The Modern History Of Japan

THE MODERN

HISTORY OF JAPAN

W. G. Beadey

This book covers the history of Japan from
the early nineteenth century to the present
day with particular emphasis on social and
economic as well as political factors.

In the early chapters the author describes
the decay of feudalism, the changing role of
the samurai and government reforms, West-
ern attempts to open up trade, and Japan's ear-
ly development in shipping and armaments.
He then gives an account of the fall of the
Tokugawa and the rise of the Meiji oligarchy,
modernization and reform in such fields as
public administration, education, and com-
munications, and the Meiji constitution. In
the! central chapters we see a more expan-
siqnist and militarist Japan developing with
the Korean crisis, followed by naval expan-
sion and army reform, together with the
beginnings of modern industrialization. War
with China, the triple intervention, war with
Russia, and the annexation of Korea
followed. This brings the account to World
War I, when Japan became a world power.
In later chapters there is an illuminating
examination of Japan's industrial expansion
between the wars, and the growth of ultra-
nationalism which led to the invasion of
Manchuria, war with China, and finally
Pearl Harbor. In the closing chapter
Professor Beasley analyzes Japan's defeat
and recovery after World War II and her
position in the modern world.

THE MODERN HISTORY
OF

JAPAN

W. G. BEASLEY

FREDERICK A. PRAEGER, Publisher

NEW YORK LONDON

FREDERICK A. PRAEGER, Publisher

64 University Place, New York 3, N.Y., U.S.A.

49 Great Ormond Street, London W.C.I., England

Published in the United States of America in "1963

by Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., Publisher

All rights reserved

1963 by W. G. Beasley
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 63-20665

Printed in Great Britain

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations ix

Acknowledgments xi

Chapter

I Japan in the Early Nineteenth Century i

Decay of feudalism changing role of the samurai
growth of merchant guilds rural society

II Economic Problems and Reforms 21

Mi^uno Tadakmi Zusho Hiromichi MurataSeifa

III Japan and the West 38

Western attempts to open trade the Opium War
Japanese reactions developments in shipping and
armaments

IV Treaties and Politics, 1853-1860 57

Trading agreements repercussions in Japan agita-
tion for reform

V The Fall of the Tokugawa, 1 860-1 868 76

External relations disputes with Britain revival
of Hitotsubashi party Satsuma and Choshu Meiji
Restoration

if ^,^
, VI) New Men and New Methods, 1868-1873 98

Organisation of new administrative machine the
Meiji oligarchy abolition of feudal domains land
tax reform centralisation the Iwakura mission

VII Government and Politics, 1 873-1 894 117

The Korean crisis movement for representative
government Press Law repression of liberalism
the bureaucracy the Meiji constitution

CONTENTS

VIII Modernization, 1873-1894 134

Reorganisation of armj and navy law national
education system agricultural development trans-
port state factories textiles knowledge of the
West

IX Nationalism and Foreign Affairs, 1890-1904 1 5 5

Political indoctrination and traditionalist sentiment
war with China the Triple Intervention mili-
tary build-up Anglo- Japanese alliance war with
Russia

X The End of an Era 174

Annexation of Korea political society the economy
city life religion

XI Japan becomes a World Power, 19141922 196

Japan and the mainland declaration of war on
Germany the Twenty-one Demands relations with
the Allies peace settlement the Washington Con-
ference

XII The Liberal 'Twenties 214

Industrial expansion party politics inflation and
recession radicalism

XIII Patriots and Soldiers, 1930-1941 236

Ultranationalism army plots Manchuria
military factions insurrection of February 1936
-preparations for war

XIV An Empire Won and Lost, 1937-1945 258

Invasion of Manchuria war with China Anti-
Comintern Pact Pearl Harbour victory and defeat

vi

CONTENTS

XV Reform and Rehabilitation, 1945-1962 279

American occupation demilitarisation political
and constitutional reform -judiciary reform of
labour laws, land tenure and education -peace treaty
foreign relations politics after 1952 industrial
recovery and growth

XVI Postwar Japan 305

Maps 3* 1

Some Japanese terms 3 2 7

Bibliography 3 2 9

Notes 335

Index 34i

ILLUSTRATIONS

i Himeji Castle (by permission ofAsahi Shimbun)
z A feudal lord and his escort en route to Edo (by permission
of the Historiographical Institute, Tokyo University]

3 A feudal lord's escort entering the outskirts of Edo (by

permission of the Historiographical Institute, Tokyo
University)

4 Saruwakacho, a street in Edo, by moonlight. From a print

by Hiroshige (by permission of the British Museum}

5 A timberyard at Tatekawa. From a print by Hokusai (by

permission of the British Museum)

6 A waterwheel at Onden. From a print by Hokusai (by per-

mission of the British Museum)

7 Commodore Perry arrives to open negotiations at Yoko-

hama, 1854

8 Handing over the official presents brought by Commodore

Perry

9 Saigo Takamori

10 Ito Hirobumi

1 1 Okubo Toshimichi

12 YamagatajAritomo

13 The reception of foreign envoys at the Imperial Court,

1868 (by permission of the Meiji Shrine Memorial Gallery.,
Tokyo)

14 The Emperor announces the Meiji Constitution (by per-

mission of the Meiji Shrine Memorial Gallery, Tokyo)

15 A primary school, probably of the i88os. From a con-

temporary print (by permission of the Historiographical
Institute, Tokyo University)

1 6 Shimbashi Station in Tokyo, sometime before 1 894. From

a contemporary print (by permission of the British
Museum)

17 Signing the peace treaty at Shimonoseki, 1895 (by per-

mission of the Meiji Shrine Memorial Gallery, Tokyo}

ILLUSTRATIONS

1 8 Japanese infantry waiting for engineers to bridge the

Tatung River QLadio Times Hulton Picture Library')

19 Tokyo's main shopping street, the Ginza, in 1904 (Illus-

trated London News)

20 'Allies' (Punch)

21 Saionji Kimmochi (by permission of the Kyodo Press, Tokyo)

22 The Washington Conference, December 1921 (Illustrated

London News)

23 Japan's first modern revue, 1929 (by permission of Shogaku-

kan Ltd)

24 The beach at Kamakura, 1933 (by permission ofShogaku-kan

Ltd)

25 Obeisance to the Emperor at the beginning of the school

day (by permission of Edgar Lajtha> author of 'The March of
Japan*, and J. B. Lippincott)

26 Factory girls marching to work (by permission of Edgar

Lajtha and J. B. Lippincott)

27 The first Konoe cabinet, June 1937 (Associated Press Ltd)

28 The First Division leaving for Manchuria (Associated

Press Ltd)

29 Pearl Harbour, December 1941 (Associated Press Ltd)

30 Hiroshima, August 1945 (Associated Press Ltd)

3 1 The Japanese delegation aboard USS Missouri, September

i, 1945 (Associated Press Ltd)
3 2 Tojo Hideki (Associated Press Ltd)

33 Yoshida Shigeru (Associated Press Ltd)

34 Part of Osaka in 1957 (by permission of the Osaka Municipal

Office)

3 5 Terraced fields (by permission of Kinsuke Shimada)
36 Part of Tokyo in 1957 (by permission of the Tokyo Metro-
politan Office)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to the following publishers for permission to
reprint short passages from the works stated: Columbia Uni-
versity Press for Sources of the Japanese Tradition by W. T. de
Bary, Allen and Unwin for Anthology of Japanese Literature from
the Earliest Era to the Nineteenth Century edited by Donald
Keene, for Japan under Taisho Tenno 1912-1926 by A. M.
Young, for Imperial Japan 1926-1938 also by A. M. Young;
also Oxford University Press for Select Documents on Japanese
Foreign Policy 1853-1868 edited by W. G. Beasley, the Japan
Society, New York, for the Complete Journal of Townsend Harris
edited by M. E. Cosenza, the Asiatic Society of Japan, Tokyo,
for Japanese Government Documents , edited by W. W. McLaren,
John Murray for A. Handbook for Travellers in Japan edited by
B. H. Chamberlain and W. B. Mason, Princeton University
Press for The Economic Development of Japan. Growth and Struc-
tural Change 1868-1938 by W. W. Lockwood, Chatto and
Windus for The Double Patriots: a Study of Japanese Nationalism^
and Harvard University Press for Kokutai no Hongi. Cardinal
Principles of the National Entity of Japan, edited by R. K. Hall.
I should also like to express my thanks to Mr Jiro Numata
of the Shiryo-hensanjo, Tokyo University, for his help in
obtaining photographs for use as illustrations; and to my wife,
without whose assistance in such matters as typing and the
preparation of maps this book would still be far from being
finished.

W. G. Beasley
London, 1962

JAPANESE NAMES

Japanese personal names are given in this book in the order
in which they are used by the Japanese themselves: family
name first, followed by given name.

xi

CHAPTER I

JAPAN IN THE EARLY
NINETEENTH CENTURY

Decay of feudalism changing role of the samurai growth of
merchant guilds rural society

WHEN EUROPEAN explorers of the sixteenth century rounded
the Malay peninsula and moved into Far Eastern waters they
confronted a civilization quite different from those which they
had found in India and western Asia. Over an area extending
fromTongking in the south to Korea in the north they met with
a culture which was in origin Chinese, its members looking to
China as the heart of their international structure and the
source of their dominant beliefs. It was not an entirely uniform
culture, for the degree and nature of Chinese influence had
varied with both time and place. Nevertheless the differences
between one part of the region and another were no greater
than those to be found within the boundaries of Europe, cer-
tainly not great enough to make invalid the application of a
common label to the whole.

Japan was part of this civilization. From earliest times she
had been affected by Chinese ideas, deriving from China many
important elements of her culture; her written language, most
of the literary forms which it employed, her concepts of king-
ship and family, the Buddhist religion, the tenets of Confucian
philosophy. Even Japanese art, however original in detail or
in treatment, remained recognizably Chinese in derivation. On
the other hand, political relationships between the two coun-
tries had rarely been as close as this might seem to imply.
Sometimes Japan had shown herself willing to accept an in-
ferior status because of the economic benefits it could bring.
Sometimes she had rejected it with scorn, even at the risk of

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

war. Nor had China ever been able to assert control by force.
Morever, political institutions in the two countries had devel-
oped on very different lines. Where China had evolved an
imperial bureaucracy, dependent largely on the services of a
class of scholar gentry, Japan in the twelfth century had turned
away from Chinese models towards something much more
akin to European feudalism. The phase persisted, despite im-
portant changes in both leadership and structure, into the nine-
teenth century.

Meanwhile, during the decade 1630-40, Japan's rulers had
decided to shut out the outside world. Seeking to control all
factors that might threaten political stability, they prohibited
Japanese from leaving the country and banned foreign priests
and traders from coming in, making exceptions only of a hand-
ful of Dutch and Chinese merchants who were allowed to visit
Nagasaki. The latter, and the books they were sometimes
allowed to bring, were thereafter Japan's only source of know-
ledge about conditions overseas. Nor were Japanese encour-
aged to extend that knowledge. Until 1800, or even later, their
view of international relations was determined largely by what
they had learnt in the seventeenth century. In addition, the
technology they had then begun to acquire, such as that which
had enabled them to start the manufacture of firearms and
cannon of a Western type, was checked in its development, so
that their country's defences at the beginning of the nineteenth
century were still those of a seventeenth-century European
state; while the network of trade and settlements they had
established since about 1 5 90 in the countries bordering China
were allowed entirely to disappear.

For two hundred years this system of sakoku, 'the closed
country', was maintained. In the nineteenth century, however,
it began to weaken in the face of increasing encroachment
from an industrialized and expanding West, until treaties were
signed and trade resumed. This was in the period 1853-8.
Ten years later, under a combination of domestic and foreign
pressures, Tokugawa rule was overthrown and the way was
cleared for new leaders to seize power, men by whose decision
Japan was exposed fully to Western influence. As a result, by
the end of the century the derivatives of Western civilization
had come to determine, if not the fact of change, at least its

JAPAN IN THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY

direction in Japan, so that in politics, economic organization,
literature, philosophy, law, social custom and personal be-
haviour, in almost every aspect of life, in fact, Europe replaced
China as the country's source of models and ideas. It is with this
process, and with the events that followed from it, that much
of this book will be concerned.

In 1800 Japan was still in many respects a feudal state. Feudal-
ism, it is true., was in decay. A money economy, dominant in
the towns and already penetrating the villages, had begun to
weaken the bonds of feudal loyalty. Financial chaos threatened
the stability of feudal government. Yet the samurai the
knights and men-at-arms of Japanese chivalry still dominated
political society. As a military caste they comprised the coun-
try's only army, holding rank, office and land by virtue of this
function. One of them, indeed, exercised supreme adminis-
trative authority: as Shogun, an office which had been heredi-
tary in the Tokugawa family since 1603, each succeeding head
of the Tokugawa house became the emperor's military deputy
and therefore de facto ruler of Japan. He exercised a power which
extended to all men and all places, even to the Imperial Court
itself. In Kyoto, the emperor's capital, he was represented by
a governor, chosen from among his own relatives or vassals.
Court nobles appointed to act in his interests had to swear a
special oath of allegiance to him and through them he con-
trolled the appointment of all senior officials at the Court.
These, though their titles recalled the days when emperors had
both reigned and ruled, were now required to perform duties
which were no more than a time-consuming and complex
ceremonial. For recompense they depended on the Shogun's
favour, which was rarely generous. The wealthiest Court
nobles had a rice income smaller than that of many of the
Shogun's household officers, while most, though outranking
the majority of feudal lords, were forced by poverty to live at
a standard much like that of a minor lord's retainers. Their life
was regulated in its every detail by the Shogun's laws: their
dress, marriages and behaviour, even their literary pursuits and
pastimes. The emperor himself was a Tokugawa pensioner and
virtually a prisoner in the palace.

In sharp contrast to the Court nobility were the men at

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

the Shogun's capital of Edo (later to become modern Tokyo).
These were the real rulers of Japan, the Shogun being the
greatest of them, not only by virtue of his office but also be-
cause as a feudal lord he held lands whose estimated yield was
some 15 per cent of that of Japan at large. 1 His retainers,
excluding those who counted as vassals-in-chief, held as much
again. The administration of these vast estates involved thou-
sands of officials, great and small, whose labours brought
together the revenue from which were paid the Shogun's
household expenses, official salaries, stipends for those of his
followers who had no land, and grants in aid to the loyal but
impoverished. From the same source came the funds for gov-
erning Japan. In Tokugawa Japan, as in medieval Europe, the
monarch was expected to live off his own.

The central administration served the Shogun in both his
capacities, as imperial deputy and as feudal lord. In theory he
was an autocrat, but after 1650 the Tokugawa line rarely pro-
duced a man capable of exercising personal authority. Some
fell under the influence of favourites from their palace en-
tourage, though in the nineteenth century this was exceptional;
for the most past, decisions were taken by officials appointed
from the ranks of the Shogun's vassals. Most powerful were
the Councillors of State (R0/V)> usually four or five in number,
who were responsible for general policy and for supervision
of the great lords. Next came the members of the Junior
Council, controlling the samurai of lesser rank, and other
officials who supervised shrines and temples. All these, as well
as the governors of Kyoto and Osaka, were daimyo^ vassals-in-
chief whose lands were valued at or above 10,000 koku (50,000
bushels) of rice a year. They were assisted by a number of
officials of lower rank. The most important were the Edo
magistrates (machi-bttgyo\ who administered the capital with its
huge samurai population; the finance commissioners (kanjo-
bugyo\ whose duties included the handling of revenue and the
government of the Shogun's own domains; and the censors
(metsuke), whose task it was to watch for disaffection or malad-
ministration among officials and feudal lords. Of about the
same rank, or near it, were the governors of a handful of key
cities like Nagasaki, which were under direct Tokugawa rule,
and the stewards of the larger Tokugawa estates.

JAPAN IN THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY

The administrative machine was slow and cumbersome, in-
volving a system of checks and balances which seemed more
designed to protect the regime from the ambitions of its own
officials than to make any positive contribution to governing
the country. Offices were often held by more than one man at
a time, the incumbents taking it in turns to carry out the duties
appropriate to them. Rarely was it possible to say precisely
where the functions of one official ended and those of another
began. Nor was it always clear who had the power to take
decisions, though the detailed regulation of rank and seniority
at least ensured that there would be no doubt about questions
of formal precedence. One result of all this was to make it
very difficult for an individual or clique to acquire lasting
power by monopolizing a few great offices. Another, achieved
by restricting all office to direct retainers of the Shogun or those
lords bound traditionally to support him, was to give certain
groups a vested interest in maintaining Tokugawa power.

Feudal lords were classified in terms of their relationship to
the Tokugawa. First came those who were of Tokugawa
blood: the Sanke (Three Houses) of Kii, Owari and Mito,
descended from the founder of the line, Tokugawa leyasu;
the Sankyo (Three Lords) of Tayasu, Hitotsubashi and Shimizu,
descended from two eighteenth-century rulers, Yoshimune and
leshige; and the Ramon (Related Houses), more numerous, who
usually bore the family's original name of Matsudaira. The first
two might provide an heir if the direct line failed. The Kamon
might fill important office in times of emergency. It was the
next group, however, who usually furnished the Shogun's
senior advisers: fatfudai ('dependent') lords, about 120 in all,
the descendants of men who had become vassals of leyasu
during his rise to power. They alone had the right to be ap-
pointed to the two councils of state and similar offices. Their
leading families were always consulted on decisions of major
importance and were qualified to provide a regent should need
arise. In all this they differed sharply from the hundred or so
to^ama ('outside') lords, whose families had only submitted to
Tokugawa control after the battle of Sekigahara in 1600, for
the to^ama were permanently excluded from office in 'iie central
government on the grounds that they were potentially sub-
versive.

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

All feudal lords were in some degree free from government
interference. Within the boundaries of a domain and for the
most powerful this might encompass a whole province, some-
times more the lord was absolute master. His administration
was usually patterned on that of the Tokugawa, senior coun-
cillors being chosen from collateral branches of his house or
from a few families of leading retainers, while other posts were
filled by samurai of middle or lower rank, who served in the
specialist bureaucracy of the castle-town or as intendants gov-
erning rural districts. In none of this were they directly account-
able to the Shogun and his officers. Nor did the domain owe
taxes to the central government. On the other hand, the lord
as a person had no such freedom: the Shogun had the power to
transfer him from one fief to another, reduce the size of his
holding, or even confiscate it altogether if he failed in his
loyalty or duties. Although military service had become largely
nominal in the long years of peace after 1650, once in a genera-
tion or so a daimyo was likely to find himself called upon to
carry out expensive public works, like flood control, road
building, or structural repairs to buildings, such as were often
made necessary by fire or earthquake. Marriage alliances were
subject to the Shogun's approval. So was the building or repair
of castles. Most important of all, each lord was required to
spend six months of the year in Edo, leaving members of his
family there as hostages when he returned to his own province.
This system, known as sankin-kotai ('alternate attendance 7 ),
was fundamental to the whole mechanism of control.

In the last resort, it was the distribution of land which
enabled the Tokugawa to enforce these measures, for in a
feudal society land was the basis of military strength and force
was the ultimate sanction. The early Tokugawa rulers leyasu,
his son and grandson had carried out a major redistribution
of fiefs, by which they and their supporters had acquired not
only the lion's share of the whole, but also control of all
strategic areas. The Shogun and his retainers held between
them land estimated as yielding some 3 o per cent of Japan's annual
agricultural production. In addition, Tokugawa branch fami-
lies contributed another 10 per cent and thzfudai lords twice as
much again. Most of these holdings were concentrated in
central Japan, thus ensuring that the regime could dominate

JAPAN IN THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY

the two capitals, Edo and Kyoto, and the whole length of the
great road which connected them, the Tokaido. By contrast,
the to^ama lords, aggregating only 40 per cent of the whole by
land value, were situated largely in the south and west or in the
north-east, the most powerful of them being subject to the
watchful attentions of &fudai established on their borders.

It must not be thought, however, that \k&fudai lords were
individually the stronger, for it had always been the policy of
the Tokugawa to avoid giving their followers domains large
enough to make them a threat to the house they served. In-
deed, while the fudai together controlled some six million
koku out of a national total of just under thirty million, only
one had a personal holding of over 200,000 koku. This was li
of Hikone, whose lands straddled the eastern approaches to
Kyoto. Of the Tokugawa branch houses, Aizu, Fukui and
Mito were about the same size as Hikone, whereas Wakayama
(Kii) and Nagoya (Owari) both exceeded half a million
koku? Yet some of the to^ama were wealthier still. Kanazawa,
north of Kyoto on the Japan Sea coast, was rated at over a
million koku. Four others were more than half that size: Sendai
in the north-east and the three Kyushu domains of Kagoshima
(Satsuma), Kumamoto and Fukuoka. This still left eleven
to^ama domains of 200,000 koku and over. Several of them
played an important part in the history of the period and are
worth mentioning by name: Saga (Hizen) in Kyushu; Yama-
guchi (Choshu), on the straits between Kyushu and Honshu;
Hiroshima and Okayama, farther east on the shores of the
Inland Sea; and Kochi (Tosa) in the southern part of the island
of Shikoku.

The domain values cited above are those which were offici-
ally recorded by the Shogun's government. In the seventeenth
century they had been fairly realistic estimates of the crop. In
the two hundred years that followed, however, peace and
technical improvements had brought great increases in agri-
cultural production in some areas, without any corresponding
adjustment in rated values, so that by 1800 some domains were
notoriously 'rich', yielding far more than the official figure,
while others were just as notoriously 'poor'. What is particu-
larly significant about this is that the change had been to the
relative disadvantage of the Shogun and his vassals. This was

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

chiefly because increases had been greater at the periphery than
in the centre. In the provinces round Edo and Kyoto, where
most Tokugawa and jfo&* domains were found, the land had
been longer settled and harder worked. It therefore offered
less margin for development. By contrast, in the north-east
and south-west it was easier to find new land to bring under
cultivation, a fact which was soon reflected in the tax yields of
the local lords, most of whom were to<%a?na. Moreover, some
of these lords benefited from a growing diversity in crops and
economic activity in general, which eventually made it possible
for villages to bear a higher rate of tax, especially along the
shores of the Inland Sea and in parts of Kyushu and Shikoku.
In such areas, tax yields of the nineteenth century were some-
times more than double those of the seventeenth. One result
was that the domains in question were better able to cope with
the financial problems brought by economic change than were
the majority of those on which the stability of the regime
depended a by-product of the Tokugawa pattern of land
distribution which was both unforeseen and most unwelcome
to officials.

One might also argue that Tokugawa policies were responsi-
ble for a good deal of the social change which took place in
the period, though this was directly contrary to their purpose.
Official doctrine propounded a view of society which was one
of fixed stratification: a hierarchy of samurai, farmer, artisan,
and merchant, each segment subdivided and the distinctions
between them rigidly maintained. The samurai was soldier and
ruler. The farmer produced rice and taxes -and was therefore
honoured as the foundation of the state. The artisan's role was
useful but subordinate. Merchants came last, because they en-
gaged chiefly in the pursuit of profit, and opinions differed
about whether they were merely a necessary evil, or more posi-
tively something parasitic and corrupting. Yet the debates on
this subject, which were many, proved little to the purpose.
Long before the nineteenth century the merchant had assumed
a place in Japanese society bearing little relation to that which
the traditionally-minded thought it proper to accord him, while
the processes of change had done much to destroy the satis-
fying simplicity that was supposed to characterize the life of
samurai and farmer.

JAPAN IN THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY

In earlier periods the samurai had been a farmer-warrior,
tilling the land in times of peace and following his lord into
battle in times of war; but with the increasing scale and com-
plexity of warfare in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries fight-
ing had tended to become a specialist activity, so that the
functions of the samurai and the farmer became distinct. In the
end the farmer was forbidden to carry arms, the samurai was
incorporated into something very like the garrison of an occu-
pied territory, living in a strongly-defended castle from which
the surrounding countryside was governed. It was in this way
that the typical domain of the Tokugawa period took shape.
It was large and geographically compact. Within its frontiers
the lord brooked no rival to his authority over men and land,
whether from the once-powerful shrines and temples or from
his followers, only a few of whom were allowed to retain fiefs
of their own. These were subject to a system of control which
was a replica in miniature of that which the Shogun imposed
on Japan at large. Ordinary samurai for the most part lost their
land entirely. Required to be in attendance on their lord and
live in or around his castle, they were no longer able to super-
vise in person either cultivation or the collection of dues, these
rights being assumed by the feudal lord acting through officials.
In return, the samurai was granted a stipend from the domain
treasury, its value determined by the estimated annual yield
of the piece of land from which it was nominally derived.
Many lost even this final link with the village: their stipends
were fixed arbitrarily, in extreme cases at a sum payable in
cash.

The transformation of the samurai was carried a stage
further by the Tokugawa success in restoring and then main-
taining law and order after centuries of civil war. Peace made
the samurai less needed as a soldier. On the other hand, the
nature of the new domains made him all the more important
as an administrator. In every castle-town there was a multitude
of posts to be filled, their duties ranging from the formulation
of policy to the government of a rural district, from control of
finance or archives to service as attendants, guards and messen-
gers. All were filled by samurai, usually samurai of a specified
rank. So great was the preoccupation with civil office that a
famous scholar, Yamaga Soko, writing towards the end of the

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

seventeenth century, was able to describe the life of a samurai
as follows:

c ln minor matters, such as dress, food, dwelling, and all imple-
ments and their uses, he must live up to the best samurai traditions
of good form . . . Among major matters there are the maintenance
of peace and order in the world; rites and festivals; the control of
feudal states and districts; mountains and forests, seas and rivers,
farms and rice fields, temples and shrines; and the disposition of
suits and appeals among the four classes of people.' 3

Yamaga, as his writings showed elsewhere, did not by any
means despise the samurai's place in warfare. None the less, his
outlook takes us a long way from the concept of the samurai
as a rough and uncouth soldier.

Once it had been deprived of battle as a lubricant of social
mobility, Japanese society quickly became preoccupied with
questions of personal and family status. The samurai found
himself the possessor by virtue of birth or adoption of a posi-
tion which it was a great deal easier to lose by failure to fulfil
ceremonial duties than it was to improve by meritorious ser-
vice. Ranks tended to proliferate, as did the regulations con-
cerning them. For all this it is possible to identify three broad
divisions of the feudal class. First came those who were linked
with the lord's own house by blood or long service: the upper
samurai, few in number, much wealthier than the rest and often
holding land of their own. Second were the middle samurai,
full members of their class by rank and privilege, but usually
excluded from the very highest posts. Last were those who are
often called the lesser samurai, a group rather more numerous
in most domains than the other two together. They were men
whose military duty as foot-soldiers and the like gave them some
claim to samurai status and access to the minor offices of govern-
ment, but whose economic and social position was vastly
inferior to that of the samurai proper. Indeed, it is not easy to
recognize some of them as members of a ruling class at all.

It was extremely difficult to move upward from one of these
divisions to another. An able man might sometimes achieve
promotion for himself, while two or three generations of able
men might do so for a whole family, but for the majority rank
was hereditary and fixed. All manner of things were determined

10

JAPAN IN THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY

by it: access to office, type of education, even habits of speech.
If they belonged to the same domain, men of the same rank
were likely to know each other well, since the regulations
about place of residence made it almost certain that their fami-
lies were neighbours. Their houses and dress would be similar,
though they might differ considerably in wealth. They had
almost certainly gone to the same school. This made the
groups within the castle-town community exceedingly close-
knit even in the largest domain there was not likely to be
more than 5,000 families of middle and upper samurai, in the
smaller ones only a few hundred but this very fact helped to
accentuate the barriers which cut groups off from one another.

In a society where every man knew his place, it is not sur-
prising that the ruling philosophy was of a kind calculated to
keep him in it. The Confucian ideas associated with the name
of the Sung philosopher, Chu Hsi, were admirably suited to
this purpose, for they emphasized the subordination of wife to
husband, of son to father, of subject to ruler, in a manner
which in Tokugawa Japan brought about a natural alliance
between feudal authority and Confucian scholarship. The duties
of loyalty and service were expounded in official schools main-
tained by the Shogun's government and feudal lords. To them
went almost all samurai of middle and upper rank to learn the
duties of their station, to learn above all that a man's own
welfare counted for less than that of the group, whether family
or domain, to which he belonged. The attitude was reinforced
by the pervading social and religious concept of obligation
(ho-ori). This brought together strands from Buddhist as well
as Confucian thought, emphasizing that man's primary task
was to live in such a way as would constitute a return for
favours received: to the deity for his blessings, to the universe
which supported life, to parents for their love, to political
superiors for their protection. Thus loyalty and filial piety
came together and were given religious sanction.

These ideas, in association with elements from an older
tradition, became part of bushido, the code of the warrior class.
In its Tokugawa form this was as much a code of the bureau-
crat as of the soldier. Death in the service of one's lord re-
mained the ultimate expression of loyalty, bringing something
not far short of salvation in a religious sense; but if this could

ii

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

not be, then dutiful service and honest advice were not to be
despised. Learning and scholarship were also to be valued for
the training they gave, though it was a training more appro-
priate to administration than the battlefield. Even the time-
honoured military virtues of austerity and frugality were given
a new gloss. Diligence and economy were the form in wfiich
they were now enjoined, the one to ensure the maximum
contribution in service, the other the minimum consumption
by way of recompense. This, too, was a kind of loyalty.

Ideals of behaviour which the ruling class prescribed for
itself were readily adopted by the rest of society. In this sense,
bushido influenced all groups, at least all those which sought
social recognition. On the other hand, this did not make its
rules any easier to observe, especially where they ran counter
to economic change. Frugality was one of them. Peace and the
growth in agricultural production had contributed to a rapid
development of commerce in the seventeenth century, making
possible a rise in standards of living which was enjoyed in
most parts of the country. Even in remote castle-towns one
could now obtain products from as far afield as Kyushu and
Hokkaido. In the great cities of Edo, Kyoto and Osaka luxuries
abounded. Edo, especially, played a major part in samurai life,
since feudal lords, accompanied always by a large retinue of
followers, were required to live there for half the year. Here
were many temptations by way of goods and entertainment,
temptations which most found it impossible to resist. Unfor-
tunately, they had to be paid for, usually in cash. For samurai
of whatever rank who received their incomes in rice, the
provision of money to be spent in Edo became a serious prob-
lem, one which could be solved only with the help of the
merchant and financier. The improvident soon found that their
new habits had left no margin to meet the sort of unexpected
expenditure or loss of income which might be occasioned by
fire or flood. For them the merchant became moneylender,
making advances against future income. Others, who were
more careful, were eventually caught in the same web despite
themselves, for city prices rose faster than crops increased and
it was easier to acquire expensive tastes than to lose them. By
1700 the whole samurai class was in a state of chronic debt.

In the eighteenth century samurai indebtedness continued

12

JAPAN IN THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY

to grow, despite efforts which feudal rulers made to check it.
Moreover, since the Tokugawa and domain governments faced
the same difficulties as did individuals, they were rendered un-
able to help their retainers to any great extent and were often
forced to levy new imposts on them. These levies, euphemis-
tically described as loans, might amount to half a samurai's
stipend. They caused great discontent, the tenets of bushido
notwithstanding. In many domains this led the middle samurai,
blaming their troubles on the incapacity of their superiors, to
agitate for, and sometimes obtain, a larger share in administra-
tion. Lesser samurai, whose case was far worse, also tended to
become supporters of reform movements of various kinds,
while many sought personal solutions outside the existing
feudal framework altogether, relinquishing their samurai status
to become farmers or merchants, or using the devices of mar-
riage and adoption to bring wealth into the family in return for
social standing. This process, familiar enough among impov-
erished aristocracies at any time or place, helped to induce a
greater degree of social mobility at the lower levels of the ruling
class, to which officialdom contributed by engaging in what
was virtually a sale of rank. It was the merchants and a new
class of rural landlords who largely benefited.

Indeed, the corollary of samurai debt was merchant wealth.
As domestic commerce grew in scale so it had become more
complex, with townsmen (choniri) emerging as specialists in a
wide range of different occupations: wholesaling, warehousing,
transport, rice-broking, money exchange, credit transactions,
speculative dealing of every kind. Typical is this description of
a Kyoto merchant, taken from one of the stories of the novelist,
Ihara Saikaku, written in 1688:

* As the clerks from the money exchanges passed by he noted down
the market ratio of copper and gold; he inquired about the current
quotations of the rice brokers; he sought information from druggists'
and haberdashers' assistants on the state of the market in Nagasaki;
for the latest news on the prices of ginned cotton, salt, and sake, he
noted the various days on which the Kyoto dealers received dis-
patches from the Edo branch shops. Every day a thousand things
were entered in his book. . . ,' 4

With specialized knowledge so important, it is not surprising

13

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

that the samurai left the handling of his finances to the mer-
chant, or that in the process he became indebted to him. All the
same, merchants did not easily gain the upper hand. The
feudal lord and his retainers still possessed authority, as well
as prestige, and did not hesitate to use it. Repayment of loans
was difficult to enforce against members of a ruling class, par-
ticularly when their refusal to honour debts was likely to be
upheld by a central government which officially despised trade
and was not above confiscating a merchant's goods in their
entirety if its own interests were at stake. Faced with this
situation, merchants began to organize themselves into mono-
poly guilds, seeking security through collective action. In
part they were successful. The guilds, membership of which
was a valuable commodity, capable of being bought and sold,
became characteristic of the eighteenth century. They helped
to keep prices and profits high. Moreover, they came frequently
into alliance with the Tokugawa and domain governments,
acting as bankers, official purveyors or agents in the marketing
of rice and other products, their members receiving in return
social privileges and protection. The effects of this on the
feudal structure we must consider in the next chapter. Here it
is enough to emphasize that one result was to give the privi-
leged merchants of the towns a status more in keeping with
their wealth than hitherto. Many of them became city elders,
firmly subordinated to feudal control but exercising a good
deal of authority in local matters.

Not all town-dwellers were rich, of course. There was a host
of small traders, struggling to make ends meet, as well as
apprentices, journeymen, pedlars and day labourers, their ranks
constantly swollen by new recruits. Most of the latter came
from the countryside, where harsh taxes and bad harvests com-
bined to drive a succession of impoverished farmers to seek
their fortune in the town; and although the majority found
only a different kind of poverty, their total numbers helped
to change the nature of society by making the urban element of
significant size for the first time in Japanese history. Kyoto, a
political and commercial centre, famous also for its craftsmen,
had long been a great city. In size and importance, however, it
now had to take second place to Edo, which grew from being
a mere fishing village in 1590 to a huge conglomeration with

14

JAPAN IN THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY

a population, excluding samurai, of over 500,000 in
Samurai accounted for at least half as much again and made
this by far the country's largest consumer market. Osaka, by
contrast, was a city of merchants. It was rather smaller than
Kyoto under 300,000 to Kyoto's 400,000 in the seventeenth
century but it was the focus of large-scale commerce and
finance for all except the north-east provinces. Apart from
these, and perhaps Nagasaki, Japan had no true cities. Yet
there were many country towns, their size varying with that of
the domains for which they served as markets and adminis-
trative centres.

Town life in the Tokugawa period, especially that of Edo
and Osaka, contributed a new element to Japanese culture. It
was an element of noise and turbulence and colour, quite unlike
the restraint proper to a long-established aristocracy, and it
derived from that part of the population which might be
described as nouveaux riches., the great merchants and their
households. To cater to their whims and those of their feudal
overlords, there developed what contemporaries called ukiyo,
the floating world: a world, in the words of a modern historian,
c of fugitive pleasures, of theatres and restaurants, wrestling-
booths and houses of assignation, with their permanent popu-
lation of actors, dancers, singers, story-tellers, jesters, courte-
sans, bath-girls and itinerant purveyors, among whom mingled
the profligate sons of rich merchants, dissolute samurai and
naughty apprentices'. 6 It was with this world that much of
the period's art and literature were concerned. Colour prints
depicted actors and famous courtesans, as well as street scenes
in busy commercial quarters. The theatre, especially the puppet
drama, found its themes in subjects which the townsmen
loved: the clash between feudal loyalty and personal inclination
typical of Tokugawa Japan and popular because it took its
audience into high society or the fortunes, good and bad, of
rich merchants and poor journeymen, of their mistresses and
wives. Novels and short stories followed the same course. It
was not a literature for the prudish, but it was bursting with
life. By comparison, the verse and landscapes of the Chinese
tradition seemed anaemic and artificial.

For those who could afford it life in the city was one of
extravagant costume, exotic foods and elaborate pastimes.

15

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

Samurai, without doubt, were attracted by it. However, the
more serious-minded were distrustful, thinking it something
calculated to rob a man of his substance and to weaken his
moral fibre, something that would make him a worse soldier
and retainer. Hence reformers fulminated against the city's
luxury and corruption. So, too, did spokesmen of the merchant
class, for the greater respectability which the privileged towns-
men had achieved led them to affirm, not to reject, the dominant
values of society. They, as much as the samurai, aspired to a
code of loyalty, filial piety and frugality in service. They were
as much to be blamed if they abandoned themselves to a life of
pleasure.

Still more shocking by the canons of the age was the spec-
tacle of farmers enjoying some of the same luxuries. It was bad
enough that many should be forced by poverty to abandon
their land and flock to the city, to the obvious detriment of
agricultural production. It became worse when a few, though
remaining in the village, acquired wealth enough to ape their
betters. That they had the facilities to do so was a reflection of
commercial growth, making available in rural areas what had
at first been limited to the towns. That they had the money
was a reflection of economic development in a wider sense.
This, by the nineteenth century, had brought about far-
reaching changes in landholding and the structure of village
wealth.

The classic pattern of the Tokugawa village was that of the
early seventeenth century: a community consisting of peasant
farmers bound to the soil, each cultivating a plot large enough
to support his family and paying the whole of any surplus to
his lord as feudal dues. This was the ideal a sort of equality
in misery which feudal officials sought to maintain. Yet
inequalities had in fact existed from the beginning. Farmers of
substance usually had dependants of one kind or another to
help them on their land, men who were bound to them either
by ties of blood and marriage or by traditional bonds not far
short of slavery. Some villagers were distinguished also by
hereditary rights to local office, often backed by claims that
they were the 'old' families, descended from original settlers
of the area. It was from such groups that the village headmen
and councillors were drawn. They played an influential part

16

JAPAN IN THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY

in village life, it being their duty to apportion individual
shares of taxation, which the domain imposed simply on the
village as a unit, as well as to settle local disputes, arrange
details of irrigation, organize festivals and so on. Above them
were a number of district officials, who were also local resi-
dents, though they often ranked as minor members of the
feudal class. To most Japanese these were the most familiar
representatives of authority. The samurai official proper, from
the Shogun's capital or the lord's castle, was an exalted and
rather terrifying figure, appeal to whom was very much a last
resort.

The increase in the area of land under cultivation and in
yield per acre, which went on throughout the seventeenth
century and well into the eighteenth century in many places,
tended to enlarge the existing disparities of wealth within the
village, since it was mostly those who already held plots larger
than the average who had the resources to open up new land
or pay for improvements in technique. However, it was the
development of a commercial economy, especially in central,
south and west Japan, that finally proved disruptive of the
traditional village structure. It not only brought to the farmer
new implements, fertilizers and strains of seed, but also made
possible a decrease in local self-sufficiency. Once trade became
widespread, it was no longer necessary for every man to grow
his own grain. Instead, where conditions favoured it, he could
turn to one of the cash crops for which the growth of city
culture and the rise in standards of living had created a de-
mand: silk, cotton, paper, wax, rape seed, indigo and others.
These became ancillary crops for many, main crops for some.
The result, in areas where this occurred, was to involve the
village deeply in the commercial sector of the economy, making
the farmer's prosperity subject to market fluctuations which
were completely outside his own control.

The change did not make life any easier for the majority.
Speculation, natural disasters and occasional ill-advised inter-
ference by feudal governments helped to make selling prices
vary widely. Costs for such things as fertilizers were kept high
by the monopoly rings of city merchants. Moreover, there was
always the danger that domain governments might take a pro-
prietary interest in any really profitable commodity, declaring

17

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

it an official monopoly and buying in the crop at forced prices.
With all this, as well as high taxation, the farmer's life and
income were precarious. More and more had recourse to the
moneylender, often losing their land because of it, at least in
part, so that many independent cultivators of the earlier period
became tenants or even landless labourers. Some made their
way to the towns. Others remained to form a pool of workers
for the local industries which began to spring up in rural areas,
such as cotton spinning and weaving, dyeing, the brewing of
sake (rice wine), or the manufacture of paper.

These developments were at their height during the last
quarter of the eighteenth century and the first quarter of the
nineteenth, a period which saw also the emergence of a class
of rural entrepreneurs whose wealth was not based exclusively
on land. For the most part they, too, originated in the ranks
of peasant cultivators. Unlike their fellows, however, they
were the sort of men who seized the opportunities which the
new economy presented and were able by thrift, hard work
and good judgment to extend their operations into retailing,
moneylending, manufacture and similar non-agricultural pur-
suits, retaining an interest in the soil as landlords but devoting
relatively little of their time to its management. Among them
were some who handled the marketing of commercial crops,
others who organized a putting-out system which harnessed
the surplus labour capacity of farming households to the
manufacture of textiles, even a few who established small-scale
factories. Such men were to be found in almost every village
in the provinces round Kyoto and along the Inland Sea.

In food, dress, education and entertainment they lived like
samurai of middle rank or better. Yet no matter how great
their wealth it was not easy for them to win formal recognition.
In some areas they engaged in a bitter and eventually successful
struggle to secure appointment to village office, important to
them not only for the prestige it conferred, but also because
it provided a means of manipulating tax assessments and other
matters vital to their interests. Elsewhere they acquired status
by marrying into the families of minor domain officials. In
many domains they were even able to gain it in their own
right, for, as financial pressure on governments increased, so
did the temptation to raise money by the sale of rank. The

18

JAPAN IN THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY

newly tich of the countryside were invited to subscribe to
so-called loans, their reward for doing so being a grant of rank
which was in strict proportion to the size of contribution. In
this way many a farmer, turned moneylender, acquired the right
to bear a family name and wear the two swords of the samurai.

Tokugawa leyasu, it is said, expected most of his descendants
to be mediocrities, or worse, and set out to create an adminis-
trative machine which would protect them from their own
folly. Certainly the regime he founded gave every sign of being
dedicated to the task of self-preservation. The country's rulers,
both Shogun and feudal lords, tried to freeze society in the
pattern it had assumed at the end of the sixteenth-century
civil wars, a pattern in which they shared between them a
more effective authority than had ever before been achieved
in. Japanese history. The result was an age of political con-
servatism and rigid class structure, of rule and precedent, place
and privilege.

The attempt to outlaw change was remarkably successful.
Nevertheless, as we have seen, by the beginning of the nine-
teenth century it had failed in a number of important ways.
This was partly because new forms of wealth fell into the hands
of groups which did not already have prestige and power,
making them potentially subversive of the existing order: the
merchants of the towns and the entrepreneurs of rural areas.
The former proved less of a threat to samurai dominance than
one might have supposed, for during the eighteenth century
they entered into a kind of symbiotic relationship with feudal
government, putting their commercial and financial skills to
the service of the ruling class in return for rank, security and
profit. On the other hand, rich villagers were likely to be more
dangerous. They invested their profits heavily in land and
thereby touched the regime at a sensitive point. The castle-
town system, while leaving the samurai dependent on the land
for his income, had removed him from direct participation in
its use and management, thus making it possible for the new
landlords to interpose themselves, as it were, between feudal-
ism and the farm. It was a situation that had occurred several
times in Japanese history and had always been the prelude to
the replacement of one regime by another.

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

This is not to imply that there was any immediate danger of
a concerted attempt by the landlords to overthrow feudalism
or the Tokugawa. Indeed, most of them seemed satisfied with
the semi-samurai status which their wealth had gained them,
while in many parts of the country the village economy and
hence its social structure had as yet been hardly touched
by change at all. More immediate difficulties arose from the
financial chaos which had overtaken both central and domain
governments and from the disorder to which it led in the
countryside. Attempts by the domain to improve its finances
by increasing taxation, their effects accentuated in some areas
by the stresses in village life which accompanied the enrich-
ment of the few and the impoverishment of the many, brought
a rising level of peasant revolt. After 1800, outbreaks averaged
five or six a year, the most frequent objects of violence being
the residences of moneylenders, landlords or unpopular village
and domain officials.

The middle and upper samurai were quick to recognize that
these developments might eventually break their own hold on
Japanese society. Many of them called for reform, though they
could not agree upon its nature. Some urged in effect a return
to the past, a policy which was to be carried out by means of
sumptuary laws, limitations on the growth of towns, even a
redistribution of the land, all aimed at reducing trade and forc-
ing the population back to its old habits. Others planned to
ride the tiger, that is, to come to terms with the new trends and
use them to bolster traditional authority. Both groups, not
only by what they did, but also by the struggles into which
they entered to secure the power to do it, played an important
part in shaping Japan's political future. It is therefore desirable
that we should consider their problems and their policies in
greater detail.

CHAPTER II

ECONOMIC PROBLEMS
AND REFORMS

Mi^uno Tadakuni Zusho Hiromichi Mttrata Seifu

IN THE eighteenth century money became of prime concern
to Japan's feudal rulers. From the Shogun to the humblest
samurai, from the central government to that of the smallest
domain, failure to adjust to the needs of a changing economy
brought growing financial stress. It was a stress, moreover, due
in large measure to factors outside their own control. The
concentration of the ruling class in castle-towns, especially the
huge agglomeration that was Edo, had acted as a stimulus to
trade. Commercial efficiency, in turn, had put temptations in
the way of buyers. Since most samurai had been reduced to
idleness by the years of peace, encouraged to engage in scholar-
ship and martial exercises or to perform administrative tasks
which rarely took up all their time, it is not surprising that
their tastes and habits grew expensive. Income, despite the rise
in agricultural production, failed to keep pace with costs. This
was often as much a result of laxity among tax-collectors, the
almost inevitable concomitant of hereditary office-holding, as
it was of higher standards of living; but it meant, whatever the
cause, that a misfortune like fire or flood, bringing an increase
in expenses or a drop in revenue, put a domain almost invari-
ably in debt to the city rice-brokers who handled its finances.
Individual samurai suffered by a similar process, though on a
smaller scale. At the opposite extreme, the Tokugawa govern-
ment succumbed slowly but inexorably to the same pressures.
And once in debt, neither the samurai nor his lord found it
easy to recover.

21

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

Intermittent attempts at reform in the eighteenth century
proved to have only a local and temporary effect, so that by
the time Tokugawa leyoshi succeeded his father as Shogun on
October i, 1837, the situation had reached a stage of crisis,
leyoshi was not the man to take much interest in questions of
government finance. Nor were his ministers concerned with the
economic problems of Japan at large. Nevertheless, it was
during the period of his rule, which lasted till 1853, that
officials in Edo and several of the great domains initiated eco-
nomic policies that were to have a considerable bearing on the
fate of the regime. It is therefore at this point that a discussion
of late Tokugawa history can conveniently begin.

The finances of the Tokugawa government the Bakufu, or
'tent government', as it was called, because of its origins
as the Shogun's military headquarters depended in the first
place on rice. Most dues from rural areas were paid in it.
Most normal expenditure was calculated in it: household ex-
penses, official salaries, samurai stipends. The actual amounts
involved were capable of considerable variation, depending
both on the harvest and on the efficiency to be expected from
officials in 1742-51, for example, after a period of adminis-
trative reform, the annual average rice revenue rose to 800,000
koku (i koku=^ bushels approximately), whereas in 1782-91,
which were years of atrocious weather, it was only just over
600,000 koku but in general it was a great deal more likely
that revenue would drop, because of bad luck or bad manage-
ment, and that expenditure would rise, because of luxurious
living, than the reverse. A minister of character and determina-
tion, having the Shogun' s confidence, could do much to im-
prove administration and cut expenses. Such a circumstance,
however, was fortuitous and rare. More often appeals for
economy fell on deaf ears and officials were left with no other
recourse than to seek ways of increasing government income.
An essential difficulty was that there was a limit to the
amount which farmers could be made to pay. Where dues
were comparatively low, or farm output was increasing, it was
possible to tap the surplus by a variety of devices. They ranged
from the imposition of supplementary taxes to the use of false
instruments in conducting surveys. It was even possible in

22

ECONOMIC PROBLEMS AND REFORMS

some respects to reduce the annual variations. Thus in the
eighteenth century tax-collectors began to levy dues on the
basis of periodic averages, instead of fixing the amount after
inspection of the crop, a change that transferred to the farmer
the responsibility for providing against future fluctuations in
the harvest. All the same, there was a point beyond which tax
could be made neither heavier nor more predictable, namely,
that at which demands provoked the cultivator to revolt or to
abandon his land. Samurai officials frequently misjudged it,
but it put an effective ceiling on the revenue they raised.

Faced with this problem the Bakufu turned to sources of
revenue in cash. Some of these it had possessed from the begin-
ning: profits from gold and silver mines, most of which were
under Tokugawa control; certain small amounts paid by the
villages as taxation on minor crops; a tax on house property
in the towns; and several miscellaneous dues, such as transit
charges on the movement of goods. Profits from mining, the
only item on this list which was of any consequence, declined
sharply towards the end of the seventeenth century because the
most easily worked deposits of the precious metals had been
exhausted, but a substitute was soon found in debasement of
the coinage. Beginning in 1695, this rapidly became one of the
most regular and profitable ways of raising funds. To it after
1721 was added a levy on merchant associations, usually taking
the form of annual cash payments made in return for a grant
of monopoly rights.

These innovations enabled the Bakufu in the first half of
the eighteenth century to supplement its rice revenue by cash
receipts which varied between about i 5 and 2 million gold ryo
a year. 7 To set against this were expenditures of something like
i 2 million ryo in a good year, i 6 million in a bad one, so that
it was possible, given sound administration, to make ends meet.
On the other hand, administration was not always sound and
these resources were not invariably sufficient to maintain a
balance. Officials, therefore, continued their search for some-
thing new to tax. Opening up fresh land was one possibility,
but most of what was suitable had already been exploited
earlier in the Tokugawa period and further efforts at reclama-
tion were handicapped by technical difficulties beyond the
power of the age to solve. Another possibility, direct taxation

23

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

of the feudal lords, was politically dangerous, as the Shogun
Yoshimune had discovered when he attempted it in 1722-31.
This left only commerce. Most of the country's wealth, or so
it seemed to contemporary observers, was now finding its way
into the hands of city merchants. It appeared reasonable that
they should contribute part of it to ease the burdens of the
state. Means of effecting this were eventually found by levying
forced loans, known &$goyo-km; and although these were hardly
taxation in the strict sense, since they were irregular in timing
and arbitrary in amount, they were usefully high in yield. The
first to be recorded, that of 1761-2, raised 700,000 ryo from
Osaka merchants, out of a total of i 7 million ryo which had
been demanded. Later ones were smaller, but after 1800 they
became frequent enough to rival recoinage as a source of gov-
ernment funds. Thus in the years 1853-60 about 1-4 million
ryo was received from loans of this kind, some 900,000 ryo
coming from Edo and Osaka, the rest from rich residents of
the countryside.

One trouble with these policies, especially debasement of
the coinage, was that they pushed up prices. By so doing they
introduced an element of contradiction into feudal rule. It was
obviously necessary, if political stability were to be preserved,
that ministers should retain the loyalty of the feudal class. This
involved among other things ensuring its members a degree of
economic privilege. Yet the very actions of government in its
search for solvency were of a kind to increase the upward spiral
of commodity prices, making it more and more difficult for
retainers to live on a fixed stipend payable in rice. Officials
sought constantly for a way out of this dilemma, or rather, one
might say, tried solutions first for one part of it, then the
other, without always recognizing the connection between the
two. A common response was to blame human behaviour:
merchants for taking excessive profit, samurai for abandoning
their traditional frugality. Hence exhortation became a con-
spicuous feature of reform. It was reinforced by a number of
more practical measures, designed to encourage samurai virtue
by a system of rewards and punishments or to discourage
luxury by sumptuary laws. In addition, Bakufu statesmen tried
to control the interest payable on samurai debts, though in this
they were more often than not defeated by the men they meant

24

ECONOMIC PROBLEMS AND REFORMS

to aid, since the latter, finding themselves unable to live without
credit and equally unable to get it at the official rates, simply
evaded the regulations. None the less, the authorities usually
found ways in a crisis of robbing the moneylender of part of
his profits and protecting the samurai from the worst results of
his improvidence. Certainly a merchant who wished to recover
money from a defaulting samurai could expect scant help or
sympathy from those in power.

There were, then, two main elements in economic reform as
the later Tokugawa rulers saw it: on the one hand, an attempt
to restore government finances; on the other, an attack on the
problem of samurai impoverishment. Both emerged clearly
in the work of Tokugawa Yoshimune, Shogun from 1716 to
1745, though he was more successful in bequeathing to his son
a full treasury, the fruits of long and careful administration,
than in overcoming the difficulties that faced his vassals. Even
what he did achieve depended so greatly on his personal super-
vision and example that it barely survived his death. In fact,
forty years later all was to be done again. This time the re-
former was Matsudaira Sadanobu, Yoshimune's grandson
and Bakufu chief minister from 1786 to 1793. His measures
included a cancellation of samurai debts, encouragement of
military training and an insistence on Confucian orthodoxy in
the official schools, together with a whole quiverful of rules
about dress, food, hairstyles, gifts and similar matters. Once
again, however, the effects were short-lived, Sadanobu's edicts
being ignored and his reserves dissipated well before his own
life ended.

The first three decades of the nineteenth century saw a
considerable increase in the level of commercial activity in
Japan and as a consequence a worsening economic situation
for the Bakufu and its retainers. In the period 1834-41 expendi-
ture exceeded normal cash revenue by over half a million ryo a
year, with the result that only a series of desperate expedients
prevented total financial chaos. In the same years, moreover,
there was increasing evidence of unrest in the form of peasant
revolts. Rioting, accompanying demands for tax relief, had
begun in the previous century, but the number of outbreaks
had increased sharply since 1800 and their scale had grown.
In January 1823, for example, a mob said to be 70,000 strong

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

stormed the town of Miyazu, a little north-west of Kyoto, in
protest against a special tax designed to repay money which the
feudal lord had borrowed. Six months later a still more serious
rising occurred in the Tokugawa domain of Kii. In 1836 the
whole of Kai, a province under Bakufu control, broke into
revolt, this being the largest of some twenty-six incidents re-
corded for that year, while in 1837 a minor Bakufu official,
Oshio Heihachiro, planned a rising in Osaka because of his
indignation at local maladministration and maintenance of high
rice prices in a time of great distress. His plot was betrayed
and Oshio committed suicide after achieving no more than a
minor disturbance, but news of the affair provoked outbreaks
as far afield as Hiroshima in one direction and Niigata in the
other.

It is against this background that one must set the reforms
undertaken by fatfudai lord, Mizuno Tadakuni, in the first few
years of leyoshi's rule. As an ambitious young man, Mizuno
had accepted a transfer from the fief of Karatsu in Kyushu to
the rather less valuable but more central one of Hamamatsu,
not far from Nagoya, in order to improve his chances of a
political career. This was in 1817, when he was twenty-three.
He then served in turn as governor of Osaka and governor of
Kyoto, until in 1828 he was made senior adviser to leyoshi,
the Shogun's heir. Promotion to the Council of State followed
in 1834. The accession of leyoshi increased his influence, but
it was not until 1841, with the death of leyoshi's father, that he
achieved complete control of policy and announced his inten-
tion of carrying out reforms on the lines laid down by Yoshi-
mune and Matsudaira Sadanobu. For the next two years
decrees flowed from his office in a steady stream.

Mizuno's methods of raising revenue were not strikingly
original and cannot really be described as reforms. His main
recourse was to recoinage and forced loans, the yields from
which were considerable: 1-6 million ryo from recoinage in
1841-2, equal to a whole year's revenue, and an estimated one
million ryo in loans collected from Edo and Osaka merchants
in 1843. Attempts were also made to increase the returns from
land tax. In 1842 these provoked a brief revolt in Omi pro-
vince, just east of Kyoto, when local inhabitants discovered
that a Bakufu survey party was accepting bribes as well as

26

ECONOMIC PROBLEMS AND REFORMS

using false instruments; but financially they achieved little more
than those of Mizuno's immediate predecessors. Of more in-
terest was his long-term plan for reversing the drift of rural
population to the towns. Orders were issued in the spring of
1843 which forbade new emigration into Edo, directed those
residents of the city who had no family and no permanent job
to return to their former homes, and put limits on the period
for which farmers were allowed to engage in casual urban
employment. All these were measures designed to increase the
available sources of agricultural labour.

In his attitude towards samurai debt, Mizuno did not go as
far as Matsudaira Sadanobu, who had cancelled old debts and
tried to limit interest on new ones, but he nevertheless ordered
a reduction of interest rates to 10 per cent in September 1842.
He also instituted a system of debt redemption, though it was
not generous enough to the samurai to win him much popu-
larity. It was the attempt to reduce commodity prices, however,
which was the outstanding feature of his reforms. An attack on
luxury and immorality, which involved restrictions on theatres,
brothels and other temptations to extravagance, in addition to
the customary injunctions about simplicity in food and dress,
was supplemented by a series of moves against the city mer-
chants. One of the first was the dissolution of privileged
merchant associations, on the grounds that their monopoly
practices were keeping prices high. In 1842 the government
also prohibited attempts to corner the market in particular
commodities and issued a warning against holding back goods
in the hope of greater profits. Meanwhile, attention was turned
to the retail trade. After several months of investigation by
Bakufu agents, Edo drapers were ordered to cut prices on
some items by as much as half, a general price reduction of
20 per cent being decreed shortly after. Some tradesmen tried
to evade the laws by giving short measure and poor quality,
or chose to ignore them altogether; but this was dangerous,
since the customer might prove to be a spy from the magis-
trate's office sent to test conformity with the regulations, as
many merchants soon discovered to their cost.

For all this, the controls on commerce were self-defeating.
Many businesses closed their doors to wait for better times and
it was soon made clear that nothing could force goods on to

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

the market when prices were artificially low. Even the abolition
of merchant monopolies was not an unmixed blessing, since
it destroyed the credit system on which the whole structure of
trade depended. The resulting dislocation, far from reducing
prices by enlivening competition, raised them higher stilL

From this point of view, Mizuno's experiment was an unmis-
takable failure. And failure was something a man in his posi-
tion could ill afford. Able himself, he made use of able sub-
ordinates; but he never created a personal following bound to
him by special bonds of loyalty, partly because he never identi-
fied himself fully with any particular group, partly because of
of an unsympathetic quality in his character which made him
isolated, a Puritan in an age which was far from puritanical.
By contrast, he made enemies freely: the city merchants; rivals
for power; those who suffered by his policy of retrenchment
(like the ladies of the Shogun's household). Previous reformers
had been able to sustain themselves in such a situation by their
own high rank Yoshimune a Shogun, Sadanobu a Shogun's
grandson but Mizuno was a mere fudai lord of 60,000 koku
and as such depended heavily on the support of members of
the Tokugawa family. With one of them, Tokugawa Nariaki
of Mito, he quarrelled over foreign policy in 1842, when the
question arose of modifying the seclusion laws. Others were
alienated by his plan, announced in the late summer of 1843,
to take over in the Shogun's name all land in the immediate
vicinity of Edo and Osaka, offering annual stipends to the
existing holders by way of compensation. A storm of protest
forced him to drop the scheme, but it was already too late to
save his power. On November 4, 1843, he was dismissed from
office; and though he was recalled briefly to handle a foreign
crisis in the following year, this was the end of Mizuno's active
career as a reformer. It was also the end for the time being
of attempts at Bakufu reform.

The great domains were influenced indirectly by Bakufu
economic policies, since these modified the general situation
with which they had to deal, but they were not immediately
subject to the Shogun's officers and did not have to enforce
within their own boundaries any of the reform edicts issued in
his name. They sometimes followed a similar course because

28

ECONOMIC PROBLEMS AND REFORMS

they faced similar problems. Sometimes, however, their leaders
found different solutions and achieved more lasting success.

Many domains were in financial straits long before the end
of the seventeenth century, especially those, like Satsuma and
Choshu, which had been reduced in size after suffering defeat at
the hands of the Tokugawa. Nor were the others far behind. By
1750 it was a commonplace among contemporary writers that
all daimyo were indebted to the great Osaka merchants. Funda-
mentally the reasons for this were the same as those which
impoverished the Bakufu a cash expenditure rising faster than
a rice revenue but there were certain respects in which the
domains had less responsibility for their own misfortunes and
less means of avoiding them. For example, the sankin-kotai
system required a lord to spend six months of every year in
Edo. While there he was expected to live in state, for part of
the object was to weaken him financially, with the result that
anything up to half his revenue had to be spent on the upkeep
of a permanent establishment in the capital and his own ex-
penses while living in it. From time to time, moreover, he
would face Bakufu demands for the carrying out of public
works or for troops to take part in the manning of coast defences.
These were costly items. Since they could rarely be anticipated
and few domain governments held a reserve from which to pay
them, each such demand, like the damage caused by earth-
quake or typhoon, threatened to push the level of expenditure
above that of income. Once it did so, recourse was had to
loans from city merchants and payment of interest was there-
after added to existing burdens.

For these reasons most domains ended by incurring debts
which were proportionately far greater than those of the
Bakufu. For example, Kanazawa, the largest of the to^ama
holdings, had gold and silver debts in 1785 of over 2 million
ryo> equivalent to something like three or four years revenue.
Satsuma was in much the same position, or worse, being in
debt to the extent of i - 3 million ryo in 1 807 and about 5 million
in 1829, by which time officials were finding it difficult to raise
funds even for day-to-day administration, while Choshu owed
a little over i 3 million ryo in 1840. In each case most of the
creditors were the financiers of Osaka and Edo.

Very little of a feudal lord's rice revenue was available for

29

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

interest payments on, or redemption of, these debts. The
assessed value of his domain a million koku for Kanazawa and
almost 800,000 koku for Satsuma, to take these as examples
was a statement not of revenue but of estimated total crop,
between thirty and fifty per cent of which was likely to be col-
lected in dues. Some of this went to those members of his
family, senior retainers, shrines and temples who still held land
direct. Some was earmarked for the payment of samurai sti-
pends. From the rest the fief treasury had to provide for all
the lord's private and public expenditure within his own terri-
tories, before converting what was left into cash for use else-
where. The balance available for this purpose was very small:
about 100,000 koku in Kanazawa, only 20,000 koku in Satsuma,
though there were some domains which specialized in rice
production for the market, like Sendai, and were able to spare
a great deal more. In addition there were the dues received in
cash, which were of a similar kind to those levied by the
Bakufu. Almost all these were spent outside the domain, but
their yield was low, averaging perhaps 5 per cent of total
revenue in the middle of the nineteenth century.

Like the Tokugawa, domain governments were forced by
this situation to try new ways of raising money. The prospects
of their taxing merchants were much less, of course, since the
commercial wealth of a single castle-town was not at all com-
parable with that of the great cities under Tokugawa rule.
Furthermore, they were not permitted to issue coinage and
hence had no opportunity to debase it. Their efforts therefore
took a different form. The forced loans to which they had
recourse were often required of samurai, for example, as well
as merchants, a departure from tradition that for the samurai
marked a growing divergence between his own interests and
those of his lord. Nor were the amounts negligible in them-
selves. In Kanazawa they were 10 to 15 per cent of samurai
stipends in 1794, the higher rate operating for those with larger
incomes. This was cut to between 5 and 10 per cent in 1810,
but a higher level was restored in 1830, as financial difficulties
grew, while in 1837 special Bakufu demands on the fief caused
a levy of 5 o per cent for the next three years. After this, samurai
distress again led to a general reduction, until in 1852 the rate
was down to as little as 5 per cent for the majority.

30

ECONOMIC PROBLEMS AND REFORMS

By comparison, the figures for the Shikoku domain of Tosa
seem to have been much higher. Beginning in 1728 with a
complex system of levies graded from nil to 50 per cent in
accordance with rank and income, they fluctuated throughout
the rest of the century, with the maximum occasionally forced
down to 25 per cent by samurai opposition. Indeed, samurai
poverty was so great by 1800 that the practice was abandoned
altogether. It was re-established a few years later, however,
when the maximum was again set at 50 per cent, this being the
level at which Tosa officials seem always to have aimed, though
they did not always achieve it.

Another device by which funds were raised was that of
monopoly trading. For the most part this was undertaken in
co-operation with the privileged merchants of the castle-town
who stood in much the same relationship to the domain as
did those of Edo and Osaka to the Bakufu, though their activi-
ties were on a provincial rather than a national scale and was
directed not only at increasing revenue, but also at acquiring
profit from markets outside the domain boundaries. For this
reason the monopolies were in 'export' goods, that is, those
for which there was a steady demand in other parts of the
country. Organization usually took one of two forms. Under
the first, a group of merchants would be granted exclusive
rights to purchase a given local product, on condition that they
subsequently turned it over to officials for shipment to Edo
and Osaka, where it was sold on the wholesale market. In this
way, the merchants took their profits from the producer,
the domain from the buyer. Alternatively, the domain might
control the whole process by establishing its own offices to buy
the goods, as well as to ship and sell them. In this case the
feudal lord was able to employ his political authority to fix
prices and increase the profits, while appointing merchants to
minor official posts to handle the detailed running of the
system.

From the official viewpoint, one important advantage of the
monopolies was that they produced an income in gold and
silver. This not only represented 'real* wealth in the mercan-
tilist terms common to Tokugawa Japan, but was also immedi-
ately available to meet the heavy expenses which were in-
curred in Edo. Moreover, the farmer-producer was often paid

3 1

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

in the domain's own paper money, which he was required to
accept at face value, or in some form of credit note which
could be used only in certain permitted ways. In other words,
he was forced to take a low price in a dubious form of payment.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the introduction of mono-
polies brought more unrest in the countryside and that the
merchant-officials who acted as the domain's agents were
among the most frequent targets of peasant violence.

Monopoly arrangements of various kinds increased greatly
in number between 1800 and 1830, affording evidence of the
growing financial pressure on domains. They were not, how-
ever, universally successful as a solution to financial ills. In
many cases there is no doubt that the lion's share of the profit
found its way into the pockets of the merchants who adminis-
tered the system, not into the treasury for whose benefit it was
ostensibly run, and this, together with mounting signs of rural
unrest, provoked many samurai to demand reform. In some
fiefs, usually where the daimyo was himself a man of some
ability, they were able to carry it out.

Economies in expenditure and improvements in adminis-
tration were the most familiar features of a reformer's policy,
just as they were in Edo; but, these apart, one can still identify
two main differences of emphasis in what was done. The first
constituted an attempt in the manner of Mizuno Tadakuni to
strengthen the traditional sources of feudal revenue and protect
these elements in society that did most to produce it, this in-
volving an attack on the commercialization of agriculture, on
luxury in the towns, on the decline m samurai standards of
behaviour. The second aimed at achieving solvency by ex-
ploiting commercial wealth, subordinating the interests of the
merchant to those of the domain, but co-operating with him to
some extent in monopoly arrangements made at the expense
of the farmer and the artisan. Both policies had their advocates,
often within a single domain's officialdom. All the same one
can readily cite examples of domains that chose to follow sub-
stantially one course or the other. Notable among them were
Satsuma and Choshu.

Zusho Hiromichi's career as a reformer in Satsuma stands as
one of the most successful of the period. Zusho was born in
1776 into a samurai family of low rank, but he entered his

ECONOMIC PROBLEMS AND REFORMS

lord's household and rose steadily to high office in it by 1825.
A few years later he was made responsible for financial reform,
an event which marked his emergence into the domain govern-
ment proper and was followed by new appointments and
grants of rank. From 1833 unt ^ his death in 1848 he was senior
minister with an annual stipend of a thousand koku 9 devoting
his attention largely to the task of increasing Satsuma revenue
and redeeming the domain's enormous debts.

One of his early cares was to reduce waste in the collection
of dues and in the shipment of rice to Osaka. He also took
steps to improve the yield and quality of the fief's main crops.
In more original vein, trade with the Ryukyu islands was en-
couraged, this being an indirect means of trade with China,
with which country the islands still maintained a tributary
relationship; and, most important of all, control over the sugar
production of Oshima and neighbouring areas was greatly
tightened. The latter had been a source of income to Satsuma
ever since sugar had first formed part of the Ryukyu tax pay-
ments in 1647, becoming more so in the eighteenth century,
when the domain had begun to buy up the rest of the Oshima
crop as well, making dealing in it an official monopoly. It was
left to Zusho, however, to make the controls really effective.
This he did by regulations issued in 1830, which provided that
all sugar had to be sold to the domain for subsequent disposal
in the Osaka market. The purchase price was fixed, crops were
regularly inspected and the death penalty was imposed for any
attempt at private trading, while profits were further increased
by paying the producer in credit notes which he could only
use to buy goods from official dealers at prices which were
kept artificially high.

The result of these measures was a sharp improvement in
; domain finances. Annual proceeds from sugar sales rose from
136,000 ryo in 1830 to 235,000 ryo a decade later, this being
entirely due to improvements in quality and handling, since
quantities remained the same. The profit margin must also have
risen, though no figures for it are available, in that the domain
monopolized all operations, including shipping, up to the point
where sugar was sold to wholesalers by competitive tender.
One estimate has it that something like half the returns were
profit, that is, about 100,000 ryo a year. Certainly there was

33

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

enough, with the yields from Zusho's other measures, to make
possible an expensive programme of military reform.

One factor that made such methods workable in Satsuma
was the nature of the domain's political structure: the high
proportion of samurai in the population, many of them living
permanently in the countryside, whose numbers made peasant
revolt wellnigh impossible and whose adherence to traditional
virtues greatly eased the task of subjecting merchants to samurai
control. In Choshu the position was different. There, too,
samurai were numerous, at least by comparison with Toku-
gawa lands. Many of them were also resident in villages,
though in this case it was to escape the higher cost of living
in the castle-town. Economically, however, the domain lacked
any single crop or product that could compare with Satsuma
sugar as a source of profit, while in its wealthier areas, chiefly
along the shores of the Inland Sea, development had been more
complex, more closely linked with the commercial market and
hence more difficult to regulate than in the backward regions.
Monopolies had been created at various times in salt, wax,
paper, indigo, sak and cotton, but none had brought in a sub-
stantial revenue for very long. On the other hand, all had
proved unpopular, the reactions of the farmers ranging from
evasion to outright revolt. Thus it was anti-monopoly demon-
strations near the town of Mitajiri that touched off widespread
if abortive riots throughout the province in the summer
of 1831, these being followed by further outbreaks in 1832,
1833 and 1837.,,

In 1838 a new daimyo^ Mori Yoshichika, decided to initiate
reforms, entrusting their execution to Murata Seifu, a samurai
now raised to high office for the first time, who began in the
usual manner with exhortations to frugality. Three years later
he evolved a more far-reaching plan, designed to base fief
finances on the encouragement of agriculture and the limitation
of expenditure. This his lord approved, together with its two
corollaries: first, that official participation in monopolies should
end except for a profitable shipping and warehousing organ-
ization in Shimonoseki on the grounds that they benefited
townsmen, not the treasury, and aroused hostility in rural areas;
second, that men of ability be promoted to office, regardless of
inherited rank, to ensure effective management and supervision.

34

ECONOMIC PROBLEMS AND REFORMS

It is not entirely clear how far these policies succeeded in
restoring order to the Choshu finances in the next few years,
though Murata was certainly able to build up a special reserve
for emergency use and to reduce the burdens on samurai in-
come. The result, so contemporaries reported, was a marked
improvement in Choshu morale. All the same, opposition was
not slow in coming. The merchants of the castle-town were
inevitably hostile, especially after Murata announced a plan for
redeeming the debts of both domain and samurai at rates that
were not far short of total cancellation. Equally opposed to
him were many members of the feudal class, who found it
impossible to live without their merchant loans. Together
these groups succeeded in bringing about his fall in 1844. They
substituted a government with less inflexible convictions, men
who were unwilling to attack vested interests to attain their
ends; and they thereby began a struggle for power that lasted
for the rest of the Tokugawa period. Involved on the one side
was the party of monopolies and the established order. It had
the backing of most upper samurai, if not always of the feudal
lord, and stood for a conservatism that varied from the mod-
erate to the extreme. On the other side were the advocates of
austere reform, deriving support from elements that grew in-
creasingly more varied and more radical: samurai looking to a
feudal past, farmers seeking freedom from monopolist re-
straints, ambitious village headmen, young idealists. Twenty
years later, transformed by time into an anti-Tokugawa move-
ment, it was the reformers who finally gained the upper hand.

The reform movements of leyoshi's era played a significant
part in the events which led to the Bakufu's fall. In the first
place, the fact that a number of domains had greater success
than the Tokugawa in overcoming financial crisis weakened the
latter as compared with feudal lords who were potentially their
rivals. This was merely to confirm a shift in the balance of
economic power which was already taking place, arising, on the
one hand, from the uneven growth in agricultural yields during
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which tended to
benefit those whose holdings, because they were in peripheral
regions, included more marginal land that could be brought
under cultivation; and, on the other, from the development of

35

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

a commercial economy in the fertile and thickly populated
areas of the south and west, which increased the resources
available to domains without as yet posing problems of organ-
ization of the same order as those that Edo found insoluble.
Several domains found means to tap these new resources,
raising their tax returns to an appreciably higher level. Some,
moreover, were able to exploit particular advantages of geo-
graphy and climate. Satsuma, for example, had access to the
trade and sugar of Ryukyu; Choshu dominated the western
approaches to the Inland Sea, most important of commercial
shipping routes; Tosa had rich fishing grounds and a valuable
paper industry. All three attained a degree of financial stability
that enabled them to provide active leadership in the history
of the next few decades.

The change involved political as well as economic factors.
Among them must be counted the accident of personality, that
is, the emergence of reforming daimyo^ like Mori Yoshichika of
Choshu and Shimazu Nariakira of Satsuma, who raised young
men of modest rank though always samurai rank, for this
was a condition of entrance to the daimytfs household to
form a new administrative elite. They included, too, the
environment that gave these young men drive and purpose:
a combination of poverty and opportunity that had almost
explosive force. Together they created an age of political fac-
tion and debate. There were those, as we have seen, who
looked to agriculture as the basis of both respectability and
finance. Others looked to trade, or at least had no desire to
lose the comforts it made possible. In addition, there were
samurai interest groups of a different kind: men of high rank
and little energy, clinging grimly to power; exponents of tradi-
tional skills in gunnery or fencing, for example whose status
and privileges were soon to be challenged by the importation
of new techniques; and c men of ability', usually from the middle
or lower strata of the samurai class, seeking outlets for ambition
as well as opportunities for reform. All tended to organize, to
seek allies, to vie with each other for positions of authority.
In the process they gave experience of politics and office to a
widening circle, from which was to be drawn the future rulers
of Japan.

Yet it would be unwise to assume that there was anything

ECONOMIC PROBLEMS AND REFORMS

like identity in the political patterns that took shape in dif-
ferent areas, or that a coherent national movement was emerg-
ing. Still less can one describe reform as anti-feudal or anti-
Bakufu at this stage. On the contrary, it was designed, it has
been said, c to shake off the dead hand of conservatism and
lethargy so characteristic of later Tokugawa rule . . . without
precipitating any cataclysmic changes'. 8 It was not until the
18505 that extremer views gained hold, another decade before
they became politically effective. The shift of emphasis, more-
over, when it came, was to be linked with something new, a
consciousness of external threat arising from relations with the
West. It is to a consideration of this that we must therefore
turn.

37

CHAPTER III

JAPAN AND THE WEST

Western attempts to open trade the Opium War Japanese
reactions developments in shipping and armaments

WHEN THE third Tokugawa ruler, lemitsu, took the final
steps in establishing Japan's policy of national seclusion in the
seventeenth century, he did so for reasons that seemed to him
practical and cogent. Christianity he regarded as an instrument
of foreign ambitions, to be stamped out by every means at his
disposal. Trade, which might provide guns and gold to a dis-
affected vassal, ought to be limited and controlled. Hence priests
were excluded; those who brought them were punished; and
the few Dutch and Chinese merchants still permitted at Naga-
saki were closely watched. With the passage of time, trade itself
came into disfavour, on the grounds that what the foreigners
brought were luxuries and what they took were goods that
Japan could hardly spare, while the suspicions on which
lemitsu had acted became inflated by constant repetition until
the whole structure of his belief became hallowed as ancestral
law.

The difficulty about enforcing this law, however, was that
it depended on the willingness of other countries to accept the
ban, as well as on Japan's ability to resist any demands they
might make for its removal. In both respects the position
changed gradually to Japan's disadvantage. Advances in Euro-
pean science and technology, unmatched elsewhere, had by the
nineteenth century made it impossible for Japan to defend her-
self successfully in the event of war. Similarly, a new wave of
European expansion, linked with the growth of industry and a
search for markets, ensured that she would not be left alone
for ever. In the south, after about 1 775 , Britain, followed by the

JAPAN AND THE WEST

United States, began to establish an important trade with
China. In the north, Russian settlements appeared on the Sea
of Okhotsk, from which explorers eventually made contact
with Japan.

Russian attention was first drawn to that country by the
discovery of a Japanese castaway on Kamchatka in 1697. There
followed a number of exploratory voyages to the Kuriles and
Hokkaido, but it was not until 1792 that Adam Laxman, with
Catherine the Great's approval, left Okhotsk in a formal
attempt to communicate with Japan under the pretext of
returning a group of shipwrecked seamen. He wintered in
Hokkaido and had amicable discussions with officials there, but
in July 1793 was told he must not continue to Edo. Nor was
he allowed to open questions of trade, since this, it was said,
could only be done at Nagasaki. However, he was given a
permit for one Russian ship to visit that port for the purpose
of making the request.

The permit was not used until after the establishment of the
Russian- American Company in 1799, when Nikolai Rezanov,
a shareholder in the company and an advocate of Russian
commercial expansion in China and Japan, secured imperial
approval for a further voyage, together with a letter from
Alexander I for delivery to the Japanese government. He sailed
from Kronstadt in 1803 and reached Kamchatka, via Cape
Horn, in the following year, eventually arriving at Nagasaki on
October 20, 1804. There his reception was far from friendly.
His ship was put under close guard while a copy of the Tsar's
letter was sent to Edo. Moreover, the accommodation provided
for him ashore was more a prison than an ambassador's resi-
dence and he was forced to wait six months for the Bakufu's
decision. When, after all this, permission to go to Edo was
refused and all the Russian proposals were rejected, Rezanov
was furious; and before returning home he left orders with two
Russian officers in Okhotsk which led to a series of raids on
Japanese settlements in the north during 1806 and 1807. This in
turn embittered the Japanese, who had their revenge a few years
later when they sei'zed the captain of a Russian survey vessel,
Vasilii Golovnin, who landed on one of the Kurile islands in
July 1811, holding him prisoner in Hokkaido for a little over
two years until his ship returned with official disclaimers of

39

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

the 1806-7 raids from the governor of Irkutsk. Thereafter
Russo-Japanese relations for a generation or more were re-
duced to scattered contact in the islands.

British relations with Japan in this period were equally
sporadic. In 1791 a private trader, James Colnett, cruised up
the west coast of Kyushu, trying cautiously to open trade by
approaches to ships offshore, but his total failure seems to have
discouraged others from repeating the experiment. Then in
1808 a British frigate, the Phaeton, entered Nagasaki harbour
under Dutch colours and took hostages to ensure the prompt
supply of stores. Such high-handed action caused a great
commotion ashore, but it was in fact incidental to the Phaeton's
purpose: she was concerned merely to seize Dutch ships, as a
part of wartime operations against Napoleon's empire. How-
ever, the incident had repercussions a few years later, when a
deliberate attack on Japan's seclusion was planned by Thomas
Stamford Raffles. As lieutenant-governor of Java, newly cap-
tured from the Dutch, Raffles tried twice in 1813-14 to substi-
tute a British trade with Deshima for that of Holland. Each
time the men he sent to carry out his orders were foiled by the
Dutch factor at Deshima, Hendrik Doeff, who threatened to
reveal their identity to Japanese officials and so involve them
in the hostility incurred by the Phaeton's action. The effective-
ness of this threat depended partly on the fact that Raffles'
policy had been coldly received in London and was actively
opposed by the governor-general in Calcutta, which made it
necessary for him to proceed with caution, but in any case .the
opportunity to act at all was not of long duration, since Java
was handed back to the Dutch soon after.

In the next twenty years British interest in Japan was rare
and action based upon it even rarer. An unsuccessful private
voyage was made to Edo Bay in 1818 and on several occasions
whaling vessels, now operating off the Japanese coast, came
into contact with Japanese villagers, but this was all. A further
attempt to open Japan did not come until 1837, when it took
the form of a joint Anglo-American venture. The story of it
began when a Japanese junk, on a coasting voyage to Edo at
the end of 1832, was dismasted and driven off its course by a
typhoon. Drifting for months across the Pacific, with a few of
its crew managing to exist on rain-water and the ship's cargo

40

JAPAN AND THE WEST

of rice, it was wrecked on the north-west coast of America,
where three survivors were rescued from the Indians in 1834
by the Hudson's Bay Company's factor at Fort Vancouver.
Thinking it possible that they might be welcome as an excuse
for negotiating with Japan, he sent them to London in 1835,
but the British government showed little enthusiasm for this
as a pretext for an official mission. They were duly transferred
to Canton later in the year. Here Captain Elliott, Second
Superintendent of Trade, evolved the same plan as had already
occurred to the Vancouver factor. He wrote to Palmerston
suggesting that the opportunity be taken to send the castaways
back by warship and so open a correspondence with Japan,
only to find himself firmly snubbed in a Foreign Office dis-
patch of September 1836. This put an end to any possibility of
government action, though it still left the problem of how to
get the men back to their own country, since the Foreign
Office recommendation that they be sent "quietly home' in a
Chinese junk was impracticable for a variety of reasons.

