Emperor of Japan

by Donald Keene

  Some people believed that the funeral, reflecting the present glory of the imperial house, should be on a grand scale. Members of the Commission of Imperial Mourning expressed the view that Emperor Kōmei’s tomb was too small and that the empress dowager should have a bigger one. The emperor gave his opinion: “Of course, the empress’s funeral should be impressive, but there is a limit to everything. We must not exaggerate and surpass the scale of the funeral of my late father.”22

  The imperial Diet at first budgeted 800,000 yen for the funeral, but Prince Takehito, calling attention to the emperor’s wishes, asked that the sum be reduced, and so it was set at 700,000 yen. The emperor and empress were unable to attend the funeral in Kyōto because they both were ill, and it was feared that the exposure to winter weather might aggravate their illness. Prince Takehito and his wife represented them.

  The emperor commanded that henceforth the empress dowager would be known as Dowager Empress Eishō. This was a most unusual distinction, no doubt reflecting his devotion. There were scarcely any previous instances of an empress dowager or empress being given a posthumous name.23 Eishō was not a Buddhist title but was derived from the poem “Purple Wisteria over a Deep Pool” by the T’ang-dynasty statesman Li Tê-yu.24 This name was chosen for the empress dowager because she was from the Fujiwara (Wisteria Field) family.

  On February 2 Eishō’s coffin left the Aoyama Palace for the Ōmiya Gosho in Kyōto. A ceremony before the departure was attended by members of the imperial family, cabinet members, the president of the Privy Council, ministers of foreign countries, and their wives. Despite their persisting illness, the emperor and empress wished to go to the Aoyama Palace for a last farewell, but the palace doctors strictly forbade them to brave the weather.

  The funeral in Kyōto took place on February 7. The procession from the Ōmiya Gosho to the Tsukinowayama Funeral Hall was long and impressive. The hearse was drawn by four oxen, and nobles and great men of state, all dressed in formal robes, walked behind it. Shintō priests carrying sakaki branches, brocade pennants, and halberds, or flaming torches walked to the left and right of the procession. A guard of honor from the Household Guards and Fourth Division, along with naval personnel, accompanied the hearse. Field artillery of the Fourth Division fired salutes of minute guns, and a military band played “Kanashimi no kiwami” (Extremity of Grief), the dirge played at the funerals of senior members of the imperial family.25

  When the funeral procession reached the Yume no Ukihashi (Floating Bridge of Dreams), just before reaching the Sennyū-ji, the road became so narrow that the coffin was transferred to a handcart. At ten that night the procession arrived at Tsukinowayama, and at eleven a service was performed. The coffin was placed at the center of the funeral hall, and the mourners formed lines flanking the temporary altar. Then, one by one, the mourners came forward from left and right to bow before the bier and offer a sprig of sakaki. It must have been a sight of extraordinary solemnity and beauty, despite being performed in honor of a woman who in life was unknown to more than a handful of those who bowed in worship. The funeral of Queen Victoria could not have been more impressive.

  Perhaps the funeral’s most surprising feature was the absence of Buddhist elements—no priests, no chanting of sutras, no incense.26 In the past, Shintō priests had been unwilling to conduct funerals for fear of being infected by the pollution of death, but ever since the Restoration, when Buddhism had fallen from favor, Shintō funeral rites had been performed.

  The ceremony ended at twelve minutes after midnight on the eighth of February, but the casket was not placed in the grave until 5:30 A.M., and the burial was not completed until 11:55. The only foreign worshiper at the funeral was probably the ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary Yi Ha-yong, sent by the king of Korea with a pair of vases of artificial flowers to be placed before the coffin. This gesture was much appreciated by the Japanese. Yi Ha-yong was decorated with the Order of the Rising Sun, and the emperor at an audience for the ambassador expressed his gratitude. On November 22, 1897, when a funeral service was held for Queen Min, the Japanese reciprocated by sending their minister with condolences and a pair of silver incense burners.27

