in the newly established Government. In 1871 he left Yokohama in company
with Prince Iwakura, Ito Hirobumi, and others on the Embassy to Europe
and America, elsewhere referred to, and returned to Japan with them in
the autumn of 1873. Resuming his position at the Home Department, he
continued to fulfil his arduous duties until increasing illness obliged
him to withdraw, and he died of consumption in 1875, at the age of
thirty-seven, regretted by the whole Japanese nation. His monument at
the Aoyama Cemetery is all that visibly reminds this generation of one
who was a patriot and a statesman of the highest ability, but Japan at
large acknowledges its indebtedness to his unselfish devotion and keen
perception of the requirements of the age in which he lived.
The rank of Marquis was posthumously conferred on Kido Koin, and the
present holder of the title is a nephew of the great statesman.
XVIII
COUNT ITAGAKI
Though necessarily less active by reason of advancing age than he was a
quarter of a century ago, when he succeeded in forcing the hand of the
Government of the day to the extent that he extracted a promise of the
establishment of a Diet in 1890, and though nominally he has retired from
active political life, Count Itagaki Taisuke is still a power in the
land of his birth, highly respected for his strict integrity of purpose,
absolute sincerity, and wide philanthropy. As one of the leading spirits
in the development of the project of Restored Imperial Rule he was
particularly energetic in the years immediately preceding the fall of the
Tokugawa Shogunate, and displayed military ability of a high order in the
War of the Restoration.
[Illustration: COUNT ITAGAKI]
Born in the province of Tosa on the 17th of April 1837, of Samurai
parents, he applied himself as a youth with much ardour to martial
exercises, and was proficient in all the arts that the youth of the
warrior caste was, in the palmy days of the Tokugawa Administration,
expected to excel in. At Kochi, the chief town of Tosa, he devoted
himself to military studies, and devoured such works on strategy as
were then available, with the result that when the stupendous struggle
of 1868 took place between North and South he was given the command of
a division, in the army of the Imperialists, and displayed invincible
talent in the leadership of his men throughout the campaign under
Prince Arisugawa Taruhito and Marshal Saigo Takamori. The Tosa men were
conspicuous for their steadiness, and were pronounced, in respect of
drill and discipline, to be in the front rank of the forces that overcame
the adherents of the Shogunate and made practicable the entire abolition
of that long-cherished feudal system which so greatly retarded Japan’s
progress.
As a reward for the eminent services rendered by him in the war, Itagaki
Taisuke was made a _Sangi_ in the new Government, this being a position
comparable to that of a Cabinet Minister at the present day. When, in the
discussion of Korean affairs a sharp divergence of opinion was manifested
in 1873-4 among the members of the Dai-jo-kwan or Governing Council, and
the war party led by Saigo Takamori was outvoted, those who sided with
him, one of whom was Itagaki, resigned office, and from that time forward
Tosa, whither Itagaki promptly returned and vigorously applied himself
to the formation of a democratic party, became known as the nursery of
advanced political aspirations and the primary source whence sprang an
irresistible undercurrent of opinion tending towards representative
government.
As a matter of fact Itagaki had himself sent up a memorial to Government
at the time he quitted the Council, urging the institution of a national
assembly, and when he retired from the capital he found ready to his hand
the nucleus of the political association that he had it in mind to form
in the shape of the Ri-shi-sha, a Society which had been organised for
the purpose of promoting the interests of those who espoused the popular
cause. Though the Government rejected his memorial, Itagaki had reason to
think that his plea had not been wholly unnoticed, inasmuch as an edict
appeared summoning the Local Governors to consult at headquarters on
matters of provincial administration, the improvement of communications,
the regulation of public meetings, and so on, and in 1875 the Gen-Ro-In,
or Senate (_lit._: Congress of Elders), was established and discharged
its functions as a legislative body until it was superseded by the
Diet in 1890. The Local Governors met again in 1878, and meanwhile the
Satsuma clan had revolted and the country had been plunged into civil
war. Itagaki and his friends had seized the right moment to point out
how beneficial in allaying internal dissensions would be the institution
of a Parliament which should voice the opinions and hopes of the nation.
