer if they found him disengaged. But the general feature of a battle was individual contests, and when the fighting had ceased, each samurai proceeded to the tent1 of the commanding officer and submitted for inspection the heads of those whom he had killed.

The disadvantage of such a mode of fighting was demonstrated for the first time when the Mongols invaded Japan in. 1274. The invaders moved in phalanx, guarding themselves with pavis~s, and covering their advance with a ~ host of archers shooting clouds of poisoned arrows.2

When a Japanese samurai advanced singly and challenged one of them to combat, they opened their ranks, enclosed the challenger and cut him to pieces. Many Japanese were thus slain, and it was not until they made a concerted movement of attack that they produced any effect upon the enemy. But although the advantage of massing strength seems to have been recognized, the Japanese themselves did not adopt the formation which the Mongols had shown to be so formidable. Individual prowess continued to be the prominent factor in battles down to a comparatively recent period. The great captains Takeda Shingen and Uyesugi Kenshin are supposed to have been Japans pioneer tacticians. They certainly appreciated the value of a formation in which the action of the individual should be subordinated to the unity of the whole. But when it is remembered that firearms had already been in the hands of the Japanese for several years, and that they had means of acquainting themselves with A tent was simply a space enclosed with strips of cloth or silk, on which was emblazoned the crest of the commander. It had no covering.

2 The Japanese never at any time oe their history used poisoned arrows; they despised them as depraved and inhuman weapons.

the tactics of Europe through their intercourse with the Dutch, it is remarkable that the changes attributed to Takeda and Uyesugi were not more drastic. Speaking broadly, what they did was to organize a column with the musqueteers and archers in front; the spearmen and swordsmen in the second line; the cavalry in the third line; the commanding officer in the rear, and the drums and standards in the centre. At close quarters the spear proved a highly effective weapon, and in the days of Hideyoshi (1536-1598) combined flank and front attacks by bands of spearmen became a favorite device. The importance of a strong reserve also received recognition, and in theory, at all events, a tolerably intelligent system of tactics was adopted. But not until the close of the 17th century did the doctrine of strictly disciplined action obtain practical vogue. Yamaga Soko is said to have been the successful inculcator of this principle, and from his time the most approved tactical formation was known as the Yamagaryu (Yamaga style), though it showed no other innovation than strict subordination of each unit to the general plan.

Although, tactically speaking, the samurai was everything and the system nothing before the second half of the 17th century, M!Ifta and although strategy was chiefly a matter of decep~ tion, surprises and ambushes, it must not be supposed that there were no classical principles. The student of European military history searches in vain for the rules and maxims of war so often invoked by glib critics, but the student of Japanese history is more successful. Here, as in virtually every field of things Japanese, retrospect discovers the ubiquitous Chinaman. The treatises of Sung and Ng (called in Japan Son and Go) Chinese generals of the third century after Christ, were the classics of Far-Eastern captains through all generations. (See Th~ Book of War, tr. E. F. Calthrop, 1908.) Yoshitsun, in the 12th century, deceived a loving girl to obtain a copy of Sungs work which her father had in his possession, and Yamaga, in the 17th century, when he set himself to compose a book on tactics, derived his materials almost entirely from the two Chinese monographs. These treatises came into the hands of the Japanese in the 8th century, when the celebrated Kibi no Mabi went to study civilization in China, just as his successors of the I 9th century went to study a new civilization in Europe and America. Thenceforth Son and Go became household words among Japanese soldiers. Their volumes were to the samurai what the Mahayana was to the Buddhist. They were believed to have collected whatever of good had preceded them, and to have forecast whatever of good the future might produce. The character of their strategic methods, somewhat analogous to those of 18th-century Europe, may be gathered from the following: An army undertaking an offensive campaign must be twice as numerous as the enemy. A force investing a fortress should be numerically ten times the garrison. When the adversary holds high ground, turn his flank; do not deliver a frontal attack. When he has a mountain or a river behind him, cut his lines of communication. If he deliberately assumes a position from which victory is his only escape, hold him there, but do not molest him. If you can surround him, leave one route open for his escape, since desperate men fight fiercely. When you have to cross a river, put your advanceguard and your rear-guard at a distance from the banks. When the enemy has to cross a river, let him get well engaged in the operation before you strike at him. In a march, make celerity your first object. Pass no copse, enter no ravine, nor approach any thicket until your scouts have explored it fully.

Such precepts are multiplied; but when these ancient authors discuss tactical formations, they do not seem to have contemplated anything like rapid, well-ordered changes of mobile highly trained masses of men from one formation to another, or their quick transfer from point to point of a battlefield. Th basis of their tactics is The Book of Changes. Here again is encountered the superstition that underlies nearly all Cbinesc and Japanese institutions: the superstition that took captivc even the great mind of Confucius. The positive and the negative principles; the sympathetic and the antipathetic elements:

cosmos growing out of chaos; chaos re-absorbing cosmosor such fancies they founded their tactical system. The result wa~

a phalanx of complicated organization, difficult to maneuvre and liable to be easily thrown into confusion. Yet when Yamaga in the 17th century interpreted these ancient Chinese treatises, he detected in them suggestions for a very shrewd use of the principle of echelon, and applied it to devise formations which combined much of the frontal expansion of the line with the solidity of the column. More than that cannot be said for Japanese tactical genius. The samurai was the best fighting unit in the Orientprobably one of the best fighting units the world ever produced. It was perhaps because of that excellence that his captains remained indifferent tacticians.

In estimating the military capacity of the Japanese, it is essential to know something of the ethical code of the samurai, the bushido (way of the warrior) as it was called. A Ethles typical example of the rules of conduct prescribed of the by feudal chieftains is furnished in the code of Kato ~~ Kiyomasa, a celebrated general of the 16th century: Regulations for Samurai of every Rank; the Highest and Lowest alike.

1. The routine of service must be strictly observed. From 6 a.m. military exercises shall be pi-actised. Archery, gunnery and horsemanship must not be neglected. If any man shows exceptional proficiency he shall receive extra pay.

2. Those that desire recreation may engage in hawking, deerhunting or wrestling.

3. With regard to dress, garments of cotton or pongee shall be worn. Any man incurring debts owing to extravagance of costume or living shall be considered a law-breaker. If, however, being zealous in the practice of military arts suitable to his rank, he desires to hire instructors, an allowance may be granted to him for that purpose.

4. The staple of diet shall be unhulled rice. At social entertainments one guest for one host is the proper limit. Only when men are assembled for military exercises shall many dine together.

5. It is the duty of every samurai to make himself acquainted with the principles of his craft. Extravagant displays of adornment are forbidden in battle.

6. Dancing or organizing dances is unlawful; it is likely to betray sword-carrying men into acts of violence. Whatever a man does should be done with his heart. Therefore for the soldier military amusements alone are suitable. The penalty for violating this provision is death by suicide.

7. Learning shall be encouraged. Military books must be read. The spirit of loyalty and filial piety must be educated before all things. Poem-composing pastimes are not to be engaged in by samurai. To be addicted to such amusements is to resemble a woman. A man born a samurai should live and die sword in hand. Unless he is thus trained in time of peace, he will be useless in the hour of stress. To be brave and warlike must be his invariable condition.

8. Whosoever finds these rules too severe shall be relieved from service. Should investigation show that any one is so unfortunate as to lack manly qualities, he shall be singled out and dismissed forthwith. The imperative character of these instructions must not be doubted.

The plainly paramount purpose of these rules was to draw a sharp line of demarcation between the samurai and the courtiers living in KiOto. The dancing, the couplet-composing, the sumptuous living and the fine costumes of the officials frequenting the imperial capital were strictly interdicted by the feudatories. Frugality, fealty and filial pietythese may be called the fundamental virtues of the samurai. Owing to the circumstances out of which his caste had grown, he regarded all bread-winning pursuits with contempt, and despised money. To be swayed in the smallest degree by mercenary motives was despicable in his eyes. Essentially a stoic, he made self-control the ideal of his existence, and practised the courageous endurance of suffering so thoroughly that he could without hesitation inflict on his own body pain of the most horrible description. Nor can the courage of the samurai justly be ascribed to bluntness of moral sensibility resulting from semi-savage conditions of life. From the 8th century onwards the current of existence in Japan set with general steadiness in the direction of artistic refinement and voluptuous luxury, amidst which men could scarcely fail to acquire habits and tastes inconsistent with acts of high courage and great endurance. The samurais mood was not a product of semi-barbarism, but rather a protest against emasculating civilization. He schooled himself to regard death by his own hand as a normal eventuality. The story of other nations shows epochs when death was welcomed as a relief and deliberately invited as a refuge from the mere weariness of living. But wherever there has been liberty to choose, and leisure to employ, a painless mode of exit from the world, men have invariably selected it. The samurai, however, adopted in Izarakiri (disembowelment) a mode of suicide so painful and so shocking that to school the mind to regard it with indifference and perform it without flinching was a feat not easy to conceive. Assistance was often rendered by a friend who stood ready to decapitate the victim immediately after the stomach had been gashed; but there were innumerable examples of men who consummated the tragedy without aid, especially when the sacrifice of life was by way of protest against the excesses of a feudal chief or the crimes of a ruler, or when some motive for secrecy existed. It must be observed that the ~uicide of the samurai was never inspired by any doctrine like that of Hegesias. Death did not present itself to him as a legitimate means of escaping from the cares and disappointments of life. Selfdestruction had only one consolatory aspect, that it was the soldiers privilege to expiate a crime with his own sword, not under the hand of the executioner. It rested with his feudal chief to determine his guilt, and his peremptory duty was never to question the justice of an order to commit suicide, but to obey without murmur or protest. For the rest, the general motives for suicide were to escape falling into the hands of a victorious enemy, to remonstrate against some official abuse which no ordinary complaint could reach, or, by means of a dying protest, to turn a liege lord from pursuing courses injurious to his reputation and his fortune. This last was the noblest and by no means the most infrequent reason for suicide. Scores of examples are recorded of men who, with everything to make existence desirable, deliberately laid down their lives at the prompting of loyalty. Thus the samurai rose to a remarkable height of moral nobility. He had no assurance that his death might not be wholly fruitless, as indeed it often proved. If the sacrifice achieved its purpose, if it turned a liege lord from evil courses, the samurai could hope that his memory would be honored. But if the lord resented such a violent and conspicuous mode of reproving his excesses, then the faithful vassals retribution would be an execrated memory and, perhaps, suffering for his family and relatives. Yet the deed was performed again and again. It remains to be noted that the samurai entertained a high respect for the obligations of truth; A bushi has no second word, was one of his favorite mottoes. However, a reservation is necessary here. The samurais doctrine was not truth for truths sake, but truth for the sake of the spirit of uncompromising manliness on which he based all his code of morality. A pledge or a promise must never be broken, but the duty of veracity did not override the interests or the welfare of others. Generosity to a defeated foe was also one of the tenets of the samurais ethics. History contains many instances of the exercise of that quality.

Something more, however, than a profound conception of duty was needed to nerve the samurai for sacrifices such as he seems to have been always ready to make. It is true that Japanese parents of the military class took pains to familiarize their children of both sexes from very tender years with the idea of self-destruction at any time. But superadded to the force of education and the incentive of tradition there was a transcendental influence. Buddhism supplied it. The tenets of that creed divided themselves, broadly speaking, into two doctrines, salvation by faith and salvation by works, and the chief exponent of the latter principle is the sect which prescribes meditation as the vehicle of enlightenment. Whatever be the mental processes induced by this rite, those who have practised it insist that it leads finally to a state of absorption, in which the mind is flooded by an illumination revealing the universe in a new aspect, absolutely free from all traces of passion, interest or affection, and showing, written across everything in flaming letters, the truth that for him who has found Buddha there is neither birth nor death, growth nor decay. Lifted high above his surroundings, he is prepared to meet every fate with indifference. The attainment of that state seems to have been a fact in the case both of the samurai of the military epoch and of the Japanese soldier to-day.

The policy of seclusion adopted by the Tokugawa administration after the Shimabara insurrection included an order that no samurai should acquire foreign learning. Abolition of Nevertheless some knowledge could not fail to the Samurai. filter in through the Dutch factory at Deshima, and thus, a few years before the advent of the American ships, Takashima Shuhan, governor of Nagasaki, becoming persuaded of the fate his country must invite if she remained oblivious of the worlds progress, memorialized the Yedo governnient in the sense that, unless Japan improved her weapons of war and reformed her military system, she could not escape humiliation such as had just overtaken China. He obtained small arms and field-guns of modern type from Holland, and, repairing to Yedo with a company of men trained according to the new tactics, he offered an object lesson for the consideration of the conservative officials. They answered by throwing him into prison. But Egawa, one of his retainers, proved a still more zealous reformer, and his foresight being vindicated by the appearance of the American war-vessels in 1853, he won the governments confidence and was entrusted with the work of planning and building forts at Shinagawa and Shimoda. At Egawas instance rifles and cannon were imported largely from Europe, and their manufacture was commenced in Japan, a powder-mill also being established with machinery obtained from Holland. Finally, in 1862, the shoguns government adopted the military system of the West, and organized three divisions of all arms, with a total strength of 13,600 officers and men. Disbanded at the fall of the shogunate in 1867, this force nevertheless served as a model for a similar organization under the imperial government, and in the meanwhile the principal fiefs had not been idle, someas I Satsumaadopting English tactics, others following France or Germany, and a few choosing Dutch. There appeared upon the stage at this juncture a great figure in the person of Omura Masujiro, a samurai of the ChoshU clan. He established Japans first military school at KiOto in 1868; he attempted to substitute for the hereditary soldier conscripts taken from all classes of the people, and he conceived the plan of dividing the whole empire into six military districts. An assassins dagger removed him on the threshold of these great reforms, but his statue now stands in Tokyo and his name is spoken with reverence by all his countrymen. In 1870 Yamagata Aritomo (afterwards Field-Marshal Prince Yamagata) and Saigo Tsugumichi (afterwards Field-Marshal Marquis Saigo) returned from a tour of military inspection in Europe, and in 1872 they organized a corps of Imperial guards, taken from the three clans which had been. conspicuous in the work of restoring the administrative power to the sovereign, namely, the clans of Satsuma, Choshfl and Tosa. They also established garrisons in TOkyo, Sendai, Osaka and Kumamoto, thus placing the military authority in the hands of the central government. Reforms followed quickly. In 1872, the hybusho, an office which controlled all matters relating to war, was replaced by two departments, one of war and one of the navy, and, in 1873, an imperial decree substituted universal conscription for the system of hereditary militarism. Many persons viewed this experiment with deep misgiving. They feared that it would not only alienate the samurai, but also entrust the duty of defending the country to men unfitted by tradition and custom for such a task, namely, the farmers, artisans and tradespeople, who, after centuries of exclusion from the military pale, might be expected to have lost all martial spirit. The government, however, was not deterred by these apprehensions. It argued that since the distinction of samurai and commoner had not originally existed, and since the former was a product simply of accidental conditions, there was no valid reason to doubt the military capacity of the people at large. The justice of this reasoning was put to a conclusive test a few years later. Originally the period of service with the colors was fixed at 3 years, that of service with the first and second reserves being 2 years each. One of the serious difficulties encountered at the outset was that samurai conscripts were too proud to stand in the ranks with common rustics or artisans, and above all to obey the commands of plebeian officers. But patriotism soon overcame this obstacle. The whole country-with the exception of the northern island, Yezowas parcelled out into six military districts (headquarters TOkyO, Osaka, Nagoya, Sendai, Hiroshima and Kumamoto) each furnishing a divisibn of all arms and services. There was also from 1876 a guards division in Tokyo. The total strength on a peace footing was 31,680 of all arms, and on a war footing, 46,350. The defence of Yezo was entrusted to a colonial militia. It may well be supposed that to find competent officers for this army greatly perplexed its organizers. The military schoolnow in Tokyo but originally founded by O~mura in Kiotohad to turn out graduates at high pressure, and private soldiers who showed any special aptitude were rapidly promoted to positions of command. French military instructors were engaged, and the work of translating manuals was carried out with all celerity. In 1877, this new army of conscripts had to endure a crucial test: it had to take the field against the Satsuma samurai, the very flower of their class, who in that year openly rebelled against the Tokyo government. The campaign lasted eight months; as there had not yet been time to form the reserves, the Imperial forces were soon seriously reduced in number by casualties in the field and by disease, the latter claiming many victims owing to defective cornmissariat. It thus became necessary to have recourse to volunteers, but as these were for the most part samurai, the expectation was that their hereditary instinct of fighting would compensate for lack of training. That expectation was not fulfilled. Serving side by side in the field, the samurai volunteer and the heimin- regular were found to differ by precisely the degree of their respective training. The fact was thus finally established that the fighting qualities of the farmer and artisan reached as high a standard as those of the bushi.

Thenceforth the story of the Japanese army is one of steady progress and development. In 1878, the military duties of the empire were divided among three offices: namely, the army department, the general staff and the inspection department, while the six divisions of troops were organized into three army corps.

In 1879, the total period of color and reserve service became 10 years. In 1883 the period was extended to 12 years, the list of exemptions was abbreviated, and above all substitution was no longer allowed. Great care was devoted to the training of officers; promotion went by merit, and at least ten of the most promising officers were sent abroad every year to study. A comprehensive system of education for the rank and file was organized. Great difficulty was experienced in procuring horses suitable for cavalry, and indeed the Japanese army long remained weak in this arm. In 1886, the whole littoral of the empire was divided into five districts, each with its admiralty and its naval port, and the army being made responsible for coast defence, a battery construction corps was formed. Moreover, an exhaustive scheme was elaborated to secure full co-operation between the army and navy. In 1888 the seven divisions of the army first found themselves prepared to take the field, and, in 1893, a revised system of mobilization was sanctioned, to be put into operation the following year, for the ChinoJapanese ~Var. At this period the division, mobilized for service in the field, consisted of 12 battalions of infantry, 3 troops of cavalry, 4 batteries of field and 2 of mountain artillery, 2 companies of sappers and train, totalling 18,492 of all arms with 5633 horses. The guards had only 8 battalions and 4 batteries (field). The field army aggregated over 120,000, with, 168 field and 72 mountain guns, and the total of all forces, field, garrison and dpOt, was 220,580 of all arms, with 47,220 horses and 294 guns. Owing, however, to various modifications necessitated by circumstances, the numbers actually on duty were over 240,000, with 6495 non-combatant employees and about 100,000 coolies who acted as carriers. The infantry were armed with the Murata single-loader rifle, but the field artillery was inferior, and the only two divisions eq,uipped with magazine rifles and smokeless powder never came into action. The experiences gained in this war bore large fruit. The total term of service with the colors and the reserves was slightly increased; the colonial militia of Yezo (HokkaidO) was organized as a seventh line division; 5 new divisions were added, bringing the whole number of divisions to 13 (including the guards); a mixed brigade was stationed in Formosa (then newly added to Japans donunions); a high military council composed of field-marshals was created; the cavalry was brigaded; the garrison artillery was increased; strenuous efforts were made to improve the education of officers and men; and lastly, sanitary arrangements underwent much modificatioL An arsenal had been established in Tokyo, in 1868, for the manufacture of small arms and small-arm ammunition; this was followed by an arsenal in Osaka for the manufacture of guns and gun-ammunition; four powder factories were opened, and in later years big-gun factories at Kure and Mororan. Japan was able to make 12-inch guns in 1902, and her capacity for this kind of work was in 1909 second to none. She has her own patterns of rifle and field gun, so that she is independent of foreign aid so far as armaments are concerned. In 1900, she sent a force to North China to assist in. the campaign for the relief of the foreign legations in Peking, and on that occasion her troops were able to observe at first hand the qualities and methods of European soldiers. In 1904 took place the great war with Russia (see RUSSO-JAPANESE WAif). After the war important changes were made in the direction of augmenting and improving the armed forces. The number of divisions was increased to 19 (including the guards), of which one division is for service in Korea and one for service in Manchuria. Various technical corps were organized, as well as horse artillery, heavy field artillery and machine-gun units. The field-gun was replaced by a quickfirer manufactured at Osaka, and much attention was given to the question of remountsfor, both in the war with China and in that with Russia, the horsing of the cavalry had been poor. Perhaps the most far-reaching change in all armies of late years is the shortening of the term of service with the colors to 2 years for the infantry, 3 years remaining the rule for other arms. This was adopted by Japan after the war, the infantry period of service with the reserves being extended to I 41/2 years, and of course has the effect of greatly augmenting the potential war strength. As to this, figures are kept secret, nor can any accurate approximation be attempted without danger of error. Rough estimates of Japans war strength have, however, been made, giving 550,000 as the war strength of the first line army, plus 34,000 for garrisons overseas and 150,000 special reserves (hoji); 370,000 second line or kObi, and 110,000 for the fully trained portion of the territorial forces, or Kokumin-hei. All these branches can further draw upon half-trained elements to the number of about 8oo,ooo to replace losses. Japans available strength in the last resort for home defence was recently (1909) stated by the Russian Novoye Vremya at 3,000,000. In 20 years, when the present system has produced its full effect, the first line should be 740,000 strong, the second line 780,000, and the third line about 3,850,000 (3,000,000 untrained and 850,000 partly trained). Details can be found in Journal of the R. United Service Institution, Dec. 1909Jan. 1910.

At 20 years of age every Japanese subject, of whatever status, becomes liable for military service. But the difficulty of making service universal in the case of a growing population is felt here as in Europe, and practically the system has elements of the old-fashioned conscription. The minimum height is 5.2 ft. (artillery and engineers, 5~4 ft.). There are four principal kinds of service, namely, service with the colors (genyeki), for two years; service with the first reserves (yobi), for 73/4 years; service with the second reserves (kObi), for 7 years; and service with the territorial troops (ko kumin-hei) up to the age of 40. Special reserve (hoju) takes up men who, though liable for conscription and medically qualified, have escaped the lot for service with the colors. It consists of two classes, one of men remaining in the category of hoju for 73/4 years, the other for 13/4 year, before passing into the territorial army. Their purpose is similar to that of special or ersatz reserves elsewhere. The first class receives the usual short initial training. Men of the second class, in ordinary circumstances, pass, after their 13/4 years inability, to the territorial army untrained. As for the first and second general reserves (yobi and kobi),each is called out twice during its full term for short refresher courses. After reaching the territorial army a man is relieved from all further training. The total number of youths eligible for conscription each year is about 435,000, but the annual contingent for full service is not much more than 100,000. Conscripts in the active army may be discharged before the expiration of two years if their conduct and aptitude are exceptional.

A youth is exempted if it be clearly established 2 that his family is dependent upon his earnings. Except for permanent deformities men are put back for one year before being finally rejected en medical grounds. Men wh,o have been convicted of crime are disqualified, but those who have been temporarily deprived of civil rights must present themselves for conscription at the termination of their sentence. Educated men may enrol themselves as one-year volunteers instead of drawing lots, this privilege of entry enduring upto the age of 28, after which, service for the full term without drawing lots is imposed. Residence in a foreign country secures exemption up to the age of 32provided that official permission to go abroad has been obtained. A man returning after the age of 32 is drafted into the territorial army, but if he returns before that age he must volunteer to receive training, otherwise he is taken without lot for service with the colors. The system of volunteering is largely resorted to by persons of the better classes. Any youth who possesses certain educational qualifications is entitled to volunteer for training. If accepted after medical inspection, he serves with the colors for one year, during three months of which time he must live in barracksunless a special permit be granted by his commanding officer. A volunteer has to contribute to his maintenance and equipment, although youths who cannot afford the full expense, if otherwise qualified, are assisted by the state. At the conclusion of a years training the volunteer is drafted into the first reserve for 61/2 years, and then into the second reserve for 5 years, so that his total period (121/2 years) of service before passing into the territorial army is the same as that of an ordinary conscript. The main purpose of the one-year voluntariat, as in Germany, is to provide officers for the reserves to territorial troops. Qualified teachers in the public service are only liable to a very short initial training, after which they pass at once into the territorial army. But if a teacher abandons that calling before the age of 28, he becomes liable, without lot, to two years with the colors, unless he adopts the alternative of volunteering.

Officers are obtained in two ways. There are six local preparatory cadet schools (yonen-gakko) in various parts of the empire, for ffie~ boys of from 13 to 15. After 3 years at one of rs~ these schools2 a graduate spends 21 months at the central preparatory school (chuo-yonen-gakko), Tokyo, and if he graduates with sufficient credit at the latter institution, he becomes eligible for admission to the officers college (shikan-gakko) without further test of proficiency. The second method of obtaining officers is by competitive examination for direct admission to the officers college. In either case the cadet is sent to serve with the colors for 6 to 12 months as a private and non-commissioned officer, before commencing his course at the officers college. The period of study at the officers college is one year, and after graduating successfully the cadet serves with troops for 6 months on probation. If at the end of that time he is favorably reported on, he is commissioned as a sub-lieutenant. Young officers of engineers and artillery receive a years further training at a special college. Officers ranks are the same as in the British army, but the nomenclature is more simple. The terms, with their English equivalents, are shOi (second lieutenant), chi (first lieutenant), tai (captain), shOsa (major), chdsa (lieut.-colonel), ~aisa (colonel), shoshO (major-general), chjo (lieut.-general), taisho (general), gensui (field-marshal). All these except the last apply to the same relative ranks in the navy. Promotion of officers in the junior grades is by seniority or merit, but after the rank of captain all promotion is by merit, and thus many officers never rise higher than captain, in which case retirement is compulsory at the age of 48. Except in the highest ranks, a certain minimum period has to be spent in each rank before promotion to the next.

There are three grades of privates: upper soldiers (jtc5-hei), firstclass soldiers (itt-sotsu), and second-class soldiers (nit-sotsu). A

private on joining is a second-class soldier. For So diers. proficiency and good conduct he is raised to the rank of first-class soldier, and ultimately to that of upper soldier. Noncommissioned officers are obtained from the ranks, or from those who wish to make soldiering a profession, as in European armies. The grades are corporal (gocho), sergeant (gunso), sergeant-major (schO) and special sergeant-major (tokumu-sOcho).

The pay of the conscript is, as it is everywhere, a trifle (1 s. iod. 3s. o1/2d. per month). The professional non-commissioned officers are better paid, the lowest grade receiving three times as much as an upper soldier. Officers Day is roughly at about three-quarters of the rates prevailing in Germany, sub-lieutenants receiving about 34, captains 7 I, colonels 238 per annum, &c. Pensions for officers and non-commissioned officers, according to scale, can be claimed after II years color service.

The emperor is the commander-in-chief of the army, and theoretically the sole source of military authority, which he exercises through a general staff and a war department, with the assistance of a board of field-marshals (gensuifu). The general staff has for chief a fieldmarshal, and for vice-chief a general or lieutenant-general. It includes besides the usual general staff departments, various survey and topographical officers, and the military college is under its direction. The war department is presided over by a general officer on the active list, who is a member of the cabinet without being necessarily affected by ministerial changes. There arc, further, artillery and engineer committees, and a remount bureau. The headquarters of coast defences under general officers are Tokyo, Yokohama, Shimonoseki and Yura. The whole empire is divided into three military districtseastern, central and westerneach under the command of a general or lieutenant-general. The divisional headquarters are as follows:Guard Tokyo, I. Tokyo, II. Sendai, III. Nagoya, IV. Wakayama, V. Hiroshima, VI. Kumamoto, VII. Asahikawa, VIII. Hirosaki, IX. Kasanava, X. Himeji, XI. Senzui, XII. Kokura, XIII. Takata, XIV. Utsonomia, XV. Fushimi, XVI. KiOto, XVII. Okayama, XVIII - Kurume. Some of these divisionsare permanently Conscription without lot is thus the punishment for all failures to comply with and attempts to evade the military laws.

2 Sons of officers widows, or of officers in reduced circumstances, are educated at these schools either free or at reduced charges, but are required to complete the course and to graduate.

an foreign service, but their recruiting areas in Japan are maintained. There are also four cavalry brigades, and a number of unassigned regiments of field and mountain artillery, as well as garrison artillery and army technical troops. The organization of the active army by regiments is 176 infantry regiments of 3 battalions; 27 cavalry regiments; 30 field artillery regiments each of 6 and 3 mountain artillery regiments each of 3 batteries; 6 regiments and 6 battalions of siege, heavy field and fortress artillery; 20 battalions engineers; 19 supply and transport battalions.

The medical service is exceptionally well organized. It received unstinted praise from European and American experts who observed it closely during the wars of 1900 and 19045. The M dk.RI establishment of surgeons to each division is approxi- 5e mately 100, and arrangements complete in every detail ~

are made for all lines of medical assistance. Much help is rendered by the red cross society of Japan, which has an income of 2,000,000 yen annually, a fine hospital in TokyO, a large nursing staff and two specially built and equipped hospital ships. During the early part of the campaign in Pechili, in 1900, the French column entrusted its wounded to the care of the Japanese.

The staple article of commissariat for a Japanese army in the field is hoshii (dried rice), of which three days supply can easily be carried in a bag by the soldier. When required for use the rice, Su being placed in water, swells to its original bulk, and is Ao eaten with a relish of salted fish, dried sea-weed or pickled plums. The task of provisioning an army on these lines is comparatively simple. The Japanese soldier, though low in stature, is well set up, muscular and hardy. He has great powers of endurance, and manmuvres with remarkable celerity, doing everything at the run, if necessary, and continuing to run without distress for a length of time astonishing to European observers. He is greatly subject, however, to attacks of kakke (ben-ben), and if he has recourse to meat diet, which appears to be the best preventive, he will probably lose something of his capacity for prolonged rapid movement. He attacks with apparent indifference to danger, preserves his cheerfulness amid hardships, is splendidly patriotic and has always shown himself thoroughly amenable to discipline.

Of the many educational and training establishments, the most important is the rikugun daigakko, or army college, where officers, (generally subalterns), are prepared for service in the Mills upper ranks and for staff appointments, the course of 7 study extending over three years. The Toyama school 00$. stands next in importance. The ccurses pursued there are attended chiefly by subaltern officers of dismounted branches, non-commissioned officers also being allowed to take the musketry course. The term of training is five months. Young officers of the scientific branches are instructed at the hokogakko (school of artillery and engineers). There are, further, two special schools of gunneryone for field, the other for garrison artillery, attended chiefly by captains and senior subalterns of the two branches. There is an inspection department of military education, the inspector-general being a lieutenant-general, under whom are fifteen field and general officers, who act as inspectors of the various schools and colleges and of military educational matters in general.

The Japanese officers pay is small and his mode of life frugal. He lives out of barracks, frequently with his own family. His uniform is plain and inexpensive,3 and he has no desire to exchange it for mufti. He has no mess expenses, contribution to a band, or luxuries of any kind, and as he is nearly always without private means to supplement his pay, his habits are thoroughly economical. He devotes himself absolutely to his profession, living for nothing else, and since he is strongly imbued with an effective conception of the honor of his cloth, instances of his incurring disgrace by debt or dissipation are exceptional. The samurai may be said to have been revived in the officers of the modern army, who preserve and act up to all the old traditions. The system of promotion has evidently much to do with this good result, for no Japanese officer can hope to rise above the rank of captain unless, by showing himself really zealous and capable, he obtains from his commanding officer the recommendation without which all higher educational opportunities are closed to him. Yet promotion by merit has not degenerated into promotion by favor, and corruption appears to be virtually absent. In the stormiest days of parliamentary warfare, when charges of dishonesty were freely preferred by party politicians against all departments of officialdom, no whisper ever impeached the integrity of army officers.

The training of the troops is thorough and strictly progressive, the responsibility of the company, squadron and battery commanders for the training of their commands, and the latitude granted them in choice of means being, as in Germany, the keystone of the I system.

Originally the government engaged French officers to assist in Uniform does not vary according to regiments or divisions. There is only one type for the whole of the infantry, one for the cavalry, and so on (see UNIFORMS, NAVAL AND MILITARY).

Officers largely obtain their uniforms and equipment, as well as their books and technical literature through the Kai-ko-sha, which is a combined officers club, benefit society and co-operative trading association to which nearly all belong.

organizing the army and elaborating its system of tactics and strategy, and during several years a military mission of French ~i, officers resided in TOkyo and rendered valuable aid to the ~s Japanese. Afterwards German officers were employed Assislance. - .

with Jakob Meckel at their head, and they left a perpetually grateful memory. But ultimately the services of foreigners were dispensed with altogether, and Japan now adopts the plan of sending picked men to complete their studies in Europe. Up to 1904 she followed Germany in military matters almost implicitly, but since then, having the experience of her own great war to guide her, she has, instead of modelling herself on any one foreign system, chosen from each whatever seemed most desirable, and also, in many points, taken the initiative herself.

When the power of the sword was nominally restored to the Imperial government in 1868, the latter planned to devote one-fourth of the states ordinary revenue to the army and navy. Military Had the estimated revenue accrued, this would have given Finance, a sum of about 3 millions sterling for the two services. But not until 1871, when the troops of the fiefs were finally disbanded, did.the government find itself in a position to include in the annual budgets an adequate appropriation on account of armaments. Thenceforth, from 1872 to 1896, the ordinary expenditures of the army varied from three-quarters of a million sterling to 13/4 millions, and the extraordinary outlays ranged from a few thousands of pounds to a quarter of a million. Not once in the whole period of 25 years if 1877 (the year of the Satsuma rebellion) be excepteddid the states total expenditures on account of the army exceed 13/4 millions sterling, and it redounds to the credit of Japans financial management that she was able to organize, equip and maintain such a force at such a small cost. In 1896, as shown above, she virtually doubled her army, and a proportionate increase of expenditure ensued, the outlays for maintenance iumping at once from an average of about 13/4 millions sterling to 23/4 mrllions, and growing thenceforth with the organization of the new army, until in the year (1903) preceding the outbreak of war with Russia, they reached the figure of 4 millions. Then again, in 1906, six divisions were added, and additional expenses had to be incurred on account of the new overseas garrisons, so that, in 1909, the ordinary outlays reached a total of 7 millions, or about one-seventh of the ordinary revenue of the state. This takes no account of extraordinary outlays incurred for building forts and barracks, providing new patterns of equipment, &c. In 1909 the latter, owing to the necessity of replacing the weapons used in the Russian War, and in particular the field artillery gun (which was in 1905 only a semi-quickfirer), involved a relatively large outlay.

