the Minister who was mainly responsible for the vast administrative
reform symbolised by the public appearance of the Emperor Mutsuhito
and the removal of the imperial court from Kioto to Yedo, renamed
Tokio. Okubo held firmly to the conviction that the distinction which
had for three centuries been recognised, in pursuance of the Shogunal
policy, between the feudal chieftains and the court nobility (kuge) must
forthwith be abolished, as a first step towards the re-establishment
of that direct personal rule which had existed prior to the usurpation
of the imperial prerogative by the Ashikaga house, and by the Tokugawa
family which followed it at Yedo. Okubo Toshimichi was a Satsuma samurai
of good family, and though the Kagoshima clan has many a name inscribed
on its roll of honour there is none that possesses for his countrymen
a greater power to stir the emotions or awaken grateful memories than
that of the subject of this memoir. Twenty-eight years ago, on a lovely
summer morning, as he was on his way to attend a meeting at the imperial
palace, in an unfrequented part of the highway at Kojimachi adjoining the
castle moat, his carriage was stopped by some students, as they seemed
to be, who a moment before had been sportively thrusting at one another
with branches of the flowering cherry (sakura), the better, as the sequel
showed, to lull the suspicions, if he entertained any, of the coachman on
the box. The Minister, unarmed, finding his carriage stopped, descended
and faced his assailants, who thereupon stabbed him to death, and at the
same time slew the coachman who loyally sought to aid his master.
[Illustration: VISCOUNT OKUBO TOSHIMICHI]
A rough-hewn granite slab, bearing an inscription on its one smoothed
side, stands amid a clump of azalea bushes to mark the spot where the
patriot fell. The band of fanatics who slew him no doubt fancied that
they were serving the best interests of their country by thus putting an
end to a noble and promising career, owing to his avowed conviction of
the advantages to be reaped by the adoption of the _kai-koku_ policy,
which they had been taught to believe would be injurious.
When brought to trial the culprits declared, however, that they killed
the Minister because he was a traitor to his clan. How utterly unfounded
and altogether preposterous was the accusation will be evident from the
brief story of his meritorious career which follows. He left a record of
unswerving patriotism, of bold and energetic administration of national
affairs, of far-seeing and well-judged advocacy of all that could be
deemed beneficial to his country in the political and economical systems
of other lands, which he had made from the first his especial study.
Okubo Ichi-o, or Toshimichi, was born in 1836, and from a comparatively
early age acquired no little fame as a student of Chinese literature. He
sought and obtained from the beginning sound knowledge of the affairs
of the outside world that to most of his countrymen was in those days a
sealed book. Foreigners, with Okubo, were never the enemies of Japan,
but people with whom, on the other hand, it should be to the national
interest to cultivate a permanent friendship. That their good will
should be secured for the reformed system of government which he foresaw
would ultimately have to replace that of the oppressive Baku-fu,—an
administration based upon an anachronic feudalism,—was always with him a
matter of real concern, and to obtain it he devoted his whole energies.
His zeal and daring led him to urge on the sovereign the desirability
of his assuming the reins of active government, and to put forward in
the first instance a definite proposal to the effect that the seat of
government should be transferred to Osaka, the seaport only twenty-seven
miles distant, where the magnificent castle built by Hideyoshi on the
banks of the river Yodo might be made a fitting residence for the monarch.
In his truly remarkable Memorial to the Emperor he pointed out that no
such revolution as that which had just taken place had ever previously
occurred since the creation of Japan. The Memorial was dated March 1868,
and in alluding to it here my endeavour is to give precedence to the
Minister’s first great effort in the direction of progress, and with
which it is inevitable that his name should be for ever associated. Okubo
proceeded in his Memorial to argue that the time was peculiarly opportune
for the fulfilment of the great undertaking of restoring the ancient
constitution of the Ten-shi’s realms, a task which he held had only been
half accomplished by the defeat at Fushimi of the Bakufu’s forces. “If,”
he wrote, “the Imperial Court should seek only a temporary advantage,
instead of insuring permanent tranquillity, we shall have a repetition
of the old thing, like the rise of the Ashikaga after the destruction of
the Hojo. We shall be rid of one traitor only to have another arise. The
most pressing of your Majesty’s pressing duties at the present moment is
not to look at the Empire only, and judge solely by appearances, but to
consider carefully the actual state of the whole world,—to reform the
inveterate and slothful habits induced during hundreds of years,—to give
union to the nation,—so that the whole Empire shall be moved to tears
of gratitude, and both high and low appreciate the blessing of having a
Sovereign in whom they can place their trust.”