A solution was found in the arrangements being made by
two Americans, a merchant, C. W. King, and a missionary,
Dr S. Wells Williams. They, too, had Japanese castaways
in this case, four from Manila and hopes of gaining access
to Japan. In consultation with Elliott they agreed to add his
three charges to their company, the whole expedition, privately
financed, to proceed to Edo Bay in the ship Morrison after
calling at the Ryukyu capital of Naha. The plan was carried
out in the summer of 1837, only to fail in both its public and
its private objects. On July 30 of that year, the Morrison
dropped anchor off Uraga and was visited by crowds of
Japanese, both impassive officials and curious sightseers. Yet
at dawn next day, before any formal discussions could take
place, shore batteries opened fire on the anchorage, forcing the
unarmed ship to sea. An attempt a few days later to establish
communication with the shore at Kagoshima in the south of
Kyushu met the same response. On August 27, therefore,
with castaways, bibles and trade goods still intact, the Morrison
returned to the China coast.

The Morrison affair, it transpired, marked the end of an era.
A little over two years later war broke out between Britain and
China, the so-called Opium War, which revolutionized the

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

international politics of the region. By the treaty settlement of
1842-3 Britain acquired Hong Kong and opened additional
Chinese ports to foreign trade as far north as Shanghai at the
mouth of the Yangtse. This increased the possibility of visits
to Japan, planned or unplanned, since Shanghai was a mere
500 miles from Nagasaki. Moreover, the resulting growth in
trade soon meant that many more European merchants and far
greater financial interests were involved, so that Japan was no
longer to be regarded as beyond the farthest point of Europe's
longest trade route, but rather as being on the fringe of an
area of increasing concern to European governments. The Far
East in general began to loom larger in the calculations of
Western statesmen. Accordingly, they provided it with the
appurtenances of modern diplomacy consuls and gunboats
and by so doing made it easier to plan official missions to
Japan. These could now be carried out with the resources of
men and ships which were locally available. In other words,
certain practical advantages in pursuing relations with Japan
which only Russia had previously possessed were now ex-
tended to the maritime powers.

The change was reflected in the character of Japan's visitors
in the next decade or so, almost all of whom were official
representatives of their respective countries. For example,
Japan, because its geography was so little known, acquired a
certain importance as a possible danger to navigation. In 1843
a British survey ship, HMS Samarang^ was put to work on the
islands running north-east from Formosa and this brought her
to Nagasaki in August 1845 with a request for stores. She
carried out a surreptitious survey of the harbour before leaving.
Four years later another vessel, HMS Mariner,, arrived from
Shanghai to survey the approaches to Edo; and despite Japan-
ese objections she was able to acquire much useful information
about the two ports of Uraga and Shimoda, and about Sagami
Bay, which lies between them. All this was naval routine, with-
out ulterior diplomatic motives, but it undoubtedly looked
ominous to many observers.

There was, indeed, good reason for supposing that Euro-
pean governments would be forced by mercantile opinion at
home to put an end to Japanese seclusion. There were many
merchants, officials and even missionaries in the West who

42

JAPAN AND THE WEST

thought that what had been done to force trade on China was
not only right in itself, but also exemplified a principle which
should be applied to Japan as well. The Edinburgh Review put
the argument as follows:

'The compulsory seclusion of the Japanese is a wrong not only to
themselves, but to the civilized world . . . The Japanese undoubtedly
have an exclusive right to the possession of their territory; but they
must not abuse that right to the extent of debarring all other nations
from a participation in its riches and virtues. The only secure title
to property, whether it be a hovel or an empire, is, that the exclusive
possession of one is for the benefit of all.' 9

Ministers had henceforth to take this sort of thinking into
account when framing policy.

It was in 1844 that Japanese attention was first directed
officially to the situation which the Opium War had brought
about. In the summer of that year a Dutch ship arrived at
Nagasaki bringing a letter to the Shogun from the Dutch king,
William II, setting out the changes which industrialization was
causing in Europe's relations with the rest of the world and
underlining their dangerous implications for Japan. The letter
took the form of friendly advice, urging the Japanese govern-
ment to reconsider the seclusion policy while it was still able
to do so free from outside pressure. It was clear enough, how-
ever, that Holland hoped for advantages for herself and that
the letter was meant to be a preliminary to negotiation. Edo
certainly so regarded it. Nevertheless, the Bakufu's reply to
the Dutch was negative and uncompromising. Dated July 5,
1845, it reiterated the traditional view: foreign trade was
limited by ancestral law to China and Holland; its extension to
other countries could not be considered; correspondence on
this subject must therefore cease and never be resumed.

Such an answer would almost certainly have been rejected
by Britain or Russia, but it happened that action on their part
was prevented, or at least delayed, by other considerations. It
was in 1845, in fact, that Britain first made secret plans for a
mission to Japan, proposed in May by Sir John Davis, Super-
intendent of Trade at Hong Kong, and approved some months
later by Aberdeen at the Foreign Office, with the expectation
that they would be carried out during the summer of 1846; but

43

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

in the event Davis allowed them to lapse because the navy's
China squadron could not put at his disposal the amount of
force which he considered necessary. And since there was not
enough interest in the matter at Whitehall to make the govern-
ment take action on its own, Davis's decision was accepted and
the matter was allowed to drop, though subsequent Super-
intendents were provided with authority to go to Japan should
a suitable opportunity arise. All of them proved too pre-
occupied with the affairs of China to try to do so.

For Russia the reasons were different but the effect the same.
After the Opium War, Nicholas I had established a committee
to review Russia's position in the Amur region in the light of
new conditions; and a member of it, Rear-Admiral Putiatin,
had put forward plans for surveying the Amur estuary and
sending an expedition to Japan. They were approved by the
Tsar in 1843, but were then opposed by the Foreign Minister,
Nesselrode, on the grounds that Russia had no Pacific trade
which was worth such effort. This proved decisive, with the
result that, although the Amur survey was carried out on a
small scale, nothing at all was done about Japan. The fact was
that Japanese trade was never likely to be of more than sub-
sidiary interest to Russia, important chiefly for its local value
to her setdements round the Sea of Okhotsk. On the other
hand, there were other motives than trade that might bring
about negotiation. Russia was a territorial power in north-east
Asia, with political and strategic interests there which made
her inevitably concerned at any possible growth in the influence
of other Western countries, such as might easily be occasioned
by the opening of Japanese ports. She therefore watched
closely the moves, not only of Britain, but also of the United
States.

American interests in the Pacific were both commercial,
like those of Britain, and strategic, like those of Russia, a
combination which sufficiently explains why it was the United
States that in the end successfully forced a way into Japanese
waters. Her first official attempt to do so began in 1845, when
a merchant, Aaron Palmer, persuaded his government that
trade with Japan held out good prospects. At Palmer's urging,
orders were given to Commodore James Biddle, in command
of the Pacific squadron, permitting him to go to Japan and

44

JAPAN AND THE WEST

investigate the possibilities of agreement, an opportunity of
which he took advantage in July 1846. Unfortunately for his
chances of success, he had been instructed to avoid provoca-
tion. He therefore let pass an incident at the anchorage in Edo
Bay which was widely interpreted as a gratuitous insult to his
rank. This brought down on him more criticism from his
fellow-countrymen and other Western residents on the China
coast even than his readiness to accept a Japanese reply which
was a flat refusal to grant trade or privileges and which was
undated, unsigned and unaddressed. On all sides it was said
that Biddle had left the situation rather worse than he had
found it. His experiences certainly helped to persuade Sir John
Davis to abandon the projected British mission. What is more,
no greater success awaited another American venture three
years later, when the USS Preble was sent to Nagasaki. Her
commander secured the ostensible object of his voyage, the
release of some seamen shipwrecked from an American whaler,
but made no headway in his efforts to establish a consul in
Japan and acquire a coaling station there.

On these occasions, American policy had not been pressed
any more forcefully than that of Russia or of Britain. America's
position with respect to the Pacific, however, was changing'
quickly. British recognition of US rights in the Oregon terri-
tory in 1 846 and the acquisition of California after the war with
Mexico in 1846-8 gave her a long Pacific coastline. A trans-
continental railway was already being discussed, in terms of
trade with Asia as well as of development at home, while the
newly formed Pacific Mail Steamship Company was planning
a route to China. Thus Japan suddenly became a factor of real
importance. Her harbours and reported coal deposits lay
directly on the route from San Francisco to Shanghai. Conse-
quently her notorious lack of hospitality for seamen in distress
or in need of supplies, displeasing enough when it affected only
whalers, could not be tolerated any longer. For her coastal
waters were to become a major shipping lane, used by steamers
which at this early state of their development had a very
limited range; and whether or not Japanese trade was likely
to be of value, Japanese seclusion had therefore become an
offence. The next attack on it was likely to be more determined.

This was made very clear in 1852 when it was announced

45

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

that a new American expedition would go to Japan under the
command of Commodore M, C. Perry. He was to be accom-
panied by a sizeable force and would not be able lightly to turn
away, for the whole world, including Japan, was told of the
plan and its preparations. The Western press debated ends
and means, confidently predicting that guns would be used
if arguments failed. European governments, officially notified
of America's intention, sought to clarify their attitude to it.
Britain, it appeared, was prepared to let things take their
course. "Her Majesty's Government', the Foreign Secretary
wrote to Hong Kong in July 1852, 'would be glad to see the
trade with Japan open; but they think it better to leave it to
the Government of the United States to make the experiment;
and if that experiment is successful, Her Majesty's Government
can take advantage of its success.' 10 Russia, by contrast, hur-
riedly revived the plans of 1843 and appointed Putiatin to take
a squadron to Japan, with orders to watch over Russian in-
terests and ensure that his country had a voice in any settle-
ment. Thus Japan had become the destination, not of single
ships, but of powerful and rival squadrons, one sailing from
America's east coast in November 1852, the other leaving
Europe two months later. To almost everyone it was apparent
that the closed door must open or it would be broken down.

The development of Russian, British and American interest in
the Far East, although known to Tokugawa officials, affected
Japanese policy only in causing more attention to be paid to
coast defence. Domains on the coast were told to keep watch
for foreign ships and to have troops ready to repel them. In
1825 they were even ordered to fire on them at sight. This rule
was cancelled in 1842, when Mizuno Tadakuni, influenced by
events in China, issued instructions that vessels in distress were
to be provided with essential stores before being ordered to
depart, but he coupled this with a warning that the relaxation
was not to become an excuse for carelessness over military
precautions. His successor, Abe Masahiro, who became senior
councillor in March 1845, was equally cautious. He showed
himself willing to overlook Satsuma evasion of the strict letter
of the seclusion laws in the Ryukyu islands, but not, as we have
seen, to enter into negotiations with the occasional Western

JAPAN AND THE WEST

representatives who reached Japan. Until 1853, basic policies
in this respect remained unchanged.

Yet this is not to say that basic policies were never ques-
tioned. From the end of the eighteenth century, Japanese
scholars most of whom were samurai, many of them having
considerable influence as officials, teachers, or advisers to their
lords had begun seriously to debate the political and eco-
nomic implications of seclusion. Among the first to do so were
the Rangakusha, or 'Dutch scholars', those who studied the
Dutch language in order to make use of books imported
through the Deshima factory. Early representatives of the
group had concentrated largely on European medicine and
similar topics, but after 1790, as foreign visits to Japan in-
creased, some of them turned to geography, world affairs and
even politics. This led inevitably to a consideration of their
country's foreign relations. One, for example, wrote a pam-
phlet in 1838 about the Morrison venture, under the title 'Story
of a Dream'. His facts were garbled, but the point of his
remarks was clear enough: Britain was a powerful adversary,
well able to resent insult, and Japan had best beware how she
treated British missions. In other words, seclusion might prove
dangerous. For this, which officials chose to regard as an
attack on the regime, the author was later imprisoned.

One of the most famous of the Rangakusha was Sakuma
Shozan, a samurai of Matsushiro in Shinano, whose lord,
Sanada Yukitsura, was appointed to the Council of State in
Mizuno Tadakuni's time and put in charge of coast defence.
A knowledge of and interest in defence policy, acquired
through this connection, led Sakuma to a study of the Dutch
language and Western military science, for he became con-
vinced that only weapons of the Western type would enable
Japan to defend herself successfully. It was a case which he
proceeded to argue in a number of memorials to his lord. In
1 842, pointing to the dangers of Russian and British attack, he
urged that Japan must prepare for the struggle by purchasing
modern armaments and by learning to make them, too. Within
six years he had himself learnt the technique of casting cannon.
Nor were his studies confined to the mechanical, though they
continued to have a practical and military bent. In 1849 we find
him petitioning Sanada for financial help in the preparation of

47

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

a Dutch-Japanese dictionary and the publication of Dutch
books, a plan he justified on the grounds that it was necessary
'to know one's enemy'. 11 In the following year he sought
Bakufu help as well, arguing still more generally the superi-
ority of Western science over that of China and Japan.
Western countries had been able to achieve overwhelming
material strength, he said, 'because foreign learning is rational
and Chinese learning is not'. 12 It was China's failure to recog-
nize this which had been responsible for her defeat; and if
Japan wished to avoid the same fate she must study what the
West had to teach her in a variety of fields, not merely those
which were of direct application to war.

Notwithstanding his growing, if reluctant, admiration for
'the West's achievements, Sakuma always remained wedded
to Japanese tradition in non-technical matters, an attitude he
expressed in the slogan, 'Eastern ethics, Western science',
which was to be not far short of an official doctrine for a time
after the Meiji Restoration. Sakuma, however, never lived to
see this happen. He died in 1864 at the age of fifty-three, mur-
dered by an anti-foreign extremist from Choshu an ironic
ending for a man who had spent over twenty years seeking
means to preserve Japan from foreign aggression and had not
long before been in prison for criticizing the Bakufu's weakness
in diplomatic negotiations.

Men like Sakuma became involved in politics because foreign
affairs was a political issue. Others did so because they identified
themselves from the beginning with proposals for reform
within Japan. Among the latter, for example, was Sato Shinen
(1769-1850), advocate of radical economic and political change,
of military reform and overseas expansion. Some of his lack of
orthodoxy was undoubtedly due to family background, since
he came of a non-samurai family in northern Japan which for
several generations had produced experts in agriculture, fores-
try and mining. But much of it was in the man himself. He
travelled extensively throughout Japan, making careful notes
of all that interested him, and acquired a knowledge of Dutch
which he used in the study of Western geography, history,
navigation and military science. As a result he was far better
equipped than most of his contemporaries to prescribe cures
for the country's ills. He was initially much in favour of

48

JAPAN AND THE WEST

expanding foreign trade. However, when news of the Opium
War reached Japan he began to wonder whether the economic
advantages of trade were commensurate with its political risks.
The same period saw him become hesitant about the possi-
bilities of empire. He had argued in earlier days that Japan's
geographical position, organizing ability and superior moral
fibre made it inevitable, as well as desirable, that she should
dominate China and the areas further west; but he now began
to dwell anxiously on the subject of defence, as Chinese defeats
began to sap his confidence.

This was a common response to the Opium War among
writers of the time. More interesting in many ways was Sato's
recognition that economic and military strength could not be
achieved independently of political structure. In one of his
books he described the sort of state as purposeful and highly
regulated a state as Sparta which he would wish to see
established in Japan. Government, he maintained, should be
conducted through separate departments handling agriculture,
forestry and mining, finance and commerce, manufacture, and
the army and navy, with the whole population divided into
hereditary classes defined by function, each under the control
of one of these departments. Change of occupation would be
forbidden and each group segregated from the others. This
would ensure that children acquired a knowledge of their
family trade in their earliest years, thus increasing specialization
and efficiency. From the age of eight, moreover, children
would be entitled to free education in one of the provincial
schools run by a Department of Education, receiving a training
designed to increase their value to the state. There would also
be a national university for the privileged and able, providing,
in addition to traditional subjects like philosophy and religion,
instruction in law, foreign languages and Western science.

Sato's proposals foreshadow many features of Japanese life
in the later nineteenth century, even perhaps especially in
their disconcerting blend of the grim and the enlightened.
Sakuma, too, provided ideas which were used by statesmen
after 1868. In this respect they both, like other men of similar
outlook, contributed to the process we call 'modernization'.
On the other hand, it does not follow that they played a direct
part in bringing about the fall of the Tokugawa, which was

49

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

to be the prelude to modernization and the key to its success.
In fact, the work of the early nineteenth century Mito
scholars was far more relevant to this stage of the political
process.

The Mito domain, held by one of the three senior Tokugawa
branch houses, had long been a centre of Confucian scholar-
ship. For generations its official scholars had engaged in
writing a chronicle of early Japanese history, an undertaking
which gave them a reputation for patriotism and, apparently,
a lively interest in contemporary affairs. Certainly the new
crisis in Japan's foreign relations which came in the eighteenth
century caused them great concern. In 1797 one of them,
Fujita Yukoku, warned his lord of the danger of Russian attack,
criticizing the Bakufu for its failure to make adequate prepara-
tions to meet it and urging that Mito, as a coastal fief, had a
special duty to do so on its own account. As means to this end
he specified two things which were to be central to Mito
thinking for sixty years: armaments and reform. He added that
the country's leaders must show such resolution as would unite
the nation, raise morale and so make victory sure.

These ideas were further developed by Aizawa Seishisai in
a book called Shinron (New Proposals) written in 1825 and by
Yukoku's son, Fujita Toko, in his Hitachi obi (Sash of Hitachi)
twenty years later. Both argued that the urgent task was to
arouse Japan to a sense of danger and to unite the country in
its own defence. This done, the rest of their plans would have
some meaning: the provision of new weapons, including
Western-style ships; financial reform, to pay for them; and the
promotion of men of ability, to secure sound administration
on which all else depended. Yet a revival of traditional spirit,
overcoming luxury and lethargy, could not be achieved by
exhortation. Only one thing would suffice to do it, they said,
an announcement that the government was resolved once and
for all to reject foreign demands and fight to defend seclusion.
The slogan must be c expel the barbarian 7 (;W). In other words,
the ports must remain closed and trade must be refused, even
if this meant war.

By 1853, then, the Mito scholars had reached some very
definite conclusions about foreign affairs. Japan, they believed,
could only attain national strength and international equality

50

JAPAN AND THE WEST

by achieving unity at home. This, in turn, depended on war or
the threat of war. Hence the Bakufu must be uncompromising
in negotiation. Unfortunately, however, there was a danger
that Bakufu officials, fearing defeat, might be willing to tem-
porise in the hope of avoiding conflict, a possibility which
called in question the Bakufu' s capacity for leadership and
shifted the discussion of reform to a new and ominous
level. Suggestions were made that the Shogun should consult
the great lords those whose views were reliable, of course
in addition to the usual officials. There were even some who
urged that success could never be complete until the emperor
became once again a focus of national government, creating
unity by transcending other loyalties.

This doctrine of imperial sovereignty had always been latent
in Japanese thought. In the eighteenth century, however, it
had emerged more widely because of attempts to revive the
Shinto religion, which owed much to the studies of ancient
Japanese literature and society by the scholar Motoori Nori-
naga (1730-1801). His work served to resurrect one particular
set of Shinto beliefs that were ultimately of great political im-
portance: briefly, that the Japanese emperor was descended
directly from the sun-goddess; that his claim to temporal power
rested on divine descent; that the Japanese islands and people
were also of divine origin; and that Japan was by these facts
made superior to other lands. The chauvinist element in this
was made explicit in the nineteenth century by the publicist,
Hirata Atsutane (1776-1843). 'Japanese', he wrote, c differ com-
pletely from and are superior to the peoples of China, India,
Russia, Holland, Siam, Cambodia, and all other countries of
the world.' 13 It was a comforting thought to men who knew
that Western countries possessed much power and an apparent
willingness to use it against Japan.

Neo-Shinto ideas of this kind gained considerable influence
among those who wrote on foreign affairs. This was largely, no
doubt, because their anti-foreign flavour accorded well with
the fears and suspicions aroused by Western encroachment, but
it helped also to turn men's minds towards the emperor as a
means of healing political divisions. Some of these divisions,
after all, were the result of Tokugawa supremacy. Others deeply
involved the samurai class, of which the Shogun was the

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

appointed head. The Shogun, therefore, was not an entirely
satisfactory focus of loyalty, whereas the emperor, being above
the discord, was. Thus a second slogan, 'honour the emperor'
(son-no), eventually came into being to reinforce that which
called for expelling the barbarian.

In this way, foreign policy became linked with issues of
domestic politics: first, because political and economic reform
was regarded as an essential part of defence preparations;
second, because men began to look to the emperor as a source
of unity in the face of foreign threat. All the same, it would be
quite wrong to describe this as being from the start a deliberate
attack on Tokugawa authority. Even allowing for the fact that
such ideas would have been dangerous to express, it is still
significant that contemporary literature reveals practically noth-
ing in the way of threats to overthrow the existing order.
When the Mito scholars spoke of 'reform', they meant policies
that would make the best of society as it was. When they
talked of 'honouring the emperor', they meant to strengthen
the Shogun's power in a time of growing unrest by using the
emperor's name in the Bakufu's service. The way to unity was
through a loyalty that must be duly hierarchical. As Tokugawa
Nariaki, lord of Mito, wrote in 1842:

'If the Shogun takes the lead in showing respect for the throne,
the whole country will naturally be united, but it is vital that in this
each should preserve his proper place. The samurai shows respect
for his lord, the lord shows respect for the Shogun, the Shogun
shows respect for the Emperor.' 14

One can hardly call this subversive.

It took the events of 1853-60, with which we shall deal in
the next chapter, to make the ideas of the Mito school the basis
for an anti-Tokugawa movement. By that time they had been
disseminated widely by the writings and personal teaching of
the domain's outstanding scholars, Fujita Toko and Aizawa
Seishisai, the first of whom lived till 1855 and the second till
1863. Their fame was such that many came to study under
them. Others met them in Edo or learnt their views at second
hand, until it is fair to say that most samurai of the period
knew at least their slogans.

This was to be enormously important. Nevertheless, their

52

JAPAN AND THE WEST

only sure way of influencing policy, as distinct from opinion,
was through their lord, Tokugawa Nariaki, whose actions in
this period speak eloquently of their success. In 1842 he op-
posed Mizuno Tadakuni's plan to relax the seclusion laws, on
the grounds that it was pusillanimous. In 1846 he urged Abe
Masahiro, the senior Bakufu councillor, to arrange for trans-
lations of Dutch works on military subjects to be made widely
available as a step towards improving Japan's defences. In 1853
and after he was a consistent opponent of diplomatic con-
cession and an advocate of Bakufu reform. Since he was not
only a senior member of the Tokugawa house, but also,
through the marriage of his daughters and the adoption of
his sons, closely connected with two leading families of the
Imperial Court and several of the most powerful to^ama lords,
his advice was not lightly to be rejected or ignored. Nor did
Nariaki confine himself to the giving of advice. Within the
boundaries of his own domain he was free to do many things
without interference from the Shogun and he therefore did
what he could to prepare for the coming struggle. His financial
and administrative reforms became a model. In addition, by
encouraging the study and use of Western techniques which
had military importance, he put Mito in the forefront of
modernization in the 1 8 5 os, with an iron industry and western-
style shipbuilding already established on a small scale by 1858.
Meanwhile, however, his plans had brought him into conflict
with Bakufu authority. In 1844, because he had begun casting
cannon without Edo's permission in direct contravention of
the regulations governing internal security he was ordered to
retire from headship of the fief in favour of his son. This he
did, but his personal standing was such that he continued to
dominate Mito policies until his death in 1860.

Tokugawa Nariaki and Mito were not alone in turning to
Western technology for anti-Western ends, though others did
not always justify their actions by the same loyalist and chau-
vinistic reasoning. A number of domains, as well as the Bakufu
itself, encouraged Dutch studies and established translation
offices. One or two, those which had the necessary economic
resources, tried to put what they learnt to use. Conspicuous
among them were Hizen and Satsuma, the former under
Nabeshima Kanso (1814-71), daimyo from 1831 to 1861, the

c 53

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

latter under Shimazu Nariakira (1809-58), daimyo from 1851
to 1858.

Nabeshima, as the man responsible for the Nagasaki defences,
was able to tackle the problems of cannon-founding with
Bakufu support and Dutch technical advice. In 1 8 5 o his domain
built Japan's first successful reverberatory furnace, thus obtain-
ing the higher quality iron which was needed to replace copper
in making modern cannon. Production of these began in 1853.
Thereafter the technique was applied regularly to supply the
Bakufu with weapons, while a number of other lords, including
those of Satsuma and Mito, sent men to learn it. From guns
Hizen turned to shipping, experimenting first with models and
then ordering a complete shipbuilding plant from Holland in
1856. It proved too expensive and was handed over to the
Tokugawa in 1859, but even without it Hizen was able to turn
out a ship's boiler in 1861 and a small steamer in 1865. Three
years later an agreement was made for joint operation of the
Takashima colliery with a British firm.

Much of this development took place after the ports were
opened in 1 8 5 8, but it is significant that much of it had started
well before. The same was true in Satsuma. Attempts to im-
prove artillery methods there had begun under Zusho Hiro-
michi in 1842 and had been followed by the introduction of
some Western techniques in gun-making in 1846. When
Shimazu Nariakira became daimyo^ however, the speed and
scope of change increased considerably. In 1852 artillery
specialists were ordered to learn Western drill, while in
1853, reverberatory and blast furnaces were built, copied from
Hizen, so that Satsuma, too, was able to turn out modern
weapons. In the same years Dutch infantry methods were
studied, the castle-town samurai were reorganized into com-
panies for training, and a start was made on creating a cavalry
force after French models. In 1856 Satsuma began to train a
Western-style navy with samurai volunteers. Docks had already
been built at Kagoshima the previous year and a steamer
launched, though most of the domain's modern ships were
acquired by purchase from abroad: seventeen of them between
1854 and 1 8 6 8 . In addition, a number of non-military industries
were established or improved by the use of the new technology,
including the manufacture of leather goods, paper, iron tools,

54

JAPAN AND THE WEST

glass and porcelain. So rapidly were the results apparent that
a Dutch visitor to Kagoshima in 185 8, some months before
Japan's ports were fully opened to foreign trade, estimated
that over 1,200 men were employed in the domain's industrial
undertakings.

In Bakufu territories it seems to have been more difficult for
military reformers to make headway. Takashima Shuhan, for
example, a minor official in Nagasaki, tried to persuade Edo in
1841 to adopt Western drill and use modern guns, like those he
had just imported from Holland on his own responsibility. He
was ordered to start a training school to teach his methods, but
incurred the suspicions of jealous and conservative seniors, at
whose instigation he was imprisoned the following year. A
similar fate overtook many of the "Dutch scholars', though the
Bakufu had been sufficiently aware of their usefulness to estab-
lish a translation office as early as 1808. In fact, little was done
in the way of modernization by the Shogun's government until
Perry arrived in 1853. Even then progress was slow and de-
pended on foreign technicians. A naval training school with
Dutch instructors was founded in 1855 and shipbuilding was
begun at Uraga and Shimoda in 1855-6. Work was started
on constructing a Nagasaki iron foundry in 1857, again with
foreign help, and this was completed in 1861, though its facili-
ties for ship repair soon proved inadequate. Subsequently the
Bakufu obtained French assistance and began to work on a
larger scale, but this phase belongs to the years of the regime's
fall and discussion of it is best left to a later chapter.

In all this the Bakufu acted too slowly and with too little
imagination, letting the initiative in modernization fall into the
hands of a few of the great domains, whose financial reforms
had made such development possible and whose leaders recog-
nized the need. As a result, the gap which had set the Tokugawa
so much above their rivals a century earlier, akeady reduced by
economic change, was narrowed further. Indeed, the effective-
ness of the Bakufu's military establishment was soon brought
to a level only slightly above that of its potential enemies. Its
authority was diminished in proportion. Nevertheless, this
alone did not ensure its fall. It was the treaty negotiations of
1853-8 and the diplomatic disputes of the years that followed,
revealing an inability either to satisfy Western demands or to

55

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

silence domestic critics, that were to provide the crucial,
because public, evidence of Tokugawa weakness.

What is more, the same events were to convert a recognition
of external threat, which, as we have seen, was already wide-
spread in Japan, into something much closer to nationalism in
the modern Western sense. The conclusion of "unequal treaties',
together with military failure, as exemplified in bombardments
by foreign warships in 1863 and 1864, aroused anti-foreign
sentiment, which had as one of its facets an enhanced con-
sciousness of what it meant to be Japanese. This, in turn, had
important repercussions on both domestic politics and foreign
affairs. It gave an impetus to the search for national strength,
and hence for unity, constituting on the one hand a move
towards a new kind of patriotism, in which the country, rather
than the province or domain, was to be the focus of loyalty,
and on the other an emotional basis for attacks on a regime
which was said to have failed in its duty of protecting the
nation's honour. The Bakufu, by its inability to exploit the
change or even, perhaps, to recognize its importance
helped largely to seal its own fate.

CHAPTER IV

TREATIES AND POLITICS
1853-1860

Trading agreements repercussions in Japan agitation for
reform

COMMODORE MATTHEW CALBRAITH PERRY, whose ships
were the first modern Western squadron to reach Japan, was
a senior and distinguished officer of the United States Navy.
He had only accepted the Pacific command with reluctance, in
the expectation that he would be provided with a force com-
mensurate with his rank and reputation, and he had no inten-
tion of suffering the same kind of treatment in Japan as had
been meted out to previous Western envoys. On July 8, 1853,
therefore, when his two steamers and two sailing vessels
anchored off Uraga, his orders were that no insults or slights
in any form were to be tolerated. The ships were to be cleared
for action at all times. Only officials were to be allowed on
board. These, moreover, were to be told that only an envoy of
high rank, appointed by the Japanese government, would be
permitted to see the commodore, who would deliver to him in
proper manner a letter from President Fillmore, together with
a number of presents for the Japanese ruler. The letter was
intended subsequently to form the basis of negotiations. Mean-
while, no matter what arguments and entreaties the Japanese
employed, the commodore was not prepared to go to Nagasaki
for discussions. Indeed, the only move he was prepared to con-
sider was one which would take him nearer Edo.

In the Shogun's capital, Perry's arrival and the obvious
strength of his squadron caused consternation, even though
advance warning of it had been given by the Dutch several

57

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

months before. As a stopgap, it was decided to accept the
letters, since to do so would give time for proper consideration
of the questions which they raised, and the officials at Uraga
were ordered to make appropriate arrangements. This they did,
the ceremony taking place with great solemnity at Kurihama
on July 14. Five thousand Japanese troops surrounded the
temporary building erected for the purpose and the two
American steamers were less than a gunshot offshore, when
Perry duly handed over the elaborate boxes in which the
President's letter and the commodore's credentials were en-
closed. He also added a letter of his own; and whereas the
President's was a firm but friendly document, emphasizing
America's desire for proper treatment of shipwrecked seamen,
for ports of refuge where ships could obtain coal and stores,
and for the opening of trade, Perry's came close to being a
threat. If these Very reasonable and pacific overtures' were not
at once accepted, he wrote, he would have to return for a reply
next spring, this time 'with a much larger force'. 15 The point
was underlined in the following two days, when he took part
of the squadron well into Edo Bay before leaving for the
China coast.

It was Abe Masahiro, senior councillor since 1845, who
had to work out a policy in response to this American demand;
and recognizing that recent events had provoked widespread
discussion of defence policy in Japan, causing considerable
divergence of views among samurai concerning the course it
was best to follow, he set out to establish a rather broader
base for Bakufu decisions than had been customary hitherto.
One of his first actions was to seek the support of Tokugawa
Nariaki. This proved embarrassing, for Nariaki proceeded to
expound the so-called 'expulsion policy' of the scholars from
his own domain of Mito (see Chapter III), making few con-
cessions to the practical difficulties raised by Perry's military
superiority. The first need, he argued, was to unite the country
by sounding a call to arms. Thereafter defence preparations
could be pushed forward, including importation of Western
arms and if necessary Western experts, until Japan was in a
position to resist any foreign attack. Ideally this should be
averted: c war at home, peace abroad' was the slogan Nariaki
favoured, meaning that the country was to be roused by an

58

TREATIES AND POLITICS 1853-1860

avowal of war 's inevitability, while diplomacy sought to prevent
hostilities breaking out. But if i n the last resort foreigners
would not accept delay, then it would be better to fight and
suffer defeat than to submit and destroy Japan's morale. After
all, America's strength was naval. He saw no chance of her
successfully invading the interior of Japan.

While trying to bring Nariaki to a less rigid viewpoint, Abe
also sent out a circular asking for the advice of officials and
feudal lords. It was an unprecedented step, generally inter-
preted as a confession of Bakufu weakness and indecision.
What is more, the replies, which reached him between August
and October, did little to resolve his problem, since they
simply documented differences which he already knew to exist.
A majority repeated time-worn arguments, perhaps because
they thought these were what the government wanted: seclus-
ion was ancestral law; Christianity was subversive; and trade
was merely the exchange of Japan's essential ores for useless
foreign textiles. Others maintained that once the ports were
opened, on whatever pretext, Japan could not long escape the
fate of China. Only a few spoke in favour of accepting the
American proposals, this chiefly on the grounds that Japan did
not have the strength to resist them. Yet one fact did emerge,
namely, that most wanted peace. Those who followed Toku-
gawa Nariaki in preferring war to compromise were a small
minority, for nearly all the men who urged that seclusion must
be maintained ended by admitting that such rigidity could
easily be fatal, that some kind of "temporary expedient' would
have to be accepted. Also in a minority were the men who
wanted positive action of a different kind. The most radical
suggestion was that the Bakufu should attempt to build up
Japan's strength by engaging in overseas trade and creating a
Western-style navy, which could one day meet the West on
equal terms. It emanated from li Naosuke, head of the senior
fudai house, who argued that Vhen opposing forces face each
other across a river, victory is obtained by that which crosses
the river and attacks'. 15 This was far too adventurous an out-
look for late Tokugawa Japan, and Naosuke, like Nariaki,
gained only a handful of supporters.

Both li Naosuke and Tokugawa Nariaki were men of in-
fluence, but in this matter each could gain greater backing in

59

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

opposing the other's views than he could on behalf of his own.
In any case the opinion of officialdom was more in accord with
that of the majority. Many Edo officials of middling rank, to
whose hands the execution of policy was likely to be entrusted,
favoured a cautious approach which would avoid all risk of
hostilities until the Bakufu had time to prepare its defences,
a matter of several years. They therefore proposed devices for
achieving this, some ingenious, some irrelevant, some quite
ludicrous. What mattered more, however, was their ability to
exert pressure on Abe, who became the target of a paper war
in which the Bakufu divided for and against the Mito recom-
mendations. Since disparities of status often made it impossible
for the participants to argue their differences face to face, the
upshot was not agreement, but verbal compromise, emerging
in the form of a decree dated December i, 1853. This admitted
that Japan's defences were inadequate. Accordingly, the only
practical policy to be followed on Perry's return, it said, was
one of peace and procrastination. In other words, an attempt
would be made to persuade Perry to depart without a clear
answer to his requests one way or the other, though if this
failed and he resorted to force Japan must fight, thus making
it the duty of all meanwhile to join loyally in warlike pre-
parations.

As a call to arms this left much to be desired. It was also a
poor basis for negotiations. When Perry returned in February
1854, this time with eight ships, it soon became clear that he
would accept no answer of the kind the Bakufu envisaged. Step
by step the Japanese negotiators, in constant touch with their
superiors in the capital, were forced to give way; and it was
only on the question of trade that they were able to hold their
own, chiefly because Perry was less inclined to press for trade
than for other matters. By the end of March a treaty had taken
shape and on the last day of the month it was signed at Kana-
gawa in Edo Bay. It opened Shimoda and Hakodate as ports
of refuge, where stores could be obtained through Japanese
officials; it assured castaways of good treatment and return to
their own country; and it authorized the appointment of con-
suls at a later date. To the Bakufu, this was making the best of
a bad job. To Perry, despite the absence of specific permission
for trade, it was a foundation on which others could build.

60

TREATIES AND POLITICS 1853-1860

Perry's attitude was also that of other Western representa-
tives who were in a position to negotiate at this time, those of
Britain and Russia. Both were admirals and neither was inter-
ested primarily in trade. Indeed, their immediate preoccupation
was the fact that from the end of March 1854 their countries
were at war over the Crimea. News of the terms Perry had
accepted discouraged Sir John Bowring, Britain's diplomatic
representative at Hong Kong, from going to Japan in search of
a commercial treaty, but the outbreak of hostilities gave Rear-
Admiral Stirling, commanding the China squadron, a reason
for going of a different kind. In September 1854 he arrived at
Nagasaki in an attempt to ensure that Japan would not give
shelter to the Russian warships which it was his duty to
destroy. He failed completely to make himself understood in
this, partly because of inefficient interpreting, partly because
the context of his statements was an international code of
which Japanese officials were entirely ignorant; but when the
latter in despair offered him the same terms as had been won
by Perry, he accepted, in the expectation that the foothold so
gained could later be extended. Soon afterwards Rear- Admiral
Putiatin, who had originally been sent to the area by Russia
to keep an eye on American activities a.nd had for some months
past been playing hide-and-seek with Stirling up and down
the Pacific coast of Asia, arrived in Shimoda to > continue
negotiations which he had started earlier in Nagasaki. His
reception was comparatively friendly, not even the destruction
of his flagship by a tidal wave in January 1855 interrupting
the talks for long. Thus early in the following month he
secured a convention of what now seemed to be the standard
pattern, with the addition of a frontier agreement dividing the
Kurile islands between Japan and Russia at a point between
Uruppu and Etorofu.

The treaties signed by Perry, Stirling and Putiatin were quite
unacceptable to merchant opinion in Europe, in America and
on the China coast. Western governments therefore came under
pressure from commercial interests to secure trading rights in
Japan on the lines of those akeady obtained in China, though
this proved to be a policy to which all subscribed but few
found opportunity to attempt in practice. Until 1856 Britain,

61

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

France and Russia were too occupied with the Crimean War to
spare resources for much else. Then in October of that year
came fresh disputes with China, leading to the so-called Arrow
War, which engaged the whole energies of British and French
representatives in the area for two years more, especially as the
military forces at their disposal were weakened by the need to
suppress revolt in India. Russia, meanwhile, was consolidating
her position in the north along the Siberian frontier and the
Amur River. Hence none of the three Powers was able to give
full attention to Japan, with the result that except for occa-
sional warships, whose actions were sometimes threatening
but whose objects were never diplomatic, Japanese officials
were little troubled by foreign visitors.

This does not mean that they were left entirely in peace.
The Dutch minister at Deshima, Donker Curtius, kept Edo
fully informed of international developments and did his best
to exploit Japanese fears to his own advantage. In August 1856
he warned the Bakufu that Britain planned a mission to Japan
and advised conclusion of a commercial treaty with Holland
to forestall unpleasantness, remarking as an added inducement
that customs duties would be a useful means of increasing
government revenue. Early in 1857 he passed on news of the
Arrow War, emphasizing that it sprang from Chinese attempts
to evade treaty obligations. Japan's policy was just as dan-
gerous, he pointed out, and might well bring a similar result.
The logical way to prevent this was to negotiate with Holland.

Similar arguments were used by Townsend Harris, the newly
arrived American consul at Shimoda. Brought there in August
1856 by an American warship the last he was to see for over
a year, as he later complained he established himself ashore
after some acrimonious debate with local officials, who at first
denied his right to be in Shimoda at all. They then, when
this argument was beaten down by reference to the English
text of the Perry convention, installed him in a small Buddhist
temple and hedged him about with all manner of petty restric-
tions. For some weeks he was employed largely in getting these
removed. Thereafter he turned to discussion of matters arising
from Perry's agreement, which led eventually in June 1857 to
a further convention, settling such details as use of currency,
rights of residence in the open ports and legal jurisdiction over

62

TREATIES AND POLITICS 1853-1860

American citizens in Japan. Well before this, however, he had
set in train the first moves towards obtaining a full commercial
treaty. In October 1856 he informed the governor of Shimoda
that he had a letter from the US President which he must
deliver in person at an audience with the Shogun. The occa-
sion, he said, would provide an opportunity for discussing c an
important matter of state' the nature of which was fairly
obvious, since Harris handed over at the same time a Dutch
translation of America's treaty with Siam and would enable
him to reveal what he had learnt in Hong Kong about British
plans. Harris, in fact, like Curtius, was prepared to threaten the
Bakufu with Britain's wrath even before the Arrow War broke
out. The news of hostilities came aptly to reinforce his warning.

The Japanese officials with whom decision rested were
readier now to look at foreign affairs in realistic terms. Abe
Masahiro, though he lacked the resolution needed to impose
a consistent policy on Edo's divided councils, had brought a
number of able men into the administration and thereby greatly
raised the level of discussion. As his own power waned he
resigned as senior minister in November 1855, though he
remained a member of the Council of State for two years
longer these new men rallied to his successor, Hotta Masa-
yoshi, who in the early autumn of 1 8 5 6, as a result of Dutch and
American warnings, initiated fresh discussions of foreign policy
in anticipation of the arrival of a British envoy.

It was soon obvious that a substantial and influential group
favoured permitting trade in some form, either to avert danger
or as a means of strengthening Japan. Accordingly, despite the
continued opposition of Tokugawa Nariaki, it was decided to
make a more thorough investigation of the steps that might be
taken. A commission was appointed to do so in November,
with Hotta at its head and a membership which included most
of those who had had direct dealings with foreigners so far, its
proceedings, which were at first desultory, being given new
urgency at the beginning of 1 8 5 7 by reports of the war in China.

On March 19, 1857, the Council ordered all senior officials
to submit their advice as to the best course for Japan to follow
in the light of renewed British aggression on the mainland.
The document made it clear that haste and a new approach
were both required. 'Any attempt on our part 7 , it said, c to cling

63

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

to tradition, making difficulties over the merest trifles and so
eventually provoking the foreigners to anger, would be im-
politic in the extreme'. 17 This was reinforced by a memoran-
dum from Hotta, who argued, first, that to have any chance of
success a policy must be worked out in advance, not as a result
of intimidation during negotiations, and second, that the real
issue was no longer whether to permit trade, but how to
regulate it. After such a lead it is not surprising that few voices
were raised in favour of seclusion. Yet there were still great
differences of opinion. One group of officials came down
strongly on the side of opening the ports, urging that students
and consuls be sent abroad and that Japan's participation in
world affairs be generally increased. Another group, slightly
more senior, only grudgingly accepted the changing times and
regarded innovation as bringing more dangers than it did bene-
fits. Trade was inevitable, they said, not desirable. The Bakufu
should therefore go no farther than circumstances made neces-
sary, for fear that the attack on established habits, once begun,
might spread from foreign to domestic affairs and put the
whole regime in jeopardy: c to change the superficial structure
of a house according to the tastes of the moment will do no
great harm to the building, but to change the framework or
replace the pillars and foundation-stones is to introduce weak-
nesses and cause complete collapse'. 18

Hotta sought to reconcile these differences by sending a
representative of each viewpoint, the progressive and the con-
servative, to discuss with Curtius at Nagasaki in the summer of
1857 the provisions that might be incorporated in a com-
mercial treaty. The move was successful, for by late August a
treaty had actually been drafted and formally recommended
to the Edo government. It still promised many restrictions on
Dutch freedom of action, but it was much more generous than
anything previously considered, permitting trade to an un-
limited amount at Nagasaki and Hakodate, to be carried on
by private merchants under official supervision and on pay-
ment of a considerable duty. Curtius found it very satisfactory.
For their part, the Japanese investigators, who had never been
given power to negotiate, asked that it be concluded as a
matter of urgency, pointing out that if a British envoy arrived,
as was very likely, it would be essential to have the Dutch

TREATIES AND POLITICS 1853-1860

agreement ready signed, so that it could be offered him as
a model.

For two months, however, the men in Nagasaki waited in
vain for a Bakufu reply to their proposals. In the interval they
were brought up against the very crisis they had feared, with
the difference that it was not a British, but a Russian, squadron
that put in an appearance. Towards the end of September
Putiatin arrived and announced his intention of seeking a new
treaty. Talks were delayed for a week or two while he visited
China, but when he returned on October n there was still
no word from Edo and the Japanese officials decided to put
into effect the plan they had recommended, namely, to sign
the Dutch agreement as a prototype on which all others could
be based. This they did on October 16. A week later Putiatin
accepted similar terms, with the addition of a promise that
another port would be opened instead of Shimoda.

These two treaties, accepted by the Bakufu after they were
signed, became at once the basis of its policy. Unhappily they
did not please Townsend Harris. As a former merchant he had
firm views about conditions of trade and the treaties did not
meet them. They were, he said later, 'disgraceful to all parties
engaged in making them . . . not worth the paper on which
they were written'. 19 They therefore did nothing to divert him
from his intention of negotiating on quite different lines. In
August he had already been promised that he should go to
Edo; and the arrival of an American warship in September,
making it possible for him to proceed by sea if all else failed,
finally brought the Bakufu to the point of fixing a date. He left
Shimoda two months later, travelling in state, and after a week
of rehearsal and preparations in Edo had his audience with the
Shogun on December 7, an event which cleared the way for
diplomatic talks.

On December 12 Harris visited Hotta's residence and lec-
tured him for two hours on world conditions. He repeated
much that Curtius had already said, arguing that trade neither
could nor ought to be refused, since it was for Japan a means
to national wealth and for the countries of the West a right
which they would not be denied. Britain, in particular, was
ready to use force to secure it as soon as she was free of military
commitments in China. It was therefore in Japan's own

65

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

interest, he urged, to negotiate at once with America, peacefully
and on equal terms. A fleet would certainly exact more than an
ambassador especially an ambassador deprived, like himself,
of naval backing and its manner of doing so would humble
the Japanese government in the eyes of its people. (This was
an argument well calculated to appeal to the susceptibilities of
Bakufu officials.) For his own part, Harris concluded, he would
be content with three changes in the terms embodied in the
Dutch and Russian treaties: appointment of a resident Ameri-
can minister in Edo; trade without official interference; and an
increase in the number of open ports.

Hotta decided to consult feudal opinion before taking a final
decision on Harris's proposals. On December 16 he accordingly
circulated to feudal lords and others a summary of what Harris
had said, the replies he received during the following month
revealing that most lords were now reconciled to the need for
ending seclusion, though they had little idea of a policy to put
in its place. Many, it is true, still dwelt hopefully on ways of
postponing the inevitable. All the same, the number of those
who were prepared to take positive action was slowly growing.
The lord of Yanagawa urged the importance of promoting
trade, increasing production and carrying out reform at home.
So did the able Tokugawa relative, Matsudaira Keiei of Fukui,
who wanted Japan to seize the initiative and 'shatter the selfish
designs of the brutish foreigners' by building a fleet and
annexing nearby territories, as well as encouraging commerce.
At home, he wrote, c the services of capable men must be en-
listed from the entire country; peacetime extravagance must
be cut down and the military system revised; the evil practices
by which the daimyo and lesser lords have been impoverished
must be discontinued; . . . the daily livelihood of the whole
people must be fostered; and schools for the various arts
and crafts must be established'. 20 This was innovation with
a vengeance, and it is no wonder conservative officials were
alarmed. Yet even that arch-conservative, Tokugawa Nariaki,
had changed his ground under the pressure of events. He still
objected strongly to any plan which would admit foreigners
to Edo, but now proposed instead that he should himself be
sent abroad as Japan's intermediary for trade accompanied by
lordless samurai, younger sons and others equally expendable!

66

TREATIES AND POLITICS 1853-1860

The views expressed at this time are more important as
evidence of a changing climate of opinion than they were for
their impact on government decisions. Hotta had already made
up his mind before hearing them that neither truculence nor a
sulky acceptance ot force majeure would any longer serve. Japan,
he insisted, had to enrich herself by trade. She must rearm,
conclude alliances, and generally adopt such foreign ways as
would contribute to her national strength. This was much like
the argument of Matsudaira Keiei, shorn of the latter 's em-
phasis on reform at home. Moreover, it was supported by an
important section of Bakufu officialdom, while those who still
hesitated found that Hotta's position as senior minister was
enough to tip the scales against them. On January 16, 1858, he
summoned Harris to another interview, agreeing in substance
to his previous stipulations, except that of opening more ports.
It was on this basis that formal negotiations began.

The plenipotentiaries appointed by the Bakufu, knowing
that Japanese opinion was divided, were in a difficult position.
It was only with reluctance that they accepted Harris's draft,
rather than the Dutch treaty, as a starting-point for the dis-
cussions, and in the weeks that followed they fought a stubborn
rearguard action on its every detail. The number and choice of
open ports, rights of travel in the interior, the place of residence
for an American minister, all these matters were the subject of
long debate. The delay exasperated Harris, who had thought
after Hotta's statement that all would be plain sailing. Indeed,
he prefaced his account of the proceedings with a sweeping
indictment of Japanese diplomacy:

'In this Journal I shall confine myself to the main leading facts of
actual transactions, omitting the interminable discourses of the
Japanese where the same proposition may be repeated a dozen
times; nor shall I note their positive refusal of points they subse-
quently grant, and meant to grant all the while; nor many absurd
proposals made by them without the hope, and scarcely the wish,
of having them accepted. . . ,' 21

The method, if irritating, was understandable: Japanese diplo-
mats were having to feel their way in territory which was
politically dangerous and quite unknown. Nor was the time
taken so very great. By February 23 the last doubts were

67

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

settled and the text of the treaty made ready for signature.
What is more, Harris had got his way on all important ques-
tions. The American minister was to reside in Edo; trade was
to be free of official intervention; and Japan was to open the
ports of Nagasaki and Kanagawa in 1859, Niigata in 1860,
Hyogo in 1863. This was in addition to Shimoda and Hako-
date, already open, while traders were also to be admitted to
the cities of Edo in 1862 and Osaka in 1863.

Before this agreement could be signed, however, there came
a setback. In the middle of February, when it was clear what
its terms would be, Hotta announced them to all feudal lords
who were in Edo at the time, only to find that his critics far
outnumbered his supporters. Many who had accepted the
necessity for something like the Dutch treaty of October 1857
were horrified at the concessions made in this latest document.
To others it was confirmation of their worst suspicions. So loud
was the chorus of disapproval, in fact, that Hotta decided it
would be unwise to take the matter further without doing
something to reduce it. Accordingly he arranged with Harris
to postpone signature of the treaty, proposing meanwhile to
secure imperial sanction for his policy. To do this, his repre-
sentatives explained, would be a matter of routine a com-
bination of threats and bribery but once the emperor's
approval was made public it would silence all those who dared
to question the senior minister's decision.

In the event this optimism proved ill-founded. Notwith-
standing Hotta's readiness to go in person to Kyoto to bring
pressure on the Court, the Emperor and the majority of his
courtiers continued to favour seclusion. Surprisingly, they
were even prepared to insist on it against the Bakufu's advice.
The emperor Komei himself objected to the provisions con-
cerning Hyogo and Osaka on the grounds that these places
were too near the imperial capital to be opened. He also
enjoined the Bakufu to achieve unity in the face of crisis by
giving more heed to the opinions of the great lords, a pro-
nouncement which some of the latter had been intriguing busily
to obtain for several weeks. It was with these two demands,
therefore, that Hotta was faced when he arrived in Kyoto on
March 19. After much discussion, during which it transpired
that he could count on the support of the Kampaku and one

68

TREATIES AND POLITICS 1853-1860

or two other senior officials at the Court, an imperial decree
was drafted which did not specifically approve the treaty., but
recognized that decisions on foreign policy were the Bakufu's
responsibility, a compromise which met Hotta's immediate
needs. Even so the decree had to be forced through the im-
perial council against opposition and did not receive the em-
peror's sanction until April 27. At this point, Komei let it be
known privately that he had been coerced into approving it
against his will. The result was uproar, an uproar carefully
organized by a small group of anti-foreign and anti-Bakufu
nobles, which made it necessary for the draft to be revised and
for Hotta to accept what was in effect a command to reconsider
his policy. He had still been unable to get it modified when he
left Kyoto on May 17.

The Court's treatment of Hotta reflected both a doubt about
the Bakufu's capacity for leadership and a suspicion that its
power was declining. It was certainly an affront which Edo
took very seriously. Almost at once it was decided to appoint
a Regent (Tairo) 9 as could always be done when danger threat-
ened, and on June 4, 18 5 8, the Shogun announced the appoint-
ment of li Naosuke, head of the senior fudai house, who thereby
superseded Hotta as the regime's most powerful official. One
result was to give the Bakufu more decisive guidance than it
had had for many years. Another, a few weeks later, was to
settle the question of the treaty.

It was again events in China which raised this issue, just as
Townsend Harris was beginning to despair of further progress.
At the end of July he learnt that Britain and France had made
a peace settlement with China and were planning to send an
expedition to Japan, news which brought him at once to
Kanagawa to urge the Japanese representatives to sign his
treaty. They referred to Edo for instructions, where a council
was hurriedly summoned. Most of its members advised the
Regent to authorize signature without further reference to the
Court, their argument being, as in the past, that Japan's first
need was a model agreement which Britain would be likely to
accept. Admitting the force of this, li gave the necessary orders
and on July 29 the document was signed at last. It was only just
in time. Curtius and Putiatin were akeady on their way and
arrived soon after, concluding similar treaties on August 18

65,

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

and 19 respectively. By then the British squadron, bearing
Lord Elgin as plenipotentiary, had also put in an appearance,
marking its independence by sweeping past Kanagawa to an
anchorage off Edo, where in a mere two days of negotiation
Harris's arrangements became the basis of a British treaty, too.
It was signed on August 23, leaving only Baron Gros for
France, who arrived in September and concluded a satisfactory
agreement at the beginning of October.

It remained to regularize the position with the Imperial
Court, a task which was eventually entrusted to Manabe
Akikatsu, a loyal but not particularly able adherent of the
Regent, who left for Kyoto in October. Like Hotta, he soon
ran into difficulties. Despite long explanations of the reasons
for Bakufu action, he failed for some weeks to change Komei's
views and was told in December that the emperor firmly
opposed any more extended foreign intercourse than Dutch
and Chinese had been traditionally allowed. This brought a
stiffer Bakufu response, implying that Edo would not reverse
its decisions, whether the emperor approved of them or not.
What the emperor could do, by giving his approval, was to
make it easier to unite the country in the pursuit of national
strength. A memorandum to this effect, accompanied by vague
threats directed at the imperial advisers, proved sufficient to
bring a compromise, this being embodied in a decree of
February 2, 1 8 5 9, by which the Court promised its 'forbearance'
and the Bakufu undertook to prevent somehow the opening
of Hyogo and Osaka. More important, both committed them-
selves publicly to revoking the treaties at some unspecified
date: c we must assuredly keep aloof from foreigners and revert
to the sound rule of seclusion as formerly laid down in our
national laws'. 22 In this were the seeds of future problems.

Some of these problems, as we shall see, were to arise from
incidents concerning foreigners and the implementation of the
treaties after 1859. Others had already begun to emerge from
the political manoeuvrings within Japan in 185 8. For the latter,
if superficially a matter of treaty negotiation, had come to
involve an implicit challenge to the Bakufu's authority as well.
This came in the first instance from a number of the more
powerful feudal lords, motivated partly by rivalry with the

7

TREATIES AND POLITICS 1853-1860

Tokugawa house, partly by a conviction that the quality of
Bakufu leadership was inadequate to the tasks it had to per-
form. Thus the group included Tokugawa Nariaki, suspected
by many in Edo of seeking to advance the interests of Mito to
the detriment of those of the Shogun' s hereditary retainers;
Matsudaira Keiei of Fukui, whom we have already quoted as
an advocate of new men and new measures in the adminis-
tration; and two of the to^ama, Shimazu Nariakira of Satsuma
and Yamanouchi Yodo of Tosa, whose families were closely
linked with the Tokugawa by marriage and tradition. None of
these were revolutionaries, in the sense of men wishing to
destroy the regime. None were openly anti-Tokugawa. On the
other hand, all were reformers in their own domains, who
believed that the Bakufu, too, must do some serious re-thinking
if it were to overcome the difficulties it faced in finance and
foreign affairs; and all were territorial magnates in their own
right, anxious to secure some relaxation of Edo controls on
their freedom of action. They accordingly coupled their advo-
cacy of reform with proposals that the Shogun should consult
the great lords on questions of policy and reduce the economic
burdens he imposed on the domains, a means ostensibly
of enabling the lords to devote their energies and resources
to Japan's defence.

The issue which brought these men actively into politics
was not diplomacy, on which they did not agree among them-
selves, but the succession. By the time Hotta set out for Kyoto
in the spring of 1858 the childless Shogun, lesada, was ailing
and expected soon to die, a circumstance that made it urgent
to choose his heir. Two candidates were favoured. One was
Tokugawa Yoshitomi of Kii, nearest by descent but still only
a boy. The other was Hitotsubashi Keiki, one of Tokugawa
Nariaki's sons, adopted into the Hitotsubashi house and re-
garded as a young man of promise. It was urged on his behalf
that in times of danger the Shogun must be both adult and
able. For this reason he had the backing of his father, the
reforming lords, and a number of Bakufu officials, especially
among those of middle rank. Yoshitomi's claim was that of
blood, which gave him the support of most senior officials and
fudai, who chose to invoke the principle of heredity, to which
they owed their power, and saw in Keiki the instrument of an

7*

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

attack on privilege. This alignment made the succession dispute
a conflict of interests as well as a struggle of factions.

Because of its composition the Kii party was better placed
to influence Bakufu policy from within. Its opponents sought
to do so from without. Many of them had close family or per-
sonal connections with nobles at the Imperial Court and they
realized, like Hotta, that an imperial pronouncement, though
unenforceable without Bakufu consent, would carry immense
prestige. They therefore began to intrigue to obtain one in
their favour, working meanwhile to prevent Hotta from secur-
ing the emperor's consent for the American treaty, in the hope
of using this as an additional lever. In May, we have seen, the
second part of this programme was accomplished. The effect,
however, was to cause a crisis in Edo, which brought the
appointment of li Naosuke as Regent and through it the failure
of the Hitotsubashi faction's plans. li decided for Yoshitomi.
He forced the Court after prolonged negotiation to give its
consent and finally made the decision public at the beginning
of August. Ten days later lesada died and Yoshitomi succeeded
him under the name of lemochi.

For some weeks before this li had been taking steps to en-
sure that his authority would not be challenged. In the middle
of June he had begun to remove or demote those officials
who had supported Hitotsubashi. On August 2 he dismissed
Hotta and another member of the Council, putting on them the
blame for the Harris treaty. All were replaced by his own
nominees. Then on August 13 he ordered into retirement or
house arrest the feudal lords who had opposed his policies in
Kyoto and Edo, including Tokugawa Nariaki of Mito and
Tokugawa Yoshikatsu of the Owari branch, in addition to
Shimazu and Yamanouchi. Many of their retainers were also
punished.

One result was to disorganize the Hitotsubashi party while
confirming its distrust of Bakufu power. A few years later,
when its members again became active, they looked more than
ever to the Court, urging what they called kobu-gattai, c Court-
Bakufu unity': in essence, a plan to use the emperor's prestige
as a weapon to threaten Edo, and the imperial institution as
cover for a new relationship between lords and Shogun. In
the interval, however, some of the dramatis personae changed.

72

TREATIES AND POLITICS 1853-1860

Shimazu Nariakira died in 1858, his place being taken by his
brother, Hisamitsu, whose son succeeded to the Satsuma
domain. Tokugawa Nariaki died two years later., causing a
decline in the influence of Mito, though his son, Hitotsubashi
Keiki, emerged as a major participant in events soon after.
Matsudaira Keiei and Yamanouchi Yodo continued to play
a leading role throughout the 'sixties. They were joined as a
rule by Date Muneki of Uwajima, sometimes by Tokugawa
Yoshikatsu of Owari and Matsudaira Katamori of Aizu.

A further result of li Naosuke's 'purge' was to make him
virtually a dictator and through the feeling of security that
this engendered to restore to Bakufu policy-makers the nega-
tive outlook of earlier years. Their prime task became that of
preserving the regime. All attempts to take a fresh look at
current problems, especially those of foreign affairs, vanished
with the men who had negotiated the treaties. Most of them
came tinder li's ban. For his own part, it is clear, li would have
accepted plans for Japan to trade abroad as a means of securing
military and financial benefit. Yet he was far from regarding
the foreigners' coming as an opportunity for reform at home.
Indeed, his whole attitude to admitting foreign trade and traders
to Japan was one of suspicion and reserve, a fact which became
apparent as soon as the ports were opened in 1859.

Despite this, li Naosuke was blamed at the time and has
been praised since for opening the country. Such a reputation
was important, for it brought into being certain political alli-
ances which were to be vital in the next ten years. Because
he stood so obviously for the preservation of the Shogun's
power, he was opposed by all those who wished to weaken it,
whether on behalf of the emperor, the great lords, or other
sections of the population. Because he checked reform, he was
hated by those who sought it. Finally, because he accepted
responsibility for the signing of the treaties, he incurred the
hostility both of patriots who objected to the manner of their
negotiation and xenophobes who resented their terms. Thus
'honour the emperor', c expel the barbarian' and 'reform' all
became slogans which could be used against him. By association
they were therefore anti-Tokugawa.

Increasingly these slogans were being used by samurai of
middle, or even lower, rank, many of them brought into politics

73

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

as agents in the intrigues of their seniors, many more infected
by the atmosphere of danger and excitement occasioned by
the coming of foreign warships to Japan. In Edo, the schools
of gunnery and swordsmanship were agog, their students
young, ambitious, careless both of life and authority vying
with each other to achieve a name as monarchist or anti-
foreign zealots. In Kyoto, now made a centre of politics by the
disputes over the succession and the treaties, more active radi-
cals found both a refuge and an opportunity. The patronage of
Court nobles gave them some kind of protection. It also held
out the prospect of influencing the decisions, first of the Court,
then of the Bakufu, something they could hardly have dared
to hope a few years earlier. Samurai, especially from the to^ama
domains, began to flock there in considerable numbers.

These men, who abandoned fiefs and families at the risk of
loss of rank and even severer punishments, were all critical of
the Tokugawa government: of its 'weakness' abroad, of its
'autocracy' at home. They were therefore the material from
which a revolutionary movement might be formed. Neverthe-
less, such a movement cannot be said to have existed in 1858.
Few in Kyoto had the qualities to organize it or to carry out a
successful coup d'etat \ most of the samurai there being fanatics,
sincere but impractical, or mere youths, attracted by the pros-
pects of adventure. Most of them, one is tempted to say,
thought of themselves as leaders. Then there were the im-
poverished and the discontented, who had fled their villages
to seek fortune and hoped to find it through their swords. In
such a milieu, assassination and threats of it were common.
Yet they were rarely the prelude to an attempted seizure of
power. It was to be several years before a new kind of organ-
izer emerged to give the anti-Tokugawa movement coherence
and effective strength.

Characteristic of this early period of its dreams and even
its ineffectiveness was Yoshida Shoin, teacher and samurai of
Choshu, to whom many of the hotheads turned for inspiration.
Born in 1830 and adopted into a family of minor feudal rank,
Yoshida travelled widely as a youth and studied under such
men as Sakuma Shozan. He also established connections with
the Mito scholars. In 1854 he tried to stow away in one of
Perry's ships with the intention of studying abroad, but he was

74

TREATIES AND POLITICS 1853-1860

caught by Bakufu officials and imprisoned for a time before
being sent back to Choshu for punishment. There he was
sentenced to house arrest, but allowed to continue teaching,
his students including several of Japan's outstanding later
leaders. To them he expounded a doctrine of revolution. It
was based on the premise that Japan's existing rulers had
sacrificed their right to power by the weakness and incom-
petence they had shown in the face of foreign threats; and that
the country's only chance of salvation was therefore a rising of
those close to the soil, men untainted by wealth or office., who
would find leadership among a resolute minority of the samurai
class and unity in their loyalty to the emperor.

In 1858 Yoshida turned from theory to practice, planning
to assassinate Manabe, the Bakufu's emissary to Kyoto, as a
stimulus to the anti-Tokugawa movement. He was detected,
however, brought to trial and executed in the following year,
a fate that served considerably to enhance his reputation. Many
sought to emulate him in various ways. Some did so in action
more successfully. Thus on March 24, 1860, a group of
samurai, mostly from Mito, cut down li Naosuke outside Edo
castle, achieving by far the most important political murder of
the times and opening a new phase in Japan's political history.
For li had no successor; and his death not only ended his dicta-
torship, it also removed the one man who had the ruthlessness
to achieve a Bakufu revival. It thereby left the way open for
a series of challenges to the Shogun's power which were to
become steadily more effective with the years.

75

CHAPTER V

THE FALL OF THE TOKUGAWA
1860-1868

External relations disputes with Britain revival of Hitot-
subashi party Satsuma and Choshu Meiji Restoration

THE ASSASSINATION of li Naosuke left the Tokugawa
government without firm leadership at a time when its prob-
lems were growing rapidly more serious. Already by 1860 it
was becoming clear that neither the treaty negotiations of
1858 nor the Court's half-hearted acceptance of them had
solved the questions raised by the coming of Western diplo-
mats and traders. The foreigners for their part soon found that
privileges were of little use unless they could be enforced,
enforcement being something which the Bakufu tried usually
to prevent. On the other hand, their mere presence in the open
ports was enough to arouse hostility in Japan. As this grew in
vehemence, Edo's new leaders tried to meet the threat by
playing off foreign against domestic enemies, a policy which
led in the end to their own destruction.

An early move was to build facilities for trade at Yokohama,
a fishing village, instead of nearby Kanagawa, as specified by
treaty, isolating the foreign community from the main road
between Edo and Osaka and making possible greater official
control of access to it. Western diplomats accepted the change,
but under protest. Yet within a year the newly-built town was
handling the bulk of Japan's foreign trade and had become a
focal point of the country's foreign relations. By comparison
business elsewhere was negligible, though Nagasaki occa-
sionally had a good year, since the domains of Satsuma, Tosa,
Hizen and Fukui all traded there. As to commodities, the

THE FALL OF THE TOKUGAWA 1860-1868

staple of exports was silk. Silkworm eggs also played a signifi-
cant, if temporary, role, because French and Italian crops were
hit by disease. Tea found a steady market, mostly in America,
while in 1862-5 there was a cotton boom, due to world short-
ages arising from the American civil war. Imports, as one would
expect, were mostly manufactured goods. Textiles were in
regular demand, but there was a growing emphasis on the
purchase of ships, weapons and machinery, which by 1867 had
turned Japan's small favourable trading balance into an import
surplus.

From the very first, official attitudes towards trade were
those of restriction and control. Japanese currency was given
an artificial value in terms of the Mexican dollar the coin in
normal use on the China coast and the amount of it made
available to foreigners was severely limited. Attempts were
also made to prohibit or restrict the export of certain goods,
until Western protests forced relaxation of these controls at
the end of 1859. The Bakufu's main recourse, however, was to
monopoly. In May 1 860 a decree was issued granting monopoly
rights in all export consignments of grains, rapeseed oil, wax,
dry goods and raw silk to certain Edo wholesalers, through
whose hands shipments destined for Yokohama were to pass.
Since Yokohama was the main trading port and the mono-
polists were under Bakufu patronage, this seemed likely to give
the government control over all principal items of export,
except tea. But in practice the decree proved impossible to
enforce. It was widely evaded and for some time was a dead
letter, before being revived in November 1863 in support of
the Bakufu's efforts to secure the closing of Yokohama, when
it was directed against the silk trade, which it cut to negligible
proportions for most of the season. The embargo ended only
when the powers threatened serious consequences if Edo's
commercial policy were not changed and it was not until
October 1864, in fact, that the Bakufu bowed at last to the
inevitable, abolishing the monopoly and leaving trade to
develop in comparative freedom.

Throughout this period, the total value of trade fluctuated
widely. Accurate figures are impossible to determine, but ex-
ports appear to have reached a total of about 10 million dollars
by 1864, almost doubled in the next two years, then dropped

77

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

back again to about n million, while imports rose more
steadily to nearly 7 million dollars in 1864 and over 18 million
in i867. 23 This was hardly enough to have any great impact
on the Japanese economy, though concentration on a few
commodities made the effect seem greater than it was. Thus
foreign demand for silk and tea undoubtedly raised prices of
those items, despite increasing production, and a short-lived
export of gold coins in 1859, which was made profitable by the
disparity between world gold: silver ratios and those of Japan,
was also an inflationary stimulus.

Yet there were other results of relations with the West
which were much more serious in their economic conse-
quences. The Bakufu, it is true, received a revenue from cus-
toms duties and profits from monopoly trading, but it has been
estimated that in the ten years 1859 to 1868 these came to less
than half the increased expenditure on foreign affairs due to
higher administrative costs, defence works, and indemnities
paid for attacks on Western ships and citizens. The Shimono-
seki indemnity alone, as we shall see, was put at 3 million
dollars. Since Bakufu financial manipulations had already made
the currency fragile, it is not surprising that inflation followed.
Rice prices, the most reliable index, rose about 50 per cent in
the four years after the opening of the ports. In 1865 and after,
with the added effects of civil war, they jumped to three and
four times the earlier figure, sometimes more.

Among the worst sufferers were the samurai, especially
those living on stipends. To all their other arguments against
the treaties, therefore, arising from considerations of policy
or from xenophobia, was added that of economic distress,
which could, rightly or wrongly, be attributed to the foreigners'
coming. This added fuel to the existing fires. The more reckless
tried to take vengeance on individual foreigners whom they
encountered in or near the treaty ports. 'Often drunk and
always insolent', the British minister called such bravos, '. . .
the terror of all the unarmed population'. 24 In Yokohama two
Russians were killed in August 1859 and a Dutch merchant
captain in February 1860, this in addition to attacks on several
Chinese and Japanese who were in foreign service. Western
envoys began to fear the same treatment in Edo, where their
public appearances were often greeted with volleys of abuse

78

THE FALL OF THE TOKUGAWA 1860-1868

or stones; and in January 1861 their fears were realized, for
Townsend Haras's secretary was murdered, while in July of
the same year came a night attack on the British legation in
which two members of the staff were wounded and several
marauding samurai were killed. The result was to bring part of
Britain's China squadron to Japanese waters. From this time
on, as self-appointed champion of the Treaty Powers and
much the largest participant in Japanese trade Britain began
to put greater pressure on the Bakufu to carry out its treaty
obligations.

At the same time, however, Edo was under a very different
kind of pressure from the Imperial Court. In May 1860, li
Naosuke's successors had sought to strengthen their position
by proposing a marriage alliance between the Shogun and the
emperor's sister, Princess Kazunomiya. This was eventually
agreed, but the anti-foreign nobles and their samurai supporters
managed to get the bargain made conditional. Within ten years,
the Bakufu was forced to promise, 'action will certainly be
taken either to cancel the treaties by negotiation or to expel
the foreigners by force'. 25 This made specific the vague promise
offered earlier by Manabe. It also conflicted sharply with the
demands being urged by Sir Rutherford Alcock, making it
necessary for the Shogun's government to find some gesture
which would simultaneously demonstrate its sincerity to the
Court and ease its difficulties with Britain.

The method chosen arose from a suggestion made by
Townsend Harris. In January 1861, only a week after his secre-
tary's murder, he expressed a willingness to help the Bakufu
pacify its enemies at home by agreeing to postpone the dates
set for the opening of Edo, Osaka, Hyogo and Niigata, all of
which were due to admit foreigners by the beginning of 1863.
This idea was readily taken up, it being formally announced in
March that a mission would be sent to Europe to secure the
consent of the other Treaty Powers. The Bakufu's stated object
in this was to gain time to overcome the unrest caused by
foreign trade and residence so far, so that when further ports
were opened the same problems would not arise again. The
British minister, Sir Rutherford Alcock, whose government
held the key to the success of any talks, at first found the argu-
ment unconvincing. Nor was he made any more co-operative

79

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

by the attack on his legation in July. Gradually, however, his
opposition weakened and he even put a British ship at the
embassy's disposal when it left in January 1 862, though he was
still quite clear at this time that so important a concession
could not be made without 'equivalents' on the part of Japan.
The last of his objections were then removed by the attempted
murder of Ando Nobumasa, senior Councillor of State, in the
following month. This convinced Alcock of the reality of the
Bakufu's dangers and hence of its honesty in seeking the delay,
which led him to support its proposals in London when he
went on leave soon after. Alcock's approval, in turn, satisfied
Lord Russell,, who authorized negotiations. The resulting
agreement, signed on June 6, 1862, postponed the opening of
the two ports and two cities until January i, 1868, requiring
of Japan only a promise that the treaties would be fully imple-
mented at the ports already open; and the example thus given
by Britain was quickly followed by Russia, France and Holland,
who agreed to similar concessions later in the year.

Russell and Alcock had acted in the belief that it was to
Britain's advantage to support the Bakufu. They argued, first,
that it was the duly constituted government, responsible for
providing the law and order without which trade was im-
possible; second, that it was the power in Japan most firmly
committed to friendly relations with foreign states. Both
assumptions were reasonable in the light of their existing
knowledge, but both were soon to be called in question. At the
end of June 1862 there was a further attack on the legation in
Edo, leading to the death of two men from the British guard.
In September came another murder near Yokohama, at a village
called Namatnugi, when Charles Richardson, a British visitor
from Shanghai, was killed by members of a Satsuma force
because he failed to give way to the procession which they were
guarding. This produced an explosion of anger from the
foreign community at Yokohama, but demands that men be
landed from the warships in harbour to attack the Satsuma
troops were rejected by Lt-Col Neale, charge d'affaires in
Alcock's absence, who refused to take a step which might lead
to war. All the same, he protested vigorously to Edo and sent
home urgently for instructions. Bakufu officials, recognizing
the dangers which the situation held, tried to secure the sur-

80

THE FALL OF THE TOKUGAWA l86o-l868

tender of the murderers from the Satsuma commander, but
without success; and when in October the domain sent a formal
reply, it said in effect that the escort had acted in accordance
with feudal custom and therefore would not be handed over
for punishment. This left the Bakufu no choice but to explain
to the British charge that it did not have the authority to
intervene directly in a daimyo's territories and could do no
more.

These events, especially the Namamugi affair, brought a dis-
tinct hardening of British attitudes. In December Russell drew
up full instructions concerning the reparations to be demanded:
from the Japanese government, a full formal apology and
an indemnity of 100,000; from Satsuma, execution of the
murderers and an indemnity of 25,000. In case of refusal,
he said, the naval squadron was to carry out such measures
c of reprisal or blockade, or both' 26 as seemed appropriate. In
other words, London now authorized the use of force on a
considerable scale. And by the end of March 1863, when he
received these orders, Neale already had it at his disposal.
Twelve British warships were assembled at Yokohama when
he communicated the terms to Edo as an ultimatum.

Thus only two months after the Japanese mission to Europe
arrived back from concluding the London Agreement, the
country's foreign relations were again in a state of crisis. It
was made more acute by the fact that the Bakufu was simul-
taneously facing demands at home for the complete expulsion
of foreigners from Japan.

The death of li Naosuke and the indecision which characterized
the actions of those who succeeded him made possible a
gradual revival of the Hitotsubashi party in 1861 and 1862. By
the summer of the latter year, under the leadership of Shimazu
Hisamitsu of Satsuma, it was ready to make another bid for
power. Again, as in 1858, it comprised a number of great
feudal lords who looked to the Imperial Court for backing.
This time, however, they had to be prepared to pay a higher
price to get it. For one thing, the influx of radical samurai into
Kyoto had continued steadily since 1858 and the connections
they had formed with the lower-ranking nobles of the Court
gave the latter much greater political pretensions than in the

81

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

past. These operated especially in the field of foreign affairs,
where, as we have seen, Kyoto was now willing to take the
initiative in urging policies on Edo. As a further complication,
the Choshu domain, long Satsuma' s rival, had recently emerged
from a period of relative inactivity on the national scene and
was seeking, quite independently of the Hitotsubashi group, to
turn the disputes between Court and Bakufu to its own advan-
tage. In the process partly because anti-foreign extremists
were numerous among its own samurai it soon revealed a
willingness to encourage the Court in its chauvinist ideas, so
that for some months, at least, Satsuma and Choshu seemed
to be bidding for imperial favour by vying with each other in
an apparent enthusiasm to achieve expulsion.

In June 1862, at the urging of these two domains, the Court
decided to send a special envoy to the Shogun's capital. He
was given two main tasks. First, he was to demand that Hitotsu-
bashi Keiki and Matsudaira Keiei, Shimazu's allies in Edo, be
admitted to high office. Second and this was at Choshu's
suggestion he was to insist that the Shogun visit Kyoto to
discuss expulsion.

At the beginning of August, the first of these objectives was
achieved, though only after the Satsuma men in the envoy's
bodyguard had openly threatened the lives of Bakufu coun-
cillors. Keiki became the Shogun's guardian and Keiei assumed
the powers, though not the title, of Regent, while another
Tokugawa relative, Matsudaira Katamori of Aizu, was ap-
pointed to control of Kyoto. All three then joined in proposing
political reforms, despite continued obstruction from Bakufu
officialdom. One of their aims, in accordance with the wishes
of their daitnyo colleagues, was to reduce the financial burdens
on domains and bring the great lords into the Shogun's coun-
sels. This was partly secured in October, when the system
of "alternate attendance' (sankin-kotat) was revised by cutting
down the time which feudal lords were required to spend in
Edo and dispensing with the system of hostages formerly
associated with it. Domain establishments in the city were also
to be made smaller and daimyo were to have the right of giving
'advice' when they visited Edo castle.

That the mission's results were mostly a success for Shimazu
is not surprising, in view of the fact that he provided the

82

THE FALL OF THE TOKUGAWA l86o-l868

envoy's escort, but they were not much to the taste of Choshu
or the Kyoto samurai. Moreover, in the absence of the Satsuma
forces, the extremists had achieved an unchallenged supremacy
over the Imperial Court. So much was this so that on his
return to Kyoto at the end of September Shima2u found the
situation completely out of hand. Senior Court nobles were
helpless before threats of assassination and general turbulence.
Everywhere there were inflammatory placards, with brawls
between Bakufu guards and samurai bravos a regular occur-
rence. Nothing short of force to clear the Kyoto streets
seemed likely to restore the position; and Shimazu, doubting
the loyalty of some of his own followers and anticipating a
clash with Britain it was on his way back from Edo that his
men had murdered Richardson at Namamugi was reluctant
to provide it. Instead, he withdrew to Kagoshima, leaving
the capital to its own devices. By so doing he enabled a
few samurai from Choshu, Satsuma and Tosa, known to each
other from the periods they had spent in attendance on their
lords at Edo and sharing an outlook derived largely from
Yoshida Shoin and the Mito scholars, to establish a temporary
control over imperial policy. In November, at their insistence,
one of their allies at Court, Sanjo Sanetomi, was appointed the
emperor's second envoy to Edo, this time to require immediate
action to 'expel the barbarian'.

These continuous demands for expulsion had the effect of
bringing disagreement among the daimyo leaders of reform.
Shimazu was against compromise. He would have preferred to
tell the Court that its policy was impracticable and to have used
force to eliminate the groups which were putting it forward.
On the other hand, he could not give his whole attention to
politics because of the Namamugi problem and preferred to
remain for the time being in Kagoshima. Matsudaira Keiei, by
contrast, was to some extent under the influence of radicals in
his own domain. He argued that for the sake of national unity
the emperor's orders must be accepted and the treaties can-
celled, though he added that diplomatic negotiations should
then be reopened on a more equal footing. With this Hitotsu-
bashi Keiki could not agree. Like most Bakufu officials, he
accepted the necessity for a limited opening of Japanese ports
and held that the Court should be persuaded to change its

83

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

views. He objected, however, to any suggestion of coercion on
the lines Shimazu proposed.

The result of these differences was that Hitotsubashi and
Matsudaira, when they went to Kyoto early in 1863 in response
to the Court's demands, were at odds with each other and
without Shimazu's backing. Once there, moreover, they faced
concerted pressure from Court nobles and hostile samurai,
acting in the emperor's name, so that when the Choshu domain
also threw its weight against them they capitulated with hardly
a struggle. Despite protests from Satsuma and Edo, they
agreed to set June 25 as the date on which action would begin
to 'exclude' the foreigners from Japan. The wording of the
document they signed did not make it clear whether this
meant expulsion by force or foreign withdrawal by arrange-
ment, but it was formally notified to the domains, together
with a warning that coast defences must be ready in case the
foreigners attacked.

It soon became evident, nevertheless, that the Shogun's
officials had no intention of provoking war if they could help
it. At the beginning of June they promised to pay the indemnity
which Britain was demanding for the Namamugi murder. Soon
after, when the first instalment of the money was handed over,
they tried to open negotiations for the closing of the ports.
This, it seems, is what Hitotsubashi and the Bakufu had meant
by their earlier promise. Even so, it was a great deal more than
any foreign representative was likely to concede, as Neale very
bluntly told them. It was also far less than Choshu and Kyoto
wanted, less, indeed, than they meant to have. On June 25,
1863, the day appointed for Bakufu action, Choshu steamers
attacked an American vessel in the Shimonoseki Straits. Early
in July, ships and shore batteries also fired on French and
Dutch vessels in the same area, inflicting casualties and damage.
By the end of that month, in spite of local punitive raids by
the French and American naval commanders, it had to be
recognized that the Shimonoseki Straits were closed to foreign
trade.

It was not long before fighting spread to Satsuma, though
for very different reasons. In August a British squadron en-
tered Kagoshima Bay to complete the second half of Russell's
orders about the Namamugi incident, that is, to demand justice

84

THE FALL OF THE TOKUGAWA l86o-l868

and indemnity from the domain responsible. Dissatisfied with
the reply the officials gave him, Neale eventually ordered the
seizure of three Satsuma steamers to force compliance, but this
led to an exchange of gunfire with the batteries ashore which
resulted during the next few hours in the destruction of much
of Kagoshima and the sinking of the steamers. The British
squadron suffered heavy damage and withdrew. Negotiations
were subsequently resumed at Yokohama, where the Satsuma
envoys at last promised to punish Richardson's murderers, if
they could find them, and pay an indemnity (which they then
persuaded the Bakufu to provide).

The operations at Kagoshima and the Shimonoseki Straits
were hailed by patriots as a victory over both the foreigners
and Edo. They also intensified the rivalry between Satsuma
and Choshu. Choshu continued to work through Kyoto,
where plans had already been announced for forming an im-
perial army with levies to be provided by the 'loyal' feudal
lords. During the summer, moreover, inflamed by success, the
samurai radicals had begun to arrange for the emperor to take
over in person the command of the expulsion campaign, a
direct challenge to the Shogun in his military function. Vio-
lence and terrorism reached new heights as the time for this
coup came nearer.

