UNITED STATES AND JAPAN.

Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 87, 4 September 1852, Page 5

UNITED STATES AND JAPAN.

The United States Government have despatched an expedition, consisting of a steam frigate and four ships, to be joined by four more ships in the Pacific, to proceed to Japan, for the purpose of opening commercial relations with that exclusive country. The negociation is said to be of a peaceful nature, but as the ships are all well armed, it is fair to suppose that the treaty is not to be voluntary on the part of the Japanese. It is given out that the object of the expedition is to make a hydrographic survey of the coast. The Neio York Tribune of the 24th March, mates the following comments on the presumed purposes of the expedition. It would, we think, be difficult to invent a more unblushing- mixture of hypocrisy and cant than the article conveys, and the idea of inuoculating the Japanese with morality through the medium of cannon balls and bombs, while mercantile gain is the real and professed object, is something quite unique in its way. The following is the article:—

"We are to send a fleet to Japan, and to enter the capital city at all hazards. The interests of American trade require that commercial communications be opened with that recluse region, and a numerous array of armed vessels will proceed to state that fact to the Japanese Government, and to open the gates of its ports. It is a fair suspicion in the premises that the greatness of America is better understood at Washington than at Jeddo, and that the Japanese will be unable immediately to discern the great advantage of trading with a nation which makes the overture from the cannon's mouth. It may be also presumed that they will decline to accede to such propositions so made, until they have learned, as they infallibly will learn, by much bombarding and battering, that we are determined to give them the benefits of commercial communication with us.

" In this state of things, going thus into pagan realms, it behoves us not to lose the opportunity of labouring for the spiritual benefit of the benighted Japanese. Let not these misguided men, lighting for their own, perish without benefit of clergy. Why should we not combine instruction with mercantile benefit, and while we get from the Japanese such articles as we wish, leave some of our morality in exchange ? We might be gainers in that bargain. To this end, and to impart a moral lustre to the expedition, we suggest that some of the many chaplain? of the United States now unemployed, be despatched to Japan with the fleet, and while the ships lie before Jeddo, bombarding the city, and stray boatsfull of obstinate Japanese are captured and brought on board our ships, the reverend gentlemen might exert all their genius in the conversion of the natives, while each cannon peal and roar of bursting bomb would lend emphasis to their -words.

We should, indeed, be truly sorry to see tlie American Government engaged in any undertaking of this magnitude to which it would be unwilling to give the ameliorating aspect of a solicitude for the moral welfare of the people concerned. And the extreme nervousness which so many journals have already manifested to preach to the unhappy oppressed of Europe the immorality of dissatisfaction with tyranny, and the high morality which consists in honouring the king and submitting to the powers that be, will, we are confident, lead those same journals

to second our efforts to make the Japan expedition a moral enterprise."