II. THE OPERATION OF THE TREATIES.
Japanese preparations for trade at Yokohama—Mr Alcock's arrival as consul-general—Assumes the rank of Minister—The situation as he found it—The establishment of diplomatic intercourse at the capital—The location of the foreign settlement—The currency—The low value of gold—Its rapid exportation—Friction caused by conditions of exchange—Efforts of Mr Alcock to set matters right—Report by Secretary of H.B.M. Treasury—Japanese double standard, gold and copper—Japanese courage in meeting difficulties—The Daimios' coinage—Beginnings of trade—Amenities of residence—The charm of the people—The two Japans, official and non-official—Complete despotism and complete submission.
The treaties of 1858 took their proper effect at the two ports of Hakodate and Kanagawa; but the former being remote from any centre of population, and its trading resources so obviously limited, it attracted little attention in commercial circles. It was in the more southerly port that the new foreign interests became concentrated; and it was so near the capital—only seventeen miles distant—that the political and commercial currents soon acted and reacted on each other with direct, and sometimes violent, effect. To Kanagawa, therefore, the merchants of all nations gathered in anticipation of the official opening of the port on the 1st of July 1859.
We say "Kanagawa," to follow the official nomenclature, but in reality the adventurers who came there to seek their fortunes did not land at that place, but three miles away from it, at an obscure village called Yokohama. There the Japanese Government had decided should be the future settlement for foreigners, and they had made costly preparations, according to their lights, for the accommodation of the strangers. Roads were marked out, a certain number of wooden bungalows had been run up, a few shops had been opened in the quarter which was designed for native occupation, a custom-house was built, with warehouses attached, and stone landing-places had been constructed for boats and lighters. The area thus marked out for the native and foreign business quarter was a narrow strip along the sea-shore, having in its flank and rear an immense lagoon, or, as it was called, "the swamp," intersected by boat channels, where punting after wildfowl provided amusement for idle foreigners. Being an inlet of the bay, the swamp made a peninsula of Yokohama, which had just been connected with the tokaido, the great trunk road between the capital of the Tycoon and that of the Mikado, by a new causeway and several good bridges, admitting of boat traffic between the swamp and the sea.
In the middle of the swamp, in rear of Yokohama, was a reclaimed portion whereon was erected an extensive range of buildings connected by a causeway with the dry land of the settlement. From its balconies there waved pendants of cotton cloth bearing the legend, "This place is designed for the amusement of foreigners," a class of amusement of which there has never been any lack in Japan.
Such were some of the outward and visible preparations made by the Japanese Government, on its own initiative, for the reception of the foreigners under the new treaties,—preparations which surprised and somewhat disconcerted the representatives of the Western Governments when they arrived on the eve of the opening of the port.
Mr Alcock, who had recently returned to his post as consul at Canton, was chosen as the first representative of Great Britain in Japan, with the rank of consul-general. As this rank placed the representative of the leading Power in an inferior position to his colleagues, and consequently derogated from the influence he could exercise on the Japanese, Mr Alcock took it upon himself to assume the title of Plenipotentiary, placing his resignation in the hands of his Government in case they should disavow his action. At the same time he recommended that the future British representative should bear the title of Minister Resident. So far from disavowing his action, the Government appointed him Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, a higher rank than that suggested by him, and he was authorised to at once assume the title, although so unusual a proceeding as the transfer of a consular official to the diplomatic service involved considerable delay while the needful formalities were being arranged. The appointment, however, was coupled with the conditions that the step should not be made a precedent, and that it should confer no claim to future diplomatic employment in the countries of the West.
Mr Alcock was conveyed from China in one of her Majesty's ships, arriving at the port of Nagasaki in June 1859. There he found a fleet of foreign merchantmen already in the harbour, and some fifteen British subjects resident on shore, under the ægis of the old Dutch conventions supplemented by more recent enactments. Mr Alcock remained some days, and having made arrangements for the carrying on of trade under the new treaties, left a consul in charge of British interests and proceeded to Yedo, where he arrived on June 26.
