The Western World And Japan A Study In The Interaction Of European And Asiatic Cultures

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The Western World
and Japan

A STUDY IN THE INTERACTION OF

f

EUROPEAN AND ASIATIC CULTURES

BY

G. B. Sansom

Was ledeutet die Bewegungf
Bringt der Ost mir frohe Kunde?

WEST-5STLIOHEB DIVAN

195 1 New York Alfred A. Knopf

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK,
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC. $

Copyright 1949 by G. B, SANSOM. All rights reserved. No part of this
book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing
from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief pas-
sages and reproduce not more than three illustrations in a re-
view to be printed in a magazine or newspaper. Manufactured in
the United States of America. Published simultaneously in Canada
by McClelland 4* Stewart Limited,

PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 6, 1950
SECOND PRINTING, MAY 1951

THE WESTERN WORLD AND JAPAN is published by Alfred A.
Knopf, Inc.; and i$ distributed in co-operation with the
International Secretariat, Institute of Pacific Relations.

c e

, HE CONTENTS of this book and its arrangement seem to call
for some explanation. It deals with many persons and events o£
which the reader may well ask: "What are they doing in a history
of Japan?"

I have to admit that they are there chiefly because I found
them interesting and thought them significant. I had first intended
to supplement a short cultural history of Japan that I wrote in
1931 by describing in some detail the effect upon Japanese social
and political life of the Western influences to which she has been
subjected in modern times; but the more I pondered this aspect
of her history, the more I felt that it ought to be treated as part
of a much greater sequence of events: to wit, the process by which
the intrusive civilizations of the West have, since even before the
Christian era, affected the life of Asiatic peoples, first only slightly
and spasmodically and then with increasing power.

This was of course a difficult, not to say rash undertaking, but
there was still a further reason for attempting it. When I reflected
upon specific examples of what is called cultural influence, I
found that I had only a vague idea of what it is and how it works.
Of late a number of books have appeared which — though they
testify to a commendable growth of interest in relationships be-
tween East and West — seem to me to be based upon assumptions
that experience does not confirm, both as to the action of one civi-
lization upon another and as to the very nature of intercourse be-
tween peoples. We do not yet know enough about these matters
to allow of laying down rules or making predictions; and it there-
fore appeared to me that there might be some advantage in first
examining the question on a large scale and then going on to a
more detailed study of the particular case of Japan. It is with that
purpose in mind that I have in the first part of this book touched
in very general terms on the early history of relations between Eu-
rope and Asia and then, against the background so provided, tried
to furnish particulars of the history of Japan that would show how
she reacted to Western influence from the days of her first con-
tact with Europeans down to the time of her entry into interna-
tional life in the nineteenth century.

A survey of the enterprises of Europeans in Asia after the great
voyages of discovery shows that during the sixteenth/ seventeenth,
and eighteenth centuries neither their colonizing and trading ac-
tivities nor their missionary work brought about any significant
change in the life of the peoples with whom they came into con-

Preface

tact. The presence in Asiatic countries of small groups of Euro-
pean officials and traders made little impression upon indigenous
cultures outside a very narrow circle. Even where, as in British
India, Malaya, and the Dutch Indies, Asiatic peoples were for long
periods under European government, the essential nature of their
civilization was little modified by their foreign rulers, who saw no
profit in tampering with native customs and were inspired by no
reforming zeal. Indeed, far from Europe affecting Asia, it was
Asiatic goods that changed and enriched European life, and Asiatic
ideas that attracted some European minds.

As for the efforts of the Catholic Church to spread its gospel in
Asia, remarkable as they were, they can for the most part be dis-
missed as failures, for (with the possible exception of the Philip-
pine Islands) in all Eastern countries Christianity evoked among
the inhabitants, especially in the governing class, more antagonism
than interest. But because cultural differences between peoples
are expressed most clearly in their religious beliefs and practices,
1 have felt obliged to treat of Christian evangelism in what may
seem excessive detail.

It was not until well on in the nineteenth century that a great
increase of trade, improved communications, and a rapid growth
of machine industry began to exercise strong pressure on the life
of Oriental countries. It was Jthen that they began toJEeel the in-
fluence of Western civilization, which raised new problems by
disturbing their economic systems and upsetting their social and
political traditions. The greatest Asiatic cultures — those of India
and China — resisted these European influences, if only passively,
and, despite some superficial changes, preserved their own char-
acter. It was or^y~.JapaiL~that after long hesitation voluntarily and
of set purpose decided to meet Europe halfway and to remodel
her national life upon Occidental lines. The case of Japan is there-
fore of peculiar interest for the student of cultural relations. For
that reason I have in_ the .second part of this book treated the
history of Japan in the modern age by first giving an account of
her civilization as it had developed in comparative seclusion, then
tracing the gradual penetration of Western influences, and finally
describing the steps by which she adopted some Western prac-
tices and rejected others. I have dealt at some length with eco-
nomic problems of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries be-
cause I think they are important to students specializing in Far
Eastern history.

Similarly it may be thought that I have paid too much atten-
tion to details of political controversy in the first two or three
decades (1868-95) °f t]he Meiji era; but it seemed to me that
there was a more than topical interest in showing how tradition

vi

Preface

fought against new doctrine and how, beneath a "modern" sur-
face, many features of earlier Japanese political life survived with-
out substantial change. At the same time, anxious not to neglect the
more picturesque or less forbidding aspects of the national history,
I have tried to give an outline of literary and artistic movements,
and the part played in them by Occidental ideas. I wish I could
have found space and time for a fuller picture of Japan in the
eighteenth century, for it is a most interesting period, full of
striking parallels and contrasts. Its sympathetic treatment by an
Orientalist familiar with the contemporary cultural scene in
Europe would prove a valuable document in the history of Taste.

It is a pity that the student of cultural relations cannot stop
short at describing exchanges of ideas. It is a pleasant pursuit for
him to trace the influence of the painters, poets, and philosophers
of one country upon those of another. He is reluctant to leave that
enticing garden, with all its seductive flowers and trees; but he is
bound sooner or later to ask himself what this amiable vegetation
has to do with the harsher realities of intercourse between nations.
He then finds himself faced by a baffling question. He learns that
the concept of an international society — developed after the age
of discovery, as the divergent commercial interests of rising na-
tional states created new conflicts — is relatively modern; and he
begins to wonder whether it is valid. He observes that even be-
tween contiguous states differences of language and habit prevent
more than a modest cultural interchange, while there are political
and economic barriers that make rather for isolation than for
comity. As between distant states, it is difficult to see any link but
commerce that can be said to bind them in one society, as indi-
viduals with common customs and common standards live together
in an organized community with some approach to harmony. Such
states maintain diplomatic relations, it is true, but these are con-
cerned almost exclusively with economic matters, as anybody who
has experience of diplomatic business will agree. Or if they are
not economic, then they are concerned with actual or possible con-
flicts between members of this reputed society. It is difficult to see
what its constituent states have in common except a desire to ex-
pand their trade and increase their strength.

Perhaps this is only an elaborate way of saying that communi-
ties are even more quarrelsome, competitive, and jealous than the
individuals who compose them. But it is a point on which one
ought to be clear before reaching conclusions as to the nature of
cultural intercourse between nations or peoples, and its effect
upon their political dealings with one another,
\Lln this study the history of Japan is carried only as far as the
outbreak of the war with China in 1894, because that is the end

mi

Preface

of a very definite phase, which in the following period gives place
to new trends. To describe and analyse these would require the
handling of a mass of material too complicated for inclusion in
this volume. Yet perhaps it already contains enough to show that
foreign cultural influences can produce unexpected political re-
sults.

To that extent it touches, if only at the very fringe, the ques-
tion of the true nature of the relationship between nations. But
this enigma cannot be settled by inquiry into past history alone,
for in the last analysis it resolves itself into a disagreement between
the cautious idealism of Grotius and the relentless logic of Hobbes,
and thus becomes a matter of faith.

So we may hope, though we cannot prove, that Leviathan is
only a bogy. But it is prudent in these troubled times (which seem
to encourage what its author called "the frequency of insignificant
speech") to bear in mind his bleak verdict on "the general in-
clination of mankind/' that it is a "perpetuall and restless desire
of Power after power, that ceaseth onely in Death/1

T

JLHE

NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION

.HE WRITING of Japanese in the Roman alphabet always pre-
sents a difficulty, and in this matter I do not regard consistency as
a virtue. I have therefore felt free to write familiar words, espe-
cially names, without marking a long vowel if it seemed fussy or
pedantic. Thus, Goto not Goto, Okubo not Okubo. But where
there seemed a possibility of confusion I have used diacritic marks;
e.g., Shozan, Date. I have also at choice used English plurals such
as daimyos, shoguns.

These methods will offend purists, but I am consoled by recol-
lecting what somebody said of Robespierre: "Get homme est dan-
gereux. II est pur."

Japanese names of persons are given with the family name first.

IX

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I

OWE special thanks to my friends and colleagues at Columbia
University, in particular to Professor Tsunoda, a teacher full of
wisdom and learning ungrudgingly and modestly imparted to his
pupils, among whom I am happy to count myself; to Professor
Carrington Goodrich, head of the department of Chinese and Jap-
anese, who responds to requests for Sinological information with
great amiability and promptitude; to Professor Hugh Borton, for
useful advice on Tokugawa history, in which he is so well versed;
to Professor and Mrs. John Orchard, for guidance in economic re-
gions where they are at home and I am lost; to Mr. Howard
Linton, librarian in charge of the East Asiatic collections, and his
assistants, whose good nature and patience are remarkable even in
this country where librarians press books into the hands of a bor-
rower and do not look at him as if he were probably illiterate and
possibly dishonest.

I am also indebted to the courteous officers of the Library of
Congress, and especially to Dr. Hummel and his associates in the
division of Orientalia, who know how to take the drudgery out of
research and make it almost a pastime for the reader.

Professor Percy Corbett, of the department of Political Science
at Yale University, was kind enough, out of his store of knowledge,
to give me valuable suggestions as to the nature of international
society.

In England I received generous help from Professor G. C.
Allen, of the University of London, who took pains to elucidate
for me several points in an analysis of the economic history of
Japan; and from Mr. Basil Gray, of the department of Oriental
Antiquities at the British Museum, who kindly assisted me in the
choice of illustrations and in other matters.

From Professor Kurt Singer, of the University of Sydney, I re-
ceived some fruitful suggestions out of his wide knowledge of eco-
nomic history and his familiarity with Japanese institutions.

To my friend Major Charles Boxer, Camoens Professor of
Portuguese at the University of London, I am especially beholden
for copious information and advice relating to the history of the
Portuguese and the Dutch in Asia; and I have drawn freely and
unblushingly upon his published and unpublished works on those
subjects.

Professor Duyvendak, of the University of Leiden, generously
allowed me to use the plate of the Auspicious Giraffe which adorns

xi

Acknowledgments

his learned and entertaining essay on the Ming voyages in T'oung
Pao.

Finally I should like to say that I owe a great debt to
Mr. Geoffrey Hudson, of All Souls College, Oxford, whose distin-
guished writings are the envy and inspiration of all students of Far
Eastern history and politics. It was after first reading his Europe
and China that I made bold to plan the present study, though it
has since then taken a somewhat different form.

Having quoted so many high authorities, I must hasten to add
that none of them is responsible for any error of fact or opinion
which this book contains.

I am indebted to Theresa Garrett Eliot for her faithful draw-
ings of Meiji celebrities, from old photographs that were too faded
for distinct reproduction. These are included among* the illustra-
tions not only for their historical interest but also because I thought
that they displayed a striking variety of facial types.

G. S.

XII

C o

s

PART ONE
EUROPE AND ASIA

CHAPTER i. Introductory

1. The Frontier 3

2. The Economies 5

3. Mutual Influences 10
CHAPTER 2. Early Intercourse

1. Trade and Navigation 15

2. Politics and Religion 22
CHAPTER 3. Christian Endeavour and Trading Enterprise

1. The Mongol Empire 31

2. Asiatic and European Expansion 41
CHAPTER 4. The Portuguese in Asia

1. Colonial Policy 54

2. The Ecclesiastical Power 72
CHAPTER 5. The Confrontation of Europe and Asia

1. India 87

2. Southeast Asia 89

3. China 99

4. Japan 105

5. The International Society no
CHAPTER 6, Christianity in Japan, 1^^-1614 115
CHAPTER 7. The Asiatic Trade

1. The European Background 134

2. The Adverse Balance 138

3. The Auspicious Giraffes 141

4. Eastern Trade and Western Life 145
CHAPTER 8. Christianity in China, 1582-1742

1. The Jesuits in Peking 152

2. Christian Doctrine and Chinese Tradition 160

3. Comparisons 162

PART TWO
JAPAN AND THE WESTERN WORLD, 1600-1894

CHAPTER 9. The Tokugawa Regime

1. The Closing o£ the Country 167

2. The Tokugawa Government 180

3. The Cultural Scene 186

xiii

Contents

CHAPTER 10. Eighteenth-Century Japan

1. Domestic Politics 197

2. Foreign Influence 199

3. Native Learning 205

4. Subversive Trends 209

5. YedoLife 214
CHAPTER n. The End of Seclusion

1. The Economic Situation 223

2. Discontented People 233

3. Occidental Intruders 243

4. Forerunners of the Restoration Movement 248
CHAPTER 12. The Last Phase of the Shogunate

1. External Pressure 275

2. Internal Politics 281

3. The Dying Struggles 297
CHAPTER 13. Early Meiji: The Political Scene

i. Prefatory 310

- 2. The Remnants of Feudalism 315

3. Western Theory and Eastern Practice 339

4. Political Parties 351
.Conservative Triumphs 356

The Constitution and Parliament 362

Traditionalist Reactions 366
CHAPTER 14. Early Meiji: Western Influences

- i. Popular Sentiment 378

i2. Literary Trends 395

3. Men and Books 410

4. The Press 420

5. Intellectual Currents 425

6. Economic Thought 437
CHAPTER 15. Early Meiji: Western Influences (continued)

^— i. Prefatory 443

v 2. Law 444

3. Education 450

4. Religion 468
CHAPTER 16. The Nineties

1. The Failure of Parliamentary Rule 490

2. The War against China 495

3. Economic Change 497

INDEX follows page 504

xiv

PAGE

The Bible in Ming China 140

Gandharan Sculpture 142

The Auspicious Giraffe 143

An Utamaro Beauty 174
Another Slender Beauty
Kumazawa Banzan (1618-91)

Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801) 210

A Robust Beauty 215

Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1724) 218

Takizawa Bakin (1767-1848) 221

A Foreign Beauty 238

Portrait of His Mistress, by Watanabe Kwazan 239
Takashima Shuhan (1798-1866) " 249

Egawa Tarozaemon (1800-55) 252

Sakuma Shozan (1811-64) 257

Sketch by Watanabe Kwazan 270

The Opium War 271

Katsu Awa (1823-1900) 288

Perry's Ships and the Emblems of the

Coastal Defence Forces 302

Sumo Wrestling 303

xv

i Liustrations

PAGE

Kido Junichiro (Koin) (1834-77) 316

Goto Shojiro (1837-97) 317

Okubo Toshimichi (1832-78) 321

Saigo Takamori (1827-77) 331

Minstrel Performance on Commander Perry's Flagship

0854) 334

An English Merchant in a Yokohama Store 335

The Struggle between the Oil Lamps and the Lanterns 365

Symbols o£ Westernization 398

Kawakami Otojiro as Pelopidas in Keikoku Bidan 399

Kanagaki Robun (1829-93) 420

Fukuchi Genichiro 422

Illustration for the Novel Konjiki Yasha 430

The Emperor's Confucian Tutor 431

Mori Arinori (1847-89) 459

Inouye Kowashi (Ki) (1843-95) 465

MAPS

Asia, Showing the Main Lines of the Extension of

European Influence by Sea Routes 2

Japan 166

xw

PART ONE

Europe and Asia

T r
i

INTRODUCTORY

i. Europe and Asia. The Frontier

.HE modern history of Japan is in essence a record of the
clash and £ usion of two cultures, the development of an Asiatic civ-
ilization under the impact of Western habits of life and thought,
the response of a crumbling feudal system based upon agriculture
to the demands of industrial society. If we are to understand the
nature of this process we must know, at least in a general way, the
shape and the character of traditional Japanese institutions as they
had evolved before they came under direct and continuous West-
ern influence.

It would be sufficient for that limited purpose to furnish a
summary account of the condition of Japan in the first half of the
nineteenth century which would pay little attention to the course
of events and opinions in the outside world. Because Japan until
modern times has been remarkably isolated and self-contained, it
happens that the nature of her traditional civilization is so distirfct,
so peculiarly sui generis, that it is relatively easy to describe in its
own terms. But to treat it only in this way would be to lose sight
of much of its interest and significance. The evolution of Japan,
in the present as well as in the past, is part of a great sequence of
events in the relations of Eastern and Western peoples. It is a par-
ticular and clear case of a general discord between European and
Asiatic cultures which since antiquity has taken many forms but
has not yet been resolved. Much of Japan's internal evolution and
of her outlook upon the world at large becomes intelligible only
if it is studied in the light of history on a scale so large as to appear
at first sight excessive.

If Japanese civilization is unique, if it presents many variations
that mark it off clearly from others, it does nevertheless in the
basic elements of its growth conform to a general Asiatic pattern;
and before considering its distinguishing features it is worth while
to examine the major group of cultures to which it belongs. The

S

Introductory

first part of this study is therefore devoted to that purpose. It is
designed to furnish a historical background against which the
events that led to the emergence of modern Japan will appear in
some relevance and proportion. More specifically, it seeks to trace
the process by which European culture, having been subjected to
Asiatic pressure in the first millenium of the Christian era, began
to reassert itself and to spread eastwards, first slowly and cautiously
and then with increasing vigour and determination, until at last
its influence reached the eastern edge of the Asiatic continent and
then touched the islands of Japan.

If we are to discuss the intercourse of Europe and Asia we
ought to begin with some idea of the nature of Asiatic culture,
having made the bold but necessary assumption that we under-
stand the nature of our own. A captious reader might well argue
that there is no such thing as a typical Asiatic culture and that
therefore to speak of differences between the cultures of Europe
and Asia is to treat of abstractions that do not correspond to real-
ities. He might go further and say that even the name of Asia is
only a label found useful by geographers. There would be sub-
stance in both of his objections. Certainly Asiatic civilizations
differ greatly among themselves, while the geographical limits of
Asia are not now, and have not been in the past, the same as its
cultural frontiers. The influence or the power of Greece and Rome
for long periods extended beyond the shores of the eastern Medi-
terranean. There were times when Asia Minor and Syria were at
least as European as they were Asiatic in important aspects of their
life. There were other times when peoples of admittedly Asiatic
origin settled or controlled great stretches of territory within the
borders of modern Europe. Medieval travellers spoke of Asia as
beginning at the river Don. Herodotus wrote of the river Don as
the "terminus of Asia and Europe/' William of Rubruck, describ-
ing his journey from Constantinople to Mongolia in 1253, says:
"We came to the great river Tanais, which divides Europe from
Asia as the river of Egypt divides Asia from Africa/*

More recent geographers would say that the region loosely
known to Europeans as the Near East has undefined boundaries
both east and west. In both ancient and modern times a great part
of it has been subject to Occidental influence and it includes all
the classical lands that surround the eastern Mediterranean. Its
farthest western boundary might be put at the eastern shore of
the southern Adriatic. On the east there is no natural boundary
before the "waist of Asia/' the marsh, mountain, and desert terri-
tory that lies between the Caspian and Indian seas. The Near East
up to this point has looked in varying measure to the Western
centres of civilization, and access to it has been easier from Europe

4

Asia and Europe. The Economies

than from Asia, while "what lies beyond has always retained its
own springs of development." x

The Semitic peoples, again, present a difficulty in classification.
Geographically they certainly do not belong to Europe, but (as a
recent writer on relationships between Europe and Asia observes)
"the Moslems have something of the West about them." 2 It is dif-
ficult to classify them definitely as Asiatics, and the same can be
said of the Jews.

So it is true that a strict line cannot be drawn between Europe
and Asia even in a purely geographical sense, and the cultural
boundary is equally undefined. But this need not prevent us from
making a rough distinction on grounds of convenience, nor will
anybody deny that the life of most Asiatic peoples differs in many
essential features from the life of most European peoples. Perhaps
the most obvious and important difference lies in their respective
attitudes towards religion. This is an extremely difficult question,
which cannot be treated fully here, though it will arise frequently
in following chapters. But there is one field in which a distinction
can be drawn in more simple terms than are needed for a study
of things of the spirit, and that is the economic basis of life in
these two great divisions of human society.

TH

2. Asia and Europe. The Economies

LHE typical Asiatic culture, as contrasted with the typical cul-
ture of European origin, is based upon an agrarian economy. It is
of its nature a conservative culture, since it is supported by peas-
ant masses engaged in simple agricultural pursuits, generally
closely attached to the soil, living very near to the margin of sub-
sistence and therefore concerned only with matters that bear di-
rectly on their livelihood. Their condition is not such as to allow,
still less to encourage, an interest in problems of government. At
most they may devote their thoughts to forms of corporate effort
such as will simplify their task in the fields. They may in favour-
able conditions work out efficient arrangements of community
life for that purpose. These, however, are rarely more than meth-
ods of local organization designed to maintain and develop, but
not to reshape, the kind of society in which they live. The na-
ture of that society is, for them, fixed in perpetuity, for they
are not conscious of power to change it. They are inert, and cen-
turies of tradition dispose them to accept the dominance of a
small ruling class as part of the natural order, no less to be es-

1 D. G. Hogarth: The Nearer East (1902) .

2 R. Gu&xon: East and West (1941) .

5

Introductory

caped than the burden of toil and hardship laid upon them by
their calling.

So, throughout Asia until and indeed during modern times,
in every culture (with the significant exception o£ the nomadic
communities, whose life is pastoral and whose institutions are
tribal 8) we find, irrespective of race or language or religion, a
common pattern of peasant masses governed by a small class of
warriors, priests, or officials subsisting upon the revenue from
land. The form of government may vary. It may be monarchical
or aristocratic, feudal or bureaucratic, even republican, but in
essence it is always despotic. The whole aim of government is to
ensure the maintenance of the agrarian economy and the rigid so-
cial structure that sustain the ruling class. This means that the
rulers frown upon change and discourage initiative in the culti-
vator, whom they tend to keep in a condition of subservience;
while the peasant, for his part, by the nature of his occupation is
tenacious of his own habits and beliefs.

It may be objected that this description applies to European
as well as to Asiatic cultures, and it is of course true that it rep-
resents a normal phase in the progress of all human societies once
they have arrived at settled agricultural life. But the distinction
between Asiatic and European cultures lies in the fact that, while
the true Asiatic cultures have not yet emerged from that phase,
the European cultures have all, in a greater or less degree, moved
on to a new phase, where the simple agricultural economy is com-
bined with or even displaced by a mercantile economy, which
creates new functions and new classes, promotes the importance
of the town and the town-dweller, diversifies the life of the com-
munity, and ends by changing its very nature.

Most European historians detect the first sign of this diver-
gence from the ancient pattern in the city states of the ^Egean Sea.
For a number of reasons, all of which are not clear but which
mostly have to do with geography and climate, this region de-
veloped new cultures differing somewhat among themselves, but
all in striking contrast to the old. While, for instance, in China
and India of the first millennium B.C. there were great stationary
populations tilling vast areas of land, on those small islands and
promontories washed by Mediterranean waters there lived peo-

8 The Arabs, though mainly tribal and pastoral, had developed in some re-
gions an advanced urban life before the rise of Islam, and therefore cannot strictly
speaking be put into the category of nomadic peoples. Yet they did not form a
settled society comparable to the great agricultural societies of the rest of Asia,
while their further developments took place outside their homeland and in collabo-
ration with many alien elements. For purposes of classification they may perhaps
be grouped with nomadic peoples, though they partook of both characters. They
really are a class apart, nearer in many respects to the trading, colonizing Greeks
than to the sedentary peoples of Asia.

6

Asia and Europe. The Economies

pies who could scarcely subsist upon the produce of their own soil
but were obliged, by circumstance and temperament, to traffic
freely overseas. This maritime trade, as it grew, brought into being
a new social class of merchants, shipbuilders, navigators, and other
specialists upon whom the prosperity of their community largely
depended. They were not numerous, but they were important.
Maritime trade brought as much benefit as agriculture, so that
the merchant rivalled the landlord in wealth and influence. There
was now interposed between the traditional landlord ruler and the
passive peasant serf an active middle class, with special interests
of its own that inevitably gave it special political power.

From such origins there developed in the great age of Greece
— during the fifth and the fourth centuries B.C. — a new type of
society dominated by concepts of political and economic freedom,
devoted to navigation, colonization, and trade and active in the
study of mathematics, astronomy, geography, and kindred sci-
ences. This, despite its fluctuating fortunes in subsequent history,
is the forerunner of that element in European life which has pro-
duced its characteristic political and social features — democratic
principles of government, individualist doctrines, and the spirit of
scientific inquiry.

It may be argued that the great Asiatic communities also had
considerable commerce within themselves and with one another;
that their merchants also undertook extensive journeys by land
and by sea; and therefore that the political importance of trade
in the Hellenic world is not exceptional. But the significance of
the merchant in the ^Egean city states lay not so much in the
length of his journeys or the volume of his trade as in his relative
importance to a small community, in his status as a citizen.

The great Asiatic communities were in general self-supporting
and self-contained. Trade within their own frontiers was of im-
portance because of their size, and there was often an extensive
traffic between the various parts of great countries like China, where
for example the products of widely separated provinces would be
exchanged by long overland or coastal journeys. But flourishing
as this internal trade may have been, it was ancillary to the agricul-
ture which provided the lifeblood of the state. It was an extension
of the agrarian economy, not a rival to it. The trader, there-
fore, did not as a rule achieve in these communities any outstand-
ing social or political importance. In most of them indeed he was
despised and oppressed by the ruling class. The merchant and the
artisan usually ranked below the farmer in the social scale. The
town was more important than the country only in so far as it was
the seat of government and the centre to which revenue flowed.
Even in those countries or regions that, being favourably placed

7

Introductory

for overseas traffic, developed a considerable sea-borne foreign
trade, the shipowner, the shipbuilder, and the specialists upon
whom they depended attained only a local or subsidiary importance.

Here a useful illustration is provided by Chinese history. It
shows a long and distinguished record of maritime commerce, par-
ticularly between pprts in southern China and the Indian Ocean,
going back possibly as far as the later Han and reaching its zenith
under the early Ming emperors, who seem to have had some ink-
ling of the importance of sea-power. But in general it is true to
say that Chinese maritime enterprise stemmed from no national
impulse and received no consistent benefit of national policy. Un-
til the nineteenth century the diplomatic and military effort of
China was directed almost entirely across her land frontiers. The
great movements of Chinese expansion progressed mainly over-
land to the west, while her defensive movements looked towards
her northern borders. She rarely faced seaward, because there was
no circumstance obliging her to increase her naval strength or her
sea-borne trade for truly national purposes. No serious or con-
tinuing danger threatened her from the sea, and her own domestic
economy was so massive and self-sufficient that foreign commerce
was little more than a means of obtaining luxuries or curiosities
to satisfy the whims of courtiers and high officials.

What has been said of China in these respects is true also of
India. Indian ships made long voyages in classical times, for from
the earliest recorded history we know of traders sending freight
westward across the Indian Ocean to Africa and eastward to China.
Indeed, by the beginning of the Christian era Indian peoples had
already begun a considerable enterprise of colonization, which
later extended as far as Malaya and Cambodia. Nevertheless, "in
all the earlier ages India looked inward, not outward." 4 In sub-
sequent history also, time after time the expansive impulse fails,
and Indian life turns in upon itself. It is not sensibly affected by
influences from across the sea, and even alien conquerors pouring
in across the land frontiers cannot change its essential nature
though they may modify its outward forms.

This relative unimportance of foreign relations in the life of
the great settled communities of Asia is but one expression of their
self-sufficiency, for in general their history shows that, just as they
have felt no great need of foreign merchandise, so they have been
under no inner compulsion to seek wisdom or knowledge outside
their own borders.

Seen in this aspect China and India appear as prime examples
of the characteristic Asiatic culture upon which a great uniform
peasant population confers an independence and stability in strong

* E. J. Rapson (ed.) : Cambridge History of India, I, 385.

8

Asia and Europe. The Economies

contrast to the active, experimental temper of the cultures of the
West. It is doubtless this contrast that has given rise to Western
aphorisms about the "unchanging East"; for while it is true that
Asia has seen great developments or mutations in religious and
philosophic thought, great movements in art, great advances in
knowledge, and great vicissitudes in the fortunes of peoples and
nations, there has been throughout recorded history until very
recent times but little change in the fundamental social and po-
litical habits prevailing in Asiatic countries. The life of the peas-
ant, his attitude to his rulers, and their attitude to him remained
in the early nineteenth century, and in some parts of Asia still re-
main today, what they were in the days of Confucius in China or
the Buddha in India.

The European scene is livelier. Onward from the days of the
JEgean city states it continues to manifest the restless energy that
impelled Hellenic culture to expand, to reach out to other lands
and peoples. There are dark and silent intervals, and sometimes
the Hellenic spirit seems to be in danger of extinction; but it re-
asserts itself and continues to exert upon the Eastern as well as
the Western world an influence that cannot be permanently re-
sisted.

The intrusion of this disruptive, challenging element into the
sequestered and conservative life of Asia must be a dominant
theme in the modern history of any Asiatic state. The process has
gone so far and so fast in Japan that her modern history is apt to
be regarded as something surprising and exceptional. It is true
that what marks off modern Japan from other Asiatic countries is
the fact that she has gone farther and faster than them in the adop-
tion of Occidental practices; but events in Japan in both ancient
and modern times have followed in general a common Asiatic
course. Her history, or for that matter the modern history of any
single Asiatic state, to be fruitfully studied needs to be viewed in
this wider perspective, for it is a particular case of a great general
movement.

Such wider perspective should ideally include within its range
the history of all Asiatic states in their relations with Europe, or
at least the history of the Iranian and the Hindu and the Islamic
worlds as well as of the great Chinese society, and it should touch
on the seafaring and trading accomplishments of Arab peoples.
Fortunately for both reader and writer the history of Japan pre-
sents on a sufficiently large scale most of the necessary elements of
description; and our purpose will be served if we further examine
in some detail the impact of Europe upon Asia mainly as it is ex-
hibited in the foreign intercourse of India and China, though with
occasional reference to other parts of Asia. But before passing on

9

Introductory

to particulars, it is useful to consider briefly whether it is possible
to discover some general principles that in the past have governed
the relationships of European and Asiatic cultures.

3. Asia and Europe. Mutual Influences

E.
IRHAPS it is to push generalization too far to speak of a histori-
cal reluctance of Asiatic peoples to engage in close relations with
Europe. Asia is too vast and diversified to allow of such a sweeping
statement, as is clear if we recall the movements of her nomadic
races from the earliest recorded times down to the Mongol in-
vasions of the thirteenth century. But it can be said that, as a mat-
ter of historical fact, from antiquity until very recent times the
settled Asiatic peoples as a whole have shown no strong or en-
during disposition to approach the European peoples either by
way of trade or by military adventure.

However this lack of interest is to be explained, it is fair to
say that the conservative nature of Asiatic cultures, from whatever
causes it arose, is in contrast to the aggressive and often militant
character of the efforts of Europeans to break into Asiatic seclu-
sion. It is not necessary to argue that the strongest Asiatic cultures
are or have ever been of their nature either lacking in aggressive
qualities or impervious to foreign influence. But it is true that un-
til modern times Asia has not looked towards Europe as Europe has
looked towards Asia; and that Europe has been unable to main-
tain in Asia for long enough or on a sufficient scale the kind of
contact or pressure by which one civilization can affect another.

The reasons are various. Sheer physical difficulties have played
an important part. Great natural barriers are interposed between
Europe and Asia. The Hindu Rush presents a formidable obstacle
to those who would enter India overland from the north, and in-
hospitable country defends her against aggression from the west;
while the central Asian mountains and deserts have always for-
bidden easy access to China by continental routes. But these fac-
tors of geography and climate which have prevented movement
from Europe into Asia have at the same time influenced the na-
ture and growth of Asiatic cultures. It is not only that they were
for centuries physically secluded from European influences, but
also that their own shape and quality were in great measure de-
termined by an environment differing in important ways from
that in which the main European cultures were born and grew to
maturity.

It is therefore not unreasonable to say that Asiatic cultures are
in general of a character that resists all but the most powerful and

10

Asia and Europe. Mutual Influences

sustained influences of European origin. This is borne out by what
we know of the efforts of the Western world to make and extend
contacts with China, and further evidence is supplied by the
failure of one wave of European influence after another to make
any lasting impression upon the civilization of India. Even the
most ambitious of the enterprises of antiquity directed by Europe
against Asia, the invasion of India by Alexander the Great, failed
of its purpose because the effort could not be maintained, and left
but little trace upon the cultures that it disturbed. Whatever may
have been his plans, it is admitted that he exerted no influence
upon any part of India other than the country watered by the
Indus, and it is most likely that the rest was not even known to
him. Some historians indeed hold the view that the only influence
that he exerted upon the Indus plain was to hasten the political
unity of its diverse tribes and so to help the formation of the
Maurya Empire. In other words, he consolidated rather than modi-
fied the culture of the region he invaded.

Such Hellenistic influences as persisted after Alexander's day
were those exercised by Greeks living among Asiatic peoples undei?
Seleucid or Bactrian rulers, whose kingdoms lay on the edge of
India. It is true that, thanks to the survival of the Greek colonies
he planted in central Asia, there persisted in Bactria and beyond
the Hindu Kush for several centuries a strong Hellenistic tradi-
tion, which had some effect directly upon the native art of India
and indirectly upon the art of China and even of Japan; but this,
though providing an interesting episode in the history of painting
and sculpture, was not more than a superficial and transient in-
fluence, which wrought no essential change in the nature of In-
dian or Chinese life.

It was only upon those Asiatic countries much nearer to Eu-
ropean Greece — upon Asia Minor, Syria, and adjacent regions —
that Hellenistic influence took some lasting hold; and even there
that influence was later to be diluted or submerged by successive
military or cultural invasions of Asiatic origin. Indeed, the his-
torian who attempts to strike a balance in the account of cultural
exchanges between the two continents is bound to conclude that
at least until the modern industrial age Europe has owed a con-
siderable cultural debt to Asia. The ancient and powerful civiliza-
tions of Iran and Babylonia, though they took some superficial im-
prints of Greek culture, were never radically influenced by its
spirit. They stood firm in their own essential tradition, and it is
even possible that they gave more than they took. The influence
of Hellas never touched Chinese society, and though it reached
beyond the fringes of northern India, it never sensibly affected the
core of Indian life. Such traces as it left were swept away by Scyth-

11

Introductory

Ian or Parthian invaders, or they were overgrown by ripening indig-
enous cultures in Hindustan or central India. One authority goes
so far as to say that, except for images of the Buddha, "the history
of India would in all essentials have been precisely what it has been,
had Greeks never existed.'*

This statement as to images of the Buddha, being taken from
its context, needs some elucidation. It means that, while Greek in-
fluence had no effect upon Indian thought or doctrine, it did
modify the Indian attitude towards the representation of deities
in religious art. The early ritual of Hinduism did not include the
worship of images. In early Buddhist art the person of the Buddha
is not represented. But in those parts of India and adjacent coun-
tries where Hellenistic art flourished, men were accustomed to
seeing the likeness of gods and kings on coins and in statuary.
From this it was a short step, which the Indian religions took, to
adopting the practice of portraying divinities in human shape
both in painting and in sculpture. In the sculptures known as
Gandharan the Buddha actually appears in a form like that of
Apollo, or shows other plain traces of Greek or Roman influence.
Apart from such transient elements in Indian art as we have just
noticed, nothing alien of importance survives into a later age. The
native institutions continue to preserve a secular stability. Only
the military caste is restless and unsatisfied. One conqueror suc-
ceeds another, dynasties rise and fall, but the basic forms of social
and intellectual life remain unaffected.

By contrast the pattern of European life presents an almost
alarming appearance of instability. Europe seems to be the home
of incessant movements, .of perepeteiai or violent reversals of for-
tune, in human affairs. Unlike the Asiatic world its social order
is constantly subject to change and crisis, and in its periods of
greatest confusion it is particularly sensitive to foreign influences.
In one such period it adopted the foreign religion that is Chris-
tianity, in another it submitted to the power of Byzantine culture,
which had a strong Eastern flavour, and throughout the Christian
era it has from time to time listened to voices from the Orient.

It was not until the nineteenth century that this trend was defi-
nitely reversed. Before that, although European influences con-
tinued to attack the strongholds of Asiatic tradition, they made lit-
tle impression upon its defences. Despite the material power of
European states, despite even their military conquests of Asiatic
soil, the Asiatic peoples remained imperturbably confident in their
own institutions.

Nothing could better illustrate their attitude than the often-
quoted pronouncements of the great Emperors of China K'ang Hsi
and Ch'ien Lung. The former, who reigned in the seventeenth

IS

Asia and Europe. Mutual Influences

century, was an urbane monarch who treated Jesuit missionaries
at his court with consideration and took some interest in scientific
and literary studies under their guidance. But he once observed,
on perusing a papal bull, that if this was the way in which for-
eigners' minds worked, he could only say that they were small-
minded people. Ch'ien Lung, who flourished in the eighteenth
century, received with great courtesy an embassy from King
George III of England that came to negotiate a commercial treaty.
But he said to the Ambassador among other condescending things
that although it was praiseworthy of the English to try to partake
of the benefits of Chinese civilization, it would be quite impossible
for them at such a great distance to acquire even the rudiments of
civilized behaviour, while as for trade, he added, "China possesses
all things in abundance, and we do not want your products."

This, it should be noticed, was in a century when Europe was
approaching a political and social crisis and when (whatever Chi-
nese sages may have thought of Europe) European philosophers
were apt to admire and even to recommend for imitation the
stability of Chinese institutions and the elegance of Chinese life.
It was before the French Revolution had changed the political at-
mosphere of Europe and before the industrial revolution had re-
leased in the world forces that the ancient cultures of the East
could not permanently withstand.

But from that time onward they could not remain indifferent;
they must either submit to those forces or endeavour to turn them
against those who had let them loose. This was the challenge that
confronted all Asiatic countries in the nineteenth century. The
Japanese were the first to take it up with vigour, and the way in
which they met it is the substance of the history of modern Japan.

Notes on CHAPTER i

HELLENISTIC INFLUENCES UPON INDIAN ART. This is a controversial
question. Some authorities rate the influence of Gandharan art very
high, others doubt whether it was really the cause of the end of the
aniconic period. The latter is the view of Ananda Coomaraswamy,
stated in the Encyclopedia Britannica (1945) in his article on "Indian
Art." The point is discussed in the Cambridge History of India, Vol. I,
pp. 384 ff. and p. 648. Further discussion will be found in most works
on early Indian art and notably in Les Qrigines de Fart bouddhique
and other studies by Foucher. An article by H. Buchthal on "The Com-
mon Classical Sources of Buddhist and Christian Narrative Art" in the
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1943, parts 3 and 4) brings out
most interesting parallels and gives useful references to literature on
the subject.

13

Introductory

K'ANG Hsi's OPINIONS ON EUROPEANS. Accounts are to be found in most
works relating to the Rites controversy in China; for example, Latour-
ette's History of Christian Missions in China and Rowbotham's Mis-
sionary and Mandarin. The exact words of the Emperor's Vermilion
Endorsement on the Chinese version of the bull Ex ilia die may be
rendered as follows: "After reading this document all I can say is: How
could the Occidentals, stupid men as they are, dispute the great teach-
ing of China? Not one of them thoroughly understands Chinese writ-
ings, and when they speak, most of them are ludicrous. The bull,
which I have now seen, resembles the superstitions of Buddhists and
Taoists, but there is nothing so full of blunders as this."

Ch'ien Lung's pronouncements are given in English in Annals and
Memoirs of the Court of Peking, by Backhouse and Bland; and a Chi-
nese text is in the dynastic chronicle Ta Ch'ing Shih~lu, under Kao-
tsung, ch. 14357 ub.

C H *A <P T S

2.

EARLY INTERCOURSE BETWEEN EUROPE
AND ASIA

i. Trade and Navigation

r

LN studying the earliest recorded intercourse between Europe
and Asia one is struck by a contrast between the strong interest in
Asia displayed by European peoples and the indifference of set-
tled Asiatic peoples to the affairs and customs of the inhabitants of
distant regions. The Chinese, though inveterate chroniclers, have
always affected to regard the outer world as barbaric. Their dy-
nastic histories and even their great books of travel seem usually
to state facts about foreign countries with a dry reserve. They are
interested but not excited by the outside world.

As for India, it is remarkable that, despite a long history of re-
lationships with peoples beyond her northwestern frontiers, com-
mencing with a prehistoric affinity between Hindus and Persians
and continuing clown to close cultural contacts with Greeks and
men of Greek descent, there is in Indian literature or tradition
nothing about Europe or even western Asia to compare with the
copious information about India furnished by early Greek and
Latin authors.

Indeed, so little, it would seem, did the sages and scholars of
India concern themselves with examining the nature of the visible
world of matter, so immersed were they in speculation upon loftier
themes, that the modern student must rely for much of his knowl-
edge of ancient India upon the notices of Herodotus, Strabo, Pliny,
and other classical historians and geographers who drew upon
European sources of direct observation, such as Megasthenes and
Gtesias. He can depend but little upon direct description in native
Indian literature, since most of the information on political and
social matters derived from that source is built up by inference out
of religious and ethical writings or epic poems. These, while they
are wanting in important historical details, testify to a rich and
complex civilization evolving from its own original elements and

15

Early Intercourse between Europe and Asia

little subject to influence from outside. " Where such influence
might be looked for with greatest certainty/' says an authority,
"namely in the effect of Greek domination, it is practically nil." *

Only the Yavanas or Yonas — the "lonians," peoples of Greek
descent — who appear in Indian records from the third century B.C.
to the second century of our era, remain to show that Alexander
and subsequent Greek invaders left any trace. "Political and social
relations do not appear to be affected at all either by Hellenic or
Persian influence. . . , The social theory remains practically the
same, save that a place among degraded 4outcastes* is given to
Yavanas as to other barbarians/' It is significant that, of all the
Greek or Greco-Indian princes who ruled either north or south
of the Hindu Kush, only one is celebrated in the ancient literature
of India. This is Menander, who figures in Buddhist legend not as a
powerful monarch — which indeed he was — but as a philosopher
who was overcome in debate and at length converted by an In-
dian sage. Similarly a later foreign ruler, Kanishka, appears in In-
dian chronicles not as a sovereign who made the Kushana Empire
paramount in northern India but rather as a great patron of
Buddhism, second only to Asoka.

From these and many similar indications, one must conclude
that Indian culture, by the time that Greek influence was brought
to bear upon it, was already so deeply rooted as to be no longer
open to change. The position is clearly described by an authority
on the Greek, Scythian, and Parthian invasions of India in the fol-
lowing words: "In Bactria the Greeks ruled supreme amid peo-
ples of a lower culture. On the south of the mountain barrier, in
the Kabul valley and in India, they were brought into contact
with a civilization which was in many respects as advanced as their
own and even more ancient — a civilization in which religious and
social institutions had long ago been stereotyped and in which in-
dividual effort in. literature and art was no longer free but bound
by centuries of tradition/' 2

Turning to China, we see a picture of relationships between
East and West that, although it presents some special features due
to the remoter situation of China and the distinct character of its
people, does in its essentials resemble that of the intercourse be-
tween Europe and India. There is fairly abundant material in
Greek and Latin works as well as in Chinese records giving ac-
counts of commercial and diplomatic exchanges between China
and the West in classical times. Much of it is obscure, but there
is sufficient evidence to show the general character of this inter-
course and its extent.

i E. W. Hopkins, In Cambridge History of India , I, $25.
% E. J. Rapson, in Cambridge History of India, I, 545.

16

Trade and Navigation

We need not concern ourselves with the earliest indications of
Western knowledge of China, which are of uncertain value; but
for the closing years of the second century B.C. there is good docu-
mentary proof of relations between China and the western parts of
Asia in which people of European stock resided. This came about
through Chinese initiative. It was the result, however, not of a
desire for intercourse on a footing of equality but of a search for
possible allies in China's struggle against the Huns (Hiung-nu)
who were then threatening her northwestern borders.

This is a point of some significance, because the history of Asia
tends to show that such changes as took place in the institutions
and ideas of her settled peoples were usually the result not of in-
ternal evolution but of external pressure brought to bear by mi-
gration or invasion originating beyond their frontiers. Thus in
the great movements and clashes of nomadic peoples which were
disturbing Asia at this time, one of the migrating hordes, the Yue-
chi, was driven by the pressure of its rivals to enter Bactria and
Sogdiana and so to destroy the Greek kingdoms established there.
The Greeks were forced to withdraw to the south of the Hindu
Kush, thus enlarging for a season the Hellenistic influence planted
in India by Alexander the Great.

Meanwhile, if we may believe the Chinese chronicles, the great
Han Emperor Wu-ti, now master of all China and anxious to con-
solidate his power, sent an envoy to central Asia to look into the
political and military situation there. The report of this inquirer,
whose name was Chang Ch'ien, is summarized in a Chinese chron-
icle. It relates that in 128 B.C. Chang Ch'ien visited Ferghana, Bac-
tria, and adjacent regions and took back also accounts of countries
farther west, such as Parthia, Scythia, and Babylonia. The Em-
peror was impressed by what he heard, and decided to open up
relations with both the tribesmen and the settled peoples. His
plan appears to have been to win them over to his side by means
of trade, for he began to send frequent missions to the countries
described by Chang Ch'ien. These were on a large scale, and they
carried with them gifts, which were most acceptable to the courts
and camps they visited.

We have here the beginnings not only of regular diplomatic
intercourse but also of commercial traffic between China and Eu-
rope, for very soon Chinese produce, at first reaching only as far
as Ferghana, Bactria, and Parthia, found its way to Syria and then
to Rome. The chief article of commerce was Chinese silk, and this
fact points to a feature of the trade between China and the outside
world which reappears throughout subsequent ages. It is char-
acteristic of the historical traffic between Europe and Asia that its
driving force is a European demand for Asiatic goods. This must

17 •

Early Intercourse between Europe and Asia

hold true for so long as the Asiatic cultures remain self-support-
ing and self-contained because their needs are fulfilled within their
own economies. Wu-ti embarked upon trade with the countries
on his western borders not because he wished to supplement by
imports deficiencies in the domestic production of China, but be-
cause, as a matter of national policy, he wished to impress the peo-
ples of central and western Asia with his wealth and power. In re-
turn for his presents he was glad to receive rare and curious things
that would minister to his luxury or his prestige. But whereas Eu-
rope was unable to offer to the Asiatic peoples in quantity any
commodities that they urgently needed or desired, Asia was able
to furnish articles of trade that were, or soon became, indispensa-
ble to the prosperous classes in the Roman Empire.

In examining lists of articles imported by China, not only in
the earliest period of her foreign trade but also in much later days,
it is rare to come across anything that can be regarded as essential
or even important to her economy. This is true also of the traffic of
Western countries with India and indeed of the traffic between the
greater Asiatic communities themselves. The ancient and mediae-
val trade between India and China consisted largely in an ex-
change of precious metals, precious stones, or objects that were
rare and curious but had little intrinsic value. Greek, Latin, and
Chinese authors in their accounts of the Asiatic trade tell of such
articles of sale or tribute (there is often no distinction between the
two except in name) as ostriches' eggs and jugglers; dwarfs and
musicians; horses that sweat blood; parrots, peacocks, and apes; in-
cense, perfumes, and aphrodisiacs; ivory, rhinoceros horn, and tor-
toise-shell; and even "pretty girls for concubines/' This kind of
commerce, while it gave profits to traders and pleasures to those
who enjoyed frivolities or luxuries, represented no important de-
mand that must of necessity be satisfied. It was thus natural that
foreign trade should not appear to most Asiatic rulers as some-
thing essential to the welfare of their countries, an activity that in
their own political interest they must promote and expand.

The great Western empires on the other hand derived much
of their power from the sustenance afforded by trade, both in-
ternal and external, and their policies were governed to a large ex-
tent by the needs of commercial expansion. A glance at the history
of the Macedonian, Seleucid, and Ptolemaic empires and their suc-
cession states shows that, in peace and war, one of their chief con-
cerns was to secure or protect trade routes by land and sea; and
much of the warfare of the centuries between Alexander's cam-
paigns and the Battle of Actium was a struggle not only for terri-
tory but also for commercial opportunity. The political and mili-
tary history of that period gives a confused picture of rivalry

18

Trade and Navigation

between states or cities for mastery of the traffic in staple commodi-
ties. Pirates and robbers prey upon convoys and caravans, and
states fight among themselves for the power to levy toll upon mer-
chandise in transit or to divert trade to channels they control. Na-
tions as well as individuals develop to a high point of efficiency
the prototypes of those arts which are known in our day as smug-
gling, bootlegging, and highjacking, so that in the end only the
boldest of merchants will take the risks of traffic with distant
places, and only the wealthiest clients can afford his merchandise.
It is no wonder that, in such circumstances, the Asiatic trade
should have been little more than a trickle of goods in both direc-
tions, accompanied by no important cultural exchanges. The won-
der is that, despite all hazards and discouragements, the trade did
continue and on the whole increased in both quantity and scope.

Its most rapid increase took place during the first two centuries
of the Roman Empire, when Roman rule extended over most of
Europe and the Near East. Under the protection of Rome, mer-
chants could now send and receive cargoes through the Mediter-
ranean, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Indian Ocean with
a degree of security that they had not before enjoyed, while the
land routes, though still in places hazardous, became increasingly
safe for trade. Foreign commerce was encouraged not only by the
elimination of brigandage and piracy, but also by the reduction of
customs duties within the dominion of Rome and the disappear-
ance or diminution of commissions, tolls, and other forms of black-
mail that had hitherto been levied by middlemen or other para-
sitic groups along the trade routes.

These new conditions, together with a great increase in the
wealth at the disposal of the leaders of Rome, created at the same
time an insistent demand for foreign goods and a new possibility
of its satisfaction. Roman ships sailed (from Red Sea ports) to
India, first only by coasting but later, as the nature of the mon-
soons began to be understood, by running free before the wind
from Aden to the mouth of the Indus.

A later development and one of great consequence in the his-
tory of trade and navigation took place in or about A.D. 50, when
an open sea route from Aden to the southwestern shores of India
was found by a shipmaster who steered with rudder and sail so set
that the southwest monsoon blew from his starboard quarter and
carried him from the Gulf of Aden to the Malabar coast. Thence-
forward the trade between the Roman Empire and India increased
rapidly in volume and variety. By the first half of the second cen-
tury most of the west coast of the Indian peninsula was known to
Roman traders (or rather Greeks in Roman service) , and soon
after that they began to find their way about the Bay of Bengal,

19

Early Intercourse between Europe and Asia

eventually reaching Upper Burma, then Lower Burma, Malaya,
Sumatra, passing on by the Malacca Straits to Cambodia and
Tongking, whence they at last made direct contact with China.

A culminating-point in the early history of communication be-
tween Europe and the Far East is reached in A.D. 166, when we
have it from Chinese sources that an ambassador came from Antun
(Antoninus = Marcus Aurelius) , the King of Ta Ts'in (Rome) ,
with tribute, and this was the beginning of direct intercourse be-
tween the two empires.

It is evident that this and subsequent missions, which the Chi-
nese in accordance with their practice chose to regard as embassies
bringing tribute, were not in any sense official efforts to open dip-
lomatic relations with China, but private ventures by enterprising
merchants in search of new openings for trade. It cannot be said
that official intercourse between the Far East and Europe de-
veloped because of these contacts. But Romans and Chinese did
learn something about one another, and the commerce between
them did grow in volume. It was, as we have seen, a commerce
more important to Europe than to Asia.

Fairly precise accounts of the nature of the trade of the Roman
Empire with Asia in the first three centuries of the Christian era
are furnished by contemporary writers. Though they show that
the goods imported from India and the Far East by the Roman
Empire were mostly of the nature of luxuries, we have to remem-
ber that in a developing economy the luxury of today becomes the
necessity of tomorrow. The most important single article of trade
was Chinese silk, for which the demand grew and spread until its
use, once condemned by Roman moralists as a shameless extrava-
gance, became common among well-to-do people in western Asia
and Europe.

Other commodities, at first rarities beyond the reach of all but
the wealthiest, as trade channels were developed and organized
and as peace under Roman rule raised the levels of consumption,
became articles of everyday use in most Roman households. No-
table among these were spices and aromatics from India, of which
pepper was the commonest, though cinnamon, ginger, and cloves
were in frequent use. We need not consider further the list of im-
ports of this kind, beyond mentioning that it includes a great num-
ber of plant products used in cookery or medicine, mostly of In-
dian origin except for rhubarb, which came from China overland.

All these articles, it. is interesting to note, played an important
if not an essential part in the life of the urban population of the
Roman Empire, and they have been since then in urgent demand
by European peoples until our own day. In that sense it may be
argued that China and India exerted an influence upon the social

Trade and Navigation

habits of the West at this early date. It is characteristic o£ the re-
lationship between the two groups of cultures that no similar in-
fluence was brought to bear upon the life of the people of India
or China by the European products they received in exchange.
What went from Rome to Asia may fairly be described as luxuries
or curiosities, things to suit the tastes of kings and courtiers rather
than articles that might find their way into ordinary Indian or
Chinese households and so bring a new element into common life.
The chief European exports to China were glass, some textiles,
amber, tortoise-shell, and coral, while there were a number of
other products, such as precious stones, ivory, pearls, drugs, and
perfumes, which were handled by Roman or Greek traders but
were of African or Asiatic origin.

To India the Roman Empire sent coral, some linens, copper,
tin (from the British Isles) , glass, and some drugs, unguents, and
perfumes. There is little else in the list, and it is established that
India received much less in value than she exported. The urgency
of demand was not equal on both sides because, as we have seen,
the Asiatic economies were in general independent and conserva-
tive, whereas the European economies tended to expansion and
diversity, largely no doubt because of their greater development of
urban life and their greater spread of purchasing power.

It resulted from these differences that the balance of trade was
against Europe. The West being unable to furnish to the Asiatic
peoples in quantity any commodities that they urgently needed
or desired, the Asiatic trade was for the most part an exchange of
Asiatic products against European treasure. It involved a drain
upon the wealth of the Roman Empire, which, it seems, could not
be offset by any available means. The subject is a difficult one to
discuss in the absence of exact data, but there is no doubt that as
the Asiatic trade grew, the Empire as a whole was obliged to meet
its deficit by exporting gold and silver. The loss of this capital may
not have been a direct cause of the economic collapse that began
to overtake Rome in the third century, though it was certainly one
of the symptoms of decline. Possibly the fundamental economic
weakness of the Empire was due to remoter causes, such as a failure
to develop productive enterprises by which capital could be ac-
cumulated. If this were so, it would not be the first or the last
time in history when a nation, having acquired great resources by
war or good fortune, has failed to develop them and spent its sub-
stance without regard for the future. However that may be, the
point of interest for the purpose of this inquiry is that, whether of
necessity or by some fault of policy, the Western Empire was un-
able to redress the balance of its trade with Asia; and this was a
condition that persisted until modern times, when at length the

Early Intercourse between Europe and Asia

trading peoples of the West were able to create a demand for their
products and to reverse the eastward flow of gold and silver.

It is clear that we have here an economic factor of overriding
importance in considering the general nature of intercourse be-
tween Europe and Asia. The flow of commodities from Asia to
Europe is a natural result of the difference in size between the
two continents. The civilized part of Europe in the most flourish-
ing period of the Western Roman Empire occupied a very narrow
range of latitude — roughly speaking, from 35° N. to 55° N. Its
range of natural products was accordingly restricted. It included
very few of the crops that flourish in subtropical climates. It had
in the Mediterranean area certain indigenous "southern" fruits
such as the fig, but the lemon and the orange are of Asiatic origin.3
It had no dates, sugar, cotton or rice, and none of the gums, spices
and aromatics that are abundant in Africa and Asia. Though well
supplied with coal, iron, copper, and tin, it was not rich in precious
metals, particularly gold, and was deficient in most of the impor-
tant -precious stones. It was thus by contrast with Asia, though
favoured by climate and geographical configuration, poor in the
variety if not the quantity of its own material resources.

It follows that Europe, as its economy expanded, required from
Asia an increasing number of commodities that the several Asiatic
countries could find, if not within their own borders, at least in
accessible regions of their own continent — a land mass which,
with its adjacent islands, stretches from the Arctic Circle to south
of the equator and presents the greatest possible diversity of soil
and climate.

2. Politics and Religion

WHETHER Rome could by remedying her economic weakness
have afforded to continue her lavish purchases from India and
China is a matter we need not discuss, for by the third century
both her economic and her political power began to decline. Bar-
barians ravished her territory, she suffered from internal disorder,
and she could no longer protect the trade routes leading to India
and beyond.

The Asiatic trade continued and at first probably saw no great
falling off in volume, since Byzantine pomp and luxury surpassed
that of Rome. But before long it was largely in other than Roman
hands, because Abyssinians, Arabs, and Persians controlled the
channels by which Asiatic merchandise reached the shores of the

3 Europe owes many of its fruits and flowers to Asia Minor, while only the
grape and the olive supplied exports that were appreciated outside Europe. They
provided Anatolian and European Greece with two very important commodities for
sale in Asia: wine and oil.

Politics and Religion

Mediterranean. It was on account of the importance to Byzantium
of the silk trade that, as a means of escape from blackmail by mid-
dlemen straddling the lines of supply, the culture of silk was de-
veloped in the Roman Empire after eggs of the silk moth had been
secretly brought to Europe, which was thus rendered independent
of the import from China soon after A.D. 550.

By such developments Europe was cut off from the Indian
Ocean and from regular communication with China by the land
route; but trade from China and India by land and sea did not
cease. It was too profitable to be abandoned, and what Rome was
unable to afford, other customers were anxious to purchase. The
roads remained open to those who had the courage to travel them.

The third century, which saw the decline of Roman power,
began a period of strife and confusion in China, lasting from the
collapse of the later Han dynasty until about A.D. 600, when China
became united under the Sui and then the T'ang emperors. There
is some evidence of visits to the T'ang court by European travel-
lers, who were perhaps official envoys from Byzantium and not
private traders. Such intercourse may well have been sought by
Roman emperors or at least by the rulers of distant Roman prov-
inces, since under the T'ang emperors the military power of China
reached westward to Bokhara and Samarkand, while her political
influence extended beyond the Oxus.

Certainly under the T'ang dynasty (A.D. 618-906) China be-
gan to learn more about Western countries than she had known
before and to display more interest in them. A Zoroastrian temple
was erected in Ch'ang-an, the capital, in 621; a Sassanian prince
died there a little later as a refugee from Arab invaders of his
home in Persia; the Nestorian teaching was commended; and we
know from both writings and images that throughout the T'ang
era Buddhist monks from India, envoys from central Asian king-
doms, nomads from Siberia and Mongolia, as well as men from
Annam, Tonking, and Malaya, were not unfamiliar figures in the
city, so that it is highly probable that visitors from different parts
of the Roman Empire made their way to China in the seventh
century. Chinese chronicles mention the arrival of embassies from
the Eastern Roman Empire at intervals until the middle of the
eighth century. These may have been composed of traders or
Nestorian priests from Syria, but it is quite possible that a Roman
emperor sent a mission or missions to the T'ang court because he
had learned of the growing strength of China.

This was indeed one of China's great ages of expansion. The
western borders of the Chinese Empire in the seventh century
were close to the eastern extremity of the Roman Empire, so that
a Chinese official stationed at Merv might have exchanged visits

Early Intercourse between Europe and Asia

with a Roman governor of Armenia. Chinese vessels sailed into
the Indian Ocean, and Chinese travellers passed by land routes
into India. Notable among them was the Buddhist pilgrim Hsiian
Tsang, who in a book called a Record of Travel in Western Lands
described what he saw (A.D. 629) on his way to India across the
western desert, through Kashgaria and Bactria and down into the
Punjab.

The journeys of Hsiian Tsang and other pilgrims illustrate
conveniently certain important features of the growth of Asiatic
cultures in his period.4 China, usually impermeable to alien in-
fluence, had accepted during the late Han period the doctrines of
Buddhism, which first reached her by the route later followed by
Hsiian Tsang in the opposite direction. This Indian religion pros-
pered in China and — a curious phenomenon — served as a vehi-
cle for Chinese culture transplanted into other lands, in this re-
spect proving itself superior to Confucianism, which, so strong was
its indigenous character, never flourished in foreign soil (except
in the adjacent and tributary country of Korea and to a much less
extent in Japan) . Buddhism was carried by Chinese missionaries
to Korea, to Japan, and to Annam, while Buddhism as it developed
in Mongolia and Tibet, perhaps also in Burma and Siam, had a
certain Chinese colouring. In China itself, though it never suc-
ceeded in displacing Confucian doctrine, it had a considerable in-
fluence on Chinese intellectual and artistic life and it persisted
within China and Japan long after Buddhism in India had sub-
mitted to the older Hinduism which it had for a time challenged.

This fragment of history is mentioned here because it has some
bearing on the question of the interaction of civilizations in Asia.
It tends at first sight to show that, whereas Chinese culture offered
resistance to European influences, it was open to Asiatic influences.
But on closer examination it appears that, although Indian Bud-
dhism had an important effect upon Chinese thought and left its
mark upon art, literature, and popular beliefs, it was in the end con-
quered by traditional Chinese attitudes towards life and society,
just as in Japan, where in early ages it proved a potent civiliz-
ing factor, it succumbed at last to the more deeply rooted indig-
enous beliefs. Neither in China nor Japan today is organized Bud-

4 In the history of travel he takes a high place not only as a devout pilgrim
but as an indomitable sightseer. There are two other great names: Fa-hsicn, who
in A.D, 399 went by a caravan route across the Tarim basin to India, collected
copies of Buddhist sutras, and returned to China by way o£ Ceylon arid the South
China Sea; and I-tsing, who went from South China to India by sea c. 671 and re-
turned, after a sojourn of over twenty years, with books for translation. During the
seventh century many other Chinese pilgrims visited India. The names of at least
fifty are on record, and there were doubtless many more. The knowledge they and
their predecessors gained was passed on to Japan in the sixth, seventh, and eighth
centuries.

24

Politics and Religion

dhism a living force, despite its past strength and the numbers o£
its nominal adherents. The same is true of other religions that
have gained a hearing in China. Islam, so powerful in its influence
in western Asia, never succeeded in competition with native Chi-
nese systems, and though there is a considerable Moslem popula-
tion in China, Islam has had to conform to Chinese notions of the
place of religion in the state and can claim no favours.

The Chinese throughout their history have, with occasional
lapses, displayed a peculiar tolerance in regard to foreign creeds.
T'ang emperors permitted the propagation of Nestorian Christian-
ity in the seventh century. Neither they nor their predecessors ap-
pear as a rule to have raised objection to the religious practices of
foreigners residing within their dominions. Sometimes they went
so far as to give them, official encouragement and patronage, as
when the T'ang court issued a pronouncement in favour of Nes-
torian doctrine; and Zoroastrianism and Manichasism, if not spe-
cially favoured, were at least admitted. This tolerant attitude ex-
presses not a thirst of the Chinese for religious truth but rather a
supreme confidence in the validity of their own institutions. They
were always prepared to examine interesting doctrines that came
to their notice, because they respected learning and were addicted
to discussion of the principles of human behaviour.

It is for such reasons that they studied the Buddhist scriptures in-
dustriously and with respect, developing a considerable literature
of commentary and exegesis and (since problems of organization
appealed to them) paying attention to church discipline and sectar-
ian differences as well as to doctrinal subtleties. Buddhism was too
great a force, its metaphysical speculations were too attractive, to
allow of its neglect by a people with strong intellectual tastes. Never-
theless, though it came nearest of all foreign influences to modifying
Chinese life, it did not ultimately succeed in penetrating the in-
ner shrine of Chinese culture. When it seemed to the rulers of
China to be disturbing or threatening the civil power or under-
mining the established social order, they took prompt action. In
A.D. 845 the authorities decreed the confiscation of Buddhist prop-
erty, the destruction of monasteries, and the secularization of
monks and nuns. This drastic rule was in practice relaxed and
Buddhism survived in China, but it never regained its former
strength. It had come into conflict with the cult of the governing
class, the Confucianism which was the embodiment of traditional
Chinese thought. Other foreign cults were proscribed at the same
time lest they should, as the edict significantly put it, "contaminate
the customs of China.5

e Manichaean missionaries provide a curious and exceptional instance of for-
eign influence upon Chinese culture. They began to visit China in the second half

Early Intercourse between Europe and Asia

Something of the same kind can be said o£ India. No foreign
influence sensibly affected her ways of life and thought, unless it
was exerted by military conquerors remaining long enough upon
her soil to impose their will upon her peoples. On the contrary, in
periods where there was some degree of national unity, it was In-
dian influence that spread outwards. The power of Buddhism we
have already noticed, in its movement overland to China. It was
also spread in countries east of India, by a migration of Indian
population that began at a very early date but reached its height
during the first five centuries of our era.

This expansion of India was part of a considerable movement
of colonization, which established Indian political influence in the
regions now known as Burma, Siam, Cochin China, and Cambodia,
as well as in Malaya and the islands of Sumatra and Java. With po-
litical power and a flourishing commercial intercourse there went
a strong cultural influence exercised principally through the me-
dium of religion. Buddhism and Brahmanism were both carried
eastward by this movement, and the rivalry between the two sys-
tems which took place in India was repeated in these settlements
in Farther India and Indonesia.

Today the vestiges of this early Indian influence are plainly
visible in the civilizations of both regions. Burma, Siam, and Cam-
bodia are still Buddhist countries. Archaeological evidence (such
as the ruins at Angkor) throughout Farther India testifies to a
once flourishing Hindu culture, which persisted for centuries.
In Indonesia there is little that remains in the form of living re-
ligion, except in the small island of Bali, which has retained a
strongly Hinduistic character. Elsewhere it was expelled by Islam,
brought to the islands by Arab traders perhaps as early as 1100,
but reaching its fullest influence in the fifteenth century. But even
there, not very deep under an Islamic surface, lie considerable and
lively vestiges of Indian customs, legends, and beliefs, to whose
origins the monuments of Borobudur and Prambanan bear im-
pressive witness.

It is clear that geographical proximity — and the monsoons —
made it possible for India to influence both Farther India and
China to an extent that was certainly not open to any non- Asiatic
country, and it is hardly worth while to speculate what cultural in-

of the seventh century. They were made welcome because they were learned in
astronomy; and when the Chinese calendar went wrong in the early part of the
eighth, throwing sacrifices and other ceremonial observances out of order, they were
called in to help in its revision. Planetary names in Sogdian were given to the days
of the week, and the Chinese equivalent of Sunday was marked on the calendar in
red ink with a phonetic symbol for Mithra. Consequently, though Manicha'ism was
proscribed and persecuted, it retained some influence and survived in secret for sev-
eral centuries. It is even said that some Manichaean texts were incorporated in the
Taoist canon as late as 1019.

86

Politics and Religion

fluence might in other circumstances have been brought to bear
by Europe upon Asia. All we have to go on is the fact that Hellen-
istic culture did not take a lasting hold upon India, that it made
no impression whatever upon China, and that (until the spread of
Islam, which is later than the period under discussion) the one
great vehicle of cultural change in Asia, the only external influ-
ence that did in fact substantially affect ways of life and habits of
thought in eastern Asiatic countries, was a religion evolved in Asia
itself — the great, proliferating teaching of the Buddha.

Yet, as we have seen, this powerful system not only in course
of time lost ground or was debased or even destroyed in nearly all
the countries of its adoption, but also in the country of its origin
gave way to the more ancient system, the Hinduism from which it
had departed.6 One is tempted to conclude that the main Asiatic
cultures have a quality of conservatism which European cultures
do not share.

This may seem too bold an assumption, ascribing to Asia a
homogeneous character that it clearly does not possess. Asia pre-
sents more than one type of civilization, since it includes not only
the great Chinese and Indian societies but also the Iranian and the
Islamic worlds, while there is a fourth grouping, that of the central
Asian peoples, who, though they have been distinguished in war-
fare rather than the arts of peace, have by their invasions and mi-
grations carried cultural influences from one region of Asia to
another and have thus played an important part in Asiatic history.
It is obvious that we cannot expect to find one characteristic com-
mon to peoples so diverse in their history, their situation, and their
habits; and in that sense one may dismiss as without basis in an-
cient or modern history such doctrines as the Pan-Asianism pro-
pounded by Japanese and other tendentious political writers.

Nevertheless there are certain respects in which Asiatic peo-
ples, without being uniform among themselves, do differ in gen-
eral from peoples of European origin, and the most important of
these differences is in their attitude towards religion. It cannot be
a mere accident of history that all the great religions of the world
— Brahmanism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and (if
they can be treated as religions) Taoism and Confucianism —
have originated in Asia, and that of these only Christianity was re-
ceived in Europe, where it flourished largely because it under-
went essential changes at European hands, thereby losing much of

e Buddhism vanished so completely from Indian life that traces of its practice
are now scarcely visible, and we find modern books with such titles as Discovery
of Living Buddhism in Bengal (Sastri, Calcutta, 1897) , It is true that Moslem
iconoclasm resulted in destruction of monasteries which were the home of Bud-
dhism, whereas Hinduism was widely diffused and did not depend upon books
and buildings; but it was not Islam that destroyed Buddhism in India.

27

Early Intercourse between Europe and Asia

its Asiatic character. Since Europe has never adopted without
change an Asiatic faith and Asia has never accepted a European
philosophy, it seems fair to conclude that, even if we cannot allege
some common characteristic which can be called Asiatic, we may
agree that "there is clearly a deep-seated difference between the
religious feelings of the two continents."

These were the words of a great scholar, writing a generation
ago. He did not seek the remote causes of this difference, but per-
mitted himself the generalization that "Asiatics have not the same
sentiment of independence and freedom as Europeans. Individuals
are thought of as members of a family, state or religion, rather
than as entities with a destiny and rights of their own. This leads
to autocracy in politics, fatalism in religion and conservatism in
both/' 7

Even had the main Asiatic societies been less conservative in
habit than has been argued in the foregoing pages, the European
influences brought to bear upon them until long after the period
we have been considering were not as a rule great or continuous
enough to affect their strong individualities. The growth of in-
tercourse between European and Asiatic peoples, which depended
upon the maintenance of stable conditions not only in the termi-
nal countries concerned but also along the great stretches of land
or sea between them, was impeded by the rise of new forces. All
but a thin stream of communication between Europe and eastern
Asia was cut off by barbarian invaders pressing upon Europe or
by nomad powers plundering and threatening the roads through
central Asia or by Arabs gaining command of the Indian Ocean.
The dark age of Europe; the period of seclusion and civil strife
in China from the closing years of the T'ang dynasty to the end
of the Sung struggle against invaders from the north; and the simi-
lar period in which, after the collapse of the Gupta Empire, India
was subject to repeated incursions first by Huns and subsequently,
after a long interval of seclusion, by Mohammedan invaders —
these three periods, while not closely coinciding, include a space
of some five centuries during which the mutual knowledge of Eu-
rope and Asia was diminished almost to the point of hearsay
founded upon the tales of a few adventurous travellers.

Notes on CHAPTER 2

MONSOON SAILING. The importance of the monsoons in Asiatic history
can hardly be overestimated. The part played by monsoon sailing in
spreading cultural influences is by no means confined to the commerce
between Europe and Asia. The use of the regular alternation of winds
7 Sir Charles Eliot, in Encyclopedia Brikannica (1911), under "Asia, History/1

Politics and Religion

in the whole monsoon area contributed to the spread of Buddhism
and Hinduism, which was much accelerated from the beginning of the
Christian era and reached Cambodia, Java, and Celebes at a very early
date. This was something much more tremendous in scale and endur-
ing in effect than the trading intercourse between the Roman Empire
and Asiatic seaports.

The accounts usually given of the first use of the monsoon for deep-
water sailing between Aden and the southwest coast of India are not
very clear as to the actual method of steering. In Warmington's Ancient
Explorers the voyage is described as follows: "About A.D. 50 a nameless
merchant, bolder than the rest, by ordering his helmsman to pull con-
stantly on his rudder and his sailors to make a shift of the yard, found
an open-sea route from the gulf of Aden in an arc of a circle (bent
northwards) to the south Indian coast, which he touched near the
greatest of all Indian marts, the town of Muziris (modern Cranga-
nore) ."

The phrase "pull constantly on the rudder" puzzled me, and I
asked Admiral of the Fleet Sir James Somerville, who is very familiar
with the Indian Ocean and its beautiful sailing craft, if he would ex-
plain it. His vivid reply will, I am sure, be of great interest to students,
and I reproduce it here with his permission, although he modestly de-
nies that he is an authority upon such questions:

Since ships of the period could not sail to windward and would
not have been able to stand up to the full force of the monsoon,
the voyage of the merchant who in the reign of Tiberius sailed be-
fore the south-west monsoon to the mouth of the Indus could not
have been made, I think, except during one of the short "light"
periods of the south-west monsoon, i.e. before the June "burst" or
after the end of August. This gives our Roman merchant half of
March, all April and the beginning of May, during which time
the winds would vary between S., S.W. and W., from light airs to
nine knots. He would no doubt start from Socotra, where he could
pick up reliable weather information, since both monsoons de-
velop their greatest intensities here and the inhabitants would
therefore have been weatherwise from earliest times.

A prudent merchant might have taken the advice of the
Socotran weathermen and, starting on April Fool's Day, or the
next day, would have set course N.E. by E., and if he made good
four knots with a seven to eight knot Soldier's wind, would arrive
at the mouth of the Indus ten days later. Alternatively he might
• have travelled safely in September, but this is doubtful, since the
Autumn transition is followed by contrary winds, whereas the
Spring transition is followed by increasing but favourable winds
— a fact which must have been known to the Socotrans.

This man's achievement possibly proved to others that the late
winter transition period, when the monsoon changed from N.E. to
S.W., was succeeded by a "safe" period, during which steady and
unboisterous weather would assist them to the coast of India.

29

Early Intercourse between Europe and Asia

The second merchant, therefore — the nameless one of about
A.D. 50 — probably chose this period, but rather later, for his voy-
age. The course he made good (disregarding the great circle effect)
being about E. by S., could not have been achieved during the
north-east monsoon. It seems likely therefore that he too started
from Socotra at the end of April and, anxious to make maximum
progress with minimum leeway, kept the wind dead astern or as
near thereto as he could until he was about half-way across the
Arabian Sea. This point he may have reached at about the time
of the year when the prevailing wind in that area tends to be
westerly rather than south-westerly (viz. some time in May) . With
this gradual change of wind direction a series of small alterations
to keep the wind astern would bring him in the arc of a circle
(bent northward) . On approaching the west coast of India the
seasonal wind resolves itself into a strong north-westerly com-
ponent. Again, if the wind astern assumption is correct, he would
tell the helmsman to bear up and would trim his yard accordingly.
He might then have left the Laccadive Islands to starboard and
made a landfall in the vicinity of Cochin; or he might even have
sailed through those islands. The crossing would probably have
taken about fourteen days.

Another construction which might be applied to the words
"pull constantly on his rudder" is that the merchant would make
the crossing during October, when the wind is "variable and un-
steady" but is likely not to exceed nine knots. The constant pulling
on the rudder and shifting of the yard does suggest that these ac-
tions were more or less continuous in one direction; yet "constant"
may also mean "frequent," and if we substitute one for the other
we see an alert merchant, with his weather eye always open to take
advantage of every shift of the wind.

ISLAM IN CHINA. Moslems and non-Moslems lived together in China
without serious strife for nearly a thousand years. There was a rebel-
lion in 1648, another in 1785 and frequent risings during the nine-
teenth century. But these occurred in distant provinces in the north-
west and southwest, where there was a Moslem majority composed
largely of non-Chinese. It is true that the Moslems in China are in
many ways distinct from non-Moslem Chinese and tend to be segre-
gated, not only by religion but also by physical characters and occu-
pation, so that they are conscious of certain economic and social dis-
abilities, out of which capital can be made by unfriendly neighbours.
But it cannot be said that there is a Moslem problem in China as there
is in India, for in general Chinese culture has acted as a unifying force
tending to reduce the importance of ethnic and religious differences.

SO

c H ^A <p r

i

CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOUR AND TRADING
ENTERPRISE

i. The Mongol Empire

T was not until the light began to shine again in Europe, and
Christendom summoned forth its latent vigour to attack the Mos-
lem world, that the way was once more open to intercourse with
central Asia and beyond. That astonishing outburst, compounded
of religious zeal, princely ambition, military ardour, and economic
enterprise, which formed the impulse behind the crusades, marked
a new phase in Western civilization that included not only im-
portant political and social developments within Europe but also
a new attitude towards Asia. By the thirteenth century the whole
of Europe l and part of Asia Minor were Christian, and the cru-
sades had produced alongside of militancy a strong missionary ac-
tivity, which in its turn led to a knowledge of central and eastern
Asia that amounted to a new discovery.

The intercourse now resumed between Europe and Asia con-
tained a new and important element, for the motive force behind
it was no Icfhger only a desire for trade. The Christian world,
stirred by visions of a universal church, sought to convert the peo-
ples of eastern Asia and perhaps to enlist their aid in the destruc-
tion of the Islam which it could not defeat alone. This strong im-
pulse inevitably gave a new character to missions that passed from
west to east, since they stood no longer only for traffic between
merchants but also for direct converse between nations through
representative men.

The first approach was made by the Papacy not to China but
to the great Khan of the Mongols. This was in 1345, at a ^mt when
the Mongol power extended to central Europe, to Armenia and
Persia, and well into former Chinese dominions. China at that
time was governed by the Sung dynasty, which under nomad pres-
sure had withdrawn to the south, leaving the north to rulers of
i Except parts of Spain and Portugal still in Moslem hands.

si

Christian Endeavour and Trading Enterprise

nomad origin. It thus came about that when Europe was in a pe-
riod of vigorous development, the true China was going through
a phase of extreme isolation. Never, perhaps, had the two cultures,
the expansive Latin and the self-contained Chinese, been in more
characteristic and opposite moods. The Mongols, however, showed
some disposition to respond to the overtures of the Catholic
Church.

The first Christian envoy, John de Piano Carpini,2 reached the
camp of the Great Khan in Mongolia, where he found other for-
eign envoys and a number of European specialists in Mongol em-
ployment. Nothing much came of Carpini's visit, except that on
his return in 1247 he was able to make a valuable report of what
he had seen and heard. Though he furnished a useful account of
the military organization and tactics of the Mongols, which was
one of the purposes for which he was dispatched, the response of
the Great Khan to the Pope's letter was rude and discouraging.

But subsequent missions, although they obtained no diplo-
matic concessions, were not ill received, and the Mongols at least
gave the impression that they were determined in their enmity to
Islam and well disposed towards the efforts of the crusaders to de-
stroy the infidel. It even seemed possible that Mongol rulers (some
of whom had Christian wives) might accept the Christian faith;
and this was not an entirely baseless judgment, since the Mongols
were growing aware of the shortcomings of their own nomadic cul-
ture. Proud of their military achievements and confident in their
armed strength, they were none the less doubtful of their capacity
to administer the sedentary peoples whom they had conquered. In
the West they had more than once withdrawn from territory they
had overrun, because after they had plundered, the effort of oc-
cupation did not seem worth while. It was rather in rich and
highly organized states that they saw advantage irf establishing
themselves permanently, and they were wise enough to perceive
that there they required the help of persons experienced in gov-
ernment. After they had entered Poland and Russia they were no
doubt tempted to press on to the well-developed countries of west-
ern Europe. These, however, were far away, difficult of access, and
equipped with considerable military capacity.

But near at hand, across the edges of the territory that they and
their ancestors had roamed for centuries, lay a country at least as
rich, extensive, and populous as any region elsewhere in the world

2 Carpini was sent by the Pope (Innocent IV) from the Council of Lyon in
1245. Jt is clear fr°m his Ystoria Mongalorum that, as well as being a diplomatic
and religious mission, his visit was intended as an expedition to gain information
on the military organization and methods of the Mongols. The Church and Eu-
ropean monarchs wanted to know what their enemy was like in his home and "per-
haps whether he could be used against the Mohammedans.

The Mongol Empire

that they might have had thoughts of conquering. This was the
great realm of China, which was already held in part by people
akin to their own, and it was to this tempting prize that the effort
of the Mongols was most consistently directed from the time when
they were united under Jinghis Khan until his descendant Khu-
bilai 3 established a Mongol dynasty as the first Yuan Emperor of
China in 1279,

This choice, or perhaps it should be called a compulsion, by
which the greater part of Mongol power was concentrated upon
China, so reducing the pressure upon Europe, may be regarded as
an important if not a decisive event in world history. Occidental
historians dealing with the Mongol invasions are naturally most
concerned with their effect upon Europe, but their effect upon
Asia should not be overlooked. The Mongols threatened Europe,
but they actually conquered and ruled China and great parts of
central and western Asia. The Mongol Empire at its period of
greatest extension reached from the shores of the Pacific to the
Black Sea and the Persian Gulf, from Siberia to Annam, Burma,
and the Himalayas. On all this vast area the Mongols imposed
peace. Jinghis Khan and his successors established and maintained
highways along which officials and traders could travel in compara-
tive safety, if not without hardship. The Mongols themselves, when
their thirst for fighting and plunder was satisfied, settled down to
the encouragement of regular trade and to the orderly administra-
tion of their dominions. They had in their campaigns learned to
appreciate the value of other civilizations and were wise enough to
employ competent persons irrespective of nationality in posts of
importance.

Such circumstances as these combined to produce a new phase
of relations between Europe and eastern Asia. Earlier intercourse
had been of a groping, indirect nature, whereas now it expressed
a new attitude of political and religious expansion on the part of
the Western world, matched by some disposition on the part of
the East to respond to such advances. It is interesting to observe
that it was not a settled Asiatic civilization which of its own mo-
tion so responded, but a nomadic culture which served as inter-
mediary between China and Europe. This, indeed, was (as we
have already noticed) the great service that the central Asian peo-
ples rendered — something more important and enduring than
their military conquests; for it seems that the migration of peoples
hastens the transplantation of ideas and institutions and that when

s This of course is the Kubla Khan of Coleridge's poem, just as Xanadu ap-
proximates to Shandu. Khubilai is a more correct equivalent, and something like this
was evidently intended by the Vatican secretaries when they addressed a letter from
the Pope to his Carissimo filio Quolibey Magno Chamo*

S3

Christian Endeavour and Trading Enterprise

transplanted they may sometimes flourish better than in their
original soil.

Certainly it is doubtful whether China would of her own ac-
cord have borrowed directly from Europe, but she did in fact,
when under Mongol rule, receive certain cultural influences from
outside which reached her through Mongol intervention. The
conquerors themselves, conscious no doubt that their own culture
might succumb to the wider and deeper culture of the Chinese,
feared the authority of the Confucian tradition and took care to
employ in administrative posts (for which their own roving tem-
perament disqualified them) a number of capable foreigners to
counteract the forces of Confucian orthodoxy. Arabs, Persians,
Greeks, Russians, and Italians worked for the Mongols as civil
servants or diplomats, and at Mongol headquarters there were to
be found specialists of almost all known nationalities — linguists,
workers in arts and crafts, and, notably, men who could tell the
Khan about affairs in other countries. Prominent among the lat-
ter were the Polo brothers, those bold Venetian merchants who,
having set forth without other thought than profitable trade,
found themselves in about 1264 in the Mongol capital at Cam-
baluc,4 where they were welcomed at the court of Khubilai, ques-
tioned by him about Europe, and entrusted with a mission to the
Pope.

The errand on which they were sent marked a change in the na-
ture of relations between Europe and China, for what Khubilai re-
quested was instruction in the Christian religion. This was a new
departure, since it is impossible to imagine any monarch of pure
Chinese descent stooping to ask a European barbarian to impart
to the Chinese people a new faith. But the Mongols, having no
religion of their own beyond a somewhat primitive Shamanism
and a faith in oracles, were interested in the creeds of other peo-
ple and anxious to adopt any principles that seemed likely to in-
crease their capacity as rulers. They were not especially interested
in Christianity, but very sensibly wanted to know what were the
springs of behaviour in the peoples with whom they had to deal.
They accordingly made a practice of summoning holy men before
them to engage in debate on points of religion and morality.
Jinghis Khan himself, in an interval between campaigns, had in
1219 sent for a Chinese Taoist priest, who made a long journey
from Shantung to the Mongol camp by the banks of the Oxus and
stayed there for some years. Sometimes great public debates were
held between exponents of different creeds, and in course of time
the Mongol rulers gained fairly clear ideas of their various na-
tures.

* More correctly Khan Baliq, the Khan's Headquarters — the modern Peking.

The Mongol Empire

Their attitude was on the whole tolerant. It is well expressed
in the language used by Mangu, the Great Khan, to William of
Rubruck, a Franciscan friar who visited his camp in 1254, carrying
letters from St. Louis of France. Mangu said: "We Mongols be-
lieve that there is only one God . . . but just as God has given
different fingers to the hand so He has given different ways to
men. To you He has given scriptures, but you Christians do not
observe them. To us He has given diviners, and we do what they
tell us and live in peace/'

Despite this rather uncomfortable remark on the difference
between Christian doctrine and Christian practice (which em-
bodies a sentiment by no means rare in Oriental countries) , Nes-
torian priests enjoyed the bounty of Mongol chiefs and their wives
and daughters. Indeed exponents of many creeds followed the
Khan — sicut muscce mel, 'like flies after honey," according to Ru-
bruck — and each claimed success, not without some reason, for
the Mongols, while not abandoning their own cult, patronized any
religion that seemed to offer a cure for spiritual or bodily ills.

In due course Buddhism was accorded Imperial patronage,
and Tibetan Lamaism was established with official support not
only in Mongolia but in parts of China proper, including the capi-
tal city at Cambaluc (Peking) . Islam, which had penetrated China
in the eighth century, was not interfered with, possibly for fear
of conflict with Moslem people in central Asia, and some promi-
nent Mongols seem to have been converted.

In general it is clear that the Mongols as a people came under
Western influence, part of which was European, while their em-
pire extended into European territory. Their own nomadic cul-
ture was such that it could absorb influences from sedentary cul-
tures only at the expense of its own character. It has therefore not
survived except in so far as it has remained isolated in appropriate
surroundings. But the Mongols undoubtedly served as agents for
the transmission to China of certain Western ideas and the intro-
duction into China of a number of Western products, so long as
the Chinese were under their rule. Some foreign plants such as
sorghum carne to China during that time, together with the knowl-
edge of some industrial processes such as sugar refining. These may
be said to have had an influence upon Chinese life, just as the in-
troduction of cotton from India at an earlier date led to its culti-
vation in the thirteenth century, and to the weaving of cotton
cloth, so affecting Chinese dress. Perhaps more significant were
innovations in the sphere of learning, such as methods of measur-
ing and calculating in astronomy.

Most of these importations, however, were not of European
origin, but stemmed rather from western Asia; and even if they

35

Christian Endeavour and Trading Enterprise

added to Chinese knowledge or modified Chinese habits, it can
scarcely be argued that they affected more than the surface of
Chinese life. Iranian and other western Asiatic motifs can be de-
tected in Chinese religious and secular arts of this era. In such
ways no doubt Chinese culture was diversified or enriched, but
there is little to show that its essence was changed in any important
respect; while, if we limit our survey strictly to the effect of Eu-
ropean ideas upon China, it is clear that they made much less im-
pression than did Chinese ideas upon Europe.

The proselytizing effort of the Papacy following upon the re-
port of Carpini resulted in a number of missions to China, of
which the most notable was that of the Franciscan John de Monte
Corvino, who travelled from Rome by way of Persia, taking ship at
Ormuz for Quilon on the Malabar coast and, after a year's stay in
India, proceeding by sea to China. He was the first of a noble pro-
cession of Catholic missionaries to establish himself in China. He
translated the New Testament and the Psalter into ''the language
of the Tartars" (probably Mongol, but perhaps Chinese) , and
secured the favour of the Mongol Emperor. Writing to Rome at
the age of fifty-eight, he said that he was already worn out with
toil and tribulation, but he continued to labour until his death in
Peking at the age of eighty-one, after more than thirty years' service
in China. In point of courage and devotion he was one of the
greater apostles in Christian history. Measured in terms of suc-
cess his mission was not remarkable, but, like most of his distin-
guished successors in later periods in India, China, and Japan, his
high character made an impression upon Oriental notables who
were indifferent or even hostile to his doctrine. This is an aspect
of missionary endeavour -which, as we shall see, has played an im-
portant part in intercourse between Europe and Asia.

Monte Corvino and the Franciscans who came after him estab-
lished Christian churches in both Peking and the port of Zayton
in South China. The Mongol rulers treated them generously and
gave them protection, so that they could make converts freely.
Their flock numbered several thousand, though it is doubtful
whether many Chinese became genuine Christians. Most of those
baptized were foreigners — some Mongols but chiefly Alans, Ar-
menians, Georgians, Ruthenians, and Hungarians, captives born
in the Christian faith to whom the Nestorians had refused the
sacraments. But what Monte Corvino had built up was swept
away, leaving little trace, when the Mongols were at last driven
out of China in 1368. The reaction against foreigners which ac-
companied this expulsion of a foreign dynasty was naturally severe,
and explains in some measure the failure of Christianity to gain a

36

The Mongol Empire

foothold in the Far East at this time. But it is significant that
Islam in China did not suffer a similar eclipse. Partly because it
was an Asiatic religion and therefore more easily assimilable than
a European system, but mostly no doubt because it was the native
creed of a very numerous element in the population of China, in-
troduced in the T'ang period from Turkestan and at intervals re-
plenished by large and small migrations from central Asia, it was
never in real danger of suppression. The Moslem communities in
China today, which are thought to include some ten million peo-
ple, have been politically assimilated without losing their cultural
identity.5

Among the foreign religious communities in eastern Asia un-
der the Mongols, the Nestorian Christians deserve special notice.
Their history is perhaps interesting rather than important, but it
offers a useful commentary on the several attitudes of European
and Asiatic peoples towards theological disputes and it throws
some light upon the general problem of cultural interchanges be-
tween Europe and Asia.

The Nestorian sect arose from one of those bitter doctrinal
controversies which raged in the Christian church as soon as it
began to develop political power upon its adoption as the state
religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century of our era.
In the list of heresies — Arian, Sabellian, Pelagian, and others —
that influenced the minds of both ecclesiasts and laymen in those
days, none roused more violent passions than the beliefs of Nes-
tor ius, Patriarch .of Constantinople, who held that Christ was two
persons, one divine and one human. Quarrels over this subtle
point of theology brought about (to use Gibbon's words) "a secret
and incurable discord," which, besides leading to immediate cruel
persecution, had remoter and more lasting consequences. At the
fantastic Council of Ephesus — that "episcopal tumult" of A.D. 431
— Nestorius was condemned as a heretic, and his followers, who
were numerous in Syria and Persia, presently founded the sect that
is known by his name.

The already widening breach between the Eastern and West-
ern branches of the Church now grew to the point of fission. The
Church in eastern Syria broke off from the Church in Greek and
Latin countries, and it was this easternmost extension of Chris-
tianity that, thanks to its separation and its geographical position,
in course of time gained entrance for the Christian faith into India
and China. The chief centre of the sect was Seleucis-Ctesiphon on
the Tigris, where Its distance gave it independence from the Greco-

5 Though it is true that there have been revolts in frontier provinces where
the population was mostly non-Chinese,

37

Christian Endeavour and Trading Enterprise

Roman world. Its position on the trade route to Bagdad and east-
wards gave it an influence perhaps out of proportion to its real
strength. It displayed, moreover, especially in its early days, an
evangelizing zeal which was no doubt another aspect of the ardour
that informed its theological disputes, for certainly it would be
hard to match in the history of Buddhism or even Islam the fury
of sectarian discussions in the Christian church at that time.

Very soon earlier Christian communities in Persia joined the
Nestorian movement. In the sixth century if not before, there were
Nestorian bishops at Merv and Herat, and thenceforward Chris-
tianity was carried by the Nestor ians along the overland routes
through central Asia to China, and by land or sea to northwestern
and southern India. Researches into the early spread of Christian-
ity in central Asia and the Far East show that evangelization had
some success among people of Mongol race. There were Christians
among Turkic people on the Oxus as early as AJX 200, and by A.D.
650 there were Nestorian bishoprics from central Persia to the Pa-
cific. The date of the entry of Christianity into India is uncertain,
but there is some evidence that Christian communities in southern
India came from Persia in the fourth century to escape persecu-
tion. We know that by about A.D. 500 there were Nestorians in
Ceylon and Malabar, whose bishop was appointed from Persia;
and today there are in southern India some five hundred thousand
Christians of the Syrian rite, many of whom undoubtedly descend
in a doctrinal sense from those evangelized by Nestorian mission-
aries in the remote past.

Here, at first sight, we seem to have a convincing example of
the influence of European religious thought upon an Asiatic peo-
ple; but we must pause before taking that view. Nestorian Chris-
tianity can scarcely be regarded as a European religion. The doc-
trines of the Roman Church, despite their origin in Asia, are to
be regarded as essentially European, not only because Palestine,
though geographically part of Asia, was within the Mediterranean
cultural sphere, but also because the elements of Christian belief
in Europe were compounded by European minds. Nestorian Chris-
tianity, however, in its eastward progress took on an increasingly
Asiatic character. Its rite was Syrian, and as it moved through cen-
tral Asia towards India and China it became more and more dis-
tinct from the parent religion because it made concessions to the
customs and beliefs of Asiatic communities. It allowed marriage
to the clergy and the Nestorian Church in Malabar had already by
the middle of the seventh century adopted many Hindu customs
and rites and developed into a closed caste with no missionary ac-
tivity. In T'ang China, where it arrived in the seventh century, it
suppressed mention of the doctrine of atonement and of the cru-

38

The Mongol Empire

cifixion, which embodied ideas repugnant to many Oriental peo-
ples, as Jesuit missionaries discovered in a later age.6

At that period it seems still to have preserved some of its early
purity; but in course of time, losing touch with the mother Church
and falling largely into the hands of tribesmen of Turkish origin
(Uigurs) , it suffered degradation. William of Rubruck described
the Nestorians as ignorant, given to usury, drunkenness, and po-
lygamy. He was no doubt intolerant of heresy, but in general prob-
ably correct in his estimate; and however true a pattern of Chris-
tianity was presented to the people of Asia in his day, it is clear
enough that few Chinese were impressed by it.7

The Nestorian converts were almost all people of foreign race
whose native religion was of a rudimentary kind. One cannot say
that Christian doctrine, even in a form modified to suit Asiatic
tastes, had any lasting influence upon the great Asiatic civiliza-
tions.

Some scholars have argued that the Nestorian priests in cen-
tral Asia and in China consorted freely with Buddhist monks in
the seventh and eighth centuries and that Chinese Buddhism bor-
rowed something from Nestorianism. But there is no proof and
little probability of this. The Chinese tolerated and even at times
bestowed favours upon such foreign religions as Nestorianism,
Manichaeism, and Zoroastrianism, but this was due to their indif-
ference or to their wish to keep on good terms with border peo-
ples, not to any positive approval of their doctrines. There were,
indeed, occasional proscriptions and even persecutions of foreign
faiths, though these arose from political and not from religious
reasons. Disputes on fine points of doctrine of the kind that con-
vulsed the Byzantine Empire, had they arisen in China, would
have scarcely stirred a ripple on the surface of the national life.
The Chinese felt safe and satisfied in their own moral and re-
ligious climate. To them the outer world was barbaric, just as to

« William of Rubruck mentions that the Nestorians whom he encountered
among the Mongols did not put the figure of Christ upon their crosses and seemed
to be ashamed of his Passion.

A picturesque passage in Rubruck's letters, recording one of the religious dis-
cussions in which he took part, shows his own pessimistic estimate of the prospects
of conversion:

"There was present there an old priest of the sect of the Uigurs, who say there
is one God but nevertheless make idols. With him the Nestorians spoke at length,
relating all things up to the time when Christ came to trial and explaining the
Trinity to him and the Saracens by gestures (or parables? — per similitudines) .
They all listened without contradiction but none said: 'I believe. I wish to become
a Christian.' Then the Nestorians and the Saracens sang together in a loud voice,
but the Buddhists kept silent. And afterwards they all drank deeply."

7 In a later day Newberry, the leader of the first English commercial expedi-
tion to reach India (1584) , engaged two Nestorians as interpreters at Aleppo, be-
cause of their knowledge of India, but had to dismiss them because they "were so
lewdly given."

39

Christian Endeavour and Trading Enterprise

the Greeks and later the Romans in their pride all that foreigners
said was nothing more than uncivilized babble.

It thus appears that, despite the relatively favourable circum-
stances in which knowledge of European civilization was brought
to the notice of the Chinese under the Mongols, it made little stir
among them. Far otherwise was the effect upon Europe of the re-
ports taken home by returning missionaries and merchants who
had seen the marvels of China. Descriptions of its populous cities,
its roads and bridges, its civic competence, its wealth, and the di-
versity of its products at first amazed the people of Italy, then
aroused their interest and their cupidity, and soon set them plan-
ning to increase their commerce with its inhabitants. A new world
was revealed to them. What they learned made a powerful impact
upon their minds and stirred them to thought and action. This is
something that certainly cannot be said of the effect upon the
Chinese of their contemporary information about Europe. It may
be that, had the Mongols remained longer in power, European
influence exerted through them might have taken some root in
China, but this is pure conjecture. The bare fact is that no such
influence did take root, while knowledge and speculation about
China exercised the European mind and prepared it for sub-
sequent enterprises in the Far East.

Perhaps it is pertinent to add here, while casting cultural ac-
counts between Asia and Europe, that although the Mongols ex-
ercised little influence upon European civilization beyond the
stimulus afforded by their invasions, they did leave in eastern Eu-
rope a legacy of some importance. The Tartar and Mongol ele-
ments in the population of European Russia at the beginning of
the twentieth century are stated to have numbered about three
million. These derive of course from a variety of ethnic move-
ments, but such Mongol invasions as those of Batu in 1241, when
he conquered a great part of Russia and entered Bulgaria, Poland,
and Hungary, must have left an enduring mark. Maternity homes
in the poorer quarters of many eastern European cities report a
considerable proportion of babies showing the birthmark known
as the "Mongol spot," which is thought to testify to a strong ad-
mixture of Mongol blood. This same spot appears on most Japa-
nese children at birth; but here, of course, it is evidence not of
invasion but of the existence of a very early Mongol or Tungusic
element in the ethnic constitution of the Japanese.

Asiatic and European Expansion

2. Asiatic and European Expansion

the Mongol Empire disintegrated, the later members of the
Yuan dynasty found themselves unable to cope with the strong
tide of revolt flowing against them. They could no longer stay in
power by force, and they began to defer to Chinese tradition. They
even attempted to enlist Confucianism on their side, but it often
happens that in matters of civilization the victor is subdued by
the vanquished. Capta , . . ferum victorem cepit. The strength
of Chinese culture reasserted itself, and those Mongols who were
not expelled were absorbed. By 1368 the Yuan dynasty came to an
end, and with it all early prospects of a change in the nature of
Chinese society.

North and south were now united under the Ming emperors,
whose general line of policy was to restore and protect the native
culture and to erase all traces of Mongol influence. Apart from
securing themselves against renewed Mongol aggression, they en-
gaged in no important foreign military enterprises directed to-
wards regaining lost territory, but concentrated upon internal re-
organization. There was a pause in intercourse with the West
along the central Asian trade routes, and China seemed to be en-
tering upon a new phase of isolation. But by the opening of the
fifteenth century there took place a remarkable revival and ex-
pansion of Chinese maritime enterprise under state control. Great
fleets, carrying many thousands of sailors, soldiers, officials, and
merchants, were sent to Java, Sumatra, Ceylon, India, Arabia, and
the Persian Gulf in the period from 1405 to 1431. These expedi-
tions ceased suddenly, and there is no satisfactory explanation of
either their end or their beginning. They were no doubt intended
to raise the prestige of the new dynasty in the southern seas and
the Indian Ocean. In this they seem to have had some temporary
success, for envoys from many of the countries visited appeared in
Nanking or Peking — some, it is recorded, having been forcibly
carried to China.

Indeed, it is worth observing here (because one of the pur-
poses of this book is to trace the methods by which European peo-
ples forced their often unwelcome attentions upon Asiatic coun-
tries) that Europe has not held a monopoly of aggression. China,
in particular, has a long history of imperialism, commencing with
the great expansive phase of the Han dynasty, which was after a
pause repeated under the T'ang. It was again renewed, when she
had released herself from the bondage of an even more far-flung
Asiatic empire than her own — the Mongol dominion, which
reached at its greatest extension from the Pacific to the Black Sea,

41

Christian Endeavour and Trading Enterprise

the eastern Mediterranean, and the Persian Gulf. It may be argued
in defence of Chinese expansion that the earliest campaigns of
conquest were intended to defend the Middle Kingdom against
barbarians threatening its frontiers. This was no doubt sound
strategical doctrine, though it can be pressed too far; and it does
not usually convince conquered peoples or, what is less important,
the theoretical opponents of imperialism.

Similarly there are good reasons to justify the expansion of In-
dian empires in the past, particularly where it resulted in confer-
ring the benefits of Indian culture upon backward countries. Its
method was not always in keeping with the principle of ahimsa or
non-violence, which is sometimes said to have been a controlling
factor in Indian history. Apart from a long record of internal wars
fought for the expansion of individual states within the Indian
subcontinent, the colonizing activities of Indian peoples, which
from the beginning of our era extended to Burma, Indo-China,
Malaya, and Indonesia, were sometimes assisted by the force of
arms. It must be admitted, however, that in general the expansion
of India was peaceful and gradual. It was fostered less by the am-
bition of princes than by the slow permeation of Indian ideas and
customs through the influence of Indian traders and the effort of
Indian missionaries, neither of whom had any persistent military
or even political support from India. Indeed, although Hinduism
may have made some of its gains in Cambodia, Sumatra, Java, and
elsewhere in the East thanks to strong colonizing pressure or even
to local military conquests, Buddhism owed its position outside
India to pure evangelism unstained by political motives, thereby
contrasting favourably with Christianity, which from the fifteenth
century onward did not in its progress eastwards disdain the sup-
port of the secular arm. Certainly by the time that the Portuguese
had appeared in the Indian Ocean, Indian expansion had long
lost whatever aggressive character it may have had in the past.

As for China, the overseas expeditions of the Ming emperors
did not manifest a determined spirit of imperialism such as was
displayed under previous dynasties. They were, however, by no
means free from an aggressive character. Soldiers were landed in
distant parts of Asia, where a good deal of fighting and destruction
took place. They ranged as far as the Persian Gulf and the Somali
coast, exacting submission and tribute from rulers great and small.
They even carried off to China in 1410 a King of Ceylon who had
offended them. Perhaps in the light of subsequent history the most
interesting episode is the attack delivered upon the port of Calicut
in southern India. Of this we have an account from an unexpected
source — a priest of the Nestorian community in Malabar, who
was given passage to Portugal by Cabral after that captain had

4*

Asiatic and European Expansion

bombarded the same port in 1500 in retaliation for the massacre
of some of his men on shore. The priest's account says: "About
80 or go years ago the Cataio [that is, the Chinese] had a factory at
Calicut, but because the king of that country committed outrages
against them they rebelled and having gathered a very large ar-
mada they came to the city of Calicut, which they destroyed." We
may therefore at least conclude that in point of priority the Portu-
guese must cede to the Chinese as aggressors in India. But it must
be granted that the Chinese effort was not sustained.

It is clear moreover from the name of "jewel ships" given to
the vessels in Chinese records that an important if not the princi-
pal purpose of their voyages was to acquire precious stones and
other rare products of foreign countries. Ostriches, zebras, and
giraffes are among the curiosities mentioned. The expeditions were
led by palace eunuchs, and financed from the palace treasury.
They may perhaps best be regarded as combining political and
commercial objects, but it is noticeable that the trade in which
they engaged was definitely a luxury trade. It did not arise from
any popular demand for useful commodities and therefore can-
not be compared in importance to the efforts that had already
for a long time been made by European traders to secure Asiatic
goods. The urgency with which for centuries Europe had sought
the silks of China and the spices of the Indies finds no true paral-
lel in the motives of vanity which led the Ming emperors to send
abroad for exotic things. Whatever may have been their purpose,
the great maritime voyages came to an end without having pro-
duced any important effect upon Chinese life and without having
substantially increased Chinese strength. The fact that historians
are not agreed on what they were meant to achieve is an indica-
tion that there was no clearly conceived policy behind them. The
so-called tribute was obtained at high cost and, though the fleets
of great junks may have impressed some petty kings of Indonesia,
Chinese prestige in general did not for long stand high in eastern
Asia.

China was really on the defensive from the time when the voy-
ages ceased. The Japanese raided her coast incessantly, and pirates
of all kinds, many of whom were Chinese, sacked and burned
coastal cities so frequently that their inhabitants had to move in-
land. Tibet and Annam freed themselves from Chinese suzerainty,
and even the now diminished Mongol power was able from time to
time to strike at Chinese forces in the north. Chinese shipping was
forbidden to leave Chinese waters, Chinese subjects could not go
abroad, and the country entered upon an era of seclusion.

This was at a time when Europe was on the threshold of an age
of maritime discovery and commercial expansion which was to

43

Christian Endeavour and Trading Enterprise

alter the whole course o£ world history. It is difficult to say what
were the prime motives of this activity. It was something new not
in kind but in degree, since, as we have already seen, Europe had
stretched a hand out towards Asia since very early times. One can-
not help being struck by the persistence throughout European
history of the demand for Asiatic commodities, first for silk and
then for pepper and other spices.

The part played by pepper in the development of both over-
land and sea-borne trade with India and beyond is truly astonish-
ing. It is comparable in its influence upon commercial effort to
those materials like petroleum and rubber which in modern times
have shaped the foreign policy of leading Occidental states. Rome
bought off Alaric in 408 not only with gold but also with pepper;
and the international rivalry of that and subsequent periods cen-
tres almost entirely upon the control of the trade in spices, of
which pepper was the most important. In all accounts of the plans
of the great European explorers, from the pioneers of the open sea
route between Aden and Malabar (the indigenous home of Piper
nigrum] down to Columbus, Vasco da Gama, and Magellan, a
search for the spice countries figures as a leading motive.

Even after their discovery by the Portuguese the main effort
of other European maritime peoples was directed to breaking the
Portuguese monopoly by providing alternative routes into the
Pacific Ocean. The brave but ill-fated attempts to force a north-
east or a northwest passage, in which such navigators as Cabot,
Frobisher, Willoughby, Chancellor, Gilbert, Cartier, and Hudson
played a leading part, were chiefly designed to break through icy
wastes into warm tropical waters. There is, indeed, a tragic irony
in the fate of some of those seamen who, after years spent in strug-
gling against the hazards of arctic exploration, ended their careers
in southern seas while engaged in efforts to loosen the Portuguese
hold on trade in the Indian Ocean and beyond the Strait of
Malacca, which consisted largely in traffic in spices. Among them
were John Davis, who was killed by Japanese pirates off Singapore
in 1604, and William Baffin, another famous polar navigator, who
was killed by a Portuguese shot during fighting in the Persian
Gulf.

Yet it is clear that the urgency of demand for tropical products
is not of itself enough to explain the great revival and increase of
European activity in trade and navigation which, beginning with
the rise of Venice, reached a peak in the epoch-making voyages of
the end of the fifteenth century. The question is one of considerable
interest, because until it is answered we cannot understand why
the great eastern Asiatic states, despite their wealth and capacity,
failed to pursue consistently a policy of maritime expansion and

Asiatic and European Expansion

seem when they did on occasion embark upon such a policy to
have lacked the will to sustain it. The Chinese, or rather their
Mongol rulers, twice attempted to invade Japan, but were de-
feated. They had some success in attacks from the sea upon the
coasts of southeast Asia, and even sent a fleet to attack Burma, but
by the end of Khubilai's lifetime they had withdrawn from all
these regions. Their failure may be ascribed to ignorance of the
art of naval warfare, which obliged them to depend upon Chinese
and Korean sailors, who were lukewarm assistants. But the cessa-
tion of the overseas expansion of Ming China more than a century
later cannot be accounted for only by naval weakness, since the
Chinese were by then at the height of their development in navi-
gation and shipbuilding.

In view of the previous achievements of the Chinese in the
conduct of great land and sea expeditions, it cannot be supposed
that they lacked the capacity for such undertakings. One can only
conclude that their political constitution and their social order
did not, in the period following the Mongol conquest, afford the
stimulus that sustained the contemporary European effort to ex-
pand. Similarly it may be supposed that the effort of Indian colo-
nization, which once had carried Indian influence westward to
Socotra and eastward to Sumatra and beyond, lost its motive
power through the growth of political confusion in India itself.

But to say that internal conditions in China and India were
not such as to promote an active interest in overseas trade and en-
terprise on a national scale is only to state historical facts. It does
not explain them. It docs not show why, in those great Asiatic
countries, there was no impulse comparable to that which pro-
duced the commercial expansion of European states, where in the
late Middle Ages and increasingly from the fourteenth century
onwards the driving force came from their sovereigns and their
governing classes. It was those leaders who, no doubt under the
persuasion of ambitious explorers and energetic merchants, by
their favour and interest gave a high place in the national policy
to voyages of discovery and trade. It would be hard to match
among the titles of Eastern monarchs such a style as that of Prince
Henry of Portugal, who is known as the Navigator, or of King
Manoel, who assumed the title of "Lord of the Conquest, Naviga-
tion, and Commerce of India, Ethiopia, Arabia, and Persia/'
Though Oriental monarchs often claimed something like universal
rule, calling themselves by such proud titles as "Lord of the
World'' or "Lord of Life" or "Master of the Four Oceans" or
"King of Kings, Companion of the Stars, and Brother of the Sun
and Moon" or even "Eminent King of Kings, Ruler of the Beauti-
ful Impregnable Metropolis of the World," it would not have oc-

45

Christian Endeavour and Trading Enterprise

curred to the most vainglorious of them (with the exception per-
haps o£ Moslem rulers, whose sacred book gave a high place to
merchants) to speak of themselves as concerned in buying and
selling. They would be alert to share in the profits of trade by the
taxation or, if need be, the confiscation of swollen fortunes, but
they did not as a rule regard the promotion of foreign commerce
as a vital affair of state.

In order to seek an explanation for this difference in attitude
between European and Asiatic states it is necessary to go far back
in European history. The militant, expansionist phase of Euro-
pean history is not to be ascribed simply to some aggressive qual-
ity in the character or habit of European peoples. Indeed, Europe
was for centuries before the period with which we are dealing
constantly and perilously on the defensive. This is true enough
even of Europe as a geographical expression, and if Europe is
taken as standing for a continuing cultural unity, then it is beyond
all doubt a just description of the condition of European civiliza-
tion at least from the decline of the Roman Empire until the turn
of the tide in the sixteenth century, when Europe began to exert
force upon Asia. It has been well said that the history of Europe is
the history of a civilization produced, preserved, and developed by
the pressure of alien powers that threatened it almost from its
birth.

Certainly the shape which that civilization took from the pe-
riod of the Hunnish invasions was largely determined by the need
to withstand the irruptions of peoples of Asiatic origin. It has often
been pointed out that, in a geographical sense, Europe is a mere
peninsula or promontory at the western extremity of the great
land mass of Asia; and it was only by a long and arduous resistance
that Europe could preserve its identity in the face of formidable at-
tacks which, had they succeeded, would have made it also a po-
litical and cultural appendage of Asia. Freed from the menace of
the Huns by the defeat and death of Attila in the fifth century,
the Roman Empire had to face new trials, more severe and dis-
ruptive than the Germanic invasions. These last intruders had
altered the political shape of Europe but had brought no funda-
mental change to European economic, social, and intellectual life.
As Henri Pirenne observes, they did not destroy the Empire; they
became part of it, though perhaps they lowered its tone, as when
a palazzo becomes an apartment-house with some new and so-
cially undesirable tenants.

But the Empire had to meet another threat in the sixth and
early seventh centuries, when the conflict centred on the recovery
of Christian, provinces and partook of the nature of a crusade;
and hardly had this danger been averted when with the rise of

46

Asiatic and European Expansion

Islam there appeared a new peril to Christendom. Now, as two re-
ligions with universal claims stood face to face in conflict, what
was in question was no longer only the defence of territory and
people against barbarian intruders, but the preservation of a sys-
tem of life and thought that was European in body and spirit and
could not compromise with Asiatic blood or doctrine. The Chris-
tian civilization of Europe thus developed under constant assault,
and it is not surprising that it should have acquired a militant
character and in course of time have achieved a unity, however
precarious and imperfect, in opposition to the forces by which it
was threatened.

The struggle was long and hazardous. In the seventh century
the armies of Islam swept over the old Roman provinces of Asia
and Africa and in the eighth century they pressed on to south-
western Europe. They overran the Iberian Peninsula, where in
course of time they developed a civilization of their own which
exerted considerable influence upon the intellectual life of Europe
in the Middle Ages. To the north they were stopped from further
irruption by the Battle of Tours in 732, but their conquests else-
where had the effect of confining Christian civilization to Europe
and cutting off the Western nations from access to trade with the
East. This confinement, this sense of pressure, naturally produced
a reaction, which finds its first full expression as a European move-
ment in the crusades. Christendom feels hemmed in by the in-
fidel, its frontiers shrink, and the fighting men of feudal Europe
are easily induced by the call of Papacy to take arms against the
Saracen.

The movement is not, of course, only religious in character. It
goes forward under a Christian banner, but it is in essence the
work of expanding political and economic forces. Despite the ri-
valries of Christian states, Europe began from the close of the
tenth century to oppose a growing political and economic unity to
the threatening power of Islam. It was the economic expansion of
Europe rather than its military effort that in the long run turned
the tide that had for centuries flowed from the east and had threat-
ened many times to engulf European culture. It is true that the
power of Islam was but little diminished by the efforts of Christen-
dom to crush it, and that Europe was threatened in the thirteenth
century by the Mongols and later by the Ottoman Turks; but
these dangers only served to give strength and coherent purpose to
the development of European life. The power that lay across the
trade routes to Asia and barred the way to any eastward move-
ment of European states evoked a strong desire on the part of Eu-
ropean peoples to break out of their confinement and to extend
the frontiers of the respublica Christiana. No student of the his-

47

Christian Endeavour and Trading Enterprise

tory of late mediaeval times can fail to be impressed by the great
change that comes over the European outlook from the beginning
of the fourteenth century. The dominant theme of European
thought is shown by the number of works, influential at that time,
which discuss methods of breaking the encirclement and expand-
ing beyond the borders of the Mediterranean.

Among them are the De recuperations terrce sanctte of Dubois
(1307) , which advocates a general council of Europe, a blockade
of Egypt by an international navy, and an alliance with the Mos-
lems in Persia. The celebrated Secreta fidelium crutis, presented
by its author, Sanuto, to the Pope in 1321, is a story of the cru-
sades and represents the last lingering hope of reconquering Pales-
tine, a land he describes in such a way as to show that Europeans
were no longer familiar with its geography.8 These, and other
works bearing titles like De modo Sarracenos exstirpandi, while
offering different suggestions for the defeat of the infidel, all call
for unity among European leaders and a European strategy against
Islam. The growth of interest in the world beyond the Mediter-
ranean is shown by such a work as the Libro del Conoscimiento,
the Book of the Knowledge of All the Kingdoms, Lands, and Lord-
ships that are in the World, which belongs to the middle of the
fourteenth century. Even more significant is the Libro di divisa-
mente di pressi e misure of 1348, which gives information for trav-
ellers in Asia. It is a kind of commercial geography for the use of
merchants and contains useful facts that Pegolotti, its writer, had
learned on his own journeys to central Asia, China, and India.

All these works, in their different ways, deal with European
policy in terms of an offensive strategy of expansion. They are ex-
pressions of a sense of confinement and of an urgent need to re-
pair the failures of the crusades, which had culminated in the loss
of Acre in 1271. No single cause accounts for the new spirit which
animated European life from that time onward, nor indeed are all
the known and probable causes taken together sufficient to explain
the strong and coherent purpose that seems to gather itself to-
gether during the fourteenth century and then to display an out-
burst of energy carrying Europe far beyond Asia in the many fields
of material endeavour. There is some element that escapes analy-
sis here, but the results are clear enough. Europe at the close of
the Middle Ages entered upon a phase of constructive effort at a
time when the great Asiatic communities were severally in phases
of conservatism if not of decadence. Perhaps it can be argued that
this constructive phase was a necessary sequel of the destruction
of all but the germinating power of classical pagan culture by the

s He copied a good deal from Burchard's description of the Holy Land (c. 1283) ,
whose maps he used. Burchard had visited Palestine, but Sanuto had not.

48

Asiatic and European Expansion

fall of Rome and the rise of the Christian church. It seems that
the Asiatic civilizations, since they did not suffer a like experience,
were under no compulsion to renew themselves. They did not
need a Renaissance for their salvation and consequently were able
to continue without startling change in their intellectual life, their
political forms, or their social order until long after the nature of
European civilization had undergone a thorough transformation.
The assault upon their traditions was to develop later, at a time
when they were by comparison with Europe as weak as pagan Eu-
rope once had been in the face of attacks by barbarian invaders
and the challenge of a new creed.

It might be said, in more general terms, that it was the birth
in Europe of a doctrine of perfectibility that impelled European
states to extend their influence into Asia. As Europeans, under the
influence of startling scientific discoveries, came to think that an
increase in material benefits could be equated with an advance in
human happiness, it was natural that they should look abroad for
more wealth and knowledge, since these were the true ingredients
of that continuous progress in which they were beginning to be-
lieve.

In Asiatic countries no such optimism prevailed as to human
destiny. In the great religious and philosophical systems of India
the life of mankind is not conceived of as having an end towards
which it gradually moves, and certainly man is not seen as the
master of his own fate, able to subdue natural forces or at least
to turn them to his own ultimate benefit. The flux of existence is
thought of not as a progress towards a desirable goal but as an in-
finite series, without beginning or end, of cycles of growth and
decay. Nothing can be more uncongenial to the European mind
than the teaching of Buddhist scriptures (which is not contra-
dicted by Hinduistic beliefs) as to the lack of meaning or purpose
in the material universe. Their descriptions of worlds that grow
only to perish by flame or flood or stormy violence are such as to
induce melancholy in all but the most sanguine and eupeptic Oc-
cidental.

When a cycle is ended by fire; at first a great world-destroying
rain-cloud rises and a great downpour takes place in the hundred
thousand myriad world systems. Men bring forth their seeds and
sow them, but when the crops begin to grow, the rain is completely
cut off. Water dries up, and it does not rain for many hundred
years, many thousand years, many hundred thousand years. After
a long time has passed since the end of the rains, burning suns
manifest themselves, one after another. Their heat strikes down
uninterruptedly and at length the hundred thousand myriad
world systems are a mass of flame. Then after a long time the

49

Christian Endeavour and Trading Enterprise

rains begin again, and presently the sun and the moon and the
constellations reappear, and the sequence of day and night, sum-
mer and winter, sowing and harvest is resumed. But lust and greed
and craving also return, and in due time the aeons of dissolution
and quiescence and formation begin again in an eternal repeti-
tion of cycles. But there is no progress, no beginning and no end.

Such a view of the fruitlessness of man's endeavour doubtless
explains in part why the confidence of European invaders was met
by no determined opposition from the peoples of countries under
strong Buddhist or Hinduistic influence. At the same time it is sig-
nificant that as Buddhism moved towards the Far East its pes-
simism grew thinner, and (as we shall see) Far Eastern peoples,
notably the Chinese and the Japanese, proved less acquiescent
than Indians in their attitude towards Western intrusion.

Though the reader may wish at this point to reflect further
upon the historical reasons why Europe was able from the fifteenth
century onwards to exert a growing pressure upon Asia, it would
be out of place to pursue such broad inquiries here. It is better to
continue the study of the relations between the two continents by
a survey of Portuguese maritime and commercial policy in Asiatic
waters, and its execution. It throws some light upon the difference
between European and Asiatic states in their attitude towards for-
eign relations and especially towards foreign trade. It is a pic-
turesque story in itself, and it has a bearing upon later history be-
cause, the Portuguese being the first in the field, the problems
that they encountered and the way in which they solved them did
in a very large measure fix the pattern of subsequent European
commercial enterprise and colonial expansion in Asia. The experi-
ences of the Portuguese in the Arabian Sea influenced their policy
as they moved farther east to Burma, to Indonesia, to China and
Japan; and although the policy of later arrivals — principally the
Dutch and the English — differed in important respects from that
of the Portuguese, they were building upon foundations laid by
Portugal. It is not excessive to say that the modern development
of commercial and political relations between Europe and Asia,
and in particular the history of* European colonization in India
and the Far East, cannot be thoroughly understood without knowl-
edge of its earliest stages.

In considering these it is worth while to remember that when
direct intercourse between Europe and Asia, interrupted by the
power of Moslem states, was at length resumed in the closing years
of the fifteenth century, it was by water and not by land that Eu-
ropeans travelled to the East. The armed and mobile ship was less
vulnerable than the slow caravan, since what is thought of as the
"salt, estranging sea" presented fewer obstacles to traffic between

SO

Asiatic and European Expansion

peoples than the land that separated them. The land contains nat-
ural barriers more difficult to overcome than wind and waves, and
it is peopled by inhabitants more hostile to strangers than are tjie
monsters of the deep. Horace was surely wrong when he said that
a prudent God had severed lands from one another by unfriendly
waters — oceano dissociabili; for it was advances in navigation that
not only made possible but also promoted the extension of Eu-
ropean influence to distant parts of the world. The ships that
Vasco da Gama sailed to India in 1498 were freighted with con-
sequences to Asia more far-reaching than those carried by all the
overland expeditions from Europe in preceding centuries.

Notes on CHAPTER 3

CHRISTIANITY AMONG THE MONGOLS. The best single source of informa-
tion from missionary sources is Sinica Franciscana (4 vols. to date) ,
published by the order at Florence. Vol. I contains the texts of the re-
ports and letters of the Franciscan missionaries in eastern Asia, together
with a valuable Latin commentary and notes.

MOSLEMS IN CHINA. See note to chapter ii as to Moslem revolts.

THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN SOUTHERN INDIA. Readers interested in the
growth of the ancient Christian church may wish for further details of
a community whose members profess to regard European Christians as
"recent converts." The following particulars, derived chiefly from offi-
cial sources, relate only to the two states of Travancore and Cochin in

Out of a total population of 6,301,000, the number recorded as
Christians is 1,939,000. These may be classified in round numbers as
follows:
Eastern (Syrian) Church ........................... 515,000

Roman Church

Latin rite 470,000

Syriac rite 632,500 .................... 1,102,500

Protestant churches ................................ 322,000

1,939,500

Although the origin of the Eastern Church in Malabar can cer-
tainly be ascribed to Nestorian missionaries, its present-day members
do not admit that their church ever accepted the Nestorian heresy. The
sectarian divisions among the members of the Eastern Church are in-
teresting and remarkable, when one remembers that they are almost
without exception indigenous people. They are usually styled- Syrian
Christians because they use the Syriac rite and Syriac liturgies. When
the Portuguese established themselves in India they naturally sought
to bring the Indian Christian communities into the Roman Church.

61

Christian Endeavour and Trading Enterprise

In 1599 the Archbishop of Goa convened the Synod of Diamper (Uda-
yampur) , near Cochin, and induced mass conversions — a rather strik-
ing if not complete parallel to the forced vote of the Council of Ephe-
sus, A.D. 431.

The whole Malabar Church remained ostensibly Roman until
1653, when a revolt against the supremacy of the Pope took place. A
great number of Syrian Christians renounced allegiance to Rome and
formed a sect of Jacobite Syrians. In both cases, however, relationship
with the Nestorian Church diminished, being kept alive only by a small
number of Syro-Malabar Christians in Cochin, who still follow the
Chaldean (Nestorian) rite and claim succession from the Patriarch of
Babylon. The present subdivisions of the Eastern (Syrian) Church
are:

Jacobite Syrians 363,700

Reformed Syrians 144,500

Chaldean Syrians 6,800

5 157000

The Jacobite Syrians are Monophysites who use the Antiochene
rite in Syriac and (with some qualifications) acknowledge a Patriarch
of Antioch in line from the first Patriarch installed by Jacob of Edessa
(d. 557) , who revived the Monophysite heresy. The Reformed Syrians
result from a split in 1875 among the Jacobites and do not recognize
the authority of Antioch, but have their own Metropolitan. They use
a modified Antiochene rite- but conduct it in the vernacular (Ma-
layalam) . The Roman Syrians — that is, originally those who in 1653
kept their allegiance to Rome — now include a number of Jacobite
Syrians who seceded in 1930 and joined the Church of Rome, but retain
the use of the Jacobite Antiochene liturgy.

The Roman Catholics of the Latin rite are persons, mostly of the
"depressed" classes, who have been converted by Catholic missionaries
from the West since the arrival of the Portuguese in India.

Both the Jacobite and the Roman Syrians are further divided into
two or more social groups, which do not intermarry.

It will be seen that, although the total number of members of the
ancient Christian church is small in relation to the total population
of India, it has shown a notable power of survival and an astonishing
variety of sects which does not represent any difference in doctrine. The
number of Archbishops and Bishops in the two states of Cochin and
Travancore is remarkable. There are twenty-two in all.

It is difficult to explain this persistence of an alien creed in a coun-
try so imbued with religious sentiment, though of course the strength
of that sentiment accounts for a strong interest in ritual subtleties. It
is perhaps due to its deep historical roots in a region cut off by the
Western Ghats from other parts of India, and by its coastal situation
particularly open to influences from overseas. But, however it is to be
explained, the growth of the Syro-Malabar Church is a singular episode
in the history of religion; and it is worth noting that, far from losing
influence, today its adherents can be found in other parts of India,
sometimes occupying positions of importance in public and private

Asiatic and European Expansion

life. The Syrian Christians have been fitted into the caste structure of
Indian society and some are said to rank with the Nairs, an exclusive
land-owning community.

An account of recent conditions among the Syrian Christians in
Travancore by the Right Reverend Stephen Neill appeared in the
London Spectator of December 21, 1945.

The legend that the Church in India was founded by St. Thomas is
not generally believed by historians, but the tradition has persisted for
many centuries.

BS

C H <^f <P T
4

THE PORTUGUESE IN ASIA

i. Colonial Policy

HAT is at first sight most difficult to understand in the
early history of European colonization in Asia is the seeming ease
with which small European states were able to impose their will
upon highly civilized, rich, and populous Asiatic countries. Portu-
gal at the end of the fifteenth century had a population probably
not greater than one and one half million.1 She was poor, although
she had begun to increase her wealth by trading and by bringing
gold from the Guinea coast. She certainly does not seem except in
the light of after events to have possessed the elements of power
that would enable her to challenge the Arabs, who had for cen-
turies dominated trade in the Eastern seas, and to impose her will
upon Asiatic peoples a hundred times more numerous than her
own. She had, obviously, great courage, which had been tried and
tempered in struggles against the Moors; great confidence, which
had been nourished by successful voyages of discovery in the At-
lantic Ocean; and great zeal for the destruction of heresy and the
spread of the Christian faith. But with the physical assets that one
would have thought essential for such a great enterprise she was
but poorly equipped.

It is true that the seafaring peoples of the Mediterranean had
by this time made considerable progress in the science of naviga-
tion and naval warfare. The maps and charts available in the fif-
teenth century to the sailors of southern and western Europe were
much in advance of those of the thirteenth century, thanks to the
evolution of astronomical and geographical studies. The possibil-
ity of extended voyages had brought about improvements in naval
architecture and the arming of ships with cannon. But these ad-
vantages were not the monopoly of the Portuguese. It is usually

i Other estimates are higher, some as high as 2,500,000, but this seems un-
likely, Spain at that time had 7,000,000, France 16,000,000, and England less than
5,000,000.

54

Colonial Policy

said that it was thanks to superior achievements in nautical and
military science that they were able not only to make long voyages
of discovery but also to overcome their more numerous but less
capable enemies at sea. This is no doubt true in a general way,
but it is not the whole truth. The task of the Portuguese, when
they entered the Indian Ocean for the purpose of monopolizing
the trade of the Indies with Europe, was twofold. They had to
overcome the supremacy of the Arabs on the oceanic routes from
Red Sea ports to the Malabar coast and thence through the Strait
of Malacca to Java and the Moluccas. They had also to overcome
substantial naval forces maintained by native rulers of countries
on the western seaboard of India who did not resent or challenge
the Arab supremacy, since it was peaceful and mercantile and in-
volved no threat to Indian sovereignty.2

When the King of Portugal, after Vasco da Gama had in 1498
opened the sea road to India by way of the Cape of Good Hope,
claimed the sole right of navigation and trade in Asiatic waters,
he was bound to come into conflict with both Arab and Hindu.
His captains were as a rule men of high courage, strong determina-
tion, and abundant self-confidence; but any convictions they may
have felt as to an inherent superior capacity in Portuguese or other
European seamen in matters of war and commerce were soon
shaken. The first trial of strength came in 1500 when, following
upon Vasco da Gama's voyage of reconnaissance,3 Pedro Alvares
Cabral was sent to India with a large fleet under instructions to
conclude a trade agreement with the Zamorin of Calicut, the
strongest ruler on the Malabar coast.

Cabral carried a very piously worded letter to the Zamorin
from King Manoel, in which he explains some elements of Chris-
tian doctrine, points out that evidently God ordained the mi-
raculous feats of navigation of the Portuguese not only for the pur-
pose of "traffic and temporal profits . . . but also the spiritual
of souls and their salvation, to which we are more bound/' He
refers to the legend that St. Thomas and St. Bartholomew had
preached in India, says that he is sending, as well as captains, ships,
and merchandise, religious persons (namely, Franciscan friars) to
expound the Christian faith, refers to wicked sects (namely, Islam)
that had hitherto prevented intercourse between Europeans and
Indians, and invites the Zamorin to join in a profitable friendship
with Portugal, The letter ends with a scarcely veiled threat: "And
if it should happen that ... we find in you the contrary of this

2 At this time Hindu merchants were engaged chiefly in coastal traffic, leaving
ocean voyages to the Arabs. But they did continue to trade direct with their own
communities overseas, particularly in Farther India and Malacca.

a Vasco da Gama's ships brought back to Lisbon valuable cargoes, which re-
paid the cost of the voyage many times, and thus whetted the appetite of the King.

66

The Portuguese in Asia

, . . our fixed purpose is to prosecute this affair and continue our
navigation, trade, and intercourse in those lands which the Lord
God wishes to be newly served by our hands/'

This letter is cited here because it reveals very clearly the atti-
tude o£ mind o£ the Portuguese of those days. They were no doubt
sincere in the belief that their mission was to spread Christianity
as well as to engage in profitable trade. Indeed, the Christian kings
of Europe were under an obligation to the Church to convert the
heathen in lands that they might conquer.4 Dom Manoel himself
was not only Lord of Conquest and Navigation, but also the Gov-
ernor of the supreme pontifical Order of Christ, while the vigorous
quality of his people no doubt owed much to the religious ele-
ment in their long struggle to maintain their independence and to
expel the infidels from the Iberian Peninsula.

But, however strong the impulse behind the Portuguese policy,
it could not be executed without preponderant material strength.
The Portuguese leaders could not hope to overcome great land
forces in Asiatic countries, since they had not the means to trans-
port and maintain abroad any considerable numbers of troops.
Their policy must be to apply their limited strength to the weak
points of their enemies. One of those weak points in India was the
political disunity that prevailed, especially among the numerous
small rajahs and chieftains on the Malabar coast. This region was
both geographically and politically isolated from the rest of India.
When the Portuguese reached India the powerful Hindu kiiigdom
of Vijayanagar, almost the sole bulwark against Mohammedan in-
vasion from the north, was able to exercise some influence upon
political conditions in Malabar, and might presently have induced
or imposed unity among the rulers of the many small states along
the coast. But it was cut off from them by the Western Ghats, it
was preoccupied with its own struggles against the sultans of the
Deccan; and meanwhile the various Malabar rulers were con-
cerned more with promoting their own several fortunes than with
forming a confederation that might have protected them against
aggressors.

Chief among these small principalities was the kingdom of Cal-
icut, whose sovereign (styled the Zamorin) had by the end of the
fifteenth century become the richest and strongest ruler in Mala-
bar, Calicut was a considerable city, largely Hindu in population,
but sheltering also a flourishing community of Arab traders who

4 This injunction is contained in several papal bulls. Henry the Navigator ob-
tained a bull from Nicolas IV in 1454 granting to Portugal and the Order of Christ
authority to trade and spiritual jurisdiction along the west coast of Africa and
usque ad Indos. This was confirmed from time to time. The bull Ineffabilis et
summi of 1497, while conferring upon Dom Manoel possession of lands conquered
from the infidels, specifically enjoined him to establish the Christian faith therein.

56

Colonial Policy

had been settled there for some centuries. They did not interfere
in politics, but they had a virtual monopoly of the foreign and
some of the domestic trade of the state, to which they thus brought
not only wealth but also a claim to the good will of the rulers of
Cairo, Ormuz, and other Mohammedan dominions whence they
came. The Zamorin, anxious to extend his authority, had built up
his naval forces, and he had at his command not only experi-
enced seamen of a race that had sailed the Indian Ocean for more
than a millennium but also soldiers of the Nair caste, a warlike
community that had a well-developed military organization of a
somewhat Spartan character.

But at that time neither his men nor his guns were a match
for those of the Portuguese, who were able to sink his ships and
bombard his cities almost at will. The Nairs had a traditional
method of fighting in which each side paid great attention to the
convenience of the other and battles were conducted with a high
regard for ceremony and decorum. They were obliged to abandon
these amiable practices when they came up against Portuguese sol-
diers, who were better armed and more ruthless fighters than the
Indians, and who reserved their punctilio for encounters among
their own fidalgoes. The Indians had little artillery, and that not
very serviceable, until they began to employ Italian and other ad-
visers, who gradually improved their ordnance until, after about
a dozen years, a Portuguese commander had to admit that "the
people with whom we wage war are no longer the same . . . artil-
lery, arms, and fortresses are according to our usage/' This is a
significant statement, because it shows that the wisest Portuguese,
whatever may have been their first intentions, no longer contem-
plated the conquest of a large area of Indian soil. They perceived
very soon that though they might take it they could not hold it.
They were familiar enough with the fighting qualities of Moham-
medan peoples to know that they could never maintain enough
troops in India to secure themselves against land attacks by the
Moslem rulers in the north, even supposing they could establish
dominion over the small Hindu kingdoms in the south.

It was considerations such as these that shaped the colonial
policy of the Portuguese in subsequent years. If they were to en-
force the monopoly of navigation and commerce that they claimed
in the Indian Ocean, they must establish not only trading stations
but also bases for their warships. Further, they must capture or at
least contain the bases of their rivals, the Egyptian and Arab sul-
tans who had hitherto controlled the trade with India and beyond
from their harbours on the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and the
African littoral. This was not so easy a task as getting a foothold
on the Malabar coast, where one rajah could be played off against

67

The Portuguese in Asia

another. Fortunately for the Portuguese, during their first dec-
ades in India the Mohammedan rulers of the Deccan were en-
gaged in struggles among themselves or in attacks upon Hindu
kingdoms, so that no combined military power was brought to
bear upon the European intruders until they were well estab-
lished. But the Indian Ocean trade was a matter of life and death
to the Egyptian and Arab states, both large and small. It was some-
thing that they would vigorously defend, and they were not out-
classed by the Portuguese in fighting spirit, in seamanship, and in
the use of artillery. The success of the Portuguese in their Asiatic
adventure depended therefore upon their ability to defeat their
Moslem enemies at sea. This they managed to do, but only by a
very narrow margin.

In reviewing the early history of European conquest and col-
onization in Asia, Occidental historians tend to ascribe its rapid
progress to an unexplained superiority of Western culture, not
only material but moral. A learned English writer on the history
of Portugal, to explain how the Portuguese achieved their naval
and military successes with so few ships and so few men, says: "The
answer is to be found in the moral superiority of the white man,
in the self-confidence and reckless valour of the conquistadores, in
their armour, stouter vessels and better, though not so numerous
artillery." 5 We may leave aside the question of moral superiority,
which needs some further definition; but we may accept as sub-
stantially correct the view that the arms and equipment of the
Portuguese were more advanced than those of the Asiatics whom
they encountered. Yet in their early struggles with the "Moors"
for the command of the sea, their victories were by no means de-
cisive. In 1502 Vasco da Gama with a strong naval force, after
burning a helpless ship carrying pilgrims from Mecca, destroyed
a fleet of small vessels sent against him by the ruler of Calicut, The
Mameluke Sultan of Egypt soon saw that he must take measures
to protect his own interests and began to prepare a strong fleet.
The Turks and Levantines and the Christian renegades whom
they enlisted were good fighters, by no means unpractised in naval
warfare or deficient in artillery. They defeated a squadron under
L. de Almeida off the Indian coast in 1508. The designs of the
Portuguese were in jeopardy and they had to make a supreme ef-
fort. Fortunately for them, in the following year they were able to
inflict a defeat upon the Egyptian fleet and a number of Indian
craft that came to its support, in a battle off Diu. This was a really
decisive victory, which gave the Portuguese a command of the In-
dian Ocean and enabled them in due course to establish them-
selves in shore bases controlling the trade routes. The victors pro-
5 Edgar Prestage: The Portuguese Pioneers, p. 302.

58

Colonial Policy

ceeded towards Cochin, celebrating their triumph by stopping off
Mohammedan settlements along the coast and bombarding them
with the limbs of prisoners of war whom they had carved up for
that purpose. This grisly feu de joie was not merely a display of
wanton cruelty. Like many other atrocities committed by the
Portuguese in the Indies, it was part of a deliberate policy of fright-
fulness designed to make up by terror for deficiencies in their mili-
tary strength.

Despite their successes, their troubles were not yet over, and
indeed throughout the period of their ascendancy in Asia they
were handicapped by a shortage of ships, men, and money, while
their enemies, learning by experience, soon took to improved meth-
ods of warfare both on land and at sea. As related by European
historians, the conquest of the Indies appears as a glorious epic,
where Christian paladins lay low the infidel and the gentile — the
Moor and the Hindu — in a succession of fights against fearful
odds. It is indeed a heroic achievement, stained though it is by
barbarities and greed. But seen from the Asiatic point of view it
assumes another complexion. One Indian historian argues that
the Portuguese never had any real power or empire in India, that
they never got beyond acquiring a little local authority confined to
small areas round the ports which they built along the coast, and
that such successes as they achieved were due not so much to su-
perior military prowess or political insight as to the disunity of
India, which gave them a fortuitous advantage. He does not think
highly of Vasco da Gama's feat of navigation, pointing out that it
was an Arab pilot who took him from the African coast to Calicut;
and in general he casts doubts on the claims of the Portuguese and
other Europeans to primacy in maritime discovery, on the ground
that the seafaring peoples of the East had developed oceanic navi-
gation long before the days of Columbus and Magellan, and even
before the Phoenicians and Greeks had learned to sail across the
Mediterranean or out into the Atlantic.6

These arguments are perhaps not entirely convincing, but
they deserve attention because they raise an important issue. They
pose questions as to the relative merits of European and Asiatic
civilizations in general. They suggest in particular some qualifica-
tion of the common view that European advances in philosophy
and natural science gave to European countries a moral and mate-
rial advantage that found its clearest expression in a decisive mili-
tary superiority.

6 K. M. Panikkar: Malabar and the Portuguese (Bombay, 1929) , and India and
the Indian Ocean (London, 1945) . Mookerjee's History of Indian Shipping (Bombay,
1912) , an erudite but not entirely convincing work, gives a very high estimate of
Indian maritime development in antiquity.

69

The Portuguese in Asia

Such assumptions hardly accord with all the historical facts in
regard to the sixteenth century. When the West had to face a great
danger from the sweeping invasions of the Ottoman Turks, the
lords of Christendom failed to rise to concerted action and cer-
tainly they could not summon forth a degree of moral or material
strength sufficient to subdue their common enemy. For years after
the disaster of Nicopolis, until the great naval battle of Lepanto
(1571) , they were at a continuous disadvantage. Even after this
victory, usually styled decisive, Turkish maritime power reasserted
itself. Corsairs, if not organized fleets, continued until the seven-
teenth century to infest not only the Mediterranean but also At-
lantic waters as far afield as the Bristol Channel. As late as 1645
a number of Cornish men and women were carried off by raiders
who landed at Fowey from Turkish galleys. One of the Azores
islands was twice raided by Barbary rovers in the second half of
the seventeenth century, and the whole population abducted.

It is perhaps pertinent to mention here that Chinese ships also
were in many respects not inferior to Portuguese. Fernao Peres de
Andrade describes a war junk built by the Sultan of Damak beside
which his own flagship "did not look like a ship at all" and on
which his cannon balls made no impression. This was in 1513. The
Portuguese suffered severe naval reverses at the hands of the Chi-
nese in the first half of the sixteenth century, as for instance when
Coutinho's fleet was defeated by them off Canton in 1523. There
are also Japanese sixteenth-century accounts of great three- or
four-deckers, built by the Chinese for use against Japanese pirates,
which carried two thousand men.

Turkish successes, though admittedly due to the Ottoman Em-
pire's ruthless and single-minded organization for war, could not
have been achieved without proper technical competence in gun-
nery and manoeuvre. It is hardly correct to account for the later
collapse of Turkish power by regarding it as due to a growing
moral or material superiority on the side of its European antago-
nists, except in the limited sense that the Ottoman Empire decayed
through its own internal weakness. The efforts of European princes
at Malta and Lepanto did, it is true, contribute to its fall, but
good fortune was as important here as military capacity. It is prob-
able also that the successes of the Portuguese in their struggle
against Mohammedan power in the Indian Ocean were due not
entirely to superior capacity but also to lucky political circum-
stances.7 Support for this view can be found in the further narra-
tive of Portuguese military and civil policy in India.

