best way to make it good would be to write it off from the reserve fund. A grateful acknowledgment was received; but so the reply ran—the Englishman's advice could not be taken, "because, according to government regulations, all insurance companies were obliged to hold a reserve of 500,000 yen." The accounts were therefore "cooked," and not for eighteen months more were the facts made public, when to conceal them was no longer possible. From a Japanese point of view, there was nothing specially grotesque or dishonest in this course; for is not literal obedience to official regulations the first duty of every loyal subject?
It is especially in business transactions at the open ports that the European mind and Japanese logic are brought into contact, whence frequently friction and mutual misunderstanding. Certain aspects of the mental attitude in question recur, however, so constantly that the resident European merchants have learnt how to deal with them. The peculiarity most often cited is the refusal of Japanese tradesmen to make a reduction on a quantity. We Europeans of course argue thus:—"I, the buyer, am giving a large order; the seller will in any case make a considerable profit on this single transaction, comparatively quickly and with comparatively slight trouble; therefore he can afford to lower his price. If a dozen goes at the rate of so much, the gross must go at so much less. Nothing appears to us more obvious: it is a cardinal principle of our trade. But the Japanese dealer views the matter differently. "If," says he, "Messrs. Smith and Co., instead of ordering only one bale of silk, order a hundred, that shows that they are badly in want of it, and must be able to pay a good price. Furthermore, if I sell all I have to them, I shall have none left for other customers, which may prove very inconvenient. Their expecting me to reduce my figure is another instance of that unreasonableness on the part of the red-haired foreigner, of which I and my countrymen have already witnessed so many proofs." Hence of course a dead-lock, but for the fact, already noted, that many European merchants engaged
