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JAPAN THROUGH WESTERN EYES
Manuscript Records of Traders, Travellers, Missionaries and Diplomats, 1853-1941

Part 6: Correspondence and Papers of Sir Ernest Satow (1843-1929) relating to Japan from Public Record Office Class PRO 30/33

Detailed Listing and Extracts

Please click here to download a PDF file detailed listing for Reels 1-4 (27 pages).

Reels 5 to 21 are covered in the extracts below:

REEL 5

A wealth of handwritten letters from legation and fellow diplomats. Writers include Lord Salisbury, E. Wylde, W. Davidson, Francis Bertie, Eric Barrington, Henry Foley, H. Griffiths, Francis Campbell, William Wills, J. H. Gubbins; Joseph Longford and Sir T. Sanderson. Subjects discussed include: general weather conditions; the economy of Japan, personnel matters such as official appointments; consular staff, treasury sanctions; extension of legation buildings/houses; Japanese missions to Karuijawa and Tokio; newspaper reports; trade returns; cholera outbreaks.

Dear Sir Ernest
I have enquired about the forces in Liaotung peninsula. The 4th Division has headquarters at Kaijo (Haicheng) and 2nd Division at Kinchou, but, of the latter, one Infantry brigade (the 4th) with some guns and cavalry has gone to Formosa. The 11th Brigade of 6th Division is at Wei-hai-wei.

But for your knowledge of the Japanese language, I should have supposed that you had mistaken “Dai ni shidan” for “ni shidan”, and “ichi ridan” for “ichi shidan”.

There is no intention of sending any more troops to Formosa at present, beyond those of the 4th Brigade, who are now en route from Ja lien wan.

Mr Hall at Yokohama told me yesterday that an English ship has just arrived with a large cargo of war material, part of which was landed at Osako [sic] and the remainder is now being discharged at Yokosuka.

Yours very truly
N.W.H. Du Boulay
P.S. My interpreter, Kashiwa Mura, is unfortunately ordered to Formosa.
(7 August 1875)
(PRO 30/33 - 5/5)

REEL 6

The majority of letters are written by consular staff members Chalmers, Playfair and Enslie and mainly cover missions to Hakodate, Kobe, Nagasaki and Formosa. The letters sent ‘from the interior’ frequently begin with descriptions of weather conditions and types of transport used to reach their destinations. The main body usually highlights information such as: trip reports; rumours; military sightings; leave appointments; religion; illness, mining; German and Russian consulates; trade restrictions; British interests; suicides; attacks on foreigners by Japanese; insufficiency of the Japanese Penal Code.

My dear Sir Ernest
My wife says she ought to write and thank you for the lovely animal you sent Christabel, but as I am writing in answer to your letter of 16th, I have told her I will convey our united thanks and C. shall write hers when she gets the present which will occur at Christmas.


As to the leave, I appreciate greatly your kindness in trying to manage a spell of change for me but I can not lay claim to being either overworked or sick, and to tell the truth would rather remain here than go to Nagasaki. Please do not think me ungrateful, but as you put it to me in the form of a question, I would really much rather not go there . . .

[?] Ragard (Hakodate, 19 December 1897) (PRO 30/33 - 5/7)

My dear Enslie
I am sorry to hear that Griffiths dislikes going to Anping. Owing to the change of ownership of Formosa, the three ports there are of the greatest importance at the present moment, and will be for some time to come.


The Consul usually resides at Takow, the assistant being left in charge of Anping, so that he will have a good deal of responsibility and an opportunity of showing what stuff he is made of.
I do not think that under the circumstances, Griffiths need feel that there is any hardship in being sent to Anping to perform duties of much greater importance than devolved upon Perkins under the Chinese regime.


It would be extremely inconvenient to make any other arrangement. It is part of a general scheme in which the advantage of the public service has been considered, and therefore I do not see my way to making any alteration.
Y.V.T. [Yours Very Truly]

Ernest Satow (Tokio, 16 March 1896) (PRO 30/33 - 5/8)

REEL 7

Correspondence from Ralph Forster, R. W. Hurst, Mr Davidson, John Quin, Joseph Longford. Items discussed or mentioned include: Harbour regulations; reports of docked ships; callers at the embassy; transfer of land and taxes; tariff negotiations; report on sugar trade in Formosa, death of missionaries from sickness (possibly malaria); steam ship networks between Hong Kong and Japan; influence of the Chinese and Chinese business interests; assault on Russians by Japanese schoolboys; reports of desecration of Chinese graves by Japanese building roads through graveyards.


