It is possible to form a clear idea of the ethical and administrative

principles by which Iyeyasu and the early Tokugawa chiefs were guided in

elaborating the system which gave to Japan an unprecedented era of peace

and prosperity. Evidence is furnished not only by the system itself but

also by the contents of a document generally called the _Testament of

Iyeyasu_, though probably it was not fully compiled until the time of

his grandson, Iyemitsu (1623-1650). The great Tokugawa chief, though he

munificently patronized Buddhism and though he carried constantly in his

bosom a miniature Buddhist image to which he ascribed all his success in

the field and his safety in battle, took his ethical code from

Confucius. He held that the basis of all legislation and administration

should be the five relations of sovereign and subject, parent and child,

husband and wife, brother and sister, friend and friend. The family was,

in his eyes, the essential foundation of society, to be maintained at

all sacrifices. Beyond these broad outlines of moral duty it was not

deemed necessary to instruct the people. Therefore out of the hundred

chapters forming the _Testament_ only 22 contain what can be called

legal enactments, while 55 relate to administration and politics; 16 set

forth moral maxims and reflections, and the remainder record

illustrative episodes in the career of the author. No distinct line is

drawn between law and morals, between the duty of a citizen and the

virtues of a member of a family. Substantive law is entirely wanting,

just as it was wanting in the so-called constitution of Prince Shotoku.

Custom, as sanctioned by public observance, must be complied with in the

civil affairs of life. What required minute exposition was criminal law,

the relations of social classes, etiquette, rank, precedence,

administration and government.

Social distinctions in the Tokugawa Era.

Society under feudalism had been moulded into three sharply defined

groups, namely, first, the Throne and the court nobles (_kuge_);

secondly, the military class (_buke_ or _samurai_); and thirdly, the

common people (_heimin_). These lines of cleavage were emphasized as

much as possible by the Tokugawa rulers. The divine origin of the mikado

was held to separate him from contact with mundane affairs, and he was

therefore strictly secluded in the palace at Kioto, his main function

being to mediate between his heavenly ancestors and his subjects,

entrusting to the shogun and the samurai the duty of transacting all

worldly business on behalf of the state. In obedience to this principle

the mikado became a kind of sacrosanct abstraction. No one except his

consorts and his chief ministers ever saw his face. In the rare cases

when he gave audience to a privileged subject, he sat behind a curtain,

and when he went abroad, he rode in a closely shut car drawn by oxen. A

revenue of ten thousand _koku_ of rice--the equivalent of about as many

guineas--was apportioned for his support, and the right was reserved to

him of conferring empty titles upon the living and rank upon the dead.

His majesty had one wife, the empress (_kogo_), necessarily taken from

one of the five chosen families (_go-sekke_) of the Fujiwara, but he

might also have twelve consorts, and if direct issue failed, the

succession passed to one of the two princely families of Arisugawa and

Fushimi, adoption, however, being possible in the last resort. The

_kuge_ constituted the court nobility, consisting of 155 families all of

whom traced their lineage to ancient mikados; they ranked far above the

feudal chiefs, not excepting even the shogun; filled by right of

heredity nearly all the offices at the court, the emoluments attached

being, however, a mere pittance; were entirely without the great estates

which had belonged to them in ante-feudal times, and lived lives of

proud poverty, occupying themselves with the study of literature and the

practice of music and art. After the kuge and at a long distance below

them in theoretical rank came the military families, who, as a class,

were called _buke_ or _samurai_. They had hereditary revenues, and they

filled the administrative posts, these, too, being often hereditary. The

third, and by far the most numerous, section of the nation were the

commoners (_heimin_). They had no social status; were not allowed to

carry swords, and possessed no income except what they could earn with

their hands. About 55 in every 1000 units of the nation were samurai,

the latter's wives and children being included in this estimate.

Daimyos.

Under the Hojo and the Ashikaga shoguns the holders of the great estates

changed frequently according to the vicissitudes of those troublesome

times, but under the Tokugawa no change took place, and there thus grew

up a landed nobility of the most permanent character. Every one of these

estates was a feudal kingdom, large or small, with its own usages and

its own laws, based on the general principles above indicated and liable

to be judged according to those principles by the shogun's government

(_baku-fu_) in Yedo. A daimyo or feudal chief drew from the peasants on

his estate the means of subsistence for himself and his retainers. For

this purpose the produce of his estate was assessed by the shogun's

officials in _koku_ (one _koku_ = 180.39 litres, worth about £1), and

about one-half of the assessed amount went to the feudatory, the other

half to the tillers of the soil. The richest daimyo was Mayeda of Kaga,

whose fief was assessed at a little over a million _koku_, his revenue

thus being about half a million sterling. Just as an empress had to be

taken from one of five families designated to that distinction for all

time, so a successor to the shogunate, failing direct heir, had to be

selected from three families (_sanke_), namely, those of the daimyos of

Owari, Kii and Mito, whose first representatives were three sons of

Iyeyasu. Out of the total body of 255 daimyos existing in the year 1862,

141 were specially distinguished as _fudai_, or hereditary vassals of

the Tokugawa house, and to 18 of these was strictly limited the

perpetual privilege of filling all the high offices in the Yedo

administration, while to 4 of them was reserved the special honour of

supplying a regent (_go-tairo_) during the minority of the shogun.

Moreover, a _fudai_ daimyo was of necessity appointed to the command of

the fortress of Nijo in Kioto as well as of the great castles of Osaka

and Fushimi, which Iyeyasu designated the keys of the country. No

intermarriage might take place between members of the court nobility and

the feudal houses without the consent of Yedo; no daimyo might apply

direct to the emperor for an official title, or might put foot within

the imperial district of Kioto without the shogun's permit, and at all

entrances to the region known as the Kwanto there were established

guardhouses, where every one, of whatever rank, must submit to be

examined, in order to prevent the wives and children of the daimyos

from secretly leaving Yedo for their own provinces. In their journeys to

and from Yedo every second year the feudal chiefs had to travel by one

of two great highways, the Tokaido or the Nakasendo, and as they moved

with great retinues, these roads were provided with a number of inns and

tea-houses equipped in a sumptuous manner, and having an abundance of

female servants. A puissant daimyo's procession often numbered as many

as 1000 retainers, and nothing illustrates more forcibly the wide

interval that separated the soldier and the plebeian than the fact that

at the appearance of the heralds who preceded these progresses all

commoners who happened to be abroad had to kneel on the ground with

bowed and uncovered heads; all wayside houses had to close the shutters

of windows giving on the road, and none might venture to look down from

a height on the passing magnate. Any violation of these rules of

etiquette exposed the violator to instant death at the hands of the

daimyo's retinue. Moreover, the samurai and the heimin lived strictly

apart. A feudal chief had a castle which generally occupied a commanding

position. It was surrounded by from one to three broad moats, the

innermost crowned with a high wall of huge cut stones, its trace

arranged so as to give flank defence, which was further provided by

pagoda-like towers placed at the salient angles. Inside this wall stood

the houses of the high officials on the outskirts of a park surrounding

the residence of the daimyo himself, and from the scarps of the moats or

in the intervals between them rose houses for the military retainers,

barrack-like structures, provided, whenever possible, with small but

artistically arranged and carefully tended gardens. All this domain of

the military was called _yashiki_ in distinction to the _machi_

(streets) where the despised commoners had their habitat.

Samurai.

The general body of the samurai received stipends and lived frugally.

Their pay was not reckoned in money: it took the form of so many rations

of rice delivered from their chief's granaries. A few had landed

estates, usually bestowed in recognition of conspicuous merit. They were

probably the finest type of hereditary soldiers the world ever produced.

Money and all devices for earning it they profoundly despised. The right

of wearing a sword was to them the highest conceivable privilege. They

counted themselves the guardians of their fiefs' honour and of their

country's welfare. At any moment they were prepared cheerfully to

sacrifice their lives on the altar of loyalty. Their word, once given,

must never be violated. The slightest insult to their honour might not

be condoned. Stoicism was a quality which they esteemed next to courage:

all outward display of emotion must be suppressed. The sword might never

be drawn for a petty cause, but, if once drawn, must never be returned

to its scabbard until it had done its duty. Martial exercises occupied

much of their attention, but book learning also they esteemed highly.

