Emperor of Japan

by Donald Keene

  Itō’s words implied that although no one in the cabinet had prior knowledge of the rescript, his own advice may have influenced the emperor to write in these terms. The absence of a signature or countersignature suggested that the emperor may have acted on his own, perhaps on the spur of the moment.

  Konoe presented the rescript to the House of Peers on March 24. The emperor’s admonition caused an immediate change in the members’ attitudes, and the revenue bill was passed without modification.9

  Later that month, the emperor displayed his authority in quite a different area. On March 27 the minister of justice, Kaneko Kentarō, asked the emperor’s authorization to dismiss sixteen judges and public prosecutors who had asked permission to resign their offices. The cause of their action was the decision by the House of Representatives not to grant salary increases to members of the judiciary, even though there were good reasons to do so. The annual budget was consequently passed without a provision for a salary increase. The disappointed judges and prosecutors started a campaign against the bill. Some provincial magistrates left their posts to participate in strike actions in the capital.

  Kaneko issued frequent warnings to the strikers, reminding them they must not violate official discipline, but his warnings had no effect. The ringleaders called for a general resignation, and soon letters of resignation were streaming into Tōkyō by mail and telegraph. Kaneko, determined to maintain the dignity of the judiciary, decided that rather than yield to the strikers’ demands for higher pay, he would accept their resignations. He forwarded to Itō the letters of resignation, with the request that they be submitted to the emperor.

  Itō informed the emperor of the circumstances and requested his decision. The emperor asked if the minister of justice would be able to replace men who might resign. Itō in turn asked Kaneko who, by way of reply, showed him a list of more than 800 persons qualified to serve as judges and prosecutors. He said that there would be no difficulty in replacing the strikers. Itō showed the list to the emperor, who at once accepted the resignations, saying, “If from now on anybody submits a resignation, an answer should be sent immediately, even if it’s in the middle of the night. I will give permission immediately.” The emperor’s decision had the effect of breaking the strike; people who had already submitted resignations, assuming that they would not be accepted, asked to withdraw them.10

  The emperor’s decision did not take into account the hardships that judges and prosecutors might be suffering because of inadequate salaries. His only concern was whether the strikers could be replaced. As a Confucian ruler, he should have displayed greater compassion, but Meiji probably thought of the strikers primarily as violators of the law, and in his dislike of disorder, he was like the Tokugawa shoguns, who were also good Confucians.

  On May 2 Itō asked the emperor’s permission to resign as prime minister. He declared that although he had recovered sufficiently to be able to attend court functions, his health still did not permit him to cope with the arduous tasks ahead, notably the budget. Itō’s poor health was more than a mere excuse, as the emperor tacitly recognized. On the day he received Itō’s letter, he appointed Saionji Kinmochi as acting prime minister, to serve during Itō’s illness.11

  Itō was not exaggerating the difficulties facing the government. The budget for the coming year and a bill to increase taxes had at last passed the Diet, but the financial crisis was still not solved. Ever since the ending of the Sino-Japanese War in 1895, the government had made building up the military its chief priority, and a large part of the national wealth had been funneled into military projects and plans, resulting in serious deficits. Tax increases followed on earlier tax increases, and loans were floated on earlier loans; the process seemed unending. Financial stringency threatened to precipitate a panic.

  The finance minister, Watanabe Kunitake (1846