The Navy.The traditions of Japan suggest that the art of navigation was not unfamiliar to the inhabitants of a country ~, consisting of hundreds of islands and abounding in Japanese bays and inlets. Some interpreters of her cosmoWar.. graphy discover a great ship in the floating bridge vessela. of heaven from which the divine procreators of the islands commenced their work, and construe in a similar sense other poetically named vehicles of that remote age. But though the seas were certainly traversed by the early invaders of Japan, and though there is plenty of proof that in medieval times the Japanese flag floated over merchantmen which voyaged as far as Siam and India, and over piratical craft which harassed the coasts of Korea and China, it is unquestionable that in the matter of naval architecture Japan fell behind even her nextdoor neighbors. Thus, when a Mongol fleet came to KiUshiU in the i3th century, Japan had no vessels capable of contending against the invaders, and when, at the close of the 16th century, a Japanese army was fighting in Korea, repeated defeats of Japans squadrons by Korean war-junks decided the fate of the campaign on shore as well as on sea. It seems strange that an enterprising nation like the Japanese should not have taken for models the great galleons which visited the Far East in the second half of the 16th century under the flags of Spain, Portugal, Holland and England. With the exception, however, of two ships built by a castaway English pilot to order of Iyeyasu, no effort in that direction appears to have been made, and when an edict vetoing the construction of sea-going vessels was issued in 1636 as part of the Tokugawa policy of isolation, it can scarcely be said to have checked the growth of Japans navy, for she possessed nothing worthy of the name. It was to the object lesson furnished by the American ships which visited Yedo bay in 1853 and to the urgent counsels of the Dutch that Japan owed the inception of a naval policy. A seamens training station was opened under Dutch instructors in 1855 at Nagasaki, a building-slip was constructed and an iron factory established at the same place, and shortly afterwards a naval school was organized at Tsukiji in Yedo, a war-ship the Kwanko Maru presented by the Dutch to the shoguns governmentbeing used for exercising the cadets. To this vessel two others, purchased from the Dutch, were added in 1857 and 1858, and these, with one given by Queen Victoria, formed the nucleus of Japans navy. In 1860, we find the Pacific crossed for the first time by a Japanese war-shipthe Kwanrin Maru and subsequently some young officers were sent to Holland for instruction in naval science. In fact the Tokugawa statesmen had now thoroughly appreciated the imperative need of a navy. Thus, in spite of domestic unrest which menaced the very existence of the Yedo government, a dock-yard was established and fully equipped, the place chosen as its site being, by a strange coincidence, the village of Yokosuka where Japans first foreign ship-builder, Will Adams, had lived and died 250 years previously. This dockyard was planned and its construction superintended by a Frenchman, M. Bertin. But although the Dutch had been the first to advise JapaIls acquisition of a navy, and although French aid was sought in the case of the important and costly work at Yokosuka, the shoguns government turned to England for teachers of the art of maritime warfare. Captain Tracey, R.N., and other British officers and warrant-officers were engaged to organize and superintend the school at Tsukiji. They arrived, however, on the eve of the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate, and as the new administration was not prepared to utilize their services immediately, they returned to England. It is not to be inferred that the Imperial government underrated the importance of organizing a naval force. One of the earliest Imperial rescripts ranked a navy among the countrys most urgent needs and ordered that it should be at once placed on a firm foundation. But during the four years immediately subsequent to the restoration, a semi-interregnum existed in military affairs, the power of the sword being partly transferred to the hands of the sovereign and partly retained by the feudal chiefs. Ultimately, not only the vessels which bad been in the possession of the shogunate but also several obtained from Europe by the great feudatories had to be taken over by the Imperial government, which, on reviewing the situation, found itself owner of a motley squadron of 17 warships aggregating 13,812 tons displacement, of which two were armoured, one was a composite ship, and the rest were of wood. Steps were now taken to establish and equip a suitable naval college in Tsukiji, and application having been made to the British government for instructors, a second naval mission was sent from England in 1873, consisting of 30 officers and warrantofficers under Commander (afterwards Vice-Admiral Sir) Archi-. bald Douglas. At the very outset occasions for active service afloat presented themselves. In 1868, the year after the fall of ,the shogunate, such ships as could be assembled had to be sent to Yezo to attack the main part of the Tokugawa squadron which had raised the flag of revolt and retired to Hakodate under the command of the shoguns admiral, Enomoto. Then in 1874 the duty of convoyinga fleet of transports to Formosa had to be undertaken; and in 1877 sea power played its part in crushing the formidable rebellion in Satsuma. Meanwhile the work of increasing and organizing the navy went on steadily. Thefirst steam war-ship constructed in Japan had been a gunboat (138 tons) launched in 1866 from a building-yard established at Ishikawajima, an island near the mouth of the Sumida river on which TOkyO stands. At this yard and at Yokosuka two vessels of 897 tons and 1450 tons, respectively, were launched in 1875 and 1876, and Japan now found herself competent not only to execute all repairs but also to build ships of considerable size. An order was placed in England in 1875, which produced, three years later, the Fuso, Japans first ironclad (3717 tons) and the Kongo and Hiei, steelframe sister-cruisers of 2248 tons. Meanwhile training, practical and theoretical, in seamanship, gunnery, torpedo-practice and naval architecture went on vigorously, and in 1878 the Japanese flag was for the first time seen in European waters, floating over the cruiser Seiki (1897 tons) built in Japan and navigated solely by Japanese. The government, constantly solicitous of increasing the fleet, inaugurated, in 1882, a programme of 30 cruisers and 12 torpedo-boats, and in 1886 this was extended, funds being obtained by an issue of naval loanbonds. But the fleet did not yet include a single battleship. When the diet opened for the first time in 1890, a plan for the construction of two battleships encountered stubborn opposition in the lower house, where the majority attached much less importance to voting money for war-ships than to reducing the land tax. Not until 1892 was this opposition overcome in deference to an order from the throne that thirty thousand pounds sterling should be contributed yearly from the privy purse and that a tithe of all official salaries should be devoted during the same interval to naval needs. Had the house been more prescient, Japans position at the outbreak of war with China in 1894 would have been very different. She entered the contest with 28 fighting craft, aggregating 57,600 tons, and 24 torpedo-boats, but among them the most powerful was a belted cruiser of 4300 tons. Not one battleship was included, whereas China had two ironclads of nearly 8000 tons each. Under these conditions the result of the naval conflict was awaited with much anxiety in Japan. But the Chinese suffered signal defeats (see CHIN0 - JAPANESE WAR) off the Yalu and at Wei-hai-wei, and the victors took possession of 17 Chinese craft, including one battleship. The resulting addition to Japans fighting force was, however, insignificant. But the naval strength of Japan did not depend on prizes. Battleships and cruisers were ordered and launched in Europe one after the other, and when the RussoJapanese War (q.v.) came, the fleet promptly asserted its physical and moral superiority in the surprise of Port Arthur, the battle of the 10th of August 1904, and the crowning victory of Tsushima.

As to the development of the navy from 1903 onwards, it is not possible to detail with absolute accuracy the plans laid down by the admiralty in Tokyo, but the actual state of the fleet in the year 1909 will be apparent from the figures given below.

Japans naval strength at the outbreak of the war with Russia in 1904 was: Number. Displacement.

Tons.

Battleships 6. ... 84,652

Armoured cruisers. ... 8.. -. 73,982

Other cruisers 44 - - -. 111,470

Destroyers 19 - - - - 6,519

Torpedo-boats 80 - - - - 7,119

Totals 157 -. .. 283,742

Losses during the war were:

Battleships 2. ... 27,300

Cruisers (second and smaller classes) 8. ... 18,009

Destroyers 2. ... 705

Torpedo-boats 7. ... 557

Totals 19. ... 46,571

The captured vessels repaired and added to the fleet were :

Battleships 5 - - - 62,524

Cruisers 11 - - 71,276

Destroyers 5 - - 1,740

Totals 2!.. - 135,530

The vessels built or purchased after the war and up to the close of 1908 were:

Battleships 4, - -. 71,500

Armoureci cruisers. .. 4. ... 56,700

Other cruisers 5.. - - 7,000

Destroyers 33. -.. f2,573

Torpedo-boats 5 - -. - 760

Totals 5! - -. 148,533

Some of the above have been superannuated, and the serviceable fleet in 1909 was~

Battleships 13. .. 191,380

Armoured cruisers. - - - 12. .. 130,683

Other cruisers, coast-defence ships and gun-boats. - - 47 165,253

Destroyers 55. .. 20,508

Torpedo-boats 77. .. 7,258

Totals 204. ... ~

To the foregoing must be added two armoured cruisersthe Kurama (14,000) launched at Yokosuka in October 1907, and the Ibuki (14,700) launched at Kure in November 1907, but no other battleships or cruisers were laid down in Japan or ordered abroad up to the close of 1908.

There are four naval dockyards, namely, at Yokosuka, Kure, Sasebo and Maizuru. Twenty-one vessels built at Yokosuka since 1876 included a battleship (19,000 tons) and N an armoured cruiser (14,000 tons); seven built at Kure D~a~Is. since 1898 included a battleship (19,000 tons) and an armoured cruiser (14,000 tons). The yards at Sasebo and Maizuru had not yet been used in 1909 for constructing large vessels. Two private yardsthe Mitsubishi at Nagasaki and Kobe, and the Kawasaki at the latter placehave built several cruisers, gunboats and torpedo craft, and are competent to undertake more important work. Nevertheless in 1909 Japan did not yet possess complete independence in this matter, for she was obliged to have recourse to foreign countries for a part of the steel used in ship-building. Kure manufactures practically all the steel it requires, and there is a government steel-foundry at Wakamatsu on which more than 3 millions sterling had been spent in 1909, but it did not yet keep pacewith thecountrys needs. When this independence has been attained, it is hoped to effect an economy of about 18% on the outlay for naval construction, owing to the cheapness of manual labor and the disappearance both of the manufacturers profit and of the expenses of transfer from Europe to Japan.

There are five admiraltiesYokosuka, Kure, Sasebo, Maizuru and Port Arthur; and four naval stationsTakeshiki (in Tsushima), Mekong (in the Pescadores), Ominato and Chinhai (in southern Korea).

The navy is manned partly by conscripts and partly by volunteers. About 5500 are taken every year, and the ratio is, approximately, 55% of volunteers and 45% of conscripts. The period ~rSoflfleJ of active service is 4 years and that of service with the reserve 7 years. On the average 200 cadets are admitted yearly, of whom 50 are engineers, and in f 906 the personnel of the navy consisted of the following:

Admirals, combative and non-combative - - 77

Officers, combative and non-combative, below the rank of admiral 2,867

Warrant officers 9,075

Bluejackets 29,667

Cadets 721

Total 42,407

The highest educational institution for the navy is the naval staff college, in which there are five courses for officers alone. The gunnery and torpedo schools are attended by officers, and also by selected warrant-officers and bluejackets, ~~tIOn who consent to extend their service. There is also a mechanical school for junior engineers, warrant-officers and ordinary artificers.

At the naval cadet academyoriginally situated in TkOyO but now at Etajima near Kureaspirants for service as naval officers receive a 3 years academical course and 1 years training at sea; and, finally, there is a naval engineering college collateral to the naval cadet academy.

Since 1882, foreign instruction has been wholly dispensed with in the Japanese navy; since 1886 she has manufactured her own prismatic powder; since 1891 she has been able to make quick-firing pns and Schwartzkopf torpedoes, and in 1892 one of her officers invented a particularly potent explosive, called (after its inventor)

Shimose powder.

Finance.Under the feudal system of the Tokugawa (1603-1871), all land in Japan was regarded as state property, and parcelled out into 276 fiefs, great and small, which were assigned to as many feudatories. These were empowered to raise revenue for the support of their households, for administrative purposes, and for the maintenance of troops. The basis of taxation varied greatly in different districts, but, at the time of the Restoration in 1867, the general principle was that four-tenths of the gross produce should go to the feudatory, six-tenths to the farmer. In practice this rule was applied to the rice crop only, the assessments for other kinds of produce being levied partly in money and partly in manufactured goods. Forced labor also was exacted, and artisans and tradesmen were subjected to pecuniary levies. The yield of rice in 1867 was about 154 million bushels, of which the market value at prices then ruling was 24,000,000, 01

1 The reader should be warned that absolute accuracy cannot lx claimed for statistics compiled before the Meiji era.

240,000,000 yen.i Hence the grain tax represented, at the lowest calculation, 96,000,000 yen. When the administration reverted to the emperor in 1867 the central treasury was empty, and the funds hitherto employed for governmental purposes in the fiefs continued to be devoted to the support of the feudatories, to the payment of the samurai, and to defraying the expenses of local administration, the central treasury receiving only whatever might remain after these various outlays.

The shogun himself, whose income amounted to about 3,500,000, did not, on abdicating, hand over to the sovereign either the contents of his treasury or the lands from which he derived his revenues. He contended that funds for the government of the nation as a whole should be levied from the people at large. Not until 1871 did the feudal system cease to exist. The fiefs being then converted into prefectures, their revenues became an asset of the central treasury, less 10% allotted for the support of the former feudatories.2

But during the interval between 1867 and 1871, the men on whom had devolved the direction of national affairs saw no relief from crippling impecuniosity except an issue of paper money. This was not a novelty in Japan. Paper money had been known to the people since the middle of the x7th century, and in the era of which we are now writing no less than 1694 varieties of notes were in circulation. There were gold notes, silver notes, cash-notes, rice-notes, umbrellanotes, ribbon-notes, lathe-article-notes, and so on through an interminable list, the circulation of each kind being limited to the issuing fief. Many of these notes had almost ceased to have any purchasing power, and nearly all were regarded by the people as evidences of official greed. The first duty of a centralized progressive administration should have been to reform the currency. The political leaders of the time appreciated that duty, but saw themselves compelled by stress of circumstances to adopt the very device which in the hands of the feudal chiefs had produced such deplorable results. The ordinary revenue amounted to only 3,000,000 yen, while the extraordinary aggregated 29,000,000, and was derived wholly from issues of paper money or other equally unsound sources.

Even on the abolition of feudalism in 1871 the situation was not immediately relieved. The land tax, which constituted nine-tenths of the feudal revenues, had been asLand ax. sessed by varying methods and at various rates by the different feudatories, and re-assessment of all the land became a preliminary essential to establishing a uniform system. Such a task, on the basis of accurate surveys, would have involved years of work, whereas the financial needs of the state had to be met immediately. Under the pressure of this imperative necessity a re-assessment was roughly made in two years, and being continued thereafter with greater accuracy, was completed in 1881. This survey, eminently liberal to the agriculturists, assigned a value of I,2oo,ooo,ooo yen to the whole of the arable land, and the treasury fixed the tax at 3% of the assessed value of the land, which was about one-half of the real market value. Moreover, the government contemplated a gradual reduction of this already low impost until it should ultimately fall to I %. Circumstances prevented the consummation of that purpose. The rate underwent only one reduction of ~ %, and thereafter had to be raised on account of war expenditures. On the whole, however, no class benefited more conspicuously from the change of administration than the peasants, since not only was their burden of taxation light, but also they were converted from mere tenants into actual proprietors. In brief, they acquired the fee-simple of their farms in consideration of payi~ng an annual rent equal to about one sixty-sixth of the market value of the land.

In 1873, when these changes were effected, the ordinary In addition to the above grant, the feudatories were allowed to retain the reserves in their treasuries; thus many of the feudal nobles found themselves possessed of substantial fortunes, a considerable part of which they generally devoted to the support of their former vassals.

revenue of the state rose from 24,500,000 yen to 70,500,000 yen. But seven millions sterling is a small income for a country confronted by such problems as Japan had to solve. ~ She had to build railways; to create an army and R:v:nue. a navy; to organize posts, telegraphs, prisons, police and education; to construct roads, improve harbours, light and buoy the coasts; to create a mercantile marine; to start under official auspices numerous industrial enterprises which should serve as object lessons to the people, as well as to lend to private persons large sums in aid of similar projects. Thus, living of necessity beyond its income, the government had recourse to further issues of fiduciary notes, and in proportion as the volume of the latter exceeded actual currency requirements their specie value depreciated.

This question of paper currency inaugurates the story of banking; a story on almost every page of which are to be found inscribed the names of Prince It0, Marquis Inouye, BanI~ Marquis Matsukata, Count Okuma and Baron Shibusawa, the fathers of their countrys economic and financial progress in modern times. The only substitutes for banks in feudal days were a few private firms households would, perhaps, be a more correct expressionwhich received local taxes in kind, converted them into money, paid the proceeds to the central government or to the feudatories, gave accommodation to officials, did some exchange business, and occasionally extended accommodation to private individuals. They were not banks in the Occidental sense, for they neither collected funds by receiving deposits nor distributed capital by making loans. The various fiefs were so isolated that neither social nor financial intercourse was possible, and moreover the mercantile and manufacturing classes were regarded with some disdain by the gentry. The people had never been familiarized with combinations of capital for productive purposes, and such a thing as a joint-stock company was unknown. In these circumstances, when the administration of state affairs fell into the hands of the men who had made the restoration, they not only lacked the first essential of rule, money, but were also without means of obtaining any, for they could not collect taxes in the fiefs. these being still under the control of the feudal barons; and in the absence of widely organized commerce or finance, no access to funds presented itself. Doubtless the minds of these men were sharpened by the necessities confronting them, yet it speaks eloquently for their discernment that, samurai as they were, without any business training whatever, one of their first essays was to establish organizations which should take charge of the national revenue, encourage industry and promote trade and production by lending money at comparatively low rates of interest. The tentative character of these attempts is evidenced by frequent changes. There was first a business bureau, then a trade bureau, then commercial companies, and then exchange companies, these last being established in the principal cities and at the open ports, their personnel consisting of the three great familiesMitsui, Shimada and Onohouses of ancient repute, as well as other wealthy merchants in KiOto, Osaka and elsewhere. These exchange companies were partnerships, though not strictly of the joint-stock kind. They formed the nucleus of banks in Japan, and their functions included, for the first time, the receiving of deposits and the lending of money to merchants and manufacturers. They had power to issue notes, and, at the same tio~e, the government issued notes on its own account. Indeed, in this latter fact is to be found one of the motives for organizing the exchange companies, the idea being that if the states notes were lent to the companies, the people would become familiarized with the use of such currency, and the companies would find them convenient capital. But this system was essentially unsound: the notes, alike of the treasury and of the companies, though nominally convertible, were not secured by any fixed stock of specie. Four years sufficed to prove the unpracticality of such an arrangement, and in 1872 the exchange companies were swept away, to be succeeded in July 1873 by the establishment of national banks on a system which combined some of the features of English banking with the general bases of American. Each bank had to pay into the treasury 60% of its capital in government notes. It was credited in return with interest-bearing bonds, which bonds were to be left in the treasury as security for the issue of bank-notes to an equal amount, the banks being required to keep in gold the remaining 40% of their capital as a fund for converting the notes, which conversion must always be effected on application. The elaborators of this programme were Ito, Inouye, Okuma and Shibusawa. They added a provision designed to prevent the establishment of too small banks, namely, that the capital of each bank must bear a fixed ratio to the population of its place of business. Evidently the main object of the treasury was gradually to replace its own fiat paper with convertible bank-notes. But experience quickly proved that the scheme was unworkable. The treasury notes had been issued in such large volume that sharp depreciation had ensued; gold could not be procured except at a heavy cost, and the balance of foreign trade being against Japan, some 300,000,000 yen in specie flowed out of the country between 1872 and 1874.

It should be noted that at this time foreign trade was still invested with a perilous character in Japanese eyes. In early days, while the Dutch had free access to her ports, they sold her so much and bought so little in return that an immense quantity of the precious metals flowed out of her coffers. Again, when over-sea trade was renewed in modern times, Japans exceptional financial condition presented to foreigners an opportunity of which they did not fail to take full advantage. For, during her long centuries of seclusion, gold had come to hold to silver in her coinage a ratio of I to 8, 50 that gold cost, in terms of silver, only one-half of what it cost in the West. On the other hand, the treaty gave foreign traders the right to exchange their own silver coins against Japanese, weight for weight, and thus it fell out that the foreigner, going to Japan with a supply of Mexican dollars, could buy with them twice as much gold as they had cost in Mexico. Japan lost very heavily by this system, and its effects accentuated the dread with which her medieval experience had invested foreign commerce. Thus, when the balance of trade swayed heavily in the wrong direction between I872 and 1874, the fact created undue consternation, and moreover there can be no doubt that the drafters of the bank regulations had over-estimated the quantity of available gold in the country.

All these things made it impossible to keep the bank-notes long in circulation. They were speedily returned for conversion; no deposits came to the aid of the banks, nor did the public make any use of them. Disaster became inevitable. The two great firms of Ono and Shimada, which had stood high in the nations estimation alike in feudal and in imperial days, closed their doors in I874; a panic ensued, and the circulation of money ceased almost entirely.

Evidently the banking system must be changed. The government bowed to necessity. They issued a revised code of banking regulah tions which substituted treasury notes in the place of C,ge specie. Each bank was thenceforth required to invest O 1;,~ 80% of its capital in 6% state bonds, and these Stem being lodged with the treasury, the bank became competent to issue an equal quantity of its own notes, forming with the remainder of its capital a reserve of treasury notes for purposes of redemption. This was a complete subversion of the governments original scheme. But no alternative offered. Besides, the situation presented a new feature. The hereditary pensions of the feudatories had been commuted with bonds aggregating 174,000,000 yen. Were this large volume of bonds issued at once, their heavy depreciation would be likely to follow, and moreover their holders, unaccustomed to dealing with financial problems, might dispose of the bonds and invest the proceeds in hazardous enterprises. To devise some opportunity for the safe and profitable employment of these bonds seemed, therefore, a pressing necessity, and the newly organized national banks offered such an opportunity. For bond-holders, combining to form a bank, continued to draw from the treasury 6% on their bonds, while they acquired power to issue a corresponding amount of notes which could be lent at profitable rates. The programme worked well. Whereas, up to 1876, only five banks were established under the original regulations, the number under the new rule was 151 in 1879, their aggregate capital having grown in the same interval from 2,000,000 yen to 40,000,000 yen, and their note issues from less than 1,000,000 to over 34,000,000. Here, then, was a rapidly growing system resting wholly on state credit. Something like a mania for bank-organizing declared itself, and in 1878 the government deemed it necessary to legislate against the establishment of any more national banks, and to limit to 34,000,000 yen the aggregate note issues of those already in existence.

It is possible that the conditions which prevailed immediately after the establishment of the national banks might have developed some permanency had not the Satsuma rebellion broken out in I877. Increased taxation to meet military outlay being impossible in such cinumstances, nothing offered except recourse to further note issues. The result was that by 1881, fourteen years after the Restoration, notes whose face value aggregated 164,000,000 yen had been put into circulation; the treasury possessed specie amounting to only 8,000,000 yen, and 18 paper yen could be purchased with 10 silver ones.

Up to 1881 fitful efforts had been made to strengthen the specie value of fiat paper by throwing quantities of gold and silver upon the market from time to time, and 23,000,000 yen had R been devoted to the promotion of industries whose Engels117 products, it was hoped, would go to swell the list of s:c,e exports, and thus draw specie to the country. But p~ these devices were now finally abandoned, and the ~m~i S. government applied itself steadfastly to reducing the volume of the fiduciary currency on the one hand, and accumulating a specie reserve on the other. The steps of the programme were simple. By cutting dowii administrative expenditure; by transferring certain charges from the treasury to the local communes; by suspending all grants in aid of provincial public works and private enterprises, and by a moderate increase of the tax on alcohol, an annual surplus of revenue, totalling 7,500,000 yen, was secured. This was applied to reducing the volume of the notes in circulation. At the same time, it was resolved that all officially conducted industrial and agricultural works should be soldsince their purpose of instruction and example seemed now to have been sufficiently achievedand the proceeds, together with various securities (aggregating 26,000,000 yen in face value) held by the treasury, were applied to the purchase of specie. Had the government entered the market openly as a seller of its own fiduciary notes, its credit must have suffered. There were also ample reasons to doubt whether any available stores of precious metal remained in the country. In obedience to elementary economical laws, the cheap money had steadily driven out the dear, and although the government mint at Osaka, founded in 187f, had struck gold and silver coins worth 8o,000,000 yen between that date and 1881, the customs returns showed that a great part of this metallic currency had flowed out of the country. In these circumstances Japanese financiers decided that only one course remained: the treasury must, play the part of national banker. Produce and manufactures destined for export must be purchased by the state with fiduciary ,notes, and the metallic proceeds of their sales abroad must be collected and stored in the treasury. This programme required the establishment of consulates in the chief marts of the Occident, and the organization of a great central bankthe present Bank of Japanas well as of a secondary bankthe present Specie Bank of Yokohamathe former to conduct transactions with native producers and manufacturers, the latter to finance the business of exportation. The outcome of these various arrangements was that, by the middle of 1885, the volume of fiduciary notes had been reduced to 119,000,000 yen, their depreciation had fallen to 3%, and the metallic reserve of the treasury had increased to 45,000,000 yen. The resumption of specie payments was then announced, and became, in the autumn of that year, an accomplished fact. From the time when this programme began to be effective, Japan entered a period of favorable balance of trade. According to accepted economic theories, the influence of an appreciating currency should be to encourage imports; but the converse was seen in Japans case, for from 1882 her exports annually exceeded her imports, the maximum excess being reached in 1886, the very year after the resumption of specie payments.

The above facts deserve to figure largely in a retrospect of Japanese finance, not merely because they set forth a fine economic feat, indicating clear insight, good organizing capacity, and courageous energy, but also because volumes of adverse foreign criticism were written in the margin of the story during the course of the incidents it embodies. Now Japan was charged with robbing her own people because she bought their goods with paper money and sold them for specie; again, she was accused of an official conspiracy to ruin the foreign local banks because she purchased exporters bills on Europe and America at rates that defied ordinary competition; and while some declared that she was plainly without any understanding of her own doings, others predicted that her heroic method of dealing with the problem would paralyze industry, interrupt trade and produce widespread suffering. Undoubtedly, to carry the currency of a nation from a discount of 70 or 80% to par in the course of four years, reducing its volume at the same time from 160 to 119 million yen, was a financial enterprise violent and daring almost to rashness. The gentler expedient of a foreign loan would have commended itself to the majority of economists. But it may be here stated, once for all, that until her final adoption of a gold standard in 1897, the foreign money market was practically closed to Japan. Had she borrowed abroad it must have been on a sterling basis. Receiving a fixed sum in silver, she would have had to discharge her debt in rapidly appreciating gold. Twice, indeed, she had recourse to London for small sums, but when she came to cast up her accounts the cost of the accommodation stood out in deterrent proportions. A ~% loan, placed in England in 1868 and paid off in 1889, produced 3,750,000 yen, and cost altogether 11,750,000 yen in round figures; and a 7% loan, made in 1872 and paid off in 1897, produced 10,750,000 yen, and cost 36,000,000 yen. These considerations were supplemented by a strong aversion from incurring pecuniary obligations to Western states before the latter had consented to restore Japans judicial and tariff autonomy. The example of Egypt showed what kind of fate might overtake a semi-independent state falling into the clutches of foreign bond-holders. Japan did not wish to fetter herself with foreign debts while struggling to emerge from the rank of Oriental powers.

After the revision of the national bank regulations, semi-official banking enterprise won such favor in public eyes that the government found it necessary to impose limits. This Ci~oS~.; 2; ~ ai conservative policy proved an incentive to private 8:0k.! banks and banking companies, so that, by the year 1883, no less than 1093 banking institutions were in existence throughout Japan with an aggregate capital of 900,000,000 yen. But these were entirely lacking in arrangements for combination or for equalizing rates of interest, and to correct such defects, no less than ultimately to constitute the sole note-issuing institution, a central bank (the Bank of Japan) was organized on the model of the Bank of Belgium, with due regard to corresponding institutions in other Western countries and to the conditions existing in Japan. Established in 1882 with a capital of 4,000,000 yen, this bank has now a capital of 30 millions, a security reserve of 206 millions, a note-issue of 266 millions, a specie reserve of i6o millions, and loans of 525 millions.

The banking machinery of the country being now complete, in a general sense, steps were taken in 1883 for converting the national banks into ordinary joint-stock concerns and for the redemption of all their note-issues. Each national bank was required to deposit with the treasury the government paper kept in its strong room as security for its own notes, and further to take from its annual profits and hand to the treasury a sum equal to 21/8% of its notes in circulation. With these funds the central bank was to purchase state bonds, devoting the interest to redeeming the notes of the national banks. Formed with the object of disturbing the money market as little as possible, this programme encountered two obstacles. The first was that, in view of the Bank of Japans purchases, the market price of state bonds rose rapidly, so that, whereas official financiers had not expected them to reach par before 1897, they were quoted at a considerable premium in 1886. The second was that the treasury having in 1886 initiated the policy of converting its 6% bonds into 5% consols, the former no longer produced interest at the rate estimated for the purposes of the banking scheme~ The national banks thus found themselves in an embarrassing situation and began to clamour for a revision of the programme. But the government, seeing compensations for them in other directions, adhered firmly to its scheme. Few problems have caused greater controversy in modern Japan than this question of the ultimate fate of the national banks. Not until 1896 could the diet be induced to pass a bill providing for their dissolution at the close of their charter terms, or their conversion into ordinary jointstock concerns without any note-issuing power, and not until 1899 did their notes cease to be legal tender. Out of a total of 153 of these banks, 132 continued business as private institutions, and the rest were absorbed or dissolved. Already (1 890 and 1893) minute regulations had been enacted bringing all the banks and banking institutionsexcept the special banks to be presently described-within one system of semi-annual balance-sheets and official auditing, while in the case of savings banks the directors responsibility was declared unlimited and these banks were required to lodge security with the treasury for the protection of their depositors.

Just as the ordinary banks were all centred on the Bank of Japan 1 and more or less connected with it, so in 1895, a group of special s cliii institutions, called agricultural and commercial banks, Banks were organized and centred on a hypothec bank, the object of this system being to supply cheap capital to farmers and manufacturers on the security of real estate. The hypothec bank had its head office in Tokyo and was authorized to obtain funds by issuing premium-bearing bonds, while an agricultural and industrial bank was established in each prefecture and received assistance from the hypothec bank. Two years later (1900), an industrial banksometimes spoken of as the credit mobilier of Japanwas brought into existence under official auspices, its purpose being to lend money against bonds, debentures and shares, as well as to public corporations. These various institutions, together with clearing houses, bankers associations, the HokkaidO colonial bank, the bank of Formosa, savings banks (including a post-office savings bank), and a mint complete the financial machinery of modern Japan.

Reviewing this chapter of Japans material development, we find Review of that whereas, at the beginning of the Meiji era (1867), Banking the nation did not possess so much as one banking Develop, institution worthy of the name, forty years later it ment. had 2211 banks, with a paid-up capital of 4o,ooo,ooo, reserves of 12,000,000, and deposits of 147,000,000; and whereas 1882. The capital in 1909 was 30,000,000 yen. In it alone is vested note-issuing power. There is no limit to its issues against gold or silver coins and bullion, but on other securities (state bonds, treasury bills and other negotiable bonds or commercial paper) its issues are limited to 120 millions, any excess over that figure being subject to a tax of 5% per annum.

there was not one savings bank in 1867, there were 487 in 1906 with deposits of over 50,000,000. The average yearly dividends of these banks in the ten years ending 1906 varied between 9I and 9.9%.

Necessarily the movement of industrial expansion was accompanied by a development of insurance business. The beginnings of this kind of enterprise did not become visible, however, until 1881, and even at that comparatively nsurance. recent date no Japanese laws had yet been enacted for the control of such operations. The commercial code, published in March 1890, was the earliest legislation which met the need, and from that time the number of insurance companies and the volume of their transactions grew rapidly. In 1897, there were 35 companies with a total paid-up capital of 7,000,000 yen and policies aggregating 971,000,000 yen, and in 1906 the corresponding figures were 65 companies, 22,000,000 yen paid up and policies of 4,149,000,000 yen. The premium reserves grew in the same period from 7,000,000 to io8,ooo,ooo. The net profits of these companies in 1906 were (in round numbers) 10,000,000 yen.

The origin of clearing houses preceded that of insurance companies in Japan by only two years (1879). Osaka set the example, which was quickly followed by Tokyo, Kobe, Yokohama, KiOto and Nagoya. In 1898 the bills handled at Clearing these institutions amounted to 1,186,000,000 yen, and OUSS. in 1907 to 7,484,000,000 yen. Japanese clearing houses are modelled after those of London and New York.

