YOUNG JAPAN.*

THERE is much to render remarkable the two handsome volumes now lying before us. Mr. Black claimed, and we believe most deservedly claimed, to be " a sincere well-wisher of Japan ;" yet he has not found it necessary to overlay his plain narrative with alternate fulsome flattery of everything Japanese, and abuse of everything foreign to Japan which Japan happens to contain. Neither is this work the mere record of hasty impressions, hurriedly picked up in a " globe-trotting " expedition, as has been the case with too many of his predecessors in the same field of labour or of pleasure. Our author was actually resident in the far East from 1864, until his death in 1880 brought to a sudden termination the work with which we are at present concerned ; and by far the larger portion of this time was spent in Japan. Living there not as an official, but a private life as a professional literary man, by which occupa- tion he was brought into peculiarly close connection with the Japanese, whilst, as a good scholar of the language, he had means of access to sources of information closed to the mere outsider, it is evident that Mr. Black must have had rare oppor- tunities, as well as unusual inducements, for acquiring sound and trustworthy knowledge of the Japan of those times. These opportunities he has used with obvious diligence, cam, and above all, candour. The result has been the production of a book which, in spite of some defects from a literary point of view, has, nevertheless, a charm of its own, from a certain air of sincerity and reality which pervades it. Mr. Black has tried to tell us what he knows about Japan, and he knows so much, and tells it, on the whole, so pleasantly, that we are little inclined to demur if due subordination is sometimes forgotten, and some fact of but small general interest is displayed by the side of diplomatic encounters of the first magnitude, and with almost as much elaboration. And when, to the above considerations, it is added that the book was printed in Yokohama, "at the private printing-press of the author," and therefore presumably • Young ,Tapan, Yokohama and Yedo: a Narrative of the Settlement and the CUR, from the Signing of the Treaties in 1858 to the Close of the Year 1879. By John R. Black. 2 vole. London Trilbner and Co. Yokohama : Kelly and Co. 1880.

to a large extent by native hands, we think we have said enough to show that it is a work in every way of much interest.

Young Japan adheres strictly to its title. There is here no attempt to fathom the mysteries of early Japanese history, or to supply another of those summaries of Japanese legend and mythology which so many of the later writers on that country have thought it necessary for their reputations to copy from somebody else. But the actual course of events in Yokohama " the settlement," and in Yedo " the city," will scarcely fail to prove as interesting as any speculations into times about which little can remain to be learnt or surmised. And this actual course of events is here given with all the zest of one personally concerned. For the narrative of the first ten years which succeeded the signing of the treaty obtained by Commodore Perry in 1854, the writer is, of course, indebted to predecessors, and most of all, to Sir Rutherford Alcock, whose Capital of the Tycoon remains the best work on those "cradle-days " of Japanese intercourse with the world. The early difficulties and triumphs of the foreign representatives in Japan are well sketched, and not without some sense of the humour which frequently entered into the situation. Thus the tale is well told of the objections made by Japanese officials to any new and unwonted kind of import, and how, in one case, at least, the Dutch Consul was master of the situation. A tiger had been imported for public exhibition, and the authorities objected to

pass the animal out of the custom-house .

" When the Japanese custom-house and the consul seemed to have come to a dead-lock, the question arose what was to be done with the article ? The custom-house wouldn't pass it,—the ship could not take it back. What was to be done with the beautiful beast ? Oh, very well,' said the consul, seeing it was time to make a last stroke for his countryman's merchandise, since you say it is impossible to allow it to be entered and sold, there is nothing left but for the mer- chant to lose his money and let the beast out." Let it loose!' exclaimed the officials, in various tones of horror and dismay, why, it will eat us up !" Really, I don't know—perhaps he is not very hungry, but in any case, I cannot compel the merchant to keep it.' It is superfluous to add that all further interdict was quickly re- moved."

But the difficulties with the officials were rarely solved so.

readily as this, much less those with the Government itself. In fact, the Government of the Tycoon was itself at least as much a sufferer from its own people as an offender against the foreigners. It is a fact clearly brought out by Mr. Black that " the Govern- ment did really use every effort in its power to act faithfully up to the spirit of the treaties, and to protect foreigners from the assaults of lawless desperadoes." But this was no light task.

A people eaten up with national conceit, which centuries of isolation had bred into their very bones, whose fierce prejudices it was impossible for foreigners properly to know, and which they were, therefore, always unconsciously offending, with whose ceremonious forms of abject abasement before their own grandees no free-born foreigner could possibly comply, were necessarily as formidable to their own rulers as to the members of foreign communities settled on their shores. Much allow- ance must be made for the conduct of the Japanese Government in those early days :—

" In conflicts between the opponents of the treaties and the Shogun's supporters, many good men lost their lives, and blood was spilt like water. ICKamon-noiCami was himself assassinated by a band of ronins at the Sakurada gate of the castle, within sight of his own residence, and among the crimes alleged against him was that be was 'frightened by the empty threats of foreign barbarians into concluding treaties.'"

The //mans alluded to were, in fact, at the bottom of most of the troubles, and Mr. Black has wisely given the clearest explanation we are acquainted with of who and what they were. As this is at once an important point, and one not generally understood by English readers and talkers about Japan, we venture on one more extract from this early portion of the work :—

" A ronin is literally an outcast. Every person in Japan was supposed to belong to some daimio. He could be thrust out of the daimio's service or clan, without any further protection from him, should he become a man of bad character; but the Japanese code of honour provided that a chief should avenge insults or molestation offered to one of his kerai. The temper of the Japanese samurai, however, is so easily roused, that had the chiefs actually espoused the cause of every clansman who fancied he had reason to complain, their whole time might be occupied and all their means wasted in quarrelling and fighting with their neighbours. To remedy this evil, a former Prince Satsuma gave to his subjects per- mission to slay any person who insulted them, provided they at once performed the hare-kire [happy despatch-I on themselves, that he and the clan might have no more trouble on their behalf ; and the wisdom of !such a permission is obvious at a glance. It was, how- e7er, allowable for men to resign their allegiance to their proper chief and become ronins, without the right of protection from or casting any responsibility on him. And at the time we have now arrived at in our story, a number of men disengaged themselves from their masters, becoming ronins with the avowed intention of attacking foreigners."

With such a spirit as this abroad, it must be evident that the Japanese Government had a formidable task to pre- serve order and protect foreigners from constant outrage, and the fuller knowledge which time has brought has revealed to us how great are the allowances which ought, in justice, to be made for many and pressing difficulties. But when every allowance is made, the tale remains a dark one, and Mr. Black makes no attempt to gloss it over. The facts connected with the murder of Mr. Richardson are given in full, and they are sad and terrible enough. Even here, how- ever, the author gives the Japanese every chance, by repro- ducing what professes to be the Satsuma account of the affair, from a pamphlet published by Mr. House, wherein, among other absurdities, we are asked to credit a report of rash and foolish words alleged to have been spoken by the unfortunate Richard- son, but which were not heard by the only persons within ear- shot who knew a syllable of English. Our author shows a kindly bias in favour of the Japanese by reproducing this story, but he shows wisdom by hinting, not dubiously, that he does not believe it. He finally says :—" Time can never remove the strong conviction that poor Mr. Richardson, by whomsoever originally attacked, was cruelly despatched, finally, in the most cold-blooded manner ; and that if Shimadzu Saburo did not actually give the original order for the assault, he at least with- held the word which, emanating from him, would have stopped it. It is a sad, sad story, and every sincere well-wisher of Japan, of whom I emphatically am one, must regret it, probably more deeply than any other event that has to be chronicled in this narrative." And speaking thus sensibly and in this sincere and manly tone, the author supplies a most pleasing contrast to the flippancy of the remarks made by Sir Edward Reed on the same subject, in the book recently reviewed in these columns, and should satisfy every impartial reader of the two works as to where to repose his trust. We have always maintained that, in the matter of writing about a people, the strictest im- partiality is the truest friendship. The tone taken by Mr. Black enables him to secure by a single sentence more real justice and real sympathy for the early struggles of the Japanesa nation, than more thorough-going advocates have commanded by pages of indiscriminate and gushing laudation.

But it must not be supposed that we have in this book nothing but a history. On the contrary, it is diversified with many charming sketches of the people and the places, and here and there collected interludes from the experiences of other residents. One of these in particular is capitally told,—an account of a trip across Yedo Bay to a village beyond treaty limits, made in the very early days, when such an adventure was indeed adventurous, and a considerable risk was run. A little coolness, a little discretion,. and a little champagne secured a hospitable reception for the adventurers, and for us a delight- ful sketch. And no less pleasing are the pictures given of some incidents of personal intercourse between the author and cer- tain of the Japanese,—a feature much wanting in most other works on Japan, owing to the extreme difficulty of establishing such intercourse on a familiar footing.

It is a noticeable fact, which we must not omit to mention, that whilst the policy of the English Ministers in Japan, and

that of Sir Harry Parkes in particular, has of -late been criti- cized with about equal zeal and ignorance, Mr. Black, one of the few who had knowledge enough to have made his criticism of such a man formidable, has nothing for him but the most cordial praise. Most important in this connection is his ac- count of the penetration and firmness with which the British Minister detected and supported the side on which the right lay, throughout the obscure and confused times of the struggle for the restoration of real power to the Mikado. " He gave the new Government all the moral .support in his power. Rigid in demanding what he conceived to be right, he asked no more. His advice, which was frequently sought, was always impartially given. And his judicious suggestions were largely acted upon."

Nor must we forget the noble action of the Japanese Govern- ment with regard to a Peruvian coolie ship, the Maria Luz,' from which the Japanese authorities released the coolies, and sent them back to China, on discovering that the coolie system was a mere veil for what was really a slave-trade. It was a formidable thing to do, and war was actually threatened, but avoided by the arbitration of the Emperor of Russia. Such action, so prompt, so bold, and so humane, reflects deserved honour on all concerned, and Mr. Black justly remarks that Japan thus won a world-wide sympathy.

On the whole, we can cordially recommend this book. We have hinted at its possessing literary faults, but those must read the book who want to know what they are; and then, if they are really interested in Japan, we believe they will have ceased to care.