In the October number of the _Anglo-Japanese Gazette_ (London) is
published a criticism by Mr. Curtis, editor and proprietor of the _Kobe
Herald_, on 'the ridiculously sweeping assertions,' as he calls it, made
by Mr. Longford in his article. I subjoin herewith a passage which
relates to Mr. Longford's assertion that a 'cordon' is drawn by the
Japanese round the trading centres of Yokohama and Kobe, and that
foreign merchants are suffering under the 'thraldom':--
Well, let me say that no sane, fair-minded man who knows anything
whatever of his subject would ever dream of accusing the whole
Japanese people of a lack of commercial morality. All this talk
about a cordon being drawn round the treaty ports is rubbish. No
such barrier exists, save perhaps in the imagination of a few who
cannot shake off the prejudices and disabilities of the past. The
idea sounds absurd to me, knowing, as I do know, that all the
go-ahead firms have been doing their utmost for some time past to
open up connections in the principal cities. Mr. Longford seems to
think that business is conducted in Japan to-day just as it was
twenty years ago. He apparently does not know that some foreign
houses have trusted clerks or travellers all over the country; that
some foreign business men run up to Osaka and Tokio daily; and that
business journeys to Maidzuru--the great, fortified naval base on
the Sea of Japan--Nagoya Sasebo, Hiroshima, and other important
centres, are matters of everyday experience now.
In the same number of the same journal is also published an important
article from the pen of Sir Tollemache Sinclair, Bart., concerning
Bishop Awdry's letter published in the _Times_. Sir Tollemache strongly
repudiates the accuracy of the bishop's charge of dishonesty and
immorality against the Japanese, which Sir Tollemache calls the bishop's
'utterly erroneous accusations,' basing his contention upon an elaborate
comparison of the statistical facts of Japan and many other nations
relating to several important subjects having bearing on the question.
Among other things, he writes:--
This clerical censor, who endeavours to find a mote in his Japanese
brother's eye, but does not see the beam in his English brother's
eye, cut the ground from under his own feet on the subject of the
imaginary dishonesty of Japanese traders, for he tells us that a
house was built for him by Japanese tradesmen admirably without any
contract, and at a moderate expense; and I should like to know, if
any Englishman did the same thing in England, whether he would not
be unmercifully fleeced. Bishop Awdry says he is a friend of the
Japanese, but they will probably say to him, after reading his
letter, 'Save us from our friends, as to our enemies we will take
care of them ourselves.'