Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852’1912 (84 page)

The rescript opens with an account of the service rendered by the military to the throne in the reign of Emperor Jimmu. In ancient Japan, the emperor himself had commanded the imperial forces, but in later times the court gradually lost its martial vigor as the result of the protracted period of peace. Military power fell into the hands of professional soldiers, the future samurai.

For some 700 years, the military ruled the country in disregard of the wishes of the imperial family, but by the 1830s and 1840s the shogunate was much weakened. It was just at this time that foreigners first posed a threat to Japanese security, causing Emperor Meiji’s grandfather and father deep distress. He had been more fortunate. When he came to the throne, still young and inexperienced, he was assisted by loyal men who made it possible to return to the ancient system of government, rule by the emperor.

During the last fifteen years, great changes had taken place. The army and the navy were now personally commanded by the emperor. He declared to the military, “We are your commander in chief. We depend on you as Our trusted retainers; you look up to Us as your chief; our relations must be particularly intimate. Whether We can or cannot protect the nation, render thanks for the blessing of Heaven, and repay the debt We owe to Our ancestors depends on whether or not you carry out to the full your duties as military men.”
²

These statements are followed by a series of five commands indicating what the emperor expected of the military. The first was that as members of the military, they devote their entire loyalty to their country. He asked rhetorically, “Is there anyone born in our country who does not feel the desire to recompense his country?” It was not sufficient for a soldier to be skilled or learned. Unless he possessed the spirit of “recompensing his country,” he would be no more than a puppet. A military man should consider his duty to maintain loyalty as weighty as the mountains but think of death as being as light as a feather.

The second injunction commanded lower ranks to show the same respect toward their seniors that they would toward the emperor himself. In return, the upper ranks were commanded not to behave with arrogance or contempt toward lower ranks but to treat them with kindness. Above and below should join in service to the emperor.

The third injunction was devoted mainly to the importance of courage. Soldiers were warned that real courage did not consist in recklessness; they were enjoined always to be governed by the sense of duty, by steady spiritual strength, and by their intelligence. The members of the military were commanded, moreover, to consider gentleness of the greatest importance in their dealings with civilians; they must try always to earn their affection and respect.

The fourth and fifth injunctions commanded the military to be true to its words and to practice simplicity.

The one feature that most clearly distinguishes these injunctions from those that any commander, regardless of country, might issue to his army was the emphasis on the direct connection between the emperor and the soldiers and sailors of his command. Emperor Meiji declared that he relied on his soldiers and sailors to serve as his “hands and feet” and commanded them to look up to him as their head, creating a relationship of mutual, personal dependence. If his men exerted themselves to the utmost, they would share his glory; if they did not, he too would fail.

A few days after the imperial rescript was issued, Chief of the General Staff Yamagata Aritomo prepared a memorandum on the state of the armed forces that he presented to Army Minister
Ō
yama Iwao. He complained of the insufficient number of soldiers—barely 40,000 men. Even nine years after conscription was instituted, established quotas of troops were not being filled. Garrisons in different parts of the country were short of infantry, artillery, and engineering personnel. Externally, too, the situation was by no means settled: Japan’s relations with China and Korea were uncertain, and the status of the Ry
ū
ky
ū
s was a potential source of conflict. If the Japanese were to wait until a crisis arose before bringing their forces up to strength, it would then be too late. Yamagata was aware of the financial problems, but he was determined that the quotas prescribed in the conscription law be filled that year.
³
Yamagata’s mention of China and Korea was noteworthy, as the latter part of 1882 was largely occupied with Japan’s relations to these two countries.

The other important matter to occupy the court this year was the perpetual question of treaty revision. Again and again, the Japanese attempted to secure revision, offering various concessions to the foreign powers with which they had concluded unequal treaties. Although Japan had managed to secure the approval of most countries to revision, British opposition was unwavering.

Meiji himself at first was not directly involved in these problems. His name occurs most often in official records in connection with the gifts he made to people and institutions. On January 19, for example, he made a gift from his private purse of 1,000 yen to Kong
ō
bu-ji on Mount K
ō
ya to rebuild the great pagoda, destroyed by fire in 1843.
⁴
It is unlikely that Meiji was moved by Buddhist piety, though he no doubt had received instruction in Buddhism as a child.
⁵
Perhaps he felt, as did contemporary European monarchs, that it was incumbent on him as the father of his people to give money to religious and scholarly associations as well as charities.
⁶
Or the donation to rebuild a pagoda may have reflected his interest in reviving the past.

The emperor showed at this time an increasing concern for the preservation of Japanese traditions. He was pleased to learn that after a period of indiscriminate imitation of Western educational systems, Confucian virtues were being reinstituted as the foundation of education. He commented, “On examining the articles of the educational system now established by the Ministry of Education, I realized today that the recommendations I had made to the previous minister of education, Terashima Munenori, had at last been put into practice.”
⁷
In a rescript he expressed the hope that in years to come, even if, for example, people urged the adoption of some feature of German education or of Russian education, the ministry would not be swayed by such demands but hold fast to the present system; ten years would surely demonstrate that it was a success.