A memorial addressed by them to the Emperor urged that there could be
nothing that would more directly lead to the welfare of the people
than for the sovereign to signify once for all his disapproval of
despotic measures and to emphasise his wish that public opinion should
be consulted in regard to the conduct of affairs of State. The effect of
this action on the part of the Emperor, pleaded the memorialists, would
be that concurrently with the establishment of a representative assembly
the people would show greater zeal in regard to the country’s vital
concerns and would be able to take a genuine interest in its affairs,
while with the disappearance of all traces of despotism the aspirations
of the masses would rise to a higher plane and civilisation would be
advanced simultaneously with the increase of national wealth and the
cessation of internecine jealousies and antagonism.
The leaven had been introduced into the mass of the more reflective
section of the population, it was clear, and Itagaki, in his retired
home at Kochi, became the acknowledged head of the _Jiyuto_, or Party
of Freedom, a term which has come into general use as signifying the
Liberal Party as distinct from the Progressive Party originated by Count
Okuma some fifteen months later. Tosa had long been the centre, in fact,
of an agitation which in 1881 assumed truly formidable proportions, and
its endeavours bore fruit in the autumn of that year in the form of an
Imperial Rescript, dated the 12th October, in which his Majesty announced
the grant of a constitution, to take effect in 1890, and his intention of
convoking a Diet for the discussion of national affairs.
Throughout the preceding period of eight years the party headed by
Itagaki Taisuke had never wavered in its resolute advocacy of the popular
cause, though its members were often the objects of violent opposition
from reactionary zealots, whose antagonism in the case of Itagaki
himself took the form of a desperate assault, perpetrated by a youth
whose imagination had become fired with a mistaken notion of serving his
country, and who at Gifu stabbed, almost to death, the Jiyuto leader
who at the time was engaged in making his first tour of the provinces
after the establishment of the party on a definite basis. Fortunately
the intending assassin’s aim was disturbed, for he failed to strike in
a vital spot, and after a time Itagaki recovered, but he was perilously
near sharing the fate of so many of his fellow-countrymen who have at
various times suffered for their prominence in national politics. As
has often been the result of political crimes, too, the foul deed had
precisely the opposite effect to that which its perpetrator doubtless
intended, for the exclamation of Itagaki as he fell to the ground,—“I
may die, but freedom never!”—rang through the land, and did more to
knit together the bonds of Liberalism than even floods of oratory could
possibly have achieved.
The following year Itagaki journeyed in company with his life-long
friend and fellow-clansman, Goto Shojiro, to America and Europe, and
his subsequent career was inseparably connected with the spread of
Liberal ideas among his countrymen, and of preparation for the exercise
of those rights and privileges guaranteed to them by the Constitution.
Eventually the control of the _Jiyuto_ passed in great measure to Count
Ito, and the party was dissolved, to be resuscitated on a new footing
in connection with the Constitutionalists. But this did not occur until
various attempts had been made in the direction of Government by party, a
system which, from one cause or another, seems in Japan to be doomed to
failure. Itagaki was Home Minister in the Third Ito Cabinet, which fell
in August 1896, and when in June 1898 Marquis Ito went out of office, he
recommended that a trial should be given to party Government, and that
the formation of a Cabinet should be entrusted to Counts Itagaki and
Okuma. The experiment was in no sense to be regarded as satisfactory, and
the rivalries that had formerly existed, and had merely been temporarily
suppressed, were revived in an aggravated form. In less than six months
the internal disagreements found vent in an open quarrel, and the idea of
establishing Government on a party basis was abandoned if not for ever
at least for an indefinite period. There was a brief repetition of the
experiment in 1900-1, extending over seven months in all, when Marquis
Ito headed his fifth Cabinet, but the result was no better, and save for
that short interval the administration has been for the past seven years
avowedly conducted on non-party lines.