Exchanges existed in Japan as far back as the Close of the 17th century. At that time the income of the feudal chiefs consisted almost entirely of rice, and as this was sold to brokers, Boui-s the latter found it convenient to meet at fixed times es. and places for conducting their business. Originally their transactions were all for cash, but afterwards they devised time bargains which ultimately developed into a definite form of exchange. The reform of abuses incidental to this system attracted the earl attention of the Meiji government, and in 1893 a law was promu gated for the control of exchanges, which then numbered 146. Under this law the minimum share capital of a bourse Constituted as a joint-stock company was fixed at 100,000 yen, and the whole of its property became liable for failure on the part of its brokers to implement their contracts. There were 51 bourses in 1908.

Not less remarkable than this economic development was the large part acted in it by officialdom. There were, two reasons for this. One was that a majority of the men gifted with originality and foresight were drawn into the ranks of The Governthe administration by the great current of the revolu- meat and tion; the other, that the feudal system had tended to Economic check rather than to encourage material development, Development. since the limits of each fief were also the limits of economical and industrial enterprise. Ideas for combination and co-operation had been confined to a few families, and there was nothing to spggest the organization of sompanies nor any law to protect them if organized. Thus the opening of the Meiji era found the Japanese nation wholly unqualified for the commercial and manufacturing competition in which it was thenceforth required to engage, and therefore upon those who had brought the country out of its isolation there devolved the responsibility of speedily preparing their fellow countrymen for the new situation. To these leaders banking facilities seemed to be the first need, and steps were accordingly taken in the manner already described, But how to educate men of affairs at a moments notice? How to replace by a spirit of intelligent progress the ignorance and conservatism of the hitherto despised traders and artisans? When the first bank was organized, its two foundersmen who had been urged, nay almost compelled, by officialdom to make the essaywere obliged to raise four-fifths of the capital themselves, the general public not being willing to subscribe more than one-fiftha petty sum of 500,000 yenand when its staff commenced their duties, they had not the most shadowy conception of what to do. That was a faithful reflection of the condition of the business world at large. If the initiative of the people themselves had been awaited, Japans career must have been slow indeed.

Only one course offered, namely, that the government itself should organize a number of productive enterprises on modern lines, so that they might serve as schools and also as models. Such, as already noted under Industries, was the programlne adopted. It provoked much hostile criticism from foreign onlookers, who had learned to decry all official incursions into trade and industry, but had not properly appreciated the special conditions existing in Japan. The end justified the means. At the outset of its administration we find the Meiji government not only forming plans for the circulation of money, building railways and organizing posts and telegraphs, but also establishing dockyards, spinning mills, printing-houses, silk-reeling filatures, paper-making factories and so forth, thus by example encouraging these kinds of enterprise and by legislation providing for their safe prosecution. Yet progress was slow. One by one and at long intervals joint-stock companies came into existence, nor was it until the resumption of specie payments in 1886 that a really effective spirit of enterprise manifested itself among the people. Railways, harbours. mines, spinning, weaving, paper-making, oil-refining, brick-making, leather-tanning, glassmaking and other industries attracted eager attention, and whereas the capital subscribed for such works aggregated only 50,000,000 yen in 1886, it exceeded 1,000,o00,0o0 yen in 1906.

When specie payments were resumed in 1885, the notes issued by the Bank of Japan were convertible into silver on demand, the silver standard being thus definitely adopted, a comAdoPtion Oiplete reversal of the system inaugurated at the SMnd~rd establishment of the national banks on Prince Itos return from the United States. Japanese financiers believed from the outset in gold monometallism. But, in the first place, the countrys stock of gold was soon driven out by her depreciated fiat currency; and, in the second, not only were all other Oriental nations silver-using, but also the Mexican silver dollar had long been the unit of account in Far-Eastern trade. Thus Japan ultimately drifted into silver monometallism, the silver yen becoming her unit of currency. So soon, however, as the indemnity that she received from China after the war of 189495 had placed her in possession of a stock of gold, she determined to revert to the gold standard. Mechanically speaking, the operation was very easy. Gold having appreciated so that its value in terms of silver had exactly doubled during the first 30 years of the Meiji era, nothing was necessary except to double the denominations of the gold coins in terms of yen, leaving the silver subsidiary coins unchanged. Thus the old 5-yen gold piece, weighing 2~2222I momme of 900 fineness, became a 10-yen piece in the new currency, and a new 5-yen piece of half the weight was coined. No change whatever was required in the reckonings of the people. The yen continued to be their coin of account, with a fixed sterling value of a small fraction over two shillings, and the denominations of the gold coins were doubled. Gold, however, is little ~en in Japan; the whole duty of currency is done by notes.

It is not to be supposed that all this economic and financial development was unchequered by periods of depression and severe panic. There were in fact six such seasons: in 1874, 1881, 1889, 1897, i900 and 1907. But no year throughout the whole period failed to witness an increase in the number of Japans industrial and commercial companies, and in the amount of capital thus invested.

To obtain a comprehensive idea of Japans state finance, the simplest method is to set down the annual revenue at quinquennial s~ periods, commencing with the year 1878-1879, because a e it was not until 1876 that the system of duly compiled ~ and published budgets came into existence.

REVENUE (omitting fractions)

Ordinary Revenu Extraordinary Revenue Total Revenue ear. (millions of yen). (millions of yen). (millionsof yen).

18789 53 9 62

18834 76 7 83

18889 74 18 92

18934 86 28 114

18989 133 87 220

19034 224 36 260

19089 476 I44 620

The most striking feature of the above table is the rapid growth of revenue during the last three periods. So signal was the growth that the revenue may be said to have sextupled in the 15 years ended 1909. This was the result of the two great wars in which Japan was involved, that with China in 189495 and that with Russia in 19045. The details will be presently shown.

Turning now to the expenditure and pursuing the same plan, we have the following figures: EXPENDITURE (omitting fractions)

______ Ordinary I Extraordinary Total Year. Expenditures Expenditures Expenditures (millions of yen). (millions of yen). (millions of yen).

18789 56 5 61

18834 68 15 83

18889 66 15 81

18934 64 20 84

18989 119 101 220

19034 170 80 250

19089 427 193 620

It may be here stated that, with three exceptions, the working of the budget showed a surplus in every one of the 41 years between 1867

and 1908.

i The Japanese fiscal year is from April 1 to March 31.

The sources from which revenue is obtained are as follow: ORDINARY REVENUE

18945.18989.19034.19089.

millions millions millions millions of yen. of yen. of yen. of yen.

Taxes 70.50 96.20 146.10 299.61 Receipts from stamps and Public Undertakings 14.75 33.00 96.87 164.66

Various Receipts 4.58 3-67 - 8.15 11.48

It appears from the above that during 15 years the weight of taxation increased fourfold. But a correction has to be applied, first, on account of the tax on alcoholic liquors and, secondly, on account of customs dues, neither of which can properly be called general imposts. The former grew from 16 millions in I 8941895 to 72 millions in 1908-1909, and the latter from 53/4 millions to 411/8 millions. If these increases be deducted, it is found that taxes, properly so called, grew from 70~5 millions in1894-1895to 207.86 millions in I 9081909, an increase of somewhat less than three-fold. Otherwise stated, the burden per unit of population in 1894I 895 was 35.6d., whereas in 1908f 909 it was 8s. 4d. To understand the principle of Japanese taxation and the manner in which the above development took place, it is necessary to glance briefly at the chief, taxes separately.

The land tax is the principal source of revenue. It was originally fixed at 3% of the assessed value of the land, but in 1877 this ratio was reduced to 21/8%, on which basis the tax yielded Land Tax from 37 to 38 million yen annually. After the war with China (1894I 895) the government proposed to increase this impost in order to obtain funds for an extensive programme of useful public works and expanded armaments (known subsequently as the first post bellum programme). By that time the market value of agricultural land had largely appreciated owing to improved communications, and urban land commanded greatly enhanced prices. But the lower house of the diet, considering itself guardian of the farmers interests, refused to endorse any increase of the tax. Not until 1889 could this resistance be overcome, and then only on condition that the change should not be operative for more than 5 years. The amended rates were 33% on rural lands and 5% on urban building sites. Thus altered, the tax produced 46,000,000 yen, but at the end of the five-year period it would have reverted to its old figure, had not war with Russia broken Out. An increase was then made so that the impost varied from 3% to 173/4% according to the class of land, and under this new system the tax yielded 85 millions. Thus the exigencies of two wars had augmented it from 38 millions in 1889 to 85 millions in 1907.

The income tax was introduced in 1887. It was on a graduated scale, varying from I % on incomes of not less than 300 yen, to 3% on incomes of 30,000 yen and upwards. At theselno,,me Tax rates the tax yielded an insignificant revenue of about 2,000,000 yen. In 1899, a revision was effected for the purposes of the first post bellum programme. This revision increased the number of classes from five to ten, incomes of 300 yen standing at the bottom and incomes of 100,000 yen or upwards at the top, the minimum and maximum rates being I % and 51/2%. The tax now produced approximately 8,ooo,ooo yen. Finally in 1904, when war broke out with Russia, these rates were again revised, the minimum now becoming 2%, and the maximum 8-2%. Thus revised, the tax yields a revenue of 27,000,000 yen.

The business tax was instituted in 1896, after the war with China, and the rates have remained unchanged. For the purposes of the tax all kinds of business are divided into nine classes, B I

and the tax is levied on the amounts of sales (wholesale T

and retail), on rental value of buildings, on number of -

employees and on amount of capital. The yield from the tax grows steadily. It was only 4,500,000 yen in 1897, but it figured at 22,000,000 yen in the budget for 1908-1909.

The above three imposts constitute the only direct taxes in Japan. Among indirect taxes the most important is that upon alcoholic liquors. It was inaugurated in 1871; doubled, roughly Ta on speaking, in 1878; still further increased thenceforth at Akobolic intervals of about 3 years, until it is now approximately Li ~ twenty times as heavy as it was originally. The liquorS q taxed is mainly sake; the rate is about 50 -sen (one shilling) per gallon, and the annual yield is 72,000,000 yen.

In 1859, when Japan re-opened her ports to foreign commerce, the customs dues were fixed on a basis of 10% ad valorem, but this waS almost immediately changed to a nominal 5%

and a real 3%. The customs then yielded a very Customs petty returnnot more than three or four million yen U CS.

and the Japanese government had no discretionary power to alter the rates. Strenuous efforts to change this system were at length successful, and, in 1899, the tariff was divided into two sections, conventional and statutory; the rates in the former being governed by a treaty valid for 12 years; those in the latter being fixed at Japans wilL Things remained thus until the war with Russia compelled a revision of the statutory tariff. Under this system the ratio of the duties to the value of the dutiable goods was about 15.65. The customs yield a revenue of about 42,000,000 yen.

In addition to the above there are eleven taxes, some in existence before the war of I9o45, and some created for the purpose Other of carrying on the war or to meet the expenses of a post Taxes. bellum programme.

Taxes in existence before1904-1905:

Yield Name (millions of yen).

Taxonsoy 4

Tax on sugar 163/4

Mining tax 2

Tax on bourses 2

Tax on issue of bank-notes 1

Tonnage dues 1/8 Taxes created on account of the war (I 9045) or in its immediate sequel:

Yield Name. (millions of yen).

Consumption tax on textile fabrics 191/8

Tax on dealers in patent medicines 3/4

Tax on communications 21/8

Consumption tax on kerosene 13/4

Succession tax 13/4

Also, as shown above, the land tax was increased by 39 millions; the income tax by 19 millions; the business tax by 15 millions; and the tax on alcoholic liquors by 15 millions. On the whole, if taxes of general incidence and those of special incidence be lumped together, it appears that the burden swelled from 160,000,000 yen before the war to 320,000,000 after it.

The government of Japan carries on many manufacturing undertakings for purposes of military and naval equipment, for ship building, for the construction of railway rolling stock, State for the manufacture of telegraph and light-house MonOpolies materials, for iron-founding and steel-making, forprinting, and Manu- for paper-making and so forth. There are 48 of these lectures, institutions, giving employment to 108,000 male operatives and 23,000 female, together with 63,000 laborers. But the financial results do not appear independently in the general budget. Three other government undertakings, however,constitute important budgetary items: they are, the profits derived from the postal and telegraph Services, 39,000,000 yen; secondly, from forests, i3,000,000 yen; and thirdly, from railways, 37,000,000 yen. The government further exercises a monopoly of three important staples, tobacco, salt and camphor. In each case the crude article is produced by private individuals from whom it is taken over at a fair price by the government, and, having been manufactured (if necessary), it is resold by government agents at fixed prices. The tobacco monopoly yields a profit of some 33,000,000 yen; the salt monopoly a profit of 12,000,000 yen, and the camphor monopoly a profit of 1,ooo.000 yen. Thus the ordinary revenue of the state consisted in1908-1909of: Yen.

Proceeds of taxes 320,000,000 Proceeds of state enterprises (posts and telegraphs, forests and railways) -. .. 8~,oo0,ooo Proceeds of monopolies 56,000,000

Sundries 11,000,000

Total 476,000,000

The ordinary expenditures of the nine departments of state aggregatedin 19081909427,000,000 yen, so that there was a surplus revenue of 49,000,000 yen.

Japanese budgets have long included an extraordinary section, so called because it embodiesoutlays of a special and terminable character as distinguished from ordinary and nerpetuExtraordinary ally recurring expenditures. The items in this extraExpenditures, ordinary section possessed deep interest in the years 1896 and 1907, because they disclosed the special programmes mapped out by Japanese financiers and statesmen after the wars with China and Russia. Both programmes had the same basesexpansion of armaments and development of the countrys material resources. After her war with China, Japan received a plain intimation that she must either fight again after a few years or resign herself to a career of insignificance on the confines cf the Far East. No other interpretation could be assigned to the action of Russia, Germany and France in requiring her to retrocede the territory which she had acquired by right of conquest. Japan therefore made provision for the doubling of her army and her navy, for the growth of a mercantile marine qualified to supply a sufficiency of troop-ships, and for the development of resources which should lighten the burden of these outlays.

The war with Russia ensued nine years after these preparations had begun, and Japan emerged victorious. It then seemed to the onlooking nations that she would rest from her warlike efforts. On the contrary, just as she had behaved after her war with China, so she now behaved after her war with Russiamade arrange- ments to double her army and navy and to develop her material resources. The government drafted for the year1907-1908a budget with three salient features. First, instead of proceeding to deal in a leisurely manner with the greatly increased national debt, Japans financiers made dispositions to pay it off completely in the space of 30 years. Secondly, a total outlay of 422,000,000 yen was set down for improving and expanding the army and the navy. Thirdly, expenditures aggregating 304,000,000 yen were estimated for produc~ tive purposes. All these outlays, included in the extraordinary section of the budget, were spread over a series of years commencing in 1907 and ending in 1913, so that the disbursements would reach their maximum in the fiscal year 1908f 909 and would thenceforth decline with growing rapidity. To finance this programme three constant sources of annual revenue were provided, namely, increased taxation, yielding some 30 millions yearly; domestic loans, varying from 30 to 40 millions each year; and surpluses of ordinary revenue amounting to from 45 to 75 millions. There were also some exceptional and temporary assets: such as 100,000,000 yen remaining over from the war fund; 50 millions paid by Russia for the maintenance of her officers and soldiers during their imprisonment in Japan; occasional sales of state properties and so forth. But the backbone of the scheme was the continuing revenue detailed above.

The house of representatives unanimously approved this programme. By the bulk of the nation, however, it was regarded with something like consternation, and a very short time sufficed to demonstrate its impracticability. From the beginning of 1907 a cloud of commercial and industrial depression settled down upon Japan, partly because of so colossal a programme of taxes and expenditures, and partly owing to excessive speculation during the year 1906 and to unfavourable financial conditions abroad. To float domestic loans became a hopeless task, and thus one of the three sources of extraordinary revenue ceased to be available. There remained no alternative but to modify the programme, and this was accomplished by extending the original period of years so as correspondingly to reduce the annual outlays. The nation, however, as represented by its leading men of affairs, clamoured for still more drastic measures, and it became evident that the government must study retrenchment, not expansion, eschewing above all things any increase of the countrys indebtedness. A change of ministry took place, and the new cabinet drafted a programme on five bases:

first, that all expenditures should be brought within the margin of actual visible revenue, loans being wholly abstained from; secondly, that the estimates should not include any anticipated surpluses of yearly revenue; thirdly, that appropriations of at least 50,000,000 yes~ should be annually set aside to form a sinking fund, the whole of the foreign debt being thus extinguished in 27 years; fourthly, that the state railways should be placed in a separate account, all their profits being devoted to extensions and repairs; and fifthly, that the period for completing the post bellum programme should be extended from 6 years to ii. This scheme had the effect of restoring confidence in the soundness of the national finances.

National Debt.When the fief s were surrendered to the sovereign at the beginning of the Meiji era, it was decided to provide for the feudal nobles and the samurai by the payment of lump sums in commutation, or by handing to them public bonds, the interest on which should constitute a source of income. The result of this transaction was that bonds having a total face value of 191,500,000 yen were issued, and ready-money payments were made aggregating 21,250,000 yen.i This was the foundation of Japans national debt. Indeed, these public bonds may be said to have represented the btilk of the states liabilities during the first 25 years of the Meiji period. The government had also to take over the debts of the fiefs, amounting to 41,000,000 yen, of which 21,500,000 yen were paid with interest-bearing bonds, the remainder with ready money. If to the above figures be added two foreign loans aggregating 16,500,000 yen (completely repaid by the year 1897); a loan of 15,000,000 yen incurred on account of the Satsuma revolt of 1877, loans of 33,000,000 yen for public works, 13,000,000 yen for naval construction,and 14,500,000 yenfin connection with the fiat currency, we have a total of 305,000,000 yen, being the whole national debt of Japan during the first 28 years of her new era under Imperial administration.

The second epoch dates from the war with China in 189495. The direct expenditures on account of the war aggregated 200,000,000

i The amounts include the payments made in connection with what may be called the disestablishment of the Church. There were 29,805 endowed temples and shrines throughout the empire, and their estates aggregated 354,481 acres, together with 13/4 million bushels of rice (representing 2,500,000 yen). The government resumed possession of all these lands and revenues at a total cost to the state of a little less than 2,500,000 yen, paid out in pensions spread over a period of fourteen years. The measure sounds like wholesale confiscation. But some extenuation is found in the fact that the temples and shrines held their lands and revenues under titles which, being derived from the feudal chiefs, depended for their validity on the maintenance of feudalism.

1 This sum represents interest-bearing bonds issued in exchange for fiat notes, with the idea of reducing the volume of the latter. It was a tentative measure, and proved of no value.

yen, of which 135,000,000 yen were added to the national debt, the remainder being defrayed with accumulations of surplus revenue, with a part of the indemnity received from China, and with voluntary contributions from patriotic subjects. As the immediate sequel of the war, the government elaborated a large programme of armaments and public works. The expenditure for these unproductive purposes, as well as for coast fortifications, dockyards, and so on,- came to 314,000,000 yen, and the total of the productive expenditures included in the programme was 190,000,000 yennamely, 120 millions for railways, telegraphs and telephones; 20 millions for riparian improvements; 20 millions in aid of industrial and agricultural banks and so forththe whole programme thus involving an outlay of 504,000,000 yen. To meet this large figure, the Chinese indemnity, surpluses of annual revenue and other assets, furnished 300 millions; and it was decided that the remaining 204 millions should be obtained by domestic loans, the programme to be carried completely into operationwith trifling exceptionsby the year 1905. In practice, however, it was found impossible to obtain money at home without paying a high rate of interest. The government, therefore, had recourse to the London market in 1899, raising a loan of 10,000,000 at 4%, and selling the Li 00 bonds at 90. In 1902, it was not expected that Japan would need any further immediate recourse to foreign borrowing. According to her financiers forecast at that time, her national indebtedness would reach its maximum, namely, 575,000,000 yen, in the year 1903, and would thenceforward diminish steadily. All Japans domestic loans were by that time placed on a uniform basis. They carried 5% interest, ran for a period of 5 years without redemption, and were then to be redeemed within 50 years at latest. The treasury had power to expedite the operation of redemption according to financial convenience, but the sum expended on amortization each year must receive the previous consent of the diet. Within the limit of that sum redemption was effected either by purchasing the stock of the loans in the open market or by drawing lots to determine the bonds to be paid off. During the first two periods (1867 to 1897) of the Meiji era, owing to the processes of conversion, consolidation, &c., and to the various requirements of the states progress, twenty-two different kinds of national bonds were issued; they aggregated 673,215,500 yen; 269,042,198 yen of that total had been paid off at the close of 1897, and the remainder was to be redeemed by 1946, according to these programmes.

But at this point the empire became involved in war with Russia, and the enormous resulting outlays caused a signal change in the financial situation. Before peace was restored in the autumn of 1905, Japan had been obliged to borrow 405,000,000 yen at home and 1,054,000,000 abroad, so that she found herself in 1908 with a total debt of 2,276,000,000 yen, of which aggregate her domestic indebtedness stood for 1,110,000,000 and her foreign borrowings amounted to 1,166,000,000. This meant that her debt had grown from 561,000,000 yen in I904 to 2,276,000,000 yeah in f908;or from I i-3 yen to 438 yen per head of the population. Further, out of the grand total, the sum actually spent on account of war and armaments represented 1,357,000,000 yen. The debt carried interest varying from 4 to 5%.

It will be observed that the countrys indebtedness grew by 1 700,000,000 yen, in round numbers, owing to the war with Russia. This added obligation the government resolved to discharge within the space of 30 years, for which purpose the diet was asked to approve the establishment of a national debt consolidation fund, which should be kept distinct from the general accounts of revenue and expenditure, and specially applied to payment of interest and redemption of principal. The amount of this fund was never to fall below 110,000,000 yen annually. Immediately after the war, the diet approved a cabinet proposal for the nationalization of 17 private railways, at a cost of 500,000,000 yen, and this brought the states debts to 2,776,000,000 yen in all. The people becoming impatient of this large burden, a scheme was finally adopted in 1908 for appropriating a sum of at least 50,000,000 yen annually to the purpose of redemption.

Local Finance.Between 1878 and 1888 a system of local autonomy in matters of finance was fully established. Under this system the total expenditures of the various corporations in the last year of each quinquennial period commencing from the fiscal year1889-1890were as follow :

Total Expenditure Year (millions of yen).

1889f 890 22

I8931894 52

1898-1899 97

I903I904i 158

1907-1908 167

I In this is included a sum of 110,000,000 yen distributed in the font of loan-bonds among the officers and men of the army and navy by way of reward for their services during the war of 19045.

2 When war broke Out in 1904 the local administrative districn took steps to reduce their outlays, so that whereas the expenditure~ totalled 158,000,000 yen in 1903-1904, they fell to 122,000,000an i26,000,000 in1904-1905and1905-1906respectively. Thereaftei however, they expanded once more.

In the same years the total indebtedness of the corporations was: Debts Year (millions of yen).

1890 3/4

1894 JO

1899 32

1904 65

1907 89I

The chief purposes to which the proceeds of these loans were applied are as follow: Millions of yen.

Education 5

Sanitation 12

Industries 13

Public works 52 Local corporations are not competent to incur unrestricted indebtedness. The endorsement of the local assembly must be secured; redemption must commence within 3 years after the date of issue and be completed within 30 years; and, except in the case of very small loans, the sanction of the minister of home affairs must be obtained.

Wealth of Japan.With reference to the wealth of Japan, there is no official census. So far as can be estimated from statistics for the year 1904-1905, the wealth of Japan proper, excluding Formosa, Sakhalin and some rights in Manchuria, amounts to about 19,896,000,000 yen, the items of which are as follow: Yen (10 yen =~I).

Lands 12,301,000,000

Buildings 2,331,000,000

Furniture and fittings i,o8o,000,000

Live stock 109,000,000

Railways, telegraphs and telephones. 707,000,000

Shipping 376,000,000

Merchandise 873,000,000

Specie and bullion 310,000,000

Miscellaneous 1,809,000,000

Grand total 19,896,000,000

Education.T here is no room to doubt that the literature and learning of China and Korea were transported to Japan in very ancient times, but tradition is the sole authority Early for current statements that in the 3rd century a Education. Korean immigrant was appointed historiographer to the Imperial court of Japan and another learned man from the same country introduced the Japanese to the treasures of Chinese literature. About the end of the 6th century the Japanese court began to send civilians and religionists direct to China, there to study Confucianism and Buddhism, and among these travellers there were some who passed as much as 25 or 30 years beyond the sea. The knowledge acquired by these students was crystallized into a body of laws and ordinances based on the administrative and legal systems of the Sui dynasty in China, and in the middle of the 7th century the first Japanese school seems to have been established by the emperor Tenchi, followed some 50 years later by the first university. Nara was the site of the latter, and the subjects of study were ethics, law, history and mathematics.

Not until 794, the date of the transfer of the capital to KiOto, however, is there any evidence of educational organization on a considerable scale. A university was then opened in the capital, with affiliated colleges; and local schools were built and endowed by noble families, to whose scions admittance was restricted, but for general education one institution only appears to have been provided. In this KiOto university the curriculum included the Chinese classics, calligraphy, history, law, etiquette, arithmetic and composition; while in the affiliated colleges special subjects were taught, as medicine, herbalism, acupuncture, shampooing, divination, the almanac and languages. Admission was limited to youths of high social grade; the students aggregated some 400, from 13 to 16 years of age; the faculty included professors and teachers, who were known by the same titles (hakase and ski) as those applied to their successors to-day; and the government supplied food and clothing as well as books. The family schools numbered five, and their patrons were the Wage, the Fujiwara, the Tachibana (one school each) and the Minamoto (two). At the one institutionopened in 828 where youths in general might receive instruction, the cours This includes 223/4 millions of loans raised abroad.

embraced only calligraphy and the precepts of Buddhism and Confucianism.

The above re ~rospect suggests that Japan, in those early days, borrowed her educational system and its subjects of Con, bina- study entirely from China. But closer scrutiny shows tion of that the national factor was carefully preserved.

Native and The ethics of administration required a combination Forelgi, of two elements, wakon, or the soul of Japan, and Element, .

kwansai, or the ability of China; so that, while adopting from Confucianism the doctrine of filial piety, the Japanese grafted on it a spirit of unswerving loyalty and patriotism; and while accepting Buddhas teaching as to three states of existence, they supplemented it by a belief that in the life beyond the grave the duty of guarding his country would devolve on every man. Great academic importance attached to proficiency in literary composition, which demanded close study of the ideographic script, endlessly perplexing in form and infinitely delicate in sense. To be able to compose and indite graceful couplets constituted a passport to high office as well as to the favor of great ladies, for women vied with men in this accomplishment. The early years of the 11th century saw, grouped about the empress Aki, a galaxy of female authors whose writings are still accounted their countrys classicsMurasaki no Shikibu, Akazome Emon, Izumi Shikibu, Ise Taiyu and several lesser lights. To the first two Japan owes the Genji monogatari and the Eiga Inonogatari, respectively, and from the Imperial court of those remote ages she inherited admirable models of painting, calligraphy, poetry, music, song and dance. But it is to be observed that all this refinement was limited virtually to the noble families residing in KiOto, and that the first object of education in that era was to fit men for office and for society.

Meanwhile, beyond the precincts of the capital there were, rapidly growing to maturity numerous powerful military mag~dncatioa nates who despised every form of learning that did In the not contribute to martial excellence. An illiterate era Middle ensued which reached its climax with the establishAges. ment of feudalism at the close of the 12th century.

It is recorded that, about that time, only one man out of a force of five thousand could decipher an Imperial mandate addressed to them. Kamakura, then the seat of feudal government, was at first distinguished for absence of all intellectual training, but subsequently the course of political events brought thither from KiOto a number of court nobles whose erudition and refinement acted as a potent leaven. Buddhism, too, had been from the outset a strong educating influence. Under its auspices the first great public library was established (1270) at the temple ShOmyo-ji in Kanazawa. It is said to have contained practically all the Chinese and Japanese books then existing, and they were open for perusal by every class of reader. To Buddhist priests, also, Japan owed during many years all the machinery she possessed for popular education. They organized schools at the temples scattered about in almost every part of the empire, and at these tera-koya, as they were called, lessons in ethics, calligraphy, reading and etiquette were given to the Sons of samurai and even to youths of the mercantile and manufacturing classes.

When, at the beginning of the 17th century, administrative supremacy fell into the hands of the Tokugawa, the illustrious Edu~tIon founder of that dynasty of shoguns, Iyeyasu, in the pre. showed himself an earnest promoter of erudition. Mel/i Era. He employed a number of priests to make copies of Chinese and Japanese books; he patronized men of learning and he endowed schools. It does not appear to have occurred to him, however, that the spread of knowledge was hampered by a restriction which, emanating originally from the Imperial court in KiOto, forbade any one outside the ranks of the Buddhist priesthood to become a public teacher. To his fifth successor Tsunayoshi (I68o1709) was reserved the honor of abolishing this veto. Tsunayoshi, whatever his faults, was profoundly attached to literature. By his command a pocket edition of the Chinese classics was prepared, and the example he himself set in reading and expounding rare books to audiences of feudatories and their vassals produced something like a mania for erudition, so that feudal chiefs competed in engaging teachers and founding schools. The eighth shogun, Yoshimun (1716-1749), was an even more enlightened ruler. lie caused a geography to be compiled and an astronomical observatory to be constructed; he revoked the veto on the study of foreign books; he conceived and carried out the idea of imparting moral education through the medium of calligraphy by preparing ethical primers whose precepts were embodied in the head-lines of copy-books, and he encouraged private schools. Iyenari (1787-1838), the eleventh shogun, and his immediate successor, Iyeyoshi (1838-1853), patronized learning no less ardently, and it was under the auspices of the latter that Japan acquired her five classics, the primers of True Words, of Great Learning, of Lesser Learning, of Female Ethics and of Womens Filial Piety.

Thus it may be said that the system of education progressed steadily throughout the Tokugawa era. From the days of Tsunayoshi the number of fief schools steadily increased, and as students were admitted free of all charges, a duty of grateful fealty as well as the impulse of interfief competition drew thither the sons of all samurai. Ultimately the number of such schools rose to over 240, and being supported entirely at the expense of the feudal chiefs, they did no little honor to the spirit of the era. From 7 to 15 years of age lads attended as day scholars, being thereafter admitted as boarders, and twice a year examinations were held in the presence of high officials of the fief. There were also several private schools where the curriculum consisted chiefly of moral philosophy, and there were many temple schools, where ethics, calligraphy, arithmetic, etiquette and, sometimes, commercial matters were taught. A prominent feature of the system was the bond of reverential affection uniting teacher and student. Before entering school a boy was conducted by his father or elder brother to the borne of his future teacher, and there the visitors, kneeling before the teacher, pledged themselves to obey him in all things and to submit unquestioningly to any discipline he might impose. Thus the teacher came to be regarded as a parent, and the veneration paid to him was embodied in a precept: Let not a pupil tread within three feet of his teachers shadow. In the case of the temple schools the priestly instructor had full cognisance of each students domestic circumstances and was guided by that knowledge in shaping the course of instruction. The universally underlying principle was, serve the country and be diligent in your respective avocations. Sons of samurai were trained in military arts, and on attaining proficiency many of them travelled about the country, inuring their bodies to every kind of hardship and challenging all experts of local fame.

Unfortunately, however, the policy of national seclusion prevented for a long time all access to the stores of European knowledge. Not until the beginning of the 18th century did any authorized account of the great world of the West pass into the hands of the people. A celebrated scholar (Arai Hakuseki) then compiled two worksSaiyo kibun (Record of Occidental Hearsay), and Sairan igen (Renderings of Foreign Languages) which embodied much information, obtained from Dutch sources, about Europe, its conditions and its customs. But of course the light thus furnished had very restricted influence. It was not extinguished, however. Thenceforth mens interest centred more and more on the astronomical, geographical and medical sciences of the West, though such subjects were not included in academical studies until the renewal of foreign intercourse in modern times. Then (1857), almost immediately, the nation turned to Western learning, as it had turned to Chinese thirteen centuries earlier. The Tokugawa government established in Yedo an institution called Bansho-sizirabe-dokoro (place for studying foreign books), where Occidental languages were learned and Occidental works translated. Simultaneously a school for acquiring foreign medical art (Seiyo igaku-sho) was opened, and, a little later (1862), the Kaisel-jo (place of liberal culture), a college for studying European sciences, was added to the list of new institutions. Thus the eve of the Restoration saw the Japanese people already appreciative of the stores of learning rendered accessible to them by contact with the Occident.

Commercial education was comparatively neglected in the schools. Sons of merchants occasionally attended the tera-koya, Commercial but the instruction they received there had seldom ~ducationin any bearing upon the conduct of trade. MercanTokugawa tile knowledge had to be acquired by a system of Times, apprenticeship. A boy of 9 or 1o was apprenticed for a period of 8 or 9 years to a merchant, who undertook to support him and teach him a trade. Generally this young apprentice could not even read or write. He passed through all the stages of shop menial, errand boy, petty clerk, salesman and senior clerk, and in. the evenings he received instruction from a teacher, who used for textbooks the manual of letter-writing (Shosoku orai) and the manual of commerce (ShObai orai). The latter contained much useful information, and a youth thoroughly versed in its contents was competent to discharge responsible duties. When an apprentice, having attained the position of senior clerk, had given proof of practical ability, he was often assisted by his master to start business independently, but under the same firm-name, for which purpose a sum capital was given to him or a section of his masters customers were assigned.