My dear Sir Ernest
Many thanks for your note of the 11th. I am glad to hear that Port Arthur is in safekeeping. It is to be hoped the Kaiser will leave no pals [sic] in his kleptomania. The integrity of China is worth more to us than half a dozen Soudans. I hope before long to see you successful in cementing an alliance with Japan for the protection of the most pacific of peoples.


I heard some weeks ago of the intention of getting up a memorial about coolie violence and c. and was asked if I would sign it. I replied certainly not; but I would forward anything I was asked to forward adding my own comment. The fact is that coolie violence is on the decrease; and some of the Kobeiters are rabidly anti-Japanese. I may mention e.g. that the Committee of the Kobe Club are bringing forward a resolution at the approaching annual meeting to exclude Japanese from membership [?]. I have induced Playfair to resign his membership of the Committee, so as to [?] himself from the [?].


I shall certainly take an early opportunity to make Mr Hara’s acquaintance and if you have no objection [should] like to communicate the explanation you suggested to the Kobe Chronicle instead of to the [?] – of course entirely as if coming from myself. I think so respectable and straightforward a paper deserves encouragement.


I sent in the test lease yesterday for registration at the Kencho – term 50 years. So I expect to be able to report before long. There is more behind the superficies dummy than either Brinkley or Louholm [?] have yet brought out.
Yours sincerely

I. C. Hall (Kobe January 13, 1898) (PRO 30/33 – 5/8)


REEL 8


Files include Japanese missions to Formosa and Tamsui plus correspondence from the travels of consular staff member Mr James Troup. All files look closely at conditions found on arrival, typically observed by Mr W. Kenny: “Amping is at first sight a melancholy place, but the residents here assure me the longer they stay in it, the more one likes it.” (PRO 30/33 – 5/12)


A particularly interesting letter found in PRO 30/33 – 5/12, discusses an agreement between Marquis Ito and private British company Messrs Samuel, Samuel and Co., the latter gaining a monopoly of the opium import trade in Formosa and charging 1% (with no other profits) on the total value imported. The problems highlighted in the same file include: the oversupply by drug smuggling; the expedition of robbers in the region, (whose antics had ceased communication from “the northern limits of the Keu to the Hozan district in the south”. Over 4,000 infantry and police scoured the area, killing nearly 250 robbers and taking 300 prisoners); plague outbreaks; typhoons and the registering of foreigners.


My dear Sir Ernest
I cannot do better than enclose the two cuttings showing the relative commercial importance of Tamsui and Tainau [?], to which I refer to in my letter. In 10 years, both the local trade and shipping of Tamsui doubled themselves, and there is every sign of still greater increase; while at Tainau [?], the trade is practically the same and shipping is considerably less.


I was not aware of such a difference before I came here; but the fact being so clearly in favour of Tamsui will you not assist in obtaining from the Foreign Office the recognition that though Tamsui formerly only a Vice Consulate was only recently made into a Consulate, it has now every claim to be considered more important than Tainau [sic] – a view I trust you share with me.


Yours sincerely

Henry Bonar (Tamsui, 2 April 1897) (PRO 30/33 – 5/13)


PRO 30/33 – 6/1 includes James Troup’s correspondence from the Yokohama legation. He reports on the lending of naval bases to Germany and France, trade returns, Earl Spender’s interest in the fur trade, returned customs duties paid in excess and no telephone installation at the legation until 1896.


REEL 9


James Troupe’s letters from Yokohama continue in PRO 30/33 – 6/2. Troupe reports on the proposed legislation of the Japanese Government on the charge of coinage to be agreed by the Treat ‘Powers’; the Queen’s 60th Anniversary; registering of trade marks; judicial duties of consul staff, discussion on treaties between Japan and Holland and Japan and Spain; the right of Canadians to obtain protections for their trademarks; murder of a British seaman; import/export trade reports. Some replies from Satow can also be found.


