In 1884 there were clear indications that the Foreign Minister’s policy was gaining ground, symptoms of a disposition to welcome foreigners being manifested where previously there had been violent antagonism to the project. In 1885 the war party in Japan conceived the notion of an alliance between their country and France against China, there being at the time extreme bitterness of feeling between the French and the Government of Peking, which culminated in the bombardment of Foochow. The reversal of Japan’s traditional policy towards the neighbouring empire which an alliance of the kind at that moment would have entailed was fully appreciated by Japan’s Foreign Minister, who had by this time been raised to the peerage as Count Inouye. It was by his tact that Japan was enabled to steer clear of complications at this juncture, and to retain her influence in affairs at the Chinese capital. The year following Count Inouye was again immersed in the excessively complicated problem of treaty revision, which it had been Japan’s object to effect for fully fifteen years past. The conferences began in May and lasted throughout the year and well into the next. By the summer of 1887 Count Inouye had by his patience and urbanity brought the negotiations to a stage wherein it really seemed that nothing was requisite beyond the actual signature of the agreements. But at that moment the Cabinet decided, notwithstanding that the British and German representatives were urging on their colleagues the advisability of forthwith surrendering the consular jurisdictions, without any transitional stage, that it was premature to adopt Count Inouye’s views with regard to the opening of the country unrestrictedly to commerce and travel, mainly because it was felt that the safeguards which it was still deemed needful by some of the delegates to insist upon were destructive of the judicial independence of the State. While such were the opinions entertained in some degree even in official circles the hope of adjusting the differences became more than ever slender, and popular antagonism to the grant of any concessions of the kind was once more revived, to the extent that in July 1887 Count Inouye terminated the conference in the conviction that it could serve no useful purpose to prolong its sittings. More than twelve months had been consumed in a fruitless endeavour to reach a satisfactory settlement, and the end seemed to be as far off as ever.