When the government of the Restoration came into power, the emperor solemnly announced that the administration should be ~ducatlon conducted on the principle of employing men of capaIn Modern city wherever they could be found. This amounted Japan. to a declaration that in choosing officials scholastic acquirements would thenceforth take precedence of the claims of birth, and thus unprecedented importance was seen to attach to education. But so long as the feudal system survived, even in part, no general scheme of education. could be thoroughly enforced, and thus it was not until the conversion of the fiefs into prefectures in 1871 that the government saw itself in a position to take drastic steps. A commission of investigation was sent to Europe and America, and on its return a very elaborate and extensive plan was drawn up in accordance with French models, which the commissioners had found conspicuously complete and symmetrical. This plan subsequently underwent great modifications. It will be sufficient to say that in consideration of the free education hitherto provided by the feudatories in their various fiefs, the government of the restoration resolved not only that the state should henceforth shoulder the main part of this burden, but also that the benefits of the system should be extended equally to all classes of the population, and that the attendance at primary schools should be compulsory. At the outset the sum to be paid by the treasury was fixed at 2,000,000 yen, that having been approximately the expenditure incurred by the feudatories. But the financial arrangements suffered many changes from time to time, and finally, in 1877, the cost of maintaining the schools became a charge on the local taxes, the central treasury granting only sums in aid.

Every child, on attaining the age of six, must attend a common elementary school, where, during a six-years course, instruction is given in morals, reading, arithmetic, the rudiments of technical work, gymnastics and poetry. Year by year the attendance at these schools has increased. Thus, whereas in the year 1900, only 8167% of the school-age children of both sexes received the prescribed elementary instruction, the figure in 1905 was 94.93%. The desire for instruction used to be keener among boys than among girls, as was natural in view of the difference of inducement; but ultimately this discrepancy disappeared almost completely. Thus, whereas the percentage of girls attending school was 75~90 in 1900, it rose to 91.46 in 1905, and the corresponding figures for boys were 9o55 and 97~I0 respectively. The tuition fee paid at a common elementary school in the rural districts must not exceed 5s. yearly, and in the urban districts, fos.; but in practice it is much smaller, for these elementary schools form part of the communal system, and such portion of their expenses as is not covered by tuition fees, income trom school property and miscellaneous sources, must be defrayed mit of the proceeds of local taxation. In 1909 there were 18,160 common elementary schools, and also 9105 schools classed as elementary but having sections where, subsequently to the comple. tion of the regular curriculum, a special supplementary course of study might be pursued in agriculture, commerce or industry (needle-work in the case of girls). The time devoted to these special courses is two, three or four years, according to the degre of proficiency contemplated, and the maximum fees are 15d. per month in urban districts and one-half of that amount in rural districts.

There are also 294 kindergartens, with an attendance of 26,000 infants, whose parents pay 3d. per month on the average for each child. In general the kindergartens are connected with elementary schools or with normal schools.

If a child, after graduation at a common elementary school, desires to extend its education, it passes into a common middle school, where training is given for practical pursuits or for admission to higher educational institutions. The ordinary curriculum ata common middle school includes moral philosophy, English language, history, geography, mathematics, natural history, natural philosophy, chemistry, drawing and the Japanese language. Five years are required to graduate, and from the fourth year the student may take up a special technical course as well as the main course; or, in accordance with local requirements, technical subjects may be taught conjointly with the regular curriculum throughout the whole time. The law provides that there must be at least one common middle school in each prefecture. The actual number in 1909 was 216.

Great inducements attract attendance at a common middle school. Not only does the graduation certificate carry considerable weight as a general qualification, but it also entitles a young man to volunteer for one years service with the colors, thus escaping one of the two years he would have to serve as an ordinary conscript.

The graduate of a common middle school can claim admittance, without examination, to a high school, where he spends three years preparing to pass to a university, or four years studying a special subject, as law, engineering or medicine. By following the course in a high school, a youth obtains exemption from conscription until the age of 28, when one year as a volunteer will free him from all service with the colors. A high-school certificate of graduation entitles its holder to enter a university without examination, and qualifies him for all public posts.

For girls also high schools are provided, the object being to give a general education of higher standard. Candidates for admission must be over 12 years of age, and must have completed the secondyear course of a higher elementary school. The regular course of study requires 4 years, and supplementary courses as well as special art courses may be taken.

In addition to the schools already enumerated, which may be said to constitute the machinery of general education, there are special schools, generally private, and technical schools (including a few private), where instruction is given in medicine and surgery, agriculture, commerce, mechanics, applied chemistry, navigation, electrical engineering, art (pictorial and applied), veterinary science, sericulture and various other branches of industry. There are also apprentices schools, classed under the heading of elementary, where a course of not less than six months, and not more than four years, may be taken in dyeing and weaving, embroidery, the making of artificial flowers, tobacco manufacture, sericulture, reeling silk, pottery, lacquer, woodwork, metal-work or brewing. There are also schoolsnearly all supported by private enterprisefor the blind and the dumb.

Normal schools are maintained for the purpose of training teachers, a class of persons not plentiful in Japan, doubtless because of an exceptionally low scale of emoluments, the yearly pay not exceeding 60 and often falling as low as 15.

There are two Imperial universities, one in Tokyo and one in KiOto. In 1909 the former had about 220 professors and instructors and 2880 students. Its colleges number six: law, medicine, engineering, literature, science and agriculture. It has a university hall where post-graduate courses are studied, and it publishes a quarterly journal giving accounts of scientific researches, which indicate not only large erudition, but also original talent. The university of KiOto is a comparatively new institution and has not given any signs of great vitality. In 1909 its colleges numbered four: law, medicine, literature and science; its faculty consisted of about 60 professors with 70 assistants, and its students aggregated about 1100.

Except in the cases specially indicated, all the figures given above are independent of private educational institutions. The system pursued by the state does not tend to encourage private education, for unless a private school brings its curriculum into exact accord with that prescribed for public institutions of corresponding grade, its students are denied the valuable privilege of partial exemption from conscription, as well as other advantages attaching to state recognition. Thus the quality of the instruction being nominally the same, the rate of fees must also be similar, and no margin offers to tempt private enterprise.

Public education in Japan is strictly secular: no religious teaching of any kind is permitted in the schools. There are about Ioo libraries. Progress is marked in this branch, the rate Of growth having been from 43 to 100 in the five-year period ended 1905. The largest library is the Imperial, in TOkyO. It had about half a million volumes in 1909, and the daily average of visitors was about 430.

Apart from the universities, the public educational institutions in Japan involve an annual expenditure of 31/2 millions sterling, out of which total a little more than half a million is met by students fees; 23/4 millions are paid by the communes, and the remainder is defrayed from various sources, the central government contributing only some 28,000. It is estimated that public school property in land, buildings, books, furniture, &c., aggregates Is millions sterling.

VII.RELIGI0N

The primitive religion of Japan is known by the name of ShintO, which signifies the divine way, but the Japanese Shint maintain that this term is of comparatively modern application. The term ShintO being obviously of Chinese origin, cannot have been used in Japan before she became acquainted with the Chinese language. Now Buddhism did not reach Japan until the 6th century, and a knowledge of the Chinese language had preceded it by only a hundred years. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that the primitive religion of Japan had no name, and that it did not begin to be called Shinto until Buddhism had entered the field. The two creeds remained distinct, though not implacably antagonistic, until the beginning of the oth century, when they were welded together into a system of doctrine to which the name RyObu-Shinlo (dual ShintO) was given. In this new creed the Shinto deities were regarded as avatars of Buddhist divfnities, and thus it may be said that Shinto was absorbed into Buddhism. Probably that would have been the fate of the indigenous creed in any circumstances, for a religion without a theory as to a future state and without any code of moral duties could scarcely hope to survive contact with a faith so well equipped as Buddhism in these respects. But Shinto, though absorbed, was not obliterated. Its beliefs survived; its shrines survived; its festivals survived, and something of its rites survived also.

Shinto, indeed, may be said to be entwined about the roots of Japans national existence. Its scriptureas the Kojiki must be consideredresembles the Bible in that both begin with the cosmegony. But it represents the gods as peopling the ne.vly created earth with their own offspring instead of with human beings expressly made for the purpose. The actual work of creation was done by a male deity, Izanagi, and a female deity, Izanami. From the right eye of the former was born Amaterasu, who became goddess of the sun; from his left eye, the god of the moon; and from his nose, a species of Lucifer. The grandson of the sun goddess was the first sovereign of Japan, and his descendants have ruled the land in unbroken succession ever since, the 12 1st being on the throne in 1909. Thus it is to Amaterasu (the heaven-illuminating goddess) that the Japanese pay reverence above all other deities, and it is to her shrine at Ise that pilgrims chiefly flock.

The story of creation, as related in the Kojiki, is obviously based on a belief that force is indestructible, and that every exercise of it is productive of some permanent result. Thus by the motions of the creative spirit there spring into existence all the elements that go to make up the universe, and these, being of divine origin, are worshipped and propitiated. Their number becomes immense when we add the deified ghosts of ancestors who were descended from the gods and whose names are associated with great deeds. These ancestors are often regarded as the tutelary deities of districts, where they receive special homage and where shrines are erected to them. The method of worship consists in making offerings and in the recital of rituals (norito). Twenty-seven of these rituals were reduced to writing and embodied in a work called Engishiki (927). Couched in antique language, these liturgies are designed for the dedication of shrines, for propitiating evil, for entreating blessings on the harvest, for purification, for obtaining household security, fol bespeaking protection during a journey, and so forth. Nowhere is any reference found to a future state of reward or punishment, to deliverance from evil, to assistance in the path of virtue One ceremonial only is designed to avert the consequences of sin or crime; namely, the rite of purification, which, by washing with water and by the sacrifice of valuables, removes the pollution resulting from all wrong-doing. Originally performed or behalf of individuals, this O-barai ultimately came to be a semi annual ceremony for sweeping away the sins of all the people.

Shinto is thus a mixture of ancestor-worship and of natureworship without any explicit code of morals. It regards human beings as virtuous by nature; assumes that each mans conscience is his best guide; and while believing in a continued existence beyond the grave, entertains no theory as to its pleasures or pains. Those that pass away become disembodied spirits, inhabiting the world of darkness (yomi-no-yo) and possessing power to bring sorrow or joy into the lives of their survivors, on which account they are worshipped and propitiated. Purity and simplicity being essential characteristics of the cult, its shrines are built of white wood, absolutely without decorative features of any kind, and fashioned as were the original huts of the first Japanese settlers. There are no graven imagesa fact attributed by some critics to ignorance of the glyptic art on the part of the original worshippersbut there is an emblem of the deity, which generally takes the form of a sword, a mirror or a so-called jewel, these being the insignia handed by the sun goddess to her grandson, the first ruler of Japan. This emblem is not exposed to public view: it is enveloped in silk and brocade and enclosed in a box at the back of the shrine. The mirror sometimes prominent is a Buddhist innovation and has nothing to do with the true emblem of the creed.

From the 9th century, when Buddhism absorbed Shinto, the two grew together so intimately that their differentiation seemed hopeless. But in the middle of the 17th century a strong revival of the indigenous faith was effected by the efforts of a group of illustrious scholars and politicians, at whose head stood Mabuchi, Motoori and Hirata. These men applied themselves with great diligence and acumen to reproduce the pure Shinto of the Kojiki and to restore it to its old place in the nations reverence, their political purpose being to educate a spirit of revolt against the feudal system which deprived the emperor of administrative power. The principles thus revived became the basis of the restoration of 1867; ShintO rites and Shinto rituals were readopted, and Buddhism fell for a season into comparative disfavour, ShintO being regarded as the national religion. But Buddhism had twined its roots too deeply around the heart of the people to be thus easily torn up. It gradually recovered its old place, though not its old magnificence, for its disestablishment at the hands of the Meiji government robbed it of a large part of its revenues.

Buddhism entered China at the beginning of the Christian era, but not until the 4th century did it obtain any strong footing. Thence, two centuries later (522), it reached Japan Buddhism through Korea. The reception extended to it was not encouraging at first. Its images and its brilliant appurtenances might well deter a nation which had never seen an idol nor ever worshipped in a decorated temple. But the ethical teachings and the positive doctrines of the foreign faith presented an attractive contrast to the colorless Shinto. After a struggle, not without bloodshed, Buddhism won its way. It owed much to the active patronage of Shotoku taishi, prince-regent during the reign of the empress Suiko (59362 1). At his command many new temples were built; the country was divided into dioceses under Buddhist prelates; priests were encouraged to teach the arts of road-making and bridge-building, and students were sent to China to investigate the mysteries of the faith at its supposed fountain-head. Between the middle of the 7th century and that of the 8th, six sects were introduced from China, all imperfect and all based on the teachings of the Hinayana system. Up to this time the propagandists of the creed had been chiefly Chinese and Korean teachers. But from the 8th century onwards, when KiOto became the permanent capital of the empire, Japanese priests of lofty intelligence and profound piety began to repair to China and bring thence modified forms of the doctrines current there. It was thus that Dengyo daishi (c. 800) became the founder of the Tendai (heavenly tranquillity) sect and Kobo daishi (774834) the apostle of the Shingon (true word). Other sects followed, until the country possessed six principal sects in all with thirty-seven sub-sects. It must be remembered that Buddhism offers an almost limitless iieId~ fof eclecticism. There is not in the world any literary production of such magnitude as the Chinese scriptures of the Mahayana. The canon is seven hundred times the amount of the New Testament. Hsuan Tsangs translation of the Prajna parama is twenty-five times as large as the whole Christian Bible.

It is natural that out of such a mass of doctrine different systems should be elaborated. The Buddhism that came to Japan prior to the days of Dengyo daishi was that of the Vaipulya school, which seems to have been accepted in its entirety. But the Tendai doctrines, introduced by Dengyo, Iikaku and other fellow-thinkers, though founded mainly on the Saddharma pundarika, were subjected to the process of eclecticism which all foreign institutions undergo at Japanese hands. DengyO studied it in the monastery of Tientai which had been founded towards the close of the 6th century of our era on a lofty range of mountains in the province of Chehkiang by the celebrated preacher Chikai (Lloyd, Developments of Japanese Buddhism, Transactz~ons of the Asiatic Society of Japan, vol. xxii.), and carrying it to Japan he fitted its disciplinary and meditative methods to the foundations of the sects already existing there.

This eclecticism was even more marked in the case of the Shingon (true word) doctrines, taught by DengyOs illustrious contemporary, KObO daishi, who was regarded as the incarnation of Vairocana. He led his countrymen, by a path almost wholly his own, from the comparatively low platform of Hinayana Buddhism, whose sole aim is individual salvation, to the Maha-, yana doctrine, which teaches its devotee to strive after perfect enlightenment, not for his own sake alone, but also that he may help his fellows and intercede for them. Then followed the Jodo (Pure Land) sect, introduced in 1153 by a priest, Senku, who is remembered by later generations as HOnen shOnin. He taught salvation by faith ritualistically expressed. The virtue that saves comes, not from imitation of and conformity to the person and character of the saviour Amida, but from blind trust in his efforts and ceaseless repetition of pious formulae. It is really a religion of despair rather than of hope, and in that respect it reflects the profound sympathy awakened in the bosom of its teacher by the sorrows and sufferings of the troublous times in which he lived.

A favorite pupil of HOnen shonin was Shinran (1173-1262). He founded the Jodo Shinshti (true sect of jOdo), commonly called simply Shinshil and sometimes Monto, which subsequently became the most influential of Japanese sects, with its splendid monasteries, the two Hongwana-ji in KiOto. The differences between the doctrines of this sect and those of its predecessors were that the former divested itself of all metaphysics; knew nothing of a philosophy of religion, dispensed with a multiplicity of acts of devotion and the keeping of many commandments; did not impose any vows of celibacy or any renunciation of the world, and simply made faith in Amida the all in all. In modern days the Shinshu sect has been the most progressive of all Buddhist sects and has freely sent forth its promising priests to study in Europe and America. Its devotees make no use of charms or spells, which are common among the followers of other sects.

Anterior by a few years to that introduction of the Shinshu was the Zen sect, which has three main divisions, the Rinzai (1i68), the SOtO (1223) and the Obaku (1650). This is essentially a contemplative sect. Truth is reached by pure contemplation, and knowledge can be transmitted from heart to heart without the use of words. In that simple form the doctrine was accepted by the Rinzai believers. But the founders of the SOtO branch ShOyo taishi and Butsuji zenshiadded scholarship and research to contemplation, and taught that the highest wisdom and the most perfect enlightenment are attained when all the elements of phenomenal existence are recognized as empty, vain and unreal. This creed played an important part in the development of Bushido, and its priests have always been distinguished for erudition and indifference to worldly possessions.

Last but not least important among Japanese sects of Buddhism is the Nichiren or Hokke, called after its founder, Nichiren (1222-1282). It was based on the Sclddharma pundarika, and it taught that there was only one true Buddhathe moon in thf heavensthe other Buddhas being like the moon reflected in the waters, transient, shadowy reflections of the Buddha of truth. It is this being who is the source of all phenomenal existence, and in whom all phenomenal existence has its being. The imperfect Buddhism teaches a chain of cause and effect; true Buddhism teaches that the first link in this chain of cause and effect is the Buddha of original enlightenment. When this point has been reached true wisdom has at length been attained. Thus the monotheistic faith of Christianity was virtually reached in one God in whom all creatures live, move and have their being. It will readily be conceived that these varied doctrines caused dissension and strife among the sects professing them. Sectarian controversies and squabbles were nearly as prominent among Japanese Buddhists as they were among European Christians, but to the credit of Buddhism it has to be recorded that the stake and the rack never found a place among its instruments of self-assertion. On the other hand, during the wars that devastated Japan from the 12th to the end of the 16th century, many of the monasteries became military camps, and the monks, wearing armour and wielding glaives, fought in secular as well as religious causes.

The story of the first Christian missionaries to Japan is told elsewhere (see VIII. FOREIGN INTERcoURsE). Their work suffered an interruption for more than 200 years until, in 1858, ci,., ~ it almost simultaneously with the conclusion of thet ~ Y treaties, a small band of Catholic fathers entered Japan, ~ em from the RiCkiO islands, where they had carried on their ministrations since 1846. They found that, in the neighborhood of Nagasaki, there were some small communities where Christian worship was still carried on. It would seem that these communities had not been subjected to any severe official scrutiny. But the arrival of the fathers revived the old question, and the native Christians, or such of them as refused to~ apostatize, were removed from their homes and sent into banishment. This was the last example of religious intolerance in Japan. At the instance of the foreign representatives in Tokyo the exiles were set at liberty in 1873, and from that time complete freedom of conscience existed in fact, though it was not declared by law until the promulgation of the constitution in 1889. In 1905 there were 60,000 Roman Catholic converts in Japan forming 360 congregations, with 130 missionaries and 215 teachers, including 145 nuns. These were all European. They were assisted by 32 Japanese priests, 52 Japanese nuns, 280 male catechists and 265 female catechists and nurses. Three seminaries for native priests existed, together with 58 schools and orphanages and two lepers homes. The whole was presided over by an archbishop and three bishops.

The Anglican Church was established in Japan in 1859 by two American clergymen who settled in Nagasaki, and now, in conjunction with the Episcopal Churches of America and Canada, it has missions collectively designated Nihon Sei-KOkai. There are 6 bishops2 American and 4 Englishwith about 60 foreign and 50 Japanese priests and deacons, besides many foreign lay workers of both sexes and Japanese catechists and school teachers. The converts number 11,000. The Protestant missions include Presbyterian (Nihon Kirisuto Kyokai), Congregational (Kumi-ai), Methodist, Baptist and the Salvation Army (Kyusei-gun). The pioneer Protestant mission was founded in 1859 by representatives of the American Presbyterian and Dutch Reformed Churches. To this mission belongs the credit of having published, in 1880, the first complete Japanese version of the New Testament, followed by the Old Testament in 1887. The Presbyterians, representing 7 religious societies, have over a hundred missionaries; 12,400 converts; a number of boarding schools for boys and girls and day schools. The Congregational churches are associated exclusively with the mission of the American board of commissioners for foreign missions. They have about 11,400 converts, and the largest Christian educational institution in Japan, namely, the DOshisha in KiOto. The Methodists represent 6 American societies and I Canadian. They have 130 missionaries and 10,000 converts; boarding schools, day schools, and the most important Christian college in TokyO, namely, the Awoyama Gaku-in. The Baptists represent 4 American societies; have 60 missionaries, a theological seminary, an academy for boys, boarding schools for girls, day schools and 3500 converts. The Salvation Army, which did not enter Japan until 1895, has organized 15 corps, and publishes ten thousand copies of a fortnightly magazine, the War Cry (Toki no Koe). Finally, the Society of Friends, the American and London Religious Tract Societies and the Young Mens Christian Association have a number of missions. It will be seen from the above that the missionaries in Japan, in the space of half a century (1858 to 1908), had won 110,000 converts, in round numbers. To these must be added the Orthodox Russian Church, which has a fine cathedral in Tokyo, a staff of about 40 Japanese priests and deacons and 27,000 converts, the whole presided over by a bishop. Thus the total number of converts becomes 137,000. In spite of the numerous sects represented in Japan there has been vir-tually no sectarian strife, and it may be said of the Japanese converts that they concern themselves scarcely at all about the subtleties of dogma which divide European Christianity. Their tendency is to consider only the practical aspects of the faith as a moral and ethical guide. They are disposed, also, to adapt the creed to their own requirements just as they adapted Buddhism, and this is a disposition which promises to grow.

VIII.F0REIGN INTERCOURSE

Foreign Intercourse in Early and Medieval Times.There can be no doubt that commerce was carried on by Japan with China and Korea earlier that the 8th century of the Christian era. It would appear that from the very outset over-sea trade was regarded as a government monopoly. Foreigners were allowed to travel freely in the interior of the country provided that they submitted their baggage for official inspection and made no purchases of weapons of war, but all imported goods were bought in the first place by official appraisers who subsequently sold them to the people at arbitrarily fixed prices. Greater importance attached to the trade with China under the Ashikaga shOguns (14th, 15th and 16th centuries), who were in constant need of funds to defray the cost of interminable military operations caused by civil disturbances. In this distress they turned to the neighboring empire as a source from which money might be obtained. This idea seems to have been suggested to the shgun Takauji by a Buddhist priest, when he undertook the construction of the temple Tenryu-ji. Two ships laden with goods were fitted out, and it was decided that the enterprise should be repeated annually. Within a few years after this development of commercial relations between the two empires-~ an interruption occurred owing partly to the overthrow of the Yuen Mongols by the Chinese Ming, and partly to the activity of Japanese pirates and adventurers who raided the coasts of China. The shgun Yoshimitsu (1368-1394), however, succeeded in restoring commercial intercourse, though in order to effect his object he consented that goods sent from Japan should bear the character of tribute and that he himself should receive investiture at the hands of the Chinese emperors ambassador. The Nanking government granted a certain number of commercial passports, and these were given by the shogun to Ouchi, feudal chief of Cho-shu, which had long been the principal port for trade with the neighboring empire. Tribute goods formed only a small fraction of a vessels cargo:

the bulk consisted of articles which were delivered into the governments stores in China, payment being received in copper cash. It was from this transaction that the shOgun derived a considerable part of his profits, for the articles did not cost him anything originally, being either presents from the great temples and provincial governors or compulsory contributions from the house of Ouchi. As for the gifts by the Chinese government and the goods shipped in China, they were arbitrarily distributed among the noble families in Japan at prices fixed by the shoguns assessor. Thus, so far as the shogun was concerned, these enterprises could not fail to be lucrative. They also brought large profits to the Ouchi family, for, in the absence of competition, the products and manufactures of each country found ready sale in the markets of the other. The articles found most suitable in China were swords, fans, screens, lacquer wares, copper and agate, and the goods brought back to Japan were brocade and other silk fabrics, ceramic productions, jade and fragrant woods. The Chinese seem to have had a just appreciation of the wonderful swords of Japan. At first they were willing to pay the equivalent of 12 guineas for a pair of blades, but by degrees, as the Japanese began to increase the supply, the price fell,, and at the beginning of the 16th century all the diplomacy of the Japanese envoys was needed to obtain good figures for the large and constantly growing quantity of goods that they took over by way of supplement to the tribute. Buddhist priests generally enjoyed the distinction of being selected as envoys, for experience showed that their subtle reasoning invariably overcame the economical scruples of the Chinese authorities and secured a fine profit for their master, the sh6gun. In the middle of the 16th century these tribute-bearing missions came to an end with the ruin of the Ouchi family and the overthrow of the Ashikaga shOguns, and they were never renewed.

Japans medieval commerce with Korea was less ceremonious than that with China. No passports had to be obtained from the Korean government. A trader was sufficiently With equipped when he carried a permit from the So Ko~ family, which held the island of Tsushima in fief. Fifty vessels were allowed to pass yearly from ports in Japan to the three Japanese settlements in Korea. Little is recorded about the nature of this trade, but it was rudely interrupted by the Japanese settlers, who, offended at some arbitrary procedure on the part of the local Korean authorities, took up arms (A.D. 1510) and at first signally routed the Koreans. An army from Seoul turned the tables, and the Japanese were compelled to abandon the three settlements. Subsequently the shOguns governmentwhich had not been concerned in the struggleapproached Korea with amicable proposals, and it was agreed that the ringleaders of the raiders should be decapitated and their heads sent to Seoul, Japans compliance with this condition affording, perhaps, a measure of the value she attached to neighborly friend:hip. Thenceforth the number of vessels was limited to 25 annually and the settlements were abolished. Some years later, the Japanese again resorted to violent acts of self-assertion, and on this occasion, although the offenders were arrested by order of the shogun Yoshiharu, and handed over to Korea for punishment, the Seoul court persisted in declining to restore the system of settlements or to allow the trade to be resumed on its former basis. Fifty years afterwards the taikUs armies invaded Korea, overrunning it for seven years, and leaving, when they retired in. 1598, a country so impoverished that it no longer offered any attraction to commercial enterprise from beyond the sea.

The Portuguese discovered Japan by accident in 1542 or 1543

the exact date is uncertain. On a voyage to Macao from Siam, a junk carrying three Portuguese was blown from ~h her course and fetched Tanegashima, a small Occidental island lying south of the province of Satsuma. Nations. The Japanese, always hospitable and inquisitive, welcomed the newcomers and showed special curiosity about the arquebuses carried by the Portuguese, fire-arms being then a novelty in Japan and all weapons of war being in great request. Conversation was impossible, of course, but, by tracing ideographs upon the sand, a Chinese member of the crew succeeded in explaining the cause of the junks arrival. She was then piloted to a more commodious harbour, and the Portuguese sold two arquebuses to the local feudatory, who immediately ordered his armourer to manufacture similar weapons. Very soon the news of the discovery reached all the Portuguese settlements in the East, and at least seven expeditions were fitted out during the next few years to exploit this new market. Their objective points were all in the island of Kiushifitbe principal stage where the dramaultimately converted into a tragedyof Christian propagandism and European commercial intercourse was acted in the interval between 1542 arid 1637.

It does not appear that the Jesuits at Macao, Goa or other centres of Portuguese influence in the East took immediate advantage of the discovery of Japan. The pioneer Arrival of propagandist was Francis Xavier, who landed at the Jesuits. Kagoshima on the 15th of August 1549. During the interval of six (or seven) years that separated this event from the drifting of the junk to Tanegashima, the Portuguese had traded freely in the ports of Kishi, had visited KiOto, and had reported the Japanese capital to be a city of 96,000 houses, therefore larger than Lisbon. Xavier would certainly have gone to Japan even though he had not been specially encouraged, for the reports of his countrymen depicted the Japanese as very desirous of being instructed, and he longed to find a field more promising than that inhabited by all these Indian nations, barbarous, vicious and without inclination to virtue. There were, however, two special determinants. One was a request addressed by a feudatory, supposed to have been the chief of the Bungo fief, to the viceroy of the Indies at Goa; the other, an appeal made in person by a Japanese named Yajiro, whom the fathers spoke of as Anjiro, and who subsequently attained celebrity under his baptismal name, Paul of the holy faith. No credible reason is historically assigned for the action of the Japanese feudatory. Probably his curiosity had been excited by accounts which the Portuguese traders gave of the noble devotion of their countrys missionaries, and being entirely without bigotry, as nearly all Japanese were at that epoch, he issued the invitation partly out of curiosity and partly from a sincere desire for progress. Anjiros case was very different. Laboring under stress of repentant zeal, and fearful that his evil acts might entail murderous consequences, he sought an asylum abroad, and was taken away in 1548 by a Portuguese vessel whose master advised him to repair to Malacca for the purpose of confessing to Xavier. This might well have seemed to the Jesuits a providential dispensation, for Anjiro, already able to speak Portuguese, soon mastered it sufficiently to interpret for Xavier and his fellow-missionaries (without which aid they must have remained long helpless in the face of the immense difficulty of the Japanese language), and to this linguistic skill he added extraordinary gifts of intelligence and memory. Xavier, with two Portuguese companions and Anjiro, were excellently received by the feudal chiefs of Satsuma and obtained permission. to preach their doctrine in any part of the fief. This permit is not to be construed as an evidence of official sympathy with the foreign creed. Commercial considerations alone were in question. A Japanese feudal chief in that era had sedulously to foster every source of wealth or strength, and as the newly opened trade with the outer world seemed full of golden promise, each feudatory was not less anxious to secure a monopoly of it in the 16th century than the Ashikaga shoguns had been in the 15th. The Satsuma daimy was led to believe that the presence of the Jesuits in Kagoshima would certainly prelude the advent of trading vessels. But within a few months one of the expected merchantmen sailed to Hirado without touching at Kagoshima, and her example was followed by two others in the following year, so that the Satsuma chief saw himself flouted for the sake of a petty rival, Matsudaira of Hirado. This fact could not fail to provoke his resentment. But there was another influence at work. Buddhism has always been a tolerant religion, eclectic rather than exclusive. Xavier, however, had all the bigoted intolerance of his time. The Buddhist priests in Kagoshima received him with courtesy and listened respectfully to the doctrines he expounded through the mouth of Anjiro. Xavier rejoined with a display of aggressive intolerance which shocked and alienated the Buddhists. They represented to the Satsuma chief that peace and good order were inconsistent with such a display of militant propagandism, and he, already profoundly chagrined by his commercial disappointment, issued in 1550 an edict making it a capital offence for any of his vassals to embrace Christianity. Xavier, or, more correctly speaking, Anjiro, had won 150 converts, who remained without molestation, but Xavier himself took ship for Hirado. There he was received with salvoes of artillery by the Portuguese merchantmen lying in the harbour and with marks of profound respect by the Portuguese traders, a display which induced the local chief to issue orders that courteous attention should be paid to the teaching of the foreign missionaries. In ten days a hundred baptisms took place; another significant index of the mood of the Japanese in the early era of Occidental intercourse: the men in authority always showed a complaisant attitude towards Christianity where trade could be fostered by so doing, anc wherever the men in authority showed such an attitude, considerable numbers of the lower orders embraced the foreigr faith. Thus, in considering the commercial history of the era, th element of religion constantly thrusts itself into the foreground Xavier next resolved to visit KiOto. The first town of impor First Visit tance he reached on the way was Yamaguchi, capita of~uropeans of the ChOsh fief, situated on the northern shori to KJ.to. of the Shimonoseki Strait. There the feudal chief Ouchi, though sufficiently courteous and inquisitive, showe no special cordiality towards humble missionaries unconnected with commerce, and the work of pi~oselytizing made no progress, so that Xavier and his companion, Fernandez, pushed on to KiOto. The time was mid-winter; the two fathers suffered terrible privations during their journey of two months on foot, and on reaching Kioto they found a city which had been almost wholly reduced to ruins by internecine war. Necessarily they failed to obtain audience of either emperor or shogun, at that time the most inaccessible potentates in the world, the Chinese son of heaven excepted, and nothing remained but street preaching, a strange resource, seeing that Xavier, constitutionally a bad linguist, bad only a most rudimentary acquaintance with the profoundly difficult tongue in which he attempted to expound the mysteries of a novel creed. A fortnight sufficed to convince him that Kito was unfruitful soil. He therefore returned to Yamaguchi. But he had now learned a lesson. He saw that propagandism without scrip or staff and without the countenance of those sitting in the seats of power would be futile in Japan. So he obtained from Hirado his canonicals, together with a clock and other novel products of European skill, which, as well as credentials from the viceroy of India, the governor of Malacca and the bishop of Goa, he presented to the Chshfl chief. His prayer for permission to preach Christianity was now readily granted, and Ouchi issued a proclamation announcing his approval of the introduction of the new religion and according perfect liberty to embrace it. Xavier and Fernandez now made many converts. They also gained the valuable knowledge that the road to success in Japan lay in associating themselves with over-sea commerce and its directors, and in thus winning the co-operation of the feudal chiefs.

Nearly ten years had now elapsed since the first Portuguese landed in Kagoshima, and during that time trade had gone on steadily and prosperously. No attempt was made Christian to find markets in the main island: the Portuguese Propagandists. confined themselves to Kishifl for two reasons: one, that having no knowledge of the coasts, they hesitated to risk their ships and their lives in unsurveyed waters; the other, that whereas the main island, almost from end to end, was seething with internecuse war, Kiflshifl remained beyond the pale of disturbance and enjoyed comparative tranquillity. At the time of Xaviers second sojourn in Yamaguchi, a Portuguese ship happened to be visiting Bungo, and at its masters suggestion the great missionary proceeded thither, with the intention of returning temporarily to the Indies. At Bungo there was then ruling Otomo, second in power to only the Satsuma chief among the feudatories of Kishiti. By him the Jesuit father was received with all honor. Xavier did not now neglect the lesson he had learned in Yamaguchi. He repaired to the Bungo chieftains court, escorted by nearly the whole of the Portuguese crew, gorgeously bedizened, carrying their arms and with banners flying. Otomo, a young and ambitious ruler, was keenly anxious to attract foreign traders with their rich cargoes and puissant weapons of war. Witnessing the reverence paid to Xavier by the Portuguese traders, he appreciated the importance of gaining the goodwill of the Jesuits, and accordingly not only granted them full freedom to teach and preach, but also enjoined upon his younger brother, who, in the sequel of a sudden rebellion, had succeeded to the lordship of Yamaguchi, the advisability of extending protection to Torres and Fernandez, then sojourning there. After some four months stay in Bungo, Xavier set sail for Goa in February 1552. Death overtook him in the last month of the same year.