7 One o£ the difficulties that hampered the naval efforts of the Moslems was the
absence of timber in the Red Sea. To build ships for fighting in the Indian Ocean
the Sultan was obliged to obtain timber from the Taurus forests in Alexandretta,

60

Colonial Policy

After the defeat of the Egyptian fleet off Diu in 1509, Affonso
Albuquerque, who had assumed office as Governor of India (from
Gujarat to Cape Comorin) , perceived that the Portuguese were
wasting their strength in attempts to hold points on the Malabar
coast which involved them in constant intrigues and struggles be-
tween rival Indian principalities. They had, for example, some
success in winning to their side the Rajah of Cochin, who became
a vassal of the King of Portugal; but this drove the Zamorin of
Calicut to plan a league of Malabar princes against the Portuguese
and such Indian rulers as had taken their side. For years after
Cochin received his golden crown from Portugal, there was con-
stant strife between him and Calicut, in which the Portuguese
were obliged to take a hand. The Zamorin, as well as calling upon
the Sultan of Egypt for help, built up his own land and sea forces.
Sometimes he would give the Portuguese a drubbing, sometimes
he had to make peace with them; but for many years he was a
thorn in their side. His people were not all mild Hindus. There
were in the Malabar population the Nairs already mentioned and,
in addition to Jews and Christians, a number of Mohammedans,
including the fanatical Moplahs. Most of these were good fighters.
The seafaring Arabs in particular were of great service to the rul-
ers of Calicut, providing them with hereditary admirals. Fleets of
small, speedy ships under their command, while avoiding pitched
battles, continued to harass the Portuguese, intercepting their mer-
chantmen and occasionally sinking an armed caravel, a galliot, or a
frigate. It was not until the end of the sixteenth century that the
power of these seamen was broken, and this was not accomplished
by the Portuguese alone. The last of the Kunhali admirals (they
were of Mappila or Moplah family) was attacked in his fortress by
Calicut land forces in alliance with the Portuguese, because he had
become swollen with pride and had gone so far as to cut off the tail
of one of his sovereign's elephants.

Although conflict with the Malabar chieftains thus dragged on
for nearly a century, it had already in 1510 become clear to Al-
buquerque, the wisest and greatest of Portuguese statesmen in In-
dia, that Portugal could succeed in her policy of dominating the
trade routes only if she concentrated her strength in easily defensi-
ble places. He had learned a lesson, which some of his successors
failed to understand, when Portuguese arms suffered a severe re-
verse at the hands of the Zamorin's land forces during an abortive
Portuguese attack upon the city of Calicut. He decided that he

whence it was shipped to Alexandria and then taken up the Nile and sent to Suez
shipyards overland. The slow vessels carrying the timber from Alcxandretta were
open to attack in the Mediterranean. Half the supply sent for building the fleet that
was to meet the Portuguese was destroyed by the Knights of St. John from Rhodes
in 1506.

61

The Portuguese in Asia

must find a safer and more convenient base for naval operations,
since what the Portuguese needed was a place that could be easily
defended against land attacks while furnishing shelter and sup-
plies for the warships that must protect the trade routes. This he
found on the island of Goa, which was in the territory of a Moslem
ruler, the Adil Shah. But it was also adjacent to the state of Vi-
jayanagar, a Hindu kingdom still holding out in southern India
against the Moslem power threatening from the Deccan.

This is a point of special interest, because it shows that even
the new and limited policy of Albuquerque depended upon the
good will of a native prince. Vijayanagar helped him because it
needed a port through which to obtain supplies of arms and above
all of Arab horses for its wars against the Moslems. After some re-
verses the Portuguese were able in 1510 to establish themselves
in Goa, which thus at the end of a decade of indecisive fighting
and diplomacy on the Malabar coast became the chief center and
stronghold of Portugal in India, remaining in Portuguese hands
through many vicissitudes until the present day.

Goa was the capital of the Portuguese Empire in Asia, the focal
point of its trade, and the seat of the Patriarch of the Catholic
Church in India. From here flowed the missionary effort of the
Dominicans, the Franciscans, and the Jesuits; and here in 1583 a
magnificent welcome was given to an embassy to Rome composed
of noble youths representing feudatories of western Japan. Their
mission had been arranged by the Jesuits, now well established in
Japan, so that on their return they could tell their countrymen of
the power and splendour of European countries and the command-
ing influence of the Catholic Church.8

More must be said about the ecclesiastical importance of Goa,
but first some attention should be paid to its character as a Portu-
guese possession.

It may be regarded as the first of the European colonies in Asia
in modern times, and one of its important features is that, like
many later colonies, it was secured almost by accident and not as
the result of a considered national policy. The Portuguese govern-
ment, or more correctly perhaps the Portuguese kings, when they
promoted exploration and maritime commerce, had not in their
minds any plan of territorial expansion in Asia. They had a gen-
eral intention of gaining trade monopolies in the Indian Ocean
and beyond, and they knew that they might have to use force for

s By a strange coincidence I wrote this sentence just before breaking off to lis-
ten to a news broadcast on December 6, 1945, which reported that the -Supreme
Commander for the Allied Powers in Japan had ordered the Japanese government
to withdraw its envoy to the Vatican.

62

Colonial Policy

that purpose. They at first supposed that, so far as concerned the
Indian rulers, they might be able to achieve their ends by negotia-
tion backed by a display of strength. This was in part due to their
ignorance of actual conditions in India, which they completely
misunderstood.9 Indeed, despite the existence of a considerable
European literature on India, including classical works, the reports
of Franciscan and other missionaries in the thirteenth and four-
teenth centuries, and travel-books of Mohammedan writers, Eu-
rope knew very little about India until the Portuguese had been
there for some time. Even then the accounts of good observers were
most incomplete and misleading because they failed to grasp the
nature of Indian civilization. The earliest Portuguese invaders
might be forgiven for such ludicrous mistakes as supposing that the
Virgin Mary was worshipped in Hindu temples or attempting to
convert Hindu rulers whose very kingship was a religious office;
but it is remarkable that the Western world did not until the end
of the eighteenth century become aware that India possessed an
ancient literature and a philosophical tradition comparable in
maturity and distinction to those of Greece and Rome.10 Even this
advance in knowledge was due not to an awakened enthusiasm for
Indian lore but to the East India Company's recognition of the
practical importance of Sanskrit studies as an aid to administration
and judicial business.

But if the Portuguese misjudged the Hindu character, they
knew a great deal about Islam and they were well aware of the
struggle they would have with Mohammedan nations. In fact their
policy, while it aimed at the acquisition of wealth by trade, at the
same time sought to cripple the Mohammedan power not only by
direct attack in the Indian Ocean but also by depriving Islam of
its strength in the Mediterranean in so far as it was derived from
the Oriental wealth that sustained the Mohammedan fleets and
armies in Europe. Though it is true, as Vasco da Gama's men said
on first landing in the Indies, that they came "in search of Chris-
tians and spices/' this was only a local aspect of a national policy.
The crusading zeal and the chivalrous sentiment which, though al-
ready outmoded in the rest of Europe, still inspired the Portuguese

9 One of the most interesting pieces of evidence on this point is the nature of
the presents offered by da Gama to the King of Calicut. They were some striped
cloth, hats, strings of coral beads, wash-basins, and jars of oil and honey. These
were curious gifts to bring to the classical land of treasure, and the King's officers
found them laughable. The King, when he received da Gama, had in his hand a
golden spittoon, and by him a golden basin for his betel. He was wearing a crown
set with pearls, and golden anklets set with rubies.

10 It is true that some of the Jesuits in India in the iyth century translated and
refuted certain Hindu theological works, but their writings remained in manuscript
and were not generally known.

63

The Portuguese in Asia

nobility in the sixteenth century gave to Portuguese expansion in
its early stages a romantic quality in contrast to the practical char-
acter of later imperialisms.

But the ultimate driving force behind the Portuguese and
Spanish voyages of discovery in the fifteenth century was a desire
to rid Europe of the threat of Mohammedan invasion. Spain and
Portugal had ejected the Moors from the Iberian Peninsula, but
the Ottoman Empire was a continual menace to all European
states frofri the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453.
Until Vasco da Gama reached Calicut in 1498, the greater part o£
the world's oceanic carrying trade was in Mohammedan hands.
The carrying trade of western Europe was almost insignificant in
comparison, and even the most opulent of European mercantile
states, Venice and Genoa, depended for their prosperity upon the
overflow of commodities from India and the Far East that was
spared to them by Bagdad, Damascus, Cairo, and Constantinople.
It was as a part of the great struggle between Christian and Islamic
powers that the Portuguese, with support from the Church, en-
deavoured to cut off and divert to themselves the stream of wealth
that flowed from Asia to the Turkish Empire or its allies and with-
out which the Turks would scarcely have been able to maintain
their military pressure upon Europe.

Of course the Portuguese coveted the profits that the Moslems
derived from, the Eastern trade. But their motives were not entirely
commercial. It has been said that one of their principal objects
was to reduce the price of spices and that this is sufficient to ac-
count for their policy of breaking the Moslem monopoly. There is
little evidence for this view, while there is plenty to indicate that
the Portuguese, or at any rate their more far-sighted leaders, had in
mind a grand strategy of encircling the Turks. Albuquerque even
revived an old idea of diverting the flow of the Nile so as to ruin
Egypt, while he saw the importance of taking and holding key
places in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, from which, as Camo-
ens said, "the Soldan drew a profit great and pleasing." la It thus
appears that Portuguese expansion and colonization in Asia, the
first manifestations in the modern age 12 of what is now called Eu-
ropean imperialism, have their origin in an effort on the part of
European states to thwart the imperialist ambitions of a people of
Asiatic origin fighting under the banner of an Asiatic religion.

The menace continued through the sixteenth century, and was
in some aspects intensified by the Asiatic campaigns of the Turks

l* Referring in particular to Jiddah: "Gida . . . De que tinha proveito grande
e grato O Solddo que esse reino possuia."

12 The crusaders' colonies in Syria, etc., are on a different footing. They were an
attempt to transplant feudal regimes, not national power.

64

Colonial Poliey

under Selim (1515-20) and his son Suleiman the Magnificent.
They inflicted defeat upon the Persians and by crushing the
Mameluke sultans of Egypt they became paramount in Egypt,
Syria, and the Hejaz. Their power, more unified than that of their
Mohammedan predecessors in those regions, extended down the
Red Sea and the Persian Gulf into the Indian Ocean. It was here
that they came into conflict with the Portuguese, who, as well as
establishing themselves in Goa, found it necessary to strike at the
Mohammedan strength in Aden and Ormuz and to gain control
of Diu, a harbour in the Mohammedan sultanate of Gujarat, which
was important for the pilgrim ships and a centre of the trade in
Arab horses.

This, in view of the scope of Portuguese designs, was a rather
modest plan of territorial acquisition and it is important to note
that it could not be fully accomplished. The Portuguese established
a protectorate at Socotra, but they never could control Aden, they
had trouble from time to time at Ormuz, and it was only after fre-
quent reverses that they were able to establish themselves per-
manently in Diu by its capture in 1546. None of these places ex-
cept Goa and Diu could be regarded as colonies in a strict sense.

The acquisition of the Portuguese colonial holding in India
was so little the result of a considered policy that it was almost ac-
cidental in its nature, as were many of the colonial enterprises of
the nations that followed the Portuguese. When Albuquerque
took Goa, the court at Lisbon was surprised and suggested that he
should return it to Abdul Khan, its ruler, because the King and
his advisers had never contemplated direct Portuguese rule of any
foreign territory. They had expected at most some kind of arrange-
ment by which local sovereigns would grant trading privileges,
with permission to erect a "factory" and a fortress for its protec-
tion. But as the Portuguese gained experience they learned that
such arrangements were not sufficient. They found themselves in-
volved in the unending disputes and intrigues of petty rajahs, and
they could never feel secure. What they needed most of all was a
base for their ships and a centre for the control of their various
trading enterprises, in which they could keep a permanent garri-
son. It must be easily defensible against assault by land, and must
afford shelter against storms or attack from the sea. For these pur-
poses Goa was ideal. The men on the spot, with their knowledge
of local conditions, could not be bound by policies laid down at
home, which if carried out would have rendered their own task
impossible. So Albuquerque and his council proceeded with their
plan for the permanent occupation of Goa as a colony under direct
Portuguese rule, just as three hundred years later Raffles took pos-
session of Singapore in disregard of the policy of his home govern-

65

The Portuguese in Asia

ment, because he was convinced that the expansion of British trade
in the Far East could not proceed without the acquisition of a
strategic base.

So began and so continued the process of colonization in India,
not as the result of any national plan of conquest, but as an in-
evitable corollary of a policy of obtaining trade by a monopoly of
sea transport. As the Portuguese extended these activities towards
the east, they found themselves obliged to acquire further bases.
They captured and held Malacca in 1511, though they did not at-
tempt to exercise direct rule over the natives of the region. Mov-
ing on to China, in circumstances that will be presently described,
they established themselves in Macao, though here again they were
unwelcome but tolerated guests rather than rulers. In extent the
Portuguese Empire in Asia was small. It consisted of the few square
miles comprising the island of Goa, the small port of Diu, the post
at Malacca, and the lodging in Macao, and brought within full
Portuguese sovereignty only a few thousand alien people, Portugal
had also a somewhat loose hold upon considerable territory in
Ceylon (from 1587 to 1658) , and was in control of districts round
Bassein until ejected by the Mahrattas in 1738. Her settlements at
Muscat, Ormuz, Daman, Cochin, Sao Thome, Amboina, Ternate,
and Tidore were not, strictly speaking, colonies but fortified ' 'fac-
tories*' or trading posts enjoying by force or sufferance a kind of
extraterritorial standing.

Though not impressive in area or population, the Portuguese
Empire in Asia within a few decades of da Gama's first voyage to
India represents a considerable achievement, which depended less
upon superior power than upon strength and continuity of pur-
pose. The Europeans went into Asia in a spirit of determination
to succeed that was stronger than the will of the Asiatic peoples to
resist. Europe in the sixteenth century could not boast of unity,
for it was riddled with political and religious dissension, but on
one point there was at least general agreement, and that was the
need of expansion towards the east in order both to resist the pres-
sure of the Ottoman Turks and to gain wealth from Asiatic trade.
In this enterprise it was Portugal that took the lead, largely be-
cause, standing remote upon the western edge of Europe, she was
not very directly concerned in contemporary European politics
and could thus afford to devote all her national energies to the
task of overseas expansion. Henry the Navigator and King Manoel
gave the first place in national policy to equipping and supporting
ships and men dispatched on voyages of exploration or adventure.
There was no comparable singleness of purpose in the Asiatic
countries against which these enterprises were directed; and even
the Moslem power in the Indian Ocean, which stood to lose so

66

Colonial Policy

much by Portuguese success, did not bring to the defence of its
own interests the continuous and whole-hearted energy displayed
by its European rival.

There seems to be no doubt that a policy of expansion cannot
succeed unless it is executed with full and confident determina-
tion. These were the qualities that enabled three of the smallest
and least powerful of European states in the sixteenth century to
carry out undertakings that reason would say were beyond their
strength. In the circumstances of the age, expansion was the law of
their being, the condition of their independent survival. Though
it may be condemned on moral grounds today, it was historically
inevitable; and this historical character ought to be taken into ac-
count in forming judgments upon the past and future of colonial
possessions.

A cynical view would pretend that the expansive, proselytizing
movement of European civilization from the thirteenth century
onwards was a mere cloak for mercantile cupidity. But it was much
more than this, for it was an outpouring of strength acquired and
knowledge accumulated in the long period since the fall of the
Roman Empire. The record of the invasion of the Asiatic world
by European intruders includes some regrettable chapters, but it
cannot be said with certainty that it was in general harmful or
retrograde. It was the expression, the inevitable expression, of a
civilization on the march. It may have — indeed, it has — de-
stroyed much that was gentle and beautiful, and those who have
known at first hand the simple grace of some Asiatic cultures must
grieve at the thought of their contamination. It may be that such
cultures carried within themselves the germs of new life, but it is
idle now to speculate as to what course they would have run had
they not come under the influence of new forces from the Occi-
dent.

Those forces, it is useful to recall, first appeared in small sea-
faring communities in the Mediterranean, and it was the mediaeval
successors of those communities that led the way in the extension
of European trade and the projection of European influence into
the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It was the small maritime republics
of Venice and Genoa, heirs to the tradition of the Greek city states,
that explored unknown deserts and seas for the sake of trade,
further developed the arts of shipbuilding and navigation, en-
couraged the spirit of scientific inquiry, and, thanks to their ad-
vances in invention, made that progress in naval warfare and also
in methods of trade and finance which enabled them, and later the
Portuguese and the Spaniards, the Dutch and the English, to gain
ascendancy in all the oceans.

Seeing how notable have been the achievements of Asiatic peo-

67

The Portuguese in Asia

pies, remembering how the Asia of antiquity often surpassed Eu-
rope not only in the realm of abstract wisdom but also in the field
of practical discovery, it might have been expected that, when later
in their history Asiatic peoples were confronted with new ideas
and inventions from the West, they would have displayed some
active interest, some wonder whether here was not material that
they might usefully incorporate in their own systems. It might, for
instance, have been supposed that a people which had invented
paper, printing, gunpowder, and the mariner's compass would
have wished to apply to their own lives some of the scientific prin-
ciples brought to their notice by Jesuit missionaries in the six-
teenth century or by subsequent travellers. They were by no means
behindhand in certain techniques, having for example made prog-
ress in the application of mathematics, in medicine, and in agri-
cultural science. But for a millennium or more their economic and
social conditions had beetl such as to inhibit the development of
science beyond the empirical stage, and therefore the rulers of
China showed little curiosity in matters of scientific speculation.
True, they paid some attention to methods of astronomical calcu-
lation and map-making shown to them by the Jesuits, because cal-
endars and land surveys played an important part in their system
of government; and they were not unwilling to learn something
about the manufacture of firearms, since this might be useful for
the protection of their own order. But in general they looked with
superb disdain upon other products of the European hand and
brain, because they felt that their own institutions were near per-
fection and their own economy complete.

The position in India was not unlike that in China. Although
in ancient times Indian ships had sailed distant seas and had car-
ried Hindu colonists far from their native lands, later Hindu cus-
toms, particularly the caste system, were unfavourable to foreign
travel. Brahman orthodoxy, for instance, required (and still nomi-
nally requires) a purification (panipatyd) of every man who has
crossed "the black water/' which to the Greeks was the inviting
wine-dark sea. For such reasons, and also because Indian sea power
was overcome in the eleventh century by Indonesian sea fighters
and subsequently by Arab corsairs, by the fifteenth century the sea-
borne trade of India both eastward and westward had long fallen
from Indian hands into those of Moslem traders. These not only
controlled the traffic routes to India but also were settled in com-
munities on the coast of southern India, where they had a practical
monopoly of the distribution of imported merchandise and the
purchase of goods for export.

Internal political conditions in the Indian peninsula more-
over were not favourable to the development of trade on a national

68

Colonial Policy

scale, since the Moslem invaders in the north were interested in
conquest rather than in trade, while in the south, especially in Mal-
abar, where Moslem military or political power had not yet pene-
trated, petty Hindu rulers were at odds with one another and
concerned more with gaining territory than with promoting com-
merce. Their need for foreign products was of no importance and
they were content to leave buying and selling to strangers who
were skilled in the business and even prepared to pay for the privi-
lege. The tolerance of these rulers towards foreign trade and for-
eign religions, besides being a mark of their civilized condition,
was a measure of their indifference to the matters that governed
the thoughts and the actions of the foreigners. Long before the
arrival of the Portuguese, peaceful communities of Arab traders
had settled along the Malabar coast, where they conformed to the
laws of the land and rendered useful services to its economy. In
return they were treated with consideration by the native rulers,
who did not interfere with their religious practices.

Nothing could have been in sharper contrast to this liberal at-
titude than the ruthless determination with which the European
intruders, in particular the Portuguese, pursued as a national pol-
icy the active propagation of their own faith, the destruction of
heresy, and, above all, the indiscriminate seizure of wealth. Cer-
tainly the record of the Portuguese in their early dealings with
Asiatic peoples was deplorable, even by the modest standard then
prevailing in Europe. But there does not appear to have been in
the minds of their explorers any plan of conquest or annexation.
Trade was their object, and when it became clear that they could
not permanently control the trade routes unless they held pro-
tected bases, they were committed to the building of forts and the
maintenance of garrisons on foreign soil. Thence it was only a
short step to colonies.

This was of course not a new thing in history. It was only an
extension of the process that reached back to the colonizing activi-
ties of the Phoenicians and the Greeks. They and their successors
found by experience that any policy aimed at a monopoly of sea
power and trade must lead to colonization and — if the necessary
strength c@uld be maintained — to empire. It is true that the Por-
tuguese Empire of the sixteenth century was small in area. De-
pending upon sea power and unable to deploy large forces on land,
the Portuguese could not occupy extensive territories but had to
content themselves with seizing and holding strategic coastal points
or small islands. There is in fact an inherent contradiction between
the conditions that impel states to expand by colonization and the
conditions necessary to sustain their effort of expansion. In both
ancient and modern times it is the political units with little terri-

69

The Portuguese in Asia

tory and small populations that make the strongest and most per-
sistent efforts to supplement their poor resources by trade and
colonies.

The small Greek cities by their trading voyages and settlements
laid the foundations of Hellenic strength; Rome herself, type of
the imperial city, was the core around which a great empire grew
by the accretion of new parts; and in later days it was autonomous
seaport towns such as Venice and Genoa that, adding to their
scanty material resources by trading enterprise, achieved power out
of all proportion to their own size. Even the greater states that in-
herited their commercial supremacy in the modern age — Portu-
gal, Spain, Holland, and England — were of modest dimensions
by comparison with states possessing great space and large popula-
tions. It is clear that their strength lay not in their size but in their
character, and that a most important element in their character
was a political and social structure which enabled them to devote
their full energies to commercial enterprise.

If on the other hand we look at the history of states that are
great in extent and population we find that they do not usually
figure as important trading or colonizing powers. Their main en-
ergies are devoted to the development of their internal resources
rather than to foreign trade. Expansion of their wealth and
strength is achieved in that way or by the incorporation of adjacent
territory. In a large measure their very size dictates the nature of
their policies, since they are bound by the facts of their geography
to have extended land frontiers, which occupy their attention and
give importance to land forces rather than to naval strength, to
roads and fortified towns rather than to ships and harbours. Even
those whose seacoast is considerable have as a rule, until the devel-
opment of modern sea transport, felt free from serious danger of
sea-borne invasion. India is a case in point, and China as we have
noticed was free to extend her empire overland, while she never
felt vulnerable to attack from the sea. Indeed, her indifference to
naval matters, arising from this sense of security, resulted in her
failure to maintain supremacy over such weak countries as she did
from time to time subdue by naval expeditions; and it gave Japan
an opportunity to develop in safety for a thousand years.

It is doubtless this preoccupation with land, this neglect of the
sea, that has made such great continental powers as India and
China an easy prey for vigorous maritime states which, though
vastly inferior in size and numbers, had the great advantage that they
could bring their undivided national strength to bear upon points
where the great land powers were weakest. The great land powers,
moreover, tended to conservatism in political and social matters
for reasons that we have already noticed, and their size was often

70

Colonial Policy

an element adverse to national unity, as the history of both India
and China amply testifies.

By contrast with the massive and often inert structure of the
great land powers, the small maritime states show a vigorous con-
tinuity of purpose, which is a valuable source of strength and even,
it may be said, an indispensable condition of their survival. When
that purpose fails, as it did in Portugal, the capacity to exercise
power at a distance vanishes, the momentum that sustains mari-
time enterprise and colonizing activity is lost. Conversely, what-
ever may be said on moral grounds — and there is much to say —
against aggression and exploitation, there is no doubt that success-
ful colonization is an expression of health and vigour in the colo-
nizing people. There has grown up in recent years a habit of con-
demning colonial powers as exceptionally wicked and predatory.
They are represented as backward and unrepentant, their vices in
deep contrast to the shining virtues of those countries which have
not found it necessary or possible to engage in overseas adventure.
By a further step the Asiatic or African peoples whose countries
have been entered by European intruders are made to appear as
Arcadian innocents who have never stepped across a frontier or
coveted a neighbour's goods or cracked an alien skull. But peoples
who live across land frontiers are seen as savages who must be re-
formed or chastised or even exterminated.

Such views betray some blindness to historical perspective and
a failure to understand the evolutionary steps by which Occidental
cultures have been brought into contact and often, unhappily,
into conflict with cultures of other regions of the globe. The critics
of what is called colonialism, deceived by the fact that the most
spectacular colonial undertakings have been carried out by the ex-
ercise of sea power, seem to consider that movements of expansion
which do not take place across salt water have some special justi-
fication. By such reasoning the Portuguese seizure of Goa, the
Dutch occupation of Java, the British hold upon India and Malaya,
are particularly sinful, while British and American progress across
the North American continent or the Russian spread eastward into
Siberia appear almost as high enterprises of benevolence and en-
lightenment. But it cannot be that the Red River, the Colorado,
and the Rio Grande, or the Athabasca or the Yenisei, contain
cleansing elements that are absent from the salt seas. The truth is
that the expansive urge of the capitalist society born in Europe
after the Renaissance has expressed itself in many forms, of which
direct colonization was the earliest and the power of modern fi-
nance and industry is the most recent. They are all of the same
essence, and all industrial states are implicated, for good or evil, in
the world-wide orgaiiism of trade, money, and inventions by which

71

The Portuguese in Asia

modern industrialized life is sustained. The nature of present-day
relationships between East and West cannot be fully understood
if they are regarded not as a stage in a continuing process but as
something accidental that can be removed by strong gestures of
disapproval,

After this digression, which will be found not altogether ir-
relevant to our main theme — because it places the eastward
trend of European influence in its historical setting — we may re-
turn to the story of Portuguese colonization in Asia.

2. The Ecclesiastical Power

SEQUEL TO the maritime discoveries of the fifteenth century
not less important than commercial expansion was the growth of
missionary endeavour beyond the frontiers of Europe. Not many
years after the discovery of the Americas and the opening of the
Cape route to India, Christian missionaries were making their way
to almost every part of the now circumnavigated globe. They fol-
lowed the explorers, the conquerors, and the traders, and though
their rulers no doubt supported them for reasons of national policy,
their labours were undertaken with a burning zeal and a selfless
devotion that compel respect. Franciscans, Augustinians, Domini-
cans, and Jesuits carried the gospel westward to Brazil, Mexico,
Central America, and Peru, eastward to Africa, India, and the Far
East and the islands of the Pacific. This was evangelism on a scale
for which there was no precedent in the history of religions, and
it expressed a significant and characteristic European attitude.

It is true that in previous ages peoples professing one or other
of the great Asiatic religions had made conscious efforts to spread
their faith beyond their own borders. Buddhism in its early history
had a strong evangelising quality, which was displayed in particu-
lar in the days of the great King Asoka. It was he who, after his
conversion, expressed remorse for the bloodshed attending his
military victories and announced that henceforth he would devote
himself to conquest by means of the Dhamma — that is, by the
Buddhist doctrine. He sent missionaries to parts of India beyond
his own dominions and even, it seems, to the Hellenistic kingdoms
in western Asia and Egypt. Thereafter Buddhism spread in the
course of centuries to almost every part of Asia north and east of
the Indian subcontinent and probably influenced the thought of
foreign countries more than any other religion before or since.
But in general the adoption of Buddhism outside India was the
result not so much of deliberate missionary enterprise as of a grad-
ual diffusion of Indian culture by peaceful travellers and immi-

72

The Ecclesiastical Power

grants. It was not, save perhaps in a few exceptional cases, imposed
upon foreign peoples by invaders or recommended by powerful
princes on political grounds. Its spread was due to the nature of
its teaching and in later periods to the beauty of its art and the
appeal of its ritual.

The spread of Islam, on the other hand, is to be ascribed prin-
cipally to the extension of Mohammedan rule by conquest. It can-
not be said to be the result of a deliberate policy of conversion, for al-
though the Arab wars of conquest were described as holy wars, the
Mohammedans were on the whole indifferent to the religious be-
liefs of the people whom they conquered. They gave to those who
did not resist them by force of arms a choice between conversion
and payment of the jizya, or poll-tax, with the result that Islam was
adopted in many countries by native inhabitants whose own faith
was not highly developed. But such conversions were not as a rule
due to missionary ardour on the part of the Mohammedans. Their
attitude towards subject peoples was based upon political rather
than religious grounds.

The attitude of the Christian church in this matter of conver-
sion was more positive from its very beginnings, since it was de-
rived from the teaching of its founder. Christianity, by its em-
phasis upon the brotherhood of man, was bound to break loose
from the narrow limits of Judaism and to assert itself as a universal
religion, and the acts of the apostles are the first phase of a con-
tinuing missionary effort that spread first within the Roman Em-
pire and then beyond its borders. The Franciscans who in the thir-
teenth century went into Tartary, the Dominicans who sought
the Mongol leaders in Persia or accompanied Marco Polo to the
court of Khubilai, and the members of the mendicant orders who
followed the conquistaclores to America and the East Indies — all
these were in a true line of succession from Stephen, Philip, and
Barnabas and the apostle who assayed to go into Bithynia.

The opportunity offered by the new empires of Spain and Por-
tugal was eagerly seized by the Church, though her early efforts in
India were ill-organized and unfruitful.

It cannot be said, however, that the Portuguese made any
strong effort to impose their culture upon the peoples of India,
except in so far as the Christian missionaries endeavoured to gain
converts by methods varying from exhortation to force. The Por-
tuguese administrators in general respected Indian customs (with
the exception of sati [suttee], the immolation of widows, which they
forbade) and interfered very little with Indian life. Albuquerque,
though he set up in Goa itself a form of government modelled
upon that of Lisbon, left it largely to Indian officials to administer
judicial and financial affairs that directly concerned the native com-

73

The Portuguese in Asia

munity. In rural districts under Portuguese control he was firm in
maintaining old customs and charters, while the authorities in
Lisbon frequently and in considerable detail admonished his less
scrupulous successors to put an end to vexatious interference by
Portuguese officials with local self-government. There is ample
evidence in collections of Portuguese documents to show that the
home government and the more enlightened viceroys were gen-
erally actuated by liberal motives and were concerned for the bod-
ies as well as the souls of their Indian subjects. But, it must be ad-
mitted, the record of events shows that the greed and ignorance of
Portuguese functionaries was beyond the control of their superiors,
while the proceedings of the Holy Office were marked by an in-
tolerance and severity that bore hard upon both Hindu and Mos-
lem, convert and heathen.

By the end of the sixteenth century the quality of Portuguese
leadership, both military and civil, had sadly deteriorated, partly
no doubt because of a failure of purpose at home, where the union
of the Portuguese and Spanish crowns in 1580 appears to have
destroyed the fine temper of the instrument that had been forged
by adventure and hardship in earlier years. But other and not less
important causes contributed to this decay. Chief among these was
the debilitating effect of tropical life upon the Portuguese in India.
They were perhaps the best fitted of all Europeans to withstand
the influence of hot climates, but what was more insidious was the
ease and luxury they enjoyed. All contemporary observers, both
Portuguese and foreign, agree in their accounts of the mode of ex-
istence of the Portuguese soldiery. Descriptions of Golden Goa, of
its buildings, its wealth, and its peculiar manners, show that it was
a splendid city, where the humblest Portuguese gunner's mate, in
the long intervals between voyages on active service, could live in
lazy comfort. The soldier who, when he left Portugal, might have
been a poor impressed peasant or even a jail-bird, found himself
in India receiving the attentions, both amorous and domestic, of
one of the ladies of mixed parentage who abounded in the colony
a generation after Albuquerque's heroes were married to the wid-
ows of Moslems whom they had killed in the course of their pro-
fessional duties. But this kind of intimate relationship did not
serve to spread the benefits of European culture in India. On the
contrary, it produced in the long run a dissolute society that was
foreign to both Indian and Portuguese life, but contained some of
the worst features of both. India had much more effect upon Por-
tugal than Portugal upon India. The passengers on the annual
voyages from Lisbon to the East used to throw overboard their
spoons when they rounded the Cape of Good Hope, to show that
they would thereafter eat rice with their fingers — a gesture syrn-

u

The Ecclesiastical Power

bolic of their intention to drop European standards of behavior
and to indulge in an agreeable Oriental laxity. No menial tasks
were performed by Portuguese of whatever rank, for slaves were
plentiful and cheap. There were of course many sober and in-
dustrious officials and some soldiers who took their military pro-
fession seriously; but on the whole the life of the European in Goa
was devoted to the pursuit of pleasure while accumulating as much
wealth as possible without scrupulous regard to honesty.

The profits of trade and office, as well as sustaining the
pomp and luxury of Goa, went to the enrichment of the home
country, and here again the influence of India upon Europe was
great, while the influence of Europe upon India was negligible.
The wealth that poured into Europe from the Indies, from Africa,
and from Brazil changed the nature of life in Portugal. It produced
a lavish and elegant social life in Lisbon, which became one of the
most brilliant of European capitals. It fostered rapid advances in
the arts and sciences. The sixteenth century was the golden age
of Portuguese literature, and it saw an intellectual revival inspired
by the new knowledge as well as the new wealth drawn from the
Indies. Camoens wrote the great Portuguese epic, the Lusiads,
which was based upon the adventures of the conquistadores in
Asia, in which he himself played some part. Palaces, monasteries,
churches, and cathedrals rose up in greater numbers than ever be-
fore, and their style was influenced by motifs of form and deco-
ration drawn from India and Africa.

By contrast there is little to record of Indian borrowing from
Portugal. The current of Indian life ran too deep and strong in its
ancient channels to be disturbed by the influence of a few thousand
strangers living among the teeming populations of Asia. In Indian
history the changing fortunes of kings have passed almost un-
noticed over the heads of most of their subjects. The conqueror
comes, but institutions remain unchanged because they are the
very substance of indigenous life, which the new master, in his
own interest, refrains from disturbing. Even those great waves of
invasion which have from time to time in her history seemed to
overwhelm wide regions of Indian territory lost their strength as
time elapsed, and the invaders were merged into the Indian scene
unless they came and stayed in such great numbers and for so long
as to penetrate into essential areas of Indian life, such as its laws
or its religion or its organization for agriculture and trade. No
such influence could possibly be exercised by the Portuguese, since
they were not only few in numbers but also indifferent to all but
their own immediate concerns. During the period of their power
in India they could exercise direct political authority over only a
few native people, and those mostly of low caste. Their settlement

75

The Portuguese in Asia

at Goa was populated chiefly by Kanarins, who were small traders,
shopkeepers, artisans, farmers, or fishermen, by bannias from Cam-
bay and Surat, and by Mohammedans from Gujarat and other
coastal regions in India, as well as from Persia and Arabia. There
were few persons of education or quality, since most Brahmans
and better-class Mohammedans were irked by foreign rule and pre-
ferred to move to Calicut or other Indian towns where they could
enjoy liberty and respect.

The life of these humbler inhabitants was too poor to be open
to Portuguese influence, except in one respect. They were open
to conversion to the Christian faith because it offered some im-
provement in their lot by giving them a certain protection and a
claim to charity. No doubt Christian doctrine had some appeal to
many of them apart from material benefits, but the record of Chris-
tian missions in most Asiatic countries, it can scarcely be denied,
does show that their most conspicuous successes, at least in point
of numbers, have been achieved among simple folk whose daily
life was deficient in comfort and consolation. To say this is not to
underestimate the zeal and self-sacrifice of Christian missionaries,
but to note the extreme difficulty of the task they undertake; for a
people's religion, notably in Asiatic countries, is often the embodi-
ment of all their traditional ways of feeling, thinking, and living.
To disturb these is to subject them to a sometimes unbearable
strain, to tamper with the roots of their existence.

In reading the voluminous literature of Christian enterprise
in Asiatic countries one cannot fail to be impressed by the recur-
ring theme of failure, the tales of promising pupils drawing back
on the brink of conversion for fear of named or unnamed con-
sequences. We have already seen William of Rubruck among the
Tartars and the Saracens sadly confessing that for all his eloquence
nobody would say: "I want to become a Christian." Sometimes the
incidents are such as to arouse almost a comic despair, as in the
story told by Rubruck of a certain Saracen who "on the day of
Pentecost came to us, and when we began expounding the faith
and when he heard of the blessings of God to man . . . said he
wished to be baptized. But while we were making ready to bap-
tize him he suddenly jumped on to his horse, saying he had to go
home to consult his wife. The next day he said he could not pos-
sibly venture to receive baptism, for then he could not drink
Cosmos/* This was kumisSj a fermented liquor that in Mongol life
was regarded as essential to health, whereas the Christians living
among the Mongols would not allow that a man could take in-
toxicants and remain in the faith.

This early example can be matched in the subsequent history
of missions in India, in China, and, as we shall see, in Japan. The

76

The Ecclesiastical Power

more highly developed a civilization, the less easily could it ac-
commodate an alien principle without damage to its own nature.
This was particularly true of India, where the native religion was
not only of high antiquity but also so closely related to daily life
as to furnish its substance as well as its form. For a Hindu of high
caste the adoption of Christian tenets meant the abandonment of
beliefs and practices that together constituted his very mode of
existence in the community to which he belonged. An intending
convert was faced with virtual expulsion from the society of which
he was an important member even if he could bring himself to ac-
cept intellectually the doctrines put before him.

The Christian missionaries in India were confronted with this
obstacle as soon as they perceived that their purpose of spreading
the gospel in India could not be adequately served if they confined
themselves to bringing within the fold the poor, the humble, and
the oppressed. They must make an effort to convince Indians of
education and rank that Christian doctrine was, if not superior to,
at least not incompatible with the religious and social habits of
Brahmans and other believers in Hinduism.

It was not until 1606 — after a hundred years of missionary
effort — that the Jesuit father Roberto de Nobile, with the ap-
proval of the Society of Jesus, undertook a serious study of Hindu-
ism in order to learn how it could best be criticized and confuted.
Before that the Portuguese in India had gained some knowledge of
the nature of Indian religious beliefs and had come to understand
that many Indian social institutions had a basis in religious prin-
ciples. They no longer supposed that Hinduism was something
corrupt and barbarous, without theological or metaphysical founda-
tions; but they saw only very dimly that its philosophy was far-
reaching and profound. Father de Nobile devoted himself to ardu-
ous research into sacred texts at Madura, the chief seat of learning
in southern India, where he was able by his ascetic habits and schol-
arly zeal to persuade a number of Brahmans to assist him. After
some years of intense study and discussion he produced a work in
Sanskrit that, it appears, presented a syncretic plan designed to
reconcile on a high plane the Brahmanistic and Christian philoso-
phies. This experiment failed, for though he persuaded some
Brahmans to receive baptism, he found himself obliged, in order
to gain general acceptance of his thesis, to give way on many sub-
sidiary points of doctrine and ceremony. We need not here go into
details, but those who like to disinter ecclesiastical controversies
will find a rich deposit in such works as the Storia do Mogor of
Nicolas Manucci. In his description of Mogul India this engaging
Venetian shows what a pitch of acrimony had been reached a cen-
tury after de Nobile's time by disputes between the Jesuits and

77

The Portuguese in Asia

other orders over what the latter called the ''unholy compromise"
with Hinduism. For our purpose it is sufficient to note the gen-
eral nature of the issue, which was fought with a degree of invec-
tive, intrigue, and even persecution that must have given to culti-
vated Brahmans a strange idea of the practice of Christian virtues
by their professional exponents in India.

In order to secure Hindu converts, the Jesuits in the light of
their experience deemed it permissible to make many concessions
to Indian customs. Other orders, in particular the Capuchins,
charged them with a long list of offences, which included allowing
the use of heathen charms or medallions (the tali) at weddings,
performing marriage rites of girls of six or seven years of age, per-
mitting superstitious ceremonies such as the symbolization of sex
by the leaves of the pipal tree, and — most serious of all — recog-
nition of the caste system by permitting the use of the ashes of
burnt cow-dung for caste-marks and by discriminating among
castes in administering the sacraments. The following extract from
a Capuchin manifesto addressed to the Governor and Council of
Pondicherry in 1707 will give some idea of the method as well as
the matter of controversy between missionaries in this question of
the Rites or, as it was called, the Accommodation:

You should not wonder, gentlemen, if the Malabari Christians, who
had nothing about them of the heathen when under the guidance of
their legitimate shepherd, have become more heathen than Christian
after falling under the rule of thieves and robbers. You who are on the
spot see every day the poor Christians smearing themselves over like
masqueraders. Some cover their bodies with heathen marks, others
cover their foreheads with cow's ashes. . . . The men wear jewels in
their ears representing the attributes of false gods, the women hang
tails on their necks with a cross on one side and the head of an idol on
the other. These ornaments are blessed by the reverend Jesuit fathers,
and in their church they cause them to be put by the bridegroom upon
the bride. One caste is separated from another in church, and the
wretched pariahs receive the Most Holy Sacrament at the door, while
other castes are admitted to the Holy Table.

Into the merits of this controversy we need not enter. It is ad-
duced here only to show that when the Portuguese attempted to
impose the religious elements of their culture upon a people whose
institutions were more ancient and deeply rooted than their own,
they laid bare a fundamental conflict between two civilizations.
This experience was repeated in all the Far Eastern countries that
they tried to convert, though it differed somewhat both in kind
and in degree according to the nature of the resistance they en-
countered. Their successes and failures in India, Farther India,
Indonesia, China, and Japan have each their peculiar character;

78

The Ecclesiastical Power

and a comparative study of the work of Christian missions in all
those regions throws much light upon the nature of their respec-
tive civilizations. The reception of Christianity by the Japanese in
particular shows some special features that contribute to an under-
standing of their later history in so far as it displays a readiness to
consider imported doctrines.

While dealing with the subject of conversion it may be useful
at this point to say a little about the development of Islam in India.
It is obvious that the circumstances in which the Mohammedan
faith was spread in India were very different from those in which
Christianity was presented to the Indian peoples. In the first place,
Islam was brought to their notice from a very early date by a series
of invasions and conquests over the northwest land frontier, which
put Moslems into close and often violent contact with Hindus over
a long period. Even if we leave out of account early raids upon
northern provinces by Arabs and other Moslem invaders, we may
say that great parts of India were under strong and continuous
Islamic influence onwards from about 1200, when the first Mo-
hammedan dynasty was established.

Christianity first came to the knowledge of Hindus through the
presence of Nestorians, perhaps as early as A.D. 400, but they can-
not be said to have exerted any important religious influence, since
they were confined to one locality and were refugees with no po-
litical power behind them. Subsequently, when Christianity was
again introduced on the Malabar coast by the Portuguese, it was
in conditions of temporal supremacy almost negligible in contrast
with the extent and duration of Moslem rule in the rest of India.
Therefore no valid comparison can be made between the two re-
ligions in point of success in gaining proselytes during the period
with which we are now concerned. But there are some facts as to
the attitude of the Mohammedan rulers towards the religion of
their Hindu subjects which have a bearing upon the problem of
conversion encountered by the Jesuits and other Christian evan-
gelists.

The history of Mohammedan rule in India includes episodes of
religious persecution ranging from forced conversion to massacre,
but during the long period and over the great areas covered by
Mohammedan conquest and occupation of Indian territory these
were surprisingly rare and sprang rather from the fanaticism or
the cruelty of individual sultans than from a consistent policy of
making proselytes by force or by very severe discrimination. The
Arab conquest of Sind, which took place at the time when the
Prophet's successors were threatening Christendom in western Eu-
rope, had little effect upon the rest of India. It was accompanied by
some massacres, as when the Moslem commander in 711 slaugh-

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The Portuguese in Asia

tered all the Brahmans in a captured city who refused to accept
Islam. But later even he, when the heat of battle had subsided,
treated Hindus with tolerance so long as they did not resist him.
For a century or so the Arab masters of Sind respected the author-
ity of the caliphs, but gradually they became independent of Bag-
dad and concurrently relaxed the strict application of the Koranic
law, so that, while endeavouring (not without some success) to
propagate Islam by persuasion, they were wise enough, in view of
their own small numbers, to leave the Hindus and their worship
undisturbed.

The later dynasties of Mohammedan invaders of India, the so-
called Ghaznevids and their successors, included certain rulers who
figure in Indian history as intolerant bigots.18 But, with these ex-
ceptions, in practice Hindus usually enjoyed under Mohammedan
rule a great deal of religious freedom. The strict interpretation of
the Koranic law requires an orthodox Moslem to exert himself in
waging a holy war (jihad) against non-Moslem countries so as to
bring their peoples within the realm of Islam. Early Islam allowed
some moderation in the treatment of ahl-i-Kitab , "people of the
Book" — that is, Jews and Christians, who followed a sacred scrip-
ture and were not idolaters. They were accordingly permitted,
while suffering certain civil disabilities such as a poll-tax, to prac-
tice their own religion unobtrusively and to retain their own
property.

Other infidels in conquered countries were in theory either
killed or made slaves unless they accepted Islam. But this rigid doc-
trine was generally disregarded by Mohammedan rulers, partly be-
cause it was politically inexpedient in countries where Moslems
were in a minority and depended upon the collaboration of their
native subjects and partly because they themselves, by the lapse of
time and their independence of the Caliphate, grew more mod-
erate. Indeed, many of the sultans and emperors who reigned in
India were themselves lukewarm believers, while some of them dis-
played a considerable interest in Indian religion and philosophy.14

is Among them were Ala-ud-din, who introduced (1296-1316) discriminating
laws against Hindus, which were cruelly administered; Firm Tughluq (1351-88) ,
who was at times tolerant and at times cruel; Sikandar Lodi (1489-1517) , a bigot
who destroyed Hindu temples; Jalal-ud-din (1414-32) , a Hindu convert to Islam who
persecuted and forcibly converted Hindus in Bengal and is thought to have been
in part responsible, by his vigorous campaign of proselytization, for the present
high proportion of Moslems in that province; Sikandar of Kashmir (1394-1416) ,
known as the Iconoclast for his fury against idolaters, who was so ferocious in his
zeal that under duress many apostatized in his kingdom, with the result that Hindus
are in a minority in Kashmir today. Aurangzeb among the Mogul emperors was
the most thoroughgoing and consistent in his policy of suppressing Hinduism and
encouraging conversion to Islam by discriminatory laws.

i* Such as Zain-ul-Abidin (son of Sikandar the Iconoclast) , who was a patron of
learning and had Hindu works translated into Persian.

80

The Ecclesiastical Power

Akbar had dreams of a universal religion, and Ala-ud-din long be-
fore him had some ideas of the same kind; neither regarded Islam
as the quintessence of spiritual truth, and indeed Akbar was ready
to abjure it in the interest of toleration. Moreover many Moham-
medan rulers were in close relation with Hindu sovereigns through
political or matrimonial alliances and some employed Hindus in
high offices. Altogether it may be said that in general the sultans
and emperors were remarkably tolerant of a faith that by strict
Moslem standards was idolatrous and even obscene.

It might be supposed that, because Moslem dynasties enjoyed
some degree of temporal power in India for almost a millennium,
in the last half of which their supremacy was hardly contested
north of the Deccan plateau, the progress of Islam would have
been so great as to bring something. near to an equality of numbers
as between Hindu and Moslem. Conditions were in many respects
favourable to conversion. Material benefits, such as lucrative em-
ployment and security, might well dispose many classes of the
Hindu population to change their faith, and Hindus of low caste
or in particular those who were outcastes might find a strong in-
centive in the improved social status that was open to them on con-
version, since Islam knows no caste distinction. There were, more-
over, wide regions of India where the religion of the people was
only a rudimentary Hinduism or an indigenous animism with
some Hinduistic tinge. Yet an examination of the facts shows that
the success of Islam was much less than might be expected on a
superficial view. The areas in which Moslems predominate are
the sparsely populated North-west Frontier Province, Baluchistan,
Sind, and the Punjab, all regions that geographically and histori-
cally are close to lands where Islam was always strong. They are
also in a majority in parts of Bengal, which contained a great num-
ber of aboriginal people who were never fully Hinduized and who
were persecuted by Jalal-ud-din in the early part of the fifteenth
century; and in Delhi, which was the seat of the Mogul emperors.

Moslems comprised (in 1941) slightly less than one fourth of
the total population of India. This is, of course, a high proportion,
and the presence of so many adherents to a foreign religion is a
fact of great importance in the history of religions as well as a po-
litical phenomenon without close parallel. But, seen from the his-
torical viewpoint, the success of Islam in India has been less than
might have been expected in circumstances so favourable for its
spread. Its strength in the northwestern provinces in the Punjab
is due in some measure to immigration, in eastern Bengal to the
fact that it was imposed upon backward people. These are parts
of India in which the military and political supremacy of the
Mohammedan invaders became overwhelming as they gradually

81

The Portuguese in Asia

moved eastward and established themselves from the Hindu Kush
to the Ganges delta. But southward of this area the influence of
Islam progressively diminishes. Today in British India the per-
centage of Moslems in the United Provinces is 15, in Bombay 9,
in Madras 6,15 in the Central Provinces 4, in Orissa 2. These figures
tend to show that, despite its great advantages as the religion of
long-established conquerors who were able to use every method
of conversion from persuasion to force, Islam did not make a great
impression upon Indian thought. It is true that the majority (prob-
ably nine tenths) of Moslems in India today are not the descend-
ants of Moslem immigrants but of converted Hindus. Nevertheless,
in terms of proportions, the success of Islam in India is not com-
parable to its success among the population of Persia, Egypt, and
Indonesia.

The reasons are clear enough. Hinduism was a system of
thought and behaviour at least as powerful and deeply rooted as
the faith of the Moslems, and though there were under the Moguls
some movements towards fusion, the two systems are fundamen-
tally irreconcilable.

Islam has the remarkable power of creating a community of
feeling between peoples of different racial or national origins.
This is due not only to its simple and direct nature, but also to its
attitude towards converts, who, in theory at least, are treated on
an equal footing with all other Moslems and subjected to no dis-
crimination on grounds of race or colour or social position. For
this reason it proved attractive to many Indians; but as a theology
it could not compete with Hinduism, which has a prodigious am-
plitude. It is for this reason that where efforts were made to reach
a compromise between Islamic and Hinduistic ideas, it was usu-
ally the Hinduistic element that in time prevailed.

The history of these syncretic movements brings out an inter-
esting aspect, sometimes overlooked, of the influence of one re-
ligion upon another. Attempts from outside to alter a system of
thought 16 sometimes produce a reaction that strengthens rather
than moderates that which it is proposed to change.

The two chief examples of compromise between Hinduism and
Islam seem to bear this out. The first is the small sect founded by
Kabir in the fifteenth century. He was a Moslem who believed in
one God, of both Hindu and Moslem, and rejected caste and idola-

is The Moslems in Madras province include a great number who are descendants
of communities of Arab traders settled in seacoast towns since very early times, some
even before the earliest invasions.

is This is true also of other than religious traditions. Foreign artistic influences
sometimes bring about an intensification of a national tradition, and, in modern
times at least, foreign political doctrines tend to produce a traditionalist reaction
in countries to which they are recommended.

The Ecclesiastical Power

try. But though his teaching excluded these two important features
of Hinduism it retained the Indian idea of transmigration, and
his successors seem to have reverted to pantheism and to have laid
increasing emphasis on the traditional Indian sentiment that mat-
ter is unreal and illusory.17 Following upon Kabir came a more
important and far-reaching movement of amalgamation which was
led by Nanak (1469-1538), the founder of the Sikh religion. He
was a Hindu who was influenced by the teaching of Kabir and de-
sired a means of reconciling Islam with Hinduism. He, like Kabir
rejecting caste and idolatry, taught that there is but one God, and
his concept of the nature of God is nearer to Mohammedan than
to Indian thought. But he could not divest himself of the tradi-
tional Indian idea that the universe is uncreated and unreal except
in the sense that it is an expansion of the Deity, and he held to the
doctrine of reincarnation.

Under his successors the sacred book known as the Granth was
composed, no doubt as an equivalent to the Koran, and Nanak's
sect developed into a national community. Though its growth was
influenced by the example of Mohammedanism in that it de-
pended upon a sacred book and its leaders claimed both spiritual
and temporal authority, its beliefs and practices were not such as
to win the approval of devout Moslems or orthodox Brahmans, so
that the Sikh community tended to acquire a separate social as well
as religious indentity and in time developed a distinct political
character. Its fifth Guru or leader, Arjun, displeased the Mogul
Emperor Akbar, who approved of eclecticism in religion and even
promulgated a new creed, of his own but did not like the aggressive
qualities of the Sikhs. In time the community became so hostile
to the Mogul government that Arjun was put into prison, where
he died; and thereafter the Sikhs became a militant society, making
war upon Mohammedans.

This curious evolution of a sect designed by its founder to rec-
oncile the two faiths seems to teach that experiments in composing
religious differences are likely to be disappointing and even dan-
gerous. At least it shows that Hinduism has great powers of resist-
ance to change, for the Sikhs today, while antagonistic to Islam,
do not hold any strictly religious beliefs that are objectionable to
Hindus. The truth is that Hinduism is not so much a religion that
has created Indian beliefs and customs as the expression in reli-
gious form of ancient and stubborn Indian sentiments. It is, as was
pointed out by Sir Charles Eliot,18 ''not a religion which has
moulded the national character, but the national character finding
expression in religion." It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that

i? Though this sentiment appears also in Islam among the Sufis.

is In his Hinduism and Buddhism (New York: Longmans, Green & Co.; 1921) .

83

The Portuguese in Asia

Christian evangelism in India should have made little headway
with a task which, to be successful, must destroy much of the life
that it endeavours to reform.

It should be understood that the cost of the ecclesiastical estab-
lishment in India was borne by the Portuguese crown. In recom-
pense for political and commercial concessions granted to the King
of Portugal by papal bulls, the crown undertook to further the in-
terest of the Church in new-found lands. The whole undertaking
of the Estado da India was thus conceived of as an extension of the
personal domain o£ the sovereign rather than as a national enter-
prise. All expenditure was met and all income was received by the
royal treasury. The King was under obligation to finance out of
the profits that he received from his monopoly of trade the work
of evangelization as well as the foundation and support of bishop-
rics, seminaries, churches, and clergy. This special feature of Por-
tuguese colonial enterprise, known as the Padroado, naturally in-
fluenced the nature of the ecclesiastical organization in countries
under Portuguese rule or control, and in the long run it hampered
missionary effort in the East, since it prevented the Holy See from
co-ordinating the work of the separate Catholic missions and gave
rise to many unseemly rivalries both national and personal. It was
not until 1622 that the organ known as the Propaganda (that is,
the Sancta Congregatio de Propaganda Fide) was established in
Rome for the purpose o£ superintending the propagation of the
faith in foreign countries; and even then the claims of Portugal
under the Padroado made it difficult for Rome to assert authority.

The Portuguese missionaries who first reached India were ill
prepared for their task, being selected on no grounds other than
their willingness to enter the field. In the days of the earlier gov-
ernors and viceroys the churchmen had to submit to the require-
ments of the military commanders. A few Dominicans arrived in
Goa in 1510, and Albuquerque more than once had*to curb their
intolerant zeal when he found them acting counter to his policy.
But gradually the influence of the Church grew to a point where it
could challenge and thwart the secular authority. The Franciscans
established themselves in Goa in 1517, and from their headquarters
there they visited other parts of India, Burma, Ceylon, and the
Malay Archipelago. They were the dominant order in India for
over twenty years, and their efforts were regarded by the Pope as
so successful that in 1534 he made Goa a bishopric with spiritual
jurisdiction over all Portuguese possessions between the Cape of
Good Hope and China. It became an archbishopric in 1557. The
first bishop was a Franciscan friar, who arrived in Goa in 1538.
Soon after, in 1542, St. Francis Xavier came to Goa and founded
the College of St. Paul, for the training of native missionaries. His

84

The Ecclesiastical Power

ardour and energy contributed to the growth not only of the in-
fluence of the Jesuits in India but also to the general increase of
arbitrary ecclesiastical power throughout the Portuguese Empire
in Asia.

The Church had moreover the strong support of the King of
Portugal, who instructed all his viceroys that they must encourage
the spread of the Christian religion not only by direct missionary
efforts but also by the grant of special privileges to converts. Tak-
ing advantage of this royal patronage, the religious orders com-
mitted many acts of intolerant bigotry, such as the destruction of
all Hindu temples on the island of Goa in 1540 and the confisca-
tion of temple funds subscribed by villagers.19 Ecclesiastical courts
tried and condemned heretics even before the Inquisition was set
up in Goa ( 1 560) , and the civil power was obliged to carry out
their sentences. In 1546 a Vicar-General invested with great pow-
ers by the King carried out such violent measures of persecution
that he was poisoned, and the Bishop of Goa was accused of com-
plicity in the crime. He was defended by Xavier against this charge,
but the fact that it was made shows how disgraceful were the rela-
tions between the religious orders and the clergy, and how unruly
were all the ecclesiastics in India at this time. Apart from their
subversive behavior, which greatly hindered civil administration,
their pecuniary claims were a serious drain upon the royal reve-
nues, and it is probable that expenditure upon ecclesiastical es-
tablishments, combined with private breaches of the royal monop-
oly, was one of the factors that in the long run brought about the
bankruptcy of Portuguese India. The King was warned of this
danger as early as 1552 by an honest official,20 who pointed out that
such ardent and costly promotion of Christianity was having the
effect of depopulating the country under Portuguese rule, because
"there are some who want to force people to be Christians and
who worry the Hindus so that people fly from the land."

When Xavier, sent by the Pope as nuncio and by the King as
inspector of missions, arrived in India he reported that the moral
and religious condition of the colonists was deplorable. Writing
in 1545, he spoke bitterly of the corruption and greed of Portu-
guese officials and said that after his experience in India he never
ceased to wonder at the number of new inflections that had been
added to the conjugation of the verb "to rob.7' It was not long after
this that Xavier, disgusted with conditions in Portuguese India, de-

19 A curious form of persecution, which has its humorous aspect, was to compel
Hindus resident in Goa to listen to sermons of one hour in length on alternate
Sundays.

20 This was Simao Botelho, a revenue officer, who in 1543 was denied absolu-
tion because he had attempted to reform the customs at Malacca without obtaining
the approval of the Dominicans.

85

The Portuguese in Asia

cided to spend no more time there but to strike out for China and
Japan. Allowance must be made for the rigour of Xavier's stand-
ards of behaviour, but there can be no doubt that most of the
clergy in Goa were lax and self-indulgent, if not positively corrupt.
The city was crowded with priests. It had eighty churches and con-
vents by about 1550, yet its religious activity scarcely extended be-
yond the narrow zones directly ruled by Portugal, and there was
little missionary activity in Indian territory. It was due chiefly to
the inspiration of Xavier that the Jesuits took the lead in mission-
ary work, which carried them beyond India to the Far East, where
in their struggle against great hardships and dangers they displayed
an astonishing combination of patient self-sacrifice and intolerant
zeal.

JVbfe on CHAPTER 4

THE INQUISITION IN INDIA. It is interesting to note that the Inquisition
was more vigorous in India than in the African and American colonies.
It was not introduced into Africa until 1626, and its activity was small.
In Brazil, though active intermittently, it was of no .great importance.

In India, on the other hand, it was asked for by Xavier as early as
1546, though it was not inaugurated until 1560. The first auto-da-f<£
took place in 1563. There were 19 victims in 1575, 17 in 1578, and
these numbers appear to have been usual. The charge usually brought
against Hindus was that of practising magic.

The classic account of the Inquisition at Goa is that of Dellon, and
Manucci's Storia do Mogor gives valuable detail. In Portuguese there
is A Inquisicao de Goa, by Antonio Baiao (Coimbra, 1920) . This is
a selection of reports by the inquisitors to their superiors in Lisbon
and of instructions from Lisbon, between 1569 and 1630. They con-
tain much detail, including a good deal about sodomy, an offence that
was vigorously attacked.

Maurice Collis: The Land of the Great Image (New York: Alfred
A. Knopf; 1943) contains a summary of Dellon's experiences.

It need hardly be said that the special interest of the history of the
Inquisition in Asia lies in its application of ecclesiastical law to native
peoples with the support of the civil authority of Portugal. It was this
kind of thing that stimulated both theologians and jurists in the six-
teenth century to consider the legal bases of European relations with
the native inhabitants of colonies and thus gave rise to the arguments
of Grotius and others concerning a jus naturale or jus gentium of uni-
versal validity.

C H

5

THE CONFRONTATION OF EUROPE
AND ASIA

JLliE

i. India

.HE SETTLEMENT of numerous Europeans upon Asiatic soil
brought about the first true confrontation since classical times of
European and Asiatic cultures. Though it was on the small scale
already described and never reached the dimensions of later Brit-
ish settlement in Indian territory and intervention in Indian af-
fairs, the contact between Portuguese and Indians was extremely
close. It was not of sufficient scope, however, to make any impres-
sion upon Indian life, except perhaps as one of a number of dis-
turbing influences, among which Mohammedan rule was far more
important. The presence of the Portuguese in India was scarcely
felt except by a few individuals in a few places. Its effect is to be
found in a wider field, for what the Portuguese did was to make
India aware of the existence of Europe, to alter the direction of
Indian foreign trade, and, because Portuguese naval and military
forces were used in conflicts between Indian rulers, to exercise
some influence upon the rise and fall of Indian states. But all these
things in combination did little to modify the domestic history of
India, and it is probable that had the Portuguese abandoned their
Indian empire at the end of the sixteenth century they would
have left even less trace than did the Greeks, Scythians, and Parthi-
ans — perhaps some coins, some mutilated words in the language
of the bazaars, some dwindling communities of mixed blood, and
some fading traditions of foreign warriors and priests.

The contact of peoples, even on a much greater scale than that
of the meeting between Indians and Portuguese, does not neces-
sarily result in the transfer of ideas unless they are of transcendent
power or are the property of a civilization manifestly superior to
that which they confront. These were not the conditions in which
the two peoples met, for each saw the other as backward in the
arts of living and misguided in things of the spirit.

87

The Confrontation of Europe and Asia

At least in the early days of their power in India there was little
in the conduct of the Portuguese to show that they had any feel-
ing of superiority on account of race or colour. They had full con-
fidence in their military prowess, but they appear in their social
intercourse to have mixed freely with Indians on terms of equality.
Even with their Mohammedan rivals, though at first they displayed
bitter enmity and though Christian knights professed in sangui-
nary metaphor that they could best do penance for their sins by
washing their hands in infidel blood, they later established close
personal relationships in many well-known cases. It was a matter of
policy with Albuquerque to encourage mixed marriages between
Portuguese soldiers and Indian women. He hoped thus to create,
particularly in Goa, a settled population of fighters and skilled
workmen who, while loyal to Portugal, would feel that India was
their home. He found no difficulty in carrying out this plan, for
the Portuguese men-at-arms, quite apart from the strong prompt-
ings of masculine instinct, had no prejudice against mixed blood.
Indeed, Portuguese history had been such that her population con-
tained a strong admixture of Semitic and African elements, so that
there was no common feeling against miscegenation.*

Long contact with the Saracens had left in Portuguese minds
an idealized picture of a Moura encantada^ an enchanted Mooress,
as the most desirable type of woman, "brown-skinned, black-eyed,
enveloped in sexual mysticism/' 2 It is not surprising, therefore,
that Portuguese rule in Asia should have left some visible legacies,
for there grew up in course of time, particularly at Goa and along
the Malabar coast, a numerous population of mixed blood, part
Portuguese, part Indian. Its members, at least nominally Christian,
perpetuated their religion and some other features of Portuguese
culture that can still be discerned in India and Ceylon and through-
out the Far East. The Portuguese language, though in a corrupt
form, became a kind of lingua franca, and Portuguese names are
common in most seaports on the coasts of southern Asia. The in-
fluence of these mixed communities was reinforced by the evan-
gelizing zeal of the Roman Church, while the native populations of
territories under Portuguese control, irrespective of race or creed,
naturally took some colour from their European masters, who were

1 Freyre, in his Brazil (New York: Alfred A. Knopf; 1945) , says: "Iberian cul-
ture rests upon an accommodation of diverse elements, Christians, Moors, Jews . . .
and the general result was integration rather than segregation. ... It is difficult to
find a modern people with a more heterogeneous cultural pedigree. Ligurians, Celts,
Gauls, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Suevi, Goths, Jews, Moors, Germans,
French, English, and a large number of Negroes and some East Indians ' b efore the
colonization of Brazil."

2 Gilberto Freyre: Casa Grande if Senzala (The Masters and the Slaves; New
York: Alfred A. Knopf; 1946) .

88

Southeast Asia

obliged to employ them in large numbers as clerks and artisans,
since the Portuguese themselves were short of men.

2. Southeast Asia

LHE PORTUGUESE reached Malacca as early as 1509, but the first
visit, made by a squadron under Diogo Lopes, was unsuccessful.
The Malays were hostile and the Portuguese reckless and over-
bearing, so that a large number of his men were seized and held
in captivity. The importance of Malacca to the Portuguese was
vital if they were to carry out their plans of trade monopoly. As
Ormuz and Aden commanded the approaches to the Persian Gulf
and the Red Sea, so Malacca commanded the gateway from the
Indian ocean to the Pacific, and consequently the maritime trade
routes from India to Java and the spicy Moluccas, China, and
Japan. Malacca was moreover an emporium for the distribution
of merchandise from those places to Siam and Indo-China. Full
control of shipping along all these routes was impossible unless
the Portuguese had a suitable base, and therefore Albuquerque,
as soon as he had completed his arrangements at Goa, led an ex-
pedition to Malacca in 1511.

Malacca was inhabited or visited during the trading season by
a mixed population of Malays and Javanese, together with traders
from Gujarat, Malabar, the Coromandel coast, and China, as well
as some silent hard-bitten men from Japanese ships. Most of the
Indian traders were of the Moslem faith, as were also the local
rulers, descendants of refugees who had been defeated in civil wars
in Java early in the fifteenth century; but it seems that each com-
munity had its own leader and that all lived together in compara-
tive harmony. The town was rich and the Mohammedan traders
soon saw that the Portuguese threatened their fortunes. After some
unsuccessful parleys in which Chinese traders gave assistance to Al-
buquerque he decided to attack. The defence was stubborn, and
it was not until the tenth day of bombardment and desperate fight-
ing that Albuquerque was able to establish himself on shore. A
fortress was rapidly built. The town was thoroughly plundered.
The rajah of the Javanese community, a Mohammedan, was treach-
erously killed, but his adherents were not subdued and, moving
not far away, for many years they made the position of the Por-
tuguese uncomfortable.

Albuquerque and his successors never tried seriously to con-
quer territory or to rule over native populations in Malaya or In-
donesia. Their object was to control shipping and to monopolize
the spice trade. Consequently, satisfied that they could hold Ma-

89

The Confrontation of Europe and Asia

lacca as a naval base, they lost no time in sending expeditions to
Siam, China, and the Moluccas. This last was of the greatest im-
mediate importance, for a monopoly of the spice trade, besides
bringing great pecuniary gain, would contribute to the grand po-
litical design of Portugal, which was to seize the source of income
that maintained the prosperity of the trading cities of Syria and
Egypt and thus to strike a blow at the finances of the Sultan of
Turkey, who, as we have seen, depended in an important degree
upon these trading profits for the maintenance of his naval power
in the Mediterranean. We need not trace the complicated details
of Portuguese fighting and intrigue in the archipelago, but some
general account of their activities is of interest as throwing light
upon their relations with the people of Indonesia.

The problem of stopping the transport of spices from Indonesia
to the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf was not difficult for the Por-
tuguese with their superior sea power. They had enough well-
armed ships to make it hard for the Moslem traders to get their
freight through the blockade. But there were other problems, since
the Portuguese must make sure of securing the spices themselves
from the centres of production. Here they were unfortunate, be-
cause most of the people living in the coastal regions of the islands
were of the Mohammedan faith, though only recently converted;
and to reconcile their two conflicting purposes of fighting Islam
and obtaining spices was a task requiring political skill and tact,
which the Portuguese, schooled in brusquer methods, did not as a
rule possess. They found themselves therefore in some anomalous
situations. On one occasion they allied themselves with the ruler
of a kingdom in the interior of Java who was an enemy of Islam,
and so found themselves supporting a devotee of Shiva, one of the
divinities of Hinduism. At another time, in order to secure a mo-
nopoly of the clove trade, they entered into an alliance with the
Sultan of Ternate (a small island off Halmahera in the Moluccas),
who was so strongly given over to Islam that he would have no
dealings with islanders of other faiths. They thus were tied to an
enemy of Christianity, and the Jesuit missionaries, many of whom
were not Portuguese and therefore not interested in Portuguese
trade, protested violently to Goa and Lisbon.

It will be seen from these instances that the diffusion of Portu-
guese culture in Indonesia, in so far as it was represented by Catho-
lic missionaries, had little success and poor prospects. The power of
Islam at this period grew with remarkable speed, aided no doubt
by the hostility of Moslem traders to the Portuguese, whose policy,
if successful, would have deprived them of their wealth and their
influence, both of which were considerable. Within some twenty
years of the arrival of the Portuguese most of Java and large parts

90

Southeast Asia

of Sumatra, Borneo, and the Moluccas had gone over to Islam, so
that the Christian missionaries were obliged to direct their efforts
to converting the pagan populations of regions that had not yet
come under strong Moslem influence. It is for this reason that the
principal Catholic missions were established on the island of Am-
boina, in the northern part of Halmahera, and on a few smaller
islands.

It is not easy to explain fully the great proselytizing power of
Islam, but there are certain clear reasons for its success in the
countries of southeast Asia and for the failure of Christian mis-
sions to compete with it. Among these is the fact that the Moslem
trading communities on the Malabar coast and their counterparts
in Indonesia (who came mostly from Gujarat) were peaceful and
well-behaved, they brought prosperity to the cities in which they
resided, and so long as they were fairly treated by local rulers, they
did not attempt to acquire political power. On the Indian coast,
as we know from the testimony of travellers, the good behaviour
of the Moslems rested upon the tolerant attitude of the Indian
rulers, who allowed to each alien community the free use of its own
customs and religion. The Persian traveller Abd-ur-razzak, who
visited Calicut in 1442, said of that place: "Security and justice
are so firmly established that merchants bring thither from mari-
time countries considerable cargoes, which they unload and un-
hesitatingly send to the markets and bazaars, without thinking of
the necessity of checking the accounts or watching over the goods.
. . . Every ship, whatever place it may come from or wheresoever
it may be bound, when it puts into this port is treated like other
vessels and has no trouble of any kind to put up with." It is not
surprising that the people among whom these Moslems lived should
have looked upon the Portuguese as barbarous and cruel by com-
parison, and should have thought little of a religion professed by
men who flouted native customs and beliefs and whose object was
to oust other traders by force and fraud.

In Malaya and Indonesia the Arab traders did not, it is. true,
encounter a civilization so high as that of southern India, and no
doubt they had, at times, to take forcible measures to defend them-
selves against attack. But they were generally satisfied if they could
establish a self-governing community of their own, and if they
made converts, it was because the Malay rulers with whom they
came into contact were pagans impressed by the superior culture
of the Arabs and ready to share in the prosperity they could bring.
Their Hinduism was perhaps wearing thin and did not offer the
same resistance to Islam as did the more ancient and deeply rooted
beliefs of the Brahmans in India, while Islam in these remote
parts was not too exacting. It was thus not difficult for the Moslem

91

The Confrontation oj Europe and Asia

communities in Malaya and Indonesia gradually to acquire per-
sonal and then political influence, and as their political influence
grew, the half-civilized people within their orbit voluntarily
adopted Islam. They might perhaps have adopted Christianity had
the Portuguese been able to exercise a widespread and stable au-
thority, just as most of the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands
became Christians under the firm and continuous rule of Spain.
But the Portuguese came too late, and the Arabs were Asiatic
enough to know how to deal with Asiatic peoples and how to avoid
the blunders of Europeans who had no consistent policy and vacil-
lated between force and persuasion.

The Portuguese settlements in Malacca and the Moluccas were
under constant threat, but despite their precarious situation they
were able to extend their trading activities, gaining a large share
in the export of pepper from Bantam, in western Java, of nutmeg
from the Banda Islands, and of cloves from the Moluccas. These
successes had results that were ultimately to the disadvantage of
the Portuguese. The great abundance of Eastern produce that
reached Lisbon through Portuguese channels had to be purchased
there for distribution to European markets by merchants from
Holland, England, and other trading countries because the Por-
tuguese had no organization of their own for this purpose. They
had destroyed the efficient arrangements that existed up to the
close of the fifteenth century by expelling the Portuguese Jews by
whose capable hands their commerce had been managed. The Eng-
lish and the Dutch, no longer able to visit the Lisbon market be-
cause of their war with Spain, were stimulated to open their own
trade channels with India and the Far East,

By the closing years of the sixteenth century the fabric of em-
pire of the Portuguese in Asia was showing signs of collapse. They
had built it up by remarkable military valour and proud self-con-
fidence, but they were wanting in the discipline and the consistent
national purpose that were necessary if it was to be preserved. They
left a name in the Far East for bravery, but the alien peoples with
whom they dealt and whom they often maltreated did not regret
their downfall, and even in many places hastened it by taking sides
with their rivals when the Dutch and the English began to appear
in Eastern seas to challenge the exclusive claims of the Portuguese
and to follow their trading example without the complications of
Christian evangelism. Even so, individual Portuguese traders held
out for a long time against their competitors. Their * 'inter-port"
carrying trade in Asiatic waters was efficiently organized by private
enterprise and continued to prosper until the end of the eight-
eenth century.

We need not pay detailed attention to the doings of the Portu-

Southeast Asia

guese traders in Farther India, the countries now known as Burma,
Siam, and Indo-China; but a brief outline of their activities will
help to round off the picture of intercourse between Europeans
and Asiatics in the sixteenth century.

The Portuguese royal trade monopoly did not in practice ex-
tend to those countries. Albuquerque on his return from Malacca
had sent envoys to Siam and Burma as well as to continental In-
dian states and he received missions from their rulers in those
countries, who were impressed by Portuguese power when they
learned of the capture of Goa. But Burma and Siam were far off
the strategic route between Malacca and Goa, and did not supply
the spices and other commodities that were the main object of the
eastward voyages.3 The trading opportunities those countries of-
fered to the Portuguese were provided chiefly by their sale or pur-
chase at Malacca of commodities which Moslem ships could carry
only at the risk of confiscation or destruction by Portuguese pa-
trols. These opportunities were seized by a number of private
traders and adventurers who made their way to the coastal regions
of the Bay of Bengal, where they found good customers among the
wealthy Moslems of Upper India, which in the second half of the
fifteenth century was under the rule of Mogul emperors. These
men were either fugitives or persons of enterprising character to
whom the official restrictions of Goa were irksome. They settled
at Hugli, where they formed a considerable colony engaged in
trade, some of which was legitimate, though it included a good
deal of piracy, kidnapping, and dealing in slaves. Moving eastward
a great number of them took employment as mercenaries in the
armies of the warring kings of Arakan, Burma, and Siam.

Thus in the wars of the Burmese with Arakanese to the west,
Shans to the north, and Siamese to the east, Portuguese soldiers of
fortune played an important part, fighting on any side that offered
an attractive reward. It often happened that Portuguese fought
against Portuguese in this endemic warfare, which by the end of
the sixteenth century had brought great areas of Lower Burma to
famine and desolation. The Portuguese Decadas relate, for in-
stance, that a well-known captain, Diogo Soares de Mello, in 1548
led an attack on Ayuthia, the Siamese capital, which was success-
fully resisted by mercenaries under another Portuguese, Diogo
Pereira. On another occasion de Mello was employed by a Burmese
king to crush rebels in his own dominions who in their turn were
assisted by Portuguese soldiers. Some of these adventurers, not con-

s The Portuguese did, however, in 1519 establish a trading post at Martaban
and another in Tenasserim, which commanded a relatively safe route overland to
Siam. Here they sold some European products (cloth and velvets) , but the chief im-
ports were pepper from Sumatra, camphor from Borneo, and porcelain from China.

93

The Confrontation of Europe and Asia

tent with paid military service, attempted to hold cities for them-
selves, as when Felipe de Brito took and retained for several years
the town of Syriam, then the chief port of Pegu. When he was fi-
nally expelled by the King of Burma in 1613, the remnants of his
force were taken as prisoners and settled in village communities
whose descendants numbered four thousand by 1800.

It might be supposed that such exploits did not serve to pro-
mote the good name of Portugal, but the condition of Farther
India in those days was so chaotic, murder and robbery and piracy
were so rife, that by contemporary standards in those parts Por-
tuguese soldiers were probably as much respected as they were
feared and their buccaneering exploits were not thought of as ex-
ceptionally wicked. This is a point that should be borne in mind
when considering the behavior of early European adventurers in
Asia. They were living in an age of violence and misrule, when
cruelty was common and pity was rare. The annals of Farther
India from the period with which we are now concerned until
about 1800 are black with episodes of barbarism and treachery.
The Arakanese and the Burmese needed no lessons in those kinds
of behaviour from their European assistants, though they did de-
pend upon the steadfast bravery and the superior military skill of
their Portuguese mercenaries. Their own raiders, carrying off
slaves by hundreds from Bengal, "would pierce the hands of their
captives, pass a strip of cane through the hole and fling them under
the deck strung together like hens." Their kings would conduct
themselves like Thirithudhamrna, the Defender of the Faith in
Arakan, who plucked out the hearts of six thousand of his subjects
to serve as ingredients of an elixir of life; or like Bayinnaung, a
devout Buddhist King of Burma, who offered the Portuguese im-
mense sums for the Buddha Tooth in Kandy, but who lost tens of
thousands of soldiers in insensate campaigns which not only laid
waste the territory of his enemies but also depopulated the richest
areas of his own country and spread abroad starvation and disease.

Conditions in India itself were little better, although the Mo-
gul emperors, until their power collapsed, were competent, when
they so desired, to administer their dominions with some respect
for justice and the well-being of their subjects. Nobody can read
the history of their dynasty without feeling that all their acts were
governed by an assumption that the people must subserve the ends
of the ruler, and that the ends of the ruler were the subjection of
other peoples, for, as Akbar said, "a monarch should be ever intent
upon conquest; otherwise his neighbours rise in arms against him."
To serve this purpose of never-ending conquest the Oriental mon-
archs did not scruple to sacrifice the lives and the property of their
own subjects as well as of their enemies, and they stopped at no

94

Southeast Asia

treachery or duplicity in their relations with their rivals. This was
true not only of Moslems but also of Hindus. The condition of the
peasantry in Vijayanagar and other Indian kingdoms was no better
than in the Mogul Empire. In rare times of peace they were sub-
jected to an execrable tyranny by the tax-collector, and in times of
war their fields were ravaged and their young men conscripted. The
coming of the Portuguese did not, therefore, except in particular
local instances, impose any unfamiliar hardships or oppression
upon the native peoples of Asia or reveal to them any new varia-
tions upon the theme of cruelty. They accepted the strangers as a
new kind of master, mentally odd and physically distasteful be-
cause they were feringhi or foreigners, but neither worse nor better
than the despots to whom they were accustomed.

It would be wrong to suppose that the rough European in-
truders broke into scenes of Arcadian simplicity and happiness
when they showed themselves upon Asiatic shores. Many unhappy
things can be laid at the door of European expansion, but its pio-
neers cannot generally be charged with making conditions worse
than they found them under the despots with whom they some-
times fought and sometimes made alliances. In some respects they
even made efforts, admittedly imperfect, to remedy evils they per-
ceived. This is true of a few administrators and officials, and of a
great number of missionaries who faced tasks of supreme difficulty
complicated by their own bigotry and the powerful traditions that
it was their business to challenge.

In Farther India they met with peculiarly unfavourable condi-
tions. The teeming life of its quarrelsome kingdoms, in its varied
environment of swamp, jungle, and mountain or in cities richly
adorned with palace and pagoda, was, beneath a brightly coloured
surface of royal luxury and religious splendour, often poor and
backward. Their peoples were of many different origins, princi-
pally Mongoloid, and their culture was a mixture of various ele-
ments, for a foundation of pagan beliefs which they had brought
with them as they migrated from north and west had been over-
laid by successive influences of Hinduism, of Buddhism, and,
though in a much less degree, of Islam. The debt of the civilization
of Burma, Siam, and Cambodia to India is immense, and in exam-
ining the influence of European culture upon Asiatic peoples it
may not be out of place here to pay some brief attention to the way
in which the powerful example of Indian life had, long before the
arrival of Europeans, shaped the religious and social institutions ,
of a vast region extending from the Bay of Bengal to the South
China sea.

It is difficult to imagine what would have been the condition
of this region if it had not come under the influence of India,

95

The Confrontation of Europe and Asia

which was clearly a potent civilizing force. Not much is known
about early contacts, either as to their date or as to their nature,
but certainly from at latest the beginning of our era, and probably
much sooner, bands of migrants, companies of traders, and no
doubt some colonizing expeditions began moving west from India
by sea as well as by land routes and reached as far as Cambodia.
The landward movements from eastern Bengal were probably
peaceful in character, for the mountainous country of Arakan is
such as to protect Burma against conquest on that side and at the
same time to preserve its peoples from the forcible imposition of
Indian culture. It is therefore the more remarkable that a country
so isolated should bear so deep an imprint not only .of Indian re-
ligion but also of Indian customs, art, and architecture, as well as
having adopted an Indian alphabet and incorporated in native lore
a good deal of Indian legend. The other countries of Farther India
— Siam and Cambodia — also submitted to the same influences,
at some times direct from India, at others from Ceylon, at others
by way of China and possibly of Java or Sumatra.

We need not stop to examine the different histories of the de-
velopment of Buddhism and other aspects of Indian civilization
in these several countries, for they are extremely complex and in
many respects uncertain. For our purpose it is sufficient to know
that in the sixteenth century they all were, as they remain, Buddhist
countries. They follow the early form of Buddhism, the simple
teaching of the Hinayana rather than the later and more complex
doctrines and practices of the Mahayana, so that they preserve
much of a religion which has vanished in the country of its origin
and elsewhere is to be found only in Ceylon. At times, indeed,
Burma contained great centres of Buddhist learning, and there was
close intercourse with southern India and Ceylon, which tended
to support the older type of Buddhism against Mahayanist in-
fluences from other parts of India. Something of the same kind is
true of Siam, although here the earliest introduction of the Hina-
yana probably was from Burma. As for Cambodia, its religious his-
tory begins with a combination of Mahayanism and Brahmanism,
in which the latter predominated, and continues from about the
end of the fifteenth century with a gradual transition by which
under Siamese influence the older faiths were replaced by Hina-
yana Buddhism, though certain vestiges of Brahmanism were re-
tained, especially in the ritual of official ceremonies. Religion in
the now defunct Kingdom of Champa followed a somewhat similar
course, but did not reach a point where Hinayana ousted Maha-
yana, because the influence of Annamites to the north was stronger
than that of the Cambodians to the west, and the Annamites drew

96

Southeast Asia

their religion and the other elements of their civilization from
China rather than from India.

It will be seen that, with the exception of Annam, the coun-
tries of Farther India display a fairly uniform religious pattern
which testifies to the vitality of Buddhism beyond the land of its
birth. But the influence of Hinduism is equally remarkable. In
Burma, though Buddhism was supreme, Brahmans were employed
at court to perform certain ceremonies and to cast horoscopes; in
Siam there were many Brahmanic ceremonies, supervised by
Brahmans attached to the court; and in Cambodia also court and
other public ceremonies preserved a good deal of Brahmanic ritual.
In all three countries religion was closely associated with the state,
and the sovereign, if not the head of the Church, was intimately
concerned with religious matters. The life of the people was
strongly impregnated with religious influences, for their frequent
festivals were in essence acts of worship, their scholars and artists
were servants of the faith, and their landscape was dominated, as it
is today, by holy edifices.

It is clear that such an ancient and widespread religious tradi-
tion presented almost insuperable obstacles to the small missionary
effort that Europeans were able to put forth in these Buddhist
lands where, as in India, religion was not a mere ornament or
adjunct to daily existence but an element that gave it colour,
shape, and substance. Even Islam, which in the Malay Archipelago
was strong enough to displace or at least substantially to modify a
long-established Indian culture, had little success in Farther India.
These were small Moslem communities in coastal areas, no doubt
formed by Arab traders. A number of the people of Champa were
at one time converts to Mohammedanism, and their descendants,
the Chams, in Cambodia today are still of that faith. But in gen-
eral it is true to say that Islam made no headway against Buddhism
in Farther India, and the only alien influence that competed suc-
cessfully with Indian culture was that of China, which, thanks to
propinquity, was imposed upon Annam, where customs, beliefs,
and writing have a strong Chinese character, though even here
some traces of Hinduism remain.

Apart from the inherent difficulties of the task of conversion
among peoples so devoted to Buddhism, there was another ob-
stacle to missionary effort in the countries of Farther India. The
Portuguese communities, consisting chiefly of ruthless men whose
trade was robbery and slaughter, did not favour the presence of
missionaries, who, besides disapproving of their sinful lives, might
encourage rival traders to come and disturb their monopolies.
Consequently, although from the lonely Christian outposts in east-

91

The Confrontation oj Europe and Asia

tern Bengal or from Goa or Malacca a few friars did visit Arakan,
Burma, Siam, and Cambodia, and a few churches were established
in those countries, the fruits of their labours were scanty. But,
strange to say, there were other Christians in Burma and Siam than
the natives of those countries, for the bodyguards of their kings
sometimes included fighting men from western Japan who had be-
fore leaving home joined the flock of Xavier and" his followers
when they preached the gospel in the feudal baronies of Kyushu
from 1550 onwards.

So it happened that when the Augustinian Manrique was in
Arakan in 1630 he was visited by a Japanese captain who asked for
spiritual consolation and for the friar's help in obtaining the
King's consent to the building of a church. This soldier showed
himself a devout Catholic, and he and his companions busied them-
selves on behalf of the friar by bringing silken hangings and flow-
ers to ornament the room in which he celebrated Mass. This inci-
dent is of interest in that it illustrates the ubiquity of Christian
propaganda in Asia, its spread from India to the remotest country
of the East, and shows at the same time that while the Portuguese
were everywhere on the move, Japanese adventurers could also find
their way to distant countries.

There is one other aspect of missionary endeavour in Asia that
may be suitably mentioned here. The Christian evangelists found
much difficulty in gaining a hearing for their doctrines in countries
where a powerful religion was already established and where a
priestly body was well entrenched. They were handicapped by
their ignorance of native languages and traditions and by a natural
fear of foreign influence. What usually impressed the people among
whom they worked was not the message that they brought, but
their own personal qualities. Both simple and learned could rec-
ognize at once a man of high character and good breeding, for as a
rule Asiatics show great discernment in their estimate of Euro-
peans, their judgment being unclouded by irrelevant matters like
social standing and conventions of behaviour. So it frequently hap-
pened that both dignitary and peasant, though not grasping the
points in a missionary's discourse, were impressed by his learning
or his dignity or his kindliness. This may seem to be a small point
in the history of international intercourse, but the record of mis-
sions in many Asiatic countries shows that the soundness of a doc-
trine is often less important than the character of its exponent.

China

3. China

ALTHOUGH Portuguese power in Asia began to decline in the lat-
ter half of the sixteenth century, the activities of Portuguese trad-
ers and missionaries continued on an important scale for another
hundred years, and their individual achievements, while not suf-
ficient to arrest the decay of the military and political power of
their country, exercised a considerable influence upon events in
the Far East. In India and the Malay Archipelago, Portugal was
handicapped not only by her own weakness at home and abroad
but also by the growing strength of Islam and the rise of powerful
European competitors. In China and Japan she was first in the
field, and since both of these were highly organized states able to
present a firm front to invading influences, her soldiers and trad-
ers no less than her missionaries soon discovered that they could
not in those Far Eastern countries use the forceful methods they
had employed in the Indies. It took them some time to learn this
lesson, but after salutary experiences they gave up what ideas they
may have nourished of gaining a 'colonial foothold like Goa, Diu,
or Malacca and confined themselves to striving for the privilege to
trade and preach within Chinese or Japanese dominions.

By about 1550 most thoughtful Portuguese leaders must have
realized that they had enough to do to maintain their position in
India and the Malay Archipelago and could not afford to extend
their military responsibilities. They had great difficulty in hold-
ing Diu, which was in constant danger of attack from the Moham-
medan sultans of Gujarat, sometimes in combination with the
Turks. In 1538 the Sultan of Turkey sent a strong force that might
well have defeated the Portuguese, since it was equipped with
powerful artillery and skilful gunners. The Portuguese were saved
by what had saved them often before — a want of unity among
their enemies; but they could no longer count upon a permanent
military superiority. Diu was again under attack in 1546 and was
saved only by an extreme effort, which necessitated bringing re-
inforcements from other garrisons in India. The soldiers who went
out to India in those years were poor material, and the quality of
Portuguese leadership had sadly fallen, whereas the ecclesiastical
power had notably increased. These facts are perhaps sufficient to
explain why the Portuguese in China and Japan behaved, on the
whole, with more moderation and more respect for native people
than they had displayed in the Indies.

This is not to say that they were blameless from the beginning.
The first expedition to China was that of Fernao Peres d' Andrade,
who reached Canton from Malacca in August 1517. He carried an

99

The Confrontation of Europe and Asia

envoy to the Emperor o£ China, Thome Pires, who for two years
was unable to obtain permission to make the journey to Peking.
Andrade was able to load a good cargo in Canton, and was most
careful to keep on good terms with the Chinese authorities. But
the next visitor, his brother Simao d' Andrade, who came in 1519,
outraged Chinese feelings by his conduct. He bought kidnapped
children as slaves, built a small fort on the island of Lintin, tried
to prevent other ships from loading, and refused to leave port
when ordered. There were brawls in the streets of Canton, and in
1521 another Portuguese captain had to fight his way out to sea
from Lintin.

The result of this unfortunate prelude to commercial inter-
course was an embargo placed by the Chinese upon Portuguese
traders so severe that any vessel carrying a Portuguese was liable
to confiscation on reaching a Chinese port. The court at Peking
was apprised of these events, and all prospects of a successful mis-
sion for the unfortunate envoy, Thome Pires, vanished if they had
ever existed. When he at length reached Peking in 1521, he was
sent back to Canton to be imprisoned, and there he died in cap-
tivity.

Although the official attitude of the Chinese was uncompromis-
ing, trade was not in practice discontinued. Chinese merchants
were glad to take goods brought from other parts of China in Por-
tuguese-owned ships, and the Portuguese traders were able to make
profitable voyages to the Fukien coast, where they anchored off
shore and engaged in barter. It was one of these vessels which,
blown off its course by a storm, reached the shores of Japan in
1542 and, in the persons of a few Portuguese castaways, brought
Europeans into contact for the first time with natives of that coun-
try upon their own soil. While the trading and missionary activity
that followed shortly upon this incident was concurrent with simi-
lar activity in China, the position in Japan is better understood if
it is considered with some reference to contemporary conditions
in China. It is therefore convenient to treat of these first, though
it should be understood that the Portuguese met with a much
more friendly reception in Japan than in China and made a de-
gree of progress in matters of commerce as well as religion which
they did not for some time achieve in their dealings with the
Chinese.

China under the Ming emperors, after the expulsion of the
Mongols, regained for a time some of her lost power and prestige,
but after the brief expansive phase that saw the great maritime
expeditions of Yung-lo she entered upon a period of regression.
When the first Western traders appeared in the South China seas
she was disunited at home and weak abroad. She was on the def en-

100

China

sive both culturally and politically. The process of recovery from
the domination o£ the Mongols had, perhaps inevitably, brought
about a reaction in favour of the past, which took the form of pro-
tecting traditional Chinese culture against change, by an emphasis
upon orthodoxy. In the political field the trend was in favour of
contraction rather than expansion, for on the landward side no
steps were taken to resist the rising tide of Mohammedan power
in western and central Asia, while on the seaward side her coasts
and her shipping were subject to piratical attacks by Japanese
raiders and even by her own countrymen out of control.

She was in fact from early in the sixteenth century following
a policy of seclusion in many respects similar to that which a cen-
tury later was deliberately adopted by the Japanese, and for similar
reasons. Both countries felt that for the preservation of their own
institutions they must protect themselves against the intrusion of
disturbing foreign influences. The Chinese Empire was less effi-
ciently governed by its central authority than was Japan in her
period of isolation, partly because of its great size and the remote-
ness of the court at Peking from the main centres of wealth and
population, which now were in the Yangtze valley and farther
south, the northern provinces having suffered from a century or
more of Mongol depredations. It resulted from these circumstances
that, at a time when European civilization was developing with
great speed and energy, Chinese civilization was at a low ebb of
vigour. These historical conditions should not be overlooked in
considering the nature of the relations between China and the
Western world from the sixteenth century onwards. At least one
may say with confidence that the results of European intrusion
would have been different in some essential features had it been
faced by China in one of her creative phases. '

But general statements as to the strength or weakness of a civili-
zation at a given period require many qualifications, and it would
not be proper to assume that the reception of the Portuguese by
the Chinese was a direct result of political and social conditions
in China. It was due rather to the Portuguese themselves, whose
behaviour was such as to cause offence and anxiety even to the
most tolerant of peoples. The Chinese were convinced of the
superiority of their own institutions, and they affected to regard
all foreign visitors as at best barbarians bringing tribute or respect-
fully enjoying the privilege of dwelling in the Middle Kingdom;
but it had for centuries been the Chinese practice to treat alien
residents decently and to make allowance for their misfortune in
not having been born members of the Chinese race. This is clear
from the position acquired by many religious minorities — Ne&
torians, Manichasans, Moslems — at different periods in Chinese

101

The Confrontation oj Europe and Asia

history and by the privileges accorded to communities of Arabs
and other traders in Chinese seaports from very early times.

Something that the Chinese would not tolerate — indeed, some-
thing that they could scarcely comprehend — was that foreigners
should knock at the door of China and claim admission not as a fa-
vour but as a right due to subjects of a foreign power. The Chinese
view of the world had no place for a concept of sovereign states deal-
ing with China on a footing of equality; and it must be remem-
bered that even in Europe this was a new thing, since it was not
until the collapse of the Eastern Roman Empire that the idea of a
universal state gave place to the idea of a complex of national
states, each claiming sovereign rights and all competing among
themselves for power, territory, and trade on at least theoretically
equal terms. The Chinese, in other words, did not understand the
claims of foreign sovereigns to send ambassadors to their court, nor
could they under their own political theory admit that foreigners
could trade with them as of right. They would allow Chinese mer-
chants to deal with foreigners or to engage in overseas trade, but,
as we have seen, the government of China did not regard the
fostering of foreign commerce as an important affair of state.

Consequently, when the Portuguese first came to China they
were not positively forbidden to trade, though they were not
granted any special privileges. It was the conduct of the Portuguese
themselves that prevented for several years the resumption of au-
thorized trading, and there is no reason to suppose that had they
been moderate in their demands and sensible in their behaviour,
they would not have gained a favourable position from the time
of their first visit. Unfortunately for them, news of their bucca-
neering exploits and of their actions in Malacca (where China
claimed a shadowy authority) reached the court at Peking at the
time of Pires's visit and destroyed what prospects may have existed
of a friendly agreement to permit trade and to accept, in some form
consistent with Chinese pretensions, a diplomatic envoy from Por-
tugal. It can scarcely be doubted that the suspicions aroused in
Peking at this juncture injured the development of good relations
with European powers for a long time to come, the more so since
the Chinese, always a landward-looking people, were inclined to
view with suspicion all strangers arriving off their shores, which
were vulnerable and without defence. It is significant that Euro-
peans were known to the Chinese as yang-kwei, or ocean devils,
something new in their already abundant demonology; though it
would be a mistake to think that only Portuguese misdeeds created
such monsters in Chinese fancy, for their immediate successors —
the Spanish, the Dutch, and the English — did not much improve
upon the Lusitanian model.

102

China

For twenty years or so after their first arrival the Portuguese
traders failed to obtain official licence to trade, and they were
ejected from several ports where they had tried to establish them-
selves.4 They did, however, manage to establish a precarious foot-
hold on the small island of Shang-chiian, south of Canton, and be-
cause their well-armed ships were able to cope with the pirates who
infested the South China seas they were useful to Chinese and
other merchants and therefore were able to engage in the carrying
trade despite official prohibitions of the central government. Be-
fore long (in 1557) they were allowed to occupy the harbour and
town now known as Macao, which became their commercial base
and the centre of European trading intercourse with China.

It is important to understand the nature of European trade
in the Far East in this period. With few exceptions it did not con-
sist in an exchange of European and Asiatic produce, because (as
we have seen) there were no European commodities necessary to
the Chinese economy in the degree that Asiatic produce was neces-
sary to the economy of the West. The Chinese did, however, con-
sume in quantity a number of the natural products of the countries
of southeast Asia and India, as Albuquerque discovered on his
visit to Malacca, where he found Chinese trading junks which
had come to take on cargoes of goods brought for sale to that em-
porium from the Malabar coast, Siam, and Indonesia. It was the
profits earned by the Portuguese as carriers and brokers that sus-
tained their commerce with China, rather than the sale of the few
European products for which they could find a market. Their
commerce with Japan similarly depended to some extent upon
the carriage of Chinese goods — for example, silk — from Macao
to Japan, again because the Chinese and Japanese trading junks
were not safe from pirates.

The uneasy relations of the foreign traders with the Chinese
made it extremely difficult for missionaries to gain entry into
China. The first missionary to seek admission was Francis Xavier,
who had gone to Japan in 1549 and, as we shall see later, had been
much encouraged by his reception there. He had gained the im-
pression that since the Japanese derived their culture from Chinese
sources they would be the more disposed to accept Christian doc-
trines if the Chinese would give them a lead. This was not very
sound reasoning, but he was not a man to look for objections to
his own theories, and on his way back to Goa in 1551 he began
enthusiastically to plan a diplomatic mission to which he would

•* They had for a time a settlement at Ningpo, which was destroyed by Chinese
in 1545, the Portuguese staff being massacred. The Portuguese, for their part, occa-
sionally laid waste villages on the coasts of Fukien and Chekiang, a practice in
which they were only following the example of the Japanese.

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The Confrontation of Europe and Asia

be attached and which was to secure from the Emperor of China a
treaty of friendship and the right to trade and preach the gospel
in Chinese territory. This project was approved by the Viceroy,
but could not be carried out because the Captain of Malacca would
not allow an embassy to leave, probably because he thought, in
view of recent news from China, that it had no chance of success.
Xavier made his way with his companions to the island of Shang-
chtian and tried to get over to the mainland, but the Portuguese
traders would give him no help, fearing that an illicit landing of
missionaries would only endanger their own very unstable posi-
tion. Xavier stayed on, hoping somehow to find a passage, but he
fell ill and died at the end of 1552.

It was some time before further attempts were made to estab-
lish a mission in China. There were Jesuits and others in Macao,
and they made some efforts to convert Chinese, occasionally visit-
ing Canton; but no permanent mission was established until 1583.
It became clear to the superiors of the Jesuit order that it was not
sufficient for ardent novices to come out from Europe to Goa, to
spend two or three years there at St. Paul's College studying phi-
losophy and theology, and then to step ashore in China to preach
without adequate knowledge of the Chinese language or of Chi-
nese thought. They might, by their sincerity and their charity, in-
duce some poor peasant or fisherman to be baptized into the Catho-
lic faith, but they could not hope to persuade an educated Chinese
that the beliefs of his ancestors were mistaken. For that difficult
task they would require, in addition to permission to live in China,
a full linguistic competence and a considerable understanding of
the nature of Chinese society.

It was only after some thirty years of ill-organized and abortive
missionary effort that the Jesuits saw clearly that their evangelists
must spend a lifetime in acquiring and using these indispensable
qualifications. It was not until 1583 that the work began in earnest.
By that time the Chinese antagonism to the Portuguese had some-
what lessened, perhaps because the captains and the traders had
come to realize that their earlier policy of violence did not pay.
Two specially selected and trained Italian fathers, Michael Rug-
gerius and Matteo Ricci, were allowed to reside in the capital city
of Kwangtung province, and here as a matter of policy they set
themselves to winning the friendship and respect of Chinese of the
official class. Both were men of high attainments, and Ricci in par-
ticular was a good mathematician and astronomer. Their method
of procedure was similar to that which was adopted by Father de
Nobile in India at a somewhat later date. They endeavoured to
recommend themselves to cultivated Chinese by means of their
intellectual attainments and kept their religious motives in the

104

Japan

background. It is interesting to note that whereas Nobile did not
make his attempt to get on friendly terms with the Brahmans un-
til 1606, Ricci was discussing European science with the mandarins
a generation before that — a difference in time due perhaps to the
fact that in China the Portuguese had no political influence,
whereas in India they had a certain authority outside their own
domain and could travel without much restriction. It is also sig-
nificant that the missionaries who approached the major Asiatic
cultures through science were usually not Portuguese, whose coun-
try was little affected by the Renaissance, but Italians, who came
from its very fountain-head.

The Jesuits in China undoubtedly took a prudent course when,
under the direction of their Visitor-General Valignano (also an
Italian), they decided not to deliver a direct assault upon the Chi-
nese intellectual tradition but to try to undermine it by showing
that Europeans had advanced beyond the Chinese in certain
branches of learning. There was some hope for such a strategy in
a country administered by literati and singularly respectful of
scholarship. They did not, it seems, allow their minds to be dis-
turbed by a problem that has not been solved to this day, the ques-
tion whether either precept or example can ever, even in most
favourable circumstances, bring about radical changes in an in-
digenous civilization that has been formed by centuries of experi-
ence in its own environment. For their own sake they did well not
to let their purpose be weakened by doubts in this matter, for
Chinese society was as durable as it was ancient, and so closely
knit that to deny one of its principles was to challenge the whole
of its structure. They were, moreover, fortunate in that during the
latter part of the Ming era there was among the Chinese themselves
some disposition, if not to question their own institutions, at least
to review the orthodox Confucian philosophy. The very fact that
government was conducted on strongly orthodox lines seems to
have evoked a certain spirit of criticism or at least a vague con-
sciousness that all was not well in China's intellectual world.

4. Japan

HE PORTUGUESE castaways who reached Japan in 1542 carried
arquebuses, which are said to have caused the greatest excite-
ment to the Japanese, who met them in a friendly manner. Per-
haps this incident, which is unlikely to be apocryphal, is symbolic
of the nature of Japanese civilization at the opening of the six-
teenth century and marks it off from the civilization of India and
China, whose inhabitants when they first encountered the Por-

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The Confrontation of Europe and Asia

tuguese are not reported to have displayed any particular interest
in their weapons or to have regarded them as other than rough
barbarians. The Japanese, for their part, welcomed the strangers,
and it was not long before the first arrivals were followed by mis-
sionaries and traders who had little difficulty in establishing
friendly relations with the people of the country and their rulers.

This contrast between Japan and other Asiatic countries in the
treatment of foreigners requires some explanation. It may be
stated as a fact that the Japanese were a friendly people, given to
hospitality, disposed to good manners, extremely curious to learn
new things; and this would go far to account for their attitude
towards the newcomers from Europe. But something more is re-
quired, because we should like to know what in their past history
and environment had given rise to these qualities. Though dis-
cussions of national character are apt to be inconclusive, some at-
tempt may be made to discover what in the background of the
Japanese had brought about their readiness to entertain strangers
and consider unfamiliar doctrines.

Their early history gives an indication, for even before they
formed a homogeneous nation they looked to the mainland of
Asia for instruction in the arts of civilization. It was the bronze
culture of China that enabled them to emerge from their neolithic
phase in the first centuries of our era, and it was to China that
they turned for the very foundations of an organized national life
when they adopted the Chinese written language and studied Chi-
nese methods of government. China was so mature when the Japa-
nese were growing up that the prestige of her civilization was over-
whelming. It was natural and indeed inevitable that they should
welcome Chinese teachers who brought to them the treasures of
learning and religion. These monks, doctors, and craftsmen crossed
over in considerable numbers to Japan, where they were treated
with great distinction — so much so that in a list of noble families
compiled at the end of the seventh century over one third claim
Chinese or Korean descent; and until the Japanese felt able to
stand on their own feet, let us say in the tenth century, aliens might
count upon receiving special privileges.

Since it was to China and indirectly to India that Japan owed
all the enrichment for which her tribal life was groping, it is not
surprising that in this early period of her history there was founded
a tradition of respect for foreign wisdom. Though the Japanese
from time to time in their later history reacted against the strong
influence of China, their own civilization could not develop with-
out frequent refreshment from its original source. Their earliest
system of government was modelled upon that of China, their
social philosophy incorporated with indigenous elements many

106

Japan

Chinese ideas, and it was to China that they owed their adoption
of Buddhism, perhaps the most potent civilizing factor in their
early national life.

It is easy to understand why Chinese influence should have
dominated the intellectual growth of Japan, for China was an ex-
perienced adult when Japan first went to school, and there was no
other civilized country within reach of Japan. What is exceptional
in the case of Japan is the- fact that Chinese culture was taken over
not in submission to force or strong persuasion, but voluntarily
and enthusiastically and on Japanese initiative. Until a native lit-
erature began to develop in the tenth century, Chinese studies
were paramount in Japan. Scholars and statesmen tried to envelop
themselves in a Chinese atmosphere. They would call themselves
by Chinese names and, it is said, were happy if they could com-
mune with a Chinese poet in their dreams. This, of course, is not
a singular phenomenon, since it has had its counterpart in Europe,
where some classical learning, including familiarity with Greek
and Latin poets, has been necessary baggage for a man travelling
towards eminence. Indeed, the comparison is close, for if Euro-
peans studied the dead languages of Greece and Rome, so did the
Japanese neglect contemporary Chinese and draw on models of
long-defunct dynasties. But there was a difference, since the Japa-
nese, even when their culture had acquired a strong and distinct
national flavour, did not cut themselves off from living Chinese
sources of inspiration. They continued for many centuries to look
to China for new ideas in religion and philosophy, and until very
recent times a quotation from a Chinese classic was felt to be a
powerful support to any argument. By the time that the first Eu-
ropeans arrived in Japan the cultural influence of China was wan-
ing, because of disturbed conditions in both countries; but it had
been extremely strong, at least in art and letters, not many decades
before, and as soon as Japan settled down to peace in the early
seventeenth century, there was an important revival of Confucian
studies and renewed intercourse with Chinese Buddhists.5

These fragments of history may help to explain why the Japa-
nese, unlike the people of India and China, were disposed to take
a friendly interest in strangers and anxious to learn what they had
to tell. But there was another reason why, at the time when the
Portuguese began to appear, the Japanese should have been es-
pecially open to foreign influences. Japan was then in the midst
of civil war, which was breaking down old institutions, and such
times of crisis usually favour a receptive mood. Some account of
conditions in Japan at that period, known to Japanese historians

5 Which resulted, for example, in the introduction of the Obaku sect as late as
1655,

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The Confrontation of Europe and Asia

as Sengoku-jidai., or the Age of the Country at War, will serve to
furnish a background for description of the earliest intercourse
between Japanese and Europeans.

For several centuries Japan had been accustomed to long pe-
riods of feudal warfare, in which contending factions struggled for
supremacy. This endemic strife, though at times reaching a high
pitch of intensity, had not been sufficiently widespread or destruc-
tive to prevent a considerable advance in the arts of civilization.
Indeed, in the period before that with which we are concerned,
though the central administration had lost most of its power to
feudal chieftains, yet in the midst of confusion and turmoil there
had taken place a very remarkable cultural phase, in which the
arts flourished while government was neglected. These uneasy
times encouraged a feverish activity, which expressed itself in a
search for excitements and luxuries, so that commerce with China
flourished and bold spirits, not content with legitimate trade,
sailed out upon piratical voyages which carried them to the China
coast and beyond. During the fifteenth century the Japanese were
known and feared as corsairs along all the shores of eastern Asia,
and adventurers were finding their way to the Malay Archipelago
and Farther India. Thus when Europeans first entered the Pacific,
the Japanese had already emerged from a seclusion which geog-
raphy rather than temperament had imposed upon them, and by
the time when the first Portuguese reached Japan they were in an
expansive mood, not only willing but even anxious to extend their
contact with the outside world and hungry for new commodities.

In the middle of the sixteenth century the protracted civil wars
had eliminated all but a few powerful feudal groups from the
struggle for supremacy. What must now follow was a final contest
for mastery of the whole country, and it was at this critical point
in Japan's history that the European traders and missionaries ap-
peared upon the scene. The Emperor in Kyoto sat powerless upon
his throne, his Shogun or Generalissimo could exercise no au-
thority over the regional lords, and a feudal chieftain of obscure
antecedents, Oda Nobunaga (1534-82) , whose small fief lay in a
good strategic position, was gradually building up his strength by
skilful fighting and useful alliances. His enemies were still strong,
for they included great feudal barons in northeastern and south-
western Japan who, singly or in combination, disposed of great
military strength; while the leading Buddhist monasteries had both
military and political influence.

Such a period of turmoil, when an old order was being chal-
lenged and new men were rising to power, was propitious for the
European traders and missionaries. Here they could gain favour
by giving their support to one side or another in the prevailing

108

Japan

quarrels, just as elsewhere in Asia they had been able to take ad-
vantage of disunity by siding with one faction against its rival. In
Japan they could not give direct military aid since their numbers
were small, but they were expert in the use of firearms and naviga-
tion, matters in which the Japanese were ignorant or backward.
They could also with their well-armed vessels carry cargoes safely
to and from Japan to the profit of Japanese merchants, and they
could introduce useful or attractive goods from Asia as well as
Europe.

These facts soon became evident to the feudal rulers, especially
to those in western Japan, where Portuguese ships first touched.
Trading vessels visited harbours in Kyushu once the Portuguese
along the China coast and in the Malay Archipelago heard of the
discovery of Japan by their compatriots, and by 1549 Francis Xav-
ier with several companions landed at Kagoshima, the capital of
the lordship of Satsuma, one of the most powerful western prov-
inces, where he was well received and given permission to preach.
We have noticed that the political situation in Japan at the time
of their arrival was favourable. The western feudatories, great and
small, feared for their own independence and saw that if they
could add to their wealth by foreign trade or if they could secure
from the Portuguese a little help in the way of weapons or ship-
ping they would have an advantage over their rivals. The party in
central Japan which was striving for hegemony saw that a com-
bination of the western feudatories would be hard to overcome,
especially if they could obtain help from or by means of the Por-
tuguese. Consequently a number of barons made attractive offers
to the foreign traders, hoping to entice them to their own ports
and keep them away from their rivals; while, as we shall see, No-
bunaga — though this was some years later — treated the Jesuits
with special consideration, having doubtless learned that the Por-
tuguese captains paid deference to the missionaries.

So it came about that not only did the feudal leaders compete
for the services of foreign traders, but they also as part of this com-
mercial policy gave special facilities to the Jesuit fathers, even in
some cases ordering the people in their domains to adopt the
Christian faith. This alacrity to receive and consider the offerings
of the West is in rather marked contrast to the attitude of India
and China towards alien importations. It is not difficult to see why
the Japanese in their remote and isolated situation should have
displayed an interest in the produce of distant climates, since they
had already traded with the southern regions, and the wealthy war
lords of the fifteenth century had spent freely upon luxuries from
China and beyond. But the enthusiasm with which the Christian
teaching of the Jesuits was received in some quarters requires f ur-

109

The Confrontation of Europe and Asia

ther study, for which, fortunately, ample material is to hand in the
reports and letters of the missionaries to their colleagues in Goa
and to the General of their order.

The progress of the early Christian missions to Japan is of
interest not only in the history of evangelism. It is of great value
as presenting a clear picture of the meeting of two cultures and
seems to justify treatment in some detail in a separate chapter.
Both the resemblances and the differences between what happened
in Japan and what happened in other Asiatic countries are strik-
ing. But before concentrating our attention upon the Far East it
is convenient at this point to look back and see what had been the
effect upon European intellectual life of a century of European
expansion. It was not much, but it was enough to set thoughtful
men wondering about the future and asking themselves what
would be their rights and duties in .a growing world.

5. The International Society

JLHIS is by no means the place for an inquiry into the nature of
international society, but it is germane to the theme of this study
to pay some attention to the effect of European expansion in Asia
upon sixteenth- and seventeenth-century thought about interna-
tional life.

There is a certain irony in the fact that it was (in part at least)
the search for Japan, the fabled Xipangu of Marco Polo, that im-
pelled Columbus and other explorers to undertake their voyages
of discovery and, by sowing the seeds of international rivalry in
Eastern Asia, to raise in a new and urgent form the question of how
to reconcile conflicting claims among the sovereign states of Eu-
rope. It was of course an old problem, but now it was presented on
a larger scale than ever before.

In the Middle Ages the spectacle of a narrow European world
of turbulent kingdoms continuously at war turned the minds of
reasoning men to speculation on universal peace, and produced
visions not of a regulated society of independent states but rather
of an ideal empire, ruled in accordance with a supreme law by a
benign and absolute monarch. This was the theme of Dante's De
monarchic which seems to have been inspired by thoughts of Im-
perial Rome as it might have been. But the idea of a society of
nations bound to the observance of a universal law is of later
growth. It appears in a rudimentary form after the discovery of
the Americas and the Indies; and it is significant that among the
first hints of a possible law of nations are suggestions made early
in the sixteenth century by Catholic theologians who were brought

110

The International Society

to consider the rights and duties of temporal rulers by the behav-
iour of the conquistadores in the new-found lands. The Dominican
Francisco de Vitoria, professor of theology at Salamanca, sat on
committees dealing with Indian affairs and was moved to reflect
upon international justice by reports of Spanish ill-treatment of na-
tives of the Americas. This was in the first half of the sixteenth
century. He propounded the view that Christian princes had no
right to coerce or punish "barbarians/* even with the authority of
the Pope.

Other Spanish writers developed similar opinions, notably the
Jesuit Francisco Suarez, who in 1612 wrote his Treatise on the
Laws, in which he said: " Mankind, however divided into various
peoples and kingdoms, has always a certain unity not only of spe-
cies but also, as it were, political and moral, which is shown by the
natural rule of love and compassion that extends to all, even to
strangers of whatever nation. Consequently, though any single
state, kingdom, or republic may seem to be a perfect society, com-
plete and coherent in itself, nevertheless each one of these is in
some way a member of the universal human society. None of these
communities singly is so self-sufficient that it can dispense with the
support of others, which it requires sometimes for its material ad-
vantage, sometimes out of moral necessity/*

His meaning is sometimes obscured by the tricks of his pseudo-
Ciceronian Latin and he is not explicit as to the vital part of his
argument, which is the nature of "moral necessity." But he does
conclude that some law is required to order the relations of states
with one another. Neither he nor other theologians, however, ven-
tured to postulate a world authority which should keep quarrel-
some states at peace. Indeed, most of them balked at the idea of
punitive or preventive war and took the view that it was permis-
sible for a state to resort to arms only when attacked. They did not
say how any nation or group outside the range of municipal law
was to be stopped from wrong-doing or punished for misbehavior.

It was at this point that Grotius began to form his views on
international law. He had been led to consider the works of Vitoria
and his other precursors by cases of international discord that came
to his notice as a lawyer. Retained by the United East India Com-
pany of Holland, he had to deal with suits arising from the capture
of Portuguese prizes by Dutch ships in Asiatic waters, which in-
volved questions about the rights of a chartered company and the
freedom of the seas. He wrote his treatise on the law of booty
(which included his chapters on Mare Liberum) about 1604, and
by 1625 he had completed his De jure belli ac pads. Here he laid
it down that the international society existed as a legal community,
and advocated a world-wide rule of law, to be enforced — he did

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The Confrontation oj Europe and Asia

not say how, though warfare figures prominently in his argument.
His views were traversed later by Hobbes, who thought that na-
tions should mind their own business and not go crusading, and
said in effect that there was no such thing as the international so-
ciety that Grotius imagined.

We must not enter into the disagreement between these two
Titans. The point of interest for us here lies only in the circum-
stances that caused Grotius and his forerunners to give thought to
a law of nations. It was the extension of conflict far beyond the
borders of Europe — indeed, to all quarters of the known world
— that brought home to the European mind the problems of re-
lationship not only among European states but with the countries
and peoples of Asia, Africa, and the Americas. It was thus that
there developed the idea of a community of all states, governed by
a law described as the law of nature or the law of peoples. While
Grotius was in prison cogitating on such matters (1618-2 1) , Spain
was at war with the Netherlands, the rest of Europe was in arms,
and in Asia and the Americas both the secular and the ecclesiasti-
cal representatives of European states were pursuing their rivalries
with little or no regard for the native inhabitants of those regions.
For long their jurists had argued that the highest duty of a Chris-
tian king was to convert the pagan, and for this purpose the use of
force was necessary and legitimate. If it seemed that a foreign coun-
try would not voluntarily accept Christianity, then it was proper
to make war upon it and take its territory, so that its people could
be baptized and saved from idolatry. Even voluntary converts
might be safer from temptation to backslide if they were under
Christian government,

One of the most important departures that Grotius embodied
in his treatise was an extension of the rule of law to benefit all
peoples, without distinction of race or religion. He was brought
to this view mainly by his knowledge of the way in which Dutch
administrators in the East Indies disregarded the rights of native
rulers. Similarly his thoughts on the freedom of the seas were
stimulated by the monopolistic claims of Portugal to navigation
and trade in the Pacific, as also by the doctrine of the closed sea
proclaimed by Selden in his Mare Clausum., which suited England
at that time but not the Netherlands. Ecclesiastical strife, indirectly
involving the Protestant nations, revealed a fundamental antago-
nism between the Spanish and Portuguese missionaries in eastern
Asia, for while the Spanish were moving westward to the Philip-
pines, the Portuguese had established themselves in the Spice
Islands, China, and Japan. It became necessary to decide their re-
spective spheres of influence; and in default of a world authority
the Holy See stepped in and bestowed upon the two temporal

in

The International Society

rulers a Padroado covering half the globe for each, or with the
union of the two crowns in 1580 all the globe for one.

This atrocious monopoly exasperated the English and the
Dutch and before many years, made the Indian Ocean and the
western Pacific the scene of European battles, fought between
armed men with ships and guns as well as between men of God
with bell, book, and candle, to say nothing of bull and brief,
pamphlet and sermon. In Japan and China the wrangles of the
Jesuits and the mendicant orders followed both national and re-
ligious lines of cleavage; and because they could not bring force
to bear in those two powerful kingdoms as they had done else-
where in Asia, they dabbled in domestic politics, thereby bringing
damage to their own cause and injuring the trading interests of
others.

So it is not surprising that men with liberal, orderly minds like
Grotius, dismayed by the lawlessness that went along with trade
and the gospel in Asia and the Americas, should have turned their
minds to the problem of keeping order among ambitious kings
and insubordinate priests. And thus we have one more example to
show how, while Asiatic thought was little disturbed by Western
influence, events in Asia started new movements in the intellectual
life of Europe.

Now we may return to the Far East, first looking at the results
of Christian missions in Japan and then observing the course o£
the Asiatic trade and its effects upon Western economies.

Note on CHAPTER 5

The following works are useful for the study of the Portuguese in Asia

from 1500 to 1650:

Boxer, C. R.: In addition to a number of papers in the Transactions of
the Japan Society, London, Major Boxer's studies of the missions
of Japanese to Rome promoted by the Jesuits are of great value,
as are his Fidalgos in the Far East and the forthcoming Christian
Century in Japan. In fact, all that he has written on these and
related subjects is indispensable.

Bernard, Henri, S.J.: All Father Bernard's books and his contributions
to Monumenta Nipponica are full of interesting material on
missionary activities in the Far East in the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries and related historical questions.

Cortesao, A.: The Suma Oriental of Thome Fires. Hakluyt Society,
1946. This deals with Portuguese affairs in China, 1512-15, and
with Pires's embassy.

Ferguson, D.: Letters from Portuguese Captives in Canton,, (1520-40) .
Most interesting and useful.

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The Confrontation of Europe and Asia

Gray, A.: The Voyage of Francois Pyrard de Laval. Hakluyt Society,

Nos. 77, 78, and 80 of 1888-90. A mine of information.
Linschoten: Itinerario. Hakluyt Society, 1885-7. Gives a vivid account

of Portuguese seafaring life and helps to explain the decline of

Portuguese sea power.
Sanceau, Elaine: Indies Adventure (1936) . A life of Albuquerque,

which, though a popular work and somewhat romantic, is based

on good Portuguese sources.
Whiteway, R.: The Rise of Portuguese Power in India. A classic. A

little hard at times on the Portuguese administrators, it is still

one of the best books on the subject and is extremely well

written.

114

C H *A <P T
6

CHRISTIANITY IN JAPAN, 1549-1614

r

LHE

-HE BEST single source for an account of the Jesuit propa-
ganda in Japan in the second half of the sixteenth century is the
Historia do Japao of Father Luis Frois, which covers the years
1549 to 1578. Frois was either an eyewitness of events that he de-
scribes or had knowledge of them from his colleagues in the mis-
sion field. His statements are therefore of exceptional interest and
of patent veracity if one makes some slight allowance for his natu-
ral prejudices. His own career is something of an epitome of the
life of the Jesuits who worked in the Far East. He was born in Lis-
bon in 1532, entered the Society of Jesus in 1548, and was almost
at once sent to India. Arriving at Goa, he entered St. Paul's Col-
lege, where his fellow students included half-castes, Negroes, Abys-
sinians, Mahrattas, Malabaris, Malays from Macassar and Amboina,
and the first Chinese and Japanese students at the seminary.
Among the latter was one Anjiro, baptized as Paul, whom Francis
Xavier on his way back from the Moluccas to Goa in 1548 had
found in Malacca, where (he said) he had come drawn by the
father's fame as a holy man. Frois began the prescribed course of
study at St. Paul's — two years of philosophy, two of theology, and
one of Holy Scripture. During this period Xavier, who had sailed
from Goa in June 1549, spent two years in Japan and returned to
Goa in 1552, bringing with him a mission from a Japanese feudal
baron, Otomo of Bungo. Xavier's reports on his visit to Japan were
enthusiastic. "These/' he said, "are the best people so far discov-
ered, and it seems to me that among unbelievers no people can be
found to excel them/'

Frois was anxious to go to Japan, but he was first sent to Ma-
lacca in 1554, then returned to Goa for his ordination, and he
worked as secretary to the Provincial, Father Melchior Nunes Bar-
reto, where he was marked down as having good judgment and
a gift for writing and speaking. Letters that Frois wrote from Ma-
lacca, Goa, and elsewhere bear out the judgment of his superiors,
for they are vivid and full of interesting detail. He was sent to
Japan in 1562 and stayed there until his death in 1597. His literary
gift his long experience and his acquaintance with leading figures

116

Christianity in Japan, 1549-1614

in Japan make his account a very valuable document. It is drawn
upon freely in the following pages.

Francis Xavier was well aware of the dangers and difficulties of
the voyage to Japan, but his determination to bring light to the
heathen was such that, in a letter to the Provincial of Portugal
written in 1549, he said that he did not fear shipwreck or pirates
or any other perils, but only the anger of God if he should not be
diligent in His service. These words express clearly the spirit in
which the Jesuit mission to Japan was undertaken. This was no
trading expedition including a few monks to give it an air of sanc-
tity, but a purely religious undertaking arising out of Xavier's
conviction that it was a sacred duty to combat the ignorance of
unbelievers. He had said, in the letter just cited, that he was de-
termined as soon as he reached Japan to go straight to the King of
that country and to discover from what was written in their books
what its people believed. Thereafter he would write to the Jesuit
colleges at Coimbra and Rome and to all the universities remind-
ing them that they must not be guilty of piling up knowledge for
themselves while not troubling about the ignorance of the heathen.

This is an interesting statement of the policy of the Jesuits, who
realized that to change the beliefs of a people it was not enough to
preach to the poor and the unlearned, but that their leaders must
be gained over; and for that purpose it was necessary to study the
nature of their traditional beliefs. The Jesuit fathers in Japan fol-
lowed this direction, with the result that in course of time, despite
the great obstacles of strange customs and an extremely difficult
language, they gained the friendship and respect of many Japanese
of all classes and reached a remarkably good understanding of the
nature of Japanese life. Their reports and letters give a picture of
the civilization of Japan and of its contemporary history that is
probably without equal for accuracy among sixteenth-century Eu-
ropean accounts of foreign countries.

Their early steps in evangelism, it must be said, were somewhat
faltering. Xavier and seven companions (including Anjiro and
two other Japanese) left Malacca as passengers in a Chinese pirate
vessel and reached Kagoshima in August 1549. Without delay
Xavier visited the "King/* or more correctly the Daimyo or feudal
lord of Satsuma — Shimazu Takahisa, a very powerful ruler — by
whom he was received in a friendly manner. He learned that the
sovereign of all the sixty-six provinces of Japan lived in Miyako x
— though he was not aware that in fact the Emperor exercised no
secular authority — and begged for a ship to take him there. Taka-
hisa promised this, but said that owing to the state of war then pre-
vailing the voyage must be postponed.

i The capital, now called Kyoto.

lie

Christianity in Japan, 1549-1614

While waiting for the opportunity, which Takahisa never
meant to provide, the fathers set about their task of conversion.
They were handicapped by their almost complete ignorance of the
Japanese language, and it is difficult to understand how they were
able to make converts; but they appear somehow to have per-
suaded a few people to accept baptism, probably with the help of
Anjiro, the interpreter. They also set about translating into Jap-
anese a statement of the elements of .Christian belief — the cre-
ation, the coming of the Son of God into the world, the com-
mandments, and the last judgment. This must have been a very
hard task, even if they had sufficient linguistic competence, and
one cannot help wondering what the simple Japanese made of
these new ideas, for there is nothing more difficult to convey in a
foreign language than an unfamiliar principle. Nevertheless, some
progress was made, for if we are to believe Frois one hundred and
fifty persons were baptized during the ten months spent in Satsuma
by the company. Further Xavier contrived, evidently by the
strength and charm and simplicity of his character, to get on good
terms with some of the monks of an important Buddhist monas-
tery in the vicinity. He appears to have made friends with an amia-
ble and learned abbot of the Zen sect named Ninjitsu, of whom two
instructive anecdotes are told. Both reveal the sceptical attitude of
dignitaries of the Buddhist church at this time.

Ninjitsu one day took Xavier to the meditation hall of his
monastery, where the .monks were engaged in their usual exercise
of Zazen, which consists of kneeling motionless in concentrated
thought upon one object for the purpose of clearing the mind of
all extraneous matters and thus approaching an intuitive grasp of
truth. Xavier asked what these men were doing, and Ninjitsu re-
plied: "Some are counting up how much they took from the faith-
ful last month; some are considering where they can get better
clothing and treatment for themselves; others are thinking of their
recreations and pastimes. Iri. short, none of them is thinking of any-
thing that has any sense whatever/'

The Jesuits learned in course of time that leaders of the Zen
sect were likely to be formidable opponents, since they were as a
rule men of strong character who, while well grounded in philoso-
phy, rejected all conventional forms of religion and held that the
truth could not be learned from books or sermons, but only by
looking into one's own being. Frois describes them as believing
that there was nothing beyond birth and death, no other life, no
punishment for the wicked, no reward for the good, nor any creator
who rules the universe. They were clearly most unpromising ma-
terial for conversion, but Xavier seems to have sensed their im-
portance and he took pains to argue with Ninjitsu. On one occa-

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Christianity in Japan, 1549-1614

sion he asked the abbot, who was advanced in years, which time of
life seemed to him better, youth or old age. Ninjitsu replied:
"Youth/' explaining that this was the time when a man's body was
free from illness and he could do what he wished unhindered.
Xavier retorted: "Suppose you saw a ship that has left one harbour
and must perforce at length reach another, when would you say
the passengers should most rejoice? When they are on the open
sea, threatened by wind and wave, or when they are in sight of
their haven and begin to cross the bar?" Ninjitsu said: "Father, I
understand you well. I know that the aspect of the harbour is
pleasant and joyful to those who are bound thither. But it is not
yet clear to me, and I have not yet decided, which is the best har-
bour, and so I do not know how or where I must land/'

Xavier continued on friendly terms with the Zen monks and
pressed Ninjitsu to accept baptism, but he refused, because (as
Frois sadly relates) he would not give up the dignities he held and
the respect he enjoyed and the wealth he possessed, "preferring to
land lost and miserable in hell." Here, as elsewhere in Asia, the
Jesuits found that for most men to adopt an alien faith was to
abandon their own culture, because a culture is composed of many
elements, and when one is destroyed, the whole structure disin-
tegrates.

The missionaries, however, did not lose heart. Their confidence
was indeed superb. Their zeal and especially the intemperate lan-
guage of Xavier in his condemnation of Japanese customs aroused
anger among the monks, and though a few conversions are recorded
among humble folk, they made little progress in Satsunia. After a
stay of ten months Xavier, finding that the Daimyo would not help
him to get to Miyako, went to the port of Hirado, in a neighbour-
ing fief some hundred miles distant, where a Portuguese ship from
China had arrived. He went back to Satsuma for a brief visit, with-
drew the mission, and returned to Hirado. The ruler of this terri-
tory, Matsuura Takanobu, treated him well, seemingly because he
had been pleased by the visit of the ship; and Xavier, leaving Fa-
ther Cosme de Torres behind, set out on foot for Yamaguchi, hop-
ing there to find a passage to Miyako.

Yamaguchi was at this time the seat of a very powerful feudal
lord (Ouchi Yoshitaka) the head of the Ouchi family. He kept a
kingly state and his kingdom was prosperous. Xavier asked for per-
mission to appear before this prince and to preach the gospel in
his dominion. This was granted, it being generally supposed that,
since the fathers came from India, they were bringing to Japan
the teaching of some new sect of Buddhism. Xavier had an audi-
ence with Ouchi, at whose request he told the interpreter to read
in Japanese a document, already prepared, which gave the ele-

118

Christianity in Japan, 1549-1614

ments of Christian doctrine. This included a discourse upon error
and sin. When the reader came to a passage on sodomy, describing
those guilty of this offence as filthier than swine and lower than
dogs, the Daimyo changed colour and dismissed them, no doubt
because he, in common with many military men and monks in that
part of Japan, was given to such habits. The interpreter thought
that they might have their heads cut off, but they left safely and
Xavier, without waiting for permission, began to preach in the
streets of Yamaguchi. His, knowledge of the Japanese language
was poor, and he was obliged to depend upon his interpreter, who
again read from a prepared document, while the Father stood by,
praying for the success of his sermon. The discourse did not spare
the feelings of the audience, for it pointed out three great sins of
the Japanese: idolatry, sodomy, and infanticide or abortion. Many
gathered in the streets, some to listen, some to revile, and some out
of mere curiosity. One nobleman for his own amusement invited
them to his house, where, having heard about the creation and the
fall of Lucifer, he expressed his scorn of such myths. To this Xavier
retorted that unless he abandoned his pride and wept for his sins
he also would be stricken by God with the torments of hell.

Shortly before Christmas of 1550 Xavier decided at all costs to
make his way to Miyako, where he was determined to see the Em-
peror of Japan. After a long and painful journey, mostly on foot
through snow and storm, he reached the capital, but to no avail,
for the place was in an uproar and the Shogun had left the city,
while the Emperor was living in obscure retirement in an old
palace. He therefore decided to return to Yamaguchi, concluding
that there were better prospects in the fief of Ouchi, who seemed
at that time to be the most powerful lord in Japan. He obtained
an audience and took with him some valuable presents, including
a clock, a matchlock, some brocades, fine crystal glasses, a mirror,
and spectacles, together with letters from the Bishop of Goa and
the Governor. These seem to have pleased Ouchi, who was im-
pressed by Xavier's appearance in rich ecclesiastical robes. There
were some monks present who started a theological discussion
with the father. They belonged to the Shingon sect, which is de-
voted to the worship of Dainichi (the Buddha Vairocana) and has
a strong esoteric character, regarding the whole universe as a man-
ifestation of this Buddha. They professed to discern a close resem-
blance between the attributes of the God of the Christians, a$ de-
scribed by Xavier, and their own conception of the nature of
Dainichi. They said that though the language and the dress were
different, the content of the doctrine was the same as their own,
and they appeared (according to the Jesuit narrator) to be de-
lighted by this foreign testimony to the truth of their beliefs.

119

Christianity in Japan, IS 49-1 61 4

It seems that Xavier himself gained the impression that Dai-
nichi and God were identical, and according to one account in
some of his preaching he exhorted the Japanese to worship Dai-
nichi. But upon reflection he began to have doubts, and a few
days after the discussion just recorded he approached the monks
again and questioned them on the mystery of the Holy Trinity,
asking whether they believed that the second Person of the Trinity
had become a man and had died on the cross to save mankind. The
Shingon monks were accustomed to mysteries, but these things
were so strange to them that they seemed like fables or dreams, and
some laughed at what the father said, Xavier then saw, how the
Devil had founded this accursed sect, and ordered Brother Fer-
nando, the interpreter, to proclaim to the people in the streets
that they should not worship Dainichi, but should hold the Shin-
gon, and indeed all other sects in Japan, as inventions of Satan.
He thus not surprisingly incurred the ill will of the monks, but
he continued his preaching and made some converts, mostly among
people in poor or modest circumstances. One of these was a blind
lute-player and story-teller, baptized as Louren^o by Xavier in
1551, who was the first Japanese to be taken into the Jesuit order.
He became a brother and catechist in 1563 and is recorded to have
made thousands of converts in different parts of Japan during his
long years of service.

While Xavier was in Bungo, the Jesuits had more trouble with
the monks of Yamaguchi. One of their antagonists was a member
of the militant Hokke or Lotus sect, whom they were satisfied they
overcame by asking such questions as why the Buddha was born
eight thousand times and by calling attention to the dissolute life
of Hokke votaries. More difficult adversaries in debate were edu-
cated gentlemen who were familiar with Zen teaching and were
able to put searching questions which, the Jesuits said, could not
have been answered without divine assistance. Mission work was
soon interrupted by alarms of war, and the fathers took refuge in
the house of a friendly Japanese, meeting on their way some
armed men who said: "Let us kill these men from India, for it is
they who have caused our misfortunes. They have offended the
Buddhas, who have now let loose this war." They escaped this
danger, but were obliged to lie hidden until the fighting ended.

It was at this time that Brother Joao Fernandez set forth for
the. information of Xavier a list of questions that were frequently-
put by those Japanese who, for whatever reason, wished to discover
the nature of Christian doctrine. Some of the more striking points
may be recorded here, since they are of interest as revealing the
trend of Japanese thought on religious matters. The idea of a soul
was strange to them. They asked what was its shape and colour.

iso

Christianity in Japan, 154-9-1614

They asked: What is God, and where is He? Has He a body and is
He visible to man? The Jesuits replied that, since all material
things consisted of elements and since God had created the ele-
ments, He could not have a body composed o£ those elements, for
if He had a body so composed, then He could not be the Creator.
Then they asked: Can the soul of a good man see God when it
leaves the body? Told that the truly good man saw God at once
after his corporeal death, they asked why God should not be visible
to a good man during life and argued that if souls were without
bodies, then they must be gods, free from both birth and death.
These questions reveal a great difference between the Japanese
and the Christian conception of godhead, which has been at the
root of much misunderstanding* The translation of the word
1 'God" has caused many difficulties in Japan, where it has been
most inadequately represented by the word kami,, which means lit-
tle more than "a superior being." In China too there was acute
controversy as to the proper Chinese equivalent of Deus, an argu-
ment in which the Emperor K'ang Hsi took part when Pope Clem-
ent XI ventured to give a ruling on the point. Such are the seman-
tic obstacles to a fusion of cultures.2

The Jesuits' letters from Japan frequently state that the Devil
was busy in that country, aiding and abetting the enemies of Chris-
tianity. He inspired the monks in their attacks upon the mission-
aries and gave evil counsel to rulers who oppressed converts. The
Japanese found it hard to understand why an all-powerful deity
should have created an evil spirit who turned men's hearts to evil-
doing. They were familiar with the demons of their own mythol-
ogy, but these were subsidiary spirits, grotesque and mischievous,
yet yielding to spells and other suitable precautions. What puzzled
them was that a merciful God who had created man for eternal life
should have given to Satan such powers to prevent its enjoyment.
Indeed, they could not understand why, if God intended us for
bliss, He made the way so hard. They did not like to think of
damned souls from hell coming to earth as evil spirits, as — so
they were told — Satan does. Their own dead parents' spirits would
come back once a year at the time of the Bon festival, but for re-
freshment and conversation, not to bewilder and tempt the living.

These and many other doubts the fathers did their best to re-

2- There was a further difficulty in Japan. The Jesuits used the word Deus for
want of a Japanese equivalent. But as spoken by the Japanese this became Deusu,
very close in sound to Daiuso, which means a "great lie." This similarity was seized
upon for purposes of vilification.

In Christian literature in the Japanese language, especially when written in
Latin characters, the difficulty was met by the use of Latin or Portuguese words,
such as anivna, martyrio, fides, perseguigao, consciencia, gra^a, anjo or angelus, beato,
etc. It will be seen that most of these express ideas unfamiliar to the Japanese.

m

Christianity in Japan, 1549-1614

solve. Their house was crowded from morning to night with ques-
tioners, and if their arguments did not convince those whose daily
life was governed by beliefs of different origin, at least they im-
pressed their hearers by their kindness, their patience, and a certain
proud humility.

The first phase of missionary endeavour in Japan may be said
to have ended with the departure of St. Francis Xavier for India
(155 1) . It was largely exploratory, for although converts were made
and useful relationships established with Japanese of some stand-
ing, the fathers still had much to learn by experience as well as
study. They did not yet fully understand either the political con-
dition of Japan or the nature of Buddhism or the strength of cer-
tain indigenous beliefs and customs; so that they at times fell into
the error of needlessly offending Japanese sentiment.

Perhaps their most serious lapse in judgment was their failure
to make allowance for that strong feeling for the family which has
always characterized Japanese life and which finds its full expres-
sion in what is, somewhat misleadingly, called the practice of an-
cestor-worship. It is not worship in the strictest sense, but rather
the performance of simple household rites intended to console and
comfort the spirits of departed relatives and so to preserve the con-
tinuity of family tradition. One of the chief objections raised by
the Japanese to the doctrine preached by the Jesuits was, as Xavier
himself wrote, that it had not been revealed to Japan in the past
and that therefore their ancestors were unjustly condemned to hell.
In reply to this complaint the missionaries argued that all men
know in their hearts that killing and robbing and bearing false
witness and other breaches of the commandments are wrong, and
that therefore the heathen know the commandments without be-
ing taught. St. Francis stated that this solution of their difficulties
aided many to become Christians, but it does not seem to dispose
of the question in a convincing fashion.

It is evident that we have here one of the situations that must
arise when a foreign idea comes into conflict with a deeply rooted
custom. Theologians or philosophers may concede points in debate
without much harm to themselves as individuals, but as members
of an organized society they can hardly admit that one of its most
important rules of behaviour is completely mistaken. For those
who are neither philosophers nor theologians the shock of losing
a cherished belief is likely to upset the balance of their lives and
to disturb the social order of which they are a part. The early mis-
sionaries in Asia, thinking only in terms of religion and not real-
izing that religion in most countries is an expression of national
temperament, found themselves confronted in Japan, as well as in
India and .China, by the difficult problem of reconciling their own

Christianity in Japan, 1549-1614

principles with other people's practices. It is a problem that is
most acute in the field of missionary endeavour, but it is of course
also likely to arise where a new system of behaviour, whether po-
litical, economic, or social, is urged by one group of men upon an-
other.

Some of the disagreements between Europeans and the Japa-
nese can be ascribed to pure ignorance. The Jesuits, impressed by
what they saw of corruption and laziness in the monastic life in
Japan, were inclined to blame the Buddhist religion for the faults
of its less worthy practitioners. Themselves ascetics of strong con-
viction and abundant vitality, they abhorred the easy-going scep-
ticism and the self-indulgent habits of the Buddhist monks; and
from this it was but a short step to condemning Buddhist doctrine
as if it encouraged such misdemeanours. Some very strong lan-
guage was used by the Jesuits about the religion of the Noble
Eightfold Path. Xavier described the Buddhas Shaka (Sakya Muni)
and Aniida (Amitabha) as * 'those two demons/' Valignano, the
Visitor-General who was in Japan thirty years later and made some
inquiries into the history of Buddhism, described Shaka as "a saga-
cious philosopher who, pretending to lead a holy and penitent life,
commenced to preach the divine cult of Amida." Bartoli, writing
about 1650 on the basis of Jesuit materials, said that in Buddhism
the Devil had created a mockery of Christianity in Japan, trans-
forming its sacraments into superstitious rites and its ceremonies
into a sacrilegious cult. Such statements are neither good history
nor good sense. They may perhaps be excused on the grounds that
the origin and development of Buddhism are obscure and that
Buddhism in Japan was in many respects degenerate when the
Jesuits first reached that country. But they display an intolerance
that must have deeply offended devout believers as well as antago-
nizing the leaders of a powerful institution.

In November 1551 Xavier embarked for Goa at the port of
Funai in Bungo in a Portuguese ship. The presence of this vessel
and the respect paid to the father by the Portuguese captain and
his crew impressed the ruler of the province, who received him
courteously and asked him to take with him an envoy bearing let-
ters to the Viceroy of the Indies in which he expressed a wish to
make a treaty of friendship. He was anxious to attract Portuguese
ships to his territory and not too well disposed towards the Bud-
dhist monks, who were unruly and addicted to political intrigue.
He thus was helpful to the missionaries, who said of him that there
was no heathen king in all Japan who favoured them so much.
Xavier, therefore, on reaching Goa with the Japanese envoy was
able to show good evidence of the success of his efforts. He had
written from Malacca to Ignatius Loyola, pressing him to send

123

Christianity in Japan, 1549-1614

more fathers to Japan, where there were too few reapers for the
rich harvest that might be gathered. He spoke highly of the char-
acter of the Japanese, saying: "these people are my delight"; and
he asserted that if only they knew how ready the Japanese were to
receive the gospel, many learned doctors would leave their books,
many priests their benefices, to exchange a sad and tiresome life
for one full of true and sweet joys.