It is a date to be remembered as that of the practical initiation of diplomatic intercourse with the ruling Power in Japan. The difference between a mission to negotiate treaties and one to carry them into effect is thus set forth by Sir Rutherford Alcock in the preface to his valuable work, 'The Capital of the Tycoon,' in terms the simple truth of which must commend itself to every candid reader:—
The Ambassadors Extraordinary had only to extort certain privileges on paper; it was the business of the resident Ministers to make of these paper-concessions realities—practical, everyday realities. As this was the very thing the rulers of the country had determined to prevent, it cannot be matter of wonder that there was not, and never could be, any real accord, whatever the outward professions of good faith and amity. Hence also it naturally followed that, although the original negotiators were received with smiles, and their path was strewn with flowers, their successors had only the poisoned chalice held to their lips, thorns in their path, and the scowl of the two-sworded braves and Samurai to welcome them whenever they ventured to leave their gates—while the assassin haunted their steps, and broke their rest in the still hours of the night with fell intent to massacre.
To say the situation was novel is to say little. The forces at work in the Japanese state economy were either unknown to, or, what was perhaps even worse, misunderstood by, foreign Powers. The lurid history of previous intercourse, followed by rigid exclusion for two centuries, would have sufficed to establish one factor in the problem, the iron resolution of the Japanese rulers. With such men neutrality or indifference was out of the question, while there was nothing as yet to indicate what was henceforth to be the ruling motive of Japanese policy. Both parties were embarking on an unknown voyage, and the avoidance of shipwreck depended in a very large measure on the character of those who had to discover for themselves the winds and currents, the rocks and shoals, through which they had to steer. The leadership among the foreign Powers was tacitly assigned to Great Britain, and it was a born leader who was commissioned to represent her. Mr Alcock had had fifteen years' experience of Asiatic relations, during which time he had proved himself the possessor of those qualities which were now in special request. These were indomitable energy, earnestness of purpose much beyond the common run of official service, fearlessness of responsibility, and alertness to grasp the nettle danger in order to avert greater evils, and a spirit which would neither shirk nor postpone an unpleasant duty nor tolerate lukewarmness nor dilatoriness in others. He was fifty years old—matured in character and experience, while yet in the prime of his intellectual vigour.
Mr Alcock arrived in Yedo Bay in time to arrange for the opening of trade at the appointed date, July 1.
Nagasaki to Yedo! Two centuries lie between these points, so near on the map, but so far and completely separated by the determined policy of the Japanese rulers. A policy of isolation so effectually carried out that no foreigner, though he might under the Dutch flag gain access to Nagasaki, could force or find his way to the capital.
Steaming up the Bay of Yedo, and leaving Kanagawa unvisited, Mr Alcock anchored as close to the capital as the depth of water would allow, and at once informed the Foreign Minister that he had come to stay. This was done advisedly, as he has explained, to obviate all discussion as to his place of residence, for he knew that efforts had been made—more Sinico—through Lord Elgin to induce her Majesty's Government to postpone the residence in Yedo for a couple of years, and to keep their representative at a distance. His first object was to obtain a suitable residence for himself and the Legation staff, in which assistance was cheerfully rendered by the Government officials, as soon as they saw he was resolved to remain in the capital. Diplomatic intercourse became thus an established fact.
The opening of the trading-port did not prove quite so simple, for the consul-general found he had been forestalled in the choice of a site for the merchants' residence, which the Government had, as we have seen, prepared at great expense some three miles away from Kanagawa, the port named in the treaty. Interpreting this hurried action of the Japanese as covering the ulterior design of segregating the foreigners from the natives by thrusting them to a distance from the trunk road which led through Kanagawa, of keeping them in a kind of imprisonment like the Dutch at Deshima, and of retaining the power to stop their supplies, whether of the materials of trade or of sustenance, Mr Alcock warmly contested the action of the Government. In the end he extorted from them the concession of a commercial site at Kanagawa itself, which, however, was never taken up. Events proved too strong for the consul-general, for the merchants of all nations as they arrived settled in Yokohama, where there was deep water for shipping and every convenience for business. And it soon began also to be felt that there was an element of safety in this foreign settlement being removed from the great imperial road along which armed processions were continually passing to and from the capital. Within a year the controversy had died a natural death, and Yokohama speaks for itself.
