other hand, the American minister required all the vessels of his nationality to observe the quarantine. Over one hundred thousand Japanese lost their lives by the epidemic. The American minister, in forwarding the statistics to his government, expressed the conviction that the death roll would not have been so great if the Japanese government had been aided, and not resisted, by certain of the foreign powers in its laudable efforts to prevent the spread of the pestilence.
The minister for foreign affairs urged the application for a revision of the treaties on the representatives of the Western nations, under the conviction that with the governmental and social reforms so well advanced, and with the objectionable features of exterritoriality so manifest, some relief would be granted from the embarrassments which attended the continued enforcement of the treaties. But his arguments and appeals were unsuccessful. The British minister took the lead in the opposition to revision and the other European representatives concurred with him. At that period the influence of Great Britain was all-powerful in the East. Twice had its naval and military forces been used to extort from China unwilling treaties; twice had Japan been humiliated by demonstrations of its martial power; and its squadrons were everywhere present to support its ministers and consuls.
In commercial affairs as well were British interests predominant. In Japan the import trade was largely English, and British merchants were the greatest beneficiaries of the low duties. It did not suit their interests to abandon the practice of exterritoriality or to