They were profoundly courteous towards each other, profoundly

contemptuous towards the commoner, whatever his wealth. Filial piety

ranked next to loyalty in their code of ethics. Thus the Confucian

maxim, endorsed explicitly in the _Testament of Iyeyasu_, that a man

must not live under the same sky with his father's murderer or his

brother's slayer, received most literal obedience, and many instances

occurred of vendettas pursued in the face of apparently insuperable

difficulties and consummated after years of effort. By the standard of

modern morality the Japanese samurai would be counted cruel. Holding

that death was the natural sequel of defeat and the only certain way of

avoiding disgrace, he did not seek quarter himself or think of extending

it to an enemy. Yet in his treatment of the latter he loved to display

courtesy until the supreme moment when all considerations of mercy were

laid aside. It cannot be doubted that the practice of employing torture

judicially tended to educate a mood of callousness towards suffering, or

that the many idle hours of a military man's life in time of peace

encouraged a measure of dissipation. But there does not seem to be any

valid ground for concluding that either of these defects was conspicuous

in the character of the Japanese samurai. Faithlessness towards women

was the greatest fault that can be laid to his door. The samurai lady

claimed no privilege of timidity on account of her sex. She knew how to

die in the cause of honour just as readily as her husband, her father or

her brother died, and conjugal fidelity did not rank as a virtue in her

eyes, being regarded as a simple duty. But her husband held marital

faith in small esteem and ranked his wife far below his sword. It has to

be remembered that when we speak of a samurai's suicide, there is no

question of poison, the bullet, drowning or any comparatively painless

manner of exit from the world. The invariable method was to cut open the

abdomen (_hara-kiri_ or _seppuku_) and afterwards, if strength remained,

the sword was turned against the throat. To such endurance had the

samurai trained himself that he went through this cruel ordeal without

flinching in the smallest degree.

Heimin.

The heimin or commoners were divided into three classes--husbandmen,

artisans and traders. The farmer, as the nation lived by his labour, was

counted the most respectable among the bread-winners, and a cultivator

of his own estate might even carry one sword but never two, that

privilege being strictly reserved to a samurai. The artisan, too,

received much consideration, as is easily understood when we remember

that included in his ranks were artists, sword-smiths, armourers,

sculptors of sacred images or sword-furniture, ceramists and lacquerers.

Many artisans were in the permanent service of feudal chiefs from whom

they received fixed salaries. Tradesmen, however, were regarded with

disdain and stood lowest of all in the social organization. Too much

despised to be even included in that organization were the _eta_

(defiled folks) and the _hinin_ (outcasts). The exact origin of these

latter pariahs is uncertain, but the ancestors of the eta would seem to

have been prisoners of war or the enslaved families of criminals. To

such people were assigned the defiling duties of tending tombs,

disposing of the bodies of the dead, slaughtering animals or tanning

hides. The hinin were mendicants. On them devolved the task of removing

and burying the corpses of executed criminals. Living in segregated

hamlets, forbidden to marry with heimin, still less with samurai, not

allowed to eat, drink or associate with persons above their own class,

the eta remained under the ban of ostracism from generation to

generation, though many of them contrived to amass much wealth. They

were governed by their own headmen, and they had three chiefs, one

residing in each of the cities of Yedo, Osaka and Kioto. All these

members of the submerged classes were relieved from proscription and

admitted to the ranks of the commoners under the enlightened system of

Meiji. The 12th of October 1871 saw their enfranchisement, and at that

date the census showed 287,111 eta and 695,689 hinin.

Decline and Fall of the Shogunate.

Naturally, as the unbroken peace of the Tokugawa régime became habitual,

the mood of the nation underwent a change. The samurai, no longer

required to lead the frugal life of camp or barracks, began to live

beyond their incomes. "They found difficulty in meeting the pecuniary

engagements of everyday existence, so that money acquired new importance

in their eyes, and they gradually forfeited the respect which their

traditional disinterestedness had won for them in the past." At the same

time the abuses of feudalism were thrown into increased salience. A

large body of hereditary soldiers become an anomaly when fighting has

passed even out of memory. On the other hand, the agricultural and

commercial classes acquired new importance. The enormous sums disbursed

every year in Yedo, for the maintenance of the great establishments

which the feudal chiefs vied with each other in keeping there, enriched

the merchants and traders so greatly that their scale of living

underwent radical change. Buddhism was a potent influence, but its

ethical restraints were weakened by the conduct of its priests, who

themselves often yielded to the temptation of the time. The aristocracy

adhered to its refined pastimes--performances of the _No_; tea reunions;

poem composing; polo; football; equestrian archery; fencing and

gambling--but the commoner, being excluded from all this realm and, at

the same time, emerging rapidly from his old position of penury and

degradation, began to develop luxurious proclivities and to demand

corresponding amusements. Thus the theatre came into existence; the

dancing girl and the jester found lucrative employment; a popular school

of art was founded and quickly carried to perfection; the _lupanar_

assumed unprecedented dimensions; rich and costly costumes acquired wide

vogue in despite of sumptuary laws enacted from time to time; wrestling

became an important institution, and plutocracy asserted itself in the

face of caste distinctions.

Simultaneously with the change of social conditions thus taking place,

history repeated itself at the shogun's court. The substance of

administrative power passed into the hands of a minister, its shadow

alone remaining to the shogun. During only two generations were the

successors of Iyeyasu able to resist this traditional tendency. The

representative of the third--Iyetsuna (1661-1680)--succumbed to the

machinations of an ambitious minister, Sakai Takakiyo, and it may be

said that from that time the nominal repository of administrative

authority in Yedo was generally a species of magnificent recluse,

secluded from contact with the outer world and seeing and hearing only

through the eyes and ears of the ladies of his household. In this

respect the descendants of the great Tokugawa statesman found themselves

reduced to a position precisely analogous to that of the emperor in

Kioto. Sovereign and shogun were alike mere abstractions so far as the

practical work of government was concerned. With the great mass of the

feudal chiefs things fared similarly. These men who, in the days of

Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Iyeyasu, had directed the policies of their

fiefs and led their armies in the field, were gradually transformed,

during the long peace of the Tokugawa era, into voluptuous _fainéants_

or, at best, thoughtless dilettanti, willing to abandon the direction of

their affairs to seneschals and mayors, who, while on the whole their

administration was able and loyal, found their account in contriving and

perpetuating the effacement of their chiefs. Thus, in effect, the

government of the country, taken out of the hands of the shogun and the

feudatories, fell into those of their vassals. There were exceptions, of

course, but so rare as to be merely accidental.

Another important factor has to be noted. It has been shown above that

Iyeyasu bestowed upon his three sons the rich fiefs of Owari, Kii

(Kishu) and Mito, and that these three families exclusively enjoyed the

privilege of furnishing an heir to the shogun should the latter be

without direct issue. Mito ought therefore to have been a most unlikely

place for the conception and propagation of principles subversive of the

shogun's administrative autocracy. Nevertheless, in the days of the

second of the Mito chiefs at the close of the 17th century, there arose

in that province a school of thinkers who, revolting against the

ascendancy of Chinese literature and of Buddhism, devoted themselves to

compiling a history such as should recall the attention of the nation to

its own annals and revive its allegiance to Shinto. It would seem that

in patronizing the compilation of this great work the Mito chief was

swayed by the spirit of pure patriotism and studentship, and that he

discerned nothing of the goal to which the new researches must lead the

litterati of his fief. "He and they, for the sake of history and without

any thought of politics, undertook a retrospect of their country's

annals, and their frank analysis furnished conclusive proof that the

emperor was the prime source of administrative authority and that its

independent exercise by a shogun must be regarded as a usurpation. They

did not attempt to give practical effect to their discoveries; the era

was essentially academical. But this galaxy of scholars projected into

the future a light which burned with growing force in each succeeding

generation and ultimately burst into a flame which consumed feudalism

and the shogunate," fused the nation into one, and restored the

governing authority to the emperor. Of course the Mito men were not

alone in this matter: many students subsequently trod in their footsteps

and many others sought to stem the tendency; but the net result was

fatal to faith in the dual system of government. Possibly had nothing

occurred to furnish signal proof of the system's practical defects, it

might have long survived this theoretical disapproval. But the crisis

caused by the advent of foreign ships and by the forceful renewal of

foreign intercourse in the 19th century afforded convincing evidence of

the shogunate's incapacity to protect the state's supposed interests and

to enforce the traditional policy of isolation which the nation had

learned to consider essential to the empire's integrity.

Another important factor made for the fall of the shogunate. That factor

was the traditional disaffection of the two great southern fiefs,

Satsuma and Choshu. When Iyeyasu parcelled out the empire, he deemed it

the wisest policy to leave these chieftains in full possession of their

large estates. But this measure, construed as an evidence of weakness

rather than a token of liberality, neither won the allegiance of the big

feudatories nor cooled their ambition. Thus no sooner did the nation

divide into two camps over the question of renewed foreign intercourse

than men of the above clans, in concert with representatives of certain

of the old court nobles, placed themselves at the head of a movement

animated by two loudly proclaimed purposes: restoration of the

administration to the emperor, and expulsion of aliens. This latter

aspiration underwent a radical change when the bombardment of the

Satsuma capital, Kagoshima, and the destruction of the Choshu forts and

ships at Shimonoseki proved conclusively to the Satsuma and Choshu clans

that Japan in her unequipped and backward condition could not hope to

stand for a moment against the Occident in arms. But the unwelcome

discovery was accompanied by a conviction that only a thoroughly united

nation might aspire to preserve its independence, and thus the abolition

of the dual form of government became more than ever an article of

public faith. It is unnecessary to recount the successive incidents

which conspired to undermine the shogun's authority, and to destroy the

prestige of the Yedo administration. Both had been reduced to vanishing

quantities by the year 1866 when Keiki succeeded to the shogunate.

