and foreigners, to be licensed under the new Commercial Codes after the new treaties went into effect in 1899, was the Nippon Electric Company, in which a large electric company of Chicago is specially interested.
Japan has several stock exchanges and chambers of commerce in various localities, and these are all under the strictest supervision and close restrictions.
It was in 1872 that National Bank Regulations were first issued, and a few banks were established; but in 1876 it was found necessary to make radical amendments in those regulations in the way of affording greater facilities for the organization of banks. The result was that by 1879 there were 153 national banks in the country; and in 1886 the further organization of national banks was stopped. In the mean time the Yokohama Specie Bank had been organized (in 1880) for the support of the foreign trade; and (in 1882) the Bank of Japan (Nippon Ginkō) had been organized to "secure proper regulations of the currency." In 1897 the Industrial Bank, and later provincial agricultural-industrial banks were organized to give special banking facilities to local agricultural and industrial circles. The Bank of Formosa, the Colonial Bank of Hokkaidō, and a Credit Mobilier complete the list of official institutions. By 1899 all the national banks had either been changed into private banks or had gone out of existence. Private banks number almost 1,700, of which the Mitsui, the Mitsubishi, the Hundredth, the Sumitomo, the Fifteenth (Nobles'), the First, and the Yasuda are the strongest. Savings-