They were suddenly cut short by Satsuma and Aizu. The
one freed from preoccupation with British gunboats, the other
alarmed at the threat to Bakufu power, they showed themselves
willing to act while Edo merely argued. On September 30,
1863, their troops seized the gates of the emperor's palace and
within a few days the whole situation in the capital had changed.
Sanjo Sanetomi and several other anti-Tokugawa nobles fled
to Choshu for refuge. So did many of the samurai who had
been shaping policy. Others escaped to the nearby countryside
and raised the standard of revolt, though they were quickly
killed or scattered. At Court, the emperor's assumption of
military command was 'postponed', the plan for an imperial
army was abandoned. Finally, to mark the rapprochement
between Court and Bakufu, it was agreed that the Shogun
should again visit Kyoto, though this time as a signal of
victory, not in acceptance of defeat.

This achievement was in fact Shimazu's doing and he lost

D 85

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

no time in showing that he knew it. In November he arrived in
Kyoto at the head of 1 5 ,000 men, followed shortly by Matsu-
daira Keiei and Hitotsubashi Keiki. At Satsuma's urging, all
three, together with Matsudaira of Aizu, Yamanouchi of Tosa
and Date of Uwajima, were admitted regularly to discussions
in the imperial palace. This was a privilege quite without
precedent in recent times. And when lemochi arrived in
February 1 864, an imperial letter enjoined him, too, to let them
take part in the making of decisions. The document's language
was fulsome, its policy Shima2u's, leaving little doubt about
his dominance at Court. It was even rumoured that one of his
samurai was drafting the emperor's correspondence.

To Bakufu officials this situation was no more welcome than
that of the previous year, when the Court had been acting at
the bidding of Choshu. What is more, their jealousy and sus-
picions were conveyed to Hitotsubashi Keiki, with the result
that the Shogun's visit to Kyoto, which had been planned as
a means of consolidating a success, ended by provoking instead
a quarrel between Satsuma and Edo. The occasion once again
was foreign affairs. Shimazu, now more than ever, held that it
was necessary to disillusion the emperor about the possibility
of national seclusion. Hitotsubashi preferred a compromise,
believing that for the Shogun's government to blow hot and
cold at the dictates of whoever happened to dominate the
Court would soon destroy what little prestige it had. He
therefore proposed that Edo should continue to work for the
closing of the port of Yokohama, in the hope that this would
be a token of its sincerity in meeting the emperor's wishes,
without being extreme enough to embroil Japan in foreign
war. Shimazu was contemptuous of such shilly-shallying.
Hitotsubashi, in turn, waxed indignant at Satsuma presump-
tion. The culmination was an emotional scene on March 23,
1864, when the young man subjected Shimazu to a tirade of
drunken abuse, which gained him his point, but broke up the
daimyo coalition.

The various members of the group, except Keiki, withdrew
to their own territories soon after, leaving the government to
solve its foreign problems without their help. Nor was co-
operation between them ever fully restored. Keiki became
more and more a spokesman for Bakufu officialdom. Shimazu,

86

THE FALL OF THE TOKUGAWA 1860-1868

by contrast, fell gradually under the influence of the anti-
Tokugawa faction among his followers, while Yamanouchi,
Date and Matsudaira Keiei shifted rather uneasily between the
two. In sum, one might say that a common interest as great
lords and a desire for moderation in reform had proved weaker
than conflicting family and feudal loyalties, so that the Hitotsu-
bashi party had dissolved at the very moment when it seemed
to have victory won. From this point on, the chance of com-
promise between the opposing forces in Japan was very much
less.

As it transpired, the foreign problems to which Edo now
had to give attention centred not on the closing of Yokohama,
which was brusquely refused, but on Choshu' s closing of the
Shimonoseki Straits. The Western representatives had waited
throughout the winter of 1863-64 for instructions from home
about this matter, only to find, when they received them, that
the decision was left to themselves. Rutherford Alcock, now
back at his post, was glad of it. The time had come, he said, to
make an example of Choshu and put an end to anti-foreign
demonstrations in Japan. In this his colleagues eventually
concurred, so that at the end of May 1864 the French, Dutch,
American and British ministers renewed their demands for the
opening of the Straits, threatening to take action themselves if
Edo failed to do so. The Bakufu, after some delay, again coun-
tered with a proposal that Yokohama be closed instead. This
was unwise and not at all well received, the ministers beginning
at once to make preparations for a joint naval expedition
against Choshu.

They had no sooner assembled a squadron than their plans
were delayed by new prospects of a settlement. In July two
Choshu samurai, Ito Hirobumi and Inoue Kaoru, who had
previously been smuggled out of Japan to study in London,
arrived in Yokohama with an offer to mediate. Their efforts
were unsuccessful, but took up a good deal of time. Then in
August, just as the ships were ready to leave, a Japanese
diplomatic mission returned from Paris, where it had been sent
earlier in the year in the hope of repeating the London success
of 1862. Since it had signed a convention in June without
authority to do so which provided for the Bakufu to open

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

the Straits, if necessary with naval help from France, matters
were again held up while awaiting Edo's reactions. These were
prompt in coming. On August 24 the convention was dis-
avowed, the envoys dismissed and punished. A few days later
the joint force sailed: seventeen ships (nine British, three French,
four Dutch and one American) mounting nearly three hundred
guns in all.

On September 5, 1864, after an abortive attempt by Choshu
to negotiate, the ships carried out a heavy bombardment of the
batteries in the Shimonoseki Straits. During the next two days
they landed men to take the emplacements and dismantle their
equipment, seizing a number of guns and destroying others.
This brought Choshu to terms. By September 14 conditions
for a truce were settled, including a promise that navigation
would be uninterrupted and an agreement in principle to the
payment of an indemnity. Discussions were then transferred to
Yokohama and Edo. Here the Bakufu finally accepted responsi-
bility for the costs of the expedition and a convention setting
out the arrangements was signed on October 22. It provided
for an indemnity of 3 million dollars, payable in six instalments.
Instead of paying it, however, Japan was given the option of
opening another port to trade, either Shimonoseki itself, or
some other place in the Inland Sea. Thus, far from restricting
trade, it was obvious that the Treaty Powers had every inten-
tion of increasing it and the Bakufu was left with no illusions
about its ability to resist.

After these experiences, indeed, it no longer sought to evade
the demands of Western envoys. Convinced at last that the
risk of foreign war was greater than that of civil commotion, it
preferred to put pressure on the Court rather than to quarrel
over treaties. This was made amply clear in the autumn of 1 865 ,
when the representatives of the Powers, led by the new British
minister, Sir Harry Parkes, made fresh proposals concerning
the Shimonoseki indemnity. They were willing, they said, to
waive the remaining payments. In return they sought the im-
mediate opening of Hyogo and a public acknowledgment by
the emperor that the treaties had his consent, the latter being
expected in any case as evidence of Japanese good faith. This
was at the beginning of November. The argument was backed
by a sizeable squadron anchored off Hyogo and led to a flurry

THE FALL OF THE TOKUGAWA 1860-1868

of exchanges between Osaka castle, where the Shogun was in
residence, and the Imperial Court. The latter at first refused all
concessions and dismissed the two Bakufu ministers who had
urged them. At this the Shogun threatened to resign, the ulti-
mate gesture. So armed, Hitotsubashi Keiki and the Council-
lors of State were able to beat down Kyoto's objections, despite
protests from Satsuma, and on November 22 they secured the
emperor's formal sanction of the 1858 agreements. This ended
expulsion as an official policy. Seven months later, in June
1866, the Bakufu signed a new commercial treaty, reducing
import duties to 5 per cent and removing almost all the restric-
tions on foreign trade.

The events of 1863 and 1864 also contributed to a change of
heart among samurai extremists. Some had expressed private
doubts about the wisdom of expulsion long before, like Taka-
sugi Shinsaku and Kido Koin of Choshu, for example, who
had done so as early as 1862. Similarly, Okubo Toshimichi
and Saigo Takamori of Satsuma, though impeccably patriotic,
favoured trade relations with the outside world as a means of
strengthening Japan. All these men were now becoming power-
ful in their own domains and capable of influencing general
policy. Moreover, their realism was something which the guns
of British warships helped to spread. For after the bombard-
ments of Kagoshima and Shimonoseki, although there re-
mained a good deal of anti-foreign sentiment, especially in
Kyoto, and attacks on foreigners occasionally took place,
more and more of the samurai became convinced that expelling
the barbarian was not a practical ambition, 'The irrational
extremists', Okubo wrote in 1865, c have for the most part had
their eyes opened; they argue the impossibility of expulsion
and even recommend the opening of the country.' 27

For all this there was no public disavowal of expulsion by
the samurai leaders. This was partly because such action would
have involved a personal risk Takasugi at one time had to go
into hiding to escape the vengeance of the xenophobes and
partly because anti-foreign sentiments could usefully be ex-
ploited in the struggle against the Tokugawa. The slogan
c expel the barbarian' continued to play its part in rallying oppo-
sition. So did that of 'honour the emperor', though its signifi-

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

cance was fast becoming as amuletic as the other. The Satsuma
and Aizu coup d'etat of September 30, 1863, had demonstrated
the impossibility of building a successful revolution round
Court nobles and ill-organized samurai bands. Too many
leaders, too little discipline, a lack of economic resources
despite the sympathy and hospitality of individual merchants
these nullified the advantages of courage and fanaticism when
the conspirators found themselves confronting a coherent
military force. The lesson was driven home in August 1864.
In that month some 2,000 men from Choshu, with allies from
other domains, tried to reverse the previous year's decision by
seizing control of Kyoto in their turn. They were thrown back
after bitter street fighting, in which many of the most famous
loyalists lost their lives.

This was the last attempt by lesser samurai to bring down
the regime by independent action and its failure brought a
change in the nature of the anti-Tokugawa movement. Much
of its original leadership had been removed: killed in the fight-
ing, murdered in factional brawls, executed or imprisoned by
authority. Those who were left, as well as many of the rank-
and-file, were beginning to reconsider their ideas. For one
thing, they were a little older, a little more experienced in
affairs. For another, it had been made brutally obvious to them
that unorganized, scattered violence, undertaken at individual
initiative, was no more effective against the Bakufu than it was
against the West. Even the substantial, if surreptitious, backing
of Choshu, plus a campaign of political terrorism, had pro-
duced only short-lived success, which had ended as soon as
Satsuma threw in its lot with Edo.

From these facts the more open-minded drew two con-
clusions: first, that opposition could not be successful unless it
had the military and economic support of domain govern-
ments; second, that they should therefore concentrate attention
on securing control, or at least influence, in those domains
like Choshu, Satsuma and Tosa where their sympathizers
seemed already strong. This led them to accept hereafter the
leadership of samurai who instead of escaping to Kyoto or
elsewhere had remained at work in official posts. These were
usually men of rather more moderate anti-Tokugawa views,
co-operation with whom was only possible on a basis of

9

THE FALL OF THE TOKUGAWA l86o~l868

compromise. Yet what was lost because of this in terms of radical
objectives was gained in terms of the new relationship which
became possible with feudal lords and senior retainers. In sub-
stance, the samurai of middle rank who now took over direction
of affairs were able to shape a much more formidable combina-
tion than any before it, embracing both remnants of the radical
loyalist movement and members of the Hitotsubashi party dis-
illusioned by their failure to achieve reform: daimyo, officials,
Court nobles, renegade samurai, even commoners. The final
stage in the story of the Bakufu's fall is that of the formation of
this alliance and its harnessing to specific political ends.

Choshu remained for some time the most important centre.
Its anti-foreign activities had made it a refuge for all those who
had been driven out of Kyoto in 1863-4 or whose political
movements in their own domains had been suppressed by
conservative lords. In both Fukui and Tosa, for example, the
loyalists had been imprisoned or expelled when their friends in
Kyoto failed. Survivors made their way to Choshu, where their
help in fighting the foreigner was welcome. Often they joined
special military units, put under Choshu command. Working
with them were units formed by Choshu men themselves,
irregulars whose enlistment had been authorized by the domain
government in September 1863 in anticipation of foreign attack.
Most of them were raised and led by lesser samurai, often with
money provided by rich landlords and entrepreneurs of the
countryside, and were recruited from rural families on the
fringe of the feudal class. Younger sons, lordless samurai and
the impoverished comprised much of their total strength. This
gave them greater mobility than the usual feudal levy, as well
as making for more radical views. Moreover, discipline was
strict and the quality of leadership high, since promotion went
by ability, not by birth, while a preference for Western-style
weapons and training made the whole into a formidable force.
Its size is uncertain, but there seem to have been about 150
units, each of anything from 100 to 500 men, the most famous
being the Kiheitai, organized by Takasugi Shinsaku, the man
who was chiefly responsible for the military efficiency of the
irregulars and eventually converted them to political use.

Defeat by the foreigners at Shimonoseki and by Satsuma in
Kyoto during August 1864 had discredited the Choshu radicals

9 1

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

and brought a temporary reaction, putting power into the
hands of the traditionalist samurai of the castle-town. Their
immediate task was to save the Mori house from the conse-
quences of its followers' actions, for on August 24, at Bakufu
prompting, Choshu had been declared outlaw by the Imperial
Court and preparations had then been made for a punitive
expedition against it under the command of Tokugawa Yoshi-
katsu of Owari, who assembled contingents from the Bakufu
and great domains at Osaka in November. At this point the
new Choshu leaders agreed to negotiate a settlement. In Decem-
ber they admitted their fault and accepted punishment. In
January the Bakufu forces were ordered to disband. Before the
agreements could be carried out, however, Takasugi Shinsaku
and Kido Koin, aided by the irregular units under their com-
mand, once again overthrew the so-called pro-Bakufu party
within the domain and made the daimyo their prisoner. By
March 1865, with the help of moderates whose loyalty to
Choshu was greater than their respect for Edo, they had
formed an administration and were able to dictate policy.
Thereafter it was aimed singlemindedly at the destruction of
the Tokugawa house.

Satsuma took longer to reach the same conclusion. The
first effects of bombardment there had been an intensification
of naval and military reform, new educational provision for
samurai on Western lines, and the sending of students and
envoys to Europe. The domain was even separately represented
at the Paris Exposition of 1867, much to the Bakufu's annoy-
ance. All this, however, was no more than an extension of
activities which had begun under Shimazu Nariakira before
1858. In politics, change, if slower, proved in the end more
drastic. The events of 1 864, which had spelt failure for Shimazu
Hisamitsu's plans, led to a lessening of his influence in Kago-
shima he was, after all, the daimyo' *s father, not the feudal lord
himself and pressure was brought to bear on him to give
greater heed to those samurai of his entourage, especially Saigo
Takamori and Okubo Toshimichi, who were known to be
sympathetic to the loyalist cause. These two soon became the
domain's chief agents in Kyoto and it was not long before
they were making policy, as well as carrying it out.

The major question to engage their attention was that of

92

THE FALL OF THE TOKUGAWA l86o-l868

the Bakufu's relations with Choshu. Saigo had already acted
as mediator in the attempts to reach a compromise at the end
of 1 8 64, but after the victory of Takasugi and Kido early in the
following year it was obvious that Choshu was no longer will-
ing to keep the bargain. Nor, for that matter, were the Bakufu's
officials. In May 1865 they announced a second punitive expedi-
tion, to be under the Shogun's personal command. Several of
the great domains protested, urging the importance of unity in
the face of foreign danger and objecting to the cost, which
none of them could afford; but Edo was by this time convinced
that there was more at stake than a factional quarrel. Failure to
assert its authority over Choshu, the Bakufu maintained, would
destroy that authority entirely. By the autumn, therefore, it was
clear that a trial of strength was not to be avoided.

Meanwhile, Satsuma and Choshu had been gradually over-
coming their suspicions of each other with the help of refugees
from Tosa. In September, Ito and Inoue, the samurai who had
tried last-minute negotiations to save Choshu from bombard-
ment in 1864, were sent to Nagasaki to arrange imports of
weapons from a British firm. They were offered the hospitality
of the Satsuma agency and a Satsuma ship delivered the con-
signment. Thereafter Satsuma regularly acted as the channel
through which the highly illegal cargoes of armaments reached
Choshu, a form of co-operation which did much to counteract
the generations of rivalry that had so far kept the two domains
apart. It soon gave place to a formal alliance, concluded
secretly by Kido and Saigo at Osaka in March 1866. Satsuma
agreed to use its influence at Court to restore Choshu to
favour. Both bound themselves to overthrow the Tokugawa
and restore the emperor to his former dignities. As a result the
anti-Tokugawa movement acquired for the first time a solid
core of military strength which made it possible to meet the
Bakufu on equal terms.

The first evidence of this was given by Choshu. In March
1866 the Bakufu issued an ultimatum setting out the terms on
which it would accept Choshu* s submission: a reduction of the
fiePs territory by 100,000 koku and the retirement of the daimyo,
Mori Yoshichika, who was to be succeeded by his grandson.
The ultimatum was ignored. Military operations, now inevit-
able, began in July with attacks launched down the Japan Sea

93

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

coast, along the Inland Sea from Hiroshima and across the
straits from northern Kyushu, but all were held, the one from
the north being decisively repulsed. The Bakufu's greater num-
bers this despite the refusal of Shimazu and several other
lords to send contingents were matched by Choshu's superior
technique, largely the product of Takasugi's training. Within
two months Bakufu forces were being driven back on every
front. At this point there came news that the Shogun lemochi
had died on September 19, giving pretext for a truce which
Edo thankfully accepted.

The death of lemochi made Hitotsubashi Keiki Shogun,
with the unenviable task of saving the Bakufu from the con-
sequences of an outstanding military failure. He turned to
administrative reform, this time under foreign guidance. That
he could seek such guidance was something new, stemming
from the changes induced in Japan's relations with the West
as each side came to know more about the other. Britain, for
example, brought into direct contact with Satsuma and Choshu
by the negotiations which followed bombardment, had learnt
something of their outlook, even to the extent of sympathizing
with it. Having defeated the*, as one British diplomat put it,
c we had come to like and respect them, while a feeling of dis-
like began to arise in our minds for the Tycoon's people on
account of their weakness and double-dealing'. 28 Thus during
the fighting between the Bakufu and Choshu in 1866 Britain
seemed often to favour the latter. Certainly Parkes and his
young interpreters were becoming frequent visitors at the
establishments maintained in Edo and Osaka by the anti-
Bakufu domains, sometimes to their territories as well. This
made them suspect to Bakufu officials.

By contrast, the activities of the French minister, Leon
Roches, were more to Edo's taste. He preferred to support the
established government, hoping to use its suspicions of Britain
as a means of furthering French influence and trade. During
1865 this policy brought him a number of successes: a small
shipyard and iron-foundry was built at Yokohama with French
help; a school was established there with French teachers; and
a major contract was signed for the construction of a dockyard
at Yokosuka, work on which began towards the end of the
year, though it was still unfinished when Tokugawa rule ended

94

THE FALL OF THE TOKUGAWA 1860-1868

in 1868. Plans were also drawn up for a Franco- Japanese
trading company, to deal chiefly in silk under government
patronage, though these did not materialize until September
1 866. Finally, agreement was reached in November of that year
for the dispatch of a French military mission to reform the
Shogun's army.

In these circumstances it was natural that Keiki should turn
to Roches for advice about reform. In March 1867 the two
men had a meeting in Osaka at which Roches put forward
proposals for a complete reorganization of the Bakufu on
Western lines. The council, he recommended, should be re-
modelled in the manner of a cabinet, controlling specialist
departments of the army, navy, foreign affairs, finance and so
on. Central control should be imposed on the domains and
cash levies required from them instead of military service.
A regular system of taxation would also be essential. More-
over, the government should sponsor new industries, mines
and commercial undertakings.

This was much too radical a plan for Keiki and only a few
of the measures were ever put into effect, chiefly the ones
relating to military organization, though attempts were also
made to introduce a degree of specialization into the higher
offices of government, while old rules about status were suf-
ficiently broken through to enable a number of able men to
be raised to senior posts. What was done certainly fell far short
of creating the authoritarian modern state which Roches seems
to have had in mind. But it brought enough improvement to
alarm the opposition. Satsuma and Choshu began to fear that
they must act quickly or lose their chance, a fear that was con-
firmed by the events of June 1867, when the great lords and
Keiki, now Shogun, again assembled in Kyoto for discussions
of policy.

There were two matters to be decided: the opening of Hyogo
and the 'punishment' of Choshu. About the necessity for the
first of these, since it was required by treaty, there was no great
difference of opinion, though there remained the task of over-
coming the Court's reluctance. About the second the lords
and the Shogun were sharply divided. Technically, Choshu
was still a rebel. The Bakufu emphasized this point and clung
to its demand for a reduction in Choshu territory. By contrast,

95

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

the great lords, led by Shimazu, pointing to military realities,
urged that the domain's daimyo receive no more than formal
punishment and went so far as to refuse their consent to the
opening of Hyogo unless they had their way about Choshu.
Even when this was conceded they continued to quibble over
forms. Finally Keiki lost patience and forced the Court to give
its sanction to a compromise decision, announcing on June
26 that Hyogo was to be opened when the due date came and
that lenient treatment' would be accorded to Choshu.

This demonstration that the Bakufu could still get its own
way at Court was a blow to the hopes of Okubo and Saigo.
With the help of the Court noble, Iwakura Tomomi, they had
been busy extending their influence over the young emperor,
Meiji, who had succeeded Komei in February and was more
pliable in these matters than his father. It now seemed that this
work might be wasted unless it were backed by force. However,
the prospect of yet another armed intervention in Kyoto
politics spelt danger to the moderate reformers, led by Tosa,
who saw that whereas success would leave power in the hands
of Satsuma and Choshu, failure might confirm the Bakufu's
authority. In either case the uncommitted domains were likely
to find themselves excluded from the making of decisions.
Tosa therefore began to press for the formation of an imperial
council of daimyo^ presided over by Keiki, as a solution which
would meet the wishes of the domains without entirely destroy-
ing the prestige of the Tokugawa. In October 1867, Yama-
nouchi and his chief adviser, Goto Shojiro, urged Keiki to
resign in order to make such a council possible. Since this con-
formed well enough with his personal inclinations and seemed
the only step that might avert another civil war, Keiki accepted
the advice and submitted his resignation to the Court on
November 9.

Implicitly, only the office of Shogun was at stake, not the
Tokugawa lands and strongholds; but Satsuma and Choshu,
though agreeable to the idea of a daimyo council, would not
accept Keiki as its president nor his retention of the Shogun's
vast estates. To do so, they held, would give him a decisive
advantage in later disputes. Indeed, even before Keiki's offer
to resign they had obtained in secret an imperial letter which
pardoned Choshu and approved the use of force against the

THE FALL OF THE TOKUGAWA l86o~l868

Tokugawa. They had also brought Satsuma troops into the
capital in substantial numbers. Resolved now not to turn aside
or compromise, Okubo and Saigo told Goto on December 28
of their determination to act within the next few days. On the
29th Iwakura gave the news to representatives of Owari, Tosa,
Fukui and Hiroshima. Recognizing that there was nothing they
could do to prevent an attempted coup d'etat and conscious
that joining it was less dangerous than letting it succeed with-
out them the four domains promised their help, playing a
minor supporting role when five days later the much-canvassed
plot was carried out. On the morning of January 3, 1868,
troops under the command of Saigo Takamori seized the
palace gates. A council was summoned, from which known
opponents were excluded, and a decree was approved stripping
Keiki of his lands and office. A decision was also taken to
return formally to the emperor the responsibility for adminis-
tration. It was this which gave the event its name: the Meiji
Restoration, the restoration of power to the emperor Meiji. To
all appearances it was no more than another palace revolution
as many of the participants must have thought it but it
was to prove the beginning of far-reaching change.

97

CHAPTER VI

NEW MEN AND NEW METHODS
1868-1873

Organisation of new administrative machine the Meiji

oligarchy abolition of feudal domains land tax reform

centralisation the Iwakura mission

THE DECISIONS taken on January 3, 1868, after Satsuma
and its allies had seized control of the imperial palace were not
immediately made public. Nor did the emperor's new cham-
pions possess means of carrying them out. It was all very well
to inform the Shogun that he was stripped of his lands and
office, but none knew whether he would accept the decree or
whether, if he rejected it, he could be made to submit by force.
Accordingly, the next three weeks were a time of rumour and
speculation, when only an inner circle of Court and Bakufu
officials had any idea of what was going on. Choshu, pardoned
by the Court, moved troops to Kyoto, which greatly strength-
ened the hand of the conspirators, while the Shogun, Keiki,
withdrew to Osaka, where he had a substantial body of men
at his command. Despite this he gave the impression of having
abandoned all attempts to control the situation, though his
chief supporters, the lords of Ai2u and Kuwana, clearly wanted
him to fight. Meanwhile Owari and Fukui, both of whom
were Tokugawa relatives, were working to bring about a com-
promise, proposing that Keiki should surrender only his Court
titles and such part of his lands as would provide the emperor
with an adequate revenue. Keiki agreed. However, he reckoned
without the growing hostility between Satsuma and Aizu.
On January 26, apparently without the Shogun' s authority,
Aizu and Kuwana troops marched on Kyoto. Next day outside

NEW MEN AND NEW METHODS 1868-1873

the city they clashed with those of Satsuma and Choshu. The
latter, though heavily outnumbered, drove them back on
Osaka, whence Keiki fled to Edo, and with this as pretext the
Court was persuaded to proclaim him rebel. Japan again faced
civil war, this time with the roles of Edo and Choshu reversed.

In practice the worst was avoided. During the weeks that
followed the imperial forces moved steadily eastward, but
there was little fighting. Most daimyo along the route submitted
even before the advance-guard reached them. Eventually
Keiki reasserted his authority over his own advisers to the
point of forbidding resistance, with the result that Edo was
occupied early in April and formal surrender terms were nego-
tiated soon after. They were comparatively generous. Keiki
himself was to go into retirement, but his successor as head of
the Tokugawa house was to retain lands of 700,000 koku
about the same as Satsuma, nearly twice as much as Choshu
and this, together with the promise of pardon to all Tokugawa
vassals who swore allegiance to the new government, prevented
hostilities on a national scale. Aizu rejected the settlement,
resisting stubbornly for another six months in the mountains
round Wakamatsu, but when its lord yielded with his castle
and its garrison at the beginning of November, the whole of
the north surrendered too. Thereafter, the only Tokugawa
adherents still at liberty were a few who had escaped to
Hokkaido by sea. They managed to hold out till June of the
following year.

The relative ease with which the Bakufu was overcome was
a great relief to the Satsuma and Choshu leaders, whose posi-
tion had at first been exceedingly precarious. Though they had
the enormous advantage of control over the emperor's person,
many senior Court nobles were against them and had to be
dismissed, while most of the great lords remained watchful
rather than friendly. Even the domains which belonged to the
victorious coalition had different interests and different view-
points, so that there was always a danger of disruption. Cer-
tainly they were not capable of giving unified direction. Nor
was the Court, for it had prestige without power: no lands, no
revenue, no military force of its own, no officials outside the
immediate area of the capital. Decrees issued in the emperor's
name could be enforced only where the imperial army

99

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

happened to be fighting an army which comprised contingents
from several domains, each under its own commander. Over
much of the country, in fact, enforcement was at the pleasure
of the individual feudal lord. Since the Bakufu's administration
had come to a standstill as well, it is fair to say that in the first
few weeks of 1868 Japan had no central government at all.

One solution might have been to found a new line of
Shogun, as many contemporaries thought would happen. Yet
there were obstacles which made this course unlikely. Neither
of the obvious contenders, Satsuma and Choshu, could estab-
lish a clear superiority over the other, while both were cordially
disliked by a majority. Moreover, the position of the two
daimyo within their own domains was not such as to allow a
personal rule of the traditional kind, still less its extension to
the country as a whole. This being so, it was necessary to find
a new institutional framework to make government effective.
Habit, sentiment and the fact of Bakufu resistance combined
to ensure that it should centre on the Imperial Court. Beyond
this, all remained to be decided: the name and nature of
political institutions, the men who should control them, the
policies they would carry out. Decision of these matters was to
be the main strand of Japanese history for the next five years.

The process began with an attempt to maintain as wide as
possible an alliance against the Tokugawa. If the civil war were
to be successfully prosecuted, the government had to make
room for all the elements which had contributed to the
Bakufu's downfall, or at least as many of them as qualified by
status: Court nobles, great lords, samurai officials of the do-
mains, even representatives of the radical movement. This was
reflected in the early stages of constitution-making and appoint-
ment. On January 3, 1868, an imperial council took the first
step by appointing new Court advisers to replace those who
had been dismissed. At the head of the regime was an imperial
prince, a choice which resolved conflicting claims among the
active participants in the coup d'etat. He was given as deputies
two Court nobles who had played a distinguished part in anti-
Tokugawa politics, Sanjo Sanetomi and Iwakura Tomomi.
Three other nobles were rewarded for similar services by appoint-
ment as senior councillors (Gijo\ being joined as such by two

100

NEW MEN AND NEW METHODS 1868-1873

more imperial princes and the five feudal lords whose troops
were manning the palace gates, those of Satsuma, Tosa,
Hiroshima, Owari and Fukui. As junior councillors (Sanyo)
were several more Court nobles of minor rank and three
samurai from each of the same five domains, Choshu being added
to their number later. In February the pattern was extended by
the creation of administrative departments. At their head were
Gijo, with Sanyo as their deputies or assistants, the latter being
responsible in each case for the actual work of the department.
This change made necessary an increase in the number of
councillors, as also did the accession to the alliance of domains
like Uwajima, Kumamoto and Tottori, so that by the begin-
ning of June over one hundred Sanyo had been appointed.
Since their duties were ill-defined and there was virtually no
machinery to carry them out, this was clearly a move designed
to influence opinion.

Two other devices were also designed to serve this end. The
first, which was announced in March, was the summoning of
delegates from all the domains to act as a consultative assembly.
This proved a useful means of gauging feudal opinion and
rallying support. The second, known as the Charter Oath of
April 6, 1868, was a public statement in the emperor's name
of the government's intentions, which promised that policy
would be formulated only after wide consultation and that 'base
customs of former times shall be abolished'. 29 The implication
was that the old exclusiveness of Bakufu rule was not to be
repeated, nor a new Bakufu established. This was to reassure
those who were suspicious of Satsuma and Choshu. It was
also to provide a basis for reconciliation with the defeated
Tokugawa and the trained officials in their service, whose help
was urgently needed if the national administration were to
operate smoothly.

Once Edo had surrendered there was less need to maintain
an appearance of universal support for the new regime, even
though fighting still continued in the north. Moreover, the
prospect of acquiring the bulk of the Tokugawa lands meant
that Kyoto would shortly have something to govern, making
it desirable that the administration contain fewer nonentities in
high office. In June 1868, therefore, came a major reorganiza-
tion. It was designed ostensibly to put into effect the principles

101

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

of the Charter Oath; and in its enunciation of a separation of
powers nullified in practice by an interlocking of both men
and functions between legislature, executive and judiciary
It gave evidence that study was already being made of
Western constitutions. Its most important feature, however,
was the re-distribution of posts. This was especially marked at
the level of junior councillor and vice-minister of department,
where there was a sharp reduction in total numbers, effected by
cutting the representation of Court nobles (to three from over
forty) and excluding many of the domains. The nineteen
samurai nominated in the fourteen months for which the
systemlasted came from only seven territories: Satsuma, Choshu,
Tosa, Hizen, Hiroshima, Fukui and Kumamoto. Two-thirds
of them were men of middling rank and nearly all had held
office in domain governments.

This tendency towards concentration of power in fewer
hands increased as the controlling group gained confidence and
strength. In August 1869, when all the fighting was over, the
administration was again revised, taking this time the shape
which it was to retain until the introduction of a Western-style
cabinet sixteen years later. The Executive Council (Dajokari)
became clearly the strongest arm of government. At its head
was Sanjo, supported by a number of advisers of varying rank
who together supervised the six executive departments: Civil
Affairs (reorganized as Home Affairs in November 1873),
Finance, War (divided into Army and Navy separately at the
beginning of 1872), Justice, Imperial Household and Foreign
Affairs. The high-ranking dignitaries who were ministers of
these departments were all, except in the Imperial Household
department, given samurai assistants. Moreover, only samurai
were appointed to the key position of councillor (Sangf) to the
Executive Council. A few Court nobles Sanjo, Iwakura and
perhaps half a dozen more still held offices of some conse-
quence. Two former daimyo> Date Muneki of Uwajima and
Nabeshima Naomasa of Hizen, retained official standing, the
first for almost two years, the second for a little less. But for
the most part authority now passed into the hands of a small
group of samurai from Satsuma, Choshu, Tosa and Hizen, other
domains being excluded from all but subordinate posts. Even
the consultative assembly of samurai, though it continued in

102

NEW MEN AND NEW METHODS 1868-1873

a modified form, was allowed to fall into disuse. Its discussions
were adjourned in October 1870 and it never met again, sure
sign that the government no longer felt the need to win friends
in the country at large.

From this time on, each crisis successfully weathered meant
a more open assumption of power by the inner group. In the
summer of 1871, when the old domains were abolished (see
below), samurai took over as heads of two vital departments,
Finance and Foreign Affairs. In October 1873, after a dispute
over priorities which split the councillors into two hostile
factions, the victors took direct responsibility for the formula-
tion, as well as the execution, of government policy. Figure-
heads were no longer needed. Appearance and reality were
one. In other words, the men who had first learnt to manipu-
late their own feudal lords, then their emperor and his courtiers,
had at last achieved a position in which they could dispense
with camouflage and avow their power. The 'Meiji oligarchy*
was taking shape, with samurai from the south and west as its
leading figures.

The senior member of the group was in fact a Court noble,
Iwakura Tomomi (1825-83). Shrewd and capable, exercising
great personal influence over the emperor and the Court, he
served first as councillor, briefly as Foreign Minister in the
autumn of 1871, then as senior minister until his death in
1883. Of the samurai, Saigo Takamori (1828-77), who had
commanded the Satsuma troops in the civil war and negotiated
the Tokugawa surrender, was at once the most popular and
most contradictory. Acclaimed as champion and exemplar of
the samurai class, he tried after 1868 to hold aloof from politics,
only to find himself, because of his reputation and sense of
duty, involved in every crisis. A conservative become revolu-
tionary against his will, he ended as a rebel under arms. In
sharp contrast was his boyhood friend, Okubo Toshimichi
(1830-78). Okubo was by nature a politician, a ruthless and
clear-sighted one, with an instinct for governing. In 1871 he
became Minister of Finance and from November 1873, as
Home Minister, emerged as the administration's strongest
personality. He was responsible more than any other for the
fact that its critics, including Saigo, were unable to divert it
from its chosen course, a role which eventually cost him his

103

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

life at the hands of Saigo's followers. Less incisive, but more
flexible and open to new ideas, was Kido Koin (1833-77).
The premature death of Takasugi Shinsaku in the spring of
1867 had left Kido almost unchallenged in his control of
Choshu politics and hence the domain's chief representative
in the central government. There he became an advocate of
radical change, especially in political institutions, arguing
persistently and often successfully against the more traditional
outlook of the majority of his colleagues.

For all their differences of temperament, these four men had
much in common. They were of the same generation and in
origin of similar social standing. Iwakura, as a Court noble,
was in theory vastly above the other three, but he came from
the middle levels of his own class, just as they did from theirs.
Saigo, Okubo and Kido were from families of full samurai
rank, though with little pretension to wealth. They were
respectable enough to quality for office even under the old
regime, but had had to win promotion in the only way open
to them in a society where status and authority were closely
linked, through the household or entourage of their feudal
lords. Iwakura had broken through barriers at Court in much
the same manner by using the emperor's personal favour. Their
colleagues, too, were men very like themselves, able but rela-
tively junior members of the feudal ruling class, who were
increasingly chosen for appointment by criteria of efficiency
and experience. Those whose only claim to consideration
rested on radical views and a record of anti-Tokugawa vio-
lence found honours easier to come by than responsibility,
while some who had served the Bakufu found even this no
disability once a year or two had passed and wounds were
healed. Katsu Awa (1823-99) is a good example. A samurai of
modest rank, formerly serving Edo as a naval expert, he was
the only councillor appointed between 1869 and 1885 who did
not come from one of the four paramount domains.

Within these domains there was emerging also a slightly
younger generation, already important and destined to survive
into the twentieth century. From Satsuma there was Matsukata
Masayoshi (1837-1924), a man of semi-samurai descent, who
was to become Finance Minister in 1881 and to hold that office
for over fifteen years. From Tosa came Itagaki Taisuke (1837-

104

NEW MEN AND NEW METHODS 1868-1873

1919), a loyalist, military expert and eventually political party
leader. Okuma Shigenobu (1838-1922) was from Hizen, where
he had studied both Dutch and English before the Restoration,
as well as supervising the fief's foreign trade. In 1869 he was
made deputy in the two departments of Finance and Civil
Affairs, Minister of Finance from 1873 to l88o > kiter P ar ty
politician, founder of Waseda University, Foreign Minister.
Two Choshu men, both of whom were of something less than
full samurai rank by birth, achieved even greater fame. Yama-
gata Aritomo (1838-1922) was soldier more than politician,
at least until his middle years. Ito Hirobumi (1841-1909) was,
like Okuma, a modernizer with more than average knowledge
of the West, having studied in London during 1863-4, in
America during 1870-1. The training stood him in good stead
when he was Minister of Public Works from 1873 to 1881.
Thereafter, with the help of Iwakura, he succeeded Okubo as
the government's outstanding leader, to be succeeded in his
turn by Yamagata when the century ended.

It is true that these men were younger than Kido, Saigo,
Okubo and Iwakura, as were six or seven others of similar
background who served with them in the cabinets of 1885 and
after. Yet they were old enough to have shared in the political
struggles of 1860-68, as well as to have experienced the life of
Edo, Kyoto and castle-town under the Tokugawa. This created
a certain community of outlook which persisted despite quar-
rels and factional strife. For forty years after the Restoration,
Japanese policy was determined by men from only four do-
mains, forming a group which was homogeneous in age, social
origin and political experience. This fact was vital to the
success of the new government, for it gave a consistency and
continuity to its actions which enabled fresh habits to become
deep-rooted before another generation rose to challenge them.

Before this oligarchy could be said to rule Japan there had to
be an authority it could wield. In 1869 this was yet to be
created. The central government still depended on the domains
for its military force, on former Tokugawa lands for most of
its revenue, on the emperor's prestige for what obedience it
could command. In fact, before any major decision could be
taken and carried out, Kido, Okubo and Iwakura had to

105

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

conduct a series of difficult negotiations. They had first to
secure the support of Satsuma and Choshu and the two
daimyo y to say nothing of their senior retainers, did not always
co-operate willingly then that of the Imperial Court. This
done, a combination of exhortation and intrigue would be
employed to get the concurrence of the other feudal lords. It
was all very complex and unsatisfactory. To samurai who were
conscious of their ability and had been brought up in an
authoritarian tradition, it seemed far better that the imperial
government should possess real power. Moreover, as indi-
viduals they had little to lose by transferring their allegiance to
it. What they might lose by way of feudal influence and
standing would be more than balanced, if they were successful,
by the rewards of office in an administration which really
governed on a national scale.

Several steps taken during 1868 had indicated a desire to
weaken feudal separatism. For example, the Court re-issued
in its own name many of the old Bakufu restrictions on the
activities of daimyo y such as the ban on issuing coinage or
forming marriage alliances. It also ordered samurai who ac-
cepted office in the central government to sever relations with
their original domains. In December came direct intervention,
in the form of a decree which specified the titles to be held by
senior domain officials, described them as 'subject to the
Imperial authority' and ordered feudal lords to choose them
from 'the fittest and ablest . . . irrespective of any other
considerations'. 30 The implications of this were far-reaching,
though the immediate effect was small. Also significant, per-
haps, was the fact that confiscated Tokugawa estates were put
under imperial officers, not re-distributed by way of reward to
loyalists.

To several of the new leaders this was not nearly enough.
As Ito put it many years later, 'the whole fabric of the feudal
system, which with its obsolete shackles and formalities hin-
dered us at every step . . . had to be uprooted and destroyed'. 31
Kido had advanced this view early in 1868, but it was far too
radical for his colleagues and his proposals had been rejected.
This did not stop him. In June he returned to Choshu and
tried to persuade Mori to set an example, urging him to offer
his lands voluntarily to the emperor. The plan aroused much

106

NEW MEN AND NEW METHODS 1868-1873

hostility within the domain, but it was eventually adopted,
with the proviso that Satsuma must be willing to act in similar
fashion. This left Kido to try his arguments once again in
Kyoto. In November, Okubo rather guardedly agreed. By
February 1869 other Satsuma samurai had been won over, as
had Itagaki of Tosa and Okuma of Hizen, and together they
overcame the objections of their lords. On March 2 the four
domains submitted a joint memorial putting their lands and
people at the emperor's disposal.

It has never been quite clear what this document was in-
tended to imply. Superficially, it was an offer to surrender
feudal rights entirely, as some obviously meant it to be. On the
other hand, its wording was capable of a different interpre-
tation. Whether intentionally or not, references to the desira-
bility of creating a single source of authority could as easily
have been a condemnation of Court-Bakufu dualism as a plea
for abolishing the autonomy of the feudal lords. Equally, the
request that the emperor dispose of feudal territories at will,
'giving what should be given and taking away what should be
taken away 1 , 32 has something of the air of seeking confirmation
of existing privileges, as was customary when one feudal
regime succeeded another. There were certainly a good many
who read it in this light, to judge by later reactions. Even
within the inner circles of government the enthusiasm of Kido
and Ito was by no means universal. Okubo felt that it was too
soon for a trial of strength, especially as the samurai assembly
gave the proposal no warm welcome. He supported a com-
promise, the terms of which were agreed after long debate and
in July 1869 were at last put into effect. The memorial was
accepted and all daimyo who had not already done so were
ordered to follow the example of Satsuma, Choshu, Tosa and
Hizen; but the lands surrendered were not brought under direct
imperial control. Instead, the feudal lords were appointed
governors in their own domains, with the right of choosing
their subordinates. In principle, they became imperial officials.
In practice, their position seemed likely to be much what it
had been before. Most of them, after all, had inherited titles
derived from just such offices as these, which their predecessors
had usurped several centuries earlier.

That the government did not mean the change to be one in

107

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

name alone was made apparent by orders which were issued
shortly after. Domain revenues were re-allocated, part to the
former daimyo, part to specific administrative expenses, while
reports were called for concerning levels of taxation, military
force, population and similar matters. Samurai stipends were
to be reviewed many were in fact reduced and some simpli-
fication made of the multitudinous subdivisions in samurai
rank. All this accompanied the administrative reorganization
of August 1869, which narrowed the basis of recruitment for
the central government. The result was widespread criticism
from those sections of the feudal class which felt their posi-
tion threatened. It was of greatest importance, of course,
in Satsuma and Choshu, without whose support the regime
might easily have collapsed. In both, the feudal lord was hostile,
as also was Saigo Takamori, and attempts to win them over
early in 1870 failed. It therefore became necessary to postpone
any further attack on domain privileges until unity had been
restored.

By this time Okubo was convinced of the need to finish
what had been begun, but neither he nor Kido wished to act
without Saigo, since Saigo held the loyalty of the Satsuma
troops. In March 1871, convinced that further delay would be
dangerous, they made another effort at reconciliation. Iwakura
was appointed special imperial envoy to Satsuma and Choshu.
Kido and Okubo took the opportunity of bringing moral
pressure to bear on their fellow-clansmen under cover of the
ceremonies that this entailed, this time with success, for Saigo
returned with them and entered into their plans for the total
abolition of the feudal structure. In April they reached agree-
ment with Itagaki of Tosa and in June troops from all three
domains began to move into the capital. August 1871 saw the
preparations completed. Okubo took over as Minister of
Finance; Kido and Saigo became councillors, the other samurai
resigning to make way for them; then Itagaki and Okuma
joined the council as representatives of Tosa and Hizen. On
August 29, having thus ensured control of the administration,
the decisive step was taken. The emperor summoned to his
presence those feudal lords who were available in the city and
announced the abolition of the domains. All land was to be-
come imperial territory, he told them. Local jurisdiction was to

108

NEW MEN AND NEW METHODS 1868-1873

cease at once. A month later the domain armies, except those
serving under imperial command., were ordered to disband,
leaving the central government as the only legal possessor of
military force.

This kind of treatment was a far cry from the blandishments
which had been lavished on the daimyo only a year or two
before. All the same, it was not dependent for its success only
on the use of threats. A financial inducement was involved as
well. Since the summer of 1869 the feudal lords had been
receiving as governors one-tenth of the revenue from their
domains and this sum was now to become for each of them a
private income. It was a generous price for an office which had
given more worry than power. The samurai, by contrast, did
not fare so well. They were promised that their stipends would
continue, but it was to be at the levels introduced as part of an
economy drive in the past two years, so that a man who had
held 100 koku before the Restoration might now receive as
little as 60 koku or even a good deal less. The exceptions were
the loyalists, who had been granted additional stipends, some-
times large ones, for their part in overthrowing the Tokugawa.

In abolishing the domains Kido and Okubo had gambled
for high stakes and success marked a new stage in their for-
tunes. It brought them jurisdiction over the whole of the
country's land and population, together with control of all the
former revenues of the domains, so that the central govern-
ment at last possessed the basic requirements for the creation
of a modern state. At the same time, it had inherited a number
of financial problems. One was the enormous burden imposed
by the payment of stipends. Another, the first to be tackled,
was the inefficiency in revenue collection which was caused by
local differences in tax level and feudal custom.

As a first step to clarifying the tax position it was necessary
to settle the question of land ownership. The feudal ban on the
transfer or sale of land which had been in existence, though
often evaded, since 1643 was abolished in February 1872 and a
start made on issuing certificates of title. By the following year
this was well advanced and Okuma Shigenobu, as Vice-Minister
of Finance, had worked out the details of a new land-tax
system. They were announced on July 28, 1873. All land was
to be valued at its market price if it had recently changed

109

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

hands, at an estimated price if not and the owner of it was to
pay an annual tax of 3 per cent of its value, which, it was
calculated, would yield on average the same amount as had
been paid in feudal dues. To the government, the advantages
would be considerable: the amount of revenue would be pre-
dictable, both because it would no longer vary with the harvests
and because it would be paid in cash; and there would not be
the same sharp differences between place and place. To the owner
and cultivator the system was less attractive, if only because
it left fewer loopholes for evasion. It became, as we shall see,
a major cause of rural unrest.

It was four years before the land-tax regulations of 1873 had
been applied to all arable land and another four years before
their extension to mountain and forest, but once this was done
Japan had been given a modern system of taxation. This was
true, at least, so far as concerned the land, which still provided
far and away the largest part of the country's revenue. During
the same period, moreover, the government had turned its
attention to the samurai stipends. At the end of 1871 samurai
had been given permission to enter farming, commerce and
other occupations, but many had soon found themselves in diffi-
culties for lack of capital. For this reason avowedly those
whose stipends were less than 100 koku were informed in
December 1873 that they would be allowed to commute them
for cash. Relatively few chose to do so. Accordingly, on
August 5, 1876, what had been optional for some was made
compulsory for all. A scale was published showing the amount
in government bonds which would now be granted instead of
the annual allowance, all being required to accept the transfer.
For the very largest pensions, those of the great lords, bonds
were to be issued equal to five years' purchase, bearing interest
at 5 per cent. For the very smallest it would be fourteen years
at 7 per cent, with a series of gradations in between, stipends
which were only tenable for life being redeemed at half these
rates. The result was to provide former daimyo with substantial
capital sums, whereas the poorest samurai received in interest
a good deal less than they could live on; while for its own part
the government achieved the economy it desired, reducing
annual expenditure on this item to about half the cost of the
stipends of 1871. At some loss to their reputation for good

no

NEW MEN AND NEW-METHODS 1868-1873

faith, the oligarchs were making their regime not only cen-
tralized but solvent.

They were also beginning to make it modern. The process
of modernization will be discussed more fully in a later chapter,
but it is important to note here that the Meiji leaders were from
the start engaged in building a new Japan, not merely a new
regime. Their motives stemmed partly from personal ambition,
but even more from their views on the international situation.
Again and again they had been told about European encroach-
ments elsewhere in Asia. They had seen evidence of aggression,
or so they regarded it, in bombardments of the Japanese coast-
line, events in which several of them had taken part. They had
been given visual evidence of the West's superiority in arms
and military organization, enough to convince them that Japan
could only hold her own by adopting similar methods. They
were, in other words, the heirs of Sakuma Shozan, Sato
Shinen and Yoshida Shoin. There was the difference, however,
that after 1868 such men were able to act, not merely recom-
mend. Especially was this true after the abolition of the do-
mains in 1871, which removed the greatest political obstacle
from their path and opened the way for any number of reforms.

Even before this there had been indications that the new
order was to be quite unlike the old. In 1868, for example, the
government had been transferred to Edo, which was renamed
Tokyo, and in November the emperor had taken up residence
in the Shogun's former castle. In the following year, after the
surrender of domain registers, changes had been made in class
nomenclature. Court and feudal nobles were made members
of a single peerage (ka%pku\ their retainers became gentry
(shi^pku\ the lesser feudal ranks were combined under the
label sotsu abolished early in 1872 and the rest of the popu-
lation became commoners (beimiri). This did away with the
functional groupings so beloved of Tokugawa scholars: the
hierarchy of samurai, farmer, artisan and merchant. More im-
portant, it made a start on creating the sense of national unity
for which the Mito school had pleaded. The attack, after all,
was not only on class distinctions, but also on those lines of
division which had split Tokugawa society between Court and
Bakufu, to^ama and fudai. It led logically to the abolition of
the domains in August 1871, with its implied destruction of

in

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

regional loyalties, or at least of their institutional focus. A
month later came three measures which foreshadowed also
the end of social status in its traditional forms. Commoners
were given permission to intermarry with members of the
peerage. Samurai lost the right of kirisute-gomen., that is, of
using their swords on the lower orders with impunity. Last,
and most ominous, they were to be permitted not to wear a
sword at all. After this, it was not unduly surprising that in
March 1876, when the government felt more confident of its
position, a law was issued banning the wearing of swords
entirely.

Samurai were also the chief sufferers from attempts to
modernize the military establishment. It was obviously unsatis-
factory that the imperial army should consist of units placed at
the emperor's disposal by the domains, even when the domains
were loyal. The arrangement became impossible once the
domains had ceased to exist. The chosen substitute was con-
scription, a concept for which there were classical precedents
both in Chinese and Japanese history, though feudalism had
long since replaced it in Japan. The first regulations concerning
it were published in January 1871, to come into force the fol-
lowing year, but the abolition of the domains made them
largely out of date and little was done about putting them into
practice. In December 1872 a new system was announced
which provided that all men reaching the age of twenty might
be required to serve three years with the colours. Six home
depots were established and the peacetime force was fixed at
36,000 men. The result, once the first recruits were trained,
was to deprive the samurai of their monopoly of arms and
military skill. It also helped the government to indoctrinate a
rising generation in its own ideas, contributing thereby to the
shaping of loyalty and national unity.

So, too, did education. It was in September 1871 that a
separate Department of Education (Mombusho) was created,
almost exactly a year later that plans were announced for a
compulsory system of primary schools. Similarly, much was
being done to modernize Japan's communications, most mat-
ters pertaining to this being put under the supervision of a
Department of Public Works in December 1870. By that time
telegraphs were already in use in the Tokyo- Yokohama region.

112

NEW MEN AND NEW METHODS 1868-1873

In 1871 Japan was linked by cable with Shanghai and Vladi-
vostock. On British advice plans were also drawn up for a
railway to link Tokyo with Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe, the
Tokyo- Yokohama section being completed in September 1872
after a little over two years work. Meanwhile, a government
mail service had been instituted, first between Tokyo and
Osaka in the spring of 1871, then for the whole country in
1872. All these developments helped to increase the authority
and prestige, both national and international, of the central
administration.

Some members of the government entered into the reform
programme with enthusiasm, notably Okuma and Ito in the
departments of Finance and Public Works respectively. Others
accepted it as a necessary ingredient of national strength,
though the details were not always to their taste and some of
the social implications filled conservatives with horror. On
balance, however, one can say that thus far the government's
domestic policies seemed to have adequate support. By con-
trast, the handling of foreign affairs soon revealed differences
that led directly to a quarrel.

In 1868 Okubo and his colleagues had lost no time in dis-
avowing the expulsion policies with which the anti-Tokugawa
movement had been linked in earlier days. They continued
their association with the British minister, Parkes, who per-
suaded the foreign envoys to declare neutrality in the civil war;
and they jtaok^profflpt steps to suppress those^ of their own
followers who found the change of front too sudden to com-
prehend. Various attacks on foreigners in the first few months
after. jth& ^.KestSatlonTiiicluding an attempt to assassinate
Parkes in March, brought forth all that could be desired by way
of punishment and apologies. For all this, the Meiji leaders'
made it clear that in Japanese eyes the existing treaties were
anathema. As soon as political stability had been achieved, they
said, it was intended to revise them. Especially unpopular were
the provisions concerning consular jurisdiction and the limita-
tion of customs dues, the first being detrimental to national
sovereignty, the second to government finance.

An opportunity to act on these ideas did not come until after
the abolition of the domains, but in the autumn of 1871 it was

113

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

at last decided to send a diplomatic mission to the United
States and Europe to seek revision of the treaties. It was to be
impressive in its size and composition, far more so than the
embassies which the Bakufu had dispatched in previous years,
since Iwakura was to lead it, supported by Okubo, Kido, Ito
and a number of other senior officials, while the whole, with
students, secretaries and interpreters, amounted to over fifty
men. They left Yokohama in December 1871 and were received
ceremonially both in San Francisco and in Washington. They
were told, however, that talk about treaty revision was still
premature. London's attitude was the same when they went
there later in 1872 and the lesson was repeated by Bismarck in
Berlin during March 1873, leaving no doubt that a variety of
reforms, including a complete revision of Japan's legal system,
would have to be carried out before the powers would accept
a new relationship. Indeed, the envoys had the evidence of
their own eyes to show them that Japan had far to go before
she would be in a position to negotiate on equal terms. In
eighteen months abroad the first time for Iwakura, Okubo
and Kido they saw much of the West's economic and military
progress; and it convinced them that their main task on return-
ing home would be to step up the pace of modernization.

Unhappily, the caretaker government which they had left in
Tokyo had meanwhile taken decisions of a very different kind,
arising from Japan's relations with Korea. These had been
uneasy ever since 1868, for Korea insisted on maintaining a
traditional seclusion, which both Japan and China had aban-
doned, and rejected all overtures from Japan's new govern-
ment on the grounds that they departed from established ways.
Many Japanese were genuinely indignant at this, among them
the Foreign Minister, Soejima Taneomi. Others, inspired by
the expansionist ideas which had been taught by men like
Yoshida Shoin, regarded Korea as a proper field for the growth
of Japanese influence. They demanded military action, both to
avenge insult and to extend their country's power. What is
more, several of the government leaders were willing to back
them, though it was for reasons which sprang from domestic
rather than from foreign issues. War with Korea, they thought,
might distract the advocates of expulsion from the dangerous
subject of Japan's relations with the West. It might also serve

114

NEW MEN AND NEW METHODS 1868-1873

as an outlet for samurai frustration, while a victorious cam-
paign would provide rewards in land which could do much to
relieve samurai distress. At one time such arguments were
advanced by Kido. Saigo Takamori also used them, with in-
creasing vehemence as it became obvious that the samurai class
was losing its privileged position in Japanese society. He was
supported, partly out of conviction, partly out of a desire to
weaken the solidarity of Satsuma and Choshu, by Goto and
Itagaki of Tosa, Soejima and Eto of Hizen.

Trouble came to a head with the rebuff of another Japanese
envoy to Korea while the Iwakura mission was in Europe.
Saigo, seeking a solution to personal as well as national prob-
lems, offered himself as next to go, in the expectation that he
would be killed and so provide an excuse for war. The plan
was agreed by the Executive Council in the summer of 1873,
but before it could be carried out Iwakura and his colleagues
were back from Europe and demanding that the decision be
reversed. In October Okubo with some reluctance became
their spokesman. He argued, first, that Japan's finances could
not stand the strain of war; second, that all the country's energy
and resources were needed for the task of reform; and third,
that a Japanese-Korean struggle would make it all too easy for
the powers to fish in troubled waters, to the evident disad-
vantage of Japan. Saigo's convictions were unshaken by this,
but he could not withstand the pressures that were brought
against him. Iwakura secured the emperor's support, Okubo
and Kido that of most samurai officials. As a result the Korean
expedition was abandoned and it was decided, instead, to
concentrate on development at home.

The price was the unity of the ruling group. Saigo, Soejima,
Eto, Goto and Itagaki all resigned, followed by many of their
juniors, while those remaining in office closed their ranks. Ito,
as Minister of Public Works, became a councillor on October
25, the day after Saigo's resignation, and Okuma took over as
Minister of Finance. Okubo became the first Minister for Home
Affairs in the following month. These three, with Iwakura,
became the chief architects of a modernization policy which
had for the first time been debated and resolved in general
terms. Plans which had been piecemeal were now made co-
herent and purposeful. They were also lasting: Japan was to

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

remain committed for twenty years to reform at home and
peace abroad. All the same, neither the policy nor the men who
administered it were to go unchallenged. The divisions which
made one part of the leadership so powerful made the other into
a new and effective opposition, in which Eto and Saigo turned
to force, the rest, more dangerously, to political organization,
with the result that the dispute over Korea in 1873 settled the
pattern not only of policy, but also of politics, for best part of
a generation.

116

CHAPTER VII

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

1873-1894

The Korean crisis movement for representative government

Press Law repression of liberalism the bureaucracy the

Meiji constitution

THE DISPUTE over policy towards Korea, which split the
Meiji leadership towards the end of 1873, had far-reaching
repercussions on Japanese politics. Several of those who re-
signed office proved irreconcilable, despite conciliatory gestures
from the government, and some had recourse to armed revolt.
Eto Shimpei, for example, led an uprising in Hizen early in
1874, though it was easily suppressed. His colleagues from
Satsuma and Tosa proved at first more cautious, but they, too,
began to organize the discontented samurai in their former
feudal territories, a process made all the easier by the moves
towards commutation of stipends which soon followed the
Korean crisis. In Tosa this brought the formation of political
parties and a demand for representative institutions. In Satsuma
it led eventually to a major rebellion under the leadership of
Saigo Takamori.

Saigo was a romantic figure, almost destined, one might
think, to be a leader of lost causes. He was more powerfully
built than most Japanese, an excellent swordsman, an enthusi-
astic hunter and fisherman, a man with all the samurai virtues:
courage, generosity, lack of ostentation, a contempt for money.
With them went an impatience with routine that made him a
poor administrator, a loyalty towards his subordinates that
made it easy for them to sway him. He was traditional in out-
look, if not always in policy, and was pledged above all to the

E 117

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

interests of Satsuma and the samurai class, a fact which brought
him inevitably into conflict with men like Okubo and Kido,
whose centralizing activities constituted an attack on Satsuma's
local independence and whose search for national unity in-
volved the destruction of samurai privilege. The clash of
interests became abundantly clear in 1873 and thereafter Saigo
held aloof from politics., manifestly disapproving. He devoted
his energies instead to the affairs of his home province, where
he founded a network of so-called 'private schools', aimed at
training samurai in the military skills and providing them with
a means of livelihood in what was fast becoming a discouraging
environment. As the number of his 'pupils' grew they were
said to have totalled 20,000 in 1877 so did his influence.
Before long Satsuma was outside the jurisdiction of the central
government in all but name, for it had become an area in which
no official appointment could be made without Saigo's tacit
approval and no official policy could be implemented if he
opposed it. It was a situation that could not be tolerated
indefinitely by a government careful of its authority.

In 1876 came three actions that exacerbated the samurai
sense of grievance. Early in the year the government con-
cluded a treaty opening Korean ports to trade, a diplomatic
victory achieved by methods that had been used on Japan
herself only twenty years earlier, but none the less anathema to
those for whom negotiation was only of value as providing a
pretext for war. At home, in March the samurai lost their right
to bear swords, the last surviving symbol of superior status.
In August they lost their stipends, compulsorily commuted for
cash or bonds at rates which represented a considerable loss of
income. The result was an increasing, though local, turbulence.
In October a small force of samurai attacked Kurnamoto and a
month later Maebara Issei led several hundred in revolt in
Choshu. Saigo made no move; but Satsuma was clearly restless
and the government played for safety by trying to remove
stocks of arms and ammunition from Kagoshima, the pro-
vincial capital, late in January 1877. The attempt was antici-
pated by Saigo's followers, who seized the munitions them-
selves and claimed simultaneously to have uncovered a plot
against Saigo's life, supposedly originating with Okubo in
Tokyo, and in the ensuing uproar Saigo found his men were

118

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS 1873-1894

out of hand. He was forced to put himself at their head to seek
redress by marching on the capital, a decision which on
February 20 brought a proclamation declaring him a rebel.

What had been planned as a triumphal march met with
unexpected resistance from the garrison at Kumamoto. This
confined the rebellion to southern Kyushu and doomed it to
failure, for the government was thereby given time to marshal
its forces. Even so, it took over 40,000 men the whole of the
standing army and reserves and some six months of steady
campaigning before Saigo was driven back to make his last
stand at Kagoshima. The end came in September 1877, when
he and his chief followers died there in the face of overwhelm-
ing odds. They left behind them a legend which still haunts the
city. More important, they had demonstrated that the samurai
with his sword was no match for a peasant conscript army
trained in Western methods and backed by a modern system
of communications.

This proved to be the last of the feudal risings against the
Meiji government. It was not, however, the end of samurai
opposition. Members of the former feudal class in other areas
had not been sufficiently at one with Saigo to rally behind him,
but he had many sympathizers among them and they con-
tinued to advocate his policies for many years. Especially was
this so of his plans for Japanese expansion on the mainland,
which were taken up by men who formed the first patriotic
societies of the period, some of whom were not averse to using
force at home. Indeed, one result of the Satsuma Rebellion was
to reinforce the connection which had earlier been established
between foreign policy and assassination, ranging from the
murder of li Naosuke in 1860 to an abortive attempt on
Iwakura's life in January 1874. Okubo himself was a victim,
killed in May 1878, and intermittent attacks on public figures
continued for the following forty years: on Okuma in 1889;
on Li Hung-chang in 1 89 5 , during the negotiations at Shimono-
seki; on Ito in 1909; on Hara, as premier, in 1921. Not all these
incidents involved ex-samurai, of course. Yet most were con-
nected in one way or another with organizations that grew
originally out of samurai discontent and continued to look
back to samurai traditions of violence, both in domestic and
in foreign affairs.

119

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

Violence was not entirely absent even from party politics.,
for these, too, owed their origin to samurai, specifically, in the
first instance, to groups led by Itagaki Taisuke and Goto
Shojiro of Tosa and Soejima Taneomi of Hizen. Like Saigo,
they had resigned in 1 873 ; and, like him again, it was not merely
because of differences over foreign policy. For them, however,
the additional motive was resentment of the monopoly of
office by Satsuma and Choshu, not opposition to the process of
modernization, so their subsequent actions took a different
course. Soon after the Korea dispute they set out to marshal
samurai opinion, especially that of Tosa and Hizen, behind
demands for a constitution on Western lines. The choice was
partly determined by a genuine interest in Western political
institutions, which as early as 1868 had led Goto to question
an English diplomat concerning c the working of our executive
government in combination with the parliamentary system,
the existence of political parties and the election of members
of the lower house'. 33 Many Japanese in those early days saw
some kind of representative assembly as the solution to the
problem of replacing a Tokugawa Shogun by a coalition of
domains. Thus when Itagaki, Goto and Soejima petitioned for
the creation of an elected legislature early in 1874, they could
legitimately claim to be speaking for a considerable segment of
informed opinion: in their own words, for c the samurai and
the richer farmers and merchants . . . who produced the
leaders of the revolution of i868'. 34 There was even back-
ing for their ideas among members of the oligarchy still in
office.

Nevertheless, it was not the theoretical attractions of parlia-
mentary government that gave the movement its political
strength. Rather, it was the continued existence in Japanese
society of a variety of discontents. .There were many, not only
among samurai, to whom change was not always pleasing,
from misfits who found that they lacked the ability to achieve
in the new order the status which birth had given them in the
old, to the simply ignorant who regarded newfangled devices
like the telegraph and the railway with a superstitious dread.
There were also the disappointed, men who had given their
services in the Restoration movement, only to find their in-
terests apparently disregarded by the Meiji rulers. Especially

120

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS 1873-1894

was this so in the countryside. The abolition of feudalism had
given a new class of landowners a formal title to their land and
a measure of social equality with those who had been their
betters., but it had not as yet given them a voice in the running
of affairs. The poorer farmers fared even worse, for the change
of masters had in no way relieved them of their debts, while the
new tax-collector regular, impersonal, and demanding cash
was often more difficult to deal with than a feudal lord. Land
tax, in fact, was a general grievance, affecting the whole village
from landlord to tenant farmer. Not only was it as heavy a
burden as feudal dues had been, but it was also demonstrably
heavier than the taxation levied on industry and commerce.

Many of the aggrieved came to see in the demand for repre-
sentative institutions, or 'popular rights 5 , as contemporaries
called it, a solution to their various ills, so that the movement
soon became something much wider than a protest by the
samurai of Tosa and Hizen. In its composition and complexity
it resembled rather the pre-Restoration loyalist movement,
shorn of those who had achieved office in later years. There
were even certain similarities of doctrine. The establishment of
a constitution was urged as a means of controlling the em-
peror's advisers, not of limiting the emperor's power, and was
justified as necessary for the attainment of unity in the face of
foreign threat. There were echoes here of "honour the emperor
and expel the barbarian', betraying the authoritarian and mili-
tary backgounds of those who were the movement's leaders.
As a modern scholar has put it, "a warrior spirit shone through
the liberal garment'. 35

Such ideas gave the demand for popular rights a certain
colouring of respectability, but they did nothing to make it
acceptable to the Meiji government, whose members were
perfectly capable of recognizing an attack upon themselves,
whatever the theoretical framework in which it was put. On
the other hand, the argument about national unity was cogent
and had a powerful advocate in Kido. During his travels
abroad in 1872-3 he had been convinced that the creation of an
elected assembly would be the best device for gaining wide-
spread support for the government's objectives, a view which
he strongly urged on his colleagues on returning to Japan. He
added, however, that the time was not yet ripe for anything

121

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

revolutionary. With this, at least, Okubo agreed, though he
differed from Kido about the powers which an assembly should
be given. The matter was accordingly passed to a committee
for detailed study and nothing more was done till a draft was
made ready for discussion. This was in 1878; and in the mean-
time major changes had taken place in the structure of govern-
ment leadership. Kido had died in May 1877, Saigo and Okubo
within the year thereafter, leaving Iwakura as the only survivor
of the original senior gtoup. Three younger men now joined
him in the inner circle: Okuma Shigenobu of Hizen, Minister
of Finance since 1873 and largely responsible for implementing
the new taxation system; Ito Hirobumi of Choshu, in charge
of Public Works during the same period and hence controlling
much of the modernization programme; and Yamagata Ari-
tomo, also of Choshu, chief architect of Japan's new army.
It was these three, with Iwakura, who had to settle the matter
of the constitution.

During the next two years, Ito, Yamagata and Iwakura
reached agreement on a number of propositions. First, they
recognized that there was a good deal of criticism in Japan
concerning the government's actions. Second, they admitted
that the creation of a popular assembly on Western lines would
be the most effective means of preventing opposition from
becoming dangerous. Third, they showed themselves deter-
mined that such an assembly should not be given the power to
challenge their own control of policy, not, at least, until
several years of training and experiment had provided it with
a suitably amenable membership.

Okuma made no contribution to these decisions. He knew,
as did the others, that the constitutional movement was rapidly
gaining strength in the country, but it was not until March 1 88 1
that he made his own views known. When he did so, it was
as a move in his struggle for power with Ito. The two had long
been rivals, with Okuma getting rather the better of the early
exchanges and securing the more influential posts, but in 1878
Ito had succeeded Okubo in the key office of Home Affairs.
With the help of Iwakura and the powerful Choshu faction, he
showed every sign of becoming Okubo's successor in some-
thing more than name, a prospect that seems to have deter-
mined Okuma's subsequent actions. His memorandum of

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GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS 1873-1894

March 1881 was an attempt to redress the balance by putting
himself at the head of the popular rights movement and secur-
ing the type of constitution which would give the leader of
the elected representatives in anticipation, himself real
authority. This would involve, he said, party governments and
a cabinet responsible to parliament in the English manner,
matters far more important than a sterile analysis of forms.
Moreover, he demanded early action: framing of a constitution
in 1 88 1, an announcement of it in 1882, the first elections
in 1883.

Okuma' s more conservative colleagues took up this chal-
lenge. His proposals were formally rejected in June; and when
he responded by associating himself with public criticism of
certain supposed scandals concerning the sale of government
undertakings in Hokkaido, they decided to oust him from
office altogether. This was done in October 1881 with the
emperor's consent. Simultaneously, in an attempt to disarm
opposition, especially that to be expected from Okuma, they
announced that the decision to grant a constitution had been
taken in principle and would be implemented in 1890. Mean-
while, the imperial edict warned, 'those who may advocate
sudden and violent changes, thus disturbing the peace of Our
realm, will fall under Our displeasure'. 36

There were a good many who were prepared to run this risk.
Within a few days, Itagaki and Goto had formed a political
organization called the Jiyuto, or Liberal Party. 37 Before long
Okuma followed suit with his Progressives, the Kaishinto.
Both groups hoped to influence the drafting of the constitution
and to prepare for the day when they could take advantage of
its provisions. Yet in other respects they were most dissimilar.
The Liberals were linked regionally with Tosa, ideologically
with French radicalism, and drew most of their support from
rural areas. The Progressives, by contrast, looked to the city,
English liberalism, and Hizen, their nucleus being a number
of disaffected bureaucrats and intelligentsia, backed by wealthy
merchants and industrialists. Moderation was their watchword,
though this did not save them from persecution. Both parties,
in fact, soon found that the government's threats were seriously
meant.

Some years before this the government had taken powers to

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THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

:ontrol or suppress expressions of opinion hostile to itself,
especially those that appeared in the rapidly expanding daily
press. The first Japanese newspapers, dating from the closing
years of Tokugawa rule, had been noted for their lack of edi-
torial comment, but this omission was soon repaired by their
successors after 1868. Most, moreover, tended to be anti-
government, like the Mainichi and Okuma's Yubin Hochi. It was
partly for this reason, partly because journalistic standards were
universally low, that the Press Law was enacted in 1875. It
required that owner, editor and printer be registered; that all
comment be signed and pen-names prohibited; and that the
editor be held responsible for any subversive or slanderous
articles published, including any matter that "reviles existing
laws, or confuses the sense of duty of the people to observe
them'. 38 Penalties included imprisonment as well as fines and
were imposed freely in the next two years. Then in July 1877
the law was revised to give the Home Minister even greater
powers. Thereafter he had the right to prohibit or delay publi-
cation of any offending paper, a measure of authority that was
used extensively to muzzle public discussion of the promised
constitution.

In April 1880 the range of controls had been extended to
include the activities of political parties and similar organiza-
tions. Political meetings were put under police supervision;
members of the armed forces, police, teachers and students
(whether in public or private schools) were forbidden to attend
them; and associations formed for political ends were for-
bidden to advertise meetings, to solicit membership, and to
combine or correspond with similar groups in other parts of
the country. This might have seemed sufficiently compre-
hensive, but more was yet to come. In December 1887 the Peace
Preservation Regulations were announced, again strengthening
the hand of the police in suppressing secret societies and
political associations. They were now authorized to 'exile' from
the immediate area of the capital city any person plotting or
inciting a disturbance, 'or who is judged to be scheming some-
thing detrimental to public tranquillity' 39 ; while a few days
later the Home Minister was given powers to suspend or pro-
hibit the publication of books, periodicals and newspapers on
pretexts that were equally flimsy.

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GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS 1873-1894

Regulations of this kind were ostensibly of general applica-
tion, but in practice they were directed against the advocates of
parliamentary rule. Arrests, both of editors and politicians,
became frequent. The effect was to discourage the faint-
hearted and anger the extremists, thereby helping to emphasize
differences within the opposition ranks; while the resulting
disunity was accentuated by the ban on combination and
correspondence, which prevented the political parties from
becoming national organizations with centralized control, since
they made it necessary for each local group of sympathizers
to remain at least legally distinct. As a consequence, such
groups tended under pressure to go their separate ways, tearing
the movement to pieces as they did so.

It was the Jiyuto (Liberal Party) which suffered most severely.
As leadership became local rather than national, so the conflict
of interest between two of its elements, the landlords and the
farmers, became more accute. For the political crisis coincided
with the adoption of deflationary financial policies in 1881,
which checked the rise in farm prices, especially of rice, and
brought much hardship in the countryside, its impact being
greatest on those with least reserves, namely, the tenants and
poorer owner-cultivators. Friction between them and the rela-
tively wealthy landlords had in any case been growing through-
out the century, as the commercialization of agriculture tended
more and more to thin the ranks of the middle farmers, en-
riching a few, impoverishing most; and the process quickened
after the reforms in land tenure and land tax during the years
1871-3. In the past, the peasant's ultimate appeal in such a
situation had been to force. This, however, was becoming
increasingly difficult as the state, now provided with modern
police and a conscript army, gained strength. Accordingly,
many farmers had found an outlet for their discontent through
support for the new political parties, looking to them for
redress much as they had done briefly to the anti-Tokugawa
movement fifteen years before. But this time the government
proved stronger than its opponents. When this became ap-
parent, the more desperate turned once more to violence,
directed, as it had nearly always been, against tlie nearest
enemy, the village landlord. Riots of this kind became wide-
spread in 1884, the immediate effect being to alarm most

125

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

landlords, as well as moderate samurai leaders, into with-
drawing from the organization in whose name much of this
activity was being carried on. This was the final blow, bringing
formal dissolution of the Jiyuto in October 1884. Okuma and
several of his friends left the Kaishinto soon after.

Thus the government's efforts to weaken its opponents by
censorship and police action clearly paid good dividends. They
were not, however, its only recourse. Apart from an unsuc-
cessful and short-lived attempt to create a government party,
the Teiseito, it also developed a more constructive policy aimed
at establishing new political institutions. This was designed
partly to consolidate the hold which the ruling group had
already secured over the principal organs of the state. Yet it
was also a continuation of the progressive centralization of
authority which had begun with the abolition of feudalism,
training the people, in Ito's words, to extend their vision
beyond the pale of their village communities, to look upon
the affairs of their districts and prefectures as their own, until
finally they could interest themselves in the affairs of state and
nation as strongly as, or even more strongly than, in the
affairs of their own villages'. 40

It is convenient to look first at the administrative aspects
of this process, which had given evidence of the oligarchy's
intentions even before Okuma had challenged it in 1 8 8 1 . When
the domains were abolished in 1872 they had been re-named
prefectures (ken), making, with those already formed from the
Tokugawa lands, 302 in all, in addition to the three cities (fu)
of Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka, which were separate local govern-
ment areas. At the beginning of 1872 the prefectural boun-
daries were re-drawn and their total number reduced to 72
(dropping to 45 by 1890). In them, during the next few years,
a system of local officialdom was gradually built up, codified in
November 1875 by the issue of regulations defining the titles,
functions and authority of its members. The range of their
activities was wide. It included: supervision of shrines and
temples; maintaining schools and public buildings; control of
patents and copyright; tax re-assessment after local calamities;
reclamation of forest land; riparian and harbour works; the
maintenance of roads and bridges; census returns and land
registration. Most important of all was the fact that the

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GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS 1873-1894

prefectural governor had control of the police and was there-
fore responsible for carrying out the various laws against
political association.

This system of local administration was tied to the central
government through its subordination to the Home Ministry,
established in November 1873. In view of the strong tradition
of provincial autonomy inherited from feudalism, it was at first
necessary to provide specifically for the ministry's right to
intervene in local matters, but under Okubo's strong guidance
this phase did not last long. By 1876 the prefectural authorities
not only looked to Tokyo for appointment, but had also been
made subject to a system of rewards and punishments. They
thus became part of a national bureaucracy which depended
for its power on central, not local, connections and drew its
personnel from a variety of sources: former samurai officials of
the domains, including those of the Tokugawa; Japanese who
despite relatively low birth had acquired special knowledge
by travel or study abroad; and some, though they were few as
yet, who qualified by possession of commercial and industrial
expertise. That most were ex-samurai reflected the limited
educational opportunities of the old order as much as it did
the prejudices of the new. What is more, despite the assertions
of the government's critics, it does not appear that the men of
Satsuma and Choshu had any overwhelming advantage, except
at the very top. For the majority, the determining factors were
ability, experience and loyalty, not geography or inherited
status.

Under Ito's influence, bureaucratic practice was reduced to
written rule. In December 1880 regulations were issued for the
conduct of business in the chief ministries: Foreign Affairs,
Home Affairs, Finance, Army, Navy, Education, Public Works,
Justice, and Imperial Household. The powers and duties of
the minister and his subordinates were defined and those mat-
ters listed in which the Council's authority was needed before
action could be taken. Nevertheless, this did not prevent
the re-appearance of administrative abuses which had been a
familiar feature of the Tokugawa period. There were some new
ones, too. Lack of a proper budgeting procedure and of a
fixed establishment in the lower ranks enabled men to put their
friends on the pay-roll, increasing the government's salary bill

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THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

by 60 per cent between 1873 an d *$%4 without any commen-
surate increase in work done. Indeed, the work done seemed
to grow less, as government business became submerged in
a sea of paper. Insistence on centralized control involved con-
stant appeals from juniors to seniors, bringing delays, a loss
of confidence and initiative, a proliferation of memoranda. All
these points were made by Ito in a circular to departmental
heads in December 1885. He called on them to remedy the
faults and re-impose a proper discipline. Two months later
came a new set of civil service regulations, designed to close
the loopholes he had noted. They created a system of examina-
tions to decide appointments and promotion; prescribed the
limits of departmental budgets; laid down with precision the
number of posts to be filled; and dealt with a host of details
concerning the keeping of archives and accounts, such as the
issue of warrants to authorize payment, the use of entry books,
the numbering of letters, the circulation and approval of drafts.
One may question whether this was the best way of restoring
a sense of responsibility to individual members of the govern-
ment machine. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that it took
Japan a step nearer to being a modern state.

So did the other institutional changes of these years, those
which involved advisory and policy-making organs. In July
1884 a new peerage was established, providing for five ranks,
those of prince, marquis, count, viscount and baron. The new
titles were not territorial a further departure from the feudal
pattern but of the 500 created in the first instance all but
about thirty went to families of the old nobility. Sanjo and
Iwakura were made princes, the latter posthumously, since he
had died in 1883, while Okubo and Kido, also posthumously,
were given the rank of marquis. Of more direct importance
were the counts, whose numbers included fourteen members
of the ruling oligarchy, mostly ex-samurai. Among them were
Ito and Yamagata. Of the viscounts, twelve (out of 321) were
generals and admirals of the new armed forces. Thus rewards
were granted sparingly. Still that very fact made them the
more impressive and helped to reconcile the former ruling
class to the intrusion of powerful upstarts. It also underlined
the dangers of nonconformity. Goto, Itagaki and Okuma had
done as much as any to deserve recognition in the early days of

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GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS 1873-1894

the Restoration, but their names were pointedly omitted from
the list of honours.

Another step was taken in December 1885, at the same time
as Ito's move to reform the civil service. This was the creation
of a cabinet on European lines to replace the Executive Council
(Dajokan), with its unwieldy mechanism for controlling the
administration. Ostensibly this was intended to increase effi-
ciency by making it clear where the responsibility for any
major decision rested. In practice it marked the open emergence
of Ito to a dominant position, giving him as Premier powers of
overall supervision, while the eight ministers who made up
his cabinet were each responsible only for their own depart-
ments.

Both the peerage and the cabinet were important as pre-
liminaries to the granting of a constitution, the former because
it made possible an Upper House with a well-nigh handpicked
membership, the latter because it established in advance the
principle that ministers were responsible to the Throne, not to
an elected legislature. The coping-stone was set on this edifice
by the creation of a Privy Council in April 1888. It was to be
the highest advisory body of the state, consulted, among
other things, on all matters pertaining to the interpretation or
revision of a constitution. Since appointments to it were con-
trolled by the existing government and it was forbidden to
receive petitions from the public, there was little chance of it
succumbing to opposition pressure. In the circumstances it
seemed a work of supererogation to provide that c it shall not
interfere with the executive 5 . 41

Nothing, in fact, was to be allowed to interfere with the execu-
tive, least of all the elected representatives of the people. This
had first been made clear in the local assemblies, created for
prefectures in 1878 and for towns and cities two years later, in
which electoral rights were limited to substantial citizens and
business was restricted to debate. Officialdom, in the persons
of the local governor and the Home Minister, retained the
power to initiate bills, to veto recommendations, and to sus-
pend or dissolve an assembly's sittings, a degree of authority
which the government hoped to secure for itself over any
national legislature created at a later date. This ambition was
made manifest in the outline constitutional provisions which

129

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

Ito and Iwakura worked out in the summer of 1 8 8 1 . They were
embodied in a memorandum by Iwakura in July and accepted
by the inner council in October, thus providing an unpublished
but authoritative sketch of what was meant by the promise that
the emperor would grant a constitution: a cabinet responsible
to the emperor; a bicameral assembly with an elected lower
house, but without the right to initiate legislation or, in the
last resort, to deny the government money; and an electorate
based on a property qualification. Despite Iwakura's death in
1883 this plan was closely followed.

In March 1882 Ito left on a visit to Europe which was to
last almost eighteen months. His avowed aim was to study
European constitutions with a view to advising the emperor
concerning that which was to be issued in Japan, but, as we
have seen, he was already fairly sure what it was he wanted.
Accordingly, he went straight to Berlin and Vienna, where he
expected to find it, and only later paid visits to Paris and
London, whose traditions were alien to his purpose. Most of
his time was spent studying under men like Rudolph Gneist
and Lorenz von Stein, whose views confirmed Ito's existing
predilections and were later injected directly into the drafting
of the constitution by two German participants, Alfred Mosse
and Hermann Roessler. A brief excursion into the theory of
parliamentary government under the guidance of Herbert
Spencer did little to reduce the predominantly German tone
of the expedition.