In PRO 30/33 – 6/3, Henry Bonar’s correspondence covers a wide range of subjects such as: the formation of a Shipping Committee; draft law for tonnage duties; business tax law; enforcement of trade taxes; income tax; court proceedings; ships in port; abolition of export duties; terms of leases on various premises; 1860 land regulations and several newspaper reports.


REEL 10


Correspondence from Mr Playfair, Ralph Forster, Mr Mowat, Walter Hillier, Alex Buller, Sir Edward Seymour. News consists of: counterfeit trademarks; placements of various legation staff; court representations; impending court enquiries; the case of Mr Carew, who died in uncertain circumstances; law of acquisition of property; civil code of Japan; Colonial Prisoner’s Removal Act of 1884; advice on appointment of clerks/ushers; sightings of ships (trade and naval); possible attendance of Japanese Royalty at Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.


The Times, December 6, 1898 The Money Market page 4:


We have acquired information that the Belgian Government is preparing to introduce a new measure to regulate the procedure for the settlement of disputes regarding the value of imported goods subject to an ad valorem duty. It is proposed to suspend the present system of pre-emption as established by Act XIII of the late Anglo-Belgian Treaty of Commerce of 1862 and to substitute a method by which all disputes concerning customs declarations since we referred to and settled without appeal by a board constituted by the Belgian Minister of Finance himself. We understand that this proposal is considered likely to be productive of the gravest abuses, and also that it would abolish, at a single stroke, the valuable safeguards against errors on the part of over-zealous officials which were created by the Treaty of 1862. We are informed that the contemplated system imposes heavy penalties should the value of the goods, in the opinion of the assessors, prove to have been ‘under declared’ to the extent only of 5 per cent. The Foreign Chambers of Commerce in Belgium are energetically concerting measures of protest against this proposal, and among them the Anglo-American Chamber is taking a prominent part. (PRO 30/33 – 6/6)


Dear Sir Ernest
Referring to my telegram to you of 18th and your reply of 19th. I am well aware that Formosa is not in my beat. But Amoy and Formosa are so mixed up that everything that happens in Formosa effects [sic] Amoy – All the British firms in Formosa are Branches of Firms in Amoy . . .
Yours Gardner
(Amoy, 20th February 1896) (PRO 30/33 – 6/8)

REEL 11


Dear Sir Ernest
I have to thank you for your letter of the 30th September. The interview accorded us by the Minister President Marquis Ito was all I could have wished. Unfortunately however matters have not yet reached the stage at which the services of the Bank could be availed of, the question whether the payment of the indemnity shall be in gold or silver, and if in gold, the time for settling the exchange still being at China’s option. These points will I presume have to be settled between now and the 8th of next month, and I shall feel much indebted to you, if you can see your way, in the cause of British Finance, to watch the interests of our Bank and advise me what further steps I should take, or where it would be expedient to approach the Premier again, with the view of putting the services of this Bank enlisted by the Japanese Government for the purpose of assisting in bringing to Japan any portion of the indemnity that may have to be permitted here from England or any foreign country. Again thanking you for all the trouble you have already taken for us.
Believe me, yours sincerely

Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, Yokohama, 5th October 1895 (PRO 30/33 – 6/14)


Dear Sir Ernest
The dredger bought by the Russian Naval Dept. is one imported from Scotland ten years ago by Mr Okura. She steamed out from England to Yokohama, and cost Mr Okura £11,500 on her arrival. He gets Yen 88,700 for her when delivered at Nagasaki.


She is what is known as a Hopper Dredger. Her hopper capacity is about 250 tons, and she will easily dredge 250 tons of mud per hour. She cuts her own flotation, and dredges to a depth of 28 feet. She is self propelling and steams six knots.


She is far from being in first class order, but she will probably do about three years of good work. She will leave Nagasaki for Port Arthur about the 15th, prox. The Russians wish to employ the present Japanese crew to show how she is worked for six months, and they will go I think, but they are asking three times their present wages.


