1900J America as yapan s Best F?~tend 



clean, orderly, home-loving laborers should not be 

 welcome anywhere. 



Hayakawa's almost romantic attitude toward our 

 country then expressed the general feeling of the 

 people at large. For this there were several patent 

 reasons. It was the United States which in 1854 Our 

 opened Japan to a knowledge of the West, and thus helping 

 hastened the downfall of the outworn feudal system 

 and the dual rule of shogun and mikado. Americans 

 established the Japanese school system and helped 

 found the great Imperial University at Tokyo. 

 Shortly before my visit, also, our government had 

 brought about the abandonment of foreign jurisdic- 

 tion in the treaty ports. To Japan, America was still 

 her best friend among the nations, her guide and 

 leader in new and strange paths. 



Furthermore, the lesson of the Shimonoseki inci- n 

 dent of 1863 was universally recognized by the 

 Japanese. Every schoolboy knew the story. A 

 number of foreign trading ships — Dutch, French, 

 and American — passing through the Inland Sea to 

 China, having been fired on in turn in the narrows, 

 some seventeen of them afterward reappeared led by 

 a British man-of-war, which then bombarded the 

 fort and town of Shimonoseki in reprisal. Three 

 million dollars of indemnity were also demanded and 

 divided among the four Powers. But later investi- 

 gation having shown that our vessel had not been 

 harmed and that the blamie w^as not all on one side,^ 



^In this case the Japanese government first disclaimed responsibility for the 

 attack, asserting that the fault lay entirely with the Prince of Choshu, the 

 province in which Shimonoseki is situated. To that plea the Powers naturally 

 turned a deaf ear. They knew no Prince of Choshu and would deal with Japan 

 only, holding the central government responsible for all acts of its vassals. To 

 break up the authority of refractory daimyos centralization was later adopted in 

 Japan, provincial autonomy being abrogated and the country divided into 



c 65 : 



Shimono- 

 seki afair 