The second obstacle to the free course of trade was a more deep-rooted one, being nothing less than that chronic bugbear of commerce and finance, the currency. There was no circulating medium in Japan in the least degree adequate for the service of international commerce. The trade in miniature that had been carried on in Nagasaki had been a simple exchange of commodities without the intervention of the precious metals. Mr Consul Winchester says that neither in the Dutch nor in the Chinese factories was a Japanese coin ever seen. But the commerce inaugurated in 1859 could brook no such limitations, while the extent of its requirements was of course absolutely unknown to the negotiators of the treaties. In this state of doubt and ignorance on both sides it seemed that the best temporary provision that the circumstances admitted of was for the Tycoon's Government to undertake, after twelve months, to make all foreign money current in Japan at its natural value, and that until the expiration of that period Japanese coin should be supplied in exchange for foreign, weight for weight. Yet it was a monstrous stipulation to insert in any international treaty, and could never, in fact, be enforced.
The amazing laxity in this respect with which the treaties of 1858 were drawn opened the door to unfathomed abuses in the matter of currency. The coin which was in the minds of the American and English negotiators was what was then current on the coast of China, the dollar, or more specifically the Mexican dollar. Yet, as was afterwards pointed out by Mr G. Arbuthnot, Secretary to her Majesty's Treasury, no provision was made in the treaties expressly for exchanging that, but only British and American money. In his opinion the Tycoon's Government might have refused altogether to receive the Mexican dollar, which was the only coin tendered to them, and thus the currency clause in the treaty would have been a dead letter from the first. But since they did not know the weakness of the ground which the foreigners had chosen, they had to fight out the question under all the disadvantages of a false position.
By the treaty provisions, then, as interpreted by both sides, the foreign merchants who chose to import specie were to be supplied in exchange with current coin of the realm whereby they could purchase the produce of the country without awaiting the slow and uncertain realisation of imported merchandise. But the Japanese, apart from any question of good faith, had vastly under-estimated the demand which this agreement was to make on their mintage resources. They could only supply tens where thousands were required, and in consequence of their scarcity native silver coins were soon run up to a high premium. These coins were needed not alone for the purchase of produce, but for the more lucrative investment in the gold coinage of the country; for an extraordinary anomaly presented itself to the foreign traders in the relative value of silver and gold in Japan. The ratio between the two metals throughout the commercial world was at that time about fifteen to one, but in Japan, owing partly to the fact that the silver ichibu was a token coin, and yet interchangeable, weight for weight, with foreign silver coins, the ratio in the market was reduced to five to one. Nothing could better show how completely the country had been isolated than this simple phenomenon. Since the seclusion of Japan no such opportunity of profit without risk had ever tempted merchant adventurers outside the dreams of romance.[3] It could not be the intention of the treaty-makers to deprive Japan of her gold, yet the exportation of it was not only not prohibited, it was expressly sanctioned by treaty, the export of copper coins alone being forbidden; and once the conduit was opened no power could arrest the flow from the higher to the lower level. The currency question presented many intricacies and anomalies against which the foreign representatives struggled in the dark, but the ratio of gold to silver was the ruling factor which underlay the whole problem, and until every koban was exported, or the relative value of gold and silver had been assimilated to that of the outer world, there could be no settlement of the currency question in Japan.
In the mean time the friction caused by the unsatisfied demands of the traders was considerable; it became in time ludicrous. There was a daily exchange held at the custom-house, and various arbitrary systems of distribution were adopted by the officials there. The discovery that a kind of manhood suffrage was recognised, and that an employee received as much as his employer, led to applications being made in the names of servants and even of fictitious persons, to each of whom an allotment was granted. Again, the discovery that allotments were also made pro rata according to the amount applied for led to the applications being sent in for ever larger and larger sums until billions and quintillions were reached. By such devices, no doubt, some of the applicants may have gained a momentary advantage over their neighbours, but at no time did the merchants receive a sufficiency of Japanese coin to carry on the most restricted business. At one time, about a year after the opening, it was estimated that there was in the hands of foreign merchants one million and a half of dollars which were not exchangeable, and were a "drug in the market."
