the more freely because the writer chose to employ the English
tongue, which is yet unknown to the majority of his countrymen.
But these considerations do not apply to the official utterances
of an ex-Premier (Count Okuma) and his Minister of Education.
The former, who is not chary of autobiography, in a speech which
created some sensation confessed that as a young man he had been
too dazzled by the splendour of Western civilisation to appreciate
the seamy side of material progress, but recent experience of
popular movements and public affairs had convinced him that the
supreme need of all classes, if their prosperity were to continue,
was a return to the higher morality of the past. Mr. Hayashi,
who may be thought to have interpreted his duty of directing
national education too literally, put the matter in a nutshell.
“Let us suppose,” said he to a popular audience, “that Japan in
the course of a thousand years or so were to become a republic.
If the same Mammon-worship should exist then as exists now, it
is certain that the Vanderbilt or Jay Gould of the day would be
elected President.” Few nations care to be lectured in this way,
even by Ministers of Education. The result was a violent agitation,
fomented in the patriotic Press, which demanded the resignation
of one who could be so disloyal to his sovereign as to hint at a
possible republic ten centuries ahead. The rash moralist found
it expedient to resign. Assuming, however, as one is perhaps
entitled to assume, that the speaker had chiefly in mind the
venality of politicians, I doubt very much either the extent or
the heinousness of the evil denounced. Reduced to detail, the
charges amount to this: that electors and deputies have been known
to sell their votes and to advocate measures from which they have
made preparations to derive financial benefit. Such evils are
inseparable from the infancy of representative government, and
persist in veiled form in its maturity. The Unionist member of
the Salisbury-Chamberlain party who has been called upon to vote
successive bounties or remission of taxes to landed proprietors
and clerical tithe-payers is guilty of somewhat similar acts,
with this trifling difference: that instead of rewarding his
supporters with money from his own purse, he draws upon the State
treasury. It would not be surprising if Japanese politicians were
more openly corrupt than our own, for most of them take American
politics as the nearest and most friendly school of democracy--a
school where self-seeking is avowedly the first duty of a public
man, and where the prizes fall to the cleverest manipulator or
servitor of plutocratic trusts. But, as a matter of fact, neither
Tammany nor Panama is yet transplanted to the banks of Sumidagawa.
The laws aimed at electoral bribery are stringent and frequently
enforced. Accusations of corruption are invariably followed by
official inquiry. It is evident, then, that if the offender be
sometimes clever enough to evade discovery, at least public opinion
is neither cynical nor depraved. A stronger negative argument
is furnished by the fact that the Liberals and Progressives (as
the two anti-ministerial parties were called until the fusion in
1898), who had been excluded until that year from office, though
constituting on more than one occasion a majority in the Lower
House of the Diet, did not accuse the Ministers who launched Japan
on the sea of parliamentary government of either misgovernment
or dishonest finance. Nepotism was the sum and substance of
their complaint. The Chōshi men monopolised the chief posts in
the railway department, the Satsuma men held control of army and
navy: in a word, the ascendency of the pre-revolutionary clans
survived the revolution. But, when their own turn came in the
summer of 1898 to divide the spoils of office, to which they had
been summoned by the astuteness of Marquess Ito, prompt to cover
personal chagrin at his own defeat by advocacy of his opponents’
claims to Imperial recognition, the followers of Counts Okuma and
Itagaki found it impossible to reconcile the claims of contending
office-seekers. Indeed, so bitter did the dissensions become,
that the alliance was dissolved, and the first Ministry based
on a majority in the Lower House disbanded before the Diet met.
Power has since reverted to the same men, whose sagacity has made
Japan triumph alike over armed foes and treaty-allies. Seeing
that no more than eight per cent. of the population have votes,
participation in home politics is confined to a comparatively
small circle; and not to all of them, since most of the merchants
with whom I conversed on the subject were content to leave their
interests in the hands of the authorities, and expressed great
resentment at the action of the _sōshi_ or professional agitators
employed by politicians to cajole or threaten a constituency. It
is inevitable at present that place and power should be the goal
of all parties, and that politics should present the aspect of a
scramble for office. There is no dividing-line between political
parties, as elsewhere. No one desires to return to the feudal
_régime_, or to tamper with the Constitution, or to limit the royal
prerogative. In the face of national danger it is easy for all
parties to unite, since nothing divides them but such questions
as the incidence of taxation and the distribution of posts.