Xaviers departure from Japan marked the conclusion of the first epoch of Christian propagandism. His sojourn iii Japan extended to 27 months. In that time he and his coadjutors won about 760 converts. In Satsuma more than a years labor produced ISo believers. There Xavier had thi assistance of Anjiro to expound his doctrines. No languag~ lends itself with greater difficulty than Japanese to the discussion of theological questions. The terms necessary for suci study, which, it need scarcely be said, must be preluded by an accurate acquaintance with the tongue itself, can a man hope to become duly equipped for the task of exposition and dissertation. It is open to grave doubt whether any foreigner has ever attained the requisite proficiency. Leaving Anjiro in Kagoshima to care for the converts made there, Xavier pushed on to Hirado, where he baptized a hundred Japanese in a few days. Now we have it on the authority of Xavier himself that in this Hirado campaign none of us knew Japanese. How then did they proceed? By reciting a semiJapanese volume (a translation made by Anjiro of a treatise from Xaviers pen) and by delivering sermons, we brought several over to the Christian cult. Sermons preached in Portuguese or Latin to a Japanese audience on the island of Hirado in the year 1550 can scarcely have attracted intelligent interest. On his first visit to Yamaguchi, Xaviers means of access to the understanding of his hearers was confined to the rudimentary knowledge of Japanese which Fernandez had been able to acquire in 14 months, a period of study which, in modern times, with all the aids now procurable, would not suffice to carry a student beyond the margin of the colloquial. No converts were won. The people of Yamaguchi probably admired the splendid faith and devotion of these over-sea philosophers, but as for their doctrine, it was unintelligible. In. KiOto the same experience was repeated, with an addition of much physical hardship. But when the Jesuits returned to Yamaguchi in the early autumn of 1551, they baptized 500 persons, including several members of the military class. Still Fernandez with his broken Japanese was the only medium for communicating the profound doctrines of Christianity. It must be concluded that the teachings of the missionaries produced much less effect than the attitude of the local chieftain.

Only two missionaries, Torres and Fernandez, remained in Japan after the departure of Xavier, but they were soon joined Second by three others. These newcomers landed at KagoPeriod of shima and found that, in spite of the official veto Christian against the adoption of Christianity, the feudal chief Pl~Oi had lost nothing of his desire to foster foreign trade.

san Sill. Two years later, all the Jesuits in Japan were assembled in Bungo. Their only church stood there; and they had also built two hospitals. Local disturbances had compelled them to withdraw from Yamaguchi, not, however, before their violent disputes with the Buddhist priests in that town had induced the feudatory to proscribe the foreign religion, as had previously been done in Kagoshima. From Funai, the chief town of Bungo, the Jesuits began in 5579 to send yearly reports to their Generals in Rome. These reports, known as the Annual Letters, comprise some of the most valuable information available about the conditions then existing in Japan. They describe a state of abject poverty among the lower orders; poverty so cruel that the destruction of children by their famishing parents was an everyday occurrence, and in some instances choice had to be made between cannibalism and starvation. Such suffering becomes easily intelligible when the fact is recalled that Japan had been racked by civil war during more than 200 years, each feudal chief fighting for his own hand, to save or to extend his territorial possessions. From these Annual Letters it is possible also to gather a tolerably clear idea of the course of events during the years immediately subsequent to Xaviers departure. There was no break in the continuity of the newly inaugurated foreign trade. Portuguese ships visited Hirado as well as Bungo, and in those days their masters and crews not only attended scrupulously to their religious duties, but also showed such profound respect for the missionaries that the Japanese received constant object lessons in the influence wielded over the traders by the Jesuits. Thirty years later, this orderly and reverential demeanour was exchanged for riotous excesses such as had already made the Portuguese sailor a byword in China. But in the early days of intercourse with Japan the crews of the merchant vessels seem to have preached Christianity by their exemplary conduct. Just as Xavier had been induced to visit Bungo by the anxiety of a ship-captain for Christian ministrations, so in 5557 two of the fathers repaired to Hirado in obedience to the solicitations of Portuguese sailors. There the fathers, under the guidance of Vilela, sent brothers to parade the streets ringing bells and chaunting litanies; they organized bands of boys for the same purpose; they caused the converts, and even children, to flagellate themselves at a model of Mount Calvary, and they worked miracles, healing the sick by contact with scourges or with a booklet in which Xavier had written litanies and prayers. It may well be imagined that such doings attracted surprised attention in Japan. They were supplemented by even more striking practices. For a subfeudatory of the Hirado chief, having been converted, showed his zeal by destroying Buddhist temples and throwing down the idols, thus inaugurating a campaign of violence destined to mark the progress of Christianity throughout the greater part of its history in Japan. There followed the overthrowing of a cross in the Christian cemetery, the burning of a temple in the town of Hirado, and a street riot, the sequel being that the Jesuit fathers were compelled to return once more to Bungo. It is essential to follow all these events, for not otherwise can a clear understanding be reached as to the aspects under which Christianity presented itself originally to the Japanese. The Portuguese traders, reverent as was their demeanour towards Christianity, did not allow their commerce to be interrupted by vicissitudes of propagandism. They still repaired to Hirado, and rumours of the wealth-begetting effects of their presence having reached the neighboring fief of Omura, its chief, Sumitada, made overtures to the Jesuits in Bungo, offering a port free from all dues for ten years, a large tract of land, a residence for the missionaries and other privileges. The Jesuits hastened to take advantage of this proposal, and no sooner did the news reach Hirado than the feudatory of that island repented of having expelled the fathers and invited them to return. But while they hesitated, a Portuguese vessel arrived at Hirado, and the feudal chief declared publicly that no need existed to conciliate the missionaries, since trade went on without them. When this became known in Bungo, Torres hastened to Hirado, was received with extraordinary honors by the crew of the vessel, and at his instance she left the port, her master declaring that he could not remain in a country where they maltreated those who professed the same religion as himself. Hirado remained a closed port for some years, but ultimately the advent of three merchantmen, which intimated their determination not to put in unless the anti-Christian ban was removed, induced the feudal chief to receive the Jesuits. once more. This incident was paralleled a few years later in the island of Amakusa, where a petty feudatory, in order to attract foreign trade, as the missionaries themselves frankly explain, embraced Christianity and ordered all his vassals to follow his example; but when no Portuguese ship appeared, he apostatized, required his subjects to revert to Buddhism and made the missionaries withdraw. In fact, the competition for the patronage of Portuguese traders was so keen that the Hirado feudatory attempted to burn several of their vessels because they frequented the territorial waters of his neighbor and rival, Sumitada. The latter became a most stalwart Christian when his wish was gratified. He set himself to eradicate idolatry throughout his fief with the strong arm, and his fierce intolerance provoked results which ended in the destruction of the Christian town at the newly opened free port. S.umitada, however, quickly reasserted his authority, and five years later (1567), he took a step which had far-reaching consequences, namely, the building of a church at Nagasaki, in order that Portuguese commerce might have a centre and the Christians an assured asylum. Nagasaki was then a little fishing village. In five years it grew to be a town of thirty thousand inhabitants, and Sumitada became one of the richest of the KiUshifi feudatories. When in 1573 successful conflicts with the neighboring fiefs brought him an access of territory, he declared that he owed these victories to the influence of the Christian God, and shortly afterwards he publicly proclaimed banishment for all who would not accept the foreign faith. There were then no Jesuits by his side, but immediately two hastened to join him, and these, accompanied by a strong guard, but yet not without danger of their lives, went round causing the churches of the Gentiles, with their idols, to be thrown to the ground, while three Japanese Christians went preaching the law of God everywhere. Three of us who were in the neighboring kingdoms all withdrew therefrom to work in this abundant harvest, and in the space of seven months twenty thousand persons were baptized, including the bonzes of about sixty monasteries, except a few who quitted the State. In Bungo, however, where the Jesuits were originally so well received, it is doubtful whether Christian propagandism would not have ended in failure but for an event which occurred in 1576, namely, the conversion of the chieftains son, a youth of some 16 years. Two years later Otomo himself came over to the Christian faith. He rendered inestimable aid, not merely within his own fief, but also by the influence he exercised on others. His intervention, supported by recourse to arms, obtained for the Jesuits a footing on the island of Amakusa, where one of the feudatories gave his vassals the choice of conversion or exile, and announced to the Buddhist priests that unless they accepted Christianity their property would be confiscated and they themselves banished. Nearly the whole population of the fief did violence to their conscience for the sake of their homes. Christianity was then becoming established in Kiushiu by methods similar to those of Islam and the inquisition. Another notable illustration is furnished by the story of the Arima fief, adjoining that of Sumitada (Omura), where such resolute means had been adopted to force Christianity upon the vassals. Moreover, the heads of the two fiefs were brothers. Accordingly, at the time of Sumitadas very dramatic conversion, the Jesuits were invited to Arima and encouraged to form settlements at the ports of Kuchinotsu and Shimabara, which thenceforth began to be frequented by Portuguese merchantmen. The fief naturally became involved in the turmoil resulting from Sumitadas iconoclastic methods of propagandism; but, in 1576, the then ruling feudatory, influenced largely by the object lesson of Sumitadas prosperity and puissance, which that chieftain openly ascribed to the tutelary aid of the Christian deity, accepted baptism and became the Prince Andrew of missionary records. It is written in those records that the first thing Prince Andrew did after his baptism was to convert the chief temple of his capital into a church, its revenues being assigned for the maintenance of the building and the support of the missionaries. He then took measures to have the same thing done in the other towns of his fief, and he seconded the preachers of the gospel so well in everything else that he could flatter himself that he soon would not have one single idolater in his states. Thus in the two years that separated his baptism from his death, twenty thousand converts were won in Arima. But his successor was an enemy of the alien creed. He ordered the Jesuits to quit his dominions, required the converts to return to their ancestral faith, and caused the holy places to be destroyed and the crosses to be thrown down. Nearly one-half of the converts apostatized under this pressure, but others had recourse to a device of proved potency. They threatened to leave Kuchinotsu en masse, and as that would have involved the loss of foreign trade, the hostile edict was materially modified. To this same weapon the Christians owed a still more signal victory. For just at that time the great ship from Macao, now an annual visitor, arrived in Japanese waters carrying the visitor-general, Valegnani. She put into Kuchinotsu, and her presence, with its suggested eventualities, gave such satisfaction that the feudatory offered to accept baptism and to sanction its acceptance by his vassals. This did not satisfy Valegnani, a man of profound political sagacity. He saw that the fief was menaced by serious dangers at the hands of its neighbors, and seizing the psychological moment of its extreme peril, he used the secular arm so adroitly that the fiefs chance of survival seemed to be limited to the unreserved adoption of Christianity. Thus, in 1580, the chieftain and his wife were baptized; all the city was made Christian; they burned their idols and destroyed 40 temples, reserving some materials to build churches.

Christian propagandism had now made substantial progress. The Annual Letter of 1582 recorded that at the close of 1581, thirty-two years after the landing of Xavier in Japan, there were about 150,000 converts, of whom some 125,000 were in Kiflshi and the remainder in Yamaguchi, KiOto and the neighborhood of the latter city. The Jesuits in the empire then numbered 75, but down to the year 1563 there had never been more than 9, and down to 1577, not more than 18. The harvest was certainly great in proportion to the number of sowers. But it was a harvest mainly of artificial growth; forced by the despotic insistence of feudal chiefs who possessed the power of life and death over their vassals, and were influenced by a desire to attract foreign trade. To the Buddhist priests this movement of Christian propagandism had brought an experience hitherto unknown to them, persecution on account of creed. They had suffered for interfering in politics, but the fierce cruelty of the Christian fanatic now became known for the first time to men themselves conspicuous for tolerance of heresy and receptivity of instruction. They had had no previous experience of humanity in the garb of an Otomo of Bungo, who, in the words of Crasset, went to the chase of the bonzes as to that of wild beasts, and made it his singular pleasure to exterminate them from his states.

In 1582 the first Japanese envoys sailed from Nagasaki for Europe. The embassy consisted of four youths, the oldest not more than 16, representing the fiefs of Arima, Omura Fkst and Bungo. They visited Lisbon, Madrid and Rome, Japanese and in all these cities they were received with Embassy displays of magnificence such as 16th century Europe delighted to make. That, indeed, had been the motive of Valegnani in organizing the mission: he desired to let the Japanese see with their own eyes how great were the riches and might of Western states.

In the above statistics of converts at the close of 1581 mention is made of Christians in Kioto, though we have already seen tha,t the visit by Xavier and Fernandez to that city was Second wholly barren of results. A second visit, however, Visit of made by Vilela in 1559, proved more successful. Jesuits He carried letters of recommendation from the to KiotO. Bungo chieftain, and the proximate cause of his journey was an invitation from a Buddhist priest in the celebrated monastery of Hiei-zan, who sought information about Christianity. This was before the razing of temples and the overthrow of idols had commenced in Kiushifl. On arrival at Hiei-zan, Vilela found that the Buddhist prior who had invited him was dead and that ~nly a portion of the old mans authority had descended to his successor. Nevertheless the Jesuit obtained an opportunity to expound his doctrines to a party of bonzes at the monastery. Subsequently, through the good offices of a priest, described as one of the most respected men in the city, and with the assistance of the Bungo feudatorys letter, Vilela enjoyed the rare honor of being received by the shogun in Kjflto, who treated him with all consideration and assigned a house for his residence. It may be imagined that, owing such a debt of gratitude to Buddhist priests, Vilela would have behaved towards them and their creed with courtesy. But the Jesuit fathers were proof against all influences calculated to impair their stern sense of duty. Speaking through the mouth of a Japanese convert, - Vilela attacked the bonzes in unmeasured terms and denounced their faith. Soon the bonzes, on their side, were seeking the destruction of these uncompromising assailants with insistence inferior only to that which the Jesuits themselves would have shown in similar circumstances. Against these perils Vilela was protected by the goodwill of the shogun, who had already issued a decree threatening with death any one who injured the missionaries or obstructed their work. In spite of all difficulties and dangers these wonderful missionaries, whose courage, zeal and devotion are beyond all eulogy, toiled on resolutely and even recklessly, and such success attended their efforts that by 1564 many converts had been won and churches had been established in five walled towns within a distance 0150 miles from KiOto. Among the converts were two Buddhist priests, notoriously hostile at the outset, who had been nominated as official cornmissionert to investigate and report upon the doctrine of Christianity. The first conversion en masse was due to pressure from above. A petty feudatory, Takayama, whose fief lay at Takatsuki in the neighborhood of the capital, challenged Vilela to a public controversy, the result of which was that the Japanese acknowledged himself vanquished, embraced Christianity and invited his vassals as well as his family to follow his example. This mans sonTakayama Yfishoproved one of the stanchest supporters of Christianity in all Japan, and has been immortalized by the Jesuits under the name of Don Justo Ucondono. Incidentally this event furnishes an index to the character of the Japanese samurai: he accepted the consequences of defeat as frankly as he dared it. In the same year (1564) the feudatory of Sawa, a brother of Takayama, became a Christian and imposed the faith on all his vassals, just as Sumitada and other feudal chiefs had done in Kishiii. But the KiOto record differs from that of Kitishi in one important respectthe former is free from any intrusion of commercial motives.

Kioto was at that time the scene of sanguinary tumults, which culminated in the murder of the shogun (1565), and led to Nobunaga the issue of a decree by the emperor proscribing and the Christianity. In Japanese medieval history this Jesnks. is one of the only two instances of Imperial interference with Christian propagandism. There is evidence that the edict was obtained at the instance of one of the shogun s assassins and certain Buddhist priests. The Jesuitstheir number had been increased to threewere obliged to take refuge in Sakai, now little more than a suburb of Osaka, but at that time a great and wealthy mart, and the only town in Japan which did not acknowledge the sway of any feudal chief. Three years later they were summoned thence to be presented to Oda Nobunaga, one of the greatest captains Japan has ever produced. In the very year of Xaviers landing at Kagoshima, Nobunaga had succeeded to his fathers fief, a comparatively petty estate in the province of Owari. In 1568 he was seated in KiOto, a maker of shoguns and acknowledged ruler of 30 among the 66 provinces of Japan. Had Nobunaga, wielding such immense power, adopted a hostile attitude towards Christianity, the fires lit by the Jesuits in Japan must soon have been extinguished. Nobunaga, however, to great breadth and liberality of view added strong animosity towards Buddhist priests. Many of the great monasteries had become armed camps, their inmates skilled equally in field-attacks and in the defence of ramparts. One sect (the Nichiren), which was specially affected by the samurai, had lent powerful aid to the murderers of the shogun three years before Nobunagas victories carried him to KiOto, and the armed moffasteries constituted imperia in imperio which assorted ill with his ambition of complete supremacy. He therefore welcomed Christianity for the sake of its opposition to Buddhism, and when Takayama conducted Froez from Sakai to Nobunagas presence, the reception accorded to the Jesuit was of the most cordial character. Throughout the fourteen years of life that remained to him, Nobunaga continued to be the constant friend of the missionaries in particular and of foreigners visiting Japan in general. He stood between the Jesuits and the Throne when, in reply to an appeal from the Buddhist priests, the emperor, for the second time, issued an anti-Christian decree (1568); he granted a site for a church and residence at Azuchi on Lake Biwa, where his new fortress stood; he addressed to various powerful feudatories letters signifying a desire for the spread of Christianity; he frequently made handsome presents to the fathers, and whenever they visited him he showed a degree of accessibility and graciousness very foreign to his usually haughty and imperious demeanour. The Jesuits themselves said of him: This man seems to have been chosen by God to open and prepare the way for our faith. Nevertheless they do not appear to have entertained much hope at any time of converting Nobunaga. They must have understood that their doctrines had not made any profound impression on a man who could treat them as this potentate did in 579

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moment induce him to sacrifice them.i His last act, too, proved that sacrilege was of no account in his eyes, for he took steps to have himself apotheosized at Azuchi with the utmost pomp and circumstance. Still nothing can obscure the benefits he heaped upon the propagandists of Christianity.

The terrible tumult of domestic war through which Japan passed in the 15th and i6th centuries brought to her service three of the greatest men ever produced in ~I! deyoshl Occident or Orient. They were Oda Nobunaga, and the Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Iyeyasu. Christians. Hideyoshi, as Nobunagas lieutenant, contributed largely to the building of the latters fortun.es, and, succeedin.g him in 1582, brought the whole 66 provinces of the empire under his own administrative sway. For the Jesuits now the absorbing question was, what attitude Hideyoshi would assume towards their propagandism. His power was virtually limitless. With a word he could have overthrown the whole edifice created by them at the cost of so much splendid effort and noble devotion. They were very quickly reassured. In this matter Hideyoshi walked in Nobunagas footsteps. He not only accorded a friendly audience to Father Organtino, who waited on him as representative of the Jesuits, but also he went in person to assign to the company a site for a church and a residence in Osaka, where there was presently to rise the most massive fortress ever built in the East. At that time many Christian converts were serving in high positions, and in 1584 the Jesuits placed it on record that Hideyoshi was not only not opposed to the things of God, but he even showed that he made much account of them and preferred them to all the sects of the bonzes.. .. He is entrusting to Christians his treasures, his secrets and his fortresses of most importance, and shows himself well pleased that the sons of the great lords about him should adopt our customs and our law. Two years later in Osaka he received with every mark of cordiality and favor a Jesuit mission which had come from Nagasaki seeking audience, and on that occasion his visitor recorded that he spoke of an intention of christianizing one half of Japan. Nor did Hideyoshi confine himself to words. He actually signed a patent licensing the missionaries to preach throughout all Japan, and exempting not only their houses and churches from the billeting of soldiers but also the priests themselves from local burdens. This was in 1586, on the eve of Hideyoshis greatest Inilitary enterprise, the invasion of KitishiU and its complete reduction. He carried that difficult campaign to completion by the middle of 1587, and throughout its course he maintained a uniformly friendly demeanour towards the Jesuits. But suddenly, when on the return journey he reached Hakata in the north of the island, his policy underwent a radical metamorphosis. Five questions were by his order propounded to the vice-provincial of the Jesuits: Why and by what authority be and his fellow-propa~ndists had constrained Japanese subjects to become Christians? Why they had induced their disciples and their sectaries to overthrow temples? Why they persecuted the bonzes? Why they and other Portuguese ate animals useful to men, such as oxen. and cows? Why the vice-provincial allowed merchants of his nation to buy Japanese to make slaves of them in the Indies? To these queries Coelho, the vice-provincial, made answer that the missionaries had never themselves resorted, or incited, to violence in their propagandism or persecuted bon.zes; that if their eating of beef were considered inadvisable, they would give up the practice; and that they were powerless to prevent or restrain the outrages perpetrated by their countrymen. Hicleyoshi read the viceprovincials reply and, without comment, sent him word to retire to Hirado, assemble all his followers there, and quit the country within six months. On the next day (July 25, 1587) the following edict was published: The problem was to induce the co-operation of a feudatory whose castle served for frontier guard to the fiet of a powerful chief, his suzerain. The feudatory was a Christian. Nobunaga seized the Jesuits in Kiolo, and threatened to suppress their religion altogether unless they persuaded the feudatory to abandon the of ~ c,,7,erain Having learned from our faithful councillors that foreign priests have come into our estates, where they preach a law contrary to that of Japan, and that they even had the audacity to destroy temples dedicated to our Kami and Hotoke; although the outrage merits the most extreme punishment, wishing nevertheless to show them mercy, we order them under pain of death to quit Japan within twenty days. During that space no harm or hurt will be done to them. But at the expiration of that term, we order that if any of them be found in our states, they should be seized and punished as the greatest criminals. As for the Portuguese merchants, we permit them to enter our ports, there to continue their accustomed trade, and to remain in our states provided our affairs need this. But we forbid them to bring any foreign priests into the country, under the penalty of the confiscation of their ships and goods.

How are we to account for this apparently rapid change of mood on the part of Hideyoshi? Some historians insist that from the very outset he conceived the resolve of suppressing Christianity and expelling its propagandists, but that he concealed his design pending the subjugation of Kishi, lest, by premature action, he might weaken his hand for that enterprise. This hypothesis rests mainly on conjecture. Its formulators found it easier to believe in a hidden purpose than to attribute to a statesman so shrewd and far-seeing a sudden change of mind. A more reasonable theory is that, shortly before leaving Osaka for KitTrshi, Hideyoshi began to entertain doubts as to the expediency of tolerating Christian propagandism, and that his doubts were signally strengthened by direct observation of the state of affairs in KiUshi. While still in Osaka, he one day remarked publicly that he feared much that all the virtue of the European priests served only to conceal pernicious designs against the empire. There had been no demolishing of temples or overthrowing of images at Christian instance in the metropolitan provinces. In KiQshi, however, very different conditions prevailed. There Christianity may be said to have been preached at the point of the sword. Temples and images had been destroyed wholesale; vassals in thousands had been compelled to embrace the foreign faith; and the missionaries themselves had come to be treated as demi-gods whose nod was worth conciliating at any cost of self-abasement. Brought into direct contact with these evidences of the growth of a new power, temporal as well as spiritual, Hideyoshi may well have reached the conclusion that a choice had to be finally made between his own supremacy and that of the alien creed, if not between the independence of Japan and the yoke of the great Christian states of Europe.

Hideyoshi gauged the character of the medieval Christians with sufficient accuracy to know that for the sake of their Sequelof faith they would at any time defy the laws of the Edict the island. His estimate received immediate yenof Banish- fication, for when the Jesuits, numbering 120, ment. assembled at Hirado a~nd received his order to embark at once they decided that only those should sail whose services were needed in China. The others remained and went about their duties as usual, under the protection of the converted feudatories. Hideyoshi, however, saw reason to wink at this disregard of his authority. At first he showed uncompromising resolution. All the churches in KiOto, Osaka and Sakai were demolished, while troops were sent to raze the Christian places of worship in Kiflshi and seize the port of Nagasaki. These troops were munificently dissuaded from their purpose by the Christian feudatories. But Hideyoshi did not protest, and in 1588 he allowed himself to be convinced by a Portuguese envoy that in the absence of missionaries foreign trade must cease, since without the intervention of the fathers peace and good order could not be maintained among the merchants. Rather than suffer the trade to be interrupted - Hideyoshi agreed to the coming of priests, and thenceforth, during some years, Christianity not only continued to flourish and grow in Kishi but also found a favorable field of operations in KiOto itself. Care was taken that Hideyoshis attention should not be attracted by any salient evidences of what he had called a diabolical religion, and thus for a time all went well. There is evidence that, like the feudal chiefs in Kishi, Hideyoshi set great store by foreign trade and would even have sacrificed to its maintenance and expansion something of the aversion he had conceived for Christianity. He did indeed make one very large concession. For on being assured that Portuguese traders could not frequent Japan unless they found Christian priests there to minister to them, he consented to sanction the presence of a limited number of Jesuits. The statistics of 1595 show how Christianity fared under even this partial tolerance, for there were then 137 Jesuits in Japan with 300,000 converts, among whom were 17 feudal chiefs, to say nothing of many men of lesser though still considerable note, and even not a few bonzes.

For ten years after his unlooked-for order of expulsion, Hideyoshi preserved a tolerant mien. But in 1597 his forbearance gave place to a mood of uncompromising severity. lfideyoshis The reasons of this second change are very clear, Final though diverse accounts have been transmitted. Attitude Up to 1593 the Portuguese had possessed a monopoly ~fil.~ of religious propagandism and over-sea commerce in Japan. The privilege was secured to them by agreement betweerl Spain and Portugal and by a papal bull. But the Spaniards in Manila had long looked with somewhat jealous eyes on this Jesuit reservation, and when news of the disaster of 1587 reached the Philippines, the Dominicans and Franciscans residing there were fired with zeal to enter an arena where the crown of martyrdom seemed to be the least reward within reach. The papal bull, however, demanded obedience, and to overcome that difficulty a ruse was necessary: the governor of Manila agreed to send a party of Franciscans as ambassadors to Hideyoshi. In that guise the friars, being neither traders nor propagandists, considered that they did not violate either the treaty or the bull. It was a technical subterfuge very unworthy of the object contemplated, and the friars supplemented it by swearing to Hideyoshi that the Philippines would submit to his sway. Thus they obtained permission to visit Kito, Osaka and Fushimi, but with the explicit proviso that they must not preach. Very soon they had built a church in KiOto, consecrated it with the~utmost pomp, and were preaching sermons and chaunting litanies there in flagrant defiance of Hideyoshis veto. Presently their number received an access of three friars who came bearing gifts from the governor at Manila, and now they not only established a convent in Osaka, but also seized a Jesuit church in Nagasaki and converted the circumspect worship hitherto conducted there by the fathers into services of the most public character. Officially checked in Nagasaki, they charged the Jesuits in KiOto with having intrigued to impede them, and they further vaunted the courageous openness of their own ministrations as compared with the clandestine timidity of the methods which wise prudence had induced the Jesuits to adopt. Retribution would have followed quickly had not Hideyoshis attention been engrossed by an attempt to invade China through Korea. At this stage, however, a memorable incident occurred. Driven out of her course by a storm, a great and richly laden Spanish galleon, bound for Acapulco from Manila, drifted to the coast of Tosa province, and runningor being purposely runon a sand-bank as she was being towed into port by Japanese boats, broke her back. She carried goods to the value of some 600,000 crowns, and certain officials urged Hideyoshi to confiscate her as derelict, conveying to him at the same time a detailed account of the doings of t,he Franciscans and their open flouting of his orders. Hideyoslii, much incensed, commanded the arrest of the Franciscans and despatched officers to Tosa to confiscate the San Felipe. The pilot of the galleon sought to intimidate these officers by showing them on a map of the world the vast extent of Spains dominions, and being asked how one country had acquired such extended sway, replied: Our kings begin by sending into the countries they wish to conquer missionaries who induce the people to embrace our religion, and when they have made considerable progress, troops are sent who combine with the new Christians, and then our kings have not much trouble in accomplishing the rest.

On learning of this speech Hideyoshi was overcome with fury. He condemned the Franciscans to have their noses and ears The First cut off, to be promenaded through KiOto, Osaka i3xecution of and Sakai, and to be crucified at Nagasaki. I Christians. have ordered these foreigners to be treated thus, because they have come from the Philippines to Japan, calling themselves ambassadors, although they were not so; because they have remained here far too long without my permission; because, in defiance of my prohibition, they have built churches, preached their religion and caused disorders. Twenty-six suffered under this sentencesix Franciscans, three Japanese Jesuits and seventeen native Christians, chiefly domestic servants of the Franciscans. They met their fate with noble fortitude. Hideyoshi further issued a special injunction against the adoption of Christianity by a feudal chief, and took steps to give practical effect to his expulsion edict of 1587. The governor of Nagasaki received instructions to send away all the Jesuits, permitting only two or three to remain for the service of the Portuguese merchants. But the Jesuits were not the kind of men who, to escape personal peril, turn their back upon an unaccomplished work of grace. There were 125 of them in Japan at that time. In October 1597 a junk sailed out of Nagasaki harbour, her decks crowded with seeming Jesuits. In reality she carried I I of the company, the apparent Jesuits being disguised sailors. It is not to be supposed that such a manceuvre could be hidden from the local authorities. They winked at it, until rumour became insistent that Hideyoshi was about to visit KishiU in person, and all Japanese in administrative posts knew how Hideyoshi visited disobedience and how hopeless was any attempt to deceive him. Therefore, early in 1598, really drastic steps were taken. Churches to the number of 137 were demolished in Kifishifl, seminaries and residences fell, and the governor of Nagasaki assembled there all the fathers of the company for deportation to Macao by the great ship in the following year. But while they waited, Hideyoshi died. It is not on record that the Jesuits openly declared his removal from the earth to have been a special dispensation in their favor. But they pronounced him an execrable tyrant and consigned his soul to hell for all eternity. Yet no impartial reader of history can pretend to think that a 16th-century Jesuit general in Hideyoshis place would have shown towards an alien creed and its propagandists even a small measure of the tolerance exercised by the Japanese statesman towards Christianity and the Jesuits. -

Hideyoshis death occurred in 1598. Two years later, his authority as administrative ruler of all Japan had passed into FOr~I~D the hands of Iyeyasu, the Tokugawa chief, and thirtyPolicy of the nine years later the Tokugawa potentates had not TokugaWa only exterminated Christianity in Japan but had U i~S. also condemned their country to a period of international isolation which continued unbroken until 1853, an interval of 214 years. It has been shown that even when they were most incensed against Christianity, Japanese administrators sought to foster and preserve foreign trade. Why then did they close the countrys doors to the outside world and suspend a commerce once so much esteemed? To answer that question some retrospect is needed. Certain historians allege that from the outset Iyeyasu shared Hideyoshis misgivings about the real designs of Christian potentates and Christian propagandists. But that verdict is not supported by facts. The first occasion of the Tokugawa chiefs recorded contact with a Christian propagandist was less than three months after Hideyoshis death. There was then led into his presence a Franciscan, by name Jerome de Jesus, originally a member of the fictitious embassy from Manila. This mans conduct constitutes an example of the invincible zeal and courage inspiring a Christian priest in those days. Barely escaping the doom of crucifixion which overtook his companions, he had been deported from Japan to The mutilation was confined to the lobe of one ear. Crucifixion, according to the Japanese method, consisted in tying to a cross and piercing the heart with two sharp spears driven from either side. Death was always instantaneous.

Manila at a time when death seemed to be the certain penalty of remaining. But no sooner had he been landed at Manila than he took passage in a Chinese junk, and, returning to Nagasaki, made his way secretly from the far south of Japan to the province of Ku. There arrested, he was brought into the presence of Iyeyasu, and his own record of what ensued is given in a letter subsequently sent to Manila: When the Prince saw me he asked how I had managed to escape the previous persecution. I answered him that at that date God had delivered me in order that I might go to Manila and bring back new colleagues from therepreachers of the divine lawand that I had returned from Manila to encourage the Christians, cherishing the desire to die on the cross in order to go to enjoy eternal glory like my former colleagues. On hearing these words the Emperor began to smile, whether in his quality of a pagan of the sect of Shaka, which teaches that there is no future life, or whether from the thought that I was frightened at having to be put to death. Then, looking at me kindly, he said, Be no longer afraid and no longer conceal yourself, and no longer change your habit, for I wish you well; and as for the Christians who every year pass within sight of the Kwant where my domains are, when they go to Mexico with their ships, I have a keen desire for them to Visit the harbours of this island, to refresh themselves there, and to take what they wish, to trade with my vassals and to teach them how to develop silver mines; and that my intentions may be accomplished before my death, I wish you to indicate to me the means to take to realize them. I answered that it was necessary that Spanish pilots should take the soundings of his harbours, so that ships might not be lost in future as the San Felipe had been, and that he should solicit this service from the governor of the Philippines. The Prince approved of my advice, and accordingly he has sent a Japanese gentleman, a native of Sakai, the bearer of this message.. .. It is essential to oppose no obstacle to the complete liberty offered by the Emperor to the Spaniards and to our holy order, for the preaching of the holy gospel.. .. The same Prince (who is about to visit the Kwant) invites me to accompany him to make choice of a house, and to visit the harbour which, he promises to open to us; his desires in this respect are keener than I can express.

