The last treaty of Tokugawa Shogunate
– The treaty of friendship, commerce and navigation between Japan and Denmark in 1867 (Letter from Ambassador in August)

Dear Friends,

    I hope that this letter would find you well at the end of the summer season. Having started this letter in a very Japanese way of season’s greeting, I notice that it has been mostly cool in recent weeks in Copenhagen toward the end of August. Sometimes I wake up to find the temperature 12℃ and not reaching 20℃ even around noon. Often, I go for a walk putting a long-sleeved jersey on a t-shirt.
   In the town, we see the nurses in the red T-shirts marching and claiming for the wage increase, and various rainbow-colored flags and architectures during the week of World Pride hosted by Copenhagen for the first time since some years ago. At flower shops, now summer flowers like impatiens and fuchsia are going out whereas chrysanthemum and cyclamen arrive on the shelves. Most exciting venue is a weekend market where many shops compete with each other to sell ripe red strawberries or green sweet plums with different price tags. I can hear footsteps of Autumn just right there.
 

　　　　　 (The Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between Japan and Denmark in 1867 on the table far right with a purple binding)

   I visited Danish National Archive which just moved to new premises in August. Ms. Anne-Sofie Jensen, Director General and Mr.Asger Svane-Knudsen, Curator of Rigsarkivet kindly showed us the original copy, preserved by Denmark, of the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between Japan and Denmark signed by the 15th and last Shogun, TOKUGAWA Yoshinobu and His Majesty the King Christian IV in 1867.
   The Treaty was the last friendship and commerce treaty concluded by Tokugawa Shogunate. Mr. Didrik de Graeff van Polsbroeck, Minister at the Dutch Legation in Japan was appointed as the plenipotentiary by His Majesty King Christian IV. The Minister accelerated the approach to the Shogunate since summer in 1866 and after some communications, three plenipotentiaries of Japan were appointed around the end of December in that year, Mr. SHIBATA Takenaka, Governor of Hyuga, Mr. KURIMOTO Kon, Governor of Aki, and Mr. OKUBO Tatewaki. In less than two weeks, the fast negotiation led to the signing of the Treaty on 12 January 1867. Denmark became the eleventh signatory of Friendship and Commerce Treaty with Japan, following the US(1858.7.29), Netherland(1858.8.18), Russia(1859.8.19), the UK(1858.8.26). France(1858.10.9), Portugal(1860.8.3), Prussia(1861.1.24), Switzerland(1864.2.6), Belgium(1866.8.1), and Italy(1866.8.25).
   The Treaty is entirely and neatly written in hand both in Dutch and Japanese languages and consists of the main body of 23 articles, 6 Regulations stipulating procedures which must take place in the three ports each time a Danish Ship arrives, and 11 Additional Articles which mainly decides tariffs. I was allowed, wearing gloves, to touch and go through the pages of the Treaty. As I turned each page, I felt as if those predecessors between the end of Tokugawa Shogunate’ period and that after Meiji Restoration were sending certain messages to my mind. At the top of the tariff list for export from Japan to Denmark, there is “Awabi(abalone), dried”, which is followed by various items such as silk, cotton, cocoons, cuttle fish, deer horn, coal, lead, mushrooms, seaweeds, rape seeds, potato, writing paper, soy sauce, tea, tabaco and so on. The listed import items are shirting, cloth, candles, leather, iron manufactured, glass, sugar, buffaloe and deer horns and so on. The trading goods at that time are described with duties per 100 catties. If you would translate the list into the present tariff list, it would consist of automobile, pork, off-shore wind power generators, pharmaceutical, LEGO, IT among others. It was so interesting that 150 years ago the list was almost full of primary commodities.
   The Treaty in 1867 was a discriminatory pact for Japan because it allowed extraterritorial rights to Denmark and lacked tariff autonomy for Japan. That was why the mission led by Mr. IWAKURA Tomomi came to Copenhagen in 1873 for the preliminary negotiation to rectify that inequality. Negotiations followed to revise the Treaty and eventually led to abolishment of extraterritoriality for consulate and partial restoration of tariff autonomy. At the Danish National Archive, the DG and Curator showed us the Treaty of Commerce and Navigation concluded in 1895 as a result of the above-mentioned negotiation. The original copy of the Treaty has the cover with crest of chrysanthemum under which you would see the unbelievably pure white colored papers with hand written Japanese and English calligraphy. Under the instruction from Foreign Minister MUTSU Munemitsu, Mr. AKABANE Shiro, Japanese plenipotentiary negotiated with Kjeld Thor Tage Otto Baron Reedtz-Thott.
 

(Weekend market in Køge)


（The Opening of World Pride at the UN City in Copenhagen）

   Denmark plans to remove COVID-19 from the category of “socially critical disease” from 10 September. The decision is based on the assessment that the epidemic is under control because of high ratio of vaccination coverage (as of the end of August, about 80% of population has completed vaccination.) Relaxation of restrictions will include no more requirement of corona passport for large-scale events and night life. However, a footnote to this decision is that restrictions would be immediately imposed again if COVID-19 would spread again because Denmark has not yet completely got out of the epidemic.
   I wish you well since there seem to be still rather difficult days ahead. I look forward to seeing you next month on this page or somewhere else. Let us enjoy the rest of late summer.