the Choshiu retainers at the baronial mansion in Kioto had engaged in
hostilities with the Shogun’s supporters at the capital, and so close to
the imperial palace were the combatants that the walls were repeatedly
struck by bullets. This was during the lifetime of the Emperor Komei, and
the now reigning sovereign was then only ten years of age, this early
experience of hearing shots fired in anger, and particularly in the
immediate vicinity of the imperial palace, though indicative of the pitch
to which clan jealousy and animosity had at that period attained, being
such as his Majesty was not likely to forget.
As to Choshiu, the sequel to the attack made by the clansmen on the
Shogun’s troops was that the Emperor Komei issued an edict deposing
the lord Mori and directing the Shogun, as Commander-in-chief of the
forces, to punish him for his rebellious behaviour. The Choshiu clan
thus found itself in a position of antagonism to the imperial house, as
well as to the Bakufu, and as at the same moment it was assailed by the
combined foreign fleets at the Straits of Shimonoseki, in consequence
of its attacks on passing vessels, the head of the clan was driven to
the necessity of defending both flanks as best he could. He contrived to
stall off the assault of the Shogun’s troops for the few days that he
was engaged at Shimonoseki, where his forts were demolished by the fire
of Admiral Kuper’s men-of-war and their allies, and when that trouble
was past he raised the standard of rebellion in real earnest and defied
the Shogun openly. Discipline and drill (for they were armed with Tower
rifles, and had been partially trained on a Western system) served the
men of Choshiu well, and they succeeded in inflicting a severe defeat
on the forces of Iyemochi, who led his men in person. In this encounter
between the forces of Choshiu and the Shogun the Satsuma clan stood
aloof, possibly as the result of private negotiations between the clan
leaders, for there were at this time several persons making their way
to the front who were destined at no very remote date to play the most
important parts in the affairs of the nation. On the Choshiu side were
Ito and Inouye, on the Satsuma side were Saigo and Okubo, all men whose
names will never fade in the history of their country’s emancipation from
feudalism. The leaders of the two clans were united, moreover, by a bond
of common interest, inasmuch as all desired to bring about the abolition
of the Shogunate and secure the revival of direct imperial rule by the
Emperor himself. The future Marquis Ito and Count Inouye had at this time
only just returned from their first visit to Europe, as already recorded,
and they lost no time in impressing upon their fellow-clansmen of Choshiu
the advantages of military preparation for the coming struggle. The
spirit of loyalty to the clan with which they were animated prompted them
to ensure, as far as was practicable, that it should be in a position to
do itself justice in the final effort which was then about to be made to
restore the personal authority of the Ten-shi.
Inouye Bunda was invested with the control of the Choshiu forces in
the field, and many engagements took place in the region bordering the
Inland Sea. After the death of the Shogun Iyemochi in 1866, however,
the encounters between the Bakufu troops and those of Choshiu became
less frequent, and there was practically a truce during the later months
of the year 1867, the situation in October being such as to prompt the
Shogun Keiki, whose tenure of the office had been but brief, to prefer a
request to be relieved of duties which circumstances had made it all but
impossible for him to fulfil. The lord Mori made his submission to the
Court, at Kioto, but the hostility of the clan to the Bakufu remained
latent, notwithstanding its temporary suppression, and when, at the close
of December 1867, the supremacy of the southern clans was established at
the capital, followed by the departure, on the 3rd of January, of the
Shogun Keiki for Osaka, the Choshiu clan was prepared to play a very
active part in the restoration of direct imperial rule in substitution
for that delegated authority which the Tokugawa house had so long wielded.
But Inouye Bunda had shown capacity of a different kind to that which had
so far been demanded of him as a military leader, and he at once took his
place as one of the most well-informed members of the new administration,
particularly on matters of finance, which he had made his especial study.