  The emperor and empress were not able to go to Kyōto for the funeral, but on April 19 they paid their respects together before the tomb of Dowager Empress Eishō. They remained in Kyōto for more than four months. They were scheduled to return to Tōkyō in the middle of May when word was received of an epidemic of measles, and the court doctors warned them that returning might be dangerous. The emperor was enjoying his stay in the old capital, and even when the measles epidemic had abated, he showed no inclination to return to Tōkyō. Not until August 22 did he tear himself away from Kyōto, having at last conceded that the measles epidemic seemed to be over.28

  On the morning of his departure from Kyōto, the imperial train was to leave at 8:55, but the emperor suddenly announced that he would like the train to leave twenty minutes later. He gave no reason; perhaps he merely wished to enjoy Kyōto a bit longer. The Transport Section of the Ministry of Communications indicated that changing the timetable would be difficult, but the emperor retorted, “Why should it be impossible to rearrange the schedule, considering that this is a special train for my use?” He was extremely displeased. In the end, the train’s departure was postponed. This was a rare instance of self-indulgence on the emperor’s part, and (as in the other cases) he probably regretted it the next day.

  Another internal matter that disturbed the emperor in 1897 and would have future ramifications was the copper poisoning caused by the mines at Ashio. On March 24 a cabinet committee was established to investigate the situation. The extent of the harm to the environment and the suffering of the inhabitants of the region could hardly be exaggerated. Fish had disappeared from the Watarase River and its tributaries. Innumerable dry and wet fields had been ravaged. In recent years there had been frequent flooding, and the damage increased each year. At every session of the Diet, Tanaka Shōzō (1841–1913), a member of the House of Representatives, described the terrible damage, appealing for preventive measures and relief. However, neither the government nor the mine owners did anything to help the people of the region, and it was feared they might stage a march on Tōkyō to appeal directly to the government.29

  Shortly before the investigating committee was established, the minister of agriculture and commerce, Enomoto Takeaki, traveled to Ashio in mufti to observe the effects of mineral poisoning. He was so shocked by what he saw that he resigned his post, taking blame for the disaster.30 The emperor was much upset when he was informed of conditions in Ashio, and on April 7, at his request, Tokudaiji Sanetsune sent letters to the governors of Gumma, Tochigi, Saitama, and Ibaraki Prefectures asking if they thought that the sudden spate of public criticism was occasioned by the damage caused by the flooding of 1896 or if it went back to 1892 and 1893 when the frightening effects of pollution were first discovered.

  At the time some observers blamed the disasters on the indiscriminate felling of trees, resulting in landslides that filled the riverbeds. The rivers, unable to flow freely in their normal courses, had broken through the embankments and spread the poison in their water over the land. The governors were requested to reply without concealing anything and appending relevant documents.31

  As a result of the reports received from the cabinet committee, on May 27 Furukawa Ichibei, the operator of the mines, was issued a set of thirty-seven orders requiring him to provide settling ponds, filter beds, and similar facilities to prevent the mine water from overflowing and to eliminate smoke pollution. He was told that these improvements must be completed within 150 days and that mining operations would be halted until the settling ponds and filter beds were ready. In the event that Furukawa disobeyed these orders, he would be forbidden to engage in further mining.32

  On November 27 the cabinet, satisfied that the work of the committee investigating the mineral poisoning at Ashio was more or less completed, relieved the c
ommittee of its functions, and assigned to the appropriate ministries the supervision of preventive measures and restoration of affected land.33 Judging from the persistence into the late Meiji era of the issue of copper poisoning, it is obvious that the pollution controls ordered by the government at this time were not strictly enforced. The desire to build a modern, rich country was so strong that the Japanese tended to tolerate environmental pollution, even when it was as extreme as at the Ashio copper mines.