In the course of time, should the last vestige of acquiescent
docility on the part of the toilers be swept away, the industrial
sphinx will pose its question to the Japanese as to all other
modern communities; the rich will be ranged against the poor,
the socialist against the conservative. But, as things are now,
even the loss of diplomatic prestige occasioned by the triumph of
Russia in Manchuria, of which the blame cannot justly be assigned
to isolated Japan, is counterbalanced by the careful development
of military and commercial resources which would seem the crowning
duty of the Emperor’s advisers. The increasing prosperity of the
country is the best answer to malevolent critics, and, if the
charge of spiritual decadence in politics is to be sustained,
weightier evidence must be produced than the writer has been able
to discover.
Well, I have taken a bird’s-eye view of the Japanese as they appear
to the resident alien, because his protesting voice is generally
drowned in the joyful ejaculations of passing travellers. I have
put aside for the moment my own prepossessions, which were only
strengthened by intercourse with natives of every class, in order
that the dark side of the shield might not be veiled. Dishonest
traders aided by tortuous enactments, and mistrustful teachers
suspicious of Western propaganda, insubordinate inferiors and
incompetent officials--all these constitute grave stumbling-blocks
to happiness; But it would not be fair to ignore the facts which
promise a brighter future. There are many firms whose integrity
is unquestioned, many journalists who try to stem the current of
national misunderstanding by sagacious counsel. Experience and
fuller knowledge are sure to prove wholesome correctives. The
anti-foreign bias, though real and formidable, is based on the fear
of half-understood eventualities. Closer intercourse and wider
education will cause wisdom to spread down from the rulers to the
ruled, who are not yet on familiar terms with our conceptions of
trade and government.
It is to be hoped, when the nation feels thoroughly at home
in its new house, equipped from garret to cellar with the
latest improvements and occupied by a tenant-proprietor whom no
conceivable machination of jealous neighbours can dislodge, that
even the foreign lodger will be permitted to exercise his calling
without the slightest hindrance or disability.
So much for the world behind the scenes, of which a glimpse has
been vouchsafed to the reader. It will be seen that those who
sustain _rôles_ in the daintiest of comediettas are also cast for
a problem-play; that they are no more exempt from envy, hatred,
and vanity than other sensitive artists; that their professional
dislike to alien amateurs, who add insult to injury by expecting
the deference due to higher national status while competing for
the pence and plaudits of the same public, is very human and not
without excuse; that, in spite of these infirmities, they may be
industrious bread-winners and excellent performers. After all, the
proper place for sightseers is the front of the house. Let us go
there, and forget the intrigues of the green-room, in which we have
happily no concern. We have come many miles to witness the play;
let us give it undivided attention.
NOTE TO “BEHIND THE SCENES.” CASSANDRA JUSTIFIED?
Though time and space had so muffled the protesting shrieks of
Cassandra that I could no longer hear her whirling prophecies or
follow her sorry fortunes from day to day in the chivalrous Press
of the treaty-ports, I never lost interest or sympathy in her
loudly predicted future. I would picture her borne with streaming
eyes and hair from her extra-territorial temple; I would ask myself
whether she had yet been borne off into bondage unspeakable by
some Japanese Agamemnon. News travels slowly, and I was forced
to content myself with the most meagre reports, when one day
came a letter with the Yokohama postmark, in which the writer
took exception to some statements made by me in a lecture to the
Playgoers’ Club on the subject of Japanese theatres, and improved
the occasion by despatching much irrelevant information on the
subject of Japanese iniquity. I owe a heavy debt of gratitude to
Mr. F. Schroeder, the editor and proprietor of _The Eastern World_,
for those letters and pamphlets. They assure me of the welcome fact
that Cassandra is alive and free, and protesting more loudly than
ever. I gladly give publicity to the incidents and speculations
recorded in them, for, while they seem to justify honest
apprehension on the part of Cassandra’s friends, they also contain
indications that Agamemnon is by no means so subject to Thersites
as the foes of Far Eastern democracy would have us believe.
The question which raises most speculation, on account of the
uncertainty of the law to be applied, is also the most important.
