Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1871.djvu/713

 TRADE AND COMMERCE.

677

torture and private executions, besides numerous cells for solitary confinement. The Japanese police is extremely strict in the main- tenance of order, and the punishment of delinquents. It is also charged with the registration of births, deaths, and marriages.

Trade and Commerce.

The commercial intercourse of Japan is carried on mainly with two countries, the United Kingdom and the United States of Ame- rica ; the former absorbing more than two-thirds of the whole. The extent of trade with the United Kingdom is shown in the sub- joined table, which gives the value of the total exports from Japan to Great Britain and Ireland, and of the total imports of British and Irish produce and manufactures into Japan in" each of the five years 1865 to 1869 :—

Years

Exports from Japan to Great Britain

Imports of

British Home Produce

into Japan

1365 1866 1867 1868 1369

£ 614,743 273,745 317,7.99 188,222 167.308

& 1,576,794 1,444,539 1,545,336

1.112,804 1,442,104

The chief article of exports from Japan to Great Britain in 1869 was tea, of the value of 44,007/. ; while the chief article of imports of British produce in 1869 consisted in cotton manufactures, of the total value of 428,932/.

The trade of Jaj^an with the United Kingdom has been of late years, as will be seen from the preceding table, constantly on the decline. It is generally stated that the diminished intercourse, particularly striking as regards the exports from Japan, was due to the influence of the Daimios, though this is contradicted by the best authorities. ' Those who have most narrowly watched the pro- gress of foreign intercourse with Japan,' wrote the British Consul at Kanagawa, under date of March 1864, ' liave long suspected that much of the antagonism to foreign countries, attributed by the Tycoon to the semi-independent Princes, was fictitious rather than real; that foreign trade as between the two parties was a struggle — on the Tycoon's side to open the door leading to the outer world, of which he was lucky enough, in his representative capacity, ac- cording to the traditions and established institutions of Japan, to possess the key, at the highest price — on the side of the Unimios, to get cheaply through the carrier, and part with as Uttle as possible