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to the post. The nomination of all the other personnel of the Foreign Office and the Legations are strictly exclusive—i.e., only those that have gone through the course prescribed in the Ordinance on the appointment and promotion of diplomatic officials are nominated. The course begins with ‘Élève-Diplomats’ or ‘Élève-Consuls’ who are admitted upon special competitive State examination. There are at present fourteen Japanese Legations abroad, and to the more important ones are attached military attachés, or naval attachés, or both.

As regards Consular Service we have Consuls-General, Consuls of the first and the second classes, Vice-Consuls, and Élève-Consuls. Their nomination is also exclusive, though sometimes the diplomatic personnel is recruited from among the consular officers. There are now about fifty Japanese consulates abroad, of which a large portion is distributed over China, Corea, and India. For posts in Europe and Australia merchant consuls are also nominated, but their number is steadily decreasing.^[1] Once a month a commercial report is published by the Foreign Office in the form of a pamphlet, wherein all the mail reports of the Consuls are to be found. Only quite recently the Consuls in New York, Lyons, Bombay, and Shanghai have been instructed to send in their weekly reports by telegram. Japan is still in need of good Consuls versed in making useful commercial reports quickly.

As to diplomatic publications, things like Blue-Books are yet unknown in Japan. Only once after the Chinese War did the Government publish some diplomatic documents in the separate print of the Official Gazette. Usually reports of undiplomatic character alone, such as quarantines in foreign ports, changes of foreign laws affecting our commerce, etc., are published in the Official Gazette under the head of ‘Reports of Legations and Consular Reports.’

One great defect of the Japanese system of diplomacy is its unreasonable secrecy. Of course, all pending negotiations must be secret, but even then there are cases in which the nation can profit by well-managed disclosing of facts. But here all questions are kept secret while they are pending, and secret they remain till the end of time unless revealed in some fortuitous way, usually through publication in foreign Government reports or official organs. There are tens of cases every year where weighty diplomatic questions arise and find official solutions somehow or other; without that the people in general never dream of their ever having occurred. Public opinion works no constant effect on diplomatic affairs, because not properly guided, and in this respect little has changed since the establishment of the constitutional régime.