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November 8, 1902. ]
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CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
notice of it. The Manager had no authority to close a transaction for the bank except in the purchase and sale of commercial bills. Justification for the refusal was also urged on the ground that other creditors of the railway had greed to accept in settlement of their claims 80,000 yeu for 1000,500 yen of debts, and if this note were paid in full that settle. ment plan would be upset and the railroad force into bankruptcy.
refusal was that the foreign firm lost £250, its only reported Joss in a year when Japan was threatened with commercial pauic. There had been a long speculative period, a boom in all kinds of nterprise, and reaction had come. Things that enr elsewhere at such a time occurred thoughent industrial Japan. except that instead of accepting delivery of goods aud¦ then failing in business, merchants who found their resources cramp d sought escape from their contracts on technicalities, objections, or The Court in rendering judgment recited by blant refusal to accept deliver. The from the Civil Code a provison that an ex Yokohama godowns did become glufted, but pression of intention made by a representative foreigners had not parted with their property, within the scope of his authority and purpling and thus were of driven to the courts in to be made on behalf of a principal fakes effect a long clase
ta recover it. They knew directly for and against the latter. Comment- the commercial conditions that depresseding pu the contention of the bank that this business as well as did the native merchants. payment would constitute all undesirable, and could have no don't that with the passing precedent, the Court declared that it would be of the stringenes the market would demand the more undesirable for the bank to refuse to take goods, whether delivery were taken by those responsibility for acts done in its name and who had ordered them or by others. So at the worst there and be no such loss as might have condition in which a lender might never be contracts stamped with its seal. As to a been involved had deliveries hean taken, and
sure but that soine technicality might be panic fallen upon an overstocked native supply. į raised to evade a contract, the fact of such The foreign firm which had trouble with Mr. | technicality being of more importance than Kimura has long been in business at Yokohama, the execution of the contracts, these could not i In its operations for many years, this was the he twĵo opinions on the score of moral validity. first public announcement that it had been. If the bank employed men who excveded their, forced to write against its profit and Iss
powers it was nevertheless responsible, or account as large a sum as €250; and in all that business would be impossible. Judgment was time the portion of its profits withdrawn for given for the paymen of the note in full, with personal account had been sufficient to support interest and costs.
Settlement occurred on very comfortable, if not expensive, living. that. Insis.
At a meeting of native mercbauts held when panic threatened. to discuss means of averting the danger, a leading merchant. speaking of accumulations of goods and of refusals 10 take delivery, is reported hure said: What if the godowns are glutted? Let the stuff decay; then the situation may be saved. Japanese are too sensitive on the subject of commercial morality. Foreigners say that they must sell out at enormous losses, and that Japanese contractors go seat free. That is not so, or the foreigners bave the goods, and Japanese must finally take them out, then paying interest | en their value. storage, and insurance. Foreign loss is mainly in the pay ment of interest fou their drafts, on the loss of interest on their predit balances. That is a mis- fortune, but foreign banks are easy, aud Japanese banks are hard. They have been recklessly tra‹- ing, and we have overworked our capital. Even if all our claims for shortage, difference of pattern or of texture should be disallowed, the financial situation should be cons.dered. The foreign banks know their customers and will be patient with them. and Japanese banks must exhibit a proper regard for their own interests by a conservative attitude." Here was a ples for the repudiation of contract, as the lesser of two evils, a counsel which the speaker now doubtless feels was fully warranted by the course of events, for fears soon became pacified, and within a few months native merchants took out the godown stocks, at little reported lo-s to foreigners except that of delay. In the other event there might have been deliveries and many settlements at such percentage of invoice prices as could have been obtained at forced sales when no one wished to buy.
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BANK BENDS TO LAW,
A ease that has been used by foreizners as a text for discourse on native tendencies arose from a loan of 200,000 yen by the Russo Chinese Bank to the Toyokawa Railway Co. One of the native banks at Kyoto guaranteed payment, or at any rate the Manager of the native bank signed a guarantee on behalf of the bank, which the lender accepted as full secu ity When demand was made on the bank for the money. the railway company having failed to meet the note at matufity, the bank refused to stand by the endorsement on the ground that the Manager had no right to use the seal of the bank for an endorsement. without express authority from the Director, such authority not having been conferred in this instance. The bank held that its Manager had never enjoyed more than limited powers, and based its defence on the proposition that without the permis iou of the principal a procurator cannot rightfully undertake commercial transactious ou his own account, or on that of a third person, and if a procurator does so undertake, the principal is absolved from liability, and may repudiate the contract within two weeks after receiving
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In addition to the original foreign criticisin of the bank for its refusal to pay the note on demand, much adverse comment was ¦ provoked over the devices which the bank employed to drag the suit through the courts. Several months elapsed between the Legining of the suit and the judgment, due mainly to requests for time by counsel for the native bank, which the Court granted. This case seems to have been a contributing cause to
Beldys the publication of a pamphlet entitled. The the Lav Courts, printed in Yokohama, and given wide circulation through the Foreign Chamber of Commerce of that place, wherein are cited six commercial cases, seemingly easy of settlement, which have hung fire in the courts for from oue to eighteen mouths.
