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490 that it was no easy matter to get England, France, Holland, and the rest to consent to any common basis on which a conference might be opened. Some held to the low import dues which favoured the operations of their merchants. Others—all perhaps—hesitated to place their nationals at the mercy of Japanese judges. Thus the status quo was preserved for years. One country, the United States, which had always been Japan's kindest patron, did, no doubt, show signs of breaking away from the league of the Western powers, and made a separate treaty in 1876, whereby all the chief points in dispute were surrendered. This treaty, however, contained one clause which invalidated all the rest,—a clause to the effect that the treaty was not to go into force until all the other powers should have concluded treaties of a similar purport. America's good-will on this occasion, though doubtless genuine, proved therefore to be of the Platonic order; and "the Bingham treaty," as it was called from the name of the minister who negotiated it, was consigned to the limbo of a pigeon-hole.

True, some declare that the paralysing little clause in this treaty was inserted, not by the American negotiator, but by the Japanese Government itself! Impossible, it will be said. Improbable, assuredly. Still, when the reader calls to mind what has been mentioned concerning Prince Iwakura's alleged tergiversations, he will be led to hesitate before rejecting the possibility of such a thing. It will be seen immediately below that on two occasions more recent the Japanese negotiators did actually shift their basis at the eleventh hour; and if private individuals often tremble to see their heart's desire on the eve of accomplishment, and would give worlds to recall it at the last moment, why should not the same be sometimes true of governments?

Meanwhile Japan's progress in Europeanisation had been such, above all her honest eagerness to reform her laws and legal procedure had been made so clearly manifest, that it began to be acknowledged on all sides, in diplomatic circles and in the