KOMURA, ko'moo'ra. Jutaro, MARQUIS, Japanese statesman and diplomat: b. 1855; d. Hayama, 24 Nov. 1911. In 1875 he was one of the first group of students sent by the Japanese government to the United States. He was graduated at Harvard in 1877 and returned home, where he served some years in the De partment of Justice and that of Foreign Affairs. Appointed secretary of legation in Peking, he acted as charge-d'affaires during the negotia tions that culminated in the Chino-Japanese War of 1894-95. He next served as civil ad ministrator at Antung, then on a special mis sion to Korea, and subsequently as Vice-Min ister of Foreign Affairs in Tokio. From this post he was launched on his ambassadorial ca reer, being successively Minister to Washing ton, Saint Petersburg (Petrograd) and Peking, where he served during the troublous period of the Boxer Rebellion. In 1901 he became Foreign Minister in the Katsura Cabinet; he conducted the negotiations preceding the Russo Japanese War and also the peace negotiations at Portsmouth. While the results of that were displeasing to the Japanese people, it is gen erally regarded that Komura really achieved a diplomatic victory by the Treaty of Ports mouth, which brought Japan the peace she sorely needed as well as the prime objects of the war. As Foreign Minister Komura had
formed the Anglo-Japanese Alliance in 1902; three years later he was sent to England the first Japanese Ambassador to that country. He returned in 1908 to take again the Foreign Office in the second Katsura Cabinet. He re mained at work until a few weeks before his death—of tuberculosis—and left a profound impression on Japan's foreign relations. The late King Edward bestowed two decorations upon him in 1905 and 1907. On the renewal of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance in July 1911, modifications were introduced into the treaty to permit its obligations from clashing with the provisions of the arbitration treaty then signed, but not ratified, between Great and the United States, the two countries for which Komura entertained sincere admiration and personal regards.