Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1899-06-29


 Exchange 8 Queer Place.
 When the new treaties go into effect next July opening the whole of Japan to trade with foreigners they will bring about sweeping and radical changes in the life of the people who have been called "the Yankees of the east" says the New York Tribune. Except in the six ports now permitted to trade with foreign nations-Yoko hama, Kobe, tor Hiogo), Osaka, Ma gasaki, Hakodate and Niigata-and In thirteen other less important ones, where foreign commerce is allowed under severe restrictions, the empire or Japan is at present closed to outsiders so far as traffic with them is con- cerned. Practically the whole of the Interior is debarred from business in tercourse with people of other nations, and the result of this is, of course. total unfamiliarity on the part of the majority of Japanese with the trade customs of the rest of the world.
 Now that the whole country is to be thrown open, however, there is sud- den curiosity and eagerness on the part of it's inhabitants to know how these strangers propose to carry on their commercial relations, and while 1t will be necessary. naturally, for for eigners to conform in some measure to Japanese ways, 1t is more necessary still that the Japanese be instructed in the more practical and less cere- monious business methods and man. ners of Europeans and Americans. For this purpose treaty operation com mittees are being formed in all parts of the empire to explain to the Japa- nese merchants and the people gener- ally the most important points of diff ference between their own and foreign ideas. For the guidance of the for eigners translations of the more con- mon Japanese laws are also being pre- pared. Many tourist in former years would have been grateful for this piece of work if it had been performed sooner, for it would have kept him from various unintentional offenses against Japanese ideas of correct be- hayior.
 Above all things, the subjects of the mikado are a polite people, polite with B patience and persistence which know no limit, and the best efforts of for eigner to equal them cannot fail to seem almost like rudeness in compari- son. No European-and certainly no American-could bow, for example. as does the Japanese gentleman who meets a business friend in the street. His inclination is a yeritable eastern salaam, and it Is to be feared that he will stare with gentle reproach at the jerky little nod which his hurrying foreign acquaintance is likely to give him in return. His ceremonious in- quiries regarding the honorable health of the exalted friend and his Illustrious family" are often destined, 1t is to be feared, to be disposed of all too briefly for Japanese notions of such things. The idea of haste and of business pure and simple, shorn of so- cial ceremonies, will come as bar barism to the native mind. but 1t is bound to be manifested wherever the foreigners obtain a considerable foot- hold in trade. Many of the Japanese cities, too, will probably see striking changes in their appearance after the foreign traders have become we'll es- tablished in them. At present most of the towns of the empire are still like wildernesses of flimsy little buildings, scarcely better than wooden sheds picturesque, it is true, but frail. The business portion is small and compact in one place, but even here there is hardly anything to distinguish it from the rest of the city. There are no big warehouses, no busy factories with their whirling machinery, no heavy traffic in the streets, no bustle. no noise. Even in Tokyo this state of affairs is to be found. There are some horse cars, which charge the modest sum of l sen (half a cenD a ride, and there is one electric street railway. Other electric lines are either in proc- ess of building or in contemplation, but there is much opposition to them among the Japanese.
 our cities are very pretty" said a well-educated, Americanized Japanese in this city the other day, and the people in them think the cars dis