The memorialist went on to recommend very strongly a transfer of the
Capital to Osaka, as being the fittest place for the conduct of foreign
relations, for enriching the country and strengthening its military
powers, for adopting successful means of offence and defence, and for
establishing an army and navy. He was anxious that the young Emperor,
then only in his sixteenth year, should set out on the journey to
Osaka without loss of time. But there were cogent reasons why the new
organisation should be centred in the city that had for centuries been
the recognised headquarters of the executive, and Tokio, the present
capital, was ultimately fixed upon as the future seat of the Central
Administration.
Okubo was one of the Iwakura Embassy which set out from Tokio at the
close of 1871 and visited the United States of America, Great Britain,
and the various countries of Europe, ostensibly to announce to the powers
what sweeping changes had been effected in Japan from the date of the
present ruler’s accession in 1867. The Embassy was headed by Prince
Iwakura, and associated with him in addition to Okubo Toshimichi were
Ito Hirobumi, Kido Takakoto, and Yamaguchi Naoyoshi. Only one leading
member of that mission, the Marquis Ito, now survives. The especial aim
of the ambassadors was to procure revision of the treaties with the
Western nations which had been entered into by the Government of the
Shogun, and under which compacts the position of Japan was considered
to be that of a country under the tutelage of America and the European
States. There was, however, a duty imposed upon the Mission that was of
far greater importance to the future of the Japanese nation even than
those already specified, for it was entrusted with the task of collecting
information in all quarters regarding foreign institutions, methods of
government, laws and their enforcement, and of gathering at first hand
every detail needful to the adaptation of the systems of the Occident to
the requirements of the Far East. Although at that time a revision of the
treaties proved to be impossible of attainment, the mission was in other
respects of immense service to Japan, and Okubo, for one, became as fully
convinced by what he saw in the West of the advantages of representative
government as were those among his colleagues who had previously seen
something of its results. Ito, for example, had been to this country
before, and so had Hayashi Tadasu, as he then was, the Secretary to
the Mission, who had studied for some time in a private college in
England. The work of the embassy was most conscientiously carried out,
and its members journeyed here and there in search of opportunities
to add to their stock of knowledge on every point that conceivably
might be of value to the departments of State with which they were
for the most part individually as well as collectively identified. In
the new administration at Tokio, immediately on the mission’s return,
Kido was entrusted with the portfolio of Home Affairs, Ito Hirobumi
became Minister of Public Works, and Okubo received the appointment of
Gaimukiyo, or Minister for Foreign Affairs. One effect of the visit of
the Japanese Ambassadors to the European capitals was speedily visible in
the withdrawal of the garrison of British troops which had for years been
maintained at Yokohama, the ability of the Imperial Government to protect
the foreign residents at the ports opened by treaty to foreign trade
having been demonstrated to the satisfaction of the British Government,
and the last of the guard of marines which had been quartered on the
Bluff in Yokohama took their departure early in 1873.
It is especially noteworthy that the Iwakura Embassy had, even at that
early period, been quick to discover traces of the deeply aggressive
designs of Russia, and in a memorandum drawn up by Okubo appear the
memorable words:—“Russia, always pressing southward, is the chief peril”
for Japan. The aim of Japanese statesmanship, from that time forward,
became of necessity the safeguarding of the national interests in the
adjacent peninsula, and there was a strong party in the Government in
favour of going to war there and then in defence of the rights of Japan.
But in their travels in Europe the ambassadors had learned enough to
convince them that to enter at that stage on a contest with the Colossus
of the North would only be disastrous for their country, and the peace
advocates, foremost among whom were Prince Iwakura and Okubo Toshimichi,
carried the day. Unhappily the stealthy advance of Russia and the
question of how to counteract it produced such a divergence of opinion
that the newly formed government was torn asunder and the split had
consequences for the nation at large which could never have been expected
at the time. Among the ministerial advocates of a forward policy at that
date were Saigo Takamori and Itagaki Taisuke, who are elsewhere referred
to in this volume, and they, in company with Yeto Shimpei and others,
resigned office.