It concerns leasehold. Hitherto foreigners had supposed themselves
to hold land under a perpetual lease on payment of a lump sum to
the vendor and of annual ground-rent to the Government. But, when a
recent application was made to the local court in Yokohama for the
registration of the transfer of property so held from one British
subject to another, the Court replied that it had no power to
register such a transfer, offering instead to describe the property
as a perpetual superficies. The offer was refused and the point
submitted to the British Minister. If it should be decided that
the foreign owner is no more than a superficiary, the ground at a
distance of more than thirty feet below the surface tacitly reverts
to the Government, which of course would have the right to sell it
for mining purposes, for the construction of tunnels or reservoirs
or what not, provided that the surface were neither entered nor
broken. A change so radical in the conditions of holding land,
which the purchaser may thus have acquired under a misapprehension,
is serious enough, but more serious still will be its effect on
future purchasers. By the newly codified law authorisation is
refused to leases of longer than twenty years’ duration. What
foreign firm, desirous of a permanent footing on Japanese soil,
would erect buildings and establish itself on land liable to be
resumed by the owner at the end of so short a period? How easy for
native traders under such circumstances to strangle or arrest the
business of alien competitors! Should a score of years demonstrate
the growth of too successful rivalry, they have merely to bring
such pressure to bear on the lessor as would prevent renewal of the
lease.
The _Tamba Maru_ case, which originated in a somewhat ignoble
squabble between the English third officer and the Japanese
quartermaster of a Nippon Yusen Kwaisha steamer, assumes quite
Homeric proportions in the pages of an _Eastern World_ brochure. It
certainly affords food for reflection on the methods of Oriental
justice when racial prejudice intervenes, but the sequel shows
that in Japan at any rate an appeal lies from prejudiced judges
and partial witnesses to substantial wisdom and common-sense in
high places. The facts are few and stirring. Horace Robert Kent
had reported Umeseko Toyomatsu for smoking while on duty. His
inexperienced eye had mistaken the glow of a jewel in the latter’s
ring for the glint of a cigarette. Fearful of losing his captain’s
good opinion and his place on board, the injured innocent invaded
the mate’s cabin with his cap on and flashed the exculpating jewel
in that officer’s face. Hand-to-hand scuffling ensued, of which
contradictory accounts are naturally given, with the result that
Toyomatsu received a black eye, was put in irons, and released at
once to mollify his comrades, while Mr. Kent was bitten five or
six times in the thigh and hidden by his prudent skipper from the
vengeance of the crew. Each brought a charge of assault against the
other. At the trial the evidence of eye-witnesses seems to have
been entirely eclipsed by the opinions of medical gentlemen, who
deserve the honours of the verdict. Dr. Sagara opined that a black
eye (the organ not even being closed up) would prevent a sailor
from work for more than twenty days, and would take from three to
four weeks to heal completely; Dr. Fujise compared the wounds in
the thigh of the third mate with the shape of the quartermaster’s
teeth, and found that they almost completely coincided, but was
still unable to assert that they were caused by biting. Sentences:
six months’ rigorous imprisonment for the Englishman, five days’
detention for the Japanese. The inequality of the punishments was
quickly remedied. The Tōkyō Court of Appeal quashed the decision of
the original tribunal, and reduced the sentence from six months’
imprisonment to ten days’ detention. I dwell at some length on
this trivial case of common assault for two reasons. First, it is
satisfactory to remark how promptly an excess of partial severity
was corrected; secondly, I feel sure that Mr. Kent is the only
foreigner on whom the evil foretold by Cassandra has fallen within
six months of the coming into operation of the treaties. Otherwise
I should have received other and more indignant pamphlet-homilies
on the baneful fulfilment of prophecy.
Finally, my informant calls attention to recent cases of official
bribery and corruption. He cites the name of Mr. Koyama Konosuke,
M.P., who was charged in Parliament with receiving a bribe of
2000 _yen_ from the Government of the day (1899), and who, so far
from denying it, sued in a court of law for the remainder of the
money due to him. Being called upon by his constituents to resign,
he replied with a threat of exposing implicated colleagues, and
apparently retained his seat. Both Houses of the Legislature would
seem to be tainted by similar practices, for _The Japan Mail_ (of
April 10, 1900) has a paragraph, headed “The Peers Scandal,” to the
following effect:
“It is now alleged that no less than twenty-four members of the
House of Peers are implicated in the bribery scandal connected with
the Religious Bill affair. Some of them are alleged to be desirous
of hushing up the matter, but their fellow-members insist that
something must be done to clear the reputation of the House. It is
impossible to tell how much truth there may be in these rumours.”
