less than pathological. Among the nonmilitary methods which he especially recommends are those of reprisals (in the forms of embargo and pacific blockade) and the economic boycott.

More than one-third (or about one hundred pages) of this important volume consists of an appendix which includes various projects for world organization or the future basis of international law, such as the Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Nations adopted by the American Institute of International Law, the American Project for a League of Peace, the French Project of a League of the Rights of Man, etc., etc.

AMOS S. HERSHEY.

Early Diplomatic Relations between the United States and Japan: 18531865. By Payson Jackson Treat, Ph.D. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press. 1917. pp. viii, 459.

This volume contains the Albert Shaw Lectures on Diplomatic History at Johns Hopkins University for the year 1917. Dr. Treat has selected one of the most interesting periods in the history of American relations with Japan and has treated it in a very painstaking and withal attractive manner, with the result that we are given in a little more than four hundred pages an accurate account of the work of Commodore Perry and Townsend Harris in opening the Empire of Japan to western intercourse, and a clear insight into the political condition of Japan during the eventful years reviewed. The author shows a sympathetic understanding of the difficult position in which the Shogunate was placed, harassed as that government was by the intrigues of jealous daimios at home and pressed by the unyielding demands of American and European Powers.

It is just fifty years since the Shogunate was abolished and the Mikado restored to actual control of the empire. It was in November, 1867, that the Shogun announced his resignation, and in January, 1868, that his enemies succeeded in having the office of Shogun abolished and a provisional government inaugurated. This movement led to civil war, but the struggle was brief and within a few months the direct rule of the Emperor was reëstablished.

It would be a serious mistake, however, to assume, as some hasty writers appear to have done, that the Shogun was disloyal to the Em

peror or that he usurped the authority of the Emperor in negotiating the treaties with Perry and Harris.

The Shogunate had existed since 1192 A.D. and had been for nearly seven hundred years in full control of the administration of the government. As Dr. Treat says: "The authority of the Mikado was nominal, though present. He invested the Shogun with his office, but the Shogun was not called upon to secure approval for his actions" (p. 5). The Shogun, therefore, was fully empowered to negotiate the treaties and was under no obligation to obtain the imperial approval before signing them. It is proof of its decline and weakness that the negotiation of the treaty with Perry was referred to the Mikado.

Dr. Treat points out that it was the Shogun, Iemitsu, who, without imperial approval, took "the momentous decision to close the country" (p. 5) to foreign intercourse. It was, therefore, quite within the power of his successor to rescind that action and bring the empire once more into relations with the western world. Gubbins appears to be entirely correct in believing that the first weakening of the Tokugawa authority was seen in the Shogun's referring Perry's request to Kyoto instead of taking the decision himself. Had he taken the latter course, Gubbins says, "the nation, it is generally held, would have accepted the decision without a murmur, the Shogun's authority being ample to meet the case." "This decision," he adds, "must have been in favour of the opening of the country for the simple reason that Japan was not prepared for war."2

This relegation of the real Emperor to seclusion and the exercise of his authority by a minister, the Shogun, or, as Perry knew him, the Tycoon, was simply an extreme development of the Chinese practice, or perhaps one should say an oriental practice, which was and is seen all over Asia. It is not merely the Emperor or chief ruler who is thus left to the enjoyment of an empty honor, devoid of all real power, but even subordinate officers are often in like manner but figureheads in their respective offices, the authority being exercised by secretaries and clerks. Even in western countries, however, we are not wholly unaccustomed to the figurehead monarch who reigns but does not rule.

Dr. Treat perhaps stresses too much the signing of the treaty of 1858 before the sanction of the Emperor had been obtained. Dr.

1 The Progress of Japan, by J. H. Gubbins, C.M.G. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1911, p. 90.

2 Ibid., p. 91.

Treat says truly that in doing so the Regent, Lord Ii, did so "out of no disrespect for the Throne." The fact is that in signing the treaty before obtaining the sanction of the Mikado, the Shogunate was merely following an age-old custom. As a mere formality the Shogun was accustomed to report such actions to Kyoto, but was not accustomed to seek approval before action. Had it not been for the precedent established in a moment of weakness in 1853 by the reference to Kyoto of the requests of Perry, no attempt would have been made to compel the Shogun to obtain the sanction of the Throne before signature of the treaty of 1858 and approval after signature would have come without discussion.

