Beyond the Treaty Limits: Pushing the Boundaries in Meiji Japan

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When Japan was ‘opened’ and foreign settlements were established in 1859, they were each ringed some 25 miles inland by boundaries known as the Treaty Limits. Residents’ demands for access to the interior beyond would meet with resistance for as long as their extraterritorial rights remained in force. This case study explores how one stretch of this frontier took on strategic importance for the new Meiji state in the 1870s as Japan’s last bastion of defence against Western imperialism. Situated en route to some highland resorts inland, the castle-town of Odawara was a major attraction for foreign visitors desperate to escape the oppressive summer heat in the treaty port of Yokohama. The discovery of a British coach service operating there caused a protracted debate over the accuracy of the post marking the Treaty Limits on the approach to Odawara. Intersecting with emerging trends of the industrial age like the advent of the railway, globetrotters and health tourism, this border dispute illustrates the kind of subterfuge that foreigners could resort to in their attempts to erode the territorial boundaries of the existing treaties. It also shows the lengths the Japanese would go to in their efforts to stop them.