“The conclusion would seem to be, that if there was to be any amelioration, foreign powers must change their tactics; and if these involved a struggle, and the nation were passive, the feudal classes alone being actively engaged in such a contest (and this is what might always be expected from all that is known of the country, always assuming that no revolutionary element came into play), the struggle could hardly be a long one. For, some of the most hostile princes struck down, the rest would probably see the necessity of coming to terms, and suing for peace with a better estimate of our power to make our treaty-rights respected, and compel observance, than has yet entered into the conception of Japanese rulers. So, possibly, we might purchase peace, and trade with freedom from all obstructive limitations, as well as with security to life and property. But by no other means that suggest themselves, after long and patient study of the people and their rulers, does this end seem attainable—if once we break with the daimios, and the Government which masks them—to enter upon a course of coercion.” Such being our author’s views, it is possible that the measures here indicated may be those ultimately adopted; but where the question is surrounded by so many difficulties, any policy must be more or less hazardous. It will be always easy to wait for the result, and then find fault with it; but we think that the considerations we have advanced are sufficiently complicated to disarm hostile criticism, and that we have no right to test the experiments which our political agents are forced to make in Japan by the traditions of diplomacy in other parts of the world.