Their wants were, however, partially supplied in another manner. For among the anomalies of the place and period one must be mentioned which had a quite peculiar bearing on the supply of currency for commercial purposes. The precious coin, which was doled out homœopathically to merchants, was supplied to foreign officials in liberal measure. Every minister, consul, and assistant; every admiral, captain, and lieutenant; every paymaster, for himself and for the service of his ship, received his quota of Japanese money on a scale graduated according to rank. The amount put in circulation by these means was given by Mr Winchester as $2,000,000 per annum. The recipients, whether directly or through agents, were able to sell their surpluses to the merchants, of course at a handsome profit, and no doubt abuses grew out of what was in its original intention a simple measure of justice to salaried officers. The practice was condemned by Mr Arbuthnot, and was discontinued by order of the Foreign Office in 1864, on the initiative of the Prussian Government, whose agent in Japan had voluntarily renounced the privilege. But, oddly enough, the official exchange was resumed by request of the Japanese Government, and continued for several years longer, until, in fact, foreign and native coin had found their common level.
Trade certainly suffered much in the beginning from the incongruous state of the currency, which was greatly more complicated than we have attempted to outline. Even after the year of probation foreign coins were neither received by traders at their value nor exchangeable in accordance with the treaties. Whether the Government was at the bottom of the obstruction or was overruled by circumstances beyond its control was uncertain, but the British consul-general made masterful exertions to set the matter right. Currency reform, however, has baffled so many generations of expert economists that, even assuming the goodwill of the native Government, an alien official new to the country must have found it difficult to accomplish much, with the time and means at his disposal. Earl Russell in 1862 "declined to pronounce on so large and intricate a question," and would not even discuss it with the Japanese envoys.
Japanese currency formed the subject of four elaborate reports by the Secretary to her Majesty's Treasury, extending over twelve months, from December 1862 to December 1863, drawn up after personal conference with Sir Rutherford Alcock and on information derived from various other sources, especially from a series of very able papers by Consul Winchester. In each of these reports Mr Arbuthnot remarks on the paucity of data, and in each he qualifies the deductions of the preceding one. Had the series been still further extended, it is even doubtful if finality of judgment would have been reached; for in his third report he says, "The whole question, both as regards the condition of the currency and the real intentions of the Japanese Government, is involved in so much obscurity that no sound judgment can yet be formed on the subject" (May 1863).
It would be a mere weariness to the reader to attempt to elucidate a problem which an expert student found perplexing, but a few salient points brought out in Mr Arbuthnot's review may repay citation, as illustrative of the general state of relations beyond the immediate question of the currency. "We found," he says, "the Japanese with a carefully devised system of coinage, presenting indeed anomalies, when regarded from a European point of view, but apparently well adapted to their domestic wants; and their coins were found on assay in London to be well manufactured." The Chinese had no such system, and the evolution of a metallic currency entitled to such high praise, in a country from which the rest of the world had been long shut off, is one of the most striking evidences of the high originating faculty of the Japanese.
As to the stipulation in the treaties that foreign coin should be current in Japan on a par with native, weight for weight (not a word said about purity), it was not only preposterous and absolutely unworkable, but it was imposed by the ignorance of the foreign negotiators against the superior knowledge of the Japanese; for it is remarkable that in the negotiations carried on by the Americans in 1854 the Japanese took up the impregnable ground that "American coin was only bullion to them." Force alone—or the fear of it—drove them from that position in 1858, and in yielding to the unreasoning pressure of the subsequent negotiators the Japanese probably consoled themselves with their resources of secret evasion to save them from the worst consequences of the obligation—a characteristic of the whole treaty-making campaign.
