after Western models, and announcing the convocation of a national parliament. Meanwhile a compulsory system of education had gone into operation, and the intelligence of the people was being quickened by the multiplication of daily newspapers, a network of telegraph lines, and the opening of railroads.[1]
With all these and other reforms in process of consummation, and chafing under the humiliation of the exercise of sovereignty on its own soil by foreign nations, the government of Japan, in 1878, approached the diplomatic representatives of powers in Tokio with a proposition for a revision of the treaties. The discussion which followed developed the fact that no time was fixed in these conventions for their termination, and that if revision could not be agreed upon they would run indefinitely.
Mr. Harris, who negotiated the American treaty of 1858, and which became the model for all others, had inserted the exterritorial provision "against his conscience." He states that he did it under the instructions of Secretary Marcy, who agreed with him that it was an unjust provision, but he said that, as it appeared in the treaties of the United States with other oriental countries, it would be impossible to secure the ratification of the treaty without it. Mr. Harris regarded it only as a temporary measure.
The provisions as to the tariff had even a less claim for their continued existence. Mr. Harris states that the Japanese negotiators left that matter entirely to
- ↑ U. S. For. Rel. 1872, p. 321; 1875, pp. 787, 794; 1876, pp. 377, 381; 1878, p. 486; 1880, p. 690; 1881, pp. 658, 728.
