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great uneasiness whenever they had to meet with Europeans and Americans.

The treaty of 1876 is the first clear announcement of Japan’s foreign policy as regards Corea. The policy of annexation, though not impossible to carry out, was from the very first rejected in view of the possible conflict with China (and later with Russia also); but neither China nor any other nation was to be allowed to substantiate its claim of suzerainty over Corea, and thereby interfere with the liberty of the Japanese nation to trade with Corea on the ground of free competition.

Thus the first step was taken towards the solution of the Corean problem, but the solution, it must be remembered, was partial, because the independence of Corea was only proclaimed by Japan, and not yet recognised by China. With China the interest was more historical than commercial or economical. What was difficult for her was to treat as an independent Power what is enumerated in her history as one of her tributaries. Hence, such empty rites as the sending of an annual mission with presents from Corea to the Court of Peking, and of the Corean King receiving investiture from the Son of Heaven, were still scrupulously practised. But such nominal claim to suzerainty may at a given moment be made real, and as long as it could be done so the interests of Japan in Corea were not secure. Hence, the next step was the settlement of the accounts with China.

In the year following the first Corean affair occurred the greatest political event in Japan since the establishment of the new Imperial Government, namely, the civil war of Kagoshima. Saigo, chief of the old party for war with Corea, had retired into the reactionary province of Satsuma with his partisans, who were officers in the Imperial army, and, seeing the Cabinet Ministers differed more and more from his ideals, finally raised a standard of revolt in Kagoshima and prepared for a march upon Tokyo. For eight months most bloody fighting continued in the south-western provinces, from which the Imperial army came out victorious, though with great loss of life and property. The last remnant of the old régime having been done away with, things could now follow a freer course of development than before. The leading personages had also changed. Kido died of disease in the beginning of the campaign, Saigo fell in the field of battle, and Okubo was assassinated by the fanatic followers of Saigo not long after,