For some time after his return to Japan Ito was preoccupied
with establishing the peerage, cabinet and civil service, so that
it was not until 1886 that detailed work was started on the
constitution itself. When it was, the discussions were held in
secret and under Ito's personal supervision, mostly in the
Imperial Household Ministry and at Ito's summer residence.
Thus it is not surprising that the pace was leisurely, little
affected by the occasional outbursts of popular agitation. Nor
is it to be wondered at that the principles observed did not
differ fundamentally from those laid down in 1881, since only
men of Ito's own choosing had any part in the deliberations.
Indeed, the document laid before the Privy Council in May 1888
and promulgated at a short private ceremony within the palace
on February n, 1889, might well be described as little more

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GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS 1873-1894

than an expansion of the points originally made by Iwakura.
Certainly it perpetuated the authoritarian tradition, begun by
Okubo, which came naturally to men who had spent their
youth under a form of feudal autocracy. To the oligarchs, after
all, the prime object was to create a strong Japan. Effective
government was an essential part of this process, as was the
suppression of opposition, which was seditious because it
might weaken. To quote Ito again, the administration had to
be safeguarded against 'the onslaught of extremely democratic
ideas, which showed symptoms of impatience at every form of
administrative activity, whether justifiable or not for, in such
a country as ours, it was evident that it would be necessary to
compensate for its smallness of size and population by a com-
pact solidity of organization and the efficiency of its adminis-
trative activity'. 42

Such arguments, as embodied in the constitutional pro-
visions, did not appeal greatly to the political parties, which
had been revived in anticipation of the document being put
into effect. Many powers were reserved to the emperor, to be
exercised in fact by his advisers, including declaration of war,
conclusion of treaties and supreme command of the armed
services. In addition, the emperor had extensive ordinance
rights, while he could freely adjourn or prorogue the assembly,
which was to be called the Diet. As regards finance, some im-
portant items of regular expenditure were excluded from the
Diet's consideration altogether. More significant, it was laid
down that should the assembly fail to pass the budget the
government was entitled to carry out the budget of the previous
year. Thus parliamentary control went no farther than the right
to deny new taxes; and though this could be a potent weapon
in harassing a cabinet, as the next few years were to show, it
did not provide a sufficient means of exercising influence over
general policy. What is more, it was by no means certain that
the lower house could even control the policies of the Diet.
The House of Peers, after all, had equal authority with it and
a membership that tended naturally to support the regime.
When one adds to this the fact that the initiative for constitu-
tional revision could come only from the emperor, there seemed
little chance that the political parties would be able to secure
real power.

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THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

On the other hand, although the Meiji Constitution imposed
serious disabilities on any opposition, it did not follow that
these must prove enduring. Other men at other times and
places had faced institutional obstacles just as great and had
overcome them. It is true that there was bound to be a struggle
in Japan between parties which upheld the principles of parlia-
mentary rule and oligarchs who believed in government that
was 'transcendental', that is, above sectional interests and
therefore above party; but in that struggle, victory would go
to the side which was stronger. It was not certain that this
would be the side which the constitution favoured. Only when
the Diet opened, in fact, would the time of testing begin, to see
whether Ito's judgment as a politician equalled his skill as a
constitutional draftsman.

As a preliminary, Yamagata Aritomo became Premier in
December 1889, supported by Ito, though the latter was not
a member of the cabinet. In the following July they carried
out the first elections for the lower house. Only about 500,000
electors were qualified to vote (out of a population of forty
million), but most of them did so and proceedings were gen-
erally orderly. Less successful, from the government's point of
view, were the returns. Goto's party gained sixty seats and
those of Itagaki and Okuma fifty each, while many of the 140
independents who made up the rest of the representatives were
equally hostile to the administration. The result was a clash
as soon as the session opened in November, with the Diet
demanding heavy cuts in the budget and accepting a com-
promise only after Yamagata had made extensive use of threats
and bribery. In the interval between sessions, Yamagata
handed over to Matsukata Masayoshi, famous as Minister of
Finance since 1881, but this did nothing to save the next
budget. Matsukata was forced to dissolve the Lower House in
December 1891 without having got it through.

The elections of February 1892 were notorious for the
government's attempt to use the police to dictate the voting,
an attempt which left twenty-five dead and nearly 400 injured
to mark the campaign. Nor did it in any way reduce the Diet's
hostility to the men in office. The session, which started in
May, was as stormy as ever and brought Matsukata's resigna-
tion, Ito following him as Premier in August, with Yamagata

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GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS 1873-1894

at the Ministry of Justice. They in their turn were faced with
a vote of impeachment in February 1893. Ito now tried a new
technique: direct imperial intervention on the cabinet's behalf,
which worked for the moment, but did not save him from
having to seek a dissolution in December. The resulting elec-
tion was held in March 1894; the session opened in May; and
the Lower House was dissolved again at the beginning of
June. It began to look as if the constitution was unworkable
altogether.

Yet the frequent clashes were slowly tending to the govern-
ment's advantage. Elections were expensive and their constant
repetition cured many politicians of a taste for electioneering.
Moreover, party leaders were becoming convinced that the
deadlock could not be broken in the Diet's favour. This im-
plied that it might be in their own interests to seek a com-
promise with those in power; and as ex-oligarchs they would
not find it difficult to do so. Goto, indeed, had held a cabinet
post for the past three years. Ito, for his part though over
Yamagata's protests was willing to conclude an alliance with
them, in the hope of securing votes for the government in the
Lower House without sacrificing its ultimate control of policy.
He had actually begun discussions with Itagaki on this basis in
1893 and within a year or two was to consider forming a party
of his own. Thus events were moving towards a new phase,
one in which the Diet was to become the scene of a struggle,
not between parties and government, but between party and
party, with office, though not power, as the prize. Adversity
and self-seeking, in fact, had broken the unity of the constitu-
tional movement. It was not until the twentieth century that
social and economic change was to give the political parties
fresh sources of strength and thereby revive their will to
challenge the established order. Before turning to this part of
the story, hower, it is desirable that we should examine other
aspects of Meiji history to see how Ito and his colleagues used
the authority they gained.

133

CHAPTER VIII

MODERNIZATION 1873-1894

Reorganisation of army and navy law national education

system agricultural development transport state factories

textiles knowledge of the West

ON JANUARY i, 1873., a new calendar was brought into force
in Japan: the Gregorian calendar, as used in western Europe,
which replaced the lunar calendar originally derived from
China. The change affected much that was familiar. Dates
for festivals, the beginning of the four seasons, the New Year
itself, all now fell on different days. The farmer had to learn
new designations for his times of planting and harvesting, the
merchant for his debt-collecting, the priest for his ceremonials.
Even though many preferred to go on using the old system
side by side with the new, the decision had repercussions which
struck deep into Japanese life. Equally, it symbolized an im-
portant aspect of the government's policy, its determination to
turn away from the traditional and towards the modern, away
from China and towards the West, at least in those matters on
which the building of a powerful and well respected state
depended. The policy was not entirely new, either in concept
or in method. Nevertheless, the Meiji leaders gave it a breadth
and drive that were to revolutionize society. Indeed, by 1904
they had transformed a backward, largely feudal, Japan into
one which was capable of winning a modern war, an achieve-
ment that made them the envy of all Asia.

Some of the foundations for it had been laid before the
Restoration. For several generations Japanese scholars had
been studying the West, especially its military science, and
after Perry's arrival their efforts had received official support.
In 1855 the Tokugawa council established a bureau for the

134

MODERNIZATION 1873-1894

translation of foreign books. In 1860 it sent its first students
abroad to study, attaching them to a diplomatic mission to
the United States, an example which was followed., whenever
opportunity offered, by a few of the great domains, though
for the latter it was action which had sometimes to be taken
illegally and hence in secret. Moreover, natural curiosity soon
extended the field of interest to include geography, politics,
economics and much else, so that by 1868 Japan had already
at her disposal a nucleus of men trained in Western skills.
Others had acquired experience at home, running the Western-
style plants which had been set up in different areas the Saga
cannon foundry, a cotton-spinning factory at Kagoshima and
several more or learning to navigate and maintain the steamers
which their feudal lords had purchased. It was the existence of
such men, most of them young, that made moderni2ation
possible.

Equally important were the qualities of leadership shown by
the Meiji government. Its members, as we have seen, were
convinced that their country was in danger of foreign attack,
that it could be saved only by strong rule and an efficient
military machine. To achieve these quickly was therefore the
task to which all other considerations were made subordinate.
Ideas of social welfare were never allowed to divert policy
from the chosen ends. Opposition that threatened those ends
was crushed. It is true that political and personal ambition
played a part in this, but it was not a controlling part: the
oligarchs, as their record shows, were patriots as well as poli-
ticians. And they were capable of a surprising degree of
detachment in their patriotism, a ruthlessness in sacrificing the
picturesque to the efficient which offended traditionalists at
the time and has provoked critics since. It mattered little to
Okubo and Iwakura and their like that a foreign observer in
1868 described their troops as "horribly untidy soldiers'. 43 It
mattered much that the soldiers were winning a civil war.
A similarly pragmatic outlook was to govern their attitude
towards telegraph wires, railway lines and factory chimneys,
however much these might be thought to mar the beauty of
a Japanese landscape.

Politics came first in the regime's calculations because it was
on this that all else depended. Thus the earliest reforms were

135

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

directed towards increasing the government's authority: the
abolition of feudalism, new methods of taxation, even the im-
proved communications which were developed by the Depart-
ment of Public Works in 1871-3. Other aspects of moderniza-
tion., too, had a political function. The conscript army, for
instance, provided a loyal force capable of quelling unrest at
home, as it demonstrated in 1877 with the defeat of Saigo's
rebels. It was also used to end the peasant revolts to which
Japan had been subject for over a century and it later became
a means of indoctrinating a substantial number of young men
in their duties to an authoritarian state.

All the same, the army's main role was to defend Japan
against a possible enemy attack. Already in the late Tokugawa
period feudal rulers had done what they could to prepare for
this, with the result that the new government inherited some
useful military establishments, a number of gunnery and naval
specialists, and a varied knowledge of Western military tech-
niques. There was an arsenal at Osaka and a naval dockyard
at Yokosuka. There was a valuable fund of experience gained
when the Bakufu, albeit belatedly, had tried to reorganize its
army under the tutelage of France; more still derived from the
experiments of Satsuma and Choshu, the first in the creation
of a naval squadron, the second in arming and training a land
force in the European manner. Against this background, it is
not surprising that military reform was given high priority
in the Meiji government's plans. This was so even in the early
days, when preoccupations were political, and its importance
increased as the danger of successful insurrection passed. More
and more, attention was concentrated on Japan's ability to
fight a foreign war.

In 1878 Yamagata carried out a reorganization of army
administration on German lines, including the creation of a
General Staff, and in the following year increased the period
which a conscript had to serve in the reserves. He raised it
again in 1883 to make a total of twelve years' service, three
of which were with the colours. This provided a peacetime
establishment of 73,000 men and a total wartime strength of
200,000 more, the whole force being equipped by 1894 with
modern rifles and artillery, mostly of Japanese manufacture.
The decade after 1883 i$ o saw ^ opening of a Staff College;

136

MODERNIZATION 1873-1894

greater specialization of function (infantry, artillery, engineers,
supply); an improvement in training methods; and a sharp rise
in the army budget.

The navy shared in the expansion, too, though its growth
relied more on foreign help. In 1872 the newly-formed Navy
Ministry had possessed seventeen ships, totalling almost 14,000
tons, of which only two were ironclads. Two Japanese-built
steamers of moderate size were added in 1875-6, three much
larger vessels were bought from England in 1878, and further
building or buying programmes were announced in 1882, 1886
and 1892. At the outbreak of war with China in 1894 the fleet
included twenty-eight modern ships, aggregating 57,000 tons,
plus twenty-four torpedo-boats. Dockyard facilities were by
that time sufficient for full repairs and maintenance, while
training was thoroughly up-to-date. What is more, Japan was
able to make her own torpedoes and quick-firing guns.

All this is evidence of a strong military emphasis in the
government's policies, confirmed by the fact that at the end of
the period one-third of the national budget was being spent on
the army and navy. Military industry was kept under close
official control, as were other installations that had a military
use, like the telegraph system. Telephones were made a govern-
ment monopoly when they were introduced for public use in
1890, while the railways, about 30 per cent of which were
government-built, were nationalized in 1906 to ensure their
proper development for strategic purposes. In other words,
one is conscious of military considerations underlying many
phases of the modernization process.

Yet modernization was by no means confined to things
political and military. It extended also to the law, to education,
to the economy and much else, affecting in the end almost
every part of Japanese society. Indeed, it is the very compre-
hensiveness of reform that justifies the application of the label
'modernization' to it. China, after all, also adopted something
of the West's military methods in the nineteenth century and
learned to use the telegraph and railways, but the Chinese did
not thereby achieve a revolution in their way of life. That the
Japanese did so was due in large measure to the readiness of
their leaders to reform radically and fundamentally in every
field. For this they had to be imaginative as well as ruthless.

137

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

Some changes stemmed from a desire to achieve respect-
ability in Western eyes, this being a step on the road to full
equality. For example, the Iwakura mission had learnt in 1 872-3
that neither America nor the European powers would con-
template revising the legal provisions of the existing treaties
those which put foreign residents in Japan exclusively under
the jurisdiction of their own consuls until they were con-
vinced that Japan's judicial practice was up to Western stand-
ards; and recognition of this fact brought a complex series of
law reforms, largely under foreign guidance, which lasted
twenty-five years. They began at the end of 1873 with the
appointment of a French lawyer, Gustave Boissonade de
Fontarabie, as adviser to the Ministry of Justice. In this capacity
he at once set about drafting a criminal code based on elements
of Japanese feudal law and the Code Napoleon of 1810, the
draft being completed in 1877, reviewed at length by the poli-
ticians, then promulgated so as to come into force at the
beginning of 1882. His proposals for a civil code, however, had
a rougher passage. The first version was rejected in 1878 as
being too French and it took a series of committees twelve
more years to produce something to the government's satis-
faction. Even so, the code's promulgation in 1890 aroused a
storm of protest, led by those who had been trained in English
law, with the result that the Diet voted to postpone the date of
its enforcement. A similar fate overtook most sections of the
new commercial code, which had been devised under Hermann
Roessler's supervision in the period 1881-90. Both documents
were therefore reviewed again and did not receive final ap-
proval until 1898-9, when they were submitted in a form
which revealed signs of increasing German influence.

Some provisions of the new legal system, such as the aboli-
tion of torture, the creation of a trained judiciary and the
setting out of rules of evidence and procedure for the courts,
were generally admitted to be necessary, but there were many
who felt that in matters affecting property and the family the
codes had departed too far from Japanese tradition. Much of
the political excitement concerning this subject in and after
1890 was due to feelings of this kind. Similar hostility was also
aroused from time to time by other results of government
sensitivity to foreign views, especially where these were aimed

138

MODERNIZATION 1873-1894

at achieving a degree of social respectability in Western eyes.
Often the action taken was thought to be trivial or degrading,
like the holding of balls for the diplomatic corps or the use of
Western dress at Court. Often it was merely alien and inex-
plicable. Thus the attempts which were made to prevent mixed
bathing in Tokyo's public bathhouses, to establish censorship
of stage jokes, to prohibit the sale of pornographic art of
which a great amount had been produced in the Tokugawa
era and in other ways to provide an atmosphere which
Victorians might find congenial, met with little sympathy or
understanding among large sections of the Japanese public.
As a result the government's efforts were not entirely success-
ful. As late as 1907 there were still pitfalls for the sensitive and
unwary traveller, as witness this passage from a tourist hand-
book of that year:

'Europeans usually avail themselves of the first-class railway cars
whenever such are provided, and ladies in particular are recom-
mended to do so, as ... the ways of the Japanese bourgeoisie with
regard to clothing, the management of children, and other matters
are not altogether as our ways/ 44

There is no doubt that in these social matters Japanese
officials were under some pressure from foreign missionaries
and other residents. Many foreigners, however, also offered
help and advice in fields where it was better received and more
effectively carried out. This was notable in education, where
much that was new in both content and administration derived
from foreign advisers, and much that was taught depended on
American and European teachers. Nevertheless, it was the
Japanese themselves, in the last resort, who had to make the
system work. For their success in doing so, the credit must be
shared: by the Meiji government, because of its energy and
farsightedness; and by members of the ruling class as a whole,
in whom an essentially Confucian training had bred a respect
for learning that was reflected, inter alia, in an enthusiasm for
the founding and running of schools.

The government's plans, as announced in September 1872,
envisaged dividing Japan into eight educational regions, in
each of which there were to be one university and thirty-two
secondary schools. Each secondary school district, in turn,

139

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

was to include 210 primary schools one for every 600 of the
population where all children after reaching the age of six
were to receive sixteen months of compulsory education. The
scheme was ambitious, almost too ambitious for a country that
had abolished feudalism only a year before, but progress under
it was astonishingly rapid. By 1880 there were 28,000 primary
schools with over 2 million pupils (about 40 per cent of the
children of school age) and it had become possible to increase
the compulsory period to three years. In 1886 attendance was
46 per cent and the period was increased again, by a further
year. Thereafter, attendance continued steadily to rise. It was
60 per cent by 1895, 90 per cent by 1900, 95 per cent in 1906.
In the same period secondary education was becoming speci-
alized, with the creation of normal schools (1872), middle
schools (1881), higher middle schools (1886) and girls high
schools (1889). To complete the pyramid, various government
institutions of higher education, which had been amalgamated
in 1877, were reorganized as Tokyo Imperial University in
1886.

A key part in this development was played by Mori Arinori,
a former member of the Iwakura mission, who was Minister of
Education from 1885 to 1889. It was his ordinances, issued in
the spring of 1886, that gave the system the shape it was to
retain for twenty years: an eight-year period of primary school-
ing, half of it compulsory, involving attendance for five hours
a day, six days a week; a middle school course of four years
with similar hours; then a range of higher levels, reaching to
the newly-created university. He also ensured close govern-
ment control, thereby confirming a tendency that had existed
since 1880. From this time on, the Ministry prescribed all
textbooks, while exercising general supervision of the schools
through the workings of local government, that is, by its
influence with the town and village authorities to whom the
details of administration were entrusted. Private foundations
were made subject to official licence and inspection. Thus the
whole of education was made subservient to the state's own
needs, providing on the one hand a practical training, through
a curriculum on Western lines, on the other a- moral education
based on Confucian ethics and an emperor-centred nationalism.
Together the two elements were to produce good citizens:

140

MODERNIZATION 1873-1894

good in that they were loyal to the regime; and good in that
they had acquired the basic skills which modern life demanded.
In the twentieth century this education system was to prove
an essential unifying force in the Japanese body politic. It was
also fundamental to the emergence and full development of an
industrial society. In the earlier stages of economic growth,
however, such as took place in the years before 1894, education
was less vital than other features of government policy, those
that were directly designed to stimulate the increase of national
wealth. It is to this aspect of Meiji history a new and more
sophisticated application of the slogan fukoku-kyohei, 'rich
country, strong army' that Japan owed most of her initial
success.

Economic modernization began, not with the factory, but with
the farm. To men who had begun life as feudal retainers, it was
axiomatic that land was the chief source of government revenue
and that the encouragement of production on it was the first
task of an official. The difference was that they could now draw
on the experience and technology of the West, as well as of
Japan. They lost no time in doing so. Agricultural students
were sent abroad; foreign experts were invited to advise on
specific projects, such as the opening up of land in the island of
Hokkaido; new strains of plants and seeds were imported;
Western farming implements were bought and tried. All this
was done on government initiative, sometimes with more
fervour than understanding. Attempts to plant vineyards and
introduce sheep-farming, for example, were among the early
failures. By contrast, the innovations in irrigation and the use
of fertilizers proved generally successful, while the greatest
advances of all in the long term were achieved by the founding
of experimental stations and agricultural colleges. The most
famous of them were established in Hokkaido in 1876 and in
Tokyo in 1877, but others soon appeared throughout the
country. The results of their work, moreover, were made
widely available by travelling instructors, appointed to advise
farmers on new techniques.

In some ways agriculture was little changed by these develop-
ments. Plots remained small just over an acre was a typical
holding and cultivation remained intensive, for these things

141

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

were part of the fundamental pattern: Japan's villages had little
land, much labour, and grew rice as their staple crop. On the
other hand, the commercialization of agriculture, which had
begun under the Tokugawa, increased with the removal of
feudal controls, thereby bringing still greater concentration in
landholding and a steady growth of tenancy. About 40 per cent
of the land was held by tenants in 1890, compared with an
estimated 20 per cent at the time of the Restoration; and since
rents were high and paid in kind, half the crop being a not
uncommon rent for rice paddy, the change brought much dis-
tress in rural areas. All the same, it cannot be claimed that the
village as a whole suffered a decline in standards. Total rice
yield grew over 30 per cent between 1880 and 1894, partly
because the area under cultivation was enlarged, but mostly
because new farming methods gave a 20 per cent increase in
yield per acre. Lesser crops, like wheat and barley, showed a
similar improvement. As a consequence, agricultural produc-
tion not only kept pace with a considerable growth in popu-
lation, but also made possible an increase in per capita rice
consumption, which rose in the same period from four bushels
a year to five. This was a national gain, not a merely rural one,
but one can hardly suppose that the countryside did not share
it. Indeed, since there was no substantial price move against
farm products, landlords and owner-occupiers, if not tenants,
can be said to have enjoyed a measure of prosperity.

Apart from cereals, economic change also affected other
items to which the Japanese farmer looked for income. In
coastal villages, where farming was often combined with
fishing, better boats and equipment tipped the scales in favour
of the latter and eventually after 1900 made fishery a major
industry. Elsewhere, greater demand for cotton textiles and
the growth of a native spinning industry brought a steady
increase in the quantity of cotton grown. By 1887 Japan was
almost self-sufficient in it. However, imports tended to rise
thereafter as competition came from India, and by the end of
the century home production had dropped sharply on this
account. Of the cottage industries, some, notably the spinning,
reeling and weaving processes for textiles, declined at about
the same time, unable to compete with the price and quality of
factory-made materials. A modest call for handicrafts like fans

142

MODERNIZATION 1873-1894

and lanterns gave some compensation, but it was silk, above
all, that now became the farmer's stand-by. An export market
was first created for it in the 18605 because of silkworm disease
in Europe. Subsequently the high quality of the Japanese
product maintained and expanded the demand, so that more
and more families entered the business, while increased scale
made possible a number of technical improvements. By the
nineties, even double-cropping was becoming common, giving
a summer-autumn crop as well as one in spring. As a result,
annual production of raw silk easily topped a million kan in
1900 (i Aan=$-2j Ibs.), as against 278,000 kan in 1868 and
457,000 in 1883. Exports, at an annual average of 27 million
yen 45 for the years 1889-93, accounted for a third of Japan's
export trade by value.

These figures give some idea of the importance of agriculture
to the country. And one could easily add more. For example,
agriculture was, and long remained, Japan's commonest occu-
pation: something like three-quarters of the population earned
their living by it in 1872 and a fraction over half did so as late
as 1920. Moreover, it provided about 80 per cent of total tax
revenue up to 1880, still over 60 per cent in 1894. This made
it as much a factor in the formulation of government policy
as it was in the daily life of the Japanese people. Indeed, it is
clear that industrialization itself could not have been achieved
so quickly even, perhaps, at all had it not been for the rise
in agricultural productivity and the changes associated with it.
The increase in rural cash incomes created a home market
which was essential to industrial growth. Equally important,
the poverty and large families of the tenant-farmers drove
cheap labour from the village to the towns. Finally, agricul-
tural exports paid for much of the industrial machinery and
materials that had to be bought abroad, while agricultural
taxes became capital that the government could invest.

That the government chose by its taxation policy to penalize
the farmer to the advantage of the merchant and industrialist
is further evidence of the determination it showed in pursuing
its ends. The decision was not without risk, as the constant un-
rest in rural areas showed. Yet it was a necessary one, if the
non-agricultural sector of the economy were to be developed.
This was a matter in which the Meiji leaders had little choice,

143

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

unless they were prepared to abandon their international and
political ambitions, for high population density already in
1868 some 2,000 persons to the square mile of cultivated land
put limits on agricultural development, while other factors,
such as good sea communications and nearby Asian markets
to be exploited, promised advantages for industry and trade.
All the same, it is doubtful whether such considerations were
decisive in Japanese thinking, however much they may have
been determinants of success. More compelling was the belief,
to which foreigners themselves so obviously subscribed, that
trade and industry were the pillars on which Western greatness
rested. The spirit of emulation, if nothing else., drew Japan
towards them.

In many ways the Meiji government contributed usefully to
their development by policies that were not specifically directed
to that end. The abolition of feudalism gave freedom of occu-
pation to millions of peasant families, thus making possible the
emergence of a mobile labour force; and the breaking down of
local separatism, to which it also led, completed the process of
creating a national market. Thereafter, by maintaining political
order and financial stability, by ensuring security of property
and person, the politicians provided an environment which
was favourable to all forms of economic growth. The new
communications network, too, had economic as well as admin-
istrative value. But in addition to all this, the government
took steps to foster the particular kinds of activity of which it
approved. By engaging in foreign trade on its own account it
obtained funds to import goods and machinery, lending some
of them to local authorities to serve as models for Japanese
manufacturers, selling others on an instalment plan to those
who needed capital equipment. It organized trade fairs, set
up technical schools, sent students for training to Europe and
America. Foreign instructors, advisers and engineers were
brought in to run a number of the new concerns and train the
technicians who were to run them in the future, as many as 1 30
being employed by the Department of Public Works alone by
1879. Official policy, however, was to replace them as soon as
possible by Japanese, whose salaries were smaller, an attitude
which led one British resident to observe that c the Japanese
only look upon foreigners as schoolmasters. As long as they

144

MODERNIZATION 1873-1894

cannot help themselves they make use of them; and then they
send them about their business. . . ,' 46 It was precisely this,
of course, that eventually made Japan's industrial tech-
nology self-sustaining, in contrast to that of other Asian
countries, which remained for the most part dependent on
foreign help.

Another vital field of government action was the provision
of capital in those sections of the economy where private
investment was slow in coming. Much of the accumulated
wealth of Tokugawa merchants which was in any case too
small, because of the restricted nature of their operations, to
have financed the modernization programme on its own
had been put to use in various financial and commercial schemes
of the Bakufu or domains and had therefore been lost when
those institutions were destroyed. Much else was invested in
usury or land, outlets that continued, because of high rents
and interest rates, to attract a large proportion of the country's
savings. By comparison industrial ventures, involving greater
risks and slow returns, seemed best avoided. Even the private
capital created by the commutation of samurai stipends in 1876,
often in substantial units, found its way mostly into banking
rather than industry, while such investors as did turn to the
latter were inclined, at least in the early stages, to put their
money into businesses that were small-scale and relatively
familiar, like handicrafts or textiles. As a result, plans needing
heavy, long-term investment had usually to depend on state
finance.

This can be seen in the history of modern transport. Coastal
shipping was the easiest form to develop, both for geographical
reasons and because it had become the commonest means for
the bulk movement of goods in the Tokugawa period, so that
some of the necessary commercial facilities and organization
already existed. There were even one or two Western-style
shipyards, built before the Restoration at places like Uraga and
Nagasaki. Hence the main need was for better ships; and this
was met partly by using those which had originally been
bought from foreigners by various feudal lords, partly by
government help to some outstanding entrepreneurs of the
Meiji era. The former Tosa samurai, Iwasaki Yataro, whose
firm became known as Mitsubishi in 1 873 , is a notable example.

145

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

He began with a few ships acquired from his domain at its
dissolution. Soon after he absorbed another concern, operating
between Tokyo and Osaka; he ran (and then took over) vessels
bought by the government for use as military transports; and
he established a foreign service, with routes to Hong Kong
(1879) an( i Vladivostock (1881). In 1885 his line amalgamated
with some of its rivals in the coastal trade to form the Nippon
Yusen Kaisha (NYK), with fifty-eight ships totalling 65,000
tons. Dividends were guaranteed by the state at 8 per cent for
fifteen years. Moreover, like others in the business, the com-
pany continued to receive subsidies, mail contracts and similar
forms of government help, accepting in return government
supervision of its routes and operations.

In railway building, a quite new form of enterprise, the role
of government was at first much greater. It controlled all con-
struction up to 1877, by which date three short sections of the
planned Tokyo-Kobe line had been completed: those between
Tokyo and Yokohama (1872), Kobe and Osaka (1874), Osaka
and Kyoto (1877). The slow progress was due in part to
political unrest, in part to lack of experience, but after the
Satsuma Rebellion work speeded up, with private companies
also beginning to participate. The latter, indeed, soon owned
more mileage than the government. From 130 miles in 1885
they expanded to over 1,500 miles ten years later, while
government track in the same period increased only from
220 to 580 miles. At this stage, the main line ran along the
Pacific coast from Aomori in the north to Kobe on the Inland
Sea, with plans already made for extending it to Nagasaki.
A spur had also been built across the mountains from Tokyo
to Naoetsu. Since freight traffic was heavy and profits high, the
investors who had followed the state's lead in putting capital
into these lines, mostly former samurai and feudal lords, found
themselves well rewarded.

The development of manufacturing industry followed a
similar pattern: of state initiative at first and private investment
later, with the year 1881 marking a watershed between the two.
In the first phase government activity took the form of estab-
lishing and operating factories, some of them designed as
models to encourage the introduction of new techniques, some
to fill needs which, though important, were unlikely to be a

146

MODERNIZATION 1873-1894

source of profit. Thus silk-reeling plants of the French and
Italian type were opened at Tomioka and Maebashi in 1870, in
order to stimulate the export trade by standardizing quality.
A cement works was established in 1872, partly to reduce
expensive imports at a time of trade imbalance. The manu-
facture of tiles, glass and chemicals was also started. Modern
cotton-spinning was introduced in the Nagoya area in 1878,
this with the double object of diverting traditional skills into
new channels and providing employment in a region which
had been badly hit by foreign competition, while other attempts
to simulate regional development brought, for example, a
brewery and a sugar factory to Hokkaido. Altogether such
government-owned concerns numbered fifty-two by 1880, to
say nothing of three shipyards, ten mines and five munitions
works.

The cost of investment in these various undertakings was
considerable, averaging more than 5 per cent of ordinary
revenue for the years 1868-80. Heavy expenses were also
incurred towards the end of the period for the payment of
samurai stipends and suppression of the Satsuma Revolt, so
that the Treasury's problems, complicated by a drain of specie
arising from the persistent excess of imports over exports,
began to seem alarming. By the late 'seventies recourse to
further note issues had brought inflation, despite an expanding
economy's greater need for cash. The value of government
paper dropped sharply. Rice prices jumped from 5-7 per
koku in 1877 to 9-4 in 1879, 12-2 in 1880. Farmers found
the change much to their advantage; but for the government
it had serious implications, since it not only reduced the real
revenue to be obtained from land tax, but also put in jeopardy
the income which ex-samurai received from bonds, thereby
adding to their discontent. The crisis, in fact, was political as
well as financial and was grave enough on both counts to
endanger the regime.

In the course of 1880 and 1881 the government sought
urgently for remedies, but it was not until November of the
latter year, with the appointment of Matsukata Masayoshi as
Minister of Finance, that its policies can be said to have become
effective. Under Matsukata's guidance, strenuous efforts were
made to balance revenue and expenditure. New taxes were

147

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

imposed on rice-wine and tobacco; government grants and
subsidies were much reduced; and stringent economy was
observed in administration. The result was a gradual restora-
tion of stability. By 1886 it proved possible to redeem govern-
ment bonds bearing interest at 8 to 10 per cent by a conversion
issue at 5 per cent, while by 1894 parity had been restored
between yen notes and silver.

Towards the end of 1880, in the early stages of this economy
drive, it had been decided to dispose of the government's
factories. Those which were engaged in the manufacture of
munitions were excepted, but the rest, it was announced,
would be sold to the highest bidder, a decision that was to have
important repercussions. It was not due to a sudden change of
heart about the role of private enterprise in industry. Nor was
it, as has sometimes been alleged, part of a conspiracy to trans-
fer valuable plants at bargain prices to the oligarchy's friends
among the businessmen, though this, it is true, was often the
effect. Rather, it was a financial measure, aimed at reducing
calls on revenue and recouping some part of the funds that had
been invested. Even this was not easy to accomplish. The
shortage of capital, which had been a factor in producing state
initiative in the first place, still persisted. The prices offered
were accordingly low; and that they came from friends of those
in power was often because such men were in a better position
to assess long-term advantages, not because they were given an
opportunity for rapid profit. Most of the concerns, after all,
were running at a loss, which is why they were for sale. They
continued to do so for some time afterwards. It was not until
Japan had a far more highly developed domestic market that
the yields from industrial pioneering could be counted in sub-
stantial sums. When this did happen, however, it contributed
largely to the dominant position which a few great firms were
able to win in the Japanese economy. Outstanding among them
were those who bought government plants in the early 'eighties:
Iwasaki's Mitsubishi company, which acquired the Nagasaki
shipyard in 1884; the house of Mitsui, one of the very few
great merchant families of Tokugawa times that continued to
thrive and expand in the modern era, now purchaser of the
Tomioka silk-reeling mill; and others like Asano andFurukawa,
investors, respectively, in cement and mining.

148

MODERNIZATION 1873-1894

The sale of government undertakings marked the beginning
of a new phase in economic policy, one in which subsidies and
contracts awarded to private firms replaced state ownership
and operation. With such encouragement heavy industry con-
tinued slowly to increase. New shipyards were opened in 1881
and 1883. The Shibaura Engineering Works was founded in
1887. In 1892, like several others, it began to produce electrical
equipment and machinery, while the same year also saw the
appearance of the first Japanese-built locomotive. In mining,
application of modern methods maintained a steady rise in
output. Annual coal production, for example, actually reached
5 million tons (metric) in 1895. By that time it was an export
item, as was copper, though industry still relied on purchases
abroad for most of its iron and almost all its steel.

Striking as many of these achievements were, they were still
far from altering the character of the Japanese economy.
Engineering, shipbuilding and similar trades were in their
infancy, important because of their promise for the future, but
having less effect in the short term than the many smaller inno-
vations that contributed to economic growth: 'the ricksha and
the bicycle; the rodent-proof warehouse; elementary sanita-
tion; better seeds and more fertilizer; the kerosene and then
the electric lamp; a simple power loom; the gas engine in the
fishing boat; the divorce of personal from business accounts; the
principle of limited liability'. 47 It was through such unspectacu-
lar changes in the first place that the national wealth increased.
This in turn, by virtue of the purchasing power that it created,
made possible the profitable development of large-scale
manufacture.

One field in which modest improvements brought notable
results was textiles. Spinning, reeling and weaving required less
capital outlay and less technical knowledge than trades like
heavy engineering; they could be successfully carried on in
small workshops, as distinct from large factories; and they
made use of a type of labour which Japan's farm households
could easily provide. For these reasons the textile industry was
the first to attract private entrepreneurs and to free itself from
dependence on government aid. Silk textiles were least affected
at this stage, probably because the bulk of the demand was for
exports of raw silk, not for thread or fabric, so that few firms

F 149

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

were using power-driven filatures or looms in 1894. Modern-
ization in the cotton industry, by contrast, was by then much
more advanced. In spinning, the number of spindles rose from
8,000 in 1877 to 77,000 ten years later, this being no more than
the equipment of a fair-sized Lancashire mill, but with 382,000
spindles in 1893 the annual output of yarn increased to 88 mil-
lion pounds. Significantly, this was accompanied by a sharp
rise in imports of the raw material, nearly all from India. The
market for the yarn was largely domestic and the piecegoods
into which it was made were woven for the most part on
narrow handlooms, but the rapid expansion of output that
began about 1890 soon led to the increased use of power. Instal-
lation of power looms had already been undertaken here and
there, but it was not until the great growth of exports after
1895 that it was to become widespread. Meanwhile, enough
had been achieved in the adoption of modern machinery and
techniques to enable the export opportunity, when it came, to
be exploited.

This, indeed, is true of the economy as a whole, not just of
textiles. Statistics of industrial activity on the eve of the war
with China, though small by contemporary Western standards,
are impressive when compared with those of a decade earlier
a sixfold increase in factory consumption of coal, for example,
and an output of cotton yarn that had been multiplied by more
than twenty and even seem considerable in absolute terms for
a country where development was so recent. Coal consump-
tion in factories was a million tons, yarn output a hundred
million pounds, in 1894. Foreign trade, too, though as yet on a
modest scale, with annual averages for both imports and ex-
ports at less than 80 million yen in 1888-93, was beginning to
change its character. Between 1878-82 and 1893-97, purchases
of finished goods dropped from 48 6 per cent of imports as
a whole to 35-1 per cent, while imports of raw materials rose
from 3 * 5 to 22-7 per cent. Similarly, exports of finished goods
increased chiefly because of textiles from 7-2 to 26-2 per
cent. For the first time, moreover, the country had an export
surplus. This was still not the pattern that one associates with
a fully industrial state, such as Japan was to develop in the
twentieth century. It implies, however, that this was the direc-
tion of change, that industrial growth was now great enough

150

MODERNIZATION 1873-1894

to have a substantial effect on foreign trade. In other words,
some twenty years of effort were bearing fruit.

So far in this chapter the emphasis has been on the actions and
policies of government. This is reasonable enough, for in this
first stage of modernization it was the Meiji government that
provided the leadership, the framework and many of the
stimuli without which success could not have been achieved.
But it must not be thought because of this that the Japanese
people were entirely passive. Not everything was planned and
centrally directed, not all change happened where and how the
government wished. Indeed, once the years of preparation
were over and those of reward began something which in
most fields of activity came soon after the war of 1894-5 it
transpired that expansion was often greatest in those areas
where government action had been least, like textiles. Certainly
modernization could never have succeeded had it not been for
the many thousands of Japanese who showed themselves
willing, sometimes more than willing, to try new ways of
earning a living, to study (and let their children study) foreign
books, to adopt habits that were alien to their own upbringing
and traditions.

Many of the men who set an example in these matters were
former samurai, like Iwasaki Yataro, with an outlook and
interests that followed closely those of the Meiji leaders. Others
were of merchant stock, like the Mitsui. Others again came
from the richer farming families of central and west Japan,
usually claiming some kind of samurai background, whose
members had already shown themselves interested in various
forms of non-agricultural enterprise before the Restoration.
It was from these elements that the new ruling class was
formed. They provided the bureaucrats as well as the entre-
preneurs, the educators as well as the soldiers, thereby achiev-
ing a social coherence that does much to explain the single-
mindedness with which Japan sought self-improvement. Men
of humbler origin pursued similar goals in the hope of gaining
wealth and recognition, as many of them were able to do in the
more open society that emerged after 1868. Sometimes they
succeeded because of ability in trade. Sometimes it was because
of a more or less accidentally acquired knowledge of the West,

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

which gave them the ear of those in office. Nearly always it
was in the context of what was new in Japanese society, not
what was old, for this meant both conformity and advancement.

Among the most famous of the modernizes were the
writers, whose books on Western customs and behaviour
became for many the only reliable guide in an otherwise uncer-
tain world. Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835-1901) is an outstanding
example. As a young man, a samurai of low rank in a Kyushu
domain, he was sent to study gunnery and Dutch at Nagasaki.
Later, on his own initiative he added medicine and English.
By 1862 he had already visited both America and Europe as
interpreter to diplomatic missions, but thereafter fear of assass-
ination in an age of frequent anti-foreign violence turned him
away from politics and public office to a life of teaching, writing
and translating. His first book, Seiyojijo (Conditions in Western
Lands), achieved immediate success. A compendium on Euro-
pean countries, their governments and their economies, it was
the forerunner of many more in which he dealt with subjects
as apparently remote from each other as food and clothing,
elementary science, parliamentary procedure. All, to him,
were relevant as parts of Western life. The earnings from
these publications, which were considerable, were devoted to
a school that he established in 1863 to teach a Western-style
curriculum. It eventually became Keio Gijuku, one of the two
earliest and greatest of Japan's private universities (the other
being Waseda, founded by Okuma Shigenobu in 1881).

Reading Fukuzawa's autobiography one gets the impression
of a man not always likeable but of a formidable purpose. As a
liberal he insists on the importance of merit, rather than birth,
but this is coupled nevertheless with an eagerness for recog-
nition from those whom he knows to have influence and
standing. As an educator he is a constant critic of things tradi-
tionally Japanese, praising the Western alternatives to them. In
this, at times, there is more than a trace of smugness and
pomposity. Yet through it all comes the conviction that his
enthusiasms are genuine, his desire to educate sincere. Above
all, his aims are patriotic: 'the purpose of my entire work', he
writes, 'has not only been to gather young men together and
give them the benefit of foreign books, but to open tihis
"closed" country of ours and bring it wholly into the light of

152

MODERNI2ATION

Western cjyjUiaaJiQCu For only thus may Japan become strong
in EotETthe arts of war and peace. . . .' 48 "
" In 'tETs task Fukuzawa, like others, was helped by a spate of
translations from books in Western languages, which often ran
as serials in newspapers and magazines. Among the most influ-
ential was Samuel Smiles' Self -hip y published in 1871. Bulwer
Lytton's Ernest Maltravers, translated in 1878-9, was much
imitated as a novel and much valued for its information on
Western manners; Jules Verne's Round the World in Eighty Days
(1878) had great vogue as a sort of annotated handbook on
foreign travel; while translations also appeared of Robinson
Crusoe, Aesop's Fables, The Arabian Nights and Pilgrim's Pro-
gress, to say nothing of Moore's Utopia and Rousseau's Contrat
Social All these were available by 1880. A decade later attention
had turned to the moderns: Turgenev, Dostoievsky, Tolstoy,
Victor Hugo, Ibsen. And there was even a version of Little
Lord Fauntleroj in 1892.

One result of the flood of information derived from these
and other sources was to bring changes in Japanese literature
and art. Novels became more realistic, though very dull, with
themes that were thought to be attractive to the 'modern'
public., such as politics, history and world affairs. Among the
most popular, for example, partly because of its c beautiful
Chinese style, suitable for chant reading', 49 was one called
Kajin no kigu (Strange Encounters of Elegant Women). In it
the reader was taken through a survey of world revolutionary
and independence movements, escorted by two female beauties,
one from Ireland and one from Spain an exercise that was of
doubtful value as literature, but enabled the author to exploit
contemporary interest in the liberal movement and interna-
tional problems. Not unnaturally, the book is now more an
object of curiosity than of admiration. One could be equally
disparaging about the first examples of the Meiji period's
drama, or the attempts to write rhyming verse; but since these,
like the political novels, were no more than experiments,
which eventually made way for something very much better,
it is more charitable to avoid discussing them at all

A similar discretion is appropriate in commenting on some
other aesthetic imports from the West, like painting, new forms
of which were stimulated by the founding of a government art

153

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

school in 1876, or architecture, which was regarded as so
severely practical a subject that at the imperial university it was
included under engineering. In these matters, perhaps, it would
have been better had Japan come under Europe's influence at
a different date. Certainly the gulf that existed between the
artistic criteria of traditional Japanese society and those which
were now acquired proved too great to be bridged, at least for
another fifty years. The country was left with two quite dif-
ferent standards. One, reflecting the taste of late nineteenth
century Europe, applied to the architecture of government
offices, banks and railway stations, to the design of goods for
export, to furniture and interior decoration in the Western
manner. The other, which maintained the inherited emphasis
on line and texture, rather than on colour, continued to
determine the appearance of such buildings as shrines and the
majority of private dwellings, as well as that of articles and
utensils made for everyday use. The dichotomy between the
two became one of the unmistakable features of modern Japan.
The catalogue of items illustrating this divorce between old
and new could be extended to include food, dress, hair-styles
and much else. To some of them we shall need to return in a
later chapter. This" one, however, should end with the observa-
tion that not all Japanese reactions to things Western were
those of unqualified enthusiasm. Quite apart from the hostility
that was aroused in defence of vested interests, there were
many Japanese who came to oppose the whole process of
modernization, on grounds of cost, of religious prejudice or of
simple conservatism. A good deal of such sentiment found an
outlet in opposition to the Meiji government. Much more went
to swell the rising tide of nationalism which, towards the end
of the century, helped to decide what aims Japan's newly
acquired skills should serve.

154

CHAPTER IX

NATIONALISM AND FOREIGN
AFFAIRS 1890-1904

Political indoctrination and traditionalist sentiment war with
China the Triple Intervention military build-up Anglo-
Japanese alliance war with Russia

IN THE twenty years of social, political and economic reform
that followed the Restoration, Japanese attitudes towards the
outside world underwent a gradual change. On the one hand,
greater knowledge of Western habits and institutions brought
the Japanese people a new awareness of what was individual
about their own. On the other, the frustrations which arose
from a sense of inferiority in dealings with the West, an inevit-
able concomitant of diplomatic weakness and cultural borrow-
ing, not only gave emotional impetus to policies aimed at
increasing national strength, but also became linked with speci-
fic objectives in foreign affairs. The result was an upsurge of
nationalism and a decade of military effort. At the end of it,
Japan had achieved the equality of status for which she longed
and had begun to lay the foundations of an empire, so marking
the end of the first stage of her modern growth.

The beginnings of this process can be traced to the handful
of samurai publicists of the century's middle years, whose
patriotism was communicated in the i86os to most members of
their class and helped to give a constructive turn to what began
as an anti-Tokugawa movement (see Chapter HE). Subsequently
the prevalence of samurai at all levels of early Meiji leadership
ensured patriotism a continued importance in political debate,
Okubo and Ito, when the Iwakura mission ended, gave it as a
reason for concentrating on reform at home, rather than expan-
sion abroad. Saigo used it to justify his plans for attacking

155

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

Korea and opposing a government that refused to carry them
out. Itagaki and his followers claimed it for the political
parties. Thus by 1880 'love of country' (aikoku) had assumed
something like the place in politics that "expulsion of the
barbarians' (jot] held twenty years earlier: a symbol of respecta-
bility to which appeal could successfully be made because it
touched emotions shared by all. What is more, its most vocifer-
ous expression came from the opponents of the men in power
as had been true also under the Tokugawa for it was
one of the few weapons that could be safely used against an
authoritarian regime that had declared for a foreign policy of
moderation.

A number of factors operated to spread this patriotic senti-
ment throughout the population and thereby establish a basis
for nationalism in the modern sense. The government's efforts
at political unification., its attempts to marshal support by the
creation of local elected councils and assemblies, its develop-
ment of an efficient system of communications, all these helped
indirectly to foster a sense of national consciousness. So did
compulsory education, both by reducing regional differences
of speech and manners and by enlarging the reading public.
Nor was any opportunity lost of bombarding the literate with
political propaganda. Newspapers of the period tended to be
political and scurrilous, novels political and dull, and both were
written in a language much closer to the vernacular than had
been fashionable hitherto, which made them accessible to a
wider circle. Accordingly, more and more Japanese were
encouraged to have views about their country's politics and
future.

The Meiji government did not object to this, providing the
views themselves were such as it approved. And it took steps
to make sure they were. One means to this end was an extensive
use of powers of censorship, especially of the press. Another
was a programme of political indoctrination, aimed at making
the emperor a focus of national unity. It owed much to official
sponsorship of the Shinto faith, for it was Shinto, after all, that
rationalized the emperor's authority as deriving from divine
descent and gave him quasi-sacerdotal functions. It is not sur-
prising, therefore, that Shinto was given a place of honour in
the constitutional arrangements of 1868-9 and became for a

NATIONALISM AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 1890-1904

time something very much like a State religion. Later the army
also played its part: a conscript's training naturally laid stress
on loyalty towards the man who was both ruler and com-
mander-in-chief. The generality of Japanese, moreover, ac-
quired the proper sentiments at school. The compulsory course
in 'ethics', worked out with much debate in the i88os, empha-
sized in about equal proportions the Confucian obligation of
filial piety and the national one of loyalty, the two going hand
in hand with military drill, also introduced into the curriculum
at about this time, as determinants of the future citizen's
attitude towards his civic duty.

The trend was given formal expression in the Constitution
of February 1889 and the Imperial Rescript on Education of
October 1890. The first defined the subject's relationship to his
monarch, putting traditional concepts in modern dress. The
second made it clear that education was to be subordinate to
the service of the State, outlining the substance of what was
to constitute c ethics' and providing for ceremonial expressions
of loyalty in the daily life of schools. Though some objected
mostly Christians that this was to give official sanction to an
essentially religious act, they were overruled. Education and
patriotism remained thereafter in close alliance.

Patriotism, of course, was in this context equated with
loyalty to the emperor, as was to be expected from a regime
which depended largely for its authority on control of the
emperor's person. But it was already acquiring other connota-
tions, too. Many Japanese, offended by the uncritical enthusi-
asm for Western dress, customs and gadgets which had charac-
terized the first decade of Meiji history, came to think it
patriotic to eschew them altogether when one could. Others,
less consciously or less militantly anti-Western, began to re-
discover arts and pastimes which preoccupation with the West
had made neglected. In 1881, for example, a society was formed
to revive interest in Japan's own traditions of painting and
fine art, as distinct from those more recently brought in from
Europe. Iwakura, with some of his friends, sponsored per-
formances of the classical Noh drama and helped to raise the
funds to build it a new theatre in Tokyo's Shiba Park, this also
in 1 88 1, while the following decade saw a modest renewal of
interest in such minor arts as flower arrangement (ikebana) and

157

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

the tea ceremony (cba-no-yu), often under the patronage of
newly-rich merchants and industrialists, who were in this the
natural successors of feudal lords. Such men also became
patrons of Japanese-style wrestling (sumo), which by 1900
rivalled baseball as a national sport. Other sports of Tokugawa
times, like fencing (kendo), were kept alive by the armed forces
and police, to find renewed popularity in the end in the more
nationalistic atmosphere of the twentieth century.

This atmosphere, indeed, was being heralded as early as 1 890.
Japanese taste in Western music, which had already shown it-
self martial both in theme and in performance, was now being
exemplified in patriotic songs, bearing titles like c Come, foes,
come' (Kitare ja kitare, published in 1888) or 'Though the
enemy be tens of thousands strong* (Teki wa ikuman ari Memo,,
published in 1 891), which were performed for schools, military
units and other audiences throughout the country. The Meiji
leaders, in fact, with the unconscious help of their political
rivals, had created a public opinion more actively interested in
Japan's international position than was entirely comfortable.
Exhortations designed to increase loyalist fervour, made for
the sake of political unity, and criticisms of government 'weak-
ness' in foreign affairs, made as moves in a struggle for power,
had persuaded large sections of the population to hold views
on policy which did not altogether accord with what was
practical. Specifically, men looked for radical revision of the
old 'unequal 5 treaties and for some sort of military action on the
Asian mainland. These were hopes that the government shared.
However, it found it necessary to move more slowly towards
achieving them, and to choose its methods of doing so with
greater circumspection, than the press and public seemed
sometimes ready to approve.

The earliest manifestations of this difference in outlook arose
over treaty revision, a subject which Japanese diplomats ap-
proached with two main objects in mind: first, to abolish or
modify the system of extra-territoriality, by which foreign resi-
dents in Japan came under the legal jurisdiction of their own
country's consuls; second, to secure the right of adjusting
Japan's tariffs on foreign goods, most of which were fixed by
treaty at 5 per cent. In view of the two sides' disparity in
strength, these aims were only likely to be attained by patient

158

NATIONALISM AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 1890-1904

negotiation, as had been demonstrated in the Iwakura mission's
talks in 1871-3. The lesson, moreover, was underlined by the
experiences of the next few years. Thus in 1878-9, when the
United States agreed to tariff autonomy for Japan, Britain re-
fused outright. Again in 1882 Britain proved adamant over
extra-territoriality. Thereafter Japanese officials recognized the
need for compromise, but the first attempt at one, involving a
proposal for mixed courts under Japanese and foreign judges,
was wrecked by an outburst of popular criticism in 1886. In
these circumstances it required some courage for Okuma, as
Foreign Minister, to reopen the talks in 1888, but he chose to
negotiate in the calmer atmosphere of the Western capitals and
by the following autumn had won general acceptance for the
abolition of extraterritoriality, subject only to the creation of
mixed courts for cases of appeal. At this point the news was
again made prematurely known. A storm of opposition was
aroused in Tokyo, where feeling now ran very high on ques-
tions of national sovereignty, and in October Okuma himself
was wounded by a bomb thrown at his carriage by a nationalist
fanatic. As a result, the negotiations were dropped and the
Kuroda government resigned.

With the opening of the Diet in 1890 the issue became more
deeply involved than ever in domestic politics, in that the
opposition parties, seeking desperately to break the grip of an
entrenched oligarchy, made every use they could of popular
feeling on foreign affairs. This was sometimes an embarrass-
ment on one occasion statements in the Diet brought a sharp
protest from Great Britain and uncertainty about their politi-
cal future made it difficult for ministers to negotiate with
confidence. On the other hand, it also gave them an argument
they had not before possessed. When Mutsu Munemitsu, as
Foreign Minister in Ito's cabinet, decided to resume talks with
London in the summer of 1893, he was able to point out that
Japanese public opinion would be satisfied with nothing less
than the complete abolition of extra-territoriality, even to hint
that if the treaties were not revised they might be renounced.
Since the veiled threat was accompanied by an offer of com-
mercial advantages, it sufficed as a basis for discussion and
brought eventual success. Details were worked out during the
next few months, providing that extra-territoriality should end

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

after Japan's new civil code came into force (ultimately this
was in 1899) and that foreign merchants, in exchange, should
for the first time be given access to Japan outside the treaty
ports. An agreement embodying these terms was signed in
July 1894. Similar ones with the other powers came soon after,
for in these matters Britain's example was decisive.

The event, unhappily, gained less applause than it might
otherwise have done, because it came at a time when atten-
tion was concentrated on another aspect of the country's
foreign affairs, its relations with the neighbouring mainland.
These had long been a matter of vital interest to Japan.
Writers throughout the century, as we have seen, had looked
to China, Manchuria and Korea as the natural outlet for
Japan's ambitions. Even in the dark days after the signing of
the treaties, when realization of national weakness had induced
a defensive attitude in nearly all, there were still some, like
Yoshida Shoin, who had thought survival impossible without
a continental foothold. A number of the Meiji leaders, several
of them Yoshida's students, shared this view. They were
strengthened in It by the activities of Saigo Takamori. In
1 88 1, after Saigo's death, survivors of his rebellion and others
sympathetic to them formed a patriotic society, the Genyosha,
designed to promote such expansionist ideas, to which end
they took every opportunity of bringing pressure to bear on
government leaders and stirring up nationalist opinion. Korea
became an important focus of their efforts, as it did also for
pamphleteers and politicians. As a result, Korea, like the trea-
ties, was made a subject of debate; and many Japanese in all
walks of life became convinced of the need to intervene there,
either from a belief that Korea should be made to follow Japan's
example of reform and modernization, under Japanese tute-
lage, to make her a worthy ally against Western dominance, or
in the conviction that Japan must create an anti-Western league,
which China and Korea must somehow be made to join, as a
means of saving both herself and her neighbours from con-
tinued exploitation.

Such reasoning was not in itself unwelcome to the Meiji
government. It did conflict, however, with the policy of
restraint laid down in 1873. F r although this had not entirely
precluded territorial advances in 1874, for example, Japan

1 60

NATIONALISM AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 1890-1904

won tacit Chinese acceptance of her control of the Ryukyu
islands and in 1875 took over the northern Kurile chain from
Russia, in return for waiving her claims to Sakhalin it had
certainly implied a resolve to follow the paths of compromise
and negotiation. Yet where Korea was concerned this proved
difficult to do. The formal establishment of relations between
the two countries, a treaty which opened two Korean ports to
trade in 1876, was only made possible by the threat offeree.
Once completed, moreover, it was immediately challenged
by China, on the grounds that Korea was a Chinese vassal
state, incapable of concluding such an agreement with another
country. The claim initiated an era of intrigue in which both
China and Japan entered into a struggle between factions at
the Korean court, their rivalry culminating in an armed clash
between Chinese and Japanese forces in Seoul at the end of
1884. It took direct negotiations between Ito and Li Hung-
chang the following spring to avert hostilities.

Both sides on this occasion agreed to withdraw their troops,
but this did not mean that either had yielded its position.
Inevitably there came another crisis. In June 1894 a number of
local revolts broke out in Korea, organized by anti-Western
groups called Tong-haks, and the king, acknowledging his
vassal status, called for Chinese help. This was quickly given.
Japan, however, held that the action was contrary to the 1885
convention. She therefore sent forces of her own, so shifting
the emphasis from the Tong-hak revolts, which were in any
case soon suppressed, to the much more dangerous issue of
Sino- Japanese conflict.

Several factors contributed to making the situation more
serious than it had been in 1884. For China's part, French and
British encroachment along the frontiers of Tongking, Tibet
and Burma had induced a stiffer attitude concerning her rights
in border areas, an attitude made all the more uncompromising
by the greater self-confidence with which she could approach a
struggle against Japan. The latter, on the other hand, was also
confident, for the previous decade had seen a considerable
growth in the size and efficiency of her army and navy, as well
as a solution to her most pressing financial problems. Hence
caution in her international dealings seemed less needed than it
had been before. Indeed, too much caution would provoke the

161

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

parties and public opinion, as the Diet's vociferous comments
on treaty revision had already shown. This being so, the
specific considerations making for action in Korea gained
greater weight. These were partly economic, arising from the
trade recently established between the two, and partly strategic,
in that Korea was Japan's obvious route of access to north-
east Asia. Both would be threatened if Korea fell under another
power's control. From Japan's viewpoint, therefore, whether
one saw the danger as coming from China, seeking to make
her suzerainty effective, orfromRussia, who had just announced
plans for building a railway to her Siberian possessions, there
seemed good cause for taking action before the threat de-
veloped.

It is impossible to tell how much of this reasoning Ito ac-
cepted in 1894. It is certain, nevertheless, that his actions had
an air of purpose which had been lacking hitherto. At the end
of June, far from withdrawing Japanese troops, he announced
his intention of keeping them in Korea until the Korean
government had carried out an extensive catalogue of reforms,
one effect of which would have been to substitute Japanese
for Chinese influence and end all Chinese pretensions to special
rights. In July he warned China to send in no more men,
while shortly after his own took over the Korean royal palace.
This left China no choice but to submit or fight. Since she
refused to relinquish her rights without an effort to defend
them, there was from this point no hope of avoiding war.

Its formal declaration came at the beginning of August and
was followed by a series of startling Japanese victories. In fact
Chinese resistance was so weak, Yamagata commented later,
that Japanese officers did not encounter any serious problems
worthy of careful consideration'. 50 By the end of September the
Japanese army controlled most of Korea and the navy had
command of the Yellow Sea. In October, two divisions under
Yamagata moved into South Manchuria. Three more under
Oyama moved against Liaotung, capturing Port Arthur the
following month, and then took Weihaiwei in February 1895.
The road was now open for an advance against Peking. With
seven Japanese divisions poised to take it, China was forced to
come to terms, sending Li Hung-chang to negotiate with Ito
in Japan and agreeing to virtually any conditions he chose to

162

NATIONALISM AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 1890-1904

state. Not unnaturally the peace treaty, signed in April at
Shimonoseki, was harsh. It recognized the independence of
Korea, thus ending Chinese claims to suzerainty; it ceded to
Japan the island of Formosa (Taiwan) and the Liaotung pen-
insula,, including Port Arthur; it opened four additional Chinese
cities to foreign trade; and it provided for the payment by
China of a substantial indemnity in cash. To the Japanese,
both government and people, the fruits of victory seemed
very sweet.

Japan's victory over China had a number of repercussions. It
demonstrated that China's weakness was more than had been
thought. It also revealed that Japan's modernization had been
remarkably successful. Together these pieces of knowledge
were to change the international scene. Japan, moreover, gained
a new sense of satisfaction and achievement, to say nothing of
more practical rewards: scope for her activities in Korea; status
as a 'treaty power' in China's foreign trade; the acquisition of
a useful colony, Formosa.

Yet not all was to the good, as the country was quickly to
discover. International prestige also brought with it responsi-
bilities and dangers. By making herself a factor to be reckoned
with in Far Eastern affairs, Japan had involved herself more
closely in the rivalries of the powers, not always to her own ad-
vantage. The first proof of it came within a week of the signing
of the Shimonoseki treaty. On April 23 the representatives of
Russia, France and Germany informed Tokyo that their gov-
ernments viewed with concern the prospect of the Liaotung
peninsula being transferred to Japan. They advised its return to
China. Ostensibly they did so because Japan's control of the
peninsula would be a threat to China and to the peace of the
area. In fact the motives were less altruistic: Russia aimed at
preserving her own opportunities for expansion; France, her
ally, hoped to gain Russian support for French ambitions in
the south; and Germany sought to edge Russia away from
European politics. None of this, strictly speaking, involved
Japan; but it was Japan, because of the new relationship she
had established with China, that gave the three powers their
opening to act.

The information available to Ito's cabinet was that Russia,

163

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

at least, was willing to back her demands with force. Nor
would she modify her terms. What is more, although feelers
put out to other capitals revealed a certain amount of sympathy
for Japan, they brought no definite promise of support. Since
the country was exhausted by the war with China and could
not hope to resist alone, the cabinet had no choice but to com-
municate to the governments concerned its formal decision to
submit, this being on May 5, three days before ratifications of
the treaty were exchanged. All that Japan could get to salve
her pride was an increase in the size of the indemnity.

Pride, there is no doubt, was at the heart of the matter. The
loss of Liaotung did not by any means rob the treaty of all its
value, but the manner of the loss affected Japanese opinion as
if it had. The war had brought a tremendous wave of enthusi-
asm in Japan, silencing even the government's critics in the
Diet. Victory was hailed with exultation. Then, without warn-
ing, came humiliation, a savage reminder that half a century's
work had still not put Japan in a position to ignore or reject
the c advice' of one of the powers. It is no wonder that the
shock was great and that it brought a mood of bitterness. For
years thereafter the Japanese public remained resentful, more
open than ever to the persuasions of nationalist extremists,
more anxious than ever that its own government's policies
should be such as would bring prestige. In this sense the Triple
Intervention, as it was called, served to rally Japan for another
advance, despite the further measure of hardship that this
entailed.

The government's own immediate reactions were military,
devised to ensure that next time indignity could be properly
resented. Thus in 1896 six new divisions were added to the
regular army, bringing its total to thirteen and doubling its
first-line strength. In 1898 both cavalry and artillery were
organized as independent brigades. Meanwhile every effort was
being made to improve equipment, especially to provide better
rifles for the infantry and quick-firing guns for the artillery,
as well as to set up facilities for their manufacture in Japan.
By 1904 this had been achieved. Similarly, the country was
made self-sufficient in naval armaments and the navy was
greatly increased in size. A naval building programme, starting
in 1896-7, budgeted for the addition of four battleships, sixteen

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NATIONALISM AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 1890-1904

cruisers, twenty-three destroyers and over 600 other craft
to the existing fleet, bringing the total of major war vessels
(destroyers and above) to seventy-six, aggregating 258,000
tons, by the end of 1903.

The cost of these developments was heavy. Army expendi-
ture, just under 15 million yen in 1893, rose to 53 million in
1896 and remained at about that level till the Russian war.
Naval expenditure was more variable, but was still appreciably
higher than before: 13 million yen in 1895, rising to over
50 million in 1898, then declining to 28 million in 1903. Most
of this was met by the government from its own resources, by
means of an increase in taxation on business and personal
incomes, the levy of a tax on rice-wine, and the creation of
official monopolies in camphor and tobacco. To these were
added a number of foreign and domestic loans which doubled
the national debt within a decade. Even so, government debt
was only a little over 500 million yen in 1903, a figure which
the rising national income, now showing the effect of industrial
growth, made quite admissible.

Direct measures of rearmament were supplemented by
policies designed to channel investment into heavy industry, in
particular those sectors of it which had a military importance.
Thus the paid-up capital of the engineering industry rose from
2 - 6 million yen in 1893 to 14-6 million ten years later. Shipping
and shipbuilding received substantial subsidies, dating from
1896, which had it as their object to increase both the use and
the construction of vessels of a modern type. This they did,
bringing a sharp rise in total merchant tonnage 3 5 per cent
of ships entering Japanese ports in 1903 flew the Japanese flag,
compared with 14 per cent in 1893 and a modest but respect-
able development of yards able to build steel ships. The gov-
ernment also decided in 1896 to establish an iron and steel
industry. Its great Yawata works, founded as a result of this
decision, began production in 1901 and was largely responsible
for raising the annual output of pig-iron to 243,000 tons and of
steel to 255,000 tons (metric) by 1913. Coal output, too, rose
rapidly, from 5 million tons ini895toi3 million tons in 1905.
More significant, perhaps, was the fact that much of the coal
was being used by factories.

The economic implications of these developments will be

165

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

discussed in a later chapter. Here it is sufficient to underline
their importance for foreign affairs: first, as a measure of the
government's determination; second,, as one explanation of its
growing self-confidence after 1900. Nevertheless, any exam-
ination of Japanese policy in these years must begin by em-
phasizing not its confidence but its caution, a quality due not
only to memories of the Triple Intervention, but also to the
very real difficulties with which Japan was faced.

They arose chiefly from the change that was taking place in
Europe's relationships with China. The exclusive concern with
trade, which had determined China's earlier relations with the
West, was being supplemented in the last quarter of the century
by a rising volume of investment, involving railway-building,
the exploitation of mineral resources, sometimes the establish-
ment of industrial plants. These gave the powers new rights
which they thought it their duty to protect. What is more, the
distribution of investment tended to fall into regional patterns,
so that each power had greater interests in some areas of China
than in others. The result was greatly to increase the dangers
of partition, the more so because several of the powers
were akeady established on the Chinese frontier: Russia in
the north, France and Britain in the south, all looking for
special privileges in the regions contiguous with their existing
holdings.

Matters came to a head with Japan's victory over China,
partly because it raised doubts about the ability of the Chinese
government to protect foreign investments and therefore
tempted the powers to take action on their own, partly because
it enabled Russia, France and Germany to seek rewards for
their intervention. In 1 896 Russia made the first move, securing
the right to construct a railway, the Chinese Eastern, across
Manchuria, to link Vladivostock with Russian territory farther
west. In November 1897 the murder of two Roman Catholic
priests gave Germany in her turn an opportunity to present
demands, these resulting in a treaty (March 1898) which gave
her a naval base at Kiaochow and extensive economic rights in
the province of Shantung. News of it precipitated a scramble
for concessions by the other powers. Within a few days Russia
received a lease of Port Arthur and recognition of her special
position in Manchuria. France, a month later, acquired a base

166

NATIONALISM AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 1890-1904

at Kwangchow-wan, railway rights in Yunnan, and China's
promise that she would not alienate Yunnan, Kwangtung or
Kwangsi to any other power. This led Britain to safeguard her
own strategic and economic interests. By July she had obtained
a non-alienation agreement concerning the Yangtse valley, an
extension of territory opposite Hong Kong, and the lease of a
base at Weihaiwei.

These events caused Japan considerable concern. It was bad
enough to see those who had checked her own ambitions
engaged in rewarding themselves in the manner which they
had described, when Japan had tried it, as a threat to peace. It
was worse still to realize that she could neither prevent them
from doing so nor effectively share the spoils. To be sure, she
was able to secure a pledge of non-alienation for Fukien, the
province opposite Formosa. But for the most part she could
only watch and wait, hoping that Britain and America would
serve both Japan's ends and their own by preventing the
complete dismemberment of China.

The Yamagata government, which took office at the end of
1898, was able to do something more constructive. During
1899 Chinese resentment of foreign actions was manifested in
widespread anti-foreign outbreaks, the most serious of which,
in Shantung and the north, were led by groups called Boxers.
In the spring of 1900 they seized the approaches to Peking
and laid seige to the foreign legations, thus making necessary
an immediate military intervention by the treaty powers. Japan
alone was in a position to send substantial reinforcements
quickly. She therefore pkyed a leading part in the operations
that followed, providing nearly half the troops that relieved the
legations in August and occupied Peking. Yet for all this she
acted with circumspection, showing a studious care for her
allies' susceptibilities even at some risk of delaying the expe-
dition and observing all proper military and diplomatic eti-
quette. Her behaviour, in fact, much enhanced her international
reputation. It also gave her a voice in the negotiations by which
a settlement was reached in 1901 and a share in the huge
indemnity required from China.

To set against this was a deterioration in her relations with
Russia. These had improved slightly after 1895, despite the
growth of direct rivalry between the two in Korea, for Russia

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

was too preoccupied with China and Manchuria, Japan too con-
scious of her recent rebuff, to push matters to extremes. In 1 896
they agreed to co-operate in Korea's development and in April
1898 Russia even recognized Japan's greater claim to economic
preference in that country. This eased the tension, at least till
Manchuria brought it back, a development that occurred as a
by-product of the Boxer troubles. Russia held conspicuously
aloof from the plans to relieve the legations at Peking. By
contrast, she used the spread of the outbreaks to the north-east
provinces as an excuse to occupy Manchuria entirely. Nor
would she evacuate the area until China came to terms. Since
the terms, as stated in February 1901, would have made Man-
churia a Russian protectorate, they brought urgent protests
from the powers, most vigorously from Japan, forcing Russia
to deny any territorial ambitions. At this the crisis died, be-
coming submerged for a time in the acrimonious exchanges
about allocation of the Boxer indemnity between its various
claimants.

One result of these manoeuvres was to bring Britain and
Japan together, since they had a common interest in opposing
Russian expansion. Britain feared for her influence in China if
the Russian occupation of Manchuria were to prove permanent.
Japan saw it as blocking her own best route to the mainland
and also as a threat to Korea. Neither could afford to let it pass
unchallenged. Yet a formal agreement to oppose it was not an
easy step to take. For Britain it would involve a break with the
diplomacy of c splendid isolation'. For Japan it might well mean
abandoning hope of a local compromise with Russia, though
many in Tokyo, including Ito, still saw such a compromise as
the country's wisest course. On both sides, therefore, the
approach to an agreement was cautious and its outcome by no
means inevitable.

The possibility of alliance had been widely canvassed in both
countries since 1895, when Britain's refusal to join the Triple
Intervention because she approved the commercial pro visions
laid down at Shimonoseki had done something to wipe out
the memory of her earlier opposition to treaty revision. Still,
this seemed a slender base on which to found a diplomatic and
military arrangement. More important, in fact, were the per-
sonal links established between the two countries by Britain's

168

NATIONALISM AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 1890-1904

role as a tutor in modernization. By the training of naval
officers, the education of students, the provision of experts in
many fields, she had helped to create a group in Tokyo that
favoured closer ties. It was strengthened by the unobtrusive
but effective co-operation between British and Japanese officials
over details of the Boxer expedition and indemnity. Publicly,
the case for alliance was urged by a number of propagandists.
Two in particular, Captain Frank Brinkley, owner of the Japan
Mail and Tokyo correspondent of The Times, and Edwin
Arnold of the Telegraph., were able to influence opinion in
London, while the approval of Okuma was enough to bring
favourable comment from the Maznichi and Yommri in Japan.

It is probable that none of this would have done more than
create a friendly atmosphere, had there not been a practical
issue for cabinets to resolve, such as was provided by the
Russian moves in China. Indeed, it was not until the summer of
1901 that private feelers and unofficial talks gave way to negoti-
ation proper. In July, Hayashi, Japan's minister in London
and long an advocate of alliance, had a meeting on the subject
with the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Lansdowne. This
resulted in Hayashi seeking formal instructions from his gov-
ernment and, when these proved encouraging, in an exchange
of views about the terms which alliance might involve. Two
difficulties rapidly became apparent. Both sides wished to
guarantee the status quo in China and prevent Russian annex-
ation of the Manchurian provinces. Britain, however, wanted
any promise of mutual support to apply also to the defence of
India. To this Japan objected on the grounds that it would
weight the bargain heavily in Britain's favour. By the same
token, Britain was hesitant about giving full support to
Japan's position in Korea, since she had no desire to become
involved in an exclusively Russo-Japanese quarrel. Discussion
of these points, as well as of a difference about the distribution
of naval forces, lasted into November.

There then occurred a short delay, occasioned by the activi-
ties of Ito. He had been succeeded as premier in June by
Katsura Taro, a protege of Yamagata, but he remained exceed-
ingly influential and convinced of the need for talks with
Russia. In mid November he persuaded the cabinet to hold up
further discussions until he had made a private visit to St

169

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

Petersburg. This took place at the end of the month. Early in
December, he had a number of meetings with Lamsdorff,
Russia's Foreign Minister, and although they did not go well,
Lamsdorff eventually offered some small concessions about
Korea as a basis for formal exchanges. He expected in return
a free hand for Russia in northern China. But the concessions,
such as they were, had already been made abortive by events.
Before Ito could report the result of his proceedings to Tokyo,
British suspicions of possible duplicity the visit to Russia was
widely known forced Hayashi to resume negotiations and
Katsura to support his doing so.

An alliance was now inevitable, if the problem of its terms
could be overcome. And after hard bargaining, this was at last
achieved. The naval question was left for separate discussion
by the naval staffs; Britain's demand that India be included in
the scope of the agreement was dropped; and the difficulty
over Japan's position in Korea was met by careful drafting.
As finally signed on January 30, 1902, the treaty recognized
that 'Japan, in addition to the interests which she possesses in
China, is interested in a peculiar degree politically as well as
commercially and industrially in Corea', 51 but it did not provide
automatically for British hejp if Japan became otfthis account
involved in war with Russia. Instead, each country agreed to
remain neutral if the other became engaged in hostilities in the
Far East area. This, at least, held good when only one enemy
was concerned. If either was attacked by two powers or more,
the military provisions of the alliance were to become effective.

The agreement, despite the care taken in its wording, meant
something different to each of the parties to it. From the British
viewpoint it was to be a warning to Russia, but not a provoca-
tion, as the public announcement of its contents took pains to
show. To Japan it was a triumph, this not merely because it
gave her an alliance on a footing of equality with the greatest
of the powers, but also because it enabled her to treat with
Russia on more even terms. There could be no repetition of the
Triple Intervention, it was clear, while Britain held the ring.
In this sense Japanese extremists saw the alliance as an invita-
tion to aggression. Even the moderates, among whom the
government must be numbered, were emboldened by it to
refuse any unfavourable compromise about Korea.

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NATIONALISM AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 1890-1904

The immediate results or apparent results were highly
satisfactory to both Japan and Britain., for in April Russia
agreed to withdraw her forces from Manchuria, the operation
to be effected in stages at six-month intervals. The first, in
October, was duly carried out, though the troops were only
transferred elsewhere in the region. The second stage, however,
expected in April 1903, did not take place. Instead, Russia
gave every indication of preparing for another advance. In June,
therefore, a Japanese imperial conference took the decision to
propose a general settlement with Russia. It was to be on the
basis of a joint undertaking to respect the territorial integrity of
China and Korea, coupled with a recognition of Russian rail-
way rights in Manchufia and Japanese interests, both political
and economic, in Korea. To this Russia responded in October
with counter-proposals as severe as if the Anglo- Japanese
alliance had never been signed. She demanded a guarantee of
territorial integrity for Korea only, excluding China (and hence
Manchuria); a promise by Japan not to fortify the Korean
coast; and recognition that Manchuria was outside the Japanese
sphere of interest. Katsura, under pressure from a public
opinion increasingly eager to fight, could not entertain such
terms. It seemed better and more practical, if his military
advisers were to be believed to gamble on a war which might
resolve the question once and for all, rather than accept a
line of containment drawn by Russia. Hence Japan's reply in
January 1904 stated her minimum terms in the form of an
ultimatum. When it was ignored she declared war.

This was on February 10, but diplomatic relations had been
severed four days earlier and hostilities had already begun.
Russian troops had crossed the frontier into Korea. Japanese
naval units had attacked a Russian squadron. For Japan, in-
deed, the important task at this stage was to secure control of
the straits across which her reinforcements had to move to
enter Korea. It was accomplished on April 13 by victory over
a Russian naval force outside Port Arthur. The Japanese First
Army was now able to strike along the Yalu River, forcing a
crossing on May i and moving into south Manchuria, while the
Second Army landed in the Liaotung peninsula a few days
later. Within a month General Nogi's Third Army had kid
siege to Port Arthur itself, though the garrison's capitulation

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

did not come until the following New Year, after some of the
bitterest fighting of the war. Meanwhile in late August and
early September Oyama's forces took Liaoyang and drove the
Russians back on Mukden. Here a decisive battle was fought in
February and March 1905, sixteen Japanese divisions, number-
ing some 400,000 men, being thrown in to achieve the capture
of the city. As a final blow to Russia's hopes, her Baltic fleet,
which had left Europe in November and sailed halfway round
the world to break the blockade of Vladivostock, was met by
Admiral Togo's forces in the Tsushima Straits on May 27 and
practically annihilated.

These events made peace negotiations possible, especially
as both sides had other reasons for wishing to end the struggle.
Russia, although not admitting that her military resources were
at an end, was in difficulties with political unrest at home.
Japan was on the verge of financial exhaustion. Accordingly,
when Japan asked for American mediation, a peace conference
was arranged at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and pleni-
potentiaries met there in August 1905. Japan's demands were
stiff, as befitted an apparent victor. They included recognition
of her supremacy in Korea; transfer to Japan of Russian interests
in south Manchuria, including the railway and Liaotung; the
cession of Sakhalin; and payment of a war indemnity. The last
two Russia flatly rejected, giving every indication that she
would break off the talks if Japan continued to press them.
Even American intervention only succeeded in modifying her
stand a little, to the extent of offering the southern half of
Sakhalin. An indemnity she would not on any account con-
sider. Disappointed, but unable to face the prospect of further
fighting, the Japanese government gave way and on Sep-
tember 5 its representatives signed the Treaty of Portsmouth
in its modified form.

Unsatisfactory as this was to the Japanese public, which had
been led to expect a far greater return for its efforts and ex-
pressed its displeasure in riots that occasioned martial law, it
was nevertheless a very great achievement. For the first time
in modern history an Asian country had defeated one of the
powers in full-scale war. By doing so, it had secured both real
advantages and symbols of prestige: a paramount position in
Korea and valuable rights in South Manchuria, to be added to

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NATIONALISM AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 1890-1904

Formosa and a share in the China trade. Indeed, if the Anglo-
Japanese alliance had signified the attainment of equality,, the
Russo-Japanese war did more again. It brought revenge, self-
confidence and a sense of mission, setting Japan on the road
that was to make her in the following forty years an exemplar of
Western civilization, transplanted; a champion of Asia against
the West; and the megalomaniac builder of an empire overseas.

CHAPTER X
THE END OF AN ERA

Annexation of Korea -political society the economj city life
religion

THE MEIJI emperor died on July 30, 1912, after a reign of
forty-five years which had seen astonishing changes. His own
status had been raised from that of an ineffective recluse,
regarded by foreign visitors as something akin to a pope, to
that of a semi-divine monarch of a vigorous nation state. His
country after years of international weakness had won two
wars and acquired the beginnings of an empire. His subjects
had learnt and put to use new ways of making wealth. They
were already beginning to show the effects of it in their standard
of living. They were also more efficiently governed, better
educated and more conscious of participating in national life
than they had ever been before. In sum, the first stage of
modernization had been successfully completed.

It is useful at this point to survey the effect of these achieve-
ments and the kind of society they had brought into being, for
Japanese history in the twentieth century was to be in many
ways an extension of them. Nor was it always a pleasing
one. Industrialization was to bring not only a higher level of
national wealth, but also a clash of interests between town and
country, manager and worker, reactionary and progressive,
arising from the pattern of its distribution. It was to contribute
to a weakening of the family and of the community in their
older forms. Again, the stresses which this introduced were to
be the greater because of a growing awareness of the dichotomy
between what was Japanese and what was foreign, what was
traditional and what was modern, in ideas, in politics, in social
custom and much else. Thus Japan under her next two

THE END OF AN ERA

emperors became the scene of a new kind of quarrel., which
threatened to disrupt society far more completely than it had
been in the time of Meiji. It also turned, partly for the same
reasons, to a career of expansion abroad, as the urge to achieve
equality became chauvinism of a virulently racial type.

The revolution in Japan's international position, which made
many of these later developments possible, had been one of the
major objectives, as well as one of the greatest successes, of
the Meiji leaders. It was certainly the most striking to con-
temporary observers. In a little over eleven years from 1894
to 1905 Japanese diplomacy, backed on two occasions by
military force, had secured revision of the unequal treaties,
alliance with one of the great powers, colonies in Formosa
(Taiwan) and southern Sakhalin (Karafuto), a preponderant
position in Korea and important rights in South Manchuria, in-
cluding Liaotung. Very soon these gains were confirmed and
extended. In July 1905 the United States had given its bless-
ing to Korea's subordinate status and in August the Anglo-
Japanese alliance was renewed, its scope being extended to
provide for the defence of British interests in India and a more
precise recognition of Japan's hegemony in Korea. In Sep-
tember came the Treaty of Portsmouth, ending the Russian
war. In November, Ito negotiated an agreement by which
Korea became a Japanese protectorate, giving Japan control
of the country's foreign affairs. A month later China acquiesced
in the arrangements made about her various possessions, so
that by the end of the year Japan was ready to exploit her gains
with little fear of international interference.

The first step was the appointment of Ito as Resident-
General in Seoul in February 1906. He had extensive powers,
but they were not enough to overcome Korean opposition or
to prevent a Korean appeal for help to the Hague conference
in June 1907. Accordingly, the king was made to abdicate in
July of that year and Japan assumed responsibility for domestic
as well as foreign policy, though unrest continued to frustrate
many of her plans until the date of Ito's resignation two years
later. Outright annexation had by then become the Japanese
aim and Ito's murder by a Korean fanatic at Harbin in October
1909 gave pretext for it. In the following May, General

175

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

Terauchi Masatake, War Minister since 1902,, was appointed
concurrently Resident-General, with orders to assert complete
control of the country by police and army. This done, on
August 22, 1910, he forced the Korean government to sign
the annexation treaty.

Events in Manchuria meanwhile had gone more smoothly.
In June 1906 exploitation of Japan's rights there was entrusted
to the newly-formed South Manchuria Railway Company, in
which the government held half the capital and had the right
to appoint the two chief officers. Apart from running the rail-
ways and building more, the company was empowered to
engage in mining, public utilities and the sale of goods, in
addition to collecting taxes and conducting administration in
the railway zone. It was designed, in other words, to be as
much an organ of policy as a source of profit. Under its patron-
age and control, which were shared in the political and diplo-
matic fields with the Governor-General of Kwantung (Liao-
tung), first appointed in August 1906, Japanese investment
proceeded rapidly. This was recognized as inevitable by the
powers. A rapprochement with France and Russia in 1907,
under the stimulus of Britain's example, and confirmation of
the 1905 agreement with America, which came in the Root-
Takahira notes of 1908, virtually insured international acqui-
escence in the special privileges being accorded to Japanese
business in Manchuria. There were rumblings of protest from
London, but not enough to prevent renewal of the Anglo-
Japanese alliance in 1911. All in all, Japan had good reason to
be satisfied with both her status and her opportunities.

