These fierce struggles, the sudden arousing to intensity of dormant passions, the dislocation of the whole structure of Japanese polity, represented to the foreign nations merely the risks and sacrifices incidental to the expansion of their commerce. In order to compel the Government to permit the people to exchange the products of their soil for the merchandise of the strangers within their gates, the labour, anxiety, and expense which we have only faintly indicated were voluntarily incurred by the Western treaty Powers, and by them in turn forced on the reluctant rulers of Japan. An a priori judgment of the probable effect of the sanguinary conditions into which official intercourse had been thrown would probably have concluded that peaceful commerce could not under such circumstances exist. The restrictions resulting from an ill-regulated currency, and from the direct interference of the Government, might have been deemed sufficient of themselves to check the development of trade. When to these inimical influences were superadded the further facts that the foreign traders went in peril of their lives, that the communities of Nagasaki and Yokohama were at different times in such danger that provisional arrangements were made for conveying them, bag and baggage, on board ship, a condition of things less favourable to international traffic could scarcely be conceived. Yet these difficulties, and a score of others which could be enumerated, served only to bring into clear recognition the inherent vitality of commerce, which, like running water, finds its way through or round almost any obstacle. There were, on the other hand, circumstances favourable to trade. In Japan, as has been already hinted, the traders of the country had neither part nor lot in the strife that raged above and around them, and for the most part they could pursue their peaceful avocations without fear or hindrance. So the quality of commerce was not strained; but, shedding its benefits on buyer and seller alike, it grew from small beginnings till it attained to a volume of world-wide importance, accumulating momentum as it progressed.

The total amount of foreign trade was a little over one million sterling per annum for the first three years of the open ports. In the fourth year, 1863, the development of Japanese produce, especially the more precious commodities, silk and the eggs of the silkworm, began to tell on the gross values, and the exports for that year amounted to two and a half millions sterling, the imports of foreign goods being £811,000. The year 1864, notwithstanding its crowded events of anti-commercial character, witnessed a notable advance in the value of foreign trade, which in that year doubled itself. The same thing occurred again in 1865, when the figures reached a total of eight millions sterling, being double the returns for 1864.

Thus the foreign trade of Japan had fairly established itself as "a going concern," advancing in war and peace, but with great fluctuations and many vicissitudes to those engaged in it. From the purely commercial standpoint the result justified the anticipations of the Powers who opened Japan to the world. The event proved that when the materials of trade exist there trade is sure to follow on the removal of obstructions. And the materials of trade are not wanting wherever there is a population that wears clothes and builds houses.[11]

It is obvious to remark that had it been in the power of the Japanese Government to place an effective interdict on foreign commerce at its sources within their own jurisdiction, and beyond the reach of treaty obligations, it would have been the surest means of causing the withdrawal of foreigners from the country. That the Government had the will to do so was shown by their repeated partial attempts at preventing produce from reaching the open ports, and even inducing a temporary exodus therefrom of the native population. Why their measures of repression were not more thorough may be conjectured to have been connected with the circumstance that the advantages of the foreign trade soon began to be felt in quarters with which it was not convenient for the Tycoon to inter-meddle.

As in China, so in Japan, the relations of the merchants to their official representatives exercised a certain influence on events. The trade was carried on at first by a very small number of people. In 1861 there were not 200 foreign residents in all the ports of Japan, the British nationality predominating in Yokohama, the Dutch at Nagasaki. The British residents in the former port seem to have numbered about fifty. It was a small body to carry the burden of inaugurating commercial intercourse with an empire of thirty millions of people. Nor was it individually a community of any particular weight, being mostly composed of young men, not themselves principals, but, in the beginning at least, a considerable number of them occupying the position of delegates of mercantile houses in China. It was their representative character which lent importance to the foreign merchants in Japan. They represented, first of all, the establishments of which they were subordinates or offshoots; they represented their respective nations; and they, in a larger sense, represented the commercial creed of Christendom. The present sketch would be wanting in symmetry if no account were taken of the relationship of these handfuls of traders to their own national authorities, both being engaged in the struggle for the development and security of commerce under the trying conditions of the time and country. But of course any such inquiry practically limits itself to those of British nationality, for two reasons: British trade and British diplomacy were pre-eminently representative of all others by the preponderance of the interests involved; in addition to which, the strong individuality and matured experience of the first British envoy were such that his colleagues tacitly assigned to him the leading rôle, so that his was the personality which exerted the dominant influence in shaping events from the opening of the ports.

