owers, whereby Japan agreed to open
seven ports, subsequently known as "treaty ports," to foreign trade in
which ports foreigners were to be permitted to reside and to carry on
their business. Foreigners were at the same time--not by the wish of
the Japanese Government, but as the outcome of the pressure put upon
Japan by the various Powers--granted extra-territorial rights, that is
to say they were exempt from the jurisdiction of the Japanese courts
of law. This being the case foreign courts were constituted in Japan
with jurisdiction over the subjects of the nation which set up the
court. In these courts foreigners sued and were sued, and crimes
committed by and against foreigners were tried. As regards Great
Britain a Supreme Court for China and Japan was constituted whose
headquarters were at Shanghai. There were Consular Courts and a very
involved kind of legal procedure generally established, mostly by
Order in Council, which I need not consider in detail as it is now
effete. There was, moreover, as regards Great Britain at any rate, a
Bar practising in these courts, one member of which, Mr. F. V.
Dickins, is justly remembered not for his forensic but for his
literary efforts in the direction of depicting the inner life of the
Japanese people. Into these foreign courts all the jargon, the quips
and quibbles of English law were imported. These courts were, not
unnaturally, an eyesore to the Japanese people. I may observe in
passing that these extra-territorial courts still exist in China, and
though the Supreme Court of China and Japan has been shorn of that
part of its title which refers to Japan it remains, and is likely for
some time longer to remain, the supreme legal tribunal of the English
residents in the Chinese Empire. But besides extra-territorial courts
there were extra-territorial post-offices. The English, the American,
and, I think, the French Governments had post-offices in Japan which
transacted postal duties of all kinds just as if they had been in
London, New York, and Paris instead of in a foreign country. There may
have been some excuse for this in the early days; but these foreign
post-offices remained until quite recently, depriving Japan of a
portion of her revenue at a time when she had developed a magnificent
postal service of her own. Over and above foreign courts and
post-offices there were actually foreign municipal bodies. A certain
amount of ground at the treaty ports was constituted a