JAPANESE INGENUITY.

Kumara Times, Issue 523, 31 May 1878, Page 2

JAPANESE INGENUITY.

A correspondent writing from Tokio on the prospects of a trade with that country in American manufactures says : " During and after the Philadelphia Exposition the Japanese Commission bou-ht a large quantity of agricultural implements, and so anxious were the dealers to open a trade with Japan tint they sold these sample articles at less than wholesale figures. In due course of time the things arrived here, and the sharp eyed°meohanics went to work to copy them. They are now mnking oast.iron ploughs just as we can make them in America, and at les< price than it would cost to -deliver them heie. Harrows, cultivators, seed-sow.-rs and similar simple implements th-y sire copying to perfection ; th'iy buy a tew now and then'in America, bub it will be solely chit they may use them as m xlels. With reapers, mowers and similar intricate constructions they have no t succeeded as )et, but are confident of doing so in time, and, in any event, the character of the country and its and the low price of labour, will prevent a .demand fur this sort of labour-saving machinery. Hoes, shovels and cither baud-tools they have not attempted tbany gre.a*. extent, find thus frr they have not been aMe to g*t c tho peculiar strength :i!ul u>x ; i)ilit,y which is the boast of the Ameii.-au maker. Tiie Japanese labourer is a connervative being, iHid will not readily su>render the implements of his ancestors. Doubtless he will do s<. in time, and whe . a home made anicle <>f equal excellence does not come to light. There aie no patent laws in. Japan, and the invenior has no ' protection if the native mechanics tau succeed in copying what he. has created. " A young American cm me. here recently with fond hopes (f making a fortune out of a refrigerator, the invention of an enterprising countryman But he found in the first place that the Japanese ma le no U3e of the articles he brought; and, second, they could c py them."