COMMERCIAL RESTRICTIONS

memoration of Perry's advent/ In Japan his name is to-day a household word, and is better known than that of any other foreigner.

On

On September 8, 1855, the government of the United States, availing itself of the privilege secured by the Perry treaty, appointed Townsend Harris as consul-general to reside at Simoda. He was chosen in the hope that by reason of his knowledge of Eastern character and his general intelligence and experience in business, he might be able to induce the Japanese to enter into a treaty of commerce. July 29, 1858, his efforts were crowned with success. A provision for diplomatic representation at Yedo was obtained; rights of residence and of trade at certain ports were secured; duties were regulated; the privilege of extraterritoriality was granted to Americans in Japan; and religious freedom in that country was promised. Harris's triumph was won by a firm, tactful, honest diplomacy, and without the aid of a fleet, though it was no doubt true that he invoked the then recent humiliation of China by the European allies as an argument in favor of a voluntary intercourse. Before the end of the year, the fleets of the allies appeared in Japanese waters, and treaties similar to that of the United States were obtained by France and Great Britain. Treaties between Japan and other powers followed in due time. Harris's treaty provided for the exchange of ratifications at Washington. For this purpose the Japanese

government sent a special embassy to the United States. Including servants, it comprised seventyone persons. They were conveyed to America in a United States man-of-war, and Congress provided for their expenses. The ratifications of the treaty were exchanged at Washington on May 22, 1860, and the members of the embassy were afterwards conducted to some of the principal American cities. They were sent back to Japan on the man-of-war Niagara. To the shallow and sectarian reasoner, the Japan of to-day, once more possessed of full judicial and economic autonomy, and in the potent exercise of all the rights of sovereignty, presents an astounding spectacle of sudden, if not miraculous development; but in reality Japan is an ancient and polished nation, the roots of whose civilization, though its outward forms may have changed, strike deep into the past.

Corea, the Land of the Morning Calm, continued, long after the opening of China and Japan, to observe a rigorous seclusion. Efforts to secure access had invariably ended in disaster. On May 20, 1882, however, Commodore Shufeldt, U. S. N., invested with diplomatic powers, succeeded, with the friendly good offices of Li Hung-Chang, in concluding with the Hermit Kingdom the first treaty made by it with a Western power. The last great barrier of national non-intercourse was broken down, and, no matter what may be Corea's ultimate fate, is not likely to be restored.

VI

NON-INTERVENTION AND THE MONROE DOCTRINE

AMONG the rules of conduct prescribed for the United States by the statesmen who formulated its foreign policy, none was conceived to be more fundamental or more distinctively American than that which forbade intervention in the political affairs of other nations. The right of the government to intervene for the protection of its citizens in foreign lands and on the high seas never was doubted; nor was such action withheld in proper cases. But, warned by the spectacle of the great European struggles that had marked the attempts of nations to control one another's political destiny, the statesmen of America, believing that they had a different mission to perform, planted themselves upon the principle of the equality of nations as expounded by Grotius and other masters of international law. This principle was expressed with peculiar felicity and force by Vattel, who declared that nations inherited from nature "the same obligations and rights," that power or weakness, could not in this respect produce any difference, and that a "small

republic" was "no less a sovereign state than the most powerful kingdom." The same thought was tersely phrased by Chief-Justice Marshall, in his celebrated affirmation: "No principle is more universally acknowledged than the perfect equality of nations. Russia and Geneva have equal rights." And as the Declaration of Independence proclaimed life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to be "inalienable rights" of individual men, so the founders of the American republic ascribed the same rights to men in their aggregate political capacity as independent nations.

While the principle of non-intervention formed an integral part of the political philosophy of American statesmen, its practical importance was profoundly impressed upon them by the narrowness of their escape from being drawn, by the alliance with France, into the vortex of the European conflicts that grew out of the French Revolution. Even before American independence was acknowledged by Great Britain, American statesmen scented the dangers that lurked in a possible implication in European broils.. "You are afraid," said Richard Oswald to John Adams, "of being made the tool of the powers of Europe." "Indeed, I am," said Adams. "What powers?" inquired Oswald. "All of them," replied Adams; "it is obvious that all the powers of Europe will be continually manoeuvring with us to work us into their real or imaginary bal

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ances of power. . . . But I think that it ought to be our rule not to meddle." In 1793, the revolutionary government of France, apparently doubting the applicability of the existing alliance with the United States to the situation in Europe, submitted a proposal for "a national agreement, in which two great peoples shall suspend their commercial and political interests and establish a mutual understanding to defend the empire of liberty, wherever it can be embraced." This proposal the American government declined; and its response found practical embodiment in its acts. The reasons for the policy of non-intervention and neutrality, to which the administration of the time so sedulously adhered, were eloquently summed up by Washington in that immortal political legacy, his Farewell Address. "The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations," said Washington, "is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop." The same thought was conveyed by Jefferson, in his first inaugural address, in the apothegm"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none."

The policy of non-intervention embraced matters of religion as well as of politics. By the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States, Con