It appeared to Mr Arbuthnot that the Japanese had a double standard—itself "a contradiction in terms"—gold and copper; silver occupying the position of a token currency between the two, at a highly artificial value, strictly governed by law. The fact was exemplified in many ways. Art objects in silver contained more metal than the coin paid for them, the work of the artificer thrown into the bargain. Gold and copper, on the other hand, bore about the same relationship to each other as prevailed in other countries. It was silver alone that was maintained at a conventional level three times above its value in the outer world. And the philosophy of this is explained by Mr Winchester, who tells us that, whereas the supply of gold and copper was in many hands, the sources of the supply of silver were in the exclusive control of the Tycoon's Government, which derived great advantage from maintaining the silver coinage at a high fictitious level.
The efforts of the Japanese to readjust the currency to meet the demands of the treaty were naturally first directed to silver, which was recoined and revalued, but confusion was worse confounded by all these attempts. Eventually the gold koban, worth intrinsically 18s. 4d. sterling, or 4 bus of the intrinsic value of 1s. 4d., was reduced to a sterling value of 5s. 6d., but was still rated at 4 bus, while the copper coinage was disestablished and iron substituted of no intrinsic value. "I am aware of no other example," says Mr Arbuthnot, "of so sudden and violent a rending of the monetary regulations of a country; certainly of none which has been produced by the interference of foreigners."
The effect of these inquiries by the Treasury was to discourage further interference by foreign Governments, to trust much to that great solvent of anomalies, the silent operation of commerce; while the only complete remedy was recognised as the establishment of a mint under European regulations.
The problem was still further complicated by the separate coinage of the Daimios. Their nibukin, as a general rule, passed only at first in their own provinces, but gradually they filtered down to the open ports, and at one time considerable embarrassment arose from the mixture of the coinage thus caused. In 1871-72 the Imperial Government, then just come to supreme power, took the matter up with the thoroughness they showed in all their doings. They gave secret notice to the foreign Ministers of their intention to call in all princes' nibukin, and thereupon issued an order that during one week these coins should be brought into the custom-houses at the treaty ports, where they would be fastened up in sealed packets of $100 value, and notified that coins so stamped within the week would be accepted by the Government as legal tender, but that thereafter their use would be prohibited. Now, as the Daimios' money stood at about 90 per cent discount at the time, the fact that some of the foreign officials who had access to this confidential information were also merchants created immediate speculation, with the result that within a fortnight these silver-gilt nibukin rose from 90 per cent discount to 2 or 3 per cent premium, the officially sealed packets being a most convenient form for the payment of duties.
The alacrity with which the Government applied heroic remedies to a disastrous predicament was typical of the energy of the Japanese, which has been displayed since in wider fields. They do not sit down and bemoan their troubles, but at once arm themselves against them.
When to the inherent difficulties common to currency problems generally were superadded the complexities of the monetary system of a non-commercial and long-secluded country, surprise should be felt that the regulation of the circulating medium in Japan was accomplished so soon, rather than that it took so many years to arrive at the solution. The Tycoon's Government did not live long enough to settle the currency, but left the problem as a legacy to the Restoration. A good many years elapsed before the Mikado's Government succeeded in evolving order out of chaos.
In the mean time, in spite of many drawbacks, trade was making headway in other directions besides the exportation of gold, and quaint indeed were the beginnings of it. The staple products happened to be the same in Japan as in China, tea and silk, and they soon began to be regularly brought down to Yokohama for sale. But business was at first on such a lilliputian scale, and was introduced in so dainty a manner, that to merchants accustomed to the large transactions of China the whole affair wore something of the air of comic opera, or as if children were playing at being merchants. This impression was strengthened by the aspect of the fragile wooden structures with their sliding doors and windows, but without sitting accommodation, wherein business was transacted, which to those habituated to the massive, if inelegant, buildings of Hongkong and Shanghai irresistibly suggested the idea of a doll's house. The Chinese methods also were inverted. Instead of sending samples of substantial quantities, such as a thousand chests of tea or fifty bales of silk, and the owner or his broker coming to chaffer in the silk-room or the tea-room of the foreign merchant, the latter had to go the round of the Japanese shops to find out what they had got. Early every morning the leading merchants might be seen booted to the thighs—for the rain was frequent and the roads unmade—trudging up and down the Japanese bazaar to see what novelties had come to hand. The more zealous would sometimes make a second round in the afternoon, in case there might be some late as well as early worms to be picked up. The bodily fatigue and consumption of time involved in this process would have rendered a large business impossible. There were as yet no Japanese merchants properly so called, and their endless parley resembled more the tenacious higgling of peasants than the negotiations of men of business. Moreover, the native dealers seemed scarcely conscious of any law which should hold them to a bargain in the event of a more acceptable offer turning up.