An American who negotiated the sale told me that the Russians had made no appropriation for Vladivostock this year, but were putting all their money into Port Arthur, and intended spending about 2,000,000 on harbour improvements.


I give you the above in case it will be of interest to you, because I am an Englishman before other considerations.

I remain, dear Sir Ernest, yours faithfully
Richard Kirby, (Tokyo, June 30th, 1898) (PRO 30/33 – 6/15)


REELS 12, 13, 14 AND 15


The above reels focus on Ernest Satow’s private correspondence from 1895 to 1927. Writer’s include: Henry Tozer (cousin), Louis and P.S. Allen (nephews), Mary (sister), Samuel Satow (brother), Laurence Satow, Adeline Satow, Cousin Lisinka, Geoffrey Satow (nephew), Henry Satow (cousin), Harold Satow, W.G. Aston, F.V. Dickins, Lord and Lady Reay, J. H. Gubbins and the Honourable H. Marsham. Letters are written from various locations such as Chinese and Japanese legations, Egypt, Chatham, Germany, Beyrout, London, the S. S. Volga, Yedo and Bangkok. On his retirement, Satow moved to Ottery St. Mary in Devon. The topics discussed in the papers range from Foreign Office and family gossip, Japanese plants and flowers to an area which would bring immense contentment to Satow: the publication of several of his articles, attending lectures, reading academic papers on the East and the continued study of the Japanese and Chinese languages.


My dear Cousin Ernest
I was so pleased to get your kind letter yesterday and to know you were well. I have often wondered how Cousin Lisinka had been treated, so your news was welcome and I hope you will get a favourable report from her later.


In answer to your kind inquiry after my son, I am glad to say that he is very well and very keen on his duties as a soldier.


He was over two months in France where he had a very varied experience spending many nights in motor vehicles driving through most awful country in torrents of rain in the dead of night. I had very little news then of him and the post was unreliable.


He was greatly hampered owing to a broken bone in his ankle which was not attended to until he returned to England. He is now Senior Captain in his battalion and is mounted and has come in for high praise from his C.O.


He passed first class distinguished in musketry. He expects to be ordered abroad very soon. We live very quietly these times, my wife gets very depressed when she reads the heavy casualty lists, so many boys we have known and liked have gone. I try to keep the flag flying but I know how the mothers feel all the apprehension . . . Beyond having had 1,500 troops billeted here we see little to tell us that war is at hand. I suppose later on it will be more in evidence . . .

Your affectionate Cousin, H. W. Satow (Bangor, May 30th, 1915) (PRO 30/33 - 11/1)


My dear Dickins
There is a meeting of the Asiatic Society at Yedo on Saturday at which Gubbins’ review of the introduction of Christianity into Japan and China is to be read, and I feel bound to be present, more particularly as I have some new details to communicate. Otherwise I should have enjoyed a trip to Enoshima [?] with you very much. There are at present no patent laws in Japan. I made the inquiry a short time back for Robertson. Certain regulations were issued some years ago, but were afterwards annulled. I should like very much to read your Asamayama diary sometime if it is not of a private nature. You seem to have had a troublesome case in the Court, and a despicable opponent as well as His Honour, who really is the most self-important little snob I ever came across. I am in no hurry to have the Code words back, for my man will not begin copying the Monzeu jibiki [?] till next month, and he will be three or four months employed on that before beginning to classify materials; so take your time over them. If you can get the chronometer I will provide myself with a sextant. Would it be best to write home for one or try at Van Lissas.
Yours very truly,

Ernest Satow (October 22, 1877 [?]) (PRO 30/33 - 11/5)


Dear Reay
Many thanks for sending me the article from the Rotterdamsche Courant. It is very moderate and reasonable. It is quite true what it says that the instructions given to us in 1901 were dictated by the remembrance of what our ships had suffered in the Russo-Japanese war. What the F.O. wanted was to save themselves in future from being bothered by the owners of vessels that were sunk by belligerents for carrying contraband.


