The Constitutional Development of Japan 1853-1881 Part 3

[Footnote 9: F.O. Adams' History of j.a.pan, Vol. II., p. 128.]

[Footnote 10: English State Papers, Vol. LXX., 1870, p. 9.]

[Footnote 11: 29th of the 2d month in the second year of Meiji, according to the old calendar.]

[Footnote 12: Translation is given in English State Papers, Vol. LXX., 1871, p. 12.]

CHAPTER III.

THE ABOLITION OF FEUDALISM.

The measure to abolish feudalism was much discussed in the Kogis...o...b..fore its dissolution. Prince Akidzuki, President of the Kogisho, had sent in the following memorial:

"After the government had been returned by the Tokugawa family into the hands of the Emperor, the calamity of war ensued, and the excellence of the newly established administration has not yet been able to perfect itself; if this continues, I am grieved to think how the people will give up their allegiance. Happily, the eastern and northern provinces have already been pacified and the country at large has at last recovered from its troubles. The government of the Emperor is taking new steps every day; this is truly a n.o.ble thing for the country. And yet when I reflect, I see that although there are many who profess loyalty, none have yet shown proof of it. The various princes have used their lands and their people for their own purposes; different laws have obtained in different places; the civil and criminal codes have been various in the various provinces. The clans have been called the screen of the country, but in truth they have caused its division. The internal relations having been confused, the strength of the country has been disunited and severed. How can our small country of j.a.pan enter into fellows.h.i.+p with the countries beyond the sea? How can she hold up an example of a flouris.h.i.+ng country? Let those who wish to show their faith and loyalty act in the following manner, that they may firmly establish the foundations of the Imperial Government:

"1. Let them restore the territories which they have received from the Emperor and return to a const.i.tutional and undivided nation.

"2. Let them abandon their t.i.tles, and under the name of Kuazoku (persons of honor) receive such small properties as may suffice for their wants.

"3. Let the officers of the clans abandoning that t.i.tle call themselves officers of the Emperor, receiving property equal to that which they have hitherto held.

"Let these three important measures be adopted forthwith, that the empire may be raised on a basis imperishable for ages ... 2nd year of Meiji (1869).

(Signed) "AKIDZUKI UKIO NO SUKE."[1]

But politics is not an easy game--a game which a pedant or a sentimental scholar or an orator can leisurely play. It has to deal with pa.s.sions, ambitions, and selfish interests of men, as well as with the moral and intellectual consciousness of the people. Tongue and pen wield, undoubtedly, a great influence in shaping the thought of the nation and impressing them with the importance of any political measure. But the tongue is as sounding bra.s.s and the pen as useless steel unless they are backed by force and money. Even in such a country as England, where tongue and pen seem to reign supreme, a prime minister before he forms his cabinet has to be closeted for hours with Mr. Rothschild. Fortunately this important measure of abolis.h.i.+ng feudalism, which a few patriots had secretly plotted and which the scholars had noised abroad, was taken up first by the most powerful and wealthy Daimios of the country.

In the following noted memorial, after reviewing the political history of j.a.pan during the past few hundred years, these Daimios said: "Now the great Government has been newly restored and the Emperor himself undertakes the direction of affairs. This is, indeed, a rare and mighty event. We have the name (of an Imperial Government), we must also have the fact. Our first duty is to ill.u.s.trate our faithfulness and to prove our loyalty. When the line of Tokugawa arose it divided the country amongst its kinsfolk, and there were many who founded the fortunes of their families upon it. They waited not to ask whether the lands and men that they received were the gift of the Emperor; for ages they continued to inherit these lands until this day. Others said that their possessions were the prize of their spears and bows, as if they had entered storehouses and stolen the treasure therein, boasting to the soldiers by whom they were surrounded that they had done this regardless of their lives. Those who enter storehouses are known by all men to be thieves, but those who rob lands and steal men are not looked upon with suspicion. How are loyalty and faith confused and destroyed!