It is hard to judge how many genuine conversions were made
in this early period. The style of the Jesuits' letters is at times so
cloying, so sweet with joy, and so moist with tears that one is at a
loss to know what allowance to make for the fervent belief of these
lonely men. But, apart from numbers, the results achieved in the
first two years were considerable. Most of their converts were made
among poor and simple peasants. Their charitable works, said one
of them, could attract only the humble and the wretched, and for
a long time their religion would be considered as that of the ul-
cerous and miserable. The people of western Japan were in gen-
eral backward and unenlightened as compared with those in the
metropolitan region, and their existence was very hard. They
lived in troubled times, in frequent danger of death or disaster, so
that they were thirsty for such consolations as were offered to them
by the new faith. Its observances gave them a scope for activity and
an outlet for their emotions that was not furnished by the Bud-
dhism of the day. Indeed, there are indications that many of them
obtained an almost hysterical enjoyment from their acts of worship
and penitence, as when at a Good Friday celebration in 1557 t'ie
converts engaged in such merciless flagellation that though the
priest ordered them to stop they would not cease until he had rung
his bell several times.

A further and important reason why the Jesuits had their great-
est successes in western Japan is the fact, already mentioned, that
the feudal rulers in those parts knew the importance of maritime
trade and were ready to allow and sometimes even to encourage
the spread of Christianity because they hoped it would bring ships
to their harbours. Two examples are sufficient to illustrate this
point. The feudal lord of Hirado had closed the church and driven
away the fathers, but he changed his mind and readmitted them
when the captain of a Portuguese vessel refused to enter port on
hearing of this action. The lord of Bungo (Otomo Sorin) wrote
to the Jesuits in China in 1567 a letter in which he said: "My de-
sire to win a victory over the lord of Yamaguchi is due to my wish
to help the Bateren [the Jesuit fathers] to return there and to give
them more protection than before." He then went on to say that,
to ensure this victory, he needed a quantity of saltpetre, for which
he would pay handsomely.

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Christianity in Japan, 1549-1614

In the second phase o£ their activity in Japan the Jesuits, while
not neglecting the fertile ground they had begun to cultivate in
western Japan, turned their attention to the central provinces, in
which lay the ancient capital, the seat of such central government
as then existed. This region was the most advanced in civilization
and it contained the most important religious establishments, such
as the great monasteries of Hiyeizan, the headquarters of the
Tendai sect, which looked down upon Miyako from a near-by
mountain top. It was here, the missionaries realized, that their
greatest effort must be made, for they knew that if they were to
spread their faith widely they must have the temporal power on
their side. "I was at pains to see the King/' said one of them in
1556, "because in Japan everything depends upon the rulers."
The Jesuits were handicapped by lack of men and funds. They de-
pended largely upon the help of native catechists and interpreters
and the irregular charity of a few Portuguese and Japanese sympa-
thizers. In 1561 Father Cosme de Torres wrote to the Provincial
saying: "We are only six and we preach in eight provinces. For the
love of our Lord send us six or at least four of our Company, for
not only in these parts but elsewhere the door is open for the gos-
pel. Wherever we go we shall make converts. But provide us with
fathers and brothers/' By 1570 their number had been increased by
twelve,3 and they were able to extend the range of their work.

The first visit to Miyako after the failure of Xavier was made
by Father Vilela in 1559. With the help of a Japanese who had
been converted in Bungo and now lived near the capital and
through the intervention of a friendly abbot he managed to gain
an audience with the Shogun, who treated him courteously and
after some delay authorized him to establish himself in Miyako.
He was able to interest a number of men of rank and education in
his doctrine and by 1564 could announce that, in spite of the pre-
vailing disorder and the antagonism of the monks of Hiyeizan, five
hundred converts had been made and a number of churches built
in the capital and its vicinity. Early in 1565 he was joined by two
helpers, Frois (the writer of the Historia do Japao) and Almeida,
a rich Portuguese merchant who had joined the order in Japan.

By a combination of hard work and good fortune the position
of the Jesuits gradually improved. They gained the friendship and
support of several influential persons, not all of whom were con-
verts. Among them were Miyoshi Chokei, who was the Shogun's
chief minister; Wada Koremasa, one of Nobunaga's best captains;
and Naito Yukiyasu, lord of the fief of Kameyama in the province
of Tamba, who was close to the Shogun Yoshiaki. Other Japanese

3 Others had been sent, but were lost at sea. The voyage was still extremely
hazardous. Every year ten or more lost their lives on the voyage out from Portugal.

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Christianity in Japan, 1549-1614

noblemen and gentlemen, together with some ecclesiastics, showed
a sympathetic interest in the Christian religion and were at times
useful to the missionaries.

But their greatest support came from Nobunaga himself, who
by 1568 had overcome his principal rivals and was the most power-
ful man in Japan. In the civil wars that had ended in his victory
several of the most powerful Buddhist sects had taken side with
his enemies, using their political influence against him, and even
in some cases taking the field, for such monasteries as those of
Hiyeizan were in strong defensive positions and sheltered large
numbers of armed monks and mercenaries. Consequently No-
bunaga hated all Buddhists, with the exception of some members
of the Zen sect; and as soon as he had established his position in
central Japan he took steps to break their power before proceeding
upon a campaign to subdue the western barons. He destroyed all
the monasteries and other buildings on Hiyeizan, slaughtering
most of their inmates. He was particularly anxious to uproot the
Ikko or Single-Minded sect, which consisted of powerful fraterni-
ties organized on military lines, and he destroyed them wherever
he could, though he never entirely mastered them, for they held
out against him for years in the fortified monastery at Osaka known
as the Ishiyama Hongwanji, the temple of the "Original Vow" that
Amida made to save mankind.

Nobunaga's hostility towards Buddhism gave valuable support
and encouragement to the Christian community in Japan, which
had suffered so much from the enmity of the monks. It was no
doubt not the only reason for the friendly attitude he displayed.
He was certainly impressed by the character of the missionaries; he
liked to talk to them about foreign countries and probably thought
that they might in some way be useful to him. Whatever his mo-
tive, he protected the Jesuits and their flocks against powerful an-
tagonists. He treated the fathers who were established in the capi-
tal with great kindness and good humour, insisted upon showing
them round the new palaces and fortresses he was building, and
even on occasion served them himself at meals.4 He also took an
interest in their seminary for young gentlemen, for which he had
given a piece of land. News of his friendly attitude soon spread in
the city and beyond, so that the path of the missionaries was made
easier. It became almost fashionable in some quarters to be bap-
tized and to carry a rosary, and many who had hesitated to take the
last steps to conversion now came forward when they saw that

* On one occasion Nobunaga carried in a tray of food from an adjoining room
and handed it to a father, who took it in both hands and, as Japanese etiquette
required, raised it to the level of his forehead. Whereupon Nobunaga said: "Don't
spill the soup."

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Christianity in Japan, 1549-1614

Christianity had such high protection. The new faith began to
make rapid progress both in the home provinces and in the western
baronies where it had first been introduced.

The number o£ Christians in Japan was estimated at 30,000 by
Father Vilela in a letter written at the beginning of 1571. Most of
these were in western Japan, the greatest number for any one
province being 5,000 in Bungo, where the ruler himself was well
disposed to the Christians. In the capital there were not more than
1,500 in 1577. Only a few years later Father Organtino, writing to
the General of the Jesuits, reports that in six months he and his
colleagues had baptized over 7,000 new converts. He was so hope-
ful that he said that in ten years the whole of Japan would be
Christian if there were sufficient missionaries. Frois, writing in the
same year, says that while in the first seventeen or eighteen years
(that is, from 1550 to 1568, when Nobunaga became supreme in
the home provinces) they made only 1,500 Christians, now they
baptized many more than that number in a few months. In 1579
Father Cespedes, writing from Miyako, says that the number of
converts in the previous two years in his district alone was about
10,000 and the total was over 15,000.

At that date the number of Christians in all Japan was put at
130,000. This was the position after thirty years of missionary en-
deavour, and seeing that the number of fathers and brothers was
in the first decade or so never more than a dozen, it must be said
that the results were remarkable. Even by 1579 there were only
fifty-four members of the company of Jesus in Japan, of whom not
more than twenty were fathers, the rest being brothers and scholars
in the seminaries and Japanese catechists and novices. The situa-
tion in 1582, just before the death of Nobunaga, was examined by
the Visitor-General Valignano. His conclusion then was that the
number of Christians was 150,000, who were served by two hun-
dred churches large and small and two seminaries. In the "king-
doms" of Bungo, Arima, and Tosa the rulers themselves as well as
most of their subjects were Christians. Of the total of 150,000 the
greater part were in western Japan, but the community of 10,000
Christians in the capital and the near-by provinces was of a sig-
nificance out of proportion to its numbers since it included, as we
have seen, many influential persons of high rank, both military and
civil.

When Nobunaga was succeeded as the military ruler of Japan
by his leading general, Hideyoshi, the prospects of the mission
seemed very bright. Among Hideyoshi's trusted counsellors were
several Christians of high rank, notably Konishi Ryusa; his son,
baptized Augustin, who had been brought up by the Jesuits; and
Takayama Nagafusa (Ukondono) , a chivalrous captain who was of

127

Christianity in Japan, 1549-1614

great help to the Church in times of danger. In 1583 through their
good offices Father Organtino, the leader of the mission in Miyako,
was received with a Japanese brother in most friendly fashion by
Hideyoshi. He conversed with them at length and granted them a
plot of land for a church in Osaka, where he planned to make a
new capital. In 1586 he entertained in his now completed palace
Father Coelho (the new Vice-Provincial of western Japan) and a
large number of missionaries, catechists, and seminarists. Accord-
ing to Frois, who acted as interpreter, he praised the work of the
Jesuits and discoursed at length upon his own projects, which in-
cluded the conquest of Korea and China, where (he said) he
meant to establish the Christian faith. The missionaries should
help him by supplying good ships. The new ruler was as hostile to
the Buddhists as had been Nobunaga, and destroyed several great
monasteries with much bloodshed. It seemed to the Christians that
their idolatrous enemy was doomed. Hideyoshi entrusted Christian
generals with important tasks in his campaigns, and some of their
troops carried banners emblazoned with a cross. When in the sum-
mer of 1587 he was on his expedition to subdue the daimyos of
Kyushu he invited Father Coelho, the Vice-Provincial, to visit him
at his headquarters, and at the end of the campaign he set aside
a plot of land for a church in Hakata. He later went aboard a small
but well-armed Portuguese vessel to see the father, where he
showed himself extremely affable and interested.

Out of this clear sky there came on July 25 a thunderbolt. Hi-
deyoshi issued an edict in which he condemned the missionaries
and their teaching and ordered them to leave Japan within twenty
days, but decreed that trade with the Indies could continue. The
missionaries were at a loss to understand this startling change of
mind. Their opinions differed, and in fact the reason for Hide-
yoshi's sudden decision has never been fully explained. Some sug-
gested that he was angered when he learned that the Christian set-
tlement in Nagasaki was protected by pieces of artillery that the
Portuguese had brought ashore. Others that he had been impressed
by the well-armed Portuguese vessel which had brought Father
Coelho to Hakata and that he had marked with displeasure the
close relationship between the churchmen and the military. No
doubt such ideas passed through his mind, but it is probable that
he was less moved by particular reasons than by a more general
feeling of alarm at the growth of Christian influence among im-
portant rulers and generals. Like any new ruler not entirely sure
of his position, he feared a movement that by attacking national
traditions might produce a division of opinion and weaken the
loyalties upon which he depended. There is no reason to doubt
the reasons Hideyoshi himself gave for his policy. He said quite

128

Christianity in Japan, 1549-1614

clearly that he had no objection to the Christian religion. He
thought that the missionaries were good people and their doctrine
was good; but they were foreigners and were preaching against the
gods of Japan.

He had no religious feeling himself, but he well knew that the
indigenous cult of Japan, the worship of the Kami, the spirits of
departed rulers and heroes, was the very foundation of the social
order. It supported the whole pyramid of loyalties at whose summit
he stood. From his standpoint as a despotic ruler he was undoubt-
edly right to regard Christian propaganda as subversive, for no
system can survive unchanged once the assumptions upon which
it is based are undermined. However high their purpose, what the
Jesuits were doing, in Japan as well as in India and China, was to
challenge a national tradition and through it the existing political
structure. This last is an animal that always defends itself when
attacked, and consequently Hideyoshi's reaction, however deplora-
ble, was to be expected and does not seem to need any fuller ex-
planation.

What is surprising is the mildness with which his edict was en-
forced. When the Jesuits protested that there were no ships to
take them away he gave them six months' grace and subsequently
he took no action when he found that they remained in Japan and
unobtrusively carried on their mission. They made no public ap-
pearances, but celebrated Mass in private houses, and in the dis-
trict surrounding Miyako they travelled at night in closed palan-
quins. They hoped that by behaving with great discretion they
might persuade Hideyoshi to withdraw or relax his proscription.
Some of their converts apostatized, but for the most part the mis-
sionaries, far from needing to fortify the spirit of the native Chris-
tians, felt obliged to discourage many who were ready (in the
words of Organtino) "to hasten to martyrdom as if to a festival."
All the Jesuit observers are agreed in describing the Japanese as
a people whose traditional manners and customs so predisposed
them to a disregard for life that it was necessary for the mission-
aries to preach to them vigorously against suicide. The Jesuit let-
ters refer frequently to their devotion to the cross, their love of
Christ crucified, and their cruel flagellations, which made the
blood flow. "It was difficult to moderate their spirit of love and
penitence." A striking phenomenon of this period is the growth
of Japanese Christian literature on martyrdom. It includes exalta-
tion of martyrs, discussions of the purpose of martyrdom, and let-
ters written during the persecutions exhorting the faithful to be
steadfast. A Japanese authority considers these writings to be ad-
mirable in style and comparable to the best Buddhist literature of
the preceding period.

129

Christianity in Japan, 1549-1614

This curious sidelight upon the Japanese character may be left
to psychologists to explain, but it has a historical interest in that
it seems very clearly to mark off the Japanese as different from
other Asiatic pepoles in their attitude towards the crucifixion. To
most people in other parts of eastern Asia, if one may judge from
the records of Christian endeavour, the doctrine of atonement was
repugnant. They were shocked by the idea of a divine person un-
dergoing torture and death and disliked a symbolism that had to
do with blood. This was particularly true of Buddhist countries,
and it is somewhat surprising to find a masochistic strain in Japan,
where the religious ascetic usually mortified the flesh only by liv-
ing frugally in a mountain hut or by practising such minor austeri-
ties as bathing in very cold water. But it is an undoubted fact that
the Japanese people throughout their history have been remark-
ably ready in peace as in war to suffer as well as to inflict death;
and this may account both for the ferocity with which Japanese
Christians were persecuted and for the fortitude with which they
went to martyrdom.

But severe persecution did not follow the first edict of Hide-
yoshi until after a lapse of ten years. Organtino with several priests
and brothers was allowed to reside in Miyako on condition that
he performed no baptisms and opened no churches. In secret a
number of catechumens came to him and he baptized several no-
tables. In the southwestern provinces similar conditons obtained,
particularly in Nagasaki, where the Governor permitted private
gatherings and where the Jesuit printing press was busy putting
out devotional works. The missionaries held their regular assembly
in 1592 and, reporting that the persecution would soon come to
an end, asked the General of their order to send more workers to
Japan, According to their records the number of conversions in the
south during the five years from 1587 to 1592 reached 52,000, and
they predicted that the number of Christians could soon be car-
ried to several hundred thousand. Faith, said Organtino, might be
tried by persecution, but like the seed that falls upon good soil it
would bear fruit in the midst of suffering. In an interesting passage
in one of his letters he says: "Our consolation is to think that in
Japan we are sharing the trials and tribulations of our holy martyrs
in England.*' By this curious comparison he unconsciously testified
to the fact that behind the persecutions in both countries was a
strong political motive. The Jesuits in Elizabethan England and
in Japan were feared as agents of a temporal power that threatened
national security by fomenting dissension within the realm.

An unfortunate but probably inevitable combination of cir-
cumstances served -to increase the suspicions of Hideyoshi and to
induce him to enforce his edict more vigorously. It is quite likely

130

Christianity in Japan, 1549-1614

that the Jesuits, who were experienced and circumspect, were
right in believing that had the field been left to them they would,
despite the edict, have been able to continue their work and in the
long run convert a very large proportion of the Japanese people.
But an unseemly rivalry on the part of other orders, notably the
Franciscans, destroyed these prospects. In disregard of the under-
standing that evangelization in Japan should be reserved to the
Jesuits — an understanding confirmed by the papal brief Ex pas-
toralis officio of January 28, 1585 — Spanish Franciscans from the
Philippines began from 1593 to make their way to Japan. Display-
ing great apostolic fervour but little political sense, they openly
flouted the edict, building churches, preaching, baptizing in the
capital itself, under the nose of Hideyoshi. Even so, that despot held
his hand, partly no doubt because he was preoccupied with more
urgent matters, but also because he was interested in commerce
with the Philippines and even professed to regard those islands as
belonging to him. He was in negotiation for a commercial arrange-
ment with the Spanish Governor at Manila, who used Franciscans
as his emissaries. Hideyoshi received them courteously enough, but
evidently he was keeping a careful watch.

Late in the year 1596 a Spanish galleon was driven ashore in
eastern Japan and salvaged by the Japanese ruler of the district,
who claimed its cargo. The Spanish pilot angrily boasted of the
power of his own sovereign and hinted, it seems, that traders and
priests were the advance guard of expeditions to conquer distant
countries.5 When this news reached Hideyoshi he was quick to act.
He arrested certain Japanese catechists of the Franciscans, had lists
of converts in the capital prepared, and sentenced to death twenty-
six Christians, including six Spanish Franciscans and the catechists
just mentioned. These were all crucified at Nagasaki in February
1597. To the protests of the Governor of the Philippines he replied
that the Spaniards had no more right to introduce their religion
into Japan than had the Japanese to preach the worship of their
own gods in the Philippines. Moreover, these Franciscans had been
sent to prepare the conquest of Japan, just as they had prepared
that of the Philippine Islands, where the Spaniards had dispos-
sessed the native rulers.

Thenceforward the Japanese Christians in most parts of Japan
were liable to persecution at the hands of their rulers. Some were
killed, many were exiled. Churches and seminaries were burned,
missionaries for a time had either to go into hiding or to go about
their business with the greatest circumspection. Hideyoshi him-
self after the edict of 1597 did not legislate further against Chris-

s The truth of this story has been questioned, but there is no doubt that some
such language was used, either by Spanish officers or by Franciscans from Manila.

131

Christianity in Japan, 1549-1614

tians. He was busy with preparations for a second expedition to
Korea, the first (in 1592-3) having failed. He was already suffer-
ing from an illness that proved mortal in September 1598, and
was succeeded in power by his colleague Tokugawa leyasu after a
struggle against recalcitrant barons, which was brought to an end
by his decisive victory in the battle of Sekigahara in 1600.

It was not until 1615, however, that he completely subdued all
opposition, so that for some years after 1598, though there were
severe local persecutions, in general the work of evangelization was
not seriously disturbed by leyasu himself.6 He had more urgent
matters to deal with and he was a cautious ruler who knew how to
bide his time. He was much interested in foreign trade and there-
fore disposed to keep on good terms with both Spanish and Portu-
guese at least until he could develop his own merchant marine.
He even approached the Spanish government of the Philippines,
through a Franciscan intermediary, offering to open harbours in
eastern Japan to Spanish ships, proposing reciprocal freedom of
commerce, and asking for naval architects. He also gave it to be
understood that he would not enforce the anti-Christian edicts.
The missionaries made good use of the respite afforded to them.
Valignano, writing in 1603, said that by 1600 all the residences
and most of the churches had been rebuilt and great numbers of
new converts had been made. He put the total number of Chris-
tians at 300,000, the population of all Japan being at that time
probably about 25,000,000.

It is not easy to understand why Christian doctrine should have
appealed to Japanese minds so much more strongly than to those
of other advanced Asiatic peoples, but there is perhaps a clue in
the resemblance between the ecstatic states of mind reached by
Japanese Christians and those enjoyed by devotees of the Pure
Land and Lotus sects, which are both distinctly Japanese versions
of Buddhism. On the Pure Land sect there are some enlightening

e The recorded martyrdoms, after the crucifixions at Nagasaki in February 1597,
are as follows:

1600 i

i6o§ 6

1605 102 (A vassal of the Daimyo of Yamaguchi with all his

family and retainers. All decapitated by order of the

Daimyo.)

1607 2 J *

1608 i

1609 7

1610 8

1612 5

No foreigners were executed, in this period. The figures do not, of course, in-
clude Japanese Christians who were stripped of their property and banished. Of
these there were several thousand.

From the year 1613 the number of executions increased as the persecution
gained in ferocity owing to a change in the attitude of leyasu.

132

Christianity in Japan, 1549-1614

passages in the writings (o fumi) of Rennyo Shonin. Speaking of
the effect of their faith upon the minds of believers, he says, in a
well-known stanza: "Formerly happiness was wrapped in the sleeve,
but tonight it is even too great for the whole body/' by which he
means that after repeating the invocation to Amida the congre-
gation is filled with an overflowing bliss, whereas before their lives
had never known more than a pocketful of rejoicing. The hymns
composed by Rennyo and his general teaching dwell upon present
happiness as contrasted with the pleasure of paradise to come. One
such hymn says:

Since we have heard the Saviour's vow
We are no common sinful men.
For though our bodies still are stained
Our hearts are filled with heavenly joy.7

The conviction of future birth in paradise leads to bliss in the pres-
ent life, and thus faith and joy are so closely related as to be one.

It seems that the Pure Land teaching satisfies, some emotional
need of the times, which were full of hardship and danger, espe-
cially for those in the lower ranks of society, whose lives were
wretched. It is perhaps significant that in those parts of Japan
where the Jodo sect was most firmly established, there were few
converts to Christianity, presumably because believers in Pure
Land Buddhism found it a satisfying faith. Similar arguments
would apply to the Lotus sect, whose members were given to apoc-
alyptic visions, trances, and states of high excitement induced by
beating drums and chanting litanies. There can be no doubt of
the attraction of "revivalist" gatherings for simple people, denied
all but the most elementary pleasures. It may be added that the
Christian gospel furnishes some analogy for the Jodo doctrine of
salvation by calling upon the holy name. Thus in Romans x, 9: "If
thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe
in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt
be saved"; and in Romans x, 13: "Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved/'

There is also in Romans iii an interesting analogy to the dis-
tinction made in Pure Land Buddhism between salvation by works
(Jiriki) and salvation by faith (Tariki) .

7 This is a very free translation, but the sense is preserved. Students of Japanese
may be interested in the text of the verse first quoted, which is in very simple
language:

Tanoshisa wa

Mukashi wa sode ni

Tsutsumikeri

Koyoi wa mi ni mo

Amarinury ka na

138

C H *A <P T
7

THE ASIATIC TRADE

i . The European Background

o

^_>/NE of the remarkable aspects of the Portuguese claim to a
monopoly of maritime trade in Asia is the deference paid to Portu-
guese pretensions by European nations. Neither the Dutch nor the
English were at the beginning of the sixteenth century strong
enough to challenge the authority of the Pope in giving to the
crowns of Spain and Portugal the exclusive rights of navigation to
newly discovered lands. The French, though they sent a ship to
Sumatra as early as 1529 and made voyages of exploration along
the Atlantic coasts of North America, did not for some time make
any persistent effort to rival the Portuguese in the Eastern trade.
The Netherlands, France, and England, recognizing for political
reasons the position assumed by the Spanish and the Portuguese,
respected the papal bulls and the doctrine of mare clausum, and
accordingly their seamen felt obliged to seek an alternative way to
China, Japan, and the Spice Islands. Their efforts were thus for a
great part of the sixteenth century confined to valiant but abortive
striving to open a northeast or a northwest passage, because their
sovereigns would not take the risk of embroilment with Spain or
Portugal.

The evolution of maritime trade was in fact governed to an
important degree by the political development of Europe, for the
Portuguese and Spanish were by no means alone in feeling a strong
urge for expansion. All the vigorous European peoples were seek-
ing for means to expand their wealth and power as the pattern of
national states began to form at the expense of the waning political
authority of the Catholic Church. It was by this struggle to increase
national resources that the foundation of modern imperialism was
laid. It cannot be regarded merely as an expression of European
pugnacity and greed, for though it was not wanting in those in-
cidental aspects, it was an inevitable outcome of the development
of European political and economic life in the centuries leading up

134

The European Background

to the Renaissance. As feudalism meant economic regression, so
the break-up of feudalism was bound to call for economic expan-
sion. The smaller national states of Europe were obliged, in de-
fence of their freedom and independence — in defence even of
their very existence — to strive for additions to their strength,
either in goods or in territory, if they were to resist their more
powerful rivals. This is clear enough if only from, the examples of
England and the Netherlands, since it was these small countries
that, by throwing off the authority of the Catholic Church and by
resisting the domination of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire,
were able to take the lead in the development of free institutions.
These ends they could never have achieved without the strength
they drew from the expansion of their maritime trade; and there-
fore in considering the rights and wrongs of colonial rule we
should not fail to take into account its full historical context. We
may deplore an effect, but in assessing blame or praise we should
recognize its cause.

These general observations may be fittingly expanded by ex-
amining the position of the countries that, though lagging behind
at the time of the Portuguese and Spanish discoveries, ultimately
created the greatest colonial empires in Asia. In the sixteenth cen-
tury both England and the Netherlands were poor and weak. The
Low Countries indeed were in the first half of the century part of
the empire of Charles V, who handed them over to Philip of Spain
in 1555, so that, while the separate provinces kept their ancient
rights, a national state did not exist. But the doctrines of the Refor-
mation had spread over all the provinces before the accession of
Philip, and after Alva's reign of terror hostility to Spain grew pow-
erful enough to allow the counties of Holland and Zeeland to
maintain some degree of independence and to wage war on Span-
ish sea-borne commerce. It was not until 1581, however, that the
northern provinces disowned Spanish sovereignty and formed an
independent union (finally recognized by Spain in 1609) > which
was able in time to attain great prosperity, whereas the southern
provinces remained in decline because of their association with
the decadence of Spain. The northern provinces were able to free
themselves largely because of the strategic advantage given to them
by their coastal position, and it may be said that the later maritime
achievements of the Dutch were nourished by their struggle for
freedom against Spain. In that struggle they received aid from
England, whose developing hostility towards Philip gave them
some respite while he was preparing the great Armada.

If England was, unlike the Netherlands, free and independent
in the sixteenth century, she was none the less weak and poor. Her
margin of safety was very small, and her overseas expansion was not

136

The Asiatic Trade

undertaken in a spirit of romantic adventure. The picturesque and
stirring episodes in which the great Elizabethan seamen figure,
their astonishing successes in buccaneering, and their brilliant
naval exploits tend to conceal the truth that their country was en-
gaged in a desperate struggle for life, which required sober plan-
ning and bold execution.

In the early part o£ the sixteenth century, while Spain and Por-
tugal were strong and were beginning to add to their wealth by
overseas trade or, to be more exact, by confiscation of the wealth of
America and the Indies, England was only beginning to recover
from the Wars of the Roses, which had ended in 1497, the year of
Vasco da Gama's voyage to Calicut. Henry VII, by a cautious for-
eign policy devoted largely to securing advantageous commercial
treaties, began to improve his country's trading position, and he
also encouraged maritime exploration. British seamen in search of
fishing grounds — for the cod and the herring played a great part
in the economy of western Europe — had already sailed well out
into the Atlantic before Columbus, and after Cabot's voyage under
royal charter which ended in the discovery of Nova Scotia in 1497,
Henry encouraged exploration of the North American coastline.

But England was still needy, and time was wanted for the de-
velopment of her navy and her merchant fleet and the organization
of her foreign trade, both of which depended upon capital that was
slow to accumulate. Caution was still required before national
policy could be openly directed to rivalry with Spain and Portugal
and it was not until Elizabeth's reign was well advanced that the
English felt strong enough to challenge those maritime powers
openly. Meanwhile ventures in navigation and trade were left for
the most part to private enterprise. There were plenty of bold
spirits in England and elsewhere attracted by the prospects open-
ing out in the rapidly expanding world, for while fortune gave the
early successes to Portugal and Spain, the whole of western Europe
was alive with a passion for discovery. This was not a mere move-
ment to gain trade, though the desire for commercial profit was
of course a strong incentive.

Though the age of discovery was opened by the great voyages
of Columbus and Vasco da Gama, it depended upon much more
than national enterprise, for its exploits were made possible by the
totality of European intellectual achievement — by advances in
geography, astronomy, and navigation and other sciences, to which
Genoese and Venetians, French and Germans, Flemish and Eng-
lish had all made some contribution. But if the movement of ex-
pansion was cosmopolitan in its origins, it was decidedly national
in its development; and while it may be regretted it cannot be
denied that European rivalries gave a special character to the inter-

136

The European Background

course of European and Asiatic peoples from the end of the six-
teenth century onwards.

The march of European influence towards the East can be fully
understood only if it is seen as an extension of conflicts between
European states at home. Once Portuguese supremacy was chal-
lenged, it was not possible for the Dutch and the English to expand
their trade in Asia by peaceful rivalry, for the Portuguese were
bound to defend their monopoly by arms, and the other maritime
nations of Europe, being intermittently at war with one another,
carried on a foreign commerce that was an inseparable part of their
naval struggle. This aspect of the Asiatic trade is familiar to stu-
dents of European history and need not be treated in detail here,
though it must be referred to from time to time. But the attitude
of Asiatic peoples towards the efforts of Europeans to open trade
relations on a great scale is less well understood and requires some
general explanation. This may be prefaced by a brief summary
which will refresh the reader's memory of the main events in the
competition for Far Eastern trade that took place in the seven-
teenth century.

After 1580, when Portugal was united to Spain, the Lisbon
market came under the control of Madrid, and free access was de-
nied to the Dutch and the English. The effect of Spanish policy
was to raise the price of pepper and spices and thus to stimulate
other trading nations to go direct to sources of supply. The Dutch
were first in the field. They expelled the Portuguese from Bantam
in 1596 and traded on their own account, forming the Netherlands
East India Company in 1602 and thenceforward establishing fac-
tories on the Malabar coast, at Amboina and other strategic points.
They took Malacca in 1641, controlled Ceylon by 1658, and domi-
nated the spice" trade by 1660, thus cutting deeply into the Portu-
guese monopoly. They did not succeed, however, in gaining a
footing in China, where the Portuguese, after inauspicious begin-
nings, were firmly settled in Macao. Seeking for alternatives to di-
rect trade with China, the Dutch built up an ingenious system
whereby they purchased Chinese goods in Japan, Bantam, Cali-
cut, Surat, and later Formosa, whither the produce of China was
brought in Chinese junks. Their trading position was not achieved
without clashes with their Portuguese and English rivals, but they
were generally successful because they disposed of superior naval
forces and had behind them the strong support of their home gov-
ernment.

The English East India Company, founded in 1698, was pre-
ceded by a company of "Governors and Merchants of London
trading into the East Indies/7 which was formed at the end of 1600 .
under patent from Elizabeth. Its trade was less successful than that

137

The Asiatic Trade

of the Dutch, its exports for the nineteen years from 1601 to 1620
amounting to £840,000, or about £44,000 per annum. Of this total
£292,000 represented the value of woollens, metals, and other Eng-
lish products, while the remaining £548,000 was silver bullion and
coin.

The disproportion between goods and cash was a great handi-
cap to English trade. This was an age of monopolies, begun by
the Portuguese and continued by the Dutch. Both were anxious
to keep out a third party and used all possible means to check the
growth of the English company and also the activities of inter-
lopers such as Weddell's expedition to China in 1636-7. When
Weddell reached Macao the Portuguese did all they could to
thwart him; and when he arrived off Canton the Chinese officials
were unfriendly. After some abortive negotiations, when Weddell
landed some men by force, his ships were attacked by Chinese war
vessels. He was in the end allowed to load some cargo after a face-
saving declaration, but the desire of the Chinese was evidently to
get rid of the intruders in the hope that they would not come
again. This was at a time when the Ming government was declin-
ing. The high provincial officials did not want trouble; the lower
officials wanted not trade but bribes and plunder.

Thus the English ventures in China were unsuccessful. They
tried elsewhere, in Formosa, Japan, Siam, and Tongking, but results
were very poor. Friction with the Dutch was unending and Eng-
lish settlements in the East Indian archipelago could not be profit-
ably maintained in the face of Dutch obstruction, which often took
violent forms. The English effort in the Far East therefore tended
to diminish, and greater attention was paid to the development of
trade with Red Sea ports, the Persian Gulf, and notably with India,
where the foundations were laid of a commercial empire that was
to prove vastly more profitable and to have greater political conse-
quence in both Asia and Europe than the Dutch monopoly of the
spice trade.

2. The Adverse Balance

LHE TRADE relationships between Europe and Asia were until
recent times of a somewhat one-sided character, the Europeans
showing a firm resolve to sell and the Asiatics a reluctance to buy.
The Roman Empire was, if historians are to be believed, drained
of gold because the peoples of India and China had little need of
European produce, and a similar obstacle to trade was encountered
by the Portuguese not long after their arrival in India. Although
trading communities in both India and China were anxious to
make commercial profits and were skilled and experienced practi-

188

The Adverse Balance

tioners, governments in those countries did not look upon foreign
trade as something to be encouraged and protected as a matter of
state policy, but were inclined to leave merchants to themselves as
a class of people to be taxed and tolerated but not especially fa-
voured. Consequently the Portuguese, unable to furnish to India
or China or the countries of southeast Asia enough useful com-
modities in exchange for the silks and spices that were indispen-
sable to Europe, found themselves obliged to seek means of ac-
quiring gold and silver with which to purchase them. This they
did by acting as brokers and shippers, and by the beginning of the
seventeenth century they had established themselves in both the
Indian Ocean and the Pacific as the chief carriers of goods between
Asiatic countries. Their earnings from this traffic allowed them to
purchase and convey to Europe in home-trading ships such Eastern
goods as they required.

It may be asked why the several Asiatic countries did not them-
selves engage in this carrying trade, and the answer is that they
did, but that Portuguese ships were faster and better armed than
their own craft and could therefore make longer and safer voyages
in waters infested by pirates. Consequently, by establishing them-
selves in protected trading stations at a number of key points in
the Indian Ocean and in Indonesia and by obtaining trading privi-
leges in China and Japan, they were able to build up an organiza-
tion that extended, with many ramifications, between Sofala and
Nagasaki. So firmly planted were they by 1600 that, although they
soon afterwards lost the spice trade and much of their direct trade
with Europe to the Dutch and the English, they continued to dom-
inate the interport trade of Asia, which was the real basis of their
commercial supremacy. They carried cotton piece goods from
Gujarat and Coromandel ports; silk and silk fabrics from China;
silver bullion from Japan; gold and ivory from east Africa. These
they disposed of in other parts of Asia. It is noteworthy that of
these commodities it was the gold and silver that were absorbed
by India and China respectively. This is clear evidence that those
great countries stood in no need of European products, wanting
only luxuries and treasure. The political difficulties encountered
by European nations seeking trade agreements with Eastern po-
tentates are to be explained largely by the indifference of the
rulers of the self-sufficient countries to the manufactures of Eu-
rope.

We have already noticed how the Emperor of China told King
George III that China possessed all things in abundance and
wanted no foreign goods. In this Ch'ien Lung was only professing
sentiments that had guided Chinese sovereigns in the past, for even
at the time of their greatest maritime expansion the Chinese gov-

139

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THE BIBLE IN MING CHINA

A page from a small book published in China in 160$, containing
simple versions of three Bible -stories prepared by Father Ricci,
the Jesuit scholar who laboured in China from 1582 to z6zo.

By the side of each character is a rendering of its sound in Roman
letters, in the hand of Father Ricci. This is the earliest attempt at
a systematic "romanization" of Chinese. In Japan the Jesuits had
produced devotional works in "romanized" Japanese a decade or
'more before 1605? their system being already 'well established
'when they printed their Doctrina Christiana in 1592.

(Reproduced from Westernized Art and Roman Script in the
Ming Period, by Ctfen Yuan, Peking, z$2j.)

The Auspicious Giraffes

ernment had been only mildly interested in foreign trade. In our
day, when it seems like a law of nature that all countries should
mutually buy, sell, and chaffer, this attitude appears as a kind of
prelapsarian innocence and is a little hard for modern man
(whether European or Asiatic) to comprehend. But it was part of
a view of the world not uncommon in Asia, and therefore deserves
a little study, especially as the process by which it was broken down
is by far the most important of all influences exerted by Europe
upon Asia. It was not fortified trading stations or even the seizure
of territory that forced Asiatic people to buy European exports.
These were steps on the way, but what at length overcame their
resistance was the provision of cheap manufactured goods.

Perhaps the best example of Asiatic indifference to foreign
trade is furnished by the nature of the great Ming voyages of the
early fifteenth century. They are of especial interest because they
may be looked upon as a historical prelude to the troubles en-
countered by the Portuguese after their first visit and the sub-
sequent experience of the English, which led to the "Opium War."

3. The Auspicious Giraffes

'ISTINGUISHED Sinologists have written fascinating studies of the
Ming voyages, which provide historians with much ground for
speculation. These remarkable and enigmatic expeditions have al-
ready been referred to * in connection with the arrival of the Por-
tuguese in China, but it is useful to bring out some further points
bearing upon the reversal of Chinese foreign policy by which they
were followed. They commenced in 1405 and continued until
1433. Nobody knows why they began or why they ended. They
appear to have been planned by a eunuch of the Imperial court,
one Cheng-ho, who commanded the first of a series of seven voy-
ages, which were made by scores of ships, carrying thousands of
soldiers, sailors, officials, and merchants. They visited the harbours
of the Southern Sea, the Bay of Bengal, and the Indian Ocean,
sailing on as far as the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and the east
African coast. Immense and costly undertakings, they seem to have
been designed not to increase trade but to satisfy the luxurious
tastes and the curiosity of the court, while ministering to the am-
bition of the eunuchs. The civilian authorities and the literati dis-
liked them and went so far as to hide or destroy the records that
Cheng-ho must have submitted. This action may have been in-
spired by jealousy of the eunuchs, but there is- nothing to show that
the Emperor, who must have been formally apprised of the ex-

i See Chapter iii, pp. 42, 43,

The Asiatic Trade

peditions, viewed them with any enthusiasm. His successor stopped
them on the day of his mounting the throne.

It is to be presumed that the missing records said something
about trade, but it is certainly not mentioned in Cheng-ho's me-
morials to the Emperor. These dwell upon the size of the fleets; the
transforming power of the Emperor's virtue, which caused many
kings to submit to him and send tribute; the punishment of those
who did not pay respect to China; and most of all the wonderful
presents brought back from foreign parts. He has a great deal to
say about a kindly goddess named the Celestial Spouse; about the
god of the South Seas, who was promoted to an earldom for his
services in arranging good weather; and about certain Auspicious
Giraffes which were brought from Africa for the Emperor. The
Board of Rites wished to present an address of congratulation on
these creatures, but this the Emperor declined, saying that if the
ministers exerted themselves for the welfare of the world, aus-
picious animals could be dispensed with. But it does not appear
that the expeditions had acquired much useful knowledge of the
world, and the Auspicious Giraffes may be regarded as symbolizing
the official Chinese attitude towards foreign countries.

These immense undertakings brought back to China some am-
bassadors who professed submission to the Son of Heaven and some
tribute, doubtless requited by handsome Chinese gifts. There was
little else to show for this great and costly effort, beyond a few ex-
otic birds and animals. After the last voyage China withdrew once
more into seclusion. Her people were forbidden to leave the coun-
try or to communicate with foreigners, and Chinese ships could
no longer make ocean voyages. This attitude towards the outside
world was maintained for more than three hundred years and in-
fluenced the course of Far Eastern history in important ways.

At first sight the Ming policy in regard to foreign trade looks
as if it were a policy of closing the country similar to that adopted
by Japan in 1640. But there is an important difference between the
Chinese and Japanese attitudes. China simply did not recognize
the existence of independent foreign states and therefore the ques-
tion of opening or closing the country to them did not arise as a
legal problem. There were edicts preventing ships and men from
leaving China, but these did not constitute an exclusion policy.
The instructions or legacy of the first Ming Emperor said that "not
an inch of plank" should go down to the sea, and this, strictly in-
terpreted, meant that there should be no coasting trade as well as
no ocean trade. But it was usually taken as referring to voyages
which would carry coasting vessels into areas of piracy. In principle
the Ming government prohibited Chinese from emigrating to or
trading with foreign countries. Infractions were common, however,

142

GANDHARAN SCULPTURE

This Buddhist image shows drapery of the Roman type.
(Reproduced by permission of the British Museum)

THE AUSPICIOUS GIRAFFE

(By kind permission of
Professor J. ]. L Duyvendak)

The Auspicious Giraffes

and there were frequent orders against "private commerce with
barbarians/' while large numbers of Chinese went overseas and
stayed there, forming considerable colonies in Java, Sumatra, Ma-
lacca, Luzon, and Siam.

The purpose of these bans upon foreign trade and travel is not
entirely clear. They doubtless formed part of a general policy of
seclusion that began when the Ming, having rid China of a foreign
dynasty, settled down to resume their native way of life and to
shelter it from foreign influences. This would explain the first
Ming Emperor's ruling (1404) that the "people should not go
down to the sea in ships"; and although these strict rules were
from time to time modified or disregarded, for a long period it re-
mained the official view that foreign trade and foreign relations
in general were unnecessary and dangerous.

Apart from this general theory, there were specific reasons for
discouraging commerce with foreign countries. The shores of
China were constantly raided by Japanese pirates during the four-
teenth and fifteenth centuries and also by sea robbers from Chinese
coastal areas, who were quite as numerous as the Japanese. In fact
the crews of many Japanese pirate vessels were composed largely
of Chinese. It was to check their own subjects as well as the Japa-
nese that the Ming government restricted the movements of Chi-
nese shipping and tried to keep disorderly sailors from joining
pirate bands. But despite these restrictions there was never any
prohibition against the visits of foreign vessels bearing customary
"tribute/* which was in fact foreign merchandise. Special of&ces
known as Merchant Shipping Controls were open at ports in Fu-
kien and Kwangtung to deal with them. The rule or principle was
that China did not exclude ships sent by countries that were im-
pressed by the virtue of the celestial court. It was only when the
Portuguese towards the end of the Ming dynasty behaved badly
that other countries (in southeast Asia) suffered from injunctions
aimed at the Portuguese; and when at last the Portuguese did gain
a foothold, they were able to drive a profitable trade because, ow-
ing to the disabilities imposed upon Chinese subjects, Portuguese
merchants at Macao were able to monopolize the purchase of Chi-
nese silk and other goods for export. The Ming policy was car-
ried on for a time by the Manchus, but the ban on foreign trade
was lifted from 1684 until 1717, when trade with the South Seas
was forbidden.

It will be seen that the Chinese policy was not one of deliberate
and determined exclusion like that of the Japanese. The Chinese
theory was that if foreigners came respectfully and peacefully to
China and asked for goods, they were allowed to trade, because the
Imperial grace extended over the four seas; but this was a privilege

143

The Asiatic Trade

that could be withdrawn at once if there was any bad behaviour.
The Japanese prohibition was absolute, except for the licensed
trade at Nagasaki, and foreign vessels venturing to other Japanese
ports were liable to destruction and their crews to death. Thus,
although the Japanese attitude to foreigners was less contemptuous
than that of the Chinese, the trade, policy of the Tokugawa period
(1640-1858) was in practice less liberal. But European traders
never fully understood the reasoning behind Chinese policy, al-
ways thinking in terms of the right to trade while the Chinese re-
garded it as a gracious concession. It was not until after the col-
lapse of the Manchus that China could treat foreign countries on
a basis of equality, by abandoning the idea that China ruled the
world. Accordingly the relationships between China and foreign
countries seeking trade opportunities were constantly bedevilled
by misunderstandings, which culminated in the Anglo-Chinese
war of 1 840. Even that bitter experience did not really change the
Chinese point of view. They agreed to the terms of the Treaty of
Nanking only in order to keep the foreigners quiet and did not
abandon their historical position. The Japanese, on the other
hand, saw clearly the implications of opening their country to
trade, and when they took that step they knew that it involved a
refashioning of their institutions.

A confusing feature of Chinese policy towards foreign trade
is the difference between principle and practice. It is worth some
mention here because it helps to explain several seeming anomalies
and illuminates in a rather striking manner the contrast between
Chinese and Japanese standards of the enforcement of law. The
Ming edicts that forbade Chinese men and ships to leave their
shores were often disobeyed and officials on the Fukien coast were
always ready to wink at illicit trade. Even when relations between
China and Japan were severed as a result of Japanese piracy and
the Korean campaigns of Hideyoshi (1592-8) the Chinese trading
colony in Kyushu continued its pursuit of legitimate trade and
smuggling. Early in the seventeenth century one I-quan, the leader
of that colony, had a fleet of a thousand junks and was "master of
the seas from the Yangtze to the Pearl River." In 1628 he was used
by the Ming government against pirates, being put in command of
the Imperial fleet. When the Japanese exclusion edicts came, Chi-
nese trade was permitted in Nagasaki and nearly one hundred
junks entered in 1639, though the Ming edicts had not been re-
scinded.

Many more instances could be cited of the Ming failure to en-
force its policy. It was due no doubt in the first place to the weak-
ness of the central government and the great extent of its terri-
tory, but a certain partiality for compromise seems to have had

144

Eastern Trade and Western Life

something to do with it also. The Japanese for their part were less
accommodating. The Ashikaga shoguns were not able to control
all their feudal lords and in the fifteenth century they had allowed
trade with China under somewhat humiliating conditions, going
so far as to accept the Chinese calendar, which is an act of submis-
sion. But once the Tokugawa family had established a central gov-
ernment, they carried out their exclusion policy with ruthless thor-
oughness. No Japanese official would dare to tolerate infractions
of the law.

Seen in their historical setting all these difficulties were in-
evitable sequels of the adverse balance that had characterized the
trade of Europe with Asia since the days of the Roman Empire.
Asia did not need foreign goods, and Europe did not wish to spend
gold in the purchase of Asiatic produce which was so important to
her. The Portuguese, as we have seen, used their earnings as car-
riers for the purchase of Indian and Chinese goods; the Dutch and
the English followed their example, but did not succeed in cap-
turing the interport trade from them. The history of English com-
mercial enterprise in the Far East shows a continuous but abortive
effort to find a "vent" for English woollens; and it was a failure to
establish markets for English manufacturers that led in the long
run to the sale of opium for the purpose of redressing the adverse
balance of which Roman writers had complained. They had in the
first century decried the waste of Roman treasure upon gossamer
fabrics for shameless Roman women; and early in the seventeenth
century English pamphleteers deplored the export of bullion for
the purchase of fine Indian muslins and calicoes, things 'light as
cobwebs, light commodities for light women." They described the
ladies who wore these flimsy stuffs as "Calico-Picts, who would
have shocked their naked woad-stained ancestors."

4. Eastern Trade and Western Life

.T will be clear that the trading enterprises of Europeans in Asia,
profitable as they were to merchants of both continents, were the
cause of disturbances in European as well as Asiatic life, and it is
worth while to look further at the nature of the Asiatic trade from
this point of view. One is apt to think of European intrusion as
producing disturbances in Asiatic life and to forget that from their
adventures European countries experienced effects which were not
all beneficial.

When one considers the various forms of intercourse between
nations, it appears that trade relations, which are usually thought
of as nothing but the exchange of things, are in fact those which

145

The Asiatic Trade

exercise the greatest influence, especially as between countries sep-
arated by long distances. Attempts to impose ideas by means of
religious missions or books or other means of persuasion seem to
have less effect than the objects of trade, which are silent but con-
vincing. What we have seen so far of the history of evangelism in
Asia does not encourage a belief that religious or philosophical
ideas are easily transplanted. The influence of ideas is at any rate
slow to operate and almost invariably evokes a resistance that is
not met with by — let us take for example — guns, tobacco, pota-
toes, watches, and clocks in Asia or silks, gums, and spices in Eu-
rope. These are accepted at first without qualm and often with
alacrity, and it is only after a lapse of time that their true influence
becomes apparent, for better or for worse.

One of the evils laid at the door of European trade expansion
is the harm it has done, especially to the inhabitants of colonial
territories, by disturbing or even destroying their customary eco-
nomic life. The introduction of new commodities displaces native
products and throws people out of employment; or a demand for
native products for export induces the cultivator to grow them at
the expense of articles needed for consumption at home; or the
colonist for his own purposes interferes with an old custom of
land tenure or a method of trading, thus throwing the native econ-
omy out of balance. Such charges have been levelled at British and
Dutch administration in the Indies, and they are not easy to rebut.
But it is sometimes forgotten that the development of foreign and
particularly of colonial trade often disturbed the economy of the
colonizing country, and this is a feature of the intercourse between
Europe and Asia that should not be overlooked. We talk of the in-
fluence of one country upon another, of one culture upon another,
but we are inclined to forget that these are not simple one-sided
processes. Where there is action there is reaction, and in the meas-
ure that one country influences another its own life is often sub-
jected to change. The very existence of relationships close enough
to affect one party is almost invariably the cause of change in the
other. The whole history of intercourse between Europe and Asia
bears out the truth of this proposition. It is particularly well il-
lustrated by the record of the East India trade, which may there-
fore be appropriately discussed here.

The commercial successes of the Portuguese in India brought
prosperity to Portugal in their earliest phases and enriched the cul-
tural life of her cities. But it can also be argued that the digestion
of the wealth of the Indies caused serious pains to the body politic
of their country. It strained her agrarian economy and proved too
much for her trading machinery to handle, with the result that the
Dutch and the English ultimately profited and Portugal suffered.

146

Eastern Trade and Western Lije

An even more striking example of what might be called reverse
influence is provided by the history of the English East India trade
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It produced a crisis
or at least a disturbance that had important consequences in the
economic life of the British Isles. This was at a time when England
had only recently developed as a national state in which economic
policy was deliberately pursued with a view to strengthening the
country against powerful European rivals and possible aggressors.
The formation of the Board of Trade and Plantations in 1672
shows how important it was in the minds of contemporary states-
men that trade and industry should be regulated in the interests of
the country as a whole. This high and persistent regard for manu-
facture and commerce is in marked contrast to the indifference
displayed by the rulers of most Asiatic countries.

In seventeenth-century England not only did the state begin to
take an energetic part in protecting trade, but trade was a constant
topic of public discussion. It was the East India trade that provoked
the most violent controversies. The root of the argument, from
which grew a tree with many branches, was the old fear of the
drain of gold. When the English pamphleteers professed to be
shocked by the transparency of Indian fabrics their care for the
modesty of English females was a disguise, not less transparent than
muslin, for the objections of those who on general grounds de-
plored sending gold and silver abroad or on particular grounds
were anxious to protect domestic industries.

The controversy was long-drawn-out. The East India Com-
pany was attacked in the early years of the seventeenth century on
the ground that most of its trade with India involved paying out
specie, so denuding England of its wealth, just as in the nineteenth
century Indian patriots were to resent the so-called Drain — the
transfer of gold from their country to England. In the battle of
the pamphlets and broadsides the East India Company found
writers to defend its practices and make out a good case for its con-
tribution to the general wealth of the realm. But there was a strong
feeling against the company which argument could not abate. Pri-
vate traders and the general public resented its monopoly, while
the beautiful Indian cottons, becoming first fashionable and then
popular, upset the domestic manufacture of both woollens and
silks. As early as 1695 Parliament was urged to prohibit the use
of Indian fabrics, and in the debates "cheap foreign labour'' was
assailed. The Indians were said to work for a penny a day to destroy
Christians, and the French were charged with underselling the
English by living on a low diet and wearing linen breeches and
wooden shoes. The war between cotton and wool was bitter and
protracted. In 1677 Parliament had forbidden the use of other

14?

The Asiatic Trade

than woollen apparel In the winter months and later decreed that
every corpse should be buried in a woollen shroud. By 1690 the
English factors in India were deluged with orders for cotton goods,
and the strange Hobson-Jobson names of different types 'of cloth
had become familiar among drapers. There were, besides the mus-
lins, dimities, taffetas, and other terms that have been naturalized
in English speech, such designations as allebanies, charconnays,
hunhums, malmulls, sallampores, betellees, colloway-poos, seer-
suckers, saderuncheras, salpecadoes, and a hundred similar out-
landish versions of Asiatic words. This great variety of weave,
colour, and pattern shows how fashion was influenced by the East
Indian trade and how everyday English life was changed by the
use of cheap, light, gay, and — most important — washable gar-
ments and draperies.

Nor was it only the clothing of the English people that was af-
fected, for presently the pamphleteers who fought the case of the
English weavers were reinforced by those pleading for other trades.
The Fan-makers, the Joyners, and the Japaners began to protest
against the importation of fans, cabinets, and lacquered goods from
India, China, and Japan. That the processes which these artificers
used were for the most part of Asiatic origin testifies to the further
influence of Asiatic crafts upon European ideas of decoration and
furnishing. Indeed, the English tradesmen were obliged to use in
their defence such arguments as those of the Japaners, who de-
clared that "the curious and ingenious art and mystery of Japaning
has been so much improved of late years and is withal so beneficial
to the nation" as to deserve support at home. This, it may be ob-
served in passing, was at a time when the Japanese had made aston-
ishing advances in the art and mystery of makiye,, the superb deco-
rated lacquer in which Korin excelled.

So, but for the Asiatic trade, the picture of social life under
Queen Anne would have been vastly different. At a time when
Japanese textiles and Chinese ceramic wares had reached a pin-
nacle of brilliant • fancy, there would have been in Europe no
figured silks and muslins, no screens and cabinets, no delicate por-
celain, no tea, and therefore no sprightly talk in elegant drawing-
rooms. These direct and material influences have been amply
explored by many writers, who have also dealt with the effect of Chi-
nese theories upon political thinking in Europe, especially among
the encyclopaedists and physiocrats. But the impact of Asiatic goods
upon English economic development has attracted little attention
outside of academic circles and therefore deserves some mention
here, as showing that things have sometimes a more powerful in-
fluence than ideas. The Asiatic trade not only changed our mode
of dress and introduced new aesthetic principles, but also altered in

148

Eastern Trade and Western Life

the long run the constitution of English commerce and even the
trend of English economic thought. It was the controversy over
calicoes that presented in an acute form to people and Parliament
the choice between protection and free trade and ultimately —
after a protectionist phase — led to the adoption of those doctrines
of free enterprise and laissez-faire which dominated English theory
and practice for many generations.

The free-trade view was first presented, though imperfectly, by
two pamphleteers, Josiah Child in 1690 and Charles Davenant in
1696. The latter, writing to defend the East India Company against
proposals to prohibit the import of Indian cottons and silks, argued
in favour of the territorial division of labour. He proclaimed that
there was "no trade so advantageous, especially to an island, as that
of buying goods in one country to sell them to another/' The argu-
ments of his adversaries were powerful, however, for they could
point to visible depression and unemployment in domestic indus-
tries. The weavers of wool and silk made violent demonstrations
and the government was alarmed, but the East India Company
had strong support in Parliament and it was not until 1700 that a
bill was passed prohibiting the home consumption of silks and
dyed or printed calicoes of Asiatic origin.

These measures did not suffice to kill the calico trade. Con-
sumption increased because the bill allowed the import of plain
cloths to be printed in England, and also of muslins, while there
was a good deal of contraband. A long struggle ensued, in which
the free-trade cause was fought vigorously. The arguments for the
company were put cogently in an anonymous pamphlet of 1701,
entitled Advantages of the East India Trade to England Consid-
ered. This work is regarded by economic historians as a well-
reasoned protest against mercantilism, the most acute analysis of
the problem of free trade and protection before The Wealth of
Nations. But neither reasoned argument nor scurrilous pamphlet-
eering nor the pressure of vested interests could prevail against the
case of the weavers. The woollen industry was, with some justifica-
tion from history, regarded as the foundation of English prosperity,
and the government was always disposed to protect it. Moreover,
the agitation of the weavers and their allies took a violent form,
which influenced the views of an administration nervous of Jaco-
bite plots. In what were called "calico-chases" women were mo-
lested, sometimes stripped, and in other ways roughly handled by
mobs of weavers. Parliament was flooded with petitions, and at
length in 1720 an act was passed forbidding under severe penalty
the use of all printed, dyed, or stained calicoes.

Thus England, as a result of the Indian trade, was forced into
the adoption of a decided protectionist policy. At this time calico

149

The Asiatic Trade

was similarly prohibited in France and all other European coun-
tries with the exception of Holland, where the Dutch saw clearly
that to them at any rate foreign trade was more important than
domestic industry. But cotton, whatever governments might do or
say, was a material that could serve more purposes of use and
beauty than the respectable wool, while because it was forbidden
most women were determined to wear it. The prohibition did not
succeed. Smuggling and other devices, licit and illicit, somehow
furnished a supply of muslins, chintzes, and prints. Traders and
manufacturers turned their thoughts to ways of producing cotton
goods at home, and by the end of the eighteenth century ingenious
minds had made it possible to spin and weave cotton in England
as such low cost that the Indian trade in calico and chintz began
to dwindle. Before long the Indian weavers of cotton were in a
situation like that of the English weavers of wool. They in their
turn were suffering from the competition of imported articles. Asia
was beginning to take goods, not gold, from Europe.

Such were the entirely unpredictable results that flowed from
the visit of Vasco da Gama in 1497 to t^ie Port ^^ Save *ts name to
Calico. India, which had supplied the world with cotton fabrics
since remote antiquity, in the nineteenth century was buying her
calico from Lancashire, and the English, prospering by much com-
merce; had turned from protection to free trade.

The foregoing fragment of economic history has taken us a
long way from our theme, but it is not without bearing on the
general question of cultural influences and, moreover, the trade
in cotton textiles continued until most recent times to be one of
the most important features of both political and economic rela-
tions between European and Asiatic countries.

We may now turn to the effects of the Asiatic trade upon Far
Eastern countries as it was conducted by the Dutch and the Eng-
lish, the chief features of Portuguese commercial enterprise hav-
ing already been described in outline. The English traders, as we
have noticed, had little success in China or Japan or the Spice Is-
lands during the seventeenth century. It was the Dutch who domi-
nated the scene. They were kept at arm's length by the Chinese,
and such effect as their brief presence in India may have had was
expunged by the subsequent English supremacy* The record of
their influence upon the peoples of Indonesia belongs rather to
the history of colonization and is too long and intricate for treat-
ment here, though it may be said that in many respects it is similar
to that of British influence in India. But there is a special interest
in the Dutch position in Japan, where without exercising much
direct influence themselves they served as a channel through which,
during the centuries of seclusion, the Japanese obtained their

150

Eastern Trade and Western Life

knowledge of the world at large. It was in the light of that knowl-
edge that Japan prepared herself for the resumption of intercourse
in the nineteenth.

There is not much more to say about the influence of European
traders upon Asiatic life in the seventeenth century. Such as it was,
it was exercised mainly by the introduction of new commodities
rather than by the communication of ideas, though we shall see
that the Dutch language became the most important medium for
Japanese students of Western science, and that the occasional visits
of learned Europeans to the Dutch factory provided rare opportu-
nities of viva-voce explanations to supplement knowledge slowly
acquired from books. The Dutch were careful to avoid all religious
discussion, for it was because they were not Catholics that they
were allowed to remain in Japan after the Portuguese were ex-
pelled. Consequently the history of Christian evangelization in
Japan came to an end in 1639, and thenceforward the most im-
portant field of Catholic endeavour was in China.

161

C H *A T T S

8

CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA, 1582-1742

i. The Jesuits in Peking

left the record of Christian evangelism in China at the
point where after some thirty years of unsuccessful effort by Jesuit
missionaries the Visitor-General had decided that no progress could
be made until members of his society had gained the confidence of
the official class. This decision was followed by the dispatch of
Fathers Ruggerius and Ricci, both men of considerable attain-
ments, who took up residence in the provincial capital of Kwang-
tung in December 1582 and set themselves the task of impressing
educated Chinese by their scientific knowledge. They applied
themselves to the study of Chinese culture and for the time being
they refrained from the discussion or even the mention of religious
topics.

The further history of the Jesuit mission to China is one of the
most interesting and illuminating examples of a deliberate and or-
ganized plan to exert cultural influence on a grand scale, for what
the Jesuits were attempting to do was to introduce into an ancient,
powerful, and highly developed civilization modes of thought and
standards of morality which, if they were adopted, would change
its very essence.

The story of their effort and its ultimate failure is too long,
too rich in complicated incident and difficult controversy, to be
told here, and we must confine ourselves to the briefest summary
designed to bring out only some of its more significant features. It
is important in the first place to understand that the Jesuit policy
of conversion was opposed to that of the other missionary orders.
The Dominicans and the Franciscans, who had gained their ex-
perience in Mexico and the Philippines, believed in the tabula
rasa. They argued that no compromise must be made with the tra-
dition or the prejudices of the people to be converted. The mis-
sionaries must beg their way through the country and preach to
the masses, their aim being to destroy the existing order from be-

152

The Jesuits in Peking

low. This, according to the Jesuit view, might be well enough in
poor and backward regions, but it could not succeed in highly de-
veloped states. The difference between the two principles is suc-
cinctly expressed by Father Bernard, S.J., who says that the policy
of the tabula rasa fcne tient guere compte du presuppose culturel
chez les peuples a evangeliser" while by contrast the Jesuit policy
requires "la metkode de la preparation providentielle , qui etudie
prealablement les populations afin de s'y adapter."

Ricci and his companions therefore made no attempt to con-
vert the populace, but devoted all their energies to learning the
nature of Chinese social and intellectual life. While demonstrating
their own learning to educated Chinese with whom they came
into contact they sought an intellectual basis for harmonizing
Christian teaching with Confucianism. In this they had no small
success, though only after twenty years of labour, darkened by ill
treatment and neglect and brightened only by the help of a few
friendly officials. At length Ricci actually found himself in Peking,
where by the Emperor's favour (which had in the first place been
secured by interesting gifts) he was allowed to remain. Ricci was
an impressive figure, who gained the respect of several members of
the governing class by his assiduous study of the Chinese classics,
his evident appreciation of Chinese culture, and his superior
knowledge of mathematics and astronomy. He had the great ad-
vantage of not being associated in the minds of Chinese officials
with any particular foreign authority. He did not rely upon the
support of the Portuguese crown, had no connection with foreign
traders, and was moreover allowed considerable discretion by his
own superiors in the Society of Jesus. Had it not been for this in-
dependence he would have found it impossible to carry out his
mission, which depended for its success on some degree of official
approval. No illicit propaganda would have been possible, since
no European could reside in China without official permission.
The only hope of making progress lay in proceeding along lines
that were not inconsistent with Confucian orthodoxy. Once again
we see that the character and attainments of the teacher are as im-
portant as the doctrine. The Chinese literati, who despised soldiers
and traders,' could not withhold admiration from a scholar who,
in the scientific field, possessed knowledge in which they were
lacking.

When at last Ricci ventured to discuss religious matters he
argued that Christian tenets were supported by the moral prin-
ciples of Confucianism, and his best-known work of Christian apol-
ogetics (T'ien-chu Shih-i, or The Teaching of the Lord of Heaven)
cites appropriate passages from the Chinese classics. He was on
slightly dangerous ground here, because he was neglecting rein-

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Christianity in China, 1582-171$

terpretations of Confucian philosophy, which dominated much of
contemporary Chinese thought; but he had the advantage of ap-
pearing friendly to Confucianism and hostile to Buddhism and
other beliefs not approved by the official class. He was on the side
of the school of thought that permeated the government and thus
was able to maintain fairly close relations with influential men.
He was wise enough to see that this position, though favourable,
would not of itself protect him against conservative opposition,
and he took every opportunity of showing how useful his special
knowledge could be to the court, especially in regard to astronomy.
In China, as in Japan, the calendar played a most important part
in government, since it regulated ceremonies that in their origin
had to do with agricultural seasons and also with certain astro-
logical concepts as to the exercise of sovereign power. So intimately
was it connected with the fortunes of the state that acceptance of
the Chinese calendar was regarded as a necessary act of submission
by a tributary kingdom. Accordingly Ricci arranged for the dis-
patch to Peking of a skilled astronomer, Father de Ursis, who ar-
rived in 1606. Ricci himself died in 1610, worn out by his vast
labours, but within a year de Ursis had reformed the Chinese cal-
endar, and the Jesuit mathematicians had become quasi-official ad-
visers to the court, displacing the Moslem experts who had been
proved wrong. This was a step of the greatest value to the Jesuits'
cause, for in a land of bureaucrats they had gained a footing in the
bureaucracy. They had their ups and downs, but they remained
official astronomers until well into the nineteenth century, and
such success as they achieved in their task of evangelization could
not have been gained without the benefit of this position.

The subsequent history of the Jesuit mission to China, in its
purely evangelical aspects, is one of gradual and guarded conces-
sion to Confucianism. Ricci on his death-bed is said to have told
his colleagues that he left them "facing an open door/* and this was
true. Had his successors been able to continue his policy the Chris-
tian church in China might have been well established within an-
other generation. But they were not all prepared to pass through
the door he had opened. Even during his lifetime his colleague
Longobardi, who was to succeed him, had nourished doubts as to
the wisdom of the "accommodation, " and after his death more
than one of the missionaries had argued that the Chinese philoso-
phers upon whom he had relied had no knowledge of the true
God. The Jesuit confraternity, however, preserved a certain soli-
darity, which was due in part to their habit of discipline and in
part to their anxiety lest the Dominicans and the Franciscans, by
entering the field and using their uncompromising methods, should
ruin the position the Jesuit pioneers had so painfully acquired.

154.

The Jesuits in Peking

The chief points in dispute turned on the nature of Confucian-
ism. Were its ritual observances civil or religious? Could a Chris-
tian properly take part in ceremonies of ancestor-worship or of
reverence to Confucius? Was the word Tien a proper translation
of the word "God"? And in general were traditional Chinese be-
liefs consistent with Christian faith? The Jesuits could not agree
among themselves, and under pressure from other orders these
questions were referred to the Holy See, where in 1645 p°Pe In*
nocent X gave a decision parte inaudita that was unfavourable to
the Jesuit position. This was followed by a decree of Pope Alex-
ander VII in 1656 which appeared favourable but was qualified
by a further decree in 1669 in a contrary sense. The situation be-
came extremely confused and the Rites controversy dragged on
for many years, turning into an unseemly wrangle in which Eu-
ropean theological and even political quarrels obscured the origi-
nal issue of evangelical procedure in the Far East. The climax was
hot reached until 1742, when a papal bull finally ruled against the
Jesuit compromise.

During this long interval the Church continued to make prog-
ress in China under Jesuit leadership, though it was subject to oc-
casional reverses and even to persecution, as well as suffering set-
backs from the activities of Franciscans and Dominicans in parts
of China (notably Fukien and Chekiang) to which they had ob-
tained access. The success of the Jesuits was maintained largely by
their usefulness to the government.

They not only gave advice on astronomy but were often con-
sulted on matters of foreign and even of domestic policy. They
were fortunate in their choice of successors to Ricci, for Father
Adam Schall and Father Ferdinand Verbiest were both remark-
able men who, apart from their scientific knowledge, were able,
thanks to their strong characters, to obtain great influence at court.
Some of the Jesuit leaders in Japan had succeeded in gaining the
confidence of such powerful dictators as Nobunaga and Hideyoshi,
but they never reached the point of intimacy with the ruling sov-
ereign that was achieved by their colleagues in Peking. Schall
(1591-1666) was in Peking during the last years of the Ming dy-
nasty and there, as well as being appointed director o£ the Bureau
of Astronomy, he was called upon in 1636 to make cannon to be
used against the Manchus. When the Manchus displaced the Ming,
the first Manchu Emperor, then a youth, conceived a strong liking
and respect for him and bestowed upon him many honours. Prob-
ably no European has ever played so influential a part at a great
Asiatic court. The Emperor's favours to Schall were valuable to
the mission, for a church was built upon land that he granted, and
after Christianity had been commended in an official rescript of

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Christianity in China, 1582-1742

1692 the number of converts grew by thousands. When the young
Emperor died in 1661 Schall was appointed tutor to his successor,
the Emperor known as K'ang Hsi, then a minor. But court in-
trigues against him ended in his arrest on an absurd charge of
treason. After cruel imprisonment he was condemned to death,
but the sentence was not carried out and he died o£ illness in 1666,
a few months after his release. He was succeeded by Verbiest, who
had reached Peking in 1660 and had shared his sufferings.

After Schairs trial Verbiest and his colleagues were kept in
Peking for scientific work, but were denied freedom of movement
until 1671, when the young Emperor K'ang Hsi began to take an
interest in them and in the foreign learning they possessed. Ver-
biest was very favourably treated and was for some years in daily at-
tendance at the palace as tutor or adviser. He, like Schall, was di-
rector of the Bureau of Astronomy, with Mandarin rank, and he
also made cannon for the Imperial forces, as well as giving gen-
eral advice on mechanical matters. K'ang Hsi used to take Verbiest
with him on his hunting expeditions — great month-long battues
in the northern camping-grounds of his nomadic ancestors. These
strenuous exercises and the strain of his duties at court wore out
the elderly missionary, who died in 1688. He was given a state
funeral and the Emperor bestowed posthumous honours upon him.

This was near the end of the great days of the Jesuits in China.
K'ang Hsi continued, however, to favour the missionaries in Pe-
king, and in 1692 he was persuaded by a friendly nobleman at
court to approve an edict tolerating the Christian religion. He
even took a personal interest in the appointment of missionaries,
deciding which should stay in the capital and which should go to
the provinces, and he gave the fathers land for houses and a church,
with a sum of money towards the cost of building. There are no
satisfactory statistics of the number of converts, but it is said that
there were 150,000 Christians in the Chinese Empire in 1650 and
that this number was doubled by 1700. Perhaps more important
than numbers was the fact that a few Chinese in high places had
gone over to the Christian faith in Ricci's time and had been of
service to the cause.

But after the first decade of the eighteenth century the tide had
begun to turn and the development of the Rites controversy has-
tened the decline of Christian influence in China. The Emperor
did not withdraw his favour from the leading missionaries in Pe-
king, whose merits he appreciated; but he grew weary of theo-
logical bickering among the missionaries of different orders and he
took offence at the attitude of a papal legate who was sent out to
China in 1705 to inquire into the question of the Rites and to ex-
plain the attitude of the Holy See. It is a long and unedifying story,

156

The Jesuits in Peking

which need not be told here but can be studied in the vast polem-
ical literature to which it gave rise. For our purpose it is enough
to notice that the Jesuits maintained in substance that Confucian-
ism was not a religion. It was an ethical doctrine, laying down prin-
ciples entirely consistent with Christianity. The rites of veneration
offered to ancestors and to the memory of Confucius were not acts
of worship contrary to Christian duty but civil observances. K'ang
Hsi himself, when the Jesuits in Peking had put these points to
him in a petition, had categorically said that they were right. "To
honour Heaven, to serve the prince and parents, to revere one's
ancestors, to honour one's master and superiors is the universal
doctrine of the Empire. In all this petition there is not one word
to be changed." But the opponents of the Jesuits would not allow
that a Christian could appeal to a heathen monarch for a ruling on
matters under examination at the Holy See.

The controversy grew more widespread and bitter. In March
1715 the bull Ex ilia die in unequivocal language forbade every
item of the "accommodation" that the Jesuits regarded as both
proper and essential. K'ang Hsi seems to have taken some interest
in the dialectical and diplomatic aspects of the question and con-
descended to listen to the arguments of a second papal legate, Mez-
zabarba, the Patriarch of Alexandria, who was sent out by Rome
in a last attempt to compose the quarrel. But the Emperor finally
lost patience, said that Europeans were ignorant and contemptible
people not fit to discuss the Great Doctrine of China, and declared
angrily that they should not be allowed to preach their own re-
ligion. He dismissed Mezzabarba, whom he had treated correctly
and even with distinction. He sent handsome presents to the Pope
and asked in return for news of Europe and the latest books on
mathematics.

This was a significant gesture, which may be taken as symbolic
of his true feelings towards Christianity. He had no real interest
in the Jesuits' religion, as is clear from the terms of the edict of
1692, which refers specifically to their services as astronomers, mak-
ers of ordnance, and diplomatic advisers. It was their useful knowl-
edge that accounted for his tolerance. They could stay and propa-
gate their faith so long as it was not antagonistic to the doctrines
upon which Chinese society was based. The Jesuits in Peking were
fully aware of this and they managed for some time to evade full
compliance with the decree Ex ilia die. Meanwhile, though anti-
Christian edicts were issued from time to time and there was some
persecution in the provinces, they remained established in the cap-
ital and were not interfered with. It is a curious fact that, despite
the ban upon Christianity, the central government made no at-
tempt to wipe it out, as the Japanese had done after 1637. It seems

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Christianity in China, 1588-1748

that the authorities did not regard it as a menace, feeling that the
number of converts was almost negligible. Nor were they dis-
turbed, as leyasu had been, by fear of armed risings fomented by
missionaries in concert with the secular power of European
countries.

The strength of the Jesuits in China was in part due to their
care to dissociate themselves from any national authority. In Japan
their order had been less discreet, for they had taken advantage of
current disunity to play one faction off against another. They had
directed Portuguese trading ships away from the harbours of feu-
dal barons hostile to Christian teaching, and in fiefs where they
were admitted they had offended Japanese sentiment by inciting
their converts to attack Buddhists and to destroy Buddhist prop-
erty. They had taken sides in feudal struggles and it is not surpris-
ing that they should have been mistrusted by the central govern-
ment of Japan as soon as it was established.

By contrast the position in China was much more favourable
to Christianity. China was a unified state and her great provincial
officers were not competing for foreign trade as were the Japanese
feudatories. Therefore the Christian missions in China did not
come under suspicion of exerting commercial pressure for political
ends, or of interfering in domestic politics and imperilling the
reigning dynasty. Consequently the Chinese authorities did not
feel called upon to enforce the anti-Christian edicts to the limit.
But persecutions continued intermittently and in time they took
their toll. In 1742 a last decree (Ex quo singulari) had settled the
Rites controversy by deciding all remaining points of doubt against
the Jesuits and thus preventing any form of accommodation with
Chinese practices. In 1773 the Society of Jesus was dissolved and
its work was carried on by the Lazarists. The number of Christians
in the Empire was now declining. It was estimated at only 160,000
by the Jesuits at the end of the eighteenth century, as compared
with the 300,000 at its beginning. These figures are doubtful, but
they can be taken as evidence that official action and hostile feeling
among the literati were gradually doing the work that a single
edict had accomplished in Japan.

A survey of the history of Christian missions in China must
give the impression that a great and indeed a noble effort produced
a very small result. At any time from the end of the sixteenth cen-
tury there were thousands of converts to the Catholic faith. By the
beginning of the eighteenth century they may have reached as
high as the figure of 300,000 named above; but it is improbable
that more than a small proportion of these were so firm in their
faith as to lead lives that involved a break with Chinese social and
intellectual tradition. There were many heroic believers, especially

158

The Jesuits in Peking

among Chinese priests and catechists, who laboured faithfully in
spite of persecution. But in relation to the total population, which
was of the order of 100,000,000 in 1700, the number of professing
Christians was extremely small. No doubt by their own lives they
influenced non-Christian friends and neighbours, but the most
sympathetic student is forced to admit that by the beginning of
the nineteenth century Christianity had made almost no impres-
sion upon China. It had brought about no significant change in
the moral and religious habits of the people, no modification of
their social or political life. It has been argued that Christianity
helped to swell a certain intellectual current which in the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries produced a small group of hetero-
dox thinkers who challenged the classical tradition and so set in
motion forces working for ultimate revolutionary change. This is
a claim that it would be most difficult to substantiate. Even if some
indirect influence upon Chinese political life can be traced to the
cumulative effect of missionary labours in spreading Western learn-
ing, it was of no great consequence. The tide of Chinese life found
its own channels. In the words of Dr. Latourette, a careful and im-
partial observer whose Christian Missions in China is an authorita-
tive work, "had missionaries after 1835 gradually ceased coming to
China . . . the Church would probably have passed out of exist-
ence within a few years, leaving behind it no permanent trace."
Such were the exiguous results, after more than two hundred
years, of a highly organized and skilfully conducted propaganda,
for which it would be hard to find a parallel in modern history. It
illustrates very clearly the difficulties that attend any deliberate at-
tempt to exert cultural influence upon a civilized community. Per-
haps its most startling result was one which neither Europeans nor
Chinese had intended or even contemplated, and that was the great
effect of Jesuit descriptions of Chinese culture upon European
thought in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The effect
was not lasting. It was made possible in the first place by social and
intellectual changes that were then taking place in European coun-
tries and made them responsive to foreign influence. When those
changes were accomplished there was no further need to cite Chi-
nese practice, or rather, one should say, convenient versions of
Chinese practice, in support of new philosophies. What is really
remarkable about these Chinese influences is that they have left
hardly any trace in European thought but a lasting imprint upon
aesthetic sentiment. It seems that if social and political habits
shrink from an alien touch, at least the arts may be dialects of some
universal language.

159

Christianity in China, 1 582-17 J$

2. Christian Doctrine and Chinese Tradition

JLHE RITES controversy is of such historical interest and the biog-
raphies of the great Jesuits are so fascinating that together they
give the impression that the fortunes of Christianity in China were
determined by a struggle between European missionaries and Chi-
nese officials. This is true as a summary of events, since the general
sentiment of the Chinese people was in harmony with the doc-
trines of their leaders. In China the official doctrine was not some-
thing imposed upon the untaught masses by scholars, but (like
Hinduism in India and Shinto in Japan) it was the literary expres-
sion of indigenous views about life and society held by the whole
people. It is possible therefore that, but for the Rites controversy,
the Catholic Church would have continued to enjoy a tolerance
such as had been accorded to it by K'ang Hsi. This would not have
been alien to Chinese tradition, since not only Buddhism in its
various forms but other foreign creeds also had in the past been
given considerable freedom, as witness the record of Nestorianism,
Manichaeisin, and Islam.

But even supposing that the Jesuits could have composed their
differences with the governing class and kept clear of political
troubles, it is by no means certain that they would have succeeded
in spreading Christian influence very widely among the people.
There were points of Christian doctrine which, however tactfully
handled, were incompatible with the traditional way of life in
China. Most important among these is the attitude of the Church
towards the worship of the dead. This was always a difficulty, for
quite apart from the so~to-speak theoretical problems of the nature
of these acts of worship, the earliest missionaries often found it
difficult to persuade even their most devout converts to abandon
the practice. It formed part of the "family system" that is at the
core of Chinese social life, and whatever concessions may be made
by Catholic or Protestant missionaries, it remains true that the
essence of Christian doctrine is against any ritual, and still more
any belief, which assumes that the dead need the ministrations of
the living. To define the acts of veneration performed before the
ancestral tablets as civil observances with no religious character is
to evade the issue. They are an integral part of the Chinese view
of life, and it is life as a whole that religion professes to govern.

It should be added, if we may leap forward from the seven-
teenth century to the twentieth, that at least until a very few years
ago, despite most sweeping changes in the nature of Chinese po-
litical and social life, the great majority of Chinese families con-
tinued to perform the usual rites before the ancestral tablets, even

160

Christian Doctrine and Chinese Tradition

' 'modern* * young men and women who profess rationalistic or
agnostic opinion often taking an active or a passive part. Chinese
Christians themselves have not earnestly fought against ancestor-
worship and many of them say that "it does no harm" so long as it
is understood that it does not replace the true worship of God.
This again is an evasion, which can only be interpreted to mean
that Chinese Christianity is not Western Christianity. Indeed, a
modern Chinese Christian has suggested that such compromises
will create "a Confucianized indigenous Christianity." What this
means is obscure. It may be an excellent and desirable goal, but if
it is reached it will prove an interesting example of a reversed cul-
tural influence, the new religion being adapted to the convert, not
the convert to the religion. This would not be a new thing, since
early Christianity itself was adapted to conform to certain Hellen-
istic modes of thought, and many other examples might be cited
to show that strong cultures rarely incorporate foreign elements
without changing them.

There is another important aspect of traditional Chinese life
which offers resistance to Christian teaching. The traditional Chi-
nese view of the family, besides stressing its continuity, attaches
importance to filial piety and considers that children are born to
nourish their parents. This is certainly contrary to the Christian
view, which in general puts the authority of the Church above that
of the family and regards the parent as one who must 'lay up for
the children/* It may be argued that traditional family life is
breaking down in China and that this obstacle will disappear. No
doubt this is true in some respects. The breakdown, however, is
part of a general relaxation of old standards, which is to be ascribed
to the influence of "rationalistic" thought and not of Western reli-
gion. It is in fact part of a process of change connected with the
growth of an industrial society to which the old family life can
scarcely be adjusted. The machine has brought with it the idea of
progress, and this is the real, the overwhelming Occidental influ-
ence, by the side of which that of the Church appears to be almost
negligible.

Yet it is a testimony to the power of survival of ancient beliefs
in modern conditions that since the Rites controversy the question
of ancestor-worship has remained until today a live issue for the
Christian church in China. In 1890 in a Plea for Toleration ad-
dressed to a conference of Protestant missionaries at Shanghai the
following statement was made: "If I were called upon to name the
most serious impediment to the conversion of the Chinese I should
without hesitation point to the worship of ancestors. Gathering to
itself all that is deemed most sacred in family or state, it rises be-
fore us like a mountain barrier." There have been great changes in

161

Christianity in China, 1588-17 1$

Chinese life since that date, but in December 1938 the Sacred Con-
gregation in Rome found it necessary to decree that attendance at
public ceremonies in honour of Confucius was licit and that a like-
ness of Confucius might be placed in Catholic schools, to which
the students might bow. Further, " inclinations of the head and
other signs of civil respect" in the presence of the dead or before
their images or tablets are to be regarded as "licit and proper." Of
this decree the Catholic Archbishop of Nanking, a leading Chinese
ecclesiast, said in 1946: "The Church stood free of its shackles. It
was no longer the cultural invader of China." But at the same time
he deplored the meagre results of centuries of missionary labour,
saying that not one per cent of China's population was Catholic,
and "even this is not an influential one per cent/*

It should b'e added here that Protestant missions in China do
not approve of an accommodation in respect o£ ancestor-worship
and will not accept converts who adhere to traditional practices
that are to be regarded as acts of worship.

3. Comparisons

,T is convenient at this point to make some comparisons between
the problems of the Church in China and those experienced in
India and other Eastern countries. There is not much to add to
what has already been said as to the methods employed by Father
Nobile and his successors in an effort to compromise with Hindu
thought. Their problem was not identical with that of the Jesuits
in China, since most Indians have a strong tendency to religious
tolerance, being intensely concerned with spiritual matters. If not
inclined to welcome truth wherever it may be found, they are at
least more eclectic than dogmatic. Accordingly the Jesuits in India
did not have to overcome the indifference, the somewhat prag-
matic materialism, that they met in China. Nor did the question of
obtaining official sanction arise for them, since the Portuguese (and
later the French) missions in India had the support of their own
secular powers.

On the other hand they met with a resistance from Indian so-
cial life which was, if one may judge by results, stronger than the
resistance of the family system in China. There are certain features
of Hindu belief and practice which are, or were at that time, in-
eradicable and yet are in direct conflict with Christian principles.
Chief among these was caste, an institution that, whatever its ori-
gins, is closely bound up with religious doctrines (especially the
doctrine of karma) and has throughout Indian history stubbornly
withstood attempts to destroy it from within as well as from with-

162

Comparisons

out India. Buddhism itself failed to make any impression upon it
and successive Indian reformers until recent times have challenged
it in vain. The Jesuits were therefore obliged to go to extremes
that make the "accommodation" in respect of ancestor- worship
most plausible by comparison. Under the Madura mission (which
worked outside Portuguese jurisdiction) not only was caste recog-
nized, it was actually adopted in the organization of the Church.
A missionary who worked among the lower castes would prostrate
himself before a colleague who, posing as a Brahman, worked
among Brahmans; and would even go to the length of covering his
mouth to prevent his breath from polluting a superior. These
methods, combined with the ascetic character of the missionaries,
had some success, and the number of converts is said to have
reached 150,000 by the end of the seventeenth century. Leaving
aside judgments on the legitimacy of such compromises, which the
Holy See at length forbade, one may doubt whether evangelization
of this kind could have continued indefinitely, since it was based
upon disguise.

It is true however that, after the Portuguese were displaced by
the Dutch, Protestant missionaries arriving in 1706 tolerated caste
distinctions among their converts, who were numerous in south-
ern India. Yet these concessions and immense efforts by Catholic
and Protestant workers produced hardly any result among the
high-caste Hindus, and by 1 850 the total number of Christians in
India probably did not exceed 200,000, if the members of the an-
cient Syrian Church are excluded. The later history of Christian
missions in India is beyond the scope of this study, being the spe-
cial case of a vast region of Asia governed by a Christian country;
but we may note in passing that, with all the advantages conferred
by political supremacy and control of education, the combined
missions in 1931 could point to a total of less than six million
Christians, which is 1.8 per cent of the total population. It is inter-
esting to observe that the membership of the Christian community
in China, according to statistics of 1936, was little over i per cent
of the estimated total population.

In one sense both these figures represent a remarkable achieve-
ment, and it has to be remembered that in Asiatic countries where
political and social change is gathering speed the influence of
Christian communities is in some ways out of proportion to their
numerical strength. But important as the increase has been, it does
not justify a belief that either India or China will eventually be-
come a Christian country, or that the Christian church will acquire
a powerful, still less a dominant position. In India, as in China, the
demands of industrial society, the growth of national feeling, and
the interest of youth in political and economic rather than reli-

163

Christianity in China, 1582-174®

gious questions are all factors which, while they tend to break
down earlier obstacles to Christian influence, put new barriers in
its path, since they are on balance adverse to the adoption of an
alien doctrine. In India, in intellectual circles not particularly
subject to modern influences though fully aware of them, there is
too great a pride and confidence in the all-embracing character of
Hindu thought to allow of the acceptance of a dogmatic religion,
whatever its origin. Indeed, far from Western religious thought
influencing the main current of Indian life, there are signs in con-
temporary Europe of an interest in Indian philosophies among
intellectuals baffled and discouraged by the glaring contrast be-
tween scientific progress and spiritual decay.

However one looks at the cultural relations of Asiatic and Oc-
cidental countries, one cannot but be impressed by the fact that it
is only upon peoples whose aboriginal civilization was backward
that Western religious thought has left a permanent mark. The
greatest successes of Christian missions in Asia, if success is to be
measured by numbers, were achieved in the Philippine Islands.
They are the only Christian state in the Far East and the islands
were evangelized at a time when they had only an elementary cul-
tural life and no political cohesion. For the most part their tribes
were untouched by Hinduism, of which only slight and ancient
traces are discernible, and they came under Spanish influence be-
fore the power of Islam had spread beyond the Sulu Archipelago.

164

PART TWO

Japan and the Western World
1600-1804

v/ •*

JAPAN

r

9

THE TOKUGAWA REGIME

i. The Closing of the Country

MAIN purpose of this and the following chapters is to
describe, in the light of the first part of this study, how Japan in
modern times has reacted to Western influences, particularly since
her entry into international society in 1854. It was then that she
began to feel the full impact of European civilization, for her ex-
perience of Western intrusion in the sixteenth century was only
transitory and, far from modifying her institutions, it caused her
to shrink from foreign contacts. It might therefore be sufficient
to give some short account of Japan as it was in the decades just
before Commodore Perry's visit in 1853 and then to go on to a
study of the effects of Western intercourse upon the indigenous
civilization. But the opening of Japan w^s not only the beginning
of a new phase; it was also the end of an old one. It is not easy to
describe changes unless we know the nature of the thing that is
changed, and if we are to understand what Japan was like in the
first half of the nineteenth century we ought to know something
of the events and traditions that had shaped her society as it then
was. It will therefore be useful, before treating of modern Japan,
to give an outline of earlier history designed to explain the institu-
tions that had grown to maturity before she emerged from se-
clusion.

Geography has played a leading part in Japanese history. The
Japanese archipelago lies off the mainland of Asia just as the Brit-
ish Isles lie off the edge of the European continent, and this insular
position has given a special character to the life of both countries,
for, thanks to intervening waters, each was able at will to keep out
of the main stream of continental life and so to protect its own in-
dividuality. Each in its early history received invaders or immi-
grants from the mainland and was subjected to the influence of
more advanced cultures, but both invaders and immigrants were
in the long run amalgamated in a distinctive culture that, though

167

The Tokugawa Regime

it included many borrowed elements, kept a strong native essence.
Thus it came about that, as the people of the British Isles though
belonging to Europe were not characteristically European, so the
Japanese though belonging to Asia were unlike any other Asiatic
people. The English were frequently at war with their nearest
neighbours across the Channel, just as the Japanese often raided
Korea across the Strait of Tsushima. The English owed much of
their early civilization to the Christian religion, brought to them
by missionaries from overseas, just as the tribal life of Japan was
transformed and enriched by Buddhism from Korea and China.

Here and in several other respects the analogy is very close; but
it is not complete. England at its nearest point is only some twenty
miles from the mainland of Europe, while Japan is separated from
the southern tip of Korea by over a hundred miles of rough water.
Japan was therefore protected from armed invasion by her distance
from continental seats of power and throughout her recorded his-
tory until modern times she could not be seriously threatened so
long as no great maritime state arose in eastern Asia. The Chinese,
usually preoccupied with their land frontiers, never persisted in a
policy of expansion across water. It is true that China twice at-
tempted an invasion of Japan, in 1274 and 1281, but this was un-
der the rule of a Mongol emperor who was ignorant of maritime
warfare, and both expeditions failed for want of naval competence.
Even under the Ming dynasty, when the Chinese sent great fleets
southward and into the Indian Ocean, they did not threaten
Japan.

As to cultural influences, these the Japanese could accept or re-
ject as they pleased, and though their civilization owes a great debt
to China, they contracted it willingly and under no kind of pres-
sure. By contrast the British Isles have from the earliest times been
peculiarly exposed not only to armed invasion but also to succes-
sive waves of foreign cultural influence, beginning before the Ro-
man occupation. Further, the English people, though their insular
situation was a shield against aggression, were always compelled to
keep a watchful eye upon the politics of Europe in order to guard
their independence. The proximity of rival states provided them
with a beneficial stimulus, which the Japanese did not enjoy since
they had no close and dangerous neighbour, and this may account
for a certain sluggishness in the development of Japan as a nation.
On the other hand the British Isles may perhaps have been at some
disadvantage as compared with Japan, in so far as the English,
Irish, Scottish, and Welsh elements in their population have never
reached the state of ethnic fusion which the peoples of the Japa-
nese archipelago had achieved by the end of their neolithic period.
But this is a doubtful point, for variety is lively and useful.

168

The Closing of the Country

It will be seen that the civilization of Japan was formed in com-
parative seclusion, and this has given it a very special character. Its
many foreign elements were borrowed in such circumstances that
they could not overcome a stubborn indigenous character, and
even until modern times Japanese life has preserved much of its
earliest native quality. No nation has been more ready to consider
new teaching, and yet none has been more tenacious of its own
tradition. These circumstances have given rise to an impression,
which a cursory study of history seems to confirm, that the geo-
graphical isolation of Japan has fostered a habit of seclusion, an
aversion to foreign intercourse. But there is little to justify this
opinion. From earliest times relationships with China and Korea,
sometimes peaceful, sometimes warlike, were continuous despite
an occasional diplomatic rupture, and from the end of the feudal
wars in the twelfth century, when internal peace was established,
there was a steady increase and extension of Japanese maritime
enterprise. Recent researches have established that Japanese ships
(from the Luchu Islands) visited Java, Sumatra, Siam, and Malacca
in the fifteenth and probably in the late fourteenth century. From
that time onwards Japanese vessels in legitimate or piratical trade
sailed freely in Far Eastern waters and Japanese merchants or
soldiers of fortune were to be found in most Far Eastern cities. It
was during the early phases of a great movement of Japanese ex-
pansion that the first Europeans arrived in Japan; and the wel-
come accorded to Portuguese missionaries and traders, so friendly
in contrast to their treatment in China and some other Asiatic
countries, is to be explained by the enthusiasm for overseas adven-
ture and trade which then prevailed among the feudal leaders of
Japan.

Had the Portuguese and other Europeans not arrived upon the
scene in the sixteenth century, it is quite probable that the Japa-
nese within a few decades would have established themselves in
Formosa, the Philippines, and parts of Indonesia, thus forming the
nucleus of a colonial empire in the Pacific. But such designs, which
were certainly harboured by Japanese rulers, had to be abandoned
when it was thought that Western guns and ships might be turned
against Japan by the foreigners. It was no failure of the expansive
impulse, but only a reluctant recognition of weakness that caused
Japan to withdraw into almost complete seclusion in 1640. The
hazard that brought Western influence into the Pacific before
Japan had achieved a stable central government thus gave the mari-
time countries a free hand in the Far East and so fixed for cen-
turies the pattern of colonial enterprise in that region. During
those centuries the rulers of Japan abandoned all dreams of em-
pire, and only by exception did a few unorthodox thinkers turn

169

The Tokugawa Regime

their minds to a day when Japan might renew her broken inter-
course with foreign countries. The energies of the governing class
were devoted entirely to the consolidation of their power and to
devising instruments by which to preserve it. Theirs was a policy
of almost complete isolation.

The institutions of Japan under the regime that was firmly es-
tablished by leyasu in 1615 need only a general explanation here.
The Tokugawa family had succeeded, after a series of victorious
campaigns, in reducing to submission the powerful feudal lords
who had opposed them. They thus acquired supreme authority in
the land, all other feudal rulers — the daimyo, as they were called

— being their vassals. Those who had fought on the Tokugawa
side 'were rewarded with fiefs commensurate with their services,
while the former enemies — known as Tozama or Outside Lords

— in return for their submission were confirmed in their holdings
but were not allowed authority beyond their own territories, and
in principle could not hold office in the administrative organs set
up by the Shogun for the government of the country as a whole.
Each daimyo was left in control of the people and property in his
domain, which was in theory not subject to interference by the
central government so long as the supreme authority was not en-
dangered. All daimyo were obliged to swear allegiance to each
successive Shogun and were then confirmed in their fiefs, but they
could be deprived of all or part of their holdings at the will of the
Shogun should he deem them guilty of insubordinate conduct or
treasonable intentions. These powers were freely exercised by the
first three Tokugawa rulers, whose commands were so far-reaching
that Japan in their day already exhibited some of the features of
a centralized nation state.

The whole of Tokugawa policy was designed to guard against
revolt and thus to ensure the permanence of Tokugawa rule. The
geographical distribution of fiefs was made with an eye to strategy,
hereditary vassals being assigned lands at points that threatened
the line of advance of any Outside Lord who might plan an upris-
ing. All daimyo were compelled to spend part of the year in Yedo,
the Shogun's capital, and to leave their families behind as hos-
tages when they returned to their provinces. These and many
other devices were used to prevent the vassals from plotting mis-
chief, and they did in fact secure for Japan unbroken peace over
more than two hundred years. But the Shogunate was never fully
at ease with respect to the Outside Lords, who for their part never
became reconciled to Tokugawa dominance. Out of easy reach
in the north and west of Japan lay powerful and warlike fiefs
which had, it is true, been brought to submission but which might
alone or in combination with other Outside Lords, or even with

170

The Closing of the Country

disaffected hereditary vassals, rise against the Shogun and plunge
the country once more into civil war. Such a prospect the Toku-
gawa could not face, for they had brought peace to the country by
a combination of arms and diplomacy which they could not be
sure of repeating.

This fear of domestic uprising has an important bearing upon
the policy of seclusion, a policy that was not contemplated in the
early years of the seventeenth century but was formed and exe-
cuted precipitately after 1637. The sudden decision then taken to
exclude aliens and to prohibit Japanese from going abroad was
closely connected with the presence in Japan of foreign mission-
aries and traders. Its history is therefore most pertinent to the
study of Western influences in Asia and calls for some detailed
consideration here.

It will be remembered that, in describing the progress of Chris-
tian missions in Japan after the arrival of Francis Xavier in 1549,
we stopped at the year 1600, when despite great persecutions the
number of converts had risen to 300,000 and promised further in-
crease. At this time leyasu had come into power but had not sub-
dued the last of his adversaries. He was much interested in foreign
trade, cherishing notions of expanding Japan's merchant fleet and
perhaps of making some conquests in the southern seas. He was dis-
posed to be friendly with both Portuguese and Spanish; he even
proposed to open harbours in eastern Japan to foreign ships and
showed no signs of any intention to diminish, still less to cut off,
the foreign intercourse of Japan. He made it known that he would
not enforce the anti-Christian edicts, and the work of evangeliza-
tion went on without interruption, while foreign trade flourished.

But the truce was not to last for long. Though the number of
converts steadily increased, there were isolated persecutions in
different parts of Japan and hostility towards Christianity grew in
high quarters, until after a series of perfunctory orders by leyasu,
which may be regarded as warnings rather than as definite pro-
hibitions, an edict banning the Christian faith was issued in 1614
and enforced with great severity in some regions, but still mildly
elsewhere. By now it was evident that, sooner or later, the partial
relaxation would come to an end.

When leyasu died in 1616, to be succeeded by the second Sho-
gun, Hidetada, the Tokugawa family were supreme in Japan and
determined to permit no activity that might develop into a threat
to their primacy in the state. By this time not only the Portuguese
and the Spaniards but also the Dutch and the English were com-
peting for trade privileges in Japan, quarrelling with one another
and prompt to reveal to the Shogun's officers real or imaginary de-
signs of their rivals upon the safety of the Japanese realm. The

171

The Tokugawa Regime

news that came to Hidetada of the doings of foreigners in other
parts of Asia was certainly of a kind to arouse misgivings in his
mind, since he knew that they were all striving to increase their
holdings of territory in the Pacific and would stop short at little
to obtain new commercial footholds. In 1617 the persecution was
continued with increased fury, and thousands o£ Japanese were
banished or went to the stake, while the Jesuits, the Franciscans,
and the other orders sank their differences in a common fortitude
which led many to torture and death. The number of executions
between 1613 and 1626 according to missionary sources was about
750, and in addition to these thousands suffered and died through
imprisonment or exile and destitution.

Towards 1622 the Shogun discovered evidence that led him to
suspect the complicity o£ the Catholic Church in alleged Spanish
plots to invade Japan. Shortly thereafter he re-enacted the anti-
Christian edicts and ordered the deportation of all Spaniards, both
priests and laymen, while decreeing that no Japanese Christian
should leave the country. During this later and more violent phase
of repression unspeakable tortures were used in efforts to secure
apostasy and whole families including infants in arms were merci-
lessly destroyed. Nevertheless the Jesuit documents report a con-
tinued enrolment of new converts and an almost joyful acceptance
of death by believers of all classes. Their testimony to the bravery
of the Japanese Christians is confirmed by a contemporary ob-
server, the English captain Richard Cocks, who was strongly prej-
udiced against the "papisticall" missionaries. He described the
government of Japan as "the greatest and most puissant tyranny
that the world has ever known" and, writing of the Shogun's en-
mity towards Christians, said: "I saw 55 of them martyrized at one
time at Miyako. Among them were little children of five or six
years, burned alive in the arms of their mothers, who cried 'Jesus,
receive their souls.' There are many in prison who hourly await
death, for very few return to their idolatry."

By 1625 the persecution had reached its peak, and Christian-
ity had been either eradicated or driven underground in most
parts of Japan, though martyrdoms continued until as late as 1660.
In remote districts, particularly on small islands where official
scrutiny was imperfect, it was still practised in stealth and a few
missionaries remained to carry out their task in hiding. The cul-
minating tragedy took place in 1638 when a peasant uprising, in
which Christians took a leading part, was ruthlessly suppressed by
the government with great slaughter. Of about 37,000 peasants
with their families and a number of disaffected samurai, who made
a last stand on a headland of the Shimabara peninsula, only one
hundred are said to have escaped alive. Even after this attempts

in

The Closing of the Country

were made by missionaries to smuggle themselves into Japan, but
so far as is known they were all sooner or later discovered and exe-
cuted or died in captivity.

The total number of martyrdoms recognized by the Church re-
corded for the period 1597-1660 is 3,125. This includes only those
who were executed or died under torture and leaves out of account
those who were stripped of their property, imprisoned, or ban-
ished. Many of these died of ill treatment or destitution. The Jap-
anese statesman Arai Hakuseki put the number of Christians who
had perished by 1650 at between 200,000 and 300,000. This though
no doubt exaggerated may give us some indication of the number
of Christians in Japan at its highest. There are no exact data, but
only estimates. It is possible that by 1614 the number of Christians
was of the order of 500,000, and in view of the drastic enforcement
of the edicts after that year it is unlikely that it showed any in-
crease in the next two or three decades. The Jesuits calculate the
total number of adult baptisms between 1550 and 1614 at 652,900.
Adding the estimated number of children baptized in Christian
families they arrive at a total of 750,000. To these they add the
converts made by Franciscans and others, bringing the number of
Christians in Japan to nearly 1,000,000 about 1614, This computa-
tion seems to leave out of account the number of deaths in the
whole period from 1550 to 1614, which must have been very large
since the majority of converts were presumably adults and many
were of advanced age. The average expectation of life in this period
was very low; and since the Jesuits report a figure of 300,000 souls
in their charge in 1597, against a total of 500,000 adult baptisms
since 1550, it is probably not excessive to deduct from the estimate
of 1,000,000 at least one half on account of death and backsliding,
and thus to put the total number of Christians in Japan in 1614
at not more than 500,000. Persecution, as we have seen, was intense
between 1597 and 1614, and although a surprising number of
conversions was made during this period, there were many apos-
tasies from fear and deaths from hardship as well as an outflow of
Christians who took refuge overseas and formed Christian com-
munities in the Philippines, Cambodia, Siam, and Burma. This
movement of emigration continued until the exclusion edict of
1637.

All these calculations are, of course, based upon Jesuit esti-
mates of the numbers of converts at given dates. If those estimates
are over-optimistic, then the totals must be reduced.

If Arai Hakuseki was right in saying that as many as 200,000
perished for their faith before 1650 we may (allowing for apos-
tasies) assume that there were left in Japan perhaps as many as
100,000 who practised it in concealment. We know that, even after

173

The Tokugawa Regime

two hundred years of seclusion, when Japan reopened her doors
and the anti-Christian edicts were rescinded, a number of Chris-
tians declared themselves, particularly in remote corners of south-
western Japan, where their ancestors had continued to worship
secretly.

Two aspects of the Christian propaganda in Japan deserve
some further comment. The first is the attitude of the missionaries
towards the Japanese people and the second is the attitude of the
Japanese ruling class towards the missionaries. Both are of interest,
since they throw some light upon the nature of Japanese civiliza-
tion in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

Through all the copious Jesuit literature on Japan runs a
strong current of affection and admiration for the Japanese people.
The missionaries are impressed, almost against their will, by the
power of Japanese rulers and by the good behaviour of their sub-
jects. They praise their strong sense of duty and obligation, their
courage, their anxiety to learn, their family affection, their skill in
arts and crafts. Nowhere is there to be detected in the Jesuit letters
any feeling of racial or cultural superiority. On the contrary, such
good observers as Organtino and Valignano insisted, when writing
to their colleagues in Europe, that only the best missionaries were
good enough for Japan. "It must be understood/* said Organtino in
1577, "that these people are in no sense barbarous. Excluding the
advantage of religion, we ourselves in comparison with them are
most barbarous (siamo barbarissimi) . I learn something every day
from the Japanese and I am sure that in the whole universe there
is no people so well gifted by Nature."

Much of the work of the missions was entrusted to Japanese
helpers, who displayed a remarkable zeal for the conversion of
their fellow countrymen. The number of European missionaries
was never great, and they could not have achieved the results that
rewarded their labours without the assistance of a large body of
devoted and capable Japanese helpers.1 One cannot wonder at the
affection that the missionaries felt for the people of Japan, since
nowhere else in Asia were Christian propagandists able to gain
such a ready hearing for the gospel from all classes, and nowhere
were they more kindly treated. Yet nowhere were they more sav-
agely repressed. This paradox is to be explained by the dual char-
acter of Japanese society, which combined a strong sense of social
ethics with a great ruthlesness in the enforcement of law.

Turning now to the attitude of the Japanese towards Euro-
peans, it must be allowed that both they and the Chinese recog-

i In 1614, just before the dispersion, the Jesuit Province in Japan had 121 mem-
bers, of whom 62 were priests (including 7 Japanese) and 59 were brothers, almost
all Japanese; while there were 245 Japanese seminarists and catechists.

AN UTAMARO BEAUTY

Her slender limbs cm scarcely support her frail body.
Contrast to illustration, page 215.

ANOTHER SLENDER BEAUTY

From a print by Buncho (circa 7770)

in the collection of the late Louis V. Ledoux

(Reproduced by kind permission of Jean Ledoux)

The Closing of the Country

nized that the strangers had some knowledge in which they were
lacking. But there was a difference in their outlook, for the Japa-
nese felt themselves in no sense inferior to Europeans while the
Chinese professed to feel themselves in every sense superior. The
former attitude is obviously the better foundation for fruitful and
friendly intercourse. Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and leyasu perceived
very quickly that they had something to learn from the Portuguese,
while unlike the contemporary rulers of China they offered no
resistance to foreign ideas as such but took the initiative in seek-
ing new knowledge.

A factor contributing to the remarkable success of Christian
propaganda in Japan was the absence of a concerted effort by the
Buddhist clergy to refute it. This may not be due to tolerance, but
at least it shows that, in spite of sporadic attacks upon missionaries
and occasional destruction of church property, religious animosity
of itself was not strong enough to bring about a really dangerous
campaign against Christianity throughout Japan. So far as can be
judged from surviving documents the first important refutation
of Christian teaching was published in 1620 by an apostate Japa-
nese, who until 1606 had been the principal irmao or brother in
the church at Miyako. He prefaced his book by a statement that
opposition to Christianity had so far failed because Japanese Bud-
dhists and Confucianists had not troubled to find out what its
principles were. There were other and later refutations, in which
learned Buddhists set out to expose the falsity of Christian tenets
and stated the arguments for pantheism against monotheism. But
though some of these treatises display a great theological fury their
strongest objection against Christianity was that to deny the na-
tional deities was to imperil the state. A similar line was taken by
Confucianists, though some of them, being opposed to all religion,
attacked both Buddhism and Christianity at the same time.

Several motives combined to create in ruling circles a deep
suspicion and hatred of Christianity, but no doubt its chief cause
was an unfounded fear of the political power of the Catholic
Church, which might, it was supposed, be exercised in Japan with
the secular aid of Catholic states — to wit, of Spain and Portugal.
Dread of foreign intervention was so firmly fixed in the minds of
the Tokugawa rulers that as late as 1673, when the East Indiaman
Return came to Japan requesting permission to trade, the author-
ities, at first disposed to allow it, sent the vessel away when they
learned that the English King had married a Portuguese princess.
This at least was milder treatment than that given to the Portu-
guese mission that had visited Japan in 1647 f°r a similar purpose
and only narrowly escaped the punishment decreed in the edict
of 1640, threatening with death the crew of any Portuguese ship

176

The Tokugawa Regime

that should enter a Japanese harbour. Probably the Japanese here
acted upon hints from, the Dutch in Nagasaki, who did nothing to
remove suspicions of Christianity from the minds of the Japanese
officials. But their apprehensions needed no support from the
Dutch, for they were so extreme as to be scarcely rational. The
basis of their fears is well revealed in the oaths that apostates were
obliged to swear after 1616. In denying the Christian faith each
apostate had to repeat reasons for his disbelief in a prescribed
formula, which ran: "The fathers, by threats of excommunication
and hell fire can do what they like with the people, and all this is
their stratagem to take the countries of others/' The remainder of
the formula is an involuntary tribute to the power of the Christian
faith, for the converts, having abjured their religion (generally
under duress) , were by a curious logic made to swear by the very
powers that they had just denied: "By the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost, Santa Maria and all the angels ... if I break this
oath may I lose the grace of God forever and fall into the wretched
state of Judas Iscariot." By an even further departure from logic
all this was followed by an oath to Buddhist and Shinto deities.

There is thus very little to show that true theological ardour
was an important element in bringing about the suppression o£
Christianity in Japan. The refutations just cited were all composed
long after the first anti-Christian edicts and put political consid-
erations in the first place. In this respect the reception of Chris-
tianity in Japan is not without interesting analogies in other times
and other countries.

It is a far cry to Iran in the first centuries of our era, but the
experiences of early Christian communities in that country are al-
most identical with those of the Jesuits and their converts in Japan
more than a thousand years later. In the Sassanid period the native
Zoroastriah clergy were intolerant, but only on political grounds.
Zoroastrianism was not a propagandist religion and was not con-
cerned to convert believers in Judaism or Christianity. The Sas-
sanid rulers, though they disliked the Jews, did not fear them; but
they resisted Christian influence almost entirely upon political
grounds. Of several religious minorities in Iran it was the Chris-
tians who were most frequently in trouble because of their aggres-
sive methods. At the beginning of the Sassanid dynasty a Christian
mission was well established at Edessa, and in their wars with
Rome the Iranians took many Christians prisoners whom they
settled as colonists in Iran. It was not until the Christians, under
ambitious bishops, began to show signs of consolidation and to
display a fanatical zeal against heretics that they became objec-
tionable. Even then the Sassanid rulers felt no great anxiety so
long as Rome remained pagan. But after Constantine the Great

176

The Closing of the Country

the Christians came to be regarded as outposts of Roman influence,
and persecutions began in A.D. 339 under Shahpur II, mostly in
the provinces next to Roman Asia. These persecutions continued
at intervals for two hundred years, but there were long periods
when the Christians were left alone, especially when there was
peace between Byzantium and Iran. At times the Iranian rulers
even favoured Nestorians, because they were split from the mother
church and were therefore to be regarded as representing a reac-
tion of Asia against Europe, or at least a hostility to Hellenistic
culture.

It will be seen that here was no consistent antagonism to a
foreign creed, but a variable attitude based upon political grounds.
If Nestorian Christianity survived for so long in Asia it was because
it had no strong political power behind it; and the successes and
failures of the Roman Catholic Church in India, China, and Japan
have been closely related to the degree of political support that in
the estimate of those countries was enjoyed by the missionaries.
It is reasons such as these that best explain the apparent vacilla-
tions and inconsistencies of the Japanese ruling class in their treat-
ment of Christian propaganda during the period we have been
considering.

The action taken by Japan against Christianity cannot be con-
sidered separately from the exclusion policy to which it was a prel-
ude. We have seen that the anti-Christian edict of 1616 was
inspired in part at least by fear of Spanish intervention in the domes-
tic affairs of Japan. The edict was re-enacted in 1624 because the
Shogun had further grounds for suspecting Spain, or at any rate
the Spanish in the Philippines, of aggressive, designs; and this new
edict was accompanied not only by the expulsion of all Spaniards
but also by the stoppage of overseas travel by Japanese. The door
was gradually being closed to both ingress and egress. The Shima-
bara rising that began in 1637 evidently caused further misgivings
to the Shogunate, for it was followed in 1638 by the expulsion of
all Portuguese, whether priests or traders. At the same time the
prohibition of foreign travel was .strengthened by imposing the
death penalty on any Japanese who should attempt to leave
the country or, having left it, should return. This embargo was ex-
tended to foreign trade by a law that forbade the building of any
ship of more than 2,500 bushels' capacity and consequently pre-
vented ocean voyages. Thus Japan deliberately cut herself off from
intercourse with other nations rather than face the dangers it in-
volved. In the history of relations between Europe and Asia this
was the most decided rejection ever given by an Asiatic people to
an approach by the Western world. It was a flat negative, to be
supported by force where necessary, as is clear from the execution

177

The Tokugawa Regime

of Portuguese envoys from Macao who came to Japan in 1640 hop-
ing to persuade the Japanese to change their minds.

From 1641 the only Europeans allowed in Japan were a few
Dutch merchants who were confined to a small island (named
Deshima) at the head of Nagasaki Bay and allowed to trade under
very strict conditions. They and some Chinese traders, also under
close surveillance, formed the only channel of communication with
foreign countries.

Many different reasons have been suggested for the sudden
and drastic exclusionist policy of the Tokugawa shoguns, which
was in such striking contrast to the expansive temper of the Japa-
nese only a few decades before. It is at first sight hard to under-
stand why the Asiatic people who gave Europeans the most friendly
welcome should have also given them the most violent dismissal.
But, granted certain simple assumptions, it does not seem difficult
to explain. It was clearly not due to a peculiar distaste for foreign
intercourse, since that was resumed with remarkable alacrity once
the country was reopened at a later date. It is true that, since the
civilization of Japan was self-contained and her economy self-sup-
porting, there was no compelling reason for cultural or commercial
exchanges; and conservative sentiment, in Japan as in other coun-
tries, was naturally opposed to foreign influences, because to most
people what is foreign is also disturbing. But the intense distrust
which drove the Tokugawa shoguns to close their doors arose
from no ordinary conservatism. They were moved by fear, and
fear not of the contamination of national customs (such as had in-
spired the exclusion policy of the Ming Chinese) but rather of
domestic uprising against themselves.

By 1615 leyasu, the first Tokugawa Shogun, had after long
struggle imposed the authority of his family upon all his feudal
rivals. But neither he nor his successors felt entirely secure for
several decades, and it was a cardinal feature of their policy to take
every possible precaution against rebellion by one or more of the
still powerful western feudatories. The legislation of the Toku-
gawas shows a constant preoccupation with this danger, which was
by no means imaginary. The Mori family in 1600 ruled thirteen of
the sixty-six provinces, the Shimadzu family were strong in Kyu-
shu, while there were other feudal houses that also chafed under
Tokugawa rule. Any of these singly or in combination could have
seized a favourable opportunity to revolt, as indeed in the long
run they did in 1867 when the Shogunate was overthrown largely
by an alliance of the clans of Satsuma (Shimadzu) and Choshu
(Mori) with other anti-Tokugawa forces. It is significant that this
alliance enjoyed the moral and material support of Western
powers.

178

The Closing of the Country

In 1637 the Tokugawa government had good reason to fear
that one or other of these great families might conspire with for-
eigners — Spanish, Portuguese, or Dutch — trade with them for
firearms, get their help in procuring artillery and ships, and even
call upon them for military or naval support. The leaders of the
ruling house, firmly established as it was, did not feel strong
enough to face this risk; and they took steps to remove it by clos-
ing the country to foreign influence, so far as that was possible.

It is interesting, though perhaps not very fruitful, to speculate
upon what turn events might have taken if this exclusionist policy
had not been followed. Japan would no doubt have suffered from
further civil war, and it is just possible that after an interval she
herself would have followed the European example and, with a
rapid development of shipbuilding and the manufacture of ord-
nance, taken a part in the struggle between trading powers that
began to develop in the Pacific after 1600. But all we can say for
certain is that she would not have enjoyed the two centuries and
more of undisturbed peace that followed upon the exclusion edicts.
Perhaps this blessing was not too dearly bought by cutting off in-
tercourse with foreigners who were just beginning to taste the
varied fruits of the "Renaissance and the Reformation.

leyasu died before the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War in
Europe, and it is doubtful whether his successors heard much
about it. But it might have afforded them some grim satisfaction if
they had known that this devastating struggle turned on the prin-
ciple of cujus regio ejus religio, for they had taken care that organ-
ized religion should have no power in the state, and proceeded to
govern their country in accordance with Confucian teachings in-
terpreted to their own taste.

It is important to remember that the principles of Tokugawa
rule were entirely secular, because some foreign accounts of the
modern political development of Japan tend to fall into the error
of ascribing its peculiar features to the influence of a long-standing
"Shinto" tradition. There was, it is true, a so-called Revival of
Shinto just after the Restoration of 1868, but (as will be seen later)
the fact that it was attempted is itself a demonstration that the
Tokugawa rulers had no place for Shinto political concepts in
their system; and the fact that it failed shows that Shinto as an
organized cult had become obsolete and at that juncture responded
to no strong national sentiment. The so-called State Shinto which
was developed for political ends from the turn of the nineteenth
century is an invention resembling and indeed anticipating the
National Socialist perversions of Teutonic mythology. "Shinto,"
indeed, is a term that should be used with great caution, since it
can be applied to an animistic cult, to a theocratic myth, to a

179

The Tokugawa Regime

simple folklore that expresses indigenous Japanese sentiment
about life and society, and to an organized system of ritual with a
certain political content.

2. The Tokugawa Government

.HE GENERAL strategic dispositions taken by the Shogunate to fore-
stall feudal uprising have been described in outline and we may
now turn to examine its administrative methods, though only for
the limited purpose of making clear the nature of the institutions
that were to be destroyed during the Restoration period in the
second half of the nineteenth century.

The first and most important point to establish is the relation-
ship of the Shogunate to the throne. The Shogunate, as its Japa-
nese name, Bakufu^ implies, was essentially a military dictatorship,
for the word means the headquarters of a military command. The
shoguns conceived of themselves as exercising in times of peace pow-
ers first delegated to them by the throne in time of civil war. By
custom and with the throne's consent — a consent that it dared
not withhold — these powers were assumed by each successive
Shogun and thus perpetuated.

One of the first steps taken by the Bakufu when all the feuda-
tories had submitted was to draw up regulations governing the
position of the Emperor. He was given fairly adequate revenues,
but no administrative function of any kind was left to him. Power-
ful Bakufu officers and a suitable garrison were assigned to the
capital (at Kyoto, or Miyako as it was called at that time) in order
to supervise the Emperor and to acquaint him with the Shogun's
policy. His prerogative was entirely formal. He made appoint-
ments at the direction of the Shogun, including the appointment
of the Shogun himself, and he carried out ceremonial observances,
mostly of a religious character. At no time did the shoguns ever
attempt to claim the throne. The fiction of the ultimate authority
of the Emperor was always scrupulously observed, and the mili-
tary dictators submitted advice or requests to him in the humble
language of a loyal subject addressing his sovereign. But they took
care to underline any proposal that might prove unpalatable by a
suitable display of armed force. To prevent the court from plotting
with powerful daimyo the Bakufu forbade any vassal to approach
the Emperor except through the Shogun's representative in Kyoto.
This state of affairs was generally accepted and regarded as normal
under the Tokugawa regime, though it was challenged by a small
group of loyalists from the beginning of the eighteenth century in
a literary revival that brought to light the history of the Imperial

180

The Tokugawa Government

house and later developed into an active monarchist movement
culminating in the Restoration of 1868.

Thus established as the supreme power in the land, the Bakufu
embarked upon' a new experiment in government. Not confining
themselves to the functions of raising revenue and keeping order,
they undertook to regulate the morals of the people and to
prescribe their behaviour in the minutest detail. It is doubtful
whether previous history records a more ambitious attempt on the
part of a state to interfere with the private life of every individual
and so to control the thoughts as well as the actions of a whole na-
tion. These are matters that in most countries have been left to
the Church, but in both China and Japan the secular authority
has traditionally regarded it as its duty to promote ethical teach-
ing, so that in both countries political and moral philosophy are
combined in one doctrine.

The Bakufu depended for its existence on the support of a
military caste, and most of its legislation was designed to promote
discipline and obedience among its supporters. Careful steps were
taken to develop an administrative and social hierarchy ruled by
a rigid code of behaviour. This was embodied in a series of docu-
ments that legislated in great detail for the duties and conduct of
each grade in the military class, from the daimyo down to the low-
est rank of samurai — that being the general appellation, mean-
ing "one who serves," of all persons under military obligation to a
feudal master.

Some excerpts from these documents will perhaps give a better
idea of feudal standards of behaviour than an elaborate digest of
their contents. Thus we may take as illustrating a puritan strain
in Japanese feudal morality the first of what is known as The Hun-
dred Articles or the Legacy of leyasu. It reads: Avoid things that
you like and turn your attention to unpleasant duties. This stern
view of life is repeated in a statement attributed to leyasu which,
among other bleak pronouncements, says: Human life is like go-
ing on a long journey carrying a heavy load. You will not be disap-
pointed if you think that hardship is the common lot. When de-
sires arise in your heart think back to times when you suffered
distress. The code is severe and rigid. It dwells not upon the pur-
suit of happiness but upon the unquestioning performance of
duties. Loyalty and obedience are its watchwords, and it allows no
freedom of thought. In a society so governed every man has his
appointed place; in principle none can leave the station in which
he was born. It is a minutely regulated hierarchical structure, de-
signed to continue unchanged from generation to generation, and
in it there is implicit no idea of progress. This indeed is the char-
acteristic feature of all Tokugawa legislation. It is intensely con-

181

The Tokugawa Regime

servative, to such a point that the Edict of a Hundred Articles,
which has just been quoted, lays it down that a law that has been
in force for fifty years may not be amended although it prove
faulty. The laws that the first Tokugawa shoguns enacted were re-
garded as fundamental and were reaffirmed by each of their suc-
cessors in a solemn ceremony of investiture attended by all vassals,
who swore to obey them. It is this determination to preserve the
system over which they presided that accounts for the decision of
the Tokugawa house to close the country to foreign intercourse,
and it explains much that is difficult to understand in the domestic
history of the subsequent period of seclusion.

We need not study this system in detail. It will be sufficient for
our purpose to notice some general features that will help to make
clear how Japan was governed when the Western nations in the
early nineteenth century resumed their efforts to force the opening
of the country to foreign intercourse. The Tokugawa shoguns, as
we have seen, exercised sovereign powers delegated to them by the
Emperor, and since the Emperor was an absolute monarch in
theory, the Shogun was an absolute ruler in practice. For the first
time in her history Japan was governed by a central authority
that extended over the whole country; but whereas in Europe of
the seventeenth century the feudal system was giving place to na-
tional government under a crown, in Japan the crown lost its
power to a supreme feudal overlord. It has been said that this
Japanese system was in fact a form of centralized national govern-
ment, no longer feudal in character, and this is no doubt true of a
later period, when certain economic changes had impaired its
structure. But in the early phases of the Tokugawa dominance the
political relationship of the several daimyo to the Shogun was of a
feudal character, their local autonomy depending upon vassalage
and their armed forces being, in theory at least, at the disposal of
the Shogun in return for the grant or confirmation of their fiefs.

The central government under the Shogun had a dual func-
tion. It administered directly the Tokugawa family's own domains
and it kept careful watch on the domains of the vassals. It inter-
fered very little in the territories of the Outside Lords and exer-
cised only a general surveillance over the hereditary allies; but
there was a general tendency in all fiefs to adopt principles of ad-
ministration similar to those of the Tokugawa, while the code of
behaviour that regulated the conduct of the military class was sub-
stantially the same throughout the country.

The machinery of government was simple. Matters of high
policy were decided by the Shogun, since he was both the Em-
peror's delegate and the head of the ruling feudal house, though
after the first three shoguns a large share of the administration

182

The Tokugawa Government

passed into the hands of a Council of Elders, who directed a not
very numerous body of subordinate officials. Often, when the
Shogun was weak or indolent, real power was exercised by a senior
official or even by a palace favourite, but on the whole continuity
and tolerable efficiency were preserved because the practice of
delegation is characteristic of Japanese political life, and indeed of
social life also. Just as the affairs of the family are regulated nomi-
nally by the head of the house, but in effect by a family council,
so the functions of government are frequently exercised not by
the ruler in person but by a group standing behind him, which
gradually acquires permanent, even hereditary status, and then in
course of time loses its de facto authority to anonymous deputies or
subordinates. Consequently the student of Japanese history is
often at a loss to discover where real power resides. There are of
course parallels for this descent of authority down the stairs of
rank, but in Japan the system of delegation has been carried to
extreme lengths.

In the early days of foreign intercourse it proved very baffling
to the representatives of foreign powers in their efforts to obtain
undertakings from responsible Japanese quarters. Yet the system
does not appear remarkable to Japanese eyes, and it has certain
advantages. It has at times counteracted the hierarchical trend of
Japanese life by affording scope to persons of low standing but
high capacity; and one of the most striking features of modern
Japanese history is the part played in the Restoration by talented
young samurai of very modest rank. There is something ironical
in the fact that the Bakufu, which was based upon the strictest of
class divisions, should have been destroyed by small officers who
had learned their business by deputizing for their seniors.

As to the political philosophy of the rulers of Japan in the
Tokugawa age, we have already noticed that once the Buddhist
church had been reduced to obedience and the Christian faith
suppressed, they proceeded to govern the people in accordance with
Confucian principles.

Japan's long history of feudal warfare had naturally brought
to high esteem the martial virtues and had fostered the growth of
a class of fighting men which prided itself upon courage, disre-
gard for life, and contempt for material wealth. These, at least,
were the ideals of this privileged caste and though we may be sure
that conduct often fell short of principle, there can be no doubt
that most samuari endeavoured in their fashion to be faithful to
the code they professed. It was encouraged by their feudal superi-
ors as a strong bulwark for the protection of the existing order. But
in times of peace a warlike spirit may be troublesome to rulers un-
less it is tempered by some sense of civic duty, so that the Bakufu

183

The Tokugawa Regime

saw the need of turning the minds of the military class to peaceful
pursuits. The Law of the Military Houses (Buke Sho-Hatto] ,
which was promulgated by leyasu in 1615, lays it down that they
must devote themselves equally to arms and to polite learning,
This optimistic injunction illustrates the problem that faced the
rulers of Japan when the country settled down to years of un-
broken peace. There was no important call to arms after the feudal
levies of lemitsu, the third Shogun, had put down the Shimabara
rebellion of 1637. Thenceforward the question was how to main-
tain discipline and fighting spirit among men who enjoyed abun-
dant leisure, for most samurai had little but ceremonial duty to
perform and they were supported in idleness from the revenues of
the Bakuf u or their respective feudal lords. These conditions made
it necessary to impose strict rules of conduct upon them and to
punish breaches with great severity. Justice under the Tokugawa
was ruthless, as all seventeenth-century travellers to Japan ob-
served.

The guiding principles of Tokugawa administration were
laid down in a system of social ethics adopted as official doctrines
by the first shoguns. It was derived from a version of Confucian
teaching into whose complicated history we need not enter. It is
enough to note that its chief tenets were concerned with loyalty.
The vassal owes loyalty to his overlord, the samurai to his master
and these obligations transcend all others, even the bonds of duty
and affection between parents and children, husband and wife,
teacher and pupil. This was a code which, though it might be
practised alongside of Buddhism, was in essence antireligious, and
during the Tokugawa period Confucian professors exercised a
greater influence among the educated classes than did the Bud-
dhist clergy. Many samurai, however, continued to profess the
creed of one sect or another, and all members of the lower classes
were compelled to register as parishioners of a local Buddhist
church, though this was only a means of keeping a watch on their
movements and was part of civil, not religious policy. leyasu
treated all Buddhist sects with a large impartiality and seems to
have belonged to several himself, a habit that was followed by
most of his successors.

But their tolerance stopped short at sectarian quarrels, for they
all set order above faith and were quick to punish a turbulent sect,
whatever its beliefs. Thus an abbot of the Nichiren sect named
Nichikyo, who had been so severely beaten by some Amidists in a
quarrel that he could not take part in a theological debate, was
declared the loser by default, whereupon he said that the Shogun
was the greatest robber in Japan, an ignoramus who did not know
the simplest principles of government. For this he had his ears and

184.

The Tokugawa Government

nose cut off, because the Bakufu did not care what the monks be-
lieved but would not tolerate civil disobedience.

Though the authorities approved of Buddhism and gave it a
certain official patronage, it cannot be regarded as the state reli-
gion of Tokugawa Japan. In that respect one may say that its
place was taken by the orthodox Confucian teaching. It resulted
from these conditions that there developed among the ruling
class, from the highest officers of the Shogun down to the lowest
samurai, strict if narrow principles of conduct that were generally
observed and were reflected in the standards followed by the rest
of the people. Enforced as they were by severe penalties, they in-
culcated in the whole nation habits of discipline and obedience,
which eased the task of government and enabled Japan to pass
through two hundred years of unbroken peace with but little dis-
turbance of the social order. Consequently when in the nineteenth
century the course of world events made it necessary for Japan to
enter the modern world and change many of her ancient habits,
the most sweeping transformations were accomplished with rela-
tive ease, because the mass of the people was schooled in respect
for authority and the privileged classes included a great number
of men blessed with courage, trained in public affairs, and moved
by a high sense of duty. The feudal oligarchs may not have dis-
covered the secret of good government, but firm government was
something they thoroughly understood.

The foregoing outline may have given the impression that
throughout the Tokugawa age conditions remained substantially
unaltered, and it is true that they kept their basic character for a
very long time. But beneath a look of permanence there can be
detected a continuous process of change in the nature of Japanese
institutions. It cannot be said that they collapsed, for they dis-
played a remarkable durability; but peaceful conditions and the
cessation of foreign intercourse faced the country with problems
that obliged its rulers to accept and even to encourage, modifica-
tions in the policy laid down by the founders of the centralized
feudal state. The first three Shoguns (leyasu, Hidetada, and
lemitsu, who between them ruled from 1603 to 1651) were ani-
mated by a military spirit that found expression in their principles
of government. This was natural enough, since in their day the
memory of civil war was still fresh, and martial ideas were still in
favour. But under the fourth Shogun the character of the regime
began to undergo a change.

In the first fifty years of the Bakufu the return to peace and
settled life, with the growth of cities and the improvement of trans-
port, had favoured the use of money. The government was well
provided with funds, for leyasu had accumulated great treasure

185

The Tokugawa Regime

and his currency was sound. Foreign trade was increasing until
about 1610 and did not seriously diminish until the seclusion be-
gan, while the mining of gold and silver was fairly lucrative. These
and similar circumstances brought a time of free spending and
thriving business, which diverted men's minds from military mat-
ters and produced a certain relaxation of feudal discipline. Civil
accomplishments began to rival warlike prowess. leyasu himself,
as we have seen, had laid it down that members of the military
houses should devote themselves equally to arms and learning, and
he had given some encouragement to classical .Chinese studies by
installing a Confucian scholar as the official philosopher at his
court. But it is only a rare paragon who can maintain a nice bal-
ance between outdoor exercises and learned pursuits. By the time
of Tsunayoshi, the fifth Shogun ( 1 680-1 709) , the military arts were
being neglected and interest in Chinese literature had become a
fashionable craze. The Shogun himself took the lead by endowing
an academy for the sons of feudal dignitaries, whose examination
papers he set. He even took advantage of his position to expound
the classics to his vassals in lectures of increasing frequency, which
they were obliged to attend.

This lapse from rigid martial standards was accompanied by
some relaxation of the severity of the Bakufu towards the Im-
perial court and by easier relationships between Yedo and the
feudatories, who were now allowed some discretion in matters of
succession and marriages — favours that by reducing tension be-
tween the Bakufu and the fiefs made life more agreeable for pro-
vincial samurai and tended to diminish the number of discon-
tented rdnin.2 Though this moderation of policy is ascribed to the
Shogun, it was not, of course, his directive that created the new
mood. It was a natural reaction against the energetic and uncom-
promising authors of a planned society, those capable and restless
people whose designs for the improvement of mankind usually end
in making the objects of their solicitude more eager than ever to
break the rules. By the end of the seventeenth century Japanese
life in cities and towns had entered upon a new phase, a spring-
like flowering of the native culture revealing qualities that had
for long been denied expression.

3. The Cultural Scene

SAGE in Japan could not fail to stimulate learning and the arts,
since even in times of war the aesthetic impulse had not failed. In-
deed, many great captains, famous for bloody exploits, had been

2 The rdnin were samurai who either voluntarily or through the accidents of
war had become masterless men, owing allegiance to no feudal superior.

188

The Cultural Scene

not only patrons but also connoisseurs of literature, painting, ce-
ramics, and such recondite pastimes as the tea ceremony and the
lyric mimes called No. Official encouragement of the studious life
produced before long a society in which intellectual and artistic
pursuits took a high place; and the growth of Osaka and Yedo as
populous centres of trade and government led to the formation of
a prosperous and lively bourgeoisie also devoted to the arts, great
playgoers, avid readers of romances, and good judges of painting
and poetry. The stern rule of the Tokugawa, despite their frequent
sumptuary edicts and their exhortations to frugality, did not suc-
ceed in keeping metropolitan life from cultivating elegance and
luxury, while many castle towns became centres of provincial en-
lightenment. The fixed pattern of feudal administration was lib-
eral enough to allow a measure of freedom in spheres remote from
politics, so that during the eighteenth century Japan developed a
society based upon law and privilege, governed by harsh principle,
but nevertheless achieving in practice great urbanity and style. It
was closed to outside influences and therefore could not be re-
freshed by the winds of new doctrine then blowing about the
Western world; but probably no contemporary European com-
munity was more civilized and polished.

Consequently, when in the nineteenth century the policy of
seclusion was gradually relaxed as Western peoples began to range
the Pacific in search of new openings for trade, they were con-
fronted in Japan not by a backward culture submitting easily to
their influence, but by a highly organized civilization, which,
though it was in a disturbed phase, was nevertheless supported by
strong traditions and firm government, and by a vigorous nation
filled with pride. This was something new in their experience of
Eastern countries, for neither in India nor in southeast Asia nor
even in China had they met with a people so united, so self-reliant,
and yet so ready to learn.

It may be interesting in this context to examine the impres-
sions of Japan recorded by Europeans from the earliest days of
intercourse. Here are some of the most vivid, set forth in chrono-
logical order:

St. Francis Xavier, c. 1550:

"These people are the delight of my heart."

Father Frois, c. 1560:

"As gifted a nation as any in Europe."

Ortelius, in Japonia insularum descriptio, 1595:

"Mortalitatis incommoda, famem, sitim, astum, algorem, vig-
ilias laboresque admirabili patientia tolerant. Acuta, sagax et
bene a natura informata gens est judicio, docilitate, memorial

Sir Edward Michelborne, c. 1605:

187

The Tokugawa Regime

"The Japons not being suffered to land in any port in the Indies
with weapons, being accounted a people so desperate and dar-
ing that they were feared in all places where they came."

Will Adams, the English pilot-major, 1611:

"The people of this island of Japan are good by nature, courte-
ous above measure, and valiant in war. Their justice is severely
executed without any partiality upon transgressors of the law.
They are governed in great civility. I mean there is not a land
better governed in the world by civil police."

The same, 1613:

"In this land there is no strange news to certify you of, the
whole being in peace, the people very subject to their governors
and superiors/'

Don Roderigo de Vivero y Velasco, Governor of the Philippines, c. 1612:
"The streets and open places of Yedo are so very handsome, so
clean and well kept that it might be imagined no person walked
in them. ... In the one hundred leagues from Zurunga to
Meaco a village occurs every quarter of a league. On whichever
side a traveller turns his eye he perceives a concourse of people
as in the most populous cities of Europe. . . . The Japanese
are very industrious and expert. They are clever at invention
and imitation. Their mmnicipal government is excellent, the
internal police is admirably regulated. . . . Pride, arrogance,
and a resolution which is almost carried to ferocity are the dis-
tinctive traits of Japanese of all classes."

Englebert Kaempfer, 1692:

"United and peaceable, taught to give due worship to the gods,
due obedience to the Laws, due submission to their superiors,
due love and regard to their neighbours/'

Anon. Manners and Customs of the Japanese (a compilation) , Lon-
don, 1841:

"Law and established custom, unvarying, known to all and
pressing on all alike are the despots of Japan, Scarcely an ac-
tion of life is exempt from their rigid, inflexible and irksome
control; but he who complies with their dictates has no arbi-
trary power, no capricious tyranny to apprehend/'

The captain of H.M.S. Samarang, 1845:

"The gentlemen of Japan were most polite and courteous, con-
ducting themselves with refined and polished urbanity/'

It will be seen that these observers agree that Japan was effi-
ciently and firmly governed, and they praise the civic virtues of the
Japanese people. They were for the most part not well enough ac-
quainted with the Japanese language or familiar with Eastern
philosophy to appreciate the literary and artistic life of circles of
which they could have but little direct knowledge. But had they
been able to understand it they would have agreed that it was not
wanting in distinction. It is true that the greatest periods in Japa-

188

The Cultural Scene

nese art and letters had passed by before the end of the civil wars
in the sixteenth century; but the seventeenth and eighteenth saw
a modest renaissance that deserves some notice, because it contrib-
uted to the formation of that culture which in the nineteenth met
the impact of Western civilization.

When the country had settled down to peaceful life in 1615,
the growth of cities like Yedo and Osaka brought about certain
changes in the constitution of the people. The great numbers of
feudal officers and troops in residence in those places and the con-
stant going and coming of daimyo between their provinces and
the capital swelled the urban population and, by creating a need
for the services of tradesmen and artisans, formed a large class of
chdnin or townspeople. In former times under feudal rule there
had been a strict division of society into four classes: soldiers, farm-
ers, artisans, and traders. This division persisted throughout the
Tokugawa era, though it tended to break down towards the end.
In the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries it was still main-
tained in principle, and to pass from one class to another was dif-
ficult and unusual. The trader came lowest in the social scale be-
cause in an agrarian economy the farmer is the pillar of the state.
But in a large and thriving city such as Yedo the tradesman and
the skilled craftsman gained a special importance by reason of
their use to the community and their great numbers, so that in
course of time they developed into a prosperous bourgeoisie. This
.was a new phenomenon in the social life of Japan, which later
exerted a strong influence upon the country's economic develop-
ment as the growth of a substantial mercantile class opened a
breach in the rigid social structure of feudalism. The political and
economic aspects of the rise of the chonin need not detain us here,
though it is worth while to note in passing that the descendants of
the wealthy shopkeepers of Yedo and Osaka played an important,
indeed an indispensable part in the movement which ended by
overthrowing the Shogunate in 1868, because it could scarcely have
succeeded without their financial backing. But what concerns us
now is the contribution of this class to Japanese culture in the
seventeenth century and after. Its history is remarkable in many
ways, since it arose from small beginnings, was handicapped by in-
ferior social standing, and had to strive against a virtual monopoly
of learning and authority enjoyed by the military caste, the Bud-
dhist clergy, and a few court nobles.

The Tokugawa oligarchs for some generations conducted their
administration almost as if it were the enforcement of martial law,
and they legislated very thoroughly on points affecting the conduct
of each separate class, distinguishing in their standards between
samurai and commoner. Strict rules were applied to the towns-

189

The Tokugawa Regime

people, who as time went on became extravagant in their habits,
thus calling forth a stream of official rebukes. They were told to
lead frugal, industrious lives, and not to wear fine clothes or give
expensive feasts. But this endeavour to regulate the citizen's be-
haviour by edict, which was in accordance with ancient tradition,
was not successful, though the government never learned by ex-
perience and thus repeated its fruitless policy time after time. The
merchants and craftsmen had money in their pockets and were
determined to spend it. The money they earned came from the
purses of their social superiors, to whom their services were in-
dispensable. It was the daimyo on duty in Yedo, their wives, and
their retinues, or the Shogun's own officers, who converted their
rice revenues into cash, to the great profit of brokers and dealers,
and spent it on lavish entertainment or the purchase of fine dress
and furnishings. It may be asked why the Bakufu did not frown
upon this high-class extravagance, and the answer is that it was
part of Tokugawa policy to encourage the daimyo to spend their
fortunes on pleasures rather than on military preparations. Thus
the old stern morality of the military aristocrats was being eroded
by peace and leisure.

Such circumstances contributed to the growth of a new middle-
class community, confined principally to the greater cities, enjoy-
ing comfortable incomes and devoted to amusement. By 1700 or
thereabouts the citizens of Osaka and Yedo had developed a char-
acteristic culture of their own, which showed a marked divergence
from the severe and sometimes cramping standards of the classical
Japanese tradition. Their taste was for the theatre, for romantic or
comic novels, for salacious or witty lampoons, and for gay, coloured
paintings and prints. It was vulgar in the eyes of the orthodox, but
it was fresh, spontaneous, and by no means lacking in discernment.
It brought into being schools of artists, authors, actors, play-
wrights, and master craftsmen who figure prominently in Japa-
nese aesthetic history. Their work came to be prized outside of
bourgeois circles and in time attracted into the artistic and literary
coteries of the chonin a number of men of samurai origin who were
dissatisfied with what feudal life had to offer.

Like most nice arrangements, the class system that the Toku-
gawa attempted to fix did not remain unmodified. Apart from the
rise of an influential bourgeoisie a new and disturbing element
appeared in the peaceful Tokugawa society. This was the class of
masterless samurai or ronin which grew to important dimensions
after the civil wars. It was not a new feature in Japanese life, for
the end of fighting had often thrown out of employment a number
of soldiers who found it hard to adjust themselves to peaceful con-
ditions and were inclined to take up a roving and sometimes an

190

The Cultural Scene

unruly or criminal life. But when leyasu, having disposed of his
enemies, proceeded to a redistribution of fiefs throughout the
country, he created for himself and his successors a serious problem
on a much larger scale. He abolished or reduced a great number of
fiefs, some of which were incorporated in his own domains and
some transferred to his favourite vassals. When these changes of
ownership took place new incumbents did not as a rule wish to
take into their services samurai bound to them by no previous tie,
and accordingly within fifty years after the Battle of Sehigahara
some 400,000 samurai are said to have become ronin.3 To these
should be added a number of men who for various private reasons
gave up their allegiances and led an independent life. Among
them, it is interesting to note, were a number of Christian converts
who fled from their homes when persecution became severe. Some
went overseas to the Philippines, Macao, and Farther India, where
they engaged in trade or took service with foreign rulers as mer-
cenaries, but most remained in Japan, together with most of those
samurai who, having been engaged in maritime trade licensed by
the government, lost their occupation when the country was closed.
Thus from early in the Tokugawa period the population in-
cluded a considerable number of men ill adjusted to the social
order of the times. Some crossed the line and entered another
class, becoming farmers or tradesmen or engaging in scholastic,
literary, or artistic pursuits. But there was a large residue of un-
settled men of no fixed occupation, always ready for excitement
and tending to engage in subversive movements. They were rightly
regarded by the Bakufu as a dangerous element, especially after
the Shimabara rebellion of 1637-8 and again in 1651, when a
conspiracy against the government came to light and implicated a
great number of ronin. As many as 100,000 of these desperate men
who fought against leyasu are said to have been slaughtered during
and after the siege of Osaka in 1615, and ruthless measures of re-
pression were taken after the incidents of 1637 anc* l^5l- But even
when this generation had been destroyed or had passed away the
ronin as a class did not disappear. They were quiescent through
most of the eighteenth century, though their ranks were from time
to time refilled by economic depression, and by the end of the
Tokugawa period they had regained importance as a menace to
the existing order. It was men of this type who in the troubles
leading up to the Restoration and in the years of political strife
to follow were to play a part that was always active, generally vio-

3 This does not, of course, mean a total of 400,000 at the end of the period, but"
shows that the ranks of the ronin were added to each year after 1600 by from 5,000
to 10,000 men, the cumulative total being reduced by alternative employment or
death.

