and, secondly, the question of the ex-territoriality of foreigners. As regards the first, if the Japanese were a European nation, the tariff would be altered to-morrow most undoubtedly. It is difficult to make the English at home understand the importance of Japan, or to think that they have not a right to force their goods upon Eastern nations, though they never attempt to do so in Europe. But in reality there is no more short-sighted policy, even from a commercial point of view, than to bully the Chinese and Japanese in the way we have been too prone to adopt. If our goods are worth their price, and if they are wanted, they will be taken readily enough. If our race is fit for anything it will win in fair competition, and the best plan is to trust to its virtues and to leave the tariff, as you would in any other country, to the Japanese themselves; merely stipulating that it is not to be revised oftener than once in so many years, so as not to interfere with the investment of capital. The Japanese, so long ago as 1871, expressed a wish for the revision of the treaty of 1858 (by which the duty stands at a uniform rate of five per cent. on all articles imported), and sent an ambassador to England for that purpose, but he returned without making any definite proposition. Again in 1878 they expressed a wish to revise the treaty, and in 1880 the proposals came under English consideration, as well as that of the other treaty powers. They ask merely to be allowed to do, as an independent nation, exactly what we freely allow our own colonies to do-fix their own tariff. It is a shortsighted answer to say that, if this were granted it would practically be prohibitive to the foreign trade generally, and to ours in particular; for the object which they have in view is to increase the amount of their customs, and this would, ipso facto, be defeated and protection here, as elsewhere, would be found by experience to be a failure. The Americans, who, in foreign policy at any rate, more and more, year by year, will become one with us, are disposed to concede the requests of Japan to determine her own tariff duties, and to provide judicial tribunals approved by the Western Powers for the trial of causes to which foreigners are parties.

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At present trade is not flourishing, and the Japanese revenue by some means or other must be increased. The chief source of their revenue, the land-tax (which furnishes two-thirds thereof), cannot well bear increase; therefore they turn to the revision of the customs.

The seas of Japan teem with fish, and the day is probably not. far distant when something will be done for the development of this branch of industry. Some parts of the soil of the country are rich in mineral products-coal, copper, iron, gold, silver, and lead (the total yield of minerals last year was over a million pounds). These must ultimately be worked with foreign capital, the Japanese government taking a royalty. The Japanese themselves have neither the machinery nor the capital for such employment. The coal mines of Yezo (which island is being gradually colonised by the Japanese, and is only sparsely inhabited by the Ainos or aboriginal inhabitants) are practically inexhaustible. A considerable trade in sulphur from this northern island has lately developed itself, chiefly with the United States.

At the present moment, while we are here, there is a dead lock in the silk trade. A native silk company has been started, which has bought up all the silk from the interior, in order to raise the price for the foreign merchants, and to attempt in a measure to wrest the trade from their hands. These at present are holding out against them, and there seems a slight tension on either side, both being banded stiffly together in their union guilds. Meanwhile the price of silk is rising in the markets abroad. The foreign merchants complain (1) that it is the Japanese government that is engaging, directly and indirectly, in foreign and domestic trade, and encouraging the natives to act unitedly in these direct trading companies; (2) that owing to the prohibition which, according to treaty, debars them from access to the interior, they are unable to reach the real consumer or producer of the goods they sell or buy, and that all the trade has therefore to pass through the hands of agents in the treaty ports, and that this is really just as hurtful to the consumers as to the suppliers. The Japanese reply is that they would be willing, in making a new treaty, to barter the right of unlimited access to, and settlement in, the country for the foreigner against the right of fixing what tariff they pleased on the goods imported, just as any other European nation does; and that the government does not subsidise the trading guilds, and that if they do so with the steamship companies it is no more than the French and German Governments themselves are doing all the world over with the lines that belong to their own subjects. The days, however, of commercial treaties of any sort are probably numbered. Never again, it is to be hoped, will British blood or money be spent in the endeavour to force foreigners to take Manchester or other

English goods. If they want them they will take them, and if they don't want them they will go without them.

As regards, however, the second point (that of foreigners being subject to the jurisdiction of native courts), even supposing that the judges of these were thoroughly impartial and free from all external influence, there would still always be difficulties. The rowdyism of the loose fish from Europe and America, who are always drifting about the treaty ports, is much more effectually kept in check by the consular courts of their several countries than it could be by the Japanese themselves. The Japanese complain, however, (1) that frequently their own subjects in the employ of foreigners are, by the privilege they possess of appealing to the consul, placed beyond the reach of law in any shape whatever; (2) that many of the offences committed by these protected Japanese are against the local police and municipal regulations of their own country; and (3) that the confusion resulting from fourteen different consular courts in some of the ports, each with a different code of its own, and none able to compel the attendance of witnesses other than subjects of the particular consul's government, is subversive of all order and decency.

Another grievance the Japanese have, and that is that no foreigners pay any taxes whatever for the many public advantages which they enjoy at Japanese expense. There are now over six thousand permanently resident in the country.]

