The Sun.
London, England, 1856-08-09 00:00:00

THE VIEWS OF RUSSIA ON JAPAN'.

(Prom a Correspondent of the Morning Advert'ser.)
The safeguard of British possessions on the coast
of China must compel the Government ultimately to
take notice of the continual presence of Russian ships
of war at the Japanese port of Nagasaki. Peace
ought not to make this country lukewarm to Russia's
aggrandising policy on her Asiatic side. Japan has
been to the eyes of the Russian Emperors for many
years an El Dorado they have longed to reap ad-
van cages from, if not by conquest, at all events by
commercial treaty. The Dutch alone have hitherto
been permitted to trade with Japan directly ; they
have a factory at Nagasaki ; and it is the only
European innovation that has been permitted by
the Japanese, who are as jealous, suspicious, and
reticent, as a nation, as the Chinese. The Dutch
government sends an embassy usually to Yedo, the
capital of Japan, and the seat of government. This
Dutch system of embassago to Yedo Russia
has repeatedly, during the last half century,
sought to interfere with or rival; and the Rus-
sian embassy have met with receptions, accord-
ing to their own account, of the most encouraginr,
kind. While Russian ships cf war anchor in the
harbour of Nagasaki, the embassies received at
Yedo pretend that the ships are sent to protect
the Japanese coast from foreign intrusion ? It
should be recollected that besides Dutch mari-
time commerce with Japan, there is only that of
China, which sends about seventy junks annually
from the ports of Amoy, Niugpo, and Shanghai,
to Nagasaki. 'Now, should Russia arbitrarily in-
terfere with Holland, or oven China, in the lat-
ter's pursuit of commerce with Japan, such inter-
ference would be likely to assume to the Western
powers the form of a casus belli. But the Russian
policy is peculiar ; and we think, therefore, that
sumo account of the relations subsisting between
the Court of St. Petersburg and that of Yedo' will
be interesting.
Asiatic Russia and Japan may be said to meet
face to face in a political sense. They approach in
their unity of origin as nations, their respective
importance, their community of character, their
agricultural pursuits, and the conquests effected
by both empires ; still more, they are associated to
one another by their geographical vicinity ; the
extreme frontiers of Asiatic Russia and those of
Japan approaching.
Japan, with its immense riches, its hoarded
treasures, and soil abundantly seamed with gold
and silver, has ever been an attractive object to
Western monarchs. The Japanese empire (whose
power consists much more in its honest civilisa-
tion, moral energy, and enormous teeming popu-
lation than even in its extent of territory) could,
we think, have no enemy more troublesome,
or ally more precious than ,that power whose
possessions are still more considerable in Asia
than in Europe. Russia, we know, meditates long
its conquests, silently prepares its attacks, and takes
care to sound the country effectually against which
it seeks to wage war or impose conditions. Its
views upon the Japanese empire date from the
reign of Catherine, since when the interest it has
shown in Japan has been extraordinary. Russia is
at this moment energetically forcing her protection,
as she calls it, upon the Emperor of Japan. A Rus•
sian flotilla was last year received with welcome at.
Nagasaki by the Japanese authorities. This good
mrlerstanding wa
to the court at YeclOprepared h
wbyo
hparre
iboeufso r embassies
.
Russian men-of-war are welcomed at Japanese
ports, when thoee of E 1 I
ng anc. and America arelooked
upon with marked suspicion. There is a reason for
this. The Emperor of Japan has
been greatly irri-
tated by warlike demonstrations made on the coast
of Japan by English and American fleets. Tho Em-
peror, aware that ho cannot command a navy of his
own, listens the more readily to the ambassadors
of the Czar, who visit his Court with offers of pro-
tection.
Should the Japanese Government choose to admit
the necessity for a political point d'appuj for the
empire, no country would give less umbrage by
forcing her aid on Japan than Russia, who is ge (,
grapl ideally her neighbour. Commerce between the
two {empires could be carried on with great mutual
advantages, for Russia can always exchange for the
merchandise of Japan precisely the merchandise
reqie;red by the Japanese. The short distance
whila separates Oehotsle and Sitka from Nageeaki