It became necessary for the Imperial Government to undertake works of
public utility, more especially railways, and on this account money had
to be obtained from abroad, the first loan being negotiated through
the agency of the Oriental Banking Corporation, while Count Inouye, as
he subsequently became, was at the Finance Department. The interest
on this loan was 9 per cent., and on a subsequent one 7 per cent.,
both being extinguished very early in the Meiji era. In the fifth year
(A.D. 1872) the wise step was taken by Inouye, then Vice-Minister of
Finance, of laying by a Reserve Fund comprised of extraordinary incomes,
obtained in the first place from the sale of certain Government articles
which had ceased to be of any use. The idea of inaugurating such a
reserve had been borne in upon the Government by the trying financial
experiences of the preceding four years of the reign, consequent on the
new administration having had to shoulder the responsibilities of the
provincial Governments or _Hans_, by which in many instances a flood of
paper money had been issued to circulate in merely their own territories,
and not current beyond their boundaries. The extinction of the _Hans_
obliged the new Government to undertake the liabilities so incurred to
the agricultural and other population. The Vice-minister had also in
view the resumption of specie payments at the earliest possible moment,
though it was long ere his wishes were realised. Altogether he found
it practicable to create the “Treasury Reserve Fund” by appropriating
11,330,000 _yen_,—adding together 11,230,000 _yen_ of specie and 99,000
odd of paper money, which had been accumulating in the Government
treasury. The Rules framed by him and issued in connection with this
Reserve Fund are evidence of the clear perception the Vice-Minister had
of the necessities of the hour, for he pointed out the urgent demand that
then existed for giving support to the policy of the Government by saving
up specie as a reserve, and arranging for its utilisation in a definite
and unequivocal manner, in order that the circulation of paper money
and the redemption of bills might be effectively provided for. A set of
rules, twelve in number, was laid down for determining the method of the
utilisation of the fund, in June 1872, and with slight modifications to
suit changed conditions these regulations held good throughout the period
antecedent to the introduction of Parliamentary Government. Such reserve
funds as were in the possession of the _Hans_, kept for the redemption
of the notes issued by them,—for they were not all indifferent to this
obvious duty,—were added to the Government’s reserve, according to the
actual sums received. And as the New Treasury’s convertible bills then
totalled 6,800,000 _yen_, it was arranged that the amount thereof should
be withdrawn at any time from the reserve fund of over 11,000,000 and
paid in exchange for those bills whenever the demand might be made.
By the following December the Reserve fund, in the Vice-minister’s
management, had reached the sum of over 16,000,000 _yen_, and as the
_yen_ was the equivalent of the dollar, at that time valued at from forty
to forty-four pence English, the Reserve Fund was roughly £3,000,000
sterling.
But when every liability had been taken into consideration it was the
Vice-minister’s somewhat mournful conviction that the Reserve was not
equal to even one-tenth of the total of the bills and various other kinds
of paper money in existence, for there were 20,000,000 _yen_ worth of
the _Hans_ notes out somewhere, and 55,000,000 worth of the Dai-jo-kwan
paper, issued to meet the unavoidable cost of setting up the new
administration in 1868. This financial difficulty, indeed, was but one of
the many problems that the Government of the Restored Imperial Rule was
faced with at the beginning of its career, apart from all considerations
of the opposition that it had to expect from those who were averse to the
change and resolved to appeal to arms in support of their convictions.
Indeed, the insight which even a superficial examination of the financial
position in the early years of Meiji is apt to afford the student
must tend to add to the wonder always experienced that the marvellous
results which it is on all sides acknowledged were achieved by the men
in power were attained with no greater sacrifices than those which
had to be recorded. The spirit in which the individual members of the
administration set about their tasks is, however, well exemplified by the
tone of the memorandum addressed by the Department to the Government in
December 1872. These were its terms:—
“It is our purpose to persist in our efforts to increase the
Reserve Fund and bring it up to an amount which may one day
prove to be of great service to the financial administration
of the country. It is, therefore, our earnest prayer that not
only during the time that we are in office, but down to a
hundred years yet to come, in pursuance of the plan here laid
out, efforts shall be made year after year to augment the fund,
thus protecting and advancing the prosperity of the nation,
in order to establish the foundation of popular confidence in
the national currency, and furthermore that the fund shall
positively never be spent for expenditures under the General
Account.
Should the Cabinet find our scheme acceptable, we would most
humbly beg for the immediate sanction of his August Majesty,
with the counter signatures of all the Ministers of State. With
these prayers we hereby submit this memorandum to the careful
consideration of the Government.”
From that time forward the Government never neglected any opportunity of
augmenting the Reserve Fund, and when at a later date the change to the
adoption of a gold standard was in preparation the fund which had been so
wisely initiated in 1872 was of the greatest help in partly paving the
way for the resumption of specie payments by Count Matsukata.
In 1878 it was decided that a sum of 10,000,000 _yen_ in gold should
be kept, as part of the Reserve Fund, in the Government Treasury, the
remainder being turned into floating capital, and it was ordered at the
same time that 20,000,000 _yen_ should be added annually out of the
general account to the Sinking Fund, having for its object the redemption
of public debts, both domestic and foreign.
