VISIT TO THE GOVERNOR OF JAPAN.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VI, Issue 387, 19 July 1856, Page 5

VISIT TO THE GOVERNOR OF JAPAN.

The following account of the visit of a

commodore and other officers in her Majesty's service, to tbe Governor of Japan, is from an occasional "correspondent :—The sketches in the Illustrated News give a very good idea of the costumes of these' people, as well as of their peculiar mode of wearing their hair. They all have a badge or distinctive mark of some kind on their back— sometimes this assumes the shape of an ornament or mathematical figure, but more generally it is a Japanese character. They wear their swords somewhat in the Turkish style, the handles protruding from the girdle. The highest ranks wear two, a privilege denied to the lower orders, with whom, however, the custom of wearing one sword seems to be almost universal. These swords are cased in lacquer-ware scabbards, and are kept in benutiful order. We had great difficulty to make them unsheath them as they consideied it a breach of etiquette to show a naked sword to a friend ; for this reason their spear bends were carefully covered and their muskets cased in red cloth. Our reception by the Japanese Governor was a counterpart of that at Nagasaki, only on a smaller scale. On the appointed day we landed, and were conducted through several streets, along the sides of which the whole population of the place was crowded, to a building- adjoining the Great Temple. Files of soldiers were drawn up en each side of the entrance, one rank armed with long spears, and the other with muskets carefully covered with red cloth. Behind them were hangings of white and black drapery, which had also been placed on each side of many of the streets through which we had passed. We were introduced into an apartment, neither spacious nor lofty, but which looked into a Japanese garden, rather a curiosity in its way, reminding one, in its quaintly-cut trees and bits of slone, of an old English pleasure garden. Seats were prepared for us ranged along two sides of the room, in front, of them a low form covered with yellow cloth, which I thought, at first, was intended for us to kneel on. On another side of the room were similar seats and forms, on which sit seven of the principal officers of state, two still greater.men sitting apart, near the Governor's chair. We took our seats in solemn silence ; after wailing some time a sort of hissing sound was heard, and iv's Excellency entered. He was not sumptuously attired, and had anything but a patrician air : indeed, his countenance was less intellectual than that of any of his officers. He

made sundry obeisances to the Commodore, and then trotted quickly down the room, 'bobbing to each of us as he passed. This operation he performed two or three times, and then-took his seat. Pipes and tobacco were then introduced, the attendants placing them before each person ; o;j the form described was a lacquered tray containing all the requisites for smoking, including even a vessel with burning charcoal. We all puffed away in profound silence, looking preternaturally solemn, lest laughter should seize us. The senatois opposite to us evidently consideied it no iaughiny matter. At length his Excellency thong hj. fit to open a conversation with the Commodore, which was carried on in this wise. His Excellency beckoned to one of the two kneeling interpreters, who crawled towards him, prostrating himself repeatedly, and received the whispered communication from his Excellency's lips. Crawling a little back from the presence, he repealed it to our interpreter, still in a whisper, and the latter whispered it to the Commodore. It would certainly have been more satisfactory to the rest of the audience to have known what was being *ai i: the conversation was lengthy, and we were growing weary, when a file of attendants entered, bearing trays containing cake, a kind of solid preserve, a peeled orange, and sliced pear, just like turnip, exactly the same things being in each tray, even to the number of slices and to the pattern of the coloured device, which was neatly done in sugar (or chalk) on one of the pieces of cake. These trays, like the last, were presented by the attendants on their knees. We eat reverently of the comestibles'(they were not so bad.) and by and by reverted to the pipes. The solemnity was zt this period interrupted by the arrival of an officer from the ship, with the news of a strange sail having been seen in the offing, a piece of information which had ! the effect of cutting the ceremony short, as we suspected it might be a Russian vessel. What further honours were i:i h-tore for us we, therefore, never knew. A cup of very weak tea, without either milk or sugar, was quickly served, and soon after his Excellency, saluting his guests in the same way as on entering, retired amidst the hisses (for the sound certainly lesembled a hiss.) of his officers. The conclave broke up, and we returned to our ships. They did not however, as at Nagasaki, send after us the things we had eaten from, as a present to each person. I suppose the Government would not stand the expence. — Sydney Empire.