The above version of the Tokugawa chiefs mood is confirmed by events, for not only did he allow the contumelious Franciscan to build a churchthe firstin Yedo and to celebrate Mass there, but also he sent three embassies to the Philippines, proposing reciprocal freedom of commerce, offering to open ports in the Kwanto and asking for competent naval architects. He never obtained the architects, and though the trade came, its volume was small in comparison with the abundance of friars that accompanied it. There is just a possibility that Iyeyasu saw in these Spanish monks an instrument of counteracting the influence of the Jesuits, for he must have known that the Franciscans opened their mission in Yedo by declaiming with violence against the fathers of the company of Jesus. In short, the Spanish monks assumed towards the Jesuits in Japan the same intolerant and abusive tone that the Jesuits themselves had previously assumed towards Buddhism.

At that time there appeared upon the scene another factor destined greatly to complicate events. It was a Dutch merchant ship, the Liefde. Until the Netherlands revolted from Spain, the Dutch had been the principal distributors of all goods arriving at Lisbon from the Far East; but in 1594 Philip II. closed the port of Lisbon to these rebels, and the Dutch met thesituation by turning their prows to the Orient to invade the sources of Portuguese commerce. One of the first expeditions despatched for that purpose set out in 1598, and of the five vessels composing it one only was ever heard of again. This was the Liefde. She reached Japan during the spring of 1600, with only fourand-twenty alive out of her original crew of if 0. Towed into the harbour at Funai, the Liefde was visited by Jesuits, who, on discovering her nationality, denounced her to the local authorities as a pirate and endeavoured to incense the Japanese against them. The Liefde had on board in the capacity of pilot major an Englishman, Will Adams of Gillingham in Kent, whom Iyeyasu summoned to Osaka, where there commenced between the rough British sailor and the Tokugawa chief a curiously friendly intercourse which was not interrupted until the death of Adams twenty years later. The Englishman became master ship-builder to the Yedo government; was employed as diplomatic agent when other traders from his own country and from Holland arrived in Japan, received in perpetual gift a substantial estate, and from first to last possessed the implicit confidence of the shogun. Iyeyasu quickly discerned the mans honesty, perceived that whatever benefits foreign commerce might confer would be increased by encouraging competition among the foreigners, and realized that English and Dutch trade presented the wholesome feature of complete dissociation from religious propagandism. On the other hand, he showed no intolerance to either Spaniards or Portuguese. He issued (1601) two official patents sanctioning the residence of the fathers in KiOto, Osaka and Nagasaki; he employed Father Rodriguez as interpreter to the court at Yedo; and in. 1603 he gave munificent succour to the Jesuits who were reduced to dire straits owing to the capture of the great ship from Macao by the Dutch and the consequent loss of several years supplies for the mission in Japan.

It is thus seen that each of the great trio of Japans 16th-century statesmenNobunaga, Hideyoshi and Iyeyasuadopted at the outset a most tolerant demeanour towards Christian.ity. The reasons of Hideyoshis change of mood have been set forth. We have now to examine the reasons that produced a similar metamorphosis in the case of Iyeyasu. Two causes present themselves immediately. The first is that, while tolerating Christianity, Iyeyasu did not approve of it as a creed; the second, that he himself, whether from state policy or genuine piety, strongly encouraged Buddhism. Proof of the former proposition. is found in an order issued by him in 1602 to insure the safety of foreign merchantmen entering Japanese ports: it concluded with the reservation, but we rigorously, forbid them (foreigners coming in such ships) to promulgate their faith. Proof of the latter is furnished by the facts that he invariably carried about with him a miniature Buddhist image which he regarded as his tutelary deity, and that he fostered the creed of Shaka as zealously as Oda Nobunaga had suppressed it. There is much difficulty in tracing the exact sequence of events which gradually educated a strong antipathy to the Christian faith in the mind of the Tokugawa chief. He must have been influenced in some degree by the views of his great predecessor, Hideyoshi. But he did not accept those views implicitly. At the end of the 16th century he sent a trusted emissary to Europe for the purpose of directly observing the conditions in the home of Christianity, and this man, the better to achieve his aim, embraced the foreign faith, and studied it from within as well as from without. The story that he had to tell on his return. could not fail to shock the ruler of a country where freedom of conscience had existed from time immemorial. It was a story of the inquisition and of the stake; of unlimited aggression in the name of the cross; of the popes overlordship which entitled him to confiscate the realm of heretical sovereigns; of religious wars and of weilnigh incredible fanaticism. Iyeyasu must have received an evil impression while he listened to his emissarys statements. Under his own eyes, too, were abundant evidences of the spirit of strife that Christian dogma engendered in those times. From the moment when the Franciscans and Dominicans arrived in Japan, a fierce quarrel began between them and the Jesuits; a quarrel which even community of suffering could not compose. Not less repellent was an attempt on the part of the Spaniards to dictate to Iyeyasu the expulsion of all Hollanders from Japan, and on the part of the Jesuits to dictate the expulsion of the Spaniards. The former proposal, couched almost in the form of a demand, was twice formulated, and accompanied on the second occasion by a scarcely less insulting offer, namely, that Spanish men-of--war would be sent to Japan to burn all Dutch ships found in the ports of the empire. If in the face of proposals so contumelious of his sovereign authority Iyeyasu preserved a calm and dignified mien, merely replying that his country was open to all comers, and that, if other nations had quarrels among themselves, they must not take Japan for battle-ground, it is nevertheless unimaginable that he did not strongly resent such interference with his own independent foreign policy, and that he did not interpret it as foreshadowing a disturbance of the realms peace by see- tarian quarrels among Christians. These experiences, predisposing Iyeyasu to dislike Christianity as a creed and to distrust it as a political influence, were coon supplemented by incidents of an immediately determinative character. The first was an act of fraud and forgery committed in the interests of a Christian feudatory by a trusted official, himself a Christian. Thereupon Iyeyasu, conceiving it unsafe that Christians should fill offices at his court, dismissed all those so employed, banished them from Yedo and forbade any feudal chief to harbour them. The second incident was an attempted survey of the coast of Japan by a Spanish mariner and a Franciscan friar. Permission to take this step had been obtained by an envoy from New Spain, but no deep consideration of reasons seems to have preluded the permission on Japans side, and when the mariner (Sebastian) and the friar (Sotelo) hastened- to carry out the project, Iyeyasu asked Will Adams to explain this display of industry. The Englishman replied that such a proceeding would be regarded in Europe as an act of hostility, especially on the part of the Spaniards or Portuguese, whose aggressions were notorious. He added, in reply to further questions, that the Roman priesthood had been expelled from many parts of Germany, from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland and England, and that although ~his own country preserved the pure form of the Christian faith from which Spain and Portugal had deviated, yet neither English nor Dutch considered that that fact afforded them any reason to war with, or to annex, States which were not Christian solely for the reason that they were non-Christian. Iyeyasu reposed entire confidence in Adams. Hearing the Englishmans testimony, he is said to have exclaimed, If the sovereigns of Europe do not tolerate these priests, I do them no wrong if I refuse to tolerate them. Japanese historians add that Iyeyasu discovered a conspiracy on the part of some Japanese Christians to overthrow his government by the aid of foreign troops. It was not a widely ramified plot, but it lent additional importance to the fact that the sympathy of the fathers and their converts ,was plainly with the only magnate in the empire who continued to dispute the Tokugawa supremacy, Hideyori, the son of Hideyoshi. Nevertheless Iyeyasu shrank from proceeding to extremities in the case of any foreign priest, and this attitude he maintained until his death (1616). Possibly he might have been not less tolerant towards native Christians also had not the Tokugawa authority been openly defied by a Franciscan fatherthe Sotelo mentioned abovein Yedo itself. Then (1613) the first execution of Japanese converts took place, though the monk himself was released after a short incarceration. At that time, as is still the case even in these more enlightened days, insignificant differences of custom sometimes induced serious misconceptions. A Christian who had violated the secular law was crucified in Nagasaki. Many of his fellow-believers kneeled around his cross and prayed for the peace of his soul. A party of converts were afterwards burned to death in the same place for refusing to apostatize, and their Christian friends crowded to carry off portions of their bodies as holy relics. When these things were reported to Iyeyasu, he said, Without doubt that must be a diabolic faith which persuades people not only to worship criminals condemned to death for their crimes, but also to honor those who have been burned or cut in pieces by the order of their lord (feudal chief).

The fateful edict ordering that all foreign priests should be collected in Nagasaki preparatory to removal from Japan, that all churches should be demolished, and that the Suppi-ession converts should be compelled to abjure Christianity, of was issued on the 27th of January 1614. There were Christianity. then in Japan 122 Jesuits, 14 Franciscans, 9 Dominicans, 4 Augustins and 7 secular priests. Had these men obeyed the orders of the Japanese authorities by leaving the country finally, not one foreigner would have suffered for his faith in Japan, except the 6 Franciscans executed at Nagasaki by order of Hideyoshi in 1597. But suffering and death counted for nothing with the missionaries as against the possibility of winning or keeping even one convert. Forty-seven of them evaded th edict, some by concealing themselves at the time of its issue, the rest by leaving their ships when the latter had passed out of sight of the shore of Japan, and returning by boats to the scene of their former labors. Moreover, in a few months, those that had actually crossed the sea re-crossed it in various disguises, and soon the Japanese government had to consider whether it would suffer its authority to be thus flouted or resort to extreme measures.

During two years immediately following the issue of the antiChristian decree, the attention of the Tokugawa chief and indeed of all Japan was concentrated on the closing episode of the great struggle which assured to Iyeyasu final supremacy as .administrative ruler of the empire. That episode was a terrible battle under the walls of Osaka castle between the adherents of the Tokugawa and the supporters of Hideyori. In this struggle fresh fuel was added to the fire of anti-Christian resentment, for many Christian converts threw in their lot with Hideyori, and in one part of the field the Tokugawa troops found themselves fighting against a foe whose banners were emblazoned with the cross and with images of the Saviour and St James, the patron saint of Spain. But the Christians had protectors. Many of the feudatories showed themselves strongly averse from inflicting the extreme penalty on men and women whose adoption of an alien religion had been partly forced by the feudatories themselves. As for the people at large, their liberal spirit is attested by the fact that five fathers who were in Osaka castle at the time of its capture made their way to distant refuges without encountering any risk of betrayal. During these events the death of Iyeyasu took place (June I, 1616), and pending the dedication of his mausoleum the anti-Christian crusade was virtually suspended.

In September 1616 a new anti-Christian edict was promulgated by Hidetada, son and successor of Iyeyasu. It pronounced sentence of exile against all Christian priests, including even those whose presence had been sanctioned for ministering to the Portuguese merchants: it forbade the Japanese, under the penalty of being burned alive and of having all their property confiscated, to have any connection with the ministers of religion or to give them hospitality. It was forbidden to any prince or lord to keep Christians in his service or even on his estates, and the edict was promulgated with more than usual solemnity, though its enforcement was deferred until the next year on account of the obsequies of Iyeyasu. This edict of 1616 differed from that issued by Iyeyasu in 1614, since the latter did not prescribe the death penalty for converts refusing to apostatize. But both agreed in indicating expulsion as the sole manner of dealing with the foreign priests. As for the shOgun and his advisers, it is reasonable to assume that they did not anticipate much necessity for recourse to violence. They must have known that a great majority of the converts had joined the Christian church at the instance or by the command of their local rulers, and nothing can have seemed less likely than that a creed thus lightly embraced would be adhered to in defiance of torture and death. It is misreover morally certain that had the foreign propagandists obeyed the Governments edict and left the country, not one would have been put to death. They suffered because they defied the laws of the land. Some fifty missionaries happened to be in Nagasaki when Hidetadas edict was issued. A number of these were apprehended and deported, but several of them returned almost immediately. This happened under the jurisdiction of Omura, who bad been specially charged with the duty o~r sending away the bateren (padres). He appears to have concluded that a striking example must be furnished, and he therefore ordered the seizure and decapitation of two fathers, De 1 Assumpcion and Machado. The result completely falsified his calculations, and presaged the cruel struggle now destined to begin.

The bodies, placed in different coffins, were interred in the same grave. Guards were placed over it, but the concourse was immense. I he sick were carried to the sepulchre to be restored to health. The Christians found new strength in this martyrdom; the pagans themselves were full of admiration for it. Numerous conversions and numerous returns of apostates took place everywhere.

In the midst of all this, Navarette, the vice-provincial of the Dominicans, and Ayala, the vice-provincial of the Augustins, came out of their retreat, and in full priestly garb started upon an open propaganda. The two fanaticsfor so even Charlevoix considers them to have beenwere secretly conveyed to the island Takashima and there decapitated, while their coffins were weighted with big stones and sunk in the sea. Even more directly defiant was the attitude of the next martyred priest, an old Franciscan monk, Juan de Santa Martha. He had for three years suffered all the horrors of a medieval Japanese prison, when it was proposed to release him and deport him to New Spain. His answer was that, if released, he would stay in Japan and preach there. He laid his head on the block in August 1618. But from that time until 1622 no other foreign missionary suffered capital punishment in Japan, though many of them arrived in the country and continued their propagandism there. During that interval, also, there occurred another incident eminently calculated to fix upon the Christians still deeper suspicion of political designs. In a Portuguese ship captured by the Dutch a letter was found instigating the Japanese converts to revolt, and promising that, when the number of these disaffected Christians was sufficient, men-of-war would be sent to aid them. Not the least potent of the influences operating against the Christians was that pamphlets were written by apostates attributing the zeal of the foreign propagandists solely to political motives. Yet another indictment of Spanish and Portuguese propagandists was contained in a despatch addressed to Hidetada in 1620 by the admiral in command of the British and Dutch fleet then cruising in Far-Eastern waters. In that document the friars were flatly accused of treacherous practices, and the Japanese ruler was warned against the aggressive designs of Philip of Spain. In the face of all this evidence the Japanese ceased to hesitate, and a time of terror ensued for the fathers and their converts. The measures adopted towards the missionaries gradually increased in severity. In 1617 the first two fathers put to death (De 1 Assumpcion and Machado) were beheaded, not by the common executioner, but by one of the first officers of the prince. Subsequently Navarette and Ayala were decapitated by the executioner. Then, in 1618, Juan de Santa Martha was executed like a common criminal, his body being dismembered and his head exposed. Finally, ifl 1622, Zufliga and Flores were burnt alive. The same year was marked by the great martyrdom at Nagasaki when 9 foreign priests went to the stake with 19 Japanese converts. The sh6gun seems to have been now laboring under vivid fear of a foreign invasion. An emissary sent by him to Europe had returned on the eve of the great martyrdom after seven years abroad, and had made a report more than ever unfavourable to Christianity. Therefore Hizletada deemed it necessary to refuse audience to a Philippine embassy in 1624 and to deport all Spaniards from Japan. Further,it was decreed that no Japanese Christian should thenceforth be suffered to go abroad for commerce, and that though non-Christians or men who had apostatized might travel freely, they must not visit the Philippines. Thus ended all intercourse between Japan and Spain. It had continued for 32 years and had engendered a widespread conviction that Christianity was an instrument of Spanish aggression.

Iyemitsu, son of Hidetada, now ruled in Yedo, though Hidetada himself remained the power behind the throne. The year (1623) of the formers accession to power had been marked by the re-issue of anti-Christian decrees, and by the martyrdom of some 500 Christians within the Tokugawa domains, whither the tide of persecution now flowed for the first time. Thenceforth the campaign was continuous. The men most active and most relentless in carrying on the persecution were Mizuno and Takenaka, governors of Nagasaki, and Matsukura, feudatory of Shimabara. By the latter were invented the punishment of throwing converts into the soifataras at Unzen and the torture of the fosse, which consisted in suspension by the feet, head downwards, in a pit until blood oozed from the mouth, nose and ears. Many endured this latter torture for days, until death came to their relief, but a fewnotably the Jesuit provincial Ferreyraapostatized. Matsukura and Takenaka were so strongly obsessed by the Spanish menace that they contemplated the conquest of the Philippines in order to deprive the Spaniards of a Far-Eastern base. But timid counsels then prevailed in Yedo, where the spirit of a Nobunaga, a Hideyoshi or an Iyeyasu no longer presided. Of course the measures of repression grew in severity as the fortitude of the Christians became more obdurate. It is not possible to state the exact number of victims. Some historians say that, down to 1635, no fewer than 280,000 were punished, but that figure is probably exaggerated, for the most trustworthy records indicate that the converts never aggregated more than 300,000, and many of these, if not a great majority, having accepted the foreign faith very lightly, doubtless discarded it readily under menace of destruction. Every opportunity was given for apostatizing and for escaping death. Immunity could be secured by pointing out a fellow-convert, and when it isobserved that among the seven or eight feudatories who embraced Christianity only two or three died in that faith, we must conclude that not a few cases of recanting occurred among the commoners. Remarkable fortitude, however, is said to have been displayed. If the converts were intrepid their teachers showed no less courage. Again and again the latter defied the Japanese authorities by coming to the country or returning thither after having been deported. Ignoring the orders of the governors of Macao and Manila and even of the king of Spain himself, they arrived, year after year, to be certainly apprehended and sent to the stake after brief periods of propagandism. In 1626 they actually baptized over 3000 converts. Large rewards were paid to anyone denouncing a propagandist, and as for the people, they had to trample upon a picture of Christ in order to prove that they were not Christians.

Meanwhile the feuds between the Dutch, the Spaniards and the Portuguese never ceased. In 1636, the l5utch found on a captured Portuguese vessel a report of the governor of Macao describing a two days festival which had been held there in honor of Vieyra, the vice-provincial whose martyrdom had just taken place in Japan. This report the Dutch handed to the Japanese authorities in order that his majesty may see more clearly what great honor the Portuguese pay to those he has forbidden his realm as traitors to the state and to his crown. Probably the accusation added little to the resentment and distrust already harboured by the Japanese against the Portuguese. At all events the Yedo government took no step distinctly hostile to Portuguese laymen until 1637, when an edict was issued forbidding any foreigners to travel in the empire, lest Portuguese with passports bearing Dutch names might enter it. This was the beginning of the end. In the last month of 1637 a rebellion broke out, commonly called the Christian revolt of Shimabara, which sealed the fate of Japans foreign intercourse for over 200 years.

The promontory of Shimabara and the island of Amakusa enclose the gulf of Nagasaki on the west. Among all the fiefs in Japan, Shimabara and Amakusa had been the two most thoroughly christianized in the early years of Jesuit propagandism. Hence in later days they were naturally the scene of the severest persecutions. Still the people would probably have suffered in silence had they not been taxed beyond all endurance to supply funds for an extravagant chief who employed savage methods of~ extortion. Japanese annals, however, relegate the taxation grievance to an altogether secondary place, and attribute the revolt solely to the instigation of five samurai who led a roving life to avoid persecution for their adherence to Christianity. Whichever version be correct, it is certain that the outbreak ultimately attracted all the Christians from the surrounding regions, and was regarded by the authorities as in effect a Christian rising. The Amakusa insurgents passed over to Shimabara, and on the 27th of January 1638 the whole bodynumbering, according to some authorities, 20,000 fighting men with I 7 ,ooo women and children; according to others, little more than one-half of these figurestook possession of the dilapidated castle of Hara, which stood on a plateau with three sides descending perpendicularly to the sea, a hundred feet beneath, and with a swamp on its fourth front. There the insurgents, who fought under flags with red crosses and whose battle cries were Jesus, Maria and St Iago, successfully maintained themselves against the repeated assaults of strong forces until the 12th of April, when, their ammunition and their provisions alike exhausted, they were overwhelmed and put to the sword, with the exception of 105 prisoners. During the siege the Dutch were enabled to furnish a vivid proof of enmity to the Christianity of the Spaniards and the Portuguese. For the guns in possession of the besiegers being too light to accomplish anything, Koeckebacker, the factor at Hirado, was invited to send ships carrying heavier metal. He replied with the de Ryp of 20 guns, which threw 426 shot into the castle in I 5 days. Probably the great bulk of the remaining Japanese Christians perished at the massacre of Hara. Thenceforth there were few martyrs.f It has been clearly shown that Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Iyeyasu were all in favor of foreign intercourse and trade, and that the Tokugawa chief, even more than his prede- Foielgsi cessor Hideyoshi, made strenuous efforts to differ- Trade In entiate between Christianity and commerce, so that the 17th Century.

the latter might not be involved in the former s fate.

In fact the three objects which Iyeyasu desired most earnestly to compass were the de~velopment of foreign commerce, the acquisition of a mercantile marine and the exploitation of Japans mines. He offered the Spaniards, Portuguese, English and Dutch a site for a settlement in Yedo, and had they accepted the offer the country might never have been closed. In his time Japan was virtually a free-trade country. Importers had not to pay any duties. It was expected, however, that they should make presents to the feudatory into whose port they carried their goods, and these presents were often very valuable. Naturally the Tokugawa chief desired to attract such a source of wealth to his own domains. He sent more than one envoy to Manila to urge the opening of commerce direct with the regions about Yedo, and to ask the Spaniards for competent naval architects. Perhaps the truest exposition of his attitude is given in a law enacted in 1 602: If any foreign vessel by stress of weather is obliged to touch at any principality onto put into any harbour of Japan, we order that, whoever these foreigners may be, absolutely nothing whatever that belongs to them or that they may have brought irs their ship, shall be taken from them. Likewise we rigorously prohibit the use of any violence in the purchase or the sale of any of the commodities brought by their ship, and if it is not convenient for the merchants of the ship to remain in the port they have entered, they may pass to any other port that may suit them, and therein buy and sell in f till freedom. Likewise we order in a general manner that foreigners may freely reside in any part of Japan they choose, but we rigorously forbid them to promulgate their faith.

It was in that mood that he granted (16o5) a licence to the Dutch to trade in Japan, his expectation doubtless being that the ships which they promised to send every year would make their dpt at Uraga or in some other place near Yedo. But things were ordered differently. The first Hollanders that set foot in Japan were the survivors of the wrecked Liefde. Thrown into prison for a time, they were approached by emissaries from the feudatory of Hirado, who engaged some of them to teach the art of casting guns and the science of gunnery to his vassals, and when two of them were allowed to leave Japan, he furnished them with the means of doing so, at the same time making promises which invested Hirado with attractions as a port of trade, though it was then and always remained an insignificant fishing village. The Dutch possessed precisely the qualifications suited to the situation then existing in Japan:

they had commercial potentialities without any religious associations. Fully appreciating that fact, the shrewd feudatory of Hirado laid himself out to entice the Dutchmen to his fief, and he succeeded. Shortly afterwards, an incident occurred which clearly betrayed the strength of the Tokugawa chiefs desire to exploit Japans mines. The governor-general of the Philippines (Don Rodrigo Vivero y Velasco), his ship being cast away on the Japanese coast on a voyage to Acapulco, was received by Iyeyasu, and in response to the latters request for fifty miners, the Spaniard formulated terms to which Iyeyasu actually agreed:

that half the produce of the mines should go to the miners; that the other half should be divided between Iyeyasu and the king of Spain; th-~t the latter might send commissioners to Japan to look after his mining interests, and that these commissioners might be accompanied by priests who would be entitled to have public churches for holding services. This was in 1609, when the Tokugawa chief had again and again imposed the strictest veto on Christian propagandism. There can be little doubt that he understood the concession made to Don Rodrigo in the sense of Hideyoshis mandate to the Jesuits in Nagasaki, namely, that a sufficient number might remain to minister to the Portuguese traders frequenting the port. Iyeyasu had confidence in himself and in his countrymen. He knew that emergencies could be dealt with when they arose and he sacrificed nothing to timidity. But his courageous policy died with him and the miners did not come. Neither did -the Spaniards ever devote any successful efforts to establishing trade with Japan. Their vessels paid fitful visits to Uraga, but the Portuguese continued to monopolize the commerce.

In 1611 a Dutch merchantman (the Brach) reached Hirado with a cargo of pepper, cloth, ivory, silk agd lead. She carried Opening of two envoys, Spex and Segerszoon, and in the very Dutch and face of a Spanish embassy which had just arrived ~ngIish from Manila expressly for the purpose of settling Trade, the matter regarding the Hollanders, the Dutchmen obtained a liberal patent from Iyeyasu. Twelve years previously, the merchants of London, stimulated generally by the success of the Dutch in trade with the East, and specially by the fact that these Hollanders had raised the price of pepper against us from 3 shillings per pound to 6 shillings and 8 shillings, organized the East India Company which immediately began to send ships eastward. Of course the news that the Dutch were about to establish a trading station in Japan reached London speedily, and the East India Company lost no time in ordering one of their vessels, the Clove, under Captain Saris, to proceed to the Far-Eastern islands. She carried a quantity of pepper, and on the voyage she endeavoured to procure some spices at the Moluccas. But the Dutch would not suffer any poaching on their valuable monopoly. The Clove entered Hirado on the 11th of June 1613. Saris seems to have been a man self-opinionated, of shallow judgment and suspicious. Though strongly urged by Will Adams to make Uraga the seat of the new trade, though convinced of the excellence of the harbour there, and though instructed as to the great advantage of proximity to the shOguns capital, he appears to have conceived some distrust of Adams, for he chose Hirado. From Iyeyasu Captain Saris received a most liberal charter, which plainly displayed the mood of the Tokugawa shogun towards foreign trade:

1. The ship that has now come for the first time from England over the sea to Japan may carry on trade of all kinds without hindrance. With regard to future visits (of English ships) permission will be given in regard to all matters.

2. With regard to the cargoes of ships, requisition will be made by list according to the requirements of the shOgunate.

3. English ships are free to visit any port in Japan. If disabled by storms they may put into any harbour.

4. Ground in Yedo in the place which they may desire shall be given to the English, and they may erect houses and reside and trade there. They shall be at liberty to return to their country whenever they wish to do so, and to dispose as they like of the houses they have erected.

5. If an Englishman dies in Japan of disease, or any other cause, his effects shall be handed over without fail.

6. Forced sales of cargo, and violence, shall not take place.

7. II one of the English should. commit an offence, he should be sentenced by the English General according to the gravity of his offence. (Translated by Professor Riess.)

The terms of the 4th article show that the shogun expected the English to make Yedo their headquarters. Had Saris done so, be would have been free from all competition, would have had an. immense market at his very doors, would have economized the expense of numerous overland journeys to the Tokugawa court, and would have saved the payment of many considerations. The result of his mistaken choice and subsequent bad management was that, ten. years later (1623), the English factory at Hirado had to be closed, having incurred a total loss of about ~200o. In condonation of this failure it must be noted that a few months after the death of Iyeyasu, the charter he had granted to Saris underwent serious modification.. The original document threw open to the English every port in Japan; the revised document limited them to Hirado. But this restriction may be indirectly traced to the blunder of not accepting a settlement in Yedo and a port at TJraga. For the Tokugawas foreign policy was largely swayed by an apprehension lest the KiUshi feudatories, over whom tile authority of Yedo had never been fully established, might, by the presence of foreign traders, come into possession of such a fleet and such an armament as would ultimately enable theta to wrest the administration of the empire from Tokugawa hands. Hence the precaution of confining the English and the Dutch to Hirado, the fief of a daimyO too petty to become formidable, and to Nagasaki which was an imperial city.i But evidently an English factory in Yedo and English ships at Uraga would have strengthened the Tokugawa rulers hand instead of supplying engines of war to his political foes. It must also be noted that the question of locality had another injurious outcome. It exposed the Englishand the Dutch alsoto crippling competition at the hands of a company of rich Osaka monopolists, who, as representing an Imperial city and therefore being pledged to the Tokugawa intefests, enjoyed Yedos favor and took full advantage of it. These shrewd traders not only drew a ring round Hirado, but also sent vessels on their own account to Cochin China, Siam, Tonkin, Cambodia and other places, where they obtained many of the staples in which the Englis~i and the Dutch dealt. Still the closure of the English jactory at Hirado was purely voluntary. From first to last there had been no serious friction between. the English and the Japanese. The companys houses and godowns were not sold. These as well as the charter were left in the hands of the daimyO of Hirado, who promised to restore them should the English re-open business in Japan. The company did think of doing so on more than one occasion, but no practical step was taken until the year 1673, when a merchantman, aptly named the Return, was sent to seek permission. The Japanese, after mature reflection, made answer that as the king of England was married to a Portuguese princess, British subjects could not be permitted to visit Japan. That this reply was suggested by the Dutch is very probable; that it truly reflected the feeling elf the Japanese government towards Roman Catholics is certain.

The Spaniards were expelled from Japan in 1624, the Portuguese in 1638. Two years before the latter event, the Yedo government took a signally retrogressive step. They The Last ordained that no Japanese vessel should go abroad; Days of the that no Japanese subject should leave the country, ~ and that, if detected attempting to do so, he should he put to death, the vessel that carried him and her crew being seized to await our pleasure; that any Japanese resident abroad should be executed if he returned; that the children and descendants of Spaniards together with those who had adopted such children should not be allowed to remain on pain of death; and that no ship of ocean-going dimensions should be built in Japan. Thus not only were the very children of the Christian, propagandists driven completely from the land, but the Japanese people also were sentenced to imprisonment within the limits of their islands, and the country was deprived of all hope of acquiring a mercantile marine. The descendants of the Spaniards, banished by the edict, were taken to Macao in two Portuguese galleons. They numbered 287 and the property they carried with them aggregated 6,6~7,5oo forms. But if the Portuguese derived any gratification from this sweeping out of their much-abused rivals, the feeling was destined to be shortlived. Already they were subjected to humiliating restrictions.

From 1623 the galleons and their cargoes were liable to be burnt and their crews executed if any foreign priest was found on board of them. An official of the Japanese government was stationed in Macao for the purpose of inspecting all intending passengers, and of preventing any one that looked at all suspicious from proceeding to Japan. A complete list and personal description of every one on board was drawn up by this officer, a copy of it was handed to the captain and by him it had to be delivered to the authorities who met him at Nagasaki before he was allowed to anchor. If in the subsequent inspection any discrepancy between the list and the persons actually carried by the vessel appeared, it would prove very awkward for the captain. Then in the inspection of the vessel letters were opened, trunks and boxes ransacked, and all crosses, rosaries or objects of religion of any kind had to be thrown overboard. In 1635 Portuguese were forbidden to employ Japanese to carry their umbrellas or their shoes, and only their chief men were allowed to bear arms, while they had to hire fresh servants every year. It was in the following year (1636) that the artificial islet of Deshima was constructed for their special reception, or rather imprisonment. It lay in front of the former Portuguese factory, with which it was connected by a bridge, and henceforth the Portuguese were to be allowed to cross this bridge only twice a yearat their arrival and at their departure. Furthermore, all their cargoes had to be sold at a fixed price during their fifty days stay to a ring of licensed merchants from the imperial towns. i The imposition of such irksome conditions did not deter the Portuguese, who continued to send merchandise-laden galleons to Nagasaki. But in 1638 the bolt fell. The Shimabara rebellion was directly responsible. Probably the fact of a revolt of Christian converts, in such numbers and fighting with such resolution, would alone have sufficed to induce the weak government in Yedo to get rid of the Portuguese altogether. But the Portuguese were suspected of having instigated the Shimabara insurrection, and the Japanese authorities believed that they had proof of the fact. Hence, in 1638, an edict was issued proclaiming that as, in defiance of the governments order, the Portuguese had continued to bring missionaries to Japan; as they had supplied these missionaries with provisions and other necessaries, and as they had fomented the Shimabara rebellion, thenceforth any Portuguese ship coming to Japan should be burned, together with her cargo, and every one on board of her should be executed. Ample time was allowed before enforcing this edict. Not only were the Portuguese ships then at Nagasaki permitted to close up their commercial transactions and leave the port, but also in the following year when two galleons arrived from Macao, they were merely sent away with a copy of the edict and a stern warning. But the Portuguese could not easily become reconciled to abandon a commerce from which they had derived splendid profits prior to the intrusion of the Spaniards, the Dutch and the English, and from which they might now hope further gains, since, although the Dutch continued to be formidable rivals, the Spaniards had been excluded, the English had withdrawn, and the Japanese, by the suicidal policy of their own rulers, were no longer able to send ships to China. Therefore they took a step which resulted in one of the saddest episodes of the whole story. Four aged men, the most respected citizens of Macao, were despatched (1640) to Nagasaki as ambassadors in a ship carrying no cargo but only rich presents. They bore a petition declaring that for a long time no missionaries had entered Japan from Macao, that the Portuguese had not been in any way connected with the Shimabara revolt, and that interruption of trade would injure Japan as much as Portugal. These envoys arrived at Nagasaki on the 1st of July 1640, and 24 days sufficed to bring from Yedo, whither their petition had been sent, peremptory orders for their execution as well ai executioners to carry out the orders. There was no possibility of resistance. The Japanese had removed the ships rudder, sails, guns and ammunition, and had placed the envoys, theif suite and the crews under guard in Deshima. On the 2nd 01 August they were all summoned to the governors hall of audi ence, where, after their protest had been heard that ambassador~

A History of Japan (Murdoch and Yamagata).

should be under the protection of international law, the sentence written in Yedo 13 days previously was read to them. The following morning the Portuguese were offered their lives if they would apostatize. Every one rejected the offer, and being then led out to the martyrs mount, the heads of the envoys and of 57 of their compaliiofls fell. Thirteen were saved to carry the news to Macao. These thirteen, after witnessing the burning of the galleon, were conducted to the governors residence who gave them this message: Do not fail to inform the inhabitants of Macao that the Japanese wish to receive ,from them neither gold nor silver, nor any kind of presents or merchandise; in a word, absolutely nothing which comes from them. You are witnesses that I have caused even the clothes of those who were executed yesterday to be burned. Let them do the same with respect to us if they find occasion to do so; we consent to it without difficulty. Let them think no more of us, just as if we were no longer in the world.