The tendency to divergence of view between the merchants and their official representatives has already been remarked upon in connection with affairs in China: it was most pronounced in times of difficulty such as were chronic for more than twenty years in Canton, where it was so acute at one time that English Chambers of Commerce made formal complaint to the Foreign Office that its representative in China—Sir John Davis—refused to see the merchants in Canton, who desired to present their views to him in time of danger. The antagonism was natural: it is generically the same that one hears constantly in this country in the form of complaints and criticisms of Government, Government servants, and generally of all in authority—with, however, this difference, that in the many-sided life of a large society there are buffers between the critics and the criticised. They do not meet face to face unless it be in such circumstances as on the floor of "the House" with "a substantial piece of furniture" between; whereas in nascent communities composed of a few scores of individuals, where there is no tempering medium, where the parties are never out of each other's sight, differences are apt to become accentuated like village scandals. Nothing escapes censure; the smallest indiscretions have a magnifying lens constantly applied to them, and a sinister colour is given to innocent trifles. Interests are not diversified, shaded off, or balanced as in adult nations, but are narrow, concentrated, and highly sensitive. Between Minister and merchants there was of course a general identity of interest. They had a common test to apply to all their proceedings and aspirations, the furtherance of commerce. The official would, perhaps, add the qualifying adjective "legitimate," in the interpretation of which differences of opinion might arise; and he would naturally give a wider scope to the commercial idea than those actually engaged in trade could or ought to do.

The Minister represents the interests of Great Britain as a whole; the merchants represent trade generally, but each of them his own interests particularly, and these various interests cannot always coincide. An Englishman would naturally give a preference to the manufactures of his own country, but as a merchant he has to study the requirements of the country in which he trades, and if he cannot supply them at all, or so well, by articles manufactured in his own country, he is obliged to seek them elsewhere. Officials are apt to look askance on this as not fostering the trade of Great Britain; and while recognising the necessity, the fact does not warm their sympathy for the merchants of their own country. There are times also when, from the international point of view, the general interests of the country may override the special interests of the small British community in Japan. If policy requires intimate relations between the Governments, the tendency must inevitably be for the British Minister to minimise the just causes of complaint of his countrymen in order to avoid irritation. But the sufferers can hardly be expected to appreciate sacrifices so forced on them; and so from one cause and another there will never be wanting grounds of dissatisfaction, and possibly estrangement.

But the ultimate object being definitely agreed upon between the two parties, there would still remain room for variance in the means, questions of tactics, of the nearer or the further view, of the present generation and the next, and so on ad infinitum. Where there was a third party influencing and opposing legitimate commerce by direct or indirect means, as the Government of China or Japan, whose machinations called for strong measures of resistance, the occasions of impatience and dissatisfaction would be frequent, and friction between the representative and his constituents would naturally result. But perhaps the most antagonistic of all to harmony was the fact already pointed out, that in extra-territorialised countries like China and Japan the representatives of the treaty Powers were necessarily intrusted with exceptional authority over the persons of their nationals—for they had to assume the functions denied to the native Governments, of giving the law to the settlers and punishing evil-doers. What an invidious and onerous position this entailed on British officials will presently be shown. Yet it was a temporary necessity, for which nobody was blamable.

In treating of the period of the consulship in Shanghai, a certain distance or aloofness between Consul Alcock and the community of his nationals was remarked upon, due to difference of age, taste, culture, or temperament. This characteristic was rather accentuated than otherwise by the local circumstances of Japan. The Minister was ten years older, while the community was about as much younger than in Shanghai, so that the disparity of age was increased. The mere conditions of life also placed a material gulf between the diplomatic representatives in Yedo and the lay residents of Yokohama. The capital city being closed to all but the diplomatic body, visitors not only required a pass from one of the Ministers, but, in the absence of available accommodation, strangers had to rely on the hospitality of the foreign Legations. The curiosity to see Yedo, which in the early days so attracted tourists and travellers, threw a heavy and most unfair burden of entertainment on the Ministers, the principal victim of these birds of passage being of course the representative of Great Britain. So long, therefore, as the Legations remained in Yedo the barrier was effectual against personal intercourse between the Ministers and the permanent residents in Yokohama, even had mutual affinity been stronger than it was. Like most things, this local separation between the communities and their representative had its advantages and disadvantages. While on the one hand it was not conducive to intimacy, on the other the risk of personal friction was eliminated by it. Nor was direct intercourse at all necessary in the conduct of business, seeing the regular official medium of communication was the local consuls, who had nothing of the Olympian about them, and were felt by the residents to be men of like passions with themselves, with easy manners, the spirit of good fellowship, and imbued with the characteristic sporting proclivities of Englishmen at home and abroad, always an effective bond of sympathy.

The relations of Sir Rutherford Alcock with the mercantile community had not been very happily inaugurated, for he clearly felt officially aggrieved by their settling in Yokohama, instead of waiting till accommodation could be found for them in Kanagawa; so much so, indeed, that he seemed almost to deplore the absence of means of coercing them into obedience to his will.