The Commercial Code of Japan/Preface

The author, Mr. Yang Yin Hang, is a native of China and a graduate in law of the Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan. After acquiring a thorough familiarity with English he spent two years as a graduate student in law at the University of Pennsylvania, receiving last June the degree of Master of Law. While in residence at the University he made himself familiar with our commercial law, and wrote and annotated this translation. The object which he seeks to accomplish is not merely to render accessible to English-speaking students the commercial law of Japan, but also to increase our knowledge of and interest in the commercial codes of the civil law.

The Commercial Code of Japan is based mainly on the Commercial Code of Germany. At the same time it contains elements from the commercial codes of practically all Continental countries, and some administrative provisions due to Japanese conditions. The mere translation of the text of a code drawn by civilians, however useful to one who has already read widely in the civil law, is of little use to a person trained only in the American and English law, unless the notes are so arranged as to answer, in part at least, the numerous questions which necessarily occur to him. One class of the ​notes, therefore, accompanying this translation, is designed to answer the more important of these questions.

Further, carrying out the thought that one object of the present work is to increase our knowledge of the commercial codes of the civil law generally, Mr. Yang has written an historical introduction designed to give in outline, not only the history of the creation of the Japanese Commercial Code, but a concise statement of the history and sources of the present commercial law of Continental Europe. With the same object in view, he has also placed in the notes information in regard to analogous provisions in European codes. Finally, as the Japanese Code itself is avowedly based mainly on the German Commercial Code, where differences exist which may interest the student of comparative law the exact provisions of the German Code are given in full in the notes. In quoting from the German Code, use has been made of the translation by Bernard A. Pratt, Esq., of the Middle Temple, published by Chapman and Hall of London; all references to the text of the German Code in quotation marks being verbatim copies of Mr. Pratt’s translation.

The reader will find throughout the work many expressions which, though accurate English, would hardly have occurred to an American or Englishman. This slight peculiarity of language may at first be thought to be a blemish, but I think the reader will find that in practically every instance Mr. Yang’s phraseology serves to convey his exact shade of meaning in the most concise form possible. ​The codes of the civil law are the result of two centuries of effort to express the law in statutory form. One of the chief values to us in their study is the fact that they teach conciseness combined with clearness in the expression of legal ideas. The Japanese Commercial Code is an excellent example. Mr. Yang, as a thoroughly trained civilian, has caught the spirit of the original, and his slight peculiarities of expression are in most cases the happy result of an effort to present a legal idea in the fewest possible words compatible with accuracy.

In the absence of Mr. Yang and on his behalf, I desire to express, as I know he would wish me to do, his appreciation of the assistance of Samuel D. Matlack, Esq., in reading the proof of the entire work and in preparing the index. Acknowledgment should also be made of the services of George F. Deiser, Esq., in verifying, by reference to the original sources, all statements made by Mr. Yang in the notes in regard to the provisions of the different European and Latin American codes and statutes. The value of the historical introduction has been greatly increased by the suggestions made by W. W. Smithers, Esq., Secretary of the Bureau of Comparative Law of the American Bar Association.