It is obviously “impossible” for a foreigner to collect such proofs
of corruption as would be good evidence in a court of law, nor, if
possible, would it be worth his while. The cry of _vendu_ is so
freely bandied by a factionist Press, that, remembering the famous
legend of a Dreyfus syndicate, one hesitates to pin faith on vague
paragraphs. Moreover, whatever foundation of fact underlie the
charges, it should be borne in mind that parliamentary government
has only existed for ten years, and it would not be reasonable to
expect in a decade those virtues which were of very slow growth
in our own Mother of Parliaments. Corruption at Pretoria or St.
Petersburg is no bar to “the sympathies of the civilised world”
(outside Anglo-Saxondom), and in any case these evils may safely
be left for correction to those whom they most immediately concern.
The Japanese Press is conscious of them, anxious to deal with them;
the laws are stringent enough, if difficult to enforce. One notes
them as a factor in Japanese politics to be neither exaggerated nor
ignored, and turns to consider less purely domestic matters.
Indirect confirmation of my impression that Christianity was losing
ground in the country is furnished by the elaborate report of the
American Board of Foreign Missions, of which the rose-coloured
conclusions at first sight suggest the contrary. Stress is laid,
for instance, on the fact that a prominent Christian was elected
to the present Diet by a majority of five to one in Buddhist
Kyōto; but there is nothing to show that the election turned on
doctrinal issues. One Japanese Christian was appointed “moral
teacher” in the Sugamo penitentiary, with the result that all the
rest, Buddhists by faith, resigned. Political reasons probably
caused this appointment, for Sugamo is the prison to which all
foreign delinquents will be sent under the new _régime_. The Board
complains of strong opposition to the teaching of the elements of
the Christian religion, not only in public but also in private
schools, centred in the Education Department, and attributes it to
widespread agnosticism, which, so far as it desires to conserve
Buddhist influence, does so for ulterior social and intellectual
ends. But I find the clearest proof of simultaneous success and
failure in the admission that Christianity maintains its hold
by practical philanthropy. Schools for neglected and criminal
children, schemes for relieving discharged prisoners, benevolent
works of all kinds, are promoted and carried out by Christians.
Of goodness of this sort the kind-hearted Japanese are thoroughly
appreciative, but it is the works, not the faith, which they
admire. Holders of all creeds, or of none, must sympathise with
this aspect of missionary effort; but it results, and perhaps
happily, in a closer union of hearts than of minds.
I conclude with a quotation from the _Jiji_, one of the most
influential Tōkyō papers--a quotation which speaks for itself and
accords with the sorrowful vaticinations of Cassandra:
“_Decrease in the Number of Foreign Residents._--Quite contrary to
expectations, there seems to be a gradual reduction in the number
of foreigners residing in Yokohama, where they are more numerous
than in any other part of the country. It is anticipated that the
statistics will perhaps show some reduction for two or three years.
The reason is supposed to be: (1) foreigners prefer Hongkong or
Shanghai to Japan, owing to the difficulty of finding opportunities
for gaining as large profits as formerly; and (2) their
unfamiliarity with the Japanese law, which imposes undue restraint
upon their movements. As a matter of fact, they have been surprised
by the imposition of heavy taxes of various kinds, never dreamt of
previously. Moreover, in consequence of the coming into operation
of the new tariff, they have been deprived of their profits on
certain kinds of goods, such as liquors, cigars, &c. This is shown
by the circumstance that the foreign merchants who have given up or
are going to give up business are mostly dealers in these goods.
In future foreigners who may be induced to come to this part of
the world can only be, in consequence of the operation of the new
treaties, those who have other objects than business and who will
take the place of the present residents, who will certainly leave
in the near future.”
RELIGIOUS PLAYS
RELIGIOUS PLAYS
The traveller who witnesses a “_Nō_ Dance,” hastily improvised
for his amusement at the Maple Club of Tōkyō, or who chances
upon a pantomimic duologue in grotesque costume, rendered on
a rough platform to divert the crowd before a temple at the
_matsuri_--half fair, half festival--can really form no idea of
the exquisite little dramas which for more than five centuries
have been performed privately in the houses of Japanese nobles
and are still enacted at rare intervals to an invited audience.
