A movement is growing in Japan to deprive foreign ships of the right to trade between Japanese ports, which is similar to a regulation now in operation in America and Canada. Japanese vessels, of course, trade between British and China ports. Another plan that is advocated is to place on ships not built in Japan such a high duty that Japanese owners will be compelled to build in Japan, which would include a personal penalty if Japanese owners owned steamship stock under a foreign flag. All this involves considerable conflict with British interests that have loaned immense sums in Japan, and it is certain that the British foreign office, now so friendly to Japan, will hear from the British Board of Trade, as it is hearing every day from the consular service and such writers as Beresford, Colquhoun and Gilbert Parker. Whampoa, the first port in China where Europeans traded, is to be opened by the Chinese as a treaty port for deep-sea trading. It is about six miles below Canton. The port will, of course, compete with Hongkong; but Hongkong opened up a railway to Canton to protect herself, and she will see that fast and cheap handling maintains her leadership. The taotai, and Chang Iu Hin who was educated and enriched at British Singapore, are representative republicans of Canton who are interested in Whampoa port. It is proposed to do dredging and make free grants of land for godowns, wharves, etc. Portuguese Macao, the second port in China where Europeans traded, forty miles from Hongkong, is dredging her silted harbor preparatory to bidding for some of the great oversea trade that is expected. China, which has ambitions for native ports in the vicinity of Canton, frequently sends her warships into Macao waters. The natives of the Macao district (Heung Shan) do not like Portugal’s ambition, and much bitterness is shown. The Whang Poo Conservancy Board has deepened the river from Wusung up to Shanghai, and larger ocean steamers are now able to ascend to the bund. For a long time the largest vessels must lie at Wusung bar, the “heaven sent barrier” against foreign intrusion, as the Manchus called it years ago. The Tientsin Conservancy is deepening the river up from Taku. Both of these boards are controlled by the foreign settlements, although the Chinese share in the expense. Foreign engineers are hired. Other trans-oceanic ports planned by China are at Chin Wang Tao in Pechili province; Hunchun, near Vladivostok on the Japan Sea, and Haochow, near the junction of Shangtung and Kiangsu provinces. The British may also develop the port of Wei Hai Wei, now that connection with the trunk railways of China is in sight. Few of the great Chinese ports look after the foreign seamen, but Hongkong has established a sailors’ club and seamen’s institute on a liberal scale. This idea should be copied along the long yellow coast, for the devil’s whisper is loudest and his traps are most numerous in China.