The Times of Tuesday publishes a curious paper, a report,
trans- lated from the Kioto Government Gazette, of one of the first debates in the Japanese House of Assembly, organized apparently during the recent revolution. The subject was the colonization of Yesso, the most northerly island of Japan, and it seems to have been debated at least as well as it would have been in the House of Commons. Member after member, it is true, said, "I have no opinion," instead of sitting silent, as such people do in England ; but the opinions that were offered were practical and businesslike, the general result being to choose a clever superintendent and attract population by exempting them from taxes. The great Princes, it appears, write their opinions, as our Peers still do when outvoted, and Satsuma's might have been written by Mr. Mill. He says, " Yesso can only be peopled out of Japan, labour is in- sufficient in Japan already, consequently labour must be economized by machinery." Be it remembered Japan has not been in contact with Europe ten years, and Satsuma is a peer whom no change will benefit.
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