Keiki, known historically as Yoshinobu, the last of the shoguns, was a

man of matured intellect and high capacities. He had been put forward by

the anti-foreign Conservatives for the succession to the shogunate in

1857 when the complications of foreign intercourse were in their first

stage of acuteness. But, like many other intelligent Japanese, he had

learned, in the interval between 1857 and 1866, that to keep her doors

closed was an impossible task for Japan, and very quickly after taking

the reins of office he recognized that national union could never be

achieved while power was divided between Kioto and Yedo. At this

juncture there was addressed to him by Yodo, chief of the great Tosa

fief, a memorial setting forth the hopelessness of the position in which

the Yedo court now found itself, and urging that, in the interests of

good government and in order that the nation's united strength might be

available to meet the exigencies of its new career, the administration

should be restored to the emperor. Keiki received this memorial in

Kioto. He immediately summoned a council of all the feudatories and high

officials then in the Imperial city, announced to them his intention to

lay down his office, and, the next day, presented his resignation to the

sovereign. This happened on the 14th of October 1867. It must be ranked

among the signal events of the world's history, for it signified the

voluntary surrender of kingly authority wielded uninterruptedly for

nearly three centuries. That the shogun's resignation was tendered in

good faith there can be no doubt, and had it been accepted in the same

spirit, the great danger it involved might have been consummated without

bloodshed or disorder. But the clansmen of Satsuma and Choshu were

distrustful. One of the shogun's first acts after assuming office had

been to obtain from the throne an edict for imposing penalties on

Choshu, and there was a precedent for suspecting that the renunciation

of power by the shogun might merely prelude its resumption on a firmer

basis. Therefore steps were taken to induce the emperor, then a youth of

fifteen, to issue a secret rescript to Satsuma and Choshu, denouncing

the shogun as the nation's enemy and enjoining his destruction. At the

same time all officials connected with the Tokugawa or suspected of

sympathy with them were expelled from office in Kioto, and the shogun's

troops were deprived of the custody of the palace gates by methods which

verged upon the use of armed force. In the face of such provocation

Keiki's earnest efforts to restrain the indignation of his vassals and

adherents failed. They marched against Kioto and were defeated,

whereupon Keiki left his castle at Osaka and retired to Yedo, where he

subsequently made unconditional surrender to the Imperial army. There is

little more to be set down on this page of the history. The Yedo court

consented to lay aside its dignities and be stripped of its

administrative authority, but all the Tokugawa vassals and adherents did

not prove equally placable. There was resistance in the northern

provinces, where the Aizu feudatory refused to abandon the Tokugawa

cause; there was an attempt to set up a rival candidate for the throne

in the person of an Imperial prince who presided over the Uyeno

Monastery in Yedo; and there was a wild essay on the part of the admiral

of the shogun's fleet to establish a republic in the island of Yezo. But

these were mere ripples on the surface of the broad stream which set

towards the peaceful overthrow of the dual system of government and

ultimately towards the fall of feudalism itself. That this system, the

outcome of five centuries of nearly continuous warfare, was swept away

in almost as many weeks with little loss of life or destruction of

property constitutes, perhaps, the most striking incident, certainly the

most momentous, in the history of the Japanese nation.

_The Meiji Era._--It must be remembered that when reference is made to

the Japanese nation in connexion with these radical changes, only the

nobles and the samurai are indicated--in other words, a section of the

population representing about one-sixteenth of the whole. The bulk of

the people--the agricultural, the industrial and the mercantile

classes--remained outside the sphere of politics, not sharing the

anti-foreign prejudice, or taking any serious interest in the great

questions of the time. Foreigners often noted with surprise the contrast

between the fierce antipathy displayed towards them by certain samurai

on the one hand, and the genial, hospitable reception given to them by

the common people on the other. History teaches that the latter was the

natural disposition of the Japanese, the former a mood educated by

special experiences. Further, even the comparatively narrow statement

that the restoration of the administrative power to the emperor was the

work of the nobles and the samurai must be taken with limitations. A

majority of the nobles entertained no idea of any necessity for change.

They were either held fast in the vice of Tokugawa authority, or

paralyzed by the sensuous seductions of the lives provided for them by

the machinations of their retainers, who transferred the administrative

authority of the fiefs to their own hands, leaving its shadow only to

their lords. It was among the retainers that longings for a new order of

things were generated. Some of these men were sincere disciples of

progress--a small band of students and deep thinkers who, looking

through the narrow Dutch window at Deshima, had caught a glimmering

perception of the realities that lay beyond the horizon of their

country's prejudices. But the influence of such Liberals was

comparatively insignificant. Though they showed remarkable moral courage

and tenacity of purpose, the age did not furnish any strong object

lesson to enforce their propaganda of progress. The factors chiefly

making for change were, first, the ambition of the southern clans to

oust the Tokugawa, and, secondly, the samurai's loyal instinct,

reinforced by the teachings of his country's history, by the revival of

the Shinto cult, by the promptings of national enterprise, and by the

object-lessons of foreign intercourse.

Character of the Revolution.

But though essentially imperialistic in its prime purposes, the

revolution which involved the fall of the shogunate, and ultimately of

feudalism, may be called democratic with regard to the personnel of

those who planned and directed it. They were, for the most part, men

without either official rank or social standing. That is a point

essential to a clear understanding of the issue. Fifty-five individuals

may be said to have planned and carried out the overthrow of the Yedo

administration, and only five of them were territorial nobles. Eight,

belonging to the court nobility, laboured under the traditional

disadvantages of their class, poverty and political insignificance; and

the remaining forty-two, the hearts and hands of the movement, may be

described as ambitious youths, who sought to make a career for

themselves in the first place, and for their country in the second. The

average age of the whole did not exceed thirty. There was another

element for which any student of Japanese history might have been

prepared: the Satsuma samurai aimed originally not merely at

overthrowing the Tokugawa but also at obtaining the shogunate for their

own chief. Possibly it would be unjust to say that all the leaders of

the great southern clan harboured that idea. But some of them certainly

did, and not until they had consented to abandon the project did their

union with Choshu, the other great southern clan, become possible--a

union without which the revolution could scarcely have been

accomplished. This ambition of the Satsuma clansmen deserves special

mention, because it bore remarkable fruit; it may be said to have laid

the foundation of constitutional government in Japan. For, in

consequence of the distrust engendered by such aspirations, the authors

of the Restoration agreed that when the emperor assumed the reins of

power, he should solemnly pledge himself to convene a deliberative

assembly, to appoint to administrative posts men of intellect and

erudition wherever they might be found, and to decide all measures in

accordance with public opinion. This promise, referred to frequently in

later times as the Imperial oath at the Restoration, came to be

accounted the basis of representative institutions, though in reality it

was intended solely as a guarantee against the political ascendancy of

any one clan.

The Anti-feudal Idea.

At the outset the necessity of abolishing feudalism did not present

itself clearly to the leaders of the revolution. Their sole idea was the

unification of the nation. But when they came to consider closely the

practical side of the problem, they understood how far it would lead

them. Evidently that one homogeneous system of law should replace the

more or less heterogeneous systems operative in the various fiefs was

essential, and such a substitution meant that the feudatories must be

deprived of their local autonomy and, incidentally, of their control of

local finances. That was a stupendous change. Hitherto each feudal chief

had collected the revenues of his fief and had employed them at will,

subject to the sole condition of maintaining a body of troops

proportionate to his income. He had been, and was still, an autocrat

within the limits of his territory. On the other hand, the active

authors of the revolution were a small band of men mainly without

prestige or territorial influence. It was impossible that they should

dictate any measure sensibly impairing the local and fiscal autonomy of

the feudatories. No power capable of enforcing such a measure existed at

the time. All the great political changes in Japan had formerly been

preceded by wars culminating in the accession of some strong clan to

supreme authority, whereas in this case there had been a displacement

without a substitution--the Tokugawa had been overthrown and no new

administrators had been set up in their stead. It was, moreover, certain

that an attempt on the part of any one clan to constitute itself

executor of the sovereign's mandates would have stirred the other clans

to vehement resistance. In short, the leaders of the revolution found

themselves pledged to a new theory of government without any machinery

for carrying it into effect, or any means of abolishing the old

practice. An ingenious exit from this curious dilemma was devised by the

young reformers. They induced the feudal chiefs of Satsuma, Choshu, Tosa

and Hizen, the four most powerful clans in the south, publicly to

surrender their fiefs to the emperor, praying his majesty to reorganize

them and to bring them all under the same system of law. In the case of

Shimazu, chief of Satsuma, and Yodo, chief of Tosa, this act must stand

to their credit as a noble sacrifice. To them the exercise of power had

been a reality and the effort of surrendering it must have been

correspondingly costly. But the chiefs of Choshu and Hizen obeyed the

suggestions of their principal vassals with little, if any, sense of the

probable cost of obedience. The same remark applies to all the other

feudatories, with exceptions so rare as to emphasize the rule. They had

long been accustomed to abandon the management of their affairs to their

leading clansmen, and they allowed themselves to follow the same

guidance at this crisis. Out of more than 250 feudatories, only 17

hesitated to imitate the example of the four southern fiefs.