Not long afterward, in response to questions from the emperor, Prime Minister Sanj
ō
Sanetomi presented a written opinion concerning constitutional government. The time of the opening of a parliament had been set, and a draft constitution had been presented to the Genr
ō
-in, but its provisions were copied from European constitutions and, not being suited to Japanese national feelings, could not be adopted without revision. Many opinions were expressed concerning how to put the constitution into effect and what its governing principles should be. One thing was definite: the constitution would be bestowed by the emperor and would not be the result of a struggle by the people. Debates continued, however, as to the locus of sovereignty. Some claimed that it resided with the people, others that it was shared by the sovereign and the people, still others that it resided entirely with the emperor; and they all quoted European theories and systems to prove their points.

Distressed by these divisions, the emperor asked Sanj
ō
to submit a detailed report on the principles of the imperial constitution, the relationship between the parliament and imperial authority, and the state of preparations for opening the parliament. Sanj
ō
’s report, submitted on February 24, insisted on the sovereign’s inviolability; his ministers bore full responsibility for acts committed on his behalf. Sanj
ō
reiterated that the government’s policy was gradualism. He was aware that many people favored rapid changes. He believed that this was because the Japanese for hundreds of years had lived securely in their own little world, despising everything outside. When suddenly they were brought into contact with foreign countries, they rushed to the opposite extreme, vying with one another in an attempt to be as advanced as possible. Recently, European extremist political thought had penetrated the cities and countryside, and the young people were inebriated with strange new ideas. The most urgent need was to guide these people and imbue them with objectivity and steadfastness.

Sanj
ō
also emphasized the need to preserve the financial independence of the imperial household.
⁸
Indeed, he defined the main function of the nobility in the future upper house of the parliament to be its preservation. Next below the nobility came the samurai, but they had been impoverished by the changes in the government. Sanj
ō
pleaded for measures to bring them relief. In a separate document, he listed steps that had been taken to prepare for the opening of the parliament.
⁹

The emphasis on preserving Japanese traditions did not mean that the court had turned its back on guidance from abroad. In February, Terashima Munenori (1832–1893), the president of the Genr
ō
-in, proposed that It
ō
Hirobumi be sent to Europe to study the various European constitutions in order to determine which features were suitable for adoption in the Japanese constitution; he himself would go to America as a minister plenipotentiary for the same purpose. The proposal was approved, and It
ō
resigned as president of the House of Councillors in order to make the journey. In March, before his departure, It
ō
received from the emperor a long list of matters to be investigated.

The question of treaty revision continued to bother the Japanese, and a preliminary conference on treaty revision met to consider the subject. Inoue Kaoru expressed the opinion that because the foreign countries had nothing to gain by revising the treaties and surrendering extraterritoriality, Japan would have to make major concessions. Two proposals for concessions were offered. The first, made by Councillor Yamada Akiyoshi, stated that if foreigners were willing to follow Japanese law in all matters, they would be permitted to live, work, and engage in trade anywhere in the country, exactly like Japanese.
¹⁰
The second, offered by It
ō
Hirobumi, promised less: foreigners would be permitted to engage in trade in the interior provided that they were subject to trial in Japanese courts in cases of infractions of administrative rules or police regulations; the Japanese government would recover the right to decide all civil suits.

On March 5 Sanj
ō
Sanetomi took the two proposals to the emperor and asked him to decide which he preferred. The emperor answered that first of all, he had hoped for unanimity of opinions on this major question, instead of bickering over minor differences. He also urged secrecy: if word of differences concerning treaty revision should leak out, there might be a repetition of the scandal that arose in the previous year when the sale of government properties in Hokkaid
ō
was disclosed. Finally, he spoke out against Yamada’s proposal, saying that the Japanese were still not the equal of the foreigners in knowledge and that they were very far from their equal in financial power. If foreigners were given the right to live and work in the interior and were permitted to engage in trade there, it might well lead to a lamentable result. He urged legislators to give earnest thought to possible future consequences.
¹¹

The emperor’s advice failed to end the bickering. Inoue Kaoru, caught between the irresolution of the preliminary conference and the demands of the British minister for prompt action, finally tried to resign. The three
daijin
used every effort to calm him. In the end, K. F. H. Rösler, a German employee of the cabinet, rewrote the two proposals. The first proposal now included a clause permitting foreigners to own property but subjected them to Japanese law in all instances, both civil and criminal. The second proposal restricted to civil cases the trial of foreigners by Japanese courts but offered fewer privileges in return. The two proposals were once again submitted to the emperor. His decision was to open negotiations with foreigners on the basis of the first proposal. If that did not work, the second proposal should be tried. If neither proposal was acceptable, further discussions would have to be initiated and the results submitted to him.
¹²

In April, at the seventh meeting of the preliminary conference, Inoue Kaoru read a memorandum stating that in order to realize its objectives in relations with foreign countries, Japan was prepared to make concessions to countries with which it had signed treaties. Before describing the concessions, he offered evidence of Japan’s modernization and its qualifications for being accorded equality with the major powers. He claimed that Japan had always followed universally recognized principles of law and morality. It had ended the feudal system and enabled all men to enjoy equal rights. It had reformed the methods of government and separated the administrative and judicial systems. It had spread education and relaxed the ban on Christianity. It had established a postal system and joined the Universal Postal Union. It had built a telegraph system, a railway system, and lighthouses along the coasts. It had established a penal code and laws governing appeals. But the Japanese were not resting on these achievements; they were striving for greater progress and improvement and wished to establish ever closer connections with all countries in the belief that this would be mutually beneficial.