They never supposed that we should ever have to fight a European foe. Whether they thought it possible, after Halden’s journey to Berlin, is perhaps doubtful. Halden told Fry and myself at Failand (sic) that if we could get over a couple of years more our relations with Germany might become quite good. So I suppose the Cabinet fancied they could manage to tame the tiger. Do many of them understand the psychology of the fringment [sic]. I fear not. Their education has not fitted them for it. The last paragraph of all in the article is good. We gave little by having people like Tommy Bowles, who panders to civil passions. See his letter in the Times of today . . .

Ernest Satow (November 22, 1915) (PRO 30/33 - 11/7)


REELS 16, 17, 18, 19 AND 20


Five reels of private general correspondence from 1906-1927. Topics discussed include: Foreign Office gossip; Chinese dinner association, China Inland Mission, news from Japanese and Chinese legations, Satow’s appointment to represent England at the Peace Conference at Le Hague; Red Cross Society; British Museum; Lambeth Palace; the possible sale of Satow’s library to antique dealer Bernard Quaritch (eventually over 370 books were bequeathed to Magdalene College Library, Cambridge University); the First World War.


Writers include: Walter Townley, Stanley Leather [?], W. Meyrick Hewlett, Mr L. Campbell, Arthur Easter, G. F. Menzies, Harold Parlett [?], Gaston de Bernhardt, Frank Norris, Hubert Hall, Hubert Montgomery,
Harold Temperley, F. E. Awdry, Geo. Douglas Gray, J. M. Macleod, Robert Collard, Fred Yates, Professor Oppenheim, Mary Lyell, Lionel B. Cholmoneley, Emily Morely, Alice Mayers, Edwyn Bevan, Mariabella Fry, Basil Matthews, John Pawley Bate, Robert Wilberforce, A. Allen Shand, B. H. Chamberlain, Stephen Gaselee, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, World Missionary Conference, The New Victorian Club, Library of Congress, Washington, International Law Association, National Laymen’s Missionary Movement, The Grotius Society.


My dear Sir Ernest,


The F. O. are extraordinary thick of head! They must have known quite well had they given themselves the trouble to think that I was sailing on the 30th because the Department, the Private Secretary and the Hall Porter knew six weeks before I started that I had booked passages for that day. But this is a mere digression and here we are on the high seas making good progress towards St. Vincent where we are due on Saturday morning at day break. We spent last Monday at Lisbon where we found Villiers one continuous grumble, very much aged, hating life abroad and generally behaving as emancipated Foreign Office habitually do when munching someone else’s bread and butter. We had a pleasant day on shore, the weather was glorious and it was amusing for us to revisit old haunts such as the picturesque old cathedral and cloisters of Belem, but what a dead-alive place, and may the Fates never guide my footsteps thither officially!


There are some interesting people on board and we hear very satisfactory accounts of the Argentine. I think we shall like our stay there and I feel sure that there is considerable official as well as human interest to be derived from a sojourn in land that is evidently raising its young head out of the pampas grasses and other obstacles that impeded the early growth of what must be fast becoming a strong and healthy youth. I will tell you more about the country when I have acquired some small knowledge of it and its ways . . . I have been asked to bring the case of Captain Tufnell, of the Astroea to your notice, in case you feel that you can say a word for him at the F.O. Captain Tufnell commanded the men landed from ships of six nationalities during the riots at Shanghai last December: the men were, I am told, on shore about 14 days and that during that time all worked together without the slightest hitch or friction. Captain Tufnell seems to think he ought to have some recognition for his services on this occasion in the shape of a C. M. G. or some such decoration, and I am not at all sure that I don’t agree with him, if he has a fancy for such things, provided that his services on the occasion in question are such as they have been represented to me. Many sailor men and others have certainly been decorated for much less. Perhaps you would sooner not meddle in the matter, though you are the proper person to recommend the gallant officer, if you think right . . . Yes, the F. O. have ousted poor Durand and up to the date of my departure from London were at their wits ends to find someone to step into his unenviable shoes. Quite between ourselves, I know from the source itself that very great pressure was brought to bear on Hardinge to go and that it two hours at Castle Rising on Wednesday November 28th to persuade the King that he is doing better work where he is. I told him that I quite concurred in this opinion, but I did not tell him, what I think that he is quite unsuited to the job of tackling Roosevelt, the American nation and Press as well as Speck Von Sternburg. The latter I do not consider a stupendous task, but the former require an artist of more conciliatory manner and less pronounced personality than Charles Hardinge, much as I admire the excellent work he has done.
Yours very sincerely,