Motives of the Reformers.

An explanation of this remarkable incident has been sought by supposing

that the samurai of the various clans, when they advised a course so

inconsistent with fidelity to the interests of their feudal chiefs, were

influenced by motives of personal ambition, imagining that they

themselves might find great opportunities under the new régime. Some

hope of that kind may fairly be assumed, and was certainly realized, in

the case of the leading samurai of the four southern clans which headed

the movement. But it is plain that no such expectations can have been

generally entertained. The simplest explanation seems to be the true

one: a certain course, indicated by the action of the four southern

clans, was conceived to be in accord with the spirit of the Restoration,

and not to adopt it would have been to shrink publicly from a sacrifice

dictated by the principle of loyalty to the Throne--a principle which

had acquired supreme sanctity in the eyes of the men of that era. There

might have been some uncertainty about the initial step; but so soon as

that was taken by the southern clans their example acquired compelling

force. History shows that in political crises the Japanese samurai is

generally ready to pay deference to certain canons of almost romantic

morality. There was a fever of loyalty and of patriotism in the air of

the year 1869. Any one hesitating, for obviously selfish reasons, to

adopt a precedent such as that offered by the procedure of the great

southern clans, would have seemed to forfeit the right of calling

himself a samurai. But although the leaders of this remarkable movement

now understood that they must contrive the total abolition of feudalism

and build up a new administrative edifice on foundations of

constitutional monarchy, they appreciated the necessity of advancing

slowly towards a goal which still lay beyond the range of their

followers' vision. Thus the first steps taken after the surrender of the

fiefs were to appoint the feudatories to the position of governors in

the districts over which they had previously ruled; to confirm the

samurai in the possession of their incomes and official positions; to

put an end to the distinction between court nobles and territorial

nobles, and to organize in Kioto a cabinet consisting of the leaders of

the restoration. Each new governor received one-tenth of the income of

the fief by way of emoluments; the pay of the officials and the samurai,

as well as the administrative expenses of the district, was defrayed

from the same source, and the residue, if any, was to pass into the

treasury of the central government.

Defects of the First Measures.

The defects of this system from a monarchical point of view soon became

evident. It did not give the power of either the purse or the sword to

the sovereign. The revenues of the administrative districts continued to

be collected and disbursed by the former feudatories, who also retained

the control of the troops, the right of appointing and dismissing

officials, and almost complete local autonomy. A further radical step

had to be taken, and the leaders of reform, seeing nothing better than

to continue the method of procedure which had thus far proved so

successful, contrived, first, that several of the administrative

districts should send in petitions offering to surrender their local

autonomy and be brought under the direct rule of the central government;

secondly, that a number of samurai should apply for permission to lay

aside their swords. While the nation was digesting the principles

embodied in these petitions, the government made preparations for

further measures of reform. The ex-chief of Satsuma, who showed some

umbrage because the services of his clan in promoting the restoration

had not been more fully recognized, was induced to take high ministerial

office, as were also the ex-chiefs of Choshu and Tosa. Each of the four

great clans had now three representatives in the ministry. These clans

were further persuaded to send to Tokyo--whither the emperor had moved

his court--contingents of troops to form the nucleus of a national army.

Importance attaches to these details because the principle of clan

representation, illustrated in the organization of the cabinet of 1871,

continued to be approximately observed for many years in forming

ministries, and ultimately became a target for the attacks of party

politicians.

Adoption of Radical Measures.

On the 29th of August 1871 an Imperial decree announced the abolition of

the system of local autonomy, and the removal of the territorial nobles

from the posts of governor. The taxes of the former fiefs were to be

paid thenceforth into the central treasury; all officials were to be

appointed by the Imperial government, and the feudatories, retaining

permanently an income of one-tenth of their original revenues, were to

make Tokyo their place of residence. As for the samurai, they remained

for the moment in possession of their hereditary pensions. Radical as

these changes seem, the disturbance caused by them was not great, since

they left the incomes of the military class untouched. Some of the

incomes were for life only, but the majority were hereditary, and all

had been granted in consideration of their holders devoting themselves

to military service. Four hundred thousand men approximately were in

receipt of such emoluments, and the total amount annually taken from the

tax-payers for this purpose was about £2,000,000. Plainly the nation

would have to be relieved of this burden sooner or later. The samurai

were essentially an element of the feudal system, and that they should

survive the latter's fall would have been incongruous. On the other

hand, suddenly and wholly to deprive these men and their families--a

total of some two million persons--of the means of subsistence on which

they had hitherto relied with absolute confidence, and in return for

which they and their forefathers had rendered faithful service, would

have been an act of inhumanity. It may easily be conceived that this

problem caused extreme perplexity to the administrators of the new

Japan. They left it unsolved for the moment, trusting that time and the

loyalty of the samurai themselves would suggest some solution. As for

the feudal chiefs, who had now been deprived of all official status and

reduced to the position of private gentlemen, without even a patent of

nobility to distinguish them from ordinary individuals, they did not

find anything specially irksome or regrettable in their altered

position. No scrutiny had been made into the contents of their

treasuries. They were allowed to retain unquestioned possession of all

the accumulated funds of their former fiefs, and they also became public

creditors for annual allowances equal to one-tenth of their feudal

revenues. They had never previously been so pleasantly circumstanced. It

is true that they were entirely stripped of all administrative and

military authority; but since their possession of such authority had

been in most cases merely nominal, they only felt the change as a relief

from responsibility.

Treatment of the Samurai.

By degrees public opinion began to declare itself with regard to the

samurai. If they were to be absorbed into the bulk of the people and to

lose their fixed revenues, some capital must be placed at their disposal

to begin the world again. The samurai themselves showed a noble faculty

of resignation. They had been a privileged class, but they had purchased

their privileges with their blood and by serving as patterns of all the

qualities most prized among Japanese national characteristics. The

record of their acts and the recognition of the people entitled them to

look for munificent treatment at the hands of the government which they

had been the means of setting up. Yet none of these considerations

blinded them to the painful fact that the time had passed them by; that

no place existed for them in the new polity. Many of them voluntarily

stepped down into the company of the peasant or the tradesman, and many

others signified their willingness to join the ranks of common

bread-winners if some aid was given to equip them for such a career.

After two years' consideration the government took action. A decree

announced, in 1873, that the treasury was prepared to commute the

pensions of the samurai at the rate of six years' purchase for

hereditary pensions and four years for life pensions--one-half of the

commutation to be paid in cash, and one-half in bonds bearing interest

at the rate of 8%. It will be seen that a perpetual pension of £10 would

be exchanged for a payment of £30 in cash, together with securities

giving an income of £2, 8s.; and that a £10 life pensioner received £20

in cash and securities yielding £1, 12s. annually. It is scarcely

credible that the samurai should have accepted such an arrangement.

Something, perhaps, must be ascribed to their want of business

knowledge, but the general explanation is that they made a large

sacrifice in the interests of their country. Nothing in all their career

as soldiers became them better than their manner of abandoning it. They

were told that they might lay aside their swords, and many of them did

so, though from time immemorial they had cherished the sword as the mark

of a gentleman, the most precious possession of a warrior, and the one

outward evidence that distinguished men of their order from common

toilers after gain. They saw themselves deprived of their military

employment, were invited to surrender more than one-half of the income

it brought, and knew that they were unprepared alike by education and by

tradition to earn bread in any calling save that of arms. Yet, at the

invitation of a government which they had helped to establish, many of

them bowed their heads quietly to this sharp reverse of fortune. It was

certainly a striking instance of the fortitude and resignation which the

creed of the samurai required him to display in the presence of

adversity. As yet, however, the government's measures with regard to the

samurai were not compulsory. Men laid aside their swords and commuted

their pensions at their own option.

Saigo Takamori.

