Japan and New Zealand: An Interesting Trade Agreement

Abstract

The commercial understanding between and New Zealand, which was referred to in the issue of Pacific Affairs for November, is a development which calls for more than passing notice. It narks a definite forward step in the relations between the British Dominions in the Pacific and the leading Asiatic power, and the circumstances in which it was brought about are worthy of being recorded. The basis of recent relations between Great Britain and is the Anglo-Japanese Convention of 1894. By this instrument, which replaced the understandings of earlier date, and notably the treaty of August, 1858, Great Britain led the western powers in assenting to the abolition of consular jurisdiction over her nationals in Japan, who thereupon became subject to the ordinary law of the country. This treaty, as Mr. Ker has shown in the November issue, was the forerunner of a series of agreements with various other powers, the effect of which was to admit to the comity of nations in a very favourable position. By her frank and trustful recognition of Japan's position, Great Britain induced the other leading powers to acknowledge the new star in the East. Nor was this step taken without incurring the censure of many of those who were best qualified to give opinions on the subject. As Mr. Ker says, Britain's action was severely criticised by foreigners resident in the Far East as an abandonment, without due safeguards or conditions of the special privileges upon which the trade of the west with was based. But since the fall of the Shogunate in 1869, says Mr. Ker, Japan had given ample evidence that the political and social revolution then effected was of a constructive-not destructivenature, and that the reforms, social, political, administrative and judicial, were being carried out with energy and sincerity. . . . It must be admitted that little or no material advantage accrued to Great Britain from the Treaty: the opening of the whole country to mixed residents was the chief ostensible quid pro quo for the cessation of consular jurisdiction, but the country was already accessible to merchants by the passport system, and trade centres and trade routes were already fixed. The moral advantages, however, gained by both countries by treaty revision were out of all proportion to any such narrower considerations. In the words of Mr. Gubbins, who was closely associated with the negotiations for treaty revision both in Tokyo and London, 'by being the first to revise her treaty on terms practically identical with those she had herself offered two years before, Great Britain showed her frank recognition of the changed conditions resulting from the steady progress of more than thirty years. And she thereby retained her position as the leading western power in the Far East, and gained the good will of Japan, thus paving the way for the future Anglo-Japanese Alliance.' The only self-governing colony which declared its adherence to this Treaty (as apart from Great Britain) was Queensland. When that colony announced to the British Government its desire to adhere to the agreement, the Secretary of State, who was already thoroughly apprised of the delicacy of the question of admitting Asiatics to the tropical territory of Australia, solemnly warned the Queensland government of all the implications of such adherence. Nevertheless Queensland in 1897 accepted the advantages and disadvantages of the Treaty under a protocol which allowed her to prohibit the entry of Japanese of the labouring class into her territory. Under a special convention concluded by Great Britain in 1906 Canada, too, enjoyed