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FOLEIGSERS FAVOURED IN COURT.
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The document certainly proves that there are, deplorable delays · of the law in Japan. declares that the difficulty in obtaining the legal enforcement of good faith is one of the principal causes of the high interest rates for money, and conveys the further doubtful im pression that a state of affairs has been brought, about peculiar to this land, whr by many traders have come to the conclusion that it is less troublesome and costly to forego a claim than to bring it before the cou ts. "So far as out observation goes." the compiler says, this is not a matter in which foreigners specially or particularly labour under disa frantage; in fact, we are convinced that the law is made to move more quickly when the foreigner is concerned, but the interests of each are the interests of all and the fact that our Japanese friends suffer more than we do is ouly a greater reason why this subject should he brought to the bar of public opinion."
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and since then contracts have been secured only by the means nsual in lands where good faith is 8 drawing commercial card. It does not appear that the Germans have lost by their course, or that because of that concession others have suffered, so that nuder one practice or the other Japanese morality has remained unaffected. Nor is there evidence that that change of reference
of commercial actions from the consular courts, to which, formerly foreigners had recourse, to the native courts, has worked equipped as are the native courts with men and essential injustice in any quarter, inadequately comparatively new as is the procedure under which the courts te operated.
Their codes were transplanted fo Europe, and they are 18 different as possible from any notions of law to which tradition or the training of persons yet active furnished any preparation. A little greater expedition in the settlement of cou- mercial cases may have occurred when every behind him on this soil than when all residents foreigner had his own government directly
legal footing. were placed for ordinary purposes on the same While No one will pretend is hoped they may become, it may well be that the native courts are, as efficient as it
that an analysis of present complaints of the difficulties and delays in holding native mer foreigners to think prevails at home, may be chants to a standard which absence leads traced to unwelcome novelties in the foreign status, rather than to special aggravations now devised by natires or to a dispositiou in the law of the courts to be either unfair or annoying. No worse instances have been reported of native looseness in contracts and of the trouble in obtaining redress for wrongs, than those cited in this letter. Po-sibly as agouts shall come cannot divorce their memories or their prejudices out for foreigu houses, to replace those who from the days of consular authority, business conditions may not seem so inferior to those in other lands at they have seemed since the revised treaties became operative, in 1899.
CANTON.
FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT.]
Canton, 1st November. PRAYING FOR RAIN.
Of late the weather has been very dry, and everybody here has been anxious for rain; yet in spite of the prayer of the Namhoi and Punya Magistrates, the Provincial Judge, and even the Viceroy, who appealed most earnestly to heaven and earth, and invoked the spirits of mountains and sea to bless the population with rain, none has come. Lately from three to four handr. d women from differeut families swore that they would by their appeal move the heart of the gods. So after three days of fasting and ablu ions they went together on the 29th of last month in a big crowd to the temple of the Dragon King to pray him to intercede with Funz Lung (the ruler of the rains) on their behalf. On the 29th and 30th rain came pretty thickly in Cauton.
ANOTHER METHO.
The Magistrate Fung of the district of Hing Ning, Kwangtung, after he had probi. bited the slaughtering of swino for three days, and bad prayed to the god of the cities and towns for rain without any effect, resolved to kill the Demon of Drought in the following
manner.
In this presentation, and in comments by native and other newspapers, presumably reflect- ing intelligent opini u, there has appeared no
He had an effigy made of paper and suggestion t at the issu-s in the courts do not bamboo to represent this Demon, and having finally come out right, although the compensa- closed the Southern gate of the city, ordered the tion for judicial service in Japan is so small as police to go to the Temple of Horror to arrest to graduate occupants of the bench into the bar and bring the paper effigy with chains round its with aunoying rapidity, and it might well ueck into Court, and made it kneel down before tempt the weak to sell their decisions. In a him. He was dressed in his official robe, and list of commercial cases compiled by one news- sitting in Court, with his haud he banged ou paper, to show the time taken for the sett'ement the table, while in a loud voice le scolded the of suits relating to bills in the first half of this paper effigy for continually committing the year, it appears that cut of 434 suits 1-0 were crime of bringing drought into the city. Then settled within a mouth and 311 within two he ordered him to b. taken out an i beheaded. months. Fourteen had been pending for one! But a party of gentry of the place, as already year, 16 for two years, and 2 for more than į pre-arranged, came forward to beg favour of the two years.
In other years payment ou account accom: patied an order, no contract being signed with but it. The Germans made their first effective iuroads on foreign trade by abolishing the bargain money condition. They were thereby in the way of absorbing so much of the business that other foreign houses yielded that point,
Magis rate to let them stand security for the Demon and allow the latter three days' grace, and if after three days he did not bring raio, then let his head be cat off. The Magistrate nodding his assent, the effigy was taken out of Court, and placed on the top of the city gate. Not quite three days after, on the 29th ult., there were thunder and raiu.
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