Meanwhile differences of opinion began to occur among the leaders of

progress themselves. Coalitions formed for destructive purposes are

often found unable to endure the strain of constructive efforts. Such

lack of cohesion might easily have been foreseen in the case of the

Japanese reformers. Young men without experience of public affairs, or

special education to fit them for responsible posts, found the duty

suddenly imposed on them not only of devising administrative and fiscal

systems universally applicable to a nation hitherto divided into a

congeries of semi-independent principalities, but also of shaping the

country's demeanour towards novel problems of foreign intercourse and

alien civilization. So long as the heat of their assault upon the

shogunate fused them into a homogeneous party they worked together

successfully. But when they had to build a brand-new edifice on the

ruins of a still vivid past, it was inevitable that their opinions

should vary as to the nature of the materials to be employed. In this

divergence of views many of the capital incidents of Japan's modern

history had their origin. Of the fifty-five men whose united efforts had

compassed the fall of the shogunate, five stood conspicuous above their

colleagues. They were Iwakura and Sanjo, court nobles; Saigo and Okubo,

samurai of Satsuma, and Kido, a samurai of Choshu. In the second rank

came many men of great gifts, whose youth alone disqualified them for

prominence--Ito, the constructive statesman of the Meiji era, who

inspired nearly all the important measures of the time, though he did

not openly figure as their originator; Inouye, who never lacked a

resource or swerved from the dictates of loyalty; Okuma, a politician of

subtle, versatile and vigorous intellect; Itagaki, the Rousseau of his

era; and a score of others created by the extraordinary circumstances

with which they had to deal. But the five first mentioned were the

captains, the rest only lieutenants. Among the five, four were sincere

reformers--not free, of course, from selfish motives, but truthfully

bent upon promoting the interests of their country before all other

aims. The fifth, Saigo Takamori, was a man in whom boundless ambition

lay concealed under qualities of the noblest and most enduring type. His

absolute freedom from every trace of sordidness gave currency to a

belief that his aims were of the simplest; the story of his career

satisfied the highest canons of the samurai; his massive physique,

commanding presence and sunny aspect impressed and attracted even those

who had no opportunity of admiring his life of self-sacrificing effort

or appreciating the remarkable military talent he possessed. In the

first part of his career, the elevation of his clan to supreme power

seems to have been his sole motive, but subsequently personal ambition

appears to have swayed him. To the consummation of either object the

preservation of the military class was essential. By the swords of the

samurai alone could a new _imperium in imperio_ be carved out. On the

other hand, Saigo's colleagues in the ministry saw clearly not only that

the samurai were an unwarrantable burden on the nation, but also that

their continued existence after the fall of feudalism would be a menace

to public peace as well as an anomaly. Therefore they took the steps

already described, and followed them by a conscription law, making every

adult male liable for military service without regard to his social

standing. It is easy to conceive how painfully unwelcome this

conscription law proved to the samurai. Many of them were not unwilling

to commute their pensions, since their creed had always forbidden them

to care for money. Many of them were not unwilling to abandon the habit

of carrying swords, since the adoption of foreign costume rendered such

a custom incongruous and inconvenient. But very few of them could

readily consent to step down from their cherished position as the

military class, and relinquish their traditional title to bear the whole

responsibility and enjoy the whole honour of fighting their country's

battles. They had supposed, not unreasonably, that service in the army

and navy would be reserved exclusively for them and their sons, whereas

now the commonest rustic, mechanic or tradesman would be equally

eligible.

Split among the Reformers.

While the pain of this blow was still fresh there occurred a trouble

with Korea. The little state had behaved with insulting contumely, and

when Japan's course came to be debated in Tokyo, a disruption resulted

in the ranks of the reformers. Saigo saw in a foreign war the sole

remaining chance of achieving his ambition by lawful means. The

government's conscription scheme, yet in its infancy, had not produced

even the skeleton of an army. If Korea had to be conquered, the samurai

must be employed; and their employment would mean, if not their

rehabilitation, at least their organization into a force which, under

Saigo's leadership, might dictate a new policy. Other members of the

cabinet believed that the nation would be disgraced if it tamely endured

Korea's insults. Thus several influential voices swelled the clamour for

war. But a peace party offered strenuous opposition. Its members saw the

collateral issues of the problem, and declared that the country must not

think of taking up arms during a period of radical transition. The final

discussion took place in the emperor's presence. The advocates of peace

understood the national significance of the issue and perceived that

they were debating, not merely whether there should be peace or war, but

whether the country should halt or advance on its newly adopted path of

progress. They prevailed, and four members of the cabinet, including

Saigo, resigned. This rupture was destined to have far-reaching

consequences. One of the seceders immediately raised the standard of

revolt. Among the devices employed by him to win adherents was an

attempt to fan into flame the dying embers of the anti-foreign

sentiment. The government easily crushed the insurrection. Another

seceder was Itagaki Taisuke. The third and most prominent was Saigo, who

seems to have concluded from that moment that he must abandon his aims

or achieve them by force. He retired to his native province of Satsuma,

and applied his whole resources, his great reputation and the devoted

loyalty of a number of able followers to organizing and equipping a

strong body of samurai. Matters were facilitated for him by the

conservatism of the celebrated Shimazu Saburo, former chief of Satsuma,

who, though not opposed to foreign intercourse, had been revolted by the

wholesale iconoclasm of the time, and by the indiscriminate rejection of

Japanese customs in favour of foreign. He protested vehemently against

what seemed to him a slavish abandonment of the nation's individuality,

and finding his protest fruitless, he set himself to preserve in his own

distant province, where the writ of the Yedo government had never run,

the fashions, institutions and customs which his former colleagues in

the administration were ruthlessly rejecting. Satsuma thus became a

centre of conservative influences, among which Saigo and his constantly

augmenting band of samurai found a congenial environment. During four

years this breach between the central government and the southern clan

grew constantly.

Final Abolition of Sword-wearing and Pensions.

In the meanwhile (1876) two extreme measures were adopted by the

government: a veto on the wearing of swords, and an edict ordering the

compulsory commutation of the pensions and allowances received by the

nobles and the samurai. Three years previously the discarding of swords

had been declared optional, and a scheme of voluntary commutation had

been announced. Many had bowed quietly to the spirit of these

enactments. But many still retained their swords and drew their pensions

as of old, obstructing, in the former respect, the government's projects

for the reorganization of society, and imposing, in the latter, an

intolerable burden on the resources of the treasury. The government

thought that the time had come, and that its own strength sufficed, to

substitute compulsion for persuasion. The financial measure--which was

contrived so as to affect the smallest pension-holders least

injuriously--evoked no complaint. The samurai remained faithful to the

creed which forbade them to be concerned about money. But the veto

against sword-wearing overtaxed the patience of the extreme

Conservatives. It seemed to them that all the most honoured traditions

of their country were being ruthlessly sacrificed on the altar of alien

innovations. Armed protests ensued. A few score of samurai, equipping

themselves with the hauberks and weapons of old times, fell upon the

garrison of a castle, killed or wounded some 300, and then, retiring to

an adjacent mountain, died by their own hands. Their example found

imitators in two other places, and finally the Satsuma samurai rose in

arms under Saigo.

Satsuma Insurrection.

This was an insurrection very different in dimensions and motives from

the outbreaks that had preceded it. During four years the preparations

of the Satsuma men had been unremitting. They were equipped with rifles

and cannon; they numbered some 30,000; they were all of the military

class, and in addition to high training in western tactics and in the

use of modern arms of precision, they knew how to wield that formidable

weapon, the Japanese sword, of which their opponents were for the most

part ignorant. Ostensibly their object was to restore the samurai to

their old supremacy, and to secure for them all the posts in the army,

the navy and the administration. But although they doubtless entertained

that intention, it was put forward mainly with the hope of winning the

co-operation of the military class throughout the empire. The real

purpose of the revolt was to secure the governing power for Satsuma. A

bitter struggle ensued. Beginning on the 29th of January 1877, it was

brought to a close on the 24th of September by the death, voluntary or

in battle, of all the rebel leaders. During that period the number of

men engaged on the government's side had been 66,000 and the number on

the side of the rebels 40,000, out of which total the killed and wounded

aggregated 35,000, or 33% of the whole. Had the government's troops been

finally defeated, there can be no doubt that the samurai's exclusive

title to man and direct the army and navy would have been

re-established, and Japan would have found herself permanently saddled

with a military class, heavily burdening her finances, seriously

impeding her progress towards constitutional government, and

perpetuating all the abuses incidental to a policy in which the power of

the sword rests entirely in the hands of one section of the people. The

nation scarcely appreciated the great issues that were at stake. It

found more interest in the struggle as furnishing a conclusive test of

the efficiency of the new military system compared with the old. The

army sent to quell the insurrection consisted of recruits drawn

indiscriminately from every class of the people. Viewed in the light of

history, it was an army of commoners, deficient in the fighting

instinct, and traditionally demoralized for all purposes of resistance

to the military class. The Satsuma insurgents, on the contrary,

represented the flower of the samurai, long trained for this very

struggle, and led by men whom the nation regarded as its bravest

captains. The result dispelled all doubts about the fighting quality of

the people at large.

Steps of Progress.

Concurrently with these events the government diligently endeavoured to

equip the country with all the paraphernalia of Occidental civilization.