191

The Tokugawa Regime

lent, and sometimes useful. They displayed every character from
a quixotic knight-errantry to a vulgar rowdiness, and Japanese
political life for several generations thereafter bore the marks of
their influence. It should be added that the ronin who joined the
anti-Tokugawa movement from about 1858 were not all vagrants
and deserters. Many purposely divested themselves of their obliga-
tions to feudal superiors so that they could with a clear conscience
support the Imperial cause.

The presence of a samurai element in the new bourgeoisie
probably tended to raise its cultural level, for some of the ronin
were men of parts. The history of popular literature and art in the
middle and late Tokugawa period shows that some of its most
prominent figures were men of samurai origin. The celebrated
playwright Chikamatsu, who flourished late in the seventeenth cen-
tury, was a ronin and so was Bakin, the great novelist, while many
popular artists came from samurai families and began as pupils of
"official" painters.

Tempting as it is, this is not the place for a full study of the
intellectual and artistic life of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-
turies, which has unfortunately been neglected by Western stu-
dents, who have so far paid attention mainly to political and eco-
nomic matters in that era and have made few or no attempts to paint
a comprehensive picture of the singularly interesting society of
Yedo and Osaka in its more human and less statistical aspects. But
it is necessary to have some knowledge of this society if one is to
understand the culture which was later to come under strong for-
eign influence.

Its chief feature is perhaps its development of popular arts.
Classical schools of painting, which had grown up in Kyoto, con-
tinued in Yedo, when the Shogun Tsunayoshi (1680-1709) invited
painters from the Kano studios to his capital, because their work
had a certain Chinese flavour and its sentiment was in harmony
with the Confucian spirit cultivated in official quarters. But what
most distinguishes the new art from the old is a profusion of genre
paintings which portray faithfully and for the most part with only
a faint idealistic tinge the common contemporary life in its many-
coloured aspects. This is the heyday of a realistic art which takes
for its themes the streets, the theatres, the tea-houses, and the easy-
going ladies or the fashionable actors who frequent them. It does
not belong to any of the early schools, but is a new thing, though
compounded partly of older elements. Its patrons are the trades-
men and it satisfies a demand that gay city life has created. It forms,
as it develops, an exacting taste among clients in bourgeois circles,
so that presently the townspeople become severe critics and the
one time aristocratic monopoly of culture is broken. The pictures

198

The Cultural Scene

of the passing scene, beginning with the work of such painters as
Hishigawa Moronobu, are the forerunners of the colour print so
familiar to the West, a form of art that apart from its artistic value
testifies in a most convincing way to the spread of aesthetic interest
among the rising urban class. The names of the great print artists
were known to every citizen and their merits earnestly debated.
They are the portrayers of the Ukiyo or Floating World. It is a
term of which the origin is disputed, some deriving it from the
Buddhist ukiyOj which means this world of sorrow. But there can
be little doubt that, as referring to the work of Yedo painters, it
connoted the world of transient pleasures. The Ukiyo-e is a picture
of that world.

Much the same can be said of literature and the theatre. The
romances and the stage performances that appealed to the military
class did not satisfy the robust and sensuous taste of the towns-
people and accordingly there developed in Osaka and Yedo a new
kind of novel and a popular theatre, less refined but more actual
and lively than their predecessors. These new demands called forth
a new class of writer who depicted for popular entertainment the
contemporary scene and thus extended the interest of the citizens
in books and plays, their feeling for costume and their apprecia-
tion of acting. At the same time a rising standard of living pro-
moted excellence in the applied arts, and by the end of the seven-
teenth century — in the very bright and showy period known as
Genroku — it may be said that a distinct and advanced new culture
had been formed, a culture which for lively aesthetic quality would
compare favourably with anything that contemporary Europe had
to show. As seen by the social historian, perhaps the most inter-
esting feature of this new culture of the townspeople is the fact
that it belonged to no particular class. It was born and nourished,
it is true, in a society of commoners, but it cannot be called ple-
beian, for the creative artists and the master craftsmen who made
it formed an elite in which all were merged without respect to
social origins. This elite, like the society it served, had no pedi-
gree. Its themes were those of the present and its past was only
yesterday.

The spectacular work of the artists and writers of these popular
schools has caused foreign and some Japanese writers, in reaction
against their former neglect, to exaggerate their importance in the
artistic and even the social history of Japan. They have given the
impression that the new bourgeois culture replaced or over-
whelmed an earlier cultural life in which the townspeople took no
part. But in fact the bourgeois culture was very limited in its scope,
and its superb artistic quality was confined within a very narrow
range. The townspeople, for all their growing prosperity, were

193

The Tokugawa Regime

still subject to the disabilities of their class and not free from op-
pression at the hands of their feudal masters. It was in the world
of entertainment, the world of make-believe, that they found es-
cape from social restraints, and their free emotional life was led
largely in resorts of fugitive pleasure — to wit, the brothel and the
theatre. It was a life dominated by the influence of women, and it
is not to be wondered at that it nourished in both art and letters an
almost morbid preoccupation with the sensual. This is less appar-
ent in the early Ukiyo-e painters than in their eighteenth-century
successors, but from its beginnings the popular art of the cities was
the expression — the charming, the delicate, and the accomplished
expression — of only a narrow segment of contemporary life. There
is a natural temptation to stress the Floating World school, in life
as well as in art, because of its special sensitiveness and its distinc-
tive repertory, but this should not lead us into neglect of more
sober but still quite important movements in old-established
schools. Something more must be said on this subject when we
come to consider Yedo in the eighteenth century, but it is as well
to emphasize here that old ways of life did not vanish with the
growth of cities. The fine arts as practised and enjoyed in the up-
per circles of Tokugawa society did not display that preference for
the actual and that instinct for the contemporaneous which were
the marks of the bourgeois fin de siecle culture. But it would be
mistaken to think of them as entirely traditional and closed to new
influences.

Alongside of this cultural growth there took place also some
changes in the nature of the more conservative parts of feudal so-
ciety. Polite accomplishments had been encouraged among the
samurai by their opportunities for leisure and by the official pro-
motion of study as a means of turning the minds of malcontents
away from real or imagined political grievances. No doubt a ma-
jority of these military men were little disposed to sit over their
books, but on the whole it can be said that learning spread and
flourished. The line of scholars was not broken, and the Yedo pe-
riod is distinguished for the number of philosophers that it pro-
duced and the heat that their controversies engendered. Some stu-
dents began to question the official philosophy, and in course of
time the uniformity of feudal opinion was broken by heterodox
schools, which challenged the assumptions at the base of feudal
society and thus began an intellectual movement that was to bring
it to ruin in the nineteenth century. It cannot be said, however,
that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the feudal sys-
tem showed clear signs of impending collapse, though these may
now be visible in retrospect to the historian. Yet a crack in its
seemingly massive structure is revealed by one significant feature

The Cultural Scene

of the scholarship of the Tokugawa era. This is the attention paid
to economic problems by its leading political philosophers. As
early as 1712 we find Arai Hakuseki, the official Confucian scholar
at the Shogun's court, whose natural interest was in rites and cere-
monies, immersed in questions of currency and writing on mone-
tary theory. He was followed by other distinguished Confucian
scholars, such as Ogyu Sorai and Miura Baien, who wrestled with

KUM AZAWA BANZAN ( 1 6 1 8-9 1 )

A celebrated Confucian scholar
and political economist

problems that still vex economists, and propounded theories on
value, prices, and other matters remote from the sphere of con-
ventional scholarship.

It need hardly be said that this interest in questions of finance,
production, and trade arose from practical necessity. The closed
economy of Japan was disturbed by one crisis after another as pop-
ulation increased, as the use of money altered the distribution of
wealth, and as the farmer's interests clashed with those of the mer-
chant. The rise of the urban class whose culture we have been dis-
cussing was a challenge not only to the social structure of the
feudal state but also to its economic foundation. Once the land-
revenue economy, that essential support of feudal privilege, was
disturbed by a growing mercantile, money-using class, the end was

195

The Tokugawa Regime

almost in sight, though it might be delayed for a space by the
weight of tradition and the use of autocratic measures.

Perhaps it should be added here that when the leading Japa-
nese Confucianists turned their attention to economic matters they
were not departing from precedent, for these were often upper-
most in the minds of Chinese philosophers. The advice that the
Sages so copiously offered to distracted monarchs frequently had to
do with land tenure, the growing and storing of grain, and the
relations between producer and consumer. But they regarded such
questions as a branch of moral philosophy and not as a dismal
science. This was also the attitude of most of the Japanese scholars
who were troubled by anomalies arising from the use of money.
Their view was not unlike that of philosophers in mediaeval
Europe, for the Church thought of economic questions in ethical
terms. It might prove an interesting exercise for a historian to
trace the resemblances between the opinions of classical Far East-
ern writers and the mediaeval idea that production and profit were
forms of evil unless their end was the general good.

Note on CHAPTER 9

ASTRONOMY AND MATHEMATICS IN JAPAN. Whether more valuable scien-
tific knowledge was obtained from Dutch than from Jesuit and other
missionary sources is not a question of much importance; but it is of
passing interest to note that the Jesuits in China did not use the
Copernican system until towards the end of the seventeenth century,
whereas the greatest advances made by Japanese astronomers followed
upon knowledge of the Copernican system, which they obtained
through the Dutch.

Perhaps the most significant feature of astronomical studies in
eighteenth-century Japan is not the zeal of the students but the ease
with which the Copernican system found acceptance. In Japan, as in
China, it met with no opposition on religious grounds, since Far East-
ern beliefs were neither anthropocentric nor geocentric and were con-
sequently not thought to be endangered by a theory that made the
earth a satellite and diminished the importance of man.

For further details see an interesting paper by B. Szczesniak, in the
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, parts one and two of the volume
for 1944. The same writer deals with astronomical and mathematical
studies in China in later parts of the same volume.

196

r

LHE

C H ^A <P r 6
IO

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY JAPAN
i. Domestic Politics

, HE PERIOD called Genroku may be looked upon as the
zenith of Tokugawa prosperity, and perhaps even the justification
of feudal rule, for here was peace and plenty and a great flourish-
ing of the arts — a happy society as human societies go. There-
after Japanese history for a century or so may be read as a chronicle
of the failure of a great experiment intended to maintain peace
and well-being by conducting the affairs of the state in accordance
with a fixed doctrine and preserving it from contamination by all
new influences, whether arising from within or without its borders.

But when the Shogun Yoshimune succeeded to power in 1716,
both internal and external circumstances had set in motion a proc-
ess that by slow degrees was to wear down resistance to change.
This new ruler saw that the samurai, or at least the samurai upon
whom the Bakufu depended, had declined in vigour though they
might have increased in knowledge; and he seems to have reached
the conclusion that government on the advice of philosopher-
statesmen and the substitution of learning for military discipline
had gone on too long. There can be little doubt that a Japanese
reading of a Sung version of an ancient Chinese philosophy was a
most unsuitable instrument for governing a great country, as in-
deed was any doctrine pretending to have found the secret of guid-
ing the mysterious, erratic behaviour of men. One Chinese sage
had said that governing a great country was like cooking small fish,
and if this means that attention must be paid to detail, then the
Tokugawa rulers would have done well to follow his advice by
neglecting theory and devoting themselves to practical matters.

If ever there was a need for straightforward empiric solutions
of political problems it was in the days of the shoguns whose de-
sire was to preserve their system intact. Something of this kind
may have been in the mind of Yoshimune when he surveyed the
feudal scene on his accession. He knew by experience the state of

197

Eighteenth-Century Japan

affairs in the clans, for he had been lord of a small fief before his
appointment; and he decided that Confucianism was not enough.
Some practical steps must be taken to revive the waning military
spirit and to stop the decay of feudal institutions. Accordingly he
endeavoured to restore the discipline of the days of leyasu by en-
couraging great hunting parties, which were in reality military
exercises, and 'by other measures such as the issue of orders to all
members of the military class directing them to cut down expendi-
ture and lead simple lives. This kind of government by rescript
was naturally not very effective and there is a plaintive note in
some of the orders, which say: "In all things frugality must be ob-
served, as we have laid it down already time after time." Little
attention was paid to these sumptuary rules by either samurai or
simple commoner, and perhaps the Shogun did not expect much
of them.

He also struggled to make positive improvements by reforming
a debased currency, encouraging agriculture, reclaiming waste
land, and generally stimulating production, with some temporary
benefit. But neither he nor his advisers grasped the fundamental
weakness of the system over which he presided, for they did not
realize or would not admit that once the merchant class had gained
effective influence, the main principles of feudal rule were no
longer valid. Perhaps the feudal rulers were groping for the right
solution, since before long they began to engage in trade them-
selves. They had some success in government enterprises, either
regulating or monopolizing the sale of such products as oil, iron,
brass, coal, and sulphur. They also continuously endeavoured,
though with no success, to control the price of rice and other com-
modities. But the object of such undertakings was not to improve
the national economy. They were designed to increase the Toku-
gawa revenues while checking the power of the merchants. Similar
policies were adopted by a number of daimyo, who made profits by
the sale of local products.

This was a great change from the days when feudal authority
was enthroned upon a pile of rice built up by industrious peasants,
but the growth of a money economy only gradually encroached
upon the privilege of the military class. The process was inevitable
and relentless, but it took a hundred years from the days of Yoshi-
mune to reach its culmination. Its interest at this point lies in the
fact that a habit of state intervention in trade, developed in the
eighteenth century, was carried over into the nineteenth, when it
affected the economic policy of Japan as she began to develop into
a modern industrial state.

Some knowledge of economic conditions in the Tokugawa era
is necessary for a full understanding of its history and in particular

198

Foreign Influences

of the events that led to the breakdown of the policy of seclusion.
A short discussion of the main economic problems will be found in
the next chapter, and here it is only necessary to say that from
Yoshimune's day onwards the authorities were constantly harassed
by the conflict between rural and urban interests, by questions of
food production and prices. Their policy was never consistent or
successful and their repeated failures made for social instability
and discontent.

Much of the serious literature of the period is concerned with
the agrarian problem in its various aspects, and even in more fugi-
tive pieces one comes across frequent references to unpredictable
changes in the price of rice. The scholars of the day can scarcely
be blamed for failing to understand the weakness of their system.
They were part of it, unable to see it from outside, and the very
isolation upon which it depended deprived them of opportunity
to compare their experience with that of other countries. The only
example or precedent upon which they could draw was furnished
by classical Chinese writings on political economy, and these were
the produce of an environment not unlike their own in so far as
it was dominated by ideas natural to a land-revenue society. In
such circumstances it is most creditable that Japan in the Toku-
gawa age should have brought forth a line of scholars who, though
by training they were exponents of Chinese moral philosophy,
should have arrived independently at theoretical concepts that, in
the opinion of competent students, are very close to those deduced
by Western economists from a much greater wealth of material.

2, Foreign Influences

NE of the dangers most feared by the Bakufu in its early days
was the influence of foreign ideas which (as the Chinese also "said
on occasion) "might contaminate the customs of the country/'
Though the exclusion edicts do not appear to have been reinforced
by a general prohibition of the import of foreign books, this was
scarcely necessary since none but a few official interpreters could
read a European language, and in any case the Bakufu could always
legislate ad hoc as the occasion required. Thus the ban upon Chris-
tianity had been accompanied by a rigorous censorship designed to
exclude not only all direct Christian teaching but all literature that
might be suspected of promoting the spread of Christian knowl-
edge. There was a possibility that Chinese books, which were at '
that time freely admitted, might contain matter infringing this
rule, and consequently in 1630 an edict sought to close a gap in
the proscription by forbidding "books intended to propagate

199

Eighteenth-Century Japan

Christianity" and specifying certain works by Father Ricci and
other Jesuit missionaries that had been published in the Chinese
language in China.

This interdict was applied in an absurdly matter-of-fact way,
the authorities confiscating any book that contained the slightest
indirect reference to Christianity, even if it were only a single
word like "Catholic" or "Western" or "Europe." But it seems
that it was not consistently enforced, for there is good evidence
that a considerable number of Chinese books reached Japan dur-
ing the latter half of the seventeenth century. The arrival of cases
of Chinese books from Cambodia is reported in 1663, and when
Chinese loyalists escaping from the Manchus took refuge in Japan
in 1683 and 1684 they carried with them choice items from their
libraries which appear to have passed through the Nagasaki cus-
toms without trouble. Perhaps because of this the 1630 edict was
renewed in 1685, and ten years later we hear of the Nagasaki cen-
sors' doubts as to a Chinese work that described the sights of Pek-
ing in twenty-eight volumes. It contained a reference to the tomb
of Father Ricci and gave some account of that great man's life. The
censors asked Yedo for instructions, saying that the guide-book did
not teach Christianity but only praised the virtuous life of an Oc-
cidental person. But the higher authorities ordered the book to be
destroyed, and the junk that brought it was quarantined, so that
the crew could buy no food ashore.

These curious instances are quoted in order to show to what
lengths the Tokugawa administration carried their detestation and
their fear of Christian influence. They show at the same time that,
despite the edicts, there was still a certain interest in foreign ideas
in intellectual circles. Part of this was mere curiosity, but there is
no doubt that there was some genuine thirst for Western knowl-
edge, chiefly in scientific matters and notably in astronomy and
surgery. Earnest Japanese scholars did not like being deprived of
information that might further their studies and objected to cen-
sorship on general grounds. It is clear that despite the strict official
policy they did from time to time manage to get hold of forbidden
books, though (like certain works in Chinese on mathematical sub-
jects by Ricci) these were usually confined to a very select group
and circulated secretly in manuscript.

As the fear of Christianity diminished with the lapse of time the
reasons for the ban on Western literature seemed even less valid
than before and certain scholars began to protest openly against it.
Ogyu Sorai, a celebrated Confucian scholar who was no liberal but
a believer in absolute rule, nevertheless raised objections, saying:
"Owing to these prohibitions nobody knows what Christianity
teaches. But the officials should not leave us in ignorance on this

200

Foreign Influences

subject, since we ought to know whether it is good or bad. . . .
Buddhists, Shintoists, and Confucianists should be in a position to
prove that it is erroneous or harmful, but they cannot do this un-
less they are allowed to see the books/' Arai Hakuseki, the official
Confucian scholar at the Shogun's court, was no friend of Chris-
tianity, but after having interrogated an unfortunate missionary
who had smuggled himself into Japan, he decided that it was not
dangerous. He was not against precautions, but he neatly summar-
ized the objections to an indiscriminate censorship by observing:
"There is danger in hunting wolves with tigers.'*

It will be seen that, severe as was the official attitude, there
were means by which information about the outside world could
reach Japan. Chinese sources were important because there was a
regular approved trade between Japan and China, carried in Chi-
nese vessels whose crews were not averse to smuggling and no
doubt adept in bribery. The merchants in the Dutch factory at
Nagasaki were scrupulously isolated from contacts with other than
officials and interpreters, but some of these latter were profession-
ally interested in foreign learning and thus provided a channel of
communication that could be used by scholars in search of West-
ern knowledge, though only illicitly and at great risk. Thus a
trickle of intercourse always continued, though not even the bold-
est smuggler of scraps of information would dare to show an in-
terest in any matter that might, by some stretch of official imagina-
tion, be connected with Christianity. Here the vigilance of the
authorities was never relaxed. Anti-Christian edicts were con-
stantly issued and reissued throughout the seventeenth and eight-
eenth centuries, and they continued in force until after the Resr
torationof 1868.

We have already touched on the reasons for the anti-Christian
edicts and seen what were the circumstances that prompted their
issue in the early part of the seventeenth century. But it is not easy
to understand the persistence of an almost hysterical dread of
Christian propaganda long after the missionaries had been ejected
and all visible traces of the foreign creed removed. This enduring
anxiety was betrayed not only by reiteration of the edicts, but also
by repeated hunts for Christians in remote places, which are re-
corded as late as 1790, 1841, and 1856, to say nothing of a last
search in 1868. In the period with which we are now dealing —
it carries us to the end of Yoshimune's shogunate in 1744 — all
persons suspected of a connection with Christianity were still
obliged to prove their innocence by trampling upon a sacred pic-
ture, the -fumie, a wooden or metal plaque bearing a figure of Je-
sus or the Virgin. By that time, however, well-informed Japanese
no longer supposed that there was any likelihood of an invasion

201

Eighteenth-Century Jo/pan

planned by Spanish or Portuguese priests. None of the anti-Chrisr
tian edicts was withdrawn and precautions were not discontinued,
but the attitude of the authorities had become less immoderate.

This change was part of a general liberal trend in the policy of
Yoshimune, who in spite of his promotion of the military arts was
well disposed towards scholarship. He did not confine his patron-
age to the orthodox Confucian philosophy and he became per-
suaded that Japan had something useful to learn from the West.
In 1720 he relaxed the interdicts upon Western learning by per-
mitting the importation of foreign books so long as they did not
propagate Christian teaching. This meant that scientific works
written by the Jesuits in China could now be brought to Japan.
His reasons are not quite clear, though it is evident that he was
acting in accord with a growing desire among Japanese scholars to
extend their studies beyond the range of native learning. A clue
to his motives is afforded by an episode that occurred when doubts
arose as to the accuracy of the Japanese calendar — a serious mat-
ter in Eastern countries where government depended upon a kind
of national horoscope. It was known that there existed in Naga-
saki a copy of an astronomical encyclopaedia compiled for the use
of the Peking court by Father Adam Schall, and orders were given
to dispatch it to Yedo. It is evident that the usefulness o£ this for-
eign book was one of the causes of the edict of 1720,

It may be asked why, after nearly a century of intercourse with
the Portuguese, the Japanese had acquired so little Western scien-
tific knowledge that they should now have to depend upon infor-
mation from China. This is not easy to account for, but it is a fact
that, if we exclude the effects of astronomical science as it was
made known in the Far East by Jesuits working under the Portu-
guese padroadoy Portuguese influence upon Japan, considering its
duration, was remarkably small apart from the effect of Christian-
ity, which was of great importance while it lasted but left little
positive trace upon Japanese life beyond the deep-rooted mistrust
it aroused. The Japanese learned from the Portuguese something
of cartography, navigation, medicine, and the use of firearms, and
the Portuguese may be given some credit for the system of "roman-
ization" by which Japanese words could be written in the Western
alphabet. But specific survivals of Portuguese influence are rare
and perhaps one may say that the most important effect of the cen-
tury of Portuguese intercourse was to make the Japanese aware of
the world beyond eastern Asia, of the possibilities of extended
ocean trade and at the same time of the strength of Western navies.

The really important, positive, and measurable Western in-
fluences on Japan, those which by promoting the study of mathe-
matics and astronomy led to further interest in Western science

Foreign Influences

and so prepared the way for profound changes in Japanese life,
are strangely enough not visible until after the exclusion edicts;
and they began to come in through the Chinese channels just de-
scribed. This is to be explained partly by the chronology of the
development of Western science, in which Portugal was relatively
backward; and partly by the change of policy expressed in Yo-
shimune's decree. Thenceforward, principally through the me-
dium of the Dutch trading station in Nagasaki, Japanese scholars
were able to pursue their Western studies in comparative but by
no means complete freedom, though they were of course handi-
capped by the difficulty of learning foreign languages, obtaining
foreign books, and profiting by personal contact with Western men
of learning.

The story of this small band of students, sedulously striving in
the face of many obstacles to acquire the elements of unfamiliar
science, is a fascinating one, which can be told here only in the
broadest outline. Its historical interest is considerable, for it re-
veals a glaring contrast between the indifference of the Chinese
towards foreign learning and the eager interest displayed in Japan,
at first by a few obscure students and later by an increasing num-
ber of men of all classes. In China under the Manchu dynasty a
band of distinguished Jesuit scholars, who enjoyed the patronage
of the Emperors K'ang Hsi and Ch'ien Lung, could place at the dis-
posal of Chinese intellectuals a great fund of learning in the
Western sciences, but those gifts were disdained by most of the
complacent Chinese bureaucrats, and the influence of Western
knowledge upon Chinese life was hardly perceptible until the
closing years of the nineteenth century. In Japan, on the other
hand, where Europe was represented only by a few merchants and
ships' captains confined to narrow quarters in a seaport town, it
was the Japanese themselves who came forward to inquire into the
nature of Western learning.

The first step was the study of the Dutch language, which
gradually displaced Portuguese as Dutch and English rivalry di-
minished Portuguese power throughout the Far East. The Portu-
guese language, however, continued in use in Japan throughout
the seventeenth century, and it was not until the early eighteenth
century that Dutch became the accepted medium of communica-
tion between Europeans and Japanese. It therefore seems as if the
introduction of Western learning was delayed by the supremacy
of Portuguese as a lingua franca in the Far East. Doubtless other
causes contributed, among them being a general mistrust of Euro-
peans, which diminished only as the events that brought about a
policy of seclusion receded into the past. In some branches of
knowledge, particularly astronomy and mathematics, the ability of

203

Eighteenth-Century Japan

Japanese scholars to read Chinese versions of the work of Jesuit
scientists was a specific cause of delay in turning to original Euro-
pean sources.

Yoshimune's edict of 1720, though it applied to Chinese books
and was inspired mainly by an interest in the calendar, was an ex-
pression of his general attitude towards foreign learning. When
the head of the Dutch factory at Deshima made his annual journey
to Yedo and was received in audience at the Shogun's court, Yo-
shimune used to show some curiosity about foreign books and
pictures, and the members of the Dutch party (especially the
physicians) during their stay in Yedo were always questioned at
length by Japanese scholars thirsting for information on scien-
tific matters. The official atmosphere was therefore more favour-
able to Western studies than at any time since the exclusion edicts.

There can be no doubt that the long era of peace had promoted
among Japanese scholars a spirit of free inquiry, which began to
raise doubts concerning some of the assumptions upon which Jap-
anese life was based and to encourage the exploration of new fields
of learning. By about 1700 a few of the official interpreters at Naga-
saki had acquired not only a fair mastery of Dutch but also some
general information as to the nature of Western civilization, which
(it should be remembered) had undergone great changes since the
days of the Portuguese. Scraps of knowledge concerning the his-
tory, arts, and sciences of European countries which they .picked
up and imparted to others began to arouse the curiosity of certain
Japanese scholars and to induce them to take up the study of the
Dutch language.

These were the founders of the group of Rangakusha or Dutch
Scholars, who, at first in competition with the official interpreters
and then in collaboration, pursued not only linguistic inquiries but
also research into European "physic and natural history," The
difficulties that they met and surmounted are recorded by one of
them, Sugita Gernpaku, in a work called Rangaku Kotohajime, or
The Beginnings of Dutch Studies. He tells in vivid detail of their
struggles to obtain and translate Dutch books, the dissection (in
1771) of a criminal's body, which they performed while following
the plates in a Dutch work on anatomy, and their subsequent la-
borious translation of its text, word by word at the rate of ten
lines a day. The translation was published in 1774, and though it
contained little not already known to Japanese students, it was the
first European work to be printed and published by Japanese in
Japan, and therefore a landmark in Western studies. Another
significant work was Rangaku Kaitei, or First Steps in Dutch, writ-
ten in 1783 by Otsuki Gentaku, who may be regarded as the father
of Dutch scholarship. It is an elementary work, yet it was widely

204

Native Learning

welcomed among Japanese students, for there was no other; and
this shows how painfully slow had been the progress of Western
language studies, apart from those of the interpreters, until that
date. These later developments took place after Yoshimune's
death, but they laid a good foundation, and by the end of the
eighteenth century Japan had made considerable advances in
scientific knowledge, standard European works on astronomy,
mathematics, medicine, and botany having been translated and
published or circulated among specialists.

In tracing cultural influences one should not, of course, dwell
exclusively upon literary channels. The contribution of individuals
through personal contacts is often more effective than the cold
printed word. It should therefore be noted here that, although
these early cultural influences reached Japan mainly through the
medium of books, much credit is due to certain European scholars
who visited Japan and gave precious help during this period.
Among them may be mentioned Thunberg, a Swedish botanist
who was in Japan in 1775-6, and Isaac Titsingh, a very gifted
Dutch scholar and official, who was head of the Dutch factory at
intervals from 1779 to 1785, when he made good friends among
Japanese in high places.

3. Native Learning

us growing knowledge of Western science, which was supple-
mented by increasingly detailed information on political and social
conditions in Europe, naturally began to exert some influence
upon Japanese intellectual life, and from that point of view the
history of "Rangaku" is of peculiar interest to foreign students.
But it should not be allowed to obscure the significance of truly
indigenous cultural developments in the eighteenth century, for
these were at least as important as Western influence in determin-
ing the future of Japanese institutions. A history of the later Toku-
gawa period would be incomplete without some account of the
activities of native or naturalized schools of thought, since by their
various challenges of orthodoxy they opened the minds of the Jap-
anese to new ideas and so made them responsive to change.

We have seen that the Bakufu endorsed and encouraged the
Confucian philosophy of Chu Hsi, which may be crudely described
as teaching that knowledge of the nature of being is necessary for
determining the moral law. It was a corollary of this dogma that
wise men should instruct the people how to behave, and therefore
that good government depended upon the wisdom of the ruler and
the obedience of the subject. This doctrine provided a convenient

205

Eighteenth-Century Japan

support for autocracy and was naturally prized by all feudal au-
thorities.

But already in the sixteenth century other schools had arisen
which were in varying degrees critical of the official doctrine and
sometimes hostile to it. We need not attempt to follow the con-
troversies which ensued, beyond observing that one of the impor-
tant points in dispute was the nature of the moral law. The out-
and-out opponents of the official doctrine followed the lead of an
idealist Chinese philosopher, Wang Yang-ming (1472-1529) or, in
Japanese, 6 Yomei, who held that self-knowledge was the highest
kind of learning and that a man could discover the principles of
right behaviour by looking into his own nature without wasting
time on speculations about the laws of the universe. This rational
empiricism commended itself to the best sort of samurai, because it
relied upon intuition and self-control, precisely those qualities
which were the essence of the Zen Buddhism that had appealed to
military men from the early feudal age. Scholars of an independent
habit of mind were inclined to favour Wang Yang-ming and, by
implication at least, to disagree with the orthodox teaching. Some
of them, who did not trouble to conceal their views, were rebuked
or punished by the Bakufu, though it must be allowed that, so
long as a philosopher committed no subversive act, the penalties
for heterodoxy were not usually severe.

The first Japanese students of the 6 Yomei school were Nakae
Toju, who died in 1648, and Kumazawa Banzan, who died in 1691
in comfortable banishment, which he had earned by criticizing
the established order in a course of lectures to court nobles, an
audience always ready to listen to unfavourable comments on their
feudal masters. These and other variations of dissent continued to
be propounded by a number of scholars and sages whose interest-
ing characters enliven the intellectual chronicle of the eighteenth
century. Their contribution to the culture of the times was, if not
so picturesque, at least as significant of coming change as the en-
gaging frivolities of the citizens of Yedo and Osaka.

One remarkable and admirable figure may be taken as an ex-
ample. This was Ogyu Sorai (1666—1728) , already mentioned, one
of the leaders of a philosophical sect that described itself as the
Ancient school because it refused to admit the modern reinterpre-
tations of Chinese doctrine and went back to Confucius and Men-
cius. But on their way back to antiquity they had picked up some
startling baggage. Sorai in particular was an original thinker, who
had the courage to say that his own countrymen were poor phi-
losophers and had misunderstood the teaching of the Chinese
sages. This is a very interesting view, which is borne out by a
superficial study of Japanese intellectual history and might well

206

Native Learning

be confirmed by a deeper investigation. Be that as it may, Sorai
was contemptuous of all efforts to reinterpret Confucius, whether
Japanese .or Chinese, and he did not hesitate to say so, thereby
stirring up much hostility. In a search for first principles, which
was itself unorthodox, he took a firm stand on the question that
had since high antiquity divided the Chinese sages. Most of them
thought that man was virtuous by nature and that good govern-
ment would keep him straight. A powerful minority regarded him
as incurably bad, and Sorai took this melancholy but tenable view.
He believed and taught that in order to govern a state it was neces-
sary for exceptional superior men (whom he did not precisely de-
fine) to invent a code of morality for the people to follow, and
he thus cut the ground from under the feet of the philosophers
who argued for a natural law and the innate goodness of mankind.
Putting it bluntly, he said that morality was nothing more than a
necessary device for governing a people. This position should be
honestly accepted and not dressed up in a pretentious disguise of
benevolence and altruism.

Though the Ancient school had many adherents, it does not
appear that Sorai's views had any substantial effect upon his con-
temporaries. They are cited here not for their intrinsic value but
as an example of the growth of a critical spirit and the spread of
heterodox opinion in the eighteenth century. Sorai, though his
cynical arguments were not at all palatable to the authorities,
came down on the side of absolutism and therefore did not fall
into disfavour. Even outspoken opponents of orthodox principles
were treated with leniency in Yoshimune's day. It was not until the
closing years of the century that the Bakufu, at the instance of offi-
cial professors, forbade the exposition in any official college or
school of doctrines other than those of Chu Hsi; and this line was
followed by most of the feudal princes in their own domains, so
that few unorthodox teachers and their pupils could find official
employment.

The history of the two and a half centuries of Tokugawa rule
presents an interesting picture of alternation between severity and
laxity, a phenomenon that in itself may be taken as revealing the
inherent contradictions in an insulated military society cultivating
the insubordinate arts of peace. We have seen that on his accession
in a period of gay insouciance the Shogun Yoshimune strove to
restore order, frugality, and a serious outlook upon life. But his
promotion of earnest study as a means of checking frivolous be-
haviour brought results that he did not contemplate, inasmuch
as he unwittingly encouraged speculations which were in the long
run to supplant the official dogma. Nevertheless he had some suc-
cess in improving administration, in making legislative reforms,

207

Eighteenth-Century Japan

and even in stemming the tide of luxury. He probably represented
the feudal administrator at his paternal best. He was succeeded,
however, by two Shoguns who were incompetent. Power fell into
the hands of avaricious and dishonest counsellors, and the laxity
against which he had contended returned in double measure,
especially during the regime of one Tanuma, an able but pecul-
iarly corrupt official who was a virtual dictator for some thirty
years until shortly after leharu's death in 1786.

This was a period of bad government and of a decline in the
moral standards of the ruling class. Contemporary accounts of so-
cial life in Yedo give a picture of extravagant banquets, drunken-
ness, gambling, and other dissipation which would make it appear
that the culture of the country was at an extremely low ebb. On
Tanuma' s death the place of chief adviser was taken by an experi-
enced administrator, Matsudaira Sadanobu, who became regent
during the minority of lenari, from 1786 to 1793. He tried to
purify the government, to reduce expenditure, and to increase
production. He put out a vast amount of sumptuary legislation,
taking as his model the Shogun Yoshimune, who himself had based
his policy of plain living upon the frugal maxims of leyasu. It is
hardly necessary to say that these efforts to make men good by
statute had no more than a temporary success. When lenari came
of age Sadanobu resigned and life in high circles and among the
affluent townspeople became as unrestrained and as lavish as be-
fore. Nor was Sadanobu the last statesman to attempt to cure cur-
rent evils by proclaiming that they must cease, for within fifty years
of his retirement we find Midzuno, the Shogun's chief adviser,
pouring out a stream of laws to regulate conduct in the minutest
particulars.

It will be evident from this dull recital of failure that the rulers
of Japan were attempting to check a process which was far beyond
their control. The rising tide of luxury, the continuing lapse from
orthodoxy in manners and morals, the increasing power of money,
even the recurrent economic disasters that plagued the country and
baffled the government — all these were, had they but known,
symptoms of some radical weakness in Japanese society. It was a so-
ciety struggling to expand and evolve, but confined within narrow
limits by the national policy of isolation. It could not do other
than turn in upon itself and expend its energies in ways that
seemed wrong and dangerous to conservative statesmen. Seen in
this light the periods of extravagance that they deplored appear
as natural features in a process of emancipation. Even the corrupt
Tanuma regime has its positive aspects, whereas the earnest and
well-intentioned policies of Sadanobu and Midzuno were in es-
sence reactionary or, at best, negative in character.

208

Subversive Trends

If this reading of Tokugawa history is correct, it will be seen
from the following outline of cultural development between the
death of Yoshimune (175 1) and the opening of Japan in 1854 that
almost every event of importance forms part of a process of decay
in the institutions of the mature feudalism of the Tokugawa sho-
guns. The period known as Genroku (1688—1704), which has
been briefly dealt with in a previous chapter, may be taken as the
dividing line. After that the feudal society begins slowly to disin-
tegrate.

4. Subversive Trends

JLHE Dutch studies which had made progress under Yoshimune's
rule continued without interruption in the times of his successors.
The corrupt Tanuma was indifferent to learning and took no in-
terest in either Eastern or Western studies, but the administration,
always in need of funds, showed an interest in foreign trade and
there is some evidence that Tanuma (or his son) was disposed to
relax the navigation laws and allow freer intercourse with foreign
countries. It is known that a proposal to build ships fit for ocean
voyages was considered in 1769. Isaac Titsingh, already mentioned
as in Japan at intervals between 1779 and 1785, noted that a
number of important Japanese of his acquaintance displayed a
great interest in Western culture at that time.

These stirrings of a desire to renew intercourse with other na-
tions came to nothing, for under the conservative rule of Matsu-
daira Sadanobu, which began in 1786, the orthodox Confucian
studies were restored to supremacy and in 1790 all but the official
school was declared by edict to be heretical. Other teaching was
not forbidden, however, and the result of the edict was to stimu-
late critical studies in private academies or in the domains of
feudal lords who could afford to disregard the wishes of the
Bakufu. We need not follow this trend in detail, but it is worth
noting that an interest in the Oyomei school of political philos-
ophy, leading to inquiries into the principle of loyalty, naturally
raised questions as to the legitimacy of the Shogun's position, since
it was important that the object of loyal sentiments should be de-
monstrably worthy of them. Since it is sometimes supposed that
the official doctrine could be read as warranting the Shogun's usur-
pation of the Imperial prerogative, it may be as well to explain that
this is not a correct view. Strict adherence to the nominalism which
was a feature of the orthodox CHu-hsi philosophy would lead to
an examination of the correspondence between names and things
in the political field, thereby bringing to light a discrepancy be-
tween the real and the nominal powers of the Shogun.

209

Eighteenth-Century Japan

Doubts that assailed Confucianists were shared by scholars who
devoted themselves not to Chinese but to native classical studies.
They in their historical researches soon discovered the true se-
quence of events which had transferred the prerogative of the
throne to feudal dictators, and thus sowed the seeds of a revival
movement designed to restore the ancient religion of Japan and
therefore to return to supreme power the imperial house, which

MOTOORI NORINAGA (1730-1801)

A celebrated scholar^ who contributed to a Shinto revival
and to the Restoration *

traced its ancestry to the national gods. This was in effect to de-
scribe the Shogun as a usurper.

A revival of interest in classical Japanese studies began as far
back as about 1680, when a Buddhist monk named Keichu, en-
courage'd by one of the Tokugawa princes, engaged in researches
into the earliest Japanese poetical anthologies. He was followed by
a scholar named Kada Adzumamaro (1669-1736), who further
advanced the cause of Japanese as opposed to Chinese learning.
It was a natural sequel of their researches that a study of the na-
tive religion as it was before it came under Chinese or Buddhist
influence should lead to further historical inquiries of a more po-
litical nature and foster sentiments of reverence for the Imperial
house.

Three scholars in particular contributed to the development o£

810

Subversive Trends

this loyalist school of thought: Mabuchi (1697-1769) , Motoori
(1730-1801), and Hirata (1776-1843). It will be seen that they
flourished at a time when Confucianist influence was dominant in
official circles, and they undoubtedly represent an anti-Confucian-
ist reaction, which not unnaturally took on an anti-Chinese com-
plexion and acquired a potential anti-foreign and nationalistic
character. It is true to say that Mabuchi and, in particular, Motoori
inspired both the loyalty to the throne and the anti-foreign senti-
ment which in the years before the Restoration were expressed in
the cry of "Revere the Emperor and Expel the Barbarian/7 * Too
much weight, however, should not be given to the work of these
individuals, which should perhaps be regarded as a symptom
rather than as a cause of discontent. In the days when the great
National Scholars were preaching a return to the ideals of antiq-
uity it was not difficult to evoke nostalgia for an imagined past in
which there were no military despots, no disturbing foreign creeds,
no dreadful occasions of sorrow, but only a happy life of a people
basking in the affection of a divine and virtuous sovereign. Even
such earnest rulers as Yoshimune and Sadanobu had been unable
to cope with the disasters that came crowding upon Japan in the
second half of the eighteenth century. It had seen one catastrophe
after another — floods, storms, great earthquakes, accompanied by
famine and pestilence. The population is said to have decreased
by more than one million between 1780 and 1792, and the surviv-
ors of those great trials found themselves at the turn of the century
in conditions of economic and social disorder that might well
throw doubts upon the competence and then the legitimacy of the
Shogun's government.

The growth of such sentiments was very pleasing to the minds
of the court nobles in Kyoto, and during Sadanobu's regency some
bad blunders in the treatment of the Imperial house had given
them special cause for grumbling. Consequently they listened
eagerly to lectures by scholars who set out to prove that the Bakufu
was a treasonable institution; and when in 1791 certain of them
(Nakayama and Ogimachi) were punished by Sadanobu for a
stand they took upon a matter of the Emperor's powers, even the
townspeople of Yedo showed their sympathy and they were made
the heroes of popular romances of the day. The novelist Bakin re-
lates in his Kyokutei Zakki that a novel entitled The Story of
Nakayama was so popular that the lending libraries of Yedo or-
dered several new editions. It represented Nakayama as rebuking

i It is a curious fact, which would probably have interested Vico, that the re-
searches of the Kokugakusha or National Scholars were based upon philological
inquiry. They carefully analysed the language of the earliest chronicles and drew
therefrom conclusions as to the true nature of Japanese culture and the proper con-
stitution of the Japanese state.

811

Eighteenth-Century Japan

Sadanobu in very strong terms, and no doubt the citizens of Yedo
much enjoyed any hit at the Bakufu.

It was not only the national scholars who began to doubt the
legitimacy of the Shogunate. Even some Confucianists, while not
going so far as to suggest that the shoguns were usurpers, began to
emphasize the fact that their powers were delegated to them by
the Emperor and ought to be used in the interests not of the Toku-
gawa family but of the nation at large. They were still a long way
from the logical conclusion that the powers should be returned to
the Emperor and thought at most that there should be a closer
collaboration between the Bakufu and the court in matters of
policy, executive authority being retained by the military class.
This point of view had been reached by men like Kumazawa
Banzan (1619-91) a century before. Banzan in particular arrived
at his conclusions by a philosophical road, since he was an unortho-
dox Confucianist who believed in benevolent government for the
benefit of the people and therefore regarded the Tokugawas as un-
fitted to rule on behalf of the Emperor. In this he was right, since
the object of feudal rule was certainly not the welfare of the
masses but the maintenance of oligarchy.

Sufficient has been said to show that towards the close of the
eighteenth century the juridical position of the Bakufu was being
slowly undermined by intellectual movements, while its practical
administrative authority was being weakened by its failure to cope
with pressing economic problems. But in addition to these domes-
tic troubles it was faced by dangers from the outer world, against
which the exclusion edicts could no longer give full protection.
Some historians treating of the opening of Japan that took place
at the instance of Commodore Perry in 1854 are inclined to
ascribe it almost entirely to American pressure; but the influence
of Russia was of great importance and should not be overlooked.

While the western European powers, following Portuguese
example, were expanding eastwards by way of the Indian Ocean
and the Strait of Malacca in the seventeenth century, a great over-
land movement was being made by indomitable Russian explorers
and traders. It is sometimes forgotten that Russian sailors had
reached the Sea of Okhotsk as early as 1639, and that a base was
established at Okhotsk in 1 649. For a long time after that only the
overland route was used, but knowledge of Kamchatka appears
as early as 1672 and it was explored in 1700 by Atlasov, who re-
ported to Moscow on the Kuriles and their proximity to Japan.
The Kuriles were visited in 1713-14 and an attempt to find Japan
led to a landing on Sakhalin, Shortly after this there was some talk
in Moscow and St. Petersburg of opening trade relations with
Japan, but the project does not appear to have had strong official

818

Subversive Trends

support and it was not until 1732 that Bering, then endeavouring
to fix the geography of the Siberian coast and its relation to the
American mainland, was instructed to send a ship to find a route
to Japan. Outfitting difficulties delayed this voyage until 1738,
and in 1739 on a second attempt a Russian vessel commanded
by a Dane, Spanberg, appears to have put in at points on the east
coast of the main island of Japan. Japanese records state that it
was sighted off Shimoda, the harbour at which Perry arrived in 1 853.

No results of importance followed this visit and for twenty
years or so no direct approach by Russia to Japan is recorded, al-
though further information was gradually collected by Russians
from Ainu and Japanese settlers in the Kuriles. In 1771 an ad-
venturer named Benyowsky, a Polish exile in Kamchatka, escaped
in a government vessel that he had captured and sailed for Mada-
gascar, where he founded a colony in 1773. On the way his ship
was driven to the coast of Japan and (in 1771) he landed at two
points, where he was well treated and left letters of thanks to the
Japanese authorities, in which (out of his hatred for Russia) he
suggested that the Russian government had designs upon Japan.
There is little evidence to support this charge and it does not ap-
pear that the Bakufu was particularly disturbed.

In 1777-9 Russians in the Kuriles encountered Japanese from
the fief of Matsumae, which controlled the northern island of Yezo.
They proposed opening trade with Japan, but were told that it was
against Japanese law, except that they could if they wished go to
Nagasaki. European political events, such as the Russo-Turkish
war, prevented further Russian approaches to Japan for some time,
and it is clear that behind these attempts to enter into trade rela-
tions there was no positive policy, but only a somewhat indifferent
support given to the projects of officials and merchants in Siberia.

An expedition commanded by Lieutenant Laxman was sent by
the Governor of Siberia to Japan in 1792. Laxman wintered at
Nemuro and went to Hakodate and thence by land to Matsumae,
under a heavy escort of armed Japanese guards. Negotiations and
feasting took place, but Laxman was told that, since Japanese law
allowed no dealings with foreigners, he and his crew were liable to
arrest and imprisonment. They would be allowed to depart be-
cause of their ignorance, but they must not visit Japan again ex-
cept at Nagasaki, where trade might be permitted.

By this time certain far-sighted Japanese had already taken
alarm, thinking that their country was in danger of Russian aggres-
sion. The Bakufu had not so far displayed any great anxiety. Such
indifference was perhaps to be expected during the administration
of Tanuma, but when in 1792 a patriotic scholar named Rin Shihei
published a work called Kaikoku Heidan (an Essay on the Military

Eighteenth-Century Japan

Problems of a Maritime State) calling attention to the weakness of
Japan's coastal defences, he was punished by Sadanobu for his
pains. Though there was much in Rin's arguments, he suffered
penalties because he had published criticism of the Bakufu and
also because he had confided his views to certain court nobles who
were known to be hostile to the Shogun's government. This inter-
esting episode shows that the Bakufu was growing sensitive to criti-
cism, which was beginning to arise from more than one quarter.
To the attacks of scholars upon the official Confucian doctrine and
the new historical criticism of the Shinto loyalists there were now
added the revelations of men like Rin, who did not deal in theory
but pointed out specific faults in the Tokugawa administration,
dwelling especially upon the dangers of a policy that forbade the
building of large vessels useful for national defence.

Sadanobu, though he treated Rin unjustly, was impressed by
his arguments, which were given point by the arrival of Laxman's
ship in Japanese waters and the knowledge that there was a Rus-
sian settlement on the island of Yurup, uncomfortably close to
Yezo. Sadanobu therefore ordered an inspection of Japan's north-
ern boundaries and instructed all feudatories whose domains bor-
dered on the sea to look to their coastal defences and to keep on
the alert. Thus the eighteenth century ended for the Bakufu on a
note of anxiety over the intentions of foreign powers, and in the
early part of the nineteenth century they were to have further
reasons for alarm. These must be set forth presently, but first it
will be useful to attempt, against the background already de-
scribed, some impression of the Japanese cultural scene as it un-
folds during the eighteenth century.

5. Yedo Life

have already seen that by the end of the seventeenth cen-
tury the growth of town life and the increasing power of money
had favoured the development of a lively urban culture. It is a
culture perhaps .best symbolized by the bold design and strong
colour of the fashionable costume of the day. It is not an accident
that the mood of this society should be so well expressed by its
aesthetic bent, for it is characteristic of Japanese civilization that in
its expanding phases the decorative arts are vital and flourishing.
Some account of painting and literature in the eighteenth century
may therefore serve to throw light on the social scene as it devel-
oped after the gay, extravagant Genroku era.

It is sometimes supposed that the growth of popular arts was
accompanied by a decline in those which had been practised or

SI 4

A ROBUST BEAUTY •
Early wood-block ukiyo-e print; by Kdgetsudo Norishige (c. 7774)

Eighteenth-Century Japan

patronized by members o£ the ruling caste. It may be true that the
classical schools of painting produced few artists of distinction, and
that popular taste, which was shared by many members of the mili-
tary class, was satisfied by the new school of Ukiyo-e artists, who
departed in many ways from old conventions. But the Ukiyo-e
school did not spring fully armed from the soil of Osaka and Yedo.
It had a good pedigree, for its earliest phase shows traces of the
heroic quality of Momoyama screens and panels, and such artists
as Hishigawa Moronobu (d. c. 1694) , Nishigawa Sukenobu (1671-
1751) , and Miyagawa Chdshun (1682-1752) even in their paint-
ing of seductive women retain a classic dignity and use a strict
technique that shows their training in one or other of the great
traditional schools. The light and sensuous touch of the later
Ukiyo-e is just apparent, but the grand manner is still there. It
is a long way from the attractive and almost corpulent females of
Kwaigetsudo to the drooping beauties of Utamaro who, though
denizens of the fleshly world, can scarcely support the weight of
their frail bodies. The later Ukiyo-e develops along its own lines
and diverges into untrodden paths of sentiment and fantasy; but
it is from conventional beginnings that it arises.

The older schools of painting, for their part, continued to
flourish, for they belonged to a society that was ripe for change
but had not yet lost its vigour. The Kano school, though tending
often to stiffness, produced some good painting and maintained an
all-round perfection of technical skill, occasionally reaching a high
standard of accomplishment, as in the work of Kano Naonobu.
But there was also some departure from the strict Kano style, a
tendency to use its conventional brushwork but to apply it to
genre paintings treated in a realistic fashion. This can best be seen
in the work of Morikage (a Kyoto artist) and Hanabusa Itcho
(1653-1724) , both Kano men by training but unconventional and
humorous in manner. These artists, who were both pupils of
Tanyu and were expelled from the Kano school for nonconformity,
represent a movement away from old canons, but they remain
within the classical tradition. Following them, in the middle of
the eighteenth century, comes the Maruyama school, eclectic and
experimental. It shows the influence of a new, critical temper that
developed with a growing interest in Occidental life. Its founder
was Maruyama Okyo (1732-95) , trained in a Kano studio but in-
terested in Occidental technique. His successors developed in
Kyoto a new style, the Shijo, in which European influence can be
detected. Thus in the arts, it is fair to say, change was not confined
to bourgeois circles, but made itself felt in more conservative
quarters.

Yedo literature on its own merits is deserving of little com-

818

Yedo Life

ment. It has its interest as a social phenomenon and is at rare mo-
ments not wanting in a certain sophisticated fluency and even in
a debilitated grace, but with few (though important) exceptions
it is fundamentally vulgar, a literature of bad taste and exiguous
content. The writing of the Floating World is strikingly inferior
to its painting, for the Ukiyo-e with all its limitations contains
some of the true essence of Japanese art. It is, as has been observed
by Professor Yashiro,2 an admirable record of the emotional life of
the Japanese people, so eminently their art intime that "it lays bare
those charming weaknesses which one does not readily disclose to
others." This can scarcely be said of what is called chonin bungaku,
or the literature of the townspeople; but some of its features should
be briefly noted if only because, as we shall see, late Yedo writing
was so poor and thin that it succumbed almost without a struggle
to European influence in the early Meiji period.

Perhaps the most characteristic form of Yedo literature is the
Ukiyo-soshi, a comprehensive name for novels and sketches dealing
with the life of the city almost exclusively in its sensual aspects.
These works are sometimes called kdshoku-bon> which is nearly
enough translated as "sex books/' though perhaps 'love stories"
would be a kinder rendering. The originator or the leading ex-,
ponent of this school of writing was Saikaku, who flourished from
about 1660 to 1693 and published a number of books under such
titles as Koshoku Ichidai Otoko (A Man's Love Life) and Kdshoku
Gonin Onna (Five Amorous Women) , which deal freely with the
amorous proclivities of both sexes. In works of this class close at-
tention is paid to descriptions of leading courtesans, their charms,
their characters, and their professional manners. But it must be
said on Saikaku's behalf that these unpromising themes are
explored with an acute insight and an extensive knowledge of hu-
man frailty, so that they are still most readable as realistic psycho-
logical studies, fluent in style, original in treatment, but distin-
guished by wayward fancy rather than creative imagination.

The most commanding literary figure of the age is Chikamatsu
(1653-1724) , an extremely prolific dramatist who wrote both his-
torical plays and what were called sewamono, pieces about modern
life. Leaving aside their literary merits the point of interest in the
works of Chikamatsu is the contrast between the two groups. Both
are concerned with the conflict between duty and sentiment. But
iii the historical plays, where the theme is the loyalty of the samu-
rai class, duty comes first, whereas in the "modern" plays there is a
more sympathetic view of the claims of the affections. The drama-

2 In his Nihon Bijutsu no Tokushitsu (Characteristics of Japanese Art) , a
valuable work published in 1943, which ought to be translated for the benefit of art
historians.

817

Eighteenth-Century Japan

tist here treats not of ideals o£ chivalry but of the common lot of
thwarted lovers, jealous wives, and disappointed parents whose
tragedy lies in the triumph of passion over rectitude. Such plays
clearly break new ground, because they are the product of a new
kind of society, which is struggling against older standards of
morality.

Apart from such delineators of daily life as Saikaku and Chika-

S*>*r*

i&k

CHIKAMATSU MONZAEMON (1653-1724)

Japan's most famous playwright and a leading
figure in the literary world of the Genroku period

matsu, who may with suitable reservations be called "realists/*
there was a school of writers of sensational fiction led by Kydden
(1761-1816) and Bakin (1767-1848) , who might be described as
"romantic" or "idealistic." The label is of little importance, for
the particular interest of work of this school is in its didactic fla-
vour. It deals largely with the exploits of members of the military
class, who perform prodigies of skill and valour, conforming in
every particular to the samurai code as it had developed under
Confucian influence. In Bakin's work, which draws freely upon
Chinese and Japanese legend and displays much erudition, the
characters are nearly all superhuman in their achievements. It is
a branch of later Yedo literature which may be taken as an effort
to reassert the ideals of the military caste, so strong is its contrast
to the novels and sketches that explore the dark places of current
urban life. Of these latter perhaps the most typical and the least

218

Yedo Life

praiseworthy are the share-ban, or "witty books," naughty works
that deal mainly with life in the pleasure quarters and served in
their time as a kind of Rake's Guide. Their nature can be judged
by the title of one of the most celebrated, Keisei-kai Shijuhachite,
which might be rendered Forty-eight Ways of Commerce with
Harlots. It was written by the versatile Kyoden, who could in more
respectable moods turn his hand to moral tales, and was also able
to illustrate his own books in Ukiyo-e style.

These vulgar and salacious pieces are redeemed by no literary
merits discernible to the foreign reader, but they are of special
interest as revealing the important part played by the gay quarters
in Yedo life. Denied informal social intercourse by the strict divi-
sion of classes and the subordination of women, the citizens were
driven to frequent these homes of entertainment to satisfy their
gregarious as well as their amorous instincts. The sons of well-to-do
tradespeople were not their only clients, for it is said that more
than half the visitors to the best-known establishments were sam-
urai of all ranks, not excluding the highest.

It is of course easy to overstress the importance of the haunts of
the dissolute in the life of the great cities, for the conduct of vir-
tuous citizens goes unrecorded. What interested the writers of the
period was the surface of things. One should be careful in using
the terms of European literary criticism, but it is not far out to say
that the literature of the townspeople was dominated by realism.
In this respect it evidently accorded with the mood of the times,
which was in the cities one of satisfaction with the existing order.
The townspeople were in general prosperous, their standard of
living was high, and they could afford to look down on the needy
samurai even if they had to make some show of deference. These
were not times of doubt and difficulty, when men try to penetrate
beneath the surface of things. The citizens lived in the present and
were interested only in the day-to-day life of the town, for that is
really what is meant by "ukiyo."

It is for this reason that Yedo literature is wanting in imagina-
tion and insight, though it is quick to note the oddities of the pass-
ing scene. Like the "ukiyo" paintings it shows a singular virtuosity
in seizing and portraying the decorative, the entertaining, the
comic, and sometimes the indecent aspects of the contemporary
world as it was presented to the populace in their daily avoca-
tions. It should be added that, despite their plebeian origin, the
townspeople developed a sense of style in living. It is significant
that the qualities usually ascribed to the hero of a Yedo novel are
sui, which is chic, and tsu, which is something like the savoir faire
of a man about town, an expert knowledge of how to behave in
all contingencies. In modern European literature its equivalent,

219

Eighteenth-Century Japan

though on a lower social level, might be the familiarity of the
Baron de Charlus with all epicurean details from the qualities o£
pears to the etiquette of maisons de passe. Even in the great pica-
resque novel of low life, the Hizakurige, it is the shifts and strata-
gems by which its disreputable heroes extricate themselves from
preposterous situations that make them true types of the sharp-
witted, irrepressible vulgar order.

It is not easy to give a picture of life in more respectable
circles, for it is not chronicled in any literary masterpiece and has
to be pieced together from diaries and letters. Some hints may be
found in the correspondence of certain literary figures and we may
look at an interesting letter from Bakin, the leading Japanese
novelist, in which he describes to a friend a monster entertain-
ment given by him at the instance of his publishers. It takes us
out of the eighteenth century into the early nineteenth, but it
illustrates well enough the nature of the intellectual society as it
had grown in previous years, and it is quoted here to show in
particular how the expansion of urban life had served to break
down social barriers.

Great preparations were made for this party. As presents to
the guests three thousand fans and two hundred and fifty silk
squares were got ready, and Bakin was asked to write his name on
each, with a suitable eulogy of the painting, which had been done
by a pupil of Hoitsu. He turned some of this work over to a
friendly artist, but it required great skill and care, for in Bakin's
circle taste was exacting, and so it took a long time and the ban-
quet had to be postponed. Etiquette demanded that the host
should pay calls on his principal guests, in order to invite them in
person. For several days he was carried round in a palanquin, visit-
ing prominent literary men. Less important persons received calls
from his son-in-law and his grandson, .who were accompanied by
a number of employees from artists' studios and bookshops. These
had to be entertained on the way and cost him no small sums in
food and drink.

At last the day of the party arrived. It took place in a great
restaurant called Manpachi-R6 in Yanagibashi. The arrangements
were lavish. Members of Bakin's family and numerous friends re-
ceived the guests in ceremonial dress, from early morning. There
were a reception desk and a cloakroom for the deposit of swords
and sandals; attendants handed out tickets for food and drink. By
midday the place was thronged- All the upstairs apartments and the
downstairs rooms were filled, and guests overflowed into the veran-
das. Geisha were employed to pour out wine, though Bakin did not
much like this, thinking it not respectable, and only agreed reluc-
tantly. "Anyhow/' he says, "I scarcely saw these girls and much less

Yedo Life

did I talk to them/' The account continues as follows: "On this
day there were over eight hundred guests, including both the ele-
gant and the vulgar. Then, in addition to the promoters and
helpers there were more than two hundred who had not been in-
vited. Meals were served for 1,284 persons. Three barrels of sake
proved too little and we had to get more in a hurry. Some people
in the confusion contrived to get three or even four meal-tickets,
wrapping up the food and taking it home. I cannot describe to you

TAKIZAWA BAKIN ( 1 767-! 848) "
The celebrated Yedo novelist

in a short note like this the strange vagaries of human conduct.
. . . Anyhow, it was agreed that there had not been so successful
a party for twenty years." The crush was immense. One of Bakin's
friends who was helping to entertain the guests had a rush of blood
to the head, because he was "drunk with people."

Among the distinguished literary men, artists, and others who
attended were Confucian scholars; academic painters, carefully
distinguished from the Ukiyo-e artists and including Tani Bunitsu
(who represented his aged grandfather Buncho) , Watanabe Kwa-
zan, Nanrei, and Settan; three renowned calligraphers; leading
colour-print men including Kunisada and pupils, Eisen, Kuni-
yoshi, Hiroshige, Hokkei, and Hokusai; comic prose writers and
poets including Tanehiko and Shunsui; and distinguished officials
and scholars as well as a number of publishers, booksellers, paper-
merchants, and wood-block makers. Glamour was added to the

mi

Eighteenth-Century Japan

occasion by the presence o£ important military personages from
the Shogun's court.

This glimpse of a literary and artistic coterie may have served
to give some idea of the quality of late Yedo culture in its less
solemn aspects. It is strange that this carefree society should have
matured in an era when the nation as a whole was in the grip of
calamity, for the wealth that was drawn into the cities to sustain it
came from a countryside frequently ravaged by disaster and op-
pressed by bad government. But the slow economic decline was not
apparent to the busy merchants and shopkeepers, who throve at
the expense of overburdened agriculture. It was only by a few
scholars and officials that the agrarian problem was understood,
and that imperfectly. Yet what caused the impoverishment of
farmers was at the same time relentlessly undermining the political
edifice. This continued for a while, an imposing and even men-
acing fabric, but with the opening of the nineteenth century its
prestige, carried along by inertia after its real authority had di-
minished, began to be challenged on all sides.

Note on CHAPTER 10

JAPANESE MISSIONS TO ROME. At first sight the missions sent to Europe
by important feudatories seem to indicate an early interest in Western
knowledge. But the first mission (of 1588-91) was arranged by Va-
lignano with the definite object of showing the strength of Catholic
countries, and the envoys were youths of no experience, likely to be
impressed by magnificence rather than learning.

As for the second mission, sent by the lord of Sendai, Date Masa-
mune, which was abroad from 1615 to 1620, it was arranged by the
Jesuit father Sotelho, who wished to gain favour for his order in north-
ern Japan, where Date was very powerful. Date, for his part, was anx-
ious to trade with Mexico. A Japanese historian has said of this mis-
sion that the Jesuits wished to use trade for the kingdom of heaven
and the Japanese wished to use the kingdom of heaven for trade. This
is perhaps too simple a formula, but certainly Date does not appear to
have had any serious interest in Western science. The point that has
not been cleared up is the attitude of leyasu towards this mission. It
is hard to believe that Date acted without his knowledge and, one
would suppose, his approval. leyasu was at this time much interested
in foreign trade, as we know from Adams and Cox as well as from
other sources.

P r 6
ii

THE END OF SECLUSION
i. The Economic Situation

IESTERN historians in their studies of the great political
changes that ushered in the Meiji era are sometimes tempted to
give too much weight to the pressure of external events. It is true
that the arrival of foreign vessels in Japanese waters and the men-
ace of Western expansion in Asia were proximate causes of the
reshaping of Japanese institutions in the middle of the nineteenth
century; but the continuity of Japanese domestic history is very
impressive. Seen in its perspective, the unification of japan under
S. constitutional monarch between 1868 and 1890 is a natural se_-
guel of the last phase of the inadequately centralized government
of the Tpkugawa, and the deveibpmenTgf that phase can be traced
backwards step by step to the origins of Japanese feudalism in m_e-

times. There was no sudden break with the past in 1868,

but only a gathering of speed. To overestimate the part played by
Western influence is to misunderstand modern Japanese history
and in consequence to form an unbalanced if not a mistaken view
of the relations betweeA East and West.

It is true that Asiatic life was affected in the nineteenth cen-
tury by the impact? of the industrial revolution, which had been
felt long before in the West. But some at least of the causes that
produced the industrial revolution had been operating, though
imperceptibly, in parts of Asia and particularly in Japan long be-
fore the ships of the foreigners came to Japanese shores demand-
ing trade in the early iSoo's. From the day when levasu set up
Jbis administration in Yedo, Japan was destined to a struggle be-
tween agriculture and industry, between barter and money, be-
tween food and population, between feudal autocracy and the
power of capital — in short, the protracted birth pangs of a mod-
f rn national state. The long seclusion of Japan was only a delay-
ing factor, which masked for a time the nature of the change her
society was undergoing. Nothing reveals more clearly the slow and

The End of Seclusion

seemingly inevitable decline from the massive stability of ih£_£axly
Bakufu than the record of agrarian disturbances in the Tokugawa
period. PeasanTujprlsIngs, common enough before Tokugawa days,
grew more frequent and violent as time went on, and by the early
part of the nineteenth century they may be said to have become
endemic. The causes of these troubles were numerous and com-
plex, but they may be summarized by saying that, since the peasant
was the only regular taxpayer in the country and since he was
obliged to contribute a high proportion of his rice crop for the main-
tenance of his feudal masters, he was exposed to hardship at all
times. It was he who had to bear the brunt of the financial difficul-
ties of the Bakufu, for almost every burden that was imposed upon
the military and commercial classes was transferred by them to his
shoulders, either by an increase in direct taxation or by currency
manipulations from which he was the first to suffer. When his crop
was good he did not profit in proportion to the yield, for he had
to turn in more bushels than in an average year; and when it was
bad he had little left for his own subsistence. His position grew
worse as the use of money increased, for he then must suffer from
violent fluctuations in the price of his grain, and a bountiful har-
vest often caused him as much distress as a poor one, because he
must market his surplus at a sacrifice.

Though he was not in theory the owner of the land that he
cultivated, his tenure was secure, largely because the territorial
rulers were a$ a matter of policy opposed to the sale or mortgage of
farm land. They wished to protect the peasant economy, by which
their class was supported, against transfers of rights in land to any
other class. It was for those reasons that in the early Tokugawa
period laws were enacted that forbade the alienation of land under
cultivation. But those laws were made difficult of enforcement by
the rise of a merchant class with surplus funds for investment, and
by the insolvency of many farmers arising from natural calamities
or the contraction of money debts to usurersvlt was not difficult
to» find ways of evading- restrictions on the transfer of rights that for
the purposes of jjie tt^sjereejwere as valuable as ownership, and
sometimes even more valuable sincelthe cultivator could not con-
tract out of his obligation to pay tax. In consequence there began,
to develop a new class of landlord, composed of city merchants or^
rural moneylenHer^^ monopoly of lancl

revenue, which was the economic"loundalion of the feudal state.
That foundation was attacked by other forces, or perhaps one
should say by the same force in another guise, for almost all the
evils that overtook the feudal economy can be regarded as aspects
of the problem of population.

This problem seems to have caused anxiety to the Tokugawa

The Economic Situation

authorities from early in the eighteenth century, the first census
having been taken in 1721. The methods employed were imper-
fect, but on the evidence available good authorities have formed
the opinion that in the first half of the Tokugawa period popula-
tion increased fairly rapidly, while through the second half it re-
mained almost stationary at from twenty-nine to thirty million. It
would seem that the peace and prosperity that followed the civil
wars brought the population to a point where it began to press
upon the limits of subsistence in 1735 or thereabouts. From that
time onward the growing cities drew many workers from the land
and thus created shortages of farm labour. Serious famines, ag-
gravated if not caused by the consequent decline in production,
are recorded in 1733 and from 1783 to 1787. Epidemics further
reduced the population, which according to credible figures fell
by over one million between 1780 and 1790. Yet this great decline
did not solve the problem of food supply. Starvation and disease
bore hardest upon the peasants, and the impoverishment of rural
areas drove many more to abandon their holdings and seek work
in towns. A recovery that took place between 1790 and 1830 was
wiped out by another -famine in 1834, after which the total popula-
tion was rather less than it had been a hundred years before.

The causes of trouble were dimly perceived by the rulers, who
from time to time legislated to prevent peasants from leavmgMthe
land and endeavoured to force migrants to return from the cities^
to the fields they had deserted. At times serious attempts were
made to improve farming conditions and to induce the farmers to
grow subsidiary crops, such as sweet potatoes. In Yoshimune's time
a great deal of waste land had been brought under cultivation and
there was a rice surplus for some years. But it was followed by lo-
cal or general shortages, which baffled the administration, who had
no sooner dealt with a famine than they were obliged to reverse
their policy and deal with a too copious harvest.1 The position was

i The extreme contradictions in Yoshimune's policy may be quoted as a useful
illustration of the difficulties which faced the Bakufu in regard to food, prices, and
currency.

In 1718 he reformed the debased gold and silver currency by increasing its
content and reducing the amount of issue, thus bringing prices down very sud-
denly. Rice, which had reached a peak of 230 -mom me of silver in 1715 fell to 130 in
1717 and reached as low as 33 in the following year, when a bumper rice harvest co-
incided with a deflationary currency policy. For some years after this the price
fluctuated between 30 and 100. Attempts at regulation had little success. Between
1730 and 1733 an effort to raise prices was made by various measures aimed at re-
ducing the amount of rice on the market and controlling the rice exchanges. But
again with little success. In the summer of 1732 insect pests destroyed the crop in
western and central Japan and the price of rice rose to near 150. Now the Bakufu
was constrained to promote an increase in supplies by devices aimed at controlling
the market and preventing "cornering/* These also were ineffective. A rich harvest
in 1734 obliged the government to reverse its policy once more and attempt to raise
prices again. In 1735 a law was enacted specifically forbidding fluctuations in market

885

The End o/ Seclusion

well described by Dazai Shundai, an economic writer of the day, in
his Keizai Roku (Treatise on Political Economy) . Treating of the
position in 1730 he said: 'The price fell to two fifths of what it
had been in the days when rice was precious. People looked on it
like dirt. In samurai households after setting aside what they
needed for food they tried to sell the rest of their allowance, but
could not get enough money to. meet even their most necessary
daily expenses. If they sold enough for that purpose, then there
was not enough left to eat, and their distress was extreme. Peasants
were in the same case as samurai. In good years they have plenty of
grain, but when they come to sell it the price is not enough to pay
for carrying it away, so that they make no profit from what they
do not eat themselves." And of course, he might have added, in
bad years they have to go short of food.

It is clear from the recurrent failures of the Bakufu that the
price of rice could not be regulated by official controls, and .there,
can be no doubt that the dependence of Japan upon a single staple
crop was a flaw in her economy. Even had there been a sufficient
supply of auxiliary foodstuffs to moderate the effect of bad harvests
it is doubtful whether administrative measures could have stabi-
lized prices so long as rice was the measure of value in one segment
of an economy that was as a whole governed by money and credit.
It is a difficult question, which does not seem to have been ex-
haustively treated by Japanese historians, and the exact bearing
of the economic troubles of the eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries upon the decline of the Bakufu and its ultimate collapse
is not easy to determine. The reader whose interest lies in the
purely cultural field may complain that economic discourse is
dreary and irrelevant, and he has my sympathy. But the condition
of Japan when she came under Western cultural influence deter-
mined the way in which she reacted to it. The economic legacy of
the Shogunate shaped the development of political and social in-
stitutions in the early Meiji period. The grievances of samurai and
farmers, the financial difficulties of the new government, the capi-
tal resources of the merchants, were elements that decided the
course of the Restoration movement and many of its sequels; while
agrarian problems that harassed the Bakufu continue in other
forms to trouble the makers of policy in the present day.

Writers on Tokugawa economic history are inclined to use such
generic terms as "the internal crisis of feudalism." This, though a
convenient label, does not disclose the nature of the crisis nor is

quotations. All these efforts to deal with, the market having failed, they then, in
1736, tried reducing the value of the coinage, also without obtaining the desired
result. Between 1710 and 1735 the price fluctuated wildly between a maximum of
230 and a minimum of 30, but generally tended to fall.

The Economic Situation

it usually shown that it could not have been dealt with in a feudal
setting by competent administration had other circumstances been
favourable. It does not explain why the prosperity of the seven-
teenth century was followed by a period of economic confusion
despite peaceful conditions and a general advance in both agrij-,
cultural and industrial output Is it not possible to account for this

to the political system under

i occurred? There are some reasons for doubting whether it was
an inevitable result of feudalism and even for believing: that JapjgL.
by the late eighteenth century if not sooner, was no longer a feudal
state except in. some formal aspects, but was in most essential par-
ticulars a centralized national state whose economy had lost most
of the features that distinguish feudal regimes.

The following speculations on this point are put forward not
with any dogmatic intent but only in order to suggest a line of
thought in regard to the political and economic decline of the
Shogunate which, it would seem, has not been fully explored.

A characteristic feature of the Japanese economy from earl^
times until the" Restoration was its dependence upon a single sta.ple
food crop. Where such an economy is closed, as Japan's economy
was closed at first by geography and later by edict, fluctuations in
supply are bound to occur from natural causes, and the__gffggts_o£
scarcity and abundance" cannot be mitigated by imports and ex-
ports. These conditions cannot be ascribed to the political system
under which they occur unless it can be shown that by its nature it
prevents diversification of the economy or the growth of foreign
trade. But there is nothing to show that Tokugawa rulers were op-
posed to diversification, and indeed efforts were made from time
to time to encourage the cultivation of alternative crops and the
growth of domestic industries. It is true that it was the Tokugawa
Shogunate that severely restricted foreign trade, but that was after
Japan had become a centralized state, whereas in the previous era,
which was much more feudal in character, foreign trade was most
actively encouraged. It is therefore difficult to believe that basic
economic conditions in Japan resulted from its feudal constitution.
Moreover, it should be remembered that until the eighteenth cen-
tury was well advanced few if any countries, whether in Europe or
Asia and whether feudal or not, could rely upon food imports to
sustain an increasing population. They were obliged to improve
their agricultural methods or to increase their cultivated area; and
this was done by the Japanese, as is clear from the fact that the
area under cultivation was doubled between 1600 and 1730, so
that a steady increase in population could be supported.

But this increase was checked from about 1730, and population
remained stationary for a century or more. The usual and no

887

The End of Seclusion

doubt correct explanation of this difference between population
trends as between early and late Tokugawa is that, the internal
resources of Japan being limited, the production of t food could
not keep pace with a fur th€t growth of population and, in the ab-
sence ot other forms oi: relief, Malthusian adjustments took place
in the shape of famine, disease, and other calamities. But it can
scarcely be maintained that feudal institutions were responsible for
these unhappy circumstances. It may be argued that the Japanese
failed to discover or apply suitable methods of increasing the
supply of food, but here again there is not much evidence that the
political system was to blame. On the contrary there is much to
show that the rulers of Japan fully understood the importance of
agriculture and took what steps seemed possible to promote it, as
their own interests obviously dictated.

Japanese history since the earliest times shows a constant con-
cern with problems of agriculture. The early chronicles contain
frequent references to matters of irrigation, the selection of seeds,
the opening-up of new land, and the diversification of crops. As
early as the seventh century we find notices of official efforts to en-
courage alternative or subsidiary crops such as wheat, barley, mil-
let, buckwheat, beans, and peas, but both growers and consumers
stubbornly kept to rice, despite constant famines. Coming to the
modern age we find in the Tokugawa period a considerable im-
provement in agricultural techniques, encouraged by the Bakufu
and enlightened daimyo; and there is in the eighteenth century
an important body of literature dealing with methods of increas-
ing and diversifying food production. It does not seem that agri-
cultural policy as such was at fault, but rather that agrarian distress
was local and partial and arose from oppressive methods of tax-
collecting and from a breakdown of the traditional system of land
tenure. In their general attitude towards agriculture the rulers may
have made mistakes, but these were due to ordinary human falli-
bility and not to some hypothetical defect in feudal reasoning.
Such mistakes were made in most European countries long after
the disappearance of mediaeval feudalism. Thus (for example)
Malthusian checks prevented any significant growth of the English
population until the agricultural improvements of the eighteenth
century made it possible for more food to be grown; and perhaps
it is pertinent to notice here that Japan managed at that time to
support a population approaching thirty million on a farming area
not much greater than that of European countries which supported
only five or ten millions.

"""On seeking for reasons why in the latter half of the Tokugawa
period the Japanese did not succeed in carrying out effective agrar-
ian reforms it appears that what delayed improvements was not

The Economic Situation

the persistence by inertia of old forms of tenure and consequently
of old methods, but rather a deliberate policy of peasant protection
adopted by the ruling autocracy. Here we have an analogy to the
Bauernschutz of Frederick the Great, except that the purpose of
German rulers was to obtain recruits for the army while that of
the Japanese was to preserve the rural society from the intrusion
of merchants and moneylenders. In neither case can the phenome-
non be justly attributed to a feudal outlook, though it may per-
haps be said that in Japan it arose from the resistance of feudal
rulers to the penetration of money, which had already transformed
the economic structure of the country. The truth is that late Tpku-
gawa Japan can be described as a feudal state only if the word
* 'fcudal" is employed in a very loose way and without any mediae-
val connotations. It bore a close resemblance to the less highly
centralized states of Europe in the eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries and was undergoing a process of change similar to that
through which most European countries had passed or were pass-
" ing in the same period. These developments were not a part of
feudalism, though they might be, and frequently were, outgrowths
of a particular feudal institution. In European countries as in
Japan feudal survivals can be detected until well on into the nine-
teenth century, but their presence is consistent with a general dis-
appearance of the essential features of a feudal state and its replace-
ment by a "modern" centralized national state. Thus although
copyhold and metayage are not "modern" forms of tenure, being
rooted in a mediaeval land system, they are not feudal; and simi-
larly though in Japan the alienation of land to members of the
non-military classes took place under a regime that had not lost
all its feudal character, it was — like the leasing during the fif-
teenth century of demesne land in England by manorial lords to
persons outside the feudal hierarchy — a breach in the system of
feudal tenures and the beginning of "modern" farming tenures.
It may be objected that the slow progress of agrarian reform
in fapan, as compared with the more advanced European coun^
tries, was due to a stubborn feudal conservatism, and it is true that
the Tokugawa policy was based on a determination tp prfwnt
change. But conservatism was not peculiar to Japan. It existed in
Europe until it was broken into by the struggle between nations
which took the form of political rivalry and competition in colo-
nial and commercial enterprise. Because of her geographical isola-
tion Japan did not come under this powerful influence until late
in the Tokugawa period, but when she did, as European powers
began to press her, the process of change became extremely rapid.
It can hardly be doubted that this speed was possible because her
feudal institutions had withered and her condition resembled that

The End o/ Seclusion

of European countries in the days just before the industrial revo-
lution. Once the process of change began, it was subject to no re-
tarding influences such as the universalist tradition of the Empire
and the Catholic Church.

One feature of the Tokugawa administration closely related
to itTbreakdown waJlts deplorable fiscal policy, which depended
almost entirely upon oppressive taxation, borrowing, and currency
debasement. (See chapter x.) A simple explanation of the collapse
of the Shogunate would ascribe it to the cumulative effect oLgglk.
erations of incompetent public finance, and this for general histori-
cal purposes is probably an adequate statement, since it gathers to-
gether in one formula the complicated causes I have tried to isolate.
In so far as the collapse was directly due to fiscal misdeeds it may
be said to have arisen from the, let us say, semi-feudal condition of
Tokugawa Japan, where the central government, though respon-
sible for many costly items of national expenditure, derived its
revenues principally from Tokugawa domains and was able to sup-
plement them only by contributions from vassals, which were
voluntary at least in name and could not be levied as of right. But
even so, since European states in the seventeenth century were
also harassed by budgetary troubles, it is doubtful whether Toku-
gawa financial difficulties were exclusively feudal in their origins.
It seems much more likely that they arose from the policy of isola-
tion, which prevented Japan from embarking on mercantile ex-
pansion and thus replenishing the national exchequer as England
and Holland had done. JHad Tokugawa Japan thrown open her
jioors at any time between 1640 and 1853 she might have solved
the problem of national finance and thereby eased the general
economic situation. But the result of renewed foreign intercourse
might have been the civil war that the Tokugawa

or an expansionist, colonizing foreign policy that would have
brought her into conflict with Western powers.

The foregoing arguments are perhaps not conclusive, but at
least they warn the inquirer against reading political and economic
conditions in late Tokugawa days solely in terms of feudalism. We
need not labour this theme, but there is one further point of doubt
that needs some attention. Most treatises on the agrarian situation
in Japan at that period dwell upon the wretched and impoverished
condition of the peasantry. For this the evidence of contemporary
documents is so strong that it cannot be questioned. Yet there are
some grounds for believing that the farmer's position in general
was not actually deteriorating in the first half of the nineteenth
century. Certainly a great number of peasants, especially those in
marginal areas, suffered great hardship in times of short crops, and
nobody c^n contend that the lot of the poorest workers on the land

The Economic Situation

was a happy one. But descriptions of the countryside by foreign
travellers, the records of festivals and pilgrimages, and in particu-
lar the specimens of peasant clothing, ornaments, and utensils
which have been preserved testify to a comfortable life and in
many instances to a rising standard of living. It can hardly be sup-
posed that the edicts aimed at the "luxurious living'* of farmers
were entirely without reason. The ruling class no doubt had very
modest ideas of what was luxury for a peasant, but there is plenty
o£_evidence to show that some members of the farming commun-
ity in fertile districts were much better off than poor samurai.

It is not always when economic conditions are deteriorating
that complaints against the prevailing political system are loudest.

at causes unrest and dissatisfaction is often the failure of a given
class to maintain an increase in its standard of living an? this is a
condition likely to arise where prices or incomes fluctuate wildly.
Most people will accustom themselves to poor conditions so long
as they are stable and will even acquiesce in a slow deterioration;
but when there is a sudden drop in their money income or its
purchasing power, even if it is temporary, they will struggle to
maintain their standard and complain of the existing social order.
This is not to say that rural life under the Tokugawa was uni-
formly easy, for that would be to fly in the face of facts. But it does
give some ground for supposing that, in a purely statistical sense
and without reference to individual cases, agrarian conditions were
improving rather than deteriorating in the late Tokugawa period.
Many poor peasants lost their holdings, but farming techniques
improved and enterprising farmers could make good incomes.
Even the poor peasants in many cases fell into distress not because
they were oppressed but because they tried to maintain a higher
standard of living than their fathers had done, and so fell into debt.

If this reasoning is correct, the discontent of the farmers is to
be explained not by a general economic deterioration due to feu-
dal misrule but rather by the fact that the benefits of a rising na-
tional income were unequally shared. The point is perhaps of no
great importance, but it is worth taking into account when consid-
ering the causes to which the decline of the Shogunate is usually
ascribed. Whether its crisis — if we are to use that word, which
seems ill-suited to a long-drawn-out process — was due to admin-
istrative blunders or to radical economic weakness, it is true that
criticism of the Bakufu was strengthened, if it was not produced,
by growing dissatisfaction with economic conditions, though the
line of attack was often political or even purely dynastic.

Among the important and effective critics, in addition to the
National Scholars and the Confucianists already mentioned, were
certain thinkers of a new sort, whose interests were scientific rather

The End of Seclusion

than literary. Perhaps the most influential and certainly one of the
most interesting among them was Honda Toshiaki (1744-1821) ,
He was an extremely gifted man, a samurai born in Kaga, on the
west coast, in a Tozama fief remote from Yedo influences. There
he developed an interest in sea voyages and learned about condi-
tions in Yezo. He studied mathematics and astronomy and opened
a school in 1767. He worked at the Dutch language and went to
sea in command of a small coasting vessel on a voyage to the north-
ern parts of Japan. He wrote a number of works on shipping, con-
ditions in Western countries, and the conservation of natural re-
sources; and he addressed himself to matters of national policy in
his KeiseiHisaku (A Secret Plan of Government) , which proposed
state control of industry, commerce, and shipping together with
the expansion of national strength by means of colonization. He
was much concerned by the difficulty of adjusting population and
food supply and was perhaps the first Japanese thinker to see
clearly that the closed economy of Japan, a country with only
modest natural resources, was incapable of supporting the standard
of liyingjtojvhich tjiejpeople jiad^become accustomed unless for-
eign trade was increased. He IheFef ore did not hesitate to argue
for a merchant marine capable of overseas traffic, and specifically
proposed trade with Russia.

He may be regarded as one of a growing class of intellectuals
who were dissatisfied with traditional Asiatic life, and it is inter-
esting to note that he, like the National Scholars, was opposed to
Confucianism. He was even inclined to think that Christianity
might be useful. He said that the most important things needed by
Japan were gun powder, metals, ships, and colonies. It will be seen
that his views were such as would be abhorrent to the Bakufu, espe-
cially those which concerned Christianity, a hatred of which was a
canon of Tokugawa doctrine on international affairs. His opinions
were much in advance of the times and most of his books remained
unpublished during his lifetime.

One revealing aspect of his sentiments was his attitude towards
Western painting, which he preferred to Chinese or Japanese
styles. In this he shared the view of another interesting character,
a man called Shiba Kokan (1737-1818) , who like Honda felt that
his native culture was exhausted and stale. He was a restless man,
constantly changing his occupation, always seeking for something
new. Having had some instruction in painting as a youth, he
earned a modest livelihood for a time by turning out competent
but spiritless pictures in different styles, including that of the print
artist Harunobu, whose name he disingenuously borrowed. But he
was really not Interested in Asiatic art and he wrote an essay on
Western painting in which he argues that it is most useful and

Discontented People

very superior to Chinese and Japanese painting, because it por-
trays light and shade, the shapes of solids, and their perspective.
It is most valuable, he remarks, for illustrating in books things
that cannot be explained in words. Far Eastern painting, on the
other hand, is just something to amuse people at drinking parties.

His views are interesting because they show him as a man in
revolt against contemporary Japanese life. He was impressed by
the material and scientific aspects of Western culture, and what
he really liked was natural philosophy and the exact description of
things. In European painting what pleased him most was its repre-
sentational side, which he called shashin, or "copying truth," using
the Japanese word that now stands for "photography." How far
he had left behind the traditional Japanese or Chinese view can
be judged from an essay by an early nineteenth-century painter
named Kuwayama Gyokusho. This artist says contemptuously of
certain realistic Chinese paintings that they might be mistaken for
the work of barbarians, by which he means Europeans. Painting
that is a correct representation of things, he says, is work for arti-
sans, not artists. A true artist wishes to show not the exact appear-
ance of an object, but the spirit that informs it. "No artist," he
observes, "would try to make faithful copies of objects he saw, if
only because he would be afraid that his work might be mistaken
for that of a common craftsman or a mere artisan."

Men like Shiba Kokan were scarcely important or influential in
their day, but they are significant figures, useful to historians in
that they were typical of a growing class who were restless and dis-
satisfied and therefore in favour of change. It would be convenient
if one could ascribe their discontent to one single cause, to eco-
nomic instability or to maladministration or even to s6me obscure
law which decrees that cultures must change or perish. But such
explanations are of little use and it is better to keep to particulars.
What is clear and so far as it goes instructive is the fact that each
class early in nineteenth-century Japan had reason for complaint
— l&murai, farmer, artisan, and merchant, court noble and feudal
lord. Let us take them class by class in the hope that some common
feature will reveal itself

T,

2. Discontented People

. HE SAMURAI had one very patent grievance, and that was lack of
money. The finances of the Bakufu and of many feudal lords were
in a parlous state, which led them to reduce the allowances of their
retainers on one pretence or another. Often the stipend of a samu-
rai in the late Tokugawa period was cut by as much as one half,

233

The End of Seclusion

while his financial embarrassment was increased by sharp falls in
the money value of rice. It should be remembered also that the
majority of samurai were poorly paid men-at-arms with families
and dependants to support, so that an allowance of twenty kokuf
which might be reduced to ten, was beggarly. There was little in
the life of the average samurai to keep him from brooding on his
misfortunes. His military duties were very light and he suffered
from too little occupation as well as too little money. Complaints
of a decline in the character of the military class are common in
documents of the end of the eighteenth century. One of them
says: "Seven or eight out of ten bannermen and retainers are ef-
feminate. They are mean-spirited and behave like shopkeepers.
Those who profess a taste for military arts do it for the sake of
worldly success and to get appointments. ... If on taking a test
they are lucky enough to hit a two-foot target and to dismount
safely after bestriding a horse as tame as a cat, they are promoted
for their exploits and after that they put their accomplishments on
the shelf." This was written by Sugita Gempaku, a scholar of Dutch
who naturally disliked military pretensions, and some allowance
ought to be made for his prejudices.

But there seems to be no doubt that a great number of plain sam-
urai in cities and castle towns were leading useless and sometimes
dissolute lives, while those in higher ranks were frequently cor-
rupt. A lampoon entitled Efficacious Medicine says: "Promotion
Pills. A large packet 100 ryo, medium size 50 ryo, small size 10
ryd" This was in the day of the notorious Mizuno Tadaakira, a
minister who died in 1835 a^ter some thirty Years °f corrupt offi-
cial life. We may well suppose that the base example set in high
places contributed to a decline in standards of conduct among the
samurai. But its ultimate reasoniis something more general and
fundamental. It is the contradiction inherent in the existence of
a numerous privileged military class throughout two hundred
years of peace. This was tantamount to a standing army of 500,000
men, since in addition to the samurai there was a considerable
number of servants or other dependants who, nominally at least,
were under obligation to follow their masters to war. The exact
number of samurai at the beginning of the nineteenth century is
not known, but when after the Restoration the population was re-

2 It will give some idea of the purchasing power of this income to explain that
i koku is the average annual consumption per head. Thus, after deducting 5 koku
for food in a household of five persons, a samurai on 20 koku would have some 15
koku to convert into cash. At 100 momme of silver per koku this would give him,
for rent, clothes, and all other expenditure, 1,500 momme (or about $200 a year in
1868) provided that he received his full allowance, that he was fairly treated by
the broker, and that the coinage in which he was paid was not debased.

Discontented People

classified, the number of persons who registered as shizoku — that
is, as former samurai — was 42O,ooo.3

It was to be expected that many samurai would be dissatisfied
with the condition in which they found themselves. Some became
ronin, some crossed over into the commoner class so as to make an
independent living by commercial pursuits, others raised funds by
adopting sons or daug^hte^ traders

or farmers, thus conferring upon them the status of samurai, and
others supplemented their income by teaching. But the major ity
fell into an indigent state, which naturally brewed ..discontent. The
Bakufu were aware of these conditions, and made grants to relieve
distress or issued orders allowing samurai to repudiate debts to
traders or to reduce their interest payments; but such measures did
not radically improve the situation of the samurai in general.

A small but active and intelligent minority began to see that
only some sweeping change would better their position, and it was
by these that the seeds of an anti-Bakufu movement were sown. It
did not necessarily appear to them as an anti-feudal movement,
though that is what it eventually became, and it resulted in the
disappearance of the samurai as a class. Those among them who
had some experience of official duties in their clans or who had
been entrusted with financial dealings with the merchants and
brokers or who had superintended the commercial enterprises that
some daimyo undertook in order to increase their revenues were
able when the change came to step into suitable employment. But
most members of the military class were unfitted for a competitive
life in which a sharp sword was no argument. The very idea of
competition was strange to them, and when Western economic
writings were first translated into Japanese it was necessary to
make a new word for it. It was a combination of the separate words
for "race" and "fight," and Fukuzawa, the translator, relates how
shocked his colleagues were by such harsh terminology.

Turning now to the class of farmers.

dition has already been discussed, .we find a very active expression
of their discontent in the agrarian risings that became endemic
from the close of the eighteenth century. Japan has a long history
of peasant revolts, in which sometimes political, sometimes reli-
gious motives appear to be uppermost. But in almost every case
economic grievances were a compelling reason for resort to vio-
lence. Riots on a large scale were not uncommon throughout the
mediaeval feudal period, especially during phases of disorder pro-

s This number is that of heads of families. The total number of persons regis-
tered as of shizoku status in 1872 was 1,282,000; and this had increased by 1900 to
2,168,000.

235

The End of Seclusion

duced by civil wars; but they were generally local in character and
cannot be said to have sprung from a universal agrarian discon-
tent. In the early part of the Tokugawa period peace and a rising
standard of living brought some measure of order and content-
ment into the life of the countryside, and there were comparatively
few disturbances during the seventeenth century.

But from about 1^00, following upon a series of natural calam-
ities which produced famine and general distress, the number of
uprisings, began to increase. There were riots, in some of which
several thousand peasants took part, in different provinces and at
different times throughout the eighteenth century, and for the
next hundred years or more — that is, until the Restoration of
1868 — their frequency was nearly twice as great. The size of these
demonstrations was as remarkable as their frequency. Thus, in
1739 as many as 84,000 peasants in one province, objecting to an
onerous tax upon rice, challenged the samurai of their feudal lord
and forced him to give way to their demands. In 1764 the provinces
adjacent to Yedo were much disturbed by emergency levies im-
posed on them to meet special expenditure of the Bakufu, and
when officials arrived to make requisitions a body of 70,000 peas-
ants revolted and began to march on Yedo, their numbers being
increased by reinforcements collected on the way until they
amounted to 200,000. From 1783 onwards there was a great in-
crease in the number of uprisings for a decade or more, this being
due to the severe famines and plagues which began in that year
and presently affected almost the whole of Japan.

After it had recovered from these disasters (which, as we have
noted, reduced the population by more than one million in a few
years) the country remained relatively tranquil for a brief space
of time, thanks in part to the reforming activity of Matsudaira
Sadanobu. But the conditions that had produced riots in the past
were not abolished, and from 1 8 1 1 onwards there were many fresh
outbreaks, usually violent and often on a large scale. We need not
follow these in detail, for it is sufficient to say that thenceforward
hardly a year passed without some serious manifestation of agrarian
unrest, and it is significant that risings increased in frequency as
the collapse of the Shogunate drew nearer, for this was a clear in-
dication that the central authority of the Bakufu was diminishing.
Two very significant risings were directed not against the lord of a
fief but against the Bakufu itself. One of these, in 1840, was caused
by a Bakufu order transferring the Daimyo of Shonai to another
fief. The peasants objected to this because he had been a benevo-
lent ruler. They made repeated demonstrations and direct appeals
to Yedo, and in the end the transfer was revoked. A large-scale
demonstration against a resurvey of land conducted by corrupt

Discontented People

Bakufu officials in 6me in 1842 resulted in the flight of the officials
and the triumph of the peasants, though many of them suffered
torture and death. Both of these affairs testify to the decline of the
Shogun's power to exercise control in the provinces; and it is
interesting to note that both arose indirectly out of Mizuno Tada-
kuni's efforts to improve the Bakufu finances by controlling more
rice land and so increasing its revenue.

Outbreaks were especially numerous and serious for some years
after 1833, when Japan was again visited by natural calamities,
starvation spread to the cities, and lawlessness was rife throughout
the country. Though relief was afforded from time to time by
good harvests such conditions continued with little substantial
change until the Restoration; and indeed the reforms of early
Meiji, far from bringing risings to an end, produced further dis-
turbances, which differed very little in character from those of the
Tokugawa period.

It is evident that such determined revolts, spread over so long
a period and involving so many people in so many places, were
not fortuitous episodes but were blind attempts to remedy some
deep-seated malady in the prevailing social order. It is not easy to
single out one general cause for a discontent so grave that in the
hope of alleviation great numbers of simple country people would
brave death, torture, and cruel imprisonment — for that was the
common fate of hundreds of those who took part in even the most
successful insurrections. But it is safe to say that a feature common
to. all these revolts was a_ feeling of desperation induced by oppres-
sive taxation. A glance at the petitions presented by the peasants
to the authorities shows that almost without exception they in-
cluded prayers for the reduction of special levies in money or in
kind or in labour, or for fairer methods of assessment or for the
dismissal of unjust officials. Often the complaints were directed
not against the rulers themselves but against villagers whom they
employed as their agents, or against landlords who were not mem-
bers of the governing class.

It is a striking fact that nearly all the abuses that provided the
motive force for these insurrectionary movements can be traced
back to one overriding cause. That was the gross failure of the
public finance of the Tokugawa administration and, in a second-
ary degree, of most of the daimyo. The fiscal difficulties of the
Bakufu have already been touched upon and we need not revert
to that theme, for what is of interest here is not the causes of agrar-
ian discontent but its effects. It would be difficult to sustain the
view that the peasant risings directly contributed to the downfall
of the Bakufu. They were not revolutionary in intent, for (so far
as can be judged from contemporary accounts) the leaders were

287

The End of Seclusion

not inspired by any organized hostility to the existing form o£ gov-
ernment but only by objections to specific injustices that were not
connected in their minds with fundamental weaknesses of the
society in which they lived. Indeed, it is a marked feature of the
whole sequence of revolts of peasants in the Tokugawa period that
these unhappy men accepted without question the right of the
feudal nobility and gentry to govern their lives. They did not chal-
lenge the harsh law, but resisted excesses in its application, and in
this they differed somewhat from the rural insurgents of the fif-
teenth century, who in several instances fought to secure rather
than to suppress feudal privilege and in a few instances succeeded
in setting up autonomous communities. But even these compara-
tively successful uprisings, which took place in times of anarchy,
can hardly be looked upon as concerted revolutionary movements;
and still less can the agrarian revolts of the Tokugawa period be
treated as political in character. The main difference between them
lies in the fact that the insurrections of the Middle Ages belong to
a period when there was no clear distinction between soldier and
farmer, while under Tokugawa rule, the peasants having been dis-
armed by Hideyoshi in his famous Sword Hunt, there was a rigid
separation in both function and social status between the profes-
sional military class and the cultivators. This had become habitual
and accepted as the Tokugawa regime was consolidated, and conse-
quently it is difficult to accept the view of some Japanese histo-
rians, who argue that the peasant uprisings of the late eighteenth
and early nineteenth centuries were the first stage of a social revo-
lution designed to overthrow the Bakufu. To apply to the study of
Far Eastern history the terms of a conventional analysis which
may, or may not, be valid for European history can easily lead to
error and confusion.

It is true, of course, that pi so far as the peasant risings added
to the mounting embarrassments of the Bakufu they must be con-
sidered as one of the causes of its collapse, but this is not to say that
they formed part of a direct revolutionary movement. The posi-
tion is well stated by Dr. Hugh Borton in his valuable study Peas-
ant Uprisings in Japan, where he points out that they were "a
continual protest against the economic distress in which the peas-
ants found themselves," and that most of them were disconnected,
"having little concern for the overthrow of feudalism as such, but
caring more for a rectification of those minor injustices which were
inherent in the feudalistic society of the times/*

It may be objected that this is too fine a distinction, but it has
nevertheless an important bearing upon the nature of the Restora-
tion movement and of the subsequent reshaping of Japanese in-
stitutions, for both of these were the work of reformers who were

A FOREIGN BEAUTY

Oil painting ascribed to Hiraga Gennai, 1132-1719.

Primarily interested in natural history and applied science,

he merely dabbled in literature and the arts.

K-tf

;

PORTRAIT OF HIS MISTRESS

By Watmabe Kwazan, 1793-1841

Discontented People

as conservative in some respects as they were progressive in others,
and whose motives show no trace o£ a desire to improve agrarian
conditions in a thoroughgoing manner. Indeed, some of their early
reforms were accomplished at the expense of the rural population,
as can be seen from the fact that agrarian disturbances increased
rather than diminished in the first decade after the Restoration.
Had there existed in Japan at the close of the Tokugawa period
any organized and coherent sentiment among the peasants it is
probable that the course of Japan's political development from
that point onwards would have been accompanied by a violence
and disruption that it in fact escaped. This was thanks to the sub-
missive character of the mass of the Japanese people, which de-
rived from the long tradition of firm, not to say ruthless, govern-
ment established by the Tokugawa and their vassals.

That through centuries of subordination a sense of inferiority
persisted among the peasants and was still strong in the early years
of Meiji is shown in a striking passage in the autobiography of
Fukuzawa Yukichi, one of the strongest advocates of Western
learning at that time. He was a man who held strong equalitarian
views, but he confesses in this work that he sometimes found it
difficult not to address farmers in commanding tones habitual
to a samurai. Unless he deliberately softened his manner he was
treated by them in a most deferential, not to say cringing way.
On one occasion, he relates, he met a peasant on horseback, who
hastily dismounted as soon as he saw that he was about to meet a
social superior. "I caught hold of his bridle/* says Fukuzawa, "and
said: 'What do you mean by this?* The farmer bowed as if in great
fear and began to apologize. 'No, no/ I said, 'don't be a fool. . . .
This is your horse, get back on it and ride on/ The poor fellow
was afraid to mount before me. 'Now get back on your horse/ I
repeated. 'If you don't, 111 beat you/ "

As for the traders and artisans, their grievances as a social class
were not exceptional, though many town-dwellers suffered from
poverty and at times from severe shortages of food. The power of
the more prosperous tradespeople, particularly of the merchant
bankers, was rising as the fortunes of the samurai declined. Their
chief cause of discontent was their inferior social status, and the
richest of them suffered from vexatious interference by the Bakufu
in their financial and commercial dealings.

One important example of this interference was the action of
the Bakufu in destroying mercantile and industrial guilds, at}d a
brief account of official policy in this respect will serve to explain
the attitude of the merchant class towards the administration of
the Shogun's officers and o£ the several daimyo. The Bakufu was in
constant financial difficulties from the beginning of the eighteenth

239

The End of Seclusion

century^and although drastic economies were made from time to
time, the general condition of public finance was one of recurrent
deficits, which had to be met by emergency measures since the or-
ganization of the country did not allow of the raising of national
loans. These emergency measures usually took the form of levies
upon the merchants, who lived principally in cities that formed
part of the Tokugawa domain. There was in fact no other im-
portant source of increased revenue open to the Shogun's govern-
ment, since agriculture was already overtaxed and the trickle of
foreign trade passing through Nagasaki provided very little in the
way of customs dues. The daimyo were occasionally called upon
to help with contributions, which were described as gifts, but this
was a practice that could not be often repeated.

Consequently it was the merchants who in the first place bore
the burden of meeting budget deficits. They were invited by the
government to lend large sums, which were frequently not repaid,
for the feudal authorities had a long-standing habit of proclaiming
Acts of Grace which were total or partial repudiations of debt con-
tracted by members of the military class. It is said that one half of
the fudasashi (the brokers who advanced money to vassals and re-
tainers on the security of their rice stipends) were bankrupted by
an act of this kind in 1843. These cancellations of debt were not
all directly connected with the Bakufu's direct obligations, but
were means of pacifying the hereditary followers upon whose
loyalty the Shogun depended and whose allowances the Bakufu
could not pay in full. In 1760 the Bakufu " borrowed" from mem-
bers of the great trading guilds as much as 1,781,000 ryo, a sum of
the same order of magnitude as the total ordinary expenditure of
the government for one year.

Even shifts and devices of this nature were as a rule not suffi-
cient to balance the budget of the Bakufu, and it resorted at fre-
quent intervals to coinage debasement, a practice that began late
in the eighteenth century and by early in the nineteenth had
reached such a point that an item called deme, or profit from re-
coinage, appears almost every year under the heading of revenue,
in amounts equal to from one fourth to one half of total expendi-
ture. It need hardly be said that ^his kind of fiscal arrangement,
while tiding over each annual crisis, had in the long run the effect
of increasing the financial difficulties of the Shogunate; At the
same time it worsened general economic conditions throughout
the country, causing the wildest^fluctuations of prices vDriven Fy
the results of its own policy to attempt stabilization, the Bakufu
legislated against guilds and other quasi-monopolistic organs in
commerce and industry, thus arousing the antagonism of the
strongest elements in the mercantile class. Such a policy might

Discontented People

have been justified in so far as the guilds acted in restraint of trade
— which to some extent they did — but the government, itself not
fiscally pure, could put nothing useful in the place of the system it
destroyed, and its measures merely resulted in the breakdown of
a well-organized if costly system of credit. Action of this kind nat-
urally intensified the strain between military and commercial ele-
inents in Japanese society. The attitude of the trading class was
expressed with rueful humour by a contemporary wit who said
that while the townspeople were at one time rudely cut down by
samurai swords, nowadays they were politely ruined by samurai
borrowings.4

Nevertheless, so long as the authority of the Bakufu persisted,
the merchants and the moneylenders were obliged to submit to the
exactions of the ruling caste, who were their best, in fact their only
important clients. Consequently the townsmen did not as a rule
show open hostility to the feudal regime, though when the time
came they were ready enough to join in its destruction. Meanwhile
by pitting their knowledge and their wits against the military they
continued as a class to make handsome profits, accumulating capi-
tal, which no doubt soothed their feeling of social inferiority and
in due course proved an indispensable weapon in the destruction
of the government that had despoiled them.

The financial condition of the daimyo was not unlike that of
the Shogun. Most of them were heavily indebted to great merchant
bankers and resorted to expedients similar to those of the Bakufu
in /the hope of making ends meet. They issued coins and paper
money (thus infringing the prerogative of the Bakufu) on very
doubtful security and set up commercial and industrial monopo-
lies within their own domains. All such measures were attended by
a gradual disintegration of the established society, since they at-
tacked the economic basis upon which it rested.

It will be seen that each of the main classes in this society had
good reason for desiring change. It was a society dependent upon
mutual obligations that could no longer be fulfilled, and upon a
division of classes that could not be maintained. It is easy to see
why, in the early part of the nineteenth century, the authority of
vthe Bakufu began to fail rapidly as the system over which it pre-
sided lost the last remnants of its feudal character. Its growing en>
barrassments were to be intensified by circumstances over which
it had no control. In the era called Tempo (1830-43) famine was
chronic and agrarian risings were frequent and violent. Rioting
spread to the great towns, where short supplies and bad manage*
ment had caused starvation among the poorer citizens. In Osaka

* "Nikui yatsu tote kiritaosare, amai yatsu tote karitaosare. . . ." The play upon
words cannot be translated.

341

The End of Seclusion

in 1837 their condition was desperate and their hatred of the rich
was expressed in attacks upon the houses of the great rice mer-
chants.

Such rice riots, known as uchikowashij or "smashings," had been
common enough since the early eighteenth century, but the one
that took place in 1837 had a peculiar significance, in that it was
led by samurai, who set an example which was followed in other
parts of the country. Its moving spirit was Oshio Heihachiro, a
police official serving under the Shogun's magistrate in Osaka. He
was angered by the failure of the authorities to cope with the prob-
lem of feeding the city and gathered together a small band whom
he incited by saying: "First we must kill all the officials who have
made the poor suffer, and then we must go on to slaughter all the
rich men of Osaka and their minions who live in luxury." The
rioters were not numerous. Apart from Oshio and a dozen or so
other determined samurai and ronin, they consisted of a few hun-
dred peasants and townsmen who were carried along by the ring-
leaders but were presently dispersed by troops from the garrison.
What was remarkable about this rising was the incompetence of
the officials and soldiers. They had had ample notice of the plot
and yet they allowed the rioters a free hand for several hours, dur-
ing which a great part of the city was burned down. The garrison
commander had no plan, the chief magistrates at the head of the
troops fell off their horses, and some of the soldiers ran away when
they were confronted by the miserable rabble. These were repre-
sentatives of a military and civil power which traditionally had
never brooked the whisper of a challenge to its authority, so that it
may well be imagined to what a low ebb the prestige of the Bakufu
had fallen.

The need for reform was not unperceived by sensible men in
higti places, but it was not until 1841 that "Mizunb Tadakunl, the
Shogun's chief minister, attempted to restore feudal discipline.
His method was that which had been used by Yoshimune in 1716
and Sadanobu in 1789, for he introduced a great number of sump-
tuary rules in astonishing detail. He had even less success than his
distinguished models, possibly because the evils that he attempted
to cure were more deep-seated than they had been a century be-
fore. There is no need to recite his failures in detail, but it is in-
teresting to note that he interfered in the life of the townspeople,
censoring and suppressing novels, segregating actors, forbidding
the employment of women in barbers' shops and archery grounds,
and in other ways diminishing the menus plaisirs of the citizens.
While discouraging comic entertainments he arranged for improv-
ing lectures upon religion, ethics, and military science.

Apart from this fantastical legislation he attempted major eco-

Occidental Intruders

npmic reforms. It was he who abolished the guilds and came down
heavily upon the rich merchants with levies, displaying an animos-
ity that seems to have clouded the judgment of the ruling class.
He also planned an increase in revenue by certain reclamation
projects (which were never finished) and by obliging daimyo and
hatamoto 5 who had domains near Yedo and Osaka to exchange
them for less productive land at a distance. This was a policy not
calculated to nourish loyal feelings among the vassals. His cur-
rency policy was also deplorable, for he relied upon recoinage al-
most entirely, deriving from it in 1841 a profit (deme) of 1,555,000
rydj the highest amount ever reached and greater than the total of
all other items of revenue. That a reformer should have felt con-
strained to use suclL financial methods is plain evidence that the
Shogun's government was as bankrupt of policy as it was of money.

It is clear that by 1840 the Bakufu was already going downhill.
The only thing that might have saved it was a resolute and con-
sistent policy; but even Mizuno's poor efforts were not sustained.
He resigned in 1843 for want of support among his colleagues,
having done little but arouse all-round hostility; and when the
citizens of Yedo heard of his retirement they assembled outside his
mansion and threw missiles at the sentry box. One thing he at-
tempted was a reform of the training of the Shogun's troops, and
he paid special attention to gunnery. This involved the study of
Dutch works on military science and on the manufacture and use
of ordnance, thus encouraging a number of enterprising men who
favoured the opening of Japan to intercourse with the West. It
is humiliating to reflect that in Japanese minds Western culture
stood for a knowledge of advanced methods of slaughter, but it
cannot be denied that guns spoke with a convincing voice to a
people with a long military history.

While the military-minded were thus looking to the Western
world for science, the Western world was beginning to take an in-
terest in Japan and seeking to break into her seclusion.

3. Occidental Intruders

WE have already seen how towards 1800 Russian approaches to
Japanese shores had caused some anxiety to the Bakufu and in-
duced it to strengthen coastal defences. By that time other men-
acing visitors had begun to show themselves. Owing to European
rivalries the Far Eastern trade of Holland began to decline from
about 1780 and the Dutch East India Company could not continue

5 Hatamoto or Bannermen were direct vassals of the Tokugawa, but not terri-
torial rulers as were the daimyo.

243

The End of Seclusion

its regular voyages to Japan, although the trading station at Naga-
saki remained in operation, but on a diminished scale. For want
of Dutch vessels arrangements were made to bring cargo from
Batavia in foreign ships, the first of these being the Eliza, flying
the American flag, in 1797. This practice continued for some years
and meanwhile ships of other countries began to appear in Japa-
nese waters. These included an English and a Russian man-of-war.
The former was sent away from a northern harbour after a short
parley, but the latter entered the harbour of Nagasaki in October
1 804, carrying a duly accredited envoy from Russia.

This was the Nadiezhda, commanded by Captain Krusenstern,
who was making a voyage round the world, mainly for the purpose
of developing trade with India and southeast Asia and supplying
Russia's Far Eastern possessions by sea rather than by land. The
mission of Rezanov, the envoy whom he carried, was subsidiary.
Krusenstern stayed for six months while Rezanov endeavoured to
open negotiations with Yedo. But he could get no satisfaction
whatever, the Bakufu maintaining its stand that since Japan had
no need of foreign goods, to permit trade relations would merely
deprive her of useful commodities and risk the entry of foreign
religious doctrine. Rezanov, who appears to have used angry and
threatening language, at last gave up his plans, realizing that he
would get no backing from the Russian government; but he left
a bad impression upon the Japanese. This was presently made
worse by the action of two of his subordinates, Chvostov and
Davidov, who in 1806 raided points on Sakhalin and the Kuriles,
attacked Japanese trading posts, and "took possession" of the coun-
try in the name of the Tsar.6 Such events caused perturbation
among the Japanese authorities, and their subsequent conduct
shows that they definitely feared Russian aggression, although
there was at that time no firm intention on the part of the Russian
government to force Japan to open trade relations.

In 1807 Captain Golovnin, a Russian naval officer commanding
the warship Diana> set out on a voyage of exploration in the Pacific.
In 1811 he received orders from the Admiralty to investigate the
southern Kuriles and landed at Kunashir in the summer of that
year. He and some of his ship's company were captured by a Japa-
nese armed force and imprisoned. They were held in captivity un-
til 1813, when the Diana was allowed to enter Hakodate and take
them away. During his long imprisonment (most interestingly de-
scribed in his Narrative of a Captivity in Japan) Golovnin, after
some cruel treatment, gained the esteem and affection of his cap-

* It is interesting to note that Hirata, the great Shinto scholar, wrote in 1807 a
work called Chishima Shiranami, or the White Waves of the Kuriles, intended as a
guide to restraining barbarians and a manual of coastal defence.

Occidental Intruders

tors and when he left they were reduced to tears. Their behaviour
illustrates in a small way the nature of the subsequent attitude of
the Japanese towards Russians, which shows a curious mixture of
fear and a feeling that perhaps after all they would make good
friends.

After Golovnin's release a few fruitless attempts were made to
approach the Japanese in the Kuriles, but these were soon aban-
doned. It was not until 1849 that under Nesselrode as Foreign
Minister, Count Muraviev, who stood for an active policy in east-
ern Siberia, decided that it would be to the advantage of Russia to
make friends with Japan in order to check British and American
influence in eastern Asia. In 1852 the Tsar, Nicholas II, agreed to
send an expedition to Japan, and an embassy headed by Putiatin
reached Nagasaki in August 1 853, to find that Commodore Perry
had already arrived in Uraga.

These details of Russian approaches to Japan are given here
because American and English historians sometimes overlook the
important part played by Russia in bringing about the opening of
Japan by revealing to the Japanese their own weakness. The grad-
ual movement of Russian influence towards eastern Asia has a
history much longer than that of the American movement west-
ward across the Pacific, for, as we have seen, Russians were in
Kamchatka by the end of the seventeenth century and began to
take an interest in Japan not long after that.

Bearing these facts in mind, we may return to the attempts o£
other countries to open relations with Japan, but first it may be
useful to consider the attitude of the Bakufu towards foreign inter-
coursA The freque"nt arrival of foreign vessels in the closing years
of the eighteenth century had caused the Japanese government to
re-examine its policy in the light of new conditions. The strict
legal position was that ships might enter Nagasaki for purposes of
trade provided that their presence was not inconsistent with the
anti-Christian edicts; and during their stay in harbour they must
be disarmed. This did not necessarily mean that trade would be
permitted, for the Japanese naturally were free to buy and sell or
not as they chose. In fact, the Bakufu did not desire an increased
trade beyond what was carried on through the Dutch and thejChi-
nese. They considered, or at least they argued, that it was to the
national disadvantage to export Japanese products in exchange
for articles of luxury, and they feared moreover that to extend
trading rights to nations other than the Dutch and Chinese would
lead to embarrassing political relations and then to a breakdown
of the fundamental policy of isolation. Occasional displays of force
by Russian vessels and the stiff attitude of Rezanov in 1805 caused
them in 1806 to issue a new edict, directed especially at the Rus-

$45

The End of Seclusion

sians, in which local authorities were commanded to drive all for-
eign ships away from ports other than Nagasaki. This order was
not always easy to comply with, since there were times and places
where the defence forces were weak and the strict rule could not
be applied, as in the case of Chvostov and Davidov.

In 1808 an English frigate, H.M.S. Phaeton, sailed into Naga-
saki in search of Dutch prize and threatened to bombard the ship-
ping in the harbour if food was not supplied. The Governor gave
orders that the Phaeton should be attacked and burned, but noth-
ing was done. The intruder, having obtained food and fuel, sailed
out again. This incident, following shortly upon the Russian at-
tacks of 1806, made a strong and disagreeable impression. It caused
the Bakufu to take disciplinary steps against the officers at Naga-
saki (who had shown a poor spirit) , to strengthen coastal de-
fences, and — with some prompting from the Dutch — to con-
clude that both England and Russia had designs upon Japan. Yet
so irresolute were the Shogun's counsellors that within a few years
they had relaxed their precautions and had to submit to a number
of incursions by ships in search of water and fuel, which the local
forces could not cope with.

At last, while the authorities at Yedo were considering what to
do next, news came of acts of violence by the crew of an English
vessel on an island off the Satsuma coast, and this stimulated the
Bakufu to issue a new edict. It is known as the Ni-nen-naku, or
"No Second Thought" Expulsion Order. It enjoined all local au-
thorities to destroy any foreign ship that should come close in
shore and to arrest or kill any members of its crew who might land.
There was to be no hesitation, no discussion. This was in 1825. Sev-
eral years later, in 1837, a small vessel, the Morrison,, chartered by
some American missionaries, brought to Uraga a number of Japa-
nese castaways for repatriation. The officials who boarded her, see-
ing that she was unarmed, had her fired upon the following day. She
withdrew and entered Kagoshima Bay, where she met with similar
treatment.

But this action gave rise to some criticism within Japan, as well
as making a bad impression among foreigners to whom it became
known; and as the Japanese government began to learn more of
the strength of foreign navies and heard details of the defeat of
China in the so-called Opium War, they thought it wise to moder-
ate the policy laid down in their Don't-think-twice edict of 1825.
In 1842 local authorities were instructed to deal more leniently
with foreign ships, supplying them with food and fuel and "ad-
vising" them to go away. Thus an English naval survey ship,
H.M.S. Samarang, which entered Nagasaki in 1845, was treated
with great courtesy, though difficulties were made about landing.

Occidental Intruders

A French warship arriving in 1846 was not so amiably received,
but that was because the French commander was known to have
come from th^e Luchu Islands, where he had endeavoured to make
a treaty with' the King and had landed a missionary. This was
alarming to th<* Bakufu, for the Luchuans were really under the
control of the Daimyo of Satsuma, who was known to be in favour
of foreign intercourse. After discussions in Yedo, Satsuma was told
that he might use his own discretion, and it is possible that, but for
the fear of Christianity, he would have made some kind of pact
with the French. Actually he confined himself to arranging a cer-
tain import trade in arms and machinery by way of the Luchus,
and thus made a breach in the seclusion policy.

It will be seen that the Bakufu was showing signs of vacillation,
and it is worth while to digress here in order to consider what
were the forces within Japan that were working against the prin-
ciple laid down in 1639, when foreign intercourse ceased. We
have seen that the pursuit of Dutch studies had already in the
eighteenth century created a body of scholars who, primarily be-
cause of their interest in science, were anxious to see the opening
of the country. This tendency had been strengthened as with the
lapse of time more knowledge was acquired and more was needed,
until at length it became clear that the Bakufu was too weak to
withstand accumulating foreign pressure. By 1830 the students
of Western science had begun to acquire such influence that the
Confucian scholars intrigued against them and for a short time
"Dutch" studies languished. But a number of courageous men con-
tinued their criticism of the authorities, and though some of them
paid with their lives they succeeded in convincing a few members
of the administration and some of the daimyo that Japan could no
longer stand still.

Some account of the leading figures in this movement to break
down the exclusion policy will serve better than a description of
its growth in general terms and it has the advantage of throwing
a little light upon conditions in Japan, especially among the samu-
rai, in the period under discussion. But first it should be mentioned
that in the history of European influences upon Japanese thought
much depended upon the personal relationships of Japanese stu-
dents with Western scholars who were attached to the Dutch fac-
tory at Nagasaki. It is of course impossible to assess precisely their
contribution to Japanese learning, but many Japanese historians
(though there are notable exceptions) are inclined to write in
terms of trends, books, and documents and to neglect the im-
portance of individuals. An interesting inquiry might be made
into the share of foreign teachers in the transmission of cultural
influences to Japan, for it would undoubtedly reveal that through-

The End of Seclusion

out Japanese history Korean, Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch, and
other foreigners of learning or experience have given life to stud-
ies that might have been dry and infertile without their help. Cer-
tainly Japanese scholars under the Tokugawa owed a great debt to
men like Kampfer, the German scholar who was in Japan from
September 1690 to November 1692; Thunberg, the botanist;
Titsingh, a man of all-round accomplishment; and notably Sie-
bold, the German scientist who from 1823 to l83° was *n close
touch with Japanese students and scholars, giving them precious
aid and counsel. Siebold indeed was on such friendly terms with
his pupils that they broke the law by giving him forbidden infor-
mation, and some suffered death on that account. He himself was
expelled from Japan, to the great grief of his disciples.

The other side of the picture — and what most interests us
here — is the persistence, in face of difficulty and often of danger,
of a strong interest in Western knowledge throughout the period
of seclusion. It ebbed and flowed in accordance with the official
attitude, but it never entirely subsided. By the end of the eight-
eenth century it had spread from a small band of specialists to a
great number of men in all ranks of society and in all parts of the
country, and it had increased its range to include most aspects of
European art and science. At the turn of the century students were
influenced not only by a desire for knowledge for its own sake, butf
by a sense of urgency which they felt as the visits of foreign ships
became more frequent and more menacing.

4. Forerunners of the Restoration Movement

'HEN in 1808 the saucy Phaeton sailed into Nagasaki harbour
her complement can have had little idea of the commotion they
were causing on shore. The commander of this crack frigate had
come all the way from the Indian Ocean in search of fugitive Dutch
vessels and doubtless his mind was only on his professional duties.
He certainly had no scruples about entering neutral territorial
waters on a warlike mission. But the appearance of this armed ship
and its calm disregard of Japanese feelings brought home at once
to the local and presently to the central authorities the weakness of
the defensive measures they had taken in a rather half-hearted way
since the Russian descents upon the Kuriles at the end of the
eighteenth century.

At the time of the visit of the Phaeton a boy named Takashima
was in his eleventh year, and there is no doubt that he and his
family were much impressed by it. His father was a municipal
officer of good standing. His family had since Portuguese days been

848

Forerunners of the Restoration Movement

established in Nagasaki and had a hereditary claim to municipal
office as well as being recognized experts in gunnery. Young Taka-
shima succeeded his father in these posts at the age of seventeen
and before long was entrusted with important duties in the super-
vision of the defences of the harbour. He applied himself assidu-
ously to the study of military science and soon reached the conclu-
sion that the forts and guns installed around Nagasaki were quite

SHUHAN (1798-1866)

A specialist in gunnery and coastal defence

inadequate for protection against foreign warships. He pointed out
that the Bakufu orders to drive foreign vessels away were meaning-
less, since there was not sufficient artillery for their execution.
Finding that his memorials had no effect, he devoted his energies
and his private fortune to a study of Western military science and
to the purchase from Holland of modern weapons, which included
field guns, mortars, and muskets of recent design. In this enter-
prise he was assisted by members of the Dutch trading station at
Deshima and by captains of Dutch vessels. From them he obtained
a number of books, which he and his pupils translated, and by
about 1840 he had made such progress that he was able to train in
Western style two companies of infantry and a battery of artillery
and had gained a considerable knowledge of the technical processes
in the manufacture of ordnance. These efforts may be taken as the
first serious adoption of modern Western military methods and

849

The End of Seclusion

the first concrete sign that feudal methods of fighting were ob-
solete.

These activities took place at a time when the outbreak of the
Anglo-Chinese war of 1840 had made a deep impression through-
out the Far East, but particularly in Japan. The naval strength
that had enabled an English squadron to destroy Chinese warships
without loss to itself came as a great surprise to most Japanese,
though not to students like Takashima. News that reached Japan
of the engagement and its sequels much exaggerated the number
and strength of the English ships. Extraordinary rumours were
circulated, and repeated by serious scholars, such as a report that
the English navy was composed of 25,860 vessels, many with forty
or fifty guns, and its total force of officers and men amounted to
one million.7 A scholar named Mineta, as late as 1849, when more
exact information might have been expected, published a book
called Kaigwai Shinwa, or New Tales from Overseas^ which was
an account of the war from Chinese sources. This work contains
an illustration depicting the English fleet assembled below London
Bridge for the expedition to China. There is a great forest of masts
extending to the horizon, and immense crowds throng the embank-
ment, while sightseers in gondolas are visible in the foreground.
It is interesting to reflect that at this time probably not one Eng-
lishman in a thousand knew or cared about the China war, and
in general the Japanese seem to have had very mistaken notions as
to the British attitude towards Japan, for there is no indication
in the history of the period that British merchants had any great
interest in the Japan market or that British statesmen had any de-
signs upon Japan's independence.

Similarly the Japanese seem to have overestimated the degree
of interest that the Russian government took in the Far East. They
did not know, for instance, that Rezanov's mission did not grow
out of a deliberate official policy, but resulted rather from his con-
nection with a company interested in the fur trade, which (he
thought) depended for its success on the ability to obtain provi-
sions and other stores in Japan. Rezanov was much more interested
in the west coast of America than in Japan. In fact, it is not far out
to say that much of the anxiety displayed by the party that was
urging military preparation on the Bakufu was inspired by fears of
imperialistic policies on the part of England and Russia that did
not then exist.

7 It should not be supposed that the Bakufu were ignorant of the facts. They
were pretty well informed by the Dutch, and there is on record a questionnaire
which the Nagasaki officials presented to the Dutch in Deshima, with replies in
some detail concerning the strength of English squadrons in China and their posi-
tions, the reasons for China's defeat in 1840-2, and related matters. (Boxer: Jan
Compagnie in Japan. The Hague, 1936.)

Forerunners of the Restoration Movement

The anxiety, however, was genuine. Takashima, with other
patriots of the day, concluded that the success of the English was
due entirely to their superior weapons. In a memorial to the Gov-
ernor of Nagasaki he argued strongly for military reform, saying
that in fact Japan was no more capable of resistance than was
China, and Chinese defensive measures had been "like children's
play." Japan must at once adopt Western practice iri artillery and
infantry training. His proposals were transmitted to the Bakufu,
where they met with strong opposition. In the light of Japan's
martial history it might have been expected that, whatever objec-
tions were raised to Occidental ideas in general, improved methods
of warfare would arouse the interest of a military autocracy. But
the Bakufu had lost much of its early military complexion, and
conservative, Confucian sentiment was powerful.

Takashima's memorial fell into the hands of an official named
Torii Yozo, nicknamed the Demon, a sinister character who was a
son of the official Confucian scholar Hayashi Jussai and hated
foreigners and foreign learning. He held an important post as one
of the chief magistrates of Yedo, with both judicial and police
power. He objected to Takashima's views and recommended that
they should not be adopted. His arguments were curious. He said
that Western countries were unreliable, very different from civi-
lized nations who understood manners and morals. They were al-
ways thinking of profit and relied entirely upon force. Such people
were not at all to be trusted, not at all like the people of China
and Japan, who depended for victory upon intelligence. He there-
fore deplored the activities of the Rangakusha, the students of
Dutch learning, who were always running after some new thing;
and he warned the Bakufu against the idea that some cannon
bought from foreigners and manipulated by a few locally recruited
soldiers of no standing would serve to protect the shores of Japan.

These old-fashioned views were not shared by all Torii's col-
leagues and superiors, among whom Takashima found some sup-
porters. One of them was an important Bakufu official named
Egawa Tarozaemon, who arranged for him to be summoned to
Yedo. In June 1841 he gave a demonstration of modern infantry
drill and gunnery exercises on a parade ground near the capital.
He seems to have been obsessed with the importance of drills and
parades. He had brought from Nagasaki a company of 125 men,
dressed in a newly designed uniform, and before a distinguished
company he put them through their repertory with muskets, mor-
tars, and quick-firing guns, using Dutch words of command. This
last feature was regarded as most unpatriotic and the official Mas-
ter of Ordnance of the Bakufu was extremely upset. The drill, he
said, was ridiculous. The men raising and manipulating their

861

The End of Seclusion

weapons all at the same time and with the same motions looked
as if they were playing some children's game. An|l as for using
Dutch words of command in what was called the Takashima style,
it was most improper and should be stopped at once. These frivo-
lous objections were not upheld. The Bakufu even rewarded Ta-
kashima and ordered him to give instruction in the new methods
to responsible Bakuf u officers, but not to anyone else. This proviso

EGAWA TAROZAEMON (1800-55)

A Tokugawa official, student of Dutch, surveying,
and military science

is interesting, since it shows that despite the national peril the
Shogunate was afraid that if the feudatories obtained superior
weapons and learned how to use them, they might be turned
against the government itself. The restriction was soon withdrawn,
however, and Takashima's knowledge was spread throughout the
country, in particular by Egawa, who opened a school for that pur-
pose. Among Egawa's pupils was one Sakuma Shozan, a man who
was to play a leading part in the introduction of Western scientific
knowledge into Japan.

The successes of Takashima and other scholars infuriated the
reactionary party, of which Torii was a leader. He sent an agent to
Nagasaki to work up charges of treason, peculation, and espionage
against Takashima, who was arrested and finally brought to Yedo
for trial and imprisonment. Fortunately, but not until Takashima

Forerunners of the Restoration Movement

had languished in jail for some years, Torii fell out of favour and
Takashima's punishment was reduced to a mild kind of house ar-
rest. This was in 1846, and he was obliged to keep quiet until 1853,
when, owing to the urgency of questions of coastal defence created
by Perry's visit, he was pardoned and released, receiving an ap-
pointment as maker of ordnance for the Bakufu.

Takashima's experiences have been related here in some detail
because they illustrate clearly the strength of conservative feeling
in Japan at that time. It should be added that it was not only his
addiction to foreign learning which displeased the reactionary
ffarty, for he was a strong advocate of opening the country on the
ground that foreign trade was necessary for the support of Japan's
economy and in order to prevent her culture from stagnating. Con-
temporary with him, but younger by some thirteen years, was aB-
other earnest and influential advocate of Western learning, who
also suffered for his views. This was the aforesaid Sakuma Sh5zan,
a man who reached the same conclusions as Takashima, but by" a
different route. A comparison of their careers brings out in an in-
teresting way not only the conflict between conservative and ad-
vanced schools of thought as to the future of Japan, but also the
variety of reasons that were adduced for the opening of Japan
when the problem became acute as foreign pressure increased.

Sakuma was born in 1811, his father being a samurai of the
Matsushiro fief in the mountainous province of Shinano. His feu-
dal lord, named Sanada, happened to have close family connections
with collaterals of the Tokugawa and was therefore well thought
of in Yedo. This circumstance was of advantage to Sakuma in later
life, because it gave him a means of access to high officers of the
Bakufu and afforded him some protection against his enemies. As
a young man, singled out by Sanada for his talents, he went to Yedo
for study and attached himself to older men who were interested
in Western science. He devoted himself in particular to military
problems and gradually became impressed by the advances made in
gunnery and tactics by the leading Western powers. In this he was
not exceptional, for it is characteristic of the early stages of Western
studies in Japan during the Tokugawa period that it was the com-
panion sciences of inflicting wounds and healing them that at-
tracted the attention of ambitious young samurai. Those who did
not study the manufacture and use of lethal weapons devoted
themselves to medicine and surgery. These and astronomy were
the features of Western culture that appealed to their minds, and
it was only incidentally that they acquired some knowledge of
other aspects of European culture.

Sakuma was much impressed by Takashima's demonstration of
gunnery exercises in 1841. He studied for some time under Egawa,

The End of Seclusion

Takashima's colleague and friend, and then, taking an independ-
ent line, he began to inquire into the. question of national safety.
Sanada had in 1842 been put in charge of coastal defences by the
Bakufu, so that Sakuma had ample opportunity for examining
such preparations!^ had been made. He wrote and spoke copiously
on problems of national defence and put in a memorial of eight
points whichT throws an interesting light on the views of men "ol
his type. It reads in summary as follows:

j»S»

1. Fortifications must be erected at all strategic points on the coast and
equipped with adequate artillery.

2. The export of copper through the Dutch must be suspended and
the metal used for casting thousands of guns for distribution to all
points.

3. Large merchant ships must be built, so as to prevent the loss of rice
through the wreck of the small coastal vessels which were all that
the exclusion edicts allowed.

4. Maritime trade must be supervised by capable officials.

5. Warships of foreign style must be constructed and a force of trained
naval officers built up.

6. Schools must be established throughout the country and a modern
education provided, so that "even the most stupid men and women
may understand loyalty, piety, and chastity/'

7. Rewards and punishment must be made clear, and government must
be conducted benevolently but firmly, so as to strengthen the popu-
lar mind.

8. There must be established a system of selecting and employing men
of ability in official posts.

This document received no attention from the authorities and
is of no historical importance, but reading between tEe lines one
can find in it a useful picture of contemporary conditions. It
shows that men of Sakuma's type were aware not only of the mili-
tary angTeconomic weaknesses of their country but also of defects
in its social constitution. Sakuma felt that the ignorance of the
people was one of these, and he favoured widespread education,
taking the characteristic Far Eastern line that good government
must fee based on the moral instruction of the masses. But more
significant than these commonplace proposals are the last two
items in his list. They express a critical attitude towards the gov-
ernment which was shared by most of the intellectuals of his day.
People of his kind resented its arbitrary character, but most of all
they chafed under a system of preferment that denied opportunity
to young men of modest origins. There can be no doubt that,
arpCTig all the causes of the anti-Tokugawa, loyalist movement
which ended in the fall of the Bakufu, the ambition of young sam-
urai was the most powerful. Agrarian discontent, economic dis-

£54

Forerunners of the Restoration Movement

tress, financial blunders — -all these would not have sufficed to
bring about change without the fructifying zeal of a small number
of vigorous persons anxious to exercise their talents and to rise in
the world. That Western culture made a strong impression upon
their minds is undoubted, but it is important to remember, in
studying the growth of Western influences, that most of the young
men in question were in the first place attracted to Dutch studies
because they afforded opportunities of advancement that were not
open to them so long as they confined themselves to the routine
duties of a junior military officer.

At the time when he compiled his Eight Points, Sakutna, it will
be noticed, was inclined to take an isolationist view. He saw that
there was something wrong in the exclusion policy, but he was
still of opinion that Western people were barbarians, "incapable
of understanding virtue and righteousness," and therefore unfit
to enter into relations of equality with Japan. In particular he
feared the English, whom he suspected of treacherous designs
against his own country. His views on that nation had been col-
oured not only by reports on their behaviour in China but also by
warnings from Dutch informants. "Once they have finished off the
business in China/' he wrote, "they will send warships to Nagasaki,
Satsuma, and Yedo. They are a people who are swayed only by a
desire for profit, and they are not likely to go to the expense of
sending a large expedition against us all the way from England.
But they already have a considerable force just across the water
from us, and all they have to do is to take advantage of the recent
incident in Uraga [referring to the visit of the Morrison in 1837]
and, making a warlike demonstration, to insist upon opening
trade. If this were refused they would pester us until they gained
their point at little expense and would stop at nothing. There is
therefore no advantage in attempting to deal with them in accord-
ance with the laws of courtesy."

If this pessimistic diagnosis were correct, what was the remedy?
Here Sakuma's wisdom seems to have deserted him, for all that he
could suggest was that it would be shameful to agree uncondi-
tionally to a demand for trade. Japan must hold firm and quickly
strengthen her defences in accordance with his Eight Points. She
was already losing much of her wealth in exports through the
Dutch, and to give way to the English, besides being fraught with
moral dangers, would only make her material condition worse.

He did not say what was to happen if those predatory Western
countries should descend upon Japan before she was ready; and
the truth is that his Confucian training and his reverence for the
Imperial dynasty combined to make the idea of commerce with
barbarians extremely repugnant to his patriotic feelings. He

The End of Seclusion

in other words, taking a reactionary view that latqr, in the pre-
Restoration struggle, \yas to be expressed in the cry of "Revere the
Emperor and Expel the Barbarian/' The fact that so able a man
should not have perceived the contradictions in his own views
shows the strength of conservative sentiment in what for his day
were advanced intellectual circles. Brut he was an indefatigable
student, and his subsequent career shows that he was not afraid
to change his mind. It is worth relating in outline, because |iis own
conversion to a doctrine of qualified internationalism represents
in miniature the intellectual history o^ that culmi-

nated in the opening of Japan a generation later. So powerful were
the forces working against seclusion that the experiences of indi-
viduals may seem to be of little significance, but Western influ-
ences had to work upon individual Eastern minds before they
could affect Eastern cultures, and there is thus a real historical in-
terest in tracing that process in typical cases. Sakuma's career is
from this point o£ view especially instructive.

Alarming information as to the naval strength of Western pow-
ers reached the Bakufu not only from scholars such as Takashima
and Sakuma but from many other sources, and — as we have noted
— moved them to moderate the expulsion order of 1825 so as to
allow local authorities to supply foreign ships with food and fuel.
In 1842 officials were told that they must act in accordance with
humane principles and not be unreasonably disturbed by the close
approach of strange vessels to the shores of Japan. But on no ac-
count were foreigners to be allowed to land and all ships were to
be instructed to leave after receiving supplies. Soon after this (in
1844) a Dutch warship entered Nagasaki bringing an envoy with
a letter addressed to the Shogun by the King of Holland. This
interesting document contained a friendly warning to the effect
that the development of modern science and the growth of inter-
national trade were trends that Japan would find it impossible to
resist, and she should therefore make up her mind to open the
country. In a polite reply the Shogun's high officers said that the
ancestral law of Japan prevented them from acting upon his well-
intentioned counsel. They overlooked the fact that the ancestral
law, if there was one, did not go back farther than 1639 or there-
abouts; but the Bakufu was at this time in an obscurantist mood,
the Confucianist clique that had brought about Takashima' s down-
fall being still powerful. The position of the Dutch scholars was
extremely uncomfortable. The Confucianists endeavoured to sup-
press the study of Dutch writings altogether, and they might have
succeeded had there not been a strong feeling in high quarters in
favour of Dutch medical science. It resulted that for some time
students who wished to pursue their inquiries into Western learn-

Forerunners oj the Restoration Movement

ing took the precaution of enrolling themselves in the schools of
teachers of medicine and surgery, because it was dangerous for
those who resided in Bakufu domains to display an interest in
other branches of Western science.

It was in such unfavourable circumstances as these that Sa-
kuma, after putting in his memorandum on coastal defence, pro-

SAKUMA SHOZAN ( 1 8 1

ceeded to make a more thorough study of the Dutch language, so
that he might read books on military science and other branches
of learning. On familiar terms with most of the leading students
of the period, he plunged enthusiastically into grammars and dic-
tionaries, and it was not long before he could read Dutch with
some ease. In 1846 Sanada resigned from office and returned to his
fief, taking Sakuma with him. There Sakuma continued his re-
searches and put his knowledge to practical use by experiment-
ing in making glass and refining chemicals in accordance with in-
structions that he found in a Dutch encyclopaedia. By 1848 he had
succeeded in casting three field guns, one three-pounder, and two
small quick-firing pieces. At the same time he was rapidly increas-
ing his general knowledge of Western science and endeavouring to

$67

The End of Seclusion

promote Dutch studies by publishing a revised edition of a Dutch-
Japanese dictionary, the so-called Halma, which was an incomplete
translation into Japanese o£ Francois Raima's Dutch-French dic-
tionary, begun before 1796. But this the Yedo authorities, in their
hostility to foreign learning, refused to allow.

Meanwhile, .as Sakuma pursued his inquiries he became more
and more impressed by the wide range of Western learning and
the importance of scientific knowledge. He no longer thought that
China had been conquered by sheer weight of metal, but said in
a memorial to Sanada in 1849: "How is it that Western countries
have been able by devotion to learning to increase their national
strength to such a point that even the country of Confucius has
fallen victim to their assault? It is because foreign learning is ra-
tional and Chinese learning is not." There is much more in this
vein, but his argument may be abridged by saying that he comes
down heavily on the side of world- wide scientific knowledge,
praises Western people for their assiduous study of the real nature
of the universe, and condemns those who, sunk in ancient preju-
dice, despise forei^^ as barbarians* He has come a long way
from the young man who described^The English as ignorant and
savage, was opposed to foreign trade, and wished to keep the sa-
cred soil of Japan free from the contamination of foreign footsteps.
He now sees the need for avoiding conflict and is all for extending
the range of his country's intercourse.

His mind was always on guns and forts, but his preoccupation
with these matters brought him to an admiration almost amount-
ing to fear of the scientific attainments of the West and led him,
as we have seen, to an international view. He was a voluminous
writer — the standard collection contains some 2,500 pages — but
his intellectual growth is neatly summarized in a few lines that he
wrote in 1854, and the circumstances in which he composed them
give additional point to what he said. He was at the time in prison
for conniving at an offence against the exclusion laws. He said:

When I was twenty I knew that men were linked together

in one province

When I was thirty I knew that they were linked together

in one nation

When I was forty I knew that they were linked together

in one world of five continents.

This shows his progress from the narrow loyalty of the fief to the
sentiment of national unity and thence to a feeling of member-
ship in an international society. But it muy not be inferred that
he had acquired a pacificT cosmopolitan philosophy. Far from thaC
he retained a fiery patriotism, and all he meant was that Japan

868

Forerunners of the Restoration Movement

could not remain secluded but must take her place in the world and
hold it. This involved learning about other countries, associating
with them, understanding them, and — most important of all —
using their knowledge. All his views led to the conclusion that
japan must increase her armed strength, and it is significant that
among the men whom he influenced were Yamagata and Inouye,
respectively the founders of the modern Japanese army and
navy.

JHis phrase "Western science and Eastern morals" summarizes
his attitude towards the problems of the day. Though he was a
reformer, the conservative instinct was strong in him. He thought
it possible to reach a compromise between modern life and an-
cient tradition. To the end he still hoped for a reconciliation be-
tween the Shogunate and the throne, standing for the principle of
amalgamation known as "Kobu Gattai" according to which the
military houses could collaborate in government with the civil
aristocracy. Despite his modern studies he was still under the in-
fluence of his Confucian training, which is visible in all his writ-
ings. His views on all matters are to be found in his collected works
expressed through the medium of Chinese verse, and even his
matter-of-fact travel diaries often drop Into a poetical prose, as
when he notes the imperfections of coastal defences near Yedo and
says: "At this sight I lifted my eyes "to heaven and wept. Long my
bosom heaved and long my tears overflowed."

Among the young men who gathered round ^Sakuma was an
ardent patriot named Yoshida Torajiro, who was anxious^ to go
abroad to gain knowledge he could put to his country's service. In
1854 he, with another adherent of Sakuma, attempted to board
one of Perry's vessels, was discovered, and was imprisoned for a
breach of the edict that forbade Japanese subjects to leave their
country under pain of death. The police found on his person a
farewell poem from Sakuma, who was thereupon taken into cus-
tody. He does not come out of this incident very well, for he denied
that he had encouraged Yoshida. He was imprisoned, however,
but released in 1862 only to be murdered after less than two years
of freedom by some anti-foreign fanatics.

