JAPAN'S LEGAL ADVISER.

Mataura Ensign, Issue 1542, 21 September 1905, Page 5

JAPAN'S LEGAL ADVISER.

, The lawyer who was engaged' to draft the peace treaty on behalf of ■Japan is a New England attorney, lint Mr Dennison has been legal adviser to the Japanese Foreign Office for , a quarter of a century, and has resided m Tokio for an even longer j period. He went out to Japan in i the seventies as a 'Vice-Consul and | was m the Yokohama office underGeneral Van Buren, whose quarrelsome nature is the subject of many stones m the Par Eastern services, "here Mr Dennison especially shows j us ability," says (he New York •Tribune,' "is by his modesty and the altogether unobfrusive manner in which he is content to work, instead of exploiting for his own glory and prestige the great influence ' which he wields with the Japanese Government—greater, in fact, than that enjoyed by any foreigner at Tokio since the days of gallant old General Legendre." Officially, Mr Dennison is legal adviser to the Foreign Office. Practically, he is the principal foreign adviser to the Japanese Government, ami is consulted by the Cabinet <m all manner of questions. "It speaks volumes for his honesty, for his tact, ami for his shrewdness," continues the, ■Tribune,' "that he should have succeeded in wholly winning the confidence of the Japanese, that he should have been able to dispel that altogether innate distrust which the Orientals invariably entertain for the European or American, and thai he should have exercised his delicate functions with so much care as to avoid exciting the jealousy which so highly sensitive a people as the Japanese might naturally be expected to feel with regard to the idea that they were dependent upon Foreign judgment and experience for their statesmanship." Of course the importance of Ivs-work has been enormously increased during the past few years. His name was almost-unknown in Europe until the opening of the peace negotiations, and even in America his great worth was appreciated only in official circles.