is a dispenser of other inestimable blessings. As a healer of many maladies—cutaneous affections, some forms of eye disease, and other like disturbers of a tranquil life—he believes in her implicitly, and lotions made of the juice extracted from the leaves of the plant are in almost daily use among the poorer classes. Young Japan having entered with a light heart and buoyant into the stream of European life no longer cares for the old ways of his fathers, and finds his chosen smoke in the new paper cigarette fashioned in the Western world. Of these he partakes so liberally that many millions are imported every year, the total value of which, according to the Consular Report, comes to about £40,000. To such proportions has the tobacco industry grown that in Osaka (the Manchester of Japan) no fewer than forty factories provide remunerative employment for thousands of work-people—chiefly women and girls. In 1895 Japan exported close upon three million pounds weight of tobacco, the estimated value of which was £23,466. Under the influence of an overmastering passion to mould their institutions on the model of those of Europe, the Government have thought well to lay hands upon the tobacco industry; henceforward it is to be a Government monopoly. Referring to the _Japanese Budget_ of 1897-8, Sir Ernest Satow, in the Diplomatic and Consular Report on Trade and Finance for the fiscal year 1897-8, discusses the question. The Bill was passed in the session of 1896, and the monopoly is to come into force at the beginning of 1898. The principle of the scheme is, that tobacco grown in Japan shall be delivered in the leaf to the Government at a fixed rate. The Government will then sell it to the manufacturers at rates which will ensure substantial relief to the depleted exchequer, to the extent, possibly, after all expenses of collection, etc. are met, of about half a million sterling. The annual yield of the tobacco fields of Japan is estimated at 90,000,000 lbs., its market value of £90,000, and the gross revenue therefrom at £1,000,000. Here Sir Ernest Satow’s incisive criticism comes into play. He shows that to realize this sum a tax of over 100 per cent. must be levied, and that this would bring up the price to the consumer to double what it is now. He points out that tobacco leaf can be imported into Japan at 10c. per lb., add to this the import duty, namely 35 per cent., and the result will be that the Government will try to sell its tobacco at 21⅑c. and this, too, in face of the fact that imported tobacco can be sold for 13.5c. per lb. There is a further important consideration telling against the Government scheme, namely: that as the tobacco intended for exportation does not come under the monopoly the producer can send his unmanufactured leaf out of the country, have it prepared for use and brought in again ready for the retail dealer, and still compete successfully with the Government.