The common term “_Nō_ Dance” is rather misleading, since it only
suggests the rhythmic posturing of the characters--very graceful,
it is true, and pregnant with meaning for the initiated--but
ignores other factors, such as the words, the story, and the music,
which contribute quite as memorably to the total effect. Operetta
will not do, since the choric strains, which stimulate attention
and intensify emotion with their staccato accompaniment, are
subordinate throughout. If, then, that may be styled a play which
revolves on a single episode and relates to no more than three or
four persons, a very close parallel lies between these and the
religious plays of Europe. In both you find the same reverence for
the past, dictating the devout demeanour of actors and audience;
in both a minute traditional interpretation, governing the diction,
the action, and the dress; in both a perpetual association of the
scenes depicted with sacred legends and the spirit world. But
whereas Christianity yields one and the same drama, once in a
decade, to the peasants of Oberammergau, the Shintōist Pantheon,
sanctifying national history and full of deified heroes, appeals to
both patriotic and religious instincts through the medium of an art
sometimes immature but always refined.
The roots of this musical pantomime reach far back into
mythological times. The figure of the Terrible Female of Heaven,
stamping on an inverted tub to startle the Sun Goddess from her
cave, is generally invoked on the threshold of inquiries into the
origin of _Kagura_, or temple-dancing. Grotesque and venerable,
it is not illuminating. More startling to me is the statement
of a modern authority that “in the eighth century, in the later
period of the Nara dynasty and at the beginning of the Heian
period, combining the Korean and the Chinese music with the
native, a certain perfect form of Japanese music came to exist.”
To comprehend this “perfect music,” as rendered on drum, fife, and
flute, esoteric education is required. But it may be admitted that
certain Wagnerian effects of terror and suspense and tumultuous
agitation are thumped and wailed into the auditor, while his ocular
attention is absorbed by deliberate phantoms. Very deliberate are
the phantom dancers, whether their theme be simple or complex.
On the dancing stages at the Shintō temples of Ise and of Omi,
on the four platforms of the Kasuga Temple at Nara, the subject
was naturally mythological or had relation to the temple’s own
history. Such songs as went with the dance were simple, short, and
primitive. They would be heard at Court ceremonies, too, for the
union of Church and State was close. They were sung by members of
privileged families, who guarded and transmitted from father to son
the professional secrets of their “perfect music.”
However, the beginning of the Ashikaga period in the fourteenth
century saw the corruption and development of a perfect
germ into complex variety. Both sacred and secular rivalry
contributed to this result. The _Biwa-hōshi_, blind priests and
lute-players, who went from castle to castle of the Daimyōs,
singing _Heike-monogatari_, historical romances of warlike
quality in prose and verse, opened new vistas of subject-matter,
while _Shirabyōshi_, the refined and cultivated precursor of the
comparatively modern geisha, extended both the scope and the
significance of posture-dancing. The _Kioku-mai_, or memory-dance,
came into vogue, being characterised by closer co-ordination
of music and movement, while the accompanying song would often
celebrate a romantic episode or a famous landscape. Many of these
songs survive, embedded in the chorus of _Nō_ texts; in fact, they
may be regarded as the nucleus of _Nō_ drama.
The Muromachi Shōgunate witnessed the final transition from dance
to drama, recitative and singing speeches and _dramatis personæ_
being superadded to the chorus. Kiyotsugu (who died in 1406) and
his son Motokiyo (who died in 1455) are generally credited with
this development. They belonged to the Yusaki family--one of the
four families who exercised hereditary management of the Nara
stage. They held a small estate, and succeeded in winning the
Shōgun’s patronage for their _Sarugaku_ or _Nō_, which became
extremely popular at Court. Naturally enough, the choric songs
became panegyrics of the reigning Shōgun, and helped to embellish
his Court pageants.
It is not believed that the actor-manager did more than prepare
and conduct the _Nō_, in which music and dancing were still the
chief features. The author was contented to remain anonymous,
and that for good reasons. Intellectual light shone mostly in
the monasteries during that dark age of feudal fighting. If the
Buddhist monk could make of this aristocratic amusement a vehicle
for Buddhist teaching, individual obscurity was a small price
to pay for corporate influence. Therefore, while it cannot be
stated as a fact that the famous priests Ikkiu and Shiuran wrote
the finest _Nō_ poetry, it is certain that _yurei_ or ghosts
and Buddhist exorcisers became very common characters on the
_Nō_ boards, while the chorus betrayed (as I am told) “many deep
conceptions of mystic religion.” What higher compliment has ever
been paid to art, dramatic or pictorial, than the struggles of
priests and politicians to wield its influence? There is something
pathetic in this aspect of the rivalry for Terpsichore’s hand. At
first she wore the red trousers of a Shintō priestess and was wooed
by the Mikado. Then the Shōgun came, a strong man armed, and with
him she danced into the Buddhist camp.