Walter Townley (R. M. S. P. Aragon, December 6th, 1906) (PRO 30/33 - 12/1)


Dear Sir Ernest,


. . . You probably heard that the F. O. abandoned the idea of a Vice-Consulate at Antung in favour of one here. Forster, Rentiers and Hobart-Hampden all had the offer of the post and all refused it. So that at last if came round to me, and though one and all solemnly shook their heads at my folly, I accepted the move all thought so undesirable. I confess I did not greatly long to come here; but it seemed to me not only foolish but rather selfish to decline a post simply because it might happen to be uncomfortable. I have since seen no reason to alter my mind. It was very uncomfortable in the beginning, particularly during the three months I was condemned to stay in that horrible pig-stye [sic], the Toyo Hotel, hotel only in name. My wife did not come over with me. I thought it better for both of us that the pioneering part of all events should be done by me.

Her patience, however, soon gave out and in the beginning of March she mutinied and came over of her own accord . . . When I came here in February I thought I had never seen so barren and forlorn a spot. On the day of my arrival I was taken to see the Tiger Park, the one show place of Dalny. There were trees in it a plenty, the remains too of grass and flowers; but to me it seemed that no grass could ever grow or trees ever bud within a hundred miles. I was quite wrong. In due course spring came round again and with it the grass and the flowers . . . It is not of course the luxuriant vegetation of Japan; but I am not sorry for that. There were times in Japan when I hated that overlasting and monotonous grave-yard green particularly of the bamboo brakes . . . The work too is interesting, though a little up-hill at times. I suppose it is my own stupidity that makes it so, and I confess that I do not understand the workings of the Japanese mind.

The officials are always very kind to me socially and they say they are most anxious to encourage foreigners to come here; but when the question arises of doing something in practical proof of their expressed desire I do not find them at all willing. I am always torn in two directions where the people of this country are concerned. On the one had I have vivid recollections of many kindly acts done to me by individuals, I know too that many of the best men of the country are as open-minded and as enlightened as the best men of Europe. On the other hand there are scores and hundreds of educated Japanese who, under a mask of cordiality, hide the bitterest hostility against everything connected with the West. Then too there is the ignorant peasant. Nature made him a kindly fellow and he appears to wish to be friendly with the foreigner; but this wish, one can see, is at perpetual variance with his natural suspicion of ignorance, to be found in like manner among our own peasantry and uneducated classes, how much is inborn natural dislike, not to be driven out by any degree of education or acquaintance? I would like to be able to put aside all bias, all feelings of disdain because they are Asiatics and to judge them impartially. I would like too to forget that I ever knew them . To me it always seems that they are deliberately hoodwinking us. I know they are intensely ambitious and I ask myself how is a nation like this, imbued with militarism, with a superabundant population, backward in commercial skill, of no commercial morality, advanced only in matters of war, going to expand and capture the world’s markets if it be not by the sword. This is the point I have against our recent policy, at least as I judged it while in Tokyo - that we are taking this people too much, believing too readily all they say, when we should really be watching them as closely as if they were Germans or Russians . . .
Harold Parlett (British Vice-Consulate, Dairen, July 20th 1907) (PRO 30/33 - 12/2)


My dear Sir Ernest
. . . The work is hard and here we are rather under the influence of Sun Gat Sen’s (sic) ‘abolish the Treaties’. The Likin authorities in Amoy think nothing of seizing foreign cargo, and when protests are made and the Treaties quoted, they merely reply that they have never read the Treaties, do not want to know the Treaties, do not want to know the Treaties and that their only concern is to collect money. Agencies in the interior are having a very bad time and the efforts to limit legitimate foreign trade to the Treaty Ports are becoming more and more pronounced. It is an incessant warfare against illegal taxation. The missions appear likely to suffer as well, chiefly I think on account of having emphasized the foreign character of Christianity too strongly. The native churches instead of showing patience under suffering have appealed to foreigners for protection and allow converts to store goods in the churches in times of trouble. Nationally their compatriots who receive no protection and are looted or have their homes destroyed or are press-ganged by troops resent this foreign protection, and it has endangered bitter feelings. I do not think that the Diplomatic Body has ever been so weak as it is at present, and it would distress you to see how cases are handled . . .