The Jiyuto formed by Count Itagaki (who received his title in 1887) no
longer exists, for it was abolished, to all intents and purposes, in
1900, and its place has been occupied more or less by the Sei-yu-kai,
or Constitutional party, which was headed until July 1903 by Marquis
Ito, and since that date has had as its president the Marquis Saionji.
Count Itagaki has ceased to figure on the political stage in anything
approaching the degree to which he at one period of his career filled
the public eye, but there is ample ground for the conviction that his
influence is yet very appreciable in Liberal circles, albeit many younger
men than himself have recently come to the front. Close upon seventy
years of age, he surely has earned the right, after a strenuous life,
to retire from the political arena, and it is indisputable that he
enjoys the respect and confidence of the entire nation in those minor
enterprises which have of late received a large share of his attention,
and which have as their object, for the most part, the amelioration of
the lot of the poor of his own province, or are kindred efforts in the
cause of humanity at large.
XIX
COUNT MATSUKATA MASAYOSHI
Born in Satsuma in the year 1835, the son of a Kagoshima samurai, the
statesman whose name will for all time be identified with the adoption
in Japan of a gold standard has played a very distinguished part in the
affairs of his country, for it is to his untiring efforts that must in a
peculiar degree be ascribed the circumstance that, in all Asia, his is
the only nation which bases its financial system on gold monometallism.
The Coinage law which brought about the great change that has had so
vast an influence on the economic and financial conditions prevailing in
Japan came into operation on the 1st October 1897. The hope which Count
Matsukata entertained that capital at a low rate of interest might be
attracted from gold standard countries, to help on the industrial growth
of the country, has already to a very appreciable extent been realised.
That in the long run the advantages of the gold standard would be deep
and abiding, conducive to the healthy industrial growth of the country,
was Count Matsukata’s firm and expressed conviction.
Matsukata Masayoshi when quite young entered the service of his Han
and took part as a Satsuma clansman in the events which preceded the
downfall of the Tokugawa Shogunate. He was a fervent advocate of the
establishment by the Satsuma Chieftain of a provincial navy, and in this
proposal he met with some success, as his clan purchased several ships
which at a later date carried the Satsuma flag (a circle with a cross in
it) into action against vessels of the Tokugawa squadron under Admiral
Enomoto, though without achieving any substantial victory. The knowledge
which Matsukata acquired in his young days of matters naval was mainly
obtained at Nagasaki from the Dutch, and he was in this way brought
into contact with Western people at an early age. This was prior to the
opening of the Treaty ports, when the Dutchmen were the only foreigners
allowed to reside in the Japanese Empire. Nagasaki was reopened to
general foreign trade and intercourse on the 1st of July 1859, under the
terms of the Elgin treaty of the previous year.
[Illustration: COUNT MATSUKATA]
The monetary system in vogue in the last days of the Tokugawa Shogunate
was based on an obsolete plan established as far back as 1600 A.D. and
various causes had combined to bring the currency of Japan into the
utmost disorder. His course of study led Matsukata to appreciate the
necessity of action long before the opportunity came to him to put his
ideas into practice. The coins in circulation had become debased, having
lost in quality and quantity by successive recoinage, to which the
Shogunate had resort as a relief measure at times of financial distress.
Some of the feudal lords, moreover,—of whom there were in all some
270,—had secretly coined money, and counterfeits had become numerous.
Most of the _Hans_—_i.e._ baronial administrations—had issued paper money
for circulation within their respective jurisdictions, and the value of
such notes had undergone great depreciation. The Shogun’s administration
was prompt to realise, on the opening of the country to trade with
Western nations under the treaties, the serious loss which the country
was sustaining on account of the disordered state of the coinage, but
before any adequate steps were taken towards reform the Shogunate regime
came to an end and an new era dawned for Japan under the beneficent
influences of the reign of Meiji.