Viscount Okubo held an important position under the Tokugawa
administration in the days of the Shogun Iyesada, who, owing to ill
health, appointed a _Tairo_, or Regent, whose duty it became to
shoulder the heavy responsibilities of that very troublous period of
the national history. The Regent was Ii Kamon-no-kami Naosuke, lord of
the fief of Hikoné, near Lake Biwa, who was assassinated by Ro-nins,
_lit._: “Wave-men,”—in other words, men who having become masterless
were restless and tempest-tossed by political gales, an element often
uncontrollable and for whose vagaries no one should be held primarily
responsible,—on the 3rd of March 1860, less than two years after he had
entered on his onerous task. It was in reference to that, and to the
attitude of the Regent towards foreign powers and the treaties which
had been made with them that Viscount Okubo, at a later date penned
the following note by way of preface to the memoir of Ii Kamon-no-kami
Naosuke written by Mr Shimada Saburo. The original note was in classical
Chinese, and the translation was made by Mr Shimada,—himself one of
Japan’s foremost scholars, a much-travelled man, and member of the Lower
House of the Diet, whose contributions to current literature have been
numerous. The memorandum by Viscount Okubo serves to indicate, moreover,
his own opinion on the advisability of opening the country to foreign
intercourse, and which led to his association with other prominent Makers
of New Japan. He wrote:—
On the evening of the sixth month of the fifth year of An-sei
era (1858) when I went to see the Tairo, Baron Ii, to inform
him of my departure to Kioto on the following day, I told
him that as to the appointment of the Shogun’s heir, I had
heard it directly from the Shogun himself; but as to the
question of foreign affairs, I said that I had embodied my
opinion in a poem, and asked him if that were his view. I
had the poem written on my pocket paper, and presented it to
his consideration. He carefully perused it and said that he
approved of it, instructing me at the same time to act up to
the spirit of that poem. Now I have the pleasure of appending
that poem here as an evidence that the Baron was in favour of
opening the country to intercourse with foreign nations. The
poem reads:
“However numerous and diversified the nations of the earth may
be, the GOD who reigns over them all (or, binds them together)
can never be more than one.
OKUBO ICHI-O.”
The Regent himself, like Okubo, with whose poetry he was in sympathy,
fell a victim to the assassin’s dagger, as is elsewhere related in
detail, and at the time alluded to in the foregoing note the country was
so torn by clan dissensions and was so agitated by the continued rivalry
of the Jo-I and Kai-koku factions that Ii Kamon-no-kami was prompted to
express himself in verse which is elsewhere translated as:—
Rent as the wave-beat rocks on Omi’s strand
My broken heart, for our beloved land!
Okubo had attained to a position of influence in the Satsuma clan long
prior to the restoration of imperial rule, and it followed almost as a
matter of course that when the new administration was formed he became
a member of the first Council of State. Prince Sanjo was the Chancellor
(Dai-jo-dai-jin), and the feudal chieftain of Satsuma officiated as one
of the Vice-chancellors (Sa-dai-jin) while Prince Iwakura was the other
(U-dai-jin). Sai means left, and U right,—the left being highest in
Japan. This Council gave place to a body closely resembling a Cabinet as
it exists in Occidental countries, in 1885, and with it disappeared the
title of Dai-jo-dai-jin, or Prime Minister, the head of the Government
now being styled Minister-president of State. The earliest efforts of
the new government were directed to the abolition of the Kioto Court
influence which had for centuries been potent to sway the decisions of
the Emperor, especially during the lifetime of Komei Tenno. Dating from
the days of Iyeyasu the first Tokugawa Shogun, a sharp distinction had
been drawn between the court nobles and the territorial barons (dai-mio),
and this it was found to be desirable at once to abolish. Another long
stride was taken when the Court decided to remove to Yedo, and renamed
that city Tokio, _lit._: East Capital, the older metropolis of Kioto
being simultaneously renamed Saikio, _lit._: West Capital, to prevent
confusion. As a matter of fact, however, the title of Saikio never
entirely supplanted the older one of Kioto, and it is by the ancient
appellation that the capital of the west is perhaps best known at the
present day.
