render an ultimate appeal to the sword and the evils of conquest more inevitable, there can be little hope of material change or improvement until all the maritime Powers of the West can see their interest, or, moved by a higher motive, shall seek to regulate their intercourse with Eastern nations on some common basis.

These are the first, the most obvious, and perhaps the most important of any steps in the power of foreign governments to take, to promote the development of commerce, and secure the maintenance of friendly relations with Japan. For the rest, temper, tact, and judgment in the ministers and diplomatic agents in Yeddo, with time and patience, must be chiefly relied on not only to overcome obstacles, but for future progress. Though strongly opposed to a resort to force for the fulfilment of conditions of treaties, yet it does seem to us essential, with all these Eastern States, to let them clearly understand that force will not be wanting if all other means fail to obtain respect for treaties, in letter and spirit. A menace of war should not be lightly resorted to as an argument, never, indeed, except in the last extremity, and in the utter hopelessness of obtaining attention to the most reasonable demands by anything short of such an alternative. It is only to be resorted to as the means of averting the worst extremity. So much in these countries must depend absolutely upon the judgment, the discretion, and the knowledge of the diplomatic agents employed on such missions, that we may well tremble to think what extent of mischief may at any time result from a deficiency in these qualities in a single agent of any Treaty Power. It is even hard to say whether pusillanimity and weakness or blustering and violence are more fatal to a good issue in all dealings with Orientals; but it is very certain that success will attend no foreign representative whose course is marked by any of these characters. Discretion and judgment are more needed than great talents. A time may come, in spite of every effort to prevent it, when there is no alternative but to submit to the stoppage of all intercourse and commercial relations, by the acts of an Asiatic government, or a resort to strong measures to enforce the observance of treaty stipulations vital to our interests; but in all such cases we think the onus lies upon the foreign Powers to establish clearly that every means which knowledge of the people and diplomatic tact could devise had been previously exhausted in vain, and only abandoned when all hope of any possible good result was lost. May this period never arrive with Japan; for in no country in the East would the calamity fall more heavily, or upon a more unoffending and interesting people, for the faults of their rulers; and no where in the East, we believe,

would the struggle be more protracted, the destruction of life greater, or the final issue more uncertain. But the attainment of all we most desire, and the avoidance of the direst of these evils, we are firmly persuaded must depend upon the conduct of foreigners themselves; upon the conduct of merchants, and those who seek in Japan a field for profitable enterprise, and upon the conduct and policy of those who are charged by the several Treaty Powers with the responsible duty of protecting those interests, of vindicating the character of European civilisation, no less than their several nationalities, and, finally, of asserting in the only way in which the assertion can avail, the practical superiority of Christianity over paganism. What is true of our position in China equally applies to Japan. The reverses sustained by our squadron in 1859 before the Taku forts were immediately followed by an increase of arrogance and stiffness on the part of the Japanese nobles; and we doubt not that the signal, speedy, and triumphant manner in which those reverses have now been avenged, by the arrival of two powerful European armies on the coast, the march to Pekin, and the conclusion of another Treaty of Peace, are events which will produce a due effect on the sagacious rulers of Japan.

As to what has been actually achieved in the way of commerce during the first year after the opening of the ports, we can only speak very briefly of our prospects. These last must evidently depend upon a state of peace and friendly intercourse; and, therefore, in no small degree upon the political relations maintained, not alone by Great Britain, but by Western Powers generally. Assuming the possibility, however, of this, with such continued efforts as have hitherto been made by the Foreign Representatives at Yeddo, the future is full of promise. It has been clearly established, that Japan can furnish both tea and silk, of such quality and price as will bring both into the foreign market advantageously, even in competition with the products of China. More than 18,000 chests of a superior tea were exported in the first few months, and 2000 bales of silk. The former only requires to be better fired to come into full operation, and many of the houses are bringing over Chinese, to teach and superintend the process. The silk is finer in quality, and better reeled, than that of China, but it must be better sorted. Some, when thus sorted, has produced four shillings a pound in the English market more than the best Chinese. There is still some uncertainty about the quantity of both these articles readily attainable; but considering that they are of as universal consumption amidst the 35,000,000 of Japanese as

