If we have entered at some length into the political questions suggested by Sir Rutherford Alcock’s book, it is because we deem it important that people should not neglect this opportunity of making themselves acquainted with the state of our relations with Japan. We refrain, in mercy to our readers, from entering upon the great currency question, which has hitherto proved the chief stumbling-block to the successful working of the Treaty, and which involves an interesting financial problem. We will not follow our author into his dissertations upon consular jurisdiction in the East, though, were the subject more popular, there is much to be said upon it. There is room for an essay on the merits of the Japanese civilisation, and Sir Rutherford touches thoughtfully upon topics which would afford interesting matter of philosophical speculation to a metaphysical mind. It is in this sense, perhaps, that his book is so much more suggestive than any of its predecessors. Our author has lived long enough in Japan to study the anomalies presented by its social and political institutions; and although his knowledge of them is necessarily limited and imperfect, we are forced to admit that Western civilisation alone does not suffice to enable us to construct a system of political economy, or justify conclusions based upon the limited experience of European nations. A Chinese sinologue, with a German turn of mind, wrote a book on China and its rebellions a few years ago, in which he incorporated an Essay on Civilisation. We did not agree in the views it embodied, but we thought it appropriate to the subject of his work. Our author, during the pauses which intervened between earthquakes, fires, and assassinations, pondered over kindred matters, and discusses with us whether, as regards civilisation, “nations and individuals attain the highest state which their fundamental convictions will allow.” If there is a part of the world in which an exile would require all his philosophy, it is Japan; and Sir Rutherford probably amused himself by working out as a corollary to the above proposition, “whether the assassination of the British Minister might fairly be classed among ‘their fundamental convictions.’” Our author dwells at some length upon the varied nature of the obstacles he has had to encounter in the course of his diplomacy. The violence and hostility of the feudal class is by no means the greatest. The tactics which the Japanese employ in carrying their point consists chiefly in mendacity and evasion. Nor do they deny that they are habitually untruthful. Our author illustrates this by the following anecdote:—