Page:Japan by the Japanese (1904).djvu/209
Japanese subjects, and 400,000 rio for their having opened the roads and erected public buildings in Formosa. These points were accepted by the Chinese, and the Treaty of Tientsin was signed on the 31st of October, 1874.
‘Prince Kung, and [here follow the names of nine Ministers of Tsung-li-Yamen] plenipotentiaries of the Great Tsin, have agreed to discuss the articles and draw up document with the plenipotentiary of Great Japan, Okubo, Councillor and Minister of Home Affairs. Each State is entitled to protect its people from injuries, and for this purpose formulates laws for their conservation. If injury occurs in another State, that other State ought to regulate the affair. The raw barbarians of Formosa once unlawfully inflicted injury on the people belonging to Japan, and the Japanese Government, with the intention of making the said barbarians answer for their acts, sent troops to chastise them. Now, the Japanese Government discussed with the Chinese Government the conditions of evacuation and the regulation of the future relations, and signed the following three articles:
‘Article 1.—What Japan has done on this occasion was caused by the just desire of conserving its people, and the Chinese Government will not point to it as improper.
‘Article 2.—The Chinese Government will pay a fixed sum to the families of the injured people. They also wish to retain to themselves the roads opened and the buildings erected by Japan in Formosa, and agree to defray the cost as stipulated in the annexed protocol.
‘Article 3.—All the documents exchanged between the two contracting parties will be received back mutually and annihilated, so as to leave no root of contention for the future. As to the Formosan raw Savages, the Chinese Government engages to make laws, and protect the safety of navigation for the future by prohibiting the infliction of injuries.’
The expedition cost 9,550,000 yen, and 400,000 rio (one Chinese rio is a little over one Japanese yen) was no adequate recompense for it; but one great advantage obtained by this treaty was that China agreed to regard the people of Liukiu as Japanese subjects. This was Okubo’s sole aim and purpose.
The Japanese Government, taking full advantage of the new position gained, now hastened to obliterate every trace of Liukiu’s dual dependence. In 1875 Matsuda, Secretary oi the Home Department, was sent to the islands to announce the coming as a garrison of a portion of the Kumamoto Division. At the same time he ordered the King to employ the Japanese calendar and stop further payment of tribute to China. But the Liukiu King and people insisted on the continuance of the dual protection, and refused to obey the orders, making interminable remonstrances and petitions.
In 1876 an Imperial Court of Justice was established in Liukiu, but the old Government would not hand over to it the pending judicial cases. On the contrary, the King sent one of his sons to Tokyo to prove to the Government the necessity