Sakuma Shozan, though a remarkable man, was of a self-right-
eous character, with a rather vain and pompous side. A more at-
tractive though in a worldly sense less successful member of the
company of samurai who in adverse conditions strove against the
exclusion policy was Watanabe Noboru, better known by his
pseudonym Kwazan. Talented and versatile, poet, painter, scholar,
and patriot, he took a leading part in stimulating interest in West-
ern learning and in forming a body of opinion that, after his death,
it about the results he had desired. His was a restless life with

259

The End of Seclusion

a tragic ending, which has been fittingly recorded in the form of a
romantic novel by a modern Japanese author.

At a critical stage in his career his fortunes were entangled with
those of another member of the group, a certain Takano Nagahide
(or Choei, as he was often called) ; and it is difficult to describe the
one without reference to the other. Takano, who lived from 1804
to 1850, was probably the most accomplished Dutch scholar of his
day in Japan. The list of Dutch books he read and Japanese works
he wrote is impressive. He published treatises on a great variety of
matters, including botany, medicine, mineralogy, geography, his-
tory, and military tactics. Naturally he could not have a profound
knowledge of all these subjects, and indeed the very names of some
European sciences were new to the Japanese when he wrote. The
wide range of his interests shows on the one hand how imperfect
was the picture of the outside world as his contemporaries saw it,
and on the other hand how thirsty they were for even the smallest
draughts of new knowledge. We find him and his colleagues noting
with excitement the most elementary facts, and sometimes misun-
derstanding them in a ludicrous way. But they all displayed an
admirable determination to learn, and little by little their vision
grew fuller and clearer, until by the time of Perry's visit they had
become familiar with the leading facts about Occidental life and
had mastered the rudiments of many branches of foreign learning.

Takano was born in a family of physicians living in a rustic en-
vironment. At the age of sixteen he began the study of Western
medicine, which involved learning the Dutch language. Quite
penniless, he had to support himself by the practice of massage,
earning a few coppers each night at the end of a long day's study.
After many vicissitudes he at last obtained a post in the home of a
daimyo (Matsuura of Hirado, where once the Dutch and English
had trading posts) by whom he was employed in translating Dutch
books, most of which dealt with natural science. He began to learn
something of chemistry, physiology, and similar subjects. What he
learned sharpened his appetite and by 1828, in his twenty-fourth
year, he had made some reputation and could look forward to a
life of useful study. His prospects were good. He hoped, as he said,
to put his own thoughts on a sure foundation, to accomplish some-
thing of benefit to his country, and to be a credit to his parents —
characteristic ambitions of an earnest young man of his generation.
But this smooth course was not to be followed by him, for late in
that year, when the Dutch 8 scholar Siebold had been found to
possess forbidden information, the Bakufu arrested a large number
of teachers and students who had been in contact with him, and

s He was in fact a German, but prudently posed as Dutch. Takano, among
others, judged from his speech that he was not Dutch.

260

Forerunners of the Restoration Movement

showed signs of suppressing Western studies. Takano thought that
he was in danger and fled to Kumamoto in Kyushu, where he
would be free from attention. When the Siebold affair had blown
over he cautiously made his way to Yedo. He told his family that
he had made up his mind to sever his connection with the clan to
which he belonged and to devote himself to the service of the
whole country, not of a single fief. He also, though reluctantly, re-
signed from family duties and declared that he could not return
home to marry the young woman to whom he was affianced. This
was in Japanese eyes*a serious step to take, and he tried to make
amends by legally adopting her as his daughter and then marrying
her to a man who would first enter the Takano family, so becom-
ing its head in place of Takano himself. This was a curious but
not uncommon practice, designed to secure continuity by adoption
and thus to ensure the perpetuation of ancestor-worship.

Takano, though distressed by his failure to carry out his family
obligations, was determined to pursue his studies until he could
practice medicine, and this was impossible if he lived in a remote
country place. He settled in Yedo, where he soon became well
known and respected among the Dutch scholars and made friends
with a large number of men interested like himself in foreign
learning and extremely critical of the Bakufu.

One of these was Watanabe Kwazan, who though not an ad-
vanced student of Dutch was much interested in national affairs
and anxious to learn about foreign countries. With some compan-
ions of like views he formed and presided over a society that he
called "The Old Men's Club," not because of the great age of its
members but to show that they were prepared to learn from schol-
ars who were their juniors, whether in rank or in years. They met
to study geography and history and military science and to discuss
ways of improving the condition of Japan by the use of Western
knowledge. Kwazan was of higher rank than Takano and through
his connections was able to assist him and some of his colleagues
and to bring into their circle useful friends.

Among these were some Bakufu officials, and at a meeting of
the club in 1838 one of them disclosed the government's intention
to enforce the expulsion edict against a foreign ship that was ex-
pected to arrive shortly. It was (they supposed) the Morrison.,
bringing Japanese castaways back to their country; and when
Takano and his friends heard this piece of news they were much
disturbed. They thought it wrong to use violence against a foreign
vessel coming on a humane mission and feared that such action
would have unfortunate sequels for Japan. Takano decided to
write a pamphlet against the exclusion policy, pointing out its
dangers and the advantage of admitting foreigners to trade. It was

281

The End of Seclusion

a strange document, purporting to relate a dream, and was of course
in substance a strong criticism of the Bakufu. It was full of errors
and misunderstandings. Takano supposed that the authorities had
mistaken the name of a well-known English missionary in China,
Dr. Robert Morrison, for the name of a ship, and did not know
that the ship Morrison had already come and gone, after being
fired upon, in the year 1837, and that the Bakufu were discussing
the possibility of a further visit. Such confusion shows how little
the general public knew of what was going on, how they were kept
in ignorance by a policy of secrecy which was characteristic of the
Tokugawa regime.9 However, the general intention of the pam-
phlet was very clear, and it was widely read.

It was a grave offence to publish any criticism of official policy,
and the magistrate Torii (the "Demon," who has been mentioned
above as the persecutor of the gunnery expert Takashima) recom-
mended the arrest of Takano and his associates. No immediate
steps were taken, however, and the Old Men continued to talk and
write against the government. Torii meanwhile was spreading his
net and by the summer of 1838 he reported to the Council of State
a conspiracy in which, he alleged, a number of daimyo and samu-
rai were implicated. He brought false charges against them, saying
that they were in communication with the barbarians and planned
to colonize some uninhabited islands off the coast of Japan, which
could be used as a base of operations against the government. The
chief Minister of State, Mizuno Tadakuni, hesitated to take open
action, because the plot, if it existed, implicated some important
persons in the powerful fiefs of Satsuma and Mito and some Bakufu
officers who could count on protection in high quarters. There was
a very thin substance to Torii's charges, since Kwazan and his friends
had talked of transferring peasants to an island that could be devel-
oped as a means of relieving distress in poor farming areas on the
mainland; and it was true that all or most of the people accused
had been in communication with members of the Old Men's club.
This in itself was a sign that dissatisfaction with the Bakufu was
spreading in the clans, and showed that the Dutch Scholars were
gaining influential support. But Mizuno knew that if he proceeded
against persons of high rank some disconcerting scandals might be
uncovered, and it was therefore decided to arrest only Kwazan,
Takano, and a few minor figures.

Kwazan was summoned before a magistrate on June 24, 1839.
He was able to warn Takano, who at once went into hiding. Kwa-
zan was imprisoned that night and all his books and papers were
confiscated. Takano was urged by his friends to escape from Yedo,

9 It was not until a year after the Morrison's arrival that the Bakufu learned
from the Butch the name of the ship and the purpose of its visit.

Forerunners of the Restoration Movement

but he refused, saying that since his pamphlet was the cause of all
the trouble, he could not honorably remain free while Kwazan
was in danger. "If I should conceal myself only for a short time,
still I should be a man of darkness forever/' he is reported to have
said; and he gave himself up after settling his private affairs as best
he could, being protected meanwhile by his friends.

From this point the histories of the two men followed different
courses, though both came to the same end, taking their own lives
in despair. Takano was condemned to life imprisonment after a
perfunctory trial in which he conducted himself with courage. Ac-
cused of misleading the public by writing about things he did not
understand, he was asked how he could describe in his pamphlets
the condition of foreign countries that he had not seen. He had in
fact given a very dreamlike account of the English and some re-
markable views on the political influence of Dr. Morrison, which
would have astounded that distinguished scholar, who, however,
had died some years before the pamphlet was written. But Takano
boldly replied: "We do not know that anybody has gone up to the
heavens, but we have astronomers. We do not know that anybody
has gone down into the earth, but we have geologists. . . . There
is an inner eye with which such things can be seen." He was angrily
silenced, and on Febrary i, 1840 he was condemned. We may here
leave the story of Takano's life, noting only that he escaped after
a fire in the prison in 1844; led a wandering life for several years,
never staying long in one place and living on fees for translating
books on military science, paid to him by friendly daimyos; was
traced by spies in 1846; evaded pursuit; travelled in disguise, trans-
lating and teaching when it appeared safe, always impelled by
patriotic zeal to spread new knowledge; and at last reached Yedo,
where (betrayed by a former fellow prisoner) he was come upon
at night by police officers and, having killed one of them, calmly
committed harakiri. This was late in the year 1850, only three
years before the arrival of Perry's ships, which could not, as the
Bakufu well knew, be treated like the Morrison.

Against this dark background let us now look at the career of
Kwazan, not as a student of affairs and a political offender, but
rather as a man displaying the most attractive aspects of the culture
of his class in the late winter of feudal society. He was the son of
a samurai of good standing in the small Tawara fief, which was
situated on the seaboard of Mikawa, leyasu's home province. Like
many daimiates it was in financial difficulties, and these were se-
verely felt by samurai of all but the highest rank, whose stipends
were reduced and often even unpaid. Kwazan's family was there-
fore poor, and as a youth he was obliged to support it by painting
fans and lampshades for sale, alongside of his studies in Chinese.

The End of Seclusion

He took lessons from Tani Buncho and other masters, displaying
great versatility, and before long had gained a good reputation as
an artist. During his turns of duty in Yedo he frequented the so-
ciety of painters and writers (we have already seen him at a party
given by the novelist Bakin) , and among all those who knew him
he was well liked for his lively and generous spirit and well thought
of for his strong sense of duty. His services as an official of the
Tawara clan were valuable, and he was picked out for promotion
to the rank of counsellor, thereby arousing some jealousy among
his colleagues. In this capacity he devoted himself to questions of
coastal defence and to the improvement of economic conditions in
the Tawara domain, which had suffered from the disastrous famine
of 1833. His records of journeys of inspection and his notes on
taxation, agriculture, peasant unrest, and agrarian problems in
general show that he was a capable and popular official who, in
difficult times, gained that kind of experience in administration
which made it possible a generation later for comparatively junior
samurai to take over the administration of the country without any
serious breach of continuity. It was men of his type who were both
the authors and the leaders of the revolutionary movement of the
i86o's.

His entry into the company of students of Western science was
of value to them, since he had a practical experience of affairs in
which most of them were lacking, and so he easily gained their
respect as well as their affection. When he was arrested all his
friends, not least his fellow painters, rallied to his support at con-
siderable risk to themselves. They managed to correspond with
him while he was in jail awaiting trial and sent him small gifts to
lessen the rigours of imprisonment, which were to be dreaded in
those days. He was ill and wretched — his health never recovered
from the effects of more than six months' incarceration — but he
did not lose courage. In the letters he was able to smuggle out he
dwells not on his own misfortunes but on the grief and trouble
he is causing to others. There is at times a note of humour also, as
when he relates that he is on good terms with his fellow inmates,
who respectfully call him Master, and even the prison officials like
to talk to him about art and pester him with their conversation.
"In fact/' he says, "I am not badly off here, only about as uncom-
fortable as I should be undergoing treatment at a medicinal hot
spring." During those months he hoped for a mild sentence, but
he was prepared for capital punishment and was even informed
that this would be his fate. He had contrived to obtain paper and
brushes and made a number of sketches of prison life. Among these
is one that shows himself, in manacles, seated between two jailers,
who have announced that he is to receive the death sentence. He

Forerunners of the Restoration Movement

has been perhaps overpraised as a painter, but his quick impres-
sions show a great virtuosity, and none more than this unusual
example. It may be noted here that his sketches for portraits are
very telling, and show some Western influence.

A number of letters, diaries, and notes have been preserved
which show that great efforts were made to secure his acquittal.
They give an interesting picture of a grim aspect of life in those
days of intrigue and suspicion, false witness and jealousy, under-
ground negotiations, cruelty and fear. It is a picture in which all
members of the military caste do not shine as virtuous figures. But
it is relieved by the loyal conduct of his former associates. It also
shows how widespread was discontent not only among samurai but
in other ranks of society, for the ramifications of the anti-seclusion
movement extended in all directions. In the list of suspects there
appear the names of priests, artisans, and tradesmen as well as
scholars. The Bakuf u was on the alert to suppress its critics. There
is a revealing passage in a letter in which one of Kwazan's friends
discusses with another the draft of an appeal for clemency. It runs
as follows: "Do not speak of him too favourably or give the im-
pression that you are intimate with him. That would go against
him, for what the authorities most fear in these days is a man of
promise who is one of a party."

Kwazan was fortunate in his friends and, no doubt thanks to
their endeavours, his penalty was reduced to life imprisonment.
Because he was a trusted retainer of a feudatory of some conse-
quence he was handed over to officials of his own clan for perpetual
domiciliary confinement. This was in February 1840. Weak and
ill from prison life, he was carried in a small locked palanquin
over the Hakone Pass on a bitter winter's day, suffering agony from
cramp and fainting on the way. But on arrival in Tawara he was
well enough treated and lived in a small house under guard, study-
ing and painting and carrying on a clandestine correspondence
with his former associates, but on literary and artistic matters
rather than political. He remained thus for a few months, but he
had enemies in his own clan, and they spread a false report that
the Bakufu was about to bring further charges against him. This
came to his ears, as they had intended, and he felt that he might
cause difficulties for his feudal lord. He decided to commit suicide
and ended his life in November 1841. He left a number of touch-
ing letters, explaining his motives and condemning himself as a
failure who had brought shame upon his clan and misery upon
his family. His farewell letter to his younger brother is very brief.
It begs him to take care of their aged mother, apologizes for his
own conduct, and ends: "I will write no more, for this kind of
letter is only a source of tears/* Writing to his son, he tells him in

965

The End oj Seclusion •

two lines to carry out his filial duty to his grandmother and to his
unhappy mother, and signs: "Your disloyal and unfilial father,
Noboru."

It is sometimes said that the samurai code o£ behaviour was
narrow and class-bound, essentially selfish. There is some truth in
this charge, for it was a code that was developed to sustain a society
dominated by a military caste and depending upon the ruthless
maintenance of privilege. But it must be admitted that, as practised
by men like Kwazan, it encouraged an admirable rectitude. His
life shows also that it was consistent with warmth of feeling,
breadth of interest, and devotion to the public good.

In reviewing the careers of men like him one is struck by their
sense of dedication. Their writings, like their actions, all express
deep feelings of loyalty and filial piety, the two virtues most es-
teemed in the society in which they lived, and it is noteworthy that
the real tragedy of their careers arises from a conflict between two
ideals that are often irreconcilable. They were exceptional people
and though they failed to fulfil their immediate purposes their
example had great influence upon the next generation, and they
are still regarded as important figures in the history of their
country.

They were followed by other ardent reformers who, though
they played no great role in the politics of the Restoration period,
inspired many of its leaders. Some knowledge of their lives helps to
an understanding of their times — the twenty years before 1868.

Yokoi Shonan, like his contemporary Sakuma, was assassinated
for his views, which were regarded among reactionary samurai as
unduly favourable to foreigners. Shonan was a samurai born in
Kumamoto in 1809, and starting like most of his kind as a student
of Chinese philosophy, he displayed prodigious talent in his youth.
He was in Yedo from 1839 and became well known among other
Confucian scholars, forming a special friendship with certain mem-
bers of the Mito clan, whose Daimyo, though head of one of the
main branches of the Tokugawa family, carried on a tradition of
scholarship hostile to the Bakufu and favourable to the Imperial
house. Shonan in the course of his studies had reached the conclu-
sion that the official Chu Hsi philosophy "had form but not sub-
stance'* and was therefore impractical. His mind turned to a kind
of realism which under his leadership became popular among the
more advanced or open-minded samurai. That several fiefs com-
peted for his services can be taken as a sign of the current dissatis-
faction. Mito leaders invited him to put his wisdom at their dis-
posal, but he declined such offers and returned to his own prov-
ince, where he set up a school, to which students flocked. His view
was that the modern samurai were taken up, besotted almost, with

see

Forerunners of the Restoration Movement

art and letters, to the neglect of political and social studies which
the times demanded; and the aim of his teaching was described as
the encouragement of real, practical learning. His group, known
as the Practical Party, aroused opposition especially among physi-
cians of the old school of medicine, who discovered that Shdnan,
having been cured of a complaint by a doctor of the Dutch school,
was in favour of Western science.

From about 1 849 he travelled throughout the country, observ-
ing conditions and expounding his views. He became more and
more persuaded of the need for reforms as he began to take an
interest in gunnery, navigation, and other branches of Western
science. When Perry's arrival split opinion in Japan, Shonan firmly
expressed the view that the question of opening the country should
not be decided in panic and anger, but on grounds of principle,
which must be considered without prejudice. This sounds almost
obvious, but the fact that he had to say it is a measure of the vio-
lence of controversy that Perry's visit had aroused. Shonan consid-
ered that the country as a whole disliked the exclusion policy and
that it should be reviewed irrespective of the demands of the for-
eign powers.

In 1857 he had been invited by Matsudaira Shungaku, lord of
Echizen, to visit his fief as an adviser. Shdnan agreed to this and on
his arrival was treated with great respect by officials of the clan.
Shungaku had been ordered to retire because he had displeased
the Bakufu, but in the last days of the Shogunate he played, under
Shonan's influence, an important part as a mediator, being by then
strongly in favour of foreign intercourse and at the same time, be-
cause of family connections, sympathetic with the house of Toku-
gawa and anxious to protect its dignity. By the end of 1857, when
negotiations with the American envoy had gone a long way, the
question at issue was no longer the simple acceptance of further
engagements but the extent to which impending changes in Japan's
foreign relations would necessitate a reform of domestic institu-
tions. Shonan himself had by now become convinced that full in-
ternational intercourse was necessary and a great expansion of
foreign trade. He already saw that a drastic reform of the current
system of government was necessary. When in 1858 he decided to
accept Shungaku's offer of employment in Echizen, his friends had
asked him how he reconciled this with the classic rule of undivided
loyalty, the principle that a samurai could not serve two masters.
He had replied: "The times are such that we must not be fettered
by such old maxims/' thereby knocking out one of the pillars of
feudal ethics. In Echizen he worked out with like-minded people
various plans for domestic reform. He showed one of his drafts to
Okubo Ichio, a trusted Bakufu retainer who held relatively ad-

267

The End of Seclusion

vanced views and saw the need for change. One article in the draft
proposed that the periodical attendance o£ daimyo in Yedo should
be abolished, and their families should be sent home. This was
too much for Okubo, who said with truth that it would break down
the system upon which the Tokugawa depended. Shonan retorted:
"Well, if the daimyo withdrew from Yedo without notifying the
Bakufu, what could be done to prevent them?" and Okubo was
obliged to reply: "Nothing!"

This incident — it occurred in 1862 — shows how much the
authority of the Bakufu had declined. It had lost its power of
decision and did not know where to look for advice. It even turned
to such men as Shonan himself, who was offered employment but
declined. His mind was now on the future, and he began to take
an interest in naval problems, proposing to send his son to America
for training as a naval officer. This was in 1866, when he had of
course become a convinced and open advocate of full intercourse
with the West. He was now a target of suspicion and hatred among
the anti-foreign party and was killed by assassins early in 1869,
but not before he had received a high appointment under the
Meiji government. He was in close touch with Yuri Kimimasa and
Fukuoka Kotei, two men who drafted some of the fundamental
documents of the Meiji era, and it is clear that his influence upon
them was considerable. His name appears with those of Okubo,
Kido, Saigo, and other Restoration leaders in the first list of coun-
sellors issued by the Meiji government in 1868.

The development of his political thought provides an interest-
ing study. As a young man he held very strong anti-foreign views
and wrote some fiery poems about the disgrace of dealing with
Western barbarians. But his "practical" reasoning brought him to
the view that it was "in accordance with the laws of heaven and
earth" to open the country. In a later phase he developed ideas of
universal peace and the brotherhood of man, propounding a kind
of One World doctrine. Looking back at the condition of Japan
at that time, it is at first sight difficult to understand how Shonan
and many other patriotic scholars who had some idea of the nature
of Western civilization could have seriously entertained the view
that their own country could one day attain to world leadership.
But it is clear that they saw nothing irrational in such ambitions,
and it must be remembered that one of the central features of Chi-
nese political doctrine was a belief that China was the centre of
the world, the Middle Kingdom from which irradiated a gracious
benevolence to the four quarters. This in substance was what the
celebrated Commissioner Lin wrote in 1839 in a letter to Queen
Victoria, saying: "Our Divine House reckons as its family all
within the Four Seas, and our great Emperor with Divine Grace

Forerunners of the Restoration Movement

offers shelter to all distant lands." Such remarkable pretensions
did not appear excessive to Japanese scholars brought up on Chi-
nese history; and it must be admitted that other countries have
often made similar claims to universal benevolence. Shonan's idea
is uncomfortably like the later proposals of Germany to spread her
Kultur throughout the world, and — though he did not know it at
the time — the Western nations that in the 1850*8 were pestering
Japan to open her doors justified their action on the ground that
they were bringing to that fortunate country noble principles and
a better life. This was a prosy version of Ch'ien Lung's offer of the
shelter of his divine grace.

Certainly Shonan appears to have believed sincerely in the ex-
pansion of Japan by moral rather than by material force, though
he thought that a big navy was necessary. But the celebrated jour-
nalist and popular (but very tendentious) historian Tokutomi
Soho describes him as in essence an imperialist. Tokutomi him-
self (of the same clan as Shonan, whom he much admired) was in
his early days an ardent liberal and a supporter of the Christian
movement. He later became a convinced nationalist and his writ-
ings took on a tinge of xenophobia. In one of his works written in
1916 with the object of stimulating the patriotism of Japanese
youth he gives a list of the early advocates of foreign Intercourse
and says that they were all good imperialists. He cites Rin Shihei,
Honda Toshiaki, Sato Shinyen, and Yokoi Shonan as favouring
policies of expansion without limit. Thus, whatever may have been
Shonan's true feelings, they were later interpreted as supporting a
national policy of expansion.

It may be that this was to do an injustice to Shonan, but there
can be little doubt that most leaders of the anti-Bakufu, Western-
jzation movement before 1853 took the line that Japan must re-
form and unify her domestic government, engage in foreign trade
and develop her armed strength with the ultimate object of ex-
pansion in Asia. Sato Shinyen (a competent administrator and no
mere visionary) , who was in touch with Shonan, wrote in 1823 a
book called Kondo Hisaku (A Secret Plan of Absorption) , propos-
ing domestic reforms that, he argued, were essential before Japan
could undertake the conquest of China and the rest of the world.
A generation later came Yoshida Shorn, whose career merits some
notice in this connection.

Yoshida Torajiro, or Shdin as he is usually called, is a puzzling
character. A cursory reading of his biography gives the impression
that he was foolish, fanatical, and ineffective. He was full of high
ideals, grand visions, and ambitious projects, yet he failed in al-
most all his undertakings large and small, for want, one would say,
of common sense. It is not easy for a foreign student to understand

The End of Seclusion

why he so strongly influenced the minds of his contemporaries and
was so extravagantly praised by later generations. It is clear that
there is something in his life which appeals to the emotions of his
compatriots, and it calls for study on that account.

He was born in 1830 near the castle town of Hagi in Choshu,
son of a samurai of low; rank, and was adopted as a child into a
family named Yoshida, which carried on professionally the teach-
ing of Yamaga Soko, a distinguished Confucianist and professor of
military science in the seventeenth century. Shoin turned out to
be a small and skinny youth, very precocious and fond of study. It
was characteristic of the simple and frugal life of most of the west-
ern clansmen — in contrast to the soft habits of the town-dwelling
Tokugawa retainers — that his adoptive father, at the end of his
daily official duties, would dig in his own small piece of land; and
there are many pictures of young Sh6in standing in a rice-field with
a hoe in one hand and a book in the other. So strong was the he-
reditary principle in feudal society that when the elder Yoshida
died Shoin at the age o£ six succeeded him as head of the Yamaga
school of military science in the clan. This was, of course, only a
nominal post, but by the age of eleven he was lecturing before
his feudal lord on the Chinese military classic of Sun-tzu.

It is not surprising that he should have developed into a pre-
maturely solemn young man, and no doubt this early training ac-
counts for much that seems unnatural and even priggish in his
character. From his early boyhood he began to hear tales of the
doings of Western powers in Oriental countries, the advance of
England from India to China, the threatening visits of Russian
and American ships. These stimulated his patriotic feelings and
led him to think almost exclusively of political matters. Reform of
this or that was always in his mind. He wrote long memorials and
delivered long lectures, he travelled about inspecting coastal de-
fences in the Choshu territory — this was when he was about
twenty years old — and he studied assiduously the while. He paid
a visit to Nagasaki, where he learned a little Dutch and colloquial
Chinese, observing the foreigners and their ways with grave atten-
tion. Passing on to Kumamoto, he listened there to much political
talk and heard of the realistic views of Yokoi Shonan. He was more
impressed by the opinions of a party of loyalists who enlarged on
the theme of reverence for the Emperor and its corollary, hatred of
the Tokugawa. All over Japan earnest young soldiers and scholars
were excitedly talking, talking, revolving in their minds this
scheme and that for bettering the times, seeking for some golden
rule that would resolve their doubts and dissatisfactions.

The doctrine of loyalty to the throne, the apotheosis of the Em-
peror, seemed to offer a solution for many of their difficulties, but

270

SKETCH BY WATANABE KWAZAN

Made in prison, it shows himself, manacled, being informed
that he is to be sentenced to death.

THE OPIUM WAR

The British Fleet assembles below London Bridge for the voyage to China.
A Japanese conception from New Tales of Foreign Lands (Kaigai Shinwa) by M'meta (184$)

Forerunners of the Restoration Movement

they all felt deficient in knowledge and sought from one teacher
after another a key to questions that troubled them. Something was
wrong with their country, they did not know what. Perhaps it was
that its culture had come to a standstill? It could not be that hu-
manity was at fault, for there must be some principle, if only they
could discover it, by preaching which they could set the world to
rights. They were bewildered young men, they knew so little of
that world, their lives were so cramped and confined. It is not to
be wondered at that they should often have started upon wild mis-
sions or welcomed fantastic theories as if they were golden rules.

In 1851 Shoin went to Yedo with his feudal lord, to carry his
studies further. There he met Sakuma Shozan, under whom he
worked for a time. But he wanted to travel and agreed with some
friends to start for the northern provinces on a certain day — it
was the anniversary of the suicide of the Forty-seven Ronin. Be-
cause his passport did not come in time, he set off without it,
thereby disobeying the rules of his clan. This meant that he must
lose his samurai rank and the income that went with it, but he
seems to have found pleasure in the thought that he was thus com-
mitted to a larger loyalty. He was now at the service of the whole
country. So the small, scrawny, untidy figure of Yoshida, not very
clean in his person, wearing a sword too large for him, was to be
seen striding off on his way to the north. He called at Mito, where
the scholars had for centuries been studying Japanese history,
teaching that the Shogun was a fraud and the Emperor was a di-
vine sovereign of a country with a divine mission. One day, so
thought some of Yoshida's friends, Japan must spread to the con-
tinent of Asia and, perhaps making a defensive alliance with
Russia, go on to capture lands in India and in South America, and
even in Europe. He went about in the northern provinces and re-
turned to Yedo impressed by the value of travel, conscious that he
knew only a narrow world.

During all this time he was learning his own ignorance, but his
mind was full of lofty designs. He went back to his province in
1852, where he was formally deprived of his rank, and then re-
turned to Yedo in 1853 to resume his work under Sakuma Shozan
and to meet a number of young men interested in foreign studies.
This was the year of the first visit of the American squadron un-
der Commodore Perry and he soon conceived the idea of going
abroad, encouraged by Sakuma. With characteristic enthusiasm
he started off for Nagasaki, where there was a Russian warship; and
with characteristic misjudgment he tarried too long on the way
and found that the Russians had left. He had met Yokoi Shonan
in Kumamoto and been impressed by his views. He was a great one
for listening to views, though sometimes loud-mouthed in contra-

871

The End o/ Seclusion

diction, and he listened so much that he did not get back to Yedo
until the end o£ 1853.

Long and frequent discussions with Sakuma strengthened his
decision to smuggle himself aboard one of Perry's ships, which re-
turned to Shimoda early in 1854. He and a friend, one Kaneko
Shigesuke, made for the coast and hung about for days trying to
find the ships and to make contact with an American. Yoshida car-
ried in his bosom as well as a farewell poem from Sakuma a supply
of paper and brushes for use in taking notes when he should reach
foreign parts. He had made no other preparations, for his plans
were of the vaguest and they always failed. Towards the end of
April, after several disappointments, the two men at last managed
during the middle watch to steal a fisherman's boat and row out
towards the steam frigate Mississippi. They bungled this, breaking
an oar-lock and drifting about helplessly, but they at length con-
trived to reach the ship blistered and exhausted, though they
nearly fell into the sea as they jumped to the gangplank. The
ship's officers sympathized with them in their plight, but could do
nothing to help them, since the Commodore could not connive at
a breach of Japanese law, and it seemed moreover possible that
this was a ruse to test the good faith of the Americans. They were
therefore put ashore in a ship's boat while it was still dark.

The full story of their attempt is told in The Japan Expedi-
tion, by J. W. Spalding, who with a comrade had that morning
been stealthily approached by Yoshida and Kaneko on the beach
near Shimoda. With great precaution they had pressed on him a
letter in Chinese addressed to the High Officer of the American
ships. A day or two later officers on shore leave saw a small cage in
which two Japanese were confined. These were Yoshida and
Kaneko. They had been arrested on the day following their ad-
venture and were being held for transport to Yedo. 10

After some months in jail awaiting a final verdict Yoshida was
handed over to his own clan for punishment and carried back to
his province, where at the end of a year's close confinement he was
released and put under simple house arrest, his unfortunate com-
panion having meanwhile died in prison. He then opened a small
village school where among his pupils were Ito, Yamagata, and
other young Choshu men of about his own age, who were to figure
prominently in the Restoration period. He taught here for over
two years, and the lessons were on politics. He discussed the prob-

10 Spalding's book is a useful corrective to the solemnities of the official narra-
tive of Perry's expedition. He had a lively style and was addicted to poetical ex-
tracts. Describing the impression made upon the Japanese by the guns of the
squadron, he refers to howitzers as "the mortal engines whose rude throats Jove's
dread clamors counterfeit," and after those cacophonous lines he says that a blockade
in the bay of Yedo would "stop the throat of the Japanese empire."

272

Forerunners of the Restoration Movement

lems of the day, the treatment of foreigners, how to deal with the
Shogun, how to serve the Emperor, how to protect the country.

There can be no doubt that this seemingly hopeless, helpless,
ineffectual man was a most inspired teacher, of a selfless and in-
flaming zeal. Traces of his influence appear in political history
after his death. His death was very near. In 1858 he and some of
his pupils developed a raging hostility to the Bakufu and plotted
the assassination of an official called Manabe, who had been sent
to Kyoto to persuade the court to agree to a treaty with the United
States. Like all his plans, this miscarried. He had no control over
his own impulses, and once the idea came into his head he burned
to escape from Choshu and kill Manabe with his own hands, be-
cause he thought that by striking at the Bakufu he could bring
about the restoration ,of the Emperor. He was persuaded to wait,
but he could not check his own wild talk and he wrote indiscreet
letters that caused the clan authorities to put him back under ar-
rest. The Shogun's men had got wind of his conspiracy from his
enemies in his own clan, and his fellow conspirators had been reck-
less. He was sent to Yedo for trial soon afterwards. This was the
time of what was called the Great Persecution of Ansei, when the
Bakufu was taking the harshest measures against its adversaries. In
Yedo he was thrown into the Temma-cho jail, then crammed with
loyalists awaiting judgment; and after three months he was be-
headed on October 27, 1859. Kido and Ito, two Choshu samurai
who were within less than ten years to become leaders of the gov-
ernment, took his corpse from the execution ground and buried it
in a near-by temple. That they should have undertaken this pious
duty shows in what great respect he was held by his contempo-
raries.

To reach a just estimate of his character would require as well
as sympathetic insight a careful study of his environment and
many details of contemporary history. His life is briefly recorded
here because, in spite of all his weaknesses and his perpetual fail-
ures, he must be regarded as an important figure, expressing the
revolutionary spirit of his era. He wrote well and fluently, both
prose and verse, as was the habit of his kind, although he was no
calligrapher, being too impatient for an art that needs calm and
poise. His literary remains are considerable. They contain besides
some touching passages many alert and pointed observations and
much elevated sentiment. In the last two days in jail awaiting
execution he scribbled in prose and verse what he called Ryukon-
roku, or the Record of an Uneasy Spirit, the tale of his unsatisfied
wishes and his uncompleted plans. The prison diaries of those
days are vivid pieces of historical evidence, and Yoshida's is among
the most pathetic. He knew that he was a failure and he expressed

272-

The End oj Seclusion

a kind of proud repentance, but the best thing that he said justi-
fied all his errors, for he declared: ' * I would, rather be wr ong in
giving than wrong in receiving. I would rather be wrong in dying
than wrong; in living."

Perhaps the most ironic thing in a life full of ironies is the text
of his death sentence, which sets forth the following reasons for his
conviction:

Item: He tried to go to America.

Item: He advised the government on coastal defence while in jail.

Item: He opposed hereditary succession to office and favoured the selec-
tion of able men by popular vote.

Item: He planned to give his opinion regarding foreigners to the Ba-
kufu.

Item: He did such things while in domiciliary confinement, thus show-
ing great disrespect for high officials.

It is pleasant to recall that his story appealed to Robert Louis
Stevenson, who tells it in his Familiar Studies of Men and Books.
His piece is a somewhat garbled version of the facts of Yoshida's
life, but he seizes upon its essence.

274

C H ^ <P T 8
12.

THE LAST PHASE OF THE SHOGUNATE
i. External Pressure

'o far we have considered principally the visits of Russian and
English ships to the shores of Japan, since they began earlier than
those of American ships and continued at long intervals through-
out the period of seclusion. But the visits of American ships de-
serve separate treatment, because it was in the long run American
pressure that brought about the opening of Japan. *

Though Russian and British ships frequently entered Japa-
nese harbours with requests for trade they had no success. Neither
the Russian nor the British government appears to have had any
firm policy as to opening trade relations, and the rebuffs of the
Japanese authorities were accepted without protest. The only
determined attempt of the English to force their way into com-
merce was that of Raffles, who in an endeavour to break the Dutch
monopoly sent two vessels in 1813 and one in 1814, but did not
succeed in his object and could obtain no government support for
a further approach. From that time onwards with very few excep-
tions such English visits as took place were made by naval vessels
engaged in surveying-operations, and these had no political or
commercial purpose. Something of the same kind can be said of
the Russian visits. Though rather more persistent they do not ap-
pear to have had a strong government drive behind them.

Both countries were interested in the Far East, but during the
first half of the nineteenth century both were usually preoccupied
with European problems and from the end of the Napoleonic wars
the English eifort in commercial expansion was concentrated upon
the East Indian and the China trade. There is very little sign of a
strong interest on the part of English merchants in the possibilities
"ok a valuable trade with Japan, and even the China trade was re-

i The first recorded visit of an American ship was made by the Eliza in 1797,
under charter of the Dutch, but flying American colours. Two arrivals in 1790 and
1791 are reported by the Japanese, but those ships appear to have taken refuge
from storms.

275

The Last Phase of the Shogunate

garded by the British government (though not by the Canton
merchants) as subsidiary or complementary to the East Indian
trade. Indeed, just prior to the opening of Japan it was thought by
many English business men that Japan, being a poor country,
would have little to sell and therefore could not afford to buy
English manufactures. It is significant in this connection that the
agreement concluded by Great Britain with

1 854 by Admiral Stirling does not mention tradeT The Russian
agreement does, however, provide for trade at the open ports.

These are at this late date perhaps unimportant points, but
they are of some interest in the light, of the fears of Russian and
English aggression entertained by the Japanese before 1853. As
it turned out it was the American government and American
traders that forced the issue. Their attitude was much more de-
termined than that of other Western countries, for it so happened
that they were developing a strong general interest in eastern Asia
and had moreover a specific grievance against Japan. From before
1800 Americans had traded in the North Pacific and particularly
after 1812 American ships had begun to play a leading part in the
whaling industry. Whalers in the Sea of Okhotsk were from time
to time driven by storms on to the shores of Yezo or the Kuriles,
and the treatment of shipwrecked crews by the Japanese was a
source of constant friction, as was also the treatment of American
ships endeavouring to repatriate Japanese sailors whom they had
picked up at sea. Public attention was drawn to these matters, and
proposals were put before Congress that missions should be sent
to arrange commercial intercourse with Japan and Korea. In 1835
the United States government had taken some preliminary steps
by designating a diplomatic agent, Edmund Roberts, to make in-
quiries about opening communications with Japan. Roberts died
in 1836 and was buried in the English cemetery at Canton, so that
nothing came of this move; but in 1845 Commodore James Biddle,
acting under "instructions from Washington, took two warships
into Yedo Bay and in the name of his government proposed the
opening of trade relations. To this the Bakufu returned a flat re-
fusal, and Biddle retired. The American government did not lose
patience, but remained determined to persuade the Japanese gov-
ernment to agree to such arrangements as would ensure the good
treatment of shipwrecked seamen, provide a badly needed port of
call where American ships could obtain fuel and other supplies,
and permit of an agreed trade.

T^he Japanese government knew very well what was coming;
and it may be pointed out here that the warnings of such patriots
as Takashima, Sakuma, and others, though useful as goads to ac-
tion, conveyed no new information to the high officials in Yedo. In

276

External Pressure

fact in 1852 they expected a visit from the then Commodore of
the American squadron in Chinese waters, who had been instructed
in 1851 to proceed to Japan with a letter from President Fillmore.
When, therefore, oi^JuJY_81j8gg, Commodore PerrjL.(he having
been appointed instead of the officer tirst"Hesignated) appeared
with four men-of-war in the harbour of Uraga, his visit came as
no surprise. Even the approximate date of his arrival was known
to the Japanese authorities, for on his way to Japan he had first
called at the Luchu Islands, whence news was speedily passed on
to Yedo.

The story of Commodore Perry's negotiations is too familiar
to need repetition here. All that need be said is that, after some
preliminary obstruction by minor officials, he succeeded in induc-
ing the representatives of the Bakufu to accept for transmission to
the Shogun a letter from the President, his own credentials, and a
letter from himself in which he made it clear that, although his
country had friendly intentions, it would insist upon carrying out
its policy of securing good treatment for distressed American sea-
men, and some facilities for navigation and trade. There was no
open threat, but only a statement that he would return with a
larger force next spring, when he hoped to receive a favourable
reply. There can be no doubt that he was prepared to use force if
necessary and that the Japanese authorities were left under no
illusion on this point. In that sense the policy of the United States
government differed little, if at all, from that which other Occi-
dental countries had adopted in their dealings with Oriental coun-
tries reluctant to enter into relationships with them. Japan was
brought to agreement by a demonstration of power. In an age when
this was orthodox practice, Perry was as determined to achieve his
object as would have been the representative of one of the coun-
tries that had perhaps less respect for national sovereignty.

It is clear from the voluminous records of his expedition that
hg and his government, though their aim was naturally the pro-
motion of American interests, were convinced that they were act-
ing in a most enlightened and benevolent way. Like most Western
people at that date, they were thoroughly confident, not to say com-
placent, as to the rightness of their views and the perfection of
their culture. Whether the Japanese liked it or not, the West pro-
posed to confer upon them the benefits of Western civilization. It
was good for them. Perry therefore would have felt no misgivings
on moral grounds if he had been obliged to use force. The private
records of the expedition are sprinkled with such phrases as the
"nobler principles," the "better life'* of a "higher civilization/'
which were to be put at Japan's disposal; and in the less lofty lan-
guage of the official correspondence similar ideas are implicit.

277

The Last Phase oj the Shogunate

But Perry was exceedingly anxious not to resort to strong mea&-
ures if he could attain his object in other ways, and great praise is
. Jor t^ie combination of dignity, firmness, and skill
in his dealings with a very difficult people,
masters of evasion and procrastination. His position was even
stronger than he at first thought,2 for every responsible Japanese
official knew in his heart that Japan was powerless. Those con-
cerned with the defences of Yedo in particular were aware not
only of the uselessness of their forts and guns, but also of the
danger to the city of an interruption of its food supplies. These
were brought to the bay of Yedo in barges, which the American
guns could easily have destroyed, so starving the city.

When Perry returned to Japan in February 1854 with a more
powerful squadron, he had no great difficulty in completing his
negotiations within a few weeks, and on March 31, 18.54 a treatV
was concluded that opened two ports f Shimoda and Hakodate) to
American vessels and gave certain limited concessions in respect
oFtrade, while it provided for American consular representation
in Japan. Thus the period of seclusion, which had lasted for more
than two hundred years, was brought to an end. The American
treaty waFloIIowed by similar agreements between Japan and
Great Britain (October 18.154), Russia (February iSzti t Holland
(November 1855) .

The details of the negotiations and the treaties do not concern
us here, but some aspects of the meetings between the members
of the American mission and Japanese officers may be singled out
for attention, as bearing upon the condition of Japan at the time
and upon the attitude of the people towards foreigners.

Once the bargaining was over and the Japanese negotiators saw
that they could temporize no longer, the formality of intercourse
gave way to a certain cheerful intimacy. In their strolls about the
countryside the American officers noted a generally friendly dis-
position on the part of the people, which officials often endeav-
oured to check. More striking, perhaps, was the insatiable curiosity
that most of their Japanese interlocutors displayed. They asked
endless questions, examined the clothing and equipment of the
Americans with the closest interest. There was much peering and
prying and taking notes and making sketches. Everything interested
them, and when it was permitted they visited the American ships
in droves. Most of such visitors were mere sightseers, but at times,
by night and in secret, a young samurai would row out and im-
plore to be taken on board so that he could get to America and
learn about the world. The law was against this, and the American

2 But his officers soon perceived the great number of coasting junks and real-
ized that a blockade would be very effective.

278

External Pressure

officers were obliged to refuse them. At times these adventurers
were tracked down by the police and paid the penalty of death.
One of them was that Yoshida Torajiro who has already been de-
scribed and whose capture led to the imprisonment o£ Sakuma
Shozan as an accomplice. A genuine desire to learn was present, as
well as mere curiosity; and much had been learned already, as the
American officers soon discovered. Their general impression was
that the Japanese were far better informed than they had sup-
posed, and knew very well what kind of information they lacked.

One of the most interesting episodes of the expedition was the
formal exchange of gifts that took place shortly before the signing
of the treaty. There were displayed on the one hand such Japanese
products as silken stuffs, gold lacquer, and porcelain, on the other
such distinctive embodiments of the Western way of life as rifles,
pistols, and swords; a miniature locomotive, with tender, passenger
car, and rails; a set of telegraph apparatus, some books, among
which were Webster's Dictionary and Audubon's Birds of America;
and various strong liquors, including cherry cordials, champagne,
maraschino, and one hundred gallons of whisky. The Americans
were disappointed by the Japanese gifts, which they thought were
meagre, and they noted the absence of rich and precious things
which their ideas of Oriental magnificence had led them to expect.
It might be supposed that the Japanese, with their high aesthetic
tradition, would have thought poorly of the plain and practical
objects offered by the Americans. But far from showing such feel-
ings, they displayed great interest and excitement at the sight of
the mechanical devices and the death-dealing instruments spread
out before them. The working of the locomotive and the telegraph
gave immense pleasure, and many of those present showed a good
knowledge of the way in which various machines should be set up
and manipulated. But most popular of all were the revolvers.
Everybody wanted one of these delightful implements. And as for
the liquors, the Japanese visitors to the American ships had already
shown, sometimes all too clearly, their enjoyment of stimulating
drinks. Indeed, one of the memories of the Americans from their
last visit was a picture of the negotiator Kagawa, as his boat rowed
away from the Susquehanna, knocking the neck off a bottle of wine
and drinking a farewell toast. Even the most reserved of his col-
leagues had not failed to show that they needed no lessons in con-
viviality, once their business on board was done and they were
offered refreshment. In the alcoholic world, there was a complete
meeting of minds as between East and West.

The exchange of gifts was followed by agreeable entertain-
ments, and here also the confrontation of cultures offers matter of
interest to the student. To amuse their foreign guests the Japanese

279

The Last Phase of the Shogunate

provided an exhibition of wrestling of the kind known as sumo,
contests between very large and corpulent but extremely athletic
men, which are conducted in a somewhat hieratic fashion. The
Americans, though they could not but admire the strength of the
wrestlers, found this performance disgustingly brutal. This was a
very odd sentiment to come from fellow citizens of the Benicia Boy
and other heroes of the prize ring.3 But characteristically they
turned to the locomotive, which demonstrated their national faith
in the triumph of machines over muscle, and it must be said that
the Japanese were not behind them in appreciating the value of
steam engines and electrical apparatus. They swarmed round the
track, climbed on to the little coaches, and thoroughly enjoyed the
fun of riding at twenty miles an hour.

That evening the leading Japanese officials and interpreters
were invited to dine on board the flagship. They ate and drank
copiously and exchanged many toasts until they adjourned for a
minstrel entertainment. It was a most hilarious occasion. The Jap-
anese guests can scarcely have appreciated the finer points in the
exchanges of wit between Mr. Bones and his colleagues; but though
this exhibition of Western culture was somethmg quite beyond
their own aesthetic experience, they laughed heartily at the cos-
tumes and antics of the performers, and even the chief delegate,
Hayashi Daigaku no Kami, the Lord Rector of the University and
the Chief Confucian Adviser to the Shogun, a very grave states-
man, was seen to share in the fun, though without any loss of im-
pressive dignity.

So it appeared that most cordial relations had been established,
and after one of the tipsy Japanese delegates had embraced the
Commodore and announced that Japanese and Americans had the
same kind of feelings, the signature of the treaty seemed assured.
And so it was, for on March 31, 1854 the main purpose of Perry's
mission was accomplished. He could well congratulate himself on
his success in carrying out a most difficult task without the violence
and bloodshed that might easily have occurred.

Apart from a few unfortunate minor incidents his men had
behaved well and, to judge from the records, his officers were fine
representatives of their profession. Before they left they began
to see much to admire in Japanese life, even though they felt that,
by their standards, there was also much to deplore.

But while the Commodore's negotiations had proceeded in an
atmosphere of comparative calm and even at times of cordiality,
the country as a whole was in a state of confusion and doubt, even

8 Readers unfamiliar with that branch of literature called Fistiana may like to
know that the Benicia Boy was John Heenan, who fought an epic battle with Tom
Sayers in England in 1860.

Internal Politics

of panic, o£ which the American officers could at best have had
only""a ^glimmering. When they landed they sometimes received
ugly looks from armed men. on guard duty, but in general they
could move about freely and safely and found the ordinary Japa-
nese citizen friendly and interested. It could not be said that there
was any conspicuous anti-foreign sentiment. There was, however,
such insatiable curiosity that it looked as if the nation at large ap-

preciated the merits of Occidental civilization so far as they^ouid

understand it and might soon throw open their country with en-
thusiasm.

Yet if that was their view, they were mistaken.

2. Internal Politics

had Perry and his officers been given by a reliable Japa-
nese informant an outline of political conditions in Japan in 4854,
it is very doubtful whether they would have understood it. But it
is quite certain that the situation as it developed in the following
decade would have been far too mysterious for their comprehen-
sion. The domestic politics of this period were described by more
than one contemporary writer in works with such titles as Yu-
memonogatari, or the Story of a Dream. That, though not so in-
tended, was a fitting description of the plots and counterplots, the
quarrels and arguments, the confusion between names and things,
the misunderstandings and bewilderments which characterize this
uneasy epoch. It is full of episodes that seem not to belong to
waking life, but have the plausible inconsequence, the unearthly
logic, of events in a dream. From the highest sources issue proc-
lamations that do not say what they mean or mean what they say.
The throne rebukes great officers for doing what it has already
approved, or enjoins them not to do what it knows they have al-
ready done. Weighty memorials are submitted to the government
by powerful nobles who on the basis of information that they have
not understood recommend measures that are incompatible one
with another. A fantastic ethos prevails throughout the land. Pa-
triots assassinate other patriots for views they have never held or
professed, and statesmen declare intentions that everybody knows
to be contrary to their real purpose. Feuds become alliances, friend-
ships become hatreds, and the whole nation is in a state of un-
certainty and doubt. Yet from this welter of contradictions a splu-
tfon presently emerges, nobody can say exactly how or why. Things
and ideas cease their demented gyrations and fall into their ap-
pointed place. i;he dream is over, and the country is united under
one leadership*

The Last Phase of the Shogunate

So far no Western writer has given us a full account of the proc-
ess by which innumerable and often irrational conflicts of opin-
ion and interest were resolved and the country at length turned
from fear and hatred of foreigners to an excessive admiration.
Abundant materials are now at hand, crowded with picturesque
detail4 It would be an exacting task to arrange them in a lucid and
convincing narrative, but it would throw light on many obscure
places in the history of Japanese thought and it would prove a
fascinating story of the behaviour of man as a political animal. But
for our modest purposes here it is enough to select only a few of
those events which bear upon the attitude of different divisions of
Japanese society towards the opening of intercourse with the West.

When Perry arrived in 18.53 the Eakufu was at a loss. It endeav-
oured to ascertain the opinion not of the samurai but of the cour^,
nobles and the feudal aristocracy. The very fact that it did so shows
how confused the situation had become, for in the days of its
strength and pride the Yedo government would never have
dreamed of consulting its lieges and followers. It would have taken
its decision boldly and called upon both the hereditary vassals and
the Outside Lords to carry out its orders; and it would subse-
quently have notified the court of its treatment of a question of
foreign relations, which was well within the sphere of the powers
delegated to the Shogun by the throne. But, well knowing that the
country was not strong enough to resist, the Bakufu had already
reached the conclusion that the foreigners could not be immedi-
ately driven away and that some agreement must be made witS
them. The feudal nobles, when consulted, could ^ ngt_giye_a.ny use-
ful advice. Most of them were in favour of expelling the barbari-
ans, and some supported their view by the curious argument that
as the Shogun's title was Queller of Barbarians he should act in
accordance with it, irrespective of other considerations. The best-
informed of the daimyos knew very well that the Shogun had no
ships and no guns to speak of, and some of them were already
strengthening their own fiefs with artillery and introducing West-
ern learning among their clansmen. But they rejoiced at an op-
portunity of embarrassing the Bakufu and were not much
troubled by logic, so that they were not ashamed of offering advice
that could not be taken,

Consequently, in this time of national crisis most anomalous
situations continually arose. The view of the feudal nobles was

4 No period in Japanese history is so richly documented. There are easily ac-
cessible great collections of official archives, correspondence, diaries, and biographies,
while modern Japanese historians have written voluminously on the events of the
years from 1853 to 1868. There are whole volumes that recite only the happenings
of short periods of ten or twenty days and contain the accounts of eyewitnesses of
much that is described.

Internal Politics

adopted by the court and accepted by the Bakufu, which publicly
announced the Emperor's wish to have the foreigners driven away
and added some vague sentiments that recommended at the same
time both boldness and caution. The government then proceeded
to negotiate the treaty of 1854 with Perry, and the later agree-
ments with other Western countries, as if it had received no in-
structions whatever. Copies of these treaties were handed to the
Emperor by the Shogun's deputy in Kyoto, with a quite untruth-
ful explanation to the effect that the negotiators had made no con-
cessions of importance; and in February 1855 His Majesty gave
them his approval and thanked the Shogun for his services.

This, one might suppose, should have settled the matter. The
foreigners would be admitted and gradually intercourse would be
Extended or, alternatively, Japan would strengthen her defences,
train men, build ships, purchase guns, and ultimately drive the
foreigners away once more. Superficially, at least, that was a fea-
sible policy and many patriots favoured it. But the policy actually
adopted was one of drift. The first treaties gave only very limited
rights to foreign commerce, but little advantage was taken of these
for some years, while such trading vessels as did arrive met with
annoying obstructions. The officials of the Bakufu had gained a
breathing spell, which they felt they had best use in regaining
some of their lost prestige, hoping meanwhile that the foreigners
would not come back with new demands. True/there was one un~*
comfortable clause in the 1854 treaty, providing that the United
States might appoint agents to reside at an open port if either gov-
ernment deemed such an arrangement necessary; 4>ut the Bakufu,
resting on the Japanese text, considered thatTEIs meant "if the
Japanese government thought necessary/' -and therefore shirked
the issue.

The intention of both the American treaty and the Russian
treaty was perfectly clear, however, and the English agreement also
contained a reference to the appointment of consuls. Not all the
officials of the Bakufu shut their eyes to the real situation, for the
most powerful member of the Council of State, li Kamon no Kami
(Naosuke) was an extremely capable and determined statesman
who was persuaded that the policy of seclusion could not be main-
tained. He was not enthusiastic for change, but he saw that Japan
could stand up against foreign countries only if she were strong
herself, and he advised the court accordingly. His definite view
naturally ranged on the other side all the enemies of the Toku-
gawa family and he therefore seems to have judged it expedient
not to try to convince the anti-foreign party, but to concentrate
upon strengthening the position of the Shogun. This would, in
any event, have been his natural desire, since his family had been

88S

The Last Phase of the Shogunate

loyal supporters o£ the Tokugawa family since the days of leyasu.
Accordingly the problem of Japan's relations with Western coun-
tries became entangled with and indeed subordinated to a number
of irrelevant issues in domestic politics. The domestic situation
was one of almost incredible complexity, and it was this which
gave to the events of the next few years that inconsequent and ir-
rational aspect already alluded to.

When Perry was in the Luchu Islands preparing for his second
visit to Japan in 1854, he received a letter from the Governor-Gen-
eral of the Netherlands Indies informing him at the request of the
Japanese authorities that the Shogun had died and transmitting
their request that he should not come back to Japan while the
situation was so confused, hi was indeed confused for the reason
that, the new Shogun bemg childless, the nominatiqn/of his suc-
cessor had become a question of the first importance, ?which split
the court and the feudal nobility £nto factions an<f "engendered
even more strife than the treaties.

The truth is that at this juncture antagonism to the Bakufu
had in certain quarters grown to such a pitch that on any question,
irrespective of its merits, powerful interests would range them-
selves on the side opposed to the government. The selection of an
heir to the Shogun provided most welcome opportunities for con-
troversy and intrigue, and many surprising alliances were made on
each front. Among the most remarkable was the alignment of one
of the great Tokugawa princes against the government of his own
family. The lords of Mito were of one of the three senior Toku-
gawa houses, but by an old tradition they were barred from succes-
sion to the Shogunate, though there was nothing against the adop-
tion of one of their sons into another house with a view to ultimate
succession. By one of those strange contradictions in which Japa-
nese dynastic history is so rich, the Mito branch of the Tokugawa
had from the seventeenth century developed an attitude of inde-
pendence, if not of hostility, towards the ruling Tokugawa house.
Tokugawa Mitsukuni, who was lord of Mito from 1661 to 1700
had encouraged a school of historians whose researches tended to
discredit the Shogunate and to give support to the Imperial family;
and Nariaki, his descendant in the nineteenth century, was of the
same vintage. He was very friendly to the court and had married
a lady of the blood royal. His activities were so patently adverse to
the Bakufu that he had been forced to abdicate in 1844, though he
continued to exercise great influence in retirement. His conduct
was characteristic of this era of anomalies, for while he joined
loudly in attacks on the Bakufu for its failure to quell barbarians,
he encouraged foreign learning in his fief — inviting such scholars
as Yokoi Shonan — and was so anxious to promote gunnery that

Internal Politics

he took the bells of Buddhist monasteries and turned them into
cannon.3 It was this action that persuaded the Bakufu to retire
him, because they did not like great feudatories to increase their
military strength. Yet while Nariaki was working against the
Shogunate and on behalf of the court, he was also canvassing sup-
port for the candidacy of his own son Keiki, who had been adopted
into another branch of the Tokugawa family and could therefore
aspire to become Shogun. Thus li was on all grounds opposed to
this troublesome lord, and the struggle between the two was likely
to determine the more vital issue of foreign policy.

The forces arrayed against the leader of the Shogun's Council
of State were considerable. There was a powerful party at court
which favoured Mito, and some of the strongest feudal nobles
were also on his side. This combination included most disparate
elements, for there was no uniformity in their views on any subject
except the suitability of Keiki as heir to the Shogun's office. They
all criticized the Bakufu on one ground or another, but few made
any useful suggestions as to how the foreigners should be dealt
with. li, for his part, was in a fairly strong position. He was in
office, he was responsible for national defense, could give orders to
all Bakufu officials, and controlled the shaky finances of the coun-
try; while the Shogun could legally punish any daimyo for in-
subordination, and even confiscate his fief. He thus managed to
hold his own, and by 1858 the succession dispute was settled by the
appointment of his nominee.

But before that he had other difficulties to overcome:, and the
most troublesome of these was presented by the arrivatf in August
1856 of an American warship carrying a gentleman named Town-
send Harris. This unassuming, upright, and sensible official might
have been the Devil himself from the consternation he caused.
The Japanese authorities implored him to go away, urging that
tljere was no need for his services. No difficulties had arisen, and if
he stayed, other foreign consuls would come and cause much
trouble. But Harris stayed, though he must often have regretted
it in moments of despondency. His purpose was to extend the
scope of the treaty of 1854 and he carried a letter from the Presi-
dent that he intended to present to the Shogun in person. For
some months, as one may tell from his diary (a little-known but
fascinating book, which gives a vivid account of his struggles
against a bureaucracy skilled in all the arts of temporizing) , he en-
countered the most baffling obstruction and made little progress
because he was unable to use the veiled threat of force that Perry

s The Mito rulers were traditionally anti-Buddhist. Mitsukuni had destroyed
Buddhist temples in his fief and replaced them by Shinto shrines. This was part of
his loyalist policy.

285

The Last Phase of the Shogunate

with his warships had found so useful. li was still engaged in his
struggle with Mito and other insubordinate clans, and therefore
was unable to concede immediately what Harris requested; but
his position was gradually improving, and by June 1857 ^e was
strong enough to carry out his intentions and to agree to the pro-
' posals of Harris.

A convention was signed opening Nagasaki to American ships,
giving rights of residence at two other ports, settling some details
of currency exchange, and providing for the trial and punishment
of American offenders by American consuls in accordance with
American laws. In practice this was only a modest enlargement of
the 1854 treaty, but it was an important step, and it was to be fol-
lowed by an unprecedented event on December 7, 1857 when
Harris was received in audience in Yedo by the Shogun. At the
time of Perry's visit the Bakufu would not have dared to go so far.
It is probable that had they done so and frankly faced the ensuing
domestic storm, they could have carried the country with them.
But they were not bold or wise enough to stand firm, nor were
they yet convinced that the foreigners could not be kept at bay by
illusory concessions.

By 1857, however, a change had taken place in the situation,
both at home and abroad, which calls for a brief examination.
Under li's guidance, the Shogunate had somewhat reasserted its
authority and li had, if only momentarily, got the upper hand of
the lord of Mito. Meanwhile Harris, a very patient man, after sev-
eral months of frustration, in March 1857 upon hearing from his
government, had warned the Japanese authorities that the United
States would not tolerate further evasion. This intimation had
been conveniently underlined by recent events in China, to which
he did not fail to allude. Early in 1857 the interpreters in Nagasaki
had reported that, because the Chinese government had failed to
carry out treaty obligations, a British squadron had attacked and
burned Canton, with assistance from the French and Americans.6
They ventured to warn the authorities that "in this country also,
if great care is not taken, war may result from some trivial in-
cident." This alarmed the procrastinating and shifty Bakufu offi-
cers, and the warning was made more impressive by a message
from Curtius, the superintendent of the Dutch post at Nagasaki
(now the Dutch Commissioner in Japan) , who in respectful but
unambiguous terms pointed to the example of China and warned

e It was not true that American forces had shared in the attack on Canton in
1856. The American squadron had remained neutral; but, the Chinese having fired
upon a small craft carrying an American official and flying the American flag, ships
of the squadron had in retaliation bombarded and destroyed forts commanding the
approaches to Canton. It was doubtless this incident that had come to the knowledge
of the Japanese authorities.

Internal Politics

the Bakufu against the evasive and dilatory behaviour of the offi-
cials with whom Harris had to negotiate. What they thought were
triumphs of diplomacy were petty tricks calculated to goad the
Americans and the British into violent action. This lecture had an
immediate effect, for in March 1857 the senior Commissioner for
Foreign Affairs (Hotta Masatoshi, who had recently been ap-
pointed to that post) addressed a note to the officials concerned,
both in Yedo and at the ports, in which he repeated what Curtius
had said, in much the same language. He told them that they must
change their attitude at once. There must, he said in effect, be no
more red tape and sealing wax, no more discussions and delays
over trifling points of detail. They must show a genuinely friendly
spirit in their dealings with foreigners.

All this correspondence — and there is much more in the same
vein — shows that the civil service of the Bakufu was paralysed by
addiction to details of procedure and concerned more with form
than with substance. It could have given points to any Office of
Circumlocution in the West. This was inherent in its character,
because the penalties of error were so severe that none but the
boldest official dared make decisions on his own judgment.

But there were other reasons why the officials who had direct
dealings with foreigners should resort to shabby tricks. They were
reflecting the general attitude of the Bakufu, which was so har-
assed by domestic difficulties that it tried from day to day to put off
the solution of its problems in foreign affairs, desperately grasping
at any opportunity to postpone decisions. It was struggling for its
own life against powerful opposition, and to grant any favour to a
barbarian was to give a weapon to its enemies at home. Thus it is
known that the officials whom Harris encountered on his arrival at
Shimoda in 1856 had been given orders to prevent any intimacy
between Japanese and foreigners; and there is good reason to
believe that, although the pressure of events obliged the Bakufu
to take the lead in opening Japan to foreign intercourse, opinion
in the inner circles of the government was more hostile to West-
erners than that of some of the allegedly xenophobic daimyos. It
was natural that the Tokugawa government should be loath to"
cultivate relations with foreign countries in the nineteenth cen-
tury^as in the seventeenth, since such a departure could not but
bring changes into the constitution of the Japanese state which
would at best diminish the authority of the Tokugawa family and
at worst destroy it. The point is not one that can be definitely
settled, but it is at any rate certain that the Bakufu entered into
negotiations with Western countries decidedly a contre-cosur^ and
would have taken a much firmer line had it not been as short of
money as it was of true political wisdom. The history of its ter-

The Last Phase of the Shogunate

giversation becomes more intelligible if the emptiness of its treas-
ury is taken into account. It was chiefly because it was insolvent
that it gave way to Perry's pressure in 1853, though this fact was
not known to the country at large, and still less to Perry himself,
who naturally took full credit for his own diplomatic skill. It was

KATSU AWA

A Tokuga'wa retainer (hcttamoto) who became

Navy Minister in the first Meiji government.

He arranged the surrender of Yedo castle

to the -forces of the croiun.

its subsequent dilatory action that caused its downfall, for a dicta-
torship depends upon its power of firm and prompt decision.7
When Harris first settled in Shimoda and (living disconso-

7 Katsu Awa, a Tokugawa adherent who later played a leading part in the Res-
toration movement because he saw that the Bakufu was incompetent, writing of
this period said: "From the day of Perry's arrival for more than ten years our
country was in a state of indescribable confusion. The government was weak and
irresolute, without fixed policy or power of decision/* A later Japanese historian
says of the same period: "The Bakufu had capable men, who knew what should be
done. But it lacked the courage, the skill, and the sincerity to do it."

Many Japanese historians think that if the Bakufu had displayed more resolu-
tion, it could have carried through its policy of opening the country without great
difficulty. One cannot resist the temptation to observe that, if this is true, Japan has
been unfortunate in her military dictators. They were weak when they should have
been strong in 1854, and aggressive when they should have been temperate in 194.1.

Internal Politics

lately on a diet of tough chicken, rice, and promises) began nego-
tiations there with the delegates of the government, he met
nothing but obstruction. His official notes were left unanswered
because (he was told) "it is not customary to reply to the letters of
foreigners" — a statement that nearly a century later would have
been regarded as not entirely obsolete by diplomatic and consular
officers residing in Japan. He was surrounded by spies who tried
to trap him into indiscreet statements. So fantastic were the ideas of
the local officials that in response to an inquiry from Yedo as to
the alarming number of prostitutes who had been brought to
Shimoda, they replied that it was hoped that those ladies by their
charms would soften the hearts of foreign visitors and so make
them less determined to exact political concessions from Japan.
Both foreign and Japanese accounts agree in describing the
Bakufu functionaries as almost unbelievably addicted to petty
statagem and irrelevant detail.

The country was not lacking, however, in sensible statesmen
and officials who could read the signs of the times. Some of them
saw the foolishness of exasperating Harris (and other foreigners
also, for in 1855 the Dutch were negotiating at Nagasaki, in 1856
Captain Possiet was there ratifying the Russian treaty, and a visit
from the Governor of Hongkong was expected) . In September
1856 a memorial was addressed to the Shogun's councillors by a
group of men who represented the most advanced view among
high Bakufu officials, and it is significant that their functions were
concerned with coastal defence and public finance. They urged the
government to bring about a change in the official attitude towards
foreigners. In the old days, they said, their country was strong
enough to do what it pleased in the matter of trade relations with
China and Holland, and could afford to treat their subjects like
slaves. This habit of mind had become ingrained in their country-
men, but they must realize that conditions change and they must
change with them. The memorial then complains of negotiators
who "make difficulties about the smallest trifles and neglect what
really matters." They argued for instance that no difficulties
should be raised about the treatment of foreign officials, or the
supply of beef, or the regulation of houses of ill fame — questions
that had taken up most of the time of the authorities at Shimoda —
but that broad-minded concessions should be made. Their general
intention was sound, but it was characteristic of the tortuous official
reasoning of those days that in recommending the supply of beef
(which according to Buddhist and Shinto belief was defiling)
they argued that it was essentially not different from supplying
pills to invalids. By an equally curious logic they suggested that
the Bakufu should proceed with a policy of concessions to foreign-

889

The Last Phase of the Shogunate

ers, but keep it secret from the public so as to prevent a decline in
national morale. It did not occur to them that the morale of the
Bakufu might decline also.

This fragment of evidence discloses the fundamental •weakness
of the policy of the Shogun's government. It was trying at the same
time to keep the foreigners Quiet and to give the country the im-
pression that it was being very firm and would soon drive them
away. It was this dishonesty that in the long run encouraged anti-
foreign sentiment not only among those enemies ot the govern-
ment who were genuinely opposed to Western influence but
among the general public, who were led to believe that it was the

sentiment by which the Shogunate was inspired. riiese habits of

double-dealing introduced complications into the domestic politi-
cal history of the next few years which make it extremely difficult
to understand. But it is worth some attention if only for its interest
as study of the morbid anatomy of cultural intercourse.

li Kamon no Kami, now the most powerful of the Shogun's
ministers, having made up his mind that it was in Japan's best in-
terests to negotiate comprehensive treaties with foreign powers.
agreed to negotiations that Harris proposed immediately after his
audience with the Shogun in December 1857. The American
treaty was to provide for full diplomatic and consular privileges:
the opening of more ports to foreign trade by agreed dates: private
import and export transactions, subject to an agreed tariff; and
freedom of religion and extraterritorial jurisdiction. It was evi-
dent that it must bring an end to the policy of seclusion, since it
would be impossible to prevent Japanese subjects from travelling
or sending ships abroad, and thus the country would be exposed to
strong foreign influence.

Naturally such a prospect stirred hostile feelings in the bosom
of all conservatives, and it gave an excellent excuse for open or
underground movements against the Bakufu to all those parties
and individuals who resented 1 okugawa supremacy. llTF'Eakiifu
was of course well aware of these dangers and, having once decided
that the treaty must be signed, ^mbarked upon a series of intricate
manoeuvres designed to obtain the approval of the throne. The
court refused to sanction the proposed agreement, although high
officers were sent to Yedo to explain the circumstances and to allay
the anxiety of the Emperor. But meanwhile the Shogun's ministers
learned that British and French envoys were on their way to Japan
to conclude new treaties, and Harris took advantage of this situa-
tion to warn the Bakufu that it would be prudent to sign the
American treaty first, lest worse befall.

On July 29 the treaty was signed on board an American
warship in Yedo Bay, and it was followed in the next few months

290

Internal Politics

by treaties with Great Britain, Holland, Russia, and^ France.
Either specifically or by virtue of a most-favoured-nation clause,
these and all subsequent ^treaties in the series provided for_
consular jurisdiction and for a fixed customs tariff at very low
rates. These provisions, and the fact that none of the treaties was
of specified duration, were to cause great heartburning in Japan a
few years later and to lead to an outburst of anti-foreign sentiment
that imprinted a special character upon the future relations of
Japan with foreign countries. It can even be argued, though not
proved, that they started Japanese policy, both domestic and
foreign, upon a course that it would otherwise not have taken. It
is at any rate quite certain that a desire to secure revision of the
treaties determined, more than any other single factor, the
character of political life in japan for several decades.

The sense of weakness and frustration betrayed in the attitude
of government and people throughout the period of the negotia-
tionof the treaties is closely paralleled by the angry, humiliated
feeling that was commonly expressed only a few years after the
Restoration, when the Western powers could not be induced to
listen to Japan's plea that those treaties were unjust. It ;vyiU b,e seen
from later chapters that it was in part a sense of infefibfity that
impelled the Japanese people to take enthusiastically to foreign
ways, and it was this same zeal, soured and curdled by disappoint-
ment, that produced the strong anti-foreign reaction which
followed. It is significant that the national watchwords in these
two" periods were "Expel the Barbarians" before the Restoration
and "Revise the Treaties" in the first half of Meiji. Both were anti-
foreign in character, and both were deliberately used for political
ends because they were known to appeal to a common national
emotion.

Katsu Awa, the statesman whose views on the incompetence of
the Bakufu have just been cited, foresaw this development. He
wrote after the Restoration that the Japanese people after
hundreds of years of seclusion had no real understanding of the
outside world. Yet this was necessary if they were to change their
form of government and the nature of their life. He feared for the
future, and the future confirmed his fears.8 It is principally by rea-
son of its bearing upon the nature of subsequent relationships
between Japan and the West that it has been thought useful to

s Katsu's words were as follows: "From the arrival of Perry for more than a
decade the country was in a state of disturbance and uncertainty. Today, after
years of indescribably difficult negotiations, we have at last agreed to foreign inter-
course and trade. But in those ten years the whole nature of our government has
changed and the face of the country is to be altered. But shall we succeed? After
three hundred years of seclusion our people, in all classes, have no knowledge of the
outside world. It is impossible to measure or to estimate the great difficulties which
await us."

The Last Phase of the Shogunate

describe in what may seem unnecessary detail the controversy that
arose out of the signature of the 1858 treaties. It illustrates only too
well the truth that foreign cultural influences, however beneficent
in intention, may evoke an unforeseen and disagreeable response.

To return now to the situation in Kyoto, where the Shogun's
officers had tried in vain to persuade the court to agree in advance
to the signature of new treaties. Hotta, the Bakufu's Minister for
Foreign Affairs, had found in the capital a widespread anti-
foreign feeling and much hostility to the Bakufu, fomented by the
retired lord of Mito and shared by a number of powerful daimyos.
The Shogun was faced therefore not only with the disagreeable
problem of dealing with foreign envoys but also with growing
opposition among his own countrymen. The throne had consulted
the feudal nobles and had found opinion divided as to the proper
treatment of the foreigners' demands, though on the whole it was
in favour of opening the country. But by this time the main issue
had been lost sight of, and the court's decision was based upon
reasons of domestic politics. The Emperor and the nobles around
him appear to have been genuinely alarmed at the prospect of
foreigners living and trading near the capital and not far from the
sacred shrines of Ise; and there was a strong party at court that
hated the military in general and the Tokugawa in particular.

Hotta returned to Yedo in June i8ft8. By that time li Kamon
no Kami had been made Tairo, an appointment equivalent to that
o| regent, and was therefore the most powerful of the great officers
of state. He was determined to assert his authority, and that of the
Bakufu, by striking at his enemies and by carrying through his
plan of making his own nominee the heir to the Shogunate against
the wishes of Mito. He concluded the American treaty of July 29,
1858, as we have seen. In August the young prince of his choice
was proclaimed heir, and actually succeeded to the Shogunate a
few days later, when his predecessor died.

This combination of distasteful events enraged the opposition
in Kyoto. Feudal lords and their retainers flocked to the city and
added to the clamour against the treaty. They were breaking the
rule of the Shogunate by attending at court, and the Shogun
forbade the entry of members of independent clans into the
capital, but the uproar continued. Mito and other daimyos wrote
angry memorial and accused the Bakufu of disloyalty to the
Emperor. The Regent struck back at once and imposed house-
arrest on Mito and his heir, while forcing other influential daimyos
to abdicate. He even went so far as to snub the court when he was
ordered to proceed to Yedo to explain his conduct, and instead of
obeying the Imperial command (which he knew had been pro-
cured by his enemies) he sent an envoy named Manabe to press

£98

Internal Politics

for the Imperial sanction to the treaties. The story of Manabe's
mission is extremely interesting, because it reveals the nature of
the court intrigues of the day and illumines the extraordinary
Cross-currents of opinion concerning foreign relations. Manabe
reached Kyoto in October, and shortly after his arrival a number
of nobles were — by prearrangement — arrested for plotting
against the Shogun.

It will give some idea of the opposition that Manabe had to
encounter if we quote from one of the numerous memorials and
decrees which flew about the country at this time. Perhaps the best
presentation of arguments used by the anti-foreign party is to be
found in the memorial that Mito (Nariaki) addressed to the
Regent on July 16, 1858. He said that it was absurd of the Bakufu
to plead that they could not drive the foreigners away until the
country had increased its military strength by the profits of foreign
trade. Military preparations should come first and commerce later.
If the foreigners attacked Japan they could not penetrate far into
the country, as they had no maps. But if trade were permitted they
would soon learn all about the geography and internal conditions
of Japan, and that would be dangerous. If new treaties were made
and foreign learning and religion introduced, the people would do
as they liked, all discipline would vanish, and the country would
be demoralized. He thought that if ports were opened for the
American barbarians, then other barbarians would say that they
could not live in the same places and would ask for more ports to
be opened. If you comply with one request, he said, they will make
others, and there will be no end to it.

This represents the extreme view of the party in favour of J6-i,
or Expelling the Barbarians. Mito was a self-indulgent, tempestu-
ous man, who by most accounts does not deserve the reputation for
wisdom that he somehow acquired, but it is unlikely that he really
believed all he said. Since he was the most influential of li's
antagonists, however, the jentiments he proclaimed were adopted
by many nobles and samurai, some because they had a genuine
fear of foreign contacts, others because they welcomed any support
for their intrigues against the Shogunate.

That the anti-foreign movement was to a great extent dictated
by hostility to the Bakufu is clear from the opinions offered by the
leading members of the feudal nobility when they were consulted
after Harris had been received by the Shogun at the end of 1857.
Their attitude was much more enlightened than that which they
had displayed at the timevof Perry's visit. Not all of them replied
to the questions put to them, but few were positively against
foreign intercourse. Some had entirely changed their views and
come out strongly in favour of new treaties. Only Mito was

293

The Last Phase of the Shogunate

violently antagonistic, and he suggested that the negotiators
should commit suicide and Harris ought to be decapitated.
Echizen, advised by men like Yokoi Shonan and Hashimoto Sanai,
was in favour of full commercial and diplomatic relations, and
other daimyos thought that a greater or less degree of intercourse
must be accepted, even if only experimentally.

The court when informed of these views issued a decree in
which a decisive line was avoided. It said that the Imperial Mind
was distressed by these difficult questions and would not be at ease
unless the matter was treated by the government with due con-
sideration. The only express wish of the throne was that the
foreigners should be kept as far away as possible and not allowed
in provinces near the capital. The national honour must be pre-
served and the safety of the people assured.

Manabe remained for some months in the capital (from
October to early April) and succeeded in inducing the court to
agree for the present not to fdrSIcl the conclusion of new treaties.
The arguments he used were remarkable. He said that the Yedo
government was at heart opposed to extending relations with
foreigners, but was helpless because it had no funds and no arma-
ments. Its real intention was to complete the country's defences
and then at a suitable moment to expel the barbarians. He even
made the startling suggestion that if Japan so arranged matters
that the foreigners could make no profit out of their trade they,
being greedy people, would leave of their own accord.

This, wasT at a ^jme_._..yhen^aMgrjea.t. many important Bakufu
officials were already persuaded of the importance of foreign trade,
and when the Council of State had before it memorials from its
advisers presenting the case for future commercial relations and
discussing: the probable nature and volume of imports and exports.9
It is clear that the Bakufu promised, to expel the foreigners within
a few years, and it is even said that an approximate date was set,
about five years ahead. .Consequently the Emperor, while .main-
taining his objection to relations with foreigners, gave an ambigu-
ous and qualified consent to the treaties, which was sufficient for
the immediate purposes of the Bakufu. It was embodied in a
decree of February 1859, which was not made public.

• 9 Among such documents is a well-reasoned essay by Tsutsui Masanori. In
1856 the senior State Councillor, Hotta Masayoshi, had been instructed to report
on the pros and cons of foreign trade and had ordered all officials concerned to ex-
amine the question. Among the reports that he received was this reply from Tsutsui,
which said that in his opinion good results would follow from, the opening of trade
and not the disorder that its opponents predicted. He said that it was wrong to
suppose that trade would dwindle away for lack of products to exchange. The needs
of both parties to buy and sell would inevitably increase production in Japan and
at the same time diversify it. He was opposed to state interference and in favour of
leaving trade to private enterprise.

894

Internal Politics

The treaties (which had been signed in July and August 1858)
came into force in July 1859 anc* foreign diplomatic envoys at
once took up residence in Yedo, while the port of Yokohama was
opened to foreign trade and residence. Like most of the edicts and
memorials of the period, the Delphic utterance of the Emperor did
not settle any of the current disputes. It merely gave the Bakufu a
semblance of authority for their action. It did not abandon any
principle and a majority of the ruling classes of the country
remained fixed in their anti-foreign views.

li now turned to crushing the influence of Mito, who was still
the Eead and tront of the anti-foreign party, and he made a bid for
harmony with the court by arranging a marriage between the
Shogun and a younger sister of the Emperor. He was taking the
first steps in a policy that had been for some time in the minds of
adherents of the Tokugawa who, seeing a current of opinion
setting against the Shogunate, hoped to restore its prestige and
save a substantial part of its administrative authority by promoting
a movement for what was called Kobu-gattai, or the amalgamation
pf civil and military. In essence this was an attempt of feudalism to
avert an anti-feudal tendency, which grew as the sentiment of
reverence for the Imperial house was revived. It was not by any
means confined to the Bakufu, for the notion of amalgamation
was entertained by several of the leading feudatories as well as by
a number of court nobles who, while anxious to reduce the power
of the Tokugawa family, were so accustomed to military domi-
nance that they did not see further than a state of affairs in which
military and civil nobility would share in the government on
approximately equal terms. There were some who thought of a
system in which the Emperor would assume administrative author-
ity and delegate it only in part to the Shogun or to a council of
feudal and court nobles over whom the Shogun would preside.

Ijt was this latter view that started a number of people thinking
about national councils or assemblies and thus did something to
prepare the public mind for the idea of parliamentary institutions
a decade or more before the Restoration. Thus, although there
was hostility to the Bakufu in many quarters, it did not necessarily
bespeak an intention to abolish feudal rule entirely. Even such a
powerful clan as that of Satsuina, a hereditary enemy of the Toku-
gawa, was until shortly before the Restoration in favour of a
degree of amalgamation which would leave great powers to the
military houses. The daimyos of Satsuma (the Shimadzu family)
had for centurie's had close connections through intermarriage
both with the court nobility and with the Tokugawa family, and
as late as 1856 Shimadzu (Nariakira) succeeded in arranging a
match between His daughter and the Shogun. Thus simply stated,

295

The Last Phase of the Shogunate

it_appears as^aLpglitical alliance o£ a common type, and so it was.
But it was achieved only after the most roundabout negotiations
and intrigues. These cannot be related here, but it is worth while
to mention some of their more startling features, if only to illus-
trate the remarkable complexity of social life in Japan of that day.
They also serve to show why, at a time when Tapan was in a most
critical situation by reason of the demands of Townsend Harris,
the energies of her leading statesmen were taken up by dynastic
problems which were in their view of the first importance.

Shimadzu's daughter, a girl of eighteen, was not really his
daughter but the daughter of a collateral, and she was already af-
fianced. But her engagement was cancelled, and she was adopted
by Shimadzu. As there were objections on the score of rank to a
match between the Shogun and a girl who was not even a descend-
ant in the direct line of the lords of Satsuma, it was deemed
necessary for her to acquire some additional quality, and this was
done by having her adopted as a daughter by Prince Konoe, head
of a family of court nobles closely related to the Imperial house
and patrons of the Shimadzu since 1100. There were still many
difficulties to overcome — objections by other daimyos (notably
Mito, who wanted his own son to be Shogun) , the outstretched
hands of officials and court ladies who had to be persuaded by
handsome gifts, and opposition from several other quarters on
political or personal grounds. The negotiations lasted for three
years, and a great many people took hand in them, in Satsuma,
Kyoto, and Yedo.

T^tie objects of the marriage were various. In the first place it
wasjdesigyied to strengthen Shimadzu's own position should he
find himselFopposed to Bakufu officials on matters ot policy. "It
was also connected with the vexed problem of the succession to the
Shogunate, upon which feudal society was split. But essentially it
may be regarded as part of an effort to bring about the amalgam;^
tion. of military and civil power, which has been alluded to above.
Despite differences of view on matters of national policy, many of
the great feudatories felt that if that amalgamation was to be
successful, the leading military houses must present a united front
to the court. It was for this reason that such prominent men as the
lord of Echizen assisted Shimadzu in his negotiations with the
Shogunate.

Conversely, of course, the court would ultimately profit by dis-
unity among the feudal nobles; and this is in fact what happened,
for the Kobu-gattai movement failed. It turned out that the
Shogunate had already lost its last chance when it referred the
question of Perry's treaty to the Emperor, asked the advice of its

The Dying Struggles

vassals, and relaxed the fundamental rule of "alternate attendance"
by daimyos at the Shogun's court in Yedo.

With the signature of the treaties and the arrival of foreign en-
voys the scene changes. The Shogunate is openly committed to one
policy, the court to another, and opinion throughout the country
is bitter and divided. A clash is inevitable, because evasion and
concealment are no longer possible. The foreigners are there on
Japanese soil, the ships in the harbours, and it is no use pretending
that they have not come to stay.

3. The Dying Struggles

jfjLFTER the treaties came into force the officers of the Shogun's
government continued in .thpfr habit of making

then avoiding its performance. They deliberately obstructed the
foreign trade they had agreed to encourage and — though not de-
liberately — they failed to afford protection to the foreign officials
and merchants whom they had admitted. They had, of course, got
themselves into this absurd position by their ambiguous attitude,
by allowing the country to believe that they really were against
barbarians. It must be admitted that they had some very difficult
people to deal with. The foreign merchants, thinking above all of
profit, seized with alacrity upon a clause in the treaties that pro-
vided for the exchange of foreign gold and silver coin weight for
weight against Japanese coin, for in Japan gold could be bought
with silver at a rate that yielded an easy profit of about one hun-
dred per cent. Gold was therefore rapidly exported and this com-
bined with other circumstances drove up the cost of commodities
and gave rise to complaints directed against the government and
against greedy foreigners.

Feeling began to run high, and within a few weeks of the open-
ing of the port of Yokohama there was an outbreak of murderous
assaults. The victims were usually foreign merchants or their serv-
ants, and precautions taken in good faith by the government
failed to bring these attacks to an end. The clans were in uproar,
and though the clansmen might be restrained by their leaders there
was no way of controlling the masterless samurai, the ronin, who
were sworn to kill foreigners whenever they could find an op-
portunity. These men were numerous and, as always, their num-
bers increased as conditions grew confused. They embarrassed
their Mends as well as their enemies by their irresponsible vio-
lence, and they naturally evoked in the government a ruthless
spirit, which left some traces in later times.

297

The Last Phase of the Shogunate

The cry of Sound ]di, "Revere the Emperor and Expel the
Barbarians/' resounded through the country, and those who might
have suppressed the mounting agitation in fact encouraged it, be-
cause both of these watchwords increased the difficulties of the
Bakufu.

Early in 1860 a Japanese mission had gone to Washington to
ratify the American treaty.10 While the representatives of the
Shogun's government were abroad, the situation of the Bakufu was
rapidly worsening. In order to maintain its prestige, the_ Regent,
li Kamon no Kami, had taken very drastic measures against his
enemies at court. Some of the minor conspirators had been brought
to Yedo, where they were tried and punished by death or impris-
onment. Persons of more consequence were deprived of title or
office or placed under domiciliary arrest. Among these latter was
the retired lord of Mito, Nariaki, who was disgraced, while Hito-
tsubashi, his candidate for succession to the Shogun, was confined
to his house. These steps aroused bitter feeling in the Mito fief,
and on March 24, 1860 a small band of clansmen assassinated the
Regent as he was about to enter the castle at Yedo. They thus suc-
ceeded in removing a determined enemy, but they did no service
to their clan, for its samurai were by no means unanimous. Many
still supported the Shogun against the Imperial party, and internal
dissension in his own fief thus prevented Mito from playing any
significant role in national politics.

But the position of the Bakufu did not improve. As the chief
supporter of the throne and the most powerful antagonist of the
Shogun, Mito was succeeded by the leader (though not the titular
daimyo) of the Satsuma clan, Shimadzu Saburo. The court, incited
and assisted by Satsuma, pressed hard on the Bakufu after li's
death. They insisted upon postponement of the opening of Yedo,
Osaka, and Hyogo to foreign trade and residence, thus obliging
the Bakufu to appeal to the treaty powers for consent to some de-
lay. The diplomatists in Yedo were not unwilling to recommend
this move to their governments since they understood the situation
of the Bakufu and were, moreover, ready on personal grounds to
leave Yedo for a time.

Attacks upon foreigners had grown more frequent and serious.
The secretary of the United States Legation had been murdered in
Yedo, and in protest the representatives of England, France, and
the Netherlands had withdrawn to Yokohama, though the Ameri-
can Minister courageously decided to stay. The three representa-
tives returned in March 1861 under guarantee of their safety from

10 Despite the only qualified approval of the court, the treaty — which was al-
ready in force — was ratified in Washington on the part of Japan in the name of
the Shogun.

The Dying Struggles

the Bakufu, but some months later the British Legation was at-
tacked by Mito clansmen in accordance with plans made a year
before. Other acts of violence directed mainly against foreigners
followed this in^ 1862 and i86^and_jtjs supposed that they were
due to something more than negligence among Bakufu officials
responsible for the protection of the legations. It is known that the
court particularly resented the residence of foreign representatives
in Yedo. Soon after li's assassination his friends were dismissed
from office and replaced by men more acceptable to the anti-
foreign party, who may well have wished to improve relations with
Kyoto by a deliberate failure to protect the legations. Such conduct
would have been in keeping with the general ambiguity of the
actions of the Bakufu after the death of li, for its relations with the
court became more and more inconsistent with its professions to
the foreign powers.

Perhaps the most striking among many remarkable anomalies
was the conduct of the Bakufu in agreeing with the court to fix a
date for the expulsion of foreigners at a time when its envoys, on
a second mission abroad, had just asked the treaty powers to agree
to deferring the opening of further ports on the ground of "opposi-
tion offered by a party in Japan which was hostile to all intercourse
with foreigners." The powers' consent was given on the under-
standing that all other treaty obligations would be carried out and
no obstacle put in the way of trade and intercourse. This was in
June 1862 (in London) and it was in the summer of the same
year that, in response to a command from the court, the Shogun
agreed to journey to Kyoto to consult with the nobles there as to
the future government of Japan and the time and method of ex-
pelling barbarians.

At the same time the Yedo government gave way to the court
on other important questions. It appointed Prince Hitotsubashi
Keiki to be guardian of the young Shogun who had been his suc-
cessful rival; it agreed to the selection of the Prince of Echizen as
President of the Council of State. Its effort to improve relations
with the court by a marriage between the Shogun and a sister of
the Emperor was made to look like an act of submission by an
order to the bride that she must use her title of Imperial Princess
and not the customary designation of a Shogun's consort. Thus the
Shogun's government, by surrendering on one point after another,
was on the way to losing all but the outward forms of its authority.

The Shogun left for Kyoto in March 1863, and this in itself was
a further blow to his prestige, for none of his predecessors for over
two centuries had deigned to set foot in the capital, where their
deputies were accustomed to give orders, not to receive them.
Shortly after his arrival, at a council of nobles, it was decided that

The Last Phase of the Shogunate

the first step in closing the country should be taken on July 24,
1863. On that day the foreign representatives in Yedo were no-
tified in writing that instructions had been received from the
Shogun in Kyoto for the expulsion of all foreigners and the closing
of the ports. This notice was accompanied by oral assurances that
the Bakufu would do nothing. To these approaches the foreign
envoys merely replied that foreign interests would be protected
by the powers themselves. The implicit threat alarmed the Shogun-
ate, though it can scarcely have surprised them. Meanwhile the
Shogun — who had been detained in Kyoto against his will on the
pretence that the Emperor must concert with him measures for
expelling the foreigners — managed to extricate himself and re-
turned to Yedo in July. He then addressed a memorial to the Em-
peror, in which he said that the time was not ripe for expelling
foreigners and action must be postponed. The court, which had
received reports confirming what the Shogun said, reluctantly
agreed. The Jo-i or Expulsion Party were of course enraged, and
the foreign community was thought to be in such danger that
British and French troops were brought to Yokohama for its pro-
tection in 1863.

Certain jgther warlike moves by foreign powers had .brought
home to the court the fact that it would be impossible to drive the
foreigners away by force. An Englishman had been killed by
samurai in the retinue of Shimadzu when that old-fashioned noble-
man was on his way back after escorting the Imperial messenger
who had carried to Yedo the order to the Shogun to appear in
Kyoto and discuss the expulsion measures. The British govern-
ment, unable to obtain satisfaction from the Bakufu, had ordered
the bombardment of Kagoshima (in Satsuma) in August 1862.
The Bakufu was now fearful of similar action if the powers should
be aroused by the notice it had just given of the plan to close the
country. It hastily paid out of its own funds the indemnity de-
manded of Satsuma and sent word to the court that in present con-
ditions there was no possibility of executing the Imperial com-
mands and expelling the foreigners. Prince Keiki, the Regent, sent
a similar message and offered his resignation, which was not ac-
cepted. The confusion at Yedo is revealed by his statement that
on the Shogun's council there were no two councillors in agree-
ment as to the expulsion of foreigners. The court was at last per-
suaded to leave the date for the expulsion to the decision of the
Shogun,

It might be supposed that at this juncture a decision one way
or another would have been taken by the court or the Shogunate.
But this is to assume that the announcements made on either side
represented firm views or resolute intentions. Nothing could be

300

The Dying Struggles

further from the facts. The court, it is true, had scored some great
successes over the Shogunate; but neither in the court nor in the
inner councils of the Bakufu nor in the most anti-foreign clans
was there any real unanimity. Each had its factions, its extremists
and its moderates; and the edicts or proclamations that issued from
those sources represented not fixed decisions upon policy, but only
the views of persons or groups momentarily in the ascendant. To
borrow a simile from a Japanese historian, opinion in Japan at this
time was like a great whirlpool formed by a confusion of many
smaller whirlpools.

Thus it would be wrong to accuse the Bakufu of sheer wanton
duplicity, since circumstances changed so rapidly that they could
not be faithfully described, and it was generally understood among
the actors, if not the spectators, of the tragicomedy now being en-
acted that no statement was to be taken at its face value. The Sho-
gunate, seeing that it was impossible to maintain its erstwhile su-
premacy, was struggling for its existence and endeavouring to con-
ciliate both the court and the great feudatories in the hope of
bringing about that amalgamation of civil and military power, the
Kobu Gattai, which has already been alluded to. Its repeated sur-
renders to the court have been noticed, and now, as it twisted and
turned and faced both ways in its efforts to placate the foreign
envoys while not antagonizing the anti-foreign party, it felt obliged
to make more concessions to the clans. In October 1862 the Sho-
gunate took a step that perhaps more than any other single act
hastened its collapse. It so modified and relaxed the rule exacting
periodical attendance by the daimyos at the Shogun's court that
it virtually abdicated authority over its vassals. They were no
longer obliged to leave their families in Yedo as hostages, their
visits could be shorter and less frequent, and they were encouraged
to give their opinions on affairs of state. The result was a scurry
from Yedo of most of the daimyos and their households, and the
sojourn of many members of the feudal nobility and gentry in
Kyoto, where they engaged in activities usually unfavourable to
the Shogunate.

Not that the relaxation of rules was needed to encourage the
most powerful of the western clans to come out openly against the
Bakufu. Satsuma and Chdshu, though they may have at one time
thought it possible to amalgamate with the Tokugawa house on
something like equal terms, were now prepared to act independ-
ently.11The history of the ensuing decade is concerned mainly
with the activities of these two great clans; and as we shall see, the

11 Among the proposals put to the Shogunate by the mission that Shimadzu
escorted to Yedo in 1862 was, besides the appointment of Keiki, the foundation of
a council to advise the Shogun, which was to include five great daimyos.

301

The Last Phase of the Shogunate

government of the early years of Meiji was dominated by samurai
who had gained political experience in the domestic affairs of
Choshu and Satsuma and the intricate triangular bargaining be-
tween the court, the Shogunate, and the leading feudatories. JU
was, by a paradox characteristic of the times, the anti-foreign ac-
tivities of Satsuma and Choshu that brought to birth a new govern-
ment dedicated to the fullest extension of foreign intercourse. The
clans that had uttered the loudest cries of "Expel the Barbarians"
were those which led the way in spreading Western ideas through-
out Japan. It is not surprising that Japan gained the reputation in
the West of being a topsy-turvy land.

For a fuller understanding of the events that preceded the
downfall of the Shogunate, it is necessary to return to the date
fixed for the expulsion of foreigners — June 24, 1863. On that day
the Choshu clan had thought it proper to commence hostilities by
firing upon an American vessel anchored in the Straits of Shimo-
noseki, on which Choshu territory bordered. A French vessel was
attacked on July 8, a Dutch warship on July 1 1. An American war-
ship retaliated on July 16, firing at the batteries and sinking a
small ship. French forces landed on July 20 and destroyed the bat-
teries, putting their defenders to flight. At this point, in an en-
deavour to induce the unruly clan to desist, a message was carried
to Choshu by two young men who pointed out the folly of em-
broiling the whole country in war with several powers at once. One
of these was Ito Hirobumi, a Choshu samurai who had just re-
turned, impressed by the power of Western states, from a clandes-
tine visit to England and was within twenty years to become the
leading statesman of Japan. The Daimyo of Choshu would not
listen to his advice, and the straits remained closed for more than
a year, until in September 1864 a joint expedition of ships from
the American, British, French, and Dutch navies attacked Shimo-
noseki and removed the guns. Choshu thereupon gave way and
agreed to pay an indemnity, the money finally being found by the
Shogun's government.

This incident, like the attack on Kagoshima in 1863, though it
doubtless inflamed anti-foreign feeling in many clansmen, resulted
in the establishment of friendly relations between the foreigners
and the leaders of the delinquent clan. Both Satsuma and Choshu
had received a valuable lesson, and though the action of the treaty
powers has been described as unwarrantable there can be little
doubt that it served a good purpose by showing the futility of the
expulsion policy and by preventing the bloodshed and humiliation
that would have followed an attempt to carry out the instructions
of the court.

The court had already begun to hesitate when Choshii fired

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by the Japanese treaty negotiations in 1854

The Dying Struggles

upon the foreign ships in July 1863. When the Shogun upon his
return to Yedo had told the court that he could not carry out its
orders, the court had replied in a very haughty way, and reproached
him for travelling in a steamer, a most undignified and barbarous
method of transport. But the upshot of the communication was
that the Emperor was getting alarmed and had lost confidence in
his advisers. With strong approval from the Bakuf u, some of these
were dismissed and the Choshu men, who had established them-
selves as guardians of the Emperor's person, were directed to
leave Kyoto. They went off, carrying with them seven of their
chief allies among the court nobles. One of these was the Prince
Sanjo, who — not surprisingly, for this was an era of sudden
changes of opinion — within five years became a leader of the new,
pro-foreign government of Japan.

By now on all sides there were signs that the attitude towards
foreign intercourse was changing, not among the majority of the
samurai or the numerous irreconcilable ronin, but in more in-
structed and responsible quarters. The Echizen fief, where, as we
have noticed, foreign studies had made good progress, announced
in decided terms that both the court and the Shogunate were mis-
taken in objecting to friendly intercourse with foreign states, and
its leaders could therefore no longer associate themselves with
Bakufu policy. Even the Bakufu took courage to inform the repre-
sentatives of the treaty powers in November 1863 that the notifica-
tion of June 24 no longer held good. It was not intended to expel
foreigners. True to form, however, it stated in a public announce-
ment that the Shogun was negotiating with the foreigners for the
closing of the ports, and the clansmen must not resort to violence.

The Choshu clansmen, however, remained insubordinate. The
Shogun went to Kyoto early in 1864 and there he made still further
concessions to the court, where friends of the Choshu leaders were
still intriguing in their favour. It was agreed that in future all
feudatories, upon their succession, should receive investiture from
the Emperor. This took from the Shogun almost the last shred of
his feudal privilege; and when it was further agreed that certain
feudal dignitaries (including leaders from Satsuma, Tosa, Echizen,
and Aidzu) should be the advisers of the Shogun "because they
had the confidence of the Emperor," then for most purposes it was
the manipulator who had become the puppet.

The Bakufu had now little left to preserve but its dignity; and
it was its remnants of stubborn pride that hastened its downfall.
The Choshu clan was divided into two factions, the peaceful and
the warlike. The former, it is interesting to note, was known as
the Party of the Vulgar View, which shows that its opinion was
fairly widespread if not respectable. The latter having gained con-
SOS

The Last Phase of the Shogunate

trol, their men in Kyoto revolted in August 1864, professing them-
selves anxious to rescue the Emperor from evil advisers. The Em-
peror did not wish to be rescued, and the Shogun, whose function
it was to suppress rebels, crushed the rising by the end of 1864,
with the assistance of samurai placed at his disposal by Satsuma and
other clans. At this time Satsuma and Choshu were at odds, and
Shimadzu Saburo, the Satsuma leader, was a better statesman than
any of the Choshu men. He knew how to control the refractory
ronin, restraining or encouraging them to suit his own plans; and
he seems still to have had in mind the possibility of a compromise
between the civil and the military powers. In the now very un-
stable position of affairs he could tip the balance as he wished, and
from this moment the attitude of Satsuma was to be the most im-
portant factor in determining the domestic policy of Japan, which
in turn would shape its foreign relations.

It was at this crucial point that the harassed Bakufu made an
error of judgment which proved fatal. After their defeat the"
Choshu leaders submitted, and the matter might well have been
left there. Satisfactory terms were arranged on the suggestion of
Saigo Takamori, an influential Satsuma samurai, and by the be-
ginning of 1865 a settlement was in sight. But in the Bakufu rash
counsels prevailed, and after much discussion and manoeuvre Jt
was decided to crush the Chdshu clan entirely. The conditions laid
down were so harsh that Chdshu determined to fight to a finish.
Satsuma no longer took the side of the Bakufu, and some prom-
inent Satsuma men, among whom were Kido, Ito, and Inouye,
were approached by the war party in Choshu for help. Satsuma
went so far as to purchase war materials from an English firm in
Nagasaki and to present them to Choshu. The Shogun led his
troops in person to Osaka. Meanwhile on the side of the Bakufu
there was much argument to and fro, much denunciation of rebels
and warlike preparation. The clans that the Shogun summoned
to assist him were slow to respond, and it was not until July 1866,
more than twelve months after he had procured the Imperial man-
date to "chastise the rebels/' that Tokugawa forces marched west.
They were everywhere unsuccessful, being driven back to their
base in ignominious fashion. Thus the country was presented with
the spectacle of the defeat of the Shogun '$ armies by a single clan.
No doubt the Chdshu men were impudent and deserved a lesson,
but the Shogun's advisers had made an error that no dictator can
afford. They had made a threat they could not carry out. The
Shogun himself died in Osaka on August 17, 1866, and hostilities
were suspended under the pretence of mourning. Hitotsubashi
Keiki succeeded the defunct Shogun, and the Bakufu, still strug-

304

The Dying Struggles

gling to maintain its prestige, continued its efforts to disgrace and
diminish Chdshu, but met with firm opposition from Satsuma.

The hollowness of all Tokugawa pretensions had been exposed,
and the most powerful clans were now arrayed against them. The
idea of amalgamation — K5bu-gattai — was no longer entertained,
and Satsuma began to work for the destruction of the Shogunate.
Its natural ally in this enterprise was Choshu, and the two clans
were soon reconciled by the efforts of Saigo Takamori and Okubo
Toshimichi, who had no difficulty in persuading Choshu to join
them, since that clan had been uniformly hostile to the Bakufu
from the beginning. A secret understanding had been reached al-
ready in 1866, and this soon became an alliance. During tjie prepa-
rations for the second expedition against Chosnu, gt combined
fleet of American, British. Dutch, and French warships with dip^
lomatic representatives on board had anchored in Osaka Bay, to
press for the opening of the port of Hyogo and the Imperial ap-
proval of the commercial treaties.

The foreign powers had for long suspected that there was dual
authority in Japan, but did not understand the relations between
the court and the Shogunate, which it must be admitted were not
easy to define. But they had come to see that the centre of power
was gradually moving to Kyoto, and they had decided to deal now
with the throne, hoping to make an impression by a show of force.
Their demand was unpalatable to the Emperor, but the Bakufu
seized this opportunity to represent to the court the danger of a
refusal and the court reluctantly agreed to ratify the treaties of
1858. The court refused to give way as to the opening of Hyogo,
which was fixed for January i, 1868, but the Bakufu, with its usual
reserve, refrained from telling the foreign representatives of this
condition. The Emperor at least had the dubious satisfaction of
learning that the foreign powers were aware of his growing au-
thority. It should be explained that he reached his decision on the
advice of a majority of the leading clans, whose representatives he
had summoned on November 21, 1865. Opinion was rapidly swing-
ing in favour of foreign intercourse.

The question of foreign intercourse was thus solved, at least in
principle. But the pressing question now was the disposal of the
Shogunate. The times were very ripe for change. The Emperor
Koinei had died on February 3, 1867 and was succeeded at once by
the youthful sovereign known to history as the Meiji Emperor.

Shimadzu Saburo, on the advice of Saigo, Okubo, and others,
agreed to the formation of an alliance with Choshu, which was to
be joined by Echizen, Tosa, Uwajima. This was early in 1867, and
in May of that year Saigo, escorting Shimadzu, led troops into

80S

The Last Phase of the Shogunate

Kyoto and was shortly followed by the rulers o£ Echizen (Shun-
gaku) , Tosa (Yamanouchi) , Uwajima (Date) , and others, who
commenced activities at court and pressed upon Keiki, who was
then residing in the capital at the Nijo Palace, reforms that in
effect meant the surrender of power by him to the court and to
his greater vassals. It is interesting to note at this point that the
lord of Tosa, still nourishing a sentiment of loyalty to the Toku-
gawa because his ancestors had been leyasu's men, pleaded illness
and did not join in the conversations with the Shogun. But one of
his clansmen, named Itagaki Taisuke, was strongly in favour of
Saigo's plan to restore the Emperor to his former power. Ch5shu
agreed, and other clans that had sympathized with Choshu in its
struggle against the Bakufu joined in the movement. They ar-
ranged to bring troops to Kyoto "for the protection of the Imperial
city," and they approached certain court nobles who had hitherto
been in favour of the amalgamation of powers but were now per-
suaded that the Bakufu must be overcome. Among these were
Iwakura Tomomi, and Sanjo Sanetomi (already noticed as one of
the Seven Fugitive Nobles) . Both of these, with the clansmen
named above, were to play leading parts in ijie Restoration, which
was then approaching.

The new Shogun found himself pressed on all sides, the west-
ern clans urging him to resign, his own faithful vassals and the
more uncompromising officials of the Bakufu pressing him to
stand up for his rights. His position was by now untenable, and on
November 8t. 1867 he announced his resignation. In a dignified
manifesto he blamed himself for faulty actions, saying that "if au-
thority is restored to the Emperor, and matters of high policy are
decided by His Majesty after national deliberations, then by unity
in thought and effort the country can hold its own with all nations
of the world." If he had stopped at this it might have been said
that nothing in the life of the Shogunate became it more than its
ending. jPbie Shogun awaited further orders from the court, which
had requested him to remain in office until a council of the leacF

Kyoto and decide upon the next

step. It seemed as if, even at this last moment, some high office
might be reserved for the Tokugawa leader.12 But the reform
party, flushed with pride and success, easily induced the court on
January 3, 1868 to abolish the Shogunate and the nominal re-
gency with which the Shoguns had usually been invested. A pro-
visional government was formed, in which no adherent of the

12 Certain daimyo, including Echizen and Owari, who had historical links with
the Tokugawa, did in fact propose an arrangement by which the Shogun should
offer part o£ his revenues to the court and take his place in the new government on
the same footing as great feudatories like Satsuma and Choshu.

806

The Dying Struggles

Tokugawa was included and the key posts were allotted to the five
clans of Satsuma, Tosa, Aki, Owari, and Echizen; and as a last
bitter insult Choshu was pardoned and a Chdshu force appeared
in the capital. The Shogun contented himself with a formal pro-
test, but he was overruled by his supporters, who with the faulty
judgmentthat characterized the actions of the Bakufu in its de~
cline"urged him to take arms against the court. He did so. was de-
feated, and returned to Yedo. There followed a brief civil war and,
except for a stand made by a few Tokugawa adherents who held
out for some months, the whole country submitted to the Em-
peror's rule without delay.

The Meiji era began on January 2%, 1868. The name of Yedo
was changed to Tokyo (Eastern Capital) in September 1868, and
in that city the Emperor's residence and the seat of government
were established in March 1869. There was confusion for a while.
The new government no longer encouraged or tolerated anti-
foreign activities, but the sentiment of hatred did not at once sub-
side. The mass of the people were ready to show signs of friendship
towards foreigners, but there was a residue of irreconcilable ronin
and other agitators who displayed great hostility. Violent attacks
both upon foreigners and upon Japanese associated with the new,
pro- Western regime were frequent in the first few years of MeijL
In March 1868 the crew of a French picket-boat were murdered by
Tosa samurai, and shortly afterwards some desperadoes attacked
the British Minister as he was riding to an audience with the Em-
peror. In all such cases the new government was prompt to punish
the offenders. Among Japanese victims was Yokoi Shonan, who
was murdered on February 15, 1869. The Official Gazette of the
time contains several entries concerning this incident, from which
it is evident that the new government were much perturbed by
these affairs and made up their minds to use strong measures
against unruly ronin. Much of the ruthlessness displayed by the
authorities in the ensuing decade can be traced to their determina-
tion, formed at this time, to suppress subversive activities' without
hesitation. They had not abandoned the feudal outlook in mat-
ters of discipline.

It is as well to recollect, before going on to a study of Meiji poli-
tics, that power was now in the hands of men who had been
brought up as soldiers and were schooled to drastic action. Okubo
and Saigo belonged to the Satsuma clan, the most stubborn fighters
in Japan. Goto of Tosa was an experienced swordsman; Kido, Ito,
and Inouye of Choshu had risked their lives more than once in
the troubles between their clan and the Bakufu, and most of their
colleagues had gone through similar experiences. The character
of these men, and the events in which they had participated, had

807

The Last Phase of the Shogunate

much to do in shaping the political history of the Meiji period,
which is hereafter described. It is a period that bears a very clear
imprint of the character of individuals, whereas by contrast the
policy of the ensuing decades appears anonymous and undirected.
Most foreign observers who were acquainted with the great figures
of the Meiji period are agreed in thinking that there was a great
fall in the quality of statesmanship after they had departed from
the stage.

One more observation may be suitably made here. The Meiji
government was rich in talent but jgoog jn money. The public
finance of Japan, maladministered by the Shogunate for more than
a century, was almost entirely ruined by expenditure on national
defence, indemnities, and civil war after about 1800, and when
the new government came into power in 1868 its coffers were
nearly empty. This is one of the leading facts in the history of the
early years of Meiji. Next in importance is the fact that by the
beginning of the nineteenth century it was being said that hardly
any daimyo had a fortune of more than 300,000 ryd, while many
merchants and landowners counted their money by millions. The
wealthy classes had to be used and conciliated by the new govern-
ment unless its leaders were prepared for an economic as well as a
political revolution; and this is not, or was not then, the way of
revolutionaries who have accomplished one difficult reform.

As seen by foreign students the history of the years between
Perry's arrival and the Restoration of 1868 is concerned chiefly
with the struggles of the Western powers to induce Japan to
emerge from seclusion. It is partly for that reason that a foreign
writer can hardly avoid stressing the deceitful stratagems of the
Japanese government and the general atmosphere of xenophobia
that pervaded the country in those days. But examined from a dif-
ferent viewpoint, these aspects are of incidental rather than pri-
mary importance. The true interest of the events related emerges
when they are studied as evidence of the way in which a society
can decay and renew itself without changing its essence. The ar-
rival of foreigners demanding admission brought to light and even
resolved certain conflicts latent in Japanese political life, and in
that respect Western influence was clear and decisive. But it was
limited in its effect, and in the following pages an attempt will be
made to show how in other fields it was circumscribed by the
strength of ancient habits. No final conclusion can be reached,
since it is early yet to say what are the lasting results of interna-
tional intercourse. A century is a short time in the growth of a
national culture, and all we can do is to inspect the passing scene,
trying to draw from it some modest and tentative inferences.

308

The Dying Struggles
Note on CHAPTER 12

COMMODORE PERRY'S EXPEDITION. An interesting account is given in
Arthur Walworth's Black Ships off Japan (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf; 1946) . It contains some particulars of earlier American attempts
to open trade relations.

The fullest account of relationships between Japanese and Ameri-
cans before the expedition is to be found in a well-documented study
in English by Shunzo Sakamaki, entitled "Japan and the United
States, 1790-1853," which is Vol. XVIII (second series) of the Trans-
actions of the Asiatic Society of Japan (Tokyo, 1939) .

309

r

EARLY MEIJI: THE POLITICAL SCENE

i. Prefatory

JLx is not the purpose of this study to present the history of early
Meiji in terms of strict political or economic analysis. It is of course
possible to trace, as a number of modern historians have done,
some tolerably close analogies between the development of cap-
italism in western European countries and the process by which
the social and political order in Japan was transformed as the mer-
cantile class developed and commercial capital was replaced first
by industrial and then by finance capital. But the early stages of
Japanese political development, at least from the Restoration to
the Sino-Japanese war of 1894, present so many peculiar features
that it is difficult to reconcile them with any rigid theory, deter-
ministic or other. It may, for instance, be said that the demands of
a rising mercantile class — a bourgeoisie, to use the popular
label — resulted in the liquidation — another piece of jargon —
of feudalism and in the kind of political change that had accom-
panied the industrial revolution in Europe. But in fact the capital-
ism of the early years of Meiji was feeble and in some respects rudi-
mentary, and it can be argued that the early Meiji government, far
from succumbing to capitalist pressure, created a regime that was
in essence more feudal in character than the Shogunate in its de-
cline. Certainly this was a view held by many of the opponents of
that government, who frequently complained that it was a second
and more resolute Bakufu.

The driving force at the Restoration and in political life for the
best part of a generation thereafter_was^ who

had been brought up in a feudal, or at any rate a feudalistic, at-
mosphere. They were for the most part dissatisfied and ambitious
samurai, and their outlook was coloured by their antecedents. Jt
was these men, and not the bourgeoisie, who laid the foundations
of a capitalist structure and at the same time developed a political
system that bore little resemblance to those which ..camejmto force

310

Prefatory

in the advanced industrial countries of western Europe under the
influence of a powerful moneyed class. Consequently it would be
misleading to treat the history of the first twenty years of Meiji as
a simple case of the repetition in Asia of a process that had taken
place in Europe. The fact that the Japanese exercised a choice be-
tween European models and did not follow any one of them ex-
clusively tends to show that neither their political nor their eco-
nomic development conformed to a theoretical pattern such as is
postulated by some modern historians. Indeed, the chief interest
of the study of Japanese history in its early "modern" period lies
in its divergence from what is regarded as normal in the conversion
of an agrarian into an industrial society.

In the following pages, therefore, no attempt is made to de-
scribe events in their relation to some preconceived notion of his-
torical necessity. They are arranged in a loose fashion that will
probably be painful to scientific students; but it may have the ad-
vantage, rather rare in these ideological days, of permitting the
reader to select what interests him and to draw his own conclu-
sions. The limited object of this chapter is to furnish a background
for the subsequent discussion of social and other changes that took
place in the period reviewed. It might have been more logical to
attempt a description of the changing aspects of Japanese society
and then to follow with an account of the political events it ex-
perienced. But because Japanese social and intellectual life in
those years was dominated by political issues that dictated its chief
forms of expression it seems best to pay attention first to political
matters. What follows therefore does .not pretend to be a detailed
study of political history, but aims at giving only such information
as will help in understanding later chapters. It is unfortunately
difficult to prevent a bald political summary from becoming a
dreary catalogue of such words as "constitution," "representation,"
"democracy," "oligarchy/7 "liberty," "tyranny," and suchlike re-
spectable but inelegant terms. We are tied down to the use of these
deceptive abstracts, and much of the political argument of the day
was concerned with their interpretation. Indeed, it is one of the
special features of early Meiji controversy that it was a battle
about words, and about words that had only just entered the native^
vocabulary, to represent ideas new to most Japanese. One interest-
ing example may be quoted in order to show how strange, even to
men of education, were many of the ideas that presently were to
be the subject of bitter strife.

There was nothing in the Japanese language that stood for
"popular rights," and a term had to be invented. This was the
word minken, which within a few years became the war cry of the
liberals. Its origin is interesting, for it was adopted in an almost

911

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

accidental fashion. In 1870 a small group of scholars was engaged
on a translation of the French Civil Code. When they came to the
words droit civil the translation minken was suggested, because min
means "people" and ken means "authority" or "privilege." But a
discussion arose as to whether "people" had "rights." What did
it mean? Objections were raised, and it was only after the chairman
of the translation committee had intervened that the unfamiliar
idea was accepted. Minken thus became the Japanese word first for
droit civil and then for "the rights of the people." The chairman
was Eto Shimpei, one of the Restoration leaders, who later was ex-
ecuted for leading an insurrection against a government that was
loath to concede popular liberties.

But Eto himself was not imbued with liberal sentiment. He
wanted a change of government because he disliked the ruling co-
alition, and there were many others of his kind, though aot all
were prepared to take the same risks. His case throws some light
on the nature of the political issues that split the governing class
after the Restoration. From a plain record of its principal events
the political history of the first twenty years or so appears as a great
struggle to reach a national decision for or against democratic prin-
ciples of government. This may stand as a description of its superfi-
cial aspects, though it was complicated by personal antagonisms
and long-standing loyalties, which were often more important
than principles in deciding the order of battle. But what was at_
stake was something of deeper import than a choice between two
systems of administering national affairs. It was a conflict between
traditional sentiment and that idea of progress which, was then the
guiding: principle of the Occidental world.

This concept, this view of life, not very long established in the
West, was new to Oriental peoples, though it must be admitted
that the Japanese were more ready to receive it than others. In
India and China it was unfamiliar and even unpleasing, since it
ran counter to religious beliefs or social systems of great antiquity.
In India and in the Buddhist countries of Farther India it was
only by exception that men nourished hopes of increasing the sum
of earthly felicity by human endeavour. In China, less pervaded by
a sense of spiritual values, men's minds tended to a matter-of-fact
acceptance of the existing order and were generally sceptical of
innovation. But the Japanese are a restless people, who seem al-
ways to have been more interested in action than in contemplation,
for even their version of Zen quietism had its energetic side. They
were therefore disposed to accept the theory that a good life can be
attained by assiduous devotion to practical matters. To the Japa-
nese after the Restoration the idea of progress was not only wel-
come, but extremely stimulating. It was interpreted by them not

Prefatory

in terms of spiritual enlightenment but of material accumula-
tions— more facts, more wealth, more strength, more manufac-
tures, more men, ships, and guns. Most of the leading men in the
country were on the side of progress so defined, and if there was
a division of opinion among them it was not as to the kind of prog-
ress to be desired but as to the method of attaining it. Though on
the surface the political turmoil of these crucial decades looks like
a fight for individual freedom, in fact it was little more than a hot
dispute, confused by allegiances that had little to do with the real
issue, as to the best way of achieving material successes. The most
striking feature of the period is not its political clashes, but the
alacrity with which the country as a whole seized upon the dogma
of perfectibility and threw itself without misgivings into the task
of self-improvement.

It is not necessary to pursue this topic here, though it is hoped
that the reader will bear it in mind when studying the following
narrative. He might also do well to remember that, in Japan as
elsewhere, the political alignments of individuals are frequently
based upon grievances rather than principles. Thus — to take a
simple instance — many of the important figures in political life
in Japan in the decisive years of early Meiji were former Bakufu
officials who led opposition movements because they were influ-
enced by an inherited dislike of the clans that had brought about
the downfall of the Bakufu. This was particularly true of the prin-
cipal journalists, who with few exceptions supported the liberal
opposition for motives that were not entirely idealistic but in-
cluded an antagonism to the ruling coalition arising from their
former loyalty to the Tokugawa regime.

Another point that should not be overlooked in studying the
Administrative history of the early years of Meiji is the part played
by former servants of the Tokugawa. The Bakufu had sent its
brightest young men abroad for study for some years before the
Restoration, and its officials had been obliged by the pressure of
events to attempt constructive reforms while its opponents were
still engaged in destructive criticism. It therefore had at its dis-
posal a number of experienced men who knew how to tackle ad-
ministrative problems and some capable persons who knew about
Western life from direct observation. It thus had a wjder rhoice
than any single clan, and probably it could draw upon better brains
than could either Satsuma or Chdshu. Though political power was
seized by individuals from those clans, who were remarkably ca-
pable leaders, they could not have exercised that power promptly
and successfully without the support of trained administrators who
had learned their business under the Bakufu. Thus, paradoxically,
a good deal of the talent that destroyed the Balmfu system was fur-

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

nished by the Bakufu itself. In the early years o£ Meiji it was said
of the minority of former Bakufu servants who refused posts under
the new government that they were displaying yase-gaman, which
means spiting their stomachs to save their faces. Among Tokugawa
retainers who threw in their lot with the new regime were Eno-
moto, who had been sent abroad for study in 1863 and, after fight-
ing for the Tokugawa in 186% became an admiral and then an
ambassador in the service of the Meiji government. With Katsu
Awa, another Bakufu man who was sent abroad, he was the
founder of the Japanese navy. Katsu himself was one of the chief
figures in the Restoration and displayed great talent as a nego-
tiator.

It may not be out of place here to speculate in very general
terms why Japanese culture offered less resistance to new ideas than
Chinese or Indian culture. The problem is not easy to understand,
though many explanations have been offered. Perhaps a clue may
be found in the fact that Japanese culture, especially in its political
features, contained a number of anachronistic and even irrational
elements. In so far as it was based upon the assumptions of early
Shinto, a primitive theocratic creed, modified by Buddhism and
overlaid by feudal thought, it was riddled with contradictions and
had not the strength and coherence of such great systems as Con-
fucianism and Hinduism. In fact it might be argued that the Jap-
anese never worked out a satisfactory and stable system of political
life, but were always experimenting. This is a view that their dis-
turbed and changeful domestic history tends to confirm; and it is
significant that when, under the Tokugawa, they arrived at some
degree of stability, it was achieved by disregarding indigenous prec-
edents and calling in the aid of Confucian teaching. It is not sur-
prising that when they were faced with a realization of their coun-
try's weakness the leaders of the Restoration movement and their
immediate successors should have been ready to sacrifice much of a
system that had already proved obsolete. Equally it was to be ex-
pected that they would arouse opposition from both conservative
and progressive quarters and would be charged with going too fast
or too slow as seemed expedient to their critics.

But this did not mean a complete break with tradition. Cer-
tainly the presentation of new ideas to the Japanese people was a
most important feature of early Meiji history, and new ideas must
often fly in tradition's face. A first glance at the course of events
gives the impression that one belief after another, one institution
after another, fell before the attack of Western influence. Yet a
closer examination shows that many of the important changes that
took place in political and social life came about not by direct
imitation of Western models but by a natural process of evolution

314

The Remnants of Feudalism

which produced results similar to those which had arisen in the
West out of similar circumstances.

This is one of the themes to be discussed in ensuing chapters
and need not be enlarged upon in this prefatory note. But it may
be useful to cite one example by way of illustration: it is generally
held that the Constitution framed by Ito and promulgated in 1889
was a result of direct German influence, and even of the personal
influence of Bismarck himself. This is only true in a most general
way, for as a strict historical statement it cannot stand, because
it neglects the fact that the relevant circumstances of Germany re-
sembled those of Japan at the same time. Ito found useful material
in German history and German political literature because Ger-
man sentiment about monarchy and armies was like Japanese
sentiment on those matters; and it will scarcely be contended that
Japanese sentiment (which had a strong tradition behind it) was
created or even influenced by German example. The most one
can say is that Ito felt at home in a German atmosphere.

2. The Remnants of Feudalism

U.HE FIRST task of the leaders of Japan when the Shogun had
formally returned his powers to the Emperor was to replace the
complex and heterogeneous rule of the Tokugawa by a single and
uniform control over the whole country. This could be done only
by stages, and the first central government to be formed was only
provisional. Its purpose was little more than to symbolize the as-
sumption of power and to hold the position until more suitable
forms could be worked out. What was important at this juncture
was not the detail of its organization but the character and anteced-
ents of its members, for it was their decisions that would shape
policy in the crucial years to follow and thereby fix a pattern for
the future development of Japan which it would be difficult to
vary. This may not have been apparent at the time, but subsequent
history shows that the small oligarchy that guided the first steps
of Japan after the Restoration did in fact lay down lines of national
policy from which even violent opposition could not force them or
their successors to depart.

The early stages in the development of a central authority
though brief and experimental are therefore of peculiar interest.
They belong to a time when public opinion was fluid and even be-
wildered, when political views had not crystallized in intellectual
circles. Such conditions were favourable to rapid and arbitrary de-
cisions by those in authority. ^The first government was a simple
structure, consisting of a Supreme Controller and senior and jun-

815

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

ior Councils of State. The Controller was an Imperial Prince and
under him as deputies were two court nobles of the highest rank,
Iwakura and Sanjo. These appointments were necessary in order
to emphasize the power of the throne and the civil aristocracy,
which the military aristocracy had for so long usurped.

KIBO JUNICHIRO (KOIN) (1834-77)

A Choshu samurai^ one of the leaders of the

Restoration movement and a member

of the first Aieiji government

But in the Controller's department there served men who,
thpugh they had played an important part in the overflow o£ feu-
dalism, had been military retainers of feudal lords. They were
youngish samurai of modest origin from those powerful clans of
Satsuma, Choshu, Tosa, and Hizen which, by throwing their
strength on the side of the Emperor, had made the defeat of the
Tokugawa possible. Among them were Okubo, Kido, Komatsu, and
Goto, men of strong character and firm opinion who, it should be
noted, were not mere theoretical revolutionaries but former feudal

316

The Remnants of Feudalism

officials experienced in clan politics, conversant with administra-
tive tasks, and imbued with a strong authoritarian sense. "JThey
were true members of a military caste. Goto, for instance, when
Sir Harry Parkes was attacked by ronin in 1868, dismounted and
cut off the head of one of the assailants with great skill and dis-

GOT5 SHOJIRO (1837-97)

A leading Restoration figure and member of
early Meijl governments

patch. Nakai, a Foreign Office official, also leaped from his horse
and sliced off another head. This is not a feat that can be per-
formed without practice and a martial disposition; and most mem-
bers and officials of the new government were capable of similar
exploits.

Tfoese were the men who exercised real power, though they
acted warily at first and worked behind a screen of high personages,
The Senior Council y, was composed of court nobles and feudal
nobles in equal numbers, the Junior Council of courtiers and
feudal officers of lower rank. Neither of these bodies had any real
authority. This arrangement lasted only a short time. It was modi-
fied in February and completely revised in June of 1868, when the
aims of the new government were laid down in an Imperial Procla-
mation, This is an important, document, which needs close study,

S17

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

for it is — although not so named — the first Constitution of mod-
ern Japan. It opens by citing in full the Charter Oath which had
been taken by the Emperor on April 6, 1868 and which may be
looked upon as the source and foundation of Meiji policy. For an
important charter of this character the oath is remarkably vague,
and attempts to translate it faithfully into English reveal that it
can be interpreted in several ways. Two authoritative translations,
usually cited by foreign writers on Japanese history, read as
follows:

A. Hodzumi's Version,
as quoted in
Encyclopedia
Britannica (1911)

Deliberative assemblies shall be
established on an extensive
scale and all measures of gov-
ernment shall be decided by
public opinon.

All classes, high and low, shall
unite in vigorously carrying out
the plan of government.

All classes of the people shall
be allowed to fulfil their just
aspirations so that there may
be no discontent

or

All classes of the people shall
be allowed to fulfil their just
desires as far as possible so that
there may not be any discon-
tent among them.

4. Uncivilized customs of former
times shall be broken through
and everything shall be based
upon just and equitable prin-
ciples of nature.

B. Ukita's Version
in Fifty Years of
New Japan

Public councils shall be organized
and all governmental affairs shall
be decided by general discussion.

All classes, both rulers and ruled,
shall with one heart devote them-
selves to the advancement of the
national interests.

All the civil and military officials
and all the common people shall
be allowed to realize their own
aspirations and to evince their
active characteristics.

All base customs of former times
shall be abolished, and justice and
equity as they are universally rec-
ognized shall be followed.

Knowledge shall be sought Knowledge shall be sought for

throughout the world, so that throughout the world and thus

the welfare of the Empire may the foundations of the Empire

be promoted. shall be extended.

818

The Remnants of Feudalism

So expressed, the first three articles might well be taken as a state-
ment of intention to set up a national parliament and local assem-
blies, to introduce democratic principles of government, and to
adopt freedom and equality and the pursuit of happiness as the
foundation of the national life. The fourth article might be read
as a promise to abolish all institutions which are not consistent
with the doctrine of natural rights; and the fifth as a decision to
adopt Western philosophical beliefs and social practices. But many
other interpretations are possible, and domestic political strife in
Japan during the ensuing twenty years consisted largely in an
argument over the practical intention of these various clauses.

It is not likely that the whole truth can be ascertained, nor is it
of great importance, but there is some use in trying to discover
what was in the minds of the effective rulers of Japan at the time
when the document was made public. If they intended it as a truly
democratic charter it can be inferred that they were strongly influ-
enced by Western political thought. But if a less liberal and less
precise interpretation is correct, then they had not made up their
minds to introduce drastic political reforms but deemed it wise to
proclaim liberal intentions in broad terms that committed them to
no specific measures.

The first draft of the oath was made by Yuri Kimimasa and
Fukuoka Kotei, and this was amended and expanded by Kido. It
was on Kido's advice that the oath was made public, his reason
being that the opinion of the clans — he did not refer to the peo-
ple— was running in various directions and there was danger
from them. It was therefore important to give them "a general
line" to follow. His Majesty should give a lead to the feudal lords
and "the hundred officials/* and show the public what his inten-
tions were. A study of some of the preliminary drafts shows that
the first article, at least in its early forms, contemplated not a na-
tional assembly but a council of feudal lords. Yuri's first draft has
no text under the heading Article i, but simply a note saying
"General idea of a deliberative form." The next version, that of
Fukuoka, says: "A council of feudal lords shall be established,"
and this is accepted by Kido without change.

We need not stop for further textual criticism. It is enough to
say that the proclamation which ushered in the government of
June 1868 cannot be regarded as definitely promising- an elective
legislature and equal political and social tights for all subjects.
All the drafts distinguish between civil and military officers on the
one hand and the common people on the other. The first article, in
the usually accepted English translations, says "All classes of peo-
ple" or "High and low," These versions are somewhat misleading,

819

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

since the Japanese text shows a definite consciousness of division
into classes and not of political or social equality. It is true that
they represent the meaning ascribed to the Charter Oath by the
liberal opposition in the following two decades, and this was also
the interpretation later spread abroad by Japanese propagandists
anxious to make a good impression in England and the United
States. But seeing that when the proclamation was issued feudalism
had not yet been abolished, the clansmen had still to be reassured
and the general public was neither experienced nor interested in
political forms, it is most improbable that the government then in
power should have intended to set up popular representative in-
stitutions, to allow the ignorant masses to decide the national
polity, and to break down all existing class divisions by fiat. They
may have thought it wise to hold out such prospects as a distant
goal, for there was certainly apparent at that time a widespread if
vague desire for reform, which it was important not to disappoint.
But in 1868 not many Japanese, even in well-educated circles, had
more than rudimentary notions about democratic forms of govern-
ment. Indeed, the very idea of liberty at that date was startling, if
attractive.

It is important to note that the Proclamation of June 1868 did
not state in terms anything that had not already been proposed by
the Shogunate when it was trying to come to terms with the throne
and suggesting means of consulting opinion throughout the coun-
try. It was not until some years later that the general public be-
came familiar, through books and speeches and newspapers, with
Western political theory and practice. It is^therefore reasonable to
assume that Kido and his colleagues were temporizing when they
devised the Charter Oath, and that their main purpose was to keep
public opinion quiet, or to forestall dissatisfaction, while they de-
voted themselves to immediate problems. If further evidence is
peeded, it can be found in the extremely bureaucratic system that
was in fact adopted after the proclamation had been issued.

The supreme organ was the Dajokwan or Council of State, in
which was concentrated all authority, whether executive, legisla-
tive, or judicial. Its several powers were exercised by three bodies
which, though distinct from one another, were integral parts of the
Council. These were a deliberative chamber comprising an upper
and a lower house; an office of the President of the Council; and
five departments of state, those of the Shinto Religion, War, For-
eign Affairs, Finance, and Justice. The highest offices fell to princes
of the blood and to the court and territorial nobility, "because due
affection should be shown to relatives of the Sovereign and due re-
spect to persons of rank"; but real power remained in the hands of
the advisory officials, who were as before samurai from the western

The Remnants of Feudalism

clans — 'Okubo, Kido, Goto, Itagaki, Soyejima, Saigo, Ito, and
Okuma. The deliberative assembly was at first composed only of
samurai representing the clans, but a departure was made by ex-
tending membership to representatives of the three great cities and
of Imperial — that is to say, of former Tokugawa — territory. The
assembly proved incapable of any useful discussion or advice and

OKUBO TOSHIMICHI (1832-78)

A Satsuma samuraL He was the most influential member
of the first Meiji government.

lapsed into disuse after a few sessions, not unexpectedly since the
matters referred to it were either trivial or were foregone conclu-
sions. The questions on its agenda had already been decided by
Okubo, Kido, and their colleagues in consultation with the heads
of the government.

It is clear that the first system of government established under
the terms of the Charter Oath did not embody any Western forms
and was not inspired by any specific Western influence. It was, in
fact, as was freely stated at the time, a reversion to pre-feudal in-
stitutions. It was modelled on the administration set up in A.D. 701
in imitation of the Chinese system, and established almost exactly

m

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

the same offices with the same titles. It embodied in particular one
very ancient feature: namely, the precedence of the Department of
Religion over all other departments of state.

It is true, however, that the new system included some innova-
tions. A deliberative assembly was not part of Japanese tradition,
though in ancient and mediaeval Japan such communities as great
monasteries were governed by councils drawn from their members,
and under the successive feudal regimes much business was left by
the Shogun to councils or committees. It is therefore not certain
that the idea of a deliberative assembly was of foreign origin,
though some points in this early Constitution can perhaps be
traced to foreign influence of a very general kind, as for example
the threefold division of powers, which had already come to the
notice of Japanese missions to the United States and to Europe in
1860 and 1861.

The structure of June 1868 needs no further description, for
it was modified at intervals until in 1871 a commission was set up
to make plans for reorganizing the central government. Still fur-
ther changes were subsequently made and it was not until 1889
that a permanent form of organization was reached. JThese numer-
ous revisions reflect the, unsettled conditions of the time and may
be said to have been the result of a necessary process ~o£ trial and
^error. Though we need not follow this process in detail, it is best
for a proper understanding of the institutional growth of the first
twenty years or so of Meiji to know something of the problems
faced by the small ruling oligarchy that came into power in 1868.

It cannot be too emphatically stated that the steps taken on the
yay to the form of government reached in 1889 were dictated not
by theoretical considerations but by the demands of the domestic
political situation. Okubo, Kido, and the other leaders had to con-
sider not how to adapt Western practices to Japanese needs, but
how to meet the exigencies of the very precarious situation in
which the established government found itself for some years after
1868. Indeed, it is only just within the bounds of truth to call it
an established government, since the first care of its members was
to preserve its life rather than to consider its anatomy.

Iji 1868, though such central authority as the late Tokugawa
government used to exercise had been destroyed, vestiges ot teudal-
ism as an institution and much of the feudal spirit still survived.
The nominally centralized government that came into power in
1868 owed its very existence to the support of the great clans that
had espoused the Imperial cause, and it was their military strength
that had restored the sovereign power. The government had little
military or financial strength of its own, and no moral authority
except that which it derived from the Emperor, at that time a

The Remnants of Feudalism

youth of fifteen. This last was admittedly a powerful advantage,
but one that might easily be lost if the government offended the
great feudal lords who, though they had combined to displace the
Shogun, were still masters in their own domains. They were ca-
pable of resisting by force any policy they might hold to be against
their own or the nation's interests.

The Restoration would, however, have been in vain if the
feudatories were not deprived of their autonomy; and the problem
that the new government had to solve was not one of administra-
tive forms but of gradually strengthening itself until it could with
safety destroy the still considerable remnants of feudal power. For
this purpose it needed not only sound policies which would com-
mand substantial approval throughout the country, but also suffi-
cient force to discourage, and if necessary to suppress, any serious
opposition that might threaten from either of two sources. One of
these was a possible combination of dissatisfied feudal lords; the
other was an active discontent among those numerous samurai and
ronin who might, as individuals, stand to lose by changes that were
imperative if the government was really to exercise universal au-
thority and to demolish every form of separatism. To meet such
emergencies J:he first need was to equip and train a national army.
This was commenced by the introduction of a conscription law in
1870* But time was required for pteparation, and the law could
not come into effective operation for two or three years. Mean-
while it was essential for the government to attract to itself all the
support it could gain from the most powerful groups in the coun-
try. These were the great western clans of Satsuma, Chdshu, Hizen,
and Tosa. Fortunately they, or a majority of their members, were
convinced of the need for a strong central government, and they
took action which, though no doubt inspired by regard for their
own interests, was none the less enlightened and magnanimous.
In March 1869 they voluntarily offered their fiefs to_ the . .throne,,
thus declaring themselves on the side of the government and ready
to share in the destruction of feudalism. They made this offer in a
document that stated: "There must be one central governing body
and one universal authority, which must be preserved intact."

By this time the last resistance of the Tokugawa had been
broken and the new administration felt able to treat the defeated
vassals with some liberality. This proved unpleasing to certain ele-
ments in the clans, in particular that of Satsuma, which was tradi-
tionally the bitterest enemy of the Tokugawa house. There was a
difficult moment here, for while the Satsuma clan contained a
progressive group inspired by Okubo, who held an important
place in the new government, the remainder — and this included
Shimadzu, the leader of the clan, as well as Saigo Takamori, one

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

of its most influential members and a popular hero — felt jealous
of their younger colleagues and were disappointed by the small
part that Satsuma as a whole was playing in the new administra-
tion. There is no doubt that most of the clans which combined to
overthrow the Tokugawa were moved by a desire to destroy .a
regime that they hated rather than any intention to construct a
new central authority; and bodies that have cohered for purposes
of destruction frequently fly apart when their task is finished. It
would be wrong to suppose that there was uniform opinion in any
one clan, but it is certain that in many clans there was a strong
element looking forward not to the displacement of feudal rule
by centralized power but to a new form of feudalism in which
local autonomy would be preserved under some kind of federal
council upon which all would be represented. The most powerful
clans doubtless entertained hopes that they, or some combination
among them, would dominate the national scene, and Satsuma, it
is certain, at one time nourished ambitions of replacing the Sho-
gunate under the Imperial segis.

It was because of dangerous possibilities such as these that the
new government had to move cautiously, and the emphasis upon
deliberative assemblies which is embodied in the Charter Oath
was not a concession to rising democratic sentiment but a safe-
guard against the ascendancy of a single feudal group. It will nat-
urally be asked why then did the four great clans, which were the
mosf likely pretenders, consent to surrender their fiefs at a time
when the newly established government was lacking in force. No
full account of their motives is possible, but it is safe to guess that
an attempt by one of them to seize power would have raised a coali-
tion against it and brought about a really disastrous civil war.
Other and worthier considerations were also in the minds of many
clansmen, especially the active-minded younger samurai who were
imbued with patriotic feeling and influenced by a spirit of reform
that filled the contemporary air. Many of these, moreover, were
chafing under the restraints of narrow clan politics, confined by
petty local duties and burning to exercise their talents in a wider
sphere. For these reasons the young reformers at the centre of gov-
ernment were not in fact so powerless as they appeared. They
could, if they were cautious and tactful, mobilize on their side
very strong forces, of which not the least valuable was a sense of
loyalty to the throne and to the country at large which the stirring
events of the Restoration had fostered.

It was in reliance upon this spirit that Okubo, Kido, and their
colleagues persuaded the four clans of western Japan to surrender
their fiefs. The idea of the surrender of the fiefs was not new. It
had been suggested before the Restoration by the Owari branch

The Remnants oj Feudalism

of the Tokugawa family, though at that time it was expected that
the surrendered fiefs would be redistributed by the Emperor. The
reformers all thought that it was a logical and necessary sequel of
the surrender of the Shogun's powers that the daimyos should
make a similar gesture. They were agreed in thinking that the
establishment of provincial governments under the crown was
necessary in order to unify the nation and also, in Iwakura's own
words, "essential if we are to be on a par with foreign countries/9
It is significant that this care for national prestige recurs frequently
in these early documents and there can be no doubt that it was
an important factor in persuading reluctant feudal lords to agree
to a measure that was contrary to their personal interests. That
some were reluctant is clear from the fact that Kido first thought of
only a partial surrender of territory, but was persuaded by Ito that
it would be a mistake to take half measures.

Thus the reformers passed safely through the, most crucial
phase in the abolition of feudalism. But there were still obstacles
to surmount. The remaining clans, with few exceptions, followed
the example of the leaders before the end of the year, but there
were still discontented factions in Satsuma and elsewhere, so that
the government felt constrained to make a conciliatory gesture.
In 1871, therefore, an imposing mission was sent to Satsuma
headed by Prince Iwakura as the Emperor's deputy and including
Okubo, himself a Satsuma samurai of great influence in the clan.
They carried a message from the Emperor to Shimadzu, urging
him to throw his weight behind the Imperial government and they
proposed changes in the composition of the government which
would give him a strong voice in national affairs. Similar visits
were paid to Choshu and other clans that it was important to
sweeten, and thus a sorely needed composite support was obtained
by the central authority. One valuable result was the formation
of a force of some eight thousand men, to which the clans contrib-
uted, thus establishing the principle of a national army.

The surrender of the fiefs, though accepted in principle in. a
decree of August 1869, could not be carried out at once, since the
government had at its disposal neither the funds nor the personnel
required for the administration of the new territories. Further,
and even more important, the actual transfer of the fiefs to civil
governors would involve the complete abolition of feudalism, be-
cause the resources of the fiefs would belong to the state, and the
samurai could iio longer continue as the constituents of private
armies. How fully these consequences of their gesture were fore-
seen by the feudal nobles is difficult to tell. The government was
not yet ready to put them to the test and made only a modest
preliminary move. It assimilated the administration of the sur~

325

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

rendered domains to that of the areas already under the jurisdic-
tion of the crown, but left their former feudal rulers in charge as
Imperial delegates with the title of governor.

It was not until two years later that the final step in the aboli-
tion of feudal institutions was taken by the issue, in August 187 1 ,
of ^a brief decree which announced that feudal domains were
henceforth to become units of local administration (prefectures)
under the central government. This edict, surely one of theTmost
laconic announcements of a revolution ever made, was reinforced
by an Imperial message addressed to the new governors, explaining
that the administration meant what it said, that this was not one
of those orders which need not be obeyed. Shortly afterwards all
the former daimyos were ordered to leave their estates and settle
with their families in the capital. This was bold action and bore a
strong resemblance to the Tokugawa policy of keeping feudal
lords away from their fiefs and in attendance at the Yedo court
so that they should not plot mischief at home. It succeeded be-
cause, in the interval between April 1868 (the date of the Charter
Oath) and August 1871, the government had strengthened its
hand by the conciliatory measures already described and by a judi-
cious reshuffling of offices of state which, for the near future at
least, assured the support of the great clans.

The general public at this time counted little in the balance of
political forces, for the real danger to the administration was not
popular objection to change but actual armed resistance by mem-
bers of the military class. Nevertheless there was some growth of
interest in national affairs in the cities, and the government took
the precaution of inspiring newspaper articles against feudalism,
thus for the first time in Japanese history condescending to take
into account the opinions of the general public. The newspaper
was a weekly, founded in 1871 at the instance of Kido, largely for
this particular purpose.