Finally the thirteen were taken to the martyrs mount where, set up above the heads of the victims, a tablet recounted the story of the embassy and the reasons for the execution, and concluded with the words: So long as the sun warms the earth, let no Christian be so bold as to come to Japan, and let all know that if King Philip himself, or even the very God of the Christians, or the great Shaka contravene this prohibition, they shall pay for it with their heads.

Had the ministers of the shOgun in Yedo desired to make clear to future ages that to Christianity alone was due the expulsion of Spaniards and Portuguese from Japan and her adoption of the policy of seclusion they could not have placed on record more conclusive testimony. Macao received the news with rejoicing in that its earthly ambassadors had been made ambassadors of heaven, but it did not abandon all hope of overcoming Japans obduracy. When Portugal recovered her independence in 1640, the people of Macao requested Lisbon to send an ambassador to Japan, and on the 16th of July 1647 Don Gonzalo de Siqueira arrived in Nagasaki with two vessels. He carried a letter from King John IV., setting forth the severance of all connection between Portugal and Spain, which countries were now actually at war, and urging that commercial relations should be re-established. The Portuguese, having refused to give up their rudders and arms, soon found themselves menaced by a force of fifty thousand samurai, and were glad to put out of port quietly on the 4th of September. This was the last episode in the medieval history of Portugals intercourse with Japan.

When. (1609) the Dutch contemplated forming a settlemlnt in Japan, Iyeyasu gave them a written promise that no man should do, them any wrong and that he would maintain and defend them as his own subjects. ~, Moreover, the charter granted to them contained a clause providing that, into whatever ports their ships put, they were not to be molested or hindered in any way, but, on the contrary, must be shown all manner of help, favor and assistance. They might then have chosen any port in Japan for their headquarters, but they had the misfortune to choose Hirado. For many years they had no cause to regret the chojce. Their exclusive possession. of the Spice Islands and their own enterprise and,command of capital gave them the leading place in Japans over-sea trade. Even when things had changed greatly for the worse and when the English closed their books with a large loss, it is on record that the Dutch were reaping a profit 0176% annually. Their doings at Hirado were not of a purely commercial character. The Anglo-Dutch fleet of defence made that port its basis of operations against the Spaniards and the Portuguese. It brought, its prizes into Hirado, the profits to be equally divided between the fleet and the factories, Dutch and English, which arrangement involved a sum of a hundred thousand pounds in 1622. But after the death of Iyeyasu there grew up at the Tokugawa court a party which advocated the expulsion of all foreigners on the ground that, though some professed a different form of Christianity from that of the Castilians and Portuguese, it was nevertheless one and the same creed. This policy was not definitely adopted, but it made itself felt in a discourteous reception accorded to the commandant of Fort Zelandia when he visited Tokyo in 1627. He attempted to retaliate upon the Japanese vessels which put into Zelandia in the following year, but the Japanese managed to seize his person, exact reparation for loss of time and obtain five hostages whom they carried to prison in Japan. The Japanese government of that time was wholly intolerant of any injury done to its subjects by foreigners. When news of the Zelandia affair reached Yedo, orders were immediately issued for the sequestration of certain Dutch vessels and for the suspension of the Hirado factory, which veto was not removed for four years. Commercial arrangements, also, became less favorable. The Dutch, instead of selling their silkwhich generally formed the principal staple of importin the open market, were required to send it to the Osaka gild of licensed merchants at Nagasaki, by which means, Nagasaki and Osaka being Imperial cities, the Yedo government derived advantage from the transaction. An attempt to evade this onerous system provoked a very stern rebuke from Yedo, and shortly afterwards all Japanese subjects were forbidden to act as servants to the Dutch outside the latters dwellings. The cooperation of the Hollanders in bombarding the castle of Hara during the Shimabara rebellion (1638) gave them some claim on the shoguns government, but in the same year the Dutch received an imperious warning that the severest penalties would be inflicted if their ships carried priests or any religious objects or books. So profound was the dislike of everything relating to Christianity that the Dutch nearly caused the ruin of their factory and probably their own destruction by inscribing on some newly erected warehouses the date according to the Christian era. The factory happened to be then presided over by Caron, a man of extraordinary penetration. Without a moments hesitation he set 400 men to pull down the warehouses, thus depriving the Japanese of all pretext for recourse to violence. He was compelled, however, to promise that there should be no observance of the Sabbath hereafter and that time should no longer be reckoned by the Christian era. In a few months, further evidence of Yedos ill will was furnished. An edict appeared ordering the Dutch to dispose of all their imports during the year of their arrival, without any option of carrying them away should prices be low. They were thus placed at the mercy of the Osaka gild. Further, they were forbidden to slaughter cattle or carry arms, and altogether it seemed as though the situation was to be rendered impossible for them. An envoy despatched from Batavia to remonstrate could not obtain audience of the shogun, and though he presented, by way of re 2onstrance, the charter originally granted by Iyeyasu, the reply he received was: His Majesty charges us to inform you that it is of but slight importance to the Empire of Japan whether foreigners come or do not come to trade. But in consrderation of the charter granted to them by lyeyasu, he is pleased to allow the Hollanders to continue their operations, and to leave them their commercial and other privileges, on the condition that they evacuate Hirado and establish themselves with their vessels in the port of Nagasaki.

The Dutch did not at first regard this as a calamity. During their residence of 31 years at Hirado they had enjoyed full freedom, had been on excellent terms with the feudatory and his samurai, and had prospered in their business., But the pettiness of the place and the inconvenience of the anchorage having always been recognized, transfer to Nagasaki promised a splendid harbour and much larger custom. Bitter, therefore, was their disappointment when they found that they were to be imprisoned in Deshima, a quadrangular island whose longest face did not measure 300 yds., and that, so far from living in the town of Nagasaki, they would not be allowed even to enter it. Siebold writes: A guard at the gate prevented all communications with the city of Nagasaki; no Dutchmnn without weighty reasons and without the permission of the governor might pass the gate; no Japanese (unless public women) might live in a Dutchmans house. As if this were not enough, even within Deshima itself our state prisoners were keenly watched. No Japanese might speak with them in his ciwn language unless in the presence of a witness (a government spy)

or visit them in their houses. The creatures of the governor had the warehouses under key and the Dutch traders ceased to be masters of their property.

There were worse indignities to be endured. No Dutchman might be buried in Japanese soil: the dead had to be committed to the deep. Every Dutch ship, her rudder, guns and ammunition removed and her sails sealed, was subjected to the strictest search. No religious service could be held. No one was suffered to pass from one Dutch ship to another without the governors permit. Sometimes the officers and men were wantonly cudgelled by petty Japanese officials. They led, in short, a life of extreme abasement. Some relaxation of this extreme severity was afterwards obtained, but at no time of their sojourn in Deshima, a period of 217 years, were the Dutch relieved from irksome, and humiliating restraints. Eleven years after their removal thither, the expediency of consulting the national honor by finally abandoning an enterprise so derogatory was gravely discussed, but hopes of improvement supplementing natural reluctance to surrender a monopoly which still brought large gains, induced them to persevere. At that time this Nagasaki over-sea trade was considerable. From 7 to jo Dutch ships used to enter the port annually, carrying cargo valued at some 8o,ooo lb of silver, the chief staples of import being silk and piece-goods, and the government levying 5% by way of customs dues. But this did not represent the whole of the charges imposed. A rent of 459 lb of silver had to be paid each year for the little island of Deshima and the houses standing on it; and, further, every spring, the Hollanders were required to send to Yedo a mission bearing for the shogun, the heir-apparent and the court officials presents representing an aggregate value of about 550 lb of silver. They found their account, nevertheless, in buying gold and copperespecially the latterfor exportation, until the Japanese authorities, becoming alarmed at the great quantity of copper thus carried away, adopted the policy of limiting the number of vessels, as well as their inward and outward cargoes, so that, in 1790, only one ship might enter annually, nor could she carry away more than 350 tons of copper. On the other hand, the formal visits of the captain of the factory to Yedo -were reduced to one every fifth year, and the value of the presents carried by him was cut down to one half.

Well-informed historians have contended that, by thus segregating herself from contact with the West, Japans direct losses were small. Certainly it is true that she could L ~

not have learned much from European nations in the 17th century. They had little to teach her in adopting the way of religious tolerance; in the way of inter- the Policy of national morality; in the way of social amenitiesE1c~bo1~

and etiquette; in the way of artistic conception and execution; or in the way of that notable shibboleth of modern civilization, the open door and equal opportunities. Yet when all this is admitted, there remains the vital fact that Japan was thus shut off from the atmosphere of competition, and that for nearly two centuries and a half she never had an opportunity of warming her intelligence at the fire of international rivalry or deriving inspiration from an exchange of ideas. She stood comparatively still while the world went on, and the interval between her and the leading peoples of the Occident in matters of material civilization had become very wide before she awoke to a sense of its existence. The sequel of this page of her history has been faithfully summarized by a modern writer: A more complete metamorphosis of a nations policy could scarcely be conceived. In 1541 we find the Japanese celebrated, or notorious, throughout the whole of the Far East for exploits abroad; we find them known as the kings of the sea;we find fhern~ welcoming foreigners with cordiality and opposing no obstacles to foreign commerce or even to the propagandism of forergn creeds; we find them so quick to recognize the benefits of foreign trade and so apt to pursue them that, in the space of a few years, they establish commercial relations with no less than twenty over-sea markets; we find them authorizing the Portuguese, the Dutch and the English to trade at every port in the empire; we find, in short, all the elements requisite for a career of commercial enterprise, ocean-going adventure and industrial liberality. In 1641 everything is reversed. Trade is interdicted to all Western peoples except the Dutch, nd they are confined to a little island 200 yards in length by 80 in width; the least symptom of predilection for any alien creed exposes a Japanese subject to be punished with awful rigour; any attempt to leave the limits of the realm involves decapitation; not a ship large enough to pass beyond the shadow of the coast may be built. However unwelcome the admission, it is apparent that for all these changes Christian propagandism was responsible. The policy of seclusion adopted by Japan In the early ,part of the I 7th century and resolutely pursued until the middle of the 19th, was anti-Christian, not anti-foreign. The fact cannot be too clearly recognized. It is the chief lesson taught by the events outlined above. Throughout the whole of that period of isolation, Occidentals were not known to the Japanese by any of the terms now in common use, as gwaskoku-jzn, seiyo-jin, or i-jin, which embody the simple meanings foreigner, Westerner or alien :they were popularly called baleren (padres). Thus completely had foreign intercourse and Christian propagandism become identified in the eyes of the people. And when it is remembered that foreign intercourse, associated with Christianity, had come to be synonymous in Japanese ears with foreign aggression, with the subversal of the mikados ancient dynasty, and with the loss of the independence of the country of the gods, there is no difficulty in understanding the attitude of the nations mind towards this question.

Foreign Intercourse in Modern Times.From the middle of the i7th century to the beginning of the Ioth, Japan succeeded Dutch and in rigorously enforcing her policy of seclusion. But Russian in the concluding days of this epoch two influences influence, began to disturb her self-sufficiency. One was the gradual infiltration of light from the outer world through the narrow window of the Dutch prison at Deshima; the other, frequent apparitions of Russian vessels on her northern coasts. The former was a slow process. It materialized first in the study of anatomy by a little group of youths who had acquired accidental knowledge of the radical difference between Dutch and Japanese conceptions as to the structure of the human body. The work of these students reads like a page of romance. Without any appreciable knowledge of the Dutch language, they set themselves to decipher a Dutch medical book, obtained at enormous cost, and from this small beginning they passed to a vague but firm conviction that their country had fallen far behind the material and intellectual progress of the Occident. They labored in secret, for the study of foreign books was then a criminal offence; yet the patriotism of one of their number outweighed his prudence, and he boldly published a brochure advocating the construction of a navy and predicting a descent by the Russians on the northern borders of the empire. Before this prescient man bad lain five months in prison, his foresight was verified by events. The Russians simulated at the outset a desire to establish commercial relations by peaceful means. Had the Japanese been better acquainted with the history of nations, they would have known how to interpret the idea of a Russian quest for commercial connections in the Far East a hundred years ago. But they dealt with the question on its superficial merits, and, after imposing on the tsars envoys a wearisome delay of several months at Nagasaki, addressed to them a peremptory refusal together with an order to leave that port forthwith. Incensed by such treatment, and by the subsequent imprisonment of a number of their fellow countrymen who had landed on the island of Etorofu in the Kuriles, the Russians resorted to armed reprisals. The Japanese settlements in Sakhalin and Etorofu were raided and burned, other places were menaced and several Japanese vessels were destroyed. The lesson sank deep into the minds of the Yedo officials. They withdrew their veto against the study of foreign books, and they arrived in part at the reluctant conclusion that to offer armed opposition to the coming of foreign ships was a task somewhat beyond Japans capacity. Japan ceased, however, to attract European attention amid the absorbing interest of the Napoleonic era, and the shoguns government, misinterpreting this respite, reverted to their old policy of stalwart resistance to foreign intercourse.

Meanwhile another power was beginning to establish close contact with Japan. The whaling industry in Russian waters off A the coast of Alaska and in the seas of China and Japan ~n~t~se. had attracted large investments of American capital - and was pursued yearly by thousands of American citizens. In one season 86 of these whaling vessels passed within easy sight of Japans northern island, Yezo, so that the aspect of foreign ships became quite familiar. From time to time American schooners were cast away on Japans shores. Generally the survivors were treated with tolerable consideration and ultimately sent to Deshima for shipment to Batavia. Japanese sailors, too, driven out of their route by hurricanes and caught in the stream of the Black Current, were occasionally carried to the Aleutian Islands, to Oregon or California, and in several instances these shipwrecked mariners were taken back to Japan with all kindness by American vessels. On such an errand of mercy the Morrison entered Yedo Bay in 1837, proceeding thence to Kagoshima, only to be driven away by cannon shot; and on such an errand the Manhattan in 1845 lay for four days at Uraga while her master (Mercater Cooper) collected books and charts. It would seem that his experience induced the Washington government to attempt the opening of Japan. A ninety-gun ship and a sloop were sent on the errand. They anchored off Uraga (July 1846) and Commodore Biddle made due application for trade. But he received a positive refusal, and having been instructed by his government to abstain from any act calculated to excite hostility or distrust, he quietly weighed anchor and sailed away.

In this same year (1846) a French ship touched at the Riukiu (Luchu) archipelago and sought to persuade the islanders that their only security against British aggression was to G,~eat place themselves under the protection of France. In Britain fact Great Britain was now beginning to interest herself reappears in south China, and more than one warning reached Yedo from Deshima that English war-ships might at any moment visit Japanese waters. The Dutch have been much blamed for thus attempting to prejudice Japan against the Occident, but if the dictates of commercial rivalry, as it was then practised, do not constitute an ample explanation, it should be remembered that England and Holland had recently been enemies, and that the last British vessel,1 seen at Nagasaki had gone there hoping to capture the annual Dutch trading-ship from Batavia. Deshimas warnings, however, remained unfulfilled, though they doubtless contributed to Japans feeling of uneasiness. Then, in 1847, the king of Holland himself intervened. He sent to Yedo various books, together with a map of the world and a despatch advising Japan to abandon her policy of isolation. Within a few months (1849) of the receipt of his Dutch majestys recommendation, an American brig, the Preble, under Commander J. Glynn, anchored in Nagasaki harbour and threatened to bombard the town unless immediate delivery were made of 18 seamen who, having been wrecked in northern waters, were held by the Japanese preparatory to shipment for Batavia. In 1849 another despatch reached Yedo from the king of Holland announcing that an American fleet might be expected in Japanese waters a year later, and that, unless Japan agreed to enter into friendly commercial relations, war must ensue. Appended to this despatch was an approximate draft of the treaty which would be presented for signature, together with a copy of a memorandum addressed by the Washington government to European nations, justifying the contemplated expedition on-the ground that it would inure to the advantage of Japan as well as to that of the Occident.

In 1853, Commodore Perry, with a squadron of four ships-ofwar and 560 men, entered Uraga Bay. So formidable a foreign force had not been seen in Japanese waters since the Commodore coming of the Mongol Armada. A panic ensued among ~

the peoplethe same people who, in the days of Hideyoshi or Iyeyasu, would have gone out to encounter these ships with assured confidence of victory. The contrast did not stop there. The shogun, whose ancestors had administered the countrys affairs with absolutely autocratic authority, now summoned a council of the feudatories to consider the situation; and the Imperial court in KiOto, which never appealed for heavens aid except in a national emergency such as had never been witnessed since the creation of the shogunate, now directed that at the seven principal shrines and at all the great temples special 1H.M.S. Phaeton, which entered that port in iSo8.

prayers should be offered for the safety of the land and for the destruction of the aliens. Thus the appearance of the American squadron awoke in the cause of the country as a whole a spirit of patriotism hitherto confined to feudal interests. The shogun does not seem to have had any thought of invoking that spirit:

his part in raising it was involuntary and his ministers behaved with perplexed vacillation. The infirmity of the Yedo Administrations purpose presented such a strong contrast to the singleminded resolution of the Imperial court that the prestige of the one was largely impaired and that of the other correspondingly enhanced. Perry, however, was without authority to support his proposals by any recourse to violence. The United States government had relied solely on the moral effect of his display of force, and his countrymen had supplied him with a large collection of the products of peaceful progress, from sewing machines to miniature railways. He did not unduly press for a treaty, but after lying at anchor off Uraga during a period of ten days and after transmitting the presidents letter to the sovereign of Japan, be steamed away on the 17th of July, announcing his return in the ensuing spring. The conduct of the Japanese subsequently to his departure showed how fully and rapidly they had acquired the conviction that the appliances of their old civilization were powerless to resist the resources of the new. Orders were issued rescinding the long-enforced veto against the construction of sea-going ships; the feudal chiefs were invited to build and arm large vessels; the Dutch were commissioned to furnish a ship of war and to procure from Europe all the best works on modern military science; every one who had acquired any expert knowledge through the medium of Deshima was taken into official favor; forts were built; cannon were cast and troops were drilled. But from all this effort there resulted only fresh evidence of the countrys inability to defy foreign insistence, and on the 2nd of December 1853, instructions were issued that if the Americans returned, they were to be dealt with peacefully. The sight of Perrys steam-propelled ships, their powerful guns and all the specimens they carried of western wonders, had practically broken down the barriers of Japans isolation without any need of treaties or conventions. Perry returned in the following February, and after an interchange of courtesies and formalities extending over six weeks, obtained a treaty pledging Japan to accord kind treatment to shipwrecked sailors; to permit foreign vessels to obtain stores and provisions within her territory, and to allow American ships to anchor in the ports at Shimoda and Hakodate. On this second occasion Perry had 10 ships with crews numbering two thousand, and when he landed to sign the treaty, he was escorted by a guard of honor mustering 500 strong in 27 boats. Much has been written about his judicious display of force and his sagacious tact in dealing with the Japanese, but it may be doubted whether the consequences of his exploit have not invested its methods with extravagant lustre. Standing on the threshold of modern Japans wonderful career, his figure shines by the reflected light of its surroundings.

Russia, Holland and England speedily secured for themselves treaties similar to that concluded by Commodore Perry in 1854. First But Japans doors still remained closed to foreign Treaty of commerce, and it was reserved for another- citizen Commerce. of the great republic to open them. This was Townsend Harris (1803-1878), the first U.S. consul-general in Japan. Arriving in August 1856, he concluded, in June of the following year, a treaty securing to American citizens the privilege of permanent residence at Shimoda and Hakodate, the opening of Nagasaki, the right of consular jurisdiction and certain minor concessions. Still, however, permission for commercial intercourse was withheld, and Harris, convinced that this.great goal could not be reached unless he made his way to Yedo and conferred direct with the shoguns ministers, pressed persistently for leave to do so. Ten months elapsed before he succeeded, and such a display of reluctance on the Japanese side was very unfavourably criticized in the years immediately subsequent. Ignorance of the countrys domestic politics inspired the critics. The Yedo administration, already weakened by the growth of a strong public sentiment in favor of abolishing the dual system of governmentthat of the mikado in KiOto and that of the sbOgun in Yedohad been still further discredited by its own timid policy as compared with the stalwart mien of the throne towards the question of foreign intercourse. Openly to sanction commercial relations at such a time would have been little short of reckless. The Perry convention and the first Harris convention could be construed, and were purposely construed, as mere acts of benevolence towards strangers; but a commercial treaty would not have lent itself to any such construction, and naturally the shOguns ministers hesitated to agree to an apparently suicidal step. Harris carried his point, however. He was received by the shogun in Yedo in November 1857, and on the 29th of July 1858 a treaty was signed in Yedo, engaging that Yokohama should be opened on the 4th of July 1859 and that commerce between the United States and Japan should thereafter be freely carried on there. This treaty was actually concluded by the shoguns Ministers in defiance of their failure tp obtain the sanction of the sovereign in KiOto. Foreign historians have found much to say about Japanese duplicity in concealing the subordinate position occupied by the Yedo administration towards the Kiflto court. Such condemnation is not consistent with fuller knowledge. The Yedo authorities had power to solve all problems of foreign intercourse without reference to Kiflto. Iyeyasu had not seen any occasion to seek imperial assent when he granted unrestricted liberty of trade to the representatives of the East India Company, nor had Iyemitsu asked for KiOtos sanction when he issued his decree for the expulsion of all foreigners. If, in the 19th century, Yedo shrank from a responsibility which it had unhesitatingly assumed in the 17th, the cause was to be found, not in the shoguns simulation of autonomy, but in his desire to associate the throne with a policy which, while recognizing it to be unavoidable, he distrusted his own ability to make the nation. accept. But his ministers had promised Harris that the treaty should be signed, and they kept their word, at a risk of which the United States consul-general had no conception. Throughout these negotiations Harris spared no pains to create in the minds of the Japanese an intelligent conviction that the world could no longer be kept at arms length, and though it is extremely problematical whether he would have succeeded had not the Japanese themselves already arrived at that very conviction, his patient and lucid expositions coupled with a winning personality undoubtedly produced much impression. He was largely assisted, too, by recent events in China, where the PeihO forts had been captured and the Chinese forced to sign a treaty at Tientsin. Harris warned the Japanese that the British fleet might be expected at any moment in Yedo Bay, and that the best way to avert irksome demands at the hands of the English was to establish a comparatively moderate precedent by yielding to Americas proposals.

This treaty could not be represented, as previous conventions, had been, in the light of a purely benevolent concession. It definitely provided for the trade and residence of foreign merchants, and thus finally terminated Japans traditional isolation. Moreover, it had been concluded in defiance of the Thrones refusal to sanction anything of the kind. Much excitement resulted. The nation ranged itself into three parties. One comprised the advocates of free intercourse and progressive liberality; another, while insisting that only the most limited privileges should be accorded to aliens, was of two minds as to the advisability of offering armed resistance at once or temporizing so as to gain time for preparation; the third advocated uncompromising seclusion. Once again the shogun convoked a meeting of the feudal barons, hoping to secure their co-operation. But with hardly an exception they pronounced against yielding. Thus the shogunate saw itself compelled to adopt a resolutely liberal policy: it issued a decree in that sense, and thenceforth the administrative court at Yedo and the Imperial court in KiOto stood in unequivocal opposition to each other, the Conservatives ranging themselves on the side of the latter, the Liberals on that of the former. It was a situation full of perplexity to outsiders, and the foreign representatives misinterpreted it. They imagined that the shoguns ministers sought only to evade their treaty obligations and to render the situation intolerable for foreign residents, whereas in truth the situation threatened to become intolerable for the shogunate itself. Nevertheless the Yedo officials cannot be entirely acquitted of duplicity. Under pressure of the necessity of self-preservation they effected with KiOto a compromise which assigned to foreign intercourse a temporary character. The threatened political crisis was thus averted, but the enemies of the dual system of government gained strength daily. One of their devices was to assassinate foreigners in the hope of embroiling the shogunate with Western powers and thus either forcing its hand or precipitating its downfall. It is not wonderful, perhaps, that foreigners were deceived, especially as they approached the solution of Japanese problems with all the Occidentals habitual suspicion of everything Oriental. Ihus when the Yedo government, cognisant that serious dangers menaced the Yokohama settlement, took precautions to guard it, the foreign ministers convinced themselves that a deliberate piece of chicanery was being practised at their expense; that statecraft rather than truth had dictated the representations made to them by the Japanese authorities; and that the alarm of the latter was simulated for the purpose of finding a pretext to curtail the liberty enjoyed by foreigners. Therefore a suggestion that the inmates of the legations should show themselves as little as possible in the streets of the capital, where at any moment a desperado might cut them down, was treated almost as an insult. Then the Japanese authorities saw no recourse except to attach an armed escort to the person of every foreigner when he moved about the city. But even this precaution, which certainly was not adopted out of mere caprice or with any sinister design, excited fresh suspicions. The British representative, in reporting the event to his government, said that the Japanese had taken the opportunity to graft upon the establishment of spies, watchmen and police-officers at the several legations, a mounted escort to accompany the members whenever they moved about.

Just at this time (1861) the Yedo statesmen, in order to reconcile the divergent views of the two courts, negotiated a Attacks marriage between the emperors sister and the shogun. But in order to bring the union about, they had to Foreigners placate the Kioto Conservatives by a promise to expel and their foreigners from the country within ten years. When this became known, it strengthened the hands of the reactionaries, and furnished a new weapon to Yedos enemies, who interpreted the marriage as the beginning of a plot to dethrone the mikado. Murderous attacks upon foreigners became more frequent. Two of these assaults had momentous consequences. Three British subjects attempted to force their way through the cortege of the Satsuma feudal chief on the highway between Yokohama and Yedo. One of them was killed and the other two wounded. This outrage was not inspired by the barbarian-expelling sentiment: to any Japanese subject violating the rules of etiquette as these Englishmen had violated them, the same fate would have been meted out. Nevertheless, as the Satsuma daimyo refused to surrender his implicated vassals, and as the shoguns arm was not long enough to reach the most powerful feudatory in Japan, the British government sent a squadron to bombard his capital, Kagoshima. It was not a brilliant exploit in any sense, but its results were invaluable; for the operations of the British ships finally convinced the Satsuma men of their impotence in the face of \Vestern armaments, and converted them into advocates of liberal progress. Three months previously to this bombardment of Kagoshima another puissant feudatory had thrown down the gauntlet. The Chosh chief, whose batteries commanded the entrance to the inland sea at Shimonoseki, opened fire upon ships flying the flags of the United States, of France and of Holland. In thus acting he obeyed an edict obtained by the extremists from the mikado without the knowledge of the shogun, which edict fixed the 11th of May 1863 as the date for practically inaugurating the foreigners-expulsion policy Again the shguns administrative competence proved inadequate to exact reparation, and a squadron, composed chiefly of British men-of-war, proceeding to Shimonoseki, demolished Chflshfls forts, destroyed his ships and scattered his samurai. In the face of the Kagoshima bombardment and the Shimonoseki expedition, no Japanese subject could retain any faith in his countrys ability to oppose Occidentals by force. Thus the year 1863 was memorable in Japans history. It saw the barbarian-expelling agitation deprived of the emperors sanction; it saw the two principal clans, Satsuma and ChOshu, convinced of their countrys impotence to defy the Occident; it saw the nation almost fully roused to the disintegrating and weakening effects of the feudal system; and it saw the traditional antipathy to foreigners beginning to be exchanged for a desire to study their civilization and to adopt its best features.

The treaty concluded between the shoguns government and the United States in 1858 was of course followed by similar compacts with the principal European powers. R8tiflcailoa From the outset these states agreed to co-operate of the for the assertion of their conventional privileges, Treaties. and they naturally took Great Britain for leader, though such a relation was never openly announced. The treaties, however, continued during several years to lack imperial ratification, and, as time went by, that defect obtruded itself more and more upon the attention of their foreign signatories. The year 1865 saw British interests entrusted to the charge of Sir Harry Parkes, a man of keen insight, indomitable courage and somewhat peremptory methods, learned during a long period of service in China. It happened that the post of Japanese secretary at the British legation in Yedo was then held by a remarkably gifted young Englishman, who, in a comparatively brief interval, had acquired a good working knowledge of the Japanese language, and it happened also that the British legation in Yedo was alreadyas it has always been ever sincethe best equipped institution of its class in Japan. Aided by these facilities and by the researches of Mr Satow (afterwards Sir Ernest Satow) Parkes arrived at the conclusions that the Yedo government was tottering to its fall; that the resumption of administrative authority by the Kioto court would make for the interests not only of the West but also of Japan; and that the ratification of the treaties by the mikado would elucidate the situation for foreigners while being, at the same time, essential to the validity of the documents. Two other objects also presented themselves, namely, that the import duties fixed by the conventions should be reduced from 15 to 5% ad valorem, and that the ports of HiOgO and Osaka should be opened at once, instead of at the expiration of twc years as originally fixed. It was not proposed that these concessions should be entirely gratuitous. When the four-power flotilla destroyed the Shimonoseki batteries and sank the vessels lying there, a fine of three million dollars (some ~75o,ooo) had been imposed upon the daimyo of Choshfl by way of ransom for, his capital, which lay at the mercy of the invaders. The daimyO of ChflshU, however, was in open rebellion against the shogun, and as the latter could not collect the debt from the recalcitrant clansmen, while the four powers insisted on being paid by, some one, the Yedo treasury was finally compelled to shoulder the obligation. Two out of the three millions were still due, and Parkes conceived the idea of remitting this debt in exchange for the ratification of the treaties, the reduction of the customs tariff from 15 to 5% ad valorem and the immediate opening of Hiogo and Osaka. He took with him to the place of negotiation (Hiogo) a fleet of British, French and Dutch war-ships, for, while announcing peaceful intentions, he had accustomed himself to think that a display of force should occupy the foreground in all negotiations with Oriental states. This coup may be said to have sealed the fate of the shogunate. For here again was produced in a highly aggravated form the drama which had so greatly startled the nation eight years previously. Perry had come with his war-ships to the portals of Yedo, and now a foreign fleet, twice as strong as Perrys, had anchored at the vestibule of the Imperial city itself. No rational Japanese could suppose that this parade of force was for purely peaceful purposes, or that rejection of the amicable bargain proposed by Great Britains representative would be followed by the quiet withdrawal of the menacing fleet, whose terrible potentialities bad been demonstrated at Kagoshima and Shimonoseki. The seclusionists, whose voices had been nearly silenced, raised them in renewed denunciation of the shOguns incompetence to guarantee the sacred city of KiOto against such trespasses, and the emperor, brought once more under the influence of the anti-foreign party, inflicted a heavy disgrace on the shogun by dismissing and punishing the officials to whom the latter had entrusted the conduct of negotiations at HiOgfl. Such procedure on the part of the throne amounted to withdrawing the administrative commission held by the Tokugawa family since the days of Iyeyasu. The shOgun resigned. But his adversaries not being yet ready to replace him, he was induced to resume office, with, however, fatally damaged prestige. As for the three-power squadron, it steamed away successful. Parkes had come prepared to write off the indemnity in exchange for three concessions. He obtained two of the concessions without remitting a dollar of the debt.

The shogun did not long survive the humiliation thus inflicted on him. He died in the following year (1866), and Find AdOP.was succeeded by Keiki, destined to be the last of tion o, the Tokugawa rulers. Nine years previously this Western same Keiki had been put forward by the seclusionists Civilization, as candidate for the shgunate. Yet no sooner did he attain that distinction in 1866 than he remodelled the army on French lines, engaged English officers to organize a navy, sent his brother to the Paris Exhibition, and altered many of the forms and ceremonies of his court so as to bring them into accord with Occidental fashions. The contrast between the politics he represented when a candidate for office in 1857 and the practice he adopted on succeeding to power in 1866 furnished an apt illustration of the change that had come over the spirit of the time. The most bigoted of the exclusionists were now beginning to abandon all idea of expelling foreigners and to think mainly of acquiring the best elements of their civilization. The Japanese are slow to reach a decision but very quick to act upon it when reached. From 1866 onwards the new spirit rapidly permeated the whole nation; progress became the aim of all classes, and the country entered upon a career of intelligent assimilation which, in forty years, won for Japan a universally accorded place in the ranks of the great Occidental powers.