W. Meyrick Hewlett (Amoy, January 29, 1925) (PRO 30/33 - 13/6)

My dear Sir Ernest
. . . Fighting broke out again here on March 21. It started 13 miles north of Chengtu, but luckily the city was not affected this time. All factions in Szechuan united last year to drive out the men of Gunnan and Kulichou [?]. This they accomplished by the end of October, but alas personal ambition and lust for wealth and power proved too strong and instead of repairing the savages of 5 years civil war they have fallen out among each other. It is all very bad . . . large towns are attacked: Hanchou, 30 miles from Chengtu, was attached on April 23 . . . It is hard to say how it will all end . . .

W. Meyrick Hewlett (Chengtu, May 3, 1921) (PRO 30/33 - 13/11)


REEL 21


This reel offers Satow’s letter books from the Siamese, Moroccan and Japanese missions. The majority of correspondence is addressed to Foreign Office officials (including Lord Salisbury, Lord Lansdowne, Mr Barrington, Mr Currie, Cecil Smith) and cover the period 1884 to 1900. (See ‘Reels 1, 2, 3 and 4: the Register of Correspondence PRO 30/33 - 2/4 for a listing of material up to April 1887)


Dear Lord Salisbury,


Last night at dinner, I met Genl. Kawakami [?] the Chief of Staff. Talking of Russia he said that she was by no means so powerful out here as people seemed to think. At Vladivostok they have only 30,000 men, not very [?]


Soldiers and even when the Siberian Railway is completed, he doubts whether they could ever carry on war on an extended scale at such a distance for their base. He instanced the war of 1877 as a proof of what he said. Russian troops he admitted were numerous, but could not be wielded in large masses. The Japanese fleet he said was of course inferior at present in strength, but the delivery of the 2 battleships now building in England would make a great difference. From something he dropped about Japan being stronger 10 years hence I gather that he is in favour of writing before beginning again. But in case of need he thought it would be quite an easy business to throw troops into Corea by way of Tsushima, even if the Russians were superior at sea by decoying them away from the straits for a few hours. The coast of Corea is visible from the island of Tsushima . . . He expressed his anxiety to see England assert her influences in Eastern Asia. In this he was merely uttering a sentiment which seems to be pretty general among the Japanese . . .

Satow (Tokio, 7 November 1895)” (PRO 30/33 - 14/9)


Dear Lord Salisbury,


Ito’s resignation a fortnight ago took every one by surprise. It had been supposed that he would at least wait to see the result of the next elections, and of his chances of forming a party from himself. Contrary to expectation some important capitalists who had promised their support were persuaded to draw back. At the Palace on June 24 a meeting took place of Ito, Yamagata . . . and 2 or 3 more of the most influential men in and out of office in the presence of the emperor. Ito opened the discussion by saying that the time had now arrived when government must be based on a parliamentary majority. All the others were against him and Yamagata was especially violent. Of course it was a complete volte-face on Ito’s part.

Yamagata and one or two more are believed to have said that rather than this it would be better to suspend the constitution. There was a great row. Ito, as I have been told by one of those who were present, went away to another room and at once sent in his resignation, coupled with the surrender of his title and decorations . . .
Satow (July 7, 1898) (PRO 30/33 - 14/10)


My dear Bertie
My authority (my no. 41) for the belief that the Japanese intend to deprive British shipping of the coasting trade between Japan and Formosa is Gubbins . . . sugar from Takow is shipped by British merchants in Br[itish] st[eame]rs. Since the almost total decay of the camphor trade, the sugar business is all that is left to our people in South Formosa. Probably the rumour that Japanese st[eame]rs will not be allowed to carry cargo between Hawaii and San Francisco has suggested to the Japanese Government that it would be agreeable to apply the same principle to Formosa and Japan against foreign st[eame]rs . . .

Satow (22 February 1899) (PRO 30/33 - 14/10)

 

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