CORRESPONDENCE.

THE SITUATION IN JAPAN.

Tokio, August 27, 1877. PERHAPS the circumstance which of all others has struck as peculiar an English resident in Japan during the last few months has been the complete absence of reliable news in the capital con- cerning the events and progress of the war in the South. We have been amused, week by week, with assurances that the in- surrection was now virtually over, and that all would be settled in a few days. Every day some new Imperialist success has been announced, but day by day the final settlement seems further' off. The best papers of the foreign Press in Yokohama have been compelled to gather information from the columns of the native newspapers, whilst these last have been prohibited, under heavy penalties, from publishing anything which could disturb the minds of the people,—that is, from publishing any real news at all. Meantime, we ask ourselves, with some wonder, what this insurrection in Japan is really about, what are its objects, and what changes it would have brought to pass, if successful. After patiently examining the tenets on this point of those who profess to know most, I am driven to the conclusion that this is a question which, in its entirety, no foreigner can fully understand. But the leading features are briefly these :—

For many years, long before foreigners were known in Japan, the great southern clans of Satsuma had always had the reputa- tion of being the best soldiers of the Empire. And many of the ablest men of Japan, those who have held the highest positions, and whose names have been best known even beyond the limits of their own country, have been Satsuma men. But with all this ability and influence, the great Satsuma clanship could hardly avoid being more or less of a thorn in the side of any central Government at Tokio. No Eastern despotism can endure too powerful a subject. And Satsuma had always held a more or less independent position, and the Government was frequently withheld by prudential reasons from carrying out upon Satuma men regulations which everywhere else were strictly enforced. But the expenses of the Government and the heavy taxation of the people bred great discontent, and the Satsuma men secretly combined for resistance. Of this or- ganised resistance the revolt of Mayebara last year was certainly a premature outbreak, and the majority of Satsuma men being then as yet unprepared, the followers of Mayebara were left to face the whole force of the Government alone, and this revolt was speedily suppressed. But there can be no doubt that the rising of Maye- bare was intimately connected with the present insurrection. Such a view is the only one which accounts for a saying verroften heard in Japanese official circles when the revolt of Mayebara was first announced in the autumn of 1876, that the rising might be serious if it were not suppressed before Christmas. This seems clearly to point to anticipated reinforcements for the rebels early this year, and also does much to show how excellently well informed the Government party were of the intentions of their adversaries. Mayebara's revolt, however, gave the Government very little trouble, and when order was restored, certain con- cessions were made to the people, the chief of which was the re- duction of the land-tax, and the Government party consolidated its resources, and prepared to force the hand of its secret enemies. This was easily done. The main reliance of Satsuma had been upon its military schools, wherein a very large number of troops —some accounts say as many as thirty thousand—were fully trained in European fashion, and had access to arms of the most modern patterns. The Government, being determined to bring matters to a crisis once for all, ordered the abolition of these schools, and sent vessels to bring away the arms and ammunition. This being refused the war broke out. The Imperialists seem to have been prepared for resistance and the most energetic measures were at once taken, but they can hardly have been prepared for the treachery of such a man as Saigo, late commander-in- chief of the Imperial army, a man of the highest distinction and ability. Nevertheless, about a fortnight after the first out- break, Saigo joined the rebels, and was degraded from his rank, and proclaimed a traitor by the Imperial Government. The rebels laid siege to the castle of Kumamoto, held by the Imperialists, but were unsuccessful in their attempts to take it ; , and when it was finally relieved by the Government troops,

the hopes of the rebels must have failed them, for their ultimate success, which could only have been obtained by a march upon Tokio, was now quite out of the question. From then till now it has remained a mere question of time how long the insur- gents could hold out, and though the rebels have been constantly defeated when they have ventured on anything like a general engagement, it may well be doubted whether their mountain passes and rugged country will not enable the more desperate among them to keep at bay for a long time yet, the huge odds which are against them. The insurrection is announced for about the two-hundredth time, as "virtually over," and the Emperor with many of his Ministers has returned to Tokio from his stay in Kioto, whither he had gone to be nearer to the seat of war. Nobeska, in the province of Iliuga, the last stronghold of the rebels, has now been captured, and the insurgents are reported as almost completely hemmed in. " At the same time, their move- ments, intentions, and numbers seem to be almost unknown to their antagonists, while the whereabouts of Saigo still remains a mystery" (Japan Weekly Mail). And again, "the men left with Saigo are determined to fight to the death." From these facts, coupled with the knowledge that Hiuga is the most rugged part of the whole empire, it is not hard to see that it may yet be long before complete tranquillity is restored.

Meantime, who is to pay the piper ? The expenses have been enormous. The ivied Nichi Shinthun, an organ at least semi- official, states that about £5,320,000 (I translate into English money) has been expended over and above the ordinary army expenditure ; and a rumour is afloat of a proposed further issue of 18,000,000 sterling in inconvertible paper. In men the total loss during July alone of killed and more or less wounded amounts to about six thousand. Taxation is already strained to breaking point, as this insurrection and that of Mayebara suffice to show. The people are intensely poverty-stricken, and I am informed that many poor dwellings in Tokio have been pulled down by their owners, through inability to pay the Government ground-rent, The jinrikeha-man, who carries his fare a distance of nearly two and a half English miles for a sum worth a fraction more than threepence, and who is hardly ever lucky enough, unless in foreigners' employ, to make as much as one shilling a day, has yet to pay a tax of a dollar a me lth. Every plan has been tried to raise the revenue, but it is Lard to see where any greater strain can be borne. And though the rumour above alluded to of a further issue of paper money may be and most probably is nothing more than a rumour, yet it is significant, as giving another indication of the direction in which an Oriental people is naturally prone to look for a way out of difficulty. Yet the foreign trade of the country continues to show a slight increase on the whole, By the summary, compiled by direction of her Majesty's Minister, and published last week, it may be seen that the imports of Japan for the year 1876 show a decrease of $5,379,552, and the exports an increase of $9,654,576, as compared with the year 1875 ; and though the exports of this year can hardly fail to be lower than in 1876, owing to the accidental circumstances which last year gave such an impetus to the Japanese silk trade, yet there seems fair promise of an average commercial year on the whole, considering the general slackness at present visible nearly all over the world. If Japan would but be wise in time, and open her interior to foreign capital for the development of her splendid resources, the expenses of such a war as that now drawing to its close need no Monger be a matter of anxiety to her Government.

