I fear it will be difficult for the Russians to get any considerable share of the commerce in the Sea of Japan, although the fact that agents of one of their steamship companies are instituting inquiries in Na-seems to indicate that they desire something of that kind. Last year the Diet voted 140,000 yen as a subsidy for a regular service in the Sea of Japan, and towards the end of this month the Kotsu Maru, the first boat of the new lino, will leave Kobe. The vessel will touch at Tsuruga and Vladivostock as well as a number of other ports in the same sca, What Russia will do. connection is to kill Japenese. souitieree What Russia will probably do in this with her Pacific ports by outrageous exactions and tariffs, but it is doubtful if the Japanese will stand this. They are already getting excited about Russia's attempts to cripple their fishing industry in Saghalien, The " Nippon's" correspondent, writing from Vladivostock under date of the 12th inst., reports that the Russian authorities have adopted another new amendment to the Fishery Regulations as applied to the coast of East Siberia, and that this amendment will practically exclude Japanese fishery enterprise along that coast. The old Regulations forbid aliens, nine-tenths of whom are Japanese, from' engaging in fishery, but this prohibition has not been. extended to the curing business. All aliens are forbidden to engage in future in this curing business also. It is true that a Russian fisherman is permitted to employ foreign assistants, but the number of those foreigners is limited to not more than three for every fishing station. Another important exclusive provision is contained in Art. 5 which states that at fishing leases obtained by aliens where only the fishing and curing of fish belonging to the salmon family are carried on, no alien labourers may be engaged. Now the Japanese fishery enterprise in Saghalien is practically confined to salmon and herring, and. if, as mentioned in that provision, a Jap; anese lessee must not employ his own countrymen as workmen on his station, the result practically amounts to stopping his business. Probably the same Government will next year extend a similar prohibition to the herring fishery conducted by alien lessees. Another thing worth recording is the invalidation of the right of priority, the dispute about which attracted last year the attention of the Japanese. Art. 14 provides that the fishery provisions and establishments existing on a fishery lease shall not invest in the lessee the right of priority to be set up against a third party, when that lease is to be leased afresh to any applicant. The correspondent adds that "this fishery question may
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