It is easy to understand that the master-minds of the era, who had

planned and carried out the Restoration, continued to take the lead in

all paths of progress. Their intellectual superiority entitled them to

act as guides; they had enjoyed exceptional opportunities of acquiring

enlightenment by visits to Europe and America, and the Japanese people

had not yet lost the habit of looking to officialdom for every

initiative. But the spectacle thus presented to foreign onlookers was

not altogether without disquieting suggestions. The government's reforms

seemed to outstrip the nation's readiness for them, and the results wore

an air of some artificiality and confusion. Englishmen were employed to

superintend the building of railways, the erection of telegraphs, the

construction of lighthouses and the organization of a navy. To Frenchmen

was entrusted the work of recasting the laws and training the army in

strategy and tactics. Educational affairs, the organization of a postal

service, the improvement of agriculture and the work of colonization

were supervised by Americans. The teaching of medical science, the

compilation of a commercial code, the elaboration of a system of local

government, and ultimately the training of military officers were

assigned to Germans. For instruction in sculpture and painting Italians

were engaged. Was it possible that so many novelties should be

successfully assimilated, or that the nation should adapt itself to

systems planned by a motley band of aliens who knew nothing of its

character and customs? These questions did not trouble the Japanese

nearly so much as they troubled strangers. The truth is that

conservatism was not really required to make the great sacrifices

suggested by appearances. Among all the innovations of the era the only

one that a Japanese could not lay aside at will was the new fashion of

dressing the hair. He abandoned the _queue_ irrevocably. But for the

rest he lived a dual life. During hours of duty he wore a fine uniform,

shaped and decorated in foreign style. But so soon as he stepped out of

office or off parade, he reverted to his own comfortable and picturesque

costume. Handsome houses were built and furnished according to Western

models. But each had an annex where alcoves, verandas, matted floors and

paper sliding doors continued to do traditional duty. Beefsteaks, beer,

"grape-wine," knives and forks came into use on occasion. But rice-bowls

and chopsticks held their everyday place as of old. In a word, though

the Japanese adopted every convenient and serviceable attribute of

foreign civilization, such as railways, steamships, telegraphs,

post-offices, banks and machinery of all kinds; though they accepted

Occidental sciences, and, to a large extent, Occidental philosophies;

though they recognized the superiority of European jurisprudence and set

themselves to bring their laws into accord with it, they nevertheless

preserved the essentials of their own mode of life and never lost their

individuality. A remarkable spirit of liberalism and a fine eclectic

instinct were needed for the part they acted, but they did no radical

violence to their own traditions, creeds and conventions. There was

indeed a certain element of incongruity and even grotesqueness in the

nation's doings. Old people cannot fit their feet to new roads without

some clumsiness. The Japanese had grown very old in their special paths,

and their novel departure was occasionally disfigured by solecisms. The

refined taste that guided them unerringly in all the affairs of life as

they had been accustomed to live it, seemed to fail them signally when

they emerged into an alien atmosphere. They have given their proofs,

however. It is now seen that the apparently excessive rapidity of their

progress did not overtax their capacities; that they have emerged safely

from their destructive era and carried their constructive career within

reach of certain success, and that while they have still to develop some

of the traits of their new civilization, there is no prospect whatever

of its proving ultimately unsuited to them.

Development of Representative Government.

After the Satsuma rebellion, nothing disturbed the even tenor of Japan's

domestic politics except an attempt on the part of some of her people to

force the growth of parliamentary government. It is evident that the

united effort made by the fiefs to overthrow the system of dual

government and wrest the administrative power from the shogun could have

only one logical outcome: the combined exercise of the recovered power

by those who had been instrumental in recovering it. That was the

meaning of the oath taken by the emperor at the Restoration, when the

youthful sovereign was made to say that wise counsels should be widely

sought, and all things determined by public discussion. But the framers

of the oath had the samurai alone in view. Into their consideration the

common people--farmers, mechanics, tradesmen--did not enter at all, nor

had the common people themselves any idea of advancing a claim to be

considered. A voice in the administration would have been to them an

embarrassing rather than a pleasing privilege. Thus the first

deliberative assembly was composed of nobles and samurai only. A mere

debating club without any legislative authority, it was permanently

dissolved after two sessions. Possibly the problem of a parliament might

have been long postponed after that fiasco, had it not found an ardent

advocate in Itagaki Taisuke (afterwards Count Itagaki). A Tosa samurai

conspicuous as a leader of the restoration movement, Itagaki was among

the advocates of recourse to strong measures against Korea in 1873, and

his failure to carry his point, supplemented by a belief that a large

section of public opinion would have supported him had there been any

machinery for appealing to it, gave fresh impetus to his faith in

constitutional government. Resigning office on account of the Korean

question, he became the nucleus of agitation in favour of a

parliamentary system, and under his banner were enrolled not only

discontented samurai but also many of the young men who, returning from

direct observation of the working of constitutional systems in Europe or

America, and failing to obtain official posts in Japan, attributed their

failure to the oligarchical form of their country's polity. Thus in the

interval between 1873 and 1877 there were two centres of disturbance in

Japan: one in Satsuma, where Saigo figured as leader; the other in Tosa,

under Itagaki's guidance. When the Satsuma men appealed to arms in 1877,

a widespread apprehension prevailed lest the Tosa politicians should

throw in their lot with the insurgents. Such a fear had its origin in

failure to understand the object of the one side or to appreciate the

sincerity of the other. Saigo and his adherents fought to substitute a

Satsuma clique for the oligarchy already in power. Itagaki and his

followers struggled for constitutional institutions. The two could not

have anything in common. There was consequently no coalition. But the

Tosa agitators did not neglect to make capital out of the embarrassment

caused by the Satsuma rebellion. While the struggle was at its height,

they addressed to the government a memorial, charging the administration

with oppressive measures to restrain the voice of public opinion, with

usurpation of power to the exclusion of the nation at large, and with

levelling downwards instead of upwards, since the samurai had been

reduced to the rank of commoners, whereas the commoners should have been

educated up to the standard of the samurai. This memorial asked for a

representative assembly and talked of popular rights. But since the

document admitted that the people were uneducated, it is plain that

there cannot have been any serious idea of giving them a share in the

administration. In fact, the Tosa Liberals were not really contending

for popular representation in the full sense of the term. What they

wanted was the creation of some machinery for securing to the samurai at

large a voice in the management of state affairs. They chafed against

the fact that, whereas the efforts and sacrifices demanded by the

Restoration had fallen equally on the whole military class, the

official prizes under the new system were monopolized by a small coterie

of men belonging to the four principal clans. It is on record that

Itagaki would have been content originally with an assembly consisting

half of officials, half of non-official samurai, and not including any

popular element whatever.

But the government did not believe that the time had come even for a

measure such as the Tosa Liberals advocated. The statesmen in power

conceived that the nation must be educated up to constitutional

standards, and that the first step should be to provide an official

model. Accordingly, in 1874, arrangements were made for periodically

convening an assembly of prefectural governors, in order that they might

act as channels of communication between the central authorities and the

provincial population, and mutually exchange ideas as to the safest and

most effective methods of encouraging progress within the limits of

their jurisdictions. This was intended to be the embryo of

representative institutions. But the governors, being officials

appointed by the cabinet, did not bear in any sense the character of

popular nominees, nor could it even be said that they reflected the

public feeling of the districts they administered, for their habitual

and natural tendency was to try, by means of heroic object lessons, to

win the people's allegiance to the government's progressive policy,

rather than to convince the government of the danger of overstepping the

people's capacities.

These conventions of local officials had no legislative power whatever.

The foundations of a body for discharging that function were laid in

1875, when a senate (_genro-in_) was organized. It consisted of official

nominees, and its duty was to discuss and revise all laws and ordinances

prior to their promulgation. It is to be noted, however, that expediency

not less than a spirit of progress presided at the creation of the

senate. Into its ranks were drafted a number of men for whom no places

could be found in the executive, and who, without some official

employment, would have been drawn into the current of disaffection. From

that point of view the senate soon came to be regarded as a kind of

hospital for administrative invalids, but undoubtedly its discharge of

quasi-legislative functions proved suggestive, useful and instructive.

Assassination of Okubo.

The second meeting of the provincial governors had just been prorogued

when, in the spring of 1878, the great minister, Okubo Toshimitsu, was

assassinated. Okubo, uniformly ready to bear the heaviest burden of

responsibility in every political complication, had stood prominently

before the nation as Saigo's opponent. He fell under the swords of

Saigo's sympathizers. They immediately surrendered themselves to

justice, having taken previous care to circulate a statement of motives,

which showed that they ranked the government's failure to establish

representative institutions as a sin scarcely less heinous than its

alleged abuses of power. Well-informed followers of Saigo could never

have been sincere believers in representative institutions. These men

belonged to a province far removed from the scene of Saigo's desperate

struggle. But the broad fact that they had sealed with their life-blood

an appeal for a political change indicated the existence of a strong

public conviction which would derive further strength from their act.

The Japanese are essentially a brave people. Throughout the troublous

events that preceded and followed the Restoration, it is not possible to

point to one man whose obedience to duty or conviction was visibly

weakened by prospects of personal peril. Okubo's assassination did not

alarm any of his colleagues; but they understood its suggestiveness, and

hastened to give effect to a previously formed resolve.

Local Government.