  Eleven years earlier, in 1886, Suehiro Tetchō had published Setchūbai (Plum Blossoms in the Snow), a work often praised as the finest of the Meiji-period political novels. It is set in 2040, the 173rd year of the reign of Emperor Meiji, and opens with the sounds of cannons and bugles blowing to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the proclamation of the constitution. The accompanying illustrations depict the Tōkyō of the future. It is a city of grim rows of brick buildings from which innumerable tall chimneys emit black smoke. Tetchō wrote enthusiastically, “Telegraph wires spread like spiders’ webs, and trains run to and fro to every point of the compass. The electric lamps are so bright that even at night the streets look no different than in broad daylight.”34

  A reader today may shudder at the thought of a city so devoid of amenities and so tainted by industrial pollution, but Tetchō undoubtedly believed that his readers would be delighted by a future rich with the progress represented by chimneys belching smoke; he seems to have thought that the more Tōkyō resembled London, the greatest of the Western cities, the happier the Japanese would be.

  The chamberlain Hinonishi Sukehiro recalled:

  Whenever His Majesty made a journey in the Kansai region, a little before the train passed Ōsaka he would say, “We’re getting close to the smoke capital…. Now we’re in the smoke capital.” Whenever we approached Ōsaka, he would look out of the window at the landscape. When he saw a great deal of smoke rising, he would be extremely satisfied.35

  For Emperor Meiji, no less than for Suehiro Tetchō, the “smoke capital” was a term of praise; but the copper mines at Ashio served as a grim reminder of the cost to the environment and to human lives of such progress.

  Chapter 49

  Another cabinet crisis occurred at the end of 1897. The prime minister, Matsukata Masayoshi, who never paid much attention to the political parties’ wishes, tried to push legislation through the Diet without first obtaining the parties’ consent. In response to the president of the Privy Council, Kuroda Kiyotaka, who questioned Matsukata’s tactics, he replied that he was following instructions from the emperor to devote his every effort to matters of state, without worrying about allies or enemies in the political parties or the reactions of the Diet. A motion of no confidence in the cabinet was proposed in the House of Representatives, and Matsukata’s enemies decided to petition for a dissolution of the Diet.1 He was defeated, faced with opposition even from members of his own cabinet.

  On December 25, 1897, Matsukata dissolved the Diet and, taking responsibility for the cabinet’s disunity, informed the emperor of his wish to resign. The members of his cabinet made the same request. The emperor asked Matsukata to await further orders, at the same time ordering other ministers not to leave Tōkyō. Undoubtedly he remembered how often it had happened that ministers were off in the remote countryside just when he needed their advice. Absence from Tōkyō was second only to ill health as an excuse for not responding to the emperor’s commands.

  The emperor realized that dissolution or at least adjournment of the Diet was unavoidable. He also knew that there was no way to alter Matsukata’s resolve to resign. On the same day, December 25, he sent Tokudaiji Sanetsune to Kuroda Kiyotaka’s house to explain what had happened and to inform him that he wished to discuss the situation. Kuroda replied that he was ill and asked for three or four days’ leave before going to the palace. The emperor seems to have doubted that Kuroda was really ill. Three hours later, Tokudaiji was back at Kuroda’s house with another message, this one asking him to report to the palace immediately: the Diet was about to be dissolved and the prime minister had asked to resign. Kuroda, unperturbed, said he would go to the palace on December 28. Tokudaiji returned on the twenty-sixth to inform Kuroda that the emperor was greatly upset by his failure to appear. Kuroda yielded, but only to the extent of going to the palace on December 27. For all the reiterated declarations of absolute loyalty to the throne, the emperor’s ministers disregarded his wishes when they found them inconvenient.

  While disclaiming any desire to intervene in the choosing of a successor, Matsukata suggested that either Itō Hirobumi or Yamagata Aritomo would be suitable. This crisis, like most of the other changes in prime ministers and cabinet ministers at this time, is no longer in itself of great interest, but the unspoken assumptions are significant. Matsukata, a Satsuma man, having failed as prime minister, suggested that either Itō or Yamagata, both Chōshū men, would make appropriate successors. Although the political parties had a role in the Diet, the party favored by his successor was not an important factor in Matsukata’s recommendation. Regardless of Itō’s or Yamagata’s political allegiance, his qualifications to become prime minister were recognized ability (though not specifically for the tasks immediately confronting the government) and birth in one of the two domains that alternately supplied the chief officers of the state. Although the prospective prime minister’s political affiliations were not yet a factor, this situation would soon change.

