JAPANESE PORTS.

Hawke's Bay Weekly Times, Volume 2, Issue 63, 16 March 1868, Page 69

JAPANESE PORTS.

(European Times.) In a report to the Foreign Office, Mr Sydney Locock, secretary of embassy in Japan, gives; the result of inquiries which he had an opportunity of making, as to the condition and trade of Osaka, and Hiogo, on the recent visit of the foreign representatives to those ports, about to be opened to foreign commerce. -In Osaka, a large town with more than 300,000 people, where hitherto foreigners have never, been seen, the visitors found they might go into every quarter without seeing an angry look or hearing an offensive word. The people are more industrious as well as more orderly than in Yeddo. There is a furor for everything foreign, from a pair of topboots to a Geneva watch. Bales of Manchester goods are to be seen in the doorway of wholesale houses, and there are smaller shops devoted almost exclusively to the retail of miscellaneous foreign goods. Mr Locock learned that there were no fewer than 40 native photographers iD the city, obtaining their“ lenses, plates, and chemicals from abroad, and all finding full occupation. Osaka is a great entrepot, whither produce and goods come from the surrounding country for sale, and merchandise is brought by sea. The chief centre for silk weaving appears to be -Kioto, about 30 miles from Osako. Little silk is woven in Osaka itself, but the shops in which silks of every description are sold are on a scale which testifies to the quantity of business that may be carried on within. In the largest there are as many as 400 employed. The older hands may be seen squatted on the floor unfolding goods before the customers, while the younger assistants run noislessly about bringing and removing the articles. Upstairs are private rooms to which the more distinguished or more extravagant customers are taken and attended to by experienced hands, while tea, cakes, and sweatmeats are served. But a man can live in a little shop of ten mats and carry on a thriving trade, as was remarked to Mr Locock by a native who deals in foreign goods and sells trumpery saddles for J 615 a piece. The well-known Uji tea is grown in a district about 25 miles distant. Osaka will prove a focus for the distribution of our merchandise in the interior, where it is at present almost unknown. Unfortunately, Osaka is two or three miles above the mouth of the wide but shallow river on which it is situated, and the roadstead is exposed. But, the neighboring port of Hiogo is also to be opened where ships may find shelter, and vessels of 1000 tons can anchor within a few; yards of the shore. The foreign settlement here, near the eastern extremity of the bay Kobe, will be distant from the foreign settlement of Osaka not much over 20 miles, which is the distance of Yokohama from Yeddo. Coal has been discovered in the hills about four miles from Hiogo; a great part of it is very inferior, but here and there good.specimens of a kind of anthracite are’ brought out, and, and Mr Locock thinks the same, or possibly a better, seam might be found an insuperable obstacle to trade, Large sea junks, coasters, arrive daily, 1967 in number last year; and nearly every bale of English cotton goods in Osaka has been shipped at Nagasaki or Yokohama by the native] agent, and transferred. into a smaller boat off the Osaka bar, the junk going up when : lightened. Carriages by land would be too expensive, except for small and valuable articles.