Two months after Okubo's death, an edict announced that elective

assemblies should forthwith be established in various prefectures and

cities. These assemblies were to consist of members having a high

property qualification, elected by voters having one-half of that

qualification; the voting to be by signed ballot, and the session to

last for one month in the spring of each year. As to their functions,

they were to determine the method of levying and spending local taxes,

subject to approval by the minister of state for home affairs; to

scrutinize the accounts for the previous year, and, if necessary, to

present petitions to the central government. Thus the foundations of

genuine representative institutions were laid. It is true that

legislative power was not vested in the local assemblies, but in all

other important respects they discharged parliamentary duties. Their

history need not be related at any length. Sometimes they came into

violent collision with the governor of the prefecture, and unsightly

struggles resulted. The governors were disposed to advocate public works

which the people considered extravagant; and further, as years went by,

and as political organizations grew stronger, there was found in each

assembly a group of men ready to oppose the governor simply because of

his official status. But on the whole the system worked well. The local

assemblies served as training schools for the future parliament, and

their members showed devotion to public duty as well as considerable

aptitude for debate.

The Liberal Party.

This was not what Itagaki and his followers wanted. Their purpose was to

overthrow the clique of clansmen who, holding the reins of

administrative power, monopolized the prizes of officialdom. Towards the

consummation of such an aim the local assemblies helped little. Itagaki

redoubled his agitation. He organized his fellow-thinkers into an

association called _jiyuto_ (Liberals), the first political party in

Japan, to whose ranks there very soon gravitated several men who had

been in office and resented the loss of it; many that had never been in

office and desired to be; and a still greater number who sincerely

believed in the principles of political liberty, but had not yet

considered the possibility of immediately adapting such principles to

Japan's case. It was in the nature of things that an association of this

kind, professing such doctrines, should present a picturesque aspect to

the public, and that its collisions with the authorities should invite

popular sympathy. Nor were collisions infrequent. For the government,

arguing that if the nation was not ready for representative

institutions, neither was it ready for full freedom of speech or of

public meeting, legislated consistently with that theory, and entrusted

to the police large powers of control over the press and the platform.

The exercise of these powers often created situations in which the

Liberals were able to pose as victims of official tyranny, so that they

grew in popularity and the contagion of political agitation spread.

The Progressist Party.

Three years later (1881) another split occurred in the ranks of the

ruling oligarchy. Okuma Shigenobu (afterwards Count Okuma) seceded from

the administration, and was followed by a number of able men who had

owed their appointments to his patronage, or who, during his tenure of

office as minister of finance, had passed under the influence of his

powerful personality. If Itagaki be called the Rousseau of Japan, Okuma

may be regarded as the Peel. To remarkable financial ability and a

lucid, vigorous judgment he added the faculty of placing himself on the

crest of any wave which a genuine _aura popularis_ had begun to swell.

He, too, inscribed on his banner of revolt against the oligarchy the

motto "constitutional government," and it might have been expected that

his followers would join hands with those of Itagaki, since the avowed

political purpose of both was identical. They did nothing of the kind.

Okuma organized an independent party, calling themselves Progressists

(_shimpoto_), who not only stood aloof from the Liberals but even

assumed an attitude hostile to them. This fact is eloquent. It shows

that Japan's first political parties were grouped, not about principles,

but about persons. Hence an inevitable lack of cohesion among their

elements and a constant tendency to break up into caves and coteries.

These are the characteristics that render the story of political

evolution in Japan so perplexing to a foreign student. He looks for

differences of platform and finds none. Just as a true Liberal must be a

Progressist, and a true Progressist a Liberal, so, though each may cast

his profession of faith in a mould of different phrases, the ultimate

shape must be the same. The mainsprings of early political agitation in

Japan were personal grievances and a desire to wrest the administrative

power from the hands of the statesmen who had held it so long as to

overtax the patience of their rivals. He that searches for profound

moral or ethical bases will be disappointed. There were no

Conservatives. Society was permeated with the spirit of progress. In a

comparative sense the epithet "Conservative" might have been applied to

the statesmen who proposed to defer parliamentary institutions until the

people, as distinguished from the former samurai, had been in some

measure prepared for such an innovation. But since these very statesmen

were the guiding spirits of the whole Meiji revolution, it was plain

that their convictions must be radical, and that, unless they did

violence to their record, they must finally lead the country to

representative institutions, the logical sequel of their own reforms.

Okubo's assassination had been followed, in 1878, by an edict announcing

the establishment of local assemblies. Okuma's secession in 1881 was

followed by an edict announcing that a national assembly would be

convened in 1891.

Anti-Government Agitation.

The political parties, having now virtually attained their object, might

have been expected to desist from further agitation. But they had

another task to perform--that of disseminating anti-official prejudices

among the future electors. They worked diligently, and they had an

undisputed field, for no one was put forward to champion the

government's cause. The campaign was not always conducted on lawful

lines. There were plots to assassinate ministers; there was an attempt

to employ dynamite, and there was a scheme to foment an insurrection in

Korea. On the other hand, dispersals of political meetings by order of

police inspectors, and suspension or suppression of newspapers by the

unchallengeable verdict of a minister for home affairs, were common

occurrences. The breach widened steadily. It is true that Okuma rejoined

the cabinet for a time in 1887, but he retired again in circumstances

that aggravated his party's hostility to officialdom. In short, during

the ten years immediately prior to the opening of the first parliament,

an anti-government propaganda was incessantly preached from the platform

and in the press.

Meanwhile the statesmen in power resolutely pursued their path of

progressive reform. They codified the civil and penal laws, remodelling

them on Western bases; they brought a vast number of affairs within the

scope of minute regulations; they rescued the finances from confusion

and restored them to a sound condition; they recast the whole framework

of local government; they organized a great national bank, and

established a network of subordinate institutions throughout the

country; they pushed on the work of railway construction, and

successfully enlisted private enterprise in its cause; they steadily

extended the postal and telegraphic services; they economized public

expenditures so that the state's income always exceeded its outlays;

they laid the foundations of a strong mercantile marine; they instituted

a system of postal savings-banks; they undertook large schemes of

harbour improvement and road-making; they planned and put into operation

an extensive programme of riparian improvement; they made civil service

appointments depend on competitive examination; they sent numbers of

students to Europe and America to complete their studies; and by

tactful, persevering diplomacy they gradually introduced a new tone into

the empire's relations with foreign powers. Japan's affairs were never

better administered.

The Constitution of 1890.

In 1890 the Constitution was promulgated. Imposing ceremonies marked the

event. All the nation's notables were summoned to the palace to witness

the delivery of the important document by the sovereign to the prime

minister; salvos of artillery were fired; the cities were illuminated,

and the people kept holiday. Marquis (afterwards Prince) Ito directed

the framing of the Constitution. He had visited the Occident for the

purpose of investigating the development of parliamentary institutions

and studying their practical working. His name is connected with nearly

every great work of constructive statesmanship in the history of new

Japan, and perhaps the crown of his legislative career was the drafting

of the Constitution, to which the Japanese people point proudly as the

only charter of the kind voluntarily given by a sovereign to his

subjects. In other countries such concessions were always the outcome of

long struggles between ruler and ruled. In Japan the emperor freely

divested himself of a portion of his prerogatives and transferred them

to the people. That view of the case, as may be seen from the story told

above, is not untinged with romance; but in a general sense it is true.

Working of the System.

No incident in Japan's modern career seemed more hazardous than this

sudden plunge into parliamentary institutions. There had been some

preparation. Provincial assemblies had partially familiarized the people

with the methods of deliberative bodies. But provincial assemblies were

at best petty arenas--places where the making or mending of roads, and

the policing and sanitation of villages came up for discussion, and

where political parties exercised no legislative function nor found any

opportunity to attack the government or to debate problems of national

interest. Thus the convening of a diet and the sudden transfer of

financial and legislative authority from the throne and its entourage of

tried statesmen to the hands of men whose qualifications for public life

rested on the verdict of electors, themselves apparently devoid of all

light to guide their choice--this sweeping innovation seemed likely to

tax severely, if not to overtax completely, the progressive capacities

of the nation. What enhanced the interest of the situation was that the

oligarchs who held the administrative power had taken no pains to win a

following in the political field. Knowing that the opening of the diet

would be a veritable letting loose of the dogs of war, an unmuzzling of

the agitators whose mouths had hitherto been partly closed by legal

restrictions upon free speech, but who would now enjoy complete immunity

within the walls of the assembly whatever the nature of their

utterances--foreseeing all this, the statesmen of the day nevertheless

stood severely aloof from alliances of every kind, and discharged their

administrative functions with apparent indifference to the changes that

popular representation could not fail to induce. This somewhat

inexplicable display of unconcern became partially intelligible when the

constitution was promulgated, for it then appeared that the cabinet's

tenure of office was to depend solely on the emperor's will; that

ministers were to take their mandate from the Throne, not from

parliament. This fact was merely an outcome of the theory underlying

every part of the Japanese polity. Laws might be redrafted, institutions

remodelled, systems recast, but amid all changes and mutations one

steady point must be carefully preserved, the Throne. The makers of new

Japan understood that so long as the sanctity and inviolability of the

imperial prerogatives could be preserved, the nation would be held by a

strong anchor from drifting into dangerous waters. They laboured under

no misapprehension about the inevitable issue of their work in framing

the constitution. They knew very well that party cabinets are an

essential outcome of representative institutions, and that to some kind

of party cabinet Japan must come. But they regarded the Imperial mandate

as a conservative safeguard, pending the organization and education of

parties competent to form cabinets. Such parties did not yet exist, and

until they came into unequivocal existence, the Restoration statesmen,

who had so successfully managed the affairs of the nation during a

quarter of a century, resolved that the steady point furnished by the

throne must not be abandoned.