Conclusions unfavourable to Japanese commercial morality have been drawn from some of those early—and later—experiences; but commercial like other kinds of specialised morality has necessarily something of a professional character. The akindo, or merchant, was a sort of pariah in Japan, his social status being inferior to those of the peasant and the handicraftsman. His sense of honour was not, therefore, sustained by tradition or stimulated by esprit de corps. There being no mercantile body in Japan, there was no mercantile code, at least none applicable to international trade, and those unwritten laws without which large commerce is impossible had not yet been called into being. Contrasts between the two neighbouring nations have just been mentioned very much to the advantage of the Japanese; but in matters of commerce, it must be conceded, the advantage lay entirely with the Chinese, a nation of traders from their birth.
In the sale of lacquer ware and objects of art the Japanese were much more at home than in dealing in raw products of foreign manufactures, and the treasures which were in the early days exposed in the shops of Yokohama would make a modern dealer sigh for opportunities which are no more. Speaking roundly, it would have been safe to buy the stock indiscriminately at the sellers' own prices, when fortune would have awaited the investor as surely as if he had bought up the gold coinage at the ratio of 5 to 1. The same remark would apply to such of the raw produce of Japan as had been in large demand in China; and conversely the rule applied also to selected articles of foreign manufacture, which the Japanese were satisfied to buy at a price mid-way between the high level of the Dutch monopoly and the low level of what would remunerate the free importer. Therefore the sudden inroad of open trade on a market artificially confined resulted in profitable trading while a new equilibrium was being found; but such prosperity was in its nature evanescent.
Irrespective of the material aims which attracted foreign residents to Japan, the life itself presented several novel and interesting features. Nothing could have been pleasanter than the social relations which sprang up between the foreign communities and the unofficial natives. The strangers were received everywhere with open arms, and the residence among a smiling people (excluding altogether the meretricious allurements of the country, which have also not been without their influence) and amid enchanting scenery was found to add a new pleasure to existence. Here again we must resort for illustration to a comparison with China, where strangers at the best were sullenly tolerated, where one might live a lifetime without entering a house, or seeing a respectable woman, or making a friend save on a business footing. The Japanese of Yokohama and Kanagawa, as well as in the surrounding villages and temples, never failed in courtesy and hospitality to passers-by, and were eager for conversation with foreigners. A useful smattering of the language was soon acquired under the stimulus of a quick-witted and sympathetic people alert to jump at the meaning and patient to help the novice to find his words. The women of the household were always charming, and if their domestic conversation sometimes startled the stranger by its freedom, there was neither malice nor any such impropriety as leaves an evil odour in its trail. Friendships were formed, not deep perhaps, but genuine as far as they went, and certainly not the less sincere on the Japanese than on the foreign side.
The intelligence also of the common people enhanced both the pleasure and the value of friendly intercourse with them: apt as they were to receive, they were no less ready to impart, information. Their appreciation of their country—its beauties, history, traditions, and folk-lore—was conscious and unrestrained, indeed it amounted to a passion. This afforded endless subject for talk. Everything save the politics of the day might be freely discussed, and though the first-arrived foreigners came poorly prepared to assimilate so much that was novel, they could not help carrying away a good deal from their frequent confabulations. The native guide-books formed a reservoir of suggestive topics: surprisingly minute they were, noting every gem of scenery or point of interest, with the legends of history, romance, or mythology attaching to them. So accurate were these itineraries that with their contents well studied foreigners might make excursions inland lasting several days without the aid of guide or the necessity of inquiring the way.