Their maintenance and, if possible, improvement depended
in some degree on social and political stability at home, some-
thing which in the first decade of the twentieth century the
country seemed well on the way to achieving. The institutions
created in the previous forty years had not been intended to
destroy one ruling class and substitute another, with all the
upheaval such a process would have entailed. Rather they had
shifted the distribution of political authority within the ruling
class and introduced new elements to it. Thus former court
nobles and feudal lords, though no longer holding important
office, were reconciled to the regime by wealth and dignity,
the first deriving from bonds which the state had given them,

176

THE END OF AN ERA

the second from thek position in the peerage. The most able
of the ex-samurai, profiting from superior training and exper-
ience, had also found a satisfying niche in the established order.
Some became or perhaps, one should say, remained soldiers
and bureaucrats. Others became leaders of industry and com-
merce. Both groups were eligible for appointment to the
peerage, which underlines the fact that the new society, if it
retained much of the respect for place that had characterized
the old, had no intention of perpetuating privilege. For those
of comparatively humble birth but great achievement, power
and honours now ran together. The Meiji leaders, after all,
had won thek way not only to the highest offices, but also to
the topmost ranks Ito and Yamagata both held the title of
Prince setting an example that was valid at every level. As a
result, a soldier or bureaucrat could look forward to becoming
baron or viscount, as well as general or vice-minister.

The services and the bureaucracy were in fact the most usual
and most respectable route to such advancement. Both were
alike in requiring discipline, professional efficiency and high
standards of personal conduct from thek members, while thek
insistence that appointment and promotion go by merit meant
that a career in them was open to all who could pass the
appropriate examinations. Since education was equally open,
it followed that any family which could put its sons through
the proper school and college training could hope to enter
them in the upper grades of government service. With few
exceptions, the poor were in practice excluded. But the pros-
pect was a real one for many families that could not otherwise
have expected to be part of a ruling class: modest landowners
and well-to-do farmers in the countryside, the smaller merchants
and industrialists of the towns.

To all who had ambition, whether for themselves or for their
sons, education, especially higher education, therefore became
an important preoccupation. Primary schools akeady catered
for 97 per cent of the seven million children of school age in
1907, when the length of the compulsory course was raised
from four years to six. Secondary schools in the same year had
about 150,000 pupils. The numbers at university were also
rising and there was still a large unsatisfied demand for places.
To the three existing universities in Tokyo (the Imperial

177

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

University and the private foundations of Keio and Waseda)
were added others elsewhere Kyoto in 1903, Sendai in 1907,
Fukuoka in 1910 whose graduates helped to fill responsible
posts in the bureaucracy and other fields. Even so, competition
for entry remained fierce, extending to the better high schools
as well as the more popular university departments; and it is
one of the more significant, not to say commendable, features
of modern Japan that the vast majority of applications were
decided by ability, not by birth or wealth, except in so far as a
moderate degree of wealth was necessary to enable a family
to maintain its sons in full-time study.

In many ways, in fact, Meiji Japan had done much towards
realizing an ideal of the late Tokugawa reformers, that is, the
promotion of men of ability regardless of inherited rank. By
so doing it had reduced the dangers of subversion. Neverthe-
less, the existence of a career genuinely open to talent, while it
made revolution unlikely, did not preclude political disputes.
There were many, even among those who had helped to bring
the regime about, who had been neither fortunate nor success-
ful under its rule and who accordingly sought to change its
policies. It was of such men that political parties had been
formed: disgruntled oligarchs, who had fallen out with their
fellows; landowners and farmers disgusted at fiscal discrimina-
tion against the village for the benefit of the town; merchants
and industrialists who felt their influence to be less than their
wealth deserved; and numerous ex-samurai who lacked the
ability or the luck which would have let them preserve an
earlier way of life in a changing world. These were not revolu-
tionaries, in the sense of men wishing to overturn society. But
they were hostile to the oligarchy which governed Japan and
determined, if possible, to make it share its power.

All the same, by the end of the Meiji period the oligarchy
was more strongly entrenched than ever. Its own senior mem-
bers Ito, Yamagata and Matsukata had become Genro, men
who because of long and meritorious service had been made
permanent and personal counsellors to the throne, advising the
emperor on his choice of a Prime Minister and consequently
able to keep a large measure of control over both the composi-
tion and the policy of each new government. Through the
years, moreover, they had put their nominees into most key

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THE END OF AN ERA

positions outside the cabinet. Appointments to the Privy
Council, the House of Peers, the high command of the armed
forces and the upper ranks of the central bureaucracy were an
imperial prerogative, which was exercised, of course, on the
advice of the men in power. This implied an important limita-
tion on the practice of promotion by ability. Though birth or
wealth would not in themselves suffice, a man who wished to
attain the very highest place, at least politically, needed to have
or to establish "connections' with the inner group, links of
lineage or marriage or obligation which were a guarantee of
his loyalty. One might recall Ito's description of the Japanese
polity: that of an overgrown village, in which 'family and
quasi-family ties permeated and formed the essence of every
social organization*, so that c cold intellect and calculation of
public events were always restrained and even often hindered
by warm emotions between man and man'. This, as he said,
was *a healthy barrier against the threatening advance of
socialistic ideas'. Equally, it produced a situation in which 'free
discussion is apt to be smothered, attainment and transference
of power liable to become a family question . . .* 52 The words
were written of the days before the granting of a constitution,
but they remained valid of the twentieth century, too.

To set against this close-knit monopoly of office, opponents
of the Meiji government had two main weapons. The first was
public opinion, expressed through a vigorous daily press and
occasionally by riotous assembly, though the latter had the
drawback that it was only effective at moments of crisis,
usually after, not before, a decision was taken. The second was
the elected lower house of the Diet and the political parties
that were active in it. Between 1890 and 1894, as we have seen
(see Chapter 7), the parties had fought, though unsuccessfully,
to establish control of the budget and through it of policy as a
whole, the struggle being marked by a series of dissolutions
and elections and by the attempted use offeree to decide them.
Then came the war with China, submerging partisan feeling
for a time in a wave of patriotism. After it, Japanese political
life moved, if rather jerkily, towards a compromise. This de-
pended on a realization by the oligarchs, on the one hand, that
they could not make the constitutional machinery work if the
Diet remained permanently obstructive, and by the politicians,

179

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

on the other, that short of revolution the oligarchy's defences
were impregnable. Since both sides were committed to ideas
that made revolution out of the question an emperor-centred
state and a people united in pursuit of national strength this
eventually led the one to offer cabinet posts and minor con-
cessions on matters of policy, the other to accept them.

The first sign of the change came in 1895, when Ito won the
support of the Liberal Party (]iyuto) y the largest group in the
lower house, and gave the Home Ministry to Itagaki. On the
fall of Ito's government in 1896 his successor, Matsukata, made
an alliance with Okuma's party on similar terms. However,
neither arrangement worked very well, for there was much
disagreement with it on both sides, notably from Yamagata,
and Ito could not repeat the pattern when he became premier
again in 1898. Yet without it he was unable to overcome the
hostility of the lower house. He therefore took the initiative in
bringing the Okuma and Itagaki groups together to form the
first party cabinet in Japanese history. The two men took
office on June 30, 1 898, Okuma as premier and Foreign Minis-
ter, Itagaki as Home Minister, and they were backed by a
newly-formed party which included the followers of both, the
Constitutional Party (Kenseito\ standing for loyalty to the
throne, maintenance of the constitution and cabinet responsi-
bility to the Diet. Unhappily, these were platitudes which
only glossed over the differences between the party's two
original components, adherents of Itagaki and Okuma respec-
tively. They soon fell out over taxation policy, in which they
represented different interests, and over the division of political
spoils. Equally serious, they faced a united and unco-operative
bureaucracy, for the effect of Ito's move had been to change
the nature of the struggle only in the sense of making it a
contest between cabinet and oligarchs, instead of between
cabinet and Diet. In fact, the Diet played no part in the matter
at all, since the government resigned on October 31, before
the session had begun. It was replaced by that of Yamagata,
who for the next two years secured parliamentary majorities
for vital bUls by the use of bribery.

The situation was complicated by a growing rivalry between
Ito and Yamagata, partly personal, partly due to differences
over foreign policy, partly reflecting a conflict between civil

iSo

i Himcji Castle, A fine example of a
feudal stronghold of Tokugawa times, which
still dominates the modern city

Tokugawa Japan

2 A feudal lord and his escort, en route to Edo, at a river crossing

3 A feudal lord's escort entering the outskirts of Edo

4 Saruwakacho, a street in Edo, bv moonlight. From a print bv Hiroshiee
(1797-1858) " " S

5 TOP RIGHT A timberyard at Tatekawa. From a print by Hokusai
(1760-1849)

6 BOTTOM RIGHT. A waterwheel at Onden. Also from a print by Hokusai

7 Commodore Perry arrives to open negotiations at Yokohama, 1854

The Opening of Japan

8 Handing over the official presents brought by Commodore Perry,
Yokohama, 1854

9 Saigo Takamori (1828-1877)

10 Ito Hirobumi (1841-1909)

Meiji Japan

ii Okubo Toshimichi (1850-1878)

12 Yanaagata Aritomo (1838-1922)

13 The Imperial Court, 1868. For the first time the Emperor
receives the foreign envoys in audience

14 The Imperial Court, 1889. The Emperor announces the Meiji
Constitution

15 Modernization. A primary school, probably in the i88os, with
adult pupils as well as children. From a contemporary print

1 6 RIGHT: Modernization. Shimbashi Station in Tokyo, sometime
before 1894. From a contemporary print

1 7 Signing the peace treaty between Japan and China at
Shimonoseki, 1895

1 8 TOP RIGHT: The Russo-Japanese War, 1904-5. Japanese infantry
waiting for engineers to bridge the Tatung River

19 BOTTOM RIGHT: Tokyo's main shopping street, the Ginza, in 1904.
Compare the illustrations of Edo fifty years earlier (no 4) and Tokyo
fifty years later (no 36)

International
"';'" I Recognition

21 Saionji KimmocH
(1849-1940), Japan's chief
delegate to the Versailles
Conference, 1919

22 The Washington Conference, December 1921. The Japanese
delegation is seated at the table to the left

20 LEFT: 'Allies'. Punch celebrates the renewal of the Anglo- Japanese
alliance in 1905 after Japan's victory over Russia

Between the Wars

23 A scene from the 'Kajino Follies', Japan's first modern revue,
presented at Asakusa in Tokyo in 1929

24 The beach at Kamakura, 1933

25 In the 19305 the school day starts with an obeisance to an
enshrined portrait of the Emperor

26 Factory girls marching to work from the company's
hostel in which they live

Victory

and

Defeat

27 The first Konoe cabinet, June 1937. Konoe is at the front
(in overcoat), with Foreign Minister Hirota on his right

28 The First Division leaves Tokyo for service in Manchuria
after the abortive military revolt of February 1936

29 Pearl Harbour, December 1941. USS Arizona sinking after the
Japanese attack

30 Hiroshima, August 1945. The first atomic bomb casts its
shadow over Japan

31 Surrender. The Japanese delegation aboard USS Missouri in
Tokyo Bay, September i, 1945

Surrender

32 Tojo Hideki (1885-:
hanged as a major war
criminal in 1948

33 Yoshida Shigeru (b. 1878), Prime Minister during most
of the period of military occupation

34 LEFT: Industry. Part of Osaka in 1957

Postwar Japan

"s \ariculture. Terracing makes possible the maximum use of land

3 J ^ &

36 Tokyo, Part of the centre of the city in 1957

THE END OF AN ERA

and military interests within the Meiji leadership. In September
1900 Ito tried to strengthen his hand by forming a party of his
own, organizing what was left of the old Liberals into an
Association of Political Friends (Seiyukai), but forcing them to
accept as the price of patronage his own view that cabinets
must be 'independent'; in other words, that party representa-
tion in the cabinet did not involve the cabinet's subordination
to party. On this basis a government was formed, though it
proved short-lived. Yamagata opposed it, exploiting the ascen-
dancy he had established in the services and the House of
Peers; and Ito could not entirely match this combination, even
by invoking the emperor's intervention, a device he had earlier
used against the Diet with striking success. In June 1901 he
resigned again, after less than a year in office.

From this time on, Ito and Yamagata were represented in
politics by their respective proteges, Saionji Kimmochi and
Katsura Taro, who alternated as Prime Minister for the next
twelve years. The later part of this period is known as that of
'the Katsura-Saionji truce', a phrase which fakly reflects the
tacit understanding between the two main groups. Each pos-
sessed the power to obstruct the other, each realized that it
was usually better to refrain from using it. Saionji, after he
succeeded Ito as president of the Seiyukai in 1903, com-
manded a fairly docile majority in the lower house of the Diet
and the support of Ito's friends in the bureaucracy. Katsura
had the backing of Yamagata, the services and the House
of Peers. Either could therefore govern as long as he had
the other's consent, neither could do so without it. Their
recognition of this fact gave Japan a spell of rather deceptive
calm.

Katsura remained in office from June 1901 until the outcry
over the Treaty of Portsmouth at the end of 1905 brought his
resignation. Saionji followed him in January 1906. He included
only two Seiyukai ministers in his cabinet, out of deference to
Yamagata's views, but had to resign in June 1908 because he
failed to reconcile the policies of his party with those of the
Genro on the subject of finance. This brought back Katsura
until the summer of 1908, when he, too, had difficulties over
finance, which he preferred to let Saionji solve. Saionji's
attempt to do so by a policy of retrenchment, however,

G 181

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

incurred the hostility of both the services, as well as that of
Yamagata, and the government was eventually forced out in
December 1912 by its inability to replace the War Minister,
who had resigned.

There then came a stormy interlude, lasting less than two
months, in which Katsura tried to make himself independent
of the Seiyukai by forming a party of his own and independent
of the Genro by the use of imperial rescripts. He succeeded
only in uniting all against him. In February 1915 the Seiyukai
launched violent attacks on him in the Diet. Thousands rioted
outside the building and stormed the offices of pro-government
papers. With the situation completely out of hand, much as it
had been in 1905, just after the Russo-Japanese war, Katsura
resigned. He died soon after. Since Saionji now became a
Genro, the truce was at an end and the men who had effected
it made way for others.

Two factors had helped to make the truce possible. First,
there was a general feeling of satisfaction in Japan, occasioned
by victory in war, the acquisition of fresh territory and the
knowledge of steady progress in development at home, which
tended to blunt the edge of political passions. Second, there
was the fact that the country's substantial citizens had acquired
a vested interest in the society which the Meiji leaders had
built. Through local assemblies and councils they had achieved
standing in prefectural and municipal affairs. By providing
recruits for officialdom they had begun to feel part of a
national structure and to gain confidence that its outlook would
reflect their own. Finally, as voters the property qualification
for suffrage remained in 1912 the payment of 15 yen a year in
national taxes, despite several efforts to reduce or abolish it
they chose members of the Diet. It is not surprising that their
representatives showed less enthusiasm for what seemed an
unavailing and perhaps unnecessary fight to secure control of
cabinet policy.

Yet all this was in some part misleading. Changes were
already taking place in late Meiji Japan that were to make the
political parties both more powerful and more militant, for it
was by giving organization and coherence to those whose
significance had not so far been fully realized, the Japanese of
the city, that they were eventually to achieve a larger measure

182

THE END OF AN ERA

of success. In other words, their future depended on what was
happening to the nation's economy.

Agriculture was still the chief sector of the Japanese economy
in the early twentieth century, despite all the efforts to foster
industry in the previous generation. It employed about
14 million people, and this, as late as 1920, represented just
over half the occupied population. Production of the two
main crops, rice and raw silk, was steadily increasing. Rice
production, the annual average of which was some 30 million
koku in 1880-84, became 40 million koku in 1890-94, almost
45 million in 1900-04, and 51 million in 1910-14, most of
this being due to a fifty per cent rise in yield per acre. There
were proportional increases in the yields of lesser crops like
wheat and barley. Output of raw silk grew even faster:
11-5 millions Ibs. in 1894, 16-5 million in 1904, 31 million
in 1914. By the end of the period it accounted for exports
valued at 144 million yen, nearly a third of the country's
export total.

Over the same years, the process by which the farmer became
involved in production for the market and the level of his
money expenditure was raised had been completed. He now
had to buy fertilizer, tools and seed as well as a variety of
household goods, while taxation had also to be paid in cash,
not kind. Thus subsistence farming had become impossible.
Many owner-cultivators were unable to solve the problems
which this situation posed and sank to the status of tenants.
As a result two-fifths of the land was tenant-held by 1900.
Others, the more successful, became landowners on a larger
scale, marking the continued separation of the village into rich
and poor. To the rich a proportion of whom were absentees,
since land remained a profitable investment for men who
made their money in the towns the new society gave oppor-
tunities of influence, education and good living rather greater
than had been enjoyed by their predecessors in feudal Japan.
To the poor it gave an opportunity of a different kind: that of
finding employment for daughters and younger sons whom
the family could no longer support.

For the most part this was in the textile trades, which were
the most highly developed sector of Japanese industry. Silk

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

reeling and weaving remained largely rural and provided a good
deal of local employment, much of it in the large modern fila-
tures that appeared after 1890. Cotton was even more im-
portant, though the location of its factories forced labour to
leave the village for the town. As a crop, cotton had ceased to
be of value, since the removal of duties in 1896 had made it
impossible for home growers to compete with imports from
India, but the spinning and weaving sections of the industry
were entering a phase of rapid expansion. The number of
factory spindles rose from 382,000 in 1893 to 2-4 million
twenty years later, yarn output from 116 million Ibs. to over
650 million Ibs. in a similar period. At the end, between 30 and
40 per cent of the yarn was going to export. The rest went to
domestic weavers, of whom a considerable proportion were
still engaged in household industry, using handlooms. By
1913, however, there were 85,000 persons employed in con-
cerns with at least five workers. Some of them were specialist
weaving firms, producing mostly narrow widths for the home
market and as often equipped with handlooms as with power.
Others and these usually the largest were power-equipped
weaving sheds attached to spinning mills, producing wide
standardized fabrics for foreign trade. Their exports of piece-
goods were valued at 33 million yen in 1913, compared with
only 5-7 million in 1900.

Heavy industry, although it had received a great stimulus
from government policies of subsidy and investment after the
Sino- Japanese war, was as yet impressive for its rate of growth
rather than its volume of output. In shipbuilding the annual
average of tonnage launched reached 50,000 tons in 1909-13,
when there were six yards capable of building steel ships of a
thousand tons or more. Pig-iron and steel production had both
reached substantial levels: about a quarter of a million tons of
each in 1913, representing a half and a third of the country's
needs, respectively. Progress had also been made in some
types of heavy engineering, notably the manufacture of rail-
way locomotives and rolling stock, while there were a few
large firms engaged in making items like electrical equipment,
cement, paper, china, glass and so on. Even so, much of the
production of consumer goods, including many of Western
type, like bicycle parts and other engineering components, was

184

THE END OF AN ERA

carried on in a host of small family workshops that were to be
found in every industrial town.

The development of factories and workshops, whatever their
size and type, depended a good deal on the provision of power
and transport. In this much had been achieved. Coal output,
5 million metric tons in 1895, was 21 million tons in 1913, of
which 40 per cent was used in industry. Electricity, both for
power and lighting, had also become available since 1900,
mostly from hydraulic plants. One of them gave Tokyo its
first large-scale supply in 1907, another, reputedly the largest in
Asia, did the same for Osaka four years later. In 1913 the total
generator capacity in operation was over half a million kilo-
watts.

The railway network by that date served most parts of the
Japanese islands. The main line, which in 1891 had stretched
from Aomori to Kobe, with a spur from Tokyo to the Japan
Sea coast at Naoetsu, had been extended by 1901 to Shimono-
seki and Nagasaki. In 1906 the decision was taken to nationalize
that part of the track which was owned by private companies
about two-thirds on the grounds that private ownership had
led to a lack of standardization and too great an emphasis on
immediate returns. The result was to give the government con-
trol of all but about 10 per cent of the 5,000 miles of railway
then in use. A map of it in 1907 shows, apart from the Aomori-
Nagasaki route, on which sleepers and dining cars were now
available, two fairly complex local networks round Tokyo
and Kyoto-Osaka, with several extensions begun or completed
in northern Kyushu and along the Japan Sea coast. Only
Hokkaido and Shikoku were completely without a line. Over
those elsewhere, 140 million passengers and 24 million tons of
goods were carried in this same year.

Locally, the rail system was supplemented by roads, rough
but adequate, which made possible the movement of a vastly
greater number of carts and other vehicles. The registered
number of horsecarts alone rose from under 1,000 to over
86,000 in the twenty years ending in 1897. At the ports the
railways linked with coastal and foreign shipping services, of
which an increasing proportion were run by Japanese. The
merchant marine had grown to 2*4 million gross tons by 1913,
sixty per cent being powered by steam or motor; and at this

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

date it carried approximately half the cargoes entering and
leaving the country, providing a daily steamer service between
Yokohama and Kobe, as well as at least two a week to Naga-
saki and Hakodate, and operating regular liner routes to
Korea, China, the Philippines, Australia, India, Europe and
North America. San Francisco could be reached in sixteen
days. Passengers for Europe had a choice of several lines via
Suez (P and O, Messageries Maritimes and Norddeutscher
Lloyd, in addition to the Japanese NYK), all taking about
forty days, or they could travel on the weekly service to
Vladivostock and thence by the Trans-Siberian railway.

Japan, in fact, was nothing like so remote and isolated as
it had been a generation earlier. Nor did it any longer look
quite so oriental, at least in the principal towns. Two of these
were large by any standards: Osaka with nearly a million resi-
dents at the 1903 census, Tokyo almost twice that size. They
also contained much that was familiar to a Western visitor.
Both by 1907 had a waterworks, local electric railways, the
beginnings of a street electric tramway, and numerous public
buildings, banks and offices in the Western style. Less sightly
still was the network of telegraph, telephone and electric light
wires overhead, while one traveller wrote of Osaka in 1901:

'What strikes the stranger at first glance is the large number of
factory chimneys, which proclaim its great manufacturing interests.
Hundreds of these smoke-begrimed tops look down upon him, until
he begins to think the building of factory chimneys is the one
occupation of the people.' 53

Ironically, even the hundreds of rickshaws, which gave the
streets an aspect so unlike those of Europe and America, were
a modern addition, only a little older than the bicycles that
were just beginning to replace them.

What was true of Tokyo and Osaka also held good on a
smaller scale for Kyoto, Yokohama, Nagoya and Kobe, with
their resident populations ranging between 2 5 0,000 and 400,000
in 1903, and the other nineteen provincial cities which had
50,000 people or more. All had thek quota of modern facilities
and of brick or concrete buildings to contrast with the tradi-
tional architecture of shrines and private homes. Sometimes
one could find such things in the countryside, too. Government

186

THE END OF AN ERA

offices and schools, wherever situated, usually looked thor-
oughly un-Japanese. Moreover, although the traveller who
wished to visit mountainous regions was advised by a guide-
book of I9oy 54 to take food, flea-powder, disinfectant, soap
and candles, as well as bedding, and to be prepared to walk
'the Japanese pack-saddle is torture' with baggage carried, in
the absence of pack-horses, by a coolie "not improbably a
grandfather superannuated from regular work, or possibly a
buxom lass' there were also rural areas which could be easily
reached and where a good deal of comfort could be had.
Tourist hotels at Nikko and Miyanoshita, their very existence
symbolic of change, advertised their possession of electric
light, telephones and billiard-rooms; and local inns might well
be found to provide chairs and tables, sheets and pillows,
if not beds.

All this was symptomatic of something more than a mere
desire to emulate the West. The character of the cities and the
rate at which their facilities were growing indicated that the
modern sector of the economy was at last becoming a signifi-
cant feature of national life. The proportion of urban popula-
tion was increasing: 16 per cent lived in towns of over 10,000
inhabitants in 1893, 21 per cent in 1903, 28 per cent in 1913.
The number of factory workers, 420,000 in 1900, was twice as
krge a decade kter. Foreign trade figures told a similar story.
Exports of semi-manufactured goods, mostly silk, remained a
fairly constant 40 to 50 per cent of the whole, but those of food
and raw materials were declining, while those of finished arti-
cles grew. These last two groups reached equality in 1893-7,
when each accounted for about 26 per cent of exports. After
another ten years, the percentages were 21 for food and raw
materials, 31 for manufactured goods. Similarly imports of
raw materials, especially iron ore and cotton, were also getting
larger, comprising 22 per cent of total imports in 1893-7,
44 per cent in 1908-12. The pattern is one that is appropriate
to a period of steady industrialization.

Thus the first few years of the twentieth century mark a
definite stage in Japan's economic history, dividing, one might
say, the time of preparation from that of achievement. What
is more, there were signs of what the latter might bring by way
of benefits and problems. Statistics concerning wages for the

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

period before 1914 are unreliable, but such as they are they
indicate a rise in real wages in the twenty years after the China
war of the order of 30 per cent. There had already been an
increase in per capita consumption of rice in the i88os, from
0-8 koku (4 bushels) a person every year to a fraction over a
koku (5 bushels). This level was maintained, though not im-
proved upon, for half a century. Since rice was very much the
preferred diet of Japanese, this must count as better living.
So must the greater consumption of textiles, for exports of
these did not by any means take the whole of the increase in
production.

On the other hand, the country's population had risen from
3 5 million in 1873 to 46 million in 1903 and the graph was still
moving rapidly upward. There were therefore more people to
share the available food and goods. Soon after 1890, indeed,
Japan became a net importer of rice and by 1 904 was buying
nearly 3 million koku a year abroad, mostly from Korea and
Formosa. Thereafter she faced the familiar problem of the
densely populated industrial state, the need to import sub-
stantial food supplies and to export goods in payment for them,
complicated in her case by negligible home production of raw
materials like iron ore, lead, tin, petroleum, cotton and wool,
large quantities of which had therefore to be imported too.

These circumstances, in conjunction with the government's
resolve to maintain a large military establishment, helped to
hold back the rate of increase in standards of living. And such
increase as did occur was not evenly apportioned. The town
profited more than the village, the owner and manager more
than the urban worker. It is true that this was in one sense a
stimulus to economic development, in that it made possible
a high level of savings and investment, for example, and en-
sured ample supplies of cheap industrial labour, but it also
threatened to bring political unrest. Entrepreneurs, acquiring
wealth, sought influence, usually through the existing political
parties. Workers, suffering from low wages and atrocious
labour conditions, began to organi2e trade unions and parties
of their own. They met with a sharp reaction from officialdom.
In 1900 police regulations were issued making strikes illegal
and in the following year a new Social Democratic Party was
suppressed within a day of its formation. Moreover, attempts

188

THE END OF AN ERA

to introduce labour legislation, beginning as early as 1898,, met
with obstruction from vested interests represented in the Diet.
In the cotton industry, especially where young female work-
ers, 'hired from the countryside by practices which bordered
often on seduction* 55 and lodged in factory dormitories, were
required to work a twelve-hour day or more in even the best
concerns mill owners fought stubbornly to delay the passage
of a Factory Act prescribing a maximum of an eleven-hour day
for women and children. It was 1911 before the bill became
law and another five years to its enforcement. The story spoke
eloquently of future troubles. Japan, it seemed, in acquiring a
modern industry, was acquiring also a problem in industrial
relations and the politics that went with it.

The influences that were changing the Japanese city were also
changing the life of its inhabitants, not only in respect of where
they worked and what they did there, or of the politics they
argued, but also in terms of what they wore and ate and how
they spent their leisure. An early sign of it was the disappear-
ance of traditional hairstyles, chiefly among men, and the
substitution of close cutting in the European manner. Official
approval of the change was announced in September 1871. By
that date Japanese were already to be seen in public wearing a
fine array of international clothing there are references to
Prussian hats, French shoes and invernesses and in 1873, it is
said, Satsuma samurai appearing in Tokyo in the old costume
c were as much stared at as foreigners had formerly been'. 56
Thereafter the example of the Court (which had adopted West-
ern ceremonial dress at the end of 1872), the cabinet and the
diplomatic corps, to say nothing of the uniforms used by the
services, police and railway officials, all helped to make the
new clothing widely accepted. By the end of the century it
was worn almost universally among the upper classes, at least
on public and business occasions. The 1907 guidebook ob-
serves helpfully:

'Japanese officials now attend their offices in frock or morning
coats, and Europeans visiting them should be similarly attired. At
garden parties and special social functions, frock-coats and tall hats
are expected.' 57

189

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

If one adds that the use of visiting cards was general and that
the smoking of cigars and cigarettes was becoming popular,, it
is clear that the visitor could soon be made to feel at home. In
the towns he could get beer, which was successfully produced
in Tokyo and Yokohama, and most varieties of Western food,
though elsewhere he might find it difficult to obtain bread,
meat or milk and might have to depend on the rice and fish,
supplemented by chicken and eggs, of which the more ex-
pensive versions of the Japanese diet consisted.

All Western foods, of course, were still luxuries to Japanese,
as were most of the country's Imported pastimes and enter-
tainments. Western music, for example, had first been per-
formed in the i88os at the Rokumeikan, a hall built in Tokyo
to provide a place at which Japanese official society could meet
foreign diplomats and other residents. The newly-formed ser-
vices bands and some of the court musicians played there in
concerts and also for dancing, lessons being given by a German
instructor. Before long, as a result, Western music became a
polite accomplishment. It was taught at the Tokyo School of
Music, founded in 1887, which in 1903 helped to put on the
first opera in Japanese, a translation of Gluck's Orpheus., with
the help of a foreign conductor and pianist. Such pleasures
were for the few, however. Popular taste remained wedded to
martial music also in the Western style like the marches
and military songs that were taught in schools, which from
August 1905 could be heard at the new bandstand in Tokyo's
Hibiya Park, where army and navy performed alternately. A
few years later similar performances were begun in Osaka. The
great acclaim with which they were greeted brought a multi-
plication of the concerts and a proliferation of bands, many of
them under private auspices.

In the theatre the Japanese tradition proved better able to
hold its own, for although the revival of Noh towards the end
of the nineteenth century was a matter largely of aristocratic
patronage, the Kabuki drama, with its melodramatic plots,
coarse humour and vivid spectacle, continued to have a wide
appeal. It was handicapped for a time by government insis-
tence that its stories be useful and rewarding and by attempts
to perform translated Western plays, for which its techniques
were quite unsuitable but it nevertheless remained far more

190

THE END OF AN ERA

successful than performances in the Western style. These,
too, relied heavily on translations at first, with Shakespeare,
Moliere and Ibsen all represented. What is more, it was not
until late in the Meiji period that the acting and staging of
them reached competent standards. That they did so was
largely the work of Kawakami Otojiro, whose travels abroad
between 1893 and 1903 enabled him to introduce modern
stage lighting, scenery and other improvements for his Tokyo
productions.

Concerts and the theatre in their new forms were for those
who lived in, or could visit, one of the major cities. The rest
knew of them by hearsay or by what they read. Indeed, much
of what was new in Japanese life in general found an expression
in its literature, not now because books had a didactic purpose,
like those just after the Restoration, which had been concerned
to introduce novelties of thought and custom to the uninformed
reader, but because they reflected an environment in which the
writer lived and worked. For example, Nagai Kafu's Sumida-
gawa (The Sumida River, 1909), a novel about the passing of
the old Tokyo, is full of references to things like night school,
tramcars, gaslight in the theatre, an isolation hospital, and so
on, an apparently random selection of modern trappings which
yet form an essential background to the plot. The story and its
characters depend on changes in society in a much more funda-
mental way. Central to them are the student, Chokichi, whose
mother, a teacher of dramatic recitation, wants to put him
through university in order that he may qualify for the security
of a salaried job. He, however, is drawn to the threatre, a kind
of disobedience which is also a turning back to a way of life
his mother had rejected for him, though it was in a sense her
own. The resulting conflicts, between duty, defined as respect
for parental authority, and inclination, as well as between the
traditional and the modern in Japanese living, are themes that
were to be characteristic of many books, plays and eventually
films in the twentieth century. Of a different kind, but equally
contemporary in concept and setting, was Tayama Katai's
Ippeisotsu (One soldier, 1908), a grimly realistic story of a
private serving in the Russo-Japanese war, whom illness, lone-
liness and hardship drain of patriotism and courage until
he can do no more than hide himself and die. The idea a

191

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

the treatment, even the prose in which they were written,
made novels like these a far cry from those of a generation
earlier.

Yet literature had not entirely abandoned its past. There
was a novel called Takekurabe (Growing Up, 1895) by the
woman novelist Higuchi Ichiyo, about a group of boys and
girls in their 'teens who lived on the outskirts of Tokyo's
pleasure quarter, the Yoshiwara. Acute in observation, it had
strong echoes of the better Tokugawa writing, like that of
Saikaku, so much so that it makes one hardly aware of a
changing world at all. Were it not for references to the new
currency, the yen, the scene might easily be Edo. Nor is this
due to mere nostalgia on the author's part. Rather, it is because
she had chosen for her subject an aspect of Japanese society
which had itself changed little, if at all.

This serves to emphasize something which an interest in the
modern might easily lead one to overlook, the fact that there
were many things in Japan which had been hardly touched by
the Meiji reforms, at least in their essentials. The manners and
outlook of the Yoshiwara and the Kabuki theatre, the seasonal
rhythm of life on the farm, the social exchanges properly to be
observed between families and persons, these remained much
as they had been in 1800. So did a great part of Japanese
religion. Buddhism, it is true, to some extent declined. De-
prived of official support by the fall of the Tokugawa, it was
sharply attacked after 1 868 by the adherents of Shinto, who on
a number of occasions used force against its priests and temples.
Moreover, they were encouraged in their actions by the policies
of the Meiji government. Dependent for their own authority
on that of the emperor, the new leaders were naturally preju-
diced in favour of a religion which asserted his divine descent.
They therefore gave it a place of honour, not only in court
ceremonies., where it had always been predominant, but also
in administration, setting the Council of Shinto Religion above
even the Council of State in the formal hierarchy of their
first constitutional arrangements. When this plan was aban-
doned in 1872, Shinto still received direct government patron-
age through the appointment of official teachers to promote
its spread.

Greater knowledge of Western practice,, together with a

192

THE END OF AN ERA

limited revival of Buddhism, brought a change in 1877. There-
after government policy distinguished between two different
kinds of Shinto: that which had a direct bearing on questions
of state and that which was concerned only with religious
belief, the first being put under the supervision of a depart-
ment within the Home Ministry, which became responsible
for classifying and financing most national, and many local,
shrines, while the second became a matter for private organ-
izations acting on their own. After a few years several of the
latter received official recognition as separate religious bodies,
that is, as Shinto sects. This gave them the same standing
as the Buddhist sects with which they might be said to have
competed.

Thus by 1900 State Shinto and Sect Shinto were clearly
separated, the one concerned largely with the emperor and
official ceremonial, the other with those elements of popular
belief which had for centuries been the chief part of religion as
the majority of Japanese knew it. Within the average house-
hold, in fact, religious observance had been little changed. It
had long been eclectic, linked to the rituals of birth, marriage
and death and to the festivals of local deities, rather than to
broad concepts of faith and organization. Accordingly, a rela-
tive increase in the influence of Shinto on the national scene,
and a relative decline in that of Buddhism, made little dif-
ference, for to the family it meant no more than a shift of
emphasis within a common tradition.

The challenge to this tradition that came from Christianity,
though radical, was no more productive of widespread change.
It was not until 1873 that diplomatic pressure made Christi-
anity legal and for some years afterwards the missionaries had
to struggle against the heritage of Tokugawa anti-Christian
propaganda. The frenzy of enthusiasm for all things Western,
which engulfed Japan at the end of the 18703, eventually
helped them to overcome it, as did recognition of, and respect
for, missionary achievements in medicine and education, but
the churches suffered setbacks again a decade later from the
growth of nationalism and a revival of anti-foreign feeling.
The result, despite a great outpouring of funds and human
effort, was a total of no more than 140,000 converts by 1907.
Of these, 60,000 were Roman Catholics, with an archbishop in

193

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

Tokyo and bishops in Osaka, Sendai and Nagasaki; just under
50,000 were Protestants; and 29,000 were followers of the
Greek Orthodox faith, which had been propagated with con-
siderable success by a handful of priests from Russia.

Christianity was often more important in its influence on
ideas than the number of its adherents would lead one to expect.
Nevertheless, it was not strong enough to revolutionize the
whole outlook of Japanese society. Indeed, if the Meiji era
brought a challenge to the old beliefs at all, it was the threat to
Confucian ethics and the patterns of behaviour based upon
them that came from the temporal strand of Western thought,
now embodied in the curriculum of schools throughout Japan
and in much of the country's daily life. Institutionally, Con-
fucianism had suffered severely from the Restoration, because
of the abolition of the establishments for teaching it which had
been maintained by the Bakufu and feudal lords. Moreover,
the cosmological elements in Confucian philosophy, like those
in Western religion, proved unable to survive the growth of
science. 58 On the other hand, in matters of politics and ethics
Confucian tenets remained the norm. They found their way
habitually into government edicts and they played a vital part
in shaping the education system's course in 'morals', so that
Confucian virtues of loyalty, harmony and filial piety, in which
schools had to provide instruction, became the basis of civic
and social duty in the modern state.

This was a situation that greatly appealed to conservatives,
who could console themselves with the observation that how-
ever much the mechanisms of government were of alien
origin, the ideas that suffused its working were Japanese.
Patriotism and a respect for the past for them went hand in
hand. By contrast, radicals and reformers turned more and
more to the West for inspiration, not only in science and tech-
nology which were patriotic because they contributed to
national strength but also in questions of human behaviour
and relationships. Christianity, for the most part, they rejected,
just as they rejected the ancient religions and philosophy of
Japan. Instead, they turned to the example of a new generation
of Western thinkers for theories that were secular, pragmatic,
even anti-religious, thereby initiating a conflict which, because
it involved the emotions of nationalism as well as the traditions

194

THE END OF AN ERA

of family life, contributed largely to the turbulence of the
following fifty years. The Meiji leaders had succeeded remark-
ably in their plans to make Japan strong and modern. In doing
so, however, they had set up tensions whose results were
nearly to destroy their work.

CHAPTER XI

JAPAN BECOMES A WORLD POWER
1914-1922

Japan and the mainland declaration of 'war on Germany the
Twenty-one Demands relations with the Allies -peace settle-
ment the Washington Conference

WHEN A MAJJDJR. war broke out In Europe in August 1914,
Japan, by virtue of the progress she had made in the previous
fifty years, was for the first time in a position to intervene in
European questions. By 15)18, when the war ended, doing so
had made her a world power, with a military and naval estab-
lishment capable of giving substance to the rights she claimed,
as well as an economy far enough developed to support her
forces, population and prestige. Thusat Versailles Japan's delgj
gates ranked next in importance to those of Britain, France
and the United States. In the League of Nations she had one of
the permanent seats on the Council. Finally, at Washington
in 1922 her activities became the subject of international agree-
ments which sought to restrict the Japanese advance in China
and elsewhere, an event that constituted a tribute, if an un-
welcome one, to the speed at which her strength and influence
were growing.

This was a situation very different from that which the
Tokugawa had faced, or the Meiji leaders, yet the policies that
brought it about were nevertheless a development of, rather
than a departure from, those of the nineteenth century. The
fear of Western encroachment still lingered in Japanese think-
ing on foreign affairs, bringing an almost universal acceptance
of the need for national strength. Behind it lay the same
ambivalence of reaction, paralleling, though in a new context,

196

JAPAN BECOMES A WORLD POWER 1914-1922

what an earlier age had labelled kaikoku ( c open the country 3 )
andy'0/ ('expel the barbarian'). There were men who argued,
like the supporters of kaikoku, that the country must observe
the rules of procedure that the West laid down and seek
recognition, as well as safety, within them, forming alliances,
exchanging goods, borrowing ideas. There were others, the
uncompromising, who wished instead to turn away from the
West entirely. They did not, it is true, urge seclusion or a war
of liberation, as jot advocates had done; but by demanding for
Japan a position of supremacy in East Asia, which would make
her independent of Western help and able to repel any new
attempt at extending Western dominance, they were appealing
to the same prejudices and emotions.

Among both groups, preoccupation with the nearby main-
land was as great as ever. Since 1894 the ties of geography and
tradition had been reinforced by two successful wars and the
acquisition of territorial possessions, giving Japan important
interests to defend and a foothold on the continent from which
others might rapidly be added. The result was to make China
and her northern neighbours more than ever a focus of
Japanese ambitions. One contemporary described these bluntly
as c a determination to be undisputed masters of Eastern Asia', 59
which war in Europe, distracting the attention of the powers,
made practical. The description gains validity from the actions
of Japanese governments between 1914 and 1922. On the other
hand, Japanese policy was neither so consistent nor so easily
agreed upon as this might make one think, for there were
differences of outlook, even as regards China, which led at
times to bitter argument.

In fact, one can identify three main strands in the debate on
Far East policies:

F/rr/, exemplified in the demands for reform in Korea, which
had precipitated the war of 1894-5, was the desire to create a
defensive league of states, modernized and under Japanese
leadership, which would free its members from subjection to
the West. This concept helped bring about the annexation of
Korea, a step justified as the sole means of overcoming Korean
lethargy and reaction. It also led to much dabbling in the
politics of China, undertaken in a search for men who would

197

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

co-operate if they were backed and their reluctance occa-
sionally overborne by Japanese arms and money. There were,
however, contradictions: supporting revolutionaries overseas
might be a way to stimulate modernization, but there was
always the risk that it might encourage radicals at home; while
intervention designed to make China resist the West tended,
paradoxically, to arouse a nationalism which had as the target
of its hostility, Japan.

Second^ alternative to such a league, were plans for an empire
on the continent from which Japan would gain strength enough
to defend the area singlehanded. This began as military strategy,
involving Korea, Manchuria and perhaps Mongolia, with
defence against Russia as its primary object; but in the twen-
tieth century, when the region gained importance as a market
and source of raw materials, it had an economic side as well.
This was to culminate in the industrialization of North Korea
and South Manchuria, chiefly after 1930.

Third,, was the application of a similar plan to China, though
with greater emphasis on trade and outlets for investment.
There were men, undoubtedly, who hoped to find in China
the kind of opportunities that Britain had found in India
just as there were men who thought in terms more grandiose
still, of an empire stretching to the Indo-Chinese peninsula
and beyond but for the majority, China, if not an ally, was to
be a source of Japanese wealth. As such, whether she wished
it or not, she would contribute to the area's security. Yet even
in this there were problems. Trade, if China proved obstinate,
would have to be supported by bases, sometimes by the use
of force. It might also, if Japan's rights were privileged or
exclusive, evoke the hostility of Britain and America. Eco-
nomic expansion, therefore, for all that it was apparently
peaceful in intent, involved risks which not everyone was
prepared to take.

These plans and policies were not incompatible with each
other in one respect, for all could usefully contribute to the
increase of Japanese strength. They might thus be regarded as
different methods for the attainment of a single goal, divergent

198

JAPAN BECOMES A WORLD POWER 1914-1922

rather than contradictory, with belief in one not necessarily
a barrier to acceptance of the rest. On the other hand, they
were not sufficiently alike to ensure unanimity in action. When
the moment came for making practical decisions drafting a
diplomatic note, for example, or moving troops a country
with limited resources had to be clear what its immediate
objectives were. Was it more important at a given time to
placate Western opinion or to secure a vital base? Was it
better to browbeat or to woo the Chinese leaders? Was
action in China or Manchuria the more appropriate, taking
account of the fact that different foreign powers might be
concerned, according to the choice that was made? These
were the sort of questions a government would have to ask.
That its members were committed in general to a policy of
expansion did not guarantee that they would arrive at identical
answers.

The surviving Meiji leaders, now, as Genro, the emperor's
senior advisers on matters of state, wete inclined to caution.
Yamagata Aritomo, much the most influential since Ito's death,
has always been regarded as a militarist, but his comments on
foreign affairs in 1914 and 1915 show a marked reluctance to
approve provocative measures. He agreed that Japan must
strengthen her position in China and Manchuria. At the same
time, he identified two limiting factors: first, that nothing be
done to provoke the powers; second, that China be won to an
attitude of genuine co-operation. Only in this way could Japan
consolidate her gains and retain them when the European war
was over. For once the war ended, he thought, 'the various
countries will again focus their attention on the Far East and
the benefits and rights they might derive from this region',
exacerbating 'the rivalry between the white and non-white
races'. 60 In such a situation, Japan and China would have to
co-operate to survive. This would be impossible if Japan had
meanwhile acted so as to alienate China, driving her, perhaps,
into America's arms.

In the army, many senior officers accepted Yamagata's
views. Others preferred Japan to rely on her own efforts, as
she had done against Russia in 1904, and concentrate on build-
ing up her military bases in the north. Diplomats, by contrast,
were with few exceptions anxious to proceed by negotiation,

199

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

not by force. Patty politicians were attracted to the support
of economic penetration by their links with businessmen, to
a desire for quick successes by their need for votes. As a
result,, all variations on the theme of priority were represented
in policy discussions. Moreover, the decision reached at any
given time was likely to reflect the balance of political strength
between these groups and individuals, not necessarily a recon-
ciliation of ideas.

It might also be influenced by pressures from outside. News-
papers, popular and thoroughly nationalist in tone, could be
counted on to demand 'strong' action whatever the issue. So
might the mobs, the more easily incited on this question
because of the loyalty they were taught at school or in a con-
script army. Then there were the personal pressures, difficult
to assess but certainly exerted, that were brought to bear on
public figures. Not least were those that emanated from soci-
eties of patriots, the first of which, the Genyosha, founded by
ex-samurai in Fukuoka in 1881, had a range of activities that
ran all the way from espionage, agitation and murder in Korea,
to the provision of strong-arm men for use in Diet elections
and attempts at intimidating those whom it accused of 'weak-
ness* in foreign affairs. The bomb attack on Okuma in 1889,
for example, was by one of its members, the assassination of
the Korean queen in 1895 by others. It was a Genyosha man,
Uchida Ryohei, with the patronage of another, Toyama Mit-
suru, who founded a still more famous organization in 1901,
the Kokuryukai (the Amur River Society, more often called
the Black Dragon Society). This carried on the Genyosha's
work, but with emphasis on Manchuria instead of Korea.
After 1905, anticipating the next stage of Japan's advance, it
turned to China, establishing connections with men like Sun
Yat-sen and acting as a semi-official intelligence corps for the
Japanese army. Simultaneously it sought to bring Japanese
leaders into conformity with its plans, sometimes by threats,
sometimes by persuasion Uchida and Toyama, as ex-samurai
of manifest sincerity, had access to the very highest circles
and sometimes by public demonstrations. The plans them-
selves were outlined in a memorandum which Uchida sent to
government officials in November 1914: Japanese agents were
to incite their friends among the Chinese radicals to revolt;

zoo

JAPAN BECOMES A WORLD POWER 1914-1922

the Japanese army would be sent to restore order, bringing its
proteges to power; and a defensive alliance could then be con-
cluded between the two governments. It was the pattern of
Korea In 1894, repeated.

Though neither the Kokuryukai nor any other single group
was able to exercise a decisive influence on Japanese policy,
the effect of all these pressures, both within the government
and outside it, was to create a climate of opinion in which an
advance of some kind on the Asian mainland whether mili-
tary or economic, in China or Manchuria, with Chinese co-
operation or without it became axiomatic. Despite the ebb
and flow, as first one faction gained the upper hand and then
another, and despite some changes of direction, there resulted
an overall movement towards Japanese domination of an area
comprising China, Manshuria, Korea and the adjacent islands.
This is the theme of the country's foreign relations between
1914 and 1922.

The European crisis of 1914 came at a time when Japan had a
government willing to exploit it. The Yamamoto cabinet,
which had succeeded that of Katsura in the previous year, fell
in March 1914 as a result of revelations that bribery had been
used to influence the placing of naval contracts. This brought
to power Okuma Shigenobu as Prime Minister, with Kato
Komei to handle foreign affairs. Both were party politicians.
Both were also supporters of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, but
they did not feel themselves committed on this account to
maintaining the status quo in China, notwithstanding the fact
that this was ostensibly a principal aim of the agreement.
Indeed, they were anxious that Japan's position in China be
strengthened by all possible means.

This became apparent at the beginning of August, when
Russia, France and Britain in quick succession declared war on
Germany. Their action raised the question whether Japan's
alliance with Britain, even though it did not apply specifically
to Europe, imposed on her any military obligations in such a
situation, an issue raised by Britain herself a few days later
when she sought Japanese help in protecting Hong*Kong and
Weihaiwei, as well as in naval action against German commerce
raiders in the Pacific. Kato, in particular, felt that this was too

201

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

limited and too unprofitable a form of co-operation. He pre-
ferred war, arguing that the freedom of action which would come
with full belligerent status far outweighed the risk of being on
the losing side; and on August 8 he succeeded in persuading
the cabinet and Genro to his point of view. The news greatly
alarmed the authorities in London. Thinking, like most diplo-
matic representatives of the powers, that Kato's intentions
were to involve China in the war and so exploit Europe's pre-
occupation with its own affairs, they tried first to get Japan's
decision changed, then to secure an assurance that no action
would be taken against German bases on the China coast. But
both efforts failed. On August 1 5 Japan demanded that Ger-
many withdraw or disarm her warships in Far Eastern waters
and surrender to Japan the leased territory of Kiaochow. When
the demand was ignored, a declaration of war followed it on
August 23.

Japan's military action was prompt and successful. On
September 2, 1914, her troops began to land in the Shantung
peninsula and advance towards Tsingtao and Kiaochow Bay.
By November 7 Tsingtao had fallen, marking the completion
of the campaign. Meanwhile, naval operations during October
had led to the occupation of the German-held Pacific islands
north of the equator. Thus in less than three months all Ger-
man bases, railways and other installations in Japan's sphere of
interest had been taken over.

This left the way clear for action regarding China, or rather,
for an extension of the action that had already been begun in
the previous year. Many Japanese, especially members of the
Kokuryukai and their associates, had welcomed the success of
the revolution begun by Sun Yat-sen's supporters at Wuhan in
1911, which led to the creation of a Chinese republic in 1912.
Equally, they had been disappointed when the former imperial
official, Yuan Shih-k'ai, became its first president, instead of
Sun, whom they had expected to plan the modernization of his
country in co-operation with Japan. Hence there was much
sympathy for Sun when he led a revolt against Yuan in 1913.
Moreover, when a number of Japanese in Nanking were killed
or manhandled by troops under the command of Chang Tso-
lin, who had been sent to suppress the revolt, indignation
found a practical outlet. Protest meetings, newspaper editorials

202

JAPAN BECOMES A WORLD POWER 1914-1922

and the assassination of a Foreign Ministry official all con-
tributed to persuading the Japanese government to present
demands in October for an indemnity and the dismissal of
Chang Tso-Hn. Yuan had little choice but to grant them,
together with fresh railway rights for Japan in China.

Okuma, it was thought, when he succeeded Yamamoto,
would continue and develop Yamamoto's policies in this re-
gard, since he was known to favour strong action on the
mainland. He accordingly came under considerable pressure in
1914 to use the hostilities against Germany as an opportunity
for overthrowing Yuan Shih-k'ai. To this idea, however,
neither he nor the Foreign Ministry were unduly sympathetic.
They regarded negotiations with established authority as more
useful than inciting revolution, for which reason they were
much more open to a different set of proposals, coming from
the army, notably the military attache in Peking. These, as
finally worked out by Kato and a group of government offi-
cials, identified a list of concessions to be won from China
which were designed, when implemented, to free Japan from
dependence on Chinese friendship altogether. They provided,
first, for the transfer to Japan of former German rights in the
province of Shantung. This meant, in effect, Chinese recogni-
tion of & fait accompli, since Japanese troops were in occupation
of most of the area concerned. Next, they outlined additional
railway and mining rights to be obtained in Manchuria and
Mongolia, as well as other economic and political privileges in
that region to support them. Finally, China was to be forced to
give an undertaking not to cede or lease coastal territory to
any other power a promise which was made more specific
with respect to Fukien, where Japan had economic interests
and arrangements were to be made for the appointment of
Japanese political, financial and military advisers to the Chinese
government, joint Sino-Japanese police administration in key
areas, the purchase by China of Japanese munitions and joint
operation of certain Chinese arsenals.

Such in substance were the Twenty-one Demands, a draft of
which was handed to Japan's minister in Peking at the begin-
ning of December 1914, with instructions to use it when a
chance arose. He did not have long to wait. In January 1915
Yuan Shih-k'ai announced his intention of revoking the war

203

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

zone declared during operations in Shantung and asked that
foreign troops in China be withdrawn, since China was a
neutral in the European struggle. To his dismay, this was
described as an unfriendly act by the Japanese, whose pre-
pared demands were at once presented. What is more, they
went not through normal diplomatic channels, but secretly to
Yuan, with a hint that if he rejected them help might be given
to those groups in China which sought his fall.

Yuan could do little in face of Japan's obvious determination
when those most likely to help him were already involved in
war. Inspired leaks of information from Peking brought pro-
tests to Japan from various quarters, especially the United
States, but none were strong enough to prevent Foreign Minis-
ter Kato from pressing his advantage home. In May, after
several weeks of fruitless talks, he modified the proposals,
leaving out the most objectionable of those in the final section,
but making the rest an ultimatum. This brought quick com-
pliance. Treaties signed on May 25, 1915, together with an
accompanying exchange of notes, gave Japan most of what
she wanted. It included Chinese approval of any agreement
about German rights in Shantung that might be concluded
between Japan and Germany, with the proviso that Japan
would restore the Kiaochow lease to China in return for the
port being opened to foreign trade; an extension of existing
leases in Manchuria and a promise of Japanese priority in aU
development there; and a number of useful, if less sweeping,
gains elsewhere.

The agreement, notwithstanding the fact that it gave Japan
a preponderance she could not have dared to hope for ten years
earlier, was not received without criticism in Tokyo. Some
thought it had fallen short of what might have been achieved,
some that the effort had been geographically too diffuse, others
again that it was a betrayal of the Chinese radicals and re-
formers. These were the objections of minorities, however,
coming chiefly from outside the ruling circle. More important
were the objections raised by Yamagata Aritomo and the new
leader of the Seiyukai, Hara Kei (Takashi), who, although far
apart in politics, were united in condemning the methods by
which the new privileges had been obtained. By his bullying,
they said, Kato had aroused the hostility of both China and the

204

JAPAN BECOMES A WORLD POWER 1914-1922

powers. Consequently, when the latter tried to resume their
pre-war position in the Far East at the end of hostilities,, as
inevitably they would, Japan would be handicapped in
resisting them by Chinese enmity. The solution, as Yamagata
saw it, was to limit the government's immediate objectives to
securing Yuan's acceptance of two basic propositions: first,
that Japan's expansion in Manchuria was inevitable, both as an
outlet for her growing population and as a means of defending
China from Russian attack; second, that the two countries
must co-operate against the West.

Yamagata failed to force this plan on Okuma, though his
strictures had the effect of getting Kato excluded from the
cabinet when it was reorganized in the following August.
Moreover, a year later Yamagata was able to block an attempt
by Okuma to bring Kato back as premier, securing the appoint-
ment instead for his own protege, Terauchi Masatake, who as
governor-general in Korea had already come to much the same
conclusions about the mainland as his mentor. Thus when he
formed his government in October 1916 it was with certain
intentions clearly in his mind. Policy towards China, which he
kept under his own control, was to be directed towards con-
ciliation. This was to be attained, however, not by reducing
Japan's requirements, but by working closely with such
Chinese leaders as were willing to promote them, especially
Tuan Ch'i-jui, most likely successor to Yuan Shih-k'ai, who
had died in June. Accordingly, between February 1917, when
Nishihara Kamezo visited Peking as Terauchi's personal emis-
sary, and September 1918, when Terauchi himself resigned,
Tuan and his immediate colleagues received consistent Japan-
ese support. It helped to keep them most of the time in office,
chiefly through a series of so-called 'Nishihara loans', totalling
145 million yen, which were ostensibly for the development
of telegraphs, railways, mining and timber concessions, but
in fact did more for Tuan's political funds than for China's
economic growth.

Notwithstanding the fact that Tuan's government had little
authority, since effective power in most parts of China had
been seized by local warlords, former henchmen of Yuan
Shih-k'ai, Terauchi found it highly convenient to have a
measure of co-operation from the country's official rulers.

205

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

Nevertheless, this by itself was not sufficient to guarantee
Japan's position. As a corollary to the policy, therefore, he set
out to gain European recognition of the benefits his prede-
cessors had secured. A first move in this direction had been
made by Okuma, who had taken advantage of Russia's des-
perate need for munitions to negotiate a secret Russo-Japanese
alliance in July 1916, designed to protect the Far Eastern
interests of its signatories, including those which Japan had
just obtained in Manchuria and Mongolia. Terauchi determined
to complete the pattern by gaining similar assurances from the
other powers, using as his bargaining point the question of
Japan's participation in the war. She had several times refused
requests to send troops to Europe or to provide naval forces
for the Baltic, Mediterranean and Dardanelles, on the grounds
that all her strength was needed for her own defence; but in
January 1917, when he received another such request, this
time from Britain for naval assistance against German sub-
marines, Terauchi did not reject it. Instead, he seized the oppor-
tunity to conclude a secret agreement, dated February 1 6, 1917,
by which he promised to provide a naval escort group for
service in European waters and to support British claims to the
former German islands in the Pacific south of the equator, in
return for a British undertaking to back Japan's claims in
Shantung, the Carolines, Marianas and Marshalls. Within a
few weeks France and Italy had been induced to make similar
commitments, in this case as the price for Japanese help in
persuading China to declare war on Germany.

There remained the United States, sympathetic towards
China and much less susceptible to blackmail over military
co-operation. Here Japan tried promises, not threats. In Sep-
tember 1917 she sent a special ambassador to Washington,
Ishii Kikujiro, who in November carried out a public exchange
of notes with Lansing, the American Secretary of State. They
committed Japan to respecting the independence and territorial
integrity of China, as well as to promoting equal opportunity
for all in China's foreign trade. On the other hand, America
recognized that 'territorial propinquity' gave Japan 'special
interests', which she was entitled to protect.

This was all that could immediately be done to prepare
against the expected recriminations. But when the war was over

206

JAPAN BECOMES A WORLD POWER 1914-1922

the peace conference at Versailles provided an occasion for
Japan to get her rights and status written into a general treaty.
Hara Kei was by this time premier, having succeeded Terauchi
in September 1918, and Saionji, youngest of the Genro at
seventy-four, was sent as Japan's chief delegate; but the change
of men did not involve a change of policy. Saionji, starting with
the advantage of having known Clemenceau as a student and
of being accepted on equal terms by Wilson and Lloyd George,
soon showed that he was determined to hold his country's
allies to their promises. He was the better able to do so, more-
over, because of Japan's known reserves of military strength.
Indeed, considering how little part she had played in war-
time operations, it was a great tribute to her general standing
that she was one of the five powers to have representatives on
the Council of Ten, which began discussion of the peace terms
in January 1919.

For the most part the Japanese delegates spoke only on
matters which their government regarded as its direct concern:
Shantung; the Pacific islands; and racial equality. The first of
them, Shantung, proved from the beginning to be a major
stumbling block. China had sent a strong delegation, which
engaged vigorously in propaganda to convince both the coun-
cil and the press that the 1915 treaties were invalid because
they had been signed under the threat of force; and although
the argument was not convincing legally as well as suffering
tactically from the disadvantage that it could be extended to
all the other treaties of the powers with China it had American
sympathy, so that considerable efforts were made to find a
compromise. Japan, trusting to the promises made in 1917,
remained unmoved, rejecting first an American proposal for
joint action by the powers, then a British proposal for a Shan-
tung mandate; and she gained her point at last on April 30,
when it was decided to include in the treaty a clause admitting
her claim to Germany's former rights, subject to such arrange-
ments as she might make with China. This was not the end of
the story, however, for the Chinese representatives refused
to sign the treaty in that form. Thus when the conference
ended late in June, Japan's position, though she was in de
facto control of Shantung and diplomatically unassailable, still
lacked legal sanction.

207

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

The Pacific islands question caused little dispute and Japan
was given those she claimed as a League of Nations mandate.
But in the negotiations concerning the establishment of the
League itself she suffered a reverse. Prompted partly by mem-
ories of the unequal treaties, partly by more recent restrictions
on Japanese emigration to Australia and the American west
coast by this time population pressure at home was causing
a good many Japanese to seek opportunities of settlement
overseas, chiefly in those parts of the world where standards
of living were relatively high public opinion in Japan had
seized on the idea of embodying a racial equality clause in the
League of Nations charter. This was proposed in February
1919 by Makino, the Japanese member of the drafting com-
mission, and was supported by China, Czecho-Slovakia, France,
Greece, Italy and Poland. However, bitter opposition from
Hughes of Australia caused a decision to be postponed and
before Makino raised the matter again in April at the com-
mission's last meeting, Australian and Californian pressure had
made certain that neither Britain nor the United States would
accept the motion. This ensured its defeat, leaving Japan with
a feeling of resentment that was never entirely assuaged, even
by her permanent seat on the Council and full representation
in the League's committees and secretariat.

Another failure, more costly both in money and reputation,
had meanwhile arisen from a matter that was not on the Ver-
sailles agenda at all. This was the Siberian affair, stemming
from the Russian revolution of 1917. For the revolution had
not only robbed the allies of Russia's military assistance, it had
also brought chaos to Russia's Far Eastern possessions,
which threatened to spread to neighbouring Manchuria and
aroused fears that in the long run revolutionary doctrines
might contaminate the rest of the area too, including China.
If they did, they were likely to undermine Japan's position
there. This, at least, is how the Japanese army saw it, with the
result that by December 1917, only a month after the Bol-
shevik coup* it was discussing plans to put a military shield
round the whole of China's northern frontier. It proposed to
send troops into Siberia, seize the railways and support what-
ever anti-Bolsheviks it could find. The Foreign Ministry, under
Motono Ichiro, made similar proposals, though it arrived at

208

JAPAN BECOMES A WORLD POWER 1914-1922

them independently, largely from fear of possible moves by
Germany. Indeed, so independent were the two plans that
their sponsors found it impossible to co-operate with each
other. This proved embarrassing when Terauchi, who was
still premier at this time, called meetings to decide on policy
at the end of 1917, particularly since Saionji, Hara and Makino
all believed that military action would involve a risk of war,
which they were quite unwilling to take. The result was dead-
lock among the government's advisers, not resolved until
March 1918, when Yamagata declared himself opposed to
intervention. It would, he thought, almost certainly mean full-
scale hostilities against both Germany and the Soviets, which
Japan could only contemplate if she had the backing of her
allies, especially the United States.

This did nothing to change the views of the army, which was
much less under Yamagata's control than in the past and went
on working out the details of extensive operations. It did,
however, bring Terauchi temporarily into alliance with Hara
and force the resignation of Foreign Minister Motono, leaving
his successor to set about the task of gaining American agree-
ment to some kind of Japanese move. For some weeks he could
make little headway, though it was known that both Britain
and France were prepared to approve the idea in general terms.
Then in June and July Czech forces, fighting their way out of
Russia in an attempt to continue the war against Germany
despite Russia's surrender, seized Vladivostock and the eastern
sections of the Trans-Siberian railway. At this the United
States proposed limited intervention to cover the Czech with-
drawal, an offer which precipitated another crisis in Japanese
policy formation by resurrecting the arguments of the winter
and spring. The army by this time was thinking of a force of
seven divisions, operating throughout the area east of Irkutsk.
The American plan, by contrast, which Hara and his friends
preferred, envisaged a single division at most, based onVladi-
vostock. In such circumstances Terauchi had to work hard
to preserve even a semblance of government unity and the
final decision, reached on August 2, 1918, was the best
compromise he could effect: one, or perhaps two, Japanese
divisions to be sent to Siberia, with another force, rather
smaller, supporting them in Manchuria. Nothing beyond this

209

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

would be undertaken, he promised Hara, without further
consultation.

Despite this assurance, it was the army's original plans, or
something like them, that were actually carried out. By the end
of 1918 four or five Japanese divisions were operating in the
Amur basin, controlling the whole of the railway and far out-
numbering the American and other allied contingents. Hara,
now Prime Minister, found it impossible to exercise control or
to effect withdrawal, even though Japan's policy was unpopu-
lar both at home and abroad. Nor was anything of substance
being achieved. White Russian and Cossack puppet leaders
proved more a liability than a help. They were quite unable
to govern, equally unable to check the advance of Soviet forces
from the Urals which began in the following year, so that by
November 1919 the Soviets were in Omsk and moving steadily
east. In January 1920, therefore, the American government
announced the recall of its troops, an example quickly followed
by Britain, France and Canada. Only the Japanese remained,
actually extending their occupation to northern Sakhalin soon
after, in retaliation for a massacre of Japanese citizens at
Nikolaevsk; but even to them it was clear by the middle of
1920 that the venture was doomed to failure within a very
short time.

Siberia was one of several problems in the Pacific area that had
yet to be settled, all of them concerning Japan in one way or
another. China still refused to come to terms over Shantung,
though it was obvious that Japan had built up too great a stake
there to evacuate entirely. American- Japanese relations, already
strained by disagreement over Siberia, were being exacerbated
by continued disputes over immigration, while a naval arma-
ments race had developed between the two countries which
involved Great Britain as well. In fact, there seemed to many
governments a real danger that the hostility between America
and Japan might end in war, a prospect which filled British
statesmen, in particular, with alarm, in view of their obligations
under the Anglo- Japanese alliance. In June 1921, therefore,
they decided, largely at the instigation of Canada, that the
alliance could more safely be replaced by a multilateral agree-
ment. This opened up the possibility of a general discussion of

zio

JAPAN BECOMES A WORLD POWER 1914-1922

Pacific affairs, which the United States now took the initiative
in arranging.

Accordingly the representatives of the powers gathered in
Washington in November 1921 to consider a whole range of
Pacific and Far Eastern questions, decisions on which con-
firmed the new pattern of international relations that the war
had shaped. The first to be announced was a Four Power Pact
of December 13, 1921, by which Britain, Japan, France and
the United States agreed to respect each other's rights in the
area and to consult together in the event of a crisis arising.
This took the place of the Anglo- Japanese alliance, which was
eventually allowed to lapse in August 1923. On the subject of
naval armaments, the United States proposed limiting the size
and firepower of capital ships and scrapping many of them
altogether, with Britain, America and Japan maintaining their
respective tonnage for the future at a ratio of 5 : 5 : 3. Japan
argued for a ratio of 10 : 10 : 7, but when the other two were
stubborn she substituted a suggestion for a standstill in Pacific
fortification, which they accepted. Thus the treaty, as signed,
not only fixed a 5 : 5 : 3 ratio for total tonnage of capital
ships, but also provided that battleships were not to exceed
35,000 tons or aircraft carriers 27,000 tons, that naval guns
were not to be larger than 1 6-inch in calibre, and that no new
fortifications were to be constructed at Guam, Hong Kong,
Manila or any other base nearer to Japan than Hawaii and
Singapore. This gave Japan naval predominance in the West
Pacific and an unbreakable grip on the approaches to the
China coast.

_As to China itself, a Nine Power Treaty, signed by Belgium,
Italy, the Netherlands, and Portugal, as well as China and the
parties to the Four Power Pact, was concluded in February
ic) 22^ It gave China greater control over her own customs
revenue and put into due form the platitudes reiterated for the
previous twenty years: that the powers would respect Chinese
independence and integrity, would refrain from seeking special
rights at each other's expense and would avoid interference
with China's attempts 'to develop and maintain for herself an
effective and stable government'. 61 That such promises were
needed at all was itself significant. That they would be fulfilled
was unlikely, especially as the treaty set up no machinery for

211

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

enforcement. The one real gain was that an atmosphere was
created in which Japan and China could settle their differences
over Shantung, a bilateral agreement on February 4, 1922,
restoring Chinese sovereignty in the province and ratifying
Japan's economic privileges.

In fact, an easing of international tensions was the main
achievement of the Washington meetings, demonstrated in
October 1922 by Japan's decision at last to withdraw her
divisions from Siberia. Although it was another three years
before she evacuated the north of Sakhalin and resumed diplo-
matic relations with Russia, the decision, coupled with those
on naval armaments and China, seemed to make a fresh start
possible. Certainly the next few years were marked by an
emphasis on economic, not military, expansion, a phase of
policy which is associated with the name of Shidehara Kijuro,
Foreign Minister from June 1924 to April 1927 and again from
July 1929 to December 1931.

On the other hand, the air of compromise which charac-
terized Shidehara's actions was in some respects misleading.
Japan's wartime gains were not renounced, but were on the
contrary fully exploited. Nor was the political balance within
Japan, which made moderation possible, as firmly established
as it seemed. Ominously, there had already been signs of insti-
tutional weakness in the conduct of Japanese foreign affairs,
stemming from the disappearance or declining influence of the
Genro, which made the basis of Shidehara's policy unstable.
Outstanding was the fact that the army had not only developed
views of its own on what it wished to see done, especially in
China and Manchuria, but had also found means of putting
these into effect, regardless of cabinet decisions. The problems
which this posed, first illustrated in the disputes over Siberia,
were not solved by the army's temporary loss of popularity
thereafter and were to become acute again in 1931.

Before pursuing this topic further, however, it is necessary
that we examine another aspect of Japanese history since 1914:
the growth in the economy, occasioned by the war, and its
effects on domestic politics. It was developments in this field,
after all, that made Shidehara's methods a valid, if not a lasting,
reflection of Japanese desires. Equally, they contributed to the
activities of those who sought to turn foreign policy once

212

JAPAN BECOMES A WORLD POWER 1914-1922

again in the direction chosen by Okuma and Terauchi, coup-
ling their arguments with strictures on the kind of society that
evolved during the decade of "the liberal 'twenties 3 and finding
their support increasingly among those segments of the popu-
lation that acquired grievances or ambitions as a result of
economic change.

H 213

CHAPTER XII
THE LIBERAL 'TWENTIES

Industrial expansion -party politics inflation and recession
radicalism

THE GREAT WAR of 1914-18 was important to Japan not
only because it provided an opportunity for raising her inter-
national standing and prestige, but also because of the stimulus
it gave to her economy. By the war's end she had become in the
full sense an industriahstate. As such she faced political prob-
lems of a kind new in her experience., arising both from the
pressures of industrial wealth on political and social privilege
and from the unrest that infused a growing urban proletariat.
Moreover, extension of the 'modern' element in her society
had by this time brought changes in patterns of wage-earning,
of consumption and of social custom to much of the country's
population, changes that were to be of lasting effect, notwith-
standing the vociferous indeed, hysterical traditionalist re-
action they provoked in the next two decades.

The beginnings of industrialization, fundamental to this pro-
cess, date back to the Meiji period, but it was the outbreak of
war in Europe that gave it greater pace and scale. For Europe's
pre-occupation with her own affairs proved to be Japan's
economic, as well as diplomatic, opportunity. Diverted to war
production, European factories could no longer supply many
of the goods they had formerly exported, enabling Japan to
increase her sales in markets she had akeady begun to exploit,
like China and America, and to penetrate new ones, like India
and South East Asia. With little war effort of her own to sup-
port she was also able to accept orders for munitions from her
allies, while increased demands for shipping, due to the losses
which U-boats inflicted on the maritime powers, made it

214

THE LIBERAL TWENTIES

profitable for her greatly to expand her mercantile marine. Her
total of steamships and motor vessels doubled, from i 5 mil-
lion tons in 1914 to 3 million tons in 191 8. In the same years her
annual income from freights multiplied ten times, reaching over
400 million yen. Meanwhile the country's growing foreign trade
had turned an annual average import surplus of 65 million yen
into an export surplus of 350 million, raising Japan's net war-
time earnings on international account to some 3,000 million
yen in all. Though much of this was frittered away on political
loans to China, much was still held as an overseas balance
when the peace treaty was signed.

The end of hostilities brought a temporary recession, occa-
sioned partly by the cancellation of munitions contracts, partly
by the renewal of European competition; but this had the
effect of eliminating the less efficient firms rather than of cutting
back industrial growth in general. Many of the export markets
that had been won were still retained. Much of industry con-
tinued to expand. In fact, the index of manufacturing pro-
duction (1910-14 =100) rose from an average of 160 in 191 5-19
to 313 in 1925-29, while in foreign trade (1913=100) the
index of imports by volume moved from 126 in 1919 to 199
in 1929, that of exports from 127 to 205.

Textiles accounted for a large percentage of the export trade,
raw silk, sold mostly to the United States, comprising about
36 per cent of the whole by value in 1929 and cotton goods,
notably piece-goods for India and China, only a little less.
These two items together totalled two-thirds of Japan's exports
in that year, as compared with just over half in 1913. Among
imports, food and raw materials (Korean rice, Formosan sugar,
Indian cotton) were an even larger proportion. In other words
the country's foreign trade, though highly specialized as to
both markets and commodities., now reflected chiefly the needs
and achievements of Japanese manufacturers.

Similar growth had taken place in heavy industry. Despite
continued dependence on imports for a good deal of engineer-
ing equipment, Japan was producing much of her own textile
and electrical machinery, railway rolling stock and bicycles, as
well as building a substantial quantity of the world's ships.
Electric generating capacity increased from i million kilowatts
in 1919 to 4 million in 1929, two-thirds of the power being

215

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

used in manufacturing and mining. Coal production, however,
after rising from 21 to 31 million tons between 1913 and 1919,
had failed to keep up with demand,, especially for coking coal,
so that in 1929, with an output of 34 million tons, Japan was
a net importer. Neither steel nor iron was yet in sufficient
supply, though for the former, at least, the gap between need
and output was quickly narrowing. A quarter of a million tons
of steel had been produced in 1913, twice that amount in 1919
and over 2 miliion tons in 1929, these figures representing
about 30, 45 and 70 per cent of contemporary consumption.
Pig iron production had no more than doubled, the output of
i million tons in 1929 being only 60 per cent of the country's
needs. Nevertheless, the great increase in the use of metals
that this and the other figures represented was itself significant
of economic change.

One feature of this industrial development, as we have
mentioned earlier, was the emergence side by side of two very
different types of organization: the small workshop, usually a
family business, on the one hand, and the large factory on the
other. In the light engineering trades, for example, and in many
industries catering for the domestic rather than the export
market, the spread of technical education and the availability
of cheap electric power had made it possible for many indi-
vidual entrepreneurs, despite a relative lack of capital, to
engage in the manufacture of goods which others more widely
organized would market, or parts which the large-scale fac-
tories could use. By 1930 workshops of this kind, each with
less than five employees, numbered over a million. They em-
ployed 2 5 million people and were responsible for some 30 per
cent of Japan's manufacturing product. In sharp contrast were
the huge plants engaged in the production of iron and steel,
cement, chemicals, heavy engineering equipment and similar
goods, as well as some of those on the export side of the textile
trades. In these both the factories and the firms that owned
them were growing larger. Thus in cotton spinning, the 2-4
million spindles installed by 1913 were owned by forty-four
companies controlling 152 mills, while 6-6 million spindles in
1929 were divided between only fifty-nine companies with
247 mills, an increase from 16,000 to 27,000 in the number of
spindles per mill and from 5 5 ,000 to 1 1 3,000 in the number per

216

THE LIBERAL TWENTIES

company. Much the same trend is apparent in cotton weaving,
especially where firms used the wide looms needed for export
cloth.

The outstanding examples of large-scale organisation were
the concerns which were known as ^aibatsu, with Mitsui,
Mitsubishi, Yasuda and Sumitomo chief among them. Their
origins were diverse the Mitsui had been a wealthy merchant
house in Tokugawa times, whereas Mitsubishi was founded
after the Restoration by an ex-samurai of Tosa, Iwasaki Yataro

but all had been closely linked with the Meiji government,

owing much in their early days to its subsidies and contracts.
In return they had supported it financially and invested in the
new industrial undertakings which it sought to promote. This
put them in a position to profit greatly by developments of the
early twentieth century. They extended their operations into
banking, heavy industry, shipping, commerce (both whole-
sale and retail) and all other forms of economic activity that
promised large returns, thereby creating a web of interlocking
financial, industrial and commercial holdings that could survive,
because of their multiple interests, the crises from which the
economy intermittently suffered. In doing so they absorbed
many older and smaller rivals. They also acquired enormous
wealth, controlled as a rule through a family holding company
and administered by an extremely able managerial group whose
members often married into the founder family. Close con-
nections with leaders of government, the Diet, the bureaucracy
and the Imperial Court made their position wellnigh im-
pregnable.

Yet increasing scale, of which the ^aibatsu firms were extreme
examples, was not everywhere typical of Japanese develop-
ment. One could argue that the workshops of the cities were
not truly exceptions, in that they formed part of a structure
which the major distributors and manufacturers were able to
dominate. Even farm households raising silk cocoons and by
1929 this was secondary employment for 40 per cent of them
were subject in some degree to external control by large-scale
undertakings, exercised through financing and purchase of the
crop. Nevertheless, agriculture in general, employing half the
country's working population, remained a matter of individual
family holdings, growing rice as a staple food by labour-

217

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

intensive methods. In the 19205 almost 50 per cent of Japan's
farmers held less than half a cho (i ^0=2-45 acres). About
24 per cent held between half a cho and a cho y 18 per cent
between one cho and three cho. Very few, therefore, could be
described as important landowners, despite the fact that two-
thirds were wholly or partly tenants.

This fragmentation undoubtedly made radical changes in the
technique of cultivation difficult, if not impossible, though it is
by no means certain that larger units would have helped to
raise production, as distinct from making economies in man-
power. In the Meiji period, as we have seen, fairly simple
technical improvements, such as a more widespread use of
fertili2ers, had brought an increase in yield per acre of about
50 per cent. Thus with only a small area of new land coming
under cultivation it had still been possible to increase the rice
crop from 30 million koku in 1880-84 (i koku=*j bushels
approximately) to 51 million in 1910-14. Thereafter, however,
the rate of increase slowed, apparently because the scope for
technological advance was now more limited. Certainly yield
per acre rose by less than 10 per cent in the following twenty
years and rice production in 1930-34 averaged only 62 million
koku. Since population was growing more quickly from 46
million in 1903 to 64 million in 1930 and consumption per
head remained unchanged, imports of rice moved inevitably
upward. Over 10 million koku were imported in 1930-34, com-
pared with less than 3 million in 1910-14.

Rice imports amounting to nearly 1 5 per cent of consump-
tion can be taken as symbolic of the shift of emphasis from
agriculture to industry in the Japanese economy. So, too, can
the increasing degree of urbanization. The fact that the num-
bers engaged in farming remained constant at about five and
a half million families throughout this period means that all
those who in any given year comprised the population increase
were finding their way to urban areas, where the new forms of
economic activity were in greatest concentration and the chance
of jobs was best. Townships of less than 10,000 persons
accounted for 72 per cent of the population in 1913, only
59 per cent in 1930. Cities of 50,000 persons and more held
14 per cent in the first of these years, 25 per cent in the second.
Agriculture, in other words, seemed to have reached some-

218

THE LIBERAL TWENTIES

thing like the limit of its potential in absorbing manpower, as
well as producing food.

The cities that were now emerging undoubtedly brought
misery and hardship to many people,, for these seem every-
where to be concomitants of industrial growth. To this aspect
we shall have to return. But not all the change was for the
worse. On average the Japanese diet became more varied and
more sustaining in the early twentieth century. More fish,
fruit and sugar were eaten; and the increase in per capita con-
sumption of rice that had been achieved in the Meiji period
was maintained, despite a sharply rising population. Moreover,
Japanese were better clad as well as better fed, to judge by
sales of clothing textiles in the domestic market, while those
who lived in towns, at least, could enjoy amenities like electric
light, improved facilities for travel, cheaper and more plentiful
books and daily newspapers.

Prices, of course, had risen, as was evident on every side.
The cost of living, if one takes 1914 as the base, had doubled
a decade later. Yet money wages had trebled, so that real wages
had risen by a half and were to hold the gain, even increase it
slightly, for some time to come. It is true that the figures con-
ceal wide variations between different groups and different
occupations, farm workers being worse off than those in indus-
try, the unskilled relatively less favoured than the skilled; but
on balance society was more prosperous than it had been before
the war. Some of its members were very much so. Successful
businessmen had begun to build themselves country villas, the
well-to-do to add a Western-style room, or wing to their homes
for entertaining. Geisha, the most expensive providers of
entertainment in Japan, found their patrons more numerous
and more lavish in spending. For the less affluent there were the
dance-halls, whose taxi-dancers provided a cheaper, if untradi-
tional, alternative. Restaurants flourished. And the Japanese be-
came, as they have remained ever since, inveterate travellers: so
much so, wrote a British resident, that e it came to a pitch where,
especially on Sundays and holidays, it was easier to find room
in a third-class railway carriage than in the superior classes'. 62

One result of this expansion of the economy was greatly to
increase the size of the industrial and commercial middle class.

219

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

This was a matter of political importance, for members of that
class, men of substance and education, began to seek ways of
getting their interests served. Some, like the ^aibatsu, akeady
had means of doing so through their connections with govern-
ment. Others, if they were really wealthy, might hope to
achieve their ends by bribes. Almost all found it possible,
because of the country's new education system, to put sons or
dependants into the bureaucracy, though the effect of this was
reduced by that body's conspicuous ability to assimilate its
recruits and mould their standards to its own.

Businessmen also began to organize themselves as pressure
groups. Among the earliest was the Tokyo Chamber of Com-
merce, which under the leadership of a banker, Shibusawa
Eiichi, had begun to campaign vigorously on several issues
of economic policy even before the Meiji period ended. By
the 'twenties, chambers of commerce, Rotary Clubs and asso-
ciations of traders or manufacturers were familiar features of
the urban scene. Potentially more effective, however, were the
political parties. They alone of the acknowledged components
of the constitution opened a way to the control of policy by
legal means. What is more, the support of business interests,
which were rapidly achieving a position in society that no
government could afford to ignore, promised to give the
politicians a chance of the power which had so long eluded
them.