5

in China, the probability is, that with a steady demand sufficient will be procurable to form the staples of a large and profitable trade. There are, besides these and metals (lead and copper), many articles available for the foreign market, such as vegetable oils (sold at a large profit in California), vegetable wax, camphor, sulphur, &c. This is without reference to a very large and fully established trade with China and the Straits, chiefly in foreign ships, consisting of an infinite variety of dried edibles, medicines and flour, shipped in large quantities to Hong Kong. More than a million sterling has thus been turned, in the first year, most profitably, by foreigners. Large foreign settlements are springing up at Kanagawa (the port of Yeddo) and Nagasaki. As to the imports, if little actually has been effected yet, there are not wanting indications that ere long our goods may find a market. Camlets, shirtings, drills, printed cottons, ginghams, flannels, canvass and window glass, especially the last two, are reported to be in demand at Hakodadi; and the British Minister very lately, availing himself of the opportunity of a Portuguese treaty, has succeeded in obtaining the admission of linen at per cent. duty, the same as cotton. It had been omitted in Lord Elgin's treaty, as in the American, and was therefore, as an unenumerated article, under a prohibitive duty of 20 per cent. Notwithstanding the obstacles and drawbacks encountered in such full measure during the whole of the first year after the opening of the ports-difficulties with the currency-with monopolies and Japanese official interference-difficulties of foreign location for places of business and residence-difficulties from indiscretions of foreigners themselves, and considerable insecurity both to life and property-a very formidable list, which it must have required courage and constancy of purpose, both in merchants and ministers, to struggle successfully with-notwithstanding, we say, all these and more, the foundations of a great and profitable trade have already been laid; and nothing seems wanting to complete the good work so well begun but a continuance of sound discretion and firmness in all our intercourse. If the foreign representatives, diplomatic and consular, can be counted upon for the steady exercise of these qualities, backed by such reasonable conduct and intelligent co-operation from the merchants as their own interest must dictate, we need despair of nothing. Hitherto both have had everything to struggle against that an adverse current of circumstances could create. repulse at the Peiho, news of which reached Japan a few days after the exchange of the ratifications of the British Treaty, was of evil influence. For a whole year subsequent preparations for coming operations too entirely engaged the British admiral

The

to allow more than the passing visit of a vessel of war to the ports of Japan. The other Treaty Powers still more seldom gave any tangible sign of interest. The diplomatic agents must have seemed abandoned by their own governments, and left, in the most distant and isolated region of the far East, to maintain an arduous conflict, if not a losing cause. They seem to have held their ground manfully, however, and to have reaped a fair reward for so much constancy in the face of the most discouraging circumstances; and long ere this we may trust the returning wave of success and victory from the Chinese coast will have brought new forces to their aid. If we can only by extreme reserve and prudence allay the fears of the Japanese as to the subversive tendencies in regard to their own institutions, political and religious, to all foreign intercourse, and convince them that no Treaty Power contemplates, or will permit, in those subject to them a propagandism in either direction dangerous to the ruling classes, and menacing revolution and change, half the battle will be won; and if we could succeed in convincing them that the development of trade, which is our chief aim, must in the end be mutually advantageous, and enrich not the foreigners alone but the whole Japanese nation, instead of impoverishing the country by raising the prices, which they fear at present, there can be no doubt the greatest obstacles to a good understanding and the rapid development of a most valuable trade would be removed, and far more effectually than by any display of force, or the conviction even of our ability to exact by such means those treaty rights they now dispute more or less openly, from both selfish and patriotic motives. In these two directions alone can we achieve any permanent success. All our efforts, therefore, and the efforts of every other Treaty Power, should be concentrated upon these lines of advance, as the only course by which victory can be secured in this conflict of different races and civilisations.

ART. III.-Construction of the Victoria Bridge at Montreal in Canada, elaborately Illustrated by Views, Plans, Elevations, and Details of the Bridge, together with Designs of the Machinery and Contrivances used in the Construction, with a Descriptive Text. Dedicated to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, and presented to His Royal Highness on the Opening of the Bridge, August 25th, 1860. By JAMES HODGES, Engineer to the Contractors. Imp. folio, London: 1860.

MANY auspicious circumstances and events concurred to give the highest degree of splendour and of success to the visit paid, in the course of last autumn, by the Heir Apparent of the Crown, to the great continent of North America. The Prince of Wales himself, entering upon his public career, surrounded by the representatives of his magnificent inheritance, and by all the gifts of fortune, laid the foundation of that essential portion of his future greatness and welfare which depends on 'his own judgment, character, and patriotism. He was received with enthusiasm as the son of the Queen of England and the first Prince of the Blood Royal, but before he left the shores of America, that enthusiasm was heightened by the attachment and respect he had himself inspired. In Canada he found a colony rising by its own power, industry, energy, and population, to the dignity of a State; in the United States he learned that the representative of the British Monarchy is the head not only of a nation but of a race. The ties of kindred, of tradition, and of a common freedom between England and America, were incorporate in his person; and no man who witnessed those scenes of ardent excitement, could doubt that there are sympathies between the two countries more powerful than the ocean which divides them, and the revolutions which have dissevered their political connexion. No other man would have been so received by the people of the United States; the Prince of Wales would not be so received in any other country. The autumn of 1860 will remain memorable for this visit, not only in the life of the young Prince, who was the hero of it, but in the annals of the great. race which has established an irresistible and enduring sway over the northern half of the Western Hemisphere.

These gratifying and important results originated, to a certain extent, in a circumstance which is recalled to our minds by the magnificent volume now before us. As the prodigious work of