  That night, by command of the emperor, Hijikata Hisamoto, the imperial household minister, sent Itō a telegram asking him to come to the palace the following day. Itō, then in his villa at Ōiso, sent back a message saying that he had not kept up with the situation either at home or abroad since he had resigned from office in the preceding year and feared that if the emperor asked his opinions, he might only mislead the holy wisdom. Besides, he had been suffering of late from an eye complaint. He requested a delay in reporting to the palace.2

  On December 28 the emperor sent a chamberlain to Kuroda to inform him of his intention of appointing Itō as prime minister. Kuroda was asked to transmit this decision to Itō and, by describing the difficult situation that prevailed in the cabinet, to persuade him to accept the appointment. Kuroda went that day to Ōiso and urged Itō to leave for Tōkyō at once and to comfort the emperor by acceding to his wishes. Itō, moved by these words, agreed.3

  Itō arrived in Tōkyō on December 29 and went to the palace. The emperor informed Itō why he had been summoned, and Itō replied that he was well aware of the gravity of the situation. He was willing to form a new cabinet.

  The year 1898 opened as usual with New Year rituals being performed not by the emperor but by a surrogate. Learning that Itō was suffering from a cold, the emperor sent a chamberlain to inquire after his health and to express the hope that he would render ever greater services to the nation. He sent Itō what was now his standard gift, a dozen bottles of wine together with ten ducks.

  Yamagata called on Itō and urged him to display his mettle by forming a cabinet. In his reply, sent the next day, Itō confessed to Yamagata that by nature he was given to going from one extreme to another. He mentioned also that Inoue Kaoru was highly emotional and had a tendency to break down in tears. He feared that these deficiencies might wreck any cabinet he might form. In contrast, when Yamagata served as prime minister, he had displayed his unique ability to balance lenience with stringency. He asked Yamagata’s assistance.4

  On January 8 Itō requested a meeting in the presence of the emperor to discuss the formation of a cabinet. He would, of course, count on Yamagata and Saigō Tsugumichi to continue serving as ministers of the army and navy. He had planned to invite Ōkuma Shigenobu, the leader of the Shimpo-tō, to join the cabinet in order that relations with the political parties be cemented. But at the end of 1897, when he discussed with Ōkuma the possibility of his joining the cabinet, Ōkuma had not readily consented. His price was the post of interior minister, and he asked that three other members of the Shimpo-
tō be appointed to major cabinet posts. Itō was unable to accept these demands.5

  Itō tried next to establish relations with the Jiyū-tō. He approached Itagaki Taisuke, only for him also to demand the post of interior minister in return for his cooperation. Itō rejected this condition, believing that if the head of a political party became interior minister, this would skew the coming election. He accordingly reported to the emperor on January 8 his failure to shore up the new cabinet with party support. Despite this failure, the tense situation in East Asia and many other problems, both domestic and foreign, permitted no delay in forming a government. Itō therefore urged the emperor to summon the genrō and have them discuss the situation. Itō would present his views at this meeting.

  The meeting took place on January 10. Itō presented a gloomy appraisal of the situation in East Asia. Russia was exerting pressure on China from Siberia and had occupied Liaotung, Dairen, and Port Arthur. France had occupied the Yunnan region in the south of China. Britain controlled the mouth of the Yangtse. Germany had taken possession of Kiang-chou Bay and the Shantung area. British warships were threatening Inch’on. If a quarrel should arise between Britain and Russia, with which country should Japan side? In his opinion, in view of Japan’s military unpreparedness and the uncertain state of its finances, the best course would be to remain neutral and preserve its safety.

  Yamagata and the other genrō supported this conclusion, and the emperor agreed. In the past, the emperor had generally remained silent during discussions conducted in his presence, but he was now outspoken in expressing his views. The genrō unanimously recommended that Itō, the only person capable of handling the present crisis, form a new cabinet. They favored retaining from the previous cabinet only the navy and foreign ministers and proposed Inoue Kaoru as finance minister, Katsura Tarō as army minister, Saionji Kinmochi as education minister, and Yoshikawa Akimasa as interior minister. Itō had at last formed a cabinet, and Matsukata resigned on January 12.