It would be very difficult to set forth in detail the many services
rendered to his country by Count Inouye in the domain of finance, but
enough has been adduced already in the way of proof that his guiding
hand was of immense value to the nation in the critical period which
followed on the Restoration of Imperial Rule, and for many years after
while the national finances were being gradually established on the
substantial footing they have in later years been shown to possess. It
was as Foreign Minister in several administrations that Count Inouye also
distinguished himself, having held that portfolio at various times during
the existence of the Dai-jo-kwan, which only gave place to the Cabinet
in 1886. It was while he was Minister for Foreign Affairs in 1882 that a
systematic attempt was made to bring about an amicable adjustment of the
outstanding questions relative to the position of foreigners in Japan, a
conference of representatives of the treaty powers meeting at Tokio to
seriously consider revision in all its bearings. Minister Inouye, who had
some time previously changed his name from Bunda to Kaoru, had throughout
held it to be impossible for the nation to preserve the attitude which
the advocates of an exclusive policy had sought to maintain towards the
Occidental powers, and at the conference he boldly stood up for the
wholesale opening of the ports to foreign trade, with a corresponding
abandonment of consular jurisdiction on the part of the Western nations,
in recognition of the Emperor of Japan’s sovereign rights over every foot
of Japanese soil. The agreements to be entered into on this give-and-take
basis were to be valid for twelve years, though there was a suggestion
that the tariff, and the regulations in general as to foreign commerce,
should be subject to alteration at the end of eight years. Some of the
foreign delegates were dissatisfied with this proposal, while on the
side of the Japanese there was no little repugnance evinced even in high
quarters to the idea of throwing the whole country open to trade. There
were other difficulties, too, in regard to the period that should elapse
before the provisions respecting the admission of foreigners to the
interior should come into force, and the suggested appointment of foreign
judges to the Japanese Courts after the style of the Mixed Courts in
China. Finally the conference broke up without reaching any conclusions
on these knotty questions, though it was something to reflect upon that
a genuine effort had been made on both sides to remove the obstacles to
a better understanding. In 1884 there were clear indications that the
Foreign Minister’s policy was gaining ground, symptoms of a disposition
to welcome foreigners being manifested where previously there had been
violent antagonism to the project.
In 1885 the war party in Japan conceived the notion of an alliance
between their country and France against China, there being at the time
extreme bitterness of feeling between the French and the Government of
Peking, which culminated in the bombardment of Foochow. The reversal
of Japan’s traditional policy towards the neighbouring empire which
an alliance of the kind at that moment would have entailed was fully
appreciated by Japan’s Foreign Minister, who had by this time been raised
to the peerage as Count Inouye. It was by his tact that Japan was enabled
to steer clear of complications at this juncture, and to retain her
influence in affairs at the Chinese capital.
The year following Count Inouye was again immersed in the excessively
complicated problem of treaty revision, which it had been Japan’s object
to effect for fully fifteen years past. The conferences began in May and
lasted throughout the year and well into the next. By the summer of 1887
Count Inouye had by his patience and urbanity brought the negotiations
to a stage wherein it really seemed that nothing was requisite beyond
the actual signature of the agreements. But at that moment the Cabinet
decided, notwithstanding that the British and German representatives were
urging on their colleagues the advisability of forthwith surrendering
the consular jurisdictions, without any transitional stage, that it was
premature to adopt Count Inouye’s views with regard to the opening of
the country unrestrictedly to commerce and travel, mainly because it was
felt that the safeguards which it was still deemed needful by some of the
delegates to insist upon were destructive of the judicial independence of
the State. While such were the opinions entertained in some degree even
in official circles the hope of adjusting the differences became more
than ever slender, and popular antagonism to the grant of any concessions
of the kind was once more revived, to the extent that in July 1887 Count
Inouye terminated the conference in the conviction that it could serve no
useful purpose to prolong its sittings. More than twelve months had been
consumed in a fruitless endeavour to reach a satisfactory settlement, and
the end seemed to be as far off as ever.
In August, however, the Emperor invited the British Minister, Sir F.
Plunkett, to a private audience, and warmly eulogised the part which
Great Britain had taken in the prolonged effort to revise the treaties on
a basis acceptable to Japan, also intimating his intention of sending
to the then Prince of Wales—now his Majesty King Edward VII.—the Grand
Cross of the Order of the Chrysanthemum, by the hand of the Imperial
Prince Komatsu. The ceremony of investiture subsequently took place
at Marlborough House, and the German Emperor was simultaneously the
recipient of the order named, likewise in recognition of the friendly
part played towards Japan in connection with the Revision Conference.