Imperial Expenditure.—The Lavish expenditure of public money, especially in Paris, since the Emperor's accession, has been severely blamed ; and viewed purely in an economic light, we cannot question the justice o'' the condemnation. JNr ot only has he expended vast sums in fetes, and social luxuries, and splendid shows, but lie has borrowed, and compelled the municipal authorities to borrow, many millions in order to carry o.;t rapidly changes, some of which were not wholly improvements, and which, even where improvements, ought to have been spread over many years. He has been spending the capital of the country in order to create employment ; a plan which political necessities may dictate for a brief space, bur. which is in utter defiance of all sound principle, and cannot be permanently continued without entailing certain reaction and wide snread suffering and ruin. The following figures, which have been furnished to us fr(,m various sources, will give sonic ulea buUi oi'lheexpennit.ure and the. debts incurred. \\ c must premise, however, that perfectly accurate author-zed oiik-ial returns of these sums are scarcely to be procured. Those we give are believed to ha correct by persons best placed for ascertaining the truth: In the iirsf'olace, then, when the war broke out

the friends of the Government, and, indeed, nearly every one. agreed and vowed that any attempt to economize out of the current peace expenditure would he too dangerous ; and, therefore, that, the war must, he entirely provided for by loan?. We all know how eagerly and instantaneously the sums demanded were furnished by the people, and how skilfully- a"? an affair of policy, the matter was contrived. The peculiarity of the mode of borrowing was entirely the Emperor's own idea, and affords a very good specimen of the singular sagacity of the man. He offered very liberal terms to the lenders ; but he declined to borrow, as usual, through the great lords of the money market. He knew what vast sums were hoarded in small amounts throughout the length and breadth of France; he knew the difficulty the people had always felt in finding safe and profitable investment for their hoardings, (a difficulty diminished, but not removed, by the increase of railroads;) and he desired at once lo secure to the great body of the people the profit on the loans, and to interest as large a number as possible in the security and permanence of his dynasty. He, therefere, borrowed directly from individuals, and stave a preference to the smallest sums. Subscribers under 500 francs were taken entire ; subscribers for larger amounts only in proportion. We all know the complete success of the operation, and the enormous sums which the novel proposal brought forth from their hiding places. Including the two great loans, the belief is that since the coup-d'etat Louis Napoleon has borrowed 1,700,000,000 francs, including the augmentation of the floating debt, which has increased in 4 years about'2oo,ooo,ooo francs. The same authorities assure us that the expenses incurred by the municipality of Paris, on account of the arrangement with the bakers as to the price cf bread, reach, some say fifty, some say 100,000,000 francs. For the" embellish ing of the city—in pulling down and rebuilding on a grander scale—the Parisian authorities

have had to contract three loans, the first of twenty-five millions, the second of fifty, the third of sixty: making a total of 135,000.000 or £5.400,000 of" our"money. Of this, the alterations |in the Rue de Rivoli and the Boulevard de Strasbourg1 alone cost, it is said, about £2,400,000. The sums borrowed for similar purposes ot improvement, i.e., of embellishment and employment, by the departments and communes', including the sales of the wood of the national domains, are stated to us at 300.0U0.000 francs. These fiicts and figuies are alarming enough : •what is yet mere so is the establishment of the Credit Mobilier, a society for borrowing and lending on various securities, and on an enormous scale, and the designed, though for the present abandoned, plan of interference with the management of the Bank of

France, the only institution in that country which has hitherto survived both popular outbreaks, dynastic chanyes, and administrative interference. The Emperor's excuse for all these encouraged or entorced extravagances is, that at nil hnz.irds. and al any cost. " the people must be employed ;"' that tranquility can he insured at no other or lower price. For a time, and to a certain extent, we may admit the plea a-; \a'u!. His position is critical, and his necessities are

great : —

lies dura et regni no vitas me talia commit Moiiri.

Even now, firmly fixed on the throne as he seems to be, he dreads the Uubuieuce winch may spriny from pufterinir as his most formidable peril ; a;id in order to avert it, we doubt not he will continue to borrow and to spend to any extent. The ten in ••.lions of francs which he has placed a; the disposal of the prtf'ets, to alleviate the distress of the actual scarcity and the co ning winter is an intimation of this. But all is not policy ;

something- of weakness, of vanity, and of short-sighted imprudence lias mingled with and tainted his otherwise defensible proceedings. He has .sometimes overshot his mark. His intense desire to write his name indelibly upon the country, and, most of all, upon the capital, has led him to push forward his alterations with needless and injurious haste. He has begun new changes before old ones were completed ; he has urged the municipality to undertake more than its funds were equal to ;Jie has exceeded the powers of the csuvriers already in Paris, and has caused the influx of many more from the provinces,—an obvious blunder, and a source of future disquietude and peril ; he has pulled down houses faster than purchasers or contractors could be found to undertake the new erections, and has thus caused heavy losses to the city authorities ; and he has", by the same over-rapid proceedings, deprived thousands of workmen of their homes and many audibls murmurs have arisen in consequence. Every improvement dislodges numbers ; and the labouring classes, who lived in the upper stones of the old dwellings, will find no quarters in the more splendid ones which are arising on their ruins. This is a source of great present inconvenience, and has laid the foundation for much future anxiety. — National Revieiu.

Bxkth. —On .Monday, the 14tb instant, at Lyttelton, Mrs. Herbert Alport, »'' a son.