As it was, the enemies of the Shogun, even before Perry's arrival, had been scheming for his overthrow and were alert to take advantage of any incident that would enable them to weaken his authority. The chapter in which this subject is discussed, Chapter IV, is devoted to a consideration of "the effect upon the foreign policy of the Shogunate of the political situation within the empire." This, of course, is the natural statement of the question as seen by the American or European, but to the Japanese it would appear rather as the effect of the foreign policy of the Shogunate upon the political situation within the empire. Viewed from this angle, it is seen at once that the contending parties were much less interested in the treatment of the foreigner than in defeating one another. The court at Kyoto was not anti-foreign and many of the daimios arrayed on the side of the court, although nominally opposing the Shogunate's foreign policy, did so merely because they desired to embarrass him and were really not opposed to the opening of the country to foreign intercourse. This was true. of the Prince of Choshiu, whose forts in Shimenoseki Straits fired upon the U.S.S. Wyoming and other foreign vessels in the summer of 1863. He protested afterwards to the British Admiral that he was but carrying out imperial orders; that originally he had had no objection himself to foreign intercourse. Later he expressed a desire for more intimate relations (pp. 343 and 359). The Satsuma Clan, too, was decidedly in favor of opening the country, yet it united with Choshiu to overthrow the Shogun. On the other hand, the most bitter opposition to foreign intercourse came from the family of the Shogun himself, i.e. from the Prince of Mito, a member of the Tokugawa Clan. Domestic politics, in other words, entirely overshadowed questions of foreign relations. These facts make it easy to understand how it was

that after the Shogunate had been defeated, the victors became at once the advocates of foreign intercourse.

The act of the Shogunate in signing the treaty of 1858 before obtaining the sanction of the Throne had importance only because of its bearing upon the domestic situation. Both sides were intriguing for possession of the Mikado, and when a little later the Shogun triumphed for a brief time over his enemies by obtaining the favor of the Emperor, he nominally accepted the anti-foreign decrees, but in reality he ignored them and seized the opportunity to punish with imprisonment and decapitation many of the leaders of the opposition, that is to say, the very men who were nominally anti-foreign but in reality antiShogun.

Dr. Treat notes the injustice to Japan done by the early commercial treaties in depriving Japan of tariff autonomy, and particularly in requiring the free export of gold and silver coins. Japan had adopted a mistaken ratio between the two metals which enabled the unscrupulous foreigner to buy with foreign silver coins enormous quantities of gold at much less than their real value. The results were so serious that in 1859 the government ordered the sale of gold coins to foreigners to cease. Although each person had been limited to five thousand dollars worth in any one day, demands were made for enormous quantities. One person asked for four million dollars worth, another for two hundred fifty millions at one time.

Japan's bitter experience under these treaties, which deprived her until 1894 of control of her own tariff, ought to lead that government to sympathize with the present efforts of China to obtain a revision of the treaty tariff in force in that country which, while nominally 5 per cent ad valorem, in fact averages perhaps not more than 3 per cent. It is difficult to realize that in less than half a century feudal Japan was transformed into a great modern Power, a constitutional monarchy, a military and naval Power of the first rank, an industrial state whose forges and factories rival those of the west, and a commercial Power whose merchant fleets are found in all the seven seas.

The visit of Perry was only one of the causes contributing to this change. It did not cause the overthrow of the Shogunate, but it hastened it, and the fall of the Shogunate led logically to the abolition of feudalism.

Dr. Treat does not deal specifically with this topic, for his narrative stops with the imperial sanction in 1865 of the commercial treaties

of 1858, and feudalism was not abolished until 1871. The latter date, however, more properly marks the transition from the feudal to the modern period.

Dr. Treat deserves our thanks for a valuable contribution to the history of the period during which this transformation occurred. The volume is well indexed and an appendix contains a very complete bibliography. The typography and the binding are a credit to the publishers. E. T. WILLIAMS.

Los Estados Unidos de América y las Repúblicas hispanoamericanas de 1810 a 1830. By Francisco José Urrutia. [Biblioteca de Historia Nacional, volumen XX.] Bogotá: Imprenta Nacional. 1917. pp. xii, 423.

Dr. Urrutia is a member of the National Academy of History and of the American Institute of International Law, and author of several other books of value to students of international law and diplomatic history. Between the title of the volume as given above and the name of the series at the top of the title page are the words Páginas de Historia Diplomática. So far as the period between 1810 and 1822 is concerned, the title given above, the most nearly descriptive of the three, is fairly accurate. But after 1822 the volume is devoted almost wholly to Great Colombia. There is comparatively little other than Colombian material later than 1817. The editor states that through the special favor of Secretary Lansing he had been permitted to use the manuscripts in the Department of State in Washington. In addition to the documents copied there, he says he has taken others from the diplomatic archives of Colombia, and to complete the documentation of the first part he adds that he has copied a few from the printed collections of Cadena and O'Leary. For his illuminating historical introductions he has drawn from several secondary authorities, some in English and some in Spanish, quoting frequently and extensively, and citing his authorities.

The first sheaf of documents, seven in number, illustrates the Venezuelan mission to the United States in 1811 and 1812 intrusted to Juan Vicente Bolivar, Orea, and Revenga. The second, of three documents, deals with contemporaneous New Granadan missions. The next