Count Inouye resigned his post of Foreign Minister, as a matter of
course, when the Cabinet refused to endorse his proposition, but he
remained in the Government for the time being, his place at the Foreign
Office being taken by Count Ito, who was also at that time Prime
Minister. Count Inouye became Court Councillor, but in the ensuing summer
he was again in the Cabinet as Minister for Commerce and Agriculture, the
portfolio of Foreign Affairs having in the previous February been assumed
by Count Okuma, on the retirement of Count Ito to become President of the
Sumitsu-In, or Privy Council, then newly created as his Majesty’s highest
resort of counsel. Ten Cabinet Ministers were given seats as _ex-officio_
members of this council, one of them of course being Count Okuma whose
return to official life, after seven years’ retirement following his
long service as Minister of Finance between 1873 and 1881, was a source
of immense gratification to the people at large as well as to his
colleagues in the Ministry, implying as it did a fusion of the interests
of the Progressives (Kai-shin-to) and the Government party represented
by Counts Inouye and Ito, at a rather critical period in the history of
the nation’s affairs. At the Foreign Office the policy of Count Inouye
was ably and steadfastly pursued in respect of treaty revision by Count
Okuma, who on receiving the congratulations of the Yokohama Chamber of
Commerce in 1889 on the promulgation of the Constitution, took occasion
to say that “one national aspiration yet remained unsatisfied,—the
revision of the treaties.”
In 1890 Count Inouye became a Lord-in-waiting, which office had never
previously been filled by other than a member of the old Court nobility,
and in bestowing this unusual honour on one of the Elder Statesmen the
Emperor gave signal proof of his appreciation of Count Inouye’s matured
judgment and ability.
By 1892 a disruption of the Cabinet had become inevitable, and at the
Election of February the Opposition gained a victory, which brought
about the return of Count Ito to power, and with him Count Inouye, in
his old position at the Foreign Office. On the 1st of December he made
a memorable speech in the House of Representatives in reference to the
necessity of increasing the naval armaments of the empire,—a speech which
was remarked upon both inside the House and out of it as having been
one of his most telling efforts,—powerful in argument, lucid in theory,
convincing in its array of facts. It was the prelude to a request from
the Finance Department for a credit of 16,000,000 _yen_, to be spread
over a period of seventeen years, and which the Diet forthwith granted.
During the subsequent war with China Count Inouye continued to be a
leading member of the Government, but in 1897 he was in opposition to
the Coalition Cabinet of Counts Okuma and Itagaki, and when that was
succeeded by the Administration of Marquis Yamagata he still remained
out of office. But towards the close of the year 1900 a ministerial
crisis arose which resulted in the overthrow of the Yamagata Cabinet and
its place was taken for a brief space of time, scarcely seven months in
all, by a Ministry of which Ito (now Marquis) was the Premier. Contrary
to expectation, the post of Finance Minister in this was allotted to
Viscount Watanabe, who had previously served as Vice-minister with both
Count Inouye and Count Matsukata, though it was commonly believed that
Count Inouye had been invited to accept the post. Whatever may have
been the real situation at this time, it is a fact that there had been
eleven different Cabinets between December 1886 and the end of 1900, the
collapse in every case having been due to internal dissension rather than
to external pressure, and this may be accepted as an indication of the
difficulty which was experienced by statesmen of even the front rank
to unite on a general scheme of domestic as distinguished from foreign
policy. In relation to foreign affairs the patriotism of the nation
has ensured a reasonable continuity, but on home questions there has
frequently been wide divergence of opinion. It was generally expected
that in May 1901, when the last Ito Cabinet went out of office, Count
Inouye would be successful in forming a Ministry, or that he would join a
Ministry with Marquis Saionji as Premier, on the basis of the Ito party.
But in the end the Cabinet of Count Katsura was established, and it
continued until January 1906 to hold office, having guided the destinies
of the nation with conspicuous success through the long and anxious
period of the war against Russia.
Although he has not held a portfolio, therefore, in any recent
administration, the influence of Count Inouye is always felt and his
wise and sure guidance sought for in times when the financial outlook
in Japan is more than ordinarily complicated, as was the case shortly
before the formation of the existing Government in 1901. There seems to
be a consensus of opinion in the country that among the “Elder Statesmen”
three in particular are most conversant with financial matters,—Counts
Inouye, Okuma, and Matsukata,—and to one or other of them it always turns
in the hope of being extricated from its difficulties and relieved of its
anxieties in a monetary crisis. In business circles the prestige which
Count Inouye enjoys has never waned, from the period of his earliest
assumption of the duties appertaining to the office of Finance Minister,
and his views on those matters with which he has been more particularly
connected during his long and diversified career, as soldier financier,
and diplomatist will never cease to command the highest respect and
attention of the nation.
X
VISCOUNT OKUBO TOSHIMICHI