The imperial government even instituted a scheme of monetary reform while
yet the revolutionary war was in progress, for a system of recoinage
was drawn up and adopted in April 1868, and steps were taken to found
a Government Mint. At the end of 1869 it was resolved to base the new
coinage on the metric system, making silver the standard unit of value
and gold subsidiary. The Hong Kong Mint was purchased outright, on the
Colony ceasing to coin for itself, and many members of the British staff
were engaged by the Tokio Government to supervise the operations of the
establishment, which it was found expedient to set up at Osaka. It began
to coin silver in November 1870.
While this substantial progress was being made by the newly formed
imperial government Ito Hirobumi (the present marquis) was travelling
in the United States,—he then occupying the post of Vice-Minister of
Finance,—and from what he saw he was induced to write home strenuously
advocating the establishment by Japan of a gold standard. His memorandum
is quoted at some length elsewhere, but its salient points may be briefly
summarised here, because its cogency appealed to Matsukata, who made it
practically the chief aim of his official life to procure the adoption of
a gold standard for his country, and finally triumphed over the many and
vast obstacles that lay in the path of its successful introduction. Ito
Hirobumi’s memorandum referred to the opinions of economists the world
over displaying a decided bent towards the choice of gold as the fittest
metal for standard, and mentioned that the fact that Austria, Holland,
and some other countries were still maintaining a silver standard was
probably due to the difficulty met with in making a change. He urged that
it would be a wise policy for Japan, in her new coinage, to profit by the
teachings of modern times. He admitted the necessity of provisionally
making silver the standard, but insisted that Japan should keep in view
the time when gold might be adopted as the more suitable basis of her
monetary system.
At the time when the Satsuma men were contending at Fushimi, near Kioto,
with the adherents of the Shogun the future Count Matsukata was residing
in Nagasaki. The Governor of the town happened to be a northern man,
one whose sympathies were wholly with the Tokugawa side, to which,
indeed, he had been indebted for his appointment to the post he held.
At Nagasaki the trend of opinion was of course anti-Shogunate, and
the Governor, recognising that his rule must necessarily be somewhat
unpopular, decided, it would seem, to take his leave rather abruptly, for
he hastily quitted his official residence and sought safety in flight.
The administration of the treaty port could not be left unprovided for,
and therefore Matsukata and a few other young men who were on the spot
at this crisis resolved to take matters into their own control. As soon
as the upheaval of 1868 had subsided and affairs were beginning to run
their normal course, Matsukata was offered a position under the newly
established government at Tokio, but he was for a short time placed in
charge of its interests at Nagasaki as Local Governor. In 1871 he was
attached to the Department of Finance, for it had been discovered that
he possessed exceptional qualifications for dealing with problems of the
knotty character which were at that period of transition apt to present
themselves. The connection with the national finances thus auspiciously
begun in the fourth year of the Meiji era has never ceased, since he is
still frequently consulted on points of policy in which it is considered
that his matured judgment will be of benefit to the nation.
In the year 1874, when Japan was about to embark on an expedition to
Formosa, to avenge the deaths of several of her sons at the hands of
the savages whom China professed to be unable to control, the Count was
made Vice-Minister of the Department of Finance, and began a series of
fiscal reforms among which the conversion of the pensions granted to the
lords and their retainers of the old regime into public loan bonds was
one of the most important. The 7 per cent. Foreign Loan raised in 1873,
and which was entirely redeemed in 1897, was devoted in the main to the
supply of funds to those samurai who had of their own accord surrendered
their hereditary pensions and who were at that time entering, in not a
few instances, on a business career. In 1874 the Voluntarily Capitalised
Pension Bonds were issued for granting relief in the form either of cash
or bonds to the samurai in order that they might be enabled to carry
on their commercial pursuits. In 1876, when the old hereditary pension
system was entirely abolished, a systematised plan of compounding the
pensions with capitalised pension bonds was at once instituted, it being
the intention of the government that these bonds should be made the
capital of National Banks, and that those banks should be authorised to
issue notes. In this way it was believed that the poorer samurai would
at once be placed in funds, while the economic market would be supplied
with much wanted capital in the form of bank notes. As Count Matsukata
has remarked, “it is needless to note that these ideas were based on an
erroneous notion that capital and currency were interchangeable terms.”