After the abolition of the shogunate and the resumption of administrative functions by the Throne, one of the first acts of the newly organized government was to invite Claim for the foreign representatives to Kito, where they Judlciai had audience of the mikado. Subsequently a Autonomy. decree was issued, announcing the emperors resolve to establish amicable relations with foreign countries, and declaring that any Japanese subject thereafter guilty of violent behaviour towards a foreigner would not only act in opposition to the Imperial command, but would also be guilty of impairing the dignity and good faith of the nation in the eyes of the powers with which his majesty had pledged himself to maintain friendship. From that time the relations between Japan and foreign states grew yearly more amicable; the nation adopted the products of Western civilization with notable thoroughness, and the provisions of the treaties were carefully observed. Those treaties, however, presented one feature which very soon became exceedingly irksome to Japan. They exempted foreigners residing within her borders from the operation of her criminal laws, and secured to them the privilege of being arraigned solely before tribunals of their own nationality. That system had always been considered necessary where the subjects of Christian states visited or sojourned in non-Christian countries, and, for the purpose of giving effect to it, consular courts were established. This necessitated the confinement of foreign residents to settlements in the neighborhood of the consular courts, since it would have been imprudent to allow foreigners to have free access to districts remote from the only tribunals competent to control them. The Japanese raised no objection to the embodiment of this system in the treaties. They recognized its necessity and even its expediency, for if, on the one hand, it infringed their countrys sovereign rights, on the other, it prevented complications which must have ensued had they been entrusted with jurisdiction which they were not prepared to discharge satisfactorily. But the consular courts were not free from defects. A few of the powers organized competent tribunals presided over by judicial experts, but a majority of the treaty states, not having sufficiently large interests at stake, were content to delegate consular duties to merchants, not only deficient in legal training, but also themselves engaged in the very commercial transactions upon which they might at any moment be required to adjudicate in a magisterial capacity. In any circumstances the dual functions of consul and judge could not be discharged without anomaly by the same official, for he was obliged to act as advocate in the preliminary stages of complications about which, in his position as judge, he might ultimately have to deliver an impartial verdict. In practice, however, the system worked with tolerable smoothness, and might have remained long in force had not the patriotism of the Japanese rebelled bitterly against the implication that their country was unfit to exercise one of the fundamental attributes of every sovereign state, judicial autonomy. From the very outset they spared no effort to qualify for the recovery of this attribute. Revision of the countrys laws and re-organization of its law courts would necessarily have been an essential feature of the general reforms suggested by contact with the Occident, but the question of consular jurisdiction certainly constituted a special incentive. Expert assistance was obtained from France and Germany; the best features of European jurisprudence were adapted to the conditions and usages of Japan; the law courts were remodelled, and steps were taken to educate a competent judiciary. In criminal law the example of France was chiefly followed; in commercial law that of Germany; and in civil law that of the Occident generally, with due regard to the customs of the country. The jury system was not adopted, collegiate courts being regarded as more conducive to justice, and the order of procedure went from tribunals of first instance to appeal courts and finally to the court of cassation. Schools of law were quickly opened, and a well-equipped bar soon came into existence. Twelve years after the inception of these great works, Japan made formal application for revision of the treaties on the basis of abolishing consular jurisdiction. She had asked for revision in 1871, sending to Europe and America an important embassy to raise the question. But at that time the conditions originally calling for consular jurisdiction had not undergone any change such as would have justified its abolition, and the Japanese government, though very anxious to recover tariff autonomy as well as judicial, shrank from separating the two questions, lest by prematurely solving one the solution of the other might be unduly deferred. Thus the embassy failed, and though the problem attracted great academical interest from the first, it did not re-enter the field of practical politics until 1883. The negotiations were long protracted. Never previously had an Oriental state received at the hands of the Occident recognition such as that now demanded by Japan, and the West naturally felt deep reluctance to try a wholly novel experiment. The United States had set a generous example by concluding a new treaty (1878) on the lines desired by Japan. But its operation was conditional on a similar act of compliance by the other treaty powers. Ill-informed European publicists ridiculed the Washington statesmens attitude on this occasion, claiming that what had been given with one hand was taken back with the other. The truth is that the cOnditional provision was inserted at the request of Japan herself, who appreciated her own unpreparedness for the concession. From 1883, however, she was ready to accept full responsibility, and she therefore asked that all foreigners within her borders should thenceforth be subject to her laws and judiciable by her law-courts, supplementing her application by promising that its favorable reception should be followed by the complete opening of the country and the removal of all restrictions hitherto imposed on foreign trade, travel and residence in her realm. From the first it had been the habit of Occidental peoples to upbraid Japan on account of the barriers opposed by her to full and free foreign intercourse, and she was now able to claim that these barriers were no longer maintained by her desire, but that they existed because of a system which theoretically proclaimed her unfitness for free association with Western nations, and practically made it impossible for her to throw open her territories completely for the ingress of foreigners. She had a strong case, but on the side of the European powers extreme reluctance was manifested to try the unprecedented experiment of placing their people under the jurisdiction of an Oriental country. Still greater was the reluctance of those upon whom the experiment would be tried. Foreigners residing in Japan naturally clung to consular jurisdiction as a privilege of inestimable value. They saw, indeed, that such a system could not be permanently imposed on a country where the conditions justifying it had nominally disappeared. But they saw, also, that the legal and judicial reforms effected by Japan had been crowded into an extraordinarily brief period, and that, as tyros experimenting with alien systems, the Japanese might be betrayed into many errors.

The negotiations lasted for eleven years. They were begun in 1883 and a solution was not reached until 1894. FinallyEuropean R~ognItIon governments conceded the justice of Japans case, by the and it was agreed that from July 1899 Japanese Powers. tribunals should assume jurisdiction over every person, of whatever nationality, within the confines of Japan, and the whole country should be thrown open to foreigners, all limitations upon trade, travel and residence being removed. Great Britain took the lead in thus releasing Japan from the fetters of the old system. The initiative came from her with special grace, for the system and all its irksome consequences had been originally imposed on Japan by a combination of powers with Great Britain in the van. As a matter of historical sequence the United States dictated the terms of the first treaty providing for consular jurisdiction. But from a very early period the Washington government showed its willingness to remove all limitations of Japans sovereignty, whereas Europe, headed by Great Britain, whose preponderating interests entitled her to lead, resolutely refused to make any substantial concession. In Japanese eyes, therefore, British conservatism seemed to be the one serious obstacle, and since the British residents in the settlements far outnumbered all other nationalities, and since they alone had newspaper organs to ventilate their grievancesit was certainly fortunate for the popularity of her people in the Far East that Great Britain saw her way finally to set a liberal example. Nearly five years were required to bring the other Occidental powers into line with Great Britain and America. It should be stated, however, that neither reluctance to make the necessary concessions nor want of sympathy with Japan caused the delay. The explanation is, first, that each set of negotiators sought to improve either the terms or the terminology of the treaties already concluded, and, secondly, that the tariff arrangements for the different countries required elaborate discussion.

Until the last of the revised treaties was ratified, voices of protest against revision continued to be vehemently raised by a Recep1~on large section of the foreign community in the settlegiven to the ments. Some were honestly apprehensive as to the Revised issue of the experiment. Others were swayed by Treaties, racial prejudice. A few had fallen into an insuperable habit of grumbling, or found their account in advocating conservatism under pretence of championing foreign interests; and all were naturally reluctant to forfeit the immunity from taxation hitherto enjoyed. It seemed as though the inauguration of the new system would find the foreign community in a mood which must greatly diminish the chances of a happy result, for where a captious and aggrieved disposition exists, opportunities to discover causes of complaint cani~ot be wanting. But at the eleventh hour this unfavourable demeanour underwent a marked change. So soon as it became evident that the old system was hopelessly doomed, the sound common sense of the European and American business man asserted itself. The foreign residents let it be seen that they intended to bow cheerfully to the inevitable, and that no obstacles would be willingly placed by them in the path of Japanese jurisdiction. The Japanese, on their side, took some promising steps. An Imperial rescript declared in unequivocal terms that it was the sovereigns policy and desire to abolish all distinctions between natives and foreigners, and that by fully carrying out the friendly purpose of the treaties his people would best consult his wishes, maintain the character of the nation, and promote its prestige. The premier and other ministers of state issued instructions to the effect that the responsibility now devolved on the government, and the duty on the people, of enabling foreigners to reside confidently and contentedly in every part of the country. Even the chief Buddhist prelates addressed to the priests and parishioners in their dioceses injunctions pointing out that, freedom of conscience being now guaranteed by the constitution, men professing alien creeds must be treated as courteously as the followers of Buddhism, and must enjoy the same rights and privileges.

Thus the great change was effected in circumstances of happy augury. Its results were successful on the whole. Foreigners residing in Japan now enjoy immunity of domicile, personal and religious liberty, freedom from official interference, and security of life and property as fully as though they were living in their own countries, and they have gradually learned to look with greatly increased respect upon Japanese law and its administrators.

Next to the revision of the treaties and to the result of the great wars waged by Japan since the resumption of foreign intercourse, the most memorable incident in her modern Angiocareer was the conclusion, first, of an enten~e, and, Japanese secondly, of an offensive and defensive alliance Ailian~C. with Great Britain in January 1902 and September 1905, respectively. The entenle set out by disavowing on the part of each of the contracting parties any aggressive tendency in either China or Korea, the independence of which two countries was explicitly recognized; and went on to declare that Great Britain in China and Japan in China and Korea might take indispensable means to safeguard their interests; while, if such measures involved one of the signatories in war with a third power, the other signatory would not only remain neutral but would also endeavour to prevent other powers from joining in hostilities against its ally, and would come to the assistance of the latter in the event of its being faced by two or more powers. The enienle further recognized that Japan possessed, in a peculiar degree, political, commercial and industrial interests in Korea. This agreement, equally novel for each of the contracting parties, evidently tended to the benefit of Japan more than to that of Great Britain, inasmuch as the interests in question were vital from the former powers point of view but merely local from the latters. The inequality was corrected by an offensive and defensive alliance in 1905. For the scope of the agreement was then extended to India and eastern Asia generally, and while the signatories pledged themselves, on the one hand, to preserve the common interests of all powers in China by insuring her integrity and independence as well as the principle of equal opportunities for the commerce and industry of all nations within her borders, they agreed, on the other, to maintain their own territorial rights in eastern Asia and India, and to come to each others armed assistance in the event of those rights being assailed by any other power or powers. These agreements have, of course, a close relation to the events which accompanied or immediately preceded them, but they also present a vivid and radical contrast between a country which, less than half a century previously, had struggled vehemently to remain secluded from the world, and a country which now allied itself with one of the most liberal and progressive nations for the purposes of a policy extending over the whole of eastern Asia and India. This contrast was accentuated two years later (1907) when France and Russia concluded ententes with Japan, recognizing the independence and integrity of the Chinese Empire, as well as the principle of equal opportunity for all nations in that country, and engaging to support each other for assuring peace and security there. Japan thus became a world power in the most unequivocal sense.

Japans Foreign Wars and Complications.The earliest foreign war conducted by Japan is said to have taken place at the ~ fth beginning of the 3rd century, when the empress Jingo Korea. led an army to the conquest of Korea. But as the event is supposed to have happened more than 500 years before the first Japanese record was written, its traditional details cannot be seriously discussed. There is, however, no room to doubt that from time to time in early ages Japanese troops were seen in Korea, though they made no permanent impression on the country. It was reserved for Hideyoshi, the taikO, to make the Korean peninsula the scene of a great over-sea campaign. Hideyoshi, the Napoleon of Japan, having brought the whole empire under his sway as the sequel of many years of incomparable generalship and statecraft, conceived the project of subjugating China. By some historians his motive has been described as a desire to find employment for the immense mob of armed men whom four centuries of almost continuous fighting had called into existence in Japan: he felt that domestic peace could not be permanently restored unless these restless spirits were occupied abroad. But although that object may have reinforced his purpose, his ambition aimed at nothing less than the conquest of China, and he regarded Korea merely as a stepping-stone to that aim. Had Korea consented to be put to such a use, she need not have fought or suffered. The Koreans, however, counted China invincible. They considered that Japan would be shattered by the first contact with the great empire, and therefore although, in the 13th century, they had given the use of their harbours to the Mongol invaders of Japan, they flatly refused in the 16th to allow their territory to be used for a Japanese invasion of China. On the 24th of May 1592 the wave of invasion rolled against Koreas southern coast. Hideyoshi had chosen Nagoya in the province of Hizen as the home-base of his operations. There the sea separating Japan from the Korean peninsula narrows to a strait divided into two channels of almost equal width by the island of Tsushima. To reach this island from the Japanese side was an easy and safe task, but in the 56-mile channel that separated Tsushima from the peninsula an invading flotilla had to run the risk of attack by Korean warships. At Nagoya Hideyoshi assembled an army of over 300,000 men, of whom some 70,000 constituted the first fighting line, 87,ooo the second, and the remainder formed a reserve to be subsequently drawn on as occasion demanded. The question of transport presented some difficulty, but it was solved by the simple expedient of ordering every feudatory to furnish two ships for each 100,000 koku of his fiefs revenue. These were not fighting vessels but mere transports. As for the plan of campaign, it was precisely in accord with modern principles of strategy, and bore witness to the daring genius of Hideyoshi. The van, consisting of three army corps and mustering in all 51,000 men, was to cross rapidly to Fusan, on the south coast of the peninsula, and immediately commence a movement northward towards the capital, Seoul, one corps moving by the eastern coast-road, one by the central route, and one by the western coastline. Thereafter the other four corps, which formed the first fighting line, together with the corps under the direct orders of the commander-in-chief, Ukida Hideiye, were to cross, for the purpose of effectually subduing the regions through which the van had passed; and, finally, the two remaining corps of the second line were to be transported by sea up the west coast of the peninsula, to form a junction with the van which, by that time, should be preparing to pass into China over the northern boundary of Korea, namely, the Yalu River. For the landing place of these reinforcements the town of Phyong-yang was adopted, being easily accessible by the Taidoi~g River from the coast. In later ages Japanese armies were destined to move twice over these same regions, once to the invasion of China, once to the attack of Russia, and they adopted almost the same strategical plan as that mapped out by Hideyoshi in the year 1592. The forecast was that the Koreans would offer their chief resistance, first, at the capital, Seoul; next at Phyong-yang, and finally at the Yalu, as the approaches to all these places offered positions capable of being utilized to great advantage for defensive purposes.

On the 24th of May 1592 the first army corps, under the command of Konishi Yukinaga, crossed unmolested to the peninsula; next day the castle of Fusan was carried Landing in by storm, which same fate befell, on the 27th, Korea and another and stronger fortress lying 3 miles inland Advance and garrisoned by 20,000 picked soldiers. The invaders were irresistible. From the landing-place nvaderS. at Fusan to the gates of Seoul the distance is 267 miles. Konishis corps covered that interval in 19 days, storming two forts, carrying two positions and fighting one pitched battle en route. On the 12th of June the Korean capital was in Japanese hands, and by the 16th four army corps had assembled there, while four others had effected a landing at Fusan. After a rest of 15 days the northward advance was resumed, and July I 5th saw Phyong-yang in Japanese possession. The distance of 130 miles from Seoul to the Taidong had been traversed in 18 days, 10 having been occupied in forcing the passage of a river which, if held with moderate resolution and skill, should have stopped the Japanese altogether. At this point, however, tl~fe invasion suffered a check owing to a cause which in modern~times has received much attention, though in Hideyoshis days it had been little considered; the Japanese lost the command of the sea.

The Japanese idea of sea-fighting in those times was to use open boats propelled chiefly by oars. They closed as quickly as possible with the enemy, and then fell on with the Fighting trenchant swords which they used so skilfully, at Sea.

Now during the 15th century and part of the 16th the Chinese had been so harassed by Japanese piratical raids that their inventive genius, quickened by suffering, suggested a device for coping with these formidable adversaries. Once allow the Japanese swordsman to come to close quarters and he carried all before him. To keep him at a distance, then, was the great desideratum, and the Chinese compassed this in maritime warfare by completely covering their boats with roofs of solid timber, so that those within were protected against missiles, while loop-holes and ports enabled them to pour bullets and arrows on a foe. The Koreans learned this device from the Chinese and were the first to employ it in actual warfare. Their own history alleges that they improved upon the Chinese model by nailing sheet iron over the roofs and sides of the turtle-shell craft and studding the whole surface with chevaux de frise, but Japanese annals indicate that in the great majority of cases solid timber alone was used. It seems strange that the Japanese should have been without any clear perception of the immense fighting superiority possessed by such protected war-vessels over small open boats. But certainly they were either ignorant or, indifferent. The fleet which they provided to hold the command of Korean waters did not include one vessel of any magnitude:

it consisted simply of some hundreds of row-boats manned by 7000 men. Hideyoshi himself was perhaps not without misgivings. Six years previously he had endeavoured to obtain two war-galleons from the Portuguese, and had he succeeded, the history of the Far East might have been radically different. Evidently, however, he committed a blunder which his countrymen in modern times have conspicuously avoided; he drew the sword without having fully investigated his adversarys resources. Just about the time when the van of the Japanese army was entering Seoul, the Korean admiral, Yi Sun-sin, at the head of a fleet of 80 vessels, attacked the Japanese squadron which lay at anchor near the entrance to Fusan harbour, set 26 of the vessels on fire and dispersed the rest. Four other engagements ensued in rapid succession. The last and most important took place shortly after the Japanese troops had seized Phyong-yang. It resulted in the sinking of over 70 Japanese vessels, transports and fighting ships combined, which formed the main part of a flotilla carrying reinforcements by sea to the van of the invading army. This despatch of troops and supplies by water had been a leading feature of Hideyoshis plan of campaign, and the destruction of the flotilla to which the duty was entrusted may be said to have sealed the fate of the war by isolating the army in Korea from its home base. It is true that Konishi Yukinaga, who commanded the first division, would have continued his northward march from Phyong-yang without delay. He argued that China was wholly unprepared, and that the best hope of ultimate victory lay in not giving her time to collect her forces. But the commander-in-chief, Ukida Hideiye, refused to endorse this plan. He took the view that since the Korean provinces were still offering desperate resistance, supplies could not be drawn from them, neither could the troops engaged in subjugating them be freed for service at the front. Therefore it was essential to await the consummation of the second phase of Hideyoshis plan, namely, the despatch of reinforcements and munitions by water to Phyong-yang. The reader has seen how that second phase fared. The Japanese commander at Phyongyang never received any accession of strength. His force suffered constant diminution from casualties, and the question. of commissariat became daily more difficult. It is further plain to any reader of historyand Japanese historians themselves admit the factthat no wise effort was made to conciliate the Korean people. They were treated so harshly that even the humble peasant took up arms, and thus the peninsula, instead of serving as a basis of supplies, had to be garrisoned perpetually by a strong army.

The Koreans, having suffered for their loyalty to China, naturally looked to her for succour. Again and again appeals Chinese were made to Peking, and at length a force of 5000

Interven- men, which had been mobilized in the Liaotung tion. peninsula, crossed the Yalu and moved south to Phyong-yang, where the Japanese van had been lying idle for over two months. This was early in October 1592. Memorable as the first encounter between Japanese and Chinese, the incident also illustrated Chinas supreme confidence in her own ineffable superiority. The whole of the Korean forces had been driven northward throughout the entire length of the peninsula by the Japanese armies, yet Peking considered that 5000 Chinese braves would suffice to roll back this tide of invasion. Three thousand of the Chinese were killed and the remainder fled pell-mell across the Yalu. China now began to be seriously alarmed. She collected an army variously estimated at from 5f,000 to 200,000 men, and marching it across Manchuria in the dead of winter, hurled it against Phyong-yang during the firsl week of February 1593. The Japanese garrison did not e~tceed 20,000, nearly one-half of its original number having been detached to hold a line of forts which guarded the communications with Seoul. Moreover, the Chinese, though their swords were much inferior to the Japanese weapon, possessed great superiorit) in artillery and cavalry, as well as in the fact that their troopen wore iron mail which defied the keenest blade. Thus, after 1 severe fight, the Japanese had to evacuate Phyong-yang and fal back upon Seoul. But this one victory alone stands to China~ credit. In all subsequent encounters of any magnitude her arml suffered heavy defeats, losing on one occasion some io,ooo men on another 4000, and on a third 39,000. But the presence of he forces and the determined resistance offered by the Koreans effec tually saved China from invasion. Indeed, after the evacuatioi of Seoul, on the 9th of May 1593, Hideyoshi abandoned all idea 0 carrying the war into Chinese territory, and devoted his attentiol to obtaining honorable terms of peace, the Japanese troop meanwhile holding a line of forts along the southern coast c Korea. He died before that end had been accomplishec Had he lived a few days longer, he would have learne of a crushing defeat inflicted on the Chinese forces (at So-chhOr October 30, 1598), when the Satsuma men under Shimas Yoshihiro took 38,700 Chinese heads and sent the noses and eaf to Japan, where they now lie buried under a tumulus (mimizukt ear-mound) near the temple of Daibutsu in KiOto. Thereafter the statesmen to whom the regent on his death-bed had entrusted the duty of terminating the struggle and recalling the troops, intimated to the enemy that the evacuation of the peninsula might be obtained if a Korean prince repaired to Japan as envoy, and if some tiger-skins and ginseng were sent to KiOto in token of amity. So ended one of the greatest over-sea campaigns recorded in history. It had lasted 61/2 years, had seen 200,000 Japanese troops at one time on Korean soil, and had cost something like a quarter of a million lives.

From the recall of the Korea expedition in 1598 to the resumption of intercourse with the Occident in modern times, Japan enjoyed uninterrupted peace with foreign nations.

Thereafter she had to engage in four wars. It is a striking contrast. During the first eleven centuries Poi~elgn of her historical existence she was involved in only Relations in one contest abroad; during the next half century she Medieval fought four times beyond the sea and was confronted by many complications. Whatever material or moral advantages her association with the West conferred on her, it did not bring peace.

The first menacing foreign complication with which the Japanese government of the Meiji era had to deal was connected with the traffic in Chinese labor, an abuse not yet me Maria wholly eradicated. In 1872, a Peruvian ship, the Luz CornMaria Luz, put into port at Yokohama, carryingPl~U0h5.

200 contract laborers. One of the unfortunate men succeeded in reaching the shore and made a piteous appeal to the Japanese authorities, who at once seized the vessel and released her freight of slaves, for they were little better. The Japanese had not always been so particular. In the days of early foreign intercourse, before Englands attitude towards slavery had established a new code of ethics, Portuguese ships had been permitted to carry away from Hirado, as they did from Macao, cargoes of men and women, doomed to a life of enforced toil if they survived the horrors of the voyage. But modern Japan followed the tenets of modern morality in such matters. Of course the Peruvian government protested, and for a time relations were strained almost to the point of rupture; but it was finally agreed that the question should be submitted to the arbitration of the tsar, who decided in Japans favor. Japans attitude in this affair elicited applause, not merely from the point of view of humanity, but also because of the confidence she showed in Occidental justice.

Another complication which occupied the attention of the Tokyo government from the beginning of the Meiji era was in truth a legacy from the days of feudalism. In The those days the island of Yezo, as well as Sakhalin Sai~jiaila on its north-west and the Kurile group on its north, Compilcacould scarcely be said to be in effective Japanese tion.

occupation. It is true that the feudal chief of Matsumae (now Fuku-yama), the remains of whose castle may still be seen on the coast at the southern extremity of the island of Yezo, exercised nominal jurisdiction; but his functions did not greatly exceed the levying of taxes on the aboriginal inhabitants of Yezo, th Kuriles and southern Sakhalin. Thus from the beginning of the 18th century Russian fishermen began to settle in the Kuriles and Russian ships menaced Sakhalin. There can be no doubi that the first explorers of Sakhalin were Japanese. As early as 1620, some vassals of the feudal chief of Matsumae visited the place and passed a winter there. It was then supposed to be i peninsula forming part of the Asiatic mainland, but ~fl 1806 1

daring Japanese traveller, by name Mamiya Rinzo, made his Wa)

i to Manchuria, voyaged up and down the Amur, and, crossing ti 1 Sakhalin, discovered that a narrow strait separated it from th mainland. There still prevails in the minds of many Occidental~ a belief that the discovery of Sakhalins insular character wa~

I reserved for Captain Nevelskoy, a Russian, who visited the placi in 1849, but in Japan the fact had then been known for 43 years whose orders Nevelskoy acted, quickly appreciated the necessit~ of acquiring Sakhalin, which commands the estuary of the Amur After the conclusion of the treaty of Aigun (1857) he visited Japan with a squadron, and required that the strait of La Prouse, which separates Sakhalin from Yew, should be regarded as the frontier between Russia and Japan. This would have given the whole of Sakhalin to Russia. Japan refused, and Muravief immediately resorted to the policy he had already pursued with signal success in the Usuri region: he sent emigrants to settle in Sakhalin. Twice the shogunate attempted to frustrate this process of gradual absorption by proposing a division of the island along the 50th parallel of north latitude, and finally, in 1872, the Meiji government offered to purchase the Russian portion for 2,000,000 dollars (then equivalent to about 400,000). St Petersburg, having by that time discovered the comparative worthlessness of the island as a wealth-earning possession, showed some signs of acquiescence, and possibly an agreement might have been reached had not a leading Japanese statesmanafterwards Count Kurodaopposed the bargain as disadvantageous to Japan. Finally St Petersburgs perseverance won the day. In 1875 Japan agreed to recognize Russias title to the whole island on condition that Russia similarly recognized Japans title to the Kuriles. It was a singular compact. Russia purchased a Japanese property and paid for it with a part of Japans belongings. These details form a curious preface to the fact that Sakhalin was destined, 30 years later, to be the scene of a Japanese invasion, in the sequel of which it was divided along the 5oth parallel as the shoguns administration had originally proposed.

The first of Japans four conificts was an expedition to Formosa in 1874. Insignificant from a military point of Milft.~j view, this affair derives vicarious interest from its Expedition effect upon the relations between China and Japan, to Form oza, and upon the question of the ownership of the RiUki islands. These islands, which lie at a little distance south of Japan, had for centuries been regarded as an apanage of the Satsuma fief. The language and customs of their inhabitants showed unmistakable traces of relationship to the Japanese, and the possibility of the islands being included among the dominions of China had probably never occurred to any Japanese statesman. When therefore, in 1873, the crew of a wrecked Rikiuan junk were barbarously treated by the inhabitants of northern Formosa, the Japanese government unhesitatingly assumed the responsibility of seeking redress for their outrage. Formosa being a part of the Chinese Empire, complaint was duly preferred in Peking. But the Chinese authorities showed such resolute indifference to Japans representations that the latter finally took the law into her own hands, and sent a small force to punish the Formosan murderers, who, of course, were found quite unable to offer any serious resistance. The Chinese government, now recognizing the fact that its territories had been invaded, lodged a protest which, but for the intervention of the British minister in Peking, might have involved the two empires in war. The final terms of arrangement were that, in consideration of Japan withdrawing her troops from Formosa, China should indemnify her to the extent of the expenses of the expedition. In sending this expedition to Formosa the government sought to placate the Satsuma samurai, who were beginning to show much opposition to certain features of the administrative reforms just inaugurated, and who claimed special interest in the affairs of the RiUki islands.

Had Japan needed any confirmation of her belief that the RiUki islands belonged to her, the incidents and settlement of The RIkie the Formosan complication would have constituted Complica- conclusive evidence. Thus in 1876 she did not don, hesitate to extend her newly organized system of prefectural government to RikiU, which thenceforth became the Okinawa prefecture, the former ruler of the islands being pensioned, according to the system followed in the case of the feudal chiefs in Japan proper. China at once entered an objection. She claimed that Rililti had always been a tributary of her empire, and she was doubtless perfectly sincere in the contention. But Chinas interpretation of tribute did not seem reducible to a working theory. So long as her own advantage could be promoted, she regarded as a token of vassalage the presents periodically carried to her court from neighboring states. So soon, however, as there arose any question of discharging a suzerains duties, she classed these offerings as insignificant interchanges of neighborly courtesy. It was true that Rikifl had followed the custom of despatching gift-bearing envoys to China from time to time, just as Japan herself had done, though with less regularity. But it was also true that RiUki had been subdued by Satsuma without China stretching out a hand to help her; that for two centuries the islands had been included in the Satsuma fief, and that China, in the sequel to the Formosan affair, had made a practical acknowledgment of Japans superior title to protect the islanders. Each empire positively asserted its claims; but whereas Japan put hers into practice, China confined herself to remonstrances. Things remained in that state until 188o, when General Grant, visiting the East, suggested the advisability of a compromise. A conference met in Peking, and the plenipotentiaries agreed that the islands should be divided, Japan taking the northern group, China the southern. But on the eve of signature the Chinese plenipotentiary drew back, pleading that be had no authority to conclude an agreement without previously referring it to certain other dignitaries. Japan, sensible that she had been flouted, retired from the discussion and retained the islands, Chinas share in them being reduced to a grievance.

From the 16th century, when the Korean peninsula was overrun by Japanese troops, its rulers made a habit of sending a present-bearing embassy to Japan to felicitate the The Korean accession of each shogun. But after the fall of Compilcathe Tokugawa shogunate, the Korean court de- tion.

sisted from this custom, declared a determination to have no further relations with a country embracing Western civilization, and refused even to receive a Japanese embassy. This conduct caused deep umbrage in Japan. Several prominent politicians cast their votes for war, and undoubtedly the sword would have been drawn had not the leading statesmen felt that a struggle with Korea, involving probably a rupture with China, must fatally check the progress of the administrative reforms then (1873) in their infancy. Two years later, however, the Koreans crowned their defiance by firing on the boats of a Japanese warvessel engaged in the operation of coast-surveying. No choice now remained except to despatch an armed expedition against the truculent kingdom. But Japan did not want to fight. In this matter she showed herself an apt pupil of Occidental methods such as had been practised against herself in former years. She assembled an imposing force of war-ships and transports, but instead of proceeding to extremities, she employed the squadron which was by no means so strong as it seemedto intimidate Korea into signing a treaty of amity and commerce, and opening three ports to foreign trade (1876). That was the beginning of Koreas friendly relations with the outer world, and Japan naturally took credit for the fact that, thus early in her new career, she had become an instrument for e~ctending the principle of universal intercourse opposed so strenuously by herself in the past.

From time immemorial Chinas policy towards the petty states on her frontiers had been to utilize them as buffers for softening the shock of foreign contact, while contriving, at War with the same time, that her relations with them should China.

involve no inconvenient responsibilities for herself.

The aggressive impulses of the outside world were to be checked by an unproclaimed understanding that the territories of these states partook of the inviolability of China, while the states, on their side, must never expect their suzerain to bear the consequences of their acts. This arrangement, depending largely on sentiment and prestige, retained its validity in the atmosphere of Oriental seclusion, but quickly failed to endure the test of modern Occidental practicality. Tongking, Annam, Siam and Burma were withdrawn, one by one, from the fiction of dependence on China and independence towards all other countries. But with regard to Korea, China proved more tenacious. The possession of the peninsula by a foreign power would have threatened the maritime route to the Chinese capital and given easy access to Manchuria, the cradle of the dynasty which ruled China. Therefore Peking statesmen endeavoured to preserve the old-time relations with the little kingdom. But they could never persuade themselves to modify the indirect methods sanctioned by tradition. Instead of boldly declaring Korea a dependency of China, they sought to keep up the romance of ultimate dependency and intermediate sovereignty. Thus in 1876 Korea was suffered to conclude with Japan a treaty of which the first article declared her an independent state enjoying the same rights as Japan, and subsequently to make with the United States (1882), Great Britain (1883) and other powers, treaties in which her independence was constructively admitted. China, however, did not intend that Korea should exercise the independence thus conventionally recognized. A Chinese resident was placed in Seoul, and a system of steady though covert interference in Koreas affairs was inaugurated. The chief sufferer from these anomalous conditions was Japan. In all her dealings with Korea, in all complications that arose out of her comparatively large trade with the peninsula, in all questions connected with her numerous settlers there, she found herself negotiating with a dependency of China, and with officials who took their orders from the Chinese representative. China had long ent,ertained a rooted apprehension of Japanese aggression in Koreaan apprehension not unwarranted by historyand that distrust tinged all the influence exerted by her agents there. On many occasions Japan was made sensible of the discrimination thus exercised against her. Little by little the consciousness roused her indignation, and although no single instance constituted a ground for strong international protest, the Japanese people gradually acquired a sense of being perpetually baffled, thwarted and humiliated by Chinas interference in Korean affairs. For thirty years China had treated Japan as a contemptible deserter from the Oriental standard, and had regarded her progressive efforts with openly disdainful aversion; while Japan, on her side, had chafed more and more to furnish some striking evidence of the wisdom of her preference for Western civilization. Even more serious were the consequences of Chinese interference from the point of view of Korean administration. The rulers of the country lost all sense of national responsibility, and gave unrestrained sway to selfish ambition. The functions of the judiciary and of the executive alike came to be discharged by bribery only. Family interests predominated over those of the state. Taxes were imposed in proportion to the greed of local officials. No thought whatever was taken for the welfare of the people or for the development of the countrys resources. Personal responsibility was unknown among officials. To be a member of the Mm family, to which the queen belonged, was to possess a passport to office and an indemnity against the consequences of abuse of power. From time to time the advccates of progress or the victims of oppression rose in arms. They effected nothing except to recall to the worlds recollection the miserable condition into which Korea had fallen. Chinese miliLry aid was always furnished readily for the suppression of these risings, and thus the Mm family learned to base its tenure of power on ability to conciliate China and on readiness to obey Chinese dictation, while the people at large fell into the apathetic condition of men who possess neither security of property nor national ambition.

As a matter of state policy the Korean problem caused much anxiety to Japan. Her own security being deeply concerned in preserving Korea from the grasp of a Western power, she could not suffer the little kingdom to drift into a condition of such administrative incompetence and national debility that a strong aggressor might find at any moment a pretext for interference. On two occasions (1882 and 1884) when Chinas armed intervention was employed in the interests of the Mm to suppress movements of reform, the partisans of the victors, regarding Japar as the fountain of progressive tendencies, destroyed her l