THE JAPANESE TREATY PORTS 1868- 1899: A STUDY THE FOREIGN SETTLEMENTS by JAMES EDWARD HOARE School of Oriental and African Studies A thesis presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the University of London December 1970 ProQuest Number: 11010486 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 11010486 Published by ProQuest LLC(2018). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 Abstract The opening of Japan to foreign residence brought not only the same system of treaty ports and foreign settlements as had developed in China to solve the problem of the meeting of two very different cultures, but also led to the same people who had known the system in China operating it or living under it in Japan* The events of 1859— 1869 gave foreigners fixed ideas about the Japanese which subsequent changes could do little to alter* The foreign settlers quickly abandoned any ideas they may have had about making close contact with the Japanese* They preferred to recreate as near as possible the life they had lived in Europe or America. The main prop of this was extrater­ ritoriality, which shielded them from Japanese laws. It was not a very efficient system and increasingly it worked against foreigners* own interests. Yet they demanded its continued existence, although the Japanese had made it clear by 1880 that they wished to see a complete end to it, and by 1886 the foreign powers were ready to agree to this. Extraterritoriality bedevilled foreign attempts to run their own municipal affairs, and except at Kobe, all such attempts proved failures. It also led to a loss of interest in the expansion of trade, for the Japanese made it clear that the price for this was the end of extraterritoriality. The foreign-language press was, apart from trade, the one major foreign contributor to Japan*s modernisation, but it provided a poor service to foreign settlers. It was far too dependent on its subscribers ever to be really independent. The treaty ports themselves came to an end in 1899> but the foreign settlement ethos lingered on until the 1923 earthquake and the second world war finally killed it. Contents Pa^es Preface. 5 - 7 I. The opening of Japan and the first 8 - 39 years of the treaty ports. II. Life in the Foreign Settlements, 40 - 105 1868-1899. III. Extraterritoriality in Japan, 1858-1869. 106 - 136 IV. Extraterritoriality in Japan, 1869—1899. 137 - 225 V. Municipal Affairs. 226 - 271 VI. Treaty Port Merchants and Trade. 272 - 300 VII. The Foreign Press. 301 - 346 Postscript. 343 - 346 Appendix A. Japan’s Foreign Trade, 1859-1900. 347 Appendix B. The Foreign Language Press 348 - 363 of Japan, 1861-1914. Bibliography. 364 - 392 Preface Although for forty years, from 1859 to 1899* foreigners in Japan were largely confined to "foreign settlements" at a number of treaty ports, no account of those settlements has ever appeared. It is true that the voluminous Japanese histories of the ports concerned normally devote some space to a consideration of the foreign settlements, but such accounts tend to limit themselves to a glance at foreign trade and perhaps some details of administrative arrange­ ments made to cope with foreign needs. The foreign settle­ ments usually receive attention in Western and Japanese studies of Japan’s economic development, but here again they tend to be incidental to the main theme. Otherwise the settlements, if mentioned at all in works on Japan or the Far East, tend to be dismissed in a brief mention, usually with some reference to the China Coast ports. This study attempts to trace the pattern of life in these communities. Although it is principally concerned with the years 1868 to 1899* it first of all examines the background against which the ports were opened and the settlements were established, since these early years played such an important part in fixing ideas in foreign resident^* minds. The other topics selected are obvious, but the treatment of them is not. Particular emphasis is paid to extraterritoriality and its operation in Japan. It was extraterritoriality above all which allowed the b foreign settlements to operate* The majority of advantages and not a few of the disadvantages of being a foreign resident in Japan during the latter half of the nineteenth century were the result of extraterritoriality* And while it was true that this affected all foreign residents in Japan, whether or not they lived in the foreign settlements, it was chiefly those who did live in the settlements who were most concerned* They were, first of all, .thec'-. majority of foreigners in Japan. Secondly, those who lived in the interior did so only as employees of the Japanese. Although such a person might be technically still under the legal control of his Consul at the nearest treaty port, for all practical purposes he was under Japanese jurisdiction. Ultimately he too was protected by extraterritoriality, but it was never of much importance to him. Both the foreigners employed by the government and those employed privately — the latter being mainly missionaries - saw extraterritoriality as being a barrier to progress rather than a vital necessity. But the treaty port man saw it as the basis of his special status and demanded that it be continued at all costs. The foreign settlements* role in trade is not here dealt with at any great length. Japan’s development as a trading nation has received sufficient attention as part of the study of her economic growth. The role of the 7 foreign settlements in that development has also been adequately dealt with. But contrary to general belief, the foreign settlements were not primarily concerned with trade, or at least, with the expansion of trade. By the middle l880fs, other considerations were more important than trading prospects in deciding whether to seek a further expansion of trade by pressing for the opening of the interior to foreign enterprise. The present study tries to show what foreigners in Japan felt about Japan1s trade and tries to explain why the foreign merchants of the treaty ports lost the exclusive control they once had over the foreign trade of Japan. Many aspects of Japan’s foreign affairs in the Meiji period still await examination. It is hoped that the present study will go some way towards explaining the importance of treaty revision throughout the period. Bor it was the existence of the foreign settlements and the attitudes of their residents which led the Japanese to the early demand for the ending of the old treaties. At the same time, the foreign settlements in Japan, as in China and Korea, can be seen as part of the panorama of nineteenth century imperialism. Treaty port residents might be imperialists without anybody to rule over, but they were nevertheless imperialists for all that. 8 Chapter One The opening of Japan and the first years of the treaty ports. After a brief period of contact with Europe in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Japan rejected the outside world# A series of edicts forbade Westerners to visit Japan and forbade Japanese from going abroad or building ships capable of making long voyages. This self-imposed seclusion was to last until 1853* when it was rudely broken by the advent of Commodore Perry and his squadron# For some two hundred years, then, Japan remained outside the growing European dominated world culture. Japan was not completely cut off from the world beyond her shores. The Dutch and the Chinese had been granted an exemption from the prohibition on outside contacts; they were both allowed to continue very restricted trade at Nagasaki. This trade was probably not very profitable, except to those immediately engaged in it, and the Japanese allowed it to continue in order that they might have a window on the outside world. From the little Dutch colony which the Japanese kept isolated on the island of Deshima in Nagasaki harbour, information about the inventions and affairs of the outside world filtered into Japan, to be analysed and absorbed by those who called 1 themselves ’’Dutch scholars’1. 1 For the story from both sides, see Boxer, C.R.. Jan Compagnie in japan, 1600-1800# (The Hague, 1938), and Keene, D., The Japanese discovery of Europe, (London, 1952). Though the information they received sometimes became a little garbled in the telling, the Japanese were well aware of the European powers* expansion into Asia. Not only did they have the information passed to them by their contacts in Nagasaki, but, particularly, from the beginning of the nineteenth century, they were made uncomfortably aware of the increasing nearness of the Western powers. Prom 1790 onwards, a steady stream of ships, mainly of British, Russian and American origin, began to enter Japanese waters. Some­ times they came peaceably, but not always. Well might Mito 1 Rekke warn: ’'Guardians of Hakodate Beware I This is not the kind of an age When only waves wash ashore.” The Bakufu, the effective central government of Japan, was not sure how to deal with these visitors. It was aware of the strength of the West, but at the same time, it had no desire to re-open the country.