“It is true,” he said, “our manners and customs are so different from yours that it would be impossible to make them common to both nations; but, as judging from past experience we are getting ever nearer to and assimilating with each other, and especially as there is no racial or national distinction in economic affairs, I firmly believe that the future development of commerce and industry in our country must be cosmopolitan in its character, that is to say, we should freely invite the co-operation of knowledge, experience, and capital from the most advanced nations of the West, not only for the further development of industry and commerce in Japan, but also for the opening up of the great natural resources of China and Korea. Our country is geographically so near to these countries and has so much of literature and art in common with them that we can understand the manners and desires of their people much better than you do, and your country has the advantage of being rich in capital as well as in the knowledge and experience of modern scientific appliances. There is no reason, it seems to me, why we should not co-operate in the Far East to our mutual advantage, since we have so many interests in common, and especially now that we are so closely knit together by the Anglo-Japanese Agreement of Alliance. “Just as I was planning to leave Japan on my present tour, the United Chambers of Commerce were holding their General Meeting in Tokio, and they passed a resolution requesting me to convey their unanimous desire to bring the business world of Japan into closer relation with that of Europe and America, and to reach a better understanding of the real business conditions of each other’s countries. Vague as such a resolution must sound, its ultimate aim can be no other than what I have stated,—the co-operation of Japanese and foreign capitalists for the industrial and commercial development of the Far East,—and I trust that if there be anything in our business methods and customs which will obstruct the realisation of this happy union, our people will not spare their utmost efforts to remove it. I sincerely hope that not only will your Chamber take note of this desire on the part of the Japanese business world, but that it will kindly help to convey this desire to all other Chambers of Commerce in your country as well as to the business world at large. It is more than thirty years since I first visited your land, as a petty government official, but I now am here as a business man, and I cannot but admire the wonderful development of industry and commerce which is here exhibited. May the Anglo-Japanese Alliance be the means of realising the richest results in the pacific expansion of commerce and industry in the Far East, and may it thus be a