This was an important departure and resulted in a rapid in-
crease in the influence of the press, which was within a few years
to cause great trouble to the government in power. But the most
effective single measure that the government was able to take in
its campaign to consolidate central authority was the formation of
a conscript army. This, as we have noted, was provided for in the
Conscription Law of 1870, though there was no army in being un-
til 1873; but it was a key measure in the reform program and mean-
while the government could rely upon the composite force con-
tributed by th£ clans, which, in case of need, would certainly have
been reinforced by much voluntary enlistment from all reformist
quarters.

The part played by the gradual building up of a national mili-

826

The Remnants of Feudalism

tary force in shaping the character of Japanese political life can-
not be underestimated. It is true enough that foreign influence pre-
scribed some of the political forms that were ultimately adopted,
but the necessities of the situation in the early years of Meiji, com-
bined with the military antecedents of most of the protagonists,
gave to the army a preponderating place in the national life. It
brought into the political foreground men like Yamagata Ari-
tomo (later Marshal Prince Yamagata) , who may be regarded as
the founder of the modern Japanese army. The shaky government
in its young days was much strengthened by the force that was
formed largely by the western clans, and could scarcely have sur-
vived had that group been hostile. Consequently the composition
of ministries from 1871 onwards was largely determined by the
fact that it was those clans that had made possible the transition
from feudal rule to centralized monarchy. For many years men
from Satsuma and Chdshu in particular continued to dominate
the political stage and to hold key positions in the army and navy.
It is obvious that governments so constituted were bound to ac-
quire a special character, which was as important in shaping the
national polity of Japan as the foreign influences to which she was
submitted. Or, to put it in another way, those influences could
operate only within limits set by the history of the Restoration
movement and the antecedents of the men who brought it about
and carried it through. To look upon the Restoration as a process
by which feudal institutions and feudal thought were replaced by
unqualified Western forms and ideas would be to misunderstand
both its nature and its sequels.

The experiences of the government after the surrender of the
fiefs show that its leaders had no grand design for reconstruction.
It was not possible for them to look far ahead, and they had to
proceed step by step, as was natural and indeed inevitable in times
of commotion and uncertainty. Their general aim was to establish
a stable central government and to develop the military and eco-
nomic strength of their country so that it could face the inter-
national future with confidence. On long-range polity all parties
and factions were agreed; but the'immediate problem was to en-
sure domestic peace and to prevent the coalition of supporting
clans from dissolving.

The next step therefore was to provide for the dispossessed
rulers compensation for their loss of revenue and prestige, and to
treat the now unemployed samurai with a degree of liberality that
would keep them at least satisfied enough not to revolt against the
new order. This Heed had already beenforeseen when the govern-
ment in 1869 had granted to the daimyos one half of their rev-
enues upon the surrender of their fiefs. But such generous treat-

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

ment could not continue indefinitely, since the daimyos were re>
lieved of far more than half of their expenditure, at the charge of
the state. The samurai had been given varying proportions of
their customary allowances, and this also was a heavy burden upon
the national finances, since they formed an unproductive class,
numbering with their dependants perhaps as many as two million.
The government sought a way out of its financial embarrassments
by sending a mission abroad in 1871, under the leadership of
Iwakura and including Okubo, Kido, and Ito, to ask for a revision
of the treaties that would permit of raising import and export
duties. This attempt failed and, an increase of direct taxation be-
ing out of the question, the only means of balancing accounts was
to reduce expenditure on pensions.

Accordingly at the end of 1873 the government announced a
voluntary commutation scheme for the samurai, which was so un-
attractive that few of them accepted its terms. The feudal lords,
meanwhile, were left in receipt of their subsidies and were able,
moreover, to retain such capital sums as they had accumulated un-
der the previous regime. By 1876, however, the government was
obliged under financial stress to introduce compulsory commuta-
tion for both daimyo and samurai.

Into details of this new plan we need not enter. It proved fa-
vourable to all but the least important daimyos, since tfce govern-
ment as well as providing them with good pensions took over some
of their debts. But the small feudal chieftains and a majority of
the samurai suffered a severe cut in their emoluments. A samurai
of good standing whose annual rice allowance was nominally one
thousand bushels in pre-Restoration days, found himself reduced
to about four hundred after 1868, and now in 1876 he was obliged
to accept a payment in bonds and cash which would give him an
annual income equal to the value of one hundred and fifty bushels.
Samurai with low allowances were cut down to a pittance on which
a single man could scarcely subsist. This measure, though it might
be justified by financial necessity, was a gross breach of faith of a
kind common to revolutionary governments, and raised a great
outcry among the samurai. But the plan was carried through with
some modification and reduced t£e national expenditure by about
one third. It was a bold step to take and it produced some disagree-
able results. It may not have been the true cause of a series of
samurai revolts that followed closely upon the announcement of
commutation, but it certainly made already smouldering discon-
tent blaze up in several parts of Japan. There were uprisings
among samurai from 1874 onwards, that being the year in which
the voluntary scheme was announced. The pronunciamentos of
the disaffected groups usually took the form of attacks upon the

888

The Remnants of Feudalism

government for Its policy of abolishing Japanese customs and en-
couraging Western ideas. Thus the Shimpuren or Divine Wind
League, a society formed by Kumamoto men, was an extremely
violent and xenophobe body, basing itself upon Shinto tenets. It
bitterly criticized the government order of 1876 forbidding the
wearing of swords and proclaimed that the toleration of Chris-
tianity would lead to selling the sacred soil of Japan to foreigners.
In this revolt a number of Shinto priests took part. Other risings,
in Hagi, Akidzuki, and Yamaguchi, were of a similar character, but
the leader of the Yamaguchi samurai, one Maebara Issei, partic-
ularly attacked the pension scheme as an injustice to four hundred
thousand innocent samurai.

These local disturbances were put down with little difficulty,
but they were followed in 1877 by a rebellion on a large scale, le"cl
by Saigo Takamori, a prominent Satsuma samurai, which was sup-
pressed only after several months of bloodshed. Something more
must be said about this last struggle of feudal irreconcilables, but
we should first examine a little more closely the conditions that
produced it.

The great feudal lords did not suffer any serious loss when the^
were deprived of their fiefs. Few of them had been more than
nominal rulers of their own domains, so .that they were not con-
scious of any loss of power. Altogether their position as private in-
dividuals after the complete abolition of feudalism was in most
cases socially more agreeable and financially more comfortable
than it had been when they were only nominally powerful and
rich. Many of them were in fact to form a new and influential class
of rentier,, investing in banking, commerce or industry, or serving
in legislative bodies, or engaged in other careers where they could
display more enterprise and enjoy more freedom than before.

The position and prospects of the samurai were by contrast
wretched. They had already in the late Tokugawa period suffered
heavy losses, and now, but for a fortunate few, they were ill-fitted
for the kind of life offered to them. Their pensions were so small
that even the higher grades of samurai were left in straitened cir-
cumstances, while the lower grades were reduced to penury or to
real destitution. It is remarkable that they should as a class have
resigned themselves to such treatment with so little protest. Their
traditional contempt of money and their ignorance of its manage-
ment, upon which they prided themselves, no doubt forbade them
to make a public grievance of their poverty^

But they had other reasons for complaint, for almost every

i J. R. Black, the author of Young Japan, who had a wide acquaintance among
members of this class, records that he remembers only one instance when a samurai
in conversation showed an interest in money (Vol. II f p. 459) ,

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

measure announced by the new government deprived them of
some cherished privilege or spelled the dissolution of the society
in which they had been brought up. From before the Restoration
foreign ideas had begun to spread. The very introduction of the
musket and the rifle had diminished the martial monopoly of
the swordsman, and Western military uniforms had blemished the
customary heraldic scene. In 1871 the government had given per-
mission to samurai to wear swords or not, as they pleased. This
was in effect to rule that the sword was no longer an indispensable
badge of gentility; and in 1872 the people were directed to dis-
continue the old fashion of hairdressing — the topknot — and to
wear their hair short, after the foreign style. This again was re-
garded as interfering with good old customs to no purpose. The
edict announcing conscription for military service was perhaps the
most objectionable of all innovations to the samurai, since it meant
that, their occupation gone, they would lose their privileged so-
cial position. They thought little of farmers as soldiers and felt
humiliated by being lumped together with common citizens. In
subsequent clashes between samurai and government troops the
samurai were often defeated because they despised their adver-
saries, thinking themselves a match for any number of peasants in
uniform.

yhe tendency of Meiji legislation, though it was not equalitar-
ian in principle, was to break down class distinctions once feudal-
ism was abolished, because the traditional division of the people
into four classes was no longer appropriate. Once the soldier had
lost his pre-eminence, there was no good reason to continue the
division between farmer, artisan, and trader, which was already
blurred. Some concession to pride of ancestry was made by divid-
ing the population into three main classes, kwazoku, or nobles;
shizokUj or former samurai; and heimin, or commoners, which in-
cluded all others. The designation of shizoku carried with it no
rights or exemptions. It meant that as a class the samurai retained
nothing but a name. Their profession, their revenues, and their
prestige had vanished or sunk to a low level, while new rights were
being conferred upon the other classes, who could now choose
their own occupations and even obtain title to land. This last
change struck at the very heart of feudal pride and privilege, for
feudal society rested upon the tenancy of land by the peasant and
its ownership by the lord. It was for that reason that Maebara Issei,
whose revolt has just been mentioned, attacked the issue of titles
in land to private owners as an infringement of the rights of the
crown. Private ownership meant an end to the land-revenue econ-
omy that had for so long sustained the samurai and their ancestors.

In circumstances like these it is not surprising that ijjjf series of

380

The Remnants of Feudalism

samurai uprisings which began in 1874 should have culminated
in a large-scale revolt. This was the so-called Satsuma Rebellion
of 1877. Its leader, Saigo Takamori, was a popular samurai of the
Satsuma clan who had played a great part in the Restoration. Per-
sonal ambition and grievances were important among the factors
that brought about this rising, but essentially it was the expiring
struggle of conservative or reactionary opinion against a govern-

SAIGO TAKAMORI (18*7-77)

ment determined to crush all subversive, not to say separatist
trends.

The rebellion could not have been planned if there had not
existed a great number of discontented samurai in most parts of
Japan, but particularly in the west. There the men of Satsuma and
Choshu were divided in opinion. There was a reform party whose
members were behind their clansmen in the government; but
there was a conservative party, or rather a number of conservative
factions, which frankly detested foreign influences upon Japanese
culture and at the same time desired a greater share in the power
exercised by the central authority.

The final struggle was brought about by a clash of opinion
upon a matter of foreign policy. The government, aware of Japan's
economic and military weakness, thought it wise to keep free from

831

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

complications abroad and to concentrate upon internal reform.
The conservatives argued that internal reform, which, as they saw
*k.was B9l^iB§ but the adoption of foreign ways, was going too
fast, and that what the country needed was action which, by raising
the national prestige, would stimulate the national energies now
flagging under the strain of too much foreign teaching.

Since the Restoration a nationalist school had called for the
annexation of the Luchu Islands and the Bonins; the punishment
of Korea for an alleged insult to Japan; an expedition to Formosa
to chastise the savages who had ill-treated Japanese subjects and
whom the Chinese could not control; and finally a stern attitude
towards Russia in the matter of territorial rights in Sakhalin. Such
adventures would certainly have raised the spirits of the samurai,
by providing ample exercise for their swords and thus demonstrat-
ing their importance to the state. But whenjn 1873 Iwakura and
his colleagues returned from their mission abroad they were dis-
turbed to find that^ agitation for an expedition against Korea had
jyrown to such a point that a split in the government had devel-
oped. Even Okubo, the mainstay of the part^Tcommitted to do-
mestic reform, was disposed, in the hope of appeasing the national-
prestige party, to agree to an expedition to Formosa as a lesser evil.
But his colleague Kido took a firm stand and argued that internal
reform must take the first place. An interesting passage in his
memorial to the Chancellor reads as follows: "There are now in
this country thirty million people who do not yet en joy, the full
protection of the government, poor and ignorant persons who
have no rights and do not yet know that the nation exists. Though
it is the business of the government to see to the protection of
the people, the implements are still lacking and little can be done.
In my own departments, of Home Affairs and Education, the serv-
ices that can at present be rendered to the Emperor's subjects are
even less than those of former feudal days/' The government, how-
ever, gave way to pressure, and Kido resigned.

No immediate harm resulted from the Formosan affair, since
the Peking government had been "squared," and there were no
clashes between Japanese and Chinese troops. The departure of
a force of three thousand samurai that went to Formosa in May
1874 removed from the political scene at least for six months a
number of turbulent characters. But the government had sur-
rendered on a point of principle without even slaking the thirst
ql the nationalists for overseas adventure. In justice to the latter it
must be said that their view was not one they had hastily adopted
for purposes of political manoeuvre. It had a somewhat more re-
spectable origin, since for some years before the Restoration the
loyalist, anti-Bakufu movement had been inspired by the teachings

The Remnants of Feudalism

of such men as Yoshida Shoin, who had argued for the centraliza-
tion of power under the Emperor as a necessary prelude to Japa-
nese expansion in Asia. Indeed, it is clear enough that ultimate ex-
pansionist designs were harboured by most of the leaders of the
Restoration, and it need not be supposed (according to the current
fashion of ascribing Oriental misdeeds to Occidental corruption)
that the foreign wars that Japan waged later in the nineteenth
century were inspired solely by the example of contemporary
Europe. Aq. urge to expand is visible, though for long periods la-
tent, throughout Japanese history.

It was strongest among the western clans, whose territory
fronted on the sea, but all coastal provinces developed at least an
interest in foreign trade. It is true that this urge was suppressed
by Tokugawa policy after leyasu's death, but the seclusion policy
inevitably produced a sense of confinement which by the end of
the eighteenth century was expressed with increasing emphasis.

The discord between the pacific and bellicose schools in 1873
arose not on a point of international justice but from a difference of
opinion as to what was feasible and politic in prevailing circum-
stances at home. Even among members of the government there
were some who favoured what was called a strong, that is to say an
offensive, policy towards China and Korea. During the absence
abroad of Iwakura, Okubo, and Kido the Council of State and
the various ministries were dominated by Saigo, Itagaki, Eto,
Soyejirna, and Okuma, all men from clans that contained a num-
ber of discontented and aggressive samurai. Consequently, after
the mission returned to Japan in order to resist the plans of the
expansionists, the governing coalition broke up, and in October
1873 a number of the representatives of the western clans with-
drew.

The reconstructed government, from which Saigo, Itagaki,
Goto, and Eto (from Satsuma, Tosa, Tosa, and Saga respectively)
were missing, now included Sanjo and Iwakura in the highest
offices, with Okubo, Kido, Ito, and Okuma in important positions
as before. It was this government that began to introduce meas-
ures, such as the commutation of pensions, that were to strike the
final blow at feudalism. The dissident movement began with an
Attempt on Iwakura's life in January 1 874, and was followed by a
rebellion in Hizen, led by Eto, who had just resigned from the
Council of State, and then by those other risings which have al-
ready been mentioned. Saigo, who upon retirement from the
Council had withdrawn to his province, meanwhile occupied him-
self in the military training of young men in Satsuma. He ac-
cepted office in the government from time to time, as did his feudal
lord Shimadzu, but it was clear that neither had any intention of

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

supporting the domestic policy of the administration. They were
aiming at the restoration of feudal powers in one shape or another,
Saigo largely on grounds of personal ambition and Shimadzu out
of sheer reactionary sentiment. Shimadzu, while professing at times
to co-operate in the work of reform, had never been in sympathy
with it, and although some of the most progressive members of
the government and the civil service were of Satsuma origin, the
general run of Satsuma samurai clung stubbornly to their old preju-
dices. Hatred of the government, inflamed by its successive measures
of change, burst out in open warfare after the prohibition of swords
went into effect in January 1877. Shimadzu, who was in Tokyo at
that time, left in disgust. He with his followers retired along the
old Tokaido, the Eastern Sea Road, which had in, feudal days seen
many brilliant processions of feudal lords with their armed ret-
inues as they proceeded to or from their terms of attendance on the
Shogun in Yedo. But on this occasion, symbolic of the last stage in
the decline of feudalism, the Satsuma men carried their swords
wrapped in cotton bags, and no heralds went before their chieftain
to warn bystanders to prostrate themselves as he passed. Arriving
in Kagoshima, Shimadzu took no further part in political life and
remained in seclusion.

Rebellion broke out under Saigo's leadership early in 1877.
Hostilities lasted for six months, not spreading beyond Satsuma,
for neighbouring clans remained alert but neutral. They ended
in the defeat of Saigo, who was wounded and died on the battle-
field, decapitated at his own request by a friend, to preserve his
military honour. The government forces numbered 65,000 against
40,000 rebels, and their losses were approximately equal — about
6,000 killed and 10,000 wounded on each side.

This was the real end of six hundred years of feudalism in
Japan, the triumph of the new order over the old. Perhaps one
of its most striking results was to demonstrate that the new con-
script army could fight as well as the flower of the military caste. At
the same time the central government drew great strength and
confidence from the victory of its soldiers. It could now count upon
strong national support and need no longer fear an armed rebel-
lion or depend for its existence upon the fickle western clans.
v Before leaving this subject to pass on to a recital of subsequent
political events, it is pertinent to consider some singular aspects
of the struggle between the forces usually described as "progres-
sive" and "reactionary," seeing that it left traces in later political
history. The effort to overthrow the Bakufu had been shared by
many parties from different motives, which ranged from a simple
desire to seize the Shogun's power to an unmixed intention to
establish throughout the country a uniform government in which

SS4

MINSTREL PERFORMANCE ON COMMODORE PERRY'S FLAGSHIP
1854

Drawing by a member of the Japanese delegation
to negotiate the treaty

AN ENGLISH MERCHANT IN A YOKOHAMA STORE

Color print by Sadahide, circa iS6o. Typical of the Western

subjects chosen by print artists after the arrival of foreigners

in Japan. (From British Museum collection)

The Remnants of Feudalism

no single faction should preponderate. The only principle which
these different parties held in common was that of loyalty to the
Emperor, and it was this principle that, by unifying the most
diverse opinions, brought the Meiji revolution to a successful and
relatively bloodless issue. It resulted that an appeal to the sense
of loyalty, which was sincere enough in most cases, became a ha-
bitual political device in time of conflict between parties. The
watchword of Kinno, or "Revere the Emperor/' once a genuine
war cry which aroused a fresh patriotic ardour, became in course
of time a mere debased currency in political exchanges. It was by
a charge of infringing the Imperial prerogative that the revolting
samurai justified their attacks upon the government in 1874.
Similarly, it was Shimadzu's contention that the men in Tokyo,
who had introduced one detestable reform after another, were
abusing the power that they exercised in the sovereign's name. In
taking this stand he was only repeating a practice as old as feudal-
ism itself, for each military dictator from Yoritomo to Nobunaga
had accused his rivals of usurping power and represented himself
as a protector of the throne. Conversely, when the government
learned of Saigo's revolt, their first care was to proclaim him pub-
licly as a rebel against the Emperor and to appoint an Imperial
prince as commander of the expedition against him.

These accusations of treason or disrespect to the throne became
a fixed political habit, which was carried over into the contro-
versies of the twentieth century. In his valuable Political History
of Japan Dr. W. W. McLaren stated that, as a result of the Satsuma
Rebellion, "in political theory it was to be no longer possible to
separate the throne and the imperial government, or to claim
loyalty to the former as a pretext for armed attack upon the latter."
This is perhaps true in so far as it concerns large-scale rebellion,
but it overlooks the importance of the appeal to loyalty as a device
that has remained characteristic of Japanese political strategy
throughout modern times. It is true that it has usually been re-
sorted to by bureaucratic governments in order to stifle opposition.
They have repeatedly identified themselves with the throne and
charged their opponents with disloyalty when government meas-
ures have been criticized. But the same argument was certainly
used by politicians out of office. Thus, to cite a familiar instance,
the Minister of Education in a short-lived party administration of
1898 said in a public speech: "Suppose that you dreamed that
Japan had adopted a republican form of government. . . ." He
and his colleagues were at once obliged to resign on the ground
that they nourished disloyal sentiments.

Similar stratagems were used to upset ministries in later times,
and it is well known that in trials for mutiny and political murder,

835

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

which were frequent for some years from 1932 onwards, the assas-
sins would usually plead in defence that their victims had usurped
or abused power that belonged to the Emperor. They were expo-
nents of the traditional appeal to loyalty, by which Saigo had
justified his act of treason in 1877, and although none of them be-
came a national hero like Saigo, they did gain considerable public
sympathy and approval.

Saigo's career illustrates another characteristic feature of public
life in Japan. He was a man of fine physique, great courage, and
abundant charm, so that he was almost universally admired. De-
spite his ambitious follies he is still a venerated figure in the na-
tional legend and his statue is one of the ornaments of the capital.
Perhaps for lack of political experience the Japanese people as a
whole appear to be less interested in principles than in persons,
and subsequent political history shows that in Japan as in other
Oriental countries personal popularity is often more important
than capacity, or even integrity, in a public man.

One further and important political consequence flowed from
the Satsuma Rebellion. The government leaders after their vic-
tory did not show any resentment towards the mutinous province.
They took a sensible and liberal line, which allowed the Satsuma
men, many of whom were capable and progressive, a large share
in the administration. Indeed, before long the coalition of the
four leading clans broke up, owing to the secession of representa-
tives of Tosa and Hizen, and from 1877 onwards the most im-
portant offices, both civil and military, were held by men from
Satsuma and Choshu. The strong position thus gained by these
two clans gave them a kind of vested interest in affairs of state and
led to what was called "clan government," a peculiar phenomenon
of Japanese politics, which persisted for two generations or more
and had not entirely disappeared before the Pacific war of 1941.
The term "clan government" is somewhat misleading, since the
clans as such exercised no power, nor can it be said that the clans-
men worked in favour of their own provinces. But for a long time
it was difficult for outsiders to secure or to hold any post of high
importance; and those who succeeded in penetrating the circle
often found themselves faced by the resistance of clan solidarity.
This feature of Japanese political life is of course not without
parallel in other countries, since a governing class is usually com-
posed of men of like social origin. But a complete analogy would
demand, for instance, that in England all Whigs in high position
should come from Lancashire or Yorkshire.

The predominance of men from Satsuma and Choshu is of
course due to the superior strength of those two feudal princi-
palities and to the decisive role they played in the Restoration.

336

The Remnants of Feudalism

The samurai who rose to power were not the successors of a feudal
aristocracy, since the feudal princes had long before the Restora-
tion let their power slip into the hands of intelligent subordinates
of very modest standing. Consequently the sequence of events in
Japan after tEe^Sestruction of feudalism does not offer a close
analogy to the development iiTEngland of a rich and politically
powerful landowning class. The feudal lords, though some of
them retained or purchased considerable tracts of arable or forest
land, did not hold enough to dominate the agricultural economy
and so to secure a predominant political influence. They invested
in banking, industry, and trade and to that extent might be politi-
cally important, but as a ruling class they were permanently dis-
placed by the young samurai who established themselves at_the
Restoration as a self-perpetuating oligarchy of bureaucrats and
leaders of the armed services. The great careers in Japanese history
for several decades thereafter are those of new men who were so-
cially perhaps the near equivalents of small gentry and yeomen
farmers in England, though this analogy must not be pressed.
Okubo, Kido, Ito, Yamagata, Katsura, Okuma, Inouye, Itagaki,
and later men like Inukai, Komura, and Kato, were all of very
modest though respectable origin, and the only members of the
old nobility to figure prominently in political life were Iwakura,
Sanjo, Saionji, and Konoe, not former feudal lords, but members
of the court nobility who owed their positions to their connection
with the Imperial family rather than to exceptional talent.

Thus, it will be seen, to think of Japanese history since 1868 in
terms of European history can easily lead to error. The basic social
conditions of Japan at the close of the feudal period were unlike
those which obtained in western Europe in one most important as-
pect. The privileged feudal classes, apart from two or three hun-
dred feudal nobles and a not very numerous body of highly placed
officials, consisted of some 400,000 poor and landless samurai, who
were for the most part little more than the noncommissioned
officers and private soldiers of a modern army.2 They might be
described as the educated class in Japan, but (except for a mi-
nority) only in contrast with illiterate peasants and workmen.
Thus in Japan the privileged class was economically weak, deriv-
ing its strength from a monopoly of weapons and from a tradition
of behaviour that gave it a certain solidarity.

Even so, the samurai, though they had a common outlook upon
life, can scarcely be regarded as a homogeneous class for political

2 It should be remembered that there were grades among the samurai. The
lowest grade, called sotsu, were little more than menials. When the division of the
population into shizoku and heimin was made in 1872, the sotsu were grouped with
the commoners and not with the ex-samurai.

387

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

purposes, since clan rivalry prevented close intercourse between
fiefs and did not promote a feeling of common interest. It was be-
cause samurai opinion was divided that the reformers were able
to break up the feudal order without meeting concerted opposi-
tion throughout the country, and because for most samurai life
had become a conflict between pride and indigence. They found
themselves in that situation where an active element in the nation
feels that its fortunes may be bettered and can hardly be worsened
by change. Such a frame of mind smooths the path of reformers;
and the result shows that, while the loss of their income and status
brought hardship in many individual cases, as a class the samurai
adjusted themselves to new conditions and found employment
suited to their capacities. Naturally they carried over into the new
life the prejudices of the old, and it is here that one must seek an
explanation of certain political trends that developed and hard-
ened during the Meiji era.

In the Restoration movement and the reforms which followed,
the mass of the people played no part. It was members of the
samurai class who devised it, carried it through, and built up a
new political structure. They were men who had been brought up
to believe in discipline and firm government, to cultivate martial
virtues, and to set duties above rights. It would have been a miracle
if they had not applied these ideas in the performance of their
political task and fashioned an authoritarian regime. Their aim
was to reproduce on a national scale the conditions that had ob-
tained in feudal lordships, where the daimyo was nominally su-
preme but real power was exercised by his samurai counsellors.

Foreign and even some Japanese writers, discussing today the
political development of Japan since 1868, are apt to judge it by
standards of twentieth-century democracy or some other fictitious
absolute; and they are inclined to scold and condemn the Japanese
people for not evolving out of their native materials the forms that
Anglo-Saxon institutions have taken after a very long and very
different history. It is one of the purposes of this study to show
that, even assuming the perfection of Western models, the evolu-
tion of modern Japanese political life has been conditioned by a
past that made the adoption of purely Western practices unnatural
and indeed impossible. This may be deplorable, but the facts of
political life are, alas, hard and stubborn things, not to be changed
by ideological yearnings.

In the foregoing" pages the word "revolution" has been used
to describe the process by which the remnants of feudalism were
destroyed. But in its origins it was not a revolution comparable
to the English Revolution of 1688 or the French Revolution of
1789. It was a civil war fought with both political and military

338

Western Theory and Eastern Practice

weapons by one section of a dominant military class against an-
other. Its purpose was to replace an administration already obso-
lete and declining by a more efficient system of government giving
scope to new men. The leaders of the victorious party stood for
no new political theory, as is clear from the splits that soon divided
them; but having achieved their purpose of securing power, they
found that in order to keep it they must discard certain institu-
tions. In other and simpler words, "the abolition of feudalisnTwas
mainly an afterthought/'

3. Western Theory and Eastern Practice

HE SUPPRESSION of the Satsuma Rebellion marked the end of
attempts to overthrow the government by force of arms, but attack
now came from a new quarter and in a new guise. The clansmen
from Tosa and Hizen who had resigned in protest against the gov-
ernment's refusal to adopt a nationalist foreign policy transferred
the ground of opposition to domestic affairs. Tfre issue was no
longer the abolition of feudalism, but the conflict between con-
servative and progressive schools of political thought. But though
principles were at stake the struggle was complicated, if not dom-
inated, by personal rivalries. As early as 1873, Saigo, Itagaki, Goto,
Soyeshima, and Eto had withdrawn when Okubo and Kido had re-
fused to sanction minatory action against Korea. Saigo and Eto, as
we have seen, resorted to arms and paid with their lives. Itagaki,
Goto, and Soyeshima were not prepared to make a stand on the
Korean issue, which was for them secondary. They felt that Okubo,
Kido, and Ito were establishing an oligarchy from which they were
to be excluded, and they no doubt genuinely believed that the
country was being denied the representative government it needed
and desired. Accordingly they delivered their attack on the con-
stitutional issue, and thus the political history of the next few
years is concerned almost entirely with agitation for popular rights
and a struggle for parliamentary government.

Since we are attempting to assess the degree of Western influ-
ence upon political development at this time, it may be useful to
explain here that proposals to establish a national assembly had
been made some years before the Restoration. Even during the
seclusion period a vague and elementary knowledge of European
institutions had reached Japan through Dutch and Chinese books,
and this was of course enlarged after Perry's visit, when Japanese
missions began to visit foreign countries. The idea of parliamen-
tary government thus became familiar, though its working was
only imperfectly understood. Even Fukuzawa Yukichi, a con-

839

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

vinced modernist and advocate o£ reform, confessed after seeing
the English Parliament at work that he found representative irv
stitutions "very perplexing/' Very soon after 1860, Tokugawa of-
ficers, looking for ways of arresting the obvious decline of the
Shogunate, began to suggest among other reforms the setting up
of an assembly for the discussion of national affairs. Similar pro-
posals, but with somewhat different intentions, were made by of-
ficers of various clans whose aim was a compromise by which, while
powers would nominally be returned to the Emperor, they would
be exercised by feudal authorities through a kind of federal par-
liament. The Shogun (Keiki) himself was much interested in
these plans, and there is good reason to believe that when he sur-
rendered his powers he hoped for the establishment of a bicameral
assembly, with an upper house over which he would preside and
a lower house of samurai. The upper house would be composed of
court and feudal nobles. None of these plans was adopted before
the Restoration, but they were not forgotten.

Something of a parliamentary nature was tried under the first
Meiji government, when an assembly of samurai representing the
clans met in Tokyo in 1868 and 1869, but it proved quite ineffec-
tual. At that time there was no thought of a truly popular assembly,
since the people other than the samurai counted for nothing. How-
ever, the idea of a deliberative assembly, already approved in the
Charter Oath, was now fixed in the public mind, so that when the
clans were abolished and the samurai lost their status some deci-
sion had to be taken as to the membership and functions of the
future national deliberative body. In the view of the progressives
it must represent not one privileged caste but the people as a
whole. In January 1874 a group of samurai including Itagaki,
Goto, and Eto had addressed a memorial to the government in
wfcich they demanded the early establishment of a representative
assembly. At the same time they launched a public campaign for
the same ^purpose. Some attempt at compromise was madFlBy
Okubo and I to, and Itagaki was persuaded to rejoin the govern-
ment; but the reconciliation was only temporary and he soon re-
signed, to carry further the agitation he had commenced.

Before describing this movement it is convenient to notice
briefly the changes in government organization that were made by
Okubo and his colleagues as soon as the abolition of the feudal
system enabled them to replace the temporary fabric that had been
erected and from time to time patched up since 1868. ^A most sig-
nificant change was the gradual disappearance from effective po-
litical life of the former members of the feudal and court nobility
Vho had been nominal heads of the government. They had served
their purpose as symbols ot co-operation betwmi the

340

Western Theory and Eastern Practice

military estates and as an impressive screen behind which the real
motive forces of the reform could operate discreetly. Now the small
group of leaders who had carried through the reform program
step by step assumed the key posts in the administration, and the
influence of aristocratic statesmen like Iwakura and Sanjo gradu-
ally diminished. It was the former samurai who now made deci-
sions, and it is clear that they were reluctant to admit to any posi-
tion of authority a legislative or even an advisory body that could
interfere with their plans. They felt obliged, however, to make a
formal gesture in compliance with the Emperor's undertaking
that matters of high policy should be decided by public debate,
and accordingly in 1871 they set up an advisory council of which
the announced function was to examine measures proposed by the
administration. In practice this body exercised no authority, since
its members were appointed by the Emperor on the motion of the
government.

The organization of the central government had been fre-
quently modified since 1868, without much essential change^Jto
1875, in an attempt to meet the wishes of Itagaki and his sup-
porters, there was a further reorganization. The Council of State
(Dajokwan) was retained and a Senate (Genroin) and a Supreme
Court (Daishin-in) were established. But these arrangements,
though giving the appearance of a separation of powers, with a
legislature and a judiciary independent of -the executive, were in
fact illusory. The members of the Senate were nobles and high
officials or other persons who had rendered service to the state,
and their appointments were made by the Emperor. Their powers
were circumscribed and ultimate authority resided in the Council
of State, which, though nominally the sovereign's privy council,
was in fact a small autocratic body determined to exercise abso-
lute rule in the Emperor's name and to concede as little as possible
to the advocates of popular government. The demand for a repre-
sentative assembly could not be entirely neglected, and a some-
what disingenuous effort to meet it was made by creating an as-
sembly of provincial officials, who were to meet regularly in the
capital. The intention of the ruling group was set forth in a re-
script in which the Emperor announced that "by assembling rep-
resentatives from the various provinces of the Empire the public
mind will be known and the public interest best consulted/' This
rescript continues with an admonitory passage that clearly reveals
the official attitude: "We hope by these means to secure the hap-
piness of Our subjects and Ourself. And while they must neces-
sarily abandon many of their former customs they must not on the
other hand yield to a rash desire for reform."

The assembly of provincial officials could certainly not be re-

341

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

garded as a rash experiment, since it was composed almost entirely
of governors of prefectures who owed their position to the central
government and were under close supervision and control by the
Minister of Home Affairs. It was quite clear that the ruling group
had no intention of allowing the people to share in forming the
policy of the central government so long as they could prevent it;
and far from encouraging local autonomy they saw to it that local
government should remain in the hands of a bureaucracy taking
its orders from the capital and lacking discretionary powers. The
formation of the Provincial Assembly is an interesting example of
a characteristic feature of early Meiji politics, in that it was an at-
tempt to dress up traditional Japanese practices in Western gar-
ments. There was indeed little to distinguish a powerless assembly
from a feudal council that must take orders from the central ^au-
thority.

Itagaki, after a brief spell of office, seeing that neither,. the
Senate nor the Assembly of Provincial Officials was intended to
haye any truly representative or elective character, made up his
mind, that there was no prospect_of LJg^^^^^gA^en his party,
which stood for radical change, and the ministry, which was averse
to popular government. He accordingly resigned in the autumn
of 1876 and set about consolidating an opposition party, which was
to agitate for popular rights for the next ten years or more. He
had already in 1873 formed a political association — the first of its
kind in Japan — with headquarters in Tokyo. It was called the
Aikoku-koto, or Public Society od>Patriots, the word "public" be-
ing introduced to show that it was not a secret or illicit society but
an open combinatioruagainst the government. This was a new
feature in political life, shjce hitherto any form of opposition had
been treated by the feudaPauthority as treasonable, and public
criticism was regarded as peculiarly subversive in that it encour-
aged the people to doubt the competence of the ruler. The Aikoku-
Koto was not a political party in the strict sense, since there was
yet no parliament; but it may be regarded as the progenitor of
organized political parties in Japan. Owing to the circumstances of
its birth, its purpose was to displace the nominally provisional gov-
ernment of the day, which was in bureaucratic hands and did not
depend upon party support. Consequently the idea of political
parties in Japan was from the early days of Meiji associated with
opposition to the bureaucracy rather than with the promotion of a
specific political philosophy; and this formative period strongly
influenced subsequent political activity.

At the same time as the Aikoku-K6t5 there was founded by
Itagaki in Ms native province of Tosa a political academy or train-

Western Theory and Eastern Practice

ing school, called the Risshisha,3 designed to spread ideas of self-
government and self-reliance while preparing young men for po-
litical work. Similar institutions sprang up in other parts of the
country, so that before long there developed a strong body of
opinion antagonistic to the government and in favour of the
speedy establishment of a parliament. The fact that the Satsuma
Rebellion had been begun by students of Saigo's academy in Kago-
shima somewhat weakened the position of the Risshisha in and
after 1877, an^ all but the extreme wing of liberal reformers were
anxious not to be associated in the public mind with Saigo's oppo-
sition, since it was based upon reactionary sentiment. Itagaki and
most of his followers therefore somewhat moderated their attacks
and took the government side during hostilities. Even so they were
not averse to embarrassing the administration. The Risshisha sent
to the Emperor in June 1877, in the midst of the Satsuma cam-
paign, a memorial praying for an elective assembly and charging
the government with usurping the Emperor's authority and ob-
structing his announced design of granting political rights to the
people. The memorial was rejected and certain members of the
Risshisha were arrested on suspicion of complicity in a plot to
overthrow the government by force.

From this time onward, although the position of the govern-
ment was greatly strengthened by the defeat of Saigo, the struggle
for Minken, or People's Rights, became intense. Itagaki and his
associates carried on an energetic campaign by means of speeches,
newspaper articles, pamphlets, and books. Almost all the national
energy seemed to be devoted to political questions, and the coun-
try was divided into two main camps — progressives who stood for
freedom and the rights of the subject, against conservatives who
believed either that absolute rule was best or that the time was not
ripe for democratic institutions. In a later chapter some account
will be given of the polemical battle that occupied the public mind
from 1874 to about 1882; but it may be mentioned here that the
progressives drew freely upon Western political literature for their
arguments, and quoted Rousseau, Bentham, Mill, and Spencer as
the occasion demanded. Pains were taken to instruct the general
public by publishing popular works on representative government
and related matters. Among these were Fukuzawa's Tsuzoku
Minken Ron, or Simple Account of People's Rights, and Ueki's

3 The name Risshisha is variously translated as the Society of Independent Men
or the Society of Freethinkers, and these are near enough. But as a sidelight on the
influence of foreign literature it may be noted that Risshi was the word used by the
translator of Samuel Smiles to render "Self-Help/' and that is what it means in
Risshisha. It was a society of men who were going to rely upon their own judgment
and efforts. It is interesting to note that membership was confined to samurai.

843

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

Minken Jiyu Ron, or Essay on People's Rights and Freedom; the
latter is addressed to "Mr. Fanner, Mr. Merchant, Mr. Fisherman,
Mr. Samurai, Mr. Doctor, and Mr. New Commoner/' the New
Commoner being a former member of the pariah class. The press
took part vigorously in the controversy, being for the most part
with the progressives and against the government. The government
in its turn' tooF very'ltrdhg m

ruthlessly enforced and many editors were thrown into jail. Po-
litical gatherings were made subject to severe restrictions, and agi-
tation against the government thus became extremely difficult.

Some adherents of the progressive party were so angered that
they saw no alternative but a resort to violence. An attempt on
Prince Iwakura's life had been made in 1874. In 1877, during the
hostilities in Satsuma, a number of prominent persons, including
Mutsu, then a member of the Senate and later to become Foreign
Minister, were found to be plotting an armed revolt. In 1878
Okubo, the most resolute and powerful member of the govern-
ment, was assassinated. It was evident to his colleagues that the
demand for representative institutions had some determined sup-
porters, and probably in an effort to placate them they took what
they presented as a step towards the formation of a national parlia-
ment by enacting a law setting up elective assemblies in rural and
urban prefectures and other measures granting some degree of
local autonomy. Though these bills were drafted before Gkubo's
murder, there can be little doubt that the government was moved
by the strength of popular sentiment, as manifested in outbreaks
of violence, to hasten somewhat its own program of slow and
gradual reform. The concessions they made to democratic feelings
were, however, unsubstantial. Any decision of the local assemblies
was subject to official veto, while the Home Minister had power to
dissolve an assembly of which he disapproved and to call for a new
election. The progressive party continued and increased their ef-
forts to force the government's pace. They undertook a political
campaign throughout the country, holding national conventions
of the Society of Patriots in Osaka in 1878 and again in 1879 and
1880. These were attended by thousands of delegates representing
nearly one hundred local societies, and monster petitions were pre-
pared, calling for the immediate opening of an elective national
assembly.

The government, on learning of the convention of 1880, took
rapid and drastic action. It ordered the dissolution of thxTconven-
tion and speedily enacted laws restricting public meetings ami for-
bidding the amalgamation of local political societies, ' Ttrus^pre-
venting the formation of political organizations on a national scale.
These repressive measures did not succeed in checking poEScal

344

Western Theory and Eastern Practice

agitation. Itagaki and his associates, though unable to take useful
action in the capital, toured the provinces and addressed local asso-
ciations and other public gatherings. This was a new form of po-
litical activity in Japan, for in the early years of Meiji speech-
making was an unknown art, and it was even found necessary to
invent a word for it.4

The government seems not to have been unduly disturbed by
the orations of the progressives, and it might have weathered the
wordy storm but for one of those scandals which, though unim-
portant in themselves and irrelevant to the issue at stake, often
have greater effect than powerful argument. The sale of certain
government properties at a very low price to friends of the ad-
ministration became known to the public and caused great indig-
nation, though in feudal days the misuse of public funds would
have excited little comment. A violent campaign against the gov-
ernment was conducted by the newspapers, and mass meetings of
protest were held.

At this time, since Itagaki and others had resigned from office,
the government was controlled by former samurai of Satsuma and
Choshu, while the clansmen of Tosa and Hizen, who had shared
in the task of abolishing the feudal regime, now found themselves
in opposition to their former allies. The direction of affairs had
fallen into the hands of a closed group, so that ambitious can-
didates from other clans could scarcely hope to obtain good posts,
much less to reach the highest offices. Among those who did not
belong to the inner ring was Okuma Shigenobu, a talented states-
man from Saga. He had remained in the government when the
other representatives of Tosa and Hizen withdrew and had held
important posts dealing mainly with finance. But he was never
fully at ease with his colleagues and in 1881 he joined the opposi-
tion with a startling gesture. He called a public meeting against
the aforesaid scandal, details of which he disclosed, and he indited
a memorial to the throne in which he prayed for the establishment
of a national assembly in 1883!

The response of the government was immediate. Within a
day from the receipt of the memorial the Emperor issued a rescript
which declared that a parliament would be established in i8qo.

This remarkable result was due in a great measure to Okuma's
action. He had timed his coup skilfully at a juncture when the gov-
ernment, weakened no doubt by the loss of Okubo, was already
unpopular because of its harsh treatment of political opponents

4 It was the word enzetsu, which had been used in a different sense before, re-
ferring to formal oral statements. It was Fukuzawa who gave it currency, and he also
invented terms for "proposing" and "seconding" and other points in the procedure
of meetings.

345

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

and its ruthless handling o£ the press. It is unlikely that he would
have succeeded had not Itagaki's campaign already aroused feeling
throughout the country, but there is no doubt that^kuma's per-
sonal qualities were important in forcing the government to pay
attention to a popular demand. Whether in the long run he has-
tened the constitutional development of Japan is open to question.
His action and its sequels belong to the commonplace of political
manoeuvre and as such are of little interest; but they are worth ex-
amining for such light as they throw upon certain characteristic
features of Japanese political development. Okuma no doubt held
more advanced views than his ministerial colleagues as to the adop-
tion of a parliamentary form of government. They for the most
part thought that it was premature to entrust decisions of great
import to an inexperienced electorate. He, on the other hand,
seems genuinely to have believed in parliamentary rule, but a
dominant motive of his secession seems to have been personal am-
bition coupled with a lack of co-operative spirit. He was not alone
in the, administration in resenting the virtual monopoly of power
by Satsuma and Chdshu clansmen and he seems sincerely to have
believed that the only way of breaking down the system of clan
government was to establish a national assembly that would make
votes and not partisan connections the road to high offices of state.
If this view is correct the struggle for a parliament was in essence
not a clear issue between traditionalists and the advocates of
Western principles of government, but rather the perpetuation of
old rivalries in a modern setting.

pkuma's sudden bolt did not succeed in destroying the close
alliance of Satsuma and Choshu. On the contrary it strengthened
the coalition, which now included no representatives of Tosa,
Hizen, or other clans and was composed of Ito, Inouye, Yamagata,
Matsukata, Kuroda, and the younger Saigo. These drew closer to-
gether now that they had to face an enlarged opposition contain-
ill^ Okuma, a redoubtable enemy who knew a great deal about
the inner workings of government. They forestalled his resigna-
tion by relieving him of office on the day of the Imperial Rescript,
and all those who were known to be his followers were deprived
of their posts at the same time. They also girded up their loins
for the battle they expected before the opening of the promised
national assembly in 1890.

In describing the political struggle between the government on
the one hand and the opposition led by Itagaki and Okuma on
the other, it is easy to fall into the error of representing the gov-
ernment as a group of wicked tyrants wantonly depriving virtuous
liberals of their elementary rights. This is not a true picture. The
oppressive measures of the government were deplorable, though

346

Western Theory and Eastern Practice

by the standards of a decade or so before they would have been
regarded as wretchedly weak. But their general line of policy was
logical and defensible in the light of the responsibilities that they
bore and the circumstances in which their country was placed^The
reforms they had already accomplished were remarkable. They
had succeeded in carrying through a political and social program
of a revolutionary nature with surprisingly little violence and,
when one takes into account the native habit of slow and cautious
compromise, with surprisingly little delay. They knew only too
well the military and economic weakness of their country and the
political inexperience of the majority of their compatriots — fea-
tures that the reader will have deduced from the description of
town and country life already given. It was natural that they
should hesitate to confer upon an untrained and uninstructed
electorate political freedoms likely to be used to the detriment of
their main task and duty, which as they conceived it was the rapid
organization of national strength. Brought up in an authoritarian
tradition and imbued with the belief that firm government is good
government, they were not disposed to apply in practice Western
theories of natural rights. and popular rule unless they could be
shown to contribute to the purposes of the national state.

Here their ingrained Confucian sentiment clashed with the
new Western doctrines, which were attractive to the people at
large and especially to a numerous group of impressionable young
men. Confucian philosophy holds that it is the business of the
ruler to govern and of the people to obey, whereas the current
nineteenth-century English and American teaching, then wide-
spread in Japan, was or seemed to the Confucianists to be based
upon the shocking theory that the people know best. Prince Ito,
who was an influential member of the government during the
struggle for popular rights and may be regarded as expressing
moderate conservative opinion, describes the situation in the fol-
lowing illuminating passage from his reminiscences:

We were just then [about 1880] in an age of transition. The opinions
prevailing in the country were extremely heterogeneous and often dia-
metrically opposed to one another. We had survivors from former gen-
erations who were still full of theocratic ideas and who believed that
any attempt to restrict an imperial prerogative amounted to something
like high treason. On the other hand there was a large and powerful
body of the younger generation educated at a time when the Man-
chester theory was in vogue, and who in consequence were ultra-radical
in their ideas of freedom. Members of the bureaucracy were prone to
lend willing ears to the German doctrinaires of the reactionary period,
wMle on the other hand educated politicians among the people, hav-
ing not yet tasted the bitter significance of administrative responsibil-

347

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

ity, were liable to be more influenced by the dazzling words and lucid
theories of Montesquieu, Rousseau, and similar French writers. A
work entitled History of Civilization by Buckle, which denounced every
form of government as an unnecessary evil, became the great favorite
of students of all the higher schools, including the Imperial university.
But those same students would not have dared to expound the theories
of Buckle before their own conservative fathers. At that time we had
not arrived at the stage of distinguishing clearly between political op-
position on the one hand and treason to the established order on the
other.

If the conservatives were strengthened in their dislike of repre-
sentative government by a selfish fear that it would break up the
coalition of Satsuma and Choshu clansmen, the motives of the
advocates _of political freedom were not invariably pure; and this
explains though it may not justify the repressive measures to whicJi
the government resorted. It is interesting to examine the forces
that assailed the government under the banner of liberalism.
Itagaki, their leader, left the government in 1873 because he pro-
fessed to be disappointed by the failure of his colleagues to take
strong action against Korea, of a kind that might easily lead to
war. In fact Itagaki himself recommended the dispatch of a force
to "chastise" the Koreans. This, to say the least of it, was a strange
and inauspicious motive for breaking with the government in
order to lead a liberal movement. Itagaki was a fighting man by
origin and vigorous by character, and this may account for his
bellicose attitude; but his liberal principles were also open to some
doubt, for it is clear that he and a number of his fellow clansmen
from Tosa bitterly, and not without reason, resented the virtual
monopoly of power held by men of Satsuma and Choshu. It is
known that he did not, at the beginning of his campaign, envisage
a wide suffrage or a parliament of representatives from all classes.
In his own writings he stated more than once that what he pro-
posed was nothing like a universal franchise, and he contemplated
an assembly composed of officials, of samurai from all the clans,
and some representatives of rich merchants and farmers. As the
campaign developed, his views no doubt moved in the direction
of a more genuine democracy, but certainly when he first left the
government he would have been satisfied with much less than was
demanded by a popular sentiment that he himself aroused.

In the study of Japanese liberalism in its early phases the posi-
tion of Itagaki is important, for it seems to have determined the
course of later political development in Japan. It is difficult to
reconcile his democratic professions with his conviction that the
unassailable position of the Emperor was the key to the political
stability of Japan and with the aggressive nationalism expressed

348

Western Theory and Eastern Practice

in his support of a punitive expedition against Korea. We must
return to this question later, and meanwhile it may be sufficient
to say that Itagaki's liberalism was apparently not much more than
a moderate approval of parliamentary forms.

Among his followers there were no doubt a large number who
had been convinced by the arguments of Western writers and
sincerely believed in representative government, while there were
many ardent young men whose generous impulses led them to a
hatred of oppression, a desire for change, and an optimistic belief
in the wisdom of majorities. But at the same time a great propor-
tion of Itagaki's following consisted of disappointed politicians
and office-seekers, of discontented and turbulent samurai ready to
join any movement against authority, and of all the flotsam and
jetsam left by the waves of change that had swept away most of
the old life 'of Japan. Among these was a considerable element in-
clined to disorder and violence, the soshi or strong-arm men, a
class of political hangers-on that, under the disguise of patriotism,
sullied political life in Japan in subsequent years.

The goverment from which Itagaki and later Okuma seceded
found itself constantly embarrassed by threats of violence. The
Satsuma Rebellion was inspired by reactionary ideas that Itagaki
and his associates did not share, but while the government was
fighting sedition, advocates of constitutional practices did not
hesitate to press their claims, not only by legitimate political ac-
tion but also by violence. They recruited, or at least accepted in
their ranks, a number of adherents who had nothing in common
with their political views except a wish to overthrow the govern-
ment. They could depend upon the support of many discontented
factions whose grievances were sometimes genuine, sometimes not.
The peasants subscribed to their program because they wanted
taxes reduced, and some landlords, but not all, took part in the
movement for reasons of their own. Certainly the movement was
not inspired by an urban bourgeoisie and backed by mercantile
interests, as was that of the United Kingdom, which it in some re-
spects followed. It was rural and agrarian rather than urban and
mercantile, but in essence, except perhaps in the extreme left wing
of the liberal party, it was a struggle for political power. That this
is substantially true is shown by the gradual degradation and sac-
rifice of principle that was later displayed by the new parties as
they turned into organs for securing place and profit.

Itagaki and other leaders did not approve of violence, but they
were unable to stop it. The attempt upon Iwakura's life, the mur-
der of Okubo, Mutsu's plot, and local riots and disturbances fo-
mented by agitators who mostly had no desire for reform but
thrived upon mischief, all these and similar modes of opposition

349

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

naturally disposed the government to take extreme measures of
repression. It cannot of course be proved, but there is some reason
to think that Japanese political development would have followed
a smoother and more liberal course if the apostles of freedom had
not pressed to extrepies the conflict between gradual progress,
which was the professed aim of the government, and sudden per-
fection, which was what the advanced party required. The point,
while only one of conjecture, is of some interest because, although
the campaign for people's rights was supported by citing Western
theories and practice, it is doubtful whether direct Western influ-
ence was an important factor in the political developments that
fixed the pattern of Japanese institutions from about 1881.

The intellectual background of the constitutional movement
was certainly provided by Western political philosophy, and its
polemical writers drew freely for their arguments upon Western
literature, ranging from French or Russian revolutionary writings
to the solid treatises of English empiricists. The various foreign
teachings undoubtedly influenced Japanese minds and created a
passing fashion in the intellectual world, especially among the
younger generation. Even the fiction of the period treats almost
exclusively of political themes, and its lovers sit in shady bowers
talking of Spencer and Mill or comparing the merits of Gladstone,
Salisbury, and Bismarck in those interminable conversations that
are so pleasing to the unwearied youthful mind.

But in the practice of politics, one must recognize, the course
of events was governed not by theory but by the exigencies of a
unique domestic situation and by ideas which, though they might
at times be given European labels, were native in origin. In study-
Ing the conflict between absolutism and freedom one cannot help
feeling that the debate was conducted in terms of Western thought
which had little relation to the issues really at stake. This was to
be expected, since the political philosophies of nineteenth-century
Europe were a response to conditions resembling only in a most
general way those which obtained in Japan. It is true that once the
last feudal survivals were done away with, it was necessary to find
a new form of government; and since the Japanese had no ex-
perience of any other forms but the obviously unsuitable systems
of antiquity, they were bound to light upon something that cor-
responded in part to Western models. In that limited sense they
came under Western influence, but once the study of political his-
tory is pursued beyond the point that we have now reached, it be-
comes clear that what was finally adopted was, if Western in shape,
thoroughly Japanese in colour and substance.

Inhere is one very marked contrast between the political his-
tory of Japan and that of Jjigland and America. In those coun-

S50

Political Parties

tries it was parliament that produced organized political parties,
but in Japan it was political parties that produced parliament. In
neither case was it political theory that divided parties, but rather
a conflict o£ interests and a struggle for power that led to the study
o£ political theory. Though the history of Japan in the first twenty
years after the Restoration is full of references to Western au-
thorities on political science, it may well be that their careful
arguments had less effect upon Japanese social and political
thought than the unorganized sentiment of Rousseau; for whereas
on paper one form of government looks very much like another,
the idea of natural rights was very welcome to a people long ac-
customed to despotic rule. At the same time it was new and star-
tling, and when it came to applying it in practice it was found that
the Japanese vocabulary had no suitable words to express such
notions as civil liberty. Even public speaking was so unfamiliar
that it was at first felt to be slightly improper for a man to presume
to disclose his views aloud and without decent restraint.

So far we have considered the democratic movement only in
its purely political aspects. The abolition of the rigid, hereditary
class distinctions of the feudal era might give the impression that,
parallel to the people's rights movement, there was a demand for
all-round social equality. It is true that a formal or legal division
into classes no longer existed, but hierarchical sentiment remained
strong, and the old arrangement of classes was succeeded by an
accepted order of society in which birth still counted, but talent
a%d to a less extent wealth gave entry into higher social ranks. As
is natural in a bureaucratic state, social position tended to corre-
spond to official position, and a new aristocracy developed as titles
and honours were conferred upon public servants. Class barriers
were lowered and could be crossed, but no strong equalitarian
trend is visible in the early Meiji period. Yet while class distinc-
tions persisted, relations between members of different classes
were generally easy and amicable, no doubt because they were
conducted in accordance with a convention that prescribed suit-
able forms of speech and deportment for all occasions. The strong
social sense of the Japanese included a liking for ritual in every-
day life.

4. Political Parties

'ITH the announcement that a national parliament would be
created in 1890 the political societies formed in 1877 had served
their purpose, and from 1881 onwards there came into being a
number of new associations that were now described as political

351

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

parties in anticipation of campaigns for election to the Diet^ The
first of these was the Jiyuto, or Liberal Party, established in 1881
by Itagaki and Goto. It was followed in 1882 by the Rikken Kai-
shinto, or Constitutional Progressive Party, under the leadership
of Okuma, and the Rikken Teiseito, or Constitutional Imperialist
Party, which was conservative and supported the government.

Now confronted by two powerful opposition parties under ca-
pable and popular leaders, the government felt obliged to take
strong measures to counter their influence, which so long as they
joined forces was formidable. It was from this time that the repres-
sive action of the bureaucrats in power was carried to extremesvA
law restricting the right of public meeting and speech, first enacted
in 1880, was amended in 1882 in such a way that nearly all the
normal activities of a political association became, if not illegal,
extremely difficult. Pplice powers of interference with public meet-
ings were almost unlimited and local political bodies were forbid-
den to amalgamate or even to correspond with similar bodies else-
where. The Press Law was so rigorously enforced that often several
editors were' in jail at the same time and it became the practice of
newspapers to employ an editor whose chief duty it was to serve
prison sentences. It is difficult to understand how, in an age when
the words "freedom" and "enlightenment" were on everybody's
lips, the government, composed as it was of men not without re-
forming spirit, should have gone to such lengths of despotism. But
It seems that the members of the government were but little influ-
enced by the new concepts of liberty and popular rights, their
minds being still imbued with the harsh principles of feudal dis-
cipline, which regarded criticism of the existing order as a form of
treason. It must be remembered too that the use of vindictive
police measures had been characteristic of the Tokugawa regime,
which bore many resemblances to a modern Polizeistaat.

The liberal opposition itself was not innocent of a tendency to
use force instead of persuasion. Its leaders were probably not di-
rectly responsible for uprisings and seditious plots, but many of
its members were implicated in insurrectionary movements de-
pending upon violence. On more than one occasion there were
serious manifestations of force in the provinces, which necessitated
the calling out of troops. It is doubtful whether there was at any
time an organized attempt sponsored by the opposition to over-
throw the government of the day, but riots took place frequently
from 1882 to 1884, resulting in loss of life and destruction of prop-
erty. Their origins were by no means exclusively political, though
they usually assumed a political complexion. They were mostly led
by genuine reformers, but often joined if not fomented by num-
bers of former samurai of the class already mentioned, headstrong

852

Political Parties

men without fixed occupation ready to join in any attack upon
authority. Their grievances, like those of the peasants and work-
men with whom they combined, were partly economic, since trade
was languishing from about 1880 and prices were rising owing to
a mistaken currency policy. Some of the rioting was the work of
peasants and others oppressed by high taxes and rents, who formed
Shakkin-t5, or Debtors' Parties, which were linked with radical
elements in the opposition political parties. Genuine as were many
of these complaints, the leaders of Itagaki's liberal party (the Jiyu-
t5) and Okuma's progressive party (the Kaishin-t6) could not af-
ford to be identified with subversive plots, and late in 1884 the
Jiyu-to broke up in order to clear itself of suspicion. The Kaishin-
to, while not at once dissolving, lost Okuma and other important
leaders for similar reasons. It should be added that certain indus-
trialists and landowners who had supported the opposition in their
own interest were ready enough to resign when they found that
the local party leaders were "taking a very radical line and asking
for too much in^ th\e way of reduction of taxes and rent in rural
areas.5 ^ ^

These internal weaknesses of the liberal opposition somewhat
eased the position of the government, though its members could
still find in acts of violence an excuse for continued rigour in their
treatment of political adversaries. They also skilfully exploited
the personal failings of their chief opponents and thus contributed
to a split between the two "progressive parties, whose union had
never been more than temporary. Okuma's party, the Kaishin-to,
was mainly bureaucratic in composition and stood for a very mod-
erate program of reform, which most members of the government
might well have advocated had they been out of office. It had little
in common with the Jiyu-to, which contained a number of ad-
vanced reformers, equalitarians in favour of a single chamber, and
a left wing of revolutionary tendency. By contrast the Kaishin-to
was conservative.

While the opposition thus fell into confusion and disunity,
their respective leaders were unable to agree, for both were self-
willed and ambitious. This state of affairs suited the government
very well and it was not long before they succeeded, by playing off
one against the other, in reducing both to relative impotence, 'Hav-
ing thus rendered the democratic movement for the time ineffec-
tive, they took the precaution of strengthening rather than relax-
ing their measures of repression.

5 These were of course exceptional cases. The landlords and the peasants mostly
supported the Jiyu-to in its demands for tax reduction, because they felt that they
were being called upon to support the government's industrial program and gen-
erally to bear a disproportionate tax burden. But landlords did not like low rents.

353

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

In 1882 certain scandals, which had to do with the alleged re-
ceipt of money from official sources, had blemished the name of
Itagaki and involved Okuma in charges of improper dealings with
industrial concerns. Whatever the truth of these charges, they
aroused great public anger, widened the breach between Jiyu-to
and Kaishin-to, and ended by discrediting all political parties in
the popular mind, to the great satisfaction of the government.
Thus the coalition of Satsuma and Choshu samurai found itself by
about the end of 1885 in virtual command of the political arena
and free to develop at leisure its plans for meeting party opposi-
tion when the new parliament should hold its first session.

The foregoing bare description of the first phase of the modern
political development of Japan does not pretend to be complete.
It leaves out much that is important, such as the economic bases
of the liberal movement and the conflict between agrarian and
urban interests. It may have given the impression that the energies
of the government were mainly devoted to suppressing the opposi-
tion, and this would be mistaken, since they got through a great
deal of constructive work in many fields. It therefore no doubt
unduly simplifies the complex issues that were at stake. Its main
intention, however, is not to record political history in detail but
to trace and assess the effects of Western influence upon Japanese
political thought and action; and perhaps it will be sufficient for
that purpose. A careful examination of the evidence bearing on
this question leads to the conclusion that the liberal movement,
started with high hopes and seemingly with almost universal ac-
claim, was in fact much weaker than it appeared. Many reasons
can be offered for its failure. The Japanese public is given to en-
thusiasms that evaporate quickly unless they are concerned with
matters close to its daily life, and it is not easily induced to strug-
gle for unfamiliar principles though it is extremely tenacious of
old habits. The liberal parties were on the whole earnest, but
divided among themselves, grid they had behind them no solid
tradition but only a medley of ill-assorted theories of foreign
origin, as is clear from their readings in Western literature, which
they so freely cited and so often jtaisunderstood. They were trying
to lead on the road to independence a people schooled by cen-
turies of_^bgdie^ce to_a^t^rityy and they lacked the unity, per-
haps even the honesty of purpose, essential for such a task. They
could oppose no coherent resistance to the uniform and skilful
pressure of a government that knew its own mind. A sympathetic
observer of the Japanese liberals might have said in 1885:

. . . The bad

Have fairly earned a victory o'er the weak,
The vacillating, inconsistent good.

354

Political Parties

All these and other plausible reasons for the liberal failure can
be summarized by saying that Japan was not ready for democracy.
Her past history was against it, and there was force in the argu-
ment, with which those in power repeatedly countered pleas for an
immediate grant of popular rights, that it was too soon to pass the
conduct of affairs into inexperienced hands. The liberal reply was:
"Yes, it is true that democratic institutions were the result of cen-
turies of evolution in Europe. But that is also true of modern sci-
ence and art and machinery, as well as of political forms. Would
you have us abstain from the use of steam or electricity until we
have gone through all the stages that ended in their discovery?"
This was an ingenious retort, but it raises without answering the
whole question of cultural relationships between East and West,
for history so far has shown that machines will enter where ideas
cannot penetrate.

One further aspect of the influence of European political
thought upon Japan deserves some notice. Students of Japanese
history, thinking in terms of twentieth-century political canons,
are apt to forget that Victorian England — to say nothing of Amer-
ica and the rest of Europe — did not teach only one gospel. It
would, for instance, be a mistake to suppose that faith in parlia-
mentary democracy was universal in England. Indeed, most of
those eminent Victorians who believed in parliaments regarded
them not as a means of extending the people's share in govern-
ment, but rather as bulwarks against democracy, and they stood for
a very limited franchise. Many Victorian radicals were anti-parlia-
mentary, and what today in England might be regarded as ortho-
dox democratic views were held mainly by Chartists and other ex-
tremist minorities. Similarly in the field of politico-economic
theory it cannot be said that Adam Smith and laissez-faire were un-
challenged. Neither Mill nor Spencer accepted them, and they
were not alone in their disbelief. Even the idea of progress, which
in retrospect seems to have dominated Victorian life, was chal-
lenged and ridiculed by many eminent Englishmen, as can be seen
from a comparison between the gloom of Matthew Arnold and the
cheerful march of Tennyson's mind along the ringing grooves of
change.

Such examples as these may perhaps make the apparent in-
consistencies in Itagaki's conduct more intelligible. It has been
suggested by some Japanese historians that Itagaki, with Eto,
Soeshima, and others, was at the same time a radical, a strong
nationalist, and a strong supporter of the Imperial prerogative,
and that the only way to reconcile his views on popular govern-
ment with his absolutist principles is to conclude that he was afraid
of republicanism and regarded a parliament as a safeguard against

355

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

abuse of the Emperor's trust by arbitrary or incompetent ministers.
In that sense Itagaki and his colleagues who left the government
on the Korean issue are to be regarded as the true fighters in the
anti-feudal struggle, whereas the government itself was substitut-
ing one kind of feudal dictatorship for another. This is not an
easy view to follow, but it is of interest in the light of what has
been just said about Victorian attitudes towards parliamentary
democracy. At least it goes some way towards explaining why the
Japanese in the eighties should have been baffled by European
thought and should not have seen the light that to most twentieth-
century minds seems so pure and clear.

5. Conservative Triumphs

HE POLITICAL history of the period between the announcement
of 1881 and the opening in 1890 of the parliamenFthat IFpfomised
shows a reaction against the reforming' enthusiasm of the seventies,
setting in slowly at first and gradually gathering momentum .until,
by the first session of the Diet, conservative sentiment had grown
in strength and was coloured by some antagonism to Western cul-
tural influences. "

When the political parties after a few years of energetic strife
went into eclipse owing mainly to the withdrawal of their leaders,
the j>ublic lost interest in the cause of popular rights, andthe un-
ruly acts of its extremist members cost the liberal movement much
of the sympathy it had so far enjoyed. The government was thus
free to proceed with it§ plans without fear of serious opposition.
The general line of its leaders was a very gradual development of
parliamentary rule, always subject to the ultimate authority of
the crown and its adviser^

Tfce key to the system that they had in mind was the position
of the Emperor as the supreme head of the state, by whom all rights
were granted and to whom all duties were owed. This concept of
an absolute monarch, venerated and remote, was carefully fostered
throughout the Meiji period by a process of indoctrination for
which it is hard to find a close parallel in modern times, though the
mass propaganda methods of authoritarian states in recent years
resemble it in some respects. It promoted the Emperor to a posi-
tion that he certainly had not previously held in Japanese history,
for despite his legendary attributes he had not in the past been the
sole focus of national loyalty, but rather a shadowy figure that one
feudal leader after another had captured and used for his own ag-
grandizement. There is little to distinguish this political device
from that which was adopted by the principals in the Restoration

see

Conservative Triumphs

movement, who gained power precisely as their predecessors had
done by claiming to exercise authority on behalf of the crown.
The difference was that they gave a modern dress to the figure on
the throne and adjusted the theory of his supremacy to suit con-
temporary circumstances. To say this is not to suggest that their
action was dishonest or conceived merely out of lust for personal
power. They had at hand, in a long and well-based tradition, the
materials for forming a sentiment of national unity, and these they
sensibly and indeed almost inevitably used. Monarchy in the nine-
teenth century was a valuable and imposing institution for which
they would have been hard put to it to find a substitute.

Consequently the government and its supporters were careful
when introducing any new measure to represent it as conforming
to the wishes of His Majesty, and they tended to treat opposition
as a form of disrespect to the throne. Conversely, the opposition
parties were as a rule careful to avoid words or acts that might be
twisted into expressions of disloyalty, and it is noticeable that most
political manifestoes of whatever colour contained a reference to
the dignity of the throne. The invocation of the Imperial name
thus became an important advantage, which the administration
constantly used in its efforts to check the advocates of speedy re-
form. When the Parliamentary Rescript of 1881 was issued, the
Emperor was made to rebuke the people for their impatience, say-
ing: "We perceive that the tendency of Our people is to advance
too rapidly . . . and we warn Our subjects, high and low, to be
mindful of Our will. Those who may advocate sudden and violent
changes will fall under Our displeasure."

- Thus sheltered by the Imperial utterance, the members of the
ruling group were able to disregard most forms of opposition. On
the one hand they were firm in repressive measures, on the other
they continued with a program of administrative change which,
though presented as a gradual devolution of powers to representa-
tive bodies, both central and local, served in reality to strengthen
the hold of the bureaucracy upon all branches of government. The
Prefectural Assemblies, which in 1878 followed the discredited As-
sembly of Provincial Officials, were, it is true, elective bodies, and
in 1880 similar elective assemblies were formed in cities, towns,
and villages. Nominally representative institutions, their powers
were so restricted by rights of revision and veto held by official
members that they cannot be looked upon as an extension of popu-
lar rule, though they doubtless had the merit of acquainting local
authorities with public opinion and of giving their unofficial mem-
bers some insight into problems of administration. This was as
far as the ruling oligarchy were prepared to go, and the same policy
of gradual and largely illusory concessions to democratic principle

357

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

was followed by them in other measures, which they took in order
to strengthen the executive branch of the government and to limit
the powers of the legislature that was to be created in 1 890.

Soon after the Parliamentary Rescript of 1881, Ito (at that time
Home Minister and the most powerful member of the govern-
ment) was ordered to prepare the draft of a constitution, a neces-
sary preliminary to the creation of a parliament. ^He went abroad
in April 1882 with a numerous staff and (to use his own words) be-
gan "an extended journey in different constitutional countries to
make a thorough study of the actual workings of different systems
of constitutional government, of the various provisions, as well as
of theories and opinions actually entertained by influential per-
sons on the stage of constitutional life." Here was a very definite
instance of an endeavour to profit by Western experience, though
(as we shall see) the model which Ito finally selected was that of
Germany and bore little resemblance to the forms that had been
so warmly advocated in Japan by admirers of French, English, or
American methods. It was surprisingly like the constitution that
would have emerged in Japan if, without reference to foreign ex-
ample, the government had logically pursued the line ot develop-
ment that it had already taken during its conflict with opposition
parties.

ypon Ito's return early in 1884, a bureau was formed for the
special purpose of drawing up a constitution. It was made part of
the Ministry of the Imperial Household and not of the Home
Ministry, in order to emphasize the fact that the constitution was
to be a gift of the Emperor and at the same time to prevent public
discussion while the work was conducted in privacy.

Meanwhile a full reorganization of the administrative system
was planned, and carried out in 1885. This also was in part mflu-
enced by the German system of the period. The Dajdkwan or
Council of State was now abolished and its place was taken by a
Cabinet, composed of ministers of the several departments of state
and presided over by a Prime Minister. Under this arrangement
the Emperor remained as an absolute monarch, nominally exercis-
ing personal rule with the advice of the Prime Minister. In fact,
the position of the ruling oligarchy was unchanged. It may even be
regarded as strengthened, since during the Emperor's minority it
had been a kind of council of regency, but now the Prime Minister
and his colleagues could always counter opposition by claiming
that they were carrying out the Imperial commands. So strong was
the veneration for the throne, which they had sedulously fostered,
that the liberal parties were almost silenced and public interest in
domestic politics declined. There was nothing to do but await the
announcement of the Constitution and to see what powers "woiild

358

Conservative Triumphs

be given to the Diet. As for the leaders of liberal or radical opin-
ion, they also were quiescent. They could not openly attack the
government on the constitutional issue, since the government was
careful not to disclose the nature of the instrument that was being
drafted, and even suppressed speculation as to its contents. It re-
mained therefore to find some other count on which they could
rouse public opinion. This was offered to them in the field of
foreign and not domestic politics,

In the foregoing outline of political history no attention has
been paid to the foreign relations of Japan, though it may well be
said that the government which came into power had them con-
stantly in mind. Indeed, its attitude towards domestic problems
was conditioned by anxiety lest Japan should fail to develop such
national unity and strength as would ensure first her safety, and
then her eminence, in international life. This concern for security,
wHIch in the government's view could be obtained only by the
most scrupulous husbanding of its country's moral and material
resources, was (apart from a natural authoritarian bias) what de-
termined its resistance to the agitation for popular rights. The gov-
ernment thought, perhaps rightly, that the independence of Japan
was in danger, and it considered that there was no time for an ex-
periment in democracy. Japan had come late upon the interna-
tional stage; she was far behind the great powers in military and
economic strength as well as in the technical capacity that a mod-
ern state requires. It must therefore use its autocratic powers to
prevent the national energies from being dissipated in domestic
political struggles likely to cause delay in fulfilling its duty to make
the country strong.

It can of course be argued that they could safely have slackened
the speed of modernization and paid more attention to developing
a public experienced and responsible in political matters. This
may be so, but there are indications that the Japanese people were
more enthusiastic for national prestige than for a share in domestic
policy. Certainly the political events of 1887 tend to show this, for
although the clamour for popular rights had by then died down,
the government's handling of treaty revision aroused the greatest
public indignation and caused it perhaps more embarrassment
than the attacks of the liberal reformers.

The public had from time to time been agitated by the prob-
lem of treaty revision, and national pride had been more and more
offended as years passed without bringing the fiscal and judicial
autonomy that they so ardently desired. The hated treaties limited
Japan's power of levying customs duties and stipulated that consu-
lar courts and not Japanese courts should try all cases, criminal or
civil, in which foreign nationals were concerned. The general at-

859

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

titude of foreign residents did little to diminish this grievance,
which was no doubt intensified by a humiliating feeling that in
some respects Japan was still a backward country obliged by un-
kind circumstance to adopt foreign customs. These sentiments be-
fore long produced a strong conservative reaction and a national-
istic temper of which one expression was a growing hostility to
foreigners, strongest among the educated classes but not confined
to them. This was at a time when for reasons of policy the govern-
ment was encouraging social intercourse with foreigners and doing
its best to persuade them that the Japanese were such apt pupils
in foreign ways that they should be treated on equal terms by
foreign nations.

But it became known in 1887 that the Foreign Minister was
negotiating with foreign representatives in Tokyo, lavishly enter-
taining them and preparing to sign an agreement abolishing extra-
territorial rights in principle but providing for the trial of suits in-
volving foreign nationals in mixed courts on which foreign judges
were to sit with Japanese. Public anger was aroused by this pro-
posal. A storm of protest obliged the government to repudiate the
negotiators and accept the resignation of the Foreign Minister.
Even in the bitterest days of the struggle for popular rights the
government had not yielded so promptly to public pressure, and
that it did so on this occasion testifies to the strength of popular
feeling. No doubt it hoped that this demonstration would persuade
the foreign powers that their demands were not acceptable, for it
is a common diplomatic device to plead the strength of public
opinion even in countries where it counts for very little. But the
national temper was aroused and the government knew that the
opposition would surely seize upon any false step that it might
make. The stoppage of the negotiations did not, however, appease
public discontent. Formal denunciation of the treaties was called
for, and the movement, which had acquired an unfortunate anti-
foreign complexion, became so embarrassing that it was suppressed
by most drastic measures introduced ad hoc on December 25, 1887.

The public agitation for the abolition of the treaties had fa-
voured a revival of political activity by the opposition parties. They
were in substantial agreement upon this one issue, and also upon
other questions of foreign as distinct from domestic policy. They
joined in attacking the government for its weakness in agreeing
with China to recognize the independence of Korea and in other
ways insisted upon what they called Thoroughness in Japan's at-
titude towards foreign, states. Thus, it will be seen, the radicals
who once had fought for popular rights were now turning into
upholders of national prestige and advocating aggressive measures
that might have been expected from a military oligarchy but not

360

Conservative Triumphs

from disciples of Mill and Spencer. Barred from open political as-
sociation by the existing law, they resorted to the formation of
secret societies and the use of the political rowdies known as soshi,
some of whom were merely hired ruffians, others of a better sort
but given to violence under pretentious names. They would at-
tack the persons or property of members of the official class and
generally terrorize the citizens. It was their disorderly conduct that
impelled the government to issue and enforce the Peace Preserva-
tion Ordinance (Hoan Jorei) of December 25, 1887, This de-
clared a sort of martial law or state of siege in Tokyo, for it
empowered the authorities to banish any person suspected of dis-
turbing the public peace from within seven miles of the Imperial
Palace. The Tokyo garrison was reinforced, official buildings and
residences were guarded, and more than five hundred persons were
arrested and conveyed out of Tokyo. Among them, besides a num-
ber of gang leaders, were some of the most prominent liberal pol-
iticians and journalists, redoubtable fighters for popular rights and
parliamentary government who were to play an important part on
the political stage a few years later.

It was in such an atmosphere that the government faced the
nation in the year before the Constitution was to be announced.
The most burning issue was treaty revision, and in an attempt to
compromise with popular feeling Okuma was taken into the Cab-
inet as Foreign Minister. But no progress was made. On the con-
trary there was a set-back since a solution suggested by Okuma was
violently rejected, and he himself was attacked and severely in-
jured by a bomb. The negotiations were called off.

The politicians who had been sent out of Tokyo and their less
dangerous colleagues who had remained began to renew their pres-
sure, by forming a loose confederation under the cry of Daido Shot,
which means ' 'Agreement in great things, Difference in small/'
thus proclaiming that its members, though at odds about some
matters, were unanimous in disliking the government. This group
provides another interesting example of the Japanese habit of fol-
lowing persons rather than principles. This has been noticed in
respect of Saigo, whose rebellion was joined by many admirers of
his character though they did not like his policy. -Similarly the
Daido Shoi association owed many of its adherents to the engaging
character of its founder, Goto Shojiro, a Tosa samurai who had
taken an active part in all the main events since before the Res-
toration.

Early Meiji: The Political Scene
6. The Constitution and Parliament

HE FOREGOING summary o£ political events will have shown that
the opposition parties pressed upon the government the adoption
of political forms that most nearly resembled those of English
origin, and they freely invoked the support of English and Ameri-
can theory. The government, for its part, in resisting these de-
mands did not as a rule call in the aid of theory, but dealt with its
problems on empirical lines. It did not commit itselFto any "partic-
ular doctrine but took steps to examine the practical working of
the systems of government in use in the leading countries of the
West, in order to ascertain which was most appropriate to the
needs of Japan. Ito, as we have noticed, went abroad in order to
study "the actual workings of different systems" and "opinions
actually entertained" by practical statesmen. The use of the word
"actual" is significant here. He was not going to be guided by
theory, but by personal observation and discussion with men of
experience. In the light of this determination the stormy public
debates of the preceding decades appear to have little importance
in so far as they consisted of arguments between schools of politi-
cal thought, basing themselves upon written authorities. What
counted most was direct acquaintance with systems and men; and
this is a point to be borne in mind when discussing the nature and
extent of Western influence upon Japanese life. A study of what we
may call literary influences, though teftipting to the historian, may
be misleading, for often they do not penetrate beyond intellectual
circles and find little response in practical life. It is probable that,
despite the great number of Western books circulated in Japan
during the first twenty years of Meiji, their effect was not so great
as the aggregate influence of individuals consulted by Japanese on
their journeys abroad and of foreign advisers employed in Japan,
who were in close touch with officials and students destined later
to hold important posts.

It was to be expected that when Ito reached Europe he would
not go out of his way to find a form of government like those lib-
eral, parliamentary systems which Itagaki and his associates had
recommended. These, after all, were precisely what Ito and his
colleagues in office had been resisting. He was on the contrary-
much attracted by the strong monarchical, anti-parliamentary
principles of Bismarck and he spent most of his time abroad in
Germany.

This is not the place for an analysis of the Constitution which
was promulgated in 1889, but it may be said in general terms that
it included a great deal that was of German or Austrian origin and

868

The Constitution and Parliament

very little of the English or French political philosophies which
had been publicly recommended in Japan for the previous twenty
years. Ito and his colleagues perceived similarities between the
position of Germany and that of Japan, since both countries were
irt process of consolidation and both were somewhat behind the
leading Occidental states in international prestige and particularly
in industrial organization. The governing class in both countries
was determined to keep liberalism in check, and indeed when Ito
visited Germany, Bismarck had not long before passed repressive
legislation against Social Democrats and the liberal government
had resigned, to be succeeded by a conservative cabinet. It is not
surprising, therefore, that Ito, encouraged by Bismarck's successes,
should have concluded that the German Constitution offered a
suitable pattern for adaptation to Japanese needs. He had conver-
sations with Bismarck (upon whom he is said to have modelled his
own views and deportment in later years) and with Lorenz von
Stein, whom he subsequently told that while the Japanese parlia-
ment embodied some features of the English system, the Constitu-
tion, which controlled its functions, was derived mainly from Ger-
man example. In drafting the Japanese document Ito acted on the
advice of Stein in making the text simple and broad, in keeping it
free from statements of theory, and in referring as little as possible
to the Emperor. By following this advice he allowed some latitude
in interpretation and consequently left room for development in
its working.

Though it was in some respects a reactionary document, it ^s
not so illiberal as is often alleged. Like most legislation ot the
kind, much depended upon the spirit in which it was applied.
Sir William Anson, when asked his opinion, said of it that it was not
inconsistent with the development of a strong parliament capable
of challenging an arbitrary government. But just as Bismarck was
able to flout the Prussian parliament owing to the Austrian and
French wars, so Ito was able to override opposition in Japan be-
cause of the war with China in 1834 and, it must be admitted, be-
cause ofjthgjntg^^ aa<^ t^ie ^rreso"

kite conduct of its leaders,

It would thus appear that German influence was very strong
in Japan in the third decade of Meiji, though it must be remem-
bered that, conditions in both countries being similar in many re-
spects, thje Japanese government would, even without German ex-
perience to draw upon, have produced a system very close to that
which was adopted. Both had an autocratic and warlike tradition,
a strong monarchy, a powerful conservative ruling class (samurai
and junker) and a determination to make up for lost time by
building up national strength at the expense of civil liberties. The

363

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

adoption by Japan of German methods of administration, of mili-
tary organization, and of economic control cannot^ t&erefore be
looked upon as an example of strong cultural influence. It did not
result in any important deviation from traditional Japanese prin-
ciples, whereas if the Japanese had adopted any substantial part
of the English, French, or American practice in those departments
a radical change in Japanese life would have ensued. What is re-
markable is not the influence exerted by German example, but
the almost complete failure of liberalism after twenty years of the
most diligent study and ardent advocacy of responsible parliamen-
tary government and individual freedom,

Yet is it so remarkable after all? Japan before 1868 was a loose
federation of autonomous units, particularism in outlook, suspi-
cious of their neighbours, and jealous of central authority. It was
the task of the Meiji leaders to weld them into one nation/ But a
nation cannot be made without nationalism, and the cultivation
of a nationalistic spirit is rarely compatible with the encourage-
ment of liberal thought.

The growth of such a spirit is usually accompanied by positive
traditionalist reactions against foreign influence, and some of these
we should now examine. But before passing on to the more de-
liberate kinds of conservatism it may be useful to notice some
examples of a natural adherence to custom that is not a positive or
intentional rejection of the lessons of foreign experience.

One of the most striking examples of the persistence of old
forms during a period of seeming political renovation Is to be
found in the history of a feature peculiar to public life in Japan
for many years after the Restoration — namely, the prominence
of a small class of men known as the Genro, or Elder Statesmen.
The word Genro (which is reminiscent of the Toshiyori or Old
Men who formed the Council of State of the shoguns) means lit-
erally the Original Seniors, the wise old men of the tribe — or one
might say the Founding Fathers — who saw it through its time of
troubles. The beginning of the Elder Statesmen of the Meiji era
can be seen in the formation in 1875 of the Genro-in or Senate, a
body composed of eminent persons who had rendered conspicuous
service to the state in the years just before and after the Restora-
tion. The special deference paid in the Far East to age and official
distinction brought into prominence a small group of men who at
all times, whether in or out of office, exercised great influence in
national affairs. The Senate was in due course abolished, but its
members or other men of the same kind continued to command
respect and to wield personal authority because of their prestige.
Later in the Meiji period, as they grew older, a small and diminish-
ing elite consisting of Yamagata, Matsukata, Oyama, and a few

364

The Constitution and Parliament

others became recognized advisers to the throne and to ministries.
It cannot be said that they played a part behind the scenes, since
it was well known that on all crucial occasions in public affairs
their guidance was sought by the government of the day, and in-
deed the public would have been dissatisfied had they not been

THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE OIL LAMPS AND THE LANTERNS

consulted. The last of the Elder Statesmen was Prince Saionji,
some years before whose death at a great age in 1940 this extra-
legal institution lapsed, to the regret of many good citizens.

The political tradition of Japan seems to call for an advisory
organ, neither legislative nor executive nor judicial, which shall
oversee the government of the country and stand above partisan
feeling. It is doubtless for this reason that, as the most weighty
Elder Statesmen left the scene, the Privy Council in some measure
replaced tEemrTEiTalso was a body that, though legally consti-

886

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

tuted, was inconsistent with true parliamentary government. It
was created in 1888 for the purpose of advising the Emperor on
matters of high policy, its first task being to approve the Constitu-
tion before promulgation. Unlike the group of Elder Statesmen,
it was and remained an integral part of the organization of the
state. Nominally advisory, its powers of review and veto were such
that in practice it could exercise a decisive influence upon policy
in both domestic and foreign affairs. It could not initiate legisla-
tion, but it could suggest and within limits determine the character
of laws and treaties. It may therefore be regarded as a perpetuation
in Western dress of the traditional advisory councils that under
the Shogunate had often been the effective instruments of policy-
making; and it was generally regarded by the executive officials as
interfering and obstructive.

When it was formed, the Privy Council was officially defined
as a body composed of "personages who had rendered signal serv-
ice to the state" whom the Emperor desired to consult. These were
the words that had been used to describe the Senate of 1875, and
so the institution of 1888 was not so modern as its name.

7. Traditionalist Reactions

JULAVING traced the main lines of Western influence upon Japa-
nese political thought in the period of its greatest effect, which cov-
ers approximately the first twenty years of Meiji (say from 1868 to
1887) , Tye may now look back and examine separately the more
important ^manifestations of conservative sentiment expressed dur-
ing that period in reactions against foreign culture.

It should at once be said that the flood of reform at first flowed
so strong and deep that it submerged most of the defenders of the
past, and the extreme traditionalist movements that took place had
very little effect. It is easy to give a false impression of their im-
portance by selecting a number of exceptional or picturesque in-
stances of protest against the invasion of new ideas, but the ac-
count which follows should not be read as an argument that the
great changes which took place in Japanese life were brought about
in the face of strong reluctance or opposition. The interest of these
reactions is not in their contemporary effect but in their fore*
shadowing of a more widespread and more effective conservative
sentiment that began to develop in the last years of the nineteenth
century.

We have already noticed the Shinto revival of the first years of
Meiji and seen that this was not specifically an anti-foreign move-
rneni At that time there was no longer any room for effective anti-

366

Traditionalist Reactions

foreign demonstrations, since the majority of the Japanese people
were so enthusiastic for new things and ideas that opposition
would have been unpopular and might even have been regarded as
unpatriotic. The Japanese, moreover, are partial to strangers, whom
they are accustomed to treat with kindness and hospitality. Even
during the height o£ the agitation against "barbarians," when
Westerners stood in danger of attacks from enraged or drunken
samurai, the ordinary citizen treated them with friendly interest.
B.ut intellectual or religious revival movements by their very Da-
tura were forms of resistance to foreign cultural influence and
therefore deserve some study.

The failure of Shinto to gain an advantage over Buddhism by
securing a monopoly of state patronage brought a certain benefit
to Buddhism after 1872. There was a revival of sect^rian^artivity
among Buddhists and they were able to recover^ from the harsh
economic treatment of earlier years. There was a Buddhist news-
paper and tins played some part in political discussion from 1874,
though only for a short time. Buddhists if not Buddhism were
prominent in such anti-foreign ^agitations as took place at this
time. The best known of them was an eccentric of extreme views
named Sada Kaiseki, who wrote diatribes against modern things
as well as modern ideas. It was he who published an essay entitled
Rampu Bdkoku Ron,, or "On Lamps as a National Disaster." Oil
lamps were regarded as representative of Western culture and
therefore insidious in their effect. A cartoon of the day shows a
duel between a mineral-oil lamp and an old-fashioned andon, a
lantern in which candles or vegetable oil were used, and this con-
flict was supposed to represent the struggle between native and
foreign thought. Sada, who attacked both oil lamps and Coperni-
can astronomy, also expressed his scorn of foreign things in a Baka-
Bandzuke or List of Fools, modelled upon the programs of wrest-
ling matches which name the contestants in order of precedence.
The Champion Fool was the man who ate bread instead of rice,
the next the man who used a foreign umbrella, and so on down
to the child who preferred foreign to Japanese toys.

Neither the Shinto nor the Buddhist traditionalists could malc.e
much headway against the stream of modern ideas, but the posi-
tion of Confucianism was somewhat different. In the early years
of Meiji the reaction against Confucian philosophy was severe be-
cause of its association with feudal institutions, or perhaps it would
be better to say that it suffered from neglect rather than positive
antagonism. But it was not to be expected that a system which had
played so great a part in the formation of Japanese ideals of con-
duct could be swept away. It went into hiding, so to speak, to
emerge later when conditions were favourable. Jts fundamental

367

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

principles of loyalty and piety, which had become part of the stock
of Japanese ethical ideas, continued to influence men's lives in
some degree, if only because Western thought had not yet offered
a positive substitute or successor. Foreign ethical doctrines were
studied, but largely as interesting theories and not as guides to
conduct. Christianity, while it was to play an important part, was
rivalled by materialistic doctrines that came in with English utilin
tarian philosophy and the theory of evolution.

Although there was no very active school or movement of Con-
fucian revival certain individuals exercised some influence on be-
half of Confucianism. Among these was Motoda, the Confucian
tutor of the Emperor from 1875. It is known that his views were
embodied in the draft of the Imperial Rescript on Education of
1890, and that he consulted other Confucianists, including Inouye
Kowashi, who later became Minister of Education. In 1881 Motoda
wrote a preface to a book on the Essentials of Learning for the
Young, which was published by the Imperial Household Depart-
ment and is said to have been issued at the request of the Emperor
because he thought that Western ethical teaching was not suitable
for Japan. This work may be regarded as the first textbook on
moral training in modern Japan and is therefore an important
landmark, since in later years the inclusion of moral lessons in
the curriculum of elementary schools gave to the authorities a
powerful means of controlling national thought. It was at this
time that the Minister of Education (Fukuoka) laid it down that
the teaching of morals should be based upon "the native doctrine
of the Empire and the principles of Confucianism/'

Another influential Confucianist was Nishimura Shigeki, who
was at the same time a student of Western teachings and a transla-
tor of Western books. He was a pupil of Sakuma Shozan and of
Yasui Sokken, men who had been in the forefront of the struggle
to open Japan. In 1873 he had joined a group of intellectuals in
forming the Meirokusha (that is, the Meiji Six Society, as one
might say the Seventy-three Club) > a literary society for the en-
couragement of Western studies, which issued a journal, the Mel-
roku Zasshi, containing articles by men like Fukuzawa, Nakamura
Keiu (the translator of Self-Help) , Kato Hiroyuki, and other lead-
ing men of letters. But when he saw that from about 1872 the
educational policy of the government dwelt upon material success
in life and had little to say about such classical virtues as loyalty,
piety, and righteousness, he began to feel grave misgivings and
presently ranged himself with the Confucianists. In 1875 he wrote
a work called Shushin Chikoku Hinito Ron, or Moral Training
the Only Way of Governing the Country.

A body called the Tokyo Shushin Gakusha, a society for the

368

Traditionalist Reactions

encouragement of moral training, was founded in 1876. It was ex-
panded in 1883 and called the Nihon Kodo Kwai, its purpose
being to promote lectures on Japanese ethical principles. This new
society was formed under the auspices of two Imperial Princes
and had several hundred members. But neither undertaking had
much success. Their general line was that Christianity and other
Western ethical teachings were not suited to the national character
of Japan or consistent with its social and political structure. An
ethical, not a religious foundation was needed, and that must be
Confucian in essence, since it was Confucian principles that had
governed the conduct of the dominant classes in Japan for three
hundred years past. Some Confucianists went so far as to admit
that Confucian principles alone would not suffice in modern con-
ditions, and they toyed with the idea of a compromise between
Eastern and Western ethics, which should be the warp and weft of
present-day morality.

Deliberate attacks upon Christianity were unusual at this time,
though an occasional extremist would use violent language, like
that of Megata Sakae, who in 1883 wrote a work entitled The Irra-
tionality of Western Religion, in which he denounced Christian
doctrine as evil and the Bible as the work of demons. In 1875 t'ie
veteran Confucianist Yasui Sokken had written his Benmo or Ex-
posure of Falsehood., which was a violent attack upon Christianity
from the point of view of traditional Japanese sentiment. His
criticism of the Bible was trenchant and not without effect. His
book had a preface by Shimadzu Hisamitsu, the very conservative
lord of Satsuma. In general, however, anti-Christian sentiment was
not positive, but only implicit in such revival movements as those
fostered by the Confucianists. Thus the propaganda of the Shu-
shin Gakusha and the Kodokwai was only partly and indirectly
anti-Christian, and the same is true of the teaching of such Confu-
cian scholars as Naka Tsuko and Nishimura Shigeki. Perhaps the
most interesting of the anti-Christian trends was the attitude of
the government during its struggle against the people's rights
movement when it suggested that the advocates of freedom were
"not true Japanese." This, however, misfired and threw a number
of Japanese Christians into the Minken movement.

Nishimura in 1886, at a time when in order to facilitate treaty
revision the government was deliberately encouraging the adop-
tion of foreign habits, lectured for three days at the University of
Tokyo on Japanese principles of virtue. He argued that while in
science, politics, and law Western countries were ahead of Japan,
they must not be blindly copied out of admiration for their wealth
and strength and their superiority in some branches of knowledge.
There must be discrimination between good and bad, and Western

S69

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

ideas could not be adopted without modification in moral and
physical surroundings differing from those in which they had
evolved. This kind of sentiment began to spread and conservative
reactions, which had been sporadic and insignificant during the
period of Western fever, developed into an influential movement
from about 1887, when the negotiations for treaty revision broke
down because of popular dissatisfaction. It seems that the pride
of a great number of patriotic Japanese was injured by the pro-
posal that foreign judges should sit in Japanese courts, and they
felt that the nation's efforts to assimilate foreign culture had been
wasted. This sentiment caused some revulsion of feeling against
t£e West. It also led to criticism of the government, which had by
example as well as by precept encouraged the adoption of Western
habits to an excessive degree.

No doubt there were other and more rational grounds for the
impending conservative reaction, but that it was connected with
the failure of treaty revision is scarcely to be doubted. This view
is borne out in an entertaining way by an incident in which mem-
bers of the government figured during the life of the abortive con-
ference. In May 1886 the representatives of seventeen powers
gathered in Tokyo for discussions. Now was the time for a display
of all the most modern European social habits which had been nat-
uralized or given the status of alien residents in Japan. The high-
est in the land set the example of social intercourse with foreigners
upon a grand scale. In 1883 an international club had been opened
in a new building, called the Rokumeikwan (which means the
Mansion of the Baying Stag) . Here Japanese and foreigners to-
gether played cards and billiards, conversed, danced, and listened
to music. Many fashionable bazaars were held, and attended by
the nobility and gentry. This was the age of grand entertainments
which were part of a hospitable movement, not without political
motive but none the less kindly, intended to make pleasure-loving
foreigners feel at home.

The zenith of cosmopolitan gaiety was reached at two splendid
parties given respectively by Ito, the Prime Minister, and Inouye,
the Minister for Foreign Affairs, in the spring of 1887, only a few
weeks before the treaty discussions were abruptly ended. The
Prime Minister gave a costume ball in his own residence. Over
four hundred guests took part. The Prime Minister appeared as a
Venetian nobleman, Prince Arisugawa as a mediaeval European
warrior, Inouye as a strolling musician, the Director of the Legis-
lative Bureau as a mendicant Buddhist monk, the Chancellor of
the University as a pilgrim to Buddhist shrines, the chief of the
Metropolitan Police as Bingo Saburo, a loyal knight of early
feudal history. The wives and daughters of these high officials ap-

870

Traditionalist Reactions

peared as romantic or poetic characters in Japanese legend and
were much sought after as partners by the young foreign gentle-
men, many of whom appeared in Japanese dress. It must have been
a charming occasion and the costumes were no doubt striking, for
nobody is better at that sort of thing than the Japanese. But the
angry conservatives — who were not in office — were shocked by
the spectacle of the great men of the land dressed up like actors
and dancing with foreign women. Even the modern chronicler
(1922) from whom these details are borrowed writes as if it were
a very deplorable affair. All such gaieties were condemned in sober
circles, and political opponents of Ito and Inouye, whether in
such circles or not, found useful material for their tirades in the
lavish entertainments that were frequent at this time. One wrote
a tract entitled Twenty-one Current Evils, in which he said darkly
that extravagant balls and banquets would be thought by the
public "to lead to unusual behavior." Another severe moralist ob-
served that this country had learned the decadence of the Roman
Empire without first reaching its pinnacle of glory.

Though it was unreasonable thus to attack the innocent pleas-
ures of the great and the rich, it must be admitted that the craze for
Western things had gone to absurd lengths. Associations to pro-
mote the use of Roman letters for writing the Japanese language,
to reform the classical theatre and classical painting, to abolish
ideographs, the native costume, and the native diet might singly
be tolerable and even useful, and there was no great harm in try-
ing to show that the Japanese were of Caucasian origin.6 But the
cumulative effect of all these attempts to improve old Japanese
Habits out ot existence was naturally to create a feeling oi: resistance^
in conservative quarters. """

the best illustration of the growth of conservative feel-

ingJ-s to be seen i*1 the foundation in 1888 of the magazine Nippon
fin by a group under the leadership ot Miyake Yujiro (Setsurei) »
TtsTdeclared purpose was the conservation of the essence of the na-
tional culture and it was the organ of a society formed by Miyake
and his collaborators for the same purpose, the Seikyo-sha or So-
ciety for Political Education. Miyake was by no means prejudiced
or reactionary, for he was a scholar of considerable attainments,
familiar with both Eastern and Western philosophy, who had

e An extreme case of intoxication with Western ideas was that of a writer
named Takahashi Yoshio, who in 1884 published a book entitled The Improvement
of the Japanese Race, in which he argued that the Japanese were physically and
mentally inferior to Occidental peoples, with whom they could never compete. He
recommended that Japanese men, bearing in mind the laws of natural selection and
the survival of the fittest, should divorce their wives and marry Western females of
superior physique and intellect. He did not suggest a similar policy for Japanese
women.

371

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

reached the conclusion that Confucian and Buddhist thinkers were
"able to master recesses of philosophy more profound than even
German philosophy." He thought that if Japan succeeded in as-
similating scientific knowledge, there was nothing to prevent her
from becoming "foremost in philosophy among the countries of the
earth.'7

Miyake's school of thought was opposed by a rival magazine,
Kokurqin no Tomo or the People's Companion, founded in 1887
by Tokutomi lichiro (Soh'o) . It was written in a simple style and
was popular among advanced young men who were in favour of
modern ways. It argued against conservatism that it easily"tJecame
a,narrow nationalism. One of Tokutomi's most effective essays in-
cluded the following retort to conservative arguments: "If you
hate dancing and therefore free social intercourse between men
and women, if you hate luxuries and therefore free trade, if you
hate relations with foreign people and therefore mixed residence,7
then feeling for Japan grows strong and feeling for the world at
large grows weak, the ideal of the state flourishes and the ideal of
the people withers. The spirit of conservatism grows, the spirit
of progress dies — and then our country loses its vital power/'

It is characteristic of the confusion of ideas that prevailed in
Japan at this time that the Kokusui Hozon movement, which be-
ing committed to preserving the national essence was antag-
onistic to foreign influence, found its conservatism no obstacle to
joining forces with the liberals in attacking the government; so
that the magazine which disliked liberal notions supported the
purveyors of foreign doctrine, although the government that it
attacked preferred national prestige to popular rights as a po-
litical goal. Nevertheless the conservatism for which Miyake stood,
though open to the criticism that it did not define the national
essence which it praised, served a useful purpose in that it brought
an end to indiscriminate admiration of Western civilization and
moved the Japanese to re-examine their own culture and Western
culture in a critical spirit. It also contributed to a revival of inter-
est in the national literature and to the foundation in the Imperial
University of a department of Japanese literature, with courses of
classical study. At the same time there developed a general move-
ment favouring a study o£ the native literature. The Kokugaku-In
or Academy of National Letters was founded in 1890 and the pro-
duction of new editions and collections of classical works received
a great impetus. Education was also reformed by placing a greater
emphasis upon the national language, literature, and history. This

7 "Mixed residence" (Zakkyo) referred to that part of treaty revision which
was to permit foreign nationals to live outside the areas originally designed as
foreign "settlements."

872

Traditionalist Reactions

was an important departure from the standpoint of the days when
it was proposed that all teaching should be in English, and even
that the Japanese language should be abolished. In the educational
as in the political world foreign influence had produced a reaction
and had strengthened traditions that had been under attack.

Motes on CHAPTER 13

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL. For those aspects of early Meiji history which are
discussed in this and the following chapters I cannot do better than
refer the student to an excellent selected bibliography o£ works in
English and Japanese printed by Herbert Norman at the end of his
Japan's Emergence as a Modern State (published in 1940 in the In-
quiry Series of the Institute of Pacific Relations) . It would be hard
to improve upon this.

Most of the books that he lists have been consulted for the purpose
of this study. In addition, since the writer of cultural history must
know the lineaments and postures of the actors as well as the text of
the play, I have paid attention to biographical works and collections
of correspondence, as well as reading — not with undiluted enjoyment
— a number of novels, newspaper extracts, and other fugitive pieces of
the first three decades of Meiji. To quote copiously from them would
have encumbered these pages, but some knowledge of materials of
this kind is indispensable for an understanding of the "atmosphere" of
the period, though I am by no means certain that I have drawn the
right conclusions on all points.

THE CHARTER OATH. In order to simplify the narrative I have omitted
details of the Seitaisho or Statement of the Forms of Government,
which in June 1868 followed the Charter Oath and amplified it. This
document expands the abstract principles of the oath and sets forth
the functions of the various departments of state. It was crafted by
Fukuoka and Soyeshima, and its text throws some light on the inten-
tions of the government at that time. It refers specifically to the sepa-
ration of powers, and in one clause it provides for the election of offi-
cials for a period of four years, both of these being ideas suggested by
the American system. Fukuoka is known to have read an account of
the government of the United States in 1862.

For interesting details of the background of the Charter Oath the
student is referred to Meiji Boshin (edited by Ichijima Kenkichi,
Tokyo, 1928) , which is a collection of essays on the events of 1868. It
contains useful evidence as to the state of mind of the members of the
government at that time. The most valuable paper is one by Dr. Osa-
take, which gives the texts of early drafts in a convenient form. There
can be little doubt that the immediate purpose of the oath and the
statement was to encourage unity of opinion among the clans, who
were hesitating as to the next move after Keiki's defeat and might have

373

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

split again had they not been given a line to follow. What was needed
was confidence in the new government among nobles and samurai; and
Yuri Kimimasa in particular urged this as an essential prelude to the
success of the new note issue for which he was responsible. It is inter-
esting to note that, of the several drafts of the oath, the "Tosa" draft
(Fukuoka's) shows more consciousness of class division than the
"Echizen" draft, which was by Yuri, who had been under the influence
of Yokoi Shonan and the vague republican ideas that he entertained.
But the general impression given by these data confirms, I think, what
has been said in chapter xiii — that there was no plan to introduce
parliamentary government, and that ideas of political or social democ-
racy, if held at all, were rudimentary.

The more one studies the background of early Meiji history, the
more is one convinced that a perusal of its public documents alone may
give a wrong impression. Western writers on Japan have so far not
gone into these questions very thoroughly, and there is a tendency to
rely upon the texts of laws and proclamations without knowledge of
the circumstances in which they were drawn up and the minds of their
authors. Mr. Norman, in his Japan's Emergence as a Modern State, has
gone far to remedy this defect, but there remains a good deal to be
done in fields that he has not covered.

THE FORMOSAN EXPEDITION. Among the curiosa of early Meiji litera-
ture is a report submitted by Okuma to the Emperor in 1875. In his
capacity as president of the Formosa Commission he described the
whole sorry business, including the negotiations in Peking, as if it had
been a magnificent and heroic enterprise. He then said that, had no
steps been taken by Japan to chastise the savages, a land of cannibals
would have been established forever, and Japan would have been dis-
graced in the eyes of the world. But happily the expedition was success-
ful and its glory would not pale before great deeds done in ancient
times. He went on to exhort the Emperoi>not to stop with the chastise-
ment of savages, but to exalt his works of wisdom to the very highest
pinnacle of glory.

Other countries have boasted of their exploits in subduing defence-
less savages; but this piece of hyperbole from the leader of a movement
styled progressive is a rarity even in the annals of political nonsense.

A very interesting account of the negotiations in Peking is to be
found in a study, based on Chinese documents, by T. F. Tsiang: "Sino-
Japanese Diplomatic Relations, 1870-1894," in the Chinese Social and
Political Science Review, Vol. XVII, of April 1933. This paper is also
valuable for the origins of the war against China of 1894-5.

A study of the Formosan affair brings out some interesting points
of domestic history. It shows that the leaders who/ united by a com-
mon purpose, were able to carry through the Restoration movement,
began to drift apart by the end of 1871, if not sooner. There was ill
feeling between Okubo and Kido, which developed while they were on
the mission abroad in 1872, and there were serious clashes of tempera-
ment and differences of opinion among Okubo, Saigo, Ito, and Okuma,

374

Traditionalist Reactions

to say nothing of other leaders. Personal jealousies and rivalries had a
great deal to do with shaping political events thereafter, and it would
be a mistake to think of the Meiji leaders as a happy band of unselfish
patriots. During the absence of Okubo and Kido the caretakers
(Okuma, Saigo, and others) broke their promise to take no decisive
steps and only to hold the position at home. The Tosa men and the
Hizen men tried to consolidate their respective groups and thus col-
lided with Inouye, while there were continuous quarrels between mem-
bers of each group. They agreed only in their antagonism to Satsuma
and Choshu statesmen. Okubo comes best out of the story.

MOTODA EIFU. Readers not familiar with Japanese will find an account
of the life of Motoda, together with specimens of his lectures to the
Emperor in English translation, in Volume XL of the Transactions of
the Asiatic Society of Japan (Tokyo, 1915) . This includes his lecture
on a hexagram in the Book of Changes, which is said to symbolize the
connection between the divine and the secular elements of kingship.

THE CONSTITUTION OF 1889. This document has been much criticized
as illiberal and undemocratic, and it certainly included some objec-
tionable features from the point of view of a believer in responsible
parliamentary government. But like most political arrangements its
form is less important than the spirit in which it was worked. Jto_ was
no democrat, but it is fair to say that he framed it in such a way as to
allow for further development in the direction of democratic govern-
ment, since it contains provisions for its own amendment. It is true
that it made the Cabinet responsible to the throne and not to the Diet
or the people, that the budgetary powers of the lower house were in-
adequate, and that the upper house had powers of veto that were diffi-
cult to circumvent. But these defects could have been remedied had
there been in the Diet or in the country at large any general determi-
nation to bring about by entirely legal processes, if not at once, at least
by steps, a genuinely democratic form of government It was probably
because they were well aware of this possibility that the autocratic
elements in the governing class buttressed the absolutist structure by
certain extra-constitutional devices that were far more serious ob-
stacles to progress than the terms of the Constitution itself.

Chief among these was a rule, initiated by the Privy Council in 1898,
by Much the posts of War Minister and Navy Minister could be held
only by a general or an admiral on the active list. This meant that no
cabinet could be tormed without the approval of the service depart-
inents, and any cabinet could be destroyed or held to ransom if the
military and naval leaders threatened to withdraw their nominees.

It will thus be seen that discussions as to the nature of the Con-
stitutionof 1889, or as to its resemblance to a German model, have
little relevance to the actual political system that was developed in
Japan after the war with China. It has been argued in this chapter
that this system cannot properly be ascribed to German "influence."
Dr. McLaren, in his Political History of Japan, when treating of the

875

Early Meiji: The Political Scene

text o£ the Constitution quite correctly speaks of "Prussian influence"
(p. 182) and "Prussian innovations" (p. 205) ; but later in his book,
when he comes to the working of the system, he refers to "the imme-
diate failure in Japan of the system adopted from Germany" (p. 229)
and points out that the minds of those who framed the Constitution
were "imbued with theories of the native policy" and "fortified by a
study of ... Tudor England and Hohenzollern Prussia" (p. 365) .
The word "fortified" here is important. It does not mean "inspired."
He is of course right in saying that in 1889 practically every insti-
tution and principle that had been used by Bismarck made its ap-
pearance in Japan. But he could have gone on to say with equal truth
that the imitation turned out to be very unlike the genuine article,
and wear and tear revealed it to be of domestic manufacture after all.
If I may be permitted a spirituous simile, it was not unlike those
liquors that used to be sold in Japan in bottles labelled "Scotch
Whisky." They were made of the right kind of ingredients and were
potable enough, but they would not have passed muster in the High-
lands.

THE REMNANTS OF FEUDALISM. It is difficult to write about Japanese
history without using the word "feudalism," though it stands for dif-
ferent things at different times and leads to confusion unless it is clearly
defined. I am afraid that I have erred myself, but the loose way in
which writers and speakers on contemporary Japan explain present-
day phenomena by dismissing them as "feudal" is truly alarming. It
tends to become a synonym for "undemocratic"; and the height of ab-
surdity is reached when it is applied not only to economic or political
forms but to novels, plays, food, dress, behaviour, and speech — and I
dare say to archery, hawking, fencing, and wrestling.

Japanese feudalism in the Middle Ages has been clearly described
by the late Dr. Asakawa in his Documents of Iriki and other works.
But Tokugawa Japan was in many respects the antithesis of a feudal
country. Granted that the object of the shoguns was to preserve the
appearance of feudal relationships between themselves and their vas-
sals, the reality was far otherwise. The supremacy of the Tokugawa
was maintained not because they stood at the apex of a pyramid of
feudal loyalties, but because they kept a precarious balance among
the Fudai and Tozama fiefs by a policy of bullying, cajoling, intri-
guing, and spying, combined with a financial and military strategy
designed to keep the feudatories weak and unable to combine against
their nominal suzerain. Nobody can say that Satsuma and other great
Tozama fiefs were, a hundred years after Sekigahara, anything but
autonomous states in practice — or let us say tributary states, but cer-
tainly not tenants by virtue of an obligation of service sustained by
loyalty and rewarded by land. As for the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries I can see vefylittle that was teudal excepFcertain
social traditions and the vestiges of overlordship over Fudai daimyo
and hatamoto — this being political rather than economic. linefeed, as
the eighteenth century progressed the economic concomitants"' of a
— ,

Traditionalist Reactions

feudal system, where they persisted, became negligible and almost
nominal. The Shogun could not keep his contract with his own direct
retainers, and the hatamoto and samurai in Tokugawa domains were
little more than "soldiers" in the original sense of that word -the
officers and men of an army paid a wage for their services. Conditions in
the several clans were somewhat different, but even here the system was
only quasi-feudal and might be better described as paternal. There is
perhaps no harm in saying that in certain quarters a feudal spirit sur-
vived after the Restoration and that its vestiges are still to be perceived
in Japan. But that does not justify writers on present-day Japan in
saying of any political or social circumstances which they dislike that
they are "feudal" when what they mean is that they are conservative
or traditional.

377

C HvfT T £

EARLY MEIJI: WESTERN INFLUENCES

Popular Sentiment

HEN the rallying cry of "Expel the Barbarians" died down
because it was no longer useful as a political device to embarrass
the Shogunate, and when six of the leading feudal lords said in
a memorial to the authorities: "Let the foolish argument be aban-
doned which has hitherto described foreigners as dogs, goats, and
barbarians/' the new government began to encourage the adop-
tion of Western ways. This was part of their plan to destroy what
were called kyuhei, or bad old habits, and to build up national
strength by assimilating those material and practical features of
Occidental life which were supposed to be the true foundation of
a powerful modern state. The townspeople, always lively and
much given to new fashions, responded with almost feverish en-
thusiasm; and they were followed, though slowly and with mis-
givings, by the peasants, who thought that change might better
their condition but were puzzled and even frightened by innova-
tions that seemed to run counter to cherished customs and beliefs.

The subsequent craze for Western things and Western ideas
lastecl for a space of about two decades, described by some Japan-
ese7 historians as the period of intoxication. This almost fanatical
phase is of peculiar interest in the history of European influences
upon Asiatic peoples and deserves therefore some detailed de-
scription.

Naturally it was the visible and tangible features of Occidental
civilization that first attracted the attention of the Japanese peo-
ple at large, since its unfamiliar modes of thought were not easy
to fathom. The aesthetic bent of the Japanese makes them pecu-
Harly sensitive to fleeting movementTon the surface ofTffeT and be-
cause their visual perception is acute their artists are often quicker
than their writers to seize upon changes in popular taste or shifts
of public interest. Throughout Japanese history the student often
finds the mood or sentiment of a time expressed more vividly in

S78

Popular Sentiment

the plastic arts than in literature, and it happens that this is espe-
cially true ot the period of transition in the middle of the nine-
teenth century. Long before the Restoration, Japanese colour-
print artists had begun to turn their attention to themes that
would satisfy or even anticipate a popular interest in Western
things.

In 1848 Hokusai, the Old Man Mad with Painting, was eighty-
nine, Hokkei was sixty-eight, Kunisada sixty-three, Kuniyoshi fifty-
two, Hiroshige fifty-two, and Eisen had lately died. Hokusai's Man-
gwa was yet to be completed, and so was Hiroshige's Tokaido
Meisho Dzuye; but popular art had passed its zenith and was in full
decline. This was the year in which the Russian "black ships" came
to the coast of Matsumae. This was the year in which the feudal lord
of Saga had started to build a reverberatory furnace and Sakuma
Shozan had constructed a field gun upon a recent European model.
New movements were afoot and were soon to be reflected in paint-
ing. The folio wing year shows already the beginning of a change. No
longer the lovely ladies and the pleasant landscapes untouched by
time and dusty business, but now less romantic and less familiar
themes bespeak the print artist's brush if he is to satisfy the capri-
cious taste of the citizens of Yedo and Osaka. In 1848 the leading
print artists begin to concern themselves with^political matters, thus
mirroring the confused pattern of contemporary life, the uncertain-
ties that prevail. Kuniyoshi and a number of his colleagues are ques-
tioned by the authorities concerning prints that are in effect politi-
cal satires. In 1853, when Perry's ships have arrived, Kuniyoshi and
his publisher are fined for issuing a series of prints professing to be
a selection of genre paintings reminiscent of the masterpieces of
Matahei, but really poking fun at dissolute goings-on in the inner
apartments of the Shogun's palace. The citizens are beginning to
deny respect to their feudal masters. Certain artists now devote
themselves to a type of black-and-white picture, struck off from
clay blocks, and called Perry Tile-Prints (Perry Kawara-bari) to
show how up-to-date they are. These are broadsheets depicting
chiefly contemporary events, and the production of prints tends to
become less an artistic undertaking than a kind of rudimentary
journalism. The number of copies sold increases month by month.
The prints develop as a medium of information about foreign
customs and about changing domestic conditions. Their titles re-
veal this trend, for the Perry prints are followed by the Red, Hair
prints, which depict the persons and habits of northern Europeans
as distinct from Portuguese and Spaniards, people whose appear-
ance has already been freely portrayed since the sixteenth century.
There is also a series known as Kaikwa-ban or Civilization-Prints,
showing some of the external aspects of that Western culture

879

Early Meiji: Western Influences

which Japan is on the brink of adopting with fervour. Their sub-
jects are intensely modern. They represent steamships, foreign
architecture in brick and stone, exhibitions (still pretty new in
Europe) , trousers and hats, bustles and bonnets. The colour, the
composition, the sentiment of the traditional ukiyoe begin to van-
ish^ Here is visible one of the first evil effects in the aesthetic field
of the impact of Western civilization upon Japan, and in this lapse
from former standards the use of cheap imported pigments played
a wicked part.1

A gradual degradation becomes clear as one studies colour
prints and book illustrations from about 1850, yet the decline is
not universal. Hokusai just before that had done a landscape show-
ing surveyors at work, which may be said to have a slightly modern
touch; but it preserves all his great qualities. Kuniyoshi does Yoko-
hama street scenes with a slightly foreign flavour, and Hiroshige
rather later a scene at the railway station. Sadahide, circa 1860, is
still able to display brilliant design and harmonious colour in a
triptych representing foreign vessels loading cargo. This last is in-
deed a minor masterpiece, which has some of the quality of work
of the best Ukiyoe period, though instead of Yedo beauties poised
upon airy bridges it portrays the massive hulls of ships, dock
workers plodding up a gangway, and elegant foreign females in
crinolines, waving their hands from little rowboats. Even a print
by Kiyochika (1847-1915) of an iron foundry manufacturing pots
and kettles contrives to make good play with the glow from the
furnace and the straining figures of the workmen. This is of 1879,
and now and again one comes across pictures of an even later date
showing traces of that happy gift of the great print artists which
enabled them to perceive and record the pictorial essence of un-
promising scenes.

It was hard for the print artists of Meiji to preserve the old
qualities of their school as they inevitably turned to depicting such
phenomena of the new age as shawls, capes, and umbrellas, loco-
motives and factory chimneys, street lamps and telegraph poles.
Yet even here some ingenious painters contrived to find decora-
tive elements, just as their early predecessors had portrayed with
gusto such striking subjects as the large noses and the baggy
breeches of Portuguese captains or the tall cadaverous figures of
Jesuit fathers. But it must be said that European dress and deport-
ment of the nineteenth century were lacking in picturesque qual-
ities, and the merchants and seamen who came ashore in Yoko-

i Japan took part in the International Exposition in Vienna in 1872. A descrip-
tion of the process of making colour prints was prepared, but when it was pub-
lished later in Japan the illustrations were done in imported aniline colours, which
were in vogue at the time. The pure Japanese colours were available.

380

Popular Sentiment

hama offered less attractive models to Japanese artists than did
those who landed in Nagasaki from caravels some three hundred
years before. Nevertheless some interesting traces of foreign influ-
ence can be found in the popular arts of the day, though it is social
rather than aesthetic. The print men and the illustrators, perhaps
responding to some subconscious wish, are apt when representing
Japanese ladies and gentlemen in foreign dress to idealize their
subjects and to give them an extremely Western air. The ladies
are tall and slender — as indeed were the seductive females im-
agined by Utamaro. They wear their foreign dress with charming
ease. The gentlemen, especially the high officials in tight breeches,
have extremely long legs and well-turned calves, which would have
pleased Sir Willoughby Patterne but are certainly not the sturdy
members that usually support the Japanese male. Both sexes have
beautiful fair complexions. In imposing salons the gentlemen lean
over/ the seated ladies in intensely deferential poses, which cer-
tainly do not accord with the traditional habit of Japanese society.

While popular art was thus being transformed by foreign influ-
ence the classical schools of painting, of their nature unable to
adjust themselves to new conditions, suffered from neglect and
even from contempt as the movement in favour of "modern"-—
that is, of Occidental — taste developed and brought with it a posi-
tive reaction against the ancient and traditional. Two masters of
classical Japanese painting, Kano Hogai and Hashimoto Gaho,
were almost starving ten years after the Restoration, and their works
were sold at street corners, where they could be bought for a few
pence. The treasures of Buddhist monasteries were thrown away or
sold for a song. Precious wooden sculptures were used as fuel. Sacred
buildings were destroyed, partly because political trends had
fostered an anti-Buddhist movement, but largely because the mood
of the day was iconoclastic and what was old was thought to be
bad because what was bad was sometimes old. In 1879 an American
connoisseur, .Ernest Fenollosa, who had studied and appreciated
Japanese painting and sculpture, lectured at Tokyo University on
the value of early Japanese art and implored the authorities to
take protective action. But the tide of foreign influence was too
strong and it was not until some years later that a reaction set in
with sufficient strength to afford protection to national art treas-
ures and support to living artists. It is perhaps significant that a
Japanese word (bigaku) for "aesthetics" was coined about 1880,
when foreign theories were in high favour and Japanese art was at
a low ebb.

This description of the condition of Japanese art in the early
years of Meiji will give some measure of the violence of the foreign
fever that then raged in Japan, for it attacked the very essence o£

381

Early Meiji: Western Influences

Japanese culture, its deeply rooted aesthetic tradition. That it
should have affected more superficial aspects of daily life is not re-
markable, though even here there are some curious features that
show not so much the strength of foreign influence as the weakness
of a society in a period of drastic political change, when old habits
are challenged and new standards have not been fixed.

While foreign political ideas began, as we shall presently see,
to make a strong impression upon Japanese minds in the early
years of Meiji, the first and most apparent changes brought about
by contact with the West were naturally those which showed them-
selves in the field of material culture. Thus military uniforms of
Western type were adopted for obvious reasons of utility before
the Restoration of 1868, and thence it was but a short step to the
issue in 1872 of an ordinance prescribing foreign dress for court
and other official ceremonies. This was an important departure, for
it so to speak legalized trousers and abolished flowing robes, thus
symbolizing the current change from a leisurely, processional life
to a busy, practical striding about the market place. To wear
foreign-style clothes and leather shoes was now correct and up-to-
cfate, not ludicrous as it had been as late as 1 85 Q, when an English-
man named Tilley reported that the Japanese in Yedo were ex-
tremely amused by European costume. They had greeted with
loud laughter his "tail coat and a curly-brimmed London hat
which would have been fashionable in the Botanic Garden on
Wednesday." Less than twenty years later the Tokyo newspapers
were reporting that the most prosperous tradesmen in Tokyo were
the tailors of foreign garments and that shoemakers were doing a
thriving business. Of course few Japanese in 1875 or thereabouts
could afford a complete foreign wardrobe, but it was usual to
wear one or two articles of foreign clothing. Some interesting com-
binations were thus devised, such as a kimono over trousers, or a
broadcloth frock coat and a silk divided skirt with two swords in
the belt; and these naturally drew the fire of Japanese satirists.
Traditional Japanese costume permits of few ornaments, but dia-
mond rings and gold watches became very popular as marks of
advanced views and good social standing — a sorry departure from
the frugal standards of an earlier day. Foreign umbrellas (called
by the Japanese "bat shades/' from their resemblance to the wings
of that creature) unhappily displaced the decorative bamboo-and-
paper implements that had formerly brightened rainy streets.
Cheap glass began to displace pottery and lacquer, and tin cans
were more prized than utensils mad$ by craftsmen. Here and in
many other ways traditional articles of ffreat beauty gave way_^tp
drab things with no merit except perhaps durability.

Such changes had a measure of august approval, since the Im-

Popular Sentiment

Aerial ordinance just cited was followed by a message stating that
old-style costume was not appropriate to the times. The people
must not be soft, but must strive to build up a martial state. These
are interesting words, for they suggest that the purpose of abolish-
ing what the authorities called "old evils' ' was not to adopt a kind
of civilization recognized as superior but to mobilize and stiffen
the hitherto inert masses for national purposes that had little to
dp , with cultural jcgform. or the pursuit nf happiness. There were
other changes encouraged by the government in order to pro-
mote such ends. It became fashionable to eat beef, and notices
were issued by local authorities recommending this unorthodox
diet on the ground that it would create energy for the performance
of patriotic duties and strengthen the national physique. The
public was assured that eating meat would not as hitherto be re-
garded as defiling worshippers at shrines. One of the most widely
read books of this early period was Aguranabe (1871) , a series of
sketches by a popular comic writer and prolific journalist, Kana-
gaki Robun, in which he describes the customers in an eating-
house of which beef stew was the specialty. It gives their occupa-
tions, samples of their talk, their views on modern life, and their
taste in Western $dngs. It suggests that you could not be civilized
unless you afe beef stew (gyunabe kuwaneba hirakenu) ; and
among'its numerous illustrations is a drawing of a young man who
has placed his umbrella on the floor behind him, is gazing at an
enormous gilt watch, and is about to consume a dish of beef. To
these insignia of modernity he adds a coiffure which, though in the
old style, has been sprinkled with eau-de-Cologne.

Ranking with beef, umbrellas, and watches as signs of advanced
thought were oil lamps, knitted underwear, blankets, telegrams,
and horse-carriages. The list might be enlarged to include almost
any simple mechanical contrivance or handy utensil that could be
adapted to use in Japanese daily life; but perhaps the state of
affairs is best illustrated by a song composed for children in 1878.
It was called the "Civilization Ball Song" and was designed to im-
press on young minds the advantages of Western culture. They
were to count the bounces of the ball by reciting the names of
ten objects deemed to be the most worthy of adoption — namely,
gas lamps, steam engines, horse-carriages, cameras, telegrams, light-
ning-conductors, newspapers, schools, letter post, and steamboats.

Rather less material aspects of Western life that were urged
upon the confused but obedient public were the use of the English
, language and the observance of decency. The former calls for no
comment, but the latter needs a rather roundabout explanation.
It has to be remembered that when the so-called treaty ports were
opened to foreign trade and residence in 1868, the Emperor issued

Early Meiji: Western Influences

an edict announcing that the treaties concluded by the Bakufu
with foreign countries had his approval, but that they contained
some harmful clauses that must be amended in accordance with
international justice. This is the first official statement on the sub-
ject of treaty revision, a question that was to claim the attention
of successive Japanese governments for nearly thirty years. It is not
too much to say that the problem of securing new treaties on a
footing of equality with other powers overshadowed all other prob-
lems and influenced not only foreign but also domestic policy
throughout that period. The attitude of the authorities towards
the Adoption of Western institutions and customs was to a great
extent shaped by their anxiety to show to Western nations that the
Japanese people had assimilated enough of Western culture to
justify their claims to be treated as members ot a civilized modern
state^They wanted Western nations to agree that the constitution
and laws of Japan were enlightened and that her standards of
public and private behaviour were high enough to make their
country a respectable and worthy member of international society.
No doubt they privately thought that their own civilization was
in many ways superior to the materialistic culture of the industri-
alized Occident, but they did not say so; and they were consistent
in urging upon the Japanese public the reform of practices that to
the foreign eye might look unpolished or even barbarous.

The steps they took to modernize their political and economic
structure need not be considered at this point, but it is proper in
the present context to pay some attention to the effect upon daily
life of the concern of the rulers of Japan lest their people should
be regarded by foreigners as inferior in behaviour or capacity to
those of the dominant nations in the nineteenth-century world.
The frantic zeal with which foreign ideas and habits were adopted
in the first two decades after the Restoration seems at first sight to
testify to the overwhelming effect of Western culture and gives the
impression that its most obvious featur.es were borrowed by the
Japanese as gladly as were the main elements of Chinese culture
in the seventh century. But this view leaves out of account the
necessities of the situation as the Japanese saw it after the threaten-
ing visits of Russian and American warships round about 1850. In
many respects they felt that they had no choice. It was true that the
Western nations did not explicitly impose upon Japan the task of
reshaping her social and political lite alongfWHtei^ the

Japanese saw clearly that if they were to enter the dangerous circle
of international comity they must in self-defence forge for ^them-
selves the kind of weapons which, it appeared, gave toThe great
modern states their supreme position in world attairsrj.'his meant
that they must equip themselves as^rapicUy^jg^p^ible'noit' only

384 '

Popular Sentiment

with a military machine but also with a modern apparatus of ad-
ministration, law, industry, and commerce. These ends, they were
convinced, could not be fully achieved unless they secured full po-
litical independence, and this was not possible so long as the first
treaties remained m force and denied them such conditions of
full sovereignty as judicial and fiscal autonomy.

They made up their minds to take over foreign ways of life not
so much because they recognized the absolute merits of Western
culture — a point on which in truth they were at that time not
able to form a rational judgment — as because the sooner they
could display to the world a colourable imitation of Western so-
ciety, the sooner would the unequal treaties be revised. This was
their goal, and much that is obscure in early Merji history becomes
clear when it is looked at in the light of these circumstances. That
treaty revision was a controlling factor in the political life of Japan
until it was accomplished in 1894 is clear enough from the most
cursory study of political documents; but day-to-day social life also
reveals, in curious and unexpected ways, how important it was
thought by Japanese leaders that their countrymen should make a
good impression on the outside world by showing themselves as
earnest followers of Western example. JTheir anxiety sometimes
took an extreme form. So thirsty were they for approval that they
developed a nervous dread of ridicule. A study of the vernacular
newspapers for a few years after 1870 reveals some interesting evi-
dence of this fear of foreign criticism. Such is an announcement in
the Nichi-nichi newspaper at the end of 1871 of an order issued by
the Tokyo municipal authorities against nakedness. The writer ex-
plains that rikisha men and day-labourers must give up their old
comfortable practice of stripping to the loincloth during their ex-
ertions. They must cover themselves with something, for the head-
line says: "You must not be laughed at by foreigners." So the new
rule goes into force, and from time to time a simple countryman
is arrested for indecent exposure because he has tucked up his
kimono and bared his sunburned thighs. Next the public bath-
houses engage the attention of the functionaries. The proprietors
are told to put screens before the entrance and to separate the
sexes, and this is done though the barriers are often only symbolic.
Again, under the headline: "Do not be laughed at by foreigners,"
the newspaper explains that this and similar reforms need not be
construed as condemning good old customs outright but simply as
measures to prevent ridicule by prudish aliens. Shortly after this
the diligent municipal officers summon a theatre manager and two
writers of farces to warn them that henceforward they must pro-
duce only edifying and not naughty plays. Obscene performances
are offensive to high-class Japanese as well as to foreigners and will

385

Early Meiji: Western Influences

not be permitted. Nor may the actors make jokes and puns about
famous historical figures, since that might confuse school-children.
They must at all costs be instructive. Another official order forbids
the display or sale of Spring Pictures — a polite way of describing
pornographic art, as Spring Tales is the general name for erotic
writings.

The solicitude of the authorities extended even to the conduct
of Japanese travelling abroad. A leading newspaper in 1870 prints
an article under the title: "Bad Behavior of Japanese Tourists." It
relates the dreadful conduct of a Native of our Empire who, while
at sea on a Pacific Mail steamship, smoked in bed and chanted
Chinese poems in a loud voice, to the distress of other passengers.
A miscreant more dangerous to the reputation of Japan had, while
staying at a hotel in the United States, attempted to seduce the
chambermaid and sullied the white wall of his room with an im-
proper sketch. The writer of this piece reminded the public that
the doings of one business man could cast shame upon the Japanese
people in the eyes of the whole world, since in modern days the
press could spread small items of news over thousands of miles to
hundreds of thousands of readers.

Of somewhat more significance than the trivia just recorded
was the attitude of the Japanese newspapers towards an attempt
made by the authorities in 1871 to abolish the sale of girls as pros-
titutes or geisha. The Nichi-nichi newspaper announced the im-
pending reform in a column headed: "Traffic in Human Beings
Forbidden. The Caged Birds return to the Sky. Geisha and Har-
lots released by Order." But to relieve the distress of those who
might be pained by such drastic interference with ancient custom,
the writer added: "But this is only on account of foreign opinion/'
A few days later the Department of Justice, in defence of its policy,
stated that these unfortunate women, having been sold to their
owners, were deprived of human rights and had become like horses
and oxen. Upon this the newspaper observed that horses and oxen
could not pay their debts, so that the owners would get no indem-
nity or refund. Another protector of vested interests wrote the con-
soling sentence: "Anyhow these girls are not enjoying their free-
dom'*; and for lack of public support the new order was not
enforced.

This incident, occurring at the height of the craze for foreign
things, shows that old and deeply rooted habits did not easily SM£-
gumb to foreign influence, and that change was slow to penetrate
beneath the surface of Japanese life. The truth is that, fdtjjie
most part, it was only foreign things and not foreign ideas that had
aii immediate appeal to the mass of the J apan£se~peeple^^
could not be expected to grasp the principles which guided West-

886

Popular Sentiment

ern behaviour, since they were of an intellectual origin far remote
from the ancient springs of conduct in Far Eastern countries. Thus
it was puzzling for a thoughtful Japanese to discover that, while
Europeans thought it shocking to expose the naked human form,
they displayed in their homes and in public places paintings and
statues of the nude body which had no place in the repertory of
Japanese artists, who would have deemed them merely an exag-
gerated form of Spring Pictures. Similarly in a country that had
developed no doctrine of human rights it seemed absurd to pre-
vent indigent parents from selling their daughters into a profession
that served a recognized social purpose; and they were not likely
to change that opinion so long as they observed that the brothels
in the treaty ports were thronged with foreign visitors.

Indeed, as was to be expected, it was not very long* before the
first "Hush of enthusiasm for Western ways and manners began to
produce a critical and conservative reaction in some quarters. A
more detailed study of the effect of Western thought must be re-
served for a later chapter, but it is convenient here to examine
some of the earliest expressions of scepticism by individuals who
asked themselves whether Western culture, represented to them
as morally and materially more advanced than their own, was in
reality so flawless as it pretended to be. Perhaps the first sign in
literature is a work entitled Seiyd Anasagashi, which means Pick-
ing Holes in the West. This essay in fault-finding, published in in-
stalments in 1 879 by the recently founded Keio University, quoted
foreign evidence of foreign delinquency, for it was composed
mainly of extracts from Palace and Hovel or Phases of London Life
and The Light and Shadow of New York Life. It is true that this
is a solitary instance among a crowd of translations of European
classics; but it may be taken as showing that the pretensions of
the West were no longer being accepted without question in edu-
cated circles; and it is the more significant in that Keio University
was founded for the very purpose of spreading knowledge of the
English language and Anglo-Saxon institutions.

In less sophisticated or more stubbornly conservative circles it
is easy to trace a strong anti-foreign sentiment, freely expressed by
factions in apostolic succession to those which had raised the cry
of "Expel the Barbarians" as soon as they saw that their own
cherished beliefs were endangered by the arrival of foreigners
spreading new doctrine. An interesting example of such early con-
servatism is to be found in the treatment of Japanese Christians in
the first years of Meiji^

The government Installed immediately after the Restoration
was organized on lines similar to those of the administration set up
iji A.D. 702; after the Taikwa Reform. The movement that brought

387

Early Meiji: Western Influences

this about was described as the Return to Antiquity, and one of its
main features was an attempt to restore the indigenous (Shinto) re-
ligion to its primacy in the state. Above the six ministries was
placed a Department of Religion, whose President ranked next
to the Chancellor of the Realm; and when the Emperor took his
Charter Oath in 1868 he swore not to his subjects but to the na-
tional deities, following an ancient ritual that had been used by
his ancestor when he announced to the gods the conversion of
Japan to Buddhism.

Underlying this procedure was a very early concept of the unity
of government and worship, in which the sovereign was seen as
an intermediary between the gods and the people. In that sense
the new structure was a return to antiquity, though it is true that
its main purpose was to make a clean break with the tradition of
feuHaTrule and to reassert the absolute power of the throne. It
could not long withstand the rough winds of political controversy,
but for a brief period it survived uneasily and meanwhile gave a
certain authority to the Shinto enthusiasts who presided over the
Department of Religion, and to the officials of its dependent insti-
tution the Daikyo-in or Board of Religious Instruction. These took
advantage of their position to harass and humiliate their Buddhist
colleagues, of whom a few were admitted to the board on suffer-
ance and only for form's sake, since in fact only Shinto doctrines
were taught.

This revival movement, as an attempt to restore Shinto as the
state religion, was abortive and had little effect upon the religious
or social life of the day. Though it would scarcely deserve mention
on its own account, it is of some historical significance as the fore-
runner of similar movements in later times — movements that dif-
fered from it, however, in having a strong political complexion. JDt
is interesting chiefly as an expression of traditional feeling running
against the intellectual tide of the day. The Shinto doctors, suc-
cessors of Mabuchi, Motoori, and Hirata, the great Kokugakusha
or National Scholars, who by their studies of the native literature
had contributed to the downfall of the Shogunate, felt that their
services should be rewarded and that the government should sup-
port them in their assault upon foreign creeds, by which they
meant Buddhism and Confucianism and — though it was not
usually a direct object of their attack — Christianity. They were
especially hostile to Buddhism and resented in particular the com-
bination of Buddhism and the indigenous faith that was called
Dual Shinto. Thus curious syncretic system permitted Buddhist
images and paintings in Shinto shrines and Shinto emblems in
Buddhist chapels. It was a compromise that had the sanction of
long usage, and when the Shinto shrines were urged to throw out

Popular Sentiment

Buddhist articles and the monasteries to surrender Shinto em-
blems a great deal of unseemly and riotous conduct ensued, which
led in some provinces to the destruction of sacred buildings and
their contents, with subsequent reprisals. It was this quarrel that
was chiefly responsible for the loss of many art treasures, already
described.

These stupid and intolerant excesses were thought in some
quarters to have the approval of the government, and did in fact
result Som a policy for which the Chancellor, Prince iwakura, wa5
responsible, though he cannot have foreseen its results. In certain
provinces, notably in Satsuma and Choshu, where there was a
strong anti-Buddhist feeling among followers of Hirata and Yo-
shida Shoin, Buddhism was for a time almost eradicated, and else-
where a great deal of Buddhist property was destroyed under the
impression that it was the government's aim to abolish Buddhism.

These episodesv typical of a period when a hundred conflicting
doctrines in religion, social ethics, and politics were striving for
adoption, had sequels that must have sadly disappointed the Shinto
doctors. The great popular Buddhist sects, in particular the Ami-
dists of the Hongwanji, were moved from lethargy to action by the
hostility of Shinto and were before long able to regain great influ-
ence,^ particularly in such regions as Satsuma, which had been
swept and garnished for them by the recent excesses, since no rivals
were left to compete with them.2 Moreover, as a result of its ex-
cessive zeal the Board of Religious Instruction, the chief organ of
Shinto propaganda, was abolished in 1876, and the parent Depart-
ment of State soon followed it into oblivion. rThe field of religious
and ethical controversy was left clear for Buddhists, Confucianists,
and freethinkers alike.

The times were not propitious, however, for Confucian philos-
ophers. Their teaching, which encouraged virtuous behaviour and
self-discipline, might perhaps have been adapted to the require-

2 An interesting footnote to the history of this period is furnished by the rela-
tionships of this great Buddhist sect with certain Restoration leaders. The Eastern
Hongwanji had been favoured by the Tokugawa at the expense of the Western
Hongwanji, with the result that the Western branch nourished a certain animosity
against the Bakufu. When Choshu and Satsuma rebels were in Kyoto setting the
court against the Bakufu, they were offered sanctuary in the Western Hongwanji,
where they were free from the attentions of the Shogun's police. Choshu and Sat-
suma samurai remembered this after the Restoration, and men like Ito, Inouye,
Koduma, and Terauchi did the abbots favours, thus aiding the revival of Buddhism
in their provinces. Later, when the people of the western provinces, in particular
Choshu, resisted new taxes imposed by the Meiji government, the Choshu men in
the administration asked the Hongwanji to persuade members of the sect that the
taxes ought to be paid.

It is difficult to understand early Meiji history without some knowledge of the
private relationships of its chief actors. Often obscure features only become clear
when one learns the personal friendships and quarrels or the family connections be-
hind them.

389

Early Meiji: Western Influences

ments of the modern life upon which Japan was now entering;
but (as the Japanese phrase goes) it smelt of China. It was also
tainted with feudal associations, since the Tokugawa administra-
tion had been, at least in theory, based upon the Confucian ideal
of government by superior men — a system not at all consistent
with the prevailing desire for freedom and popular rights. Conse-
quently, though there were some early attempts at a Confucian
revival, promoted by Yasui Sokken and other scholars, they had
little success and it was not until after 1880 that Confucianism be-
gan to regain some small measure of influence. The truth is that
in the era of "enlightenment," which lasted approximately from
1868 to 1888, the only doctrine that could be successfully preached
in Japjan was a utilitarian philosophy, suitable to a country which
was aiming at the material development of the nation and the in-
(EviHuaL

It is perhaps surprising, but nevertheless appropriate, to deal
with Christianity under this rubric. Reactions against Buddhism,
Confucianism, and even Shinto as old-fashioned and therefore un-
suitable to the times did not extend to Christianity. Indeed, they
even worked in its favour, since there was current a feeling, not
very precisely formulated, that Cfesri^_ffa^mg__TTOs closelg^con-

^^^.jL^^-3^^6^3:?5- even accounted for the success of Western
countries m managing their own affairs. This feeling was of
gradual growth, because it had to contend with a long: tradition of
hatred and suspicion dating back to the persecutions oFTj}Q7_. In
1868 the ban on Christianity, imposed and renewed time after
time since the massacre of Shimabara in 1638, had not yet been
withdrawn. On the very day of the Emperor's Charter Oath, which
bade his subjects "seek knowledge throughout the world/' the au-
thorities had (in place of those of the Bakufu) put up new notice
boards that still proclaimed: "The evil sect of Christians is for-
bidden as heretofore." The reason for this action is not clear. It is
known that in this year the government sent to Nagasaki as ad-
visers to the newly appointed Governor of Kyushu two officials,
Okuma and Inouye Kaoru, who were later to hold great offices of
state. They, or their subordinates, learning that there were some
practising Japanese Christians in the near-by village of Urakami,
had them arrested. The foreign consular representatives in Naga-
saki moved their ministers in Tokyo to make strong complaints to
the authorities of the central government, who were extremely
dilatory. They were no doubt stiffened in their resistance to pres-
sure by the strength of the Shinto revival that has just been de-
scribed; and being technically on firm ground because the old anti-
Christian laws had not been repealed, they procrastinated for fear
of being accused of submitting to foreign interference in domestic

890

Popular Sentiment

affairs. The government then installed at Kyoto sent to Nagasaki
one of its most important members, Kido Junichiro. He, in conver-
sation with the British Consul, said that he considered it desirable
for the welfare of the country to put Christianity down, since ill
feeling against it existed among the people and he feared disorder.
He blamed Roman Catholic priests for much of the trouble and
described missionaries as men sent to Japan to teach the Japanese
to break the laws of their country. He was friendly but quite firm,
and a few days after this talk a number of the arrested Christians
were put aboard ships and dispersed in various fiefs. This was re-
garded as an act of clemency, giving the converts an opportunity to
reform. It was not until 1873 that the problem was solved by Ito
and Okubo, who had gone with Iwakura's mission to America and
Europe, "seeking knowledge throughout the world/* One piece of
useful knowledge acquired on this journey (which was made for
the very purpose of securing some relaxation in the conditions im-
posed upon Japan by the agreements of 1858) was the fact that
there was no prospect whatever of treaty revision so long as Chris-
tianity was forbidden by Japanese law. In every country that they
visitedTtliey were asked why Japan was persecuting Christians. The
government at last gave way, though even then it did not openly •
repeal the edicts but merely caused the notice boards to be with-
drawn, having released the imprisoned Christians and paid them
an indemnity.

