NEWS OF THE WEEK.
ON Monday the important new Anglo-Japanese Commer- cial Treaty was signed, and the text was published in the papers of Thursday. The Foreign Office is to be congratulated on having achieved results which will be received, we believe, with general satisfaction ; and we must also acknowledge the goodwill of Japan. It will be remembered that Japan drew up a new tariff last year, which imposed much higher duties than before on foreign imports. The details of this tariff were received with alarm by British manufacturers, and Sir Edward Grey was begged by the Chambers of Commerce to do what he could to get the duties reduced. During the con- sequent negotiations some Tariff Reformers acted as a dis- couraging chorus, assuring us that reductions could not be secured by a Free Trade country which had no " means of retaliation." The event proves that these predictions were quite unjustified. The existing Treaty dates back to 1894, and when it lapses next July Japan will be able for the first time in her history to act as an absolutely free agent. In the 1894 Treaty she had to give specially favourable terms to Great Britain in return for the abandonment of the British rights of extra-territoriality. In July those symbols of her old inferior status will have disappeared.