The timing was apt, for the established order was facing a
crisis of leadership that made it less able to resist attack. Of
the Meiji statesmen, Ito had died in 1909 and Matsukata had
ceased to play an active part in politics long before his death in
1924. Yamagata was a very old man, eighty in the year the war
ended. Although he retained immense prestige, his hold on the
Choshu faction was beginning to weaken. Itagaki, who had
long been in retirement, died in 1919, Okuma, like Yamagata,
in 1922. Nor were their successors men of equal calibre. Over-
shadowed by long-lived elders, the new generation seemed
more concerned with power than with its uses, except perhaps
in foreign affairs, and had little that was constructive to offer
when its authority was challenged. Only Saionji was of any
stature; and as a liberal, a protege of Ito and a former party
president, he was least likely to oppose the parties' claims.

220

THE LIBERAL 'TWENTIES

The Okuma government of 1914-16 had demonstrated that
even under a prime minister of great experience and the highest
standing it was easier to manipulate votes in the Diet than to
destroy the privileges of bureaucracy and Genro. In fact, only
the patriotism of his China policy saved Okuma from early
defeat. So when he attempted to name his own successor,
choosing Kato Komei (Takaaki), another party man, Yamagata
lost little time in bringing him down. Terauchi Masatake was
installed in his place, forming an alliance with the Seiyukai
and helping it to win an election in April 1917, while Kato
organized a new group, the Kenseikai, firmly committed to
opposition.

The fact that Kato was irreconcilable gave the Seiyukai a
certain negative influence on policy as the only body willing
to get government legislation through the Diet. This led it
into closer association with Yamagata and the Choshu in-
terests. It had other useful affiliations, too, since several of its
principal members were former bureaucrats, including the
party leader, Hara Kei (Takashi). Accordingly, when popular
criticism of Terauchi reached dangerous levels in 1918, chiefly
because of a sharp rise in commodity prices, Yamagata and
Saionji were able to agree the former still with some reluct-
ance on Hara's appointment to succeed him. Japan thus
acquired for the first time a 'commoner' as premier, that is, one
who did not claim samurai descent. He was supported by
ministers who were all members of his party, except the men
holding the portfolios of Foreign Affairs, War and Navy,
which went, respectively, to a career diplomat and two senior
officers of the services concerned.

To those who hailed this event as a victory for liberalism
and democracy the next three years were disappointing. As
a good party man Hara tried with some success to get Ms
followers appointed to a number of posts, such as prefectural
and colonial governorships, which had previously been reserved
for bureaucrats, but he showed little enthusiasm for reform in
general. His position depended too much on the Genro and the
House of Peers to permit constitutional adventures, for which
in any case he had little taste. Hence as long as he remained in
office, proposals for an extension of the franchise were stead-
fastly put aside. Socialist thought, stimulated by news of events

221

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

in Germany and Russia, was ruthlessly suppressed. Signs of
corruption were ignored. Even cabinet attempts to restrain
the army's intervention in Siberia failed, though this was
evidence of institutional weakness, not lack of will.

Hara's assassination on November 4, 1921, an act carried out
by a young fanatic for no very obvious reason, robbed the
party movement of an able politician rather than an inspiring
statesman. Nevertheless, Hara had held his men together he
could both attract loyalty and impose discipline and had led
them to new positions of responsibility. His immediate suc-
cessors could not do the same. His place was taken by the
Finance Minister, Takahashi Korekiyo, who soon found the
task too much for him and resigned the following June. For
eighteen months thereafter the Seiyukai majority was used to
back non-party governments, rather than give the Kenseikai
a chance of power.

However, in the climate of opinion that was now forming in
Japan such an arrangement could not last. Kato's demands for
responsible party cabinets received increasing popular support
and he eventually succeeded in splitting the Seiyukai on this
issue, forcing a dissolution early in 1924 and winning the
ensuing election. His coalition, which included groups led by
Takahashi and Inukai Ki (Tsuyoshi), now made the govern-
ment's position hopeless in the lower house. It resigned in
June. This left the way clear for Kato himself to form an
administration, first on the basis of coalition, then, after August
1925, from the Kenseikai alone.

His cabinet contained some notable members. Both the
Home Minister, Wakatsuki Reijiro, and the Finance Minister,
Hamaguchi Yuko, were to serve as premier in the next few
years. The Foreign Minister, Shidehara Kijuro, a non-party
man, was to become a symbol of moderation in respect of
Sino- Japanese relations and a staunch, though unsuccessful,
defender of such policies against army attacks. Yet it was
Kato who dominated the scene. Less flexible than Hara, he was
better born, wealthy, a former ambassador to London, Foreign
Minister to Okuma at the time of the Twenty-one Demands.
With this background he could meet oligarchs, bureaucrats
and Privy Councillors on equal terms, an advantage which in
a Japanese context far outweighed the stiffness and reserve that

222

THE LIBERAL TWENTIES

kept Mm from being really popular. He was also a man of
principle, a sincere advocate of parliamentary rule. In May
1925 he passed the Universal Manhood Suffrage Act, giving
the vote to males over 25, which increased the size of the elec-
torate from three million to thirteen. He made economies in
the bureaucracy, reducing its membership by 20,000, and cut
the service budgets to under 30 per cent of the national total,
compared with 40 per cent in 1919-22. The army lost four
divisions in the process, though it was partly compensated
by a measure of re-equipment. On the other hand, Kato was
no more able than Hara had been to reform the House of Peers
or reduce the authority of the senior bureaucrats, while only
a week after Manhood Suffrage conservative pressure brought
the Peace Preservation Law, providing penalties of up to ten
years 5 imprisonment for participation in the more extreme
forms of left-wing politics.

Kato died in January 1926. Both the party and the govern-
ment were taken over by Wakatsuki, who continued along the
same lines, despite growing army opposition on foreign affairs,
until the Privy Council's refusal to confirm a proposed emer-
gency ordinance in the financial crisis of early 1927. This brought
his resignation and an important step an invitation to the
Seiyukai to provide the next cabinet. Equally important, the
Seiyukai, as a minority party, dissolved the lower house and
sought to better its position through elections. It began to look
as if two principles might become established: first, that the
defeat of one party must bring the other to power; second, that
the government must have a Diet majority. Such, at least, was
the pattern for the next few years.

The Seiyukai, led by a general, Tanaka Giichi, who took
office in April 1927, won the 1928 election, but did so only
by the narrowest of margins. Notwithstanding police inter-
vention against its opponents now renamed the Minseito
and extensive use of private strong-arm squads under govern-
ment patronage, victory was by a mere two seats, a fact which
made for turbulent debates in the months that followed. Yet it
was the army, not the Diet, that caused the government's fall.
Though Tanaka was an advocate of sterner policies in China,
the murder of the Chinese war-lord Chang Tso4in in June
1928, apparently engineered by Japanese officers in Manchuria,

223

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

brought Mm into conflict -with the high command. His de-
mands for disciplinary action were ignored and he finally
resigned, being replaced in July 1929 by Hamaguchi. In 1950
Hamaguchi's Minseito won an election in its turn, doing so by
methods that were rather less reprehensible than those of its
rivals, but the world slump of that year and the signing of the
London Naval Treaty soon brought it trouble. Its attempts to
cut civil service salaries as part of an economy drive were
fiercely resisted, while its acceptance of limitations on naval
armament brought a head-on clash with the military and the
Privy Council. At this juncture, in November 1930, Hama-
guchi was shot and wounded at Tokyo railway station. He died
a few months later and Wakatsuki again stepped in, as he had
done at the death of Kato, only to face another dispute with
the army in September 1931 over the invasion of Manchuria,
which most members of his cabinet opposed, as well as a bitter
struggle for power within the party. This led to his resignation
in the following December. His successor was Inukai, now the
Seiyukai's president, but Inukai had an even shorter tenure. In
May 1932 he was assassinated at his official residence by a
group of young army and navy officers who hoped to bring
about a military coup d'etat.

By this time it was becoming clear to even the most prejudiced
observer that the supremacy of party government had been no
more than an illusion, shattered as soon as a few fanatics with
army backing put it seriously to the test. Some of the reasons
for this were external to the party movement and will be con-
sidered in a later chapter. However, there were also sources
of weakness in party politics themselves.

One was disunity. The parties had had their origin in sec-
tional protests against Meiji centralization and objections to
the Satsuma-Choshu monopoly of power. They had therefore
tended to be coalitions of groups, each with its own leader and
usually having strong local or regional connections, which
found it easier to co-operate in opposition to the government
than in putting forward a programme of their own. Since the
Meiji Constitution, when put into effect, seemed to condemn
them in any case to permanent opposition, there seemed every
reason for this situation to continue. Such changes as there

224

THE LIBERAL TWENTIES

were, indeed, were of a kind to perpetuate the worst features
of what had gone before. The Diet's ability to obstruct official
business undoubtedly gave the parties a weapon, but it was a
negative one, which enabled them to blackmail the government
for concessions without being able to gain control. The
result was that a number of party leaders found it possible to
secure office and even to share its fruits with their followers,
but only at the cost of bargains with the Genro and Privy
Council, with the services and higher bureaucracy, which
amounted to a denial of party rule. Since the parties did not
differ greatly from each other on matters of policy, the tempta-
tion for groups within them to take advantage of this oppor-
tunity was overwhelming. Again and again factions shifted
from party to party, from the side of opposition to that of
government, as ambition or tactics might dictate.

Between 1918 and 1932 there was less change in these habits
than might have been expected from the parties* growing
strength. Policy differences, after all, remained comparatively
unimportant; bargains still had to be struck with powerful
interests outside the Diet; and the vote-winning or fund-raising
connections of an individual leader were likely to be more
useful to his party than the party's organization was to him.
This being so, party loyalty was a rare virtue. Nor was principle
often put before office. Inukai, for example, who had been a
bitter critic of political corruption and intrigue., abandoned
Kato's coalition to join the Seiyukai in 1924 because, he said,
c he could not leave his faithful followers as a minor fragment
divorced from hope of power'. 63 In 1931 Adachi Kenzo
brought down the Wakatsuki cabinet, in which he was Home
Minister, in an attempt to substitute for it an administration of
his own: when his pretensions were denied, he refused either
to carry out his duties or to resign, forcing the government to
resign as the only means of getting rid of him.

The rank-and-ffle showed no more scruple and rather less
decorum. Knowing that aE major decisions were the result of
behind-the-scenes negotiation, not of a Diet vote, they reduced
debates to the level of the trivial and turbulent, with speeches
directed rather to the press than to the motion. Minority
parties, seeing little point in a rational exposition of their views,
hooted their opponents down. They even had recourse to

225

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

violence. 'Flushed gentlemen/ writes Morgan Young, 'clad
without in frockcoats but warmed within by too copious
draughts of sake, roared and bellowed, and arguments fre-
quently culminated in a rush for the rostrum, whence the
speaker of the moment would be dragged in the midst of a
free fight.' 64 He goes on to describe how on one occasion
pandemonium was caused by a live snake being thrown from
the public gallery among the Seiyukai benches. In this, it
transpired, there was a certain justice, since it was the Seiyukai
who had hired a man to throw it at the other side, only for his
aim to be spoiled by c the awkwardness of the missile'.

Corruption was another element in political life that was
always being alleged and sometimes proved. In 1914 the Yama-
moto cabinet had had to resign after revelations of bribery
connected with naval armaments, which implicated the Ger-
man firm of Siemens, Britain's Vickers, and several high-
ranking Japanese officers. Under Hara in 1921 the South Man-
churian Railway company was accused of contributing illegally
to Seiyukai funds, and a little later Kato's Kenseikai was cer-
tainly financed by Mitsubishi, it being asserted that specific
lines of political and economic policy were to be accepted by
the parties in return. Tanaka Giichi came under particularly
heavy fire in matters of this kind. As a soldier he was said to
have appropriated large sums from the secret service vote
during the Siberian expedition. As Seiyukai leader after 1925
he was accused of taking bribes to decide the placing of
army contracts,, of selling peerages, even of being subject to
improper influence in the making of a cabinet appointment.
Moreover, members of both parties at about this time were
involved in some very shady land speculations concerning a
projected brothel quarter in Osaka, to say nothing of the
smaller-scale but more widespread corruption that accom-
panied elections.

Many such charges were exaggerated and some invented
altogether, for this was the way of Japanese politics; but there
is no doubt that bribery existed on a considerable scale. Indeed,
the relationship between parties and business made it almost
inevitable. The ^aibatsu concerns had less need of it than most,
for they had many channels of influence open to them, links of
long standing, reinforced by marriage and adoption. Thus

226

THE LIBERAL TWENTIES

Saionji and the head of the Sumitomo combine were actually
brothers. Iwasaki Hisaya of Mitsubishi, apart from sons and
other relatives in banking, industry and commerce, had a sister
married to Shidehara, another to Kato, and a nephew mar-
ried to the daughter of an official in the Imperial Household
Ministry. By contrast, firms of later origin, especially those
which had sprung up during the 1914-18 war, had to use
cruder methods. Bribery was the easiest and most direct and
politicians were among its obvious recipients.

For this reason, business backing, though for a time it
strengthened the political parties vis-a-vis other interests in the
state, was ultimately an element of their weakness. The giving
and taking of bribes was not the most stable basis for an alli-
ance; and while it was true that businessmen and politicians
had certain aims in common, in pursuit of which they could
co-operate, and that as clients of government they had approxi-
mately equal standing, the fact remains that their ambitions
were different enough to be separately attained. Accordingly,
each was willing in the last resort to dispense with the other's
help. Big business, in particular, behaved more as the poli-
tician's patron than his ally, never convinced that attacks on
the parliamentary system were attacks upon itself.

The parties, if they could not rely on business, failed equally
to build up any popular support. This was partly because their
factionalism, unruliness and corruption were in such striking
contrast to the 'samurai' virtues which modern education was
trying to implant. Partly it was because their leaders made little
attempt to cultivate the appropriate skills, thinking oratory
vulgar and mass meetings something to be shunned. Party
leaders, in fact, were in outlook and background much more
like the men they wished to drive from power, the oligarchs
and bureaucrats, than the men they led. One might take as
examples some of those who held office as prime minister
between 1924 and 1932. Kato, Tanaka, Inukai and Takahashi
were all of samurai descent. If one includes Tanaka, a regular
soldier, all but one had started their careers in the bureaucracy,
Takahashi having risen to be head of the Bank of Japan before
he ever joined a political party. The exception, Inukai, had been
a newspaperman and a follower of Okuma. HamagucH, the
non-samurai, was from Tosa, entering government service by

227

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

what was to become the classic route: from Tokyo University's
law faculty to the Ministry of Finance. None, in other words,
was a member of the urban middle class they are sometimes
said to have represented.

These were not the men to lead a social revolution, for
they were liberals of a very conservative kind. They stood for
economy, good neighbourliness, the authority of the Diet and
civilian control, a programme that was modest to a degree.
Yet it was both liberal enough and conservative enough to face
a challenge from both sides: from those who objected, in the
name of tradition, to parliamentary power and backed their
objections by murdering the men who wielded it; and from
those who urged the abolition or reform of parliaments in the
name of the people's rights. It is to a consideration of the
latter that we now turn.

Wartime industrial progress, we have said, contributed on
average to a rise in Japanese living standards. Yet it also pro-
duced hardship and discontent. Some nine million people were
living in towns of over 50,000 population in 1920, three million
more than there had been a decade earlier, and the numbers
employed in factories with more than five employees had
increased from just under a million at the beginning of the war
to about i 6 million at its end. This meant a major dislocation
in the lives of many Japanese, forced to earn their living in
urban areas whose facilities did not always expand as quickly
as their citizens' numbers. It also subjected a growing propor-
tion to the strain of work in factories, where hours were long
and conditions were under the minimum of regulation. The
1911 Factory Act, for example, which was not enforced till
1916, had done no more than prescribe an eleven-hour working
day for women and children, and a minimum age of twelve. An
amendment of 1923, effective in 1926, was to make the hours
ten and the age fourteen, with some exceptions.

In 1918 the position was made worse by serious inflation.
Overseas demand for Japanese goods and the mushroom
growth of firms to meet it had made possible a rise in money
incomes and profits, an expansion of note issues and bank
credit, a fever of speculation. In the last months of the war this
brought a sharp upward trend in prices. Rice that cost 16 yen

228

THE LIBERAL TWENTIES

a hoku in January 1917 was 39 yen In August of the following
year. The wholesale price index in Tokyo (1900 =100) averaged
195 for 1917, 255 for 1918, 312 for 1919. Wages rose more
slowly, as one would expect, causing thereby a wave of agita-
tion and industrial unrest. Rice riots, starting with a house-
wives' protest meeting at Toyama on August 4, 1918, spread
rapidly to Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe and other centres, where the
mobs attacked and sometimes burned the establishments of
rice-dealers, moneylenders and unpopular profiteers. Troops
had to be called out to disperse them on several occasions
during the next two weeks. Meanwhile, the country was
experiencing its first important series of strikes for higher pay
and better conditions. Disputes affecting 66,000 workers were
recorded during the year, despite the existence of police regu-
lations that made them illegal, and in 1919 the scale of such
activity increased still more. There were stoppages by railway
workers, teachers, postmen, printers who deprived Tokyo of
its newspapers for over a week and in September 1919 by
15,000 men at Kobe's Kawasaki dockyard. The latter lacked
the funds and organization for a lengthy struggle, but they
succeeded in getting the management to agree to an eight-
hour day.

*' Soon after this Japan began to feel the effects of the post-
war trade recession, which had its severest impact on those
industries, like coal-mining and ship-building, that had ex-
panded most in the previous years. Workers in them were
forced on the defensive, fighting hard to maintain their levels
of employment. In Kobe the men of the Kawasaki yard were
again the leaders, joined on this occasion by those from Mitsu-
bishi, with the result that over 25,000 were involved in the
strike, lock-out and demonstrations that lasted from early
July 1921 into the second week of August.

Unrest spread also to the countryside, though for different
reasons. The earlier inflation had not been nearly so serious for
the farmer as for the city worker, because of increases in the
price of rice. The trade recession, however, broke and reversed
the inflationary trend. The cost of a koku of rice fell from 5 5 yen
in 1920 to 25-5 yen in 1921, while the wholesale price index
dropped from 343 to 265 in the same two years. This meant
real poverty for farmers, now fully involved in producing for

229

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

the market, especially as their most important subsidiary crop,
silk, suffered a similar decline in value. Price support pro-
grammes did something to restore the position in the next few
years, but competition from colonial rice growers which
governments were bound to encourage for the sake of the
urban poor set a strict upper limit to domestic prices. Vil-
lages suffered, too, from the fact that they acted as a shock
absorber for urban unemployment. Although population in-
crease forced many to the towns, there to find jobs in shops or
factories, each setback to the industrial economy drove them
back to seek refuge on the farm. The resulting gain in social
stability for the country as a whole was offset in part by the
loss to rural standards of living.

It was the poorest farmers, especially the tenant farmers,
who experienced the worst conditions. By the 19208 this
meant something like half the agricultural population, for
49 per cent held plots of under one-and-a-quarter acres and
over two-thirds were tenants for all or part of their land. In
area, more than 45 per cent of the total was under tenancy
agreements, their terms invariably favourable to the owner,
since pressure of population, not all the surplus of which was
absorbed by the towns, ensured that competition for the land
was keen. Thus rents were payable in kind, which deprived
the tenant of most of the benefits of inflation. They were also
high, amounting to as much as half the crop on rice-paddy,
a third for dry fields. The severity of such conditions had been
mitigated before the war by the rapid expansion of agrarian
production, but as this slowed down, so the agreements became
a focus of rising tension. Tenancy disputes, which had usually
been occasioned in the past by floods, typhoons and similar
catastrophes, became more frequent, more extensive and more
highly organized, especially round the periphery of urban
areas. Tenant unions came into existence, claiming 132,000
members by 1922, with more everywhere being formed, all
campaigning actively for changes in the law concerning tenure,
in addition to acting as their members 'representatives in specific
local negotiations.

Conditions therefore existed in both the countryside and the
towns that encouraged the growth of left-wing political activity:
real grievances, made the harder to bear by envy, as those who

230

THE LIBERAL TWENTIES

reaped profits from industrial growth indulged in an extrava-
gance and display that were quite foreign to the Japanese
tradition. News of the German and Russian revolutions, distri-
buted by an efficient daily press, suggested the possibility of
successful protest. Knowledge of Western literature contri-
buted plans and programmes. From all this a new element in
politics emerged, a left-wing movement stimulated partly by
the intellectuals, partly by trade unions.

Among the earliest of the radicals was Oi Kentaro, who
combined an extreme nationalism with support for Sun Yat-sen
in China and demands that the state should exercise economic
controls for the protection of the poor. His Oriental Liberal
Party (Toyo Jiyuto), founded in 1892, in some ways fore-
shadowed the kind of link between nationalism and the left
that was to characterize the 19305. More moderate was the
Social Democratic Party (Shakai Mnshuto) of 1901, with its
appeal for free education, an eight-hour day and the abolition
of child labour, though its moderation did not stop the police
from suppressing it as soon as it was formed. An attempt to
create a Socialist Party in 1906 was equally unsuccessful. It was
not until 1920, in fact, in the atmosphere of turbulence after
the war, that such groups stood any real chance of survival;
and even then they often broke up within a matter of weeks or
months because of their own disunity. Such, at least, was the
fate of the Socialist League, formed in December 1920 as a
means of bringing together all shades of left-wing thought.
The first Communist Party, too, founded in 1921 after contacts
with the Far Eastern Comintern at Shanghai, failed to over-
come the combination of police action and doctrinal disputes.
It went into voluntary dissolution in March 1924 after a brief
but colourful career of argument and propaganda.

The members of these organizations included both those
who believed in violence and those who did not. Of the
radical leaders, several were Christians: a lawyer, Suzuki
Bunji, founder of a national labour organization, the Yuaikai,
in 1912; a minister, Kagawa Tomohiko, who was imprisoned
briefly for his part in the Kobe strikes of 1921; and the Ameri-
can-trained Abe Isoo, a teacher at Waseda University. A good
many other moderates were university professors, like Yoshino
Sakuzo, an outstanding political scientist, and Kawai Eijiro.

231

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

Kawai, when on trial In 1939, probably best expressed their
creed. 'Although I talk about socialism/ he said, c . . . I reject
illegal and espouse legal methods, abhor violent revolution,
and prefer parliamentary means. Consequently, I do not address
myself to the lowly plebs. I have never discussed socialism at
a meeting of workers.' 65 Making due allowance for the circum-
stances in which this statement was made, there is still a quality
of the intellectual about it that was characteristic. It was to be
found also among the advocates of force. For example, Kawa-
kami Hajime journalist, poet, professor and Communist
was in many ways typical of the radical idealist, deeply influ-
enced by Christianity and Zen Buddhism in his youth, later a
Communist from emotion rather than experience. His outlook
was religious in its passion for humility and charity, his belief
in Marxism that of a pacifist, who saw in the destruction of
capitalism the only way of removing the social and economic
evils that bred war.

The trade unions were a very different proposition, despite
the fact that their leaders were not necessarily drawn from the
ranks of labour. The earliest unions like those formed among
ironworkers in 1897 and railwaymen in 1898 had found their
activities severely handicapped by police regulations after 1900,
so that numbers remained small until the end of the war. From
1918, however, the movement began to increase in both mili-
tancy and size. By 1920 there were over 200 unions, most of
them newly formed, and they had begun to organize in larger
groups. Suzuki's Yuaikai, which had been hitherto a kind of
friendly society, became the Federation of Labour (Sodomei)
in 1919 and soon comprised seventy constituent organizations
claiming 30,000 members in all. It continued to grow steadily
in the next few years.

Nevertheless, it was handicapped from the beginning by
bitter struggles between competing factions. The first phase of
these ended in September 1922 with the defeat of anarchist and
of syndicalist supporters, leaving Communists and social demo-
crats still to resolve their disagreements. Then a year later, on
September i, 1923, a terrible earthquake shook the Tokyo-
Yokohama region, bringing in its train an outbreak of panic-
stricken attacks on radicals and others, especially Koreans, for
alleged looting, plotting and similar crimes. The offences

232

THE LIBERAL TWENTIES

existed largely in the imaginations of police and public, but
the arrests and interrogations to which they gave rise had the
effect of revealing that Communist penetration of the Sodomei
had gone farther than anyone suspected. This led to fresh
recriminations at its general meeting in 1924. Thereafter the
moderates gradually gained the upper hand, until in May 1925
the Communist unions, in membership a little more than a
third, broke away to form an organization of their own.

These events took place against a background of strikes and
pamphleteering, for the hostility of the police, together with
the restriction of the electorate by a property qualification,
seemed to make any attempt to win seats in the Diet a waste
of time. This remained so until 1925, but in that year the intro-
duction of universal manhood suffrage rendered the objection
largely void. A proletarian party to fight elections now became
in theory possible, providing it could skirt the laws about sub-
version which the Peace Preservation Act had simultaneously
reinforced. There was still, however, some difficulty in getting
the politicians to reach agreement among themselves. Indeed,
the first attempt at action foundered on this problem, since the
Sodomei leaders withdrew from the discussions and the pro-
posed party's extremist rump became an inevitable target for
official intervention. Called the Farmer-Labour Party (Nomin
Rodoto), it was banned thirty minutes after it came formally
into existence on December i, 1925. The moderates were next
to try, forming a Labour-Farmer Party (Rodo Nominto)
which was pledged to follow constitutional means, but within
a few months of its foundation (March 1926) it had split on the
question of establishing a popular front. By the end of the year
its centre and right had broken off to form no less than three
separate parties. Adding to the confusion, the Communist
Party was reconstituted in December, but it became so deeply
involved in ideological controversy and so violently at logger-
heads with every other left-wing group that one can only feel
surprise at the reluctance of the police to leave it alone.

On this sort of record the left was no more likely to win
popular support than were the Seiyukai and Minseito. More-
over, the latter were very much better organized for rallying
votes. This became evident in the 1928 elections, when the
four leftwing parties excluding the Communists, who did not

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

compete polled less than half a million votes between them,
about one-eighth of the number that went to each of their
rivals. From eighty-eight candidates they elected only eight, of
whom four were social democrats. The failure underlined the
need for more co-operation and led to new proposals for alli-
ance, but these were again rejected by both the extreme left
and the moderate right. Thus the Japan Mass Party (Nihon
Taishuto), founded in December 1928, proved to be no more
than a variation on familiar themes. It certainly did nothing to
bring greater unity and results in the 1930 elections were
therefore no better than those of 1928, Once again the parries
savagely attacked each other and split the vote by putting up
too many candidates, half a million votes giving them on this
occasion only five representatives in the Diet. It was a perform-
ance that better planning enabled them to repeat in 1932,
despite a 40 per cent drop in their share of the poll.

Throughout this phase of their history the left-wing parties
were being hampered by the activities of the police, who used
censorship, arrest and even violence against them. Police regu-
lations dating from 1900 already conferred extensive powers,
but these had been increased in 1925 by the addition of penal-
ties of up to ten years' hard labour for certain offences, notably
that of joining any society which was designed to overthrow
the Japanese form of government or abolish private owner-
ship. Directed ostensibly against communists and anarchists,
the law was passed enthusiastically by the lower house. Yet it
soon transpired that the lack of precision in its wording opened
the way for many kinds of interference with personal liberties
and did not by any means confine their application to ex-
tremists. In March 1928, soon after the elections, police raids
on a large scale rounded up about a thousand communists
and communist sympathizers. A year later the technique was
tried again, this time bringing in many non-communist radi-
cals as well. Thereafter men and women of known left-wing
proclivities were always liable to arrest, imprisonment and
often torture without apparent cause or warning.

One result of this, both because the extreme left suffered
more than any other group and because there was a tendency
for factions to unite when under attack, was that most remain-
ing members of the labour movement^ chiefly those of the

234

THE LIBERAL TWENTIES

right and centre, were at last brought together to form the
Social Mass Party (Shakai Taishuto) in July 1932. This man-
aged to maintain a semblance of unity right down to 1940,
when all political parties were dissolved, and even to build
up a substantial representation in the Diet, adopting for this
purpose the nationalist slogans of the age and exploiting the
popular resentment caused by army intervention in national
politics.

Nevertheless, before 1945 the parties of the left failed to
make any great mark on Japanese society. Their own disunity
was partly to blame for this, as was government persecution.
In addition, their disputes with the c liberaF parties had reduced
the effectiveness of both in seeking power, in that the struggle
for control of the Diet played its part in hampering the Diet's
bid for control of national policy. Disunity, in other words,
operated not only within parties, but also between them, and
this when unity was their greatest need. The Seiyukai and
Minseito, while they tried to make cabinets responsible to the
lower house, encouraged the police to suppress the left. The
left, in turn, was at least as hostile to the bourgeois politicians
as it was to oligarchs and Genro.

Fundamentally, however, it was the failure to secure popular
support that condemned both kinds of parties to defeat. The
reasons for it are not to be found in any single factor, not even
wholly in the politicians' defects. They lie rather in those ideas
and institutions which had turned the Japanese people away
from the pursuit of individual freedoms and towards the attain-
ment of collective goals: the formative pressures of the educa-
tion system; an emperor-centred state religion; conscription,
with its accompanying indoctrination; and the persistence of
traditional authoritarian attitudes in important areas of bureau-
cratic and family behaviour. In sum, these enabled the discon-
tents arising from economic change to be marshalled in the
service of ambitions quite distinct from those of either the
liberal or the labour movements, ambitions which brought
Japan close to another 'Restoration 7 and plunged her into a
major war.

235

CHAPTER XIII

PATRIOTS AND SOLDIERS
1930-1941

Ultranationalism army plots Manchuria military factions-
insurrection of February 1936 -preparations for war

THE MODEST advance towards a system of parliamentary
democracy and the emergence of various brands of left-wing
politics were not the only nor, in the long run, the decisive
characteristics of the 'twenties in Japan. The decade also saw
the beginnings of a conservative and nationalist reaction that
was soon to overwhelm them. It stemmed in part from an
older tradition of opposition to the course of the country's
modern growth, one which had been reflected in the anti-
Western, often violently chauvinistic, activities of men like
Saigo Takamori in the early Meiji period and of organisations
like the Genyosha and Kokuryukai thereafter. These had been
associated, as we have seen, with ideas of Japanese expansion
on the Asian mainland; but in so far as their aim was to build
up the country's strength, making it possible to resist, or repel,
renewed encroachment by the powers, it involved a considera-
tion of events at home as well. A strong Japan had to have not
only arms and bases, but also unity, loyalty, a sense of purpose.
The patriot, therefore, was concerned with questions of poli-
tics, education and morale, in addition to economic and foreign
affairs. As the Kokuryukai's programme put it:

*We shall renovate the present system, foster a foreign policy
aiming at expansion overseas, revolutionize domestic politics to
increase the happiness of the people, and establish a social policy
that will settle problems between labor and capital. . . ,' 66

To many it seemed that the domestic aspects of this pro-

236

PATRIOTS AND SOLDIERS 1930-1941

gramme needed more emphasis than the foreign in the years
after the 1914-18 war. The growth of industry, in particular,
was helping to undermine the attitudes proper to a disciplined
and dedicated people, for its profits tempted those who shared
them into new forms of extravagance, nearly all imported from
the West, while their unequal distribution led to 'dangerous
thoughts', also of Western origin, like socialism, pacifism
and democracy. Similarly, modernization of the economy could
be blamed for rural distress and hence for weakening the
position of the farmer, society's staunchest upholder of tradi-
tional behaviour. In fact, dancehalls, luxury, political cor-
ruption, big business, trade unions, strikes, agrarian unrest and
debased standards of every kind, all could be lumped together
as results of an over-indulgence in foreign ways. They thus
became a focus for the resentments of men of many different
kinds: those who felt that the new order of things gave them
less than their ptoper station; those who genuinely respected
the past and the values it represented; and those whose sense
of inferiority in the face of the West's achievements brought
a hatred of factories, as well as an ambition for empire. The
resulting movement embraced conservatives, professional
patriots, agrarian idealists, advocates of state ownership and
social revolutionaries, all contributing in some measure to the
aggressive 'ultranationalism* of the nineteen-thirties.

Much of its leadership was to be found in the so-called
'patriotic societies'. A few of the older ones, such as the
Kokuryukai itself, had achieved a degree of respectability with
the years, as had their more distinguished patrons. Toyama
Mitsuru, for example, now wealthy and influential, was often
an official guest on state occasions or at ministerial lunches.
Equally respectable were the senior members of some newer
bodies, especially those whose avowed purpose was to protect
Japan from the threat of socialism, like the Dai Nihon Koku-
suikai (Japan National Essence Society), founded in 1919 by
Tokonami Takejko, Home Minister in the Hara government.
The Kokuhonsha (National Foundation Society) of 1924 was
outstanding in this respect. Its membership included three
future prime ministers (Saito Makoto, Hiranuma Kiichko and
Koiso Kurdaki), several generals (Ugaki Kazushige, Araki
Sadao, Mazaki Jinzaburo) and a number of party politicians,

237

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

together with representatives of the ^aibatsu firms and the
higher bureaucracy. Some of these, no doubt, joined as a form
of political insurance, for the group was diverse in ideas as well
as in affiliations. Nevertheless, the Kokuhonsha remained a
most powerful champion of the nationalist cause in Japan's
centres of authority.

In sharp contrast were the smaller, extremist organizations
which existed on the fringes of politics, dependent for funds on
the contributions of non-members obtained by methods rang-
ing from cajolery to threats or even fraud and for cohesion
on the influence of individual 'bosses'. Often they were little
more than strong-arm squads, capitalizing on the fashion for
patriotism instead of crime. Sometimes, however, they were
the personal following of much more dangerous men, fanatics
whose views were as violent as the means by which they tried
to spread them. Such was Kita Ikki, author and revolutionary,
who was eventually executed in 1 9 3 7 for his part in an attempted
coup d'etat. With Okawa Shumei he founded the Yuzonsha
(Society for Preservation of the National Essence) in 1921 and
became the inspiration of many others like it, this despite
an egocentric and domineering manner that cost him many
allies.

Kita's chief contribution was to the ideology of the move-
ment. In 1919 at the age of thirty-five he wrote a book entitled
An Outline Plan for the Reconstruction of Japan, which set out his
ideas at length and soon won him fame despite a police ban on
its circulation. It advocated a radical revision of society in
order to fit Japan for leadership in the revolutionary Asia
which Kita thought bound to come: the confiscation of per-
sonal fortunes greater than one million yen, the nationalization
of major industries, the establishment of an eight-hour day,
the seizure and redistribution of surplus private landholdings
above 100,000 yen in value, and renunciation by the emperor
of his family estates. All this was to be achieved through a
military coup d'etat, which would make possible a clean sweep
of the country's existing leadership political, economic and
bureaucratic and the substitution for it of a regime based on
direct relationships between the emperor and his people. When
completed, it would enable Japan to act more vigorously in
foreign affairs. As a member of the proletariat of nations, Kita

238

PATRIOTS AND SOLDIERS 1930-1941

argued, it was her task to secure justice from the wealthy, like
Britain (the millionaire) and Russia (the great landowner). This
could be done by launching an expansionist policy on the
Asian mainland and supporting the interests of Asians every-
where against the West.

Very different were the views of Gondo Seikyo, apostle of an
agrarian-centred nationalism that looked to the village as the
nucleus of both political and economic Life. Like Kita, he
emphasized the role of the emperor in the national polity and
accepted the doctrine of Japan's racial mission overseas. Unlike
him, however, he wished not to socialize industry, but to
destroy it, because it was a symbol of capitalism's exploitation
of the countryside for the benefit of the town. His concern was
for the simple ways of the farmer, who would look to the
emperor as a kind of family head, and for village autonomy.
Centralization, bureaucracy and things Western were to him
anathema.

Gondo' s ideas, too, were first published in 1919 and were
propagated through an institute which he established in 1920.
Another man of similar outlook, Tachibana Kosaburo, founded
a communal village near Mito at this time, later conducting
a school there at which he taught farming and patriotism to a
handful of students. Eventually he formed links with another
group in the same area, Inoue Nissho's Ketsumeidan, a blood
brotherhood dedicated to a rather directer method of bringing
about the agrarian milienium, namely, the assassination of
leading financiers and industrialists.

The attitudes and interests represented in such societies were
too varied to make it likely that they could co-operate in put-
ting forward a political programme. Moreover, small numbers
and lack of regular finances made them ineffective by them-
selves. On the other hand, the anti-capitalist, anti-Western
prejudices which were common to the thinking of most of
their members were shared by men whose ability to influence
policy proved in the end to be much greater: the younger
officers of the forces, especially the army. Many of these, after
reforms carried out in 1924-5, were drawn from new social
strata the families of shopkeepers, small landowners and
minor officials which had not the same loyalty to the estab-
lished order as had characterized the narrower oligarchy of the

239

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

past, but were nevertheless unwilling to espouse the cause of
communism or the urban poor. Officers with this background
were more likely than their predecessors to join the radical
right and to be influenced by complaints arising from the stress
of economic change. Equally, they had grievances of their
own. Civilian control, as advocated by the political parties,
had contributed to a decline in the services' prestige. Good
neighbourliness and retrenchment threatened their careers.
Finally, the wealth and luxury of the privileged, notably in
the cities, compared strangely in their eyes with the low pay
and spartan ways which society apparently expected its soldiers
to accept.

As a result, a number of officers began to form connections
with the nationalist movement at a level quite distinct from
the recognized channels between the high command, senior
bureaucrats and politicians. Some got into touch with Kita
Ikki, Okawa Shumei and their like, founding joint military-
civilian organizations to discuss the possibilities of reform by
force. Some established societies with a membership drawn
entirely from the army and navy. Most famous or notorious
was Lt-Col Hashimoto Kingoro's Sakurakai (Cherry So-
ciety), originating in September 1930, which at its peak com-
prised a hundred members, all army men of the rank of
lieutenant-colonel or below. About two-fifths were from the
War Ministry and General Staff, as many again from the
military training schools, and the rest from units stationed in
the Tokyo area.

These officers were no clearer than their civilian allies about
what it was they intended to achieve. Two phrases occurred
frequently in their statements, c the imperial way 3 (Kodd) and
c the Showa Restoration'. 67 Both implied that the emperor
would play a special part in any plans, but they were not in
other respects at all precise, varying in meaning according to
individual taste from a vague assertion of the need for moral
regeneration to an insistence on c a military dictatorship, in
which the Emperor in fact, if not in name, would be no more
than a sacred puppet 5 . 68 Yet if there was no agreed policy in
the positive sense, there could be no question about who were
the targets of attack: the political parties, on the one hand, and
big business, especially the ^aibatsu, on the other. It was this,

240

PATRIOTS AND SOLDIERS 1930-194!

coupled with a determination to organize the country eco-
nomically and ideologically for war, which suggests a com-
parison with what in Europe was labelled 'fascism*.

The participation of serving officers., even though they were
junior in rank, was important as giving the fanatics access to
weapons. They used them not in revolution proper, for this
was evidently impossible without far wider support than they
could hope to obtain, but to create a degree of confusion which
might enable their seniors to declare a state of emergency and
martial law. For this reason thek chosen methods were terror-
ism and assassination. Sometimes these were employed on a
large enough scale to give the appearance, at least, of attempted
revolt. Sometimes they were directed at individuals, with the
object of removing those who stood in the way of extremist
ambitions or 'persuading' such persons to a change of heart.
Nor can one deny the technique's success. Accompanied as it
was by pamphlets, newspaper articles, protest meetings and
demonstrations, all harping on the theme of patriotic duty
and this was invariably equated with the political aspkations
of the nationalists at home, as well as with expansionist policies
abroad the effect was to make it difficult, indeed dangerous,
for any public figure to oppose the trend./The mildest accusa-
tion of disloyalty to the kokutai* it has been said, 'seems to
have been enough to disturb the self-confidence of a Japanese
official or politician at any date between, let us say, the close
of 1931 and the beginning of the Pacific War. Moral courage
was displayed, it is true, by a few men in public life. . . . But
devotion to principle, to a rationally thought-out and accepted
personal point of view, was a very rare phenomenon/ 69

Nationalism and assassination were by no means new in Japan-
ese politics, as we have seen in earlier chapters. Public opinion,
inflamed by nationalism, had several times encouraged riotous

outbursts since 1890. Both Ito and Okubo, like a number of
late-Tokugawa and Meiji leaders, had been killed by men who
objected to their policies, while more recently there had been
the murders of Prime Minister Hara and the head of the Daihatsu
firm of Yasuda in 1 92 1 . Moreover, one has only to read Morgan
Young's Japan under Taisho Tenno (1928) to find numerous
examples of nationalist violence on a smaller scale, as well as

241

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

its lenient treatment by the courts, a pattern that was to become
familiar in later years.

Nevertheless, the revolutionary aspects of ultranationalism
after 1930 were not a mere continuation of what had gone
before. They sprang also from contemporary pressures, especi-
ally from rural distress. The adjustment of agriculture to the
needs of an industrial economy had already brought a good
deal of hardship to the farmer, reflected in the growing pro-
portion of tenancy and frequent bankruptcies. This was in-
creased after 1927 by a steady decline in the price of rice,
occasioned by bumper crops, and, more serious still, by a
failure of silk prices due to the collapse of American prosperity
in 1929-30. By 1931 the index of raw silk prices (1914=100)
was down to 67, compared with 151 in 1929 and 222 in 1925.
Over the same period the index for rice fell from 257 to 114.
A world slump in international trade simultaneously reduced
Japan's cotton exports, driving a large proportion of unem-
ployed girl factory workers to seek refuge in thek native
villages. The result was widespread poverty in rural areas:

In Yamanashi prefecture, it was stated, 22,000 silk reeling girls
had not been paid for months, finding it better to work for food and
shelter than to get nothing. In Miyagi the electric light was aban-
doned; from various prefectures came reports of unpaid teachers
and of local officials on reduced pay. Children were not sent to
school so that the small fee, hitherto cheerfully paid by the poorest,
might be saved.' 70

Conditions were worst in the north and north-east, which,
with Kyushu, were the army's favourite recruiting grounds;
and since many junior officers also came from hard-hit families,
the unrest was quickly communicated to servicemen of every
rank.

Military opinion was further offended by the Minseito gov-
ernment's readiness to negotiate a limitation on naval arma-
ments. The London Naval Treaty of 1930, which confirmed,
and in some respects extended, the arrangements made at
Washington in 1922 (see Chapter XI), was supported by the
Navy Minister but opposed by the naval Chief of Staff. Signed
on April 21, despite the latter's protests, it again faced oppo-
sition when it came before the Privy Council for ratification in

242

PATRIOTS AND SOLDIERS 1930-194!

July, though the cabinet stood firm behind its premier, Hama-
guchi Yuko, and won the day. However, it did so only by
violating two principles which officers of the services had very
much at heart. The first was that Japan should not accept any
international agreement which limited her freedom of action
in the Far East and the Pacific, even one which similarly
restrained her potential rivals. Acceptance of the 5:5:3
ratio for capital ships, which it was now proposed should be
applied to other major war vessels as well, was held to have this
disadvantage, to say nothing of the fact that it was a blow to
national pride. Secondly, the way in which the decision had
been made raised an important constitutional issue. The service
ministers and chiefs of staff, both in theory and in practice, had
separate functions. These might be broadly distinguished as
administration, on the one hand, and planning, on the other,
while it was also the duty of the minister, as a member of the
cabinet, to secure government approval for the recommenda-
tions they both made and to obtain the funds by which these
could be carried out. It was not within his powers nor, in the
view of most military men, those of the cabinet to overrule
the chief of staff on essentially operational matters, which in-
cluded questions concerning the level of armament needed for
defence. On this occasion, the navy's chief of staff had not only
been overruled, he had even been forced to resign. Taken in
conjunction with Kato's reduction of the army by four divi-
sions a few years earlier, the incident made it clear that party
cabinets were a real threat to the treasured independence of
the General Staff.

One result of the turbulence which these events produced
was the shooting of Hamaguchi in November, He died of his
wounds in the following year. The attack, which was made by
a youth connected with one of the lesser-known patriotic
societies, does not seem to have been part of any wider plot.
Nor did it have any great effect on the political situation, since
Hamaguchi was succeeded as Prime Minister and leader of his
party in April 1931 by Wakatsuki Reijko, a man of similar
background and ideas. All the same, it was symptomatic of a
state of affairs which a number of army officers hoped to use
to their own, or their service's, advantage.

The first move came at the beginning of 1931. It was made

243

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

by members of Lt-Col Hashimoto's Sakurakai, in conjunction
with civilian extremists led by Okawa Shumei, whose plans
envisaged, first, a series of riots and bomb attacks, organized
by the civilians and carried out with weapons provided by the
army, and, second, a declaration of martial law and the instal-
lation of a military government under General Ugaki. It is not
at all certain how far Ugaki and other senior officers had
advance knowledge of these proposals, though their co-opera-
tion would undoubtedly have been necessary for success. The
fact that they gave orders calling off the plot in March 1931,
just before the date for action, suggests that they only learnt the
details at the last moment and promptly withdrew their sup-
port. Yet their complicity, no matter how slight, made it diffi-
cult to take action against the rest. Moreover, their lack of
resolution convinced the conspirators that next time they would
have to force the hand of the army leadership, in addition to
bringing down the government, a decision that became the
basis of a further plot later in the year. Again Hashimoto and
Okawa were its architects, though this time they looked to
General Araki Sadao as their nominee for office. This time,
too, soldiers were to be more directly engaged in the pre-
liminary stages. The cabinet, for example, was to be eliminated
by air attack during one of its meetings; a Guards division
was to be called out in the resulting confusion; and the War
Ministry was to be isolated until martial law had been declared.
This plan was betrayed and its authors arrested in October.
However, the mild character of the punishments meted out
showed that the high command was still reluctant to act
strongly in maintaining discipline.

One reason for this was that some of its senior members had
themselves been planning to bring about operations on the
mainland by methods just as 'rebellious' in their way as those
of Hashimoto. There had long been a feeling in military circles,
especially in the Kwantung Army, which controlled Japanese
troops guarding the railway zone in South Manchuria, that
Shidehara's conciliatory policy towards China was causing
Japan to miss chances of expansion. Since Chinese disunity
was unlikely to last for ever, the argument ran, Japan should
exploit it while she could. Indeed, some members of the
Kwantung army staff had tried to create an occasion for doing

244

PATRIOTS AND SOLDIERS 1930-1941

so in 1928, by organizing the murder of the Manchurian war-
lord, Chang Tso-lin; and although Tokyo had on that occasion
refused to act, they still cherished the same ambitions. In 1931
the time seemed ripe to try again. China was distracted by
floods in the Yangtse valley. Britain and the United States were
preoccupied with economic difficulties at home. And in Japan
itself, some issue was needed which would rally public opinion
behind the army in its struggle with the party politicians. Action
in Manchuria seemed just the thing, the more so as it was a
policy on which most army officers could agree after the
event, if not before whatever their rank and whatever their
differences in domestic politics.

During 1931 members of the staff in both Tokyo and Man-
churia were making their preparations, these including much
exhortation of the public in speeches and pamphlets, as well as
military arrangements for troop movements and reinforce-
ments should an incident take place. On September 15 the
Kwantung Army was ordered to assume a state of readiness.
On September 18 its plans were at last put into effect. Late
that night a Japanese patrol near Mukden heard explosions.
Investigating, it found slight damage to the railway line just
outside the city and promptly fired on a number of Chinese
soldiers who were seen in the vicinity. On this flimsy pretext
the occupation of the area began, troops taking over the
Mukden arsenal, airfield and radio station before dawn, the
city itself, together with Changchun, in the course of the
following day, and Kirin two days later. On September 21
reinforcements began to arrive from Korea, making it possible
to extend operations in the next three months to the whole of
the Manchurian provinces.

In Tokyo the army's Vice Chief of Staff, apparently with the
sympathy, if not the active co-operation, of the War Minister,
General Minami, took the necessary steps to support the
forces in the field. The government, accordingly, faced 2. fait
accompli. It had heard rumours of the proposed moves a few
days earlier and had tried to stop them by sending a messenger
to the Kwantung commander-in-chief; but the officer chosen
for this duty, being a party to the conspiracy, took care not to
deliver his message until it was too late. Thereafter, with its
troops akeady committed, the cabinet tried vainly to halt the

i 245

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

advance. Its instructions were Ignored by the field commanders,
on the grounds of operational necessity, and they in turn were
backed by the War Minister and General Staff. In fact, the end
of January 1932 saw hostilities spread to China proper, when
a clash between Chinese and Japanese troops at Shanghai led
to heavy fighting and at one point to a naval bombardment of
Nanking. For some weeks this was the only fighting that was
going on, for the occupation of Manchuria had by this time
been completed and the army had given evidence of its deter-
mination not to withdraw by sponsoring a puppet government
there, which declared its 'independence' of China on Febru-
ary 1 8, 1932. Pu Yi, the last of China's former Manchu em-
perors, was made head of the new state of Manchukuo in
March.

The international repercussions of these events, which we
shall consider in the next chapter, were serious, but no less so
was the effect on developments within Japan. The Wakatsuki
government, helpless in the face of the army's action, was
brought down by its own disunity in December 1931. Its
successor, under Inukai, leader of the Seiyukai, was handi-
capped in its conduct of foreign affairs by its own past record.
Ministers found that the enthusiasm with which they had advo-
cated 'positive' policies while in opposition made it difficult
for them to criticize the army for carrying such policies out,
however unconstitutional the manner in which it did so. What
is more, members of the cabinet now had every reason to fear
for their personal safety, especially if they were unwise enough
to give any hint of seeking a settlement with China. The
patriotic societies were delighted with what had been done.
They were anxious, too, that the army be given the fullest
support, preferably by establishing a new regime. Thus Inoue
Nissho's blood brotherhood, dedicated to the removal of the
ruling clique, made out of a list of intended victims and drew
lots for the privilege of executing sentence. On February 9,
1932, one of them murdered Inoue Junnosuke, a former
Finance Minister, known to oppose the Manchurian venture.
Less than a month later another killed Baron Dan, head of
Mitsui, though at this point the remainder were arrested and
the series came to an end.

Their task was taken over, albeit with some differences of

246

PATRIOTS AND SOLDIERS 1930-1941

technique, by a group which had been influenced by Gondo
Seikyo's agrarian doctrines. Tachibana Kosaburo was in-
volved, as was Okawa Shumei and a son of Toyama Mitsuru,
but the active leaders were some young officers from a naval
air base not far from Mito and a handful of army cadets. They
were supported by Tachibana's Aikyojuku, youths from the
countryside, having little organization and less experience,
whom a contemporary journalist described as "adolescents
straying in a pink mist'. 71 With such executants it is not sur-
prising that much went wrong, when on May 15, 1932, they
made attacks on Tokyo power stations, a bank, the head-
quarters of the Seiyukai party and other buildings, in an
attempt to create a crisis which would lead to martial law. For
the most part their efforts failed. In one thing, however, they
were successful: in assassinating Prime Minister Inukai at his
official residence. This, if it did not provoke an army coup
d'etat., at least proved to be a death blow to party government.

The atmosphere in which politics were to be carried on here-
after was made very plain by the trials which began in the
summer of 1933: separate civil trials for Inoue Nissho and
Tachibana Kosaburo, each with his followers, and two court
martials, one army and one navy, for the servicemen. All were
public, long drawn out and wordy, the defendants being
allowed to engage in fierce diatribes, sometimes lasting two or
three days, against everything and everybody they thought they
had reason to hate. This was their defence, an argument of
patriotic motive. What is more, they were encouraged in it by
judge and prosecuting counsel. Tachibana at one stage was
permitted to announce each day the subject of his next day's
discourse. Inoue actually complained of the judge's manners,
accusing Mm of not paying proper attention to the speeches,
and forced the appointment of a new one by refusing to go on
with the trial.

The sentences, when one considers the nature of the crimes,
were light, ranging from four years' imprisonment for the army
cadets to life for Tachibana; and this fact did not escape the
notice of other patriots or their potential victims. One result
was to demoralize the political parties, the Minseito and
Seiyukai presenting a spectacle of growing impotence and
division in the next few years. Some factions broke away to

247

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

seek power through an alliance with the ultranationalists.
Others remained within the parties, but gave increasing sup-
port to army policies. The only important exception was a new
left-wing organization, the Shakai Taishuto (Social Mass Party),
formed in July 1932, which, despite some internal dissension
caused by the attractions of different brands of Japanese
national socialism, managed to pursue an anti-capitalist, anti-
communist and anti-fascist line until the war with China began
in 1937. It was helped, undoubtedly, by the police purge of the
extreme left-wing another 2,000 arrests were made in October
1932 since this, by leaving only the moderates, gave it greater
cohesion than earlier parties of its kind. It also profited to some
extent from popular dissatisfaction with much that the army
was trying to do. Thus in the election of 1936 it polled half
a million votes and won eighteen Diet seats, a record for the
left. Nevertheless, this was nothing like enough to influence
the direction of events.

The defence of the constitution was therefore left more and
more to the statesmen surrounding the emperor: Saionji, last of
the Genro; the ex-premiers; and those who held such offices as
Lord Privy Seal or President of the Privy Council. Many were
liberals, who wished to see discipline restored in the services
and would have preferred party cabinets to continue. On the
other hand, they recognized that this was not acceptable to
the army extremists and feared that any attempt to impose
their ideas might lead to revolt, by which all established
institutions, including the Throne itself, would be put in
jeopardy. They were thus left no alternative, as they saw it,
but to compromise.

For the time being this meant going back to an earlier device,
in proposing governments which included members of both
the principal parties, but were led by non-party men. On this
basis Admiral Saito Makoto succeeded Inukai as Prime Minis-
ter in May 1932 and was followed by another admiral, Okada
Keisuke, in July 1934, the choice of navy men being dictated
by the belief that they were acceptable to, but more manage-
able than, Japan's generals. A more lasting solution, however,
proved hard to find. The problem was to restore discipline
over the radical elements in the army. The logical people to do
this, it seemed, were that service's senior officers, for which

248

PATRIOTS AND SOLDIERS 1930-1941

reason it was necessary to secure the help of the high com-
mand. This, in turn, meant making concessions: in foreign
affairs, by accepting expansion in Manchuria; and at home, by
postponing disciplinary action until the senior officers felt able
to enforce it. The upshot was a policy of 'control by concession'
which ended by sacrificing all it had been devised to save.

One difficulty was that the generals themselves were by no
means united in their outlook. A minority, known as the Kodo
(Imperial Way) faction and centring on Generals Araki and
Ma2aki, sympathized with the revolutionary ideas of Kita IkkL
Another, the Tosei (Control) faction, led at first by Nagata
Tetsuzan, then by Ishihara Kanji and Muto Akira, was more
conservative, more rational, more willing to work with bureau-
crats and capitalists within the existing structure. Both were
proud of the army's prestige and constitutional independence,
ready to defend them against all rivals. Both pressed for a
'positive' foreign policy. There was a difference here, however,
in that the radical Kodo group saw Russia as the enemy and were
anxious not to get Japan's forces too deeply committed in any
other struggle, while Tosei, which implied a measure of mod-
eration in domestic politics, usually stood for expansion in
Manchuria and China. The two also tended to differ as types:
the Kodo man a field commander, direct, single-minded, in-
tolerant of compromise and politicians; the Tosei man suaver,
more experienced in affairs, perhaps a bureau or section chief
on the General Staff.

The struggle between the two groups was not fully joined
until 1935. From the end of 1931, with Araki as War Minister
and Mazaki as Vice Chief of Staff, the Kodo faction was in a
strong position, though their opponents were more powerful
in Manchuria. Then in January 1934 Araki resigned, because
of strain and ill health, and his successor, Hayashi Senjuro,
began to fall under the influence of Nagata Tetsuzan. Mazaki
was by this time Director General of Military Education, one
of the army's three top posts, which carried with it control of
officer training; but in July 1935 Nagata at last succeeded in
securing his dismissal, thereby causing serious trouble. On
August 12 Nagata himself was murdered by Lt-Col Aizawa
Saburo, one of Mazaki's supporters. In response, the Tosei
leaders brought Aizawa to trial and took steps to move other

249

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

troublemakers to Manchuria, a plan which persuaded the Kodo
adherents to resort once again to force.

Their attempt to seize power was made on February 26,
1936. Early that morning, over a thousand men of the First
Division, led by junior Kodo officers, took over the centre of
the capital. Some attacked the Prime Minister's residence and
only failed to kill Okada because they did not recogni2e Mm.
Others murdered the Finance Minister, the new Inspector
General of Military Education and the Lord Privy Seal, in
addition to making more or less unsuccessful attacks on several
other public figures. Pamphlets were distributed calling for the
establishment of a new order, which it was hoped would be led
by Mazaki. Yet neither Mazaki nor Araki made any move.
Nor did society crumble at their blow, as a reading of ultra-
nationalist literature might well have led them to expect. In-
stead, the high command, at the emperor's prompting, called
out the navy and the Imperial Guards, surrounded the rebels
and invited them to surrender. They did so, after a period of
uneasy waiting, on the afternoon of the 29th.

This time surrender did not bring publicity or nominal
sentences. Thirteen of the rebels were tried and executed in
secrecy and haste, as was Aizawa, and four of their civilian
allies, including Kita Ikki, met a similar fate in the following
year. Araki and Ma2aki were placed on the reserve; and an old
rule was revived, providing that the War Minister must be an
officer on the active list, by which it was hoped to keep them
out of politics. The earlier arrangements to scatter the radical
young officers in posts in the provinces or abroad were com-
pleted. Discipline, it was claimed, had been restored.

True enough, indiscipline within the army after this date
was of a less obvious kind. It took the form of what is known
in Japanese as gekokujo, a phrase which implies the manipula-
tion of superiors by subordinates and meant in this context
that those nominally responsible for army decisions were ex-
pressing the views of men on their staff, the latter having the
right to propose a course of action, as the probable executants
thereof, in the expectation that it would be adopted. Tradi-
tionally the relationship stemmed from that between feudal
lord and samurai, reinforced by Confucian ideas of leadership.
In practice it gave the senior staff officer a degree of power not

250

PATRIOTS AND SOLDIERS 1930-1941

unlike that of the senior bureaucrat. The most important
examples in the 19303 were to be found in the activities of the
Military Affairs Bureau at the War Ministry, which had the
task of negotiating on defence matters with the civil authori-
ties, and the Operations Division of the General Staff, which
"formulated strategy, both offices assuming functions in fact
much more far-reaching than those they possessed in theory.
A similar situation existed in the navy and also on the staffs of
overseas commanders.

It was largely by controlling these intermediate stages of the
decision-making process that the Tosei faction was able after
1936 to exercise a dominant influence on army affairs. By doing
so, moreover, it could determine national policies as a whole.
If the service chiefs were, as it was sometimes said, "robots'
controlled by their subordinates, the government was rapidly
becoming a robot of the service chiefs. This, too, was a kind
of indiscipline, one that increased, rather than diminished, after
the events of February 1936. The army, having regained its
unity and saved the country from its own extremists, could
operate a form t&gekokujo at a higher level, partly by insisting
on its independence in military matters which came to in-
clude, ultimately, even the choice between peace and war and
partly by exploiting constitutional advantages to decide the
composition of successive cabinets. No government could be
formed without War and Navy Ministers. Since the latter had
to be serving officers, no government could be formed without
the co-operation of the high command. Thus when Hirota
Koki became premier in March 1936, his first choice as Foreign
Minister was vetoed by the army as unreliable. Hirota himself
was brought down in January 1937 by army opposition, which
also stopped General Ugaki from succeeding him Ugaki was
invited to form a government, but could find no one to serve
as War Minister and then foisted General Hayashi on a
reluctant Court. When Hayashi resigned in May, the palace
advisers turned in despair to a descendant of the old nobility,
Konoe Fumimaro, in the hope that he would be able to satisfy
service demands without giving way to them altogether, only
to find that he became little more than a figurehead doing the
army's bidding. By the time he left in January 1939, to be
followed by the nationalist Hiranuma, the high command was

251

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

in a position to choose,, as well as to veto, nominees for cabinet
appointment.

Japan's civilian statesmen, therefore, found that they had
exchanged one kind of danger for another. Establishing con-
trol over Kodo extremists had perhaps saved the constitution
and averted a threat to the basis of society. But the price they
had had to pay was high. It involved an increase in the army's
power to intervene in politics and the acceptance of a course
which proved in the end no less destructive than revolution:
expansion abroad and the building of a country organized
for war.

War though the word itself was carefully avoided was not
long in coming. In July 1937 one more in the long series of
clashes between Chinese and Japanese troops in China took
place near Peking. Hostilities spread and became general, so
that by the end of the year, by decision of her field commanders
and the military staff in Tokyo, Japan was fully committed.
The resulting struggle will be discussed in the next chapter,
but it can be said here that it was to be long and difficult beyond
all expectations. It also had considerable impact on affairs at
home. On the one hand it diverted the attention of many army
hotheads from political to military matters. On the other it
created an atmosphere in which their seniors could press for
measures to prepare the country for a sterner test to come:
re-armament, the further development of heavy industry, close
government control of the economy, the destruction of liberal-
ism, a reform of education.

An outline of these policies had been blocked out by army
planners and adopted by the Hirota cabinet in August 1936,
but it was not until Konoe became premier in June 1937 that
their implementation really began. Within a few days of Konoe
taking office, steps had been taken to bring civil aviation and
the distribution of fuel under stricter government supervision.
In October and November of the same year a Cabinet Plan-
ning Board was established, chiefly to co-ordinate economic
policy, and an Imperial Headquarters was set up to provide
for co-operation between army and navy, though neither
organization ever fully achieved its ends. Other regulations had
the effect of giving the services formally much of the power

252

PATRIOTS AND SOLDIERS 1930-1941

they already possessed in fact. AH key decisions, it was agreed,
were to be made at liaison conferences between the Prime
Minister, Foreign Minister, War and Navy Ministers, and ser-
vice Chiefs of Staff. They would then be confirmed at a meeting
in the emperor's presence. This excluded other ministers, ex-
cept by invitation, so that when the plan was put regularly into
operation which was in 1940 cabinet responsibility became
no more than a pretence. Meanwhile the Asia Development
Board, created at the end of 1938, had taken over the conduct
of Japan's relations with China, a Greater East Asia Ministry
being formed in November 1942 to absorb this and to handle
matters pertaining to the other countries of the region. In the
secretariat of all these bodies service officers held vital posts.

The extension of army influence on policy formation, which
these innovations revealed, was accompanied by an increase in
the government's powers of economic control. The National
Mobilization Law, especially, which was passed by the Diet in
March 1938, gave it a vast reserve of emergency authority,
providing among other things for the direction of labour and
materials, the regulation of wages and prices, government
operation of certain industries, even a compulsory savings
scheme and a system of national registration. Not all these
measures were brought immediately into effect by any means.
But their existence made it possible to establish clear priorities
in economic growth.

There had akeady been some recovery from the trade slump
of 1929-3 1, partly as a result of devaluation of the yen, so that
both exports and imports by 1936 were about 25 per cent
above the pre-slump value. Raw silk sales had fallen, but a rise
in exports of textile fabrics compensated for this and stimulated
a modest improvement, as well as some diversification, in the
textile industry. Markets were also more varied. Less went to
the United States, more to the countries of Asia and the
south, where cheap manufactured goods were appropriate to
local needs. The outstanding feature, however, was the growth
in heavy industry. Between 1930 and 1936 the output of pro-
ducer goods rose much more quickly than that of consumer
goods, while the figures for both pig-iron and raw steel
doubled. Coal production increased from about 30 million to
40 million metric tons, providing over half the country's fuel

253

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

and power. In fact, Japan at this time accounted for a third of
Asia's total coal consumption, about 90 per cent of what she
needed being home produced. Shipbuilding had also recovered,
the annual launch reaching nearly 300,000 tons in 1936 and
the merchant marine over 4 million tons by 1937.

Government policy played an important part in these devel-
opments. At first this was because of attempts to overcome
the economic crisis, but it came later to depend very largely on
military needs. Military spending, for example, rose sharply,
from under 500 million yen and 30 per cent of the budget in
1931 to 4,000 million yen and 70 per cent of the budget in
1937-8. After 1938, moreover, the use of controls authorized
by the Mobilization Law, particularly those on raw materials,
gave a more selective stimulus to chosen industries and firms.
This brought significant gains in the production of motor
vehicles, aircraft and warships, and helped to raise heavy in-
dustry's share of total industrial output to 73 per cent by 1942.

Manchukuo, too, conformed to the general trend. Indeed,
it served in some ways as a pilot scheme for Japan itself, since
military influence was paramount there from the very begin-
ning. Its early investment pattern, directed by the South Man-
churia Railway, proved too limited to meet the Kwantung
Army's wishes; and in March 1938, the Manchuria Industrial
Development Corporation was formed, with capital from the
Manchukuo government and a new generation of Japanese
industrialists (the 'new Daihatsu'), with whom the army had
close relations. Money was channelled into the coal, iron and
steel industries and into automobile and aircraft plants. Similar
steps were taken in north China, through the North China
Development Corporation, and by 1940 the two areas were
producing on an important scale. Together they furnished
most of the country's high quality coal, about 30 per cent
of its pig-iron needs, and substantial quantities of cement,
chemicals and machinery.

Changes of this kind bore a family likeness to those which
the Meiji government had brought about under the slogan
fukoku-kyohei ( c rich country, strong army') in the nineteenth
century, though it is true that their economics had become
more complex. A comparison might also be made of the
methods used in fostering unity and morale. In both periods

254

PATRIOTS AND SOLDIERS 1930-1941

these were conspicuously successful, but in the 19305 they were
technologically more advanced. Censorship, as the Mobiliza-
tion Law recognized, now embraced radio as well as press,
while improvements in communications, transport and bureau-
cratic method made it easier to influence opinion and to bring
dissentients under police control.

The main targets were still the liberals, both in and out of
politics. They faced the danger of arrest whenever they criti-
cized the government's policies and were subject to a number
of public pressures which officialdom did nothing to abate.
Professor Minobe, for example, a leading authority on consti-
tutional law and a member of the House of Peers, was attacked
strongly in 1934-5 on the grounds that some of his writings
described the emperor as an 'organ 5 of the State. This, it was
said, was Use majeste\ and in face of such a charge few had the
courage to defend him. Eventually he was forced to resign
from the Peers and relinquish all his honours, his books were
banned, and early in 1936 he narrowly escaped assassination.

In incidents like this Japanese nationalism became hysterical.
In others it was little short of nonsense. Thus the wording of
the Kellogg Pact, stating that the signatories accepted it c in the
name of their respective peoples*, brought quite serious and
successful objections that this was disrespectful to the em-
peror. Foreign visitors were accused of spying on the flimsiest
pretexts. There were arguments about the use of foreign words
and whether nameboards at railway stations should read from
right to left (Japanese style) or left to right (Western style).
And in 193 5 the Foreign Ministry tried to substitute 'Nippon'
and 'East Asia' for the older, Europo-centric terms c Japan' and
Tar East'. This proved difficult to enforce, since habits, once
established, died hard: as a British journalist put it, 'throughout
many years of military aggression Japan got so thoroughly into
the habit of "keeping the peace of the Far East" , . . that
nothing was heard of Nippon keeping the peace of Eastern
Asia'. 72

Much of this chauvinistic atmosphere was injected into the
schools and universities. Many foreign books used in them were
proscribed by the police often without a very clear idea of
thek contents and textbooks were rewritten in nationalist
terms. Even works of serious scholarship might weE begin with

255

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

a precautionary reference to Japan's mission overseas. Military
training was made a compulsory part of education in 1938 and
the time devoted to it, including that spent on indoctrination,
increased steadily thereafter, always at the expense of 'un-
necessary' subjects, that is, those which contributed little to
patriotism or practical knowledge. Army officers were attached
to the schools to supervise this process, their work made more
important by an ordinance of March 1941, which emphasized
the need to induce qualities appropriate to a wartime State.

Indeed, by then a good deal had akeady been achieved in
this direction. In 1937 the Ministry of Education had issued
a book called Kokutai no Hongi (Principles of the National
Polity), which at once became the main text for the course in
'ethics'. Over two million copies were sold and special com-
mentaries on it were issued to teachers, with the result that its
doctrines became the basis of an intensive propaganda directed
at the young. For the most part these doctrines were conserva-
tive, in the sense that they rejected the revolutionary, anti-
capitalist elements in the thinking of the radical right. But they
were anti-liberal in the extreme. Individualism was anathema,
service to the State was service in its highest form. Moreover,
patriotism taught that what was bad was foreign:

The various ideological and social evils of present-day Japan are
the fruits of ignoring the fundamentals and of running into the
trivial, of lack in sound judgment, and of failure to digest things
thoroughly; and this is due to the fact that since the days of Meiji
so many aspects of European and American culture, systems, and
learning have been imported, and that, too rapidly.' 73

It did not take long for the combined resources of press and
radio, of schools and universities, of patriotic societies and
army publicists, to drive such a lesson home.

This brings us back to the kind of criticisms which had for
years been levelled at the Diet parties: in sum, that they were
the representatives of a corrupting West. In the atmosphere
that obtained after 1937, it is clear, they found the hostile
chorus overwhelming. The elections of April 1937 had revealed
signs of popular support for a campaign against the military's
control of politics, not least in the million votes and thirty-six
seats that went to the moderate left, the Shakai Taishuto; but

256

PATRIOTS AND SOLDIERS 1930-1941

once hostilities broke out on the mainland in July, most poli-
ticians raised the cry of national unity and showed themselves
ready to pass every government bill. Even the Shakai Taishuto
found arguments to rationalize its coming into line, while its
opponents, if divided among themselves, solemnly denounced
any move to divide the country. Before long there was talk of
a united front united, not against the army, but behind it and
in 1940 plans to form one reached fruition. The Imperial Rule
Assistance Association (Taisei Yokusan Kai) was organized on
October 12 of that year. It replaced the parties, absorbed their
members and pledged itself to rally opinion behind c the nation V
policies, thereby making itself a symbol of the army's victory.
From, this, time on, the only restraints that remained on
Japan's actions overseas were those which might be exercised
within the inner circles of her leadership.

CHAPTER XIV

AN EMPIRE WON AND LOST
1937-1945

Invasion of Manchuria war with China Anti-Comintern fact
Pearl Harbour victory and defeat

JAPANESE ADVOCATES of expansion after 1931 had behind
them a people easily persuaded that aggressive policies were
just. History, as taught in their schools, showed their country
starting its international career in the nineteenth century under
a number of handicaps imposed by a greedy West, then suf-
fering under racial discrimination a generation later, when
Australia and the United States introduced controls on immi-
gration a grievance made all the harder to bear by the fact
that in Asia Japanese often had the status of Europeans and
more recently facing new tariffs, quota regulations and other
'defensive' arrangements by the powers, designed to protect
their economies from Japanese competition during a time of
world recession. It is not surprising that the Japanese, acutely
conscious of their large and growing population, felt resent-
ment, nor that the apostles of empire had little difficulty in
turning it to account. As Hashimoto Kingoro o the Sakurakai
wrote in his Addresses to Young Mem

c We have already said that there are only three ways left to Japan
to escape from the pressure of surplus population . . . namely
emigration, advance into world markets, and expansion of territory.
The first door, emigration, has been barred to us by the anti-
Japanese immigration policies of other countries. The second door,
advance into world markets, is being pushed shut by tariff barriers
and the abrogation of commercial treaties. What should Japan do
when two of the three doors have been closed against her?' 74

To Hashimoto, like most of his compatriots, this reasoning

258

AN EMPIRE WON AND LOST 1937-1945

fully justified the pursuit of territorial ambitions, notably in
Korea, China and Manchuria. On the other hand, it was always
with mixed feelings that Japan's neighbours were made subject
to attack. For there still lingered the idea that they ought
properly to be allies in the struggle against the West, were it
not for the obstinacy which made them reject Japan's offers of
co-operation; and this line of thinking led in the end to the
concept of a c New Order' in East Asia, announced by Prime
Minister Konoe in a broadcast in November 1 93 8. It envisaged
the co-ordination under Japanese leadership of the military,
political, economic and cultural activities of Japan, China and
Manchukuo, so as to rescue ail of them from subservience to
American and European pressure., the process involving in a
manner reminiscent of the Twenty-one Demands the estab-
lishment of Japanese bases on the mainland, Japanese control
of communications, and Japanese participation in running
China's police and army. A few years later came the more
ambitious proposal for a Greater East Asia Co-prosperity
Sphere, extending the same principles to South East Asia. This,
it was believed, would strengthen the alliance, politically by
marshalling anti-colonialism in its favour and economically by
providing access to supplies of oil and other raw materials. Nor
was it to be confused with the building of an empire in the old
manner. Rather, Japan insisted, it was a response to the past
encroachment of the West. Hashimoto even tried to dis-
tinguish between colonization, as the West knew it, and his
own plans for c some place overseas where Japanese capital,
Japanese skills and Japanese labour can have free play'. 75

However unconvincing the argument of all this, the emotions
behind it are understandable enough and had a powerful effect
on Japanese opinion. There nevertheless remained a good deal
of room for disagreement about the methods by which the
programme might be carried out. Some groups had a vested
interest in one part of it more than another, like the Kwantung
Army staff and its industrialist friends, who were concerned
with the development of Manchukuo. Other army men had a
similar preoccupation with north China, whereas the navy,
because of its need for oil, tended to dwell on the importance
of moving south. Then there was the division between the
services, on the one hand, with their greater readiness to use

259

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

force, and the career diplomats and civilian statesmen, on the
other, who, in the tradition of their Meiji predecessors, sought
policies which would seem 'respectable 5 in international terms.
If one adds the different attitudes that groups and individuals
might adopt towards specific countries fear of Russia, a desire
for alliance with Germany (or Britain), friendship for America,
perhaps it is easy to see why a general acceptance of the
necessity for increasing Japanese strength did not auto-
matically lead to the shaping of a consistent course.

The complexities were made greater by the struggle for
power within Japan, an account of which was given in the
previous chapter. The decline of the political parties undoubt-
edly meant that less attention was paid to commercial objectives
in Japanese activities abroad, but the new leaders, it transpired,
were no better able to enforce a positive and coherent policy
in their place. The services, after all, like the parties, suffered
both from factions and indiscipline. Thus the defeat of the
Kodo extremists in 1935-6 contributed to a shift of emphasis
from defence against Russia to advance against China, in
addition to weakening the right-wing radicals at home; while
at another level, the fact that army field commanders, members
of their staff and officers in Tokyo of varying seniority were
able at times to control events quite independently of the
supreme command, provoking incidents which would commit
their superiors whether they liked it or not, ensured that no
group's ideas were ever likely to be followed without question.
One result of the army's growing dominance, in fact, was to
put it in question whether there was a truly 'national' policy at
all. Statesmen close to the emperor, fighting a rearguard action
to defend the constitution and the prestige of the Throne
a cause to which they rather too readily sacrificed their princi-
ples in foreign affairs might make concessions in discussion
with the War Minister or representatives of the General Staff,
only to find that these had already been anticipated and put
into effect by officers of lower rank. Such a situation makes it
difficult for the historian, as it did for contemporaries, to allo-
cate responsibility for decisions, a circumstance that needs to
be borne in mind when reading the narrative which follows.

The invasion of Manchuria in 193 1 set an ominous pattern, for

260

AN EMPIRE WON AND LOST 19371945

the Japanese troops who occupied Mukden on the night ot
September 18-19 were following the plans of the Kwantung
Army staff, not the policies of Tokyo. The cabinet, indeed, was
first consulted when it came to sending reinforcements. In the
next few months, moreover, the high command as a whole
gave full support to the officers in the field, repeatedly accepting
orders to limit the advance, then allowing them to be ignored
on a plea of operational necessity. It was by this technique
that the occupied area was constantly enlarged and the diplo-
mats faced with a series offaifs accomplis. As a final step came
the creation of the puppet state of Manchukuo in February
1932, which gave the Kwantung Army something not far short
of a private empire. Its commander-in-chief, as Japanese am-
bassador, acquired so large a measure of independence, by
exercising civil, as well as military, control, that Admiral
Okada, Prime Minister in 1934-36, later stated that the govern-
ment "had no way of learning what the plans and activities of
the Kwantung Ajmy were'. 76

Diplomacy, meanwhile, had been doing what it could to
repair the damage to the country's reputation. On September
21, two days after the outbreak, China had appealed to the
League of Nations and Japan had promptly denied that she
was pursuing territorial ambitions. She also promised to with-
draw her troops, only to find, as time passed, that Tokyo
lacked the authority to do so. For several weeks, explanations
and recriminations prevented further progress. Then in Novem-
ber, with Japanese consent, the League appointed a com-
mission of inquiry, its members, under the chairmanship of
Lord Lytton, being nominated in January 1932 and reaching
Yokohama in the following month. By then their investiga-
tions had already been made abortive by the announcement of
the 'independent' state of Manchukuo. Nor did anything they
saw or heard thereafter give much credence to the Japanese
army's case. Though it was not until years later that the true
story of the military conspiracy became known, the com-
mission's report, submitted in September 1932, firmly con-
demned Japan's aggression and rejected the arguments on
which it stood. This made it inevitable that recognition would
be withheld from the regime which the Kwantung Army had
established, so Japan, making public her own recognition of it,

261

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

withdrew altogether from the League as soon as the matter
came to debate at Geneva in February 1933.

China gained nothing from these moves and found Western
sympathy of little help when the Japanese army resumed opera-
tions in her northern provinces at the beginning of 1933. In
the first few weeks of that year a pretext was found for
adding Jehol to Manchukuo. In May a truce at Tangku, nego-
tiated without reference to the diplomats, created a demili-
tarized zone which insulated Japan's gains from the areas
further south and gave military commanders a basis for fresh
demands at a later date. In June 1935, for example, they called
for the withdrawal of Chinese troops from Hopei and Chahar,
on the grounds that their presence threatened the maintenance
of peace. Simultaneously they encouraged such Chinese politi-
cal movements in the north as might be willing to accept
'autonomy' under the patronage of Japan.

For the most part the advances Japan made in China in these
years were local, intermittent and small-scale, rarely causing the
sort of scandal that would have brought international inter-
vention. They were also the army's work, though its success
was bringing increasing political support at home. The Foreign
Ministry contented itself with enunciating in April 1934 the
doctrine that the relationships between Japan and China
which it described in terms more appropriate to suzerainty or
protectorate than to diplomacy between independent states
were in no sense the concern of the League of Nations or the
powers. Eighteen months later it proposed a basis for a general
settlement: Chinese recognition of Manchukuo; suppression of
anti- Japanese activities in China; and an anti-communist Sino-
Japanese alliance.

Even this, however, fell short of an attempt at total domina-
tion, such as was to come before very long. Chinese stubborn-
ness and hostility in the resulting negotiations soon began to
convince Japanese leaders that their piecemeal methods were
of no avail, an attitude that became more widespread when
Chiang Kai-shek reached agreement with the communists at
the end of 1936 on making common cause against Japan.
Similarly, the Japanese high command was finding its hotheads
harder to restrain, or rather, had found fresh grounds for not
trying to restrain them. The failure of the military revolt in Tokyo

262

AN EMPIRE WON AND LOST 1937-1945

in February 1936 had left behind it a sense of frustration and
discouragement among younger officers. This might have been
explosive had there been any attempt to exercise moderation
overseas, whereas an adventurous foreign policy had the
advantage, if successful, that it might ease the political tensions
building up at home and possibly show a profit economically
as well. Since most members of the Tosei ('control') faction
now dominant in the army were men dedicated to pursuing
Japan's "mission 3 on the mainland and most members of the
public had been led to expect some outstanding achievement
from them by 1937 the prospects of a major clash with China
had much increased.

It began with an incident at Marco Polo Bridge, near
Peking, on the night of July 7, 1937, when firing broke out
between Chinese and Japanese troops while the latter were on
manoeuvres. The fighting quickly spread, becoming general in
the next few weeks. One reason was that Chinese resistance
proved unusually stubborn. Another was the absence of any
authority on the Japanese side that seemed willing to effect
a local settlement. The cabinet wanted one, as did several
members of the high command, for many senior officers were
reluctant to get the army deeply committed in China at the cost
of leaving Manchuria and Mongolia open to Russian attack;
but the field commanders and their allies, the section chiefs of
the General Staff, were able to prevent any such restrictive
proposals from being carried out. In this sense, the 'China
Affair', as it was called, was the result of another military
conspiracy.

Once the campaign was properly begun, of course, Tokyo
could hardly refuse reinforcements, and this made it possible,
as had happened in Manchuria six years earlier, for the scale
of operations to be continually increased. By early August
Tientsin and Peking had both been occupied. By September
over 150,000 Japanese troops had been deployed. Hostilities
had also spread to the south, beginning, once again, at Shang-
hai, where there was heavy fighting, and continuing with a
thrust up the Yangtse river to Nanking, Chiang's capital. The
city was captured in mid-December and became the scene of
what were probably the worst atrocities of the war, as Japanese
troops were turned loose to murder, rape, loot and burn at

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

will. Their behaviour gained them a reputation for lust and
cruelty that endured until final surrender in 1945.

Their victories, moreover, ensured that hostilities would
continue. The Chinese government withdrew to the interior,
eventually to Chungking, and showed some signs of a willing-
ness to bargain. In Tokyo, on the other hand, where each
success tended to confirm the belief that a solution of the
China problem was in sight, the price of peace grew higher.
Before the end of 1937 all talk of localizing the conflict had
been abandoned and most army men were demanding nothing
less than Chiang Kai-shek's removal, especially since it was
obvious by this time that China's appeals to the League were
not going to bring her substantial help. Accordingly, the terms
offered previously were withdrawn and the country prepared
itself for waging a full-scale war. A naval blockade was extended
to the whole of China's coastline. In addition, Chinese cities
were heavily bombed and campaigns were launched to con-
solidate the territorial gains which had been made so far.
During 1938, for example, the forces in north China and the
Yangtse valley linked up to establish land communications
with each other. In October of that year, troops moving up
the Yangtse reached Hankow, others in south China reached
Canton. By November, in fact, when Konoe announced his
plans for a c New Order', Japan controlled all the wealthiest
and most highly populated parts of China, except Szechwan.

