The Finance Minister has now realized that the 100 per cent. luxury tariff has worked injustice to the few thousand foreigners in Japan, and has hardly proved to be a protective policy, which was the main object with which this note fous tariff was enacted. The p sd reduction of the latter was dictated by political expediency, Mr. Sanji Muto, leader of the busines men's party in the Japanese Diet having wrung a promise from the authorities for the revision of the 100 per cent. tariff, in return for the support of his party. Mr. Muto, who is against high tariff bar-eva'and is a proponent of free trade, is also out for a reduction of the duties on steel, lumber, wool and other commodities, Big industrial-ints, however, are taking a diagonally opposite stand with regard to the latter commodities and are demanding an increase of duties on these.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.