some cases not yet on the same high level of responsibility as other nations. For example, a Japanese merchant will order the same articles from three, four, or five different sources, and after filling the requirements of the market demand, return the balance of unsold goods."

It is stated that the Japanese are very slow in conducting business. What has been your experience?

"I'll tell you something about that, but first I want to say a word about two important individuals in Japanese commerce, the banto and the comprador. The banto is a Japanese clerk who speaks more or less English, on whom the merchant depends as a medium of intercourse with those with whom he deals. Few merchants can speak Japanese so as to be underas to be understood; consequently, the banto in his negotiations has things his own way, and frequently connives with the customers to get a share of the proceeds of any article he is empowered to dispose of. It is a mistake to let the banto know you are anxious to sell an article. He is apt to declare that the purchaser, say, at ten dollars, has backed out of the deal, and that he has found another' purchaser at eight dollars. The banto is a necessary evil.

"The comprador is not essentially a feature of Japanese society. He is a Chinaman who occupies the same position as the banto in foreign houses, but with this important difference, that he is the capitalist of the firm, and simply uses the firm's name for procuring goods from foreigners, he controlling the firm's output in Japan.

"Suppose a merchant can speak Japanese and tries to trade with the natives; without the aid of a banto it is necessary for him to have unlimited patience. It is a mortal offense to speak of trade when you first enter a . Japanese store. After the usual salutations, courteous inquiries are exchanged as to the health of the grandfather and grandmother of the high contracting parties. Thereupon the health of the father and mother of either party is earnestly inquired after, and in time the health of the respective families comes in for a share of consideration. Next, the state of the weather is carefully annotated, and the weather of the immediate past and of remote times, as well as the probable weather of the future, are strictly, methodically considered,

carefully, carefully,

with the probable effect of a particular kind of weather on the price of rice, the staple food of the Orient.

"At this stage of the proceedings a cup of tea is offered the prospective customer, who after drinking some is invited to go and have lunch in a teahouse. Here a wait of two hours has to be made while tiffin is prepared. which will consist of sweets, broiled fish, fish soup, omelette, rice; and, on special occasions, chicken and meat are offered in the order mentioned. After lunch business is mentioned, and after the proposed trade is thoroughly discussed the Japanese will usually wind up the discussion with the phrase Kan-gai-mas-sho,

which literally means 'thinking, doing, probably,' an evasive statement that means 'I am considering your proposition and may

probably accept the same.' Or he may say, Kan-gai-mas-mai, literally, 'thinking, doing, probably not,' which means he won't agree to the deal under any circumstances.

"The matter is thus continued until the next day, and in cases where the amount involved amounts to $2,000 or $3,000, a full fortnight is spent in negotiations.

"It is to avoid this wearisome method of doing business that the party known as the banto lives, moves, and has his existence."

What about the cost of living in Japan?

"In Japan houses are built of wood and finely plastered inside. The wood is unpainted. There is little or no ornamentation. The cost of building ranges from $50 to $150 per tonbo, which is an area of six feet square, that is, thirty-six square feet. Thus, a house of the plainer sort, twenty feet by thirty feet in area, would cost about $900. It will have no fire-place or mantelpiece, no bathroom, and in the line of furniture will be without tables, chairs, beds, and so forth, the Japanese having never known the want of such belongings, for they never possessed them.

"As to domestic servants, a man cook, a veritable chef, who can cook a course dinner with fancy pastries and serve it in a dainty style, ten years ago got 7 yen, or $3.75, per month, and now gets 15 yen, or $7.50, per month. He finds himself out of this salary. A housemaid will receive 71 yen a month, or $3.50, and find herself.

"A suit of clothes, of English cloth, made under the superintendence of a foreigner, costs 30 yen, or $15. If the superintendent is a Chinaman, the suit. will cost 20 yen, and if a Japanese, 15 yen, or $7.50.

"A pair of laced shoes, made from imported stock, eyelets, and so forth, that pays ten to fifteen per cent. duty, and which is made carefully by hand, at that, costs $2, the shoemaker receiving 20 to 25 cents a day as his regular wages.

"The business center in Japan has shifted from Yokohama to Kobe on the south coast of the same island. The senior American consul resides at Kobe. Yokohama is the central place of export and is an established market, but Kobe is the great distributing center, both for imports and exports. Osaka is the Manchester of Japan and Kioto is the art center.

"Sometimes great bargains can be had, especially in antiques. When a temple needs repairs, the priests will sell the curios, tables, and the stone lanterns that mark graves, and so forth. The agent of a New York firm once secured one hundred stone lanterns, very picturesque monoliths, cut out of solid granite, and ranging from four feet six inches to six feet in height, for 50 cents each. They were imported on a sailing vessel, free of duty, as antiques, and sold in New York for $25 each. The agent who secured them was cabled to buy up every stone lantern in sight, in fact, to corner the entire available supply of gravestones in Japan. When the firm heard there were millions of them to

be had, the order was countermanded. "Well, I might talk all day on trading possibilities in Japan, but I will conclude by telling you a couple of jokes that will exhibit the wit of the natives.

"A beggar called at a house in Kobe and said to the lady, 'Pardon me, madam, but last summer I had the pleasure of calling on you, and in your goodness of heart you gave me an old waistcoat belonging to the master, in the pocket of which I found five dollars.'

