After expressing his appreciation of the honour of an invitation to be the principal guest at the Annual Ceremony and his pleasure at being able to speak under the distinguished chairmanship of Lord Scarbrough, Sir George Sansom said:—

My only qualification for addressing this learned assembly is a claim to be one of the few survivors of a vanishing race, or perhaps it would be better to say a small fossilized remnant of that race.

The diffusion of cotton processing and trade were major features of the expansion of rural commerce and handicraft production in the Kinai region during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Both were responses to demands for sources of non-agricultural employment in Japanese villages. They made available off-season by-employment for small farmers and offered new types of employment to those under-employed in agriculture. The expansion of rural participation in cotton processing and trade brought the villagers into conflict with urban merchants and artisans. This initially led to reinforcement of urban commercial prerogatives by the government and subsequently to legal confrontations between rural and urban merchant groups which in 1823 were decided in favor of the rural merchants. The role of the government shifted from protection of urban merchant interests to denial of their monopoly and monopoly rights and tacit support for the expansion of rural processing and trade.

Overall, the expansion of rural commerce and handicraft industry illustrate the economic and social changes which characterized the Kinai region during the Tokugawa period and the commercialization of the village economy. It also illustrates the inability of the Tokugawa bakuju to limit or direct the process of societal change.

Among the various issues surrounding Japan's economy, three types are prominent in recent literature: issues concerning the magnitude and measurement of Japan's economic growth; issues concerning Japan's economic structure, behavior, and performance; and issues concerning the nature of Japan's relations with the United States. In the second and third categories, many of the issues, directly or indirectly, have to do with the liberalization of the Japanese economy—in either its internal or external sectors. With regard to policy issues, adversary positions are typically adopted. However, they also emerge in discussions of nonpolicy issues, such as those regarding quantification and measurement. The disagreements among the experts provide a useful point of departure for further research and analysis.

Germany's role in the events leading up to Pearl Harbor needs to be re-examined in the light of documents published since the end of the war. These sources help correct certain misconceptions about German policy which were held during the conflict. The Allied powers believed at that time that Hitler had long-range plans for conquest and that as a part of these plans had, in one way or another, pushed Japan into war with the United States.

This bibliography is designed to guide the reading of instructors, students, and general readers interested in gaining an understanding of the backgrounds of the present war in the Pacific and the Far East and the problems of peace which will confront the post-war world in that area. It lists 169 of the better and more general introductory books relating to the area. There are 7 5 starred items, 25 of which are double-starred, for the guidance of librarians of institutions with more limited means seeking to build up basic collections of books on the Pacific area. No periodical articles have been included in the list, but a list of the leading periodicals in the field has been given at the end. The Far Eastern Quarterly carries in each issue a classified list of currently appearing articles and books in the field.