§ MR. BAILLIE COCHRANEsaid, he rose to ask the Secretary of State for Fo- 674 reign Affairs what steps have been taken by Her Majesty's Government to protect our commercial interests in Japan. In putting his question he should take the liberty of making a few observations. He knew that questions of the kind failed very frequently to excite any interest in the House; but the circumstances of the case were very important, and that must be his apology for calling attention to the state of our relations with Japan, lion. Gentlemen who had not perused the papers relating to Japan might not be aware that there was at present a great risk of a massacre of the whole of the European inhabitants. But as such appeared to be the case, it was right that the House should know what means the Government had adopted or intended to adopt in order to protect the interests of those persons who, in consequence of the policy of the Government, had been induced to make Japan their place of residence. In 1854 Admiral Stirling, a distinguished officer in the British service, and then commanding in those seas, entered into a convention with the Government of Japan with regard to certain harbours in that country, and obtained by virtue of that convention the privilege of access to the country by our merchants. Very little result was produced by that convention; but it was a striking circumstance, as the first instance in which the Emperor of Japan had abandoned the restrictive policy of the empire since the great massacre of Christians which took place there two centuries ago, that massacre having been followed by laws so stringent that no Japanese, on pain of death, could leave the country, or, having left it, could return to it. Admiral Stirling having entered into that convention, Lord Elgin, in 1858, during the progress of the negotiations which were carried on in China, went to Japan for the purpose of effecting another commercial treaty with that country, and at the same time to present to the Emperor, or the Tycoon of Japan, a yacht, the gift of Her Majesty. Hon. Members who had taken the trouble to read the despatches on the table, must have been struck with the interesting account given of that visit by Lord Elgin; as well as the able and admirable narratives of Mr. Oliphant and Captain Sherard Osborn on the same subject. With all the admiration that he felt for Lord Elgin, and his patriotism in again returning to the East, he regretted to be forced to say, that his Lordship appeared to have fallen into the same error in Ja- 675 pan as we had fallen into with regard to China, and which had led to all those calamities, involving the loss of he did not know what amount of blood and treasure. We had treated the Japanese in the same manner as the Chinese—at one moment as barbarians, in the next demanding from them all that conduct which pertained to the highest civilization. And while we demanded of them the strictest execution of the treaties into which they had entered, we were the first to violate those treaties. For instance, Lord Elgin, in contravention of the convention made by Admiral Stirling in 1854, and in opposition to all the remonstrances of the authorities of Japan, drove through the harbour of Yeddo and anchored in the inner harbour, in defiance of all treaty obligations. In another place, Lord Elgin had lately blamed him for having used harsh language towards him. He could assure the noble Lord, and he trusted that the assurance would reach him in due time, that he felt the greatest admiration for him. The noble Lord had exhibited the greatest self-denial and patriotism in again going out to China as Ambassador. Nothing less than real love of his country could have been his actuating motive. Still, he differed from some of the views which Lord Elgin had carried into effect, and which had been well described by the right hon. Baronet below him (Sir Bulwer Lytton) as the predetermined system which we had pursued in the East. The noble Lord having arrived at Yeddo, concurred with Mr. Oliphant and Captain S. Osboin in bearing testimony, and most touching testimony, to the gentle, generous, amiable, and kindly qualities of the Japanese. It was a country more densely populated than any country in Europe, and yet, in which, owing to the admirable system of legislation there pursued, there were actually no poor. There were cities of enormous population, as Lord Elgin testified, and yet the crowds in the streets, though naturally anxious to see the foreigners in their capital for the first time, were kept back by a packthread stretched from end to end of the streets. Mr. Oliphant had declared that during the whole period they were in Japan nothing occurred to mar the pleasure and the happiness they derived from their visit to the Japanese. Such having been the case, it became a question what had given rise to the sudden change in the relations between the two countries. A gentleman of very excellent ability, and of very great influence in the East, Mr. Al- 676 cock, was appointed to the post of Consul General at Yeddo, and a number of other gentlemen, also of great ability, were made Vice-Consuls. Mr. Alcock was subsequently named Minister Plenipotentiary. But as he (Mr. Cochrane) said before, unhappily we fell into the same error as we had done in China. Two demands were made on the Japanese. One was, that we were to have a Minister resident in Yeddo; the other, that all the Vice-Consuls were to be so situated as to be placed in immediate and convenient relations with the Government