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The ‘Bankoku Shimbun’ Affair

Foreigners, the Japanese Press and Extraterritoriality in Early Meiji Japan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

J. E. Hoare
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Extract

In December 1875, the Tokyo press was full of rumours that there would soon be a new Japanese-language newspaper on sale. At the end of the month, there came the not-unexpected announcement that the Nisshin Shinjishi (Reliable Daily News), founded some years previously by a Yokohama journalist, J. R. Black, would cease publication on 31 December.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , May 1975 , pp. 289 - 302
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

1 See Fox, G., Britain and Japan 1858–1883 (Oxford, 1969), pp. 415–29.Google Scholar

My own ‘The Japanese Treaty Ports 1868–1899:Google Scholar

A Study of the Foreign Settlements’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1971), lists all the Western-language newspapers and magazines published by foreigners in Japan between 1858 and 1900 —see Appendix II, pp. 348–63.Google Scholar

2 Fox, Britain and Japan, pp. 438–9; Nishida, T., Meiji jidai no shimbun to zasshi [Newspapers and Periodicals of the Meiji Period] (Tokyo, 1961), pp. 5–8.Google Scholar

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For Heco, see Takanashi, K., Eigaku Koto hajime [The beginning of English studies] (Tokyo, 1966), pp. 106.Google Scholar

4 Japan Herald (n.d.), in London and China Telegraph, 12 February 1868; ‘1867’,Google Scholar

Japan Times (Overland Mail), 29 01 1868.Google Scholar

See also Black, J. R., Young Japan: A Narrative of the Settlement and City from the Signing of the Treaties in 1858 to the Close of the Year 1879 (2 vols, Yokohama, 1880–1881), I, 264, II, 60.Google Scholar

5 For circulation figures of the foreign-language papers, see Hoare, , ‘The Japanese Treaty Ports’, pp. 312–13.Google Scholar

6 Foreign Office, Embassy and Consular Archives, Japan (cited as F.O.262/285), SirHarry, Parkes to Lord Derby, draft No. 24, 7 February 1876, enclosing a Memorandum, ‘The Press in Japan’, by W. G. Aston.Google Scholar

7 The mortgage is recorded in Foreign Office, Embassy and Consular Archives, Japan, Records of the Tokyo Vice-Consulate (cited as F.O.798)/18/R57, Davidson, J. R. to M. Dohmen, 25 March 1872.Google Scholar

8 A reproduction of the front page of the 1st issue, together with photographs of Black and the editorial offices on the Ginza will be found in Okamoto, K. (ed.), Nihon Shimbun hyakunenshi [A History of One Hundred Years of Japanese Newspapers] (Tokyo, 1961), p. 121.Google Scholar

See also Kokushi, Kenkyushitsu and Kyoto, Bungakubu daigaku (eds), Nihon Kindaishi jiten [Dictionary of Modern Japanese History] (Tokyo, 1958), p. 462.Google Scholar

9 F.O.798/18/R.16, Black to Dohmen, 22 March 1872; F.O.798/19/R.14, Dohmen, to Black, draft, 4 April 1872.Google Scholar

10 Aston's memorandum, cited above, note 6.Google Scholar

11 F.O.262/508, Dohmen, to Parkes, No. 3, 1 March 1876, enclosing Black to Dohmen, 15 February 1876. Black's letter enclosed a copy of the agreement in English and Japanese he made with Goto Shojiro on 1 December 1872, plus additional clauses signed on 22 July 1873.Google Scholar

12 F.O.262/508, Dohmen, to Parkes, No. 3, 1 March 1876, and enclosures.Google Scholar

This correspondence was published in Japan Herald (Mail Summary), 10 04 1876, but with Black's letter of 15 February dated 28 February. The Japan Herald did not publish the agreement mentioned in note 11.Google Scholar

13 Hoare, ‘The Japanese Treaty Ports’, pp.192–203.Google Scholar

14 Fox, Britain and Japan, p.444.Google Scholar

15 Papers of Count Okuma, Waseda University (C.84), Black to Okuma, , 20 October 1874. I owe this reference to Miss S. Hirose, of Tokyo University.Google Scholar

16 F.O.262/508, Dohmen, to Parkes, No. 3, 1 March 1876, and enclosures; Fox, Britain and Japan, p. 444.Google Scholar

17 It was standard practice for contracts with foreign employees to contain clauses of this type. Umetani, N., O Yatoi Gaikokujin [The Foreign Employees] (Tokyo, 1965), pp. 169–70.Google Scholar

18 Japan Herald (Mail Summary), 29 01 1875.Google Scholar

19 Black's letter of 15 February 1876, in F.O.262/508, Dohmen to Parkes, No. 3, 1 March 1876.Google Scholar

20 Text in Nishida, Meiji jidai no shimbun to zasshi, pp. 88–91.Google Scholar

21 Japan Weekly Mail, 9 June 1883.Google Scholar

22 Japan Herald (Mail Summary), 29 01 1875;Google Scholar

see also L'Echo du Japon, 21 December 1875.Google Scholar

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24 ‘The “Bankoku Shimbun” and the Press Laws’, Nichi Nichi Shimbun, 14 January 1876, translated in F.O.262/285, Parkes, to Derby, draft No. 24, 7 February 1876.Google Scholar