"The place where we live is the Emperor's land and the food which we eat is grown by the Emperor's men. How can we make it our own? We now reverently offer up the list of our possessions and men, with the prayer that the Emperor will take good measures for rewarding those to whom reward is due and for taking from those to whom punishment is due. Let the imperial orders be issued for altering and remodelling the territories of the various clans. Let the civil and penal codes, the military laws down to the rules for uniform and the construction of engines of war, all proceed from the Emperor; let all the affairs of the empire, great and small, be referred to him."

This memorial was signed by the Daimios of Kago, Hizen, Satsuma, Chos.h.i.+u, Tosa, and some other Daimios of the west. But the real author of the memorial is believed to have been Kido, the brain of the Restoration.

Thus were the fiefs of the most powerful and most wealthy Daimios voluntarily offered to the Emperor. The other Daimios soon followed the example of their colleagues. And the feudalism which had existed in j.a.pan for over eight centuries was abolished by the following laconic imperial decree of August, 1871:

"The clans are abolished, and prefectures are established in their places."

This rather off-hand way of destroying an inst.i.tution, whose overthrow in Europe required the combined efforts of ambitious kings and emperors, of free cities, of zealous religious sects, and cost centuries of bloodshed, has been made a matter of much comment in the West. One writer exclaims, "History does not record another instance where changes of such magnitude ever occurred within so short a time, and it is astonis.h.i.+ng that it only required eleven words to destroy the ambition and power of a proud n.o.bility that had with imperious will directed the destiny of j.a.pan for more than five hundred years."[2]

But when we examine closely the circ.u.mstances which led to the overthrow of feudalism and the influences which acted upon it, we cannot but regard it as the natural terminus of the political flood which was sweeping over the country. When such a revolution of thought as that expressed in the proclamation of 1868 had taken place in the minds of the leaders of society, when contact with foreigners had fostered the necessity of national union, when the spirit of loyalty of the Samurai had changed to loyalty to his Emperor, when his patriotic devotion to his province had changed to patriotic devotion to his country, then it became apparent that the petty social organization, which was antagonistic to these national principles, would soon be crushed.

If there is any form of society which is diametrically opposed to the spirit of national union, of liberal thought, of free intercourse, it is feudal society. A monarchical or a democratic society encourages the spirit of union, but feudal society must, from its very nature, smother it. Seclusion is the parent of feudalism. In our enlightened and progressive century seclusion is no longer possible. Steam and electricity alone would have been sufficient to destroy our j.a.panese feudalism. But long before its fall our j.a.panese feudalism "was an empty sh.e.l.l." Its leaders, the Daimios of provinces, were, with a few exceptions, men of no commanding importance. "The real power in each clan lay in the hands of able men of inferior rank, who ruled their masters." From these men came the present advisers of the Emperor.

Their chief object at that time was the thorough unification of j.a.pan.

Why, then, should they longer trouble themselves to uphold feudalism, this mother of sectionalism, this colossal sham?

[Footnote 1: Translation given in the English State Papers.]

[Footnote 2: Consular Report of the U.S.A., No. 75, p. 626.]

CHAPTER IV.

INFLUENCES THAT SHAPED THE GROWTH OF THE REPRESENTATIVE IDEA OF GOVERNMENT.

We have seen in the last two chapters how the Shogunate and feudalism fell, and how the Meiji government was inaugurated. We have also observed in the memorials of leading statesmen abundant proof of their willingness and zeal to introduce a representative system of government. We have also seen the Kogisho convened and dissolved.

John Stuart Mill has pointed out, in his Representative Government, several social conditions when representative government is inapplicable or unsuitable:

1. When the people are not willing to receive it.

2. When the people are not willing and able to do what is necessary for its preservation.

"Representative inst.i.tutions necessarily depend for permanence upon the readiness of the people to fight for them in case of their being endangered."

