Business is not good in Japan at present, and the stagnation may account as much for the strange failure of the people to get angry with the Peers for abandoning the Japanese soldiers in China as even the heavy taxation. Yokohama things are not so bad perhaps as in Osaka but as sundry foreigners have their habitat there we hear more about the prevalent depression. There was a rumour in the port a few dags ago to the effect that two banks were in a perilous position and considerably more than two banks were unfavourably influenced by the rumour with the result, that there fa run on several institutions. Small bani sare failing almost every day, but I think that in spite of the prevalent pessimism there is no danger whatever of any of the well-known Japanese establishment going under. Naturally there is a considerable number of failures while a large number of merchants—Japanese and foreign—are in a precarious plight.
12th March.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.