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COAL.
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OUR RELATIONS WITH JAPAN.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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actions between five and two pounds , were cejasujol when imposed ; but many traders acquiesced in them-r-prayed for them ; and Mr . Gladstone now only profits by their support of a wrong principle to extend registration fees and penny taxes to a in-eat number of transactions . These things are contrary to the general experience of mankind , and now Mmcing-lane brokers and other mercantile classes have to regret and resist the extension to themselves of a svstem they should Jiave stopped at its
comlnencernent . . V i - » r ' # -i ' Independently of all the new license taxes which Mr . Gladstone proposes , this braneh of taxation has been of late continually increased . In 1849 the total ; amount of the revenue yielded by licenses , according to the third Report of the Inland Revenue Board , was £ 1 , 115 , 346 , and in 1858 it was £ 1 , 436 , 826 . In nine years , therefore , the revenue -from licenses , chiefly from the extension of the system , has increased 27 per cent . The system is extremely prevalent in France , where every trade must take out a license , and in Holland , where a man cannot advertise a house to let without paying a stamp duty . Mr . Gladstone follows these bad examples . Unfortunately , he takes counsel , like all Chancellors of the Exchequer and Secretaries of the Treasury , from the Chairmen of Revenue Boards , and they have led him from the broad path of statesmanship into the
tortuous , narrow ways of vulgar tax-gatherers . While he professes to relieve trade he imposes on it heaps of petty restrictions , and rouses against his Budget many- classes of traders in various parts of the kingdom . Free traders , while they can but applaud the Commercial Treaty , and the reduction and abolition of customs duties consequent thereon , have a good right to comvjlain of Mr . Gladstone for having made Free-trade unpopular by connecting it in his Budget with a profligate expenditure and new restrictions on industry . He has inanaged to unite against [ t—which no other person could , perhaps— -all its avowed enemies , and many of its lukewarm friends ; Xike other official s > he cannot get out of old routine . Statesmen , indeed , are singularly uninventive . Mr . Gladstone ' s Budget leans entirely on that of
Sir Robert Peel ' s ; and on the biu-ealicratic ^ -regulations of France . Till mind supersedes routine at the Treasury , till Bastiat is preferred to Pij-ESSLY , we sliall have no just system of taxation . . , ~ -
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WE gentlemen of England who live -at . home at ease are not unused to echo without due reflection the now plaintive bleating * and now indignant howls of our fellow citizens abroad , who discover that , our nation is not always placed by foreigners on the topmost pinnacle of favour and affection . The nomad or transplanted Briton is so entirely the creature of his own predilection , his nation is so peculiarly his own first favourite , that he was once apt to hold as unchristian , or uncivilized , all foreigners who ' demurred , to its universal ascendancy , and as despotic , insolent , or brutal , all who reciprocated' " liis rudeness of self-assertion . But his eyes have , for the last few years , been gradually
opening to the fact—and our continental neighbours operate on our national strabismus \ n fx freely incisive manner- —that he is not monarch of all he may chance to survey ; not the finest of gentlemen in parts , breeding , dress , or taste ; not always the most welcome ; nor even , as of old , always the richest of cus * toniers . There is small doubt that British incivility contributed its full equivalent to the causes c * f the Into Indian rebellion ^ and we are just now pained to learn that our sober , peaceful merchants—pioneers of progress and civilization , as we sometimes fancifully call them— have completed for us the dissolution of those tender borids by which , but six months ago , diplomacy
contrjved to connect us with once impenetrable Japan , The ink of our treaty with , the Tycoon was barely dry , when the noble British merchant set himself , as it were deliberately , to prepare a position for the knowing Jonathan , and the polite Russian , which he may presently attribute to intrigues of theirs , and not to his own rapacity . When the opening of the trade caused an influx of merchants and agents from our settlements in China , tho Japanese beoame aware that the expected commerce would demand a supply of ourrenoy to the strangers . A primitive and perhaps imperfect system was organized to
dollars per firm or individual * our , merchant princes write for fabulous allotments of " itziboes , " appending to their own letters those of pretended partners or clients , many of which covered insults to thei spirit of re > pectable commerce , and particularly to the new connections , out of whom they anticipated a literal harvest of gold . These letters , of which copies will shortly , on the motion of Mr . Gregson , be laid before Parliament , remind us of the share applications of the Railway mania , with an additional tinge of vulgarity , that , however native it might have been in him , the " stag " who was put in the ' 45 could not afford to exhibit . They seem to have been as the last feather on the camel ' s back . The Japanese soon recognised their character .-Perhaps the representative of some friendly nation was at hand to explain it . The issue of currency , the trade , and the treaty were , however , abruptly suspended . With a number of charges against British subjects—only , we fear , too well authenticatedthe papers were sent by Captain "Vyse , our vice-consul at Kanawaga , to Mr . Rutherford Alcock , the consul-general , at Jeddo- The latter officer ' s manifesto in reply , which will also be laid before the House , reflects , as we are at present advised , the highest credit upon its author . Composed after investigation , and clearly after hearing both sides of the stoiy , it seems to us to have been conceived in the spirit and couched in " , the language of a man of honour and feeling , who lias the courage to deal out the gravest censure to the most conspicuous members of a powerful interest , disposed rather to look for his support in their encroachments than for the heavy discouragement they received . . Of the suspended issue of currency and of the application letters , now about to become famous , he wrote as follows : — - " Things had come to such a pass that I am not sure it was not the best thing the Japanese for the moment could do . In presence of the insane demands pressed upon them , often with menace and violence ( for such , beyond doubt is the fact , ) and for sums which not only the applicants could not produce in dollars , but which could not be expressed otherwise than By a long line of figures ; while a lifetime would not suffice to count many of the sums claimed iiv itziboes , it is difficult to say whether tlie indecent levity and bad taste which mark many of the requisitions now under ray eye , or the disregard of all treaty conditions and national interests or repute , equally manifested , are most worthy of reprehension . Some area positive disgrace to any One bearing- the name of an Englishman , or having a character to lose . Not only the sums , in their preposterous amount , are an insult to the Japanese Govern ^ ment to whose officers these requisitions were presented , but they are documents essentially false and dishonest , as purporting 1 to bear the names of individuals having a real existence and entitled to demand facilities for trade ; whereas mere words are used as names , and niade to convey gross and . oftensive comments /' It is but just to the Americans , Russians , Dutch , and , above all , to the poor French—on whom , did the Japanese sternly refuse to kiss and be friends , our countrymen might be apt to throw blame—that we should give the concluding passage of the Consular despatch : — " The cessation of the present stoppage of trade and exqhang-e of monies , is already the subject of strenuous exertion on my part , as well as of my colleagues here . The facilities for the exchange of dollars , lost for the , hour , chioily , I am clear , by jtlie misconduct of those whom it was desired to benefit , were entirely due in the first instance to our united efforts here . But that the Government of the Tycoon should bo singularly indisposed to listen to , or concede anything ' i } o , present remonstrances with the knowledge of the uses to which foreigners have turned tho facilities already obtained , and the mode they adopted to secure , each for himself , larger supplies of itziboes , cannot be a matter of surprise , however regretable .. This , like other difficulties , must bo met as it best jnay ; I hope with success . " It is unnecessary to add that the ' merchants , whose " stagging " letters will soon bo before the public , are disgusted at the remarks of the energetic Consul-general , and talk largely of tho usual " full and satisfactory answer '" ?« to come . " To this we can only say , " Time will show . " ' But whether Mr . Aujook and Captain Vysu lmvo boon wol | or ill informed—whether tho merchants bo injured lambs or baffled wolves , ( lie moral wo incline to- doduon from the nipped bud of our relations with ¦ ¦ Japan is , thai , the profit and pleasure of . being "the most favoured nation" may be won by treaty , but by force of treaty alone can bo pivftci'votl .
effect this object . The issue of •• itziboos" ( worth about tlireo to a dollar ) was authorised nt the outport treasuries in e , xchango for such defined sums in dollars as the Japanese deemed sufficient for tho trading recmirenfients of the Europeans . But the latter , observing that for the , " itsdboes , " that thus coat them one dollar , thoy . could purchase nbout two dollars' worth of gold " Kobangs / jumped at the notion of replacing tho gold currency of the country by one of silver nt a profit of 100 per oont . to thoinselvos . In fVantio thirst after tho mammon of unrighteousness , tho Britons besot the treasuries . In tho foco of n notification , limiting tho supply to ft maximum of five tliousund
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OF all tho natural possessions which distinguish jjntiun jrom other favourod countries , ooul is porhaps tho moat valuable , —« the most valuable for commercial enterprise / and « t tho sumo time the most roiniirJniLlo in g-eojogionl origin and primneval preparation . . Looking- at tho oijonnouw amount of vegetation nooossury lor tno formation of a bud of coal * mul still more for twenty or thirty successive bodn , tho wolMnfuriiiod tftfolog-ist sees in Hoiuntillo vmiou vast ffvowths ofhugq trees of etnuigy forma ; thiclc rows of tallrootia
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Feb . 25 1860 . 1 . y ^/ The i ^ ad ^ - ' and ^^ wrday Analyst . 179
Coal.
COAL .
Our Relations With Japan.
OUR RELATIONS WITH JAPAN .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 25, 1860, page 179, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2335/page/7/
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