In witness whereof the respective Plenipotentiaries have signed the same and have affixed thereto their seals.
Done at Washington the 22nd day of the 11th month of the 27th year of Meiji, corresponding to the 22nd November, in the eighteen hundred and ninety-fourth year of the Christian era.
(Signed) Shinichiro Kurino. (L. S.)
Walter Q. Gresham. (L. S.)
Imperial Rescript on the New Treaties
Governing Our realm by the abiding aid of Our ancestors’ achievements, which have enabled Us to secure the prosperity of Our people at home and to establish relations of close amity with the nations abroad, it is a source of heartfelt gratification to Us that, in the sequel of exhaustive planning and repeated negotiations, an agreement has been come to with the Powers, and the revision of the Treaties, Our long cherished aim, is to-day on the eve of becoming an accomplished fact; a result which, while it adds materially to the responsibilities of Our empire, will greatly strengthen the basis of Our friendship with foreign countries.
It is Our earnest wish that Our subjects, whose devoted loyalty in the discharge of their duties is conspicuous, should enter earnestly into Our sentiments in this matter, and, in compliance with the great policy of opening the country, should all unite with one heart to associate cordially with the peoples from afar, thus maintaining the character of the nation and enhancing the prestige of the empire.
In view of the responsibilities that devolve upon Us in giving effect to the new Treaties, it is Our will that Our Ministers of State, acting on Our behalf, should instruct Our officials of all classes to observe the utmost circumspection in the management of affairs, to the end that subjects and strangers alike may enjoy equal privileges and advantages, and that, every source of dissatisfaction being avoided, relations of peace and amity with all nations may be strengthened and consolidated in perpetuity.
(Imperial Sign Manual.)
(Signatures of all the Cabinet Ministers.)
(Dated) June 30th, 1899.
Schools in Japan[226]
The latest returns compiled by the educational authorities show that education in Japan is in a satisfactory condition. For instance the percentage of the children newly admitted to primary schools throughout the country out of every 100 of those who had attained the school-going age last month [March, 1903] was 93.78 for boys, 81.08 for girls, and 88.05 for boys and girls together, which show respectively an increase of 3.23, 9.18, and 6.38 against the figures for last year. Again, the different schools throughout the country totalled 29,335, while the teachers totalled 110,104, the attendance 5,265,006, and the graduates 911,621, representing respectively an increase of 473; 11,977; 339,333; and 112,737 as compared with the figures for the preceding year. [In 1909-10, these totals were 34,659; 172,228; 7,170,470; and 899,288.]