It need not, of course, be said that the mutual intelligence of Japanese and foreigners did not penetrate below the surface of every-day phenomena. Of their festivals, their pilgrimages, their votive offerings to temples and shrines, their ancestral worship, and their whole relation to the Unseen—call it religion, superstition, or idolatry—the strangers had no comprehension. Although its outward symbols were passing constantly under their eyes, esoteric Japan was to them a sealed book, as the mental processes of the Oriental always are to the Occidental, whose imagination is cramped by the syllogism, and whose faith languishes for demonstration. There was, however, ample outside the region of mysticism, outside the concerns of trade, and equally apart from political questions, to nourish the best relations between Japanese and foreigners.
The impressions of the British Minister on his journeys of relaxation are by no means the least interesting portion of his important work, 'The Capital of the Tycoon.' Having shaken off the official incubus, and breathing the free air of the country, the intercourse with the common people in which he was able to indulge was fruitful of reflections of a brighter hue than any that were prompted by his strenuous life in the capital. He observes:—
They are really a kindly people when not perverted by their rulers and prompted to hostility.... I had begun to forget I was in Japan, so much goodwill was shown.... There may be a good deal of tyranny and oppression, but the people show no marks of it.... The feudal lord is everything and the lower and labouring classes nothing. Yet what do we see? Peace, plenty, apparent content, and a country more perfectly and carefully cultivated and kept, with more ornamental timber everywhere, than can be matched even in England.... The material prosperity of a population estimated at thirty millions, which has made a garden of Eden of this volcanic soil, and had grown in numbers and in wealth by unaided native industry.
Such were the observations made during a few days' rest at the mineral springs of Atami, and they coincided exactly with the opinions formed by those whose daily intercourse lay with these same common people, in which term, of course, were included such town populations as foreigners had acquaintance with. A contemporary writer, Nagasaki, 1859, remarked: "The Government of Japan is the most absolute despotism in the world, and perfectly successful.... For the present it is consistent with great prosperity and contentment on the part of the people, but it seems to me it is only their exclusive policy that has kept it so."
The great, industrious, prosperous masses of Japan, enjoying the gifts of the gods with thankful hearts, and drinking the cup of life as presented to them without any acidulating scruples, seemed to be happiest of all in this, that they were not burdened with the dignity of wearing swords. The storms that convulsed the upper regions passed over their humble heads without interrupting the cast of a fishing-net or hindering by a day the gathering of their harvest. How different the life of the nobles and their following! their humanity dominated by an elaborate and intolerable ceremonial, settling their quarrels at the sword's point, and ever on the alert for bloody intrigue.[4]
For there were two Japans, that of the people and that of the ruling class, separated by an impassable gulf. "The very existence of the plebeian seems unrecognised by the patrician in his lordly progress," wrote Sir Rutherford Alcock. "And for that very reason there may be more real liberty among the mass of the people than we imagine."
The members of the official class were distinguished by carrying in their girdle two heavy swords with a razor's edge, one long, one short. The functionaries of the custom-house, with whom alone the foreign lay community had contact, also wore swords as part of their official uniform, which they placed with delicate ceremony on a rack in front of them as they sat on their mats at the receipt of custom,—for there were no chairs, and the habitual posture was squatting on the hams and heels. To the aristocratic caste the Japanese people were as absolutely submissive as if every two-sworded man wielded the power of life and death, which, so far as the common people were concerned, was not far from the simple truth.[5] The only great concourses of armed men which the foreign residents were in the way of seeing were the Daimio processions, which, hundreds, sometimes thousands strong, were constantly travelling along the highroad; and in the long town of Kanagawa they could observe the people prostrated by the sides of the road with heads abased while the great man with his scowling retainers passed. Residents in Yedo—that is, the personnel of the foreign Legations—had less agreeable experience of these feudal swordsmen, who, living in idleness during their prince's sojourn in the capital, were quick in quarrel, especially in their cups, and far from agreeable to meet in the streets.