512 TRADE AND COMMERCE. 



or " Circle of the Sun," i.e. the national flag, with a red sun in a 

 white field, need not hide its folds. 



Enterprising merchants of Kochi, the capital of Tosa, on Shi- 

 koku, with some considerable help from the government, estab- 

 lished in 1874 the first Steamship Navigation Company, the 

 Mitsu-bishi-guwai-sha, a name founded on its choice of a flag.^ A 

 second company, the Kiyodounyu-guwai-sha, was established some 

 years later, and soon united with the first. The company is now 

 called Nipon Yu-sen-guwai-sha, or "Japanese Post Steamship 

 Company." Its boats have regular connection with all the im- 

 portant ports of the country, as well as with Shanghai, Fusan, 

 Wonsan (Gensan), and Wladiwostok. They have a monopoly of 

 Japanese coast navigation, and fifteen years ago had driven out 

 the previous foreign competition on the lines of Yokohama, Kobe, 

 Nagasaki and Shanghai. 



In order to advance inland commerce four merchants founded, in 

 1872, the Nai-koku-tsu-un-guwai-sha or Inland Transportation 

 Company, with a capital of 150,000 Yen or about ;^30,ooo. It has 

 its chief office in Tokio and its agents in every large town, forward- 

 ing not only merchandise and freight of all kinds, but money also, 

 and has established a reliable, well organized service, as I was re- 

 peatedly able to observe. I know nothing of its present condition. 

 The government decided in February, 1871, to undertake the entire 

 postal service of the country. Two months later this was begun 

 experimentally between the three capital cities, Tokio, Kioto and 

 Osaka, and has been gradually developed and increased with the 

 best success so far as the inland service is concerned, and now also 

 with foreign countries. In 1879 the English and French post 

 ofiices, which had existed up to that time, were superseded by the 

 Japanese post office. 



The first telegraph line of the country was built in January, 1870, 

 between Tokio and Yokohama. Others followed soon after, and 

 the network which now binds all the larger towns of the empire 

 together, and all with the capital city of Tokio, grows constantly 

 thicker and closer. Even in the use of the telegraph for weather 

 reports to the Central Meteorological Ofiice at the capital, the 

 Japanese have followed the example of progressive Christian 

 countries. A very special interest centres also in the development 

 of the 



Railroads, or Tetsu-d6. 



At the close of the year 1885 Japan had the following railroads 

 in operation : — 



^ This flag has three (Mitsu) red parallelograms in a white field, which are 

 intended to represent the figure of a water nut {Trapa bicornis, Hishi or Bishi), 

 which is said to be very common in Tosa. Guwai-sha=Kuwai-sha, pronounced 

 Kaischa, is " company." 