"Oh, how good of you to mention. it. You have come to give it back to me,' said the lady.

"Oh, no, madam,' said the beggar, 'I have come to ask you for another waistcoat.'"

"A young boy was found by a farmer up a tree in his orchard plucking persimmons. The farmer asked what he was doing there. The boy, with an air of bland simplicity, replied, 'These persimmons fell off the tree, and I'm trying to stick them on again!'"

"THE

But

HE unexpected has happened." Hitherto international sugar conventions appeared always to be variations on the "Love's Labor's Lost" theme. The same unfavorable horoscope was shown of the latest sugar conference in Brussels. want teaches us to pray, and the sugar question had been growing at such an alarming rate from year to year that the sugar manufacturers seemed in danger of being smothered in their own produce. Nevertheless, this time, also, very likely, no positive result would have been attained if a sudden change had not taken place in the at

titude of the most important consumers of sugar in Europe, including England, who, let it be remembered, comes into account as a consumer only and not as a producer. Formerly freetrading England, taking naturally into consideration her own consumption of sugar, had taken the view that if it pleased France, Germany, Austria, and so forth, to pay an export duty on sugar sent to England, she could but congratulate herself on such a policy, for the price of sugar in England was thereby considerably lowered at the expense of the continental exporting countries, while the consumption of

This

that commodity rose and the industries. based on the production of sugar became thereby specially qualified to compete in the world's market. simple point of view in regard to the consumers has since been abandoned by England. The English government seems even to be determined, in the event of no international agreement for doing away with the export duty on sugar being arrived at, to adopt independently compensatory tariffs toward countries paying premiums, as the United States of America have been doing for years already.

One cannot see precisely what has induced England to depart from her fundamental policy on the question of export duty. The consideration of the English cane sugar colonies could hardly have had enough weight, for the English cane sugar colonies are not important enough. I believe that this change in England's policy denotes to a large extent a departure from the principles of free trade, as clearly indicated, besides, by English public opinion for some time past. The heavy financial demands of the South African War, which have already led to the re-introduction of the duty on sugar that had been abolished long ago, are calculated to obtain a hearing for those protectionists in disguise who are advocating the re-introduction of such protective tariffs as would at once assure a revenue for the exchequer. In fact, it is arguments such as these that an English agriculturist holding formerly most radical free trade views, the statistician Sir Robert Griffin, has publicly used in

support of an import duty on breadstuffs. True, he does not want to impose a corn duty of more than one shilling per quarter, but we all know well enough from the history of our corn duties how strongly appetite grows with eating. "You begin quietly with one and many will soon join." The change of attitude of England with regard to the sugar duty affords us a new sign of her deviation from the free trade course. If the South African War should last a few years longer, such deviation might become very considerable. Our German protectionists could learn here some very instructive, although at the same time very expensive, lessons.

England's departure from the radical free trade doctrine has evidently proved salutary to the problem of an international understanding for the abolition of the export duty on sugar, which appeared hardly capable of solution. England has sacrificed the interests of her sugar consumers in order to bring to reason the legislation of the sugar exporting countries, and, for better or for worse, there seems to be a willingness to submit to it. The Brussels convention wants to put an end not only to the apparent but also to the indirect export duties. Even the indirect duties which owe their existence to the artificially raised price of sugar in the markets of Austria and Germany closed to the outside by the high import duty, have been attacked, insomuch as a limit has been imposed to the so-called "excess duty," that is to say, the import duty exceeding the duty on articles of consumption at

home is fixed, for all countries giving their adhesion to the convention, at six francs per 100 kilos. This “excess duty" (uebersoll-a newlycoined word which will rank on terms of equality with the "superhuman" man and the "upper" stage) constitutes really the cardinal point of the whole international issue. The question of affixing the maximum of such an "excess duty" directed against the manipulations in prices by the producers' trusts, is a novelty in international agreements. Such will probably act as a precedent and play its part in future commercial treaties. For what holds good with the trust duties of the sugar syndicate, holds good, also, with the export duties which are actually paid by other trusts, as, for instance, the iron trusts, for the purpose of maintaining ad libitum the prices for export goods in the home market much higher than in the market of the world.

The German sugar trust, which succeeded in raising the price of sugar produced in Germany for the German. consumer by an amount two or three times higher than the government export duty, is now directly hit by the decisions in regard to the "excess duty." Whether it will be possible to continue to get the still high "excess duty" of five marks per 100 kilos, or

not, the future alone can show. If the trust breaks down, then in case of an article like sugar, of which at the present time two-thirds of the whole production is exported from Germany, while one-third only is consumed at home, the home prices must keep on the same level as the world's market prices, apart, of course, from the cost of transport and the tax on consumption. A permanent trust working behind the rampart of protection could artificially raise the "excess duty" to six francs. Should this become a fact, then attempts will be made to further reduce the "excess duty" in Germany, so as to put an end once for all to the sugar trust monster and to thus make it possible to replace the artificial by natural prices.

The Brussels convention agreement, the adoption of which appears now assured, is one of the most interesting international agreements that has ever been concluded in the domain of agriculture. It deals more thoroughlywith the condition of production and of self-taxation of the signatories individually than had hitherto been thought possible. But the folly of the legislators had assumed such proportions and created so much mischief that there was no other way but to give in. This is a case where we can really talk of the blessings of coercion.