Meantime we are drawing near Ôzaka. We pass through many suburban villages and seem to be running along for some miles through an almost continuous town before we really enter the city. When we do come to this, we pass through long streets with temples leading off on all sides. We drew up at the bridge which crosses the moat into the Castle at 10 A.M. It was built in 1583, and the whole was completed in two years. Outside the present fortress ran another moat and parapet, which, however, were levelled in in 1614.

The wall is made of great stones which face an earthen mound. Inside this is an outer circle in which are houses and barracks, and at the corners of the walls still remain the large, black, heavy-roofed guard-houses. Some of the stones in the wall are Cyclopean, and all of irregular shape, merely worked on the surface. We measured two near the centre gateway, one was thirty-five feet long and the second was over forty feet, the height of the first was greater than that of the latter. We passed on by the barracks,

which are now arranged with officers' quarters and orderly rooms, exactly the same way as in Europe; and then went up to where once stood the topmost donjon tower of the Castle. It was the most magnificent building that Japan ever saw, and immense sums of money had been lavished upon the carving and decoration. But on the 2nd of February, 1868, it was set on fire by the Shogun's party before their final retreat, and was completely destroyed in a few hours. The well, however, the mouth of which is carved out of one large square stone and is called the "golden rock," is still there, the bottom whereof is said to have been lined with gold plates to make the water good, all the other water near being very bad.

From this platform there is a fine view over Ôzaka. It covers an area of eight square miles and contains 270,000 inhabitants, or more than Copenhagen and nearly as many as Sheffield; and a stranger mixture of ancient picturesqueness and modern monstrosities it would be hard to find. Down below, the tall brick chimneys are belching forth their smoke, and the brick walls of a gauntlooking manufactory, no better and no worse than hundreds we see in England, rise on the banks of the river, which flows at the foot of the Castle walls. These, in their stony grandeur, still stand fast; each line of wall was once crowned by buildings heavy and impregnable to bows and arrows, similar to those that now only remain over the gateways. Where the town now spreads the sea probably came in the eighth century, and the Venice-like city is intersected with numerous canals, which necessitate a large number of bridges.

As time pressed we went straight to the mint, which is a large building covering forty acres of ground and giving employment to 600 persons; it was opened in 1871, but beyond the silver dollars which circulate chiefly in the treaty ports, we have not seen much coin since we have been in Japan; the inconvertible paper money, which is now 50 per cent. under its nominal value, is used everywhere.

Attached to the mint is a reception house for guests of the government; it is a large European building furnished in a heavy, tasteless manner. In one room down stairs were set out some specimens of the artificial flowers made here from feathers, a large bouquet of which were packed up for us to take home to the Princess of Wales. The governor of Ôzaka, and the director of the mint, joined us at lunch, which was served in the dining-room, where the heavy

mahogany sideboard and chairs, and the Art Union prints on the walls reminded us of those you find in an English inn. After lunch we went straight to the railway station through the town, crossing the river by the steep wooden bridges twice to get there, and left by the 12.23 train for Kôbé, where we arrived at 1.30 P.M. The governor of Kôbé gave a picnic in the afternoon to the admiral and officers of the squadron, to which we went in jin-riki-shas, eleven miles off. We stayed there till it got dusk, and then came back again by 6 P.M. and off to the Bacchante in the ordinary officer's boat. There was a cricket match here two days ago between the squadron officers and the Kôbé cricket club. Kôbé scored sixty-one, and the squadron ninety-four runs.

In the evening the town was illuminated in honour of the admiral and officers of the squadron; though two or three squalls, which unfortunately came on just before dark, scattered and shattered many of the paper lanterns, yet sufficient remained outside the club and other buildings to present a very pretty effect from the ship. Mr. Nagasaki, together with Mr. Satow and Mr. Aston the consul, came off to dinner on board the Bacchante.

We have had a very pleasant fortnight ashore (one week at Tôkiô and one at Kôbé), and we have had to crowd a great deal into a short space of time. Nothing could exceed the courtesy and kindness of the Japanese gentlemen who were deputed by the Mikado to manage everything during our stay on his territories.

We said good-bye to Prince Higashi Fushimi and the others to-day, and also to Mr. Satow, whose company we have been so glad to have throughout the whole of our three weeks in Japan.

Sport was obtained round Ôzaka during our absence by some of our messmates-principally snipe in the marshes at the mouth of the Yodo river, a few wood-cock were also killed, and one of the lovely mandarin teal.

Nov. 12th.-At 5 A.M. weighed and proceeded under steam, with squadron in company forming single column in line ahead. It was very cold, but a lovely day for going through the Inland Sea. At 10.30 A.M. set fore and aft sails, and took them in again a couple of hours afterwards. We are steaming between eight and nine knots to get through the sea as quickly as we can. H.M.S. Zephyr, who is accompanying us, has some difficulty to keep up at this speed. She has been detached by Admiral Willes in order to afford any officers of the squadron who might be able to get leave an opportunity of visiting any of the many

VOL. II.

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