A TRANSLATION of the rules of the Tapanose Silk Sorting Company appears in the columns of the Japan Mail. They do not seem to us to threaten foreign trade with new and serious dangers as our contemporaries in Yokohama led us expect they would, They wear an innocent air, such as we in China have been accustomed to in the manifestoes of tea and silk guilds. The guile, if there is any, is concealed beneath plausible phrases, such as that which states that the object of the Company's existence is to establish mutual coufidence; or where the cause of purity of commercial dealing is to be furthered by the abolition of "the bad custom of paying so-called weight-money and compradores' foes which are styled simply a species of bribery, But the Company is one which may be made capable of doing much harm to the silk trade, foreign and native, of Japan. If it has been formed with the countenance of the Government, or receives the active support of officials, sensible people of all nationalities will consider it another of those questionable schemes by which such great injury has been done of late to the credit of official and commercial Japan. The ostensible reasons for the formation of the Company, are, to establish stores in the country and at the ports, where parcels of silk shall be classified so minutely by the silk inspector of the Company, that where " sale is made ton foreigner or to n Japanese any one of the bales in each classification will serve as a sample. The bales thus inspected will be of the "most perfect uniformity of gloss and fineness; they will be closed and stamped at the store, and certificates appended to each lot which are to be forwarded with the silk to Yokohara or the other ports," where they will form the basis on which the silk will be sold, Those who may become members of the Company are all Japanese engaged directly or indirectly in the export or import of silk or silk goods at the open ports, nnd all Japanese acting as commission agents for the sale of the same at the ports or in the interior. Japanese silk merchants or growers in the interior are thus to be excluded and this shows that the association is intended solely for the bereft of middlemen, the dealers at the open ports, and the brokers at them and in the country districts. Now we in Chine have found it to our disadvantage that we cannot deal direct with the producers, or in the inland silk and toa markets, and even if foreigners in Japan do at present not wish to buy in the country, it would be short-sighted in them to give any support to a Company which olently intends to keep the power of dealing with the country people entirely in its own hands, The more foreigners in the East can dispense with native middlemen the better it will be for their trade, and the greater will be the benefits that trade will bestow on the countries with which foreigners deal. Such " Company as this silk sorting one will be able to throw all kinds of obstacles in the way of bringing about improvements in the reeling, &e., of silks, and may prevent the adoption of such remedies for abuses, or careless preparation, as are absolutely necessary if the Japanese silk trade is to hold its own, Every care las been taken by the promoters of the Company to frame rules by which all Japanese who are not members shall be excluded from the silk trade at the open ports. Members are forbidden to employ, as their agents at the ports, persons who do not belong to the Company. And, by another rule, it is forbidden to take orders from persons who, though really acting for foreigners, make purchases in their own names, unless the rales of the Compaay are observed in the transaction and members are to abstain from all dealings with outsiders, whose action is opposed to this rale. All silks are to be puld for before delivery, and members breaking this rule are to be subject to a penalty of teu per cent. on the total value of the goods sold in contravention of the rale. The Company undertakes to make every endea-your to resist any exorcise of compulsion or intimidation on the part of foreigners—a rule which will doubtless prove a blessing to the foreign and native Bar in Japan, though no other people are likely to benefit by it.
We have noticed the principal points in the statutes of the uew Company. They are no doubt very similar to the rules of the trading guilds in this country, and though these have sometimes been the cause of annoyance and loss to foreigners, it may be doubted if their influence has been of service to their countrymen. The idea of exercising almost unquestionable power, through a guild, has peculiar attractions to the minds of Easterns, as it once had to the majority of Westerns; among some of whose professions and trades it still lingers. But with the changes that are taking place in the world, every year that passes weakens the power of guilds. Bach now market that is opened where toa and silk may be bought, makes the world more independent of the tea and silk of China and Japan, and diminishes their value. A Company, therefore, which is formed for the purpose of controlling trade by certain rules and regalatious of its own, may find that it can have pretty well its own way, Bat it will be because foreigners have become indifferent to the trade, or can supply themselves else. where with what will suit them just as well as the articles they have been in the habit of buying in China or Japan. We should say that foreigners have no great cause to be alarmed by the establishment of this Silk Sorting Company. It may oven turn out a benefit to them, should the managers of it, just as a novelty, honestly classify the different parcels of sill, If they do not attempt to do so, buyers are not obliged to accept their valuations or classifications, and the charge for inspection will fall ea the inland dealers, who may be left to fight their own battles. As there is not the least probability of the classifications being accepted unquestioned by foreign buyers, and as there are other difficulties in the way of the adoption of the inspecting part of the scheme, the whole affair many collapse from innate unfeasibility, It is very likely that the originator of the Company Lave intentions which are not disclosed in the rules, They may Lope to control the silk market in Japan, and probably that is their real object. Bat they can only do so successfully, by being bettor merchants than foreigners are, for there is nothing in the present or near future aspect of the silk trade which is favourable to combinations to bring about high prices, Avy Company trying to do that in Japan is pretty certain to come to ruin, It might also attempt to prevent foreigners from doing business with Japanese who wore nob members of the Company, but, if thia were done, we should think the roprosentatives of treaty Powers would have something to say on the matter to the Government.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.