3. When the people are not willing and able to fulfil the duties and discharge the functions which it imposes on them.

4. When the people have not learned the first lesson of obedience.

5. When the people are too pa.s.sive; when they are ready to submit to tyranny.

Now when we look at the j.a.pan of 1871, even her greatest admirers must admit that she was far from being able to fulfil the social conditions necessary for the success of representative government. j.a.pan was obedient, but too submissive. She had not yet learned the first lesson of freedom, that is, when and how to resist, in the faith that resistance to tyrants is obedience to truth; that the irrepressible kicker against tyranny, as Dr. Wilson observes, is the only true freeman. In her conservative, almost abject submission, j.a.pan was yet unfit for free government. The j.a.panese people were willing to do almost anything suggested by their Emperor, but they had first to learn what was meant by representative government, "to understand its processes and requirements." The j.a.panese had to discard many old habits and prejudices, reform many defects of national character, and undergo many stages of moral and mental discipline before they could acclimatize themselves to the free atmosphere of representative inst.i.tutions. This preparation required a period of little over two decades, and was effected not only through political discipline, but by corresponding development in the moral, intellectual, social, and industrial life of the nation.

I remarked in the beginning that the political activity of a nation is not isolated from other spheres of its activities, but that there is a mutual interchange of action and reaction among the different factors of social life, so that to trace the political life of a nation it is not only necessary to describe the organ through which it acts, the governmental machinery, and the methods by which it is worked, but to know "the forces which move it and direct its course." Now these forces are political as well as non-political. This truth is now generally acknowledged by const.i.tutional writers. Thus, the English author of "The American Commonwealth" devotes over one-third of his second volume to the account of non-political inst.i.tutions, and says "there are certain non-political inst.i.tutions, certain aspects of society, certain intellectual or spiritual forces which count for so much in the total life of the country, in the total impression it makes and the hopes for the future which it raises, that they cannot be left unnoticed."[1]

If this be the case in the study of the American commonwealth, it is more so in that of j.a.panese politics. For nowhere else in the history of nations do we see "non-political inst.i.tutions" exerting such a powerful influence upon the body politic as in New j.a.pan. In this chapter we shall therefore note briefly the growth of so-called "non-political inst.i.tutions" during a period of about a decade and a half, between 1868 and 1881, and mark their influence upon the development of representative ideas.

I.--MEANS OF COMMUNICATION.

1. Telegraph. At the time of the Restoration there was no telegraph in operation, and "for expresses the only available means were men and horses." In 1868 the government began to construct telegraphs, and the report of the Bureau of Statistics in 1881 shows the following increase in each successive year:

Telegraph Number Year. Offices. Miles. of Telegrams.

Ri Cho.

1869-1871 8 26.04 19,448 1872 29 33.11 80,639 1873 40 1,099.00 186,448 1874 57 1,333.20 356,539 1875 94 1,904.32 611,866 1876 100 2,214.07 680,939 1877 122 2,827.08 1,045,442 1878 147 3,380.05 1,272,756 1879 195 3,842.31 1,935,320 1880 195 4,484.30 2,168,201

All the more important towns in the country were thus made able to communicate with one another as early as 1880.

In 1879 j.a.pan joined the International Telegraph Convention, and since then she can communicate easily with the great powers of the world through the great submarine cable system. "Compared with the state of ten years ago, when the ignorant people cut down the telegraph poles and severed the wires," exclaims Count Ok.u.ma, "we seem rather to have made a century's advance."

2. Postal System. "Previous to the Restoration," to quote further from Count Ok.u.ma, "with the exception of the posts sent by the Daimios from their residences at the capital to their territories, there was no regularly established post for the general public and private convenience. Letters had to be sent by any opportunity that occurred, and a single letter cost over 25 sen for a distance of 150 ri. But since the Restoration the government for the first time established a general postal service, and in 1879 the length of postal lines was 15,700 ri (nearly 40,000 English miles), and a letter can at any time be sent for two sen to any part of the country. In 1874 we entered the International Postal Convention, and have thus obtained great facilities for communicating with foreign countries."[2]