of exhaustive planning and repeated negotiations, an agreement has been come to with the powers, and the revision of the treaties, our long-cherished aim, is to-day on the eve of becoming an accomplished fact; a result which, while it adds materially to the responsibilities of our empire, will greatly strengthen the basis of our friendship with foreign countries." And he appealed in affectionate terms to his subjects, officials, and people, to so conduct themselves that every source of dissatisfaction might be avoided, and that subjects and strangers might enjoy equal privileges and dwell together in peace.
The rescript was followed by notifications from the cabinet and ministers of all the departments to their subordinates, warning them to so enforce the laws and so conduct themselves that foreigners might "be enabled to reside in the country confidently and contentedly." The appeal of the emperor in that great crisis of his country was most affecting, and had a profound influence on the masses of the people, who had been trained to believe in his divine origin and that he was guided in his conduct by his ancestors of glorious memory and achievements.[1]
It is gratifying to note that the foreboding of the foreign residents has not been realized, and that since 1899 they have lived in as full an enjoyment of peace and protection of the laws of the empire as if under the governments of Christendom. The manner in which
- ↑ U. S. For. Rel. 1890, p. 450; 1899, p. 469; U. S. Treaties in force, 352; Norman's Far East, 387; Ransome's Japan in Transition, chaps, xi. and xvi.; Morris's Advance Japan, p. xiv.