Thus ended the long and tragic tale of Christian martyrdom in
Japan. Small Catholic communities that had continued to prac-
tise their faith in secret since the first great persecution had man-
aged to survive for over two centuries. Little groups in Urakami
(where later stood a cathedral, destroyed by an atomic bomb in
1 945) and on lonely near-by islands had been smoked out by the
authorities during the Tokugawa period. There had been searches
in the years round 1806, 1827, 1840, and 1856; and the last of these
revealed a number of suspects, who were imprisoned, some of them
dying in jail after torture. Yet this harsh action did not eradicate
the faith. Hidden Christians cautiously made themselves known
to French missionaries who arrived in Nagasaki after 1862, and
upon further inquiry the fathers estimated their total number to
be as high as twenty or even fifty thousand. These figures are
doubtful, but it is certain that there were thousands rather than
hundreds. They grew bolder under the protection of the mis-
sionaries, but in 1867 the local authorities rounded up about one
hundred suspects and continued to make arrests until more than
four thousand had been placed in custody or sent to forced labour
in other provinces. It was these acts that gave rise to the protests of
foreign consuls in 1868.

S91

Early Meiji: Western Influences

Further discussion of the influence of Christianity in Japan
must be left for a later chapter, since here we are considering it
only as one of the many Western influences to which the Japanese
were subjected after 1868. For the moment we are more concerned
with the conservative reactions to foreign culture in general which
can be discerned in the early years of Meiji. Among these is the
attitude of the peasant population, which, as might be expected,
was more cautious and less fickle than that of the lively towns-
people,

It^ is Difficult, in examining t^bAaviour of the peasants or
even of mor^soph^ to find any

uniformity of sentimmt^m

cha£ge£jthat^were *pj?£££5^^ from

In one province they would placidly ac-

cept what in another had caused loud complaint or even violent
resistance, while at times they would be moved to rioting by base-
less rumours which aroused their superstitious fears. In general
they were ignorant if^shrewd, j*5^inc]&^

^ to their interests, for though they had

little to lose they clung to their exiguous property and cherished
their old comfortable habits. Thus when, the Emperor having ac-
cepted the surrender of the fiefs, the government, instead of allow-
ing the feudatories to remain as prefectural governors, ordered
them to reside in the capital, the peasantry, so inured were they
to feudal rule, in some districts rose to prevent their one-time over-
lords from deserting them. In Niigata in 1872 the rioters carried
banners inscribed: "Restore the Tokugawa. Down with the ene-
mies of the state/' Such demonstrations had little political signifi-
cance, and many of them were fomented by agitators and vagrants
for their own selfish purposes; but they were none the less ex-
pressions of a general uneasiness,

At times the new government in its zeal for reform was clumsy
and hasty, as when it was officially announced that compulsory
military service was to be introduced. This was in 1873, when the
new measure was described as a blood tax (ketsuzei) , it being ex-
plained that in foreign countries it was so named because "the
people contribute their lifeblood for the sake of the country."
Nothing could have been more alarming to the simple country-
men who for centuries had been denied the right to bear arms and
had been told that fighting was the business of a superior military
caste. By a curious twist of circumstance, it happened that of all
the foreign articles familiar in Japan at that time almost the only
one of use to peasants was the cheap woollen blanket, which they
could throw over their shoulders or drape over a wooden bench.
It was usually dyed red, and so favoured was it by countryfolk that

898

Popular Sentiment

the word akagetto o/ "red-blanket" was a common name for a
rustic among city-dwellers. So when the peasants heard of the
blood tax, wild rumour flew around that the government intended
to draw their blood and sell it to foreigners, who would use it for
dyeing blankets or drink it as medicine. Some even said that it
would be smeared upon telegraph wires so as to speed the messages
along. It is not surprising to learn that, following upon this care-
lessly drafted announcement of the blood tax, there were numer-
ous risings against conscription in 1 874.

Another grievance of the farmers reveals in an interesting way
how deeply rooted in Japanese life was the sense of class distinc-
tion, the feeling for social hierarchy. It was natural that the sam-
urai should object to conscription, because it deprived them of
their standing as members of a privileged order. But the peasants
had their class feeling also, and when in 1872 the classifications of
eta and hinin (the pariahs) were abolished, there were revolts with
violence in many parts of the country. In Arima, to take one exam-
ple, some five thousand villagers banded together in protest, burn-
ing and smashing property until they were suppressed by police
using firearms. The peasant's loathing for the outcast was greater
than the contempt of the samurai for the trader, and the fact that
there was no longer any official distinction between the pariah and
the farmer, who had always ranked higher than the merchant and
the artisan, aroused bitter anger in country districts.

Further instances could be related of the suspicion with which
new measures were regarded by many of the peasants, but it will
be enough to mention a few more of their real or fancied griev-
ances, so as to show their general nature.

In 1872 a Tokyo newspaper reports that in rural areas in west-
ern Japan it is believed that the transmission of messages by wire
is a trick of the Christians; that the wires have to be smeared with
the blood of virgins; and that the recent preparations for a census
are in reality a device for finding out how many young girls are
available for sale to foreign countries, while the numbering of
houses is to show the order in which they will be taken.

For a year or more after 1872 there were agrarian risings in
several parts of the country. It is clear that some of these were due
to false rumours spread by persons who wished to shake the peo-
ple's confidence in the government of the day and thus to hamper
the proposed reforms; but there was also genuine and not unjusti-
fied misgiving among the peasants, whose real grievances were not
always those against which they revolted. For example, though they
complained about the Gregorian calendar, which was introduced
in 1873, and were disturbed by new regulations about dress and
deportment, or alarmed by the policy of favouring Shinto at the

393

Early Meiji: Western Influences

expense of Buddhism, these were in the nature of a general dislike
of change. But a study of documents in which their specific com-
plaints are recorded shows that what caused them most anxiety was
fear of material losses. A typical case is that of a rising in Tottori
prefecture in the summer of 1873, when one or two thousand men
armed with bamboo spears and a few guns marched about the
countryside destroying official buildings and schools. On examina-
tion of the ringleaders it was found that what they really wanted
was a lower price of rice, improved conditions of land tenure, and
the abolition of primary schools. These were specific economic de-
mands rather than objections to reform in general, for a high price
of rice meant a heavy payment of rent and elementary schools
meant a new burden of taxation.

Such in broad outline was the reaction of the average Japanese
citizen to the changes that were being imposed upon him by offi-
cials or recommended to him by leaders of the new movement for
Westernization, It cannot be said that there was any powerful or
concerted jregstan mass of

the „ people _realjzedL how great a task their country had undertaken
or how far-reaching would be the results of the plans of their
rulers. Old habits of obedience and of respect for established au-
thority, though a little shaken, were not destroyed, so that while
the government had to cope with opposition from diverse quarters
it was usually able to appeal with success to a strong sense of na-
tional unity and a characteristic desire for improvement. The op-
position came from several factions, each concerned to protect its
owiTlnFerests. The samurai were disappointed because they ha3
lost their social status and their assured incomes, and those who
could not find suitable employment tended to drift into subversive
movements. Scholars of the old style resented the prestige that new
kinds of learning had acquired, and felt betrayed when they saw
that ignorant upstarts with a smattering of English could set up
as men of wisdom and earn an easy livelihood. The peasants, as we
have seen, feared for their scanty earnings. Buddhists, Shintoists,
and Confucianists saw dangers ahead for their respective creeds;
and honest conservatives, whether they did not believe in progress
at all or whether they had grave doubts of the superiority of West-
ern culture, felt that traditional Japanese institutions were being
destroyed to no good purpose.

But t^te government itself had no great difficulty in appeasing
or breaking jown a resistance so diversified in its motives and its
ajms. It was easy enough for those in power to play off onelaction
against another. Their most dangerous opponents were in their
the advocates of ^jo^hotrt themselves

_
for political power or the intellectual leaders who wanted even"

394

Literary Trends

more sweeping changes than the men in office thought wise in the
national interest. Here the struggle was not exclusively between
old and new but between different schools of modern political
thought, so that the history of the first two decades of Meiji politics
ilJILgsggl^^ administration working on the one

hand to counter conservative movements among the people at large

a**dj2^^

political rivals and their intellectual vanguard.

In order to understand the somewhat confused political events
of this period it is necessary to haye some knowledge of the intel-
lectual currents of the time, and it is to these matters that we must
now turn.

2. Literary Trends

UST as it was principally by means of pictures and imported
goods that ordinary Japanese citizens gained their first notions of
everyday life in Western countries, so ,it was through translations
or summaries of Western literature that the more educated classes
were able to reach some understanding of the intellectual back-
ground of European culture.

It happened that in the closing years of the Tokugawa period

t^LIJjy^^^ was at a verv ^ow ekk* Little was produced

but a mass of indifferent novels and salacious comic pieces. It may
be that this decline was a symptom of the disorder that had at-
tacked the national life at the turn of the century, when Japanese
culture seemed to come to a standstill. It is a tempting hypothesis
to suppose that in the long period of seclusion Japan had used up
her native cultural resources as she had seemingly exhausted the
possibilities of her economic development, and therefore stood in
need of refreshment from alien springs. Certainly her civilization
had turned in upon itself from about 1700 and tended thereafter
to produce little but variations upon well-worn themes; but it
would be mere speculation to suggest that without the intervention
of foreign ideas there was no possibility of further growth. All we
can say is that the native arts and literature, together with the tra-
ditionaj^ philosophies, were almost lifeless by the middle of the
ninefeenth^century. The aesthetic spark was not entirely extin-
guished, but literature had reached its lowest point at the time of
the Restoration and there it remained for twenty years. A foreign
critic should perhaps not commit .himself to so severe a judgment,
but it has the support of the important Meiji man of letters
Tsubouchi Yuzo (1859-1934) , who in his essay Shosetsu Shinzui or
The Essence of the Novel, written in 1885, called for literary re-

395

Early Meiji: Western Influences

form and said o£ early Meiji novels that if they were not the dregs
of Bakin they were tawdry copies of Ikku and Shunsui, two masters
of fiction who flourished about 1830. His argument was that litera-
ture should be independent of morality in a narrow sense. It
should deal with truth and not conventions. He was here giving
expression to literary views then held in Europe and at the same
time deriding the professed aims of Tokugawa novelists, which
were summarized in the phrase Kwanzen Ghoaku, "to encourage
good and rebuke evil." Most of the popular literature that Tsu-
bouchi condemned was either bawdy or bloodthirsty, though gar-
nished for the sake of propriety with spurious moral sentiments.
Th£j2ublic^of the dajjyoidd read anything quite indiscriminately,
whether original or not, decent or not, or well or badly written.
This is perhaps not to be wondered at, sin^idiejdiE^jv;eT€ dis-
turbed and Li,gigg^£ga.ders jsojjgj^ own troubles.
Those _who were prepared to take a plunge into the new life pre-
ferred books on practical matters such as geography, arithmetic,
foreign languages, history, and even political philosophy; and con-
sequently their demand for original Japanese works fell and en-
thusiasm grew for translations from European literature. "*"

Here the problem of choice presented itself, and since very
few Japanese at that time had knowledge or discrimination enough
to judge of Thelnefit of foreign works, their selection was erratic
and guided often by chance. Thus, to take an extreme case, Shake-
speare's Hamlet was first brought to the attention of the general
reading public in Japan by a traveller who, on his return from a
visit to the United States, wrote in .1880 a book called The Splen-
dours of New Jorky which contained in a chapter devoted to the
theatre an account of the play and a description of its performance.
Before this date, when few Japanese had travelled abroad, to select
works for translation was a matter of almost purblind choice.

A study of the titles and dates of the earliest translations reveals
some interesting aspects of contemporary Japanese taste. In general
T\jiatjwas^sQught after was the kind of book that would give infor-
mation about life in foreign countries and might, it was hoped, Try
gBdgyaag_dlg^arggter of Western peoples, reveal the secret of
their success. It is true that Robinson Crusoe had been translated
as early as 1859, and JEsop's Fables had been known since the
Jesuits printed a Japanese version in 1593. These were popular
works, appreciated less for their didactic qualities than for their
interest as tales. But in general readers seem to have sought instruc-
tion rather than entertainment; and that no doubt explains why,
as early as 1870, Smiles's Self -Help was enthusiastically welcomed
by a public that was anxious to get on in the world. If the enter-
prising Westerners needed the kind of advice that was offered by

396

Literary Trends

Smiles, it was natural that the bewildered Japanese should look for
similar guidance. Indeed, in studying Japanese reactions to the
changing world of the nineteenth century, it is as well to remember
that European as well as Asiatic peoples were finding it difficult to
adjust themselves to modern life. Western Europe was then in the
vanguard of reform, but in other parts of that continent there were
people who lagged behind and were touchingly anxious to catch
up. When in their endless discussions on political and social re-
form the characters in Russian novels of about 1 860 praise English
or French methods; when in Fathers and Sons Bazarov says that
an English wash-basin stands for progress; when Pavel Petrovich
lards his conversation with English and French phrases and is up-
set by a slighting reference to Sir Robert Peel, then those charac-
ters are behaving very much as the Japanese will behave perhaps
a decade later.

Following in rapid succession upon Robinson Crusoe and Self-
Help there appeared in Japan complete or abridged translations
of biographies of great men, such as Homer, Bacon, Shakespeare,
Voltaire, and Napoleon; children's stories from ^Esop and the
Bible; Self-Help again; Pilgrim's Progress, translated from a Chi-
nese version of 1853 and published serially in a Kobe newspaper
from 1876 to 1879; part of the New Testament (1876) ; Robinson
Crusoe again (1877) and Rousseau's Contrat social in the same
year.

These works, all belonging to the first ten years of the Meiji
era, need no special comment, though it should perhaps be men-
tioned that the quality of the translations was generally poor. The
translators themselves were none too competent and the Japanese
written language was ill-adapted to the clear expression of unfa-
miliar Western ideas. It was not until the following decade that a
smtablejnetliod. was evolved, when thft •wnTk of translation- was
taken up by men with appropriate training. One of the best-known
of these was an interesting character named Oda Junichiro. He
had studied law at Edinburgh University and had been the tutor
of a young Japanese nobleman during his travels in Europe. Re-
turning to Japan in 1878, he devoted himself to the translation of
English novels. In 1879 he completed a Japanese version of Bulwer
Lytton's Ernest Maltravers, which was published in instalments of
about fifty pages at a very high price. His work was enthusiastically
received and his publishers made a handsome profit.3 Oda used for
his translation a style known as kambun chokuyaku, which is Chi-
nese prose read in accordance with Japanese syntax. He gave it the
title Kwaryu Shunwa, which means "A Spring Tale of Flowers and
Willows/' This seemingly inappropriate description of Lytton's

a He died in poverty in 1919. One of his later translations was of East Lynn*.

897

Early Meiji: Western Influences

novel was chosen because to Japanese ears flowers and willows
speak o£ beauty and elegance, while the word "spring/* according
to context, may evoke either tender or erotic sentiment. So freely
were these words used in the titles of books in order to tempt
readers that rising young authors like Tsubouchi were obliged to
resort to the same vernal, blossomy descriptions. His serious trans-
lation of part of The Bride of Lammermoor (1880) was entitled
"A Spring Breeze Love Story" and his Romeo and Juliet was of-
fered as a "Flower and Moon Romance," because, as he told an in-
quirer long afterwards, he and his friends "had to use words like
'spring' and 'moon' because of the influence of Oda's titles." Evi-
dently this usage, as well as perpetuating an old literary fashion,
represented the mood of the times. Current feeling had its ro-
mantic element, due probably to a reaction against the rather sol-
emn canons that had dominated taste in the upper levels of Toku-
gawa society.

But if romance was in the air, so was a deep interest in politics;
and the success of Ernest Maltravers in Japan is to be accounted
for not by its seductive title but by its contents, which related in a
flamboyant style suited to current Japanese taste and against an
interesting political background the efforts of a talented youth to
rise to high position, his love affairs, separations, disappointments,
and then, all obstacles overcome, a happy ending. This was the
kind of life that ambitious young men in Japan now saw them-
selves destined to lead, so that the translator had struck a lucky
vein. He followed his first success with The Last Days of Pompeii
and Paul Clifford. Further works of Lytton that were translated at
about this time were Rienzi (1879?), A Strange Story (1880),
Kenelm Chillingly (1885) , and Night and Morning (1889) . All
these were very popular. The vogue for political novels continued
and several writers tried their hands at translations of Lytton and
also of Disraeli. Kenelm Chillingly was much approved because it
seemed to have some bearing on political issues of the moment. Its
title in Japanese was "A Statesman's Life," while Coningsby was
named "Spring Warblings" (1883) , though the title page bore also
the legend, " A Tale of Political Parties."

The demand for novels with a didactic purpose is illustrated in
an interesting way by the preface to a new translation of Robinson
Crusoe. It presents this classic not as a tale of adventure but as a
work which, though cast in the form of a novel, was intended to
teach English youth how to endure hardship. "It should not be
regarded as trivial," says the translator, "for if men will read it
carefully they will see that it shows how by stubborn determina-
tion an island can be developed/' In other words it should be

S98

SYMBOLS OF WESTERNIZATION

j/ow72g man-about-tovm displays his Western taste. He has an umbrella,
<m imported watch and chain, and is eating beef. (Illustration
to Kamgaki Roburis Aguranabe, 1871)

to

I

Literary Trends

studied as a handbook on the training of Japanese political re-
formers who wish to make their insular kingdom rich and strong.

Related to the demand for works with a political moral was a
taste for tales of adventure and discovery, which was amply satis-
fied by .the scientific romances of Jules Vern,e. This was an age in
which the belief in progress was at its most optimistic, and books
like Round the World in Eighty Days or A Journey to the Moon
were the very thing to please the Japanese as after long seclusion
they gazed upon new horizons, for they encouraged a belief that,
given an adventurous spirit and the proper scientific knowledge,
nothing was impossible. Prophetic works of this kind seem to have
suited Japanese taste from an early date, since among the first
translations of the Meiji period was A Dream of the Future (1874) ,
based apparently on a Dutch original that describes the experi-
ences of Professor Dioscurides in company with Roger Bacon and
a lady named Miss Phantasy, in A.D. 2065 while on a visit to Lon-
don, then called Londinia. There is no record of the reception of
this surprising work in Japan, but there is no doubt as to the
popularity of Jules Verne's romances or of another French pro-
phetic novel, Le Vingtieme Siecle, by Albert Robida, which was
translated in 1887. Japanese readers must have been puzzled, if
entertained, by this somewhat flippant book, which describes
Paris in 1952, with aerial omnibuses, the telephonoscope, a me-
chanical President of the Republic, and regular decennial revolu-
tions lasting for three months, thus giving time to clean the ma-
chinery and allowing a long national holiday.

A Japanese man of letters, Kurimoto Joun, who was prominent
in the early years of Meiji and had been a Tokugawa retainer of
some standing, made a penetrating observation on the popularity
of Jules Verne's novels. He said that readers were tired of the
Chinese and Japanese novels of the old school, which get their
characters into great difficulties and surround them with perils
from which only divine or demoniac forces can save them. This
was an unsuitable solution of human problems in an age of Self-
Help; and Japanese of modern inclinations preferred the current
Occidental pattern, well exhibited by Jules Verne, whose heroes
extricate themselves from difficult situations by means of money.
What Kurimoto said was not literary criticism, but a sage observa-
tion on social changes that were then taking place in Japan. The
Japanese gentleman of a generation before, whether soldier or
scholar, had despised money, but his sons were born into a world
where money talked; so that in the popularity of Jules Verne's
novels we have not an influence upon Japanese literary taste but
rather a pointed testimony to the effect of the new mercantile spirit

399

Early Meiji: Western Influences

upon traditional moral standards. It was because he had money in
his pocket that Mr. Phileas Fogg of the Reform Club could scurry
round the world and, even though he was appropriately delayed in
Yokohama in 1872, win his wager in the end.

It would be wearisome to prolong this list of early translations,
but it is worth while to mention certain works that, though today
they may be regarded as curiosities of literature, evidently re-
sponded to some contemporary need when they were published,
and therefore help in the understanding of the cultural scene. The
first is Heneromu Monogatari (1879) , in which the ingenious stu-
dent may recognize Fenelon's Aventures de Telemaque; the sec-
ond is a group of extracts from Chambers' s Encyclopaedia, includ-
ing articles on Scandinavian mythology, on rhetoric, and on
belles-lettres; the third, and most astonishing, is a life of Epami-
nondas of Thebes.

It may well be asked what were the motives for selecting such
seemingly unsuitable subjects, but the explanation is simple
enough. Telemaque, described as a European novel of adventure,
goes rather well into a florid, classical Japanese style; and since
it describes how Telemachus spurned the soft pleasures offered
by Calypso in her grotto and listened instead to the call of duty,
it seemed to teach a timely lesson in morals and in politics.
The articles from Chambers's Encyclopaedia were published by
the Ministry of Education, and the subjects chosen were clearly
such as, in the view of that department, would aid in the under-
standing of European culture. If the Japanese reader learned what
magic spells, what gods, ghosts, and demons, sprang from the
imagination of Western people, then he might be seized of the
essence of their spiritual life and perhaps discover the sources of
their mystifying behaviour. The life of Epaminondas, which was
a historical romance based upon Plutarch and not a direct trans-
lation, needs more explanation.

, It was published in 1883, under the title of Keikoku Bidan or
A Noble Tale of Statesmanship, and the cover bore in English the
words "Young Politicians of Thebes." It is strange that in a
country so dedicated to modernity such ancient historical episodes
should have been found edifying, yet the book was most popular.
Epaminondas became a model for aspiring youth in Japan, and the
hero of a stage play produced a few years later. It was one of several
successful works describing heroic struggles for independence and
the deeds of patriots who strove against oppressors, and it shows
very clearly that the rising generation of Japan was already filled
with hopes for national greatness and a certain hostility towards
the great powers of the West. It was written by Yano Fumio, a ris-
ing young author full of political ardour, and in that sense it is in

400

Literary Trends

the same category as the translations of Lytton and Disraeli — and
even of Shakespeare, for Julius Ccesar was translated under the
name of The Last Blow of the Sword of Freedom (1884) by
Tsubouchi, who though essentially a man of letters was at that
date active in party politics on the side of popular rights.

It will have been noticed that most of the translations pub-
%hed jwere Jrom English -^on^^^Tb^j^ due irTpart to the
cl?.se P0!itic4,,co?B?5^?.R.°^ *% United Statesli^"Great_Brit

JR?sit^or

Japanese in diplomacy and j:ommerce7 But It "wag also due to the
prestige of Great Britain, which rested upon her stable political
institutions, her sea power, and her economic strength — features
that the Japanese were anxious to develop in their own country.
Consequently in the first ten years or so of Meiji the European
cultural influences that aifected literary movements in Japan were
almost exclusively English, and even French works were usually
introduced by translation from English versions. From 1884 on-
wards, for reasons that will be discussed in a later chapter, there
was a disposition to correct what was thought by the authorities
to be an excessive dependence upon English models, but before
that date very little literary influence from other than English
sources had made itself widely felt in Japan.

A not very important exception was a fleeting interest in Rus-
sian literature just before 1883, This was a time when political
feeling ran high and almost every kind of political doctrine was
studied by the youth of the country. Russian works describing
Nihilism, such as Stepniak's Underground Russia,, or accounts of
the activities of terrorists, political assassinations, treason trials,
and so forth had a temporary vogue. Young members or sup-
porters of the Japanese Liberal Party, which was fighting the
government bitterly at that time, were moved by tales of revolu-
tionary courage and suffering. They seem, however, to have fa-
voured the spread of such works not in order to promote Nihilism
but rather to warn or threaten the government. Theirs was per-
haps a mild form of terrorism, and in fact some acts of violence
were commited by advocates of the democratic movement. They
were sporadic, however, and not representative, and if they had
any effect it was to cause some popular reaction against the Liberal
Party. At this time the interest in Russian literature was not sus-
tained. It was only some years later that the writings of Pushkin,
Turgenyev, Dostoyevsky, and Tolstoy became well known in Japan
and exerted a considerable influence in the literary but not the
political world.

Enough has been said to give some general idea of the kind of

401

Early Meiji: Western Influences

European literature that became known to the Japanese in the
first twenty years after the Restoration. It is perhaps going too far
to say that it had an important effect upon Japanese thought, for
it usually met a requirement that had already been formed, though
no doubt it often gave precision to vague trends of opinion. The
desire for knowledge of : Western ^ habits, the taste for politics, the
interest in jrig^g^jije belief in progress had ^

before the Meiji revolution was accomplished, and these literary
iigiroj^ materials requirecl

b^jthe Japanese i*fjj*^^ were compounding.

By 1868 they ha^d^ea^^^jo^^tj^ themselves as a modem
peopIeT'TK would" riot "take "long if they

were assiduous and scientific — a busy industrialized state, where
machines whirred, great enterprises were afoot, and great fortunes
were made. There was nothing Oriental about their aspirajions
and their methods. They did not belong to the Oriental society of
which Kinglake wrote in that well-known passage describing how
he bade farewell to the East on the Pass o£ the Lebanon:

Behind me I left an old decrepid world — Religions dead and dying —
calm tyrannies expiring in silence — women hushed and swathed and
turned into waxen dolls — Love flown and in its stead mere Royal and
Paradise pleasures. Before me there waited great bustle and strife —
Love itself .an amorous game — Religion a Cause and a Controversy,
well smitten and well defended — men governed by reasons and sua-
sion of speech — wheels going — steam buzzing — a mortal race and a
slashing pace and the Devil taking the hindmost — taking me, by Jove,
if I lingered long on the difficult Pass that leads from Thought to
Action.

In some such words a spokesman of Young Japan of the i88o's
might well have adressed the easy-going feudal past as he looked
forward to the mortal race and the slashing pace of an industrial
future.

The active leaders of Japanese life had already crossed that
difficult Pass. No lingering for them. They must hurry, hurry on
the road to success, which understandably enough in those days
meant becoming a rich country with a strong army. All must be
sacrificed to those ends. Japan must not passively submit to foreign
influence, but must weigh and test, adopt and reject, according to
her own practical requirements. It is interesting to note, in this
connection, that from about 1887, after a decade or so of indis-
criminate borrowing, more judgment was used in the choice of
books for study and translation. Japanese novelists began under
Western influence to write original works, and this in turn created
a more exacting taste among readers of translations. Now the works
most popular among educated readers were for the most part those

402

Literary Trends

which had been well received in their country of origin, and the
translations were written in a more palatable style.

Indeed, of all the foreign influences brought to bear upon
Japan at this time that which had the most visible and lasting
effect was perhaps the influence of translations upon the literary
language. The early translators had been faced with a difficult
problem, for it was only by a rare accident that classical Japanese
or Sinico-Japanese suited the language of Western originals.
Strange and awkward devices were resorted to in an attempt to
render the sense and the movement of English prose. Thus the
translator of Telemaque (from an English version) used the kind
of language that was familiar to readers of Japanese romances, a
metrical prose with a Chinese flavour, which was not unsuitable
for florid passages. It was quite easy to put into the Japanese of
metrical romances or the dramatic recitative called "joruri" such a
syrupy sentence as: "The rivulets that with soothing murmurs
wandered through meadows of intermingled violets and amaranth
formed innumerable baths that were pure and transparent as
crystal.'* This is from Hawkesworth's translation, published in
Edinburgh in 1799, which the Japanese translator used. He ren-
dered it as follows:

Amaki idzumi wa sensen to

Nagarete otsuru suisho-ike ni

Kakewatashitaru hashi-ishi wa

Sanagara mend to miru bakari.

This gives the same sort of impression as the English, though it
leaves out violets and amaranth. But when he came to simple
phrases like "adorned with a thousand flowers'* he recited a long
list of the plants that usually adorn a formal Japanese garden.

This dressing-up of English in conventional Oriental garments
was an unsatisfactory device, and little by little the translators ide-
veloped^for their jown purposes a new kind of literary Japanese,
whichina de mcreasing use of colloquial forms. This style of writ-
ing (known as gembun-itchi, which means a compound of the col-
loquial and the literary) was brought to perfection by Japanese
novelists under the leadership of Futabatei Shimei, whose transla-
tion of Rendezvous (1889) , one of Turgenyev's Sportsman's
Sketches, was a turning-point in Meiji literary history. It fixed the
quasi-colloquial as an accepted literary medium and served as a
model for younger writers who founded the naturalistic school
of novelists a few years later. In this sense it may be said that Eng-
lish, through translations rather than directly, had a revolutionary
efiEecF upon the Japanese language in that it broke down the oldl
dStmctjoj^ made colloquial torms

respectable in" prose. Such a reform was necessary if Japan was to

403

Early Meiji: Western Influences

lead a modern life, where popular education and journalism play
an important part, since the conventional literary style delighted
in learned phrases and obscure classical allusions. It was rather a
means of communication between scholars than a medium for the
wide spread of knowledge.

It can also be argued, though perhaps with less force, that Euro-
pean influence brought about a permanent change in the very
nature of Japanese literature as well as in the language in which
it was written. This is the opinion of a good Japanese authority,
Professor T. Tanikawa, who says: "Whether the starting-point of
Meiji literature be the political novel, or Tsubouchi's Shosetsu
Shinzui or Futabatei's Ukigumo, all these men started out under
the influence of European literature. And that has now become the
literary tradition, for new movements almost always start with
the importation of movements from Europe. The contemporary
literature of Japan [he was speaking in 1935] has now a tradition
of fifty years or more and some present-day writers have been
brought up in that tradition. It is none the less true that the influ-
ence of the West is always the guiding spirit of our literature. . . .
That is the chief reason why contemporary literature is separated
from society in general. In painting the spirit of the Orient is still
alive and the tradition still vital/'

If this view is correct it affords a striking example of a deep
and lasting cultural influence, and it will be noticed that whereas
the literary tradition of the Tokugawa age was not strong enough
to stand up against new forces, the aesthetic heritage of Japan was
able in the fine arts to defend itself against intrusion.

It would be presumptuous for a foreign student to question a
native authority in matters of literary criticism, but not all Japan-
ese scholars would agree that Japanese literature has failed to
escape from Western influence. In the period with which we are
now specifically dealing — let us say the first twenty years of
Meiji — it is true that both the language and the content of the
Japanese novel were transformed by the example of European
writing, and the old Tokugawa standards became obsolete. But it
is by no means certain that modern Japanese literature has not
progressed far beyond that stage and, throwing off its comfortable
Occidental fetters, evolved upon essentially Eastern lines. It is a
moot point and one of great interest, but it cannot be settled until
much more is known about the whole corpus of Meiji literature
and the effect upon the minds of Meiji authors of the foreign works
with which they were familiar. Of all cultural influences it is lit-
erary influences that are easiest to allege and hardest to measure.

A further somewhat revoludonary movement in Japanese lit-
erature was the introduction of new verse forms. These also orig-

_

Literary Trends

inatecf in translations, since English poetry could not be suitably
rendered in conventional Japanese poetical modes. A book en-
titled Shintaishi-sho (A Selection of Verse in New Forms) , pub-
lished in 1882, contained translations from Shakespeare, Gray,
Campbell, Longfellow, and Tennyson, together with some original
poems in the new manner.

This New Verse had a passing vogue and continued to appear
for some time, but it was never truly naturalized, no doubt because
native forms were the truest expression of native feeling. It seems
that poetry and religion are the aspects of a people's culture that
most stubbornly resist alien influence. When the Tokyo wits in the
early days of Meiji satirized the frenzied adoption of foreign hab-
its, one of the incongruities they ridiculed was "men in Western
garments reciting Eastern poems." A study of some of the earliest
New Verse suggests that they were right in seeing here a mating of
incompatibles. The new poets seem to have been earnest scholarly
men — one of them was a celebrated philosopher, Inouye Tetsu-
jiro 4 — whose purpose was not to appeal to the emotions. They did
not pretend to be inspired but only to instruct and to elevate.
They explained that Meiji poems must be poems of Meiji, not
old classical stuff; and they furnished rather free metrical or rhyth-
mic versions of pieces like The Charge of the Light Brigade, The
Mariners of England and Gray's Elegy, which happily appealed to
the martial and melancholy moods — for both are characteristic —
of their countrymen. Such poems as these were for a time very
popular and were even sung to Western tunes. The Ministry of
Education went so far as to publish a volume of verses in the new
style, some being translations from English, others old Japanese
chants and legends refashioned for use by children as school songs.
The new form was not very startling after all, for it made use of
the traditional alternation of five and seven syllables. But it
differed from the old form in that the pieces consisted of several
long stanzas, whereas the normal Japanese poem is a brief impres-
sionistic statement of thirty-one syllables or less. It is impossible
without quoting from Japanese originals to give a fair account of
this attempt to reach a poetical compromise between East and
West. One can say that Hamlet's soliloquy opens not unskilfully:

Shinuru ga mashi ka Is it better to die?

Ikiru ga mashi ka Is it better to live?^

Shian wo sum wa The thing to consider

Koko zo kashL Is here indeed.

But it gets into difficulties as it proceeds. Yatabe's translation of
Gray's Elegy on the other hand is faithful and not without charm.

* And two others were professors at the university — Yatabe and Toyama.

405

Early Meiji: Western Influences

The poem seems to suit the Japanese temperament, which is sen-
sitive to the fleeting moods of nature and, under the influence of
Buddhist thought, deeply conscious of the evanescence of glory.
The translation runs like this:

Yama yama kasumi iriai no

Kane wa naritsutsu no no naka wa

Shidzuka ni ayumi kaeriyuku

Tagayasu hito mo uchitsukare

Yoyo sarite ware hitori

Tasogare dokini nokorikeri.

It reproduces well enough the feeling of the first stanza. But since
Japan is not a pastoral country, the translator moves in some moun-
tains and omits the lowing herd that winds slowly o'er the lea.
This treatment well illustrates the formidable difficulty of trans-
posing the imaginative literature of one people into the idiom of
another. It is a hopeless task to seek in Oriental life and legend the
exact emotional equivalent of the ivy-mantled tower, the storied
urn, the animated bust, the long-drawn aisle, the fretted vault, or
the pealing anthem, which all speak of a landscape and a history
peculiar to the West,

Several volumes of New Verse by other writers followed this
first collection. It must be said that they are for the most part pain-
fully flat and didactic. They are of interest only as revelations of
the matter-of-fact thought of the day, and its preoccupation with
current national problems. A good example is a poem On Liberty
by an ardent patriot named Komuro, in which he addresses his
subject like a lover with the words

Jiyu yo Jiyu ya yo Jiyu

which might be rendered "O Liberty! Ah! Liberty, Liberty O!"
and seem like an echo of the "O Huncamunca, Huncamunca O"
of Fielding's parody. It continues:

Liberty, we two are plighted until the world ends.
And who shall part us? Yet in this world there are
clouds that hide the moon and winds that destroy the
blossoms. Man is not master of his fate.

It is a long tale to tell

But once upon a time

There were men who wished

To give the people Liberty

And set up a republican government.

To that end . . .

This poet, who was known also as the writer of important political
manifestoes, wrote a Song of Diplomacy, of which the first lines
run as follows:

406

Literary Trends

In the West there is England,

In the North, Russia.

My countrymen, be careful!

Outwardly they make treaties,

But you cannot tell

What is at the bottom of their hearts.

There is a Law of Nations, it is true,

But when the moment comes, remember,

The Strong eat up the Weak.

These curious outpourings need not be taken as evidence of a sad
decline of poetical spirit. They are cited here rather as pointing to
the zeal with which political questions were being discussed in the
period under survey, and of the anxiety with which the Japanese
regarded their weak international position. It was no doubt in or-
der to encourage a more confident mood that a number of songs
and poems at this time dealt with martial themes, such as Japanese
Spirit in Battle (by Yamada Bimyosai, a popular literary figure)
and The Song of the Drawn Sword. Yamada's poem can be judged
from the first line and the last, which run respectively:

Though our enemy may be numbered by myriads
and

What is there to fear? What is there to fear?

Such verses were often put to pseudo-European music and sung by
students. They were bad poetry, but so are most national anthems
and patriotic songs.5

Another interesting category of popular poetry is that of the
kind sung by strolling entertainers. Of these there were many
sorts. They were mostly variations upon familiar themes, some-
times comic, often vulgar, and they included a number of political
ditties. Few of these have been preserved, for they were ephemeral,
but the following specimens will give some idea of their nature.
One was a very topical, up-to-date little piece entitled Dynamite,
evidently addressed to the government at a time when there was a
certain interest in Russian Nihilism. It ran:

Increase the national wealth!
Increase the people's happiness!
Nourish the people's strength!
If this is not done, then
Dynamite, BANG!

* It should be explained that Western influence was not strong enough to per-
suade Japanese poets to regard romantic love as a respectable theme. There are no
odes to a geisha's eyebrow, no pleas to a cruel mistress, but only invocations to
Minerva or Bellona, or (heir Oriental counterparts.

407

Early Meiji: Western Influences

There was a longer poem, addressed to those conservative members
of the upper class who resisted political and social reform. It ran
somewhat as follows, though the translation does not do it justice:

People who don't believe in the franchise and public welfare

Must be given a dose of Liberty Medicine.

They look very smart

In their mantles and bonnets,

Their trousers and coats.

Outwardly this lady and gentleman

Are very fine,

But inwardly they are lacking

In political ideas.

Nor do they understand

The principles of natural philosophy.

Here is all the popular jargon of the day, words used with little
exact knowledge of their meaning, but seeming to offer an agree-
able prospect of wealth and happiness to multitudes. Liberty,
Votes, Science, Enlightenment, Reform, Progress, Gas, Steam, Ma-
chines, Telegraphs — everything that mortal but modern man
could desire, the answer to all life's problems, for which ancient
philosophy had found no solution.

Contemporary drama, like fiction and poetry, contained a
strong political element. The traditional Japanese theatre con-
tinued to stage classical pieces, but the new theatre, which began
in Osaka about 1888, was devoted to modern plays and realistic
acting, thus departing from the strict Kabuki convention, in which
dancing, posturing, and an orchestral recitative were important
features. The modern drama developed after the period with
which we are now dealing, but it is convenient to discuss it here
because it is closely connected in its origins with the literary move-
ments already described in this chapter. It wras not a direct imita-
tion _pf Western drama, but resembled it in so far as it dealt with
modern life and used modern, everyday language.

Some idea of its character can be gained from the career of its
chief (though not strictly speaking its first) exponent. This was a
curious character named Kawakami Otojiro, a samurai of humble
rank who at the age of twenty became a policeman but soon re-
signed to lead a bohemian life. He became one of the peripatetic
speakers who were numerous at the time. His attacks on the gov-
ernment and his other misdemeanours got him into trouble, and
he is said to have been arrested over a hundred times. It is an in-
teresting sign of the degree to which political issues entered into
almost every department of Japanese life that although he fre-
quented the society of gamblers and other ne'er-do-wells in Kyoto
and Osaka, and was forbidden to make political speeches by the

408

Literary Trends

police, when he turned to the profession of humorous reciter and
mimic he still found a ready audience for comic songs and scan-
dalous tales on political topics. Tiring of this field of endeavour,
he joined some strolling players of his acquaintance, rented a
theatre in Sakai in 1891, and there staged what was described in
the posters as "A Greek Historical Play. Keikoku Bidan, a Noble
Tale of Statesmanship." This was a dramatized version of Yano
Fumio's life of Eparninondas of Thebes. It was a failure, and so
was a piece called The True Story of the Peril of Mr. Itagaki,
which dealt with attempted political assassination. The company
moved to Yokohama, but their performances were forbidden by
the police. They then went on to Tokyo, where Kawakami some-
how raised funds and, in a large theatre in August 1892, performed
Keikoku Bidan. It had a resounding success and there are still ex-
tant colour prints or theatrical posters showing Kawakami in the
role of Pelopidas the Spartan. The scene is purely Japanese — but
for a modern oil lamp — and the characters wear Japanese costume
of the late Tokugawa period.

The new theatre was not refined. It catered to the taste of the
townspeople of Yedo and Osaka, who (like the townspeople of the
previous era) had a taste for lewd or bloodthirsty plays and novels.
Consequently the most popular plays of early Meiji took for their
theme crimes of passion, which were freely reported in the contem-
porary press. The prototype of such melodramas was a play repre-
senting the career of a celebrated murderess. No history of popular
taste in the first half of Meiji should neglect to mention this lady.
Her name was Takahashi O Den, and though her sordid story is
of no particular interest we may pause to relate it briefly in order
to show that not all the citizens were content with political tales,
O Den was a pretty young woman, cursed with a temperament both
amorous and acquisitive. O£ her numerous lovers she killed at
least two. Her first husband, who suffered from a mortal disease,
she poisoned or strangled. This and other crimes were not dis-
covered until, in order to furnish money to her latest paramour,
she had enticed a man into a tea-house and stabbed him to death,
imprudently leaving clues behind her. Her trial and her execution.
(at which she behaved with cool courage) caused a tremendous
sensation, and her adventures were recorded in gruesome detail
in newspapers and novels, while they served as the plot of several
dramas, one of which was written by a leading playwright (Kawa-
take Mokuami) and played by a cast that included Danjuro and
Sadanji, two celebrated actors of the classial school of Kabuki.
Other plays, books, and pictures dealt with episodes in the careers
of O Kuni and O Matsu, two contemporary murderesses of a
similar sort. They and O Den were the heroines of a type of novel

409

Early Meiji: Western Influences

that Japanese writers distinguish as a special class, called Dokufu-
mono or Works on Poisonous Women.

It may be inferred from the foregoing description that the new
drama in its early phases was not a credit to the Japanese theatre,
and it is true that it made slow progress, while the classical stage
never lost its popularity. Attempts to reform and modernize it were
subsequently made, principally by literary men like Tsubouchi,
who encouraged the performance of translations of European
plays and himself translated most of Shakespeare and established
a private school for the study of the drama among students of
Waseda University. But these belong to a later date and need not
be discussed here.

3. Men and Books

JLHE FOREGOING outline of literary trends may be usefully filled
in by some biographical details of certain individuals seen as
typical products of the new age. The figures here described are
selected not for their prominence in political or intellectual life
but rather for the interest of their careers as authors or translators
who played a part in interpreting Western culture to their country-
men. The origins and characters of the transmitters are important
aspects of the transmission of cultural influence. Most of these
men, it will be seen, were of samurai origin, as might be expected,
since they belonged to a class that had for centuries held a virtual
monopoly of learning. In character they varied, and not all can be
regarded as representative of their class; but the eccentric and the
unorthodox often reveal more than the usual and the common-
place.

It would be pleasant to be able to record more intimate details
of the lives of these interesting individuals, but unfortunately
Japanese literature is poor in biographical works and collections
of familiar correspondence. Indeed, biography, and especially
autobiography, is a literary form which, even at the height of the
period of borrowing, attracted hardly any attention among Japan-
ese writers, possibly because discretion and reserve are cardinal
features of Japanese social life and to enlarge upon one's own
affairs is thought presumptuous.

KAWASHIMA CHUNQSUKE may be taken as an example o£ the
kjg^Ji^ung man otlixi inquiring mind but no greatjatem who,
from a simple rural life in feudal Japan, emerged into the great
world, travelled in Europe, and returned Jjgmeto become one of
the leading interpreters of Western civilization: Brought up in the

410

Men and Books

remote and mountainous province of Hida, he moved to Tokyo
on his father's death, intending to study medicine. This proved
impossible and he found employment as a draftsman at the Yoko-
suka Ironworks in 1869. He studied English and French in his
spare time and then found employment with a French dentist. In
1870 he became a pupil in a naval engineering school and two
years later was appointed to a minor post in the Navy Department
at a salary of twelve yen a month, afterwards being transferred to
a silk filature in the provinces as a revenue officer. He soon left
official employment, became a clerk in a Dutch business house in
Yokohama, and, having acquired some commercial knowledge,
went to Italy on a mission to sell silkworm egg-cards. Returning
to Japan in 1877, he completed a translation of Jules Verne's
Round the World in Eighty Days, which was published at his own
expense. He thus became the pioneer of Western novels in Japan.
In 1881 he wrote a book about the suppression of Nihilist plots,
and in the following year he went to France as manager of the
Lyons branch of the Yokohama Specie Bank, a post for which his
qualification seems to have been a knowledge of sericulture. His
banking duties were not onerous, for in his leisure he studied law
at the university and devoted himself to reading European classical
literature, in particular Plutarch's Lives. He happened in 1883 to
meet Yano Fumio, who was on the editorial staff of the newspaper
Hochi, and it was doubtless then that the idea of Young Politicians
of Thebes was born. Yano was immersed in politics, but Kawa-
shima remained in the service of his bank, becoming a director and
later manager of the head office. He died at the age of seventy-nine,
a respected man of affairs who had sown his literary wild oats by
publishing his translation of Jules Verne a few months before the
appearance of Ernest Maltravers, thereby gaining the distinction
of being the first to translate a modern European novel into
Japanese.

A literary career in strong contrast to his was that of SHIBA
SHIRO, better known perhaps by his nom de plume of Tokai
Sanshi, the Wanderer of the Eastern Sea. He was born in 1852,
the son of an Aidzu samurai; and his younger brother, Shiba Goro,
true to the warlike tradition of his clan, was a soldier who was to
make a name for himself at the siege of Peking during the Boxer
rising of 1900. As a youth he studied Chinese and subsequently
French and English. He was sent to study in America and after a
course at a commercial school in San Francisco was graduated from
the University of Pennsylvania. Returning to Japan in 1884, he
became private secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Com-
merce, and shortly after this published his celebrated Kajin no

411

Early Meiji: Western Influences

Kigu. He was elected a member of the Diet in 1891, and in 1892
became the first director of the Osaka Mainichi Shimbun, one of
the leading newspapers.

Kajin no Kigu — the title means Strange Encounters of Ele-
gant Females — was so popular that it was said in a frequent but
pleasant hyperbole to have "raised the price of paper in the metrop-
olis." Some account of its contents ought to be given, because as well
as being an influential novel it was a description, not of the author's
life (since nobody could have lived on such a lofty plane for so long
as his hero) , but of his own professed ideals and consequently of the
ideals of the numerous young men who drank in his gospel.

It is as well to premise that it is a deplorably bad novel, today
unreadable except by a conscientious historian of manners blessed
with great powers of endurance. In the first chapter it discloses
the Wanderer of the Eastern Seas at Philadelphia in Independence
Hall, musing upon the Liberty Bell. The Wanderer is Tokai
Sanshi, the hero and the author. While he is communing with
himself on the successful struggle of the colonies against the brutal
tyranny of the King of England, there enter two ravishing Euro-
pean beauties, one of whom gives her companion an account of
the War of Independence, with suitable reflections on Bunker
Hill, Valley Forge, and other historic sites. The Wanderer stands
by the window eavesdropping in a refined way; and here, as
throughout the book, his thoughts are recorded at length, fre-
quently in Chinese verse or with difficult allusions to Chinese his-
tory. The ladies leave after a coy glance at him. A day or two later
he takes a boat and rows up the Delaware River, where he en-
counters them both again. He is addressed by one, who explains
that she and her companion have been impressed by his romantic
character, for they first saw him brooding upon a historic scene
and now find him enjoying the beauties of nature in a secluded
spot where, it so happens, they are living in retreat. He is invited
to join them, and with but little encouragement they tell him the
stories of their lives.

One is named Yuran, or Mysterious Orchid, and the other is
Kdren, or Crimson Lotus. It transpires that Yuran is the daughter
of a noble Spaniard who in his struggle to make Spain a constitu-
tional monarchy has incurred the hatred of the republican party
and is in danger of his life from assassins. He has brought his
daughter to America for safety and returned to the fray in Europe.
Koren is a golden-haired beauty, the daughter of an Irish patriot
who died in jail, the victim of tyrants. Their several experiences
are related at great length in high-flown discourse, which includes
mention of a great number of characters in history -and legend,
from Socrates to Macaulay's New Zealander. When Koren has told

JUS

Men and Books

her story, the Chinese butler who has been filling their wineglasses
discloses himself as a once distinguished rebel against the Manchus,
but now an indigent exile. He also tells a long tale of oppression
and tyranny, by which the Wanderer is moved to anger and grief at
the wickedness of men.

He is consoled by Yuran, who holds out bright prospects for
Japan and encourages him to believe that he can render great
service to the cause of freedom in his own country. At this he
weeps copiously and his tears fall upon the dress o£ Yuran. He
begs her to forgive him and wishes to wipe the moisture from her
skirt with his handkerchief, but Yuran stops him, saying that she
is grateful to receive his tears, which are more precious than gold,
more lovely than falling petals. At this point the hero, explaining
that he too has suffered in freedom's cause, recounts in abundant
detail the history of the Restoration in Japan and the fate that
overtook him and his family, who were members of the Aidzu
clan and fought against the Imperial army. The young samurai of
Aidzu were cruelly treated by the new government, and this may
account for the author's hatred of oppressors,

By this time it has grown late, the moon has risen. Yuran throws
open the window and says: " Let us not spend this delicious night
in melancholy. Let us be brave and cheerful. Let us dance and
sing/' Thereupon, to an accompaniment played on harps by the
two ladies, they all sing the Marseillaise, in a Chinese version oblig-
ingly furnished by the butler. There is more music, drinking, and
dancing. The ladies become slightly tipsy and the party breaks up
not long before dawn. Tokai Sanshi, who is asked to stay until
morning, dreams that he has been wounded in a revolutionary
struggle and rescued by Yuran, who passes through a storm of mis-
siles to pick him up on the battlefield. It is clear from the conver-
sation at breakfast that a harmony of political views has developed
into a more tender sentiment between the Wanderer and the two
beautiful Europeans. It is not disclosed which is his choice, but
Yuran has taken steps to declare her feelings, for Koren inquires
mischievously who has taught the white parrot to say "Oh, do not
desert me" when he appears. He leaves that morning, promising to
come back in a few days, but he is prevented by illness, and when
he is able to visit the retreat again, the ladies have vanished. He
discovers that Yuran's father is in prison and they have flown to
his rescue, which (he learns subsequently) Koren accomplishes
by amorous play with the governor of the fortress where he is
confined.

After such a prelude it might be supposed that a thrilling love
story would follow. But nothing comes of it. The rest of the book
is little more than a guide to modern revolutionary movements.

413

Early Meiji: Western Influences

The scene moves to Ireland, Egypt, the Sudan, Burma, China,
Korea — all round the world to countries where minorities are
struggling. Mysterious Orchid and Crimson Lotus appear from
time to time, and it is clear that both of them are in love with the
Wanderer. But his bosom is so filled with patriotic fervour, with
hatred of tyrants and contempt of human folly, that it cannot give
permanent lodging to more romantic emotions. The book ends by
disappointing the reader of his hopes for a passionate climax, but
leaves him crammed with information about four and twenty
nations in revolt.

Its literary merit is negligible, but it is of value as evidence of
the way in which patriotic Japanese minds were working after
some twenty years of international intercourse. It is said that there
was not a remote mountain village in Japan in which some young
man had not a copy in his pocket, and the Chinese verses that so
freely stud its pages were recited everywhere with great relish.
Even its congested prose seems to have been imitated by younger
writers, but no doubt its political complexion was what gave it
the most of its success. One passage may be cited as summarizing
the strong nationalistic views that were spreading among the offi-
cial class when Kajin no Kigu was written in 1885.

When Tokai Sanshi falls into deep gloom after hearing so many
tales of the oppression of the weak by the strong, Yuran encourages
him in the following words: "Now that your country has reformed
its government and, by taking from America what is useful and
rejecting what is only superficial, is increasing month by month
in wealth and strength, the eyes and ears of the world are aston-
ished by your success. As the sun climbs in the eastern skies, so is
your country rising in the Orient. Your August Sovereign has
granted political liberty to the people, the people have sworn to
follow the Imperial leadership. So the time has come when, do-
mestic strife having ceased, all classes will be happy in their occu-
pations. Korea will send envoys and the Luchu Islands will sub-
mit to your governance. Then will the occasion arise for doing
great things in the Far East. Your country will take the lead and
preside over a confederation of Asia. The peoples of the East will
no longer be in danger. In the West you will restrain the ram-
pancy of England and France. In the South you will check the
corruption of China. In the North you will thwart the designs of
Russia. You will resist the policy of European states, which is to
treat Far Eastern peoples with contempt and to interfere in their
domestic affairs, so leading them into servitude. Thus it is your
country and no other that can bring the taste of self-government
and independence into the life of millions for the first time, and
so spread the light of civilization."

414

Men and Books

It was this moving language that caused the flow of the Wan-
derer's tears. It evidently set forth the authoi^ view of the interna-
tional scene and of _jhe_jjgstiny of his own coujotry. It reveals a
growing amjg^^ one of the

first clear signs in Meiji literature of a reaction against the foreign
influences that, it was felt,lto was best in

the native culture. The thinking is confused, and one detects be-
neath the sympathy for oppressed peoples a conviction that it is
Japan's birthright to succeed to the empire of Asia. This is not
surprising, for it is in the nature of a vigorous organism to expand,
and in an age when the Japanese were building up a strong na-
tional consciousness it would have been remarkable if her leaders
had not nourished high ambitions. Without the encouragement of
such purposes they might well have flagged at their task. But it is
none the less interesting to find in a popular novel so clear and
early a presage of future political sentiment. Historians who base
their judgments upon economic analysis may argue that, as she
developed from an agrarian into a capitalistic state, Japan was
obliged to follow the Western example of mercantile and colonial
expansion, and this can hardly be denied. But when Tokai Sanshi
wrote, Japan had barely reached the stage of industrial capitalism,
and yet attacks upon Formosa and Korea had already been pro-
posed a decade before.

A photograph of the author shows him as a good-looking young
man of a sensitive and melancholy cast of countenance. A Byron
manque, he wears a fez and a braided tunic, the uniform of a cos-
mopolitan litterateur. But returning from foreign parts he was
taken up by politics and journalism, "to go no more a-roving by
the light of the moon."

Another prominent literary figure was SUYEHIRO TETCHO, the
author ol_Setchubai, or Plum Blossoms in the Snow (1881^ . a po-
litical novel that made a great impression in the years of political
strife before the opening of the Diet in 1890. It went through
several editions and some three hundred thousand copies are said
to have been sold. Suyehiro was the son of a samurai of Uwajima
and attended the clan school, where, after a further study of the
Chinese classics in Kyoto, he was later employed as a teacher. He
then became a minor official, serving first in a prefectural office
and then in the treasury in Tokyo. But he was not suited to official
work and turned to journalism. He became a newspaper editor
and was imprisoned for offences against the Press Law, which he
attacked in his journal. He was active in party politics and his
novel was, to use his own words, "nothing but a political tract
sprinkled with novel-powder/7 Like most ot the political novels
of the day it has no literary value, but drawing as it does upon his

415

Early Meiji: Western Influences

own experiences, it throws an interesting light on the party ma-
noeuvres of the day and the life of the rank and file of the opposition.
As a Japanese literary historian has observed, it belongs to a group
of novels that might be described as the Voice of Young Japan,
as Disraeli's works were said to be the Voice of Young England.
Suyehiro was in the thick of party politics from 1875, when he was
in his twenty-fifth year, and was able from his own knowledge to
describe the life of young students and otKer political enthusiasts,
their meetings and speeches, and the underground movement with
its plots of violence and the harsh police measures they evoked.

S£l£hM^^ describing

a scene in Tokyo on October 3 in the year 2040, the one hundred
and fiftieth annivm in Japan.

Two gentlemen exchange congratulations on the great prosperity
their country is now enjoying as a result of constitutional govern-
ment. "Yes," says one of them, "we have the good fortune to have
been born in this happy era and to spend our declining years in
peace and comfort. Look out over the city of Tokyo, stretching
more than ten miles in every direction. It is covered with tall
brick buildings and a great spider's web of telegraph lines. Rail-
way trains come and go from all points of the compass. The streets
by night are lit by electricity as bright as the day. In the great port
of Tokyo the merchant ships of all nations are moored and com-
merce is more flourishing than in London or Paris. On land we
have a powerful army of a hundred thousand men, on the sea ride
hundreds of strong warships. There is no place where the Rising
Sun flag does not fly. Education is universal and no country where
literature and learning flourish can rival us."

At this point in the text there is an illustration giving a bird's-
eye view of Tokyo, A.D. 2040. It consists largely of tall chimneys
flying great pennants of smoke. The Western reader who has
dwelt in an industrial town is tempted to ask: "And was Jerusalem
builded here among these dark Satanic mills?" But no such mis-
givings trouble the speaker, who proceeds to attribute all these
blessings to the Virtues of the Emperor and the Wisdom of the
elected Parliament, in wKIcE progressives and conservatives debate
with courtesy and cabinet changes are smoothly effected. There is
no need to relate more of this prophetic dream, for it has not so
far come true, except for the smoke. But we may single out one
further passage to show what loyal patriotic visions filled the minds
of Japanese liberals in the days of their agitation for freedom and
justice. Having further descanted on the perfection of Japanese na-
tional life in the twenty-first century, the elder speaker says: "Until
a hundred years ago our country was said to be the weakest and
poorest in Asia and we were despised by Europe and America.

416

Men and Books

The great increase in our national strength that has taken place
in so short a time is due to the virtue of our wise sovereign, who
at an early date decreed a constitutional form of government and
opened our Parliament this day one hundred and fifty years ago.
Truly it behooves us and our descendants to serve the Imperial
house with fullest loyalty/'

The scene then shifts back to the nineteenth century, and the
actors are young men fighting for popular rights against an auto-
cratic government cruelly using police powers and killing that very
movement which, if successful, would lead to the glorious era im-
agined in the prologue.

A career not unlike Suyehiro's was that of SUDQ

in 1858, son of a.Jeadjn^official of the Uwajima clan. He went

ies and military exercises and then became a teacher in an ele-

]P3£]ljy^

ism first as a reporter and then as a member of the editorial staff.
He became popular as a socialist in crime stories — especially
the Tales of Poisonous Women already mentioned. Later he
turned his attention to political novels, of which the best-Known is
Ryokusa Dan. The author's preface explains that he wrote it first
when a youth, after reading English books on self-government.
Later, as the taste for political novels grew, he revised and enlarged
it and gave it a topical flavour. In the preface he said: "Its true
subject is the conflict between centralization and local autonomy,
but if the reader wishes to savour it only superficially he will find
a love interest in every chapter. If however he wants to get to the
marrow of it he will find it replete with political argument
throughout."

Neither as a love story nor as a political tract can this work be
recommended, but its illustrations are entertaining and instruc-
tive. There is a view of a racecourse attended by fashionably dressed
people; a tender tete-a-tete interrupted by a jockey; a young stu-
dent interrogated by the police on suspicion of having purchased
dynamite though he really wanted a diamond; and many other
pictures showing, if not the real social life of the day, the life that
modern-minded Japanese lived in their moments of fantasy, an
elegant, busy mixture of politics and romance.

A somewhat different character is BAEA TATSUI. Born in 1850,
the_son_of a Tosa samurai, he was sent at the expense of his clan to
study in Yedo and entered Fukuzawa's school. Later (1870) he was
sent to study in England, where he attended Warminster Grammar
School and University College, London, and studied law in the
Temple. Returning to Japan in 1878, he engaged in polmdal' ac-
tivities as a supporter of the movement for an elective assembly,

417

Early Meiji: Western Influences

He wrote on political matters and was regarded as the most elo
quent orator of the day. He was versatile but superficial, turning
from history to law, from law to economics, translating the Kojiki
into English, and engaging in propaganda abroad which took the
form of praising his country but damning its government. He was
arrested in 1885 on suspicion of purchasing explosives, but ac-
quitted upon trial, after suffering for several months in jail. He
died in Philadelphia in 1888.

His best-known work was an essay on Natural Rights (1882) ,
which is an attack upon Kato Hiroyuki, then president of the
university. He may be regarded as typical of those Japanese edu-
who .jygrc strong liberals abroad and strong

.

nationalists at home, though it must be said in his favour that he
remained antagonistic to the government and did not, like many
of them, change his views in order to obtain official employment.
He was oftfa : brilliant but unstable failures of liberalism in

his successors in later years went through
a like experience of theoretical conversion and practical apostasy.
An interesting chapter of modern Japanese history could be writ-
ten by tracing the careers of clever young men educated in liberal
surroundings in England or America who returned to Japan
flushed with democratic enthusiasms and in course of time lapsed
into a bitter nationalism accompanied by a strong dislike of the
West, which had nourished their youthful ardours. Not long ago
an able and experienced member of this class observed to me that
most of his contemporaries, products of Western education, had
turned against the Western democracies feeling that their liberal-
ism was a sham.

Two other literary figures may be described, not on account of
their works, but in order to show what variegated careers were
followed by the youths who grew up as the nation was subjected to
violent change. NARISHIMA RYUHOKU,, born in 1837 in a samurai
family, was trained as a tutor in the Shogun's palace, and in 1856
he was instructing the Shogun lemochi in reading. He did some
historical research and wrote sketches of Yedo life and some
satirical poetry, which brought him punishment in 1863. After
three years under house arrest he was pardoned and made a captain
in the reorganized army of the Bakufu. He left this career as the
Bakufu collapsed and opened a school in the Hongwanji temple
at Asakusa. After a voyage to Europe he wrote for newspapers and
magazines, published what was probably the first detective story
in Japan, was imprisoned for breaches of the Press Law, and fol-
lowed the fighting during the Satsuma Rebellion as a war cor-
respondent.

418

Men and Books

HATTORI SEIICHI, born in 1842, was the son of a Confucian
scholar. In 1874 he wrote a work entitled The New Prosperity of
Yedo, a humorous description of life in the new capital written
in Chinese style. This was a survival from the Yedo period which
today, says a critic, "seems like the fossil of a long-extinct organ-
ism/' He then turned to political journalism, which in those days
included some scandalous writing. His magazine was suppressed
for libelling the Foreign Minister's daughter, who seems to have
been indiscreet; but he repeated the story in serial form in an-
other journal. He ended as a teacher of composition in a secondary
school.

^ will be seen that journalism and translation and novel-
writing were the favourite occupations of the bright young men
of the period, and this was natural in a society that was not yet
stabilized and where official employment, trade, and industry did
not yet offer plentiful opportunity to young men without money
or influence. It resulted that the press in Japan developed rapidly
and played an important part not only in purveying news and
scandal but also in spreading knowledge of the Western world.
This feature of political and social life deserves some separate
notice as one of the main channels through which Western influ-
ence reached the general public.

A bridge between belles-lettres and journalism is furnished by
the literary career of KANAGAKI ROBUN, who may be described as
a product of transition. He was the son of a Yedo fishmonger and
devoted his early youth to study. Born in 1829, he had before the
Restoration become the most prolific comic writer in Japan, He
poured out a stream of novels, sketches, and humorous verse which
endeared him to the townspeople, especially to the denizens of the
theatres, the tea-houses, and such centres of gossip as the public
baths. In 1873 he moved to Yokohama, where he was employed
by the Prefect in the astonishing post of Inspector of Public Senti-
ment, employment for which he was well fitted, since popular
sentiment was exactly what his writings tickled. He soon returned
to Tokyo, where he engaged in journalism for the least literate
class of reader, promoting the Kana Shimbun and the Iroha Shim*
bun, both of which made free use of the simple syllabary. He also
published the Tokyo E-iri Shimbun, an illustrated sheet. His
pseudonym "Kanagaki" comes from his employment of the syl-
labic kana script in preference to the ideograph. Though not an
important figure, he is an entertaining specimen of his class, repre-
senting the irreverent, scandal-loving citizen of Yedo as it turned
into Tokyo. He even ventured to make fun of the serious Mr.
Fukuzawa, whose popular work on natural science he parodied

419

Early Meiji: Western Influences

under the title of Kyuri Dzukai, which by a change of characters in
his version stood not for Illustrations of Physics but for How to
Use Cucumbers.

4. The Press

nn

JLHE DEVELOPM^ in Japan is a definite example of

dit^ciL^Western Jnfluence, since newspapers published by foreign
residents in Japan provided an example that the Japanese could

KANAGAKI ROBUN 1829-9$
Popular comic ivriter and journalist of early Meiji.

study at first hand. The Shogun's government in the latter part o£
the seclusion period had paid some attention to news from foreign
countries, which they obtained usually through Dutch traders,
but also from Chinese sources. From 1862 the Batavia News was
regularly translated, not for public information but for use of the
officers of the Bansho Torishirabe-dokoro, the office for the study
of barbarian writings. The first Japanese journals after the offi-
cial news-sheets were 'poor productions, struck off from wood
blocks on unsuitable paper, and could hardly be described as news-
papers, but rather as a kind of magazine appearing at irregular
intervals. They count for little in the history of journalism, but are
^ mostly published b^jormer

420

The Press

sengnts_ojE_the_Bakufu who resented the authority of the Western
clans and violently attacked them. The most important was the
Koko Shimbun, controlled by Fukuchi Genichiro, who com-
plained that the new government was worse than that of the
Shogtm. All these were suppressed and Fukuchi was tried and
condemned to imprisonment.6 The only surviving paper was the
Dajdkwan Nisshi, a kind of official gazette first published in 1868,
It was followed by the Shimbun Zasshi (1871) , a periodical used
by Kido for presenting the official view.

The lack of printing presses and an inadequate technical ex-
perience of newspaper organization delayed the growth of good
daily newspapers in Japanese, but soon after the opening of the
treaty ports the foreign residents^ in Jjig-an^
own journals. The first of these was the Nagasaki Shipping List
and Advertiser (1861), which soon became the weekly Japan
Herald under English management. This was followed by the
Japan Express, an American-owned paper, in 1862. Within the
next few years there appeared several other newspapers, English,
French, and German, of which perhaps the most prominent was
the Japan Gazete. There was even a Japan Punch. These proved
useful sources of information to Japanese who could read English
and were carefully perused by the government, who from time to
time made use of them for the dissemination of official news and
opinions.

A Scottish journalist named J. R. Black (author of an inter-
esting book called Young Japan,, which contains useful informa-
tion on Japanese history between 1858 and 1877) was editor of
the Herald and later the Gazette. He also produced one of the first
regular newspapers in the Japanese language, the Nisshin Shinjishi
or Reliable Daily News,, and he exerted some influence through
articles written by himself or by Japanese political writers. He
attacked the government at the time of the agitation for a national
assembly and was offered an official post in the hope of silencing his
adverse comment. His influence on Japanese journalism was con-
siderable though it is not always fully recognized in Japan..

Thg.jmtjregular daily Japanese newspaper was the Mainichi,
pjiblished in Yokohama in 1872, which used an imported printing
press; and fromlHat date the number of dailies increased rapidly.
According to Black their quality was~poor at first, for they did not
dare to comment seriously on the events of the day and "their
columns were defaced by such filthy paragraphs as to render them
worse than contemptible." This charge may be true, since news-
papers of a much later date were not always scrupulous in their
choice of material; but certainly the press made good progress from

« Fukuchi ten years later was editing the government paper, the Nichi-nichi.

481

Early Meiji: Western Influences

about i§7% and by 1875 there were more than one hundred pe-
riodicals in Japan. It had gained great influence,

ernment found embarrassing, and efforts were made to^suppress

criticismTT^n^

ventmg official o^ersjuad^^

grew bolder and more powerful

FUKUCHI GENICHIRO

A leading journalist of early Meiji, at first hostile

to the government, but later editor of Nichi Nichi,

which became the official organ,

ofjthe earlyjfears of Meiji, say until about 1887, were not organs of
public entertaimnent intended to give news and to earn profits by
wide circulation. They wgr^sji j^^

of individuals or groups, designed for the purpose of political dis-
cussion and public eflucaHoru'TK contributors

were not as a rule professional journalists, but leading figures in
political or literary life, and each journal was associated with a
particular coterie or a particular school of thought. Thus the
Yubin Hochi was controlled by liberals of the type of Yano Fumio

The Press

(the author of the Young Politicians of Thebes) , Ozaki Yukio,
and Inukai Ki; the Mainichi by Shimada Saburo; the Toyo Jiyu
Shimbun, which had a socialistic tinge, by Prince Saionji and Baba
Tatsui; and the Tokyo Nichi-nichi by Fukuchi Genichiro, who at
that time hated the government.

All these were men who played important roles in current
politics, though rarely in office, and it is significant that with very
few exceptions the newspapers of the period were on the side of
the opposition. The fact t^at the government was obliged to gain
control of one organ (the Nicfu-nichi) for expression of the official
vi£w,jind also resorted to bribery, testifies to the growing power of
the press* As the controversy over popular rights grew hot the
government, as we have seen, enacted a Press Law, much more
stringent than the first regulations of 1873 and 1875, and enforced
it ruthlessly. Even this did not discourage the newspapers though
they were fined and their editors imprisoned with alarming fre-
quency; but when after the dissolution of the so-called Govern-
inent^Party (the Imperial ^Constitutional Party) in 1883 the need

belabouring one another and to a kin5 oi^muta

brought about j. fall in quality and a loss of public interest.

These circumstances, combined with government pressure,
diminished the role of the newspapers as organs of instruction and
platforms for discussion. Within a year or so they had lost influ-
ence and become only purveyors of news and not leaders of opin-
ion. This rise and fall of the power of the press is an interesting
t^™^HXl^I?^ y^SS anc^ waning of public enthusiasm for
politics in the years Fetween 1868 and 1883. In the early part of
that periodn^y^Iiad served a most useful purpose as an educa-
tional medium, often publishing translations or summaries of
Western books or instructive articles on Western life. Many trans-
lations of European classical works first appeared in their columns,
one of these being Pilgrim's Progress, which ran for three years in
instalments in a Kobe newspaper. So much did the early news-
papers depend upon translations that great numbers of students
and other young men of the samurai class eked out a scanty liveli-
hood by occasional journalism of this type, and in novels of the
day the hero is often a poor youth who cannot pay his rent because
the translation fees have not come in.

It was probably the writing, printing, and publishing of news-
papers and books that, next to employment as functionaries, of-
f ere3REFmo?t suitable opening to the more literate of the samuraT
who were obliged to find work to supplement their pensions. The
Scottish journalist Black, in his description of the growth ot the
press in Japan, says that it gave employment to thousands of

423

Early Meiji: Western Influences

samurai of all ranks. His account of his own experience is worth
quoting for the interesting picture it gives of the staff of a Japanese
newspaper about 1873:

It is remarkable that the compositors of all the Japanese newspapers
in Tokyo, and I fancy elsewhere, are samurai. Their steady industry,
regularity and general good behavior are their marked features. I speak
from experience. On the Nisshin Shinjishi for four years I had over
sixty of them employed. . . . There was not one who hadn't the man-
ners of a gentleman. . . . The editor was of an old hatamoto family
under the Shogunate and had been vice-governor of Hakodate. He had
one failing, an unconquerable objection to modifying his style of writ-
ing — from the most scholastic to which he and all of his standing had
been accustomed — and bringing it down to the comprehension of the
multitude. Everyone said how beautiful was his language, but it often
took some of his professed admirers a long time to understand it. It had
the effect however of placing the paper very high in the estimation of
the most cultivated classes.

All the subordinates were men of equally good family. The man-
ager of the paper was formerly treasurer of one of the most powerful
southern clans and the clerks under him were well-born men of a
northern clan. The chief reporter was paid a high salary and employed
his own men. They were all his former retainers under the old regime.
And even the office messenger was a samurai.

He goes on to praise their courage in writing what they thought
at a time when the Press Law was ruthlessly enforced and journal-
ists were always being hauled off to jail. Medicine and engineering,
he thought, attracted the next largest number of samurai after
journalism and related occupations. Black's account incidentally
calls attention to an interesting point in the distribution of po-
litical talent after the Restoration. We have already noticed that
the driving force was furnished almost entirely by men of sam-
urai origin. Moreover many of the most capable of them were
not, as might have been expected, from the clans that had opposed
the Shogunate, but were former administrators, officials, and schol-
ars who had been in the employment of the Bakuf u. A list of prom-
inent figures serving under the early Meiji government includes
many names of direct Tokugawa retainers and of clansmen who
had before the Restoration transferred their services from their
own fiefs to the administration in Yedo, as civil servants or tech-
nical advisers. Thus it came about that the bureaucrats who
worka^nder_thejeadership of the Satsuma-Chdshu coalition were
o^ial^ content to place their talents "at the

disposal of fhFgwernment in power and rarely playing"any p<>
liticaTroIe. On tEe other hand it was samurai ot a noncontdrming
who werelmwilling to serve the clan coalition and gravitated"

Intellectual Currents

the result that al-
most every newspaper was hostile to, or at least critical of, the
government. Tfiese clfHmsta^^ to the

Japanese press, which it retained for a long time.

Intellectual Currents

So far we have considered only the effects of Western influence
upon sentiment as it was expressed in changing habits or reflected
in popular literature. It remains to discuss — if the distinction can
be properly made — the d^yelggme^ of in-

tjsllectual life in an atmosphere of contact or conflict between tra-
ditional and modern trends of thought This is a difficult matter,
for it has to be borne in mind that many of the Western doctrines
that came to the notice of the Japanese in the second half of the
nineteenth century were by no means fully established throughout
Europe, nor were they in every case unanimously accepted in their
country of origin. Here we have not a simple example of one
ancient culture confronting another, but rather the spectacle of
an old Asiatic culture, itself in a state of flux, being subjected to
the same kind of doubts and questionings as had not long before
exercised men's minds in Europe when their habits began to
undergo rapid change to meet the demands of a growing industrial
society. It is true that this change had been slowly brewing in
Europe since the Renaissance, and that Japanese society had not
been transformed, as had Western European society, by the growth
of scientific knowledge and the spread of commerce. Nevertheless,
Jagan jof the eighteenth century was not inferior to most Euro-

P^jjL^Jft^ a^ter the turn of

that century she Fad in a general way been apprised of the main
events of modern European life. She was therefore not entirely un-
prepared for the new ideas that were presented to her just before
andTafieFT^ to say, ot course,

that the impact of Western ideas at that time was neither violent
nor disturbing, but merely to suggest a partial explanation for the
relative ease with which Japan made the transition from ancient
to modern life.

Much of the transformation achieved was creditable indeed,
but not miraculous. Those who have long resided in Far Eastern
countries will agree that the adoption and use of Western me-
chanical devices never presented any serious difficulty to peoples
skilled in handicrafts that require nimble fingers and quick minds.
It betokens "a certain condescension in foreigners" to suppose that
only they themselves have the secret of manipulating levers and

425

Early Meiji: Western Influences

valves. Western things were easy enough to borrow, and the re-
motest spots in Asia soon became familiar with the use of repeating
rifles, steam engines, and, in due course, other products of the ma-
chine age. When Commodore Perry presented to the Emperor of
Japan, as gifts symbolic of Western civilization, a telegraphic ap-
paratus, a miniature locomotive, rifles, carbines, pistols, several
baskets of champagne, and a barrel of whisky, Japanese at once
came forward who understood the uses of these Occidental prod-
ucts, and the workmen who helped to set up the various machines
proved as handy as the artificers from the American ships.

There was no great difficulty about Western things. The
trouble was with Western ideas, which could not be handled like
physical objects but needed careful study before they were used,
for they might be dangerous. Consequently a great deal of the
intellectual activity of early Meiji was taken up with the_examina~
tion of foreign teachings in philosophy and in political and eco-
nomic science. A brief survey of the works on such subjects that
were first studied in Japan is the most convenient way of examin-
ing the effect of Western thought upon Japanese intellectual life
in this early period, when their relatively small number makes it
easy to trace which were the most widely read and presumably the
most influential.

Without question the subject that most interested the Japanese
of the years just before the Restoration and the two following
decades was the theory and practice of political science^This was
to be expected since they, like the Chinese, who had guided their
first steps in philosophy, have always been interested less in meta-
physical speculation than in inquiry into the principles and meth-
ods of government. This question of government was moreover of
peculiar urgency after the fall of the Shogunate, since it was neces-
sary without delay to erect a new structure in place of that which
hadbeenjiestroyed, and the whole future of Japan seemed to hang
upon the choice that was to be made. At first it was thought pos-
sible to revert to methods of administration which had the sanc-
tion of antiquity, but little else, in their favour. These, it was soon
found, did not meet the practical needs of the day; and though
there were many Japanese who thought it possible to borrow cer-
tain convenient Western forms while retaining the spirit of native
institutions, this couig TnoTalways be done because jJle new social
and economic life upon which Tapan was entering exacted methods
of regulating national activities for which Japanese history offered
no precedent. There was, however, a fairly wide range of choice
between different Occidental systems, and it was the study and
discussion of these various alternatives and their underlying prin-
ciples that absorbed most of the intellectual energies of the Japan-

426

Intellectual Currents

ese people as soon as the confusion following the Restoration was
cleared up and it became possible to look ahead and chart a new
political course.

What formed the views of the small group of leaders who re-
tained power for some years after the Restoration is best discussed
in the context of a record of their political activities, for although
they were influenced by Western political theories they were also
moved by considerations of expediency. What for the moment
concerns us here is the growth, the ups and downs, of political
opinion among the Japanese people and the influences by which
it was formed.

In the spread of public knowledge about Western political sys-
tems a leading part was played by three men, whose influence was
so far-reaching that the ...history of .ppji.ticajjbhought between 1860

jvritten *n t'ie f°rm °f tiheir biographies.

They were Fu^zawa^Yukic^ and Itagaki Tai-

suke. P^h£sej^^

Western learning in pianYjRelds. This remarkable man may be
taken as an epitome in his 2^5_P?£SonLjof jJiose qualities of mind

leaders oFreform in the

.
crucial period just before and after the Restoration. He owed a

great deal of his success to the early training that he received in
the modest samurai family from which he came. Though unortho-
dox and antitraditional, he was none the less a typical exponent
of those virtues which were the most admirable features of the
feudal code of behaviour — a high sense of duty coupled with self-
control and a certain contempt for worldly goods. His father was
a trusted retainer of the head of the Okudaira clan of Nakatsu in
Kyushu. As overseer of the clan treasury he had to spend most of
his time in Osaka (where the young Fukuzawa was born in 1835) ,
transacting the affairs of his feudal lord and therefore dealing with
rich rice-brokers and moneylenders. It is a striking illustration of
the standards of the best sort of samurai that the father, by nature
a scholarly man of rigid principles who despised the contamination
of money, was obliged by the loyalty he owed to his chieftain to
devote himself to distasteful financial business. So deep-seated was
his contempt for the counting-house that when he heard that his
small sons were being taught the multiplication table he took them
away from school in a rage, crying: "It is abominable that innocent
children should be taught the use of numbers — the tools of shop-
keepers. What will the teachers do next?"

It was in such an atmosphere that many young samurai grew
up, and it is therefore not surprising that the growth of commerce
and industry in Japan should have brought about a clash between
old and new standards of morality. This conflict, as might be ex-

427

Early Meiji: Western Influences

pected, was the thread of most discourse in Japan, and there were
few novels that did not treat of it in one form or another, but it is
interesting to note that as late as 1899 the most popular novel of
the day dealt with this very theme of the struggle of the old, stern
traditions of family life and duty against the new spirit of prog-
ress, the feverish desire to rise in the world, to make money, and
to break down social distinctions that in feudal days had barred
a man from leaving the station in life to which he was born.

The novel in question is Konjiki Yasha (which might be ren-
dered as The Demon Gold) , a work by Ozaki Koyo, the leading
writer of the realistic school of fiction. Every educated Japanese
man and woman of the generation that became adult at the end
of the nineteenth century was familiar with this book, and it may
be regarded as a landmark in social as well as in literary history.
It tells the story of Kwanichi, a promising young student about to
enter the university, and Miya, his betrothed, who for reasons of
money is promised by her parents to a flashy young business man,
the son of a rich banker. Few readers were unmoved by the fare-
well scene in which Kwanichi, accusing Miya of falsity and greed,
knocks her down and kicks her as she lies weeping on the moonlit
shore of Atami.

Although Fukuzawa was brought up in the belief that man
shguM^

free from avarice, he was a convinced modernist, and consequently
his teaching ran counter to the moral precepts of the feudal elite,
since he^lid all in his power Jo encourage a matter-of-fact, utili-
tarian outlook upon life a^Q^]^^ a youth

he resented the stiffness of feudal society, which kept ambitious
young men in their place; and here he was representative of most
of his contemporaries, for the force that contributed most power-
fully to the downfall of feudalism was without doubt the desire of
able young samurai of low rank to get out of the groove to which
their pedigree condemned them and to obtain power commen-
surate with their talents.

In his twentieth year, just before Perry's return to Japan in
1854, he determined to strike out for himself and went to Naga-
saki to learn Dutch and gunnery, subjects that offered some hope
of a career. He had a good grounding in classical Chinese studies,
a good memory, and an active mind. He made rapid progress and,
rather than return to the dull life of a small castle town, he went
on to Osaka, where he continued his studies under Ogata Koan,
a physician who practised Western medicine. He and his fellow
students, a group of turbulent young men from different parts of
Japan, studied not only Dutch but any other subject that seemed
likely to be useful in the new society that was already forming. In

428

Intellectual Currents

their enthusiasm they would dissect stray dogs and decapitated
criminals, do experiments in chemistry and electricity, or labor-
iously make copies o£ Dutch books 'on scientific matters. In 1858
he was sent to Yedo to give lessons in Dutch to the young men of
the clan on duty there. One day, on a visit to Yokohama, he spoke
to some foreign merchants in Dutch and found that they did not
understand him. It was thus that he discovered that English, not
Dutch, was the language of the future, and set about learning it at
once. He shortly afterwards contrived to be taken on a voyage to
America in a Japanese vessel, the Kanrin Maru, which in 1860 es-
corted the ship carrying the Shogun's envoys to the United States
for the purpose of ratifying the treaty of 1858. He returned to
Japan in 1860, at the height of the anti-foreign agitation, which
was so violent that the captain of the Kanrin Maru was advised
not to carry ashore an umbrella he had bought in San Francisco,
lest he be cut down by a fanatical samurai. Fukuzawa's own life
was in some danger, for at that time all students of Western lan-
guages were regarded as traitors by the patriotic extremists.

Some information on Western systems of government had
reached Japan before the Restoration, and the mission of 1860
made useful additions to this knowledge. The envoys gained some
understanding of elected legislative bodies by attending sessions
of the Congress in Washington. It is true that one of them, dis-
turbed by noisy exchanges across the floor of the House, observed
that the scene reminded him of the fish market at Nihombashi, the
Yedo equivalent of Billingsgate; but this blemish did not turn
their minds against parliaments.

In 1861 a mission was sent to visit England, France, Prussia,
and other European countries. It was on his return to Japan after
this journey that Fukuzawa began to devote himself to the spread
of^ information concernirju^^ English, social
and political ideas and practices. His first essays were based mainly
upon such sources as encyclopaedias and college textbooks, which
were not always the most reliable or recent authorities. He appears .
not to have known of standard works like those of Hallam or
Bagehot, but he was successful in disseminating some general
knowledge of the English parliamentary system and of democratic
principles as they were then expounded by English political
thinkers. He also drew upon his observations in the United States,
though he had found American political methods difficult to un-
derstand.

The work that made Fukuzawa's reputation was Seiyo Jijo,
or Conditions in Western Lands. It was a simple account of At-
lantic civilization, describing the political and military systems
of the principal states, national debts, taxation, joint-stock com-

429

Early Meiji: Western Influences

panics, railways, steamships, post offices, banks, libraries, museums,
schools, the highly developed sense of the rights of the citizen, and
similar features of the national life of modern Western countries.
The Japanese people were not entirely ignorant of these things,
but Fukuzawa's book responded to, and even created, a demand
for fuller information. It was an influential, indeed an epoch-
making work. Of the first edition 150,000 copies were sold at once,
and pirated editions quickly multiplied that number. Fukuzawa,
because of his whole-hearted belief in Western culture, became
the champion of English-language study in Japan. He devoted
himself to educational reform, arguing that schools and colleges
must prepare youth for practical life, and he founded in 1863 a
school that later developed into Keio University, where the cur-
riculum was devoted mainly to modern subjects and stressed the
study of English.

He was a most prolific author, and so familiar did his name
become as an authority on Western matters that in the early years
of Meiji all foreign works were popularly known as Fukuzawa-bon
or "Fukuzawa books." Some idea of the range of his writing may
be gained from a list of the chief subjects he dealt with after the
issue of his Conditions in Western Lands. It will also show in what
kind of knowledge the general public were at that time deficient.

1867 A Guide to Foreign Travel
Western Ways of Living

1868 An Illustrated Account of
Natural Science (Kyuri Zukai)

1869 The English Parliament
1872 Lessons for Children

On food, clothing, houses,
etc.

Elementary physics, chem-
istry, etc.

Illustrated by
from the West

moral tales

1872—6 Encouragement of Learning
(Gakumon no Susume)

1873 Book-keeping

Procedure at Meetings

1875 Outline of Civilization
(Bummei Gairyaku)

1876 The Division of Powers

(Sunken Ron)

1877 Popular Economics
(Minkan Keizai Roku)

Seventeen pamphlets on edu-
cation

Rules for conducting confer-
ences, etc.

An essay (6 vols.) on the
nature and purposes of mod-
ern civilization and its mean-
ing for Japan

On decentralization

430

I

g
S

I

THE EMPEROR S CONFUCIAN TUTOR

Motoda Eifu, author of Essentials of Learning for the Young
(1881)

Intellectual Currents

1 878 Popular Discourse on
People's Rights (Tsuzoku
Minken Ron)

Popular Discourse on National
Rights

1879 Reform of National Sentiment A discussion of the effect of

modern civilization on the
minds of the people. It fore-
shadows the establishment of
Parliament.

The reader will have gathered from the foregoing descriptions
that diej^ei^m^ activity of the; first two decades of Meiji
was directed to politics, and indeed it may well be said that the
dominant intgrest was political throughout the whole period. This
was to be expected since, the overthrow of feudalism having been
brought about by compromise rather than by the triumph of a
single revolutionary doctrine, the achievements that opened the
new era, remarkable as they were, still left unsettled many funda-
mental political questions. To these all other aspects of the na-
tional life were perforce subsidiary.

This feature of the cultural history of the early part of Meiji
is brought out very clearly by a study of the controversies that oc-
cupied the minds of scholars as well as statesjnen and politicians
when the last revolt had been quelled and the country had to
consider what institutions it should adopt in place of those which
had been destroyed. It was natural, indeed inevitable, that they
should turn to Western models and try to profit by Western ex-
perience. They lEb'uhdjbnJ^ i^m'fnrm pattern
of political theory or practice, and their instinct led jhem^tg seek
some composite form of go^g.™ggntSav^& it suited what they
conceived to be^ffieir owry^^ be justified by the
doctrinjes^ then
dominant in the West. Accordingly the teachings of Montesquieu
and Rousseau, of Mill and Spencer, of Bluntschli and Biedermann,
and of the Founding Fathers were all carefully and somewhat in-
discriminately studied, not as academic subjects but in the hope
of finding practical guidance for policy and, perhaps even more
important, ammunition for debate. Since the Japanese people
(with the exception of an ineffectual minority who believed in
the Return to Antiquity) were striving not to evolve a new politi-
cal structure from their own past but to build one anew from such
materials as they could find at home or abroad, it is not surprising
that, especially between 1875 and 1885, the intellectual scene pre-
sented a picferej)|jg^^ the prevailing un-
certainty in politics.

431

Early Meiji: Western Influences

As early as 1868 one Nakamura Keiu (the first translator of
Self-Help) , returning from study in England, had published trans-
lations of the Constitution of the United States, of Washington's
Farewell Address and some of Emerson's essays. He also formed a
society for spreading English ideas on the moral education of
youth, and thus followed closely in Fukuzawa's footsteps. English
influence at this early date was considerable and remained im-
portant if not dominant for fifteen or twenty years.

Here was an interesting change from the Japanese attitude
towards England in the first half of the century. The visit of
H.M.S. Phaeton to Nagasaki in 1808 — when her crew were said
to be as fierce as tigers-*- had caused both anger and fear; and.
the Opium War with its sequels had, as we have seen, caused
Japanese patriots to regard the English as a dangerous people with
sinister intentions upon their country. But ^fter thejpombardment
of Kagoshima by a British squadron in 1862 the^atsmn^men de-
veloped a respect/ soon t(Tmrn into ^jg^jjjg^Q^j^pTOple who
(in harmony with good Satsuma practice) were resolute"and knew
how to look after their own interests in a decisive fashion. There
was evidently something to be said foFthe gunboat policy in those
days, as Commodore Perry would doubtless have agreed, on con-
dition that the gunboats were not British.

strengthened this^growing admiration for England

to Europe ofjjjlgj^^

gavejlowing accounts of English strength and wealth, they were
igjpressecn)^^ and they felt that one

island kingdom might wdF tale^hintFlrom anotherTlvKich had
raised itself to the pinnacle on which Great Britain stood in that
illustrious Victorian phase of her history. These various factors go
far to explain why among the earliest works on political philosophy
to be widely studied in Japan where John Stuart Mill's Considera-
tions on Representative Government (translated in 1871) ; part of
Herbert Spencer's Social Statics (translated in 1877 by Ozaki Yu-
kio, later to become the leading liberal in Japanese politics and
to be known as the God of the Constitution) ; Sir William Anson's
writings on Parliament and the Crown; and Sheldon Amos on
Political Science.7

Sp_encer?s influence was particularly strong, for he was the
prophet and philosopher of the scientific movement that was over-
whelming European thought in the second half of the nineteenth
century. His Development Hypothesis encouraged optimistic be-

? Notice that Ozaki translated in 1877 an early work of Spencer's (1850) . The
choice of works for translatioa was rather peculiar, and the translators were often
behind the times.

432

Intellectual Currents

liefs among those Japanese who had abruptly turned their backs
upon the past, while their sanguine temper was stimulated by
Progress., Its Law and Cause, though it might have been better for
them if he had written a volume on Progress, its Cause and Cure.
It was perhaps unfortunate for Japan that she entered interna-
tional society at a moment when European self-confidence had
reached its loftiest peak. A few decades sooner, or a few decades
later, and she might have been spared much disillusion. But in
the 1870*5 Spencer was the man for their taste, because he reduced
the universe to a simple system and made a synthesis of all knowl-
edge which could not but be attractive to a people just emerged
from seclusion and faced with an extremely complicated existence.
After all, they were not alone in taking him at his own valuation,
for his philosophy was widely accepted in Victorian England and
even more in America, so that the enthusiasm of the Japanese for
his gospel was in the circumstances to be expected.

It is scarcely necessary to add that Huxley and Darwin also had
an importanteffect upon Japanese thought, since the theory of
eVolution, as applied to politics and sociology, opened attractive
vistas to their forward gaze, and perhaps made them feel that they
were helping in the universal process as they strove to develop
their country. The survival of the fittest was a cry that struck a
most responsive chord, and its rendering- into Japanese, Yusho
Reppai (Superior Wins, Inferior Loses) , was freely used in po-
litical debate as an argument for abolishing what you did not like
or building up your strength against possible enemies.

French influence upon political thought in Japan began at an
early date with the foundation in Tokyo in 1868 of a small school
for the study of the French language. This led to the translation
of French works on political philosophy, of which the first was
Montesquieu's De I' esprit des lots in i876.s His eulogy of the
English Constitution and his argument for the division of powers
made a great impression, and perhaps his influence should be
reckoned as English rather than French in view of his Anglophile
sentiments* A year later, in 1877, Rousseau's Control social was
translated, under the title of Ro-shi Minyaku Ron, by Hattori.9
His theory of natural rights was enthusiastically adopted as the in-
tellectual basis for attacks on the government of the day> which
was determined not to concede political power to the people at
large. It was the warmth and vigour of Rousseau's feelings rather
than the logic of his argument that appealed to the generous in-

8 It is said that Montesquieu was translated as the result of a suggestion made
to Kido, by some prominent Washington lawyers, during- his visit to America in 1872.

0 There were several translations of the Contrat social That of Nakae Chomin
was in pure Chinese.

433

Early Meiji: Western Influences

stincts of the young Japanese of the period, many of whom felt
that the Restoration would have been in vain if the social distinc-
tions and the political privilege of the feudal regime were not
utterly destroyed.

But at the same tiraejajconft^^ to flow in

educated circles^^jn^dii^can j)_e_ conveniently illustrated by some
account of the career of Kato Hiroyuki, a leading scholar of the
day. Born in 1836, the son of a samurai of good standing who was
frequently employed in Yedo on the business of his clan, young
Kato studied the Dutch language, gunnery, and military science
under Sakuma Shozan and other teachers, showing such aptitude
that he was made an assistant professor in the Bansho Torishirabe-
dokoro, an institution set up by the Bakufu for the study of foreign
documents. In 1862 (?) he wrote an essay called Tonarigusa or
Sketches of Our Neighbour™ which gave an explanation of con-
stitutional government. It was not thought suitable for publica-
tion in the prevailing atmosphere and was circulated only in manu-
script. At this time he began to study German, being the first
Japanese to learn that language. He made rapid progress in official
employment, holding in succession several important posts, which
mostly had to do with education; and when the new government
was formed in 1868 he continued as a public servant, being ap-
pointed president of the Kaisei Gakkd, a government college that
succeeded the Bansho Torishirabe-dokoro and later became the
Imperial University of Tokyo under his direction. In 1 875 he was
nominated a member of the Genro-in or Senate, but soon resigned.
He served in several ministries and by 1 890 he had been made a
member of the House of Peers. He died full of honours in 1916.

Between 1868 and 1882 he published a number of works on
5H?££ connected^with the burning question ot the Hay,

^

the J2ffiL^LS2^^ liberal,

as a.j7oungerlnan gradually gave
"

place to more conservative O£inions "aFHe ba^^

*!LH?^!^

cratic sentiment. In 1870 he had publishM'Tiir5Am^f TaiJ^or
Outline of True Government, which was the precursor of a num-
ber of works by younger authors pressing for democratic reforms
and included probably the earliest references to socialism and
communism in Japanese literature. In 1875 he wrote his Kokutai
Shinron or New Thesis on National Polity, which was a critique
of traditional concepts of the function of the state in Japan. In
this work he made favourable mention of republican government
and used language that was deemed injurious to the Imperial

10 The Neighbour was China, and he was criticizing his own government under
the disguise of an account of conditions there.

Intellectual Currents

dignity. The book was withdrawn. By 1882 he had changed his
mind and issued his Jinken Shinsetsu or New Views on Human
Rights^ in which he revised opinions he had previously expressed
in support of Rousseau's doctrine of natural rights. He had al-
ready gone over to the official view that it was premature to set
up an elected legislature, and thenceforward he fought against the
Liberal Party, which was demanding a parliament and a wide
suffrage. This change of attitude is to be ascribed to two causes.
The first is Kato's enthusiastic acceptancF^lthenSeory of the
surviyaT'oF' ffie fittest, wHicH he never ceased to 'expound in his
later writings; and the second is his conversion to the German
doctrine of the supremacy of the state, which he owed to his study
of German literature. It is~a strong testimony to the influence of
German thought that Kato, who was the first to advocate freedom
and popular rights, should have later turned to Bluntschli and
Biedermann and looked on Bismarck with the highest admiration.
He had published the gist of Bluntschli's Allgemeines Staatsrecht
under the title of Kokuho Hanron in 1870. His late works bear
such titles as Competition and the Rights of the Strong and Con-
tradictions between Nature and Progress. He had lost his early be-
lief in perfectibility and now regarded man as a helpless puppet.
Whatever may be thought of his political philosophy, he was a
man of great ability and considerable learning. He must be
esteemed as a leading figure in the intellectual history of Meiji,
and in its literary history too, for he expressed himself in a lucid
and scholarly language, which, together with Fukuzawa's easy
style, made an important contribution to the development of good,
fluent, popular prose in modern Japan. In this latter respect he
was on the side of reform. Some measure of the simplifications of
language brought about by these two men is given by the fact
that selections from Shinsei Tail and Seiyd Jijo were used as read-
ers in elementary schools.

Thgjg^faL-Scho.Qlg_Q.£ political thought which divided opinion
after the Restoration were both under the influence of strong

was little place for socialistic views
while the idea of equal-
ity seemed strange ^^ people with a strong hierarchical sense. In
the early years, when the appetite for Western knowledge was
both voracious and undiscriminating, some traces of an interest in
socialism can be perceived, but it was transitory and thin.

The first mention of modern socialism and communism in
Japanese literature appears to be a passing reference, for explan-
atory purposes only, which we have already noticed in Kato Hiro-
yuki's Shinsei Tai4 (1870) . No doubt some attention was paid to
these schools of thought by students soon after that, but until

435

Early Meiji: Western Influences

about 1879 there is no definite evidence of anything more than
" of the need for social ^

poverty, and the defects of capitalism. In that year the Tokyo
Nichi-nichi newspaper published an account of the theory and
purposes of socialism, which was probably the first popular ex-
planation to be printed. For the next year or two liberal politicians
were inclined to include in their programs some items of social
reform or to dwell in their speeches upon the distress of the poor,
which they ascribed to the mistaken policies of the government
then in power. Thus Hara Kei (many years later to become Prime
Minister of the first party cabinet in Japan) wrote in 1880 an
essay on the relief of distress, urging that it was the duty of govern-
ment to see to the welfare of the poor. In the same year Ozaki
Yukio wrote in the magazine Rikugo Zasshi an article on the
misery of the poor and the general discontent arising from the
sickness of contemporary society, for which he urged Christianity
as a remedy.

In jj 8 2 a popular j ournal uttered warnings against subversive
doctrines such as Nih^^ and inquired wKy""reBel-

lious ideas^ol this ki^
In this year als<Tseve^^

but their treatment was descriptive and gave no support to socialist
theory, except for a work by Harada called Zaisan Heikin Ron or
An Essay on the Equalization of Wealth.

While these writings no doubt responded to some current de-
sire for information about socialism in practical politics, it made
little or no progress. A "Far Eastern Socialist Party" was formed in
1882 in the remote district of Shimabara in Kyushu, where in
1638 thousands of peasants had been slaughtered when they took
arms to protect themselves against the final persecution of Chris-
tians, But it was promptly dissolved by the police and its leaders
severely questioned. In 1883 and 1884 some small movements, so-
cialistic in character, were set on foot by workmen in Tokyo and
the provinces, but these also were promptly suppressed. They were
of no immediate significance and are interesting only as the first
attempts to give corporate expression to labour's grievances, which
were beginning to grow as industry expanded. It cannot be said
that at this time a definite labour movement had developed or
that socialism was in any way organized either among workmen or
intellectuals. What was taking place was not more than a gradual
reaIiizairQir^oFTEe"^existence of a social problem, which was dis-
cuss^butjaot tackkd. In particular a magazine called Kokumin
no Tomo or the People's Companion, published from about 1887
a number of articles which called attention to the condition of the
labouring class, deplored the gap between the rich and poor, pro-

436

Economic Thought

posed May Day celebrations, and generally pleaded the cause of
the working people. It contained a good deal of Christian social-
ism. But all this was still rather superficial, ill-digested, and with-
out foundation in public sentiment. It was not until after the war
with China that^mqre solidly based movement and _ a more co-
herent theory began ito take shapeT

E

6. Economic Thought

coNOMic thought in Japan was subjected to the same kind o£
foreign influence ^s was political thought after the Restoration,
but there is^a difference between the two processes that arises from
the previous^hi.story of economic inquiry in Japan. The discus-
s^n^oT^esi^rn^polkicaj. theoryjbecame an important, indeed a
pre-eminent^ I gature in j Japanese intefiectual life only when the
urgent question of finding a. durable substitute for feudalism arose.
•?^^9^5:l!£: J?r9M?51$ hadjten^^ of Japanese

thinkers long before the fall of the Shogunate and throughout
nioi^^ of economic doc-

trine, heterogeneous and unsystematic, had been worked out by
them during the Tokugawa age. It is true that this grew out of
the consideration of problems peculiar to an agrarian economy,
but the expanding use of money and the growth of industry in its
later days obliged the feudal leaders to seek a solution of economic
difficulties that crowded upon them; and conseq[uentlyjthe ground
was somewhat better prepared for the critical study of Western
ideas ""in the field of economics tharT it was in the field of politics.
Here also we have to remember that European economic thought
was by no means uniform, nor could it be said that practice had
shown the permanent truth of any particular theory. European
doctrines could claim attention because they were the fruit of a
wider experience and a more extended study than those of Japan-
ese scholars; and perhaps the true difference between the native
economists and their Western brethren lies not in their respective
attainments but rather in their method of approach. While West-
ern thinkers in time came to distinguish economics as a separate
discipline, the Japanese, imbued with classical Chinese philosophy,
tended to treat their subject as a branch of social ethics and at-
tempted to discover how man should, rather than how he does in
fact, behave in his environment. It was not until some years after
the Restoration that Japan had any scholars who could be re-
garded as specialists in economic theory.

The general public made its first acquaintance with Western
economic ideas through the writin^Tof the versatile and prolific"

437

Early Meiji: Western Influences

Fukuzawa. His Western Conditions, first published in 1867-9,
gave some elementary facts on commerce and banking, and his
Minkan Keizai Ron (1877) was a popular statement of economic
principles. The early work of Kato Hiroyuki, Shinsei Tail, though
largely political, touches economic questions in its discussion of
the functions of government and, drawing upon foreign sources,
argues in favour of a minimum interference with the lawful ac-
tivities of the subject, from which naturally flows an advocacy of
free trade.

Following closely upon Fukuzawa and Kato came a writer who
holds an important place in the history of economic studies in
Japan, though it cannot be said that his views were in the long
run influential. This was Taguchi Ukichi, who was the chief ex-
ponent in Japan of English laissez-faire doctrines, was deeply read
in Adam Smith and was familiar with English commercial his-
tory.11 In 1878 he published his Jiyu Koeki Nikon Keizai Ron, or
A Free Trade Policy -for Japan. This work, of which new editions
came out at intervals during the next twenty years, treats of the
division of labour and argues strongly against state protection of
industry. In his argument Taguchi makes an interesting point by
asserting that to protect infant industries would in effect give fa-
vourable treatment to members of the samurai class and so en-
courage them in their traditional lazy habits. He himself was a
hard-working man of humble origin and prejudiced against gentle-
men of leisure, but there is also in this statement a hint of at least
one of the reasons why free-trade doctrines could not make head-
way in Japan. The government, espedallyjn the first ten years or
so after the Restoration, had always to bear In mind wEen 'framing
its policies, wSEheFso^ oFcreating a

numerous body of malcontents of samurai origin. These men, with
all their faults, were still the flower o£ the nation and no adminis-
tration, until it was most solidly entrenched and backed by a loyal
majority among the most active elements of the people, could
afford to disregard them. However powerful might be the the-
*oretical arguments in favour of a given Western doctrine, the po-
litical realities of the moment had to be taken into account, and
these were in large measure still shaped by conditions that had no
c^£^l^ over from, Japan's

very recent feudal past.

i1 Taguchi also founded the magazine Keizai Zasshi, an economic journal. He
was also a moving spirit in the promotion of historical research, and it is due to
him that the important collection of historical material known as Kokushi Taikei
was compiled and published and the historical magazine Shikai .was founded. He
was a man of high character, perhaps the best representative of a small body of true
and ardent liberals of an "Anglo-Saxon" type of political philosophy. Like Fuku-
zawa he remained independent and refused all offers of official posts.

438

Economic Thought

There is consequently a somewhat unreal quality about the
presentation of Western economic theses to the Japanese people
by those scholars or spokesmen who from their private forum were
adressing a public still without power or knowledge enough to
determine national policy. Taguchi continued to advocate free
trade through the eighties and nineties, Fukuzawa wrote and spoke
copiously and with vigour in favour of the individualist utilitarian
principles that the study of English and American examples had
nourished in their minds. Malthus, Adam Smith, Jevons, Cobden,
Mill, and later Alfred Marshall — all the exponents of those prin-
ciples in their several variations — were translated, studied, and
discussed. The attitude of English economic thinkers, the charac-
teristic English empiric philosophy, appears to dominate the in-
tellectual scene, and it might be supposed that some at least of
their teaching would have been translated also into political ac-
tion. But that was not the outcome of the economic controversies
of the day, for despite the great efforts of the English school the
economic policy of Japan developed upon German rather than
English lines.

Taguchi published in 1882 his Keizai Sakuy or Economic
Policy, an attack upon the protectionist line that the government
had begun to take as early as 1869. He was followed a little later
by Amano, also a trained economist, who published two important
and widely read books on The Principles of Economics and Stan-
dards of Commercial Policy. These were based upon J. S. Mill and
other advocates of free enterprise, but they show already a dilution
of the pure milk of doctrine. Amano denies that Adam Smith and
Mill are out-and-out upholders of laissez-faire and he agrees to
state intervention in certain undertakings of national importance
if it is found in practice that private monopoly is not conducting
them in the public interest. He would therefore permit state own-
ership or control of railways, gas, electricity, and shipping if (as
seemed likely at that time) private owners should abuse their
power. He also opposes protective tariffs in principle, but allows
them in special circumstances, such as infant industries, dumping,
or retaliation against duties imposed by foreign countries.

This was an entering wedge, and the theories of free-traders
soon began to encounter polemical opposition from avowed pro-
tectionists, while even the stalwart utilitarian Fukuzawa, nourished
upon English individualism and strong upholder of free trade in
his early days as a champion of liberty, within half a dozen years
after the beginning of Meiji was arguing in favour of protective
duties. He was followed in this apostasy by such men as Kanda
Kohei, also an individualist at one time, and by Kato Hiroyuki,
whose lapse we have already noted. Even Oshima Sadamasu, the

439

Early Meiji: Western Influences

translator of List and among Japanese economic writers the strong-
est advocate of economic nationalism, had been inclined to eco-
nomic liberalism until about 1880, when he changed his mind and
followed List — who, it will be remembered, had himself once
held free-trade views, but fell from grace as he grew older. The
protectionist movement, which had begun thus early, grew in
strength as young Japanese industries struggled to expand and
vested industrial interests were created. Attacks upon free trade
which drew upon protectionist arguments used in Europe and
America became increasingly frequent and did not scorn to use
the dialectical trick of insulting your opponent. They would de-
scribe those who stood for freedom as obsolete old scholars or as
raw students smelling of mother's milk, who had only just learned
the alphabet and were bemused by foolish Utopian dreams. An
English work, Sophisms of Free Trade, by J. B. Boyles, was trans-
lated in 1877, but the chief support of the official protectionist
view came from German sources, notably the works of List, which
were freely drawn upon from about 1888.

This battle of the books was only a kind of academic skirmish,
which had little to do with the main struggle; in that encounter
other and more powerful forces were engaged. Scholars and a few
interested members of the general public might argue for this im-
ported theory or for that; Western precept and example might
thereby become better known and understood in Japan; and to
that extent the Japanese were subjected to strong Western influ-
ence. But the history of English economic thought in Japan shows
very clearly that a well-established culture does not easily absorb
even the most persuasive of foreign intellectual influences unless
they are welcome to the sette de' tempi, the prevailing climate of
opinion, in the country upon which they are exerted.

To the men who were ruling Japan the question to be settled
was one that overrode all debate upon points of political or eco-
nomic theory. It was the simple question: what are to be"" the
national aims of Japan? The decision upon that issue would dic-
tate the appropriate policy in economic as in other spheres of
national effort. It was an issue that could not be considered in the
light of Western theory or practice, since in part it was prede-
termined by Japanese history and for the rest, like most great is-
sues, it must depend upon national sentiment rather than upon
systematic thought. Foreign influence might play some part, in so
far as foreign experience or foreign reasoning offered guidance in
a choice between alternative courses. To this extent it is true that
Western economic science made a contribution to the development
of Japan. But it is important to distinguish between direct and
specific influences and those resemblances which occur through

440

Economic Thought

the sharing of a like experience with others and do not necessarily
result from imitation. It is interesting to conjecture what institu-
tions Japan would have developed if she had had no advice from
Western authorities. One may hazard a guess that, by trial and
error, she would have arrived at a position not very different from
that which she reached by a road provided with a confusing num-
ber of signposts.

What in reality controlled or shaped the development of eco-
nomicpolicy in the years under review was the decision taken by
the Japanese people when they adopted as their national watch-
word the phrase Fukoku Kyohei, "A Rich Country and a Strong
Army" — in other words, when the Japanese ruling class were
confident that they had the whole Japanese people behind them
in their determination to secure first the independence and then
the fullest possible economic and military development of their
country. The methods pursued to that end might be the subject
of domestic political argument, but in the long run, so strong was
the tradition of respect for government, a policy presented as con-
tributing to national strength or national prestige could count pn
^Eough popular approval to nullify factional opposition. It is for
reasons such as these that no Western doctrine had any prospect
of adoption on a national scale so long as it was claimed by the
government in power to be inimical to their general plan of
rapidly increasing national wealth and strength. Consequently al-
though the early years of Meiji present at first sight a picture of the
enthusiastic adoption of Western habits, on closer examination
one discovers beneath the surface a strong resistance to many of
the essential features of Western culture. The general public had,
from even before the Restoration, responded to the desire of the
authorities that they should modernize their way of life. Tliey
were willing enough to raise their material standards and they
were prepared to make use of every Western appliance, to profit
by every Western discovery, that would demonstrably serve the
nation's purpose. But this did not mean that they were ready to
abandon all their own ideas about life and society, which had deep
roots in their history.

Motes on CHAPTER 14

THE ANTI-CHRISTIAN LAWS. The full story of the withdrawal of the notice
boards is a curious one. When the government realized how strong the
pressure was in all Western countries, they saw that they must give way,
and on February 24, 1873 the order of the Dajokwan was issued, which
said:

"Henceforward when orders and regulations are issued their text

441

Early Meiji: Western Influences

shall be posted up in convenient places for 30 days, so that they may
become familiar to the public. The notice boards that have hitherto
been used shall, in view of the fact that the public will be fully in-
formed, be withdrawn."

This order did not specifically cancel the edict against Christianity,
but its issue was a convenient and face-saving, if somewhat disingen-
uous, way of permitting Christian missionary work.

At about this time Mori Arinori (Japanese Minister to the United
States) wrote in English a memorial addressed to the Prince Sanjo in
which he set forth the case for religious freedom. It was published
shortly after Iwakura's return from his mission. Iwakura when in
Washington had replied to a question put to him by the Secretary of
State that the notice boards barring Christianity were in fact "dead"
and that in practice there was freedom of religion in Japan. He was
sharply taken up by DeLong (the United States Minister to Japan)
who was present at the interview and quoted the case of Ichikawa.

THE JAPANESE PRESS. There is an interesting illustrated article by
F. M. Jonas on "Foreign Influence on the Early Press of Japan" in the
Transactions of the Japan Society of London, Vol. XXXII (1924-5) .
From this it appears that the Batavia Shimbun appeared only once
(1862) and was followed by the Kaigai Shimbun, which also contained
translations from Batavia newspapers.

C H

EARLY MEIJI: WESTERN INFLUENCES

(continued}

i. Prefatory

^ we have looked at cultural influences only in such spa-
cious'fields as politics and literature, where it is difficult to say of
any one feature that it is characteristic, and still less that it results
from the impact of foreign ideas.

But there are certain narrower fields in which foreign influ-
ence am. be clearly discerned and even measured, though not witE*
much precision. These areTEe aspects of national life that find ex-
pression in well-defined institutional forms, such as law, education,
and religion. Here we have documentary evidence which within
certain limits is detailed and convincing. This is particularly true
of law, which sets forth in carefully chosen language the principles
or rules by which society is governed and therefore furnishes trust-
worthy data for comparative study. It is somewhat less true of
education, because a written code lays down a system but does not
tell us in what spirit it is followed; and it is still less true of re-
ligion, where institutional features do not necessarily reveal the
essential nature of belief or its intensity.

None the less, each of these three forms of corporate life,
though they do not allow for the unusual, can be studied profit-
ably in the light of written materials that are more exact than de-
scriptions of political thought or surveys of what are called, often
out of politeness, intellectual trends. While the truest impression
of political history can at times be gained from the individual,
the eccentric, and even the scandalous, law, education, and reli-
gion are embodied in systems of a definite character. They are
therefore treated separately, though by no means exhaustively, in
this chapter.

Early Meiji: Western Influences

2. Law

J?NE of the most interesting examples of the difficulties attending
affusion of cultures is provided by the history of the legal reforms
that followed the Restoration. Quite apart from the natural desire
of the leaders of the country to introduce new laws that should
define and embody the changes then in progress in political and
social life, there was an extremely strong motive for revisingjtnd
so far as possible codifying existing laws. This was the desire of
the government, enthusiastically shared by the people, to rid them-
selves of the extraterritorial jurisdiction which had been conceded
to the treaty powers in 1858. The Western powers had reserved to
themselves the right of jurisdiction over their own nationals, on
the ground that the customs and laws of Japan did not ensure the
safety and well-being of foreign residents. The Japanese, for their
part, regarded the position as anomalous and disgraceful and very
soon after the Restoration began to press for a revision of the
treaties and in particular for the withdrawal of the clauses dealing
with jurisdiction. Each time the appeal was made, the reply of the
foreign governments was that the laws of Japan were incomplete,
and it was only after many years of difficult diplomatic negotia^
tions (which, as we have seen, were reflected in domestic political
strife) that at last agreement was reached. The treaties would be
revised on condition that the Japanese government framed new
codes, it being understood that the new treaties would not come
into force until the new laws had been adopted and put into effect.
It will be seen that the motives for legislative reform were two-
fold. Both internal needs and foreign pressure, besides giving a
certain urgency to the task of compilation, naturally tended to
influence the character of the new laws, for it was necessary, while
adjusting them to Japanese traditions, to pay respect to Occidental
principles of jurisprudence.

As early as 1870 a bureau of investigation was set up, which
completed a translation of the French codes, and this gave to
Japanese students their first comprehensive notions of the nature
of Western legal thought. In 1875 an official committee was ap-
pointed to compile a new civil code, arid a draft was submitted to
the government in 1878. It followed too closely the French civil
code and was not acceptable to the authorities. Subsequently a
French jurist, Professor Boissonade de Fontarabie, then a legal ad-
viser to the Japanese government, was asked to prepare a new
draft, which he submitted in 1881. After protracted study and argu-
ment a new draft was completed and adopted by the government
in 1888. It was in part the work of Boissonade and in part of

444

Law

Japanese jurists, and it was actually embodied in a law of the year
1890, which was to go into operation from the beginning of 1893^

Thus after fifteen years of preparation Japan now possessed a
code "of private law for the first time in her history, for the early
codes such as those of Taiho (702) , though remarkable docu-
ments, were not comprehensive, and the codes of later periods
were concerned almost exclusively with feudal society. But the
new law aroused most violent controversies among lawyers and
statesmen, as well as among members of the general public. One
party favoured its enforcement, another called for postponement
and a full revision; and there was thus afforded the interesting
spectacle of a hot public dispute between Japanese as to the merits
of different schools of European jurisprudence.

The Japanese jurists who had studied English law either in
England or the United States or in the University of Tokyo ob-
jected to the new code, while lawyers of the French school were
in favour of its enforcement. English law had been taught at the
university since 1874, and already by 1888 a majority of important
judicial and legal appointments were held by graduates of that
school. But students of French law, though in a minority, also held
some influential posts, and French legal theory was not without
strong support in both academic and official circles. The dispute
between the two schools of legal thought continued for some time,
in somewhat anomalous circumstances, since the Civil Code^^a
charter of fundamental importance, had been adopted by the gov-
ernment — though it was not in operation — before the new Con-
stitution was promulgated, and before the first meeting of the
Diet. To resolve tEiFHifficulty^"bilI was introduced in the Diet
providing that the Civil Code as already adopted should not be en-
forced, but that its operation should be postponed pending revi-
sion. A codification commission was then set up and as a result of
its labours a new code, promulgated in instalments, was adopted
and enforced in 1898.

The composition of this commission deserves some notice. It
was presided over by the Prime Minister (Ito) and included rep-
resentatives of parliament, the law, commerce, and industry. Aca-
demic jurists representing each of the foreign schools of jurispru-
dence were appointed, the government being anxious that the
new code should not take any one school as an authority or any
one national code as a model. The commission was to hammer

i A curious story is told of Boissonade's experiences while working in the
Ministry of Justice, which shows how old evils existed alongside of new ideals in
the confusion of early Meiji. Boissonade, seated at his desk before a draft dealing
with civil rights, heard a commotion downstairs. He investigated and found in a
cellar an unfortunate suspect being tortured by officers of the law. He threatened to
resign, and after some delay torture was made illegal in 1876.

445

Early Meiji: Western Influences

out an amalgam of different elements which would take into ac-
count .the con^ Japanese life, and it is significant tRitftHe
drafting committee was composed of three professors of law who
had studied in different European countries: Hozumi, a barrister
of the Middle Temple who had spent some time at the University
of Berlin, Tomii, who had studied French law in France, and
time, who had studied in both Germany and France.

We need not enter into details of the work of the commission,
but it is interesting to note that it studied more than thirty foreign
codes or drafts of codes. In the words of Dr. Hozumi, it "gathered
materials from all parts of the civilized world and freely adopted
rules or principles from the laws of any country, whenever it saw
advantage in doing so."

The result of their work was a composite law, of which it is
often said that it followed the civil code recently adopted in Ger-
many. This is denied by Dr. Hozumi, though he admits that the
drafting committee found valuable material in the Saxon code
and in the early drafts of the German code. But perhaps the most
interesting feature of the new Japanese code is, not the similarity
of some of its provisions to those of one foreign code or another,
but rather its adoption of one characteristic principle of modern
European law which introduces an entirely new concept into
Japanese legislation. This is the concept of rights as contrasted to
obligatiQyis. Here we have a distinct and undoubted case of the ex-
ertion of direct Western influence upon Japanese culture, for the
notion of rights is foreign to the jurisprudence that Japan bor-
rowed from China in the seventh century and on which all her
subsequent legislation was based. Indeed, not only in its laws but
in its customs the social system of Japan was penetrated by the
idea of duties to the exclusion of the idea of rights. So unfamiliar
was the concept of the rights of the individual subject that in
purely Japanese legal writings there is no term that closely cor-
responds to the word "rights" as expressing something that is due
to a person and that he can claim; nor indeed did familiar speech
include such a word in its vocabulary. It was necessary to coin a
new term, and this was done by a Japanese scholar who had been
sent to the University of Leiden to study law, and on his return in
1868 published a Treatise on Western Law, in which he explained
the new idea and invented the compound word kenri, made up of
ken, meaning "power" or "influence," and ri, meaning "inter-
est." 2 Accordingly the first code to be drawn up in Japan after the
Restoration contained chapters on rights in rem and in personam,
which marked the abandonment of traditional legal assump-
tions.

2 For the translation of droit civil, see p. 312 supra.

446

Law

There was another important respect in which the new code
departed from, or rather reversed, traditional notions, and~TB.Is"
was the very fact of its publication. The earliest Japanese codes
were not made public, but were compiled only for the informa-
tion and guidance of officials; and throughout the Tokugawa
period the laws were in principle (though not always in prac-
tice) kept secret, it being held sufficient that from time to time
certain simple orders and injunctions should be proclaimed on
public notice boards, while rules as to trial and punishment were
communicated only to administrative and judicial officers. In
fact it may be said that during the Tokugawa period there was
no general body of law that must be known to and followed by
the citizen. It was his business to obey the orders of officials, whose
actions were arbitrary except in so far as they were governed by
administrative orders. This is a feature of feudal society that
should not be overlooked by students of Japanese history, since
the feudal ruler was not bound by statutes. He could make or
change the law at will by fiat, and consequently discussions as to
what was the law at a given time are apt to be fruitless when the
actions of a feudal dictator are in question.

This attitude towards the subject persisted during the first years
of Meiji, and it was not until 1873 that the Chinese 8 legal prin-
ciple of keeping the people in ignorance of the law was done away
with by an announcement in the preamble to the revised Crim-
inal Code that henceforth every law should be posted up in con-
venient places "for the information of the people."

It will be seen that with the introduction of these new con-
cepts Japanese civil law, in the words of Dr. Hozumi, "passed
from the Chinese to the European family of law," and there can
be no doubt that since then European principles of jurisprudence
have continued to exercise an important influence upon legal
theory and practice in Japan. But it is important to notice that
foe legislation of the early Meiji period, though it contained
many imported elements, recognized and perpetuated certain
traditional features of Japanese social life. This is particularly ap-
parent in those portions of the Civil Code which deal with the
family as an institution. Care was taken by the legislature not to
tamper too rashly with the old and deeply rooted customary senti-
ment that was embodied in the family system, which was looked
upon as an important element in preserving the stability of the
social structure. The task was delicate and difficult, for the accept-

3 "The people must not know the law, they must obey it." It is perhaps unjust
to describe this as a Chinese principle. It is based upon a passage in the Analects
(VIII, 9) , which runs: "The people can be made to obey, but they cannot be made to
understand." The Japanese took this as applying to law, and also to education,
though this is perhaps not what the Master intended.

447

Early Meiji: Western Influences

ance of the Western principle of individual rights was in some
ways inconsistent with indigenous beliefs and practices.

Traditionally the unit in Japanese society was the family and
not ttie IndividuaL The problems raised by this difference are too
specialized and intricate for treatment here, but some idea of their
nature may be gained from selected examples. Perhaps the most
instructive instance is that of the difficulties presented by the in-
corporation in a modern legal instrument of rules touching the
ancient practice of ancestor-worship, since this involved certain
contradictions between the concept of the "family" and the con-
cept of the "house."

The distinguishing feature of the Japanese family system is
the importance of the house as contrasted with an indeterminate
group of blood relations loosely described as a family. The House
has been described by Japanese legal historians as "a legal entity
originally founded upon ancestor-worship." To be more precise,
the House is composed of the head of the House and of members
who are subject to his authority. Those members may include not
only his kindred by relationship of blood, but also persons, male
and female, who are not his blood relations and who enter the
House with his consent. The House is in fact a name group and
not a blood group, and its purpose is the continuation of ancestor-
worship. So important and customary was this arrangement that
when national registration was introduced in 1871, the unit of
registration adopted was the House, and not the family or the
individual. It will be seen, therefore, that in so far as the Civil
Code o£ 1896 laid more weight upon the House than upon the
group of kindred, modern Japanese legislation approved and en-
couraged the practice of ancestor-worship. At the same time^the^
state, having adopted the principle of individual rights, was
obliged, when the code was in draft, to recognize that in certain
aspects of his life a person could not be treated solely as a member
of a House. He had also the capacities of a member of a family
and (if adult) of an individual subject with prerogatives and
obligations that the head of the House could not limit. Conse-
quently in the new code it was necessary to introduce certain modi-
fications of customary practice. The simplest of these was the pro-
vision of some means of registering individual status/ as distinct
from House or family membership, and this was dealt with in the
Law of National Registration, which was enacted as a pendant to
the Civil Code.

But a more difficult question arose in regard to the succession
of House members to property. Originally not only authority over

* In Japanese, mibun toki. This law still bears the name of Koseki-hd, or Law
of House Registration*

Law

the House but also over the property of the House was vested in
the House head, because (it was argued) the sole object of in-
heritance was the perpetuation of ancestor-worship by the House.
But the Civil Code, without departing from the principle that
the House head succeeds to his position in order to secure the con-
tinuity of worship, was obliged to distinguish between succession
to headship and succession to property. At the same time the law
took every precaution against the extinction of a House and the
consequent lapse of worship, by such measures as the legal recogni-
tion of adoption and restrictions upon the freedom of the legal
heir to renounce succession or inheritance.

The provision of the new Civil Code by which a House mem-
ber could own, succeed to, or bequeath property as an individual
was a complete reversal of tradition, since before 1868 no House
member could exercise separate, personal-property rights. What-
ever he possessed, he possessed not as owner but by permission of
the head of the House. All the relevant legislation of early Meiji
tended to break down this rule, because it was incompatible with
the new economic life upon which Japan was entering; and it is
perhaps the most notable feature of the Civil Code that while in
matters of function it made no significant changes in the prevailing
family system, in regard to property it was obliged to approach
very closely to Western practices.

There was a special reason for this departure from tradition.
As will be readily perceived, it had to do with changes in the
economic structure of the country, which began as soon as, or even
before, the Meiji government was formed. It will be recalled that
one of the motive forces of the Restoration was the ambition of
samurai, mostly of low rank and without pecuniary resources, to
use their talents and their energies in public service and to build
up independent careers as statesmen, officials, or soldiers. In those
early years many such men found themselves in possession of fair
sums, of money that they had received by way of grants, pensions,
or annuities, in recompense for their labours. This was a new form
of property, which, together with official salaries, it would have
been unjust to treat as the income of the House to which they be-
longed. Most of them had divested themselves of private respon-
sibility for the sake of their public duties, and were not heads of
Houses; and it was for this reason that there developed a new
category of independent ownership of property by House mem-
bers as individuals. Similar results followed the rapid growth in
the early years of Meiji of property in the form of bonds, stocks,
debentures, bank deposits, and title deeds, which were registered
in the names of individuals and therefore could not be disposed of
by the House head. Conversely, the House head could not be held

449

Early Melji: Western Influences

responsible for debts contracted In respect of such transactions by
individual members of his House. From this it was only a short
step to modifying the practice by which property left by a House
member on his decease went to his House. The new code pro-
vided that such property should go to his descendants in equal
shares, irrespective of the House to which they might at that time
belong.

In such ways the introduction of Western commercial and
financial methods inevitably brought about changes even in the
most cherished customs, modifying an old and well-established
segment of the Japanese social system. Many other examples of
this process can be adduced to justify the conclusion that, among
all forms of Western influence, direct or indirect, it was the eco-
nomic changes following the Restoration that brought about the
most notable and the most enduring modifications of Japanese
life.

The foregoing summary has paid no attention to other import-
ant features of the Civil Code, such as the position of women, nor
has it touched upon questions of criminal law or commercial law,
or various codes of procedure, since these are matters that require
expert treatment. But it can be safely said that a careful and de-
tailed study of all branches of the legislation of early Meiji would
repay much labour by revealing numerous instances of the conflict
between Western and Eastern cultures and the compromises that
resulted therefrom as Japanese life in many of its external features
was subjected to the demands of an industrial society.

Those compromises have not all been on one side, as may be
seen from the following quotation of the closing words of The
Making of Modern Japan, written by J. H. Gubbins in 1922, after
many years' residence in Japan and a close study of Japanese
legislation. He said: "It would be in no way surprising to those
who have studied Japanese progress during the last fifty years if
. . . the present Civil Code, based on that of Saxony, were to be
revised with the object of bringing it more into harmony with
Japanese tradition and sentiment."

3. Education,

JtlmucATioN under the Tokugawa was not Regarded as a function
of the state except in so far as it was nectary for the training of
a 'governing class, ffven had the idea of 'universal educatiorTtaken
hold in the Yedo period, the social order was such that instruc-
tion would have had to follow the lines of class, separate schools
being provided for nobles, samm^j. peasants, a^d traders. In fact,

450

Education

such education as was provided during the period fell into those
categories. The Bakufu provided rolleges fnr ifs rpfainprs iTTW??r>
and the territories under its direct administration, the principal
establishments being the Shohei-ko or Confucian College in Yedo
and smaller colleges in places like Nagasaki. The several fiefs pro-
vided education for their samurai in clan schools. For the popu-
lace the feudal rulers provided no education, it being an accepted
principle that the people must be made to obey and not to learn.
Their instruction was therefore left mainly to the Buddhist clergy,
who maintained what were called terakoya or "temple schools5 '
in town and country. These the Bakufu neither helped nor hin-
dered, though as its power declined and class distinctions became
less rigid, the children of samurai began to attend the terakoya
and some commoners' children were admitted to clan schools.

There were in addition to these a number of private schools
throughout the country, at most of which the chief subject of
study was the Chinese language and classical Chinese literature.
With few exceptions instruction in all these colleges and schools
was based upon Confucian philosophy, principally of the official
Chi Hsi school; but towards the end of the Tokugawa regime
more attention began to be paid to study of the native literature
and to "Western" subjects, in which were included foreign lan-
guages, geography, and elementary natural science. The Bakufu,
recognizing the importance of Western subjects, had created the
Bansho Shirabe-dokoro, or Office for the Study of Western Writ-
ings, in 1855. At that time this meant the study of Dutch books,
but the curriculum was enlarged in 1860 to include English,
French, German, and Russian, and a little chemistry was taught.
After 1862 it sent students abroad for study, one of the conse-
quences of this policy being that, when a new government was set
up after the Restoration, it had to depend upon former servants
of the Bakufu for much of its knowledge of Western institutions.

One of the remarkable features of Western studies in the pre-
Restoration period was the great attention paid to surgery and
medicine. A scholar named Ogata Koan is said to have taught
more than three thousand students in his school at Yedo in the
twenty years before 1862, and there were many other private
schools, all teaching Western medical and surgical methods and
related subjects. From medical science it was only a short step to
pharmacology, chemistry, and related subjects. Thus it will be
seen that by 1868 the country was by no means unprepared for
^further development of education on Western lines.

The history of education in the early years of Meiji is of great
interest because it shows a certain conflict between Japanese tra-
ditions and the requirements of modern education of a Western

451

Early Meiji: Western Influences

type/The Japanese had no experience of organizing elementary or
secondary education on a national scale, nor were they very well
acquainted with the subjects that must be prominent in a cur-
riculum of foreign studies. They were thus ill-fitted to devise or
operate a modern educational system and were obliged at first to
follow Western example somewhat uncritically and to rely largely
upon foreign advisers and teachers. At the same time they were
reluctant to abandon certain principles that they cherished. Con-
sequently the educational policy of the first few years of Meiji pre-
sents a somewhat confused picture in which custom is at odds with
necessity. It is much to the credit of the new government that, im-
mediately upon coming into power, it turned its mind to the
question of education. Its first steps were not entirely successful,
for policy fell into the hands of the Shinto or National Scholars,
who headed the movement for the Return to Antiquity. They were
anti-Buddhist and anti-Confucian, and they took advantage of
their position by insisting that the basis of education should be
the national language, history, and religion, while Chinese and
Western studies were to be attached "like two wings'' to the main
body. This attempt was bound to fail, since it left out of account
the claim of advanced studies in Western science, law, and lan-
guages upon which Japan's future depended. It also provoked
the Confucianists, who did not like being regarded as the Chinese
wing of a Japanese bird. It was almost as if in England the study
of early Anglo-Saxon history and literature should have been pro-
moted over the classical humanities.

However, the government at this time revived the old Banshp
Torishirabe-dokoro, and this under the name of Kaiseisho became
the centre of Western studies, ultimately forming the nucleus of
the University of Tokyo. In 1869 a number of foreign teachers
were engaged. The former medical school of the BakutiTwas re-
vived, instruction in medicine and surgery now being given by
German teachers, it having been decided that Germany was the
most advanced country in those sciences. Also in i86q the govern-
ment, having revived the Shohei4c5 (the former Confucian col-
lege) which had been the highest institute of learning under the
Bakufu, turned it into a University and attached to it the Kai-
sejisho and the Medical School. By a most curious arrangement it
was now declared that the parent body, the former Confucian
college, should be responsible for teaching both Chinese and
Japanese classics. This naturally resulted in great quarrels be-
tween the professors of the two disciplines, which the government
endeavoured in vain to compose. They introduced some new
rules, which seemed to satisfy the classicists but enraged the pro-
fessors of Western subjects, who now found both the Japanese and

452

Education

the Chinese schools combined against them. The problem was in-
soluble, and the university was closed.

It should be explained that the Daigaku, or university, had
been intended to administer educational policy as well as to be
the venter o£ higher learning.5 In this latter capacity the uni-
versity was re-established in 1871, the separate schools o£ Western
studies and medicine continuing as government colleges, but the
schools of Japanese and Chinese classics disappearing. It was now
necessary to create a new organ for the control of education, and a
Ministry of Education was formed in the same year.

These curiosa of academic history are related here to show
that, in spite of the prestige of classical learning in Japan, in mat-
ters of national education it was obliged to give way to the require-
ments of the modern world.4 Confucian sentiment and the tradi-
tional Far _ Eastern attitude towards learning were not consistent
with an organized, regulated instruction designed to meet prac-
tical needs. There was a conflict of principle here, and itTis worth
while to give some consideration to the nature of the dispute,
since feelings about education are an important part of national
culture.

The Japanese, like the Chinese, have a great respect for learn*
ing, and a teacher in their countries is looked upon as a most im-
portant kind of person, to whom deference must be paid through-
out his life by his pupils, and thank-offerings brought from time
to time. This rare and agreeable attitude towards educators springs
from a concept of learning that differs radically from that which
prevailed in England during most of the Victorian era. In Japan of
the feudal age it was held that the purpose of education was not to
fill a young man's mind with useful facts but to make him virtuous
by teaching him the wisdom of gods or sages and so forming his
character to meet the needs of the society — and particularly the
class — Of which he was a member. Not less indispensable to a
teacher than learning was a high character, which should influence
the moral development of his pupils; and the reverence in which
great teachers were held was called forth not by their skill in ex-
pounding nor by their store of knowledge, but by exemplary con-
duct and lofty principles.

To those who continued to hold such views, and there were
many, it came as a surprise to learn in the early years of foreign in-
tercourse that teaching was a science and must be organized in one
system. If this were true, then a master might discuss virtue with
his pupils, but could not show it to them in his own person. In

s This also was part of the Return to Antiquity, since under the administrative
code of A.D. 710 the university (Daigaku) had been a department of government re-
sponsible for education.

453

Early Meiji: Western Influences

other words, the aim of the new education was to impart facts,
whereas in the old education this had been merely a by-product of
moral training. Education in the West, it seemed, was needed only
to turn out men who would be useful, to fit them for the practical
business of life. That was the English utilitarian view, or what was
thought to be such, and certainly it was the view of Fukuzawa,
who was the pioneer of modern education in Japan. He was not
by any means blind to the importance of good behaviour, but he
was impatient of the traditional standards of Japanese culture,
which in his view paid far too much deference to useless knowl-
edge. He expressed his opinions so forcefully that it is best to ex-
plain them by direct quotation from his writings. They are set
forth in his Gakumon no Susume, or Encouragement of Learning,
a book published in instalments between 1872 and 1876, of which
all together over three million separate parts were sold. His attack
upon Chinese studies, the equivalent of the classical humanities in
Europe, is interesting not only as displaying his controversial
method but also as showing the tendency of the party of root-and-
branch reform to regard any old-established custom as useless bag-
gage to be thrown overboard without to-do. In a typical passage he
wrote:

The only purpose of education is to show that Man was created by
Heaven to gain the knowledge required for the satisfaction of his needs
for food, shelter, and clothing, and for living harmoniously with his
fellows. To be able to read difficult old books or to compose poetry is
all very nice and pleasant but it is not really worth the praise given to
great scholars of Chinese and Japanese in the past.

How many Chinese scholars have been good at managing their
domestic affairs? How many clever men have been good at poetry? No
wonder that a wise parent, a shopkeeper, or a farmer is alarmed when
his son displays a taste for study! , . . What is really wanted is learn-
ing that is close to the needs of a man's daily life.

A man who can recite the Chronicles but does not know the price
of food, a man who has penetrated deeply into the classics and history
but cannot carry out a simple business transaction — such people as
these are nothing but rice-consuming dictionaries, of no use to their
country but only a hindrance to its economy. Managing your house-
hold is learning, understanding the trend of the times is learning, but.
why should reading old books be called learning?

Such views presaged an important change in national thought,
because while antagonistic to pre-Meiji ideals they created a wider
interest in education, which was now presented as a necessary
preparation for the life of all citizens and not as a private road to
dignified accomplishment. This was supposed to be the prevailing
view in European countries, though it left out of account the im-

454

Education

portance of liberal studies, which were still pursued in practical,
commercial England. But Japan had no time for arts and graces,
or at least so thought Fukuzawa and his school. To encourage
classical learning would be to delay the acquisition of the modern
languages, the scientific and technical knowledge, which were
needed if the country was to be transformed into a modern in-
dustrial state. Nor could the young Japanese devoting himself to
Western studies hope to master the dead languages, the ancient
history and philosophy that constituted the humanities in Europe;
so that inevitably higher education in Japan tended to neglect the
spiritual, or let us say merely the ornamental aspects of learning
and to apply itself to the immediately useful. Already by 1872 it
was reported that a very few students were taking courses in Japan-
ese language and literature, and that twice as many were entered
for "Western" subjects as for the Chinese studies which had so far
been regarded as essential for a man of breeding and culture.

Fukuzawa' s own school, which he founded in 1858 for the study
of Dutch, became in time the leading centre of instruction in the
English language, economics, law, and other subjects that would
prepare young men for practical careers in commerce or industry.
The iconoclastic Fukuzawa, true to his samurai tradition, attached
importance to moral training, and though he had violently shaken
himself loose from feudal ethics he endeavoured to instil into his
disciples a moral code that he hoped contained the best of both
Eastern and Western principles. He placed the greatest emphasis
upon independence and self-respect and regarded education as the
proper means of inculcating those principles and showing men
how to apply them in their own individual lives. This traditional
concern for the moral aspects of learning fell into the background
for some time as the government proceeded to organize education
in a highly systematic manner, but it constantly reappears through-
out the history of educational policy. Ministers become alarmed by
utilitarian, even antimoralistic, tendencies among students and is-
sue exhortations to both teachers and pupils, and after a decade
or so of eclipse Confucian insistence upon the ethical purposes of
learning emerges again.* JThe Confucian revival, which has already
been mentioned as part of a general conservative reaction, though
no doubt not unconnected with protessional jealousy, yraTstimu-
lated in part by anxiety as to the effects of "modern" education
upon the character of youth.

When the Ministry of Education was formed in 18*71, it pro-
ceeded to encourage Western learning and decided that a complete
national system of education must be devised and enforced.. One of
its high officials, Tanaka Fujimaro, was sent as a commissioner to
examine the systems of Europe and America. He returned in 1872,

455

Early Meiji: Western Influences

and in that year a most detailed and voluminous Education Act
was issued, which laid the foundations of state-controlled compul-
sory education. The plan was ambitious, providing for universities,
middle schools, elementary schools, normal schools, and technical
schools on a large scale, and the statement of policy that accom-
panied it made it clear that, in future, education was to be organ-
ized on Western lines. The classical curriculum had been defeated
and here the attitude towards education expressed by the act was,
to judge from internal evidence, inspired by Fukuzawa, who re-
garded old-fashioned scholars as rice-consuming dictionaries. The
persons concerned in devising educational policy at this time were
almost exclusively men distinguished for their knowledge of condi-
tions in the Occident, and included (as well as Fukuzawa, who had
no official position) Kato Hiroyuki and the leading professors of
the modern schools which were all that remained of the university.

Tffio quotations from the proclamation that announced the;
issue of the Act of 1872 will suffice to reveal the ideas by which it
was inspired. The first is a sentence that runs: "Learning is the
key to success in life, and no man can afford to neglect it,Tr which
shows that the authorities took a utilitarian view of the purposes
of education. The second says: "Every man shall of his own accord
subordinate all other matters to the education of his children." It
shows a determination to enlist the support of the whole nation,
and it must be said that, after some initial grumbling, the whole
nation nobly responded.

The system adopted was modelled upon French practice, and
besides centralizing control over education it aimed at a high
d_egree of standardization. This was in harmony with the general
attitude of the new government towards all questions of adminis-
tration. The new leaders had not been able to free themselves from
that passion for regulating the life of the citizen which distin-
guished their feudal predecessors. The new system, however,
proved unworkable. It was too big and costly and it was introduced
at a time when the new government was not yet quite firmly set-
tled and had not succeeded in overcoming local prejudices. In
the provinces there was a growing sentiment against complete cen-
tralization or at least a mistrust of the government's intentions.
An American adviser, Dr. David Murray, who was himself against
standardization, warned the authorities that they were going too
fast and risking definite opposition to their program. The public
did not understand what the government was driving at and feared
that heavy taxation would be levied to support the new scheme.
Tanaka Fujimaro, the new Minister of Education, who while in
America had been impressed by the autonomy in educational mat-
ters enjoyed by the several states of the Union, was inclined to

456

Education

listen to Murray's advice. At the same time there had since the first
year of Meiji been a considerable and important development of
private schools, which had rendered useful services, and their pro-
moters were influential men who were disturbed by the official
attitude.

Accordingly in 1879 a new ordinance was issued that laid down
new principles in broad terms and left it to local governments to
apply them by prefectural regulations subject to the approval of
the ministry in Tokyo. This reversal of policy had the unexpected
effect of causing a decline in public interest in education, which
was probably due to some extent to fear of increases in local taxa-
tion. The revolt against standardization did not last long. In 1880
the ordinance was revised and the government resumed control,
the new Minister proclaiming that elementary education was an
inescapable duty of the state. The program of compulsory edu-
cation in primary schools (with a minimum of three years' at-
tendance) was vigorously carried out, but the position as to other
schools and universities was little changed for the time being.

The financial resources of the government did not allow of a
rapid increase in the number of secondary schools and colleges, but
in the early years of Meiji the gap was filled by private schools of
all descriptions and these played an important part in supple-
menting state-controlled establishments. Since many of the private
schools were founded by Christian bodies or by Japanese who were
opposed to the official policy of standardization, a conflict devel-
oped that presently became acute as a conservative trend, begin-
ning in the eighties, gathered strength. But there was little sign of
this in the years when the educational system had not yet crystal-
lized, and the services rendered by the so-called "foreign" private
schools deserve some mention at this point. It was they that jdid
most for the spread of foreign learning in Japan. The first and
most influential was Fukuzawa's Keiogijuku, but there were plenty
of other schools founded by Japanese educators in which the em-
phasis was laid chiefly upon English studies, and also some Ger-
man and French schools. All these were valuable at a time when
standards were low in the state schools owing to lack of money and
suitable instructors. Among them may be mentioned the D5-
jinsha, founded in 1873 by Nakamura Keiu, an accomplished Con-
fucian scholar who while a Bakufu official had spent some time in
England before the Restoration of 1868. He was impressed by the
influence of Christianity on English life and in 1872 he wrote in
Kido's organ, the Shimbun Zasshi, an article advocating not only
the toleration but the positive encouragement of Christianity in
Japan, pointing out that if important elements of Western culture
were to be borrowed the religious system of which they were an

457

Early Meiji: Western Influences

outgrowth must not be neglected. He believed that Confucian
ethics could be taught in terms of Christian morality, and his pri-
vate school was intended to educate youth on that eclectic basis.
Respected as a man of high character and known to every student
in Japan as the translator of Self-Help, he attracted a great number
of young men to his academy and with the Keiogijuku it became
one of the most important organs for the interpretation of West-
ern ideals.

