From Port Regulations to Harbour Regulations:

Subdivided Regulations in the Japanese Open Ports, 1850–60s

Abstract

  This article considers the administration in the open ports of Japan as a ‘bundle of administrative rules’ that only became effective by agreement between Japan and its contracting powers and clarifies how such administration was established by examining the changes in the content of the ‘Port Regulations’. An examination of the contents of the ‘Draft Port Regulations’ from 1854 to 1870 reveals that, in the early years, the contents included not only those relating to ships on the water but also those relating to crew behaviour and security on land but, as time went on, the contents gradually narrowed down to rules for the water area. As for regulations on land, some reached an agreement between Japan and the foreign powers, while others did not. As a result, each open port was a patchwork of administrative areas where administrative rules had been established somewhere and not elsewhere. The administrative rules difficult to negotiate were transferred from the local to the national level, forming a significant part of the subsequent negotiations on treaty reform.