ernment toward Japan, and of all his great predecessors, and from personal conference with the then Secretary of State, Mr. Blaine, we were assured by that great secretary and typical American of the fact that the failure to submit this independent treaty to the United States Senate was neither the fault nor the desire of the administration of President Harrison. We digress for a moment to place an "immortelle" on the grave of the great secretary. The author, at his request, met Mr. Blaine at the famous sea resort of "Bar Harbor," on the New England coast, in 1890, on his return from Japan. We never listened to more eloquent defenses of the then, as now, foreign policy of this country favoring the separate negotiation of treaties recognizing all nations, whether pagan or christian, who by advances in civilization deserved self-government. Years passed by. The seed sown by . our country did not fall in waste places nor on stony ground. The reaping in due time will follow the sowing, and the full fruition, as the dew of heaven, will "bless him that gives and him that receives." The brave and statesman like part which President Cleveland and Mr. Secretary Bayard then bore in behalf of Japan, from 1885 to 1890 will grow brighter with the years. The treaty now ratified and awaiting its time and the similar conventions of England and other Powers, changed in form but not in substance since the Conference of 1886 and 1887, will, in the swiftly coming time (in 1899), usher Japan into the independent family of nations. Impartial history will accord to the United States the inauguration of Japan's real independence. It is no vain boasting. While we pen these lines (in 1898), there reaches our State Department at Washington, and the Japanese Legation, an official proclamation and notification that on the 10th of June, 1898, the Government of Japan proclaimed that the new Japanese statutory tariff with the United States as well as the English, German, French, and Austro-Hungarian Conventional Tariffs, would be put into effect on the 1st of January, 1899. This step marks the inauguration of Japan's new treaty relations with the western Powers. The following is a list of the new duties on some of the principal exports from the United States to Japan: (The "Iron clad" treaties of 1854 and 1858 restricted their imposition of duties on exports from all the countries to 5 per cent. ad valorem.) Iron and steel, manufactured, 10 per cent.; pig, 5 per cent.; grain, of kinds except rice, 5 per cent.; alcohol, 40 per cent.; liquors, 40 per cent.; tobacco, leaf, 35 per cent.; cut, cigars, and cigarettes, 40 per cent.; sugar, raw, 5 per cent.; refined, 20 per cent.; |