The Emperor has not long remained inactive after his return to Tokio. On the 21st his Majesty went in person to open the new National Exhibition, at the gardens of Uyeno, Tokio. This is the largest and grandest exhibition that Japan has ever seen, in fact it is in some senses the first. For 'Okla is a real industrial exhibi- tion ; every department of the country is represented by an official of high rank, and sends specimens of its productions, many of which are on sale, so that this is not a mere museum. Many of the specimens are excessively beautiful, particularly the porcelain and some of the screens. Cups and plates and vases are there that look as if garlands of flowers had been thrown at them and had clung to them, so exquisitely is the painting done. To a real chinamaniac it must inevitably be either spiritual torture or pecuniary ruin to walk round some of the etalle. And the best of the screens are no less charming,—embossed with flowers and figures in ivory and mother-of-pearl, carved and tinted to a wonderful perfection. But very far indeed from charming was the behaviour of the Japanese police outside the building on the morning of the opening. These police are most of them taken from the Samurai class, and as such hold a firm belief that all human beings except Samurai are just so much dirt, to be trodden on. Few crowds in the world are so essentially law-abiding as a Japanese sight-seeing crowd, and such a crowd had assembled at

Uyeno to see their Emperor pass. The road through had been admirably kept, but a superior police officer riding up discovered that it was not wide enough, and in obedience to his orders the police- men present instantly attacked the crowd with their long staves, by way of making them fall back. The poor individuals nearest their assailants, well knowing that no Court in Japan would give them any redress for a broken head under the circumstances, made frantic efforts to escape. Old people and children were knocked down and trodden on, and the scene was generally disgraceful.

Applying the old saying about the blind leading the blind, I re- marked to a friend with me that when the half-civilised keeps the half-civilised in order, the results are purely savage. These police are becoming one of the dangers of Japan. They are

armed with heavy staves about four feet long, which they use on very slight provocation, or on no provocation at all, and as

any charge of assault against them has to come on in a Japanese Court, they are sure of immunity, if the prosecutor is a foreigner. When the crowd had been sufficiently bullied, the Emperor appeared in his State carriage. In another carriage following came the Empress, and following, again, were several of the Court nobles and ladies. The general public were admitted to the building after his Majesty had left, which almost immediately followed on his having, in the Fine-Arts Department, declared the Exhibition open. The Court ladies were, of course, in their most resplendent attire, and so curiously and elaborately got up with powder and rouge, that it was hardly fair that they should not have been left bodily in the Fine-Arts Department themselves- One word about the " extra-territoriality clause." It will be remembered that this clause exempts foreigners from the jurisdic-

tion of the Japanese Law Courts, and provides that every civil or

criminal cause shall be brought into the Court of the defendant's nationality. This the Japanese have always resented as unjust, saying that when they arrive in England they are at once

amenable to English law, and that a similar rule in their favour ought to hold for Englishmen in Japan. Most casual visitors

here are inclined to think the same ; at the head of these is Sir

Charles Dilke. The Pall Mall Gazette seems half inclined to- wards the same opinion, But the residents, quite apart from the more abstract difficulty of submitting to Japanese law when, in the strict sense of the word, there is no Japanese law to submit to, have had before their eyes a bugbear of very ugly form, which

it is easy for Englishmen in comfortable London Clubs to be indifferent about, but about which we out here, who have the risk to run, are not quite so careless. One word expresses it,

—torture. We were assured last year that torture had been

finally abolished and rendered for ever illegal, and there were not wanting in Tokio enthusiasts who declared that now the obnoxious clause might be swept away, and who railed at the British Minister for not at once doing so. But Sir Harry Parkes, who knows more of Eastern prison systems than all his critics put together, was the last man in the world to be carried away by so insane an enthusiasm. And now that the rebels are surrendering in the South, a notification has appeared in two of the native papers, authorising the temporary Court established in Satsuma

to apply torture to the prisoners. One of these papers was the Nichi Nichi Shimbun, before quoted ; and it is now stated that

torture was never abolished, except in so far as to make the per- mission of the Minister of Justice necessary before it could be applied. The Japanese tortures are some of the most diabolically cruel that have ever been invented. And by the abolition of the

" extra-territorial " clause, Englishmen and Englishwomen would be liable to examination in such a Court as this. It is a difficult

feat to speak calmly and moderately of those who propose and

support such utter nonsense. Difficult as it is, the Japan Mail has managed to do it, and I conclude with the last sentence of a good article in that paper on the subject :—" At all events, the people of Japan must not be allowed to forget that as long as the slightest suspicion remains of any such practice being in existence, or likely to be resuscitated or adopted in this country, it will be absolutely useless to moot even the question of the abolition of the extra-territorial jurisdiction."