It is always believed in Japan that it was on Okubo’s advice that the
sovereign, then only sixteen years of age, resolved to appear in public,
a departure from established custom which foreshadowed the vast changes
that his subjects were to witness within the ensuing few years. Okubo
strenuously urged the advisability of assembling the territorial lords
to hear from the monarch’s own lips the plans that had been formed in
council for the future administration of the empire, and at the memorable
meeting which took place in April 1869, with this object in view the
Emperor declared himself in favour of the establishment of a deliberative
representative body empowered to discuss the management of national
affairs, and he also pronounced his intention of providing adequately
for the defence of the country by land and sea, and of doing away with
all pernicious customs while securing to the individual perfect freedom
and liberty of conscience. The hand of Okubo was seen in the regulations
for the conduct of debates in the Kogisho, or first deliberative
assembly, and he was ever a trusted adviser of the sovereign on matters
of both internal and external policy. In the Ko-mon, or advisers of
the So-Sai, whose office was almost identical with that in later years
of Prime Minister, Okubo found able and willing coadjutors, and it was
in no slight measure due to his personal capabilities that the new
administration was firmly established at Tokio in 1868.
A memorable mission was that undertaken by Okubo to Peking in 1874.
The savages of Formosa had been guilty of most inhuman conduct to some
shipwrecked Japanese fishermen, and China, at that time claiming the
island as part of her empire, had been appealed to in vain with regard
to their punishment or as regards the needful security against cruel
practices in the future. Failing redress in any other shape, Japan had
despatched an expedition on her own account to the island, and though
the Japanese troops had encountered many and great difficulties, owing
to the savages retreating to their mountain fastnesses whither it was
extraordinarily hard work to pursue them, in the end they had been
severely handled by General Saigo Tsukumichi,—afterwards Marquis—and some
sort of guarantee exacted for their better behaviour towards shipwrecked
persons of whatever nationality in the days to come. China, however, had
become not a little alarmed at the progress that the Japanese forces
were making with the subjugation of the barbarians, a task that she had
not herself thought it worth while to essay, and made proposals for
the prompt withdrawal of the invading army. Okubo went to Peking armed
with plenary powers to arrange terms, and he arrived there in September
1874. The Chinese wanted to treat with him on the basis of reimbursing
Japan for the outlay she had incurred in the expedition, which was
what Japan herself desired, and of guaranteeing that there should be
sufficient control instituted over the savages in future to ensure that
no repetition of the inhuman acts should occur. But the negotiators at
Peking sought to cut down the sum-total of the indemnity, and to avoid
giving any written pledge as regards the time to come. Okubo, however,
was very firm on these points, and told the other side plainly that Japan
would not place confidence in his assurances unless they were supported
by documentary evidence that the settlement was of the character which he
might describe it to have been. “Of course I do not covet the indemnity,”
he declared, “but if I cannot explain the steps to be taken and the
amount of compensation for expenditure to be paid, with written proof
to support my statements, how can I in honour report my mission to the
Emperor as having been completed?”
Finding the Chinese to be still reluctant to comply with these terms, he
prepared to return to Japan, but at that juncture Prince Kung hurried to
the British Legation and besought Sir Thomas Wade to intercede. In the
end a treaty was drawn up and signed, between Okubo and Kung, acting on
behalf of their respective sovereigns, whereby it was agreed:—
Article I: that the enterprise of Japan was a just and rightful
proceeding to protect her own subjects, and China did not
designate it as a wrong action,—
Article II: that a sum of money should be given by China for
relief of the families of the shipwrecked Japanese subjects
maltreated. Japan having constructed roads and built houses,
etc.: in that place, and China wishing to have the use of these
for herself, she agreed to make payment for them, the amount to
be fixed by special agreement.
Article III. All the official correspondence thereunto
exchanged between the two states to be returned mutually and
be annulled, to prevent any future misunderstanding. As to the
savages, China engaged to establish authority, and promised
that navigators should be protected from injury by them.