Since none of this brought a Kuomintang capitulation
nationalism seemed to thrive on defeats, as well as victories
the year 1939 saw a pause for reconsideration. Japan was still
not fully extended by her efforts. She resembled, it has been
said, c a country engaged in a wearisome colonial war, rather
than one exerting all its strength . . . against an adversary of
equal power'. 77 Nevertheless, she was experiencing an eco-
nomic strain and a measure of war weariness, while her military
leaders were anticipating a clash with Russia in the next few
years for which they needed every possible preparation. They
therefore changed their strategy, seeking to exploit political
rather than military advantages. As a first step they tried
cutting China off from the outside world by exerting pressure
on the countries that befriended her, a decision leading in
February 1939 to the occupation of Hainan, a French sphere

264

AN EMPIRE WON AND LOST 1937-1945

of interest, and in June to a blockade of the French and British
concessions in Tientsin. The process was completed by the
outbreak of the European war soon after, for in their pre-
occupation with it the powers could offer little resistance to
Japanese demands. Within a year France had granted Japan
access to the south through Lido-China and Britain had
temporarily closed the route from Burma to Yunnan.

Supplementing these successes was an attempt at subversion
from within. Japanese army commanders had tried frequently
in the past to acquire the help of Chinese local leaders, but it
was not until Wang Ching-wei seceded from the Kuomintang
regime that they won over a statesman of any consequence.
In March 1940 Wang was established as head of a puppet gov-
ernment in Nanking, which it was hoped would attract support
for a peace treaty on Japanese terms. In this it failed, notwith-
standing the marks of respect which Japan accorded it. Indeed,
both Chiang and the communists continued to wage a bitter
guerilla warfare in thek respective areas, which was a mounting
drain on Japanese resources and proved of considerable value
to their allies when the Sino- Japanese struggle merged into a
wider conflict.

Events in China had important repercussions on Japan's rela-
tions with the powers. Since the spread of Japanese authority
gave benefits to Japanese trade, it was in some degree an attack

on the interests of Britain and America. Similarly, the means
by which it was carried out provoked a number of incidents,
involving, for example, British and American ships on the
Yangtse, which furnished both countries with specific griev-
ances. All this helped to encourage them in showing sympathy
for China. On the other hand, neither the one because of
crises in Europe, the other because of isolationism at home

was willing at first to take any positive steps against Japan.

Nor did they, until a change in Japanese policies began to
threaten them more directly after 1959.

In the interval Japan was much more concerned at the danger
of being attacked by Russia. Her acquisition of the Manchurian
provinces had put a check on Russia's traditional aspirations
in the area, forcing her among other things to sell to Japan
in 1935 the Chinese Eastern Railway (the spur from the

265

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

Trans-Siberian which ran to Vladivostock via Harbin). It also
gave the two a much longer common frontier, on which friction
might develop. Thus a clash occurred at the junction of the
Manchurian, Korean and Siberian borders in July 1938, which
lasted for nearly a fortnight, and another in May 1939 at
Nomonhan, between Manchuria and Outer Mongolia, which
was not settled till September. Large forces were used in both,
including armour; and Japan's relative lack of success on these
occasions made her still more wary of Russian strength.

Her fears, plus a consciousness of the diplomatic isolation in
which withdrawal from the League of Nations had left her,
prompted a search for friends. This had already led to Hitler's
Germany some years earlier since Germany's enemies, anti-
communist convictions and need for allies seemed very like
her own and had resulted in the signature of an Anti-
Comintern Pact in November 1936, providing publicly for
Japanese-German co-operation against international com-
munism, secretly for a defensive alliance against Russia. Know-
ledge of it helped to convince the army in 1937 that action in
China was a legitimate risk. Indeed, an influential group of
officers soon began to urge something more positive and open.
Closer Japanese-German ties, they thought, might serve as an
insurance against Russian moves and increase the pressure on
China to surrender, so in June 1938 their representative,
General Oshima Hiroshi, first as military attache, then as am-
bassador, began negotiations in Berlin. These failed because
Germany did not want to commit herself to an exclusively
anti-Russian treaty, nor Japan to an alliance of more general
scope, but it was not until a Russo-German non-aggression
pact was announced in August 1939 that they came formally
to an end.

The second Konoe government, on taking office in July
1940, faced renewed demands from the army for a German
agreement. They were enthusiastically sponsored by the For-
eign Minister, Matsuoka Yosuke, who was completely confident
of his ability to exploit such an arrangement to Japan's,
rather than Germany's, advantage. He was also sure of German
victory in Europe, from which he drew the conclusion that
Japan must lose no time in negotiating a division of the spoils,
since the defeat of Britain, France and Holland would leave

266

AN EMPIRE WON AND LOST I937-X945

their colonies in Asia without defence. So enticing a prospect
overcame the cabinet's doubts and a Tripartite Pact with Ger-
many and Italy was signed on September 27 of that year. It was
reinforced in April 1941 by a neutrality agreement with Russia,
designed to free Japan from uncertainty about her northern
frontiers. Unfortunately for Matsuoka' s reputation, however,
the whole policy proved to be based on erroneous calculations.
Britain did not succumb to German attack. What is more,
Hitler, without warning to Japan, launched an invasion of
Russia in June 1941. One of its by-products was Matsuoka's
fall, brought about by a cabinet re-shuffle in July.

In his year of office Matsuoka had given a new dimension to
Japan's ambitions by formulating plans for expansion in South
East Asia. These had been discussed by military staffs as early
as 1936, with a view to Japan gaining control of the region's
oil, tin, rubber, bauxite and other strategic raw materials, but
little had been done to take the formal steps which would have
put them into effect, until Matsuoka did so at a liaison con-
ference between ministers and service chiefs on July 27, 1940.
Its decision, confirmed by the inner cabinet in September, was
that Japan must seize the opportunity which the European war
had given her to establish herself in Indo-Chtna, Siam (Thai-
land), Burma, Malaya and the Netherlands Indies. Diplomacy
was to be tried in the first place to attain these ends. In par-
ticular, every effort was to be made to avoid a conflict with
America. But in the last resort force would be used and the risk
of war accepted.

Within a few weeks a beginning had been made kt Indo-
China, the French government, in return for a guarantee of
French sovereignty there, being persuaded in September 1940
to authorize the establishment of Japanese air bases in the north
and to grant right of passage for Japanese troops. This was
in the context of Japan's strategy in China, rather than South
East Asia, but in July 1941 substantial Japanese forces entered
the rest of the territory, obviously in preparation for moves
further south. On the other hand, attempts to get special
economic and political privileges in the Netherlands Indies in
this period failed. Demands for co-operation, including the
allocation to Japan of most of the colony's production of oil,
were made by Japanese missions during the autumn and

267

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

winter of 1940-41, only to meet with interminable difficulties
and evasions. It seemed reasonable to conclude that nothing
short of force would overcome them.

Germany's attack on Russia raised a different problem, since
it opened the way for Japan to strike north, instead of south,
if she wished to do so. Equally, of course, it made it possible to
launch a campaign in South East Asia with greater confi-
dence. Both points were strongly urged when the matter was
debated in Tokyo at the beginning of July 1941, even the army
being divided between their rival attractions, and the decisions
that were finally taken left the issue open for a time. In effect,
Japan was to concentrate on her "New Order', acting inde-
pendently of her Axis allies, and continue preparations for a
major struggle without getting involved in the Russian war.

The key to a southward move, as most Japanese leaders saw
it, was likely to be the reaction of the United States. The risks,
in other words, would depend a good deal on whether or not
America was prepared to fight, a question they found it difficult
to answer. Recent omens had not been favourable. American
hostility to Japanese policies in China had led Washington in
July 1939 to refuse to renew its commercial treaty with Japan,
which expired in the following year. 1940 saw an increase in
such economic pressure, with licences introduced for exports
of various kinds of oil and scrap-iron in July, an embargo on
all scrap for Japan in September, its extension to iron and
steel exports after the presidential elections in November. The
regulations seriously handicapped Japanese stockpiling of vital
materials, even though a total ban on oil supplies was not im-
posed. A still graver blow came in 1941, when in immediate
response to the occupation of southern Indo-China in July
the American government froze all Japanese assets in the
United States, bringing trade almost to a standstill.

By this time the two countries had for some months been
engaged in negotiations, though the effect of exchanges in
April, May and June 1941 had been only to clarify the nature
of their disagreement. The United States sought an under-
taking that Japan would respect the independence and terri-
torial integrity of her neighbours, including China and the
Philippines; that she would pursue her policies by peaceful
means; and that she would guarantee equality of economic

268

AN EMPIRE WON AND LOST 1937-1945

opportunity in the areas under her control. In reply, Japan
asserted that her intentions were peaceful and in no way a
threat to other states. Conflict could more easily be avoided, she
said, if Washington would help her to secure the oil and rubber

she needed and persuade China to accept her terms. Implicit
in this was an American demand that Japan withdraw from
China and halt her advance in South East Asia, and a Japanese
refusal to do any such thing. This brought deadlock, which the
following weeks did nothing to resolve. Prime Minister Konoe
tried to break it in August by proposing a personal meeting
between himself and President Roosevelt. The latter, however,
would not undertake it unless a measure of success were first
achieved in preliminary talks, of which there was little sign.
Later in the year Japan sent a special envoy, Kurusu Saburo,
to assist her ambassador in Washington; but since neither side
was willing to give way on matters of substance the gesture
was no more effective than those that had gone before.

In Tokyo, meanwhile, staff officers had been considering the
plans they would follow in the event of war. Two factors the
state of stockpiles and anticipated weather conditions con-
vinced them that operations would have to be begun, if at all,
not later than December 1941, which meant, in turn, that a final
decision on war or peace must be made by the beginning of
October. This conclusion was reported to the inner ckcle of
policy-makers in early September and accepted as setting a
timetable within which they should work. Yet accepting a
timetable, it proved, was easier than carrying it out. When
October came, the services announced that they were agreed
on giving priority to South East Asia and adamant against
retreat from China, thereby ensuring that the American talks
must fail. Civilian members of the government, on the other
hand, were equally unwilling to admit that hostilities must be
the unavoidable result. Unable to bring about a reconciliation,
Konoe felt he had no choice but to resign.

He did so on October 16, 1941, and was succeeded two days
later by General Top Hideki, promoted from the office of
War Minister in the belief that he would have the army's
confidence. This he undoubtedly had. A former staff officer
and the army's spokesman in the cabinet disputes of the previ-
ous weeks, he was an authoritarian of rigidly military outlook

269

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

who made an exemplary representative of the high command.
Even his nickname, 'Razor', implied an uncompromising
directness which was more appropriate to a war leader than a
saviour of the peace. To make him premier., therefore, was not
merely the latest step in a series of civilian attempts to control
the army by concession; it was also a fatal one, leading to mili-
tary dictatorship a dictatorship of the General Staff
and war.

This rapidly became apparent in the reappraisal of policy
which followed his appointment. Operational necessity was
argued more strongly than ever, until it was agreed at last,
much as it had been in September, that time for only one more
diplomatic effort remained. There was the difference, how-
ever, that on this occasion the alternative was more clearly war,
if the diplomats could not secure at least American abandon-
ment of China and extensive economic concessions, in return
for the halting of Japan's advance elsewhere. On November 5,
1941, they were given until the end of the month to secure
a settlement on these terms. Inevitably they failed, despite the
Kurusu mission. On November 26 Washington rejected the
proposals and five days later, on December i, an imperial
conference of civilian and service leaders in Tokyo took the
decision to attack. A formal statement breaking off relations
was then prepared for transmission to the American govern-
ment, only to be delayed, first by an excess of security con-
sciousness at home, then by secretarial inefficiency in the Wash-
ington embassy, so that it was not delivered until hostilities
had actually begun. In fact American intelligence agencies,
who had already broken Japan's most important code, were
able to pass a copy of the statement to the Secretary of State
some hours before he received it from the Japanese am-
bassador.

Once Japanese strategists were convinced that the United
States would not stand idly by while the countries of South
East Asia were invaded, it became axiomatic that the American
Pacific fleet, the only force capable of threatening Japan's
communications with the south, must become the first object
of attack. Accordingly, a major air strike was directed at its
Hawaiian base, Pearl Harbour, on the morning of Sunday,

270

AN EMPIRE WON AND LOST 1937-1945

December 7, 1941, by planes from a naval squadron which
had left the Kuriles ten days earlier. Surprise was complete and
success phenomenal. Eight battleships were sunk or damaged,
as were seven other vessels. Ninety per cent of America's air
and surface strength in the area was immobilized or destroyed.
Simultaneously, attacks were launched against targets in Wake,
Guam, Midway, the Philippines and Hong Kong, all of them
successful, while soon after a British battleship and battle-
cruiser from Singapore were attacked and sunk at sea.

These operations, carefully planned and brilliantly executed.,
opened the way for a series of rapid campaigns in South East
Asia. Hong Kong was forced to surrender on Christmas Day.
Landings on Luzon brought the capture of Manila on January
2, 1942, followed quickly by the occupation of the whole of
the Philippines, though an American force in Bataan held out
until the beginning of May. Other Japanese troops landed on
the east coast of Malaya, crossed the Kra isthmus, and advanced
down both sides of the peninsula, taking Kuala Lumpur
on January n and Singapore supposedly impregnable on
February 1 5 . This freed men for an assault on the Netherlands
Indies, where Dutch troops capitulated on March 9, and on
Burma, which was largely overrun by the end of April. At this
point, therefore, Japan controlled everything from Rangoon
to the mid-Pacific, from Timor to the Mongolian steppe.

Her war plans, drawn up in November 1941, had envisaged
turning the whole of this area into a Greater East Asia Co-
prosperity Sphere, with Japan, north China and Manchukuo
as its industrial base. The other countries were to provide raw
materials and form part of a vast consumer market, building
a degree of economic strength that would enable Japan, first,
to meet and contain any counter-attack from outside, then,
if all went well, to incorporate India, Australia and Russia's
Siberian provinces by further wars at a later date.

To achieve these ends it was necessary that Japanese domi-
nation be substituted for domination by the West, at least
initially, a decision that led to a cultural crusade widespread
teaching of the Japanese language, reforms of education to
eliminate 'undesirable' influences, the organization of literary
and scientific conferences, even attempts to abolish the siesta
and jazz as well as the creation of a network of new political

271

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

alignments. Some countries were from the beginning left a
large measure of independence. Indo-China, for example, was
left in the hands of the French, and Siam (Thailand), after
signing a treaty of alliance, retained its own monarchy and
administration, though both had to grant a number of special
favours to Japan. Occupied China, as represented by Wang
Ching-wei's regime, had already signed a peace agreement in
November 1940 and was eventually persuaded to declare war
on America and Britain in January 1943. This heralded an era
of greater formal equality with Japan, marked by the abolition
of Japanese concessions in the old treaty ports later in the year.
Manchukuo, of course, had always been nominally an inde-
pendent state, despite the authority of the Kwantung Army
there. This situation, like the colonial status of Korea, re-
mained unchanged.

Of the territories that had been newly conquered, Burma
produced a puppet leader, Ba Maw, who was made head of a
Japanese-sponsored administration on August i, 1942. How-
ever, real power was in the hands of his military advisers and
they retained it after the country was given independence in
the following year, when it declared war and concluded an
alliance in its turn. The Philippines, with the help of pro-
Japanese collaborators, achieved independence on October 14,
1943, though its government was able to avoid declaring war
on the allies until September 1944. In Malaya and the Nether-
lands Indies, on the other hand, because they were economically
vital, Japan was more reluctant to relinquish direct control.
Each was put under military administration, centralized and
bureaucratic in its methods, which replaced the officialdom of
the former colonial powers. Nor were freedom movements of
any kind encouraged in the first two years. Even thereafter no
very extensive promises were made, though regional councils
were established and local residents were allowed to play some
part in government. In Malaya, in fact, this was as much as was
done for the rest of the war, though in the Indies a nationalist
movement developed and was at last recognized by the Japanese
when their defeat was obvious in 1945, a fact that enabled its
leader, Dr Soekarno, to declare Indonesian independence
immediately after Japan's surrender in August of that year.

Apart from the long-term problem of maintaining these

272

AN EMPIRE WON AND LOST 1937-1945

states as dependencies, Japan's colonial policy was also directed
to the task of exploiting their anti-Western sentiments and
economic resources in support of her own defence. In this she
was a great deal less successful. For one thing, the harshness
of her rule tended to alienate the very people whose sympathy
she was trying to win. All too often executions and torture
produced, not co-operation, but hatred and resistance, which
her enemies found it easy to put to use. There was a good deal
of inefficiency, too, since the Greater East Asia Ministry,
established in November 1942, recruited most of its staff from
the diplomats and commercial representatives whom the war
had brought back from Europe and elsewhere, or from journ-
alists and traders whose jobs had given them a nodding
acquaintance with the areas to be governed. The former lacked
local knowledge, the latter administrative experience and exper-
tise, while both found it impossible to pursue any policy which
conflicted with the views of army commanders. To this handi-
cap was added a lack of trained technicians capable of restoring
the trade and industry of South East Asia, especially the
production of oil, to their former efficiency, so that the plan
for creating a powerful and self-sufficient economic bloc experi-
enced difficulties from the very start.

They were increased by the consequences of military failure.
Allied submarine attacks interfered seriously with sea com-
munications among the islands as early as 1942. When they
were supplemented by an air offensive later in the war, Japan
found herself almost completely cut off from her more distant
and more valuable possessions. Three-quarters of her mer-
chant marine had been lost by the summer of 1945 in an
attempt to keep the sea lanes open. One result was to handicap
industrial production at home, so that the traditional rivalry
between army and navy was accentuated by disputes over the
allocation of equipment, to a point at which even the co-
ordination of their respective operations was affected. Their
quarrels did much to render useless the fanatical courage with
which Japanese units fought.

Indeed, it was soon apparent that it was not going to be
easy for the services to fulfil the role which had been assigned
them, namely, of holding an extended perimeter while Japan
replenished her reserves, so that America could be persuaded

273

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

to accept a compromise peace. Not only was the economic
development of the Co-prosperity Sphere much slower,, but the
American counter-offensive was much faster, than had been
expected. The naval battles of the Coral Sea at the beginning
of May 1942 and of Midway a month later foiled Japanese
thrusts towards Australia and. Hawaii respectively, the former
being confirmed by the successful Australian defence of south-
ern New Guinea in the rest of the year. Then, as Japan's
first major repulse on land, came the American recapture of
Guadalcanal in the Solomon islands, ending after six months'
bitter fighting in February 1945. These operations, it later
appeared, marked a strategic turning-point.

During them, moreover, a new pattern of warfare was
evolving: in naval engagements, action at long range, using
aircraft from carriers as the main offensive weapons a develop-
ment which largely offset Japan's initial advantage in capital
ships and in island campaigns, close co-operation between
land, sea and air forces, preferably under unified command.
These became the main ingredients in an American 'island-
hopping' technique designed, not to regain territory in any
general sense, but to win bases from which ships and aircraft
could dominate wide areas of the west Pacific.

In January 1 943 allied leaders met at Casablanca and agreed
to divert more resources to the war against Japan. In August
they followed this up at Quebec by naming their commanders
and outlining the strategy to be used. Within a few months
forces under Admiral Chester Nimitz, acting in accordance
with these decisions, had attacked the Marshall islands in the
central Pacific, demonstrating for the first of many times the
overwhelming weight of metal that could be brought against
an island target and the speed with which it could be reduced
if enemy reinforcement were made impossible. The key base of
Kwajalein was captured in ten days' fighting in February 1944.
Saipan in the Marianas took a little longer (mid- June to early
July 1944) and involved a full fleet action, the battle of the
Philippine Sea, to cover the landings. This broke the back of
Japanese naval resistance, however, and made even more rapid
progress possible elsewhere. Guam fell in August, the Palau
group in September, completing an 'advance' of over two
thousand miles in less than a year.

2 74

AN EMPIRE WON AND LOST 1937-1945

The emphasis now swung to the South West Pacific, where
General" Douglas MacArthur was in command. In September

1 944, simultaneously with the attack on Palau, Ms forces landed
on Morotai off the northern coast of New Guinea. A month
kter they reached the Philippines, completing the occupation of
Leyte by the end of December and invading Luzon in January

1945. Manila was captured on February 5. From this point
the two commands were able to act together, their first target
being Okinawa in the Ryukyu islands, which was secured by
late June, their next an invasion of Japan itself. The Japanese
fleet was no longer a serious threat, having been virtually
destroyed in a further naval battle in the Leyte Gulf in October
1944. This left the offshore defence of the homeland to the
suicide tactics of planes and midget submarines, a kind of fight-
ing which experience at Okinawa had shown to be terrifying,
but not fully effective. Since a land campaign had also begun in
Burma, which, together with the guerilla activities of Chinese
communists and nationalists, was engaging the attention of a
substantial proportion of Japan's available troops, success for
an invasion seemed highly probable, the more so as Germany's
surrender in May 1945 enabled the allies to devote all their
efforts to it.

The first stage of preparation was the bombing of Japanese
industries and cities. The use of land-based aircraft for this
purpose had begun from Saipan the previous autumn and was
made easier by the capture of Iwojima in March 1945. Then
operations began from Okinawa, growing rapidly in frequency
and extending to the whole of Japan, so that by the summer the
country was in a state of siege. Shipping to and from the main-
land almost ceased. Most industrial centres, despite attempts
at dispersal, suffered heavy damage, while incendiary raids on
urban areas, made as an attack on Japanese morale, brought
casualties which included over 200,000 killed. Rail transport,
suffering not only from bombing but from kck of maintenance,
began to deteriorate rapidly, contributing to a situation in which
production, even of munitions, dropped sharply from its war-
time peaks. Consumer goods became wellnigh unobtainable.
Food was scarce, prices rising, black markets everywhere. Nor
was there much that was encouraging in the visual scene.
People in the streets were drab, the men in a kind of khaki

275

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

suiting that was virtually a civilian uniform, the women in
dark working-trousers or the dullest of kimono. Vehicles were
ramshackle, buses having been converted to charcoal-burning
to save fuel and their windows, like those of trains and trams,
boarded up to save replacing glass. With it all, the population
was required to work harder, and for less reward, than ever
before. Education had been curtailed to get more students into
the army and the factories. Restrictions on child and female
labour had been abolished. Even the regulations which limited
working hours, mild though they were, had been swept away.

Despite the evidence around them, press and radio con-
stantly assured the Japanese that they could win the war, if
only they would make a supreme effort sometimes it was
called a supreme sacrifice in their own defence. The enemy
had over-extended his communications; he had underestimated
Japanese strength; he would never accept the casualties which
a determined people could make him suffer. All these argu-
ments and many more were used to justify and make possible
a last-ditch stand.

Nevertheless, most of Japan's leaders had by this time few
illusions about the fact of military defeat. Some of them, like
Yoshida Shigeru, Shigemitsu Mamoru and others with a diplo-
matic background, had begun to think of a compromise peace
as early as 1943; and their influence, together with a secret war
study prepared by a member of the Naval General Staff, which
clearly indicated that victory was unattainable, won over men
close to the emperor, including the former Prime Minister,
Konoe Fumimaro. When Saipan was captured in 1944 they
moved to bring about Tojo's fall, helping to force the resigna-
tion of his cabinet on July 18. His successor, General Koiso
Kuniaki, another member of the Kwantung Army group,
proved no more amenable, but he, too, could not survive for
long in the face of a deteriorating military situation. Air raids
on Tokyo and news of the landings on Okinawa brought his
resignation on April 5, 1945. This made way for an aged and
much respected admiral, Suzuki Kantaro, who was known
privately to favour ending the war, if it could be done with
honour.

The War Minister, Anami Korechika, backed by Tojo and
the high command, was still resolutely opposed to any peace

276

AN EMPIRE WON AND LOST 1937-1945

moves. Accordingly, the talks now undertaken with the
Russian ambassador in Japan, which superseded earlier ap-
proaches made in Konoe's name to the Swedish minister, were
officially to seek a basis for improving Russo-Japanese rela-
tions, though many senior statesmen were clearly hoping to
get Russian mediation in the Pacific war. Towards the end
of June they succeeded, albeit with difficulty, in getting this
second purpose formally avowed, only to find Russia unres-
ponsive. Despite a proposal that Konoe should go to Moscow
as an imperial envoy to negotiate a peace, no progress had been
made in the discussions when the allied powers, with Russia's
concurrence, issued the Potsdam Declaration on July 26.

The declaration, made in the names of Britain, America and
China, called for the unconditional surrender of Japan, to be
followed by military occupation, demilitarization and loss of
territory. This left little prospect of the kind of settlement
which the uncommitted in Japan, especially in the services,
might have been persuaded to accept. Indeed, it brought a
temporary closing of the ranks behind those who were willing
to go down fighting. This, however, lasted only for about a
week. On August 6, 1945, the first atom bomb was dropped
on Hiroshima and three days later another destroyed most of
Nagasaki, the second coming less than twenty-four hours after
a Russian declaration of war upon Japan. To the great majority,
these events made surrender imperative and at once.

Even so, the War Minister and the two Chiefs of Staff
refused to give way, arguing throughout meetings of the
Supreme War Council and the cabinet on August 9 that
conditions must be attached to any acceptance of the allied
ultimatum. The result was deadlock, broken at last by the
emperor at an imperial conference after midnight, when he gave
a ruling in favour of those who urged that surrender be subject
only to a reservation of his own prerogatives as sovereign
ruler. In this form the message was handed to Swiss repre-
sentatives on August 10 for transmission to the allies. The
latter' s reply, making no mention of the imperial prerogative,
precipitated another series of disputes in the next few days,
which were resolved, like the previous ones, by the emperor's
intervention. The decision to surrender on the allies* terms was
therefore made public on August 15, 1945 .

K 277

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

This was not quite the end of the story, for Japan's career of
conquest was to end, as it had begun, with attempted mutiny
and disorder. Officers of the War Ministry and General Staff,
determined to prevent the emperor from broadcasting the
announcement of defeat, broke into the palace on the night of
August 14 to search for the recording of his speech, though
they did not find it. Others set fire to the homes of the Prime
Minister and President of the Privy Council. When all this failed
to reverse the decision, many, including War Minister Anami
himself, committed suicide, several doing so on the plaza
opposite the palace gates. It was in this turbulent atmosphere
that orders were given for a ceasefire on August 16 and a new
government, headed by an imperial prince to give it greater
prestige, formed the following day to see that they were
carried out. By September 2, when members of it signed the
instrument of surrender aboard the American flagship in
Tokyo Bay, American troops had already begun to arrive for
the occupation of Japan.

278

CHAPTER XV

REFORM AND REHABILITATION
1945-1962

American occupation demilitarisation -political and constitu-
tional reform judiciary reform of labour laws^ land tenure
and education peace treaty -foreign relations -politics after
195 2 industrial recovery and growth

THE LANGUAGE in which the Japanese emperor told his
people of the decision to surrender was elliptical in the extreme.
'Despite the best that has been done by everyone/ he said,
\ . . the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's
advantage/ 78 Accordingly, in order to avoid further bloodshed,
perhaps even c the total extinction of human civilization', Japan
would have to 'endure the unendurable and suffer what is
insufferable*. For these reasons it had been decided to accept
the allied terms.

What this meant in practice was very soon made clear. The
appearance of American airborne forces in Tokyo and of an
allied fleet at anchor off Yokosuka, the orders given to Japanese
troops overseas to lay down their arms and to those in Japan
to disperse quietly to their towns and villages, all this brought
home vividly the reality of defeat. In the Tokyo- Yokohama
area the population stayed as much as possible indoors, fearing
atrocities and reprisals. Everywhere, as they looked to their
leaders for instructions, or at least for news of what was going
on, they found their country's administration, like its economy,
in chaos. To a nation that had for weeks been exhorted to work
harder and prepare itself for a last-ditch stand, the change was
bewildering, notwithstanding the bombing, the shortages and
the other signs of disaster which had been multiplying on every

279

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

side for the previous year. The war's ending brought a sense
of relief, therefore, but also a shock of disillusion. In its train
came a numbness and a dull apathy, evident in the way people
walked, in the silence of the crowds, in the conscientious
provision of entertainment for the conqueror.

So sharp was the break with what had gone before that one
is tempted to regard it as the end, not of a chapter, but of a
story, to treat all that followed as something new. Indeed, in
many ways it was. For defeat seems to have been a catharsis,
exhausting the emotions which Japanese had hitherto brought
to their relations with the outside world, as well as opening the
way for experiments in social and political institutions. In both
respects it has had a profound effect. On the other hand, the
change of direction can easily be overstated. Once the shock
wore off and Japanese again began to take the initiative in
directing their country's affairs, they gave to the new some-
thing of the flavour of the old: in society and politics, a little
less of America of the 19405, a little more of Japan of the
19205; in attitudes and ideas, a resumption of trends and con-
troversies which had been diverted or suppressed by ultra-
nationalism; in economic development, the exploitation of
wartime experience to establish a fresh industrial pattern and
promote an astonishing growth. The result is that seventeen
years after surrender one can trace a far greater continuity with
the past the recent past than would at one time have seemed
possible. Hence an account of this period is not a mere post-
script to what has gone before, but the continuation, if at a
tangent, of the story of Japan's attempts to come to terms with
the modern world.

The occupation of Japan was in all vital respects an American
undertaking. It is true that a small British Commonwealth
force, mostly Australian, shared the military tasks. It is also
true that there was an elaborate machinery of international
control, headed by a Far Eastern Commission in Washington,
on which were represented all the countries that had fought
against Japan. In practice, however, the execution of policy
was in the hands of General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme
Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP). As American
commander-in-chief in the area he took orders only from the

280

REFORM AND REHABILITATION 1945-1962

United States government,, through which the decisions of the
Far Eastern Commission were also transmitted to him; and a
natural tendency for the distinction between his two functions
to become blurred meant that before long he and his immediate
superiors were exercising a good deal of discretion in carrying
policy out, the more so as the international committees were
often deadlocked.

To assist him in Tokyo, the Supreme Commander had an
enormous staff, both military and civil, forming a bureaucracy
very nearly as complex, if not so large, as that of Japan itself.
Few of its members had much knowledge or experience of the
country they had to govern, a circumstance which led them at
times to transplant American institutions to Japan, not be-
cause they were necessarily appropriate, but because they were
familiar. Moreover, they lacked the means of ensuring that
SCAP directives were put fully into effect, since acceptance of
the need to work through a Japanese government, together
with the difficulty of checking on its operations because of the
shortage of trained allied personnel, made possible a consider-
able divergence between intention and result. If one adds the
problems posed by the attempt to instil democracy through
military conquest, it is surprising, one might conclude, not that
mistakes were made, but that the occupation achieved so much
that was of real significance.

The basic lines on which it was to work were first set out by
the American government and later approved by the Far
Eastern Commission. Most straightforward was the plan to
demilitarize Japan, in accordance with which military supplies
and installations were destroyed, over two million men demobi-
lized at home, over three million (and as many civilians) repatri-
ated from overseas. There was talk as well of stripping factories
of their equipment to provide reparations for the countries
which Japan had attacked, though little was actually done.
Punishment, indeed, took a different form. Partly it was
accomplished by depriving Japan of all the territorial gains she
had made since 1868, including, that is, both the Ryukyu and
Kurile islands. Partly it involved the trial of Var criminals':
the leaders who had brought about the war, twenty-five of
whom were tried in Tokyo by an international tribunal between
May 1946 and November 1948 (seven, including To jo, being

281

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

condemned to hang, the rest to prison sentences); senior
officers of the services, commanding in areas where atrocities
had occurred (all but two of whom successfully denied responsi-
bility); and thousands more, accused of individual acts of
cruelty and murder. Of the latter, many were brought before
courts abroad, but in Yokohama alone 700 were sentenced to
death and 3,000 to various terms in prison.

Nevertheless, punishment was not the only, nor, after the
first few months, the primary object of the occupation. The
Potsdam declaration had announced the allies' intention of
removing c all obstacles to the revival and strengthening of
democratic tendencies among the Japanese people'. 79 One
measure immediately taken in this direction was a political
amnesty, by which all those who had tried unsuccessfully to
oppose the wartime and prewar governments in Japan were
released from gaol: communists, socialists, and liberals of every
kind, many of whom had been in prison for several years.
Another step was the logical corollary to this, namely, the
removal from public life from key posts in administration,
politics, education, the press and radio, even certain businesses
of all those whose close connection with the old order would
lead them, it was thought, to sabotage the new. A few were
identified personally, on the basis of their records. Many more
were identified simply by the jobs they held, a method which
caused much injustice, but made the procedure quick and
thorough in its operation. In fact s the 'purge', as it was called,
affected over 200,000 persons, so that the inroads made into
Japanese leadership were heavy enough not only to weaken
the hold of tradition on society, but also to reduce efficiency
for a time as well.

Meanwhile, with American encouragement parties had been
formed to replace the Imperial Rule Assistance Association,
the most powerful of them, the Liberals and Progressives, being
composed of those prewar conservative politicians who sur-
vived the purge. In the centre there appeared an uneasy com-
bination of moderates and socialists, the Social Democratic
Party, while a fringe of radical organizations came into exist-
ence on the left. Of these, the Communists, free to work
openly for the first time in many years, received a great stimulus
from the return to Japan in January 1946 of Nosaka Sanzo,

282

REFORM AND REHABILITATION 1945-1962

the most able of their exiled leaders, who had been working
for the Comintern in Moscow and then in China with Mao
Tse-tung. By 1949 Ms slogans of 'peaceful revolution* and
*a lovable Communist Party' had won the support of three
million voters, nearly 10 per cent of the electorate.

In addition there were all sorts of small, local parties, their
numbers estimated at over 300 by the spring of 1946, which
represented everything from the lunatic fringe to ambitious
individuals. A good many of their members, like most of the
independents at least those who were successful at the polls
turned out to be conservatives, so that the latter, putting all
parties together, were able to command nearly two-thirds of
the country's votes. In the elections of April 1946, 24 per cent
went to the Liberals and 19 per cent to the Progressives, giving
them, respectively, 140 and 94 seats. So in May the Liberal
leader, Yoshida Shigeru, an ex-diplomat with a record of
opposition to the army, formed a government which included
members from both parties. During the next year, however,
the Progressives disappeared and the moderate right was
reorganized as the Democratic Party, led by Ashida Hitoshi.
This gained something like parity with the Liberals in the
election of 1947, both winning about 25 per cent of the votes,
as did the Social Democrats; but it was the latter, holding 143
seats, who emerged as just the largest Diet party. Ashida threw
in Ms lot with them, first in a coalition government under the
Socialist, Katayama Tetsu, in May 1947, then under Ms own
leadersMp from March 1948, but the inability of the cabinet
to be either socialist or liberal, partly because of its own
disunity, partly because of conservative strength, forced Ms
resignation six months later. TMs brought back YosMda and
Ms party, who remained in power for the next six years. In the
elections of January 1949 they secured a clear majority the
first since the war by returning 264 members to the lower
house. The Democrats were relegated to second place with
sixty-nine seats; the Social Democrats, badly split between a
parliamentary right and a Marxist left, got only forty-eight;
and the Communists, winning thirty-five, made their first
significant gains.

By tMs time the parties were operating witMn an entirely
new political and social framework. For during its first three

283

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

years the occupation had brought changes in the constitution,
local government, the judiciary, law, labour relations, land
tenure and education which seemed likely to revolutionize
Japanese life.

A summary of them begins logically with the constitution,
which was drafted in MacArthur's headquarters early in 1946,
when it began to appear that Japanese officials were responding
too slowly to the hints that they should act themselves. An-
nounced on March 6, 1947, its text, both in language and
content, betrayed its origin. For this it has been criticized, even
mocked, both in Japan and abroad. Yet by putting power
firmly into the hands of the Diet it did something that the
Japanese might have found it difficult to do on their own.
-Both houses of the new assembly were to be elective: a House
of Councillors of 250 members, half of them standing for
election every three years, of whom 60 per cent were to repre-
sent prefectures and 40 per cent to be chosen on a single
national vote; and a House of Representatives of 467 members,
drawn from 118 electoral districts, which would each choose
three to five. The lower house, like the British House of
Commons, could be dissolved if the government wished to
hold a general election; the upper house, like the American
Senate, could not. However, the right of decision on almost all
matters rested in the last resort with the lower house. In the
event of disagreement a finance bill would become law thirty
days after the Representatives passed it and any other bill,
after rejection by the Councillors, become law if the lower
house passed it again by a majority of two-thirds. Similarly, the
lower house was to elect the Prime Minister, whose cabinet
was responsible, if to the Diet in name, to the Representatives
in fact. The only important limitation on the power of the
Representatives was that revision of the constitution required
a two-thirds vote oteach house, ratified by a simple majority in
a national referendum.

One object achieved by these constitutional arrangements
was to create a system in which there was a single centre of
authority, controlled by popular vote, instead of one in which
the emperor's supposedly supreme prerogatives were exercised
piecemeal by different civil and military groups. Inevitably this
involved a restatement of the position of the Throne. The

284

REFORM AND REHABILITATION 1945-1962

emperor became c the symbol of the State . . . deriving his
position from the will of the people with whom resides sov-
ereign power'. 80 His actions were made subject to cabinet
approval and their scope was specified, a change which
aroused profound misgivings among conservatives, but which
the Court's advisers accepted, even welcomed. They began to
shape the monarchy in a new image, doing so with such success
that within a few years, by carefully planning the emperor's
public appearances and speeches, they had made him the focus
of a loyalty based rather on affection than on awe. By this
means they did much for the Throne's stability and prestige at
a time when defeat had left both seriously threatened.

Other changes, outlined in the constitution and worked out
in detail during the next few months, were those in local
government. The Home Ministry was abolished and most of
its functions were dispersed, being entrusted to prefectural and
city administrations which were to be headed by elected gov-
ernors and mayors. Local assemblies were also to be elected, as
in the past, but they were now to be given extensive powers.
Education became largely a local matter, while each area
acquired its own police force and civil service, paid for out of
local taxes, the intention being to foster 'grass-roots demo-
cracy' by giving communities a chance to ran thek own affairs.
Unfortunately, as it transpired, the units were often made too
small, so that many of them found finance an intractable prob-
lem. The smaller the unit, moreover, the more parochial its
outlook to the detriment of social services, in particular
and the easier it was for political 'bosses' to control it. For these
reasons, notwithstanding the degree of popular participation
that was achieved, this aspect of reform was among the least
successful.

American example, which inspired decentralization, was also
followed in separating the judiciary from the executive. Admin-
istrative supervision of the courts was transferred from the
Ministry of Justice to a newly-established Supreme Court, to
which was deputed also the task of appointing judges (except
its own members, which were to be nominated by the cabinet)
and of pronouncing on the constitutionality of laws. This
meant that it became the guardian of a wide range of provisions
concerning human rights which had been written into the

285

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

constitution, not least those giving women full legal and
political equality with men. And votes for women meant the
addition of several million voters to the electoral register, all,
presumably, with reason to support the new regime.

Equally important was the revision of the labour laws, for
this, too, had the effect of creating powerful interests com-
mitted to maintaining the reforms. A Trade Union Act in 1945
and a Labour Relations Act in 1946 gave Japanese workers
the right to organize and strike, while a Labour Standards Act
in 1947 gave them a guarantee of better working conditions,
a health insurance scheme and accident compensation. They
were quick to seize the opportunities this offered. By the end
of 1948 some 34,000 unions had been formed, having a total
of nearly seven million members. This represented over 40 per
cent of the industrial labour force; and although there was a
drop to 5 5 million members in 1949-51, because of govern-
ment action against the left-wing movement generally, numbers
rose again to over 6 million thereafter and have remained at
about that level. Something like half are affiliated to the
General Council of Trade Unions (Sohyo), formed in 1950
under Socialist leadership, which has been the most influential
of several postwar national federations.

The encouragement of trade unions had the result, not
entirely premeditated, of increasing the turbulence of Japanese
politics, especially in the towns. Land reform, by contrast,
which was planned in the belief that agrarian unrest had con-
tributed to Japanese aggression, reduced tensions in the coun-
tryside to a point lower than they had ever been in modern
times. The first proposals for it were prepared by Japanese
officials and submitted to the government in November 1945.
They were emasculated by the Diet, which would have thrown
them out entirely had it not feared American intervention, and
in their revised form were promptly vetoed by MacArthur,
who substituted a draft proposed by the Australian representa-
tive in Japan, MacMahon Ball. This was sent privately to the
Japanese cabinet in June 1946 and forced through a reluctant
lower house, becoming law on October 21. It provided for the
compulsory purchase of all land held by absentee landlords.
Owner-farmers and resident landlords were to be allowed to
retain an area ranging from 12 cho (just under 30 acres) in

286

REFORM AND REHABILITATION 1945-1962

Hokkaido to an average, varying with local conditions, of 3 cbo
elsewhere, not more than a third of which was to be let to
tenants. Everything above these limits was to be sold to the
government at rates feed in relation to the artificially low
controlled prices for agricultural products ruling in 1945, which
had long since been overtaken by inflation and offered to the
existing tenants on easy terms. The terms were made all the
easier in the event by a fall in the value of money and the
farmer's ability to charge black market prices for food, which
wiped out farm debts and left even the poorest families with
a modest cash reserve.

Some idea of the scope of what was done can be gained from
the overall statistics: more than a million cho of rice-paddy and
a little less than 800,000 cho of upland (i ^0=2-45 acres)
bought from 2 - 3 million landlords by August 1950 and sold to
4-7 million tenants. To put it differently, land under tenancy
agreements, over 40 per cent of the whole before 1946, dropped
to a mere 10 per cent, while the share of owner-cultivators rose
to 90 per cent. There were still inequalities, of course. Since
the least affluent landowners, who were the great majority,
had had to get rid of only a small proportion of their land,
their tenants had less chance of buying it than did those of
former absentees. Similarly, there was room for much manoeuv-
ring in the choice of plots to be sold, a topic which greatly
exercised the land committees, each consisting of five tenants,
three landlords and two owner-farmers, which were set up in
every village to settle details and prevent evasion. Neverthe-
less, the reform made Japan substantially a country of peasant
proprietors. Even such tenancy as remained was of a very dif-
ferent kind from that which had existed before the war. In
place of high rents, which on rice-paddy had been almost
invariably paid in kind and represented approximately half the
crop, were substituted moderate rents in cash, with written
contracts providing security of tenure. Although one must
set against this a measurable decline in paternalism, which in
backward areas, at least, had to some extent mitigated the
harshness of the previous system, it would be difficult to deny
that the changes brought c a considerable increase in the sum
of human happiness in Japanese villages'. 81

One is tempted to say that education reforms performed a

287

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

similar service for Japanese children, since they affected the
manner, as well as the matter, of teaching and introduced a far
freer atmosphere into schools. Wartime chauvinism had caused
a re-writing of textbooks in nationalist terms, together with an
increase in military training and indoctrination. The first cor-
rectives, therefore, were negative: the abolition of suspect
courses, the withdrawal of offending books. Early in 1 946, how-
ever, an educational mission arrived from the United States,
and its recommendations, quickly carried out, led to a complete
reorganization on American lines. Administration, as we have
already said, was decentralized, being put under elected boards
at the prefectural and municipal level. Compulsory education
was extended to a full nine years. The first six of these were to
be in elementary school, the rest in a new kind of co-educational
middle school, which would offer pupils a wide choice in the
courses they wished to take. Beyond this came an optional
three-year high school course, leading to university entrance.

At first there were many problems. A desperate shortage of
buildings for a school population so suddenly enlarged was
only partly solved by a recourse to shift-work. Teachers, strug-
gling with huge classes, had to do so without books it was
several years before new ones were written and available and
under a barrage of advice about educational method. "Subjects'
were to disappear, in favour of a 'core 5 curriculum and 'inte-
grated projects'; 'ethics' was to give way to 'civics'; and the
day's work was no longer to begin with an obeisance to the
emperor's portrait. It is not surprising that there was confusion
and many mistakes, provoking the criticism that postwar
children knew less and behaved worse than their fathers had
ever done. Yet as the teachers gained experience and were
joined by a generation that had itself been trained in the newer
ways, something appeared on the credit side as well: a liveliness
of outlook, more flexibility, less formality and restraint. It
remains to be seen whether this will be, as it was intended that
it should, a guarantee of continuing democracy.

University education fared little differently, in the sense that
an attempt was made to impose on it an alien pattern. A de-
cision, taken by the occupation authorities in 1946, that there
should be at least one university in every prefecture, precipi-
tated a scramble among special high schools, technical colleges

288

REFORM AND REHABILITATION 1945-1962

and similar bodies, either singly or in combination, to win
university status. As a result Japan's universities, already
seventy in number before the war, increased to over 200, the
majority being of little consequence or reputation. On the
other hand, the fact that academic staffs were both conservative
and entrenched has prevented much change in the curriculum.
A certain reduction in specialization for undergraduates and
the introduction of new graduate courses of the American type
are the most obvious changes, at least in the older and more
respected institutions; though many observers would add,
perhaps, that the students have changed much more, notably in
their political allegiance to the radical left. In this, indeed, as in
the activities of trade unions, the occupation reforms had effects
which their authors might not have described as democratic.

On the other hand, democracy and reform were no longer the
chief preoccupations of MacArthur's headquarters after the
enthusiasm of the first two years died down. For by 1948 con-
siderations of international politics were beginning to shape
matters in a different way: first, because of a sharp deterioration
in Russo- American relations; secondly, because of the growing
strength of the communists in China, which threatened to leave
America without a Far East ally. Together these developments
shifted the emphasis to the strategic aspects of America's
position in Japan, giving greater importance to the country's
role as a base, less to its interest as a subject of political experi-
ment. The trend became stronger after the communist victory
in the Chinese civil war in 1949 and the outbreak of hostilities
in Korea in June 1950, when Japan became vital to the United
Nations forces, mostly American, which were defending Syng-
man Rhee's republic against Korean and Chinese incursions
from the north.

One early sign of the change in atmosphere was the pressure
put on left-wing movements in Japan. The right of Japanese
trade unions to strike had always been subject to the veto of
occupation officials, as had been demonstrated in February
1947, when a proposed general stoppage of work was banned
on economic grounds. But strike action was now to be limited
for other than strictly economic reasons. In July 1948 at SCAP
insistence civil servants were prohibited from resorting to it,

289

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

the rule being extended to local government employees shortly
after. Then came revision of the Trade Union Act in 1949,
putting restrictions on the political activity of many workers,
and revival of the 'purge' regulations., in order that they might
be applied to communists. Over 20,000 were said to have been
dismissed from jobs in government, education and industry
during 1949 and 1950, some even from the unions themselves.

It was also in 1949 that MacArthur authorized the Japanese
government to review the application of the purges of 1946
and 1 947. Progress in this was slow at first, but the pace quick-
ened after June 1950, so that almost all those originally affected
had regained their political rights by the end of 1 9 5 1 . Not many
of them were restored to positions of influence, for their suc-
cessors were by this time well established and showed little
desire to make room for an older generation at the top; but a
number won election to the Diet or even pkces in the cabinet,
their presence there helping to intensify the growing con-
servatism of Japanese public life.

Further evidence that American policy-makers were recon-
sidering the past came from their handling of the question of
rearmament. The 1946 constitution, supposedly at the insis-
tence of the Supreme Commander, had included a clause to the
effect that c the Japanese people forever renounce war as a
sovereign right of the nation'. It also bound them never again
to maintain an army, navy or air force. In the situation immedi-
ately after the war, in which Japan appeared as a defeated
enemy, whose military revival was to be prevented, this pro-
vision had seemed good sense; but there was much less to be
said for it in 1950, when she was a potential ally. Accordingly,
in July of that year permission was given for the creation of a
National Police Reserve, a para-military force 75,000 strong,
which was to take over from American troops the responsi-
bility for security within the country. Thereafter, American
urging plus Japanese right-wing support got the force's size
and functions gradually extended despite fierce opposition
from those Japanese who objected to the cost or the flagrant
evasion of the constitution which this entailed until by 1960,
renamed the National Defence Force, it had emerged as a fully
military organization, having land, sea and air arms of sub-
stantial size, all equipped with the most modern weapons.

290

REFORM AND REHABILITATION 1945-1962

Long before this had happened, Japan had also regained her
formal independence. Logic suggested that a free Japan under
a friendly and conservative government would make America
a better ally than one condemned to continuing foreign rule.
Equally, most of what could be done by an occupying power
to promote democracy had been completed in the first few
years, the rest depending on Japanese acceptance of the changes
and a willingness to make them work. General MacArthur
whose reports consistently overstated the success of 'democra-
tizing' policies in any case had been considering the possibility
of concluding a peace treaty on these grounds as early as 1947;
and although he was not at that time able to carry Washington
with him, the international developments of the next three
years, especially the Korean war, gave his arguments much
greater weight. They also ruled out any possibility of joint
action by the Far Eastern Commission, leaving America to
conduct the negotiations very largely on her own.

The resulting treaty was signed at San Francisco in Sep-
tember 1951 by most of the countries which had fought in the
Pacific War. Russia refused to accept it, as did India and main-
land China. But since these three played no direct part in
governing Japan the military occupation came to an end when
the treaty was ratified in April 1952. This did not mean a with-
drawal of the occupation forces, however, since Japan, having
little choice in the matter, had also signed a defence agree-
ment by which she undertook to continue providing bases for
American troops, ships and aircraft, thereby committing herself
to an American alliance which was to cause considerable diffi-
culties in her relations with Russia and the Asian neutrals.

Russia was in a position to drive a hard bargain. In the first
place, having occupied the Kurile islands and southern Sakhalin
at the end of the war, she controlled all routes of access to
Japan's former fishing grounds in the Sea of Okhotsk. These
she could threaten to close or limit, at the same time holding
out the hope that Japan might, if amenable, recover one or
two of the islands nearest Hokkaido. Moreover, possession of
a veto in the United Nations Organization enabled her to block
all Japanese attempts to seek election to that body. Yet while
Russia was willing to use these weapons to strengthen her
diplomacy, Japan's economic, as well as military, dependence

291

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

on the United States ensured for her part a resistance to both
threats and temptation, so that there was little improvement in
the relations between the two for several years. It was not until
June 195 5, in fact, that an easing of international tension made
it possible for them to open peace talks through their ambassa-
dors in London. These ended in deadlock in March 1956
because of disagreement on the territorial issue Japan de-
manded, and Russia refused, a return to the 1 8 5 5 division of
the Kurile islands, that is, with Japan holding Kunashiri
and Etorofu and the Japanese Foreign Minister, Shigemitsu
Mamoru, was unable to make any progress on this point when
he visited Moscow in August. But in October 1956 a settle-
ment was reached on other matters: normal diplomatic rela-
tions were to be restored and a trade pact signed, the territorial
question being temporarily shelved. As a result Japan became
a member of the United Nations in December, as soon as
ratifications of this agreement had been exchanged, and was
elected to the Security Council in October of the following
year. Nevertheless, fisheries and the dispute over the Kuriles
continued to bedevil Russo-Japanese relations, with Russia
still seeking to use them to weaken Japanese ties with the
United States. In 1961-62 she added a further inducement,
namely, proposals for an expansion of trade, though still not
on a scale which could match what America had to offer.

Trade, in fact, was a weapon which Communist China could
use to better advantage, for as a market and a source of raw
materials the mainland had always been of immense importance
to Japan. This was reflected in the readiness with which
Japanese businessmen overcame their conservative scruples
about dealing with the communists after 1949. On the other
hand, America's policy imposed severe limitations on "trading
with the enemy', applying to her friends as well as to herself,
and Japanese governments held firmly to the American alliance
in refusing recognition to Peking. This was much resented in
Japan, even though it was easy to see that the new China
powerful, nationalist, and committed to a programme of rapid
industrialization was not going to offer opportunities for
profit in any sense comparable with those of the recent past.
Businessmen, to say nothing of left-wing politicians, did their
best to get the restrictions eased. In July 1957 they were partly

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REFORM AND REHABILITATION 1945-1962

successful, for Japan agreed to put the China trade on the same
footing as that with Russia, removing embargoes on the export
of rubber, various metals and a wide range of industrial equip-
ment in which China was showing interest. Within a year a
number of valuable contracts had been signed, notwithstanding
the fact that political relations between the two countries
showed little change.

Japan's relations with the non-communist world, too, came
to be determined for the most part by the needs of trade. Her
attempts to revive it were for some time hampered by resent-
ments arising from the war or her former colonial policies,
especially on the part of countries like Australia and South
Korea, while in South East Asia there were difficulties about
reparations to be solved. Again, many people retained sus-
picions, dating from the 19305, about Japanese commercial
practices, such as led Britain among others to refuse to extend
to Japan the full benefits of the General Agreement on Tariffs
and Trade, to which she became a party in 195 5. Nor did the
Japanese themselves always act in a manner best calculated to
overcome foreign prejudice. On one occasion, for example,
when on a goodwill tour to India and her neighbours, the
Prime Minister, Kishi Nobusuke, let slip the word 'Co-
prosperity'. On another a Japanese politician, visiting Manila,
took with him two ex-members of the gendarmerie who had
helped to terrorize that city during the war. Fortunately such
incidents were rare and had only a temporary effect, so that
progress was steady, if slow, and the reputation for quality
which Japanese goods increasingly enjoyed did a great deal to
maintain it. This, however, is a subject to which we must
return when we discuss economic development in general.

The peace treaty and its repercussions in foreign affairs were
not the only results of the events of 1949-5 1, for in domestic
politics they confirmed the domination of the conservatives
and gave them an opportunity to effect a change of policy
which they had long desired. The anti-left-wing proclivities of
occupation headquarters in its last two years greatly helped
them in this, of course. More important, however, was a change
that occurred in Japanese opinion. Time, perhaps inevitably,
brought a revulsion against the spate of ( Western' innovations

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THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

in Japan, such as had occurred at the end of the nineteenth
century and again in the 19305; and it led to a turning back a
little towards tradition, albeit a tradition expressed in terms
of a very Westernized modern growth. The upshot was the
'reverse course', a re-examination, sometimes a revision, of a
number of the occupation reforms.

The constitution was one target, for to many it seemed that
the country's military establishment, now that independence
had been regained, ought to be made more obviously legal
than it had been so far. Decentralization was another, partly
because it was said to be inefficient, partly because it had been
applied most vigorously to conservative institutions like the
bureaucracy and the police. Education also came under fire,
chiefly for its failure to provide a training in ethics. Advocates
of such training were careful to deny that they wished to
restore prewar nationalism under another guise, but they were
loud in their condemnation of a system which failed to substi-
tute for it standards of any kind at all. Politics apart, they even
found a certain sympathy for this view among the teachers,
some of whom were finding it difficult to discover what kind
of citizen the course in civics at anything more than a very
elementary level was intended to produce.

Since the "reverse course' was a policy of the right-wing
parties, usually coupled with strictures on the 'excessive' liber-
ties which had been granted to trade unions and the individual
citizen in the postwar years, it is not surprising that the
socialists and the labour movement opposed it bitterly. On the
other hand, they had less power to do so in the Diet than they
would have liked. Yoshida's Liberals, profiting from the peace
treaty's popularity, won an absolute majority in the elections
of October 1952. The Reform Party, formerly the Democrats,
also held a substantial number of seats, thus ensuring the con-
servatives a firm hold on the lower house. They maintained
it in the elections of April 1953 and February 1955, despite
factional struggles which led to shifts in party labels and
allegiances. Yoshida, for example, was challenged within his
own party in 195 3 by its former leader, Hatoyama Ichiro, who
had been purged in 1947 and apparently expected to take over
the reins again when he returned to politics in 1951; and the
split, together with a steady decline in the government's popular

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REFORM AND REHABILITATION 1945-1962

appeal, forced the Prime Minister's resignation in December
1954. Only two weeks earlier Hatoyama had formed a new
Democratic Party, composed of forty-two Liberal renegades
and eight-two members of the other rightwiag Diet groups,
whose votes helped to make him premier in Yoshida's stead.
He then won a general election at the beginning of 1955,
relegating the Liberals to second place. Since he commanded
no more than a plurality, however, he was unable to remain in
office without their help, a fact which led to a merger in Novem-
ber, creating the Liberal-Democrats. Hatoyama, though not
without difficulty, became their leader. Indeed, it was soon
apparent that the reorganization had not so much achieved
unity as turned separate parties into factions of a larger whole.
When Hatoyama resigned because of ill health in December
1956, he was succeeded, again after much debate, by Ishibashi
Tanzan, but within two months Ishibashfs health had given
way in turn and Kishi Nobusuke had taken over. This was at
the end of February 1957, the Kishi cabinet surviving until
July 1960, when it was replaced by that of Ikeda Hayato.

All the cabinets after Yoshida's Kishi's was reshuffled in
the summer of every year had the look of conservative coali-
tions. Despite this, the Liberal-Democrats were able to secure
about 5 8 per cent of the votes and 290 seats in the elections
of May 1958 and November 1960. Against this the Socialists
had little more than half as many, the disparity revealing how
slowly they had recovered from the setbacks of 1949. The
peace treaty had in fact brought into the open the basic ideo-
logical divisions with the Socialist Party, so that it went to the
polls in 1952 as two independent units, the right supporting
the treaty, the left rejecting it. Each secured something over
fifty seats, a little more than they had won between them in
1949. In the 1953 elections the right increased its total to sixty-
six seats, the left to seventy-two, and in 195 5 the figures were
sixty-seven and eighty-nine respectively. But this was not
enough to give either a chance of power. In October 1955,
therefore, they re-united, setting an example, as we have seen,
which their opponents were quick to follow. Nevertheless,
the Social Democrats, as they were now to be called, continued
to make only modest progress: 166 seats in 1958, 172 in 1960,
the latter including seventeen held by a splinter group of

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THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

moderates, the Democratic Socialists, who had broken away
at the end of 1959.

Nor could the opposition expect much help from Com-
munists, whose parliamentary representation had been wiped
out by the Korean war. Russian, or rather Cominform, critic-
ism of Nosaka's peaceful line in 1950, together with suspicions
that the party had had foreknowledge of the North Korean
attack, had cost it most of its public support. Government
action, the so-called 'Red Purge', had then completed its dis-
comfiture. As a result, Communist leaders and much of the
party machinery went underground, preparing to pursue 'mili-
tant' policies instead of wooing votes. They lost every single
seat in the elections of 1952, regained one in April 1953, two
in February 1955; and although there were signs of a return
to the Nosaka policies soon after, confirmed by his emergence
from hiding and assumption of leadership later in the year, the
long interval of militancy had done damage which it proved
impossible to repair. The left-wing Socialists, chief benefici-
aries of Communist failure at the polls, held what they gained,
so that no more than three Communist members were elected
to the lower house in 1960.

One might summarize what has been said above as follows:
the conservative membership of the House of Representatives
had fallen slightly, from over 70 per cent in 1952 to just under
65 per cent in 1960; that of the socialists had risen from 25 per
cent to 3 5 per cent in the same period; and the Communists
had ceased to be a major factor in Diet proceedings. It follows
that governments and their policies in these years, whatever
their labels, were consistently conservative. Surprisingly, how-
ever, the 'reverse course* met with less success than these facts
would have led one to expect.

One of its elements, constitutional reform, without which
rearmament could not be made official, was blocked by the left
continuing to hold more than a third of the seats in the upper
house, even when it was at its weakest in the lower. Other
proposals, like those for education, suffered a similar fate for
different reasons, being defeated not by votes but by extra-
parliamentary pressures. Thus a draft for an ethics course in
schools, prepared by the Education Minister in 1951, was so
widely criticized by press and public for its reactionary content

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REFORM AND REHABILITATION 1945-1962

that it was withdrawn. A bill to give the ministry power to
license textbooks met the same response and was defeated in
the Diet in 195 6. Local education boards, in fact, were the only
part of the educational structure to be effectively attacked,
being revised in April of that year. The pattern held good for
efforts to revise the police administration, too: in 1954 the Diet
abolished all the smaller forces, consolidating them into pre-
fectural units, with a national police to carry out co-ordination;
but a bill to give the police more powers, including rights
of arbitrary arrest, aroused such an outcry in October and
November 1958 that the Kishi government found it best to
drop it.

The methods adopted by the Socialist Party in these disputes
were in some respects as retrogressive as the measures they were
designed to oppose. Attempts to obstruct Diet business, some-
times by a refusal to conduct debates, sometimes even by the
use of force, were reminiscent of the 19203. So, indeed, was
the situation in which they were applied, since the Socialists
were an opposition with little immediate hope of coming to
power and an extremist wing, never fully committed to parlia-
mentary means, which was willing to sacrifice long-term in-
terests to short-term gains. Certainly the extremists, becoming
steadily stronger as the prospects of office grew more remote,
took the lead in exploiting the party's links with trade unions,
student organizations and similar bodies. At their instigation,
strikes, demonstrations and petitions were constantly used to
influence the Diet vote, so that in 1958, for example, during
the struggle over the Police Duties Bill, the General Council
of Trade Unions (Sohyo) brought out over four million workers
in protest rallies against the government's proposals.

This kind of politics was effective because there was a
measure of public sympathy for the aims it tried to achieve
itself a tribute to the success of what America had set out to
do and because the nature of Japanese society made it easier
to organize such sympathy behind specific protests than to
rally it against the government in elections. Many Japanese,
who for one reason or another were committed to supporting
a conservative candidate, were not entirely at one with the
policies his party pursued. Accordingly, they welcomed the
opportunity to criticize some of its actions without taking the

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THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

mote drastic, and perhaps more embarrassing, step of recording
their sentiment at the polls.

The tendency was greater still in discussions of foreign
affairs. The American alliance was accepted as necessary, even
beneficial, by a majority, their arguments reinforced by grati-
tude for the humanitarian and constructive purposes of the
occupation. On the other hand, there was a certain uneasiness
at Japan becoming involved in the 'cold war'. There was also
a lingering Pan-Asianism, which led to the feeling that Japan
'ought' to belong to a neutralist Afro-Asian bloc; a revulsion
against the atomic bomb, more often evident in hostility to
American nuclear tests, which got more publicity, than to
Russian; and a stirring of nationalism, bringing resentment
of Japan's apparently 'dependent' status vis-a-vis the United
States. All these were emotions which the Socialists, backed by
Communists and the surviving ultranationalists, could use.
And incidents inevitably arose on which they could be focused.
In October 1956 hundreds were injured when residents of the
village of Sunakawa, helped by students and trade unionists,
demonstrated against a plan to extend a neighbouring Ameri-
can airbase at the expense of agricultural land. Legal wrangles
over the arrests that were made dragged on for nearly three
years, including at one point a surprise ruling from the Tokyo
District Court quickly overruled on appeal that the presence
of American bases in Japan was contrary to the constitution.
In 1957 came another cause celebre, concerning an American
sentry who shot a Japanese woman collecting metal for scrap
on a firing range. The issue this time was whether the trial
was to be in a civil (Japanese) court or a military (American)
one, raising questions of legality which involved the constitu-
tions of both countries; and it was not until after much pub-
licity that the Japanese court was adjudged to have priority.
It promptly released the man on a suspended sentence.

The most famous of all these affairs, which arose in 1960,
brought down a government. Recognizing that no adminis-
tration could afford to ignore entirely the objections to the
American connection many of which were traditionalist and
hence conservative Prime Minister Kishi sought new arrange-
ments which would provide sops to Japanese pride. For
example, he said, Japan ought to have some kind of say in

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REFORM AND REHABILITATION 1945-1962

deciding the use to which American bases on her soil were put.
Unfortunately, however, an agreement embodying this and
other changes, signed in Washington in January 1960, instead
of soothing nationalist feelings by its provisions, exacerbated
them by drawing attention to the two countries' inevitable
inequalities of strength. When it came before the Diet in
April there were violent student demonstrations against it
outside the building. By May the Socialists had boycotted the
proceedings and picketed the House, having to be physically
removed by the police. Then in their absence the government
party voted to ratify the treaty. This made the dispute one of
constitutional rights and raised the protests to the level of
hysteria: mass demonstrations throughout Japan on May 26;
student riots in Tokyo causing several hundred casualties; enor-
mous public petitions; a railway strike at the beginning of June.

Within two weeks of these events President Eisenhower was
expected on a visit to Japan, it having been assumed that he
would arrive in time to celebrate the exchange of ratifications.
The turbulence, increasingly anti- American in its tone, for all
that it was directed chiefly at the Kishi government, made this
impossible. On June 16 an emergency cabinet meeting decided
to ask Eisenhower not to come. Two days later the Diet vote
for ratification of the agreement took effect and on June 23
America ratified in turn. Kishi at once resigned.

Yet the tumult had not really changed the nature of Japanese
politics. Kishi's successor, Ikeda Hayato, was a member of the
Liberal-Democrats, chosen by the usual manoeuvrings, as his
distribution of office to competing factions showed. In Novem-
ber, moreover, he won an election, demonstrating that Japanese
voting patterns remained the same, despite the passions of the
early summer. Japan, it seemed, had not suddenly achieved a
system in which politics fully represented opinions. All the
same, in announcing his intention to concentrate on promoting
economic growth the new Prime Minister was showing a
proper discretion, as well as a personal bent. He was also
underlining the importance of an aspect of Japan's postwar
history which was just beginning to impress the outside world.

Japan's economy had faced very considerable difficulties after
the surrender, quite apart from the damage and dislocation

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THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

which bombing had left behind. Shortages of fuel, power
and raw materials, inadequate transport, the apathy of defeat,
and fears that equipment might be seized for reparations,
these combined with the loss of colonies and foreign markets
to hamper development for several years. Even when the
future became a little less uncertain there were still factors
which worked against recovery. A multilateral trade, on which
Japan had depended prewar, proved harder, if not impossible,
to maintain in a world divided into sterling and dollar blocs.
Division between hostile camps had the same effect, as was
exemplified in the political problems of trade with China, to
which we have already referred. At home there were handicaps
stemming from reform: a loss of trained leadership because of
the purge; the disorganization arising from an American de-
cision to break up the giant Daihatsu firms, which led to the
abolition of their central holding companies and the dissolution
of the combines into their component parts. If more democratic,
the result was less efficient than what had existed before, as
American policy-makers themselves were forced to admit at
a later stage.

To balance these drawbacks were a number of advantages,
though it was a little time before they could be realized. Crea-
tion of a war economy had appreciably raised the level of
Japanese technical skill in several industries. Again, the des-
truction of plant which bombing had entailed at least ensured
that rebuilding, if achieved at all, would be undertaken with
the most up-to-date methods and machinery. Nor was Ameri-
can intervention in economic matters entirely to the bad by
any means. In the early days it brought vital shipments of
food and raw materials. Later, when intensification of the cold
war caused a fresh approach, there was a relaxation of the anti-
*%aibatsu policy and help towards the ending of inflation. In
many respects, in fact, American aid provided a substitute for
a stagnant foreign commerce. The outbreak of the Korean war
greatly increased it, since it brought large orders for equip-
ment for the United Nations forces, which gave Japanese
production its first considerable stimulus of the postwar
years; and even after 1952 aid was maintained in the form
of procurement orders for American troops and bases in
Japan. It has been estimated that from 1952 to 1956 these

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REFORM AND REHABILITATION 1945-1962

paid for about a quarter of Japan's commodity imports every
year.

Once started, the growth of Japanese industry was rapid
and almost continuous. In 1948 production stood at only
40 per cent of the 1937 figure, but this was the end of the really
hard times. In 1950 the industrial production index was 84
(1934-6=100), in 1953 it was 155. Prices rose, handicapping
exports, and government corrective measures caused a mild
recession in 1954; but expansion was resumed thereafter, the
index standing at 262 by 1957, where it levelled out for a year
because of balance of payments problems, then jumped to 325
and 410 in 1959 and 1960. In the second of these years the
economy achieved a real growth rate of 13 - 2 per cent, accom-
panied by an almost 1 2 per cent rise in individual consumption.

Much the largest share in this advance was due to manufac-
turing industry, especially in fields like chemicals and engineer-
ing, which had been relatively undeveloped before the war.
Finished steel products, only 4- 5 million metric tons in 1936,
were 9-4 million in 1955 and 22-1 million in 1960, with iron
ore totalling approximately half as much throughout. Com-
mercial motor vehicles in use, 700,000 in 1955, were six times
as many then as in 1936 and nearly doubled again in the next
five years, during which period Japan also became the world's
biggest and in many ways most enterprising shipbuilder,
having an annual average launch of 1*75 million tons. In
electric generating capacity she ranked sixth in 1960, her
23 million kilowatts being about two-thirds that of Britain and
three times her own capacity in 1937. A start had also been
made with atomic power, there being five reactors in operation
by the end of 1961.

Evidence of the growth was to be seen in the sprawling,
industrial cities, like Tokyo and Osaka, where, instead of the
debris and dilapidation of 1945, modern factories were pro-
ducing a range of goods which could compete with the very
best. Japanese motor-cycles were winning European races;
Japanese cameras and optical goods were threatening to drive
those of Germany from international markets; Japanese sewing-
machines and transistor radios were to be bought everywhere
in the world. Nor was this merely a question of price. Many
technical improvements now originated in Japan, so that for

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THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

the first time she was in a position to sell patents and accuse
others of copying her designs.

Significantly, metal, chemicals and engineering represented
over 60 per cent by value of the country's gross factory pro-
duction in 1959, compared with only 30 per cent in 1930,
demonstrating how greatly the war, and preparation for it, had
influenced the direction of development. Textiles, which had
long held pride of place in both domestic production and
foreign trade, were perhaps half as important in 1960 as in
1936. What is more, the balance within the industry had
changed. Raw silk, facing severe competition from man-made
fibres, totalled less than a third of the prewar figure in 1950-54
and increased only a little thereafter. Cotton yarn output was
smaller in 1960 than in 193 5-7, as was the number of spindles
in use. Exports of cotton piecegoods, unable to match the
price of those from areas like South East Asia, had dropped
by over 40 per cent. By contrast, rayons and other artificial
fabrics, relying on an expanding chemical industry for ma-
terials, were more important, as was wool.

Foreign trade naturally reflected the pattern of industrial
growth, as well as the different opportunities and limitations of
the postwar world. Textiles, especially the new varieties, re-
mained a major export, but were much less dominant than
before, being joined by the mechanical, electrical and optical
equipment we have already mentioned. Ships were the most
valuable item among heavy manufactured goods, though they
represented a slowly declining proportion by 1961. Railway
equipment, motor vehicles and chemicals, including fertilizers,
were also substantial export items. Among imports, textile
materials declined, except for Australian wool, because of the
shift to man-made fibres, while the country's much greater
needs for power brought oil up to 1 6 per cent of the whole by
1959. Imports of metals and food also remained considerable.
In terms of the trade's geographical spread, the United States
was Japan's biggest customer, taking about 27 per cent of
exports in 1958-9, mostly labour-intensive manufactured pro-
ducts, and providing about a third of imports. China played
a much smaller part than before, the areas to the south of it
a larger one; but perhaps the outstanding feature was that
Japan's foreign trade was more widely distributed than it had

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REFORM AND REHABILITATION 1945-1962

been in the past, as well as being less concentrated on a narrow
range of goods.

The fact that food imports have remained stable in the post-
war period, despite the loss of food-producing colonies like
Korea and Formosa and an increase in population from 73
million in 1 940 to 93 million in 1 960, is a tribute to the efficiency
of Japanese agriculture. Land reform helped to make it possi-
ble, of course, partly by giving greater incentives to the owner-
farmer, partly by limiting the opportunities for investing in
land to rent, thus making capital more readily available for
improvements. So did the refugees from the towns, who
swelled the numbers working on the farms just after the war
and so contributed extra labour. When they returned to urban
employment, as most of them eventually did, their place was
often taken by machines, a tendency reflected in the spread of
motor ploughing in recent years, whether by the hire of
ploughs from local contractors, or by the purchase of small
hand-guided rotors. Most important of all, however, have been
technical changes: better drainage and irrigation; more use of
chemical fertilizers; the development of insecticides, making
possible effective pest control. These factors, taken together,
have raised the production of rice, the staple crop, to an average
of 30 per cent more in 1955-60 than in the middle 'thirties.
Simultaneously, farm produce has been diversified, with con-
spicuous growth in the figures for vegetables, fruit, dairy
products and livestock, especially pigs.

As a result the Japanese diet has continued to become more
varied, with wheat products, for example, actually making
inroads on what used to be a universal preference for rice.
Indeed, since there is no longer a large percentage of the
national income being spent on arms, the increases in pro-
ductivity have raised the standards of living in every way.
Real wages in manufacturing industry, the most favoured
sector, reached the 1934-6 level in 1952, were almost 50 per
cent above it in 1960. It is true that there were inequalities,
which such averages tend to conceal. Workers in large modern
enterprises were appreciably better off than those in small
ones, both in pay and conditions, while farmers, after long
being at a disadvantage, were only just beginning to catch up.
Nevertheless, prosperity was now being spread much more

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THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

evenly through Japanese society than ever in the past; and
although per capita income was closer to that of southern
Europe than the more heavily industrialized countries of the
West, it was well above anything else in Asia (and gained over
1 6 per cent in 1960 alone). Consumption expenditure in the
same year rose nearly as sharply: by over 12 per cent in the
villages, by just under 10 per cent in the towns. Much of this
went on luxury foods, travel, superior clothing. Much went on
new electrical equipment, like television sets owned by four
out of five urban households in 1962 and half the rural ones
refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, washing machines and heaters.
A good deal went on savings and insurance. In fact, by com-
parison with conditions of a hundred years ago, or even with
the rest of contemporary Asia, one is tempted to conclude that
Japan today is well on the way to becoming an affluent society.

304

CHAPTER XVI
POSTWAR JAPAN

THIS BOOK began with a description of Japanese society in the
early nineteenth century. To end it with one of Japan today, there-
fore, will serve to summarize the enormous changes that have
taken place in the intervening century and a half. Nevertheless,
the task of describing the contemporary is by no means easy,
partly because generalization, without the perspective given by
time, can become misleading, partly because Japan seems now
more complex, perhaps more disordered, than it was before.
In one of its aspects, for instance, modern history has seen a
Western challenge to the established Sino- Japanese tradition,
contributing to the breakdown of what was formerly a coherent
hierarchical society and the substitution for it of one in which
the locus of power, the composition of the ruling class and the
standards of behaviour to which it subscribes have all become
difficult to determine. Similarly, while change has in most
things been rapid, it has not maintained an equal pace in every
segment of Japanese life. It is largely for these reasons that
every author writing about modern Japan finds it necessary
to emphasize the admixture of East and West, of old and new,
that is to be found there.

In 1 800 Japan had an emperor in seclusion, whose authority,
in so far as feudal particularism allowed, was wielded by an
hereditary, de facto monarch, the Shogun. A hundred years
later the Shogun had vanished, the emperor had become quasi-
divine and there was a Westernized bureaucracy ruling in his
name. Now, after sixty years more, power rests in the hands of
an elected Diet. It is exercised on the Diet's behalf by a Prime
Minister and a cabinet responsible primarily to the lower
house, with the emperor a mere 'symbol of the State'. More-
over, the mechanisms of politics have also changed. Influence
is no longer a matter of hereditary status and regional affiliation,
backed by force. Nor does it depend primarily on possessing

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THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

land, or friends in office., though both remain important. In-
stead, it is attained publicly, at least by the manipulation of
votes in the lower house, with the result that it involves parties
and pressure groups; local 'machines' and professional repre-
sentatives of the people; businessmen and trade unions; news-
papers, radio and television; elections and electioneering.

At the higher levels, as we have seen, faction is still a
significant element in Japanese politics, since neither conserva-
tives nor socialists have fully outgrown the days when the
activities of the Diet were concerned with spoils, not policies.
Thus a Prime Minister has more need for the skills appropriate
to maintaining a balance of power within his cabinet than for
the qualities of forceful leadership. On the other hand, the
sharp reduction in the privileges of bodies like the Privy
Council, the bureaucracy and the services since the war has
removed one obstacle to the growth of a sense of responsi-
bility among party politicians, by eliminating rivals who made
their efforts ineffective. The end of the occupation has removed
another, in that it terminated the veto exercised by the Supreme
Commander for the Allied Powers, which was hardly com-
patible with parliamentary sovereignty. What is more, there
has been a measure of progress towards a two-party system
in the last few years, with alliances shaped by outlook rather
than tactical convenience. On the right the Liberal-Democrats,
on the left the Socialists, have maintained their coalitions,
despite occasional secessions; and the Communists, though
influential outside the Diet in many ways, no longer have
the representation within it to play an important part in the
struggle between the two.

It has to be granted that there is a great disparity between
conservative and socialist strength. As a recent comment put it:

c One party remains dominant and always in power. It knows only
how to govern. The other is a perennial minority, unable to com-
mand more than a third of the electorate. It knows only how to
oppose. . . .* 82

This state of affairs might easily endanger the stability of the
constitution, in that the frustrations it provokes and the
government's determination to press its advantage to the
foil have on several occasions led the Socialists to adopt

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POSTWAR JAPAN

extra-parliamentary methods. Equally disturbing, it might be
thought, is the fact that there are still groups outside the Diet
which are capable of exerting a disproportionate influence on
decisions. The bureaucracy, an able and self-conscious elite, is
one of them, providing a core of members to the lower house
and a number of ministers in each conservative cabinet. Business
associations and organized labour are others, linked with the
right-wing and left-wing movements, respectively, as much by
the funds they provide as by the interests they legitimately
represent. All the same, there is a significant difference between
this situation and that which obtained before the war. Pressure,
to be successful, must now be exerted on the parties, not inde-
pendently of them, a sure sign that a transfer of authority has
really taken place.

Membership of the parties is small, consisting mostly of
bureaucrats, full-time politicians, businessmen and trade union-
ists who can expect to be election candidates. Little has been
achieved by attempts to gain popular participation and support.
Accordingly, since the party as such has little to offer its recruits,
other than its label and financial backing, organization in the
constituencies tends not to be very closely bound to that within
the Diet. Success at the polls, in fact, depends on the extent to
which a man can cultivate local leaders, acquire a local reputa-
tion and raise money for posters, broadcasts, loudspeaker vans
and other kinds of publicity while electioneering. It helps if
the candidate is of some repute, still more if he is of local
origin; but the policies for which he stands matter a good deal
less, except, perhaps, in the sense of whether he belongs to the
right or left of the political spectrum.

This is especially true of rural constituencies, which are more
numerous than the distribution of population fully justifies. In
the countryside, local issues are of greater interest than national
ones and a recommendation from village dignitaries has far
more effect than a noisy campaign. Village cohesion, which
makes voting a community obligation, ensures a voting rate
higher than the towns; and the farmer's respect for tradition
combined with the fact that the party in power has important
means of wooing rural councils, by promises about subsidies
from central government funds or the allocation of money to
provide schools, roads and irrigation ensures that between

307

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

50 and 60 per cent of the vote goes to the conservatives. The
latter, therefore, although no longer a party of landlords, as
they were at the beginning of the century, dare not appear to
be too openly the champions of commercial and industrial
enterprise.

The Socialists are more sectional in the support they receive, a
fact which is reflected in their electoral record. The solid foot-
ing which business and the farm give to the conservatives is
for them provided by trade unions, whose resources furnish
candidates, funds and organization on a substantial scale. This
strengthens the socialist position, especially in the industrial
towns, but it is not without its disadvantages. For one thing,
too close an association with organized labour tends to alienate
voters of the centre and middle class, without whose help the
party is unlikely to obtain the majority it needs if it is to come
to power. For another, since the trade union movement is no
less divided ideologically than the left-wing politicians, the
relationship between the two makes unity harder to achieve.
Thus there are two national federations: the General Council
of Trade Unions (Sohyo), a radical organization with about
three million members, and the much more moderate Trades
Union Congress (Zenro), about a quarter its size. For some
years the division corresponded to that between the two sep-
arate socialist parties of the left and right. In addition there
are a large number of company unions, each comprising the
workers in a single factory or firm, many of them not affiliated
to the national bodies at all.

In an economy in which wages and conditions of work vary
widely from one type of employment to another, particularly
as between large concerns and small, there is much to be said
for such an arrangement, in so far as the unions exist primarily
to negotiate with employers; but the multiplication of units,
plus the fact that they differ greatly from each other in political
outlook, serves to increase the fragmentation which an empha-
sis on local connections gives to Japanese politics as a whole.
The socialist who owes his election to the patronage of a local
union, like the conservative who relies on personal influence
in a rural area, does not feel much beholden to the party whose
badge he wears. He can even afford to treat its discipline with
a certain disrespect. This does much to explain the kaleido-

308

POSTWAR JAPAN

scopic qualities of Japanese party history its shifts in fac-
tional or party allegiances and its numerous independants, who
often do not join a party until after they have won a parlia-
mentary seat as well as the way in which parties reach de-
cisions by reconciling differences behind closed doors before
proceeding to a Diet vote.

The men who are elected to the local assemblies and the
House of Representatives, of course, are not the only element
in Japan's ruling class. Senior bureaucrats and the managerial
staff of the larger businesses are at least equally influential,
while the owners of small firms, trade union leaders, labour
'bosses', mayors and prefectural governors, local officials and
landowners (despite the reduction in their holdings which the
land reform effected) all wield a good deal of power. Unlike
the samurai of the Tokugawa period, however, these groups
do not have a status that can readily be defined. Their position
does not depend on hereditary rank, which has been abolished.
Nor does it rest on birth in the wider sense, which is important
for the kind of upbringing it affords and the connections it
provides, but not as something which confers absolute privi-
lege. Certainly birth without ability, though it might lead to
a pleasant enough existence as one of the pensioners of the
great and gives social kudos at any level would not now
guarantee the possession of authority. The doctrines of Japanese
family life have long approved the use of marriage and adoption
as a means of recruiting the able to take over a family's affairs,
superseding in the process those whose only claim to do so is
that of blood; and society, which accords to the person so
recruited the standing proper to the position he attains, not
that from which he came, also accepts the technique as a way
of advancing a man's career outside the family as well. Of two
young men of equal ability, therefore, the better born will
make rapid progress, because of his father's friends; but the
other, if he is reasonably lucky, might do so by acquiring a
patron or a wife. What is more, he will end no worse regarded
for having risen in this way, provided his achievements are real.