Meanwhile almost unlooked for and wholly insurmountable difficulties had
been encountered in the effort to establish in Japan a gold standard,
as defined in the coinage law of May 1871, based on Ito Hirobumi’s
recommendations, the intrinsic merit of which was not disputed though it
had most reluctantly to be confessed that the time was not propitious
for their entire adoption. Situated as Japan was in the midst of the
silver countries of the East, it was found impossible to uphold the
gold standard, and the Government had been driven, moreover, to the
expedient of issuing paper money to meet its financial needs at a time
when it was hampered by having, in addition to other embarrassments,
to take over all the notes issued by the former _daimios_ who had
been dispossessed—voluntarily, it must be added—of their fiefs on the
restoration of a central imperial government. Paper money was at a heavy
discount for a long time, partly because the people could not overcome
their repugnance to notes due to the sad experience they had had in years
gone by of the inconvertible “satsu” of feudal times. The crisis had been
partly met by the issue of 6 per cent. Government bonds (_kin-satsu_,
_lit._: gold note) given in exchange for the paper money in order to
decrease its amount, and by degrees the hatred of paper money wore off.
The Satsuma rebellion in 1877, however, once more placed the Government
under the necessity of issuing a large amount of inconvertible notes,
which brought about a new depreciation, prices rose rapidly, gold and
silver left the country, as imports vastly exceeded the exports, and in
1880-1 there was great financial distress. As Count Matsukata in his
work on the “Adoption of the Gold Standard in Japan” has said,—“that
disastrous results would inevitably follow if convertible paper money
were made the standard of value” might easily have been foreseen, but it
appeared that an idea prevailed that the difference between the price of
silver and paper was an indication, not of the depreciation of paper,
but of the appreciation of silver. The attempt was made to stop the rise
of the price of silver by increasing the amount of its circulation. The
Government sold silver coins, opened places for the exchange of Mexican
dollars, and established the Yokohama Specie Bank in order to call
forth the coins hoarded by the people. But the more these measures were
resorted to the more rose the price of silver.
It was while matters remained in this awkward fix that Matsukata
Masayoshi received the portfolio of Finance in October 1881. “It was
at this crisis,” he states in his Report, “that it occurred to me as
I studied the case that in order to effect the object in view the
Government should, side by side with the redemption of a portion of the
paper money in circulation, take steps to increase the specie reserve of
the Government preparatory to the resumption of specie payment. Moreover,
in order to put the country’s finance on a sound basis and relieve the
pressing distress of the time, I felt the need of a central bank having
the sole privilege of issuing convertible notes. I submitted a scheme for
the establishment of such a central bank to my colleagues. In the Cabinet
Council which followed my suggestions were approved, and in June 1882 the
_Nippon Ginko_ (Bank of Japan) was established. Two years later it was
empowered to issue convertible notes. After the necessary foundations
were in this way laid, the Government used every means in its power to
raise thereon a sound financial superstructure. The method of receiving
and disbursing the State revenue was changed, and the strictest economy
was practised in the expenditures of the different departments. One half
of the surplus obtained in this way was devoted to the redemption of
paper money, while the other half was added to the specie reserve of the
Government. Besides, after the latter part of 1881 this reserve fund
was employed for discounting foreign bills of exchange, with a view to
encourage the export trade of the country, which in its turn would lead
to the importation of specie.”