Under a special clause it was agreed that 100,000 taels
should be paid to the families of the murdered men, and that
in respect of the roads and buildings the sum paid should be
400,000 taels. Japan was to withdraw all her troops, and China
was to pay the half-million taels agreed upon by the 20th
December following, in that thirteenth year of the reign of the
Emperor Tung-Chi.
Japan thus early in her era of Meiji, or Enlightened Rule, vindicated her
right to be regarded as a champion of the rights of our common humanity,
a position which she has successfully maintained on every occasion since
that time.
Okubo never received the title of Viscount, but the rank was posthumously
conferred for the benefit of his family. His assassination was attributed
to ill feeling engendered among certain adherents of the Satsuma clan by
his attitude with regard to the rebellion of 1877, as some thought he
ought to have supported his clan in the war. He was a loyal and devoted
servant of his Emperor, and placed his duty to his sovereign above all
considerations of clan or party connections.
XI
COUNT GOTO SHOJIRO
The late Count Goto, who died in 1892, was a trusty retainer of the
Prince of Tosa, one of the four provinces into which the island of
Shikoku, as its name implies, was of old divided. The chief town of Tosa
is Kochi, a well-known port on the east coast, facing the Pacific. The
Tosa clan was one of the first to make use of foreign-built vessels, the
prince owning more than one steamer officered by Europeans in the “early
seventies” when the coasting trade was in its infancy. Goto Shojiro was
born in the year 1832, and in his young days was a close student of
Dutch books, but the advent of the American “black ships” at Uraga in
1853 led him to turn his attention to marine affairs, and he applied
himself vigorously to the acquisition of a competent knowledge of modern
inventive progress, becoming convinced thereby of the necessity for a
radical change in his own country’s methods if she would hold her own
among the nations. It was for his acquaintance with engineering matters
that he was chosen to act as Vice-Minister of Public Works when the
administration was first set up in the new capital, but he had taken a
prominent part in the abolition of the Shogunate from the days when the
Shogun Tokugawa Keiki dwelt at the Nijo Castle in Kioto, in 1866, often
going thither in company with Komatsu Tatewaki of the Satsuma clan, to
discuss politics with his Highness on the Shogun’s special invitation.
Goto at all times steadfastly urged the advisability of the formation of
an Imperial Government upon the Shogun, and it speaks volumes for the
broad-minded unselfishness of the Prince Tokugawa Keiki (as he now is)
that he was prepared to listen to suggestions which necessarily involved
his own renunciation of the exalted position that he then held, and
even, as the sequel showed, to act upon them, though in doing so he
deprived himself of rank and power at one stroke. That Goto Shojiro made
good use of the opportunities thus presented to him of laying before his
Highness the fruit of his own researches into the then dimly comprehended
sources of Occidental strength and prosperity is evident, and for that
service to his country, if for no other, he deserves to be remembered,
but he laid his nation under obligations to him in a variety of ways, and
was active in the popular interest to the end of his days, which were all
too short for it to reap the full benefit of his matured experience and
practical, common-sense application of the knowledge that a busy career
had enabled him to amass.
[Illustration: COUNT GOTO SHOJIRO]
In the year 1867 the prince of Tosa, Yamanouchi, sent Goto Shojiro to
Kioto with a letter addressed to the Shogun which he was to deliver
personally, and the tenour of this document is stated to have been a
strong appeal to Prince Tokugawa Keiki to resign his functions as head of
the Bakufu and co-operate in the establishment of an imperial government.
The text of the document is quoted in the _Kin-sei Shi-riaku_, an
“Abridged History of Modern Times,” and it amounted to a respectfully
worded invitation to take into consideration the existing conditions in
the empire and make choice of a line of action which would tend to the
restoration of peace and harmony within the nation’s borders and the
elevation of the country to a position of importance among the powers of
the world. Its keynote was the absolute necessity of doing away with the
feudal system which had existed for six centuries under the domination of
the Shoguns of the Tokugawa family and their predecessors.
The Shogun received the prince of Tosa’s letter in a most friendly
spirit, and promised to consider the matter, continuing to call Goto into
consultation at the Nijo castle as before. To what degree his Highness
was influenced by the letter it would of course be impossible to judge,
but it is certain that at the close of the autumn of that year he had
formed the resolution to abdicate definitely his position, though he did
not actually quit Kioto until January 1868.