Yet this is not to say that Japan is the land of the fairytale,
where the poor commoner marries the princess amid general
rejoicing. Marriage and adoption take place within fairly nar-
row social limits as a rule. Moreover, enough of the old 'status

L 309

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

society' still remains to ensure that an individual's wealth or
power can rise or fall faster than his standing. To put it
differently, there is a "right 7 and a 'wrong' manner of speaking
in Japan, a c good' and a c bad' part of town in which to be born,
a 'polite' and a 'vulgar' way of eating and behaving, all having
undertones of the traditional distinctions between samurai,
merchant and commoner. Such things can play a major part
in determining a man's success, for to get a good job, or to
win promotion in it, he must be socially presentable, even if he
does not possess the appropriate connections. Education is the
one means by which the majority can hope to overcome the
initial disadvantages of humble origin, a fact which makes
entry to the best schools and universities vital to those who
are ambitious. It is not merely that the quality of their academic
training is superior, making it easier for their students to pass
examinations. It is also that the years spent acquiring that
training will give the student an acceptable manner and well-
placed friends, the latter being by no means the least useful
acquisition in a country where it may be highly desirable in
later life to have a former classmate in a particular govern-
ment office, company, or political party. As a consequence,
university education in Japan suffers from more competition,
more preoccupation with marks, and more suicides, than any-
where else in the world, an atmosphere which pervades the
high schools, too. This is one price that is paid for a society in
which there is a fair degree of mobility from class to class.
Another, paradoxically, is a widespread self-consciousness,
which seems to make all Japanese acutely aware of just what
their status is in relation to those with whom they come into
regular contact. Or ought this, perhaps, to be described as a
survival from the past?

Government and social structure have changed no more radi-
cally in Japan than the factors which determine where people
live and how they earn their living. Population is some 95 mil-
lion in 1962, approximately three times as great as it was a
hundred years ago; and this inevitably makes the country both
industrial and urban. Over 45 per cent live in cities of 50,000
inhabitants or more, their numbers increasing every year.
Another 10 per cent live in towns of smaller size, leaving rather

310

POSTWAR JAPAN

less than 45 pet cent in areas designated 'rural'. In terms of
occupation, the 1955 census showed only 38 per cent of the
labour force as engaged in agriculture., compared with 47 per
cent in 1930, this being the continuation of a trend which has
been consistent throughout modern times. By contrast, there
has been a steady increase in the numbers in manufacturing
industry (from 16 to 18 per cent during the same period) and in
distribution, transport and similar services (from 30 to 35 per
cent), while the total labour force itself has grown from 29
million to 39 million people. There have also been great
changes in the size and nature of the firms in which the urban
population works. Numbers in the textile trades have halved,
those in the machinery and engineering industries doubled,
since 1936. More significant still, the very smallest firms, those
with less than ten employees, provide only a fifth of the jobs,
compared with nearly three-fifths in 1930, and those employing
fifty or more account for about a half, instead of a third. About
one industrial worker in seven earns his living in a factory with
at least a thousand employees.

There is nevertheless a great disparity still between the two
segments of Japanese industry. On the one hand are a com-
paratively few, very large concerns some of the former
Daihatsu empires have been rebuilt since 1952, though no longer
under family ownership with huge, modern factories, a
highly-trained managerial bureaucracy, a world- wide network
of offices and representatives. On the other are the much more
numerous small and medium businesses, highly competitive
with each other and usually under the owner's management.
They are often sub-contractors, especially those which are
engaged in making components for Japan's newer electrical
and mechanical products; and although they tend to be much
better equipped than in the past, they offer lower wages and
poorer conditions than their bigger rivals. The man with a
permanent job at one of the larger factories will almost cer-
tainly have a powerful union to defend his interests, giving
him a measure of security which his counterpart in a smaller
enterprise does not share. Moreover, his wages, including
allowances for age, length of service, size of family, cost of
living and so on, to say nothing of annual bonuses based on
profits, which are sometimes of considerable size, might be

311

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

fully half as much again as those of the temporary workers
whom most of the smaller firms employ. It is the latter whose
wages suffer most, or whose hours are cut, when times are
hard, a circumstance which helps to explain the country's
competitiveness in foreign trade, but leaves it with a social
problem of significant proportions.

Real wages in manufacturing industry, which regained the
1934-6 level in 1952, have risen another 40 per cent in the last
ten years. This is an average, concealing, as is clear from what
we have said above, some important variations between work-
ers of different types; but it represents a major advance in
living standards even for those who profit least. This has been
achieved by other sections of the working population, too: the
army of white-collar workers, whose growth in numbers is
perhaps the surest index to modernization; the employees of
construction firms, which have been enjoying an unprece-
dented boom; the men in transport, the girls in shops, the
labourers (often women) on the roads. All have more money to
spend now than most of them, certainly the younger ones, have
ever had. There are also more things for them to buy. Before
the war it was usual for urban households to have a radio, but
it was a sign of some affluence to have a sewing-machine or
electric fire. Now both are common, as are television sets,
while refrigerators and vacuum cleaners have a ready sale. And
although motor-cars are still a luxury if one which the middle
class can increasingly afford a greater ability to pay for holi-
days by train or coach has filled the- beaches everywhere and
brought a hundred million visitors a year to the mountainous
national parks.

It would be wrong to suggest, however, that ways of living
in urban Japan cannot be distinguished from those of Europe,
even though at first glance a Japanese city with its heavy
traffic, its crowds in Western dress, its office buildings, modern
shops and neon lighting contains little that is obviously
oriental. In fact, one reason for the high levels of consumption
is precisely that some of the population's basic needs are
simpler, and hence less expensive, than their Western equiva-
lents. Few Japanese have a Western-style house, for example,
though a good many have a Western-style room. Apartment
blocks, while becoming more popular than they were, as land

312

POSTWAR JAPAN

gets dearer, are still exceptional. Most people live in houses
of the traditional kind, which are flimsier and cheaper to build,
as well as being safer in earthquakes. They require less furniture
and make a more economical use of interior space. Moreover,
not many of them have modern sanitation; and this, when
applied to an entire suburban area, means an enormous saving
in the capital expenditure which would otherwise have to be
made on sewage. In the same way, the practice of making
residential roads narrow, poorly lit and only roughly surfaced
further reduces the cost of running towns.

The farmer, at least in the more accessible parts of the coun-
try, has facilities which are not so very much worse. He will
have electricity and will not be far from the nearest telephone.
There will be village shops, which are less imposing than those
of the city, but stocking similar goods, and an efficient bus or
train service to whatever is the local centre, from which he can
reach Tokyo or Osaka, if he wishes, in a matter of hours. His
daughter will have no difficulty in getting a permanent wave;
his wife might well have a television set to watch 49 per cent
of rural households were said to own one in 1962 possibly a
washing-machine to use; and there is about one chance in four
that he or his son will have a motor-cycle. Furthermore, in
1960 the average surplus of his family income over expenditure
was 10 per cent, most of which was saved.

Some of this prosperity is due to land reform, which has
served to equalize the distribution of village wealth and so
create a wider market for goods and services. Some of it is due
to a conservative government's policies of price support, a
return for rural votes. Some springs from greater investment,
in the form of mechanization, chemical fertilizers, insecticides
and so on, which have raised the crop to record heights, while
giving the farmer more leisure, which he and his family can
devote to side-employment. All the same, agriculture still has
its problems, several of them becoming more acute. The aver-
age holding remains very small, so that to divide it on inheri-
tance as the law actually enjoins would soon reduce it to
unmanageable parcels. Usually, therefore, younger sons re-
nounce their rights; and since machines make their labour less
and less needed on the land, they emigrate to the city or find
jobs in local firms and factories. It is essentially the same process

313

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

that has been going on throughout the century, keeping the
farm population at a more or less steady figure and providing
a source of cheap labour for industrial towns. Its speed, how-
ever, is now increasing as industry booms, with the result that
the cost of seasonal agricultural labour is getting higher
wages rose by 16 per cent in the year 1960 alone and farmers
are finding it difficult, so they complain, to secure husbands
for those of their daughters who stay at home.

From a different standpoint, this situation raises the question
of whether the towns can continue to absorb the surplus
population of the countryside, in addition to that which they
produce themselves. The "population problem', in other words,
is still very much an issue, even though the rate of increase has
been slowed down by better living standards and legalized
abortion. Most people today realize that there is no solution
to it to be found in emigration or attempts at creating an
empire overseas. This only leaves industrial development,
which in the last resort depends on foreign trade. Accordingly,
the public shows much concern with subjects like balance of
payments, relations with Communist China, or the restrictions
imposed on Japanese exports by foreign powers, recognizing
that Japan is committed by necessity to encouraging com-
mercial growth. Compared with the views on the subject
expressed by Tokugawa scholars and reflected in the cry to
'expel the barbarians' at the time of the first opening of the
ports, this, too, is a measure of how things have changed.

It is not only with respect to trade that attitudes towards
the outside world differ from those of the past. Resentment
and a sense of inferiority, engendered in the nineteenth cen-
tury, which in the twentieth fed the chauvinism that brought
war, seem to have been purged by defeat. Consequently,
although traces of the former passions remain in the prickli-
ness about American bases, for example, and the exaggerated
humility with which individual Japanese occasionally praise all
things foreign postwar nationalism has taken a different line.
At home, as we said in the previous chapter, it has manifested
itself as nostalgia for a social order which events since 1945
have nearly destroyed. Thus the call to revive filial piety and
for the country's youth to show a proper attitude towards

314

POSTWAR JAPAN

authority is partly an appeal to nationalist sentiment. Abroad,
nationalism has taken the form of a search for the world's
respect: generally, through membership of the United Nations
and co-operation in international development plans; specific-
ally, through opposition to atomic tests and overtures towards
Asian neutralism. In both, with only rare exceptions, there has
been a scrupulous, even over-scrupulous, care to avoid claims
to leadership of any kind.

In a wider sense, Japan's relationship with the West involves
every aspect of her modern life. Many of its physical and insti-
tutional components, like buses, electricity, factories, joint-
stock companies and water taps, to name but a random few,
have become far too familiar to be thought of now as 'foreign'.
Indeed it is doubtful whether the millions who watch base-
ball on television every day think of it as being 'American',
for it has become a national game. Similarly, tastes in music
are overwhelmingly for that of Europe and America, whether
Beethoven or jazz, there being an awareness that it is imported,
of course, but not, apparently, any feeling that it is part of an
alien culture. An exception would seem to be Western food,
which, although everywhere available, is rarely understood.
'They have done to our food/ a British resident observed,
'what they have done to our language: assimilated odds and
ends and adapted them to their own needs/ 83 No doubt this is
because Japan's own food follows such totally different gastro-
nomic rules.

It is significant, however, that the Japanese show much less
skill in performing, than they have taste in appreciating, some
of the elements of Western civilization, notably those which
are most difficult to communicate or teach. Japan has yet to
produce either a composer or a poet of note who uses the
Western idiom, while her art, which has contributed so much to
that of Europe, seems to have exhausted itself by giving its
own, or choked itself by ingesting others', techniques. The
result is a great deal of uninspired imitation of either con-
temporary Europe or traditional Japan, with only occasional
flashes of an ability to reconcile the two.

The novel, by contrast, continues to be the most success-
ful of the country's literary imports. Between 1918 and 1945 it
suffered from too great a pre-occupation with the social and

3*5

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

political movements of the time, as authors became either
proletarian or ultranationalist in outlook, and so made their
books more rewarding than good. There was a similar danger
after 1945, when democracy threatened to become the only
theme and c the people' the universal hero. It extended even to
interpretation of the classics:

'The attempt had formerly been made to proclaim how the
Japanese race under the wise and benevolent rule of the unbroken
line of emperors had risen to greatness. The new attempt was to
show . . . how every advance had been the result not of guidance
from above, but of the efforts of the common people.' 84

By these standards the eleventh-century novel, The tale ofGenji,
which in the 19305 had been dismissed as frivolous, was made
to appear as an expose of Court corruption, while an eighth-
century chronicle, the Kojiki, ranked by prewar militarists as
almost a religious revelation, became a critique of military rule.

Fortunately the best of the novelists, although they are far
from ignoring the world in which they live, have managed to
resist the temptation to write books that are no more than
thinly-disguised political pamphlets. Of the older generation,
Tanizaki Junichiro and Nagai Kafu survive from the great
days after the Russo-Japanese War. Of the younger men,
Mishima Yukio and Dazai Osamu more fully represent the
middle of the century, the former being under forty now, the
latter under forty when he committed suicide in 1948. All are
as much the heirs of European as of Japanese literature, for
their manner of writing and concepts of what they wish to do
owe more to French and Russian novelists than to anything in
Japan before the Meiji Restoration. It may be for this reason
that their work has been accorded great acclaim when trans-
lated into European languages. At the same time, they are Japan-
ese in the subjects they choose and the society they so vividly
describe, demonstrating, as most Japanese artists have failed
to do, that Western technique and Japanese material can in
fact be brought together.

The intellectuals of modern Japan and their numbers are
great enough to maintain the circulation of an astonishing
range of serious periodicals have all received an education in
Western literature and thought which enables them to compare

POSTWAR JAPAN

these eminent writers with those of the rest of the world. Gide,
Sartre and Malraux are names frequently heard in Tokyo's
cafes, where the youth of the avant-garde meet and talk, while a
walk through the Kanda will reveal in almost every second-
hand bookshop window Japanese editions of de Maupassant,
Tolstoy (who ranks among the country's ten most popular
authors), Chekhov, T. S. Eliot and others like them. What is
more, many of the young men and women who buy these
books are better able to understand them than, say, The tale
ofGenji, which they will read, if at all, in a modernized version.
From this point of view, at least, education is producing a
generation which can face the West on equal terms, albeit at
the cost of abandoning tradition.

Indeed, for most of its members Japan's own past is some-
thing romantic or entertaining, rather than real. It is sumo
wrestling, for example, which rivals baseball as a television
programme, or a feudal castle, carefully restored, where one
may picnic. Alternatively, if one wishes to be cynical on the
subject, it is the hdbuki theatre, where businessmen take their
guests on expense accounts, or simply the theme of one of the
country's more exportable films. It is certainly not an inherited
complex of ideas from which one's art draws its inspiration
and one's life its standards.

This is partly because change has been so rapid in the last
hundred years that 1850 and 1950 seem to belong to different
worlds. Partly it is because the present is divided from the
immediate past by the gulf of defeat, by which Japan's care-
fully fostered image of herself was shattered. In its light, it
has been said, 'the entire set of expansionist slogans that had
been drummed into people's ears for so many years . . . stood
starkly revealed as false and, what was perhaps rather more
damaging, as risible'. 85 The very inclusiveness of the doctrines
that were thus destroyed made all the greater the sense of
vacuum their disappearance left behind; and although this made
it easier for America to win support for the introduction of
democracy, for instance, it also made it necessary for demo-
cracy to compete for the nation's loyalty with other creeds.
Many, especially the young, soon demonstrated that they found
the American ideal disappointing, because materialistic or
possibly too difficult, since self-reliance was a quality they had

3 1 ?

THE MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN

never been encouraged to acquire and in any case tainted with
military occupation. Disillusion turned some to hedonism and
irresponsibility, manifesting themselves among intellectuals as a
vogue for existentialism and an excessively bohemian way of life.
It turned others to the more radical forms of left-wing thought.
Marxism, having all the charm of a fruit that had long been for-
bidden, became for a time so common in some circles as to be an
emblem of intellectual respectability. Even after the novelty wore
off, its satisfying dogmatism, by accepting which its adherents
may derive a 'positive' approach to every kind of problem, has
continued to ensure it a wide appeal, the more so because of its
prevalence among teachers and in the serious journals.

On the other hand, if nationalism, generating ultranational-
ism, was Japan's response to the nineteenth century prepon-
derance of the West, one cannot say that Marxism has estab-
lished itself as a mid-twentieth century successor. It is still
confined to a relatively small segment of the population, which
has more stridency than power. It is being weakened, more-
over, by prosperity, as well as by the conservatism which
comes to students with increasing age. This makes it an im-
portant, but not a dominant, strand in Japanese thought.

It is not easy, in fact, to identify a dominant strand at all.
Confucianism, which provided the ethical content of the pre-
war structure, has not only lost its foothold in the schools, but
is also under attack within the family, where equality between
man and wife, which is fast becoming a reality, plus the ability
of children to earn their living independently and even to
choose their marriage partners for themselves, makes nonsense
of the hierarchy of relationships Confucianism once enjoined.
Hence precepts based upon such relationships, though still
taught in the majority of households, have ceased to form an
organized and generally accepted body of belief.

Nor have the religions of Japan fared any better, though de-
feat, one would have thought, should have produced an atmo-
sphere which might have favoured their revival. State Shinto
was abolished in 1 945 , together with the emperor's divinity, and
the great shrines except as tourist attractions have never
fully regained their following. Local shrines receive support,
since this is considered a community duty; and Shinto cere-
monies, most of which concern the crop, are punctiliously

318

POSTWAR JAPAN

observed in rural areas. Festivals everywhere draw crowds,
though this, perhaps, depends less on piety than prosperity,
since one needs money to spend at sideshows and stalls. Yet
there is little evidence of Shinto practices in the home; and
such signs of growth as there have been among the Shinto
sects have been largely in those whose appeal is to emotion,
most of them small in size and obscure in doctrine.

Buddhism was less affected by defeat than Shinto, because
it was less involved in the nationalist myth. As a result, its rites
still seem to be observed in a majority of families and it con-
tinues to profit by conducting funerals and rituals for the dead.
It has not, however, made any great progress since the war.
Christianity has been more successful, though its adherents,
having become fewer in the 19303., are little more numerous
now than they were at the beginning of the century. Their
present total, a figure of something under half a million, may
well be all that can be achieved. For it remains true that
Christianity is put at a disadvantage by its refusal to recognize
local, especially family, customs of a quasi-religious kind, a fact
which outweighs in the matter of gaining converts, if not in
exercising influence its association with Western civilization
in the popular mind.

One might sum this up by saying that there is no immediate
indication of Japan ceasing to be a secular society. This is what
Tokugawa Confucianism made it and what the pursuit of
national strength thereafter, for all its Shinto trappings, has
confirmed. Where it essentially differs now is not that the
country is becoming less religious than it used to be, but that
it no longer has a single pattern of belief to which the majority
of its citizens will subscribe. Marxism, for all its influence, is
a minority view. Democracy, though more firmly established
than many of its critics would have one believe, is not appar-
ently a thing to fire men's imaginations or to give them drive.
Nor is the pursuit of wealth, despite the fact that it is the
objective on which people can most readily agree. Japan, in
other words, has not fully come to terms with the spiritual
problems to which hef modern development has given rise.
But then, what country has? Perhaps the present malaise, like
the present affluence, is no more than evidence that Japan has
at last achieved the distinction of being 'modern'.

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MODERN JAPAN

SOME JAPANESE TERMS

BAKUFU: The central administration of Japan under a Shogun.

DAIMYO: A feudal lord of the Tokugawa period whose domain
was estimated to yield an annual crop equivalent to 10,000
koku of rice or more. FUDAI DAIMYO were hereditary vassals
of the Tokugawa. TOZAMA DAIMYO were those who were
subject to the Shogun's control only by virtue of the
authority which the Shogun derived from the Emperor.

KAMPAKU: The senior minister at the Imperial Court before
1868.

KAN (KWAN): Measure of weight, i kan=$-zj Ibs.

KOKU: Measure of capacity, i koku=4^6 bushels.

ROJU: A feudal lord (specifically, a fudai daimyo) who was a
member of the Shogun's Council of State in the Tokugawa
period.

RYO: Gold coin of the Tokugawa period. Before 1850, approxi-
mately equivalent in value to i koku of rice.

SAMURAI: A member of Japan's feudal ruling class before 1871.
Technically the term included the Shogun and the daimyo,
but it was more often used of those below this rank.

SHOGUN: The Emperor's military deputy. Before 1868 the
office was in effect that of an hereditary de facto monarch.

YEN (Y): Monetary unit of modern Japan. Until 1934 it ex-
changed at about 10 to the pound sterling; from 1934 to
1939 at about 17; since 1950 at about 1,000.

ZAIBATSU: 'Financial clique', or plutocracy. Term used to
describe a handful of great family holding companies in
modern Japan, distinguished by their enormous size and the
wide spread of their economic interests.

327

A SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS

IN ENGLISH

Many Western visitors to Japan have written books about
their experiences, sometimes good ones. Moreover, Western
scholars, especially in the last fifteen years or so, have devoted
a good deal of attention to the country's modern development.
There is therefore a considerable literature which one might
cite in a bibliography of Japan's modern history; and although
I have tried to mention all works of outstanding importance
in the lists which follow, it must be emphasized at the outset
that the selection as a whole reflects a degree of personal taste
and prejudice.

General works

Those readers who would like to acquire a knowledge of
Japanese history before the nineteenth century will find the
best accounts in G. B. Sansom, Japan. A. short cultural history
(rev. ed., London, 1952) and the chapters on Japan in E. O.
Reischauer and J. K. Fairbank, East Asia: the great tradition
(Boston, Mass., 1960).

The standard account of Japan's modern history is H.
Borton, Japans modern century (New York, 1955). C. Yanaga,
Japan since Perry (New York, 1949) is more detailed, but more
appropriate for reference than for general reading, while
G. B. Sansom, The Western World and Japan (New York, 1950)
is a brilliant and readable study of cultural relations between
Japan and the West from the sixteenth to the nineteenth cen-
turies. Also important for the nineteenth century is E. H.
Norman, Japan's emergence as a modern state (New York, 1940).
Two good political histories, one emphasizing parties and
institutions, the other nationalism, are R. A. Scalapino, Demo-
cracy and the party movement in prewar Japan (Berkeley, 1953) and
D. M. Brown, Nationalism in Japan: an introductory historical
analysis (Berkeley, 1955). Economic history is treated more or
less chronologically in G. C. Allen, A. short economic history of
modern Japan 1867-1937 (znd rev. ed., with a supplementary

329

A SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY IN ENGLISH

chapter on the period 1945-1960; London, 1962) and by topics
in W. W. Lockwood, The economic development of Japan. Growth
and structural change 1868-1938 (Princeton, 1955).

W. T. de Bary, ed., Sources of the Japanese tradition (New
York, 1958) consists of translated extracts from Japanese
writings of all periods, including the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries, together with lengthy introductory notes. It provides
an excellent survey of the history of ideas. On Shinto there is
also D. C. Holtom, The national faith of Japan. A study in modern
Shinto (London, 1938). A number of works of Japanese litera-
ture, especially novels, have been translated into English; and
some representative translations are to be found in D. Keene,
ed., Anthology of Japanese literature from the earliest era to the
nineteenth century (London, 1956), the same author's Modern
Japanese literature from 1868 to the present day (London, 1956),
and I. Morris, ed., Modern Japanese stories (London, 1961), all
three of which have informative introductions on literature
generally.

The Tokugawa period (Japan before 1868}

Apart from the general works cited above there are two im-
portant studies of economic history for this period: C. D.
Sheldon, The rise of the merchant class in Tokugaw a Japan 1600-
1868 (Locust Valley, N.Y., 1958) and T. C. Smith, The agrarian
origins of modem Japan (Stanford, 1959). M. B. Jansen, Sakatnoto
~Ryoma and the Meiji Restoration (Princeton, 1961) is a first-rate
account of the years after 1853. It is usefully supplemented by
A. Craig, Choshu in the Meiji Restoration (Cambridge, Mass.,
1961).

Monographs on various aspects of Japan's foreign relations
before 1868 include D. Keene, The Japanese discovery of Europe:
Honda Toshiaki and other discoverers Ij20~ijg8 (London, 1952);
C. R. Boxer, Jan Compagnie in Japan 1600-1850. An essay on the
cultural, artistic and scientific influence exercised by the Hollanders in
Japan from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries (rev. ed., The
Hague, 1950); G. A. Lensen, The "Russian push toward Japan:
Russo-Japanese relations i6gj-i8j $ (Princeton, 1959); and W. G.
Beasley, Great Britain and the opening of Japan 18341858 (Lon-
don, 1951). In addition, W. G. Beasley, Select documents on
Japanese foreign policy 1853-1868 (London, 1955) contains

330

A SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY IN ENGLISH

translations which illustrate Japanese attitudes and policy,
while among accounts by contemporary Western visitors to
the country the following might be found of interest: M. E.
Cosenza, ed., The complete journal of Townsend Harris, first
American Consul General and Minister to Japan (New York.,
1930); Sir R. Alcock, The capital of the Tycoon. A narrative of a
three years' residence in Japan (z vols., London, 1863); Sir E. M.
Satow, A diplomat in Japan. The inner history of the critical years
in the evolution of Japan when the ports were opened and the monarchy
restored (London, 1921).

The Meiji period (i868-igi2)

The most recent general history of this period is J. Fujii,
Outline of Japanese history in the Meiji era (Tokyo, 195 8), a rather
loosely organized work with an emphasis on cultural change,
though it is not too well translated. N. Ike, The beginnings of
political democracy in Japan (Baltimore, 1950) treats the early
development of political parties; G. M. Beckmann, The making
of the Meiji Constitution. The oligarchs and the constitutional develop-
ment of Japan i868-i8gi (Lawrence, 1957), which includes some
translations of Japanese documents, views much the same
subject-matter from the standpoint of the Meiji government.
T. C. Smith. Political change and industrial development in Japan:
government enterprise 18681880 (Stanford, 1955) is important
for the study of economic policy. On diplomatic history,
W. L. Langer, The diplomacy of imperialism (znd ed., New York,
1951) remains the standard work for the years 18941902. Two
later books, making fuller use of Japanese materials on more
limited topics, are M. B. Jansen, The Japanese and Sun Yat-sen
(Cambridge, Mass., 1954) and H. Conroy, The Japanese seizure
of Korea: 1868-1910 (Philadelphia, 1960).

Works which enable one to see the period to some extent
through Japanese eyes include: S. Okuma, ed., Fifty years of
new Japan (2 vols., London, 1910), a collection of essays on a
wide range of topics, mostly by leaders of Meiji Japan; W. W.
McLaren, ed., Japanese government documents (being vol. XLII,
Part i, of the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan; Tokyo,
1914), which selects chiefly constitutional and administrative
papers of the years before 1890; and The autobiography of
Fuku^an>a Yukichi, trans. E. Kiyooka (Tokyo, 1934). Of the

331

A SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY IN ENGLISH

very large number of contemporary accounts by Western
writers, the following are of interest and have been cited in the
text: J. R. Black, Young Japan. Yokohama and Yedo. A narrative
of the settlement and the city from the signing of the treaties in 1858
to the close of the year 1879 (2. vols., London, 1 880-81); G. W.
Browne, Japan. The place and the people (Boston, Mass., 1901);
and B. H. Chamberlain and W. B. Mason, ed., Murray' *s Hand-
book for Travellers in Japan (8th ed., London, 1907; or any other
edition of about this period).

The period 1912-1945

Except for J. W. Morley, The Japanese thrust into Siberia, 1918
(New York, 1957), most of the monographs dealing with this
period have concentrated on developments after 1930. R.
Storry, The double patriots: a study of Japanese nationalism (Lon-
don, 1957) deals chiefly with the patriotic societies, while
Y. C. Maxon, Control of Japanese foreign policy. A. study of civil-
military rivalry 1930-1945 (Berkeley, 1957) approaches the
same problems through an analysis of institutions. Something
of the atmosphere of the 19305 is conveyed in the translation
of the principal 'ethics' text for schools: Kokutai no hongi.
Cardinal Principles of the National Entity of Japan, ed. R. K. Hall,
trans. J. O. Gauntlett (Cambridge, Mass., 1949). There are
also several lively accounts by foreign journalists in Japan,
including H. Byas, Government by assassination (London, 1943);
A. M. Young, Japan under Taisho Tenno 1912-1926 (London,
1928); and the same author's Imperial Japan 1926-1938 (Lon-
don, 1938).

F. C. Jones, Japan's New Order in East Asia: its rise and fall
2937-45 (London, 1954) is a valuable study of the years after
the outbreak of the China war, written from Western sources.
It can best be supplemented, especially on questions of Japan-
ese policy-making, by the two books of R. J. C. Butow, Tojo
and the coming of the war (Princeton, 1961) and Japan's decision to
surrender (Stanford, 1954), which both make extensive use of
Japanese documentary materials. There are also two good
foreign eye-witness accounts of Japan at the beginning of the
war and during it: J. Morris, Traveller from Tokyo (London,
1943) and R. Guillain, Le peuple japonais et la guerre: choses

s^ 1939-1946 (Paris, 1947).

332

A SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY IN ENGLISH

Postwar Japan

Source materials are not readily available for the postwar
years, a fact which is reflected in the nature of the historical
studies on the subject so far published. There are, however,
a number of works of high quality on several aspects of recent
Japanese society. K. Kawai, Japan's American interlude (Chicago,
1960) discusses the period of military occupation, as does W.
Macmahon Ball, Japan Enemy or Ally (London, 1 948), written
by the British Commonwealth Representative on the Allied
Council. H. Borton and others, Japan between East and West
(New York, 1957) is a group of papers on Japan after 1952.
On politics there are three useful books: N. Ike, Japanese
politics. An introductory survey (London, 1958); R. A. Scalapino
and J. Masumi, Parties and politics in contemporary Japan (Berke-
ley, 1962); and I. Morris, Nationalism and the right wing in Japan.
A study of postwar trends (London, 1960). G. C. Allen, Japan 's
economic recovery (London, 1958) is the best summary of postwar
economic history, while R. P. Dore, ILand reform in Japan
(London, 1959) deals at some length with village life, as well
as the land reform itself, thus becoming in some respects a
companion volume to the same author's earlier sociological
study, City life in Japan. A study of a Tokyo ward (London, 1958).

333

NOTES

CHAPTER I: JAPAN IN THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY

i. In Tokugawa Japan it was usual to indicate the extent of landholding not by
area, but by the estimated annual crop which the land would yield. This was
expressed in koku of rice: i koku equals approximately 5 bushels.

2. Wherever possible I refer to a domain by the name of its castle-town, which
is relatively easy to identify on a map. However, the greatest of them were
often known by the names of the provinces which they comprised, and these
names have been used extensively in books written in western languages.
Where this is so, I give the name of the province in brackets and often use
it alone. The most important examples are those of domains which played
a major part in nineteenth-century politics: Klagoshima (Satsuma); Yamaguchi
(Choshu); Kochi (Tosa); and Saga (Hizen).

3. Translated in W. T. de Bary (ed.), Sources of the Japanese tradition (New York,
1958), pp. 409-10.

It might be relevant here to comment briefly on the subject of samurai
literacy. All samurai were encouraged to study the Confucian classics; and
although many achieved only the sketchiest knowledge of them, most had an
education of sorts and some became scholars of great repute. Certainly the
society in which they lived set a great value on books and learning, so that
their opportunities for reading were considerable. The technique of printing,
which had been brought to Japan from China in very early times, was much
improved by the use of movable type, learnt from both Europe and Korea
at the end of the sixteenth century; and this helped to bring about a great
increase in the number of books available. They were soon being printed not
only by the Tokugawa and domain governments, but also by commercial
booksellers, now emerging for the first time in the great cities. The libraries
of feudal lords, usually open to samurai of their domains, were numerous
and often large, while the poorer samurai and merchants were in a position
as a rule to borrow books from their more affluent friends and neighbours.
Even residents of the countryside were able to read the more popukr works,
by borrowing them from itinerant pedlars for a fee.

4. Donald Keene, Anthology of Japanese literature (London, 1956), p. 358.

5 . Population figures for the period are unreliable in detail, but are a reasonable
enough guide to relative size. They were drawn up for tax purposes and
therefore exclude figures for samurai families; and this makes the real size
of towns a matter of some conjecture, since most samurai were town-
dwellers and they accounted in all for about 2,000,000 persons of a national
total of some 30,000,000 in the nineteenth century.

6. G. B. Sansom, Japan. A. short cultural history (rev. ed., London, 1952), p. 477.

CHAPTER II: ECONOMIC PROBLEMS AND REFORMS

7. The ryo was a gold coin which in the money markets of Edo and Osaka
exchanged on average for about 60 momme (225 gm.) of silver in the period
1750-1800, about 64 momme (240 gm.) in 1800-50. Since this, despite fluctu-
ations, was also approximately the price of i koku of rice, one can roughly

335

NOTES

equate the ryo and koka in considering financial statements of these years.
The same does not hold good after 1850, however, because of rapid inflation.

8. E. H. Norman, Japan's emergence as a modern state (New York, 1940), pp. 61-2.

CHAPTER III: JAPAN AND THE WEST

9. Edinburgh Review, xcvi, 196 (October, 1852), p. 383.

10. Quoted in W. G. Beasley, Great 'Britain and the opening of Japan 1834-1858

(London, 1951), p. 93.
u. The old Chinese tag, 'to know one's enemy and know oneself brings

constant victory*, was often used in the mid-nineteenth century to avert

conservative criticism of the study of things Western.

12. Quoted in G. B. Sansom, The Western World and Japan (New York and Lon-
don, 1950), p. 258.

13. de Bary, Sources of the Japanese tradition, p. 544.

14. Quoted in S. Toyama, Meiji ishin [The Meiji Restoration] (Tokyo, 1951),
p. 78. [The translation is mine. W.G.B.]

CHAPTER IV: TREATIES AND POLITICS, 1853-1860

15. The texts of the President's letter and that of Perry are to be found in F. L.
Hawks, Narrative of the "Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas
and Japan (3 vols., Washington, 1856), I, 256-9.

1 6. W. G. Beasley, Select documents on Japanese foreign policy 1853-1868 (London,

i955)>P- "7-

17. Beasley, Select documents, pp. 130-1.

1 8. Memorandum translated in Beasley, Select documents, p. 138.

19. Townsend Harris, The complete journal of Townsend Harris, ed. M. E. Cosenza
(New York, 1930), p. 507.

20. Memorandum translated in Beasley, Select documents, p. 180.

21. Harris, Complete Journal, p. 505.

22. Text of imperial decree, translated in Beasley, Select documents, p. 194.

CHAPTER V: THE FALL OF THE TOKUGAWA, 1860-1868

23. I here follow the figures given in H. Borton, Japan's modern century (New
York, 19 5 5), p. 57-

24. R. Alcock, The Capital of the Tycoon (2 vols., London, 1863), I, 126.

25. Memorial by Bakufu Council, translated in Beasley, Select documents, p. 203.

26. Russell to Neale, December 24, 1862, Parliamentary Papers 1864, vol. LXVI,
pp. 179-80.

27. Letter of Okubo Toshimichi, September 23, 1865; translated from Okubo
Tosbimichi Monjo (10 vols., Tokyo, 1927-9), I, 298.

28. E. Satow, A diplomat in Japan (London, 1921), p. 129. Most Western visitors
at this time knew the Shogun as 'the Tycoon'.

CHAPTER VI: NEW MEN AND NEW METHODS, 1868-1873

29. Variant translations of the Oath are given and their significance discussed
in Sansom, The Western World and Japan, pp. 318-20.

30. W. W. McLaren, Japanese government documents (Trans. Asiatic Soc. Japan,
vol. xlii, part i; Tokyo, 1914), pp. 26-7.

31. Ito Hirobumi, writing in S. Okuma, ed., Fifty Years of New Japan (2 vols.,
London, 1910), I, 122.

32. The text is given in McLaren, Japanese government documents, pp. 29-32, where
it is wrongly dated March 5, 1869, instead of March 2.

33 6

NOTES

CHAPTER VII: GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS, 1873-1894

33. Satow, A. diplomat in Japan, p. 340.

34. Memorial of February 20, 1874, in McLaren, Japanese government documents,
p. 445.

35 . R. A. Scalapino, Democracy and the party movement in prewar Japan (Berkeley &
Los Angeles, 1953), p. 63.

36. Translated in G. M. Beckmann, The making of the Meiji Constitution (Univ. of
Kansas, 1957), P- X 49- The memorials by Ito, Yamagata and Okuma are
also translated, ibid. 9 pp. 12642.

37. This, like other standard translations of Japanese party names, is open to
serious objections. However, the usage is hallowed by time and it would
only cause confusion to propose alternatives here.

38. Press Law of June 28, 1875, in McLaren, Japanese government documents, p. 542,

39. McLaren, Japanese government documents., p. 503.

40. Ito Hirobumi, 'Some reminiscences of the grant of the new constitution*,
in Okuma (ed.), Fifty Years of New Japan, I, 125.

41. Decree of April 28, 1888, in McLaren, Japanese government documents, p. 128.

42. Ito, c Some reminiscences', in Okuma, Fifty Years of New Japan, I, 127.

CHAPTER VIII: MODERNIZATION, 1873-1894

43. Satow, A diplomat in Japan, p. 391.

44. Murray' 1 's Handbook for Travellers in Japan, ed. B. H. Chamberlain and W. B.
Mason (8th ed., London, 1907), p. n.

45. The yen (Y) was a new coin, introduced with the opening of the Osaka Mint
in April 1871 to replace the ryo and ichibu of the Tokugawa period. Its
normal value before the 19305 was about 2 to the dollar, 10 to the pound
sterling.

46. J. R. Black, Young Japan (2 vols., London, 1880-1), II, 455.

47. W. W. Lockwood, The economic development of Japan (Princeton, 1955), p. 584.

48. The autobiography ofFuku^awa Yukichi (Tokyo, 1934), p. 264.

49. Fujii Jintaro, Outline of Japanese history in the Meiji era (Tokyo, 1958), p. 166.
The novel is summarized at some length in G. B. Sansom, The Western
World and Japan (New York, 1950), pp. 412-5.

CHAPTER IX: NATIONALISM AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS, 1890-1904

50. In Okuma, Fifty Years of New Japan, I, 211.

5 1 . The relevant article is quoted in Langer, The diplomacy of imperialism (rev.
ed., New York, 1951), p. 777.

CHAPTER X: THE END OF AN ERA

52. In Okuma, Fifty Years of New Japan, I, 128-9.

53. G. W. Browne, Japan (Boston, 1901), p. 408.

54. Murray's Handbook for Travellers in Japan (1907), ed. B. H. Chamberkin and
W. B. Mason. The quotations used here are taken from p. 10, but the whole
book is invaluable as a source of information on Japan in the early 2Oth
century.

55. Lockwood, The Economic Development of Japan, p. 556.

56. Black, Young Japan, II, 407.

57. Murray's Handbook (1907), p. 8.

58. Scientific education was firmly enough established by the end of the Meiji
period for Japan already to be producing research of some distinction, even

337

NOTES

though the country's first-class scientists remained very few. Thus Nagaoka
Hantaro's work on atomic structure resulted in bis name being linked with
those of Rutherford and Bohr (and established a tradition of work in nuclear
physics which was maintained kter by Yukawa Hideki, whose meson theory
gained him a Nobel Prize in 1949); Suzuki Umetaro independently dis-
covered vitamins in 1910; and others made important contributions in the
fields of astronomy, seismology and botany, in particular.

CHAPTER XI: JAPAN BECOMES A WORLD POWER, 1914-1922

59. A. M. Young, Japan under Taisho Tenno (London, 1928), p. 88.

60. Yamagata to Okuma, August 1914; in de Bary, Sources of the Japanese tradi-
tion, p. 714,

61. From Article I. The texts of Articles I and III, containing the core of the
agreement, are quoted in Qotton, Japan's modern century ', p.

CHAPTER XII: THE LIBERAL 'TWENTIES

62. Young, Japan under Taisho Tenno, pp. 112-3. It might be added that the rich
also travelled a good deal abroad and often sent their sons to foreign uni-
versities though the high standards maintained by the best Japanese uni-
versities ensured that a foreign education was usually regarded as a desirable
addition to, rather than a necessary substitute for, that which could be
obtained at home.

63. Scalapino, Democracy and the party movement, p. 232.

64. Young, Japan under Taisho Tenno, p. 280.

65. de Bary, Sources of the Japanese tradition, p. 834.

CHAPTER XIII: PATRIOTS AND SOLDIERS, 1930-1941

66. Translated in D. M. Brown, Nationalism in Japan: an introductory historical
analysis (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1955), p. 139.

67. Showa is the era-name for the reign of the present emperor, beginning in
1926, just as Meiji was for that of his grandfather.

68. Richard Storry, The Double Patriots (London, 1957), p. 52.

69. Storry, Double Patriots, p. 300. The word kokutai, meaning something like
'national polity*, was a favourite with the ultranationalists and came to have
strong connotations of emperor-worship, loyalism and right wing ideas
generally.

70. A. M. Young, Imperial Japan 1926-1938 (London, 1938), pp. 179-80.

71. Hugh Byas, Government by assassination (London, 1943), p. 47.

72. Young, Imperial Japan, p. 250. The word e Japan* is a European corruption
of the Chinese pronunciation of the ideographs by which the Japanese
describe their country (literally they mean 'sun-origin'; hence *land of the
Rising Sun'). The Japanese themselves pronounce these ideographs 'Nihon'
or 'Nippon', the latter having slightly more nationalistic connotations.

73. Kokutai no Hong!, trans. J. O. Gauntlett (Cambridge, Mass., 1949), p. 52.

CHAPTER XIV: AN EMPIRE WON AND LOST, 1937-1945

74. Translated in de Bary, Sources of the Japanese tradition, pp. 796-7.

75. Ibid.

76. Quoted in Y. C. Maxon, Control of Japanese foreign policy . .
(Berkeley, 1957). p. 94.

77. F. C. Jones, Japan's New Order in East Asia (London, 1954), p. 83.

338

NOTES

CHAPTER XV: REFORM AND REHABILITATION, 1945-1962

78. The translated text can be found in R. J. C. Butow, Japan's decision to sur-
render (Stanford, 1954), p. 248.

79. The text is given in Borton, Japan* s modern century, p. 486.

80. Article i. The text of the 1946 Constitution is given in Borton, J apart s
modern century, pp. 490-507, where the provisions of the Constitution of
1889 are also tabulated for comparison.

8 1. R. P. Dore, ~L*and reform in Japan (London, 1959), p. xvii.

CHAPTER XVI: POSTWAR JAPAN

82. R. A. Scalapino and J. Masumi, Parties and politics in contemporary Japan
(Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1962), p. 53.

83. John Morris, Traveller from Tokyo (London, 1943), p. 29.

84. D. Keene, in H. Borton and others, Japan between East and West (New York,
1957), p. 188.

8 5 . Ivan Morris, Nationalism and the right wing in Japan (London, 1 960), pp. 30-3 1 .

339

INDEX

(Note. Where words are listed in the glossary, the glossary page reference
is given first.)

Abe Isoo, 231

Abe Masahiro, 46, 53, 58-60, 63

Aberdeen, Lord, 43

Adachi Kenzo, 225

Administrative reform, 126-9, 221,

252-3

Adoption, 309-10
Agriculture, Tokugawa period,

17-20, 22-3, 26-7, 33-4, 35-6;

Meiji period, 121, 1256, 1414,

147, 183; since 1912, 217-19,

229-30, 242, 286-7, 33> 3 IT >

313-14

Aizawa Saburo, 249-50
Aizawa Seishisai, 50-1, 52-3
Aizu, 7, 73, 82, 85, 86, 90, 98-9
Alcock, Sir Rutherford, 78, 79-80
America, see United States
Amur, River, 44, 62
Amur River Society, see Kokur-

yukai

Anami Korechika, 276, 277, 278
Ando Nobumasa, 80
Anglo- Japanese Alliance, 168-70,

171, 173, 175, 176, 201, 210-11

Anti-Comintern Pact, 266

Anti-foreign feeling, 68-9, 73-4,
89-90, 113, 193, 236-41, 255-7,
258-9; see alsojo-i

Aomori, 146, 185

Araki Sadao, 237, 244, 249, 250

Architecture, 154, 186-7

Army, development of, 112, 119,
136-7, 164-5, 223, 290; policies
of, 208-10, 212, 223-4, 244-6,
249, 251-2, 252-7, 259, 266-7,
269-70, 276-8; politics in,
239-41, 242-4, 247, 248-52, 260

Arnold, Edwin, 169

Arrow War, 62, 63, 69
Art, 15, 153-4, 157, 315
Asano company, 148
Ashida Hitoshi, 283
Assassination, 74, 75, 78-9, 80-1,
119, 175, 222, 224, 241, 243, 246,

247

Atomic bombs, 277, 298
Australia, 208, 258, 271, 274, 280,

293

Ba Maw, 272

Bakufu, 327; administration, 38,

69; finances, 4, 6-8, 21-8;

succession question, 71-3;

foreign policy, 2, 38-43, 46-7,

55-6* 57-7> 73> 76-85, 87-9,
94-6; and study of the West, 55,
95, 134-5; and the Imperial
Court, 3, 51-2, 68-9, 70, 72-3,
74, 79, 81-4, 85-7, 88-9, 95-7;
opposition to, 51-2, 70-5, 81-4,
85-7, 89-97; defeat of, 98-9

Baseball, 158, 315

Bataan, 271

Biddle, James, 44-5

Black Dragon Society, see Kokur-
yukai

Boissonade de Fontarabie, Gus-
tave, 138

Bowring, Sir John, 61

Boxer risings, 167, 168, 169

Brinkley, Frank, 169

Britain, Tokugawa relations with,
38-9, 40-4, 46, 47, 54, 6 1-2,
62-6, 69-70, 78-81, 83, 84-5,
87-9, 94; and Satsuma, 80-1, 83,
845, 94; relations with, since
1868, 137, 159-60, 166-70, 171,

M

341

INDEX

*73> *75 *7&9 201-2, 2068,
210 12, 265, 2702, 280, 293
Buddhism, i, n, 192, 193, 319
Bureaucracy, 126-8, 177, 179, 220,
223, 225, 294, 305, 306, 307,

39

Burma, 265, 267, 271, 272, 275
Bushido, 11-12
Business and politics, 219-20,

226-7, 37> 39

Cabinet, 129, 284, 305, 306

Calendar, reform of, 134

Canada, 210

Caroline Is., 206

Castaways, 39, 40-1, 45, 58, 60

Castle- towns (jokamachi), 6, 9,
lo-n, 12, 21, 30, 31

Censorship, 124-5, 156, 255

Cha-no-ju, 158

Chahar, 262

Chang Tso-lin, 202-3, 223-4, 245

Charter Oath, 101-2

Chiang Kai-shek, 262, 263, 264, 265

China, Tokugawa relations with,
1-2, 38, 41-2, 48-9, 59, 61-2, 63,
65, 69-70, 134; relations with,
1868-1930, 160-4, 166-7, 169,
170, 171, 175, 196-201, 202-5,
207-8, 211-12; relations with,
since 1930, 244-6, 249, 252, 254,
259-65, 272, 275, 291, 292-3,
302,314

Chinese Eastern Railway, 166,
265-6

Chonin> see Merchants

Choshu, economy of, 7, 29, 345,
36; and foreign relations, 82, 83,
84,^87-8, 89, 91, 93, 94, 136;
anti-Bakufu activities of, 74-5,
82, 83, 85, 89-97, 98-9; and
Meiji politics, 99-109, 118, 120,

122, 127

Christianity, 2, 38, 59, 157, 193-4,

319

Chungking, 264
Cities, growth of, 13-16, 186-7,

218-19, 228-9, 310-11, 312-13;

government of, 4, 14, 126-7, I2 9

285
Coal production, 149, 150, 165,

185, 216, 253-4
Coinage, debasement of, 23, 24, 26,

30

Colnett, James, 40
Commerce, Tokugawa period,

12-14, 17-18, 27-8
Communist Party, 231, 232, 233-4,

282-3, 296, 298, 306
Confucian thought, i, n, 50, 139,

140-1, 157, 194, 318, 319
Conscription, 112, 119, 136
Constitution (1889), see Meiji Con-
stitution
Constitution (1947), 284-5, 2 9>

294, 296
Consuls, appointment of, 60-1, 62;

jurisdiction of, 62-3, 113, 138,

1 5 8-60

Coral Sea, 274
Costume, 189
Cotton and cotton goods, 17, 77,

142, 147, 150, 184, 187, 215,

216-17, 242, 302
Councillors, House of, 284
Court, see Imperial Court
Crimean War, 61-2
Curtius, Donker, 62,63, 64-5 , 69-70
Customs dues, see Tariffs

Daimyo (feudal lords), 327; lands
and authority of, 5-8, 106-9,
no, 176-7; and treaty negoti-
ations, 66-7, 70-3; see a o
Domains

Dai Nihon Kokusuikai, 237

Dajokan, 102, 129

Dan, Baron, 246

Date Muneki, 73, 86-7, 102

Davis, Sir John, 43-4, 45

Dazai Osamu, 316

Defence Agreement, Japan-US,
291, 298-9

Democratic Party, 283, 294, 295

Democratic Socialist Party, 295-6

Deshima, 40, 47, 62

342

INDEX

Diet, powers of, 130-2, 284-5, 35i
activities of, 132-3, 179-82,
221-4, 224-8, 233-5, 247-8,
282-3, 286, 294-7, 299, 305-9

DoefT, Hendrik, 40

Domains (ban), administration of,
5-11; finances of, 6-8, 12-13, 20 >
21, 28-35; abolition of, 105-9,
IH-I2, 126; see also Daimyo

Drama, 15, 153, 157, 190-1

Dutch, see Holland

'Dutch scholars', see Rangakusha

Echizen, see Fukui

Edo (later Tokyo), administration
of, 4, 27; growth of, 14-15, 29;
commerce of, 12, 13, 21, 24, 26,
27, 29, 31; opening of, 68, 74,
79-80; see also Bakufu

Education, Tokugawa period, n,
49; Meiji period, 112, 139-41,
152, 156, 157, 177-8; since 1912,
255-6, 276, 285, 287-9, 2 94>
296-7, 310, 316-17

Eisenhower, Pres. D., 299

Elections, 132-3, 182, 223, 233-4,
248, 256, 283, 284, 286, 294-6,
299, 307-8

Electric power, 185, 215-16, 301

Elgin, Lord, 70

Elliott, Capt, 41

Emigration, 208, 210, 258, 314

Emperor, authority of, 3, 85, 121,
131, 156-7, 174, 179, 260, 277-8,
284-5, 355 loyalty to, 51-2,
89-90, 121, 156-7, 239, 240-1,
248, 255, 285; see also Imperial
Court

Engineering industry, 149, 165,
184-5, 215, 301, 3 2 > 3ii

England, see Britain

Etorofu, 61, 292

Eto Shimpei, 115, 116

Exports, see Foreign trade

Extra-territoriality, 62-3, 113, 138,
1 5 8-60

Factory Acts, 189, 228, 276

Factory workers, 1 87, 188-9, 228-9,
303, 311-12

Far Eastern Commission, 280-1,
291

Farmer-Labour Party, 233

Farmers, Tokugawa period, 16-19,
22-3, 2 5~6, 26-7, 31-2, 34; Meiji
period, 121, 125-6, 142-3, H7>
177, 178, 183; since 1912,
217-18, 229-30, 242, 286-7, 303,
307-8,313-14

Federation of Labour, see Sodomei

Feudal class, see Bakufu, Daimyo^
Samurai

Feudal lords, see Daimyo

Fillmore, Pres, 57,58

Fisheries, 142, 291-2

Food, 142, 188, 190, 215 219, 300,
303, 315

Foreign policy, of Tokugawa
Bakufu, 2, 38-43, 46-7, 55-6,
57~7> 73* 7^-85, 87-9, 94-6;
of Meiji government, 113-16,
158-64, 166-73; since 1914,
196-213, 258-70, 276-8, 289,
291-3, 298-9, 314-15

Foreign trade, Tokugawa period,
2, 33, 38, 76-8, 89, 93, 94-5;
Japanese views on, 38, 48-9,
58-60, 63-6, 73, 77; negotiations
concerning, 38-46, 57-8, 60-70,
77, 80, 87-9, 95-6; since 1868,
150-1, 183, 184, 187, 188,214-15,
218, 242, 253, 268, 292-3, 300,
302-3, 314

Formosa (Taiwan), 42, 163, 167

France, Tokugawa relations with,
55, 62, 69-70, 77, 80, 87-8, 94-5;
and Japanese modernization, 54,

55> 94-5 > *3 6 *38, *47 3 1 ?;

rektions with, since 1868, 163-4,

166-7, X 7^> 20I > 2 6, 207, 21 1-12,

264-5, 267* 272
Fudaidaimyo, 327; 5-8, 71-2; see also

Daimyo

Fujita Toko, 50-1, 52-3
Fujita Yukoku, 50
Fukien, 167, 203

343

INDEX

Fukoku-kyobei, 141, 254

Fukui (Echizen), 7, 66, 76, 91, 97,

98, 101, 102
Fukuoka, 7, 178, 200
Fukuzawa Yukichi, 1 5 2-3
Furukawa company, 148

General Council of Trade Unions,

see Sohyo

Genji y The Tale of, 316, 317
Genro, 178-9, 181, 182, 199, 212,

221, 225, 235
Genyosha, 160, 200, 236
Germany, relations with, 114,

163-4, 166-7, 201-2, 203, 204,

206-8, 208-9, 266-7, 268; and

Japanese modernization, 130,

136, 138
G/t'o, 100-1
Gneist, Rudolph, 130
Golovnin, Vasilii, 39-40
Gondo Seikyo, 239, 247
Goto Shojiro, 96, 97, 115, 120, 123,

128-9, 132, 133
GoyoJdn (forced loans), 13, 19, 24,

26, 30-1

Great Britain see Britain
Great War (1914-18), 196, 201-2,

206-8, 214-15
Greater East Asia Co-prosperity

Sphere, 259, 267-8, 271-3
Gros, Baron, 70
Guadalcanal, 274
Guam, 211, 271, 274
Guilds, see under Merchants

Hainan, 264

Hakodate, 60, 64, 68, 186

Hamaguchi Yuko, 222, 224, 227-8,

2 43

Han, see Domains
Hara Kei, 119, 204-5, 20 7> 20 9> 2IO >

221-2, 226, 241
Harris, Townsend, 62-3, 65-6,

67~7> 79
Hashimoto Kingoro, 240, 244, 258,

259
Hatoyama Ichiro, 294-5

Hawaii, 211, 270-1, 274
Hayashi Senjuro, 249, 251
Hayashi Tadasu, 169, 170
Higuchi Ichiyo, 192
Hkanuma Kiichiro, 237, 251
Hirata Atsutane, 5 1
Hiroshima, 7, 26, 94, 97, 101, 102,

277

Hirota Koki, 251, 252
Hitachi obi, 5 o
Hitotsubashi house, 5
Hitotsubashi Keiki, 71-2, 73, 82-4,

86-7, 89, 94-7, 98-9
Hitotsubashi (kobu-gattai) party,

70-3, 8 1-4, 85-7, 91, 95-6
Hizen (Saga), domain, 7; trade and

industry of, 53-4, 76, 135; and

Meiji politics, 102-5, 107-9,

115-16, 117, 120-1, 123
Hokkaido, 39, 123, 141, 147, 291
Holland, 2, 38, 40, 43, 47-8, 53, 54,

55, 57-8, 62, 64-5, 69-70, 78, 80,

83-8, 211, 267-8
Home Ministry, 102, 103, 115, 122,

124, 127, 129, 193, 285
Hong Kong, 42, 43, 46, 61, 63,

167, 201, 211, 271
Hopei, 262

Hotta Masayoshi, 63-9, 72
Hudson's Bay Company, 41
Hyogo, opening of, 68, 70, 79-80,

88-9, 95-6

lemitsu, see Tokugawa Icmitsu
lemochi, see Tokugawa lemochi
lesada, see Tokugawa lesada
leshige, see Tokugawa leshige
leyasu, see Tokugawa leyasu
leyoshi, see Tokugawa Icyoshi
Ihara Saikaku, 13, 192
li domain, 7
li Naosuke, 59-60, 69-70, 72-3, 75,

76, 79, 81, 119
Ikebana y 157
Ikeda Hayato, 295, 299
Imperial Court, authority of, 3,
51-2, 99-100, 284-5; relations
with Bakufu, 3, 51-3, 68-9, 70,

344

INDEX

72-3, 74, 79, 8 1-4, 85-7, 88-9,
95-7; and treaties, 68-9, 70, 72,
74, 79, 82, 83-4, 88-9, 95-6;
samurai and, 73-5, 82-3, 85; in
the Meiji period, 100-3, 105-6;
since 1930, 248, 252, 260, 277-8,
284-5

Imperial Rule Assistance Associ-
ation, 257, 282

Imports, see Foreign trade

Indemnities: Namamugi, 81, 84-5;
Shimonoseki, 88; Boxer, 167,
168, 169; other, 163, 164, 172

Indo-China, 265, 267, 268, 272

Indonesia, 272

Industry, growth of, 53-5, 135,
144-50, 165, 183-5, 214-18,
2 53~~4> 3-2, 311-12

Inoue Junnosuke, 246

Inoue Kaoru, 87, 93

Inoue Nissho, 239, 246

Inukai Ki, 222, 224, 225, 227-8,
246, 247, 248

Ippeisotu, 191-2

Irkutsk, 40

Iron and steel industry, 149, 165,
184, 216, 253, 301

Ishibashi Tanzan, 295

Ishihara Kanji, 249

Ishii-Lansing notes, 206

Itagaki Taisuke, 104-5, I0 7> IO ^>
115, 120, 123, 128-9, 132, 133,

156, ISO, 220

Italy, 77, 147, 211,267

Ito Hirobumi, 87, 93, 105, 106, 107,
113, 114, 115, 119, 122, 126,
127-33, 155, 159, 161, 162-3,
1 68, 169-70, 178-9, 180-1, 220,
241

Iwakura mission, 113-14, 115, 138,
140, 159

Iwakura Tomomi, 96, 100, 102,
103, 104, 105, 105-6, 108, 114,
115, 119, 122, 128, 130, 131, 135,

157

Iwasaki Hisaya, 227
Iwasaki Yataro, 145-6, 148, 151,

217

Iwojima, 275

Japan Mail y 169

Japan Mass Party, 234

Java, 40

Jehol, 262

]iyu-minken movement, 1 20-6, 130-3

Jiyuto, see Liberal Party

Jo-i ideas, 50-1, 58, 68-9, 73-4,

83-4, 89-90, 113, 121, 156, 197

Jokamachi, see Castle-towns

Kabuki, 190-1, 317
Kagawa Tomoh?ko, 231
Kagoshima, 41, 54, 55, 84-5, 89,

1 1 8, 119, 135; see also Satsuma
Kai, 26
Kaikoku, 197

Kaishinto, see Progressive Party
Kajin no kzgu, 153
Kamchatka, 39
Kamon houses, 5
Kampaku, 327; 689
Kan, 327

Kanagawa, 60, 68, 70
Kanazawa (Kaga), 7, 29, 30
Kanjo-bugyo y 4

Karafuto (South Sakhalin), 175
Katayama Tetsu, 283
Kato Komei, 201-2, 203-5, 221,

222-3, 224, 225, 226, 227-8,243
Katsu Awa, 104

Katsura Taro, 169-70, 171, 181-2
Kawai Eijiro, 231-2
Kawakami Hajime, 232
Kawakami Otojiro, 191
Ka^oku, see Peerage
Kazunomiya marriage, 79
Keiei, see Matsudaira Keiei
Keiki, see Hitotsubashi Keiki
Kendo ', 158

Kenseikai, 221, 222, 223, 226
Kenseito, 180
Kiaochow, 166, 202, 204
Kido Koin, 89, 92, 93, 104, 105,

105-6, 106-7, 108, 109, 114, 115,

118, 121-2, 128
Kiheitai, 91

345

INDEX

Kii, 5, 7, 26, 71-2

King, C. W., 41

Kirisute-gomen, 112

Kishi Nobusuke, 293, 295, 297,

298-9

Kita Ikki, 238-9, 240, 249, 250
Kobe, 113, 146, 185, 186, 229
Kobu-gattai movement, 70-3, 81-4,

85~7, 9*> 95-6
Kochi, see Tosa
Kodo, 240-1, 249-50, 252, 260
Koiso Kuniaki, 237, 276
Koku, 327

Kokuhonsha, 237-8
Kokuryukai, 200-1, 202, 236, 237
Kokutai, 241, 256
Kokutai no Hongi, 256
Komei, Emperor, 68-9, 70, 85, 96
Konoe Fumlmaro, 251, 252, 259,

266, 276, 277
Korea, relations with, 114-15, 117,

118, 160-3, 167-8, 170, 171, 172,

197-8, 200, 201, 293; annexation

of, 175-6

Kuala Lumpur, 271
Kumamoto, 7, 101, 102, 118, 119
Kunashiri, 292
Kuomintang, 264, 265
Kurihama, 58
Kurile Is., 39, 61, 161, 271, 281,

291-2

Kurusu Saburo, 269, 270
Kuwana, 98-9
Kwajalein, 274
Kwantung Army, 244-6, 254, 259,

261-2, 272, 276
Kwantung, Gov. Gen. of, 176
Kyoto, administration of, 3, 4, 82,

126-7; growth of, 14-15, 178,

1 86; commercial activities of, 12,

13, 14, 229; samurai activities in,

73-4,83,85,90

Labour conditions, 188-9, 228-9,

276, 286, 303, 311-12
Labour Farmer Party, 233
Labour laws, 189, 228, 276, 286
Lamsdorff, 170

Land reform, 286-7, 33> 3*3
Land tax, Tokugawa period, 6-8,

16-17, 20, 22-3, 29-31; Meiji

period, 109-10, 121, 143, 147
Landlords, 18-20, 121, 125-6, 142,

177, 178, 183, 218, 286-7
Lansdowne, Lord, 169
Laxman, Adam, 39
League of Nations, 196, 208, 261-2
Left-wing politics, 188-9, 230-5,

248, 256-7, 282-3, 286, 289-90,

294-9, 306-9

Legal reforms, 138, 159-60, 285-6
Leyte, 275

Li Hung-chang, 119, 161, 162-3
Liaotung, 162, 163-4, 171
Liberal Democratic Party, 295, 296,

299, 306-8
Liberal Party (Jiyuto), Meiji period,

123-6, 131, 132-3, 1 80; Postwar,

282-3, 294-5

Literature, 15, 153, 191-2, 315-17
Local government, 126-7, 129, 285,

288, 297
London Agreement (1862), 79-80,

81
London Naval Treaty (1930), 224,

242-3

Luzon, 271, 275
Lytton Commission, 261

McArthur, Douglas, 275, 280-1,
284, 286, 290, 291

Macht-bugyo, 4

McMahon Ball, 286

Maebara Issei, 1 1 8

Maebashi, 147

Maimcbi, 124, 169

Makino Shinken, 208, 209

Malaya, 267, 271, 272

Manabe Akikatsu, 70, 75, 79

Manchukuo, 246, 254, 259, 260-2,
271, 272

Manchuria, 160, 162, 166, 168, 169,
171-2, 176, 198, 199, 200, 201,
203, 204, 205, 206, 208, 209, 212,
223-4, 244-6, 249, 254, 259,
260-2, 263, 265-6, 271, 272

346

INDEX

Manchurian Incident, 244-6, 260-2

Manila, 41, 211, 271, 275, 293

Marco Polo Bridge, 263

Mariana Is., 206, 274

Marlner y 42

Marshall Is., 206, 274

Marxism, 232, 283, 318, 319

Matsudaira Katamori, 73, 82, 85,
86

Matsudaira Keiei, 66, 67, 713,
82-4, 86-7, 98, 101

Matsudaira Sadanobu, 25, 26, 27,
28

Matsukata Masayoshi, 104-5,
132-3, 147-8, 178-9, 180, 220

Matsuoka Yosuke, 266-7

Mazaki Jinzaburo, 237, 249, 250

Meiji Constitution, origins of,
120-30; provisions of, 130-2,
157,224

Meiji, Emperor, 96, 97, 174

Afeiji government, establishment
of, 98-105; domestic policies of,
109-13, 126-32, 135-51, 164-5,
176-7, 184-9; foreign policy of,
113-16, 158-64, 166-73; anc *
opposition, 1 17-21, 123-6, 13 1-3,
178-9

Merchants, Tokugawa period, 8,
13-16, 27-8, 31-2, 33, 34-5; and
guilds, 14, 17, 27-8; and mono-
polies, 23, 27, 31-2, 33, 34-5,77

Metsuke, 4

Midway Is., 271, 274

Military reform, Tokugawa period,
47-8, 53~5, 9 1 , 9 2 , 95; Meiji
period, 112, 135, 136-7, 164-5;
see also Army, Navy

Minami Jiro, 245

Minobe Tatsukichi, 255

Minseito, 223-4, 224-8, 233, 235,
247-8

Mishima Yukio, 316

Missionaries, 42-3, 139

Mitajiri, 34

Mito, 5, 7, 54, 75

Mito scholars, 50-1, 52-3, 58, 74,

83

Mitsubishi company, 145-6, 148,

217, 226, 227
Mitsui company, 148, 151, 217,

246

Miyazu, 26
Mizuno Tadakuni, 26-8, 32, 46, 47,

55

Modernization, Tokugawa period,

53-5, 92, 94-5, *34-5; Meiji
period, 109-13, 135-54, 164-5,
177-8, 183-92

Mongolia, 198, 203, 206, 263, 266

Monopoly trading, see under Mer-
chants

Mori Arinori, 140

Mori Yoshichika, 34, 36, 92, 93

Morotai, 275

Morrison^ 41, 47

Mosse, Alfred, 130

Motono Ichiro, 208-9

Motoori Norinaga, 5 1

Munitions industry, 53-5, 137, 148,
214,215, 254, 275

Murata Seifu, 34-5

Music, 158, 190, 191, 315

Muto Akira, 249

Mutsu Munemitsu, 159

Nabeshima Kanso (Naomasa).
53-4, 102

Nagai Kafu, 191, 316

Nagasaki, commerce of, 2, 13, 15,
38, 55, 6 4-5, 68, 76, 93, 145, 148,
185, 1 86; negotiations at, 39, 40,
42, 43, 45, 57, 61, 64-5; atom
bomb at, 277

Nagata Tetsuzan, 249

Nagoya, 147, 186; see also Owari

Naha (Napa), 41

Namamugi incident, 80-1, 83, 84-5

Nanking, 202, 246, 263-4, 265

Naoetsu, 146, 185

National Defence Force, 290

National Mobilization Law, 253,

254,^55

National Police Reserve, 290
Nationalism, 56, 154, i55~ 8 > T 59,

164, 193, 194-5, 196-7, 200-1,

347

INDEX

231,236-42,255-7,258-9,293-4,

298-9, 314-15
Navy, growth of, 136, 137, 164-5,

211, 290; politics of, 242-3, 247,

251, 259

Neale, Lt-Col, 80-1, 84-5
Netherlands, see Holland
Netherlands Indies, 267-8, 271,

272

New Guinea, 274, 275
Newspapers, 124-5, 156, 169, 179,

200

Nicholas I, 44
Nihon Taishuto, 234
Niigata, 26, 68, 79-80
Nikolaevsk, 210
Nimitz, Chester, 274
Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK), 146,

186

Nishihara Kamezo, 205
Nogi Maresuke, 171-2
Noh, 157, 190
Nomin-Rodoto, 233
Nomonhan, 266
Nosaka Sanzo, 282-3, 296
Novels, 15, 153, 156, 191-2, 315-16

Occupation, Allied, 279-91, 293

Oi Kentaro, 231

Oil, 259, 267, 268, 273, 302

Okada Keisuke, 248, 250, 261

Okawa Shumei, 238, 240, 244, 247

Okayama, 7

Okhotsk, Sea of, 39, 44, 291

Okinawa, 41, 275, 276

Okubo Toshimichi, 89, 92-3, 96-7,
1034, 105, 105-6, 107, 108-9,
113, 114-15, 118, 119, 122, 127,
128, 131, 135, 155, 241

Okurna Shigenobu, 105, 107, 108,
109, 113, 115, 119, 122-3, 124,
126, 128-9, I 5 2 > I 59> I ^> 20O >

2OI, 2O3, 2O5, 213, 220, 221, 227

Orni, 26

Opium War, 41-2, 43, 44, 48-9
Osaka, administration and growth
of, 4, 15, 26, 126-7, 136, 185,
1 86; commerce of, 12, 24, 26, 29,

31, 33, 229, 301; opening of, 68,

70, 79-80
Oshima, 33
Oshima Hiroshi, 266
Oshio Heihachiro, 26
Owari, 5, 7, 72, 73, 92, 97, 98, 101
Oyama Iwao, 162, 172

Pacific islands, 202, 206, 208, 270-1,

274-5

Palau Is., 274
Palmer Aaron, 44
Palmerston, Lord, 41
Paris, Bakufu mission to, 87-8
Paris Exposition (1867), 92
Parkes, Sir Harry, 88-9, 94, 113
Parties, see Political parties
Patriotic societies, 119, 160, 236,

237-9, 240-1, 243-4, 246-8, 256
Peace Preservation Laws, 124-5,

22 3> 2 33> 2 34

Peace Treaty (1952), 291, 295
Pearl Harbour, 270-1
Peasant revolts, 20, 25-6, 26-7, 32,

34, 125
Peerage (ka^pku), 111-12, 128-9,

176-7
Peers, House of, 129, 131, 179, 1 8 1,

221, 223

Peking, 162, 167, 203, 263
Perry, M. C., 46, 57-8, 60-1, 62, 74
Phaeton., 40

Philippine Is., 268, 271, 272, 275
Poetry, 15, 153, 315
Police, 124-5, I 3 2 > 233, 234, 2 4 8 >

285, 290, 294, 297
Political parties, origins of, 120-6,

131-3; nature and activities of,

132-3, 178, 179-82, 220-8, 233-5,

247-8, 256-7, 260, 282-5, 293-9,

305-9

Popular rights, see Jiyu-minken
Population, 15, 132, 143, 144, 187,

188, 218-19, 228, 281, 310-11,

314

Port Arthur, 162, 163, 166, 171-2
Portsmouth, Treaty of, 172-3, 181
Potsdam Declaration, 277, 282

348

INDEX

Preble, 45

Prefectures, 126-7, I2 9> 28 5

Press, see Newspapers

Press Law, 124

Privy Council, 129, 179, 223, 224,

225, 306
Progressive Party (Kaishinto), 123,

126, 131, 132-3, 282-3
'Purge* regulations, 282, 290
Putiatin, Rear-Adm., 44, 46, 61, 65,

69-70

Raffles, T. S., 40

Railways, 113, 137, 146, 185, 275

Rangakusha, 47-8

Rearmament, 290, 294, 296

Reform Party, 294

Regent (Tairo), 69, 72, 82

Religion, i, 2, 11, 38, 51-2, 59,

156-7, 192-4, 318-19
Representatives, House of, 284,

296

Rezanov, Nikolai, 39
Rice prices, 78, 147, 228-9, 229-30,

242
Rice production and consumption,

17, 22, 30, 142, 183, 188, 217-18,

242, 303

Richardson, Charles, 80, 81, 83
Roches, Leon, 94-5
Rodo-Nominto, 233
Roessler, Hermann, 130, 138
Rqfu, 327; 4
Rokumeikan, 190
Roosevelt, Pres. F. D., 269
Russell, Lord, 80-1
Russia, Tokugawa relations with,

39-40, 42, 44, 46, 47, 50, 51, 61,

62, 65, 66, 69-70, 78, 80;

relations with, since 1868, 161,

162, 163-4, 166-73, 176, 198,

199, 2OI, 2O6, 2O8IO, 212, 249,
260, 265-6, 267, 271, 277, 291-2

Russian-American Company, 39
Russo-Japanese War, 171-3
Ryo, 327

Ryukyu Is., 33, 36, 41, 46, 161, 275,
281

Saga, see Hizen

Saigo Takamori, 89, 92-3, 96-7,
103-4, 105, 108-9, 114-16,
117-19, 122, 155-6, 160, 236

Saikaku, 13, 192

Saionji Kimmochi, 181-2, 207, 209,
220, 227, 248

Saipan, 274, 275, 276

Saito Makoto, 237, 248

Sakhalin, 161, 172, 210, 212, 291

SakokM policy, 2, 38-46, 46-52,
58-60, 63-4, 66-7, 68-9, ?o, 73

Sakuma Shozan, 47-8, 49, 74, in

Sakurakai, 240, 244, 258

Samarang^ 42

Samurai, 327; life and status of,
9-13, iii-i2, 114-15, 1 1 8, 177;
economic difficulties of, 12-13,
21, 24-5, 27, 30-1, 78, 108, 109,
no, 114-15, 117, 1 1 8; radical
politics of, 47-5 2, 73-5, 78-9,
81-4, 85, 89-92, 117-21, 178;
in the Meiji government, 100-5,
127, 177

Sanada Yukitsura, 47

Sangi, 102

Sanjo Sanetomi, 83, 85, TOO, 102,
128

Sanke, 5

SanMn-kotai (Alternate attendance'),
6, 29, 82

Sankyo, 5

Sanyo, 101, 102

Sato Shinen, 48-9, 1 1 1

Satow, Sir Ernest, 94

Satsuma, domain, 7; economic
policies of, 29, 30, 32-4, 36, 46,
76; modernization in, 53-4, 92,
135; anti-Bakufu activities of,
71-3, 81-7, 89-97, 98-9; and
Britain, 80-1, 83, 84-5, 94; and
Meiji politics, 99-109, 117-19,

120, 127

Satsuma Rebellion, 117-19, 146,

147

Schools, see Education
Science, 194
Seclusion, see Sakoku policy

349

INDEX

152

Seiyukai, 181-2, 221-4, 224-8,

2 33> 2 35> 247-8

Sendai, 7, 30, 178, 194

Shakal Minshuto, see Social Demo-
cratic Party

Shakai Taishuto, 234-5, 248, 256-7

Shanghai, 42, 246, 263

Shantung, 166, 167, 202-4, 206-7,
210, 212

Shibusawa Eikhi, 220

Shidehara Kijuro, 212, 222, 227,
244

Shigemitsu Mamoru, 276, 292

Shimazu Hisamitsu, 73, 81-4, 85-7,

? 6

Shimazu Nariakira, 36, 54-5, 71-3,

92
Shimoda, 42, 55, 60, 61, 62, 63, 65,

68

Shimonoseki, 34, 88, 89, 91, 185
Shimonoseki Straits, 84, 85, 87-8
Shimonoseki, Treaty of, 163-4,

168

Sbmron, 50

Shinto, 51-2, 156-7, 192-3, 318-19
Shipbuilding, Tokugawa period,

53~5 94, U5; Meiji period, 148,

149, 165, 184; since 1914, 215,

229, 254, 301, 302
Shipping, 145-6, 165, 185-6,214-15
Shogun, 327; 3, 96-7; see also

Bakufu

Showa Restoration, 240-1
Siam (Thailand), 267, 272
Siberia, 62, 162, 208-10, 212, 266,

271
Siberian expedition, 208-10, 212,

222, 226
Silk, 17, 77, 78, 95, 143, 147, 149-50,

183-4, 187, 217, 230, 242, 253,

302

Singapore, 211, 271
Sino- Japanese War (1894-5), 161-3;

(i937-45)> 252, 2^2-5
Social Democratic Party (Shakai

Minshuto), 188, 231,- 282-3,

295-6, 297-9, 306-8

Social Mass Party, 234-5, 248,

256-7
Socialist politics, 188, 221-2,230-5,

248, 256-7, 282-3, 286, 289-90,

294, 295-6, 297-9, 3<H>
Sodomei, 232-3

Soejima Taneomi, 114, 115, 120
Soekarno, Dr, 272
Sohyo, 286, 297, 308
Son-no ideas, 51-2, 73-4, 89, 121
South Manchuria Railway, 176,

226, 254

Spencer, Herbert, 130
Steel production, 149, 165, 184,

216, 253, 301
Stein, Lorenz von, 130
Stirling, Sir James, 61
Strikes, 229, 231, 233, 289-90, 297,

299

Succession dispute (1858), 71-3
Suffrage, 132, 182, 223, 233, 284,

286

Sugar, Satsuma monopoly in, 33-4
Sumtda-gawa, 191
Sumitomo company, 217, 227
Sumo, 158, 317
Sumptuary laws, 24, 25, 27
Sun Yat-sen, 200, 202
Supreme Commander of the Allied

Powers (SCAP), 280-1, 306
Supreme Court, 285-6
Surrender, 276-8, 279-80
Suzuki Bunji, 231, 232
Suzuki Kantaro, 276

Tachibana Kosaburo, 239
Tairo (Regent), 69, 72
Taisei Yokusan Kai* 257
Taiwan (Formosa), 42, 163, 167
Takahashi Korekiyo, 222, 227-8
Takashima colliery, 54
Takashima Shuhan, 55
Takasugi Shinsaku, 89, 91, 92, 93,

94, 104

Takekurabe, 192

Tanaka Giichi, 223-4, 226, 227-8
Tangku Truce, 262
Tanizaki Junichiro, 316

350

INDEX

Tariffs, 64, 78, 89, 113, 158-60
Taxation, Tokugawa period, 6-8,

16-17, 20, 22-4, 25-6, 26-7,

29-3i;Meijiperiod, 108, 109-10,

121, 143, 147-8, 165
Tayama Katai, 1912
Tea ceremony, 158
Tea trade, 77, 78
Teiseito, 126
Telegraphs, 112, 137
Telephones, 137
Tenant farmers, 125, 142, 143,

183, 218, 230, 286-7
Terauchi Masatake, 176, 205-6,

207, 209-10, 213, 221
Textile industry 77, 142-3, 147,

149-50, 151, 183-4, 215, 216-17,

242, 253, 302, 311
Thailand, see Siam
Theatre, 15, 153, 157, 190-1
Tientsin, 263, 265
Togo Heihachiro, 172
Tojo Hideki, 269-70, 276, 281-2
Tokonami Takejiro, 237
Tokugawa branch houses, 5, 6, 7
Tokugawa lemitsu, 38
Tokugawa lemochi, 72, 86, 94
Tokugawa lesada, 71, 72
Tokugawa leshige, 5
Tokugawa leyasu, 5, 6, 19
Tokugawa leyoshi, 22, 26, 35
Tokugawa Keiki, see Hitotsubashi

Keiki
Tokugawa Nariaki, 28, 52-3, 54,

58-9, 63, 66, 71-2, 73
Tokugawa Yoshikatsu, 72, 73, 92,

98, 101
Tokugawa Yoshimune, 5, 24, 25,

26, 28

Tokugawa Yoshitomi, 71-2
Tokyo (formerly Edo), growth of,

185, 186, 301; administration of,

in, 126-7
Tomioka, 147, 148
Tong-haks, 161
Tosa, domain, 7; economic policies,

31, 36, 76; and Tokugawa

politics, 71-3, 83, 86-7, 9> 9*>

93, 96-7; and Meiji politics,
102-5, 107-9, "5, 1 20-1, 123

Tosei faction, 249-52, 263

Tottori, 1 01

Towns, 13-16, 186-7, 218-19,
310-11

Toyama Mitsuru, 200, 237, 247

Toyo Jiyuto, 231

Toyama daimyo., 327; 5-8; see also
Daimyo

Trade, see Commerce, Foreign
trade

Trade unions, 188, 229, 232-3, 286,
289-90, 297, 307, 308, 309

Trade Union Congress, see Zenro

Translations from Western langu-
ages, 47-8, 53, 134-5, 153, 316-17

Transport, 145-6, 185-6, 275

Trans-Siberian Railway, 162, 166,,
186, 209, 210, 266

Treaties, Tokugawa period, negoti-
ation of, 57-70, 72, 89; Japanese
reactions to, 66-7, 70-5, 78-9,
81-4, 89-92; Imperial Court and,.
68-9, 70, 74, 79, 82, 83-4, 88-9,
95-6; revision of, 70, 79-80, 89,
113-14, 138, 158-60; disputes
arising from, 76-7, 78-81, 84-5,
87-9> 95-6

Treaty ports, 67-8, 76-7, 78-81,
86, 87, 88-9, 95-6

Treaty revision, see under Treaties

Tripartite Pact, 267

Triple Intervention, 163-4, 166,
168, 170

Tsushima Straits, 172

Tuan Ch'i-jui, 205-6

Twenty-one Demands, 203-4

Uchida Ryohei, 200
Ugaki Kazushige, 237, 244, 251
Ukiyo 9 15

Ultranationalism, 236-42, 255-7

United Nations, 289, 291, 292, 315

United States, Tokugawa relations

with, 38-9, 40, 44-6, 57-61,

62-3, 65-70, 79, 87-8; relations

with, since 1868, 159-60, 172,

351

INDEX

i?5> 176, *99> 2 4 206-8, 209-10,
211-12, 258, 265, 268-71, 279-82,
284-91, 298-9, 300-1, 302

Universities, 105, 139, 14, *5 2 >
177-8, 288-9, 310

Uraga, 41, 4 2 > 55> 57. 5 8 *45

Urban growth, see Cities, growth
of

Uruppu, 6 1

Uwajima, 73, 86, 101, 102

Versailles conference, 196, 206-8
Villages, see Agriculture, Farmers
Vkdivostock, 166, 172, 186, 209

Wages, 187-8, 219, 229, 303-4,

311-12, 314
Wakamatsu, 99
Wakatsuki Reijiro, 222, 223, 224,

225, 243, 246
Wakayama, see Kii
Wake Is., 271
"Wang Ching-wei, 265, 272
War criminals, 281-2
War Minister, 243, 250, 251, 253,

260
Washington Conference, 196,

210-12

Weihaiwei, 167, 201
Whaling, 40, 45
Williams, S. Wells, 41
Women, equality of, 286
World War I, see Great War

World War II, 270-8

Yamaga Soko, 9-10

Yamagata Aritomo, 105, 122, 128,

178-9, 180-2, 199, 204-5 20 9>

220, 221

Yamaguchi, see Choshu
Yamamoto Gombei, 201, 203, 226
Yamanouchi Yodo, 71-3, 86-7, 96
Yasuda company, 217, 241
Yawata works, 165
Yen, 327
Yokohama, trade at, 76-7, 186;

in foreign affairs, 78, 80, 81, 84,

85, 86, 87, 88, 94
Yokosuka, 94, 136
Yomiuri, 169

Yoshida Shigeru, 276, 283, 294-5
Yoshida Shoin, 74-5, 83, in, 114,

160
Yoshimune, see Tokugawa Yoshi-

mune

Yoshino Sakuzo, 231
Yuaikai, 231, 232
Yuan Shih-k'ai, 202-4, 205
Yubtn Hocbi, 124
Yuzonsha, 238

Zaibatsu, 327; 217, 220, 226-7, 238,

240, 241, 300, 311
Zenro, 308
Zuscho Hiromichi, 32-4, 54

35*

Professor W. G. Beasley was born in 1919.
He was educated at Magdalen College
School and University College, London. He
served in the Royal Naval Volunteer
Reserve from 1940 to 1946 and was
appointed to a Lectureship at the School
of Oriental and African Studies, University
of London, in 1947. In 1954 he was appoin-
ted Professor of the History of the Far East.
His previous publications include Great
Britain and the Opening of japan and Select
Documents on Japanese Foreign Policy 1853-
1868.

FREDERICK A. PRAEGER,
PUBLISHER

NEW YORK . LONDON

$

116552