THE NEW REVOLUTION IN JAPAN,

Dunstan Times, Issue 443, 14 October 1870, Page 3

THE NEW REVOLUTION IN JAPAN,

The Foreign Office has published a series of despatches, extending over the period of the quel ing of tno late revolution against the Japanese Government, and of the projected introduction into Japan of railways and telegraphs, which hid fair to revolutionise the whole inner life of the empire. The demand for railways came spontaneously from the Japanese. They knew the wants of the country ; they were conscious that it is beyond their own power to supply them ; an , in contrast with the isolated cxc’nsiveness and prejudices of their Celestial neighbour, they invited the foreigner to come in with his capital, his locomotives, and his iron rails, to open up communication between the chief parts of the empire. Travelling does not average more than twenty miles a day. The two capitals of Yedo and Cioto are a fortnight's distance apart, thong connected by the best road in the country. Provinces separated four hundred or live hundred miles are at nearly a , mouth’s instance from each other ; and it i 8

not surprising, therefore, that scarcity and distress should sometimes exist is one part of the country, while there is superabundance in another. Sir Harry Parkes, who has given his counsel to the Mikado’s Government in th s matter, points out the factional the party opposed to the innovation is now overcome, and that the question is fairly un’erstood by its Japanese advocates, who are aide to suggest ways and means for carrying it into effect. One member of the Japanese Government can perceive that not only quick travelling would be secured, hut waste and uncultivated tracts of moor and plain would be utilised, while troops nvght be despatched with celerity to sulx’ue insurrection, which is a favourite pursuit of rival chiefs in that hemisphere. Although he considered it is “ exceedingly desirable” that lines of rail, way should he made from Yedo to Oshiu and Down, lie would be content for a time with a line from Yedo to Yokohama, believing that “ the receipts of the railway will he amply sufficient to indemnify the holders of the land which will be taken up.” An old noble of Kioto, who professes to he “ willing to undergo beheading or boiling alive for his opinions,” petitions the Government that decisive order for the introduction of railways be given," and “ bows his bead a hundred times with profound respect” that this prayer may receive favourable consideration,- beleiviug that “ when the railway has been constructed machinery of all kinds can lie introduced, commencing with appliances for the cultivation of the mulberry-tree, the silk culture, weaving aud for cleaning rice. Thus will a great stimulus be given to production and foreign gold and silver made to flow towards Japan. Telegraphs have already been tried successfully in Japan. The Japanese cling with traditional veneration to the custom of suicide by i isembowelling, whi e one silvery-tongned Japanese described as “ the very shrine of the Japanese national spirit, and the embodiment in practice of devotion and principle;” and to the praccics of wearing two swords 1 y the numerous privileged class called Samurai, which allows the two-sword man who has committed a public offence to carry out his own punishment, ami thus spare himself the disgrace of the law and the inconvenience of a public execution. Last Autumn a (ebate took place in the Japanese Parliament on those questions, but only nine out of two hundred and nine vited against the mode of suicide, while the whole House was opposed to any modification of the social dis. tinction of wearing two swords. A vices from Yeddo state that the first sales of lands to foreigners have been officially notified.