Another important institution was the Doshisha, a Christian
college founded in 1875 by Niishima J5 (often called Joseph
Neesima), who had braved the edicts in 1864 and worked his
passage to America, where he stayed until 1874, coming under
strong religious influence during his studies in New England. The
Doshisha subsequently played a very significant part in education
in Japan, its character being distinct from that of Fukuzawa's
school in that it stressed spiritual training while the Keiogijuku,
reflecting the free-thinking, utilitarian propensities of its founder,
was secular and practical. Other Christian schools, supported and
sometimes controlled by foreign missions, played a prominent part
in secular as well as religious instruction at this time.

The decade in which these schools were founded and flourished
was notable for the strong influence of English and American
thought in intellectual circles. It showed itself not only in schools
but in public educational activities undertaken by private indi-
viduals who had themselves lived abroad and who made efforts to
diffuse English social and political ideas by means of lectures and
periodical literature. An interesting expression of this trend was
an association of Japanese studying in London who formed a club
there in 1873 and on their return to Japan held regular meetings,
with lectures and speeches, which continued until 1880, when the
law restricting public gatherings brought them to an end. It was
this fraternity that founded the magazine Meiroku Zasshi, already
referred to, and secured contributions from leading public men
who stood for national enlightenment as to the nature of Western
civilization.

It might be supposed from the foregoing description that offi-
cial education policy was strongly influenced by the views of these
prominent men, and it is true that they did establish a certain tra-
dition of independent thought. But they were for the most part
without political power and were not strong enough to resist the
bureaucratic tendency, which had been only temporarily checked.
Their efforts did not prevent the educational system from develop-
ing on lines of rigid standardization. The attitude of the'govern-
ment was well described by Mori Arinori, who became Minister of
Education at the end of 1885 and brought in his new act in 1886.

458

Education

He said that the object of education was to serve the purpose of
the state. * In the administration of all schools, it must be kept in
mind, what is done is not for the sake of the pupils but for the sake
of the country/* The regulations creating the new university open
with an article stating that the purpose of a university is to teach

MORI ARINORI 1847-89

Minister of Education from 1885. Assassinated
for an alleged insult to the Ise Shrines in 1889.

the arts and sciences essential to the state, and the educational sys-
tem is conceived throughout not in a spirit of free inquiry but in
conformity with strong nationalistic principles of a predominantly
utilitarian trend.

It is convenient to mention here the college, now Waseda Uni-
versity, founded by Okuma upon his retirement from the govern-
ment in 1881 in circumstances already described.6 As he was in op-
position, a thorn in the side of Ito, it was 'to be expected that this
private university should stand for a freedom of thought and ex-

6 See p. 345.
459

Early Meiji: Western Influences

pression that was none too palatable to the government; and it is
highly probable that an official character was deliberately stamped
upon the Imperial University so that it should counteract the influ-
ence of Waseda, Keio, and other private institutions.

A,s an administrative feat the building of a vast structure of
universities, colleges, and schools from almost rudimentary begin-
nings was a most creditable performance. It testifies not only to
great and single-minded energy on the part of the government but
also to a remarkable response by the people. The idea of compul-
sory education was unfamiliar to them and it imposed a heavy
burden of tax, but it was not long before the whole nation was
convinced of the importance of education, and the sense of obliga-
tion among parents grew so rapidly, with very little pressure from
government, that the percentage of children receiving elementary
education rose from 46 in 1886 to 61 in 1896 and 95 in 1906. Sec-
ondary and higher education made an equivalent progress.

These were commendable results, but what concerns us here
is the kind rather than the amount of education. The revision of
the system undertaken by Mori was in one sense the logical sequel
of following the Western practice of compulsory primary educa-
tion, and it was Western in so far as foreign rather than native sub-
jects dominated the curriculum, especially in middle and higher
schools. Butjthe underlying theory that learning must subserve the
purposes of the state and train only the kind of individuals tliat
the state required, jfrx^^ kinship with Frendilmcl

German views, was not essentially Western but a rewr^c>rrio~the
outlook that had inspired feudal rulers to treat one doctrinSTas
orthodox and all others as hereticaL^When the Shinto doctorTln
the early years of Meiji had contendedlhat the "national learning"
was to be the basis of education, they were insisting that Shinto
tenets as to the nature of the Japanese state should be articles of
universal belief. This, as we have seen, was inconsistent with the
government's educational aims and caused the closing of the uni-
versity, which the Shintoists attempted to dominate. It cannot be
said that Mori's new policy was in any sense a concession to their
views. On the contrary Mori was a very modern-minded man, de-
scribed by Ito as more like a foreigner than a Japanese in his out-
look. He took no stock of most Japanese traditions and he laid
stress on the teaching of English; but his emphasis on the suprem-
acy of the state in the scheme of education brought him nearer to
the. stand of the conservative "National Scholars" and to Confu-
cianists like Motoda than he would have cared to admit. His re-
forms, while in matters of organization following an Occidental
pattern, were reactionary in spirit, and certainly they ran counter
to all those liberal ideas of American, English, or French origin

460

Education

which had been current in the intellectual, if not the official world
for the previous twenty years.

It must be admitted that there was much to be said for a revival
of the neglected national studies. The university was for a time
without a department of Japanese and Chinese literature, while
in some schools English but not Japanese literature and history
were taught and even the readers used for moral instruction were
translations of foreign textbooks. Such deficiencies were made good
by the establishment in the university of departments of classical
Chinese and Japanese, and by introducing courses in Japanese
legal history and Oriental philosophy, while approved school text-
books were compiled by the authorities. These were proper meas-
ures, not of themselves reactionary; but the general trend was to-
wards the dissemination of a fixed official doctrine by a prescribed
official method, and from this it was only a short step to the limita-
tionof academic freedom and then the pursuit of heresy. The pre-
fixing of the word "Imperial" to the title of universities after 1886
symbolized the imprint upon higher learning of the absolutist con-
cept that was beginning to dominate the form of all national in-
stitutions. There is good ground for believing that Mori owed his
appointment to Ito, with whom he was in close touch while they
were both in Europe, and it is highly probable that the educational
policy introduced in 1886 was designed by them in consultation
so as to harmonize with the constitutional principles, particularly
the doctrine of the supremacy of the state, which Ito planned to
embody in his draft.

As for the pursuit of heresy, there is a convincing illustration
in what may be called the locus classicus in the history of academic
freedom in Japan. This was the case of Professor Kume, a historian
who contributed to the historical journal Shikai in 1891 an article
arguing that Shinto was a survival of a primitive form of worship.
This not very startling view caused the greatest resentment among
nationalists, and Kume was expelled from the university.

It will be seen that, whereas Western influence was strong in
the organization of education and the choice of pedagogic methods,
educational policy in general was in its essence neither enlightened
nor progressive by contemporary Occidental standards, jtomething
can be said in defence of the official attitude. Standardization and
state control were calculated to raise the level of instruction more
rapidly than voluntary effort, and they contributed to the forma-
tion o£ a homogeneous national sentiment, something that was
needed if the particularism surviving from feudal times was to be
reduced. Both of these were legitimate ends, granted that Japan
was obliged to lose no time in the development of her national
strength.

461

Early Meiji: Western Influences

Moreover, education in Europe and America was not jitjtjhe
time we are now considering as uniformly widespread and progres-
sive as the most thoughtful educators could have wished. Foreign
descriptions of Japanese policies, in education as in other mat-
ters, in the early part of Meiji tend to judge them by standards
that were proclaimed but not always reached in Western coun-
tries.7 It is therefore important to remember that in England, for
instance, it was not until 1870 that a comprehensive Elementary
Education Act was passed, and this more than thirty years after the
state had begun to concern itself with elementary education. It was
only in 1880 that the system of universal compulsion was com-
pleted, and there still remained to be settled many problems in sec-
ondary education. The highly centralized French state system,
though it started from the principle of compulsory primary educa-
tion laid down in 1791, was revised and reformed in many ways
after the war of 1870 and was not stabilized when the Japanese
took it as a model in 1872. As for German education, so much in
advance that the wars of 1866 and 1870 were said to have been won
by the Prussian schoolmaster, it might have been suitable for
adaptation by Japan, but the situation in Germany, though super-
ficially similar, was unlike that of Japan in one fundamental par-
ticular. The German problem was complicated by the need to
reconcile diverse political and religious interests and consequently
had to allow for a good deal of decentralization and for local varia-
tions in type of school and curriculum.

The truth is that for Japan the problem of education was much
simpler than that which faced most European countries in the
middle of the nineteenth century. Political and social conditions
were not unfavourable to uniformity, because there had been a
clean sweep in 1868. The Japanese people were culturally homo-
geneous and there were no deep-seated differences of religion or
custom to prevent a simple schematic treatment. Indeed, one of
the most impressive contrasts between Japanese history on the one
hand and European history on the other emerges when one con-
siders the part played by religion in almost every aspect of Euro-
pean life. European history is rich in political and intellectual
movement that springs from a diversity of J^Hgi^^
which China and Japan offer no close parallel. In this respect Far
Eastern history is wanting in variety and presents a somewhat
monotonous spectacle of the minor vicissitudes of great, uniform
systems that are essentially stable. European history since the begin-
ning of our era could be written in terms of religious events with-

7 This is not true of the History of Japanese Education of H. L. Keenleyside
and A, F. Thomas (Tokyo, 1937) , which pays attention to educational policies in
Western countries.

4B8

Education

out omitting any vitally important facts, but this is hardly true of
Far Eastern history, for if it is in one aspect a history of religious
tolerance, in another it is a history of indifference. In the par-
ticular case of Japan no religious creed, no ecclesiastical authority,
was ever allowed for more than a brief space to dominate the po-
litical stage, and the conciliation of religious interests was never
a cardinal feature of feudal administration. Consequently at the
Restoration there were no deep religious gulfs dividing the nation,
and the governing class was neither in educational nor in other
matters obliged to take religious feelings into account*

The contrast with European experience is most striking, as a
glance at the history of educational measures in England, France,
and Germany shows. In each of those countries the early influences
that determined the character of education were almost entirely
religious. It is true that in Japan, and to a less extent in China, the
Buddhist church was for a long time the chief repository of learn-
ing, but in both countries such public institutions as existed were
mostly secular in character. There was nothing to correspond to
the great mediaeval universities of Europe, which were independ-
ent schools of higher study, not necessarily theological, but ob-
tained their charters from the Church. Nor was there anything to
correspond to the great struggle in the field of learning that took
place in Europe as the revival of classical, humanistic studies led
to conflict or compromise with scholastic, theological disciplines.
The progress of learning in the Far East was vivified by no such
controversies. Far Eastern societies were not split from top to bot-
tom* by protestant movements or enlivened by widespread sec-
tarian disputes.

The foregoing reflections upon the religious element in Euro-
pean history may appear to be only remotely connected with the
question of education in modern Japan, but they may serve to
throw some light upon it by showing that the foundations were
laid in conditions of deceptive simplicity. In England it was neces-
sary to reconcile secular and denominational principles as well as
to find a way of including in one national system both voluntary
and public schools. In France it was felt necessary to carry the
principle of secularism so far that it produced an acute conflict
between Church and State. In Germany the Kulturkampf was
waged largely in the field of education, while political divisions
made it impossible to avoid separate treatment for different states
and localities.

No such difficulties confronted those who framed the education
laws of Japan in 1886 or drafted the Imperial Rescript of 1890.
Uniformity and centralized direction were so easily imposed that
the system which was finally developed could scarcely fail to be

468

Early Meiji: Western Influences

rigid and lifeless.. It would not be difficult to make a case against
the modern educational system of Japan, showing that her history
would have taken a different turn if her rulers, even at the expense
of what was deemed efficiency, had encouraged rather than re-
pressed originality or at least diversity in academic life. In this re-
spect it cannot be said that they submitted to a characteristically
Western influence.

The Imperial Rescript, though it may be said to lay down
broad principles of educational policy, is by no means specific;
and it is in reality a document of much wider import than appears
from its contents. It must be considered in the light of the con-
servative reaction against Western culture, which, as we have
noted, began to gather force in the i88o's. Its full text is as
follows:8

Know ye, Our Subjects:

Our Imperial Ancestors have founded our Empire on a basis broad
and everlasting, and have deeply and firmly implanted virtue; Our
subjects ever united in loyalty and filial piety have from generation
to generation illustrated the beauty thereof. This is the glory of the
fundamental character of Our Empire, and herein also lies the source
of Our Education. Ye, Our Subjects, be filial to your parents, affection-
ate to your brothers and sisters; as husbands and wives be harmonious,
as friends true; bear yourselves in modesty and moderation; extend
your benevolence to all; pursue learning and cultivate arts, and there-
by develop intellectual faculties and perfect moral powers; further-
more, advance public good and promote common interests; always
respect the Constitution and observe the laws; should emergency arise,
offer yourselves courageously to the State; and thus guard and main-
tain the prosperity of Our Imperial Throne coeval with heaven and
earth. So shall ye not only be Our good and faithful subjects, but ren-
der illustrious the best traditions of your forefathers.

The Way here set forth is indeed the teaching bequeathed by Our
Imperial Ancestors, to be observed alike by Their Descendants and
the subjects, infallible for all ages and true in all places. It is Our wish
to lay it to heart in all reverence, in common with you, Our subjects,
that we may all attain to the same virtue.

The goth day of the loth month of the 2grd year of Meiji.

It will be observed that the language is studiously elevated,
that the reference to education is brief, and that the document as
a, whole is not a charter of learning but an announcement of ^ethi-
cal principles that are henceforward to govern the thoughts and
actions not only of teachers and pupils but of the whole nation.
In that respect it is in keeping with the most ancient Japanese prac-
tice, for the first document of its kind in Japanese history, the so-

» This is the accepted translation, and the reader must bear with its atrocious
style.

Education

called Constitution of Prince Shotoku (A.D. 604) was also a state-
ment o£ moral maxims designed to support a national policy; and
subsequent rulers of Japan were given to the issue of moral ex-
hortations to the people with a like political intention. jHieJ;?^-
script of l8^QJ3£^^ and implicitly

gives notice to the people that they are not. to be led astray by

INOUYE KOWASHI (Kl) 1843-95

A Kumamoto samurai who held important posts In the

Meiji government. He became Minister of Education

in 1889, after 'working on the draft of the Rescript

on Education, which was issued in 1890.

Western ideas in moral and political philosophy. It reasserts the
doctrines of ancestor-worship, of filial piety, of loyalty to superiors,
and of duty to the state, and it conclude^jQLaffirrniiig that these
doctrines go back to an ancient past and are valid for all times and
in all places.

These are considerable claims, but it is not unusual for govern-'
ments to say that their principles are universally and eternally true.
The interest of this Rescript lies not so much in its dogmatic tenor
or its lofty style as in the circumstances that brought about its
issue. It can be regarded as the culmination of a movement in fa-
vour of native traditions and away from that pragmatic, utilitarian

465

Early Meiji: Western Influences

view of life which (as the go vermng classes saw it) was destroying
the ancient morality of JapajT^^

sence — and putting in its place nothing but a dangerous utilitar-
ianism and a subversive materialism.

It would be difficult to find in the Far East a more pragmatic,
and utilitarian group than the ruling elite of that time in Japan,
but in so far as their fears were genuine they cannot be blamed, for
the student of Meiji history is bound to admit that there was some
reason for the alarm betrayed by the conservatives. It was true that
the rapid growth of trade and indu^

of former political and social institutions, had almost inevitably
led to a relaxation of old standards of conduct. No doubt the phase
of intoxication, the "Western fever/' had gone too far, and it was.
time for the Japanese tqPexamine their condition and chart their
future course. That was the feeling in advanced intellectual circles
where there was no special animosity to Western culture but only
an anxiety as to how much Japan could absorb without doing vio-
lence to her own national character.

As for the country at large, it should be remembered that from
the time of the preliminary conference in Tokyo in 1882 the minds
of both government and people had been exercised by the prob-
lem of treaty revision. Indeed, the influence of this vexed question
can be seen in almost every department of Japanese life between
the Restoration and 1894, when it was settled to the satisfaction of
Japan. While it was still under discussion, national pride called for
the denunciation of all special privileges accorded to foreigners,
but when from about 1887 it seemed that a solution was in sight
the public suddenly became aware that the conclusion of "equal"
treaties meant throwing the country open to unrestricted foreign
trade and residence. Enthusiasm vanished and doubts arose. The
most unexpected fears were voiced. The influence of foreigners
would spread all over the Empire, their beliefs and customs would
corrupt the national spirit, and Christian missions would be used
to cover Western designs of aggression. Hostile opinion was stirred
up by agitators for ends of their own, and the government of the
day was not innocent of using it as a lever in negotiation with the
treaty powers. But if much of the alarm was baseless and foolish —
at times it amounted almost to panic — there was a residue of gen-
uine fear that Japan would be overwhelmed and lose her cultural
Identity. This real concern to preserve the national character from
alien influence must be recognized as an important factor in the
conservative movement, which reached its peak about 1889, when
the government was forced to suspend the pourparlers by the vio-
lence of public sentiment.

But the Imperial Rescript of 1800 was not a mere expression of

466

Education

concern. It was a most categorical assertion of future policy in re-
gard not only to education but to every aspect of the relationship
between the people and the state. It was the crowning item in a
sequence of public acts which had led to the promulgation of the
Constitution. The purpose of the Rescript was to stamp with Im-
perial approval, and so to reinforce, principles already announced,
in legal form by a series of measures ..deaignedJSL .strength en the
system of government that the bureaucratic leaders had carefully
and patiently built up. The key to the system was the absolute
power of the Emperor, which must ultimately depend not upon
documentary provisions but upon the creation of a sentiment of
respect amounting to veneration for the throne. It is for such rea-
sons that the Rescript appeals to ancestral tradition and, with
conspicuous success, endeavours in one coherent scheme to relate
the customary morality of the Japanese people to a concept of the
nature and function of the sovereign for which there was only an
imperfect historical warrant.

We have dealt elsewhere with this aspect of statecraft, and
here we need consider the effect of the Rescript only in the field of
education. It meant that from the moment of its issue education in
Japan was closely bound up with the indoctrination of youth on
lines gg^™gblg to the authoritarian principles of the govern-
ment. Con^u^riyihe curricula and the pedagogic theories of
subsequent years show a reaction against American and English
influence and a search for some method that would combine in due
proportions utilitarian instruction and moral training. Regula-
tions issued in 1891 for the guidance of teachers in primary schools
laid down the following rule: "In education the greatest attention
should be paid to moral culture. Hence, whatever is found in any
course of study relating to moral or national education should be
taught with care and assiduity. All teaching should be based upon
matters essential to life, lessons should be so taught that they may
all be turned to practical uses."

Questions as to the ultimate value of such principles are out-
side the scope of this study; but there can be no doubt that the
ethical teaching ffiven in Japanese schools had a large measure of
siiggggsjn thejulfilment of an official policy designed to create^
strong and uniform sentiment of loyalty and discipline. It is diffi-
cult to judge how far this result should be ascribed to deliberate
indoctrination; but it is certain that it could not have been
achieved without the aid of old established ideas and habits. In
that sense the history of Japanese education in the nineteenth cen-
tury provides a useful example of a reaction against foreign influ-
ence and a return to tradition in the midst of a strenuous process
of "modernization."

467

Early Meiji: Western Influences

4. Religion

LPART from an early attempt to elevate Shinto by oppressing
Buddhism, the history of religion in Japan in the period under re-
view, which is roughly the first twenty years of Meiji (or more ac-
curately from the year 1868 to the promulgation of the Rescript
on Education in 1890) , is mostly concerned with the progress of
Christian evangelization"' and its "effect upon Japanese religious
thought.

We have already seen that until the very early years of Meiji
the official attitude towards Christianity remained hostile, and the
people in general, schooled by two centuries of ruthlessness on the
part of the authorities, continued to look upon the foreign religion
with fear and suspicion. The common dread of punishment for
even the most tenuous connection with the "evil sect" is well il-
lustrated by an incident related by an officer of Perry's flagship.
He had asked a Japanese visitor aboard to write his autograph on
the fly-leaf of a book. It was a prayer-book, and when the guest,
with his brush poised, saw a cross on the title page he hastily threw
it down and would not touch it again.

It was to be expected that in such an atmosphere the renewal
of Christian Lgvangelism in Japan yquld meejt with great resistance,
and so in fact it did untH the Japanese government, in circum-
stancesalready descnbed, withdrew the anti-Christian edicts in
1873. Before that date Christian~teaching had been tacitly per-
mitted in some places and a few missionaries who arrived in Japan
soon after the 1858 treaties came into force were able to work
within the very narrow limits of residence and travel then allowed
to foreigners. But for several years they were handicapped not
only by restrictions on their movements but by popular prejudice
and fear. One of the first missionaries, Guido Verbeck, of the
Dutch Reformed Church in America (who arrived in Japan in
1859) > sa-id at this time that when a religious question was mooted
in the presence of a Japanese, "his hand would almost involun-
tarily be applied to his throat to indicate the extreme peril of such
a topic/' Japanese servants in missionary households were in con-
stant fear of spies, and it was very difficult to obtain the services of
a Japanese language teacher.

As late as 1871 a Japanese named Ichikawa Einosuke, who had
given language lessons to an American missionary in Nagasaki, was
arrested and imprisoned. The evidence against him was that he
possessed a Japanese translation of part of the New Testament. He
died in jail some eighteen months later; for such were the rigours
of confinement in those days that the record of many political

468

Religion

offenders ends with the grim words "died in prison while awaiting
trial." The case of Ichikawa is of especial interest because it
brought out into the open the official attitude toward Christianity
and contributed to the withdrawal of the edicts. Missionaries who
called upon the authorities to plead for him were told that if he
had received baptism he could not escape the death penalty. The
American Minister in Yedo appealed to Iwakura, the head of the
government, and was told that Japan was not answerable to for-
eigners for the treatment of Japanese subjects. The minister
warned him that ill treatment of Christians would affect the
friendly relations of the United States with Japan, and when Iwa-
kura shortly afterwards went on his mission to America and
Europe he found that the story of Ichikawa was well known in
official circles. It was not long after this that the ban upon Chris-
tian teaching was removed.

TQie^circumstances of this withdrawal throw some light upon
the general attitude ot the new government towards religion. Yt
has already been pointed out that shortly after the Restoration jt
determined attempt was made bj a conservative group to establish
Shinto as a state religion and to repress Buddhism. The inner his-
tory of this movement is somewhat obscure. It seems, however, that
the court party in the government were its chief supporters, be-
cause they felt that while their samurai colleagues enjoyed the
backing of the military caste, their own position needed strength-
ening. The elevation of Shinto to the position of an official doc-
trine would fortify the throne and the court aristocracy, providing
as it did a coherent theory of direct Imperial rule. This fitted well
enough into the plans of the new government, in so far as it pro-
moted Shinto at the expense of Buddhism, which had some tra-
ditional patronage from the Shogunate and was therefore out of
favour. Accordingly Okubo and Kido were not opposed to reli-
gious projects favoured by Iwakura and Sanjo, though they can-
not have 'had very much faith in them. For a few years Buddhism
was under attack. It lost government grants, and in February 1871
an official order placed Shinto priests in charge of certain im-
portant Buddhist foundations, including the great mausoleum of
leyasu at Nikko. These attempts to rehabilitate Shinto Jailed, be-
cause the mass of the people were not much interested in its doc-
trinal aspects and held to their Buddhist faith, which, though it
may not have been profound, was part of their customary life. By
me end of 1872 the government gave up its attempts to regulate
religious belief and began to take a neutral position, no doubt be-
cause Okubo, Kido, and their colleagues felt that they had more
important matters in hand.

The Department of Religion (Jingi-kwari) , which was con-

469

Early Meiji: Western Influences

cerned only with the national cult, was replaced by an office o£
lower rank, called the Board of Religious Instruction (Ky 6 bu-
sh 6) , under which was a college of lecturers whose function was
to impart and supervise ethical teaching. The college was called
the Daiky6-in, or College of the Great Doctrine, and the Great
Doctrine was based upon three colourless principles that were
supposed to be acceptable to Shinto and Buddhism alike. They
were, in fact, scarcely religious principles at all, but ethical rules,
which, it was hoped, would facilitate government by encouraging
loyalty and obedience to officials.9 But the Shinto leaders did their
best to give this institution a strong Shinto flavour. When the col-
lege was opened in June 1873 with great ceremonies, these took
place in the ancient Buddhist monastery called Zojdji, which be-
longed to the Pure Land sect of Amidism and contained the mau-
solea of several Tokugawa shoguns. Many of its Buddhist parish-
ioners were present, and they were horrified to find that the ritual
took the form of worship of the divine Imperial ancestors, in
which Buddhist lecturers of the college were obliged to take part,
serving at the altar in Shinto robes — a spectacle that is said to
have reduced many devout Buddhists to tears.

Such arbitrary attion naturally stimulated antagonism among
the Buddhist clergy/ and though the college continued for some
time it soon lost any influence it may have had, and by 1877 the
parent Board of Religious Instruction was abolished. This abortive
attempt to regulate religious thought showed the authorities that
they were on dangerous ground. They knew that they"would pres-
ently have to face the problem of Christian teaching in japan, and
early in 1873 the edict against Christianity as an "evil sect" was
removed from the public notice boards. This did not in theory
change the law, but it meant that the government did not intend
to enforce it. (Consequently from 1873 onwards the work of Chris-
tian missionaries in Japan entered upon a new phase. From 1859
to 1872 inclusive their task had been only preparatory. They had
made few converts,10 but they had begun educational and medical
work and had organized small religious communities in Yokohama
and in other places where circumstances were not unfavourable,
and they had made some progress in the translation of the Scrip-
tures. The first translation into Japanese under Protestant auspices
of a portion of the Bible was printed in 1871, though before that
there were available in Japan copies of Chinese translations of

s The principles were: (i) reverence for the national deities and love of coun-
try; (2) the Law of Heaven and the Way of Man; (3) loyalty to the throne and
obedience to the authorities.

10 At the beginning of 1872 there were only ten baptized Protestant converts.
The first Japanese Protestant convert to be baptized in Japan was a physician
named Yano in 1864. He was baptized in extremis.

470

Religion

the New Testament and o£ religious tracts, which educated Japa-
nese could understand.

More than the letter of the law it was the return in 1873 of
. and Europe that improved the

prospects oTCiSristiari missions in Japan. Its members were im-
pressed by the importance of Christianity in Western life and
saw clearly that they could not hope for good relations with West-
ern states so long as Japanese subjects were denied religious free-
dom. Some leading men went further than that and asked whether
fajw^J^sgiblg to take over the civilization of Western countries
without adopting their religion, and within a year or two of the
abortive Shinto revival we find more than one eminent thinker
recommending the adoption of Christianity. Even in government
circles the idea seems to have been seriously entertained, for it is
on record that in 1873 members of the Japanese Legation in Berlin
inquired of Professor Gneist whether he thought that Japan should
introduce Christianity as the state religion.

No doubt such speculations and inquiries were prompted by^a
feeling that Japan as a Christian nation would be treated as an
equal of other Christian countries; but they also tend to show that
in the early years of Meiji there was among the educated Japanese
no profound and unanimous conviction of the truth of their own
traditional religious beliefs. Those were times of intellectual con-
fusion, and it might be supposed that such circumstances were fa-
vourable to Christianity. In a limited sense that is true, since Buci-
dhism did not offer any serious positive resistance to Christianity,
nor at the early stage was Shinto, as an organized cult under official
auspices, a major obstacle to Christian propaganda. The difficul-
ties that Christianity had to surmount lay not in active opposition
by systematic religions but rather in the strength of traditional
ways of thought of the Japanese people and in their social customs,
which stood as a strong barrier against change. The mass of the
people were indifferent, not hostile to Christianity. The unedu-
cated were tenacious of old ways and the rural population in par-
ticular continued its simple Buddhist observances often out of
habit rather than conviction. The educated classes had for the most
part followed the moral principles of Confucianism and were by
training and inclination sceptical. They might, as a social duty,
think it well to belong to a Buddhist sect and would see nothing
incongruous in performing Shinto ritual, but they were not fun-
damentally religious^ and it is significant of their general outlook
that agnostic and rationalistic schools of Western thought found
a rjgady response among Japanese intellectuals who followed Con-
fucius in thinking that human life was hard enough to understand
and nothing useful could be known about the hereafter.

471

Early Meiji: Western Influences

In addition to these difficulties, Christian missionaries were
confronted with a political situation, or rather with a series of po-
litical convulsions, which for some years after 1873 produced
strong currents of feeling against foreign influences. The opposi-
tion to Western culture was by no means clear-cut, since there
were many dissident factions whose aim was to embarrass the gov-
ernment, not to resist all Western influences. But in effect they
worked against Western religion, and they made it difficult for
the government to grant any benefits to Christian missions.

The subversive movements that culminated in the Satsuma
Rebellion of 1877 were °f political origin, but they mobilized
conservativeleelm^ in many parts ot the country, and it was easy
for agitators to lay the commotions of the day at the door of a
government which was introducing all kinds of Western ideas. Of
these Christianity was perhaps the easiest to attack, and many mal-
contents from various motives joined in the campaign. Such anti-
Christian activities were as a rule incidental features of a secular
movement, and seeing how unruly that movement was, it is re-
markable that they were not more frequent and more violent.
That they were not all mere by-products of political strife is clear
from the nature of some contemporary anti-Christian literature,
A work called Bemmdj or An Exposition of Falsehood, has already
been mentioned, and some further account of it may suitably be
given here. It was written in 1875 by a leading Confucian scholar,
formerly in BaJcufu service, and it was furnished with a preface
by Shimadzu Saburo, an irreconcilable conservative who was the
leader of the reactionary wing of the Satsuma clan. This preface
dwells on the central theme of the book, which is the contention
that the teaching of Christ is in conflict with those Confucian doc-
trines of filial piety and loyalty to superiors which are the very
foundation of the state. It also objects that Christianity is incom-
patible with ancestor-worship. The tone of this book is trenchant
and bitter rather than abusive. It gives closely reasoned arguments
that present at their clearest the principles of Far Eastern social
ethics and it includes some shrewd thrusts at Christian practice as
distinct from Christian doctrine.

The importance of such works as these should not be over-
rated, but they had a fairly wide circulation. Bemmo in particular
was reprinted in 188 1 and was still read by young men a generation
after it was written. Christian missionaries thought that they could
trace its influence in the arguments used by many of their adver-
saries in debate.

It is not surprising that in the decade between 1873 and 1883
the Protestant church in Japan made little progress as measured
by the number o£ converts. Statistics tor the beginning of

47S

Religion

show 93 Protestant churches with 145 foreign workers, while the
number of missionary societies in Japan had risen to 18, with a
proportionate increase in the number of foreign evangelists. The
multiplication of Christian sects gave Japanese critics cause to
complain that Western controversies were being transferred to
Japan, and even among Japanese Christians there was a feeling
in favour of unity, while Japanese officials argued that, though
the Roman Catholic Church was one body, it was difficult for the
government to negotiate with the Protestant church because it had
so many denominations. It was true that the number of converts
did not seem to justify the increased number of separate mission-
ary bodies, for by the beginning of 1883 there were only some
4,000 adult Japanese church members in the whole country.

But the success of Christian teaching cannot be judged only
fry statistics of conversions, since Christian influence was making
itself felt in many indirect ways. Much depended at this time on
the , secular e ducational work in which many missionaries were en-
gaged, and upon the efforts of a small body of Japanese evangelists
and pastors who braved not only abuse and hatred but also bodily
dangers in their endeavour to spread Christian beliefs in parts of
Japan where sentiment was peculiarly hostile. A notable example
was the so-called Kumamoto Band, composed of thirty youths who
made a covenant to stand up for Christianity in Kumamoto in
Higo at a time of insurrection when feeling against foreigners ran
dangerously high. Not all of them kept to their resolution, but a
small nucleus in 1876 entered the Christian college known as the
Doshisha, then newly founded by Neesima (Niishima Jo) . The
personal influence of men like Neesima, coupled with the zeal
and, most of all, the evident integrity of certain leading foreign
missionaries, was powerful in spreading a respect for Christians
if not a belief in Christianity among Japanese of all classes. This
in turn favoured the undertakings of the missionaries and in par-
ticular increased confidence in the schools and hospitals they
founded. That such support was still needed may be judged from
the fact that as late as 1880 some provincial officials endeavoured
to check the spread of Christian ideas, and even the central govern-
ment was at times loath to approve of missionary undertakings
such as teaching and the publication of Christian literature.

Something should be said here about the translation of the
Scriptures into Japanese. A translation of the New Testament was
completed in 1880, of the Old Testament in 1888. The work was
one of extreme difficulty, not only because it was a corporate un-
dertaking of all the missionary societies in Japan, but because of
the many problems that arose from the differences^ structure and
vocabulary between the two languages. To acquire a real mastery

478

Early Meiji: Western Influences

of Japanese is at the best of times a severe task, while the early
Protestant missionaries were especially handicapped by a scarcity
of apparatus in the form of dictionaries and grammatical works. A
great deal of preparatory labour had to be faced, as for instance
in the compilation of a Japanese-English and English-Japanese
dictionary in the Roman alphabet. This was achieved by Dr. Hep-
burn, of the American Presbyterian mission, a pioneer task Sisy-
phean rather than Herculean, since (as a later scholar observed)
"nowhere is finality more unattainable than in the field of Japan-
ese lexicography/'

Most baffling among the linguistic obstacles were the problems
of selecting suitable equivalents for such words as God, Spirit,
Soul, Atonement, Grace, Conscience, and, notably, Logos; for
literal renderings often produced ludicrous results. As the Jesuits
had found long before them, the translators were faced with an
almost insuperable difficulty in their search for means of express-
ing ideas that were unfamiliar, if not unintelligible, to Japanese
minds. Even the Japanese Christians who were brought in to
help the translation committee were not able to give much help,
since they were not familiar enough with the English language, far
less with Greek and Hebrew. A further difficulty was the choice of
style, since the Japanese literary language had several modes of
expression, ranging from a relatively pure native prose to a stiff
and learned compound in which Chinese elements predominated.
Somehow solutions were found for all these problems and the
publication of the complete Bible in Japanese in 1888 was an
important landmark in the history of Protestant missions in Japan.
It was used not only by converts, but by non-Christian Japanese
as an adjunct to their language studies and an aid to the under-
standing of Western ideas; and of course it much facilitated the
work of the missions since it could be placed in the hands of their
Japanese helpers.11

11 The first translation of a portion of the Bible in Japan is said to have been
made by Xavier's helper Yajiro in a tract that included quotations from the Gospel
of St, Matthew. This has not been preserved, but in 1592 the Jesuit press in Amakusa
issued a work called Doctrina Christiana in Japanese (in Roman letters) , which in-
cluded the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and extracts from St. Mat-
thew (v, 3-10) .

In 1880 Professor Chamberlain (an Englishman who held a chair of Japanese at
Tokyo University) essayed a rendering of some of the Psalms and read a paper on
the subject to the Asiatic Society of Japan. He used a poetical language akin to that
of the longer poems in the great anthology called Manyoshtt — a considerable tour de
force for a foreigner.

Other translations by foreigners were not so successful. Thus one of the early
missionaries gave a rendering of the hymn "Jesus loves me" in the following words,
which will be appreciated by students of the Japanese language as a near approach
to "pidgin":

474.

Religion

Although, as we have seen, a general conservative reaction
against Western influence set in from about 1882, the fortunes^of
Christianity in Japan do not seem to have followed this pattern
closely, for it made more progress in the ensuing decade than ever
before. This would indicate that its influence was gaining rapidly,
though it has to be borne in mind that, having overcome certain
initial obstacles, it would naturally spread at an increasing rate so
long as there was no positive official antagonism to overcome. A
favourable event was what has been called the -"disestablishment"
of religions in 1884. This is a somewhat deceptive term, since it
refers to an announcement by which the government disassociated
itself from control over the appointment of Buddhist and Shinto
priests to positions they had formerly held as instructors or as in-
cumbents of certain temples and shrines.

Strictly speaking, neither Shinto nor Buddhism was at this time
an established religion, but the action of the government was in
practice a recognition, however tacit and incomplete, of religious
freedom; and as it followed closely upon Ito's return from abroad
it is probable that the step was taken in preparation for the grant
of a constitution in which a general recognition of civil liberties
was to figure. There was in fact among leaders of public opinion,
especially in official circles, some disposition at this time to give
a qualified approval to Christianity on what may be called pru-
dential rather than moral grounds. The conspicuous success of
missionary schools and colleges in secular education, particularly
in the education of the daughters of well-to-do families that were
not Christian, contributed to this new esteem.

But undoubtedly an important factor was a more general senti-
ment that it would be advantageous to Japan if it were regarded
abroad as a Christian country, at least to the extent that Chris-
tianity was among the religions approved and commonly pro-
fessed. Newspaper articles of the day, especially in the Jiji Shimpo
under Fukuzawa's direction, endorsed Christianity as a useful con-
tribution to civilization and politically beneficial. One such article
contained the following passage, most revealing in its frank sim-
plicity: "We cannot persuade Shintoists to change their views, but
we can tell them that they should look at the ascendancy of Chris-
tianity in our country as an event in the natural course of things,
and that for the sake of the country they should refrain from dis-

Jesus loves me, this I know Yaso ware wo aisu

For the Bible tells me so Sayo seisho mosu

Yes, Jesus loves me Hail Yaso aisu

Yes, Jesus loves me. Hai! Yaso aisu.

475

Early Meiji: Western Influences

turbances. We do not propose that a majority of our people should
become Christians, a small proportion would be enough. All that
is necessary is to accept the name of a Christian country." This
was in 1885, at a time when in the provinces there were still occa-
sional outbursts against Christians; but by now the central govern-
ment was on the watch and took measures to prevent such in-
cidents.

In general it may be said that the more violent forms of oppo-
sition to Christianity had now come to an end, and that although
there was still a stror^jj3£vgn^ in some intellectual

circles, Chrls5rmty"had passed beyond the stage of toleration and
had some positive support in influential quarters. By 1889 its legal
position also was unassailable, for article 28 of the Constitution
promulgated on November 1 1 assured freedom of religion to all
Japanese subjects.

But of course legal freedom was not enough, for ultimately
the fortunes of Christianity depended not only upon the efforts
of the missionaries but upon the disposition of the Japanese
people. Judging by figures alone, the progress made between 1883
and 1889 was satisfactory if not remarkable, for the total Japanese
adult membership of Protestant churches rose from 5,591 to
29,000, and the number of self-supporting churches had increased.
Out of a population of some 40,000,000 this was an almost neg-
ligible proportion, and even allowing that Christian influence was
spread far beyond the direct membership of churches it cannot
be said that it had conspicuously affected the foundations of
Japanese culture. Neither had the Roman Catholic and Greek
Orthodox (Russian) churches grown very rapidly. The former re-
ported for 1881 a total of under 25,000 adult Japanese converts,
which had risen to about 40,000 by 1889, in which year the latter
claimed some 18,000 baptized members, of whom it was currently
said that they were often lukewarm in their faith and not easily
distinguishable from the non-Christians around them.

A leading Protestant missionary well acquainted with condi-
tions in Japan, reviewing the situation after 1890, made some in-
teresting observations which may be cited here as a carefully con-
sidered estimate of the prospects of Christianity at that date. He
said:

So far as the laws of the land are concerned the Christians have little to
seek. The acquisition of this liberty however has not lessened the
severity of the ordeal to which they are subjected. The very recognition
of the rights of Christians may be said to betoken a kind of indifferent-
ism in matters of religion, which, is widespread and which has affected
more or less unfavourably those who are supposed to reap its greatest
benefits, in that it has (as is always the case in similar circumstances)

476

Religion

weakened their power of resistance to the more subtle temptations at-
tendant upon prosperity. For they breathe the same air as their coun-
trymen, and cannot fail to be affected by every general movement
which affects the nation.

The writer here lays a finger upon a very definite characteristic
of Japanese life then, and perhaps at all times — -a strong feeling
forsocial duty, but a lack of deep religious sentiment as it is under-
stood by Western peoples. This is a crude statement that needs
much qualification, but in general it is borne out by the history of
Japanese religious institutions.

Certainly at the time when the authority just quoted was form-
ing his opinions the country was absorbed in practical affairs and
little interested in spiritual matters. Growing prosperity, the new
element of competition which had been brought into daily life
by industry and commerce, and an intense preoccupation with
secular learning left little room for an interest in the claims of

was any notable growth
diverted from the Church to the

...,._

state and expressed itself in an ardent patriotic sentiment, which
was not without morbid elements. However that may be, leading
missionaries judged that the forces making themselves felt in
Japanese society from about 1890 were for the most part "un-
friendly to the progress of organized Christianity/' a condition
that they ascribed chiefly to the growth of a strong nationalistic
feeling. The same writer continues:

Among the more intellectual classes visions of the great part Japan is
to play in the world's life have led to a depreciation of what she has
already received and what other nations have to give. Among others
the new opportunities of amassing wealth or improving social posi-
tion have led to an epicurean view of life and an impatience under the
restraints which religion imposes. The churches have suffered sadly
from this cause.

As a contemporary observer's view of the process of reaction
at work this is of great interest.flt is confirmed by many other mani-
festations of a growing conflict in Japanese life, in its effort to
accommodate new ideas with old convictions. Thus Japanese Bud-
dhism found its hold relaxing in part through the diversion o£
some of its believers to Christianity, but much more through the
growth of indifferentism or of a positive antireligious "rational-
ist" trend of thought among educated Japanese. Certain Buddhist
sects, in particular the Shinshu (or "True Sect" of Amidism) ,
went so far as to present their doctrines as not inconsistent with
but superior to Christianity, and by "modernizing" their teaching
made it appear monotheistic and gave to the merciful Amida in

' 477

Early Meiji: Western Influences

Buddhism the position of the Saviour in Christianity. At the same
time the teachers of this and other sects pointed out that Buddhist
cosmology was consistent with the principles of modern science,
since it did not, like Christianity, assume that the Deity could be
persuaded by prayer to change the decreed course of nature. Such
attempts can scarcely be regarded as important, except in so far as
they show that not only Christianity but also the traditional reli-
gions of Japan suffered from a prevailing scepticism.

That this sceptical mood was strong is clear from the literature
of the eighties and nineties, for the gospel of most intellectuals in
Japan was the gospel of Herbert Spencer, and it is clear that a
widespread belief in the "real'* and the "practical" made the
agnosticism of the mid- Victorian era very palatable to educated
Japanese.

But, lest it should be assumed that the impact of nineteenth-
century ideas had killed all that religious fervour which had been
displayed by the humble converts of the Jesuits in the sixteenth
century, it would be wrong to overlook the appeal of certain forms
of Christianity to the emotions of a great number of converts. The
history of revival meetings in modern Japanese Christian churches
affords some striking parallels to the scenes of tearful bliss re-
corded in the early Christian communities during the sixteenth
century and, as we have noted, in the congregations of the Pure
Land sect of Amidism. Descriptions of revival meetings, frequent
and well attended, are to be found in missionary reports from all
parts of Japan, especially from 1883 and for some years later. Per-
haps a sufficient general impression of their nature can be gained
from one account, describing a succession of joint prayer meet-
ings (of several denominations) at Sendai in 1886:

At the commencement of these meetings a brother came to the reali-
zation of his sins and seeking for peace he found it with joy. The first
meeting was very impressive, and the Spirit was present with power,
many being convicted of their sins. The meetings on the next evenings
were still more wonderful. The audiences were very large, and many
were so deeply impressed that they went into the fields and the moun-
tains to pray. Others remained in the churches until the morning, un-
able to sleep from deep emotion caused by the conviction of sin ...
and many confessed their sins publicly in the meetings, . . . During
an address the whole audience was in tears and one o£ the hearers
rushed out of the church with the cry "God help me! God forgive my
sins!"

Such manifestations of religious excitement caused alarm to
some of the pastors, but they continued and spread from churches
to schools, where children are said to have spent hours together
"in tears and prayer," in classrooms and dormitories. All these

478

Religion

meetings are characterized by confession, loud cries, tears, and a
general frenzy that it is difficult to distinguish from a mass hysteria.
We cannot attempt to explain this phenomenon though it is of
great psychological interest, but it may be noted that several cases
of something like mass hysteria are reported among the urban
populations in the early years of Meiji, when crowds would as-
semble, nobody knew why, and march the streets shouting mo-
notonously some meaningless phrase in unison.

Distantly related to this overflow of religious feeling is the al-
most apocalyptic attitude of some of the early converts among
young samurai. The Kumamoto Band has been mentioned as an
example of burning enthusiasm, and it is interesting to note that
one of the most judicially minded foreign missionaries felt that
their dominating, even headstrong spirit was a deterrent to more
sober but equally earnest converts. However that may be, it seems
clear that many young samurai converts were inflamed by an ab-
normal apostolic conviction. Dr. Anezaki, in his History of Japa-
nese, Religion, says that they were filled with aspirations to work out
the spiritual resurrection of the nation in conjunction with a new
political life. He remarks that their faith was more ethical than
religious, and quotes first-hand evidence that they were inspired
by the Acts of the Apostles rather than by doctrines of sin and
redemption in other parts of the New Testament. Their samurai
spirit, it seems, was invigorated by Christian enthusiasm, and the
single-minded perseverance of the apostles was in harmony with
their inherited Confucian ideals of fortitude. They were sincere
and high-minded, but one cannot help feeling that some of them
may have been at times unbalanced in their ardours. In any case,
it is a striking fact that the political thought of young men of their
type was in those early days infused with fervent religious sen-
timent.

It is of course not suggested that the Christian church in Japan
made converts principally among emotionally disturbed persons.
That would be very far from the truth, for many distinguished
and important figures in Japanese life have been of the Christian
faith. But all missionaries would agree that it was among a scep-
ticaland self-controlled educated class that they found their most
effective adversaries. It was the author of Bemmd who represented
that class at the time when he wrote and he was followed and pre-
ceded by other formidable opponents of Christianity, some of
whose works have already been mentioned (in the sections of the
preceding chapter dealing with literary and intellectual trends) .

In this context we may single out one category of anti-Christian
movement that is closely related to the attitude of the educated
class, since it arose out of a conflict between national educational

479

Early Meiji: Western Influences

policy and the principles of education as understood by the mis-
sionary bodies who supplied both funds and guidance to a large
number of colleges and schools. It will be recollected that the
failure of the negotiations for treaty revision resulted in or
strengthened a wave of anti-foreign feeling that in its more repu-
table aspects was expressed by the formation of such societies as
the Nihon Kodd-Kwai and the publication of organs like the mag-
azine Nihon~Jin, which announced in 1880 that it stood for "the
adoption of systems of religion, education, art, government, and
production conformable to the ideas of the Japanese people and
the environment provided by all the natural features of their
country."

Such movements, led by scholars of distinction, could not be
dismissed as exhibitions of ignorant prejudice. They usually kept
within the bounds of propriety, though there were not wanting
some instances of extremist behaviour which might be ascribed to
their influence. Thus the assassination of Mori Arinori, the Min-
ister of Education, as he left his house to attend the ceremony of
the promulgation of the Constitution on November 11, 1889, was
a violent expression of hatred because he was regarded as entirely
subject to Western and therefore to Christian influence. He was
in fact, though modern-minded in respect of the material benefits
of Western civilization, essentially a conservative man, and his edu-
cational policy was fundamentally nationalistic and militaristic,
for he planned to give rifles to elementary school-children for their
drill and to make the dormitories of normal schools resemble
military barracks. This did not protect him from the assassins,
however, who alleged that he had profaned the great shrine at Ise;
and the cause of his murder was summarized in the liberal maga-
zine the People's Companion by saying that he fell a victim to the
reactionary thought that he himself had aroused.

The conflict over educational policy became exceedingly bitter,
as may be seen from the titles of articles that appeared in the lead-
ing magazines from about 1889, when a teacher in a state middle
school was accused of refusing to pay reverence to the Imperial
Rescript on education at an opening ceremony. He was attacked
by Buddhists, and the leading philosopher of the day, Professor
Inouye Tetsujiro, apparently at their instance, wrote articles on
"The Conflict between the State and Christianity/' to which Chris-
tian Japanese writers responded. The polemical battle continued
for some time, and Christianity found some warm supporters,
among whom was Takahashi Goro, who struck his blow at Inouye
with an article entitled "False Arguments of a Mock Philosopher."
But the outcome was on the whole unfavourable to Christianity,
for the majority of educators were on Inouye's side. The opposi-

480

Religion

tion of the Buddhists, though not of itself redoubtable, had some
effect in combination with other anti-Christian influences, and
even within the Japanese Christian churches there were signs o£
a conservative, ultra-nationalistic reaction. It should be added that,
in the opinion of some missionary writers, there were other signs o£
internal weakness in the Japanese Christian church. They point on
the one hand to the excesses of the revival movement, and on the
other to the disruptive influence of a multiplication of sects and de-
nominations. Perhaps more significant is another feature they men-
tion: namely, the growth of an interest in critical theology which
tended to "endanger the foundations of faith/'

The important Christian college, the Doshisha, soon after 1887
was affected by the new criticism. The development of scientific
studies in secular institutions had encouraged a sceptical if not
hostile attitude towards Christianity. It was based largely upon
the theory of evolution, but relied also upon Hegelian philosophy,
which was seized upon as supporting Buddhist rather than Chris-
tian views. The University of Tokyo became the intellectual
stronghold of disbelief, the more so as it was opposed to the rela-
tively free teaching of the private universities, Waseda and Keio,
founded respectively by Okuma and Fukuzawa; and it is clear
that Ito and other members of the government looked to the Uni-
versity of Tokyo to defend official doctrines against subversive
influences, of which Christianity was felt to be the most dan-
gerous.

But we should not lose sight of internal dissensions as a cause
of weakness in the Christian church in Japan. Disputes that had
arisen among Christians in the West were imported into Japan. A
group of young theologians came near to wrecking the Doshisha
by their heretical views on cardinal points of belief. Nor can there
be any doubt that fragmentation had an adverse effect upon the
spread of Christianity. By 1896 there were some thirty separate
Protestant denominations represented by missions, including such
small bodies as the Universalists, the Hephzibah Faith Association,
the American Evangelical Lutheran Mission, and a few others.
The Japanese also noted that Protestant sects often had national
titles prefixed to their names, such as the American Methodist, the
Anglican, the Canadian Methodist, the Scandinavian Alliance, the
Dutch Reformed, and the German and Swiss Evangelical. Suspi-
cious minds thought that these bodies enjoyed political support in
their several countries, while it was noted that the Catholic Church
claimed to be universal and not national.

It was secular rather than religious opposition that the Chris-
tians had most to fear. Feeling throughout the country was moving
in a direction generally unfavourable to Christianity and inciden-

481

Early Meiji: Western Influences

tally discouraging to the foreign missionaries, who were as a rule
orthodox and conservative and naturally out of sympathy with
nationalistic reactions against Western culture. The new educa-
tion policy of 1886 worked against them, since it was based upon
Confucian principles of morality and was designed to exclude re-
ligious influence from schools. This antireligious trend was hard-
ened by the Rescript on Education of 1890, which made it in-
cumbent on teachers to oppose Christianity by supporting the
ethical principles laid down by the state. Its results were soon ap-
parent, for the records of the Protestant missions show a fall in
the number of baptisms in the five years after 1890, and only a
very small increase in the total church membership.

Strong opposition to Christianity came from that body of
thought which is loosely described as Shin toism, and this at first
sight may appear to be a form of religious conflict. But Shintoism
as an aspect of the anti-Christian, conservative movement is not
exclusively or even primarily a religion, but rather a complex of
social and political ideas grouped around the concept of the su-
preme power of the Emperor and his position as the focus of all
the loyalties of the Japanese people. It is (or was) a religion only
in the sense that among its most devoted and sincere adherents are
some who display a patriotic fervour that at times seems to partake
of the character of a religious mysticism. It has very little to do
with the old theocratic myth, or if it has, this is refashioned to meet
modern political requirements. In the early part of Meiji it was
not, what it later became, a systematic official propaganda designed
to strengthen and sustain nationalistic sentiment. It was, despite
its artificial elements, an attempt to express in one coherent doc-
trine traditional Japanese feelings about the state, the community,
and the family; and these could scarcely have been drawn to-
gether and turned to political purposes if they had not been deep-
seated and sincere.

Thus while Christians in Japan might fear the propagation
of an artificial Shinto because it taught a limited ethical system,
they were forced to recognize that the basis of the distinctive
Japanese morality was within its limits firm and genuine. A re-
view by the leading missionary from whom I have already quoted
of what he describes as "the ethical situation" after the promulga-
tion of the Constitution and the Rescript on Education, includes
some interesting observations on this point. They provide a useful
contemporary estimate of forces which were deemed unfavourable
to Christian mission work;

During the early part of the period under review [he writes], under
the influence of an over-wrought patriotism there was much both said
and written about Japanese morality, it being assumed that morality

482

Keligion

is a national matter. A sufficient foundation for this morality was
found, so its advocates claimed, in the virtues of filial piety and loyalty.
Even more strenuous efforts were made than before to show that Chris-
tians by the very fact of their faith were both unfilial and disloyal.
Teachers in Government schools were forced to resign their positions
because of their unwillingness to bow before the portrait of the Em-
peror. In itself considered there is no more objection to bowing before
the Emperor's portrait than in kneeling before the portrait of George
II, as Thackeray tells us his Hanoverian subjects were accustomed to
do. There was, however, practically this difference, that the common
people considered the salutation demanded as divine worship, and few
if any were found willing to say publicly that it was not.

There are here revealed the elements of a disagreement not un-
like that which produced the Rites Controversy in China, and the
Japanese authorities came forward with a solution not unlike that
of K'ang Hsi by pronouncing that such acts of reverence were
not acts of religious worship. But the fundamental difference of
opinion was not removed, because it was not confined to procedure
but extended to principles. The attitude of strict Japanese Chris-
tians was described by a pastor (the Reverend J. T. Yokoi, a son
of that Yokoi Shonan who was one of the leaders of the Restoration
movement) in the following terms, in an article dealing with the
statement of Japanese moral principles set forth in the Rescript on
Education:

The illustrations and examples of moral principles must be drawn
from Japanese sources. Japanese history has been ransacked for anec-
dotes illustrative of the virtues of loyalty and filial piety. Numbers
of textbooks appeared, filled with stories of men and women who at
times of great emergencies sacrificed their lives in devotion to the serv-
ice of their sovereigns or parents. So much insistence was laid on the
unusual and heroic sides of these virtues that it must have appeared
to young minds that only on such unusual and critical occasions could
these virtues be practised, while the quiet peaceful performance of
daily duties small and unheroic seemed to fall into comparative neg-
lect.

Referring to the current movement to revive Shintoism, or to
produce a New Shintoism that was to "codify the old Japanese
spirituality/' the same writer said:

It seems to me to be the sacred task of the leaders of thought today
to supply some adequate philosophy which shall not only furnish a
basis for the old distinctive "spirituality" but be comprehensive
enough to include and present in due proportions the new ideas which
are needed to make up the defects in the old system. In this philosophy,
I am convinced, individualism will have to occupy the central position.

483

Early Meiji: Western Influences

Much has been spoken and written since that time on the con-
flict between Western individualist thought and the Japanese view,
partly customary and partly created by indoctrination, that the
Imperial house is supreme and sacred and that the life of the in-
dividual must serve the purposes of the state. But these early ex-
amples are of special value as descriptions of the situation of the
Christian church in Japan, while throwing light upon the develop-
ment of Japanese thought in reaction against Western influence.

This was the main religious problem of the early Meiji period.
No important developments took place in the position or nature
of Buddhism beyond the clash with Shinto in the course of the
abortive Back to Antiquity movement already recorded. The great
Buddhist sects, in particular the two Hongwanji branches of
Amidism, made some recovery, but it cannot be said that they
prospered. Some Buddhists joined in movements against Chris-
tianity, but among Buddhist leaders in general there seems to have
been an uneasy feeling that Buddhism itself was ill-adapted to
modern life and stood in need of reform. Certain Buddhist sects
even took hints from Christian example and began to encourage
the singing of hymns by congregations, to found hospitals and or-
phanages, to form Sunday schools, Young Men's Associations and
generally to imitate modern Christian institutional practices. Be-
tween 1872 and 1875 a commission of priests of the Shin sect
travelled abroad to study Western religious organizations, and
from that time onwards increasing attention was paid to the study
of Buddhist texts. But this proceeded from a scholarly rather than
a pious enthusiasm, and even a temporary vogue later enjoyed by
the works of Nichiren was a literary fashion and not a true revival
of the Lotus sect. Neither these measures nor the attempts to re-
interpret Buddhist doctrine in the light of modern thought suc-
ceeded in restoring the fortunes of Buddhism in Japan, and though
there was some growth of private interest in Buddhist doctrine
from about 1880, the strong secular trend in the national life that
became manifest soon thereafter was almost as hostile to Buddhism
as to Christianity. From 1890 there was even a tendency for the
two religions to combine in resistance to it.

It is a curious fact that, although the National Scholars like
Mabuchi, Motoori, and Hirata, as proponents of Pure Shinto,
continued to attack Buddhism throughout the greater part of the
Tokugawa period, there is little sign of any effort by Japanese
Buddhist leaders to defend their faith. Thus Buddhism in Japan
was already weak before the Meiji Restoration, and it never re-
covered its prestige. The Buddhist clergy appear to have been
apathetic, and with few exceptions were content to enjoy their
emoluments and to carry out their duties in a perfunctory man-

Religion

ner. As obliged by law, they kept registers of all parishioners, and
they performed some religious services, of which funeral rites were
the most important. But there is no evidence that they exercised
any marked social or political influence. Even after the Restora-
tion, when they had regained some of their losses, their activities
betray a lack of confidence. Buddhist literature of the early Meiji
period consists largely of apologetics, in which a common line of
argument is that certain doctrines have the support of the conclu-
sions of Western philosophy and Western science. Buddhism as ex-
pounded in European languages by Japanese writers at this time
is scarcely recognizable, so much do they strive to describe it in
Western terms. Although subsequently Buddhism profited by a
reaction against Western thought and regained some of its former
influence, it is difficult (to believe that it became a real power in
the national life.

It would be rash, however, to reach a firm view on this last
point without close examination of the work of Buddhist scholars
and the effects of education in the Buddhist colleges that were
founded about 1890 and whose graduates often became teachers
and directors in state schools. This is more than can be undertaken
here, but it is as well to mention the activities of Inouye Enryo,
a learned scholar, monk of the Otani branch of the Hongwanji,
and the leader of literary attacks upon Christianity, since he was
one of the early promoters of Buddhist education of a modern
type. His hostility towards Christianity grew out of a desire (not
free from political colour) to reinvigorate Buddhism, and it is
thus an interesting expression of a contemporary intellectual trend.
His Shinri Kinshin (Essence of Truth] and Bukkyo Kwatsuron
(On the Vitality of Buddhism) appeared in parts between 1885
and 1890 and are said to have exerted much influence upon the
rising generation of students.

These works are an attempt to counter the influence of ra-
tionalistic thought in Japan by arguing that an educated Japanese
could, consistently with a belief in the findings of modern science
and the latest philosophical systems of tfce West, hold to Buddhist
doctrine and thus remain in conformity with a national intel-
lectual tradition. The reasoning is not always scrupulous, but it
is true that both Hinduism and Buddhism contain within their
spacious metaphysic ideas corresponding to nineteenth-century
theories as to the nature of the universe and the evolution of man.
To Inouye the Hegelian dialectic was analogous to the analytic
logic of the Tendai sect, and the doctrine of Karma (which had
attracted Huxley's attention) was an anticipation of the develop-
ment hypothesis then finding favour in Occidental countries. With
regard to Christianity his line of argument is that any form of

485

Early Meiji: Western Influences

theism must be unacceptable to Western philosophy and science.
Therefore Christianity is false, but Buddhism is true. The interest
of his writings lies perhaps less in his reasoning than in the pur-
pose for which he wrote. He reflected the political sentiment of
the day and expressed the greatest concern for Japan's cultural
independence. He said: "If we are to abolish our Oriental culture
and lose our independence, there is nothing more to be said. But
if we want to preserve our culture and promote our independence,
then we must strive for the invigoration of Buddhism." He took
part in the conservative movement led by Miyake, and joined the
staff of the magazine Nihon Jin, which was its organ.

As a pendant to the foregoing summary of religious trends
some mention should be made of certain popular sects that are
usually described as outgrowths of Shinto but seem rather to have
been manifestations of religious feeling which could only find full
expression when the Tokugawa regime was weakening and no
longer kept strict watch on religious movements for fear of po-
litical conspiracies. The best-known of these sects are those which
go by the names of Tenri-kyo and Konko-kyo. Both were founded
by peasants before the Restoration and both teach simple theistic
creeds that the founders claimed to be based upon revelation.
Except in so far as they show some slight Christian influence in
their later development, they are outside the scope of this study,
and all that need be said of them here is that they must have
arisen to satisfy some need that Buddhism and orthodox Shinto
did not fill. They bear a resemblance to Christian Science in that
they teach that faith is essential to the cure of bodily as well as
spiritual illness.

For purposes of comparison it is convenient to add here some
account of the attitude of the Chinese authorities towards Chris-
tianity after the Treaty of Nanking had placed the relationships
of China and Western states upon a new footing. It will be no-
ticed that religious toleration was granted by the Clilnese^'^veriv'
ment sooner and more freely than by the Japanese, though perhaps
more out of weakness than benign intention.

The first diplomatic agreement to include specific undertak-
ings as to the treatment of Christians in China was negotiated by
the French in 1844. Their trade interests were not great and they
attached less importance to their commercial treaty than to ar-
rangements for restoring the influence of the Catholic Church.
The French negotiator succeeded in obtaining the issue of a decree
that in effect placed Chinese- converts under the protection o£
French diplomatic representatives in China; and in 1846 the Em-

486

Religion

peror was persuaded to order that church property confiscated in
previous reigns should be restored to the appropriate Christian
bodies. When new treaties were made by other powers a clause was
incorporated guaranteeing that the Chinese government would
not discriminate against Chinese Christians. This applied to Prot-
estants, of course, as well as Catholics, since Protestant missions
dated from the arrival of Robert Morrison in China in 1807, and
had thereafter increased in numbers and influence. The French,
unlike the English, Americans, and Russians, were not satisfied
with a simple promise of toleration. They aimed at securing posi-
tive rights of intervention in favour of Chinese Christians and
they insisted upon stipulations in their 1858 treaty which virtually
removed converts from Chinese jurisdiction in some respects; and
they obliged the Chinese government to rescind all previous official
orders and pronouncements inimical to Christianity.

The Chinese authorities were naturally not active in enforcing
provisions that, besides encroaching upon sovereign rights, caused
great trouble and annoyance to the official class and engendered
ill feeling against converts among non-Christian Chinese who re-
sented their claims to special privilege. The converts insisted that
they should not be called upon to contribute to the cost of official
ceremonies of a religious nature and they were often supported by
their priests in resisting the exactions of local authorities. The
natural antagonism of the literati to a faith that openly expressed
<^tgt^tjoj^^ by a superstitious dread

of Christianity on the part of ignorant peasant?. Before long, anti-
Christian movements appeared in many places, The native Chris-
tians were the special object of attack, though occasionally a for-
eign missionary was killed or injured. The converts were accused
of neglecting ancestor- worship or of destroying ancestral tablets —
charges that were often true; but more fantastic accusations were
also made, as when it was alleged that they used magic arts on
young children and took out their eyes for the ingredients of
medicines. It was even said that the foundling hospitals of the mis-
sionaries were only a disguise for kidnapping. These and similar
rumours gained such credence that in 1870 there were riots in
Tientsin, which ended in the destruction of mission property and
the massacre of a number of French mission workers and other
foreigners.

This incident caused great trouble between France and China.
It was not settled until an indemnity had been paid and an official
apology made by a Chinese envoy sent to France for that purpose.
At this time France was in the throes of her war with Germany,
and her diplomatic position was weak; but she could count upon

487

Early Meiji: Western Influences

the support of the other Western powers, not excluding her Ger-
man enemy, in a matter that touched the safety of foreign nationals
in China.

It will be noticed that, at a time when the Chinese government
was too weak to resist pressure exerted on behalf of Christian mis-
sions, the Japanese government was still adhering to its traditional
anti-Christian attitude. Despite its own comparative wialSess, it
submitted to foreign pressure onl¥JLp_die_extgn per-

mitting missionm^ ^ work in Japan without any special privilege
as to residence or travel. This firmness is in part to be explained
by the earlier history of Japan's treaty negotiations, for it is clear
that the United States government was anxious lest Perry's mission
should be wrecked by disputes about religious freedom. Perry's
instructions from President Fillmore referred to the known hatred
of the Japanese for Christianity, and he was told to say that the
United States was not like other Christian countries, since it did
not interfere in religion at home, much less abroad. The Presi-
dent's letter to the Shogun refers to the Constitution and laws of
the United States as forbidding intervention in the political or re-
ligious affairs of other countries — a somewhat disingenuous ar-
gument in the circumstances of Perry's visit — and goes on to say
that Perry has been ordered to avoid any action likely to disturb
the peace in Japan. There is no reference to religion in any of the
treaties concluded in 1854.

It is a perhaps more striking fact that the treaties of 1858 con-
tain no toleration clauses like those in the Chinese treaties of the
^^ in Japan to practise their own

religion and they state that neither Japanese nor foreigners shall
do anything to excite religious animosity. But there i,s no under-
taking to protect native Christie there was no change in the

law against Christianity. In the Dutch agreement of 1857 it is laid
down that the Japanese government has abolished the practice of
trampling upon a sacred image (the fumi~e) , but that this does
not mean that Christianity may be propagated in Japan or that
Christian literature or pictures may be imported.

Doming to a later period, it must be remembered that by 1868
the new Meiji government was for reasons of domestic policy
committed to the doctrine that the Emperor was of divine origin,
It could therefore not afford to be so tolerant as to incur charges
of weakness from the extreme loyalists, who were fiery upholders
of the Shinto view of the Japanese state.

488

Religion

Notes on CHAPTER 15

LAW, For this section of chapter xv I have consulted a number of works
in Japanese on the history o£ Japanese legislation, which will be famil-
iar to students who can read the language. I have also drawn upon my
recollection of conversations and correspondence with the late Dr.
Hozumi, who was one of the committee of three that drafted the Civil
Code and wrote in English and Japanese a number of works on legal
questions.

RELIGION. For the history of the Protestant missions in Japan in the
first part of Meiji there are two useful works in English: A History of
Christianity in Japan, by Otis Cary; A History of Protestant Missions
in Japan, by H. Ritter (translated from German original) .

The Missionary Research Library at Union Theological Seminary,
Columbia University, New York, has an extensive collection of works
dealing with missions in Asia, including reports and correspondence
from Japan. Anezaki's History of Japanese Religion contains interest-
ing details and opinions.

In Japanese there are several works by Y. Hiyane, including Nikon
Kirisuto-kyd Shi, a history of Christianity in Japan in five small
volumes.

The life and writings of Uchimura Kanzo are important for the
study of Christianity in Japan. In 1890 he refused to pay homage to
the Imperial Rescript in a Tokyo high school. For this action he
lost his post and lived thereafter in poverty, writing on Bible study
and engaging in religious controversy.

489

c H ^f T r
16

THE NINETIES

i . The Failure of Parliamentary Rule

.o continue the story of political developments after the Con-
stitution of 1889 came into operation brings us to the first meeting
of the Diet in the following year. This took place in November
nearly two years after the Constitution was promulgated,

and as may be imagined the interval was long enough to permit of
a great deal of manoeuvre and diatribe on both sides. There were
definitely two sides. But these were not two great political parties;
they were respectively the government and the parliament itself.
From the beginning the two assumed a mutually hostile attitude, a
state of affairs due in the first place to the authoritarian principles
of the government leaders, but exacerbated by the unruly and
sometimes unprincipled conduct of the opposition parties daring
the two years in question. Agitation against the official policy on
treaty revision had taken an anti-foreign turn. In 1889 on the day
when the Constitution was promulgated the Minister of Education
had been assassinated for his alleged unpatriotic views; and in 1890
the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Okuma) was badly injured by a
bomb. Both incidents were characteristic of the violence attending
political controversy in Japan, for assassination had been a habit
since the murder of Yokoi Shonan in 1869 and was to claim many
victims in years to come.

The elections of 1890 therefore took place in a heated atmos-
phere. but with far less disturbance than might have been ex-
pected. The result of the voting, which was remarkable for both
the number of candidates and the number of voters, was to con-
front the government with the prospect of a lower house compris-
ing 60 members of Goto's 1 Daido or "general agreement" group,
50 members each of the Liberal Party (Jiyuto) and the Progressive

i Goto himself had joined the government in 1888, together with Okuma. Both
served under Kuroda, the minister whom Okuma had attacked for corruption in
1881. Thus the party of General Agreement, kept together by Goto's personality, lost
its leader and its unanimity at the same time.

400

The Failure of Parliamentary Rule

Party (Kaishinto) , and the remainder of the 300 made up o£
140 members who were independents and had nothing else in
common.

exception of a f ew inde-

s, was hostile to the government, and for once the various
opposition parties were united in a commoyi cause. The govern-
ment itself was weak, because the leading statesmen were careful
to leave office or to refuse it before the first Diet session, knowing
that it would be stormy and preferring to wait for better political
weather. Before the session there was a good deal of shifting be-
tween parties — not to be surprised at in the absence of fixed
principles — but there was agreement on tactics, and from the
opening of debate the government was under attack from all
sides.

The main t^ge^wasj^ was also violent

for its oppressive police measures,
•^^^^^j^^J^^2^rL Of taxation. Al-

though there was a powerful majority against the government,
which could find but little help from the independents, the new
Constitution did not confer the power of the purse that charac-
terizes the kind of parliamentary democracy for which the Liberals
had been struggling. Certain categories of expenditure could not
be challenged and even if the Lower House refused to adopt the
budget as a whole, the government need not resign but could pro-
ceed on an interim working budget within the limits of the expen-
ditures of the previous fiscal year. Consequently there was no
constitutional means of forcing the resignation of a cabinet, and
the opposition was therefore reduced to causing all possible em-
barrassment to the administration by unremitting obstruction and
abuse.

T[he first session of the Diet ended with its dissolution in De-
cember 1891, and the administration remained in power, the
situation Temg that the party men were determine^ to continue
their Qbs^ugtivg^jagtto and the government was determined to
make no ronnegsjons_on major political issues. This unfortunate
precedent fixed the pattern of political life for a generation or
more.

The dissolution of 1891 was followed by an election in Feb-
ruary" 1892 ^during which the government (under a new Prime
Minister) resorted to both open and concealed pressure of an
illegitimate kind on behalf of official candidates, but obtained less
than IPO seats. _ When the session opened, the Lower House at-
tacked the government on the budget and other issues. The Lib-
eral opposition moved an address to the throne in which it was
urged that the Cabinet, having a parliamentary majority against

491

The Nineties

it, should resign and thus give effect to the principle of representa-
tive government. But the Cabinet had no intention of admitting
responsibility to parliament, nor in fact was it legally obliged to do
so, for the Constitution was specific on the point that ministers
were responsible to the Emperor and not to the Diet.

During this short and very stormy session the government re-
sorted to a device that, as we have seen, had in one form or another
been used by oligarchies in Japan for centuries past. It invoked
the Imperial name and thus made opposition to government policy
appear disloyal if not even treasonable. The opposition was help-
less, for if the constitutional point were pressed, the Cabinet
could — and on subsequent occasions did — secure from the
throne a rebuke addressed to parliament. Such a step did not prove
necessary in the 1892 session, since the motion for an address to
the throne failed for the very reason that a majority of members
opposed it, not because they lacked faith in their own cause, but
because it was a delicate and even dangerous matter to involve the
Imperial name in party conflicts. Thus the position of the Cab-
inet was theoretically unassailable. But in practice it was unten-
able because the obstructive methods of the opposition hampered
administration and the government was unpopular throughout
the country. Even the most obstinate of cabinets could not con-
tinue to govern in such a hostile atmosphere. Accordingly the Diet
was prorogued and the Cabinet resigned in August 1892. Respon-
sibility fell upon Ito, who must now find out whether the system
he had devised could be made to work. He was sensible and ex-
perienced enough to endeavour to create a more favourable public
sentiment, but it was quite impossible for him to placate the Diet,
which was not to be satisfied by a change of ministers. What the
opposition wanted was a change of system.

During the session that opened in November 1892 and con-
tinued through February 1893 the battle between oligarchy and
responsible government was resumed. This was to decide whether
the struggle for "Minken" or People's Rights, which had filled the
public mind for the first twenty years of Meiji, was to reach a suc-
cessful issue.

The Lower House voted a reduction of the budget estimates,
the Cabinet rejected their amendments. The House then moved,
and this time adopted, an address to the throne, |n which it
brought accusations of misgovernment against the Cabinet. The
Cabinet retorted promptly by securing from the throne an Im-
perial message which instructed both sides to the dispute to co-
operate harmoniously, but was in effect a rebuke to the Diet. The
opposition knew well enough that they had been tricked by the
Cabinet, but again they were obliged to submit, out of respect for

492

The Failure of Parliamentary Rule

the throne. A compromise was reached on the estimates, and the
session closed in comparative calm.

One incident, not without its comic aspect, seems like a sur-
vival from the days of the shoguns. Since the Diet would not ap-
prove the full amount of a budget estimate for naval construction,
the Emperor's message contained a passage directing all military
and civil officials (and therefore all members of the Diet) to con-
tribute one tenth of their salaries during the six years of the
building program. This was almost exactly the method of financ-
ing national defence that had been used by the Bakufu when it
cut down the rice allowances of its samurai. Indeed, these appeals
for harmonious co-operation and loyal conduct and patriotic sac-
rifice sound like an echo of admonitions from a remote past. But
though their sentiment of reverence for the throne was no doubt
genuine, the opposition members of the Diet resented Ito's in-
genious coup and willingly joined in a manoeuvre that was to take
revenge upon him. Okuma hated the Satsuma and Chdshu bureau-
crats who were monopolizing power. Ito had somehow managed
to win over the Liberal Party (Jiyu-to) under Itagaki (the one-
time stalwart defender of the people's rights) , and Okuma there-
fore made a tactical agreement with the leader of a reactionary-
party and brought accusations of misfeasance against a Jiyu-to
member who had before Itagaki's shift been appointed President
of the Lower House. This man (Hoshi Toru) was expelled from
the Diet. The opposition, led by Okuma and supported by some
genuine liberals, then drove hard at the Cabinet, not on questions
of policy or principle, but by bringing accusations o£ corrupt fi-
nancial dealings against individual members of the government.
We need not enter into the sordid details of this campaign. It is
enough to observe that the procedure of an address to the throne
was again used, and that again the government secured an Imperial
reply which closed the question by specifically asserting that no
interference by the Diet could be tolerated in the appointment or
dismissal of ministers, this being the sovereign's prerogative. The
Diet was dissolved at the end of December 1893, while the opposi-
tion was discussing a further address to the throne on the subject
of treaty revision,

A general election took place in March 1894, and when the
new Diet assembled in May it began an impeachment of ihc-gfrv-
emment but was dissolved out o± hand by an Imperial order^ after
sitting for less than three weeks. This brings to an end the history
of the first struggle for parliamentary reform, since before a ne.w
Diet could be elected Japan (on August i, 1894) went to war
against China, and the opposition could no longer complain"that
fop government's foreign policy was weak. JNor could, tney object

493

The Nineties

to the handling of treaty revision, for by 1894 (July 16) a new
treaty had been concluded with Great Britain, which provided for
the surrender of extraterritorial rights in Japan.

It will be seen from an examination of this very summary ac-
count of early parliamentary history that (as has been already sug-
gested) whereas in all the public discussion — the speeches, books,
and pamphlets — of preceding years there seemed to be an over-
whelming opinion in favour of democratic institutions of an Oc-
cidental type, what eventually emerged was something that had a
Japanese flavour and bore little resemblance

puted models. It is possible to argue that the influence of Prussian
example is very patent, and this is no doubt true of forms. But
the manner in which both government and parliament behaved
during the short period that has just been sketched shows the clear-
est imprint of Japanese tradition. The oligarchy in its struggle to
keep parliament down may resemble an Occidental counterpart,
but its pedigree is Japanese. The manoeuvres of Ito and his col-
leagues are dictated by considerations of clan solidarity as much as
by reasons of state, and the splits and fusions in the opposition are
unseemly and erratic because they have less to do with principles
than with clan connections or personal antagonisms in which old
clan rivalries are reflected. There can be little doubt that the dom-
inating feature of Japanese political life at this time was the
tension between Satsuma and Choshu on the one hand and the
outside clans on the other. This division, carried over from pre-
Restoration times, determined the autocratic nature of Japanese
government, the rule by a self -renewing oligarchy, for at least two
generations; and (it may be added) the failure of the opposition,
so powerful in numbers, to combine on matters of principle can be
ascribed to similar causes. The Constitution itself, while as a docu-
ment it naturally resembles other documents supporting a mon-
archy in theory unlimited, perpetuated pre-Meiji concepts as to
the divinity of the sovereign and as to the general nature of the
state.

It would seem therefore mistaken to stress the similarity be-
tween German and Japanese political institutions, while over-
looking the fact that similar conditions are likely to produce sim-
ilar results. In other words, it was Japanese tradition rather than
Occidental influence that determined the course of political events,
On the whole, if one may judge by the views of the opposition
parties and the support they gained in the early elections, it was
the idea of responsible party government that had gained most
popular support in Japan. So that, if it comes to a judgment as to
the origin of the political thought that most influenced Japanese
public opinion, one is bound to conclude that English, French, and

The War against China

American ideas had the greatest effect. Nevertheless what guided
the government was not public opinion but the convictions of its
leaders, which were those of all autocratic statesmen East and
West.

2. The War against China

((J)F Japanese legislators it may be said inter arma silent, and ac-
cordingly the wordy duel between Cabinet and parliament was
suspended upon the outbreak of war^n_ijg^. The opposition
spoke only to vote military expenditure andtodeclare its patriotic
ardours. No voices were raised against war, and the only note of
dissent, if it may be so called, was a suspicion that the government
would make peace too soon.

This warlike attitude of liberals as well as militarists deserves
some study, since its origin can be traced far back, and it thus fur-
nishes an interesting example of the effect of old tradition in a
modern state. It will be remembered that in 1873 Okubo hurried
back from his travels abroad when it appeared that, during his ab-
sence, the ministers whom he had left in charge had brought Japan
to the brink of war with China, A warlike group in the ministry,
led by Saigo, Itagaki, Goto, and others, had desired to "rebuke"
Korea for insulting behaviour. It is true that Saigo's motives were
not the same as those of his colleagues. His desire — so it is said
by his admirers — was to cleanse the country in the fires of war,
because he thought that a true revolution had not been accom-
plished and a purge of national sentiment was necessary. Theirs
was a more commonplace intention, for they wanted to embarrass
their Satsuma and Choshu colleagues in the government and
thought that they could mobilize public opinion on their side
by an appeal to national pride.

However that may be, there was no opposition in principle to
fin aggressive foreign. policy, but only hesitation upon practical
^UMJTlt is clear from OkubOLS. correspondence that hejhadjag
objection in principle to taking a threatening line with China, but
he did not think that the time was ripe. He suspected the motives
of the warlike party, and he was firmly of opinion that Japan must
settle her domestic problems before taking risks. This was a view
that had been fully confirmed by his observations while in Europe,
where he had been much impressed by Bismarck's discourses on
the importance of developing internal strength. He set forth his
views in a list of "Reasons why it is too soon to start hostilities
against Korea/' Here he says that the foundations of the new gov-
ernment are not yet firmly established; its foreign and domestic
debt is a matter of concern; it will take years to complete its m-

495

The Nineties

dustrial program; the balance of foreign trade is adverse; if Japan
were to become involved in Korea, Russia would fish in dirty
waters, and England would take advantage of the situation to
intervene in Japan's internal affairs, and finally the prospects of
treaty revision would recede. He threatened to resign and at last
got his own way, though at the cost of a breach with Saigo and
nyich discontent among the samurai. It was partly to soothe injured
feelings that in 1874 Okubo agreed to the Formosan expedition,
to which the government had been committed by precipitate ac-
tion on the part of the bellicose party; but he did his best to fore-
stall trouble by going to Peking himself and arranging a solution
by which China paid a small indemnity and the Japanese force
was withdrawn from Formosa.

It is clear from these incidents that relations betweej^Japan
and China were on a dangerous footing! There was a war party
in Japan, and all its members were not in the wilderness. There
was another dangerous incident in 1882, when anti-foreign feeling
in Korea ran high and was directed chiefly against the Japanese,
and another in 1884 when the Chinese garrison in Chemulpo
clashed with some troops that Japan maintained there for the pro-
tection of her nationals.

The Japanese government came to an agreement with the Chi-

of Korea was recognized in 1885,

and the risk of conflict was thuslfor a time diminished. But the
situation offered temptation to the warlike elements in Japanese
political life, and revived ambitions that had been nourished long
before the Restoration. Satsuma men began to quote leaders of
opinion like Yoshida Shoin, who had laid down for Japan a policy
of almost unlimited expansion on the Asiatic mainland. Similar
views of Japan's destiny had been expressed by other apostles a
century or more before his day and found a response in patriotic
bosoms. A strong military spirit, which had been latent, but not
far beneath the surface, since 1868, now began to make itself felt
throughout the country. It is more than probable that it was stim-
ulated by the slow progress of treaty revision and by the disappoint-
ment of the public at the obvious failure of the new parliament to
solve current problems. Life was becoming difficult under the
impact of industrialization, high taxes, and currency troubles, an3
the nationalistic feeling that the government had fostered as a
means ot unity was easily stirred up in favour of foreign ad-
venture.

The martial sentiment was by no means confined to profes-
sional military circles. The leaders of the army and the navy nat-
urally carried on a warlike tradition, and, it must be added, they
had great power in the state, since they inherited the prestige of the

496

Economic Change

former military caste from which they sprang. It is not easy to
stamp out a warlike tradition, especially in times when (as in the
decade we are considering) other nations are in a predatory mood.
civilian statesmen were of the same lineage as the imlitary
^ just entering Oc-

s jncomprehensibfe to men who had

way to power by fighting. It is therefore not surprising that a
country like Japan should have seen in war the quickest way of
satisfying her far-reaching ambitions. Everything in her past his-
tory pointed that way, and the international scene was not so calm
as to encourage a belief in peaceful progress.

ended in a decisive victory for Japan,

..-..

which brought her a handsome indemnity, the rich island o£ For-
mosa, the Pescadores, and a foothold in south Manchuria, JiJer
career of expansion had begun. The signature of the Tyeaty of
Tientsin <m Apri[ end of the phase of her cul-,

turiTlTtistory thatl have attempted to analyse.

3. Economic Change

FULL study of the effects of industrialization upon Japanese
life would require a voluminous and skilful treatment far beyond
my competence, and we must therefore confine ourselves to trac-
ing some of its more obvious features. In a general way it is true to
say that the introduction of modern methods of manufacture,
trade, and finance brought about changes in Japanese .life that can
be vaguely ascribed to Western influence. The conversion of an
agrarian economy into an industrial economy is naturally accom-
panied by social changes, which, if carried far enough, may end by
giving to a national culture a new character, in which old traditions
of behaviour can no longer be observed. But the process is complex
and gradual, and its operation is not always easy to detect.

Thus, while it may be said that the introduction of power-
driven machinery brought to bear upon Japanese life a strong in-
fluence of Western origin, this is true only with qualifications. If
we take separate instances we can see that modern inventions may
well be used to counter foreign influence in other directions. Print-
ing and binding machinery, for example, increases the number and
circulation of books and newspapers, of which the contents may
well be such as to spread ideas critical of foreign countries. This
is perhaps a somewhat tendentious argument from a special case;
but there is no lack of analogies. It might even be regarded as char-
acteristic of Western influence upon Eastern peoples that it carries
the germ of its own destruction. Of this the most striking and tre-

497

The Nineties

mendous example is probably to be found in the modern history
of India, where English political teaching created the spirit of
revolt against English political authority, and the record of Eng-
lish constitutional growth provided precedents for rebellion. It
would not have occurred to any Hindu in the days of Akbar, Au-
rangzeb, or Shah Jehan to quote the Koran against them; but the
Indian Congress, founded by an Englishman,2 was always ready
to confound the Viceroy with citations from the whole corpus of
English literature on freedom.

It is true that Western clothing, food, transport, and com-
munications, as well as Western ideas, have enlarged and "5Ivef-
sified Japanese life, but they have n^Fneces^sanlyTKahged its es-
sential character. The cumulative effect of industrialization upon
a people whose material culture is simple must destroy much of
what is indigenous; but the impact of an advanced Western culture
upon an advanced Eastern culture may, despite far-reaching super-
ficial changes, succeed in producing resistance, or even hostile re-
actions in matters of vital import — in the totality of a people's
feelings about life and society. This may not hold true over long
periods, since it is possible that industrial life will one day bring
about a world-wide uniformity of drabness. But nobody will dare
at this date to predict what life will be like in Asiatic countries in
the twenty-first century, or in European countries for that matter.

Here, however, we are dealing only with a very limited length
of time, and our object is not to prophesy but to describe the im-
pact of the West upon Japan in the first twenty-five years or so of
the Meiji era. It used to be supposed that within that short space
Japan abolished most of her ancient civilization and adopted as
if by a miracle all the material and intellectual apparatus of a
modern Western state. Few people believe this now, but it is
worth while to give a broad outline of the early steps in the de-
velopment of an economy similar to that of the leading industrial
states of the Occident.

In the first place it should be understood that before Commo-
doreJPerry^s arrival in 1853, Japan had already gone through the
preliminary stages of transition from an agrarian to a mercantile
econom%2^^ tairly well de-

veloped in certain lines. There were no power-driven machines
beyond a few hydraulic flour-mills of ingenious construction,8 but
there were complicated hand-looms for weaving silk and cotton

2 This was Allan O. Hume, a good and upright official who — most ironically —
came under the spell of the pseudo-Oriental mysticism of Madame Blavatsky. What
a complicated case of cultural influence!

s In 1946 I saw one of these, occupying a considerable floor space. It was con-
structed entirely of wood, without any iron nails, and it had been in use for 150
years. Near by was an airfield, littered with hundreds of wrecked aircraft.

498

Economic Change

in elaborate patterns, and a few processes in mining and metallurgy
were tolerably well understood. Many handicrafts, using small
mechanical devices, had long reached a high state of perfection.
Shipbuilding and the manufacture of iron and steel had made fair
progress under foreign guidance before the Restoration. Japan
was therefore already prepared to develop machine industries an3
tolean^tKe necessary ^ technjcaFlessons from more advanced court:
trleslrilTie^ "West^ without being subjected to an unbearable strain,
or relying exclusively upon foreign instructors — who, however,
played a very important part in early stages.

As to commercial organization, it had already during the Toku-
gawa period developed independently many of the characteristics
ot trade in Western OQuntries. Thus the rice-merchants dealt in
"futures" and there were numerous transactions in the shares of
guilds and other trading associations which were similar to, though
not identical with, dealings in the stocks and shares of modern com-
mercial companies. Monetary transactions were intricate and the
credit system had special features that were imposed upon it by
the peculiar structure of feudal society. But in general it can be
truthfully said that already in the eighteenth century economic
life in Japan was highly developed within its own categories, urban
society was in an a.dvancedjh^ was organized on a

^ESe_s5?Le'J^l^.? xngrcgjotile^d financial organs of considerable
qomplexity had "been evolved, There were present at least in em-
bryo some of the jgginc^aljel^_ents of a capitalist system of the
i^^enT^ccl^ntal type. .Go^^uently when Japan was opened to
foreign intercourse "in die middle of the nineteenth century she
experienced no great difficulty in bringing most of her economic
iiRstim^ into line with contemporary Western

standards,

Details of the economic history of the Meiji era are to be found
in many books, and for a penetrating analysis of early industrializa-
tion, with its political and social concomitants, the reader is re-
ferred to the excellent work of Herbert Norman, Japan's Emer-
gence as a Modern State, which is full of good historical data and
valuable commentary. Here we can deal with these questions only
in an impressionistic manner by reciting a few leading events and
adding some glosses on their cultural significance.

Although Japan was in 1868 not entirely unprepared for a
rapid development of industry and trade on Occidental lines, her
economy as a whole could not of course be regarded as modern.
It has been well described by a good authority, Dr. John E. Or-
chard, in his Japan's Economic Position (1930), as comparable
not to that of eighteenth-century England on the eve of its indus-
trial revolution but rather of England in Tudor times, when the

499

The Nineties

country was predominantly agricultural and its manufactures were
produced by domestic handicrafts. Some change, but only by way
of expansion rather than development, had taken place since the
time when Richard Cocks (writing in 1620) reported to the East
India Company that good repair work could be done in Japanese
shipyards, saying "for iron work there is no want, and smiths that
can make anchors of 20 or 30 hundredweight if need be." Japan
derived a certain benefit from being in, if not of, the post-
Newtonian world, which was only on the horizon in Elizabethan
days, since she had for about a century before 1868 been subject
to its influence, though in a diluted form. Both the Bakufu and
certain clans had installed machines of various kinds and engaged
foreign technical instructors or obtained their advice as early as
1850, if 'not before, principally for the purpose of making artillery
and building warships. These first steps were taken for military
reasons and thus gave a special character to the further growth of
the national economy, since it continued, as it began, with an em-
phasis upon heavy industry, thus reversing the usual order of de-
velopment as it had taken place in the West. In England the in-
dustrial revolution began with the manufacture of textiles and
continued with other light industries until new mechanical inven-
tions simplified the construction of large and powerful engines;
whereas in Japan the full development of textile production was
retarded. This contrast, as well as being an interesting item of
economic history, is of some importance in the study of cultural
influences, because it shows that the past experiences of Japan de-
termined the manner and the degree in which she was to follow
Western example in her economic policy, or — since it was not
wholly a matter of deliberate choice — in her economic evolution.
The fact that the greater part of her early industrial effort was
put into production of goods of direct or indirect strategic im-
pojtance affected not only the trend of technical progress but also
the financial aspects of manufacture and trade. Heavy industries,
railway transport, and steam navigation require the investment of
large capital sums, and private accumulations of capital in Japan
were insufficient for their rapid development.4

•* The construction of the first railway in Japan was financed by a foreign loan
of about one million pounds sterling at nine per cent, raised in London in 1870.
The Japanese government was chary of borrowing abroad because it feared that
foreign capital might force the country's economic development into channels dif-
fering from those which Japan ought in her own interest to select. A second loan
was raised in 1873 in London, to release funds for the commutation of pensions due
to the feudal lords and retainers. But apart from these exceptional cases where
there was a special urgency, no money was borrowed abroad for twenty-five years,
although the government was often in sore financial straits. This deliberate self-
denial is a clear example of resistance to foreign economic influence. As Mr. Norman
observes in the work cited above, the result of the cautious policy of Japanese

500

Economic Change

It is true that there was already in Japan a class of wealthy mer-
previous standards had been very great.

r national purposes their accumulations were not adequate,
or were not available because their experience was narrow and in
t!j^JMJIJE?^^ ghostly reluctant to invest in new

enterprises. They preferred to put their money into land or to
finance the domestic trades with which they were familiar. Conse-
guentlY_jt : was the government that had to bear the burden, by
promoting, owning, or subsidizing the most important undertak-
ings. Some of these, which had previously been operated by theT
Bakuf u or by progressive clans — arsenals, shipyards, mines, and
foundries — it confiscated and sold at low cost to those few finan-
cial supporters who were enterprising enough to come to its aid.
TJll^Jj^^ a pattern of state owner-

ship, state control, or state assistance from which the government
never entirely departed. This phenomenon, again, was one that
was in part predetermined by earlier history.

There are, it is true, certain influences which — East or
West — cannot be escaped as a modern economy develops. The
old domestic hand industries, such as cotton spinning and weaving,
are everywhere damaged or destroyed first by the importation of
machine-made textiles and then by their manufacture at home.
What had happened to weavers in England and India 5 happened
in Japan, and the poor country-dweller was forced to seek new
ways of supplementing a scanty income. At the same time such
changes in the character of production bring about small changes
in everyday life, as when in Japan lamps burning mineral oil dis-
placed the old-fashioned lanterns and candles, and aroused sad
feelings in conservative circles; or when cheap foreign goods were
substituted for beautiful objects made by craftsmen and so at-
tacked the native aesthetic tradition.

But there is not much profit in discussing whether material
changes in Japanese life resulting from industrialization should
be ascribed to foreign influence or treated as parts of a movement
that happened to originate in Europp. It would be of more interest
to examine some of those changes separately and to see whether
their moral effect can be measured. A few of them have already
been touched upon in a previous chapter, where for instance it was
pointed out that the revised Civil Code had to take a new view of
inheritance because of the growth of new forms of property and
income. There was a conflict here between the rights of the in-

statesmen was to accentuate certain characteristic features of Japanese capitalism,
such as the growth of state enterprise, the concentration of private capital in a few
hands, and the unequal distribution of the burden of taxation, which served in-
dustry at the expense of agrarian well-being.
fi See chapter vii.

501

The Nineties

dividual and his duties as member of a family. In other ways also
the old family system was modified as industrial activity expanded.
In the period with which we are dealing the expansion had not
gone far enough to make any great inroads upon the customary
life of the majority of the people; but by about 1890 factories had
already begun to draw workers from the countryside and so to
make a small breach in that family solidarity which was the founda-
tion of Japanese society. Yet even this was not a new trend, but
rather the extension of an old one, for the drift of rural workers to
the towns had begun long before the nineteenth century.

What effect the growth of machine industry and large com-
mercial companies had upon other departments of life it is most
difficult to estimate; but for some time the traditional relationship
between employer and workman persisted^ andj^jnum^
large undertakings gji^^fagniiy or community spirit was main-
tained, while the old system of apprenticeship survived in many
trades. So far as concerns the mass of the population, since at least
seventy per cent of all households were engaged in agriculture as
late as 1885, new industrial developments had little direct bearing
upon their lives. The growth of silk exports tended to increase the
cash incomes of farmers in some areas, but new forms of taxation
and changes in the system of land tenure, besides disturbing their
minds and making them hostile to reforms (which they associated
with foreigners) , kept the purchasing power of the peasants at a
low level and thus denied them the benefits of increased produc-
tion in other fields of export. They could not afford the new con-
sumption goods that came on the market as manufacturing indus-
try and import trade expanded. Further, despite the increasing use
of machines, a large proportion of Japanese manufactures was still
produced in both town and country by hand workers using old
processes and organized in the old native fashion in guilds or other
associations or in the family circle.

Perhaps the most far-reaching sequel of the modernization of
Japan was the rapid growth of population concurrently witlTtEe
development of ^ Industiylindr5ie applicaHonot medical scienc&TTj^
is^of course a phenomenon that has accompanied^ industrialization
everywhere, and Japan does not show any peculiar features in this
respect. The famines that had at intervals swept over the country
in previous periods ceased as food production was intensified,
prices kept fairly stable, and distribution improved. The resulting
increase of population created a surplus of labour in rural areas,
which in the early years of Meiji could not be absorbed by factories
in towns, but struggled for employment in the countryside, thus
causing congestion in the villages and keeping the standard of
living at a low level. These are conditions that must be ascribed

502

Economic Change

less to the adoption of a modern economy than to its slow and one-
sided development. They arose from (or were at least accentuated
by) the traditional methods of small-scale cultivation in Japan,
which made peasants cling desperately to their little plots. They
thus contributed to the growth of small household industries, or
of farmed-out piece work to supplement small earnings from the
soil, which for long remained a characteristic of Japanese manu-
facture. Here again we see the shape of the new economy dictated
in part by the nature of the old.6

The biographies of advocates of Western intercourse and the
record of events before the Restoration will have made it clear that
one of the most compelling reasons adduced for opening the coun-
try was the need to use Western science and Western machines
for the pu^ose^oj^iat ional defence. It was this motive, carried over
into the Meiji era, that dictated the shape of Japan's industrial
economy and imposed on it a certain distortion from which it
never f ullVl^QW^ upon^^ heavy in-

dustry in particular, was accompanied by a comparative neglect
of agrarian interesFs7whIch caused "'greartrouEIe in the early years
of Meiji and (it might be argued) postponed indefinitely the solu-
tion of an agrarian problem which, in different forms at different
times, had always harassed Japanese governments. Meanwhile the
hesitation of the old class of rice-broker and moneylender to ven-
turecapital in modernlndustry, and the absence of a class of small
investor ready tcTt^^ gave a special importance

to those few wealthy houses of merchant bankers 7' — Mitsui, iwa^
saki, Sumitomo, Yasuda, Konoike, and a few others — who did
come to the aid of the government and, thanks to favours received
in rgturn, developed into those powerful combinations known as
thFZaibatsu, the financial oligarchy that went hand in hand with
the~Hanbatsu, or the oligarchy of the clans. Thus, it will be seen,
legacies from a period little touched by foreign influence stamped
a deep imprint upon the modern Japanese economy. The habit of
state intervention in commerce and industry was formed in Toku-
gawa days. Trading monopolies and the privileges of sole contrac-
tors had in the past been enjoyed by favoured merchants, and

« This is not to say that the tenant problem in Japan is that of feudal times.
It is not, since the landlords after the Restoration were not feudal lords but "mod-
ern" capitalists large and small. Nevertheless Japan did not develop large-scale
farming by owner cultivators for the simple reason that, in addition to topographical
and climatic conditions, the peasant's attachment (in both senses of the word) to
the soil and to the family home prevented a transition from intensive to extensive
agriculture. Here again ancient habit clashed with modern trends.

7 The development of financial organs in Japan after 1868 presents a most in-
teresting example of the fusion of imported and native elements. This can be stud-
ied in the history of banking after the National Bank Law of 1872, and the special
relationship of banking to government.

503

The Nineties

brewers had been powerful in rural Japan no less than in rural
England. None of these phenomena was of foreign origin, most of
them were rooted in old custom, and their effect was to resist or
to moderate the influence of contemporary Western example.

There is not evidence enough to show that because she adapted
Western machines and commercial practices to her own uses Japan
became Western in the essence of her national character by the
close of the nineteenth century. Whether a similar conclusion as
to the first half of the twentieth century would emerge from a
survey of its cultural history is beyond the scope of the present in-
quiry. Yet a study of the earlier period raises doubts whether any
of the chief civilizations of Asia will, even if they voluntarily fol-
lowjjjjj^ precept or ex-"

ample in political, social, or religious life.

There is one feature, however, absent from all the manifesta-
tions of foreign foflugnggj^ and that *s a"^e~

liberate intention on the part of one country to influence the
civilization of another. An exception should be made in respect
of Christian propaganda, which was an essential part ot the policy
of fihe Catholic states of Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries and of course had the support of the universal church.
But in more recent times, though European and American govern-
ments have given some political support to Christian missionaries,
the propagation of religion has not been part of national policy JCt
is only since the war of 1914—18 that organized efforts on a national

^ count:r or * group of

impose a full sjstern^ gjj[jfo^ and a distinctive

economy upon another society. The first of these was the attempt
of the Allied and Associated Powers to determine the nature of
German political development. The second was that of the Soviet
Union, through a special organ, to convert other states to its own
doctrines. Of a different nature, though in many respects similar
in purpose, are the efforts now being made by the Allied Powers to
encourage and persuade Germany and Japan to adopt democratic
principles of government and appropriate social philosophies.

The processes studied in the foregoing pages are not of this
kind, and they therefore throw but little light on the possibility of
success where cultural influence is supported by powerful political
pressure and a highly organized propaganda.

THE END

Paupertas cartes finem imponit verbositatL

(Gregory of Tours)

604

e x

(Long syllables are marked in Japanese words)

Abdul Khan, 65

Abd-ur-razzak, 91

"Accommodation/' Jesuit: with Hindu-
ism, 78; with Confucianism, 154 ff.

Acre, siege of, 48

Actiura, Battle of, 18

Adams, Will, 188

Aden, 19, 44, 65

Adil Shah, 61

Adverse balance in Asiatic trade, 138 f.

sEsop's Fables, 396

Esthetics, 148, 186, 5115, 381

Agrarian problem in Japan, 199, 224-31;
agrarian risings, 224, 235-8, 393

Agriculture in Japan, 224-8

Aguranabe, 383

Ahimsa, 42

Ahl-i-Kitab, 80

Aidzu, 303

Aikoku K6t6 (political party) , 343

Akagetto, nickname for peasants, 393

Akbar, 81, 83, 94

Aki clan, 307

Ala-ud-din, 80 n.

Albuquerque, 61 ff., 73, 89

Alexander the Great, 11

Almeida, L. de, Portuguese officer, 58

"Alternate attendance" at Shogun's
court, 268, 297, 301

Amano's economic writings, 439

Amboina, 91, 137

American relations with Japan, 275-81,
282-308 passim , 309

Amida, Amidism, 123, 132-3, 478

Anatomy, study of, in Japan, 204

Ancestor- worship, 155, 160-2, 448-9

Andrade, SimSo de, 100

Andrade, Fernao Peres de, 60, 99

Anezaki, M.. 479

Anglo-Chinese war (of 1840) , 144, 250

Anjird, 115

Annam, 43, 97

"Ansei, Great Persecution of," 273

Anson, Sir William, 363, 432

Anti-Christian edicts, 157, 201, 390, 441

Anti-Christian literature in Japan, 329,
472, 480

Antoninus, 20

Apostates' oath in Japan, 176

Apostles, 73, 479

Arab horses, 62

Arabs, 6, 26, 28, 34, 54-6, 68, 79, 91

Arai Hakuseki, 173, 201

Arakan, 93, 98

Arjun, 83

Arnold, Matthew, 355

Artillery: Indian, 57; Japanese, 243, 248,
257; Portuguese, 57; Turkish, 60

Artists, Japanese, 216, 233, 379, 381

Asia: geographical limits, 4; economies
of, 7; exports to Roman empire, so;
imports, 21; trade balance with Eu-
rope, 21, i45ff.

Asia Minor, 11

Asiatic cultures, 5-11, 27; influence on
Europe, 10; pessimism, 49

Asoka, 72

Astronomy, 35, 68, 154, 196

Atlasov, Russian navigator, 212

Atonement, doctrine of, 130

Audubon's Birds of America, 279

Aurangzeb, Son.

Auspicious Giraffes, 141, 142

Ayuthia, 93

Baba Tatsui, 417-18

Bactria, 16, 17

Baffin, William, polar navigator, 44

Baka Bandzuke, 367

Bakin, Japanese novelist, 192, 218, 220

Bakufu (the Shogun's government) ,

180-6

Balance of trade, 21, 138 ff.
Bali, 26

Banda Islands, 92
Bannias, 76
Bansho Torishirabe-dokoro, 420, 434,

45i

Bantam, 92, 137
Bartoli on Buddhism, 123
Bassein, 66

Batavia News, 421, 442
Bauernschutz, 229
Bayinnaung, 94
Beef-eating in Japan, 383
Bemmo, 369, 472, 479
"Benicia Boy," 280 n.
Benyowsky, Polish navigator, 213
Bering, Vitus, Danish explorer, 213
Bernard, Henri, S.J., quoted, 113
Bible, translation into Japanese, 470, 473
Biddle, Commodore James, 276
Bigaku, Japanese word for "aesthetics,"

381

Bismarck, 362-3
Black, J. R., 329 n., 421
Black Ships off Japan, 309 n.
Blavatsky, Mme, 498 n.

Index

Blood-tax, 392

Bluntschli's Allgemeines Staatslehre, 435

Board of Trade and Plantations, 147

Boissonade de Fontarabie, 444, 445 n.

Bokhara, 23

Bonin Islands, 332

Borobudur, 26

Borton, Dr. Hugh, quoted, 238

Botelho, Simao, 85 n.

Bourgeois society in Japan: its constitu-
tion, 189-91; its culture, 192-4, 214-22

Boxer, Major C. R., 113, 250 n.

Brahmanism, 77, 96, 97

Bribery, 234

Bride of Lammermoor, 398

British Legation in Yedo attacked
(1861) , 299

Buchthal, H., on Buddhist and Chris-
tian art, 13 n.

Buddhism: in Asia, 27, 72; in China,
24-5; in Farther India, 25; in modern
India, 27; in Mongol dominions, 35;
Japanese, 117-20, 123, 126, 132-3, 184,
367* 381, 388-9. 4% 47°> 475> 477~8,
481, 484-6

Buke Sho-hattof 184

Bukkyo Kwatsuron, 485

Bungo, lord of, 115, 124

Burchard's description of the Holy
Land, 48

Cabinet, Japanese, 358

Cabot, 136

Cabral, Pedro Alvares, 55

Calico-chases, 149

Calico-Picts, 145

Calicut, 43, 56, 91

Cambaluc, 34-5

Cambay, 76

Cambodia, 26, 96, 98

Camoens, 64, 75

Canton, attack on (in 1856) , 286

Capitalism in early Meiji, 310

Carpini, John de Piano, 32

Caste, 162-3

Cataio, 43

Censorship, 199-201

Cespedes, Father, 127

Ceylon, 42, 66, 96, 137

Chamberlain, B. H., 474 n.

Chambers's Encyclopedia, 400

Champa, Islam in, 96, 97

Chang Ch'ien, 17

Charge of the Light Brigade, 405

Charlus, Baron de, 220

Charter Oath of Emperor Meiji, 318-20,

373 n., 388
Chemistry, 451
Ch'ien Lung, 13
Chikamatsu Monzaemon, 192, 217

Child, Josiah, on free trade, 149
China, 16-25, 32, 35» 41"8* 99~1O7> 141""5»

152-62, 203, 250, 255, 332, 495
Chishima Shiranami, 244 n.
Chonin (townspeople) , 189
Chonin bungaku (bourgeois literature) ,

217

Choshu clan, 301-7, 323
Christian powers against Islam, 64
Christianity, 12, 27, 31, 38, 42, 49, 51-2,

79; in China, 39, 103-5, 152-62, 486-8;

in Japan, 109, 115-33, 171-6, 200, 390,

441, 468-89; in Farther India, 97, 98;

in India, 38, 51-3, 72, 76-8, 84-6; in

Iran, 176; in Philippine Islands, 164;

in southeast Asia, 91, 97, 98
"Christians and spices," 63
Chu Hsi, philosophy of, 205, 266
Chvostov, 244
Cinnamon, 20
City states, 7, 9, 67
Civil Code of Japan, 445-50
"Civilization-Prints," 379
"Civilization Song," 383
Class distinctions in Japan, 189, 350
Cloves, 20, 90
Cochin, 52, 61
Cochin China, 26
Cocks, Richard, 172,500
Cod and herring, 1 36
Coelho, Jesuit Vice-Provincial, 128
Colonial policy, historical perspective of,

69-72

Colonies in Asia, 54, 62, 67-72
Colonization, Portuguese, 54 ff., 65, 66,

74

Colour prejudice, 88

"Competition," translation into Japa-
nese, 235

Concubines as exports, 18

Confucianism: in China, 105, 153, 155,
157, 161; in Japan, 175, 184-6, 195,
197, 205-10, 256, 347, 369, 451, 455,
471

Congress, Indian, 498

Conscription in Japan, 323, 326

Constantine the Great, 176

Constitution of Japan, 315, 318, 358,

3te-3» 375> 465
Continental powers, 70
Contrat Social, 396, 433
Coomaraswamy, Ananda, quoted, 13 n.
Copernican astronomy, i96n.
Cortesao, A., 113

Cosme de Torres, Jesuit father, 125
Costume, Japanese, in early Meiji, 382
Costume ball in Tokyo, 370-1
Cotton, 35, 147 ff.
Council of Elders, 183
Coutinho, defeated by Chinese, 60

Index

Crucifixion, 130, 131

Cruelty, 59, 94

Crusades, 31,47, 48

Ctesias, 15

Cultures, contact of, 88

Currency policy of Bakufu, 225 n.

Curtius, Donker, 286

Cycles of growth and decay, 49

Daido Shoi, 361, 490

Daigaku (university) , 453

Daikyo-in, 470

Dajokwan (Council of State) , 320, 341,

358

Dajokwan Nisshi, 421

Daman, 66

Davenant, Charles, on free trade, 149

Davidov, Russian navigator, 244

Davis, John, Polar navigator, 44

Dazai Shundai, 226

De jure belli ac pads, n i

De modo Saracenos exstirpandi, 48

De Monarchia, no

De recuperatione terra sancta, 48

Debtors' Party (Shakkin-to) , 353

Debts of military class, 240

Demd (profit from recoinage) , 240, 243

Deshima, 178, 204, 249

Deus, translation of, 121

Development Hypothesis (Spencer) , 432

Devil, the, Japanese view of, 121

Dhamma, conquest by the, 72

Diana, Russian warship, 244

Dictionaries, 258, 474

Diet (Japanese parliament) , 491 ff.

Dm, 58, 65, 99

Doctrina Christiana, 474 n.

Documents on Restoration period in Ja-
pan, 282 n.

Documents of Iriki, 376

D5jinsha, 457

Dominicans, 73

Don, river, 4

Ddshisha (college) , 458, 473, 481

"Drain/' the, 21, 139, 147

Dream of the Future, A, 399

Dual Shinto (Rydbu Shinto) , 388

Dutch: colonies in Asia, 137; trading
company, 137; language in Japan, 151;
merchants, 178, 201; studies by Japa-
nese, 203-4, 247, 256; scholars in Ja-
pan, 205

Dynamite (political song) , 407

East India Company: Dutch, 137; Eng-
lish, 137

East India trade, 147 ff.

Echizen, lord of, 296, 299, 305-7

Economic conditions under Tokugawa
rule, 223-33

Economic studies in eighteenth-century

Japan, 195-6, 437-41
Ecstatic states of Japanese Christians,

129, *33> 478
Edessa, 176

Education in Japan, 450-61
Education, Imperial Rescript on, 464,

482

Efficacious Medicine, 234
Egawa Tarozaemon, 251
Egypt, 58, 90
Egyptian fleet off Diu, 58
E-iri Shimbun, 419
Eisen, print artist, 221
Elder Statesmen, 364
Eliot, Sir Charles, quoted, 28, 83
Embargoes on trade, 100
Emperor of Japan, cult of reverence for,

211
England: in sixteenth century, 136; and

Japan, historical analogies, 167-8
English influence on Japanese economic

thought, 438-9; on Japanese political

thought, 432 ff.

English language in Japan, 429, 430
English trade: with China, 138; with Ja-
pan, 275-6

Enomoto, Takeaki, Admiral, 314
Enzetsu, 345 n.
Eothen, Kinglake's, 402
Epaminondas, 400
Ephesus, Council of, 37
Ernest Maltravers, 397
Esprit des lots, 433
Eto Shirnpei, 312, 333, 355
Europe: natural resources of, 22; a

promontory of Asia, 46
European civilization developed under

threat, 46

Ex ilia die, papal decree, 157
Ex pastoralis officio, papal decree, 131
Exclusion policy: of China, 143 ff.; of

Japan, 178, 245
Expansionist policies, 46-9, 67, 69, 70,

268-9

"Expel the Barbarians," 291, 293, 300
Exports: from Asia to Europe, 20-2;

from Europe to Asia, 21
Expulsion Order (of 1825) , 246, 256
Extraterritorial rights, 360

Factories (trading posts) , 65, 66

Fa-hsien, 24

Familiar Studies of Men and Books,

274
Family system: in China, 160; in Japan,

448, 502

Famines in Japan, 225
Fancy-dress ball in Tokyo, 370
Fan-makers, 148

III

Index

Farther India, 95 ff .

Fenellosa, Alfred, 381

Ferghana, 17

Ferguson, D., 113

Feringhi, 95

Fernandez, Joao, Jesuit linguist in Ja-
pan, 120

Feudalism in Japan: economic aspects,
226-31; abolition of, 326; character of,
376; misuse of term, 376

Fiefs, surrender of, 324-5

Fillmore, President Millard, 277

Firuz Tugluq, 80 n.

Five Amorous Women f 217

Flagellation, 124

Food crops in Japan, 226-7

Foreign goods and foreign ideas, 146

Formosa: as Dutch entrepot, 137; puni-
tive expedition to, 332, 374

Forty-seven Rdnin, 271

Franciscans: in Tartary, 73; in India, 84;
in Japan, 131-2, 173; in China, 154

Free trade, 149, 438-40

French: influence in Japan, 350, 433;
support of Chinese Catholics, 486 ff.

Freyre, Gilberto, quoted, 88

Frois (Froez) Luis, 115*?., 187

Fudasashi, 240

Fukien, 100, 103 n.

"Fukoku Kyohei" 441

Fukuchi Genichiro, 421

Fukuoka Kotei, 268, 319, 373

"Fukuzawa-bon," 430

Fukuzawa Yukichi, 239, 339, 427-31

Futabatei Shimei, novels of, 403-4

Gakumon no Susume, 454

Gama, Vasco da, 55, 58, 59

Gandhara, 12, 13 n.

Gembun-itchi, 403

"General Agreement," party of, 361, 490

Genoa, 67, 70

Genro-in, 341

Genroku period, 193, 197, 209

German influence in Japan, 315, 347,

358, 362-3, 494
Ghaznavids, 80
Gibbon, 37
Ginger, 20
Giraffes, 43, 141
Goa, 62, 74, 75, 84-6
"God/* translation of, 121
Gold, 21, 54, 150, 297
Golovnin, Russian naval officer, 244
Good Hope, Cape of, 55, 74
Goto Shojiro, 307, 316-17, 361, 490
Government loans, 500 n.
Greco-Indian rulers, 16
Granth, 83
Grape, 22 n.

Gray's Elegy, 405-6

Greece, 7

Greek colonies, 69

Grotius, 111, 112

Gubbins, J. H., quoted, 450

Gu&ion, R., quoted, 5

Guilds, mercantile, 239-41

Guinea gold, 54

Gujarat, 65, 76, 99

Gunnery, study of, in Japan, 249 ff.

Hakodate, 278

Raima dictionary, 258

Halmahera, 90

Hanabusa, Itcho, 216

Harris, Townsend, 285 ff.

Hashimoto, Gaho, 381

Hatamoto, 243 n.

Hattori Seiichi, 419

Hayashi Daigaku no Kami, 280

Hegel and Buddhism, 485

Heimin (commoners) , 330

Hell, Japanese view of, 121

Hellenic culture, 7, 9

Hellenistic influences in India, u, 12,

13 n.
Heneromu Monogatari (Fdnelon's T6ld~

maque) , 400

Henry the Navigator, 45, 56 n., 66
Hepburn, Dr. J., 474
Herat, Nestorian bishopric at, 38
Heresies, 37
Hideyoshi: his treatment of Christians,

128-130; his interest in foreign trade,

132

Hinayana Buddhism, 96
Hindu Rush, 10, 16
Hinduism, 27, 77, 80, 81-3, 91, 97
Hinin (pariah) , 393
Hirado, 118, 124
Hirata Atsutane, 211, 244 n.
Hiroshige, 221, 379, 380
Hishigawa Moronobu, 216
Historia do Japfio, 115
History of Christianity in Japan, 489
History of Indian Shipping, 59 n.
History of Japanese Education, 462 n.
History of Japanese Religion, 489
History of Protestant Missions in Japan,

489
Hitotsubashi Keiki, 298-9, 300, 304,

340

Hiyeizan monasteries, 125-6
Hizakurige, 220
Hizen, 323, 333
Hoan Jorei, 361
Hogarth, D. G., quoted, 5
Hokusai, 221

Holland, 135; and see Dutch
Honda Toshiaki, 232

IV

Index

Hongwanji sect, 389 n.

Hopkins, E. W., quoted, 16

Hoshi Torn, 493

Hotta Masatoshi, 287, 292

Hotta Masayoshi, 294 n.

House, legal concept of, 448 ff.

Hozumi Nobushige, 446-7, 489

Hsiian Tsang, 24

Hugli, 93

Hume, Allan, 498

Hundred Articles, the, 181

Huns (Hsiung-nu) , 17

Huxley, T., 433

Hymns, Japanese translations of, 474-5

Ichikawa Einosuke, 468-9

leyasu, 132, 170

li Kamon no Kami, 283, 286, 290, 293,
298

Ikkd sect, 126

Imperial universities, 460, 461

Improvement of the Japanese Race,
371 n.

India: geographical character, 10; early
European influences, 11, 12, 13 n.; in-
tercourse with the West, 16; trade with
Roman Empire, 19; influence on Far-
ther India and Indonesia, 26, 27; Nes-
torian Christians in, 38, 51; Portuguese
arrival, 55; Portuguese policy, 56-66;
Portuguese influence, 75; Catholic mis-
sions, 77, 78; Mohammedan rule, 79 ff.;
Inquisition, 85; conflict of cultures,
87-8

Individual status in Japanese law, 448

Indonesia: Portuguese in, 90 ff.; Islam
in, 91, 92; Dutch in, 137

Indus, river, 19

Industrial revolution, 223 /

Ineffabilis et summi, papal decree, 56

Inouye Kaoru, 259, 304

Inouye Kowashi, 368

Inouye Tetsujird, 480

Inquisition, 85, 86 n.

International Exposition of 1872, 380

International Society, no

Interpreters, 204

I-quan, 144

Iran, 176-7

Iroha Shimbun, 419

Irrationality of Western Religion, The,

3<59

Islam: in China, 30, 37; its threat to Eu-
rope, 47; in India, 73, 79-83; in In-
donesia, 91, 92

Itagaki Taisuke, 333, 340 fL, 348-9

It6 Hirobumi, 271, 302, 304, 347

I-tsing, 24 n,

Iwakura Tomomi, Prince, 306, 316, 325,
3*8, 333> 344

Jalal-ud-din, Son.

Japan compared with other Asiatic

countries, 106-7, 1O9
Japan Expedition, The, 272
Japan Express, 421
Japan Gazette, 421
Japan Herald, 421
Japan Punch, 421
Japaners, 148

Japanese mercenaries in Asia, 98
Japan's Economic Position, 499
Japan's Emergence as a Modern State,

373> 499
Java, 26

Jesuit letters from Japan, 174
Jesuit policy: in India, 77-8; in China,

105» *53; in Japan, 125
Jesuit printing press, 130
"Jewel ships," 43
Jews, 5, 92

Jiddah, Camoens on, 64
Jihad, 80

Jinghis Khan, 32, 33, 34
Jingi-Kwan, 469
Jinken Shinsetsu, 435
Jiyu-to, 354

Jizva> 73

Jodo sect (Pure Land) , 132-3

Jo-i (Expel the Barbarians) , 293, 300

Joyners, 148

Julius Ctesar, 401

Jus gentium, 86 n.

Kabir, 82, 83
Kada Adzumamaro, 210
Kaempfer, Engelbert, 188, 248
Kagawa, 279
Kagoshima, 300
JKaigwai Shinwa, 250
Kaikoku Heidan, 214
Kaikwa-ban, 379
Kaisei Gakko, 434
Kaiseisho, 452
Kaishin-t6, 353
Kqjin no Kigu, 412-15
Kambun chokuyaku, 397
Kamchatka, 212, 245
Kami (God) : translation of, 121; wor-
ship of, 129
Kana Shinbun, 419
Kanagaki Robun, 419, 420
Kaneko Shigesuke, 272
K'ang Hsi, 13, 14, 156 ff.
Kanishka, 16
Kano Hogai, 381

Kano school of painting, 192, 216
Kanrin Maru, 429
Karma, 485
Kato Hiroyuki, 434-5
Katsu Awa, 288 n., 291, 314

V

Index

Katsura, 337

Kawakami Otojiro, 408-9

Kawashima Chunosuke, 410

Keichu, 210

Keiki, see Hitotsubashi

Keikoku Bidan, 400, 409

Keiogijuku, 430, 457-8

Keisei Hisaku, 232

Keisei-kai Shijuhachite, 219

Keizai Roku, 226

Keizai Zasshi, 438

Kenri, as translation of "rights/' 446

Ketsuzei, 392

Khan Baliq, 34

Khans, Mongol, 35

Khubilai, 33

Kido Junichiro (Koin) , 273, 304, 316,
332

Kinglake's Eothen, 401

Kingly titles, 45

Kinno ("Revere the Emperor") , 335

Kirisuto-kyo Shi, 489

Kiyochika, 380

Kobu Gattai, 259, 295-6, 301, 305

Kodo Kwai, 369

Koku (measure of rice) , 234 n.

Kokugakusha, sun.

Kokugaku-In, 372

Kokuhd Hanron, 435

Kokumin no Tomo, 372, 436

Kokusui Hozon (Preservatipn of Na-
tional Essence) , 372

Kokutai Shinron, 434

Komatsu, 316

Komei, Emperor, 305

Kondd Hisaku, 269

Konishi Ryusa, 127

Konjiki Yasha, 428

Konko-kyo, 486

Konoe, Prince, 296

Korea, 332

Korin, 148

Koshoku-bon, 217

Koshohu Gonin Qnna, 217

Koshoku Ichidai Otoko, 217

Kubla Khan, 33 n.

Kumamoto Band, 473

Kume, Professor, 461

Kumiss, 76

Kunashir, 244

Kunhali admirals, 61

Kunisada, 221

Kuniyoshi, 221, 379

Kurile Islands, 212, 213, 244

Kurimoto Joun, 399

Kuroda Kiyotaka, 490 n.

Kushana Empire, 16

Kuwayama Gyokusho, 233

Kwaigetsudo, 216

Kwanzen Choaku, 396

Kwaryu Shunwa, 397
Kwazoku, 330

Kyuhei, 378

Lacquer, 148

Lamaism, 35

Landlord class in Japan, 224

Land-revenue economy, 6, 7, 199, 330

Law of Military Houses, 184

Laws of Meiji period, 444-50

Laxman, Lieut., Russian naval officer,
213

Legacy of leyasu, 181

Lepanto, Battle of, 60

Liberalism in Japan, 354

Libro di divisamenti, 48

Libro del Conoscimiento, 48

Light and Shadow of New York Life,
The, 387

Lin, Commissioner, letter to Queen Vic-
toria, 268

Lintin Island, 100

Lisbon, 75, 92

List's economic doctrines, 440

Lopes, Diogo, 89

Lotus sect, 132-3

Louren^o, Japanese catechist, 120

Luchu Islands, 169, 247, 284, 332

Lusiads, 75

Luxury trade, 18, 141

Lytton, Bulwer, 398

Mabuchi, 211

Macao, 103

Machinery in pre-Meiji Japan, 498 ff.

Madura, 77, 162

Maebara Issei, 329, 330

Magellan, 44

Mahayana Buddhism, 96

Making of Modern Japan, The, 450

Malabar, 56, 91

Malabari Christians, 51, 78

Malacca, 66, 89, 102

Malta, 60

Malthusian checks, 228

Manabe, 273, 292-3

Mangu, the great Khan, on Christianity,

35

Manichaeism, 25, 101
Manoel, Dom, 45, 46, 66
Manrique, Father, 98
Man's Love Life, A, 217
Manucci, Nicolas, 77
Marcus Aurelius, 20
Mare Clausum, 112
Mare Liberum, 111
Mariners of England, 405
Maritime powers, 71, 134-8
Marseillaise9 in Chinese, 413

Index

Martaban, 93 n.

Martyrdom of Japanese Christians, 129,

130, 131 n._
Maruyama Okyo, 216
Mathematics, 68, 196
Matsudaira Sadanobu, 208, 236
Matsudaira Shungaku, 267, 306
Matsumae, 213

Matsuura, daimyo of Hirado, 118, 260
McLaren, W. W,, quoted, 335, 375
Medicine, 253
Megasthenes, 15
Megata Sakac, 369
Meiji Boshin, 373
Meiji era, 307, 310*?.
Meiroku Zasshi, 368, 458
Meirokusha, 368
Menander, 16

Mercantile class in Japan, 189
Mercenaries: Portuguese, 93; Japanese,

98

Merv, 23, 38
Mdtayage, 229
Mezzabarba, 157
Mibun toki (registration of status) ,

448 n.

Midzuno Tadaakira, 234
Midzuno Tadakuni, 208, 237, 242-3
Military science in Japan, 243
Mill, J. $., 432. 439
Mineta's Kaigwai Shinwaf 250
Ming dynasty: maritime voyages, 8, 41-5,

100, 141-3, 168; maritime trade policy,

142
Minken (People's Rights) , 311, 312, 343,

49*

Minken Jiyu Ron, 344

Minstrel show on Perry's flagship, 280

Missionaries: to Mongols, 32, 51; Bud-
dhist, 72; Catholic, 72; in India, 77;
in southeast Asia, 97, 98; Protestant,
472 ff.; and see Dominicans, Francis-
cans, Jesuits

Mississippi, U. S. frigate, 272

Mithra, 26 n.

Mito branch of Tokugawa family, 284,
292-3

Miura Baien, 195

Mixed residence (Zakkyo) , 372 n.

Miyagawa Choshun, 216

Miyake YiijirS (Setsurei) , 371

Miyako, 180

Miyoshi Chokei, 125

Mizuno, see Midzuno

Mohammedans, see Islam, Moslems

Moluccas, 89, 90, 92

Money, attitude of samurai to, 399,
427

Money economy in feudal Japan, 198

Mongol dynasty in China, 31, 41

Mongol Empire, 31-40; and Papacy, 31;

and Catholic missions, 32, 51 n.; and

Nestorians, 37

Mongol invasions, 45, 47, 168
"Mongol spot," 39

Mongols as transmitters of culture, 35
Monsoons, 19, 28 n.
Monte Corvino, 36
Montesquieu, 433
Mookerjee's Indian Shipping, 59 n.
Moplahs, 61

Mori Arinori, 442, 458-60, 480
Mori family, 178
Morikage, 216
Morrison, Robert, 487
Morrison, ship, 246, 261-3
Moslems: in China, 25, 30 n., 51 n.; in

India, 68, 80-2; traders, 89-90; in

southeast Asia, 89-92
Motoda Eifu, 368, 375
Motoori Norinaga, 210, 211
"Moura encantada" 88
Muraviev, Count, 245
Murder of foreigners in Japan, 297-8
Murray; Dr. David, 456
Muscat, 66
Muslin, 145

Mutsu Munemitsu, 349
Muziris (Cranganore) , 29

Nadiezhda, Russian warship, 244

Nairs, Hindu caste, 59, 61

Naito Yukiyasu, 125

Nakae Chomin, 433 n.

Nakae T5ju, 206

Nakamura Keiu, 457

Nakayama, The Story of, 211

Nakedness, orders against, 385

Nanak, 83

Nanking, Treaty of, 144

Narishima Ryuhoku, 418

Narrative of a Captivity in Japan, 244

"National Scholars," 21 in., 231

Nationalistic feeling in early Meiji, 332

Nayar, see Nair

Neesima (Niishima) , Joseph, 473

Neill, Rt. Rev. Stephen, quoted, 53

Nesselrode, 245

Nestorians, 25, 37-9, 79> *76

New Testament in Japan, 473

New Verse in Japan, 405

New York Life, 387

Newberry (Newbery) , 39

Newspapers in Japan, 326, 421-4, 443

Nichi-nichi (newspaper) , 423

Nicopolis, 60

Nihilism, 401

Nihon Bijutsu no Tokushitsu, 217

Nihon Jin magazine, 371, 480

Niishima, see Neesima

vn

Index

Ningpo, 103 n.

Ninjitsu, Zen abbot, 117-18

Nishigawa Sukenobu, 216

Nishimura Shigeki, 369

Nisshin Shinjishi, 422, 424

Nobile, Roberto de, 77, 104

Nobunaga, 108, 126-7

Nomadic cultures,' 6 n., 33

Norman, Herbert, 373 n., 374, 499

Northeast and northwest passages, 44,

134
Nutmeg, 92

O fumi of Rennyo Shonin, 133

O Yomei (Wang Yang-ming) , 206, 209

Obaku sect of Zen Buddhism, 107 n.

Oda Nobunaga, 108, 126, 127

Ogata Koan, 428, 451

Ogimachi, 211

Ogyu Sorai, 195, 206-7

Oil lamps, 365, 367

Okhotsk, 212, 276

pkubo Ichio, 267

Okubo Toshimichi, 316, 321, 345

Okuma Shigenobu, 321, 337, 345, 353-4'

361, 374, 390
Old Men's Club, 261
Old Testament, 473
Olive oil, 22 n.
Orchard, Dr. John E., 499
Organtino, 128, 130
Ormuz, 65, 66
Oshima Sadamasu, 439
Oshio Heihachiro, 242
Otsuki Gentaku, 204
Ottoman Turks, 47
Ouchi family, 118-19
"Outside Lords/' 170, 182, 282
Owari clan, see Mito
Ozaki Koyo, 428
Ozaki Yukio, 432

Padroado, 84, 113, 202

Palace and Hovel, 387

Pan-Asianism, 27

Panikkar, K. M., quoted, 59 n.

Panipatya, 68

Parliament, Japanese, 295, 345

Parliamentary forms, 340

Parliamentary Rescript (1881) , 345, 357

Parthia, 17

Patriots, Society of, 344

Peace Preservation Ordinance, 361

Peasant protection, 229

Pepper, 44, 92, 137

Peres de Andrade, Fernao, 60, 99

Perfectibility, doctrine of, 49

Perry, Commodore Matthew Calbraith,

212, 245, 277 ff., 309 n.
"Perry Kawara-t>an" 379

Persian Gulf, 19, 58, 64, 65

Pescadores, 497

Phaeton, H.M.S., 246, 248

Philippine Islands, 164

Pilgrim's Progress, 397, 423

Pirates, Japanese, 43, 108, 143

Pirenne, Henri, quoted, 46

Pires, Thome", 100, 102

Pliny, 15

Poetry in Japan, 405

Political History of Japan, 335, 375-6

Political parties, 350-6

Population: of England, 54 n.; of Portu-
gal, 54 n.; of Spain, 54 n.; of Japan,
211, zs4.fi.

Portuguese, 54-69; in India, 73-5, 84-8;
in southeast Asia, 89-98; in China, 99-
105; in Japan, 105-9, J15> 12^> 177

Portuguese language as lingua franca,
203

Portuguese trade in Asia, 139

Possiet, Capt. (Russian naval officer) ,
289

Prambanan, 26

Prefectural assemblies, 357

Press, see Newspapers

Press Law, 344, 353, 423

Prestage, Edgar, quoted, 58 n.

Price control, 225 n., 226

Print artists, 221

Privy Council, 365-6

Progress, idea of, 49, 312

"Propaganda, the," 84

Prostitutes, 385

Protestant missions in Japan, 163, 481

Provincial assemblies, 357

Psalms, Japanese version of, 474 n.

Public finance in Japan, 230, 240

Pure Land (Jodo) sect, 132-3

Putiatin's mission to Japan, 245

Quilon, 36
Quolibey, 33 n.

Racial prejudice, 88

Raffles, Sir Stamford, 65, 275

Railway finances in Japan, 500 n.

Rampu Bokoku Ron, 367

Rangaku, 204, 251

Rangaku Kaitei, 204

Rangaku Kotohajime, 204

Realism: in Japanese art, 192; in Japa-
nese literature, 193

Red Sea, 19, 57, 64-5

Religion, Department of, 388

Religious feeling in Asia, 28, 477

Religious Instruction, Board of, 389

Religious persecution in Portuguese In-
dia, 85

Rennyo Shdnin, 13$

mil

Index

Representative government in Japan,

340 ft".

Return, East Indiaman, 175
Revivalism among Japanese Christians,

478, and see 133

Rezanov's mission to Japan, 244-5, 250
Rhubarb, 20

Ricci, Matteo, 104, 152, 201
Rice, price of, 225 n.
"Rice-consuming dictionaries," 454
Rights, concept of, in Japan, 446
Rikken Kaishinto, 352
Rikken Teiseito, 352
Rin Shihei, 214
Risshisha, 343

Rites controversy, 155-62, 483
Roberts, Edmund, 276
Robula, Albert, 399
Robinson Crusoe, 396, 398
Rokumeikwan, 370
Roman Empire and Asia, 17-23
"Romanization" of Japanese, 202
Rome, Japanese embassies to, 62, 222
Romeo and Juliet, 398
RQnin, 190-2

Round the World in Eighty Days, 411
Rousseau, 348, 433
Rubruck, William of, 4, 39
Ruggerius, Michael, 104
Russia and Japan, 212-14, 232, 243-5
Russian literature in Japan, 401
Ryo, unit of currency, 308
Ryokusa Dan, 417
Ryukon-roku, 273

Sada Kaiseki, 367

Sadahide, 380

Saigo Takamori, 304-5, 323, 329, 331,
33<5

Saikaku, 217

St. Paul's College, 84, 104, 115

Saionji, Prince, 337, 365, 423

Sakamaki Shunzo, on American relations
with Japan, 309

Sakhalin, 212, 332

Sakuma ShSzan, 252

Samarkand, 23

Samurai: rice allowances, 234; discon-
tent of, 235; numbers of, 235; risings
of, 328-9; commutation of stipends,
328; contempt of money, 399, 427

Sanada, 253-4, 257

Sancta Congregatio de Propaganda Fide,

84

Sanjo Sanetomi, Prince, 303, 306, 316
Sankin kdtai, see "Alternate attendance"
Sanskrit studies, 63
SSo Thome, 67
Satan, 131
Sati, 73

Sato Shingen, 269

Satsuma (province and fief) , 109, 178,

295» *98> 300* 3°2> 3<>4-5> 3<>7> 3*3-5>

327» 346

Satsuma Rebellion, 321-4
Schall, Adam, 155-6
Scientific studies in Japan, 202
Sea power, 90
Secreta fidelium crucis, 48
Seikyo-sha, 371
Seitaisho, 393
Seiyo Anasagashi, 387
Seiyo Jijo, 429, 435
Sekigahara, 132, 191
Self-Help, 396-7, 458
Semitic peoples, 5
Sermons as punishment, 85
Setchubai, 415-16
"Seven Fugitive Nobles,*' 303, 306
Sewamono, 217
Shahpur II, 177
Shakkin-td, 353
Share-bon, 219
Shashin, 233
Shiba Kokan, 232-3
Shiba Shiro, 411
Shijd school of painting, 216
Shikai, magazine, 461
Shimabara rising, 177, 191
Shimadzu Nariakira, 295-6
Shimadzu Saburo, 298, 304-5
Shimadzu Takahisa, 116
Shimbun Zasshi, 421, 457
Shimoda, 278
Shimonoseki, 302
Shimpuren, 329
Shingon sect, 119
Shinri Kinshin, 485
Shinsei Tail, 434-5

Shinshii or "True Sect" of Amidism, 477
Shintaishi'Sho, 405
Shinto, 329, 366-7, 388-9, 469-70
Shintoists attempt to control education,

452, 473

Ships, 19, 29, 54, 60, 103, 109
Shizoku, 235, 330
Shohei-ko, 451-2
Shonai, 236

Shosetsu Shinzui, 395, 404
Shungaku, 267, 306
Shushin Chikoku Hinito Ron, 368
Siam, 26, 93, 96, 98
Siebold, P. F. von, 248, 360
Sikandar Lodi, Son.
Sikandar of Kashmir, 80 n.
Sikhs, 83

Silk, 17, 23, 103, 502
Silver, 21

Single food-crop, 226-7
Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations, 374

Index

Sinica Franciscana, 51 n.

Smiles, Samuel, 396-7

Smith, Adam, 355, 438-9

Scares de Mello, Diogo, 93

Socialism, 436

Socotra, 45

Sodomy, 86 n., 119

Sogdian calendar in China, 26

Somerville, Admiral Sir James, 39

Song of Diplomacy, 403

Sonno Joi, 298

Sophisms of Free Trade, 440

Soshi (political rowdies) , 348, 361

Sotelho, 222

Soyejima (Soeshima) , 321

Spalding, W. J., 272

Spanberg, 213

Spaniards expelled from Japan, 172

Speechmaking in Japan, 345

Spencer, Herbert, 432

Spice Islands, see Moluccas

Spice trade, 44, 89, 90, 92

"Spring Pictures" and "Spring Tales,"

386

Stein, Lorenz von, 363
Stepniak, 401

Stirling, Admiral Sir James, 276
. Storia do Mogor, 77
Strabo, 15
Strange Encounters of Elegant Females,

412

Suarez, Francisco, 111
Sudo Nansui, 417
Sugita Gempaku, 234
Sut ("chic") ,219
Sulphur, 198
Sulu Archipelago, 164
Sumatra, 26, 45
Sumptuary laws, 190, 198
Sung Confucianism, 197
Surat, 76, 137
Surgery in Japan, 253
Survival of the fittest, 433
Susquehanna, U. S. warship, 279
Suttee, 73

Suyehiro Tetcho, 415
Sword Hunt, Hideyoshi's, 238
Syncretism, 82
Syria, 37, 90
Syriac rite, 51-2

Syro-Malabar Church, 38, 51-2, 79
Szczesniak, B., quoted, i96n.

Tabula rasa, 152
Taguchi Ukichi, 438-9
Takahashi O Den, 409
Takahashi Goro, 480
Takahashi Yoshio, 371 n.
Takano Nagahide (Choei) , 260-3
Takashima Shuhan, 249-52

Takayama Nagafusa (Ukondono) ,127

Tali, 78

Tanais, river, 4

Tanaka Fujimaro, 455-6

T'ang dynasty, 23

Tani Buncho, 221, 264

Taoism, 34

Tawara clan, 264

Taxation, 230

Telemaque, Les Aventures de, 400, 402

Tempo era (1840-3) , 241

Tenasserim, 93 n.

Tennyson, 355

Tenri-kyo, 486

Terakoya, 451

Ternate, 66, 90

Textiles, 147 ff., 500

Theatre, Japanese, 409

Thirithudhamma, 94

Thomas, St., 53, 55

Thunberg, 205, 248

Tibet, 43

Tidore, 67

T'ienchu Shih-i, 153

Tientsin: anti-Christian riots in, 487;
Treaty of, 497

Timber for shipbuilding, 60 n.

Titsingh, Isaac, 205, 209, 248

Tokai Sanshi, 412 ff.

Tokaido Meisho Dzuye, 379

Tokugawa: domestic policy, 170-1; ad-
ministrative system, 184, 199; social
conditions under, 189; economic prob-
lems, 199, 223-33

Tokugawa shoguns: Hidetada, 185;
lemitsu, 184; lenari, 208; Jeya.su, 132,
170; Keiki, 298-300, 304, 340; Tsu-
nayoshi, 186, 192; Yoshimune, 197,209,
225

Tokutomi Sohd, 269, 372

Tokyo, "Eastern Capital," 307

Tdkyd Nichi-nichi (newspaper) , 423

T6ky6 Shushin Gakusha, 368

Tonarigusa, 434

Torii Yczo, 251-2, 262

Torture, 445 n.

Tosa clan, 305-7, 323

Tours, Battle of, 47

Toyo Jiyu Shimbun, 423

Trade routes in central Asia, 41

Treaties of Japan with Western states,
278-91, 294, 298

Treatise on the Laws, in

Treaty revision, 291, 359-60, 370, 384-5,
466

Tsiang, T. F., quoted, 374

Tsu (savior faire) ,219

Tsubouchi Yuzo, 395, 398, 404

Tsunayoshi, 186, 192

Tsutsui Masanori, 294 n.

X

Index

Tsuzoku Minken Ron, 343
Tungusic element in Japanese, 40
Turkestan, 37

Turks, Ottoman, threat to Europe of, 60
Twenty-one Current Evils, 371
Tyrants in Asia, 94-5

Uchikowashi riots, 242

Ukigumo, 404

Ukiyo, 193, 219

Ukiyo-e, 193-4, 2 16, 217

Ukiyo-soshi, 217

llkonclono, 127

Umbrellas, 382-3

"Unchanging East," 9

Underground Riissia, 401

United States Congress, 429

Universalist tradition of Europe, 230

Uraga, 245, 277

Ursis, Father de, Jesuit astronomer, 154

Utamaro, 216

Uwajima clan, 305-6

Valignano, Visitor-General, 105, 123

Venice, 44, 67, 70

Verbeck, Guido, 468

Verbiest, Ferdinand, 155-6

Verne, Jules, 399, 411

Victorian England, 355

Vijayanagar, 56, 62, 95

Vilela, 125, 127

ringtidmt Sidclef Lef 399

Vitoria, Francisco de, m

Vivero y Velasco, Bon Roderigo de, 188

"Vulgar View" Party, 303

Wacla Koremasa, 125
Walworth, Arthur, quoted, 308
War party in Japan, 496
Waseda University, 459

Watanabe Kwazan (Noboru) , 221, 259,

261-6

Wealth of Nations, The, 149
WeddelFs China expedition, 138
Whaling industry, 276
Woollen goods, 145, 147, 149
Wrestling show for Perry's fleet, 280

Xanadu, 33 n.

Xavier, St. Francis, 84-6, 103, 109, 115-23

Yamada Bimyosai, 407

Yamaga Soko, 270

Yamagata Aritomo, 259, 272, 327

Yamaguchi, 118

Yamanouchi, daimyo of Tosa, 306

Yang-kwei, 102

Yano Fumio, 411, 422

Yashiro Yukio, 217

Yasui Sokken, 368-9

Yavanas, 16

Yedo, 223, 278, 295, 307

Yokoi, Rev. J. T., 483

Yokoi Shonan, 266-9, 294, 307

Yona (Ionian) , 16

Yoshicla Sh6in (Torajird) , 259, 270-4,

352

Yoshimune, Shogun, 197, 209, 225
Young Japan, 329, 421
Young Politicians of Thebes, 411
Yubin Hochi, 422
Yume Monogatari, 281
Yuri Kimimasa, 268, 319, 374
Yusho Reppai, 433

Zaibatsu, 503

Zaisan Heikin Ron, 436

Zakkyo, 372 n.

Zamorin of Calicut, 55 ffi., 61, 63 n.

Zazen, 117

Zen Buddhism, 107 n., 117, 126, 206

TYPE NOTE

The text of this book has been set on the Linotype in a type-face
called "Baskerville." The face is a facsimile reproduction of
types cast from molds made for John Baskerville (1706-1775)
from his designs. The punches for the revived Linotype Basker-
mile were cut under the supervision of the English printer
George W. Jones.

John Baskerville's original face was one of the forerunners of
the type-style known as "modern face" to printers: a "modern"
of the period A.D. 1800.

The typographic scheme and the binding design are by W, A.
Dwiggins. The book was composed, printed, and bound by The
Plimpton Press, Norwood, Massachusetts.

126228

C 2

CD <

5 m
2> ^