We think it will turn out a good investment of money, and not be immoral, but we admit the fact. Indeed, the Japanese themselves seem preparing for it, as the following anecdote, narrated by Sir Rutherford, will show:— “When I paid a visit to Hakodadi some months after my arrival, where there are extensive lead-mines, I asked the Governor why his Government did not allow some of the produce to be exported, suggesting that it might be a source of national wealth and revenue; and the reply was characteristic in many ways. ‘We have none to spare.’ ‘None to spare!’ I rejoined, in surprise; ‘what can you use it for? You neither employ it in building nor utensils.’ ‘We want it all for _ball-practice_.’ They did not choose to export, for reasons not very easily explained; but they were not sorry, perhaps, to point to such a use for _home consumption_.” We cannot flatter ourselves that the feudal class will submit tamely to the inconveniences which the extension of commercial relations with foreign countries may entail upon them. The monopolies they now enjoy are threatened, their power and influence will be diminished in proportion as the mass of the population is enriched, and their prestige damaged by the independent bearing of the foreigner. Are the interests of the country at large to be sacrificed to the prejudices of this class, and are a people desirous of trade, and anxious to advance in the arts of civilisation, to be abandoned because an aristocracy shrinks from contact with the stranger? So long as the Government, whether sincerely or not, profess their intention of carrying out the Treaty, and ostensibly manifest a desire for our presence in the country, the hostility of a single class can be no sufficient reason for the relinquishment of our treaty-rights. The question is how best to meet a hostility which places the lives of our countrymen in danger, and against which, as it threatens the members of the Japanese Government as well as ourselves, they cannot guarantee us. Hitherto one great difficulty in chalking out a policy has been our ignorance of the complex machinery of Japanese government. We have never had an accurate idea of the relations in which the Temporal and Spiritual Emperors, the daimios, and the great Councils of State stand towards each other. The work before us throws more light on this most interesting point than we have yet received, but still we are groping for a policy. The excessive reticence of the Japanese in all matters connected with their system of internal administration, and the secrecy they so religiously observe in all their communications with foreigners, combined with their habitual mendacity, make it impossible for us to do more than guess at the best way of meeting the difficulties as they arise. The longer the diplomatist resides in the country, and the more he studies its institutions and the character of the people with whom he has to deal,