On the other hand, the agitators found here a new platform. They had

obtained a constitution and a diet, but they had not obtained an

instrument for pulling down the "clan" administrators, since these stood

secure from attack under the aegis of the sovereign's mandate. They

dared not raise their voices against the unfettered exercise of the

mikado's prerogative. The nation, loyal to the core, would not have

suffered such a protest, nor could the agitators themselves have found

heart to formulate it. But they could read their own interpretation into

the text of the Constitution, and they could demonstrate practically

that a cabinet not acknowledging responsibility to the legislature was

virtually impotent for law-making purposes.

The Diet and the Government.

These are the broad outlines of the contest that began in the first

session of the Diet and continued for several years. It is unnecessary

to speak of the special points of controversy. Just as the political

parties had been formed on the lines of persons, not principles, so the

opposition in the Diet was directed against men, not measures. The

struggle presented varying aspects at different times, but the

fundamental question at issue never changed. Obstruction was the weapon

of the political parties. They sought to render legislation and finance

impossible for any ministry that refused to take its mandate from the

majority in the lower house, and they imparted an air of respectability

and even patriotism to their destructive campaign by making

"anti-clannism" their war-cry, and industriously fostering the idea that

the struggle lay between administration guided by public opinion and

administration controlled by a clique of clansmen who separated the

throne from the nation. Had not the House of Peers stood stanchly by the

government throughout this contest, it is possible that the nation might

have suffered severely from the rashness of the political parties.

There was something melancholy in the spectacle. The Restoration

statesmen were the men who had made Modern Japan; the men who had raised

her, in the face of immense obstacles, from the position of an

insignificant Oriental state to that of a formidable unit in the comity

of nations; the men, finally, who had given to her a constitution and

representative institutions. Yet these same men were now fiercely

attacked by the arms which they had themselves nerved; were held up to

public obloquy as self-seeking usurpers, and were declared to be

impeding the people's constitutional route to administrative privileges,

when in reality they were only holding the breach until the people

should be able to march into the citadel with some show of orderly and

competent organization. That there was no corruption, no abuse of

position, is not to be pretended; but on the whole the conservatism of

the clan statesmen had only one object--to provide that the newly

constructed representative machine should not be set working until its

parts were duly adjusted and brought into proper gear. On both sides the

leaders understood the situation accurately. The heads of the parties,

while publicly clamouring for parliamentary cabinets, privately

confessed that they were not yet prepared to assume administrative

responsibilities;[3] and the so-called "clan statesmen," while refusing

before the world to accept the Diet's mandates, admitted within official

circles that the question was one of time only. The situation did not

undergo any marked change until, the country becoming engaged in war

with China (1894-95), domestic squabbles were forgotten in the presence

of foreign danger. From that time an era of coalition commenced. Both

the political parties joined hands to vote funds for the prosecution of

the campaign, and one of them, the Liberals, subsequently gave support

to a cabinet under the presidency of Marquis Ito, the purpose of the

union being to carry through the diet an extensive scheme of enlarged

armaments and public works planned in the sequel of the war. The

Progressists, however, remained implacable, continuing their opposition

to the thing called bureaucracy quite irrespective of its measures.

Fusion of the Two Parties.

The next phase (1898) was a fusion of the two parties into one large

organization which adopted the name "Constitutional Party"

(_kensei-to_). By this union the chief obstacles to parliamentary

cabinets were removed. Not only did the Constitutionalists command a

large majority in the lower house, but also they possessed a sufficiency

of men who, although lacking ministerial experience, might still advance

a reasonable title to be entrusted with portfolios. Immediately the

emperor, acting on the advice of Marquis Ito, invited Counts Okuma and

Itagaki to form a cabinet. It was essentially a trial. The party

politicians were required to demonstrate in practice the justice of the

claim they had been so long asserting in theory. They had worked in

combination for the destructive purpose of pulling down the so-called

"clan statesmen"; they had now to show whether they could work in

combination for the constructive purposes of administration. Their

heads, Counts Okuma and Itagaki, accepted the Imperial mandate, and the

nation watched the result. There was no need to wait long. In less than

six months these new links snapped under the tension of old enmities,

and the coalition split up once more into its original elements. It had

demonstrated that the sweets of power, which the "clan statesmen" had

been so vehemently accused of coveting, possessed even greater

attractions for their accusers. The issue of the experiment was such a

palpable fiasco that it effectually rehabilitated the "clan statesmen,"

and finally proved, what had indeed been long evident to every close

observer, that without the assistance of those statesmen no political

party could hold office successfully.

Enrolment of the Clan Statesmen in Political Associations.

Thenceforth it became the unique aim of Liberals and Progressists alike

to join hands permanently with the men towards whom they had once

displayed such implacable hostility. Prince Ito, the leader of the

so-called "elder statesmen," received special solicitations, for it was

plain that he would bring to any political party an overwhelming access

of strength alike in his own person and in the number of friends and

disciples certain to follow him. But Prince Ito declined to be absorbed

into any existing party, or to adopt the principle of parliamentary

cabinets. He would consent to form a new association, but it must

consist of men sufficiently disciplined to obey him implicitly, and

sufficiently docile to accept their programme from his hand. The

Liberals agreed to these terms. They dissolved their party (August 1900)

and enrolled themselves in the ranks of a new organization, which did

not even call itself a party, its designation being _rikken seiyu-kai_

(association of friends of the constitution), and which had for the

cardinal plank in its platform a declaration of ministerial

irresponsibility to the Diet. A singular page was thus added to the

story of Japanese political development; for not merely did the Liberals

enlist under the banner of the statesmen whom for twenty years they had

fought to overthrow, but they also tacitly consented to erase from their

profession of faith its essential article, parliamentary cabinets, and,

by resigning that article to the Progressists, created for the first

time an opposition with a solid and intelligible platform. Nevertheless

the seiyu-kai grew steadily in strength whereas the number of its

opponents declined correspondingly. At the general elections in May 1908

the former secured 195 seats, the four sections of the opposition

winning only 184. Thus for the first time in Japanese parliamentary

history a majority of the lower chamber found themselves marching under

the same banner. Moreover, the four sections of the opposition were

independently organized and differed nearly as much from one another as

they all differed from the seiyu-kai. Their impotence to make head

against the solid phalanx of the latter was thus conspicuous, especially

during the 1908-1909 session of the Diet. Much talk then began to be

heard about the necessity of coalition, and that this talk will

materialize eventually cannot be doubted. Reduction of armaments,

abolition of taxes specially imposed for belligerent purposes, and the

substitution of a strictly constitutional system for the existing

bureaucracy--these objects constitute a sufficiently solid platform, and

nothing is wanted except that a body of proved administrators should

join the opposition in occupying it. There were in 1909 no signs,

however, that any such defection from the ranks of officialdom would

take place. Deference is paid to public opinions inasmuch as even a

seiyu-kai ministry will not remain in office after its popularity has

begun to show signs of waning. But no deference is paid to the doctrine

of party cabinets. Prince Ito did not continue to lead the seiyu-kai for

more than three years. In July 1903 he delegated that function to

Marquis Saionji, representative of one of the very oldest families of

the court nobility and a personal friend of the emperor, as also was

Prince Ito. The Imperial stamp is thus vicariously set upon the

principle of political combinations for the better practical conduct of

parliamentary business, but that the seiyu-kai, founded by Prince Ito

and led by Marquis Saionji, should ever hold office in defiance of the

sovereign's mandate is unthinkable. Constitutional institutions in Japan

are therefore developing along lines entirely without precedent. The

storm and stress of early parliamentary days have given place to

comparative calm. During the first twelve sessions of the Diet,

extending over 8 years, there were five dissolutions of the lower house.

During the next thirteen sessions, extending over 11 years, there were

two dissolutions. During the first 8 years of the Diet's existence there

were six changes of cabinet; during the next 11 years there were five

changes. Another healthy sign was that men of affairs were beginning to

realize the importance of parliamentary representation. At first the

constituencies were contested almost entirely by professional

politicians, barristers and journalists. In 1909 there was a solid body

(the _boshin_ club) of business men commanding nearly 50 votes in the

lower house; and as the upper chamber included 45 representatives of the

highest tax-payers, the interests of commerce and industry were

intelligently debated. (F. By.)