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see also Nihon Gaikö Bunsho [Documents on Japan's Foreign Policy’ (cited as N.G.B.), IX, 677–81.Google Scholar

26 F.O. 262/508, Dohmen to Parkes, No. 2, 24 February 1876, enclosing Black to Dohmen, 21 January 1876.Google Scholar

27 L'Echo du Japan, 19 January 1876;Google Scholar

Japan Herald (Mail Summary), 29 January 1876. A sour note, claiming that the Japanese would get away with this (supposed) treaty violation as they did with so many others, came from the Hiogo News, 26 January 1876. By 1876, Parkes, British Minister in Japan since 1865, and previously a successful Consul in China, had become the most respected defender of the foreign settler in the Far East.Google Scholar

Daniels, G., ‘Sir Harry Parkes, British Representative in Japan, 1865–1883’ (unpublished D.Phil. thesis, University of Oxford, 1967).Google Scholar

28 F.O. 262/508, Dohmen to Parkes, No. 1, 21 January 1876, plus enclosures; N.G.B., IX, 677–81.Google Scholar

29 F.O. 262/285, Parkes to Derby, draft No.24, 7 February 1876.Google Scholar

30 N.G.B., IX, 691–3; F.O. 262/285, Parkes to Derby, draft No. 24, 7 February 1876.Google Scholar

See also Dickins, F. V. and Lane-Poole, S., The Life of Sir Harry Parkes (2 vols, London, 1894), II, 244.Google Scholar

31 N.G.B., IX, 90; United States, Foreign Relations (1876), pp. 365–6. The French and German representatives replied that they had no power to take such an action. See N.G.B., IX, 695–8; the American Minister objected to the request, but was instructed that the Japanese law was binding on United States’ citizens: United States Foreign Relations (1876), pp. 367–8. Interestingly, Parkes had not bothered to inform his colleagues of his action.Google Scholar

32 F.O. 262/513, Terashima to Parkes, , 4 March 1876. Black's claim can be found in his letter of 15 February 1876 to Martin Dohmen, cited above, note 11.Google Scholar

33 Ōkuma Papers (C.87), Black to Okuma, , 2 April 1876. For an example of the foreign treaty port press comment,Google Scholar

see ‘Mr Black's grievance’, Japan Herald (Mail Summary), 25 04 1876.Google Scholar

34 House of Commons, Parliamentary Debates, 3rd Series, CCXXVIII, cols 478–9 and 1413, 23 March and 10 April 1876.Google Scholar

35 F.O. 262/284, Derby, to Parkes, Nos 60 and 61, and 25 May 1876.Google Scholar

36 House of Commons, Parliamentary Debates, 3rd series, CCLXII, cols 635–6, 16 June 1881.Google Scholar

37 For evidence, see Japan Weekly Mail, 19 April 1890;Google Scholar

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38 See F.O. 262/316/R136, Faulds, H. to Parkes, 2 September 1877; F.O. 262/532, Ueno Kagenori (then Foreign Minister) to J. G. Kennedy, Chargé d'Affaires, No.50, 27 August 1881, and F.O. 262/364, Lord Granville to Kennedy, No. 79, 19 November 1881, enclosing a Memorandum by Parkes, 9 November 1881.Google Scholar

39 F.O. 262/285, Parkes to Derby, draft No. 24, 7 February 1876, enclosing a Memorandum by Aston, W.G. on ‘The Press in Japan’.Google Scholar

40 F.O. 262/284, Derby, to Parkes, No. 81, 8 July 1876, enclosing Law Officers to the Foreign Office, 5 July 1876.Google Scholar

41 F.O. 262/301, Derby to Parkes, No. 69, 29 September 1877, enclosing Law Officers to Foreign Office, 19 September 1877. For the American position see United States Foreign Relations (1876), pp. 367–8, Fish, H. to J. Bingham, No. 224, 2 May 1876.Google Scholar

42 N.G.B., IV, Nos 247, 248, 250, 251, 253, 256;Google Scholar

Treat, P. J., Diplomatic Relations between the United States and Japan 1853–1895 (2 vols, Stanford and London, 1932), II, 37–9.Google Scholar

43 Foreign Office, General Correspondence Japan (F.O. 46)/238, Law Officers to Lord Salisbury, 31 December 1878.Google Scholar

44 For example, in F.O.262/332, Salisbury, to Parkes, No. 93, 12 August 1879.Google Scholar

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46 F.O. 262/626, Fraser, H. to Salisbury, draft No. 26, Confidential, 12 February 1890. See also the powerful argument on this theme developed by one of Fraser's staff in the British Legation, J. H. Gubbins, sent home in F.O. 262/604, Fraser to Salisbury, draft ‘Treaty series’ No. 16, 16 11 1889.Google Scholar