of Japan. The whole feelings of the people in eastern countries were opposed to such close intercourse; and the noble Lord the Secretary for Foreign Affairs in one of his despatches had suggested that another pert should be substituted for that on which Mr. Alcock had insisted. From the moment we had put forward those demands, a bitter feeling arose in the minds of the people of Japan, and was shown in a manner that would interest the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for it exhibited very great and wonderful ingenuity in dealing with questions of finance, and the result had been to place us in a position of very great difficulty and embarrassment. One article of the treaty stipulated that the Mexican dollar should be taken by the Japanese in exchange for Japanese silver at an equal weight. At that time the Mexican dollar was equal in weight to three Japanese itzebous. The Japanese, therefore, called in all those coins, and re-coined them so as to render them equal in weight to the Mexican dollar, and the result was, that the English lost two-thirds of the exchange in the value of money. There was unhappily another occurrence of a more serious nature. The export of gold from Japan was prohibited, but if it could be smuggled out of the country it produced an enormous profit, and he regretted to find that English merchants had sent in demands for large amounts of itzebous in order to buy up gold. The Japanese Government then declared it would issue no more silver, and the people even burnt down the Emperor's palace in order that they might be able to say that under the melancholy circumstances the public offices would not be opened. And so the public offices were closed. He should explain that the Government had announced that they would only issue silver in proportion to the demands that were made on them for it. The result was that the European houses began to make absurd demands. Thus one 677 house, Tells by name, asked for 250,000,000 dollars' worth of Japanese silver; the house of William Jones asked for silver to the amount of 1,000,000 dollars. And so in many other cases. This went on so quietly, that the demands became still more absurd; and he held in his hand a list of the houses of "Doodle-do," "Nonsense," "Is it Not?" "Snooks," and others, which had sent in claims for silver to large amounts, making a total of upwards of 355.000,000,000 of dollars. The Conduct of these Europeans had been appropriately described by Mr. Alcock as a positive disgrace to anybody bearing the name of Englishman. Every one he was sure would concur in the sentiments expressed by the noble Lord in his despatch to Mr. Alcock, in which he expressed his confidence that the East India and China Association would view with disapprobation and alarm the way in which the trade with Japan was put in jeopardy by reckless and unscrupulous individuals, and that they would use all their influence to discountenance such conduct. This was language worthy of the Foreign Secretary of this country. But, in the meantime, the trade with that country was, to all appearance in a state of great danger. In his very last despatch Mr. Alcock stated that sinister rumours of a general massacre of the foreigners were put in circulation, whilst the warnings sent to the diplomatic agents against being burnt out looked ominously like a foregone conclusion. Added to this, the frequent recurrence of earthquakes made the post of diplomatic agent in that country by no means an enviable one. He would ask, therefore, what means were about to be taken for the protection of the inhabitants. There was only one other observation he wished to make in connection with this question. We were now engaged in hostilities with China, in which he knew not how much of money would be expended, and the termination of which no man could tell, for the sake of obtaining the right of having a resident Minister in Pekin. But the Russian Government already had an Ambassador residing in Pekin, and he had obtained for his country all the objects for which we were about to expend so much blood and treasure. While, too, we were asking to have a resident at Jeddo and endeavouring to render our relations with the Japanese more intimate, the Japanese breaking through the traditions and customs of their country, had sent an em- 678 bassy to the United States and had given to the United States all the advantages of intercourse which we were seeking to secure. The whole of the papers showed that while this was the case we did not know how to go about the establishment of friendly relations with these people. Mr. Oliphant, in a remarkable passage of his excellent work had said,—
So essential to the maintenance of amicable relations with Japan is it, that we should employ in our intercourse with them a mixture of firmness and forbearance. No less vital was it that our merchants should set an example of rigid adherence to treaty obligations.With these expressions he (Mr. Cochrane) fully agreed; and he trusted that, as he saw the noble Lord had expressed himself in strong language respecting the conduct of Europeans in that country, so in future those who were in office would treat the people as they should be treated, and carry out honourably the conditions of the treaty. He wished to ask whether Lord Elgin had any authority from Her Majesty's Government to proceed, after the Chinese expedition was at an end, to Japan; and also what means Her Majesty's Government had taken to protect the interests of our commercial policy in that country?