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JTeb. 25 > I860.] The Leader and Saturda...
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OXJB RELATIONS WITH JAPAN. WE gentlemen ...
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COAL. OF all tho natural possession* whi...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Mr. Gladstone's Restrictions On Trade. "...
actions between five and two pounds , were censured when im-TDosed : but many traders acquiesced in them—prayed for them ; and Mr . Gladstone now only profits by their support of a wrong principle to extend registration fees and penny taxes tq a o-reat number of transactions . These things ara contrary to the general experience of mankind , and now Mmcmg-lane brokers and other mercantile classes have to regret and resist theextension to themselves of a system they should have stopped at its
commencement . . . , , ' ~ Independently of all the new license taxes which Mr . Gladstone proposes * this branch of taxation has been of late continually increased . In 1849 the total amount of the revenue yielded . by licenses , according to the third Report of the Inland Revenue Board , was £ 1 , 115 , 346 , and in 1858 it was £ 1 , 436 , 826 . Tn nine years , therefore , the revenue from licenses , chiefly from the extension of the system , has increased 27 per cent . The system is extremely prevalent in Prance , where every trade must takeout a license , and in Holland , where a man cannot advertise a house to let without paying a stamp duty . Mr . Gladstone follows these bad . examples . Unfortunately , he takes counsel , like all Chancellors of the Exchequer and Secretaries of the Treasury , from the Chairmen of Revenue Boards , and they have led him from the broad path of statesmanship into the
tortuous , narrow ways of vulgar tax-gatherers . While he professes to relieve trade he imposes on it heaps of petty restrictions , and rouses against his Budget many classes of traders in various parts of ° the kingdom . Free traders , while they can but applaud the Commercial Treaty , and the reduction and abolition of customs duties consequent thereon , have a good right to complain of Mr , Gladstone for having made Free-trade unpopular by connecting it in his Budget with a profligate expenditure and has d to unite
new restrictions on industry . He manage against it—which no other person could , perhaps- —all its avowed enemies , and many of its lukewarm friends . Like other officials , he cannot get out of old routine . Statesmen , indeed , are singularly liitinveiitiye . Mr . Gladstoxe ' s Budget leans entirely on that of Sir Robert Peel's , and on the bureaucratic regulations of Prance . Till mind supersedes routine at the Treasury ,, till Basttat is preferred to Piiessly , we shall have no just system of taxation . ,
Jteb. 25 > I860.] The Leader And Saturda...
JTeb . 25 > I 860 . ] The Leader and Saturday Analyst . 179
Oxjb Relations With Japan. We Gentlemen ...
OXJB RELATIONS WITH JAPAN . WE gentlemen of England who live at home at ease are not unused to echo without due reflection the now plaintive bleatings and now indignant howls of our fellow citizens abroad , who discover that our nation is not always placed by foreigners on the topmost pinnacle of .. favour and affection . The nomad or transplanted Briton is so entirely the creature of his own predilection , his nation is so peculiarly his own first favourite , that he was once apt to hold as unchristian , or uncivilized , air foreigners who demurred to its universal ascendancy , and as despotic , insolent , or brutal , all who reciprocated his rudeness of self-assertion . But his eyes have , for the last few years , been gradually
opening to the fact—and our continental neighbours operate on our national strabismus in a freely incisive manner—rthat he is not monarch of all he may chance to survey ; not the finest of gentlemen in parts , breeding , dressy or . taste 5 not always the most welcome ; nor even , as of old , always the richest of customers . There is small doubt that British incivility contributed its full equivalent to the causes of the ' late Indian rebellion , and we aie just now pained to learn that our sober , peaoeful merchants—pioneers of progress and civilization , as we sometimes fancifully call them—have completed for us the dissolution of those tender bonds by which , but six months ago , diplomacy
contrived to connect us with once impenetrable Japan . The ink of our treaty with the Tycoon was barely dry , when the noble British merchant set himself , as it wero deliberately , to prepare a position for the knowing Jonathan and the polite Russian , which he may presently attribute to intrigues , of theirs , and not to his own rapacity . When the opening of the trade caused an influx of merchants and agents from our settlements in China , the Japanese become aware that the expected commerce would demand a supply of currenoy to the strangers , A primitive and perhaps imperfect system was organized to effect this object . The issue of " itziboos" ( worth about
thrco to a dollar ) was authorized at tho outport treasuries in exchange for such defined sums -in dollars as the Japanoso deemed sufficient for tho trading , requirements of the Europeans . But tho latter , observing that for tho " itzibpes , " that thus cost them one dollar , they could purchase about two dollars' worth , of gold l ( Kobnnga , " jumped at the notion of replacing tho gold currenoy of the country by ono 6 f silver at a profit of 100 per cent , to themselves . In frantic thirst after the mammon of unrighteousness , tho Britons besot tho treasuries . In tho fnpo of a notification limiting the supply to a mnxiumin . of five thousand
dollars per firm or individual ; our merchant princes write for fabulous allotments of "itziboes , " appending to their own letters those of pretended partners or clients ,, many of which covered insults to the spirit of respectable commerce , and particularly to the new connections , out of" whom they anticipated a literal harvest of gold- These letters , of which copies will shortly , on the motion of Mr . Gregson ,. be laid before Parliament , remind us of the share applications of the Railway mania , with an additional tinge of vulgarity , that , however native it might haye been in him , the " stag " who was . out in the ' 45 could not afford to exhibit . They seem to have been as the last feather on the camel ' s back . The Japanese soon recognised tlieir character . Perhaps the representative of some friendly nation was at hand
to explain it . The issue of currency , the trade , and the treaty were , however , abruptly suspended . With a number of charges against British subjects—only , we fear , too well authenticated ^ - the papers were sent by Captain Vyse , our vice-consul at Kanawaga , to Mr . Rdthekford Alcook , the consul-general at Jeddo . The latter officer ' s manifesto in reply , which will also be laid before the House , reflects , as we are at present advised , the highest credit upon its author . Composed after investigation , and clearly after hearing both sides of the : story / it seems to us to have been conceived in the spirit and couched in the language of a man of honour and feeling , who has the courage to deal out the gravest eensure to the most conspicuous members of a , powerful interest , disposed rather to look for his support in their encroachments than for the heavy discouragement they
received . . ;_ .-Of the suspended issue of currency and of the application letters , now about to become famous , he wrote as follows : — - " Things had come to such a pass that I am not sure it Was not the best thing- the Japanese for the moment could do . In presence of the insane demands pressed upon them , often with menace and violence ( for such beyond doubt is the fact , ) and for sums which not only the applicants could not produce in dollars , but which could not be expressed otherwise than by a long line of figures ; while a lifetime would not suffice to count many of the sums claimed in itziboes , it is difficult to say whether the indecent levity
and bud taste which mark many of the requi s itions now under my eye , or the disregard of all treaty conditions and national interests or repute , equally manifested , are most worthy of reprehension . Soiiie are a positive disgrace to any one bearing the name of . Englishman , oi having- a character to lose . Not only the sums ; in tbeir px-eposterous amount , are an insult to the Japanese Government to whose officers these requisitions were presented , but they are documents essentially false and dishonest , as purporting to bear the names of individuals having a real existence and entitled to demand facilities for trade ; whereas mere words are used as names , and made to convey gi'oss and . offensive comments . "
It is but just to the Americans , Russians , Dutch , and , above all , to the poor French—011 whom , did the Japanese sternly refuse to kiss and be friends , our countrymen might be apt to throw blame—that we should give the concluding passage of the Consular despatch : — " The cessation of the present stoppage of trade and exchange of monies , is already the subject of strenuous exertion on my part , as well as of my colleagues here . Tho facilities for the exchange of dollars , lost for the hour , chiefly , I am clear , by the misconduct of
those whom it was desired to benyfit , were entirely due in the first instance to our united efforts here . But that the Government of the Tycoon should bo singularly indisposed to listen to , or concede anything to , present remonstrances with the knowledge of- the uses to which foreigners have turned the facilities-already , obtained , and tho mode they adopted to secure , each for himself , larger supplies of itziboes , cannot bo a matter of surprise , however regrotiible . This , like other difficulties , must be met as it best may 5 I hope with success . " '
It is unnecessary to add that tho merchants , whoso " stagging letters will soon be before the public , arc disgusted at the remarks of the energetic Consul-general , and talk largely of tho usual " full and satisfactory answor" " to coinc . " To this wo can only say , " Time will . show . " But whether Mr . Alcock and Captain Vyse have boon well or ill informed—whether the merchants bo injured lambs or baffled wolves , the moral we inoljno to deduce from the nipped bud of our relations with Japan is , that tho pro / it and ploasuro of being " the most favoured nation " mny be won by treaty , but by ibrco of treaty alone can bo preserved .
Coal. Of All Tho Natural Possession* Whi...
COAL . OF all tho natural possession * which distinguish Britain from other favoured countries , ooixl is perhaps tho moob valuable ,- ^ - tho most valuable for coinineroiuVentoiiprise , and at the hiihi g timp the most roinarkublo in gooloyicnl origin and primtovul propnrutiiiwi . liopldng at the enormous amount of vogotaMon nooosisairy for t » P formation of u'bud ' of opal , nncl still more for twenty or thirty succosHivo beds , tlio wpll-infuvmod geologist sees in iwiontilio vision vast growths of bugo trees of strange forms ; thick i-ows of tallrooua
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 25, 1860, page 7, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_25021860/page/7/
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