ers, governing a people wanting in reason and morality. The
existence of the theocratic element served further to complicate the
machinery of government at Yedo. It may be questioned whether the
ministers of the tycoon were ever heartily in favor of an abandonment of
the policy of exclusivism. It is probable that they yielded to the
demands made upon them, as the least of two evils, a refusal promising
to involve them in wars, which might eventually lead to their
subjugation to one of the least scrupulous of the aggressive powers. In
the inauguration of the system, Japanese statesmanship was exposed to a
severe ordeal. On one hand was the task of pacifying the native
opponents of the fundamental change in polity, and on the other, the
duty of evading, as far as possible, the concessions that had been wrung
from them by the foreigner. Something answering to demagoguism is found
in the Ultra Orient: there was not only the honest opposition of the
patriot, but the factious hostility of the office seeker, against whom
the ministry were called to contend. As a consequence, those who were
responsible for the innovation soon lost their lives or their posts.
Their successors found themselves, as is often the case in political
changes, obliged, when in power, to carry out the general policy which,
when in opposition, they decried. Instead of abrogating the treaties,
they aimed, by evasions and restrictions, to render nugatory many of
their stipulations. The _Japanese Herald_, an English mercantile
newspaper, published in Yokuhama, gives the following list of
concessions made to the Japanese Government:

'The right to trade in gold was given up; the right to exchange
money, weight for weight, was given up; enforcing recovery of debts
clause was given up; Ne-egata was given up; Yedo followed;
non-circulation of dollars in the country unopposed; Kanagawa as a
residence given up; land leases at the usual rate of the country
given up; restrictions on employment of servants allowed without
remonstrance; immunity from local jurisdiction endangered; and,
lastly, Osaka given up on our own minister's representation.'

Still, the gioro, or council of state, failed to appease the factious
opposition, and are charged by Sir Rutherford with not being really
desirous of securing foreigners from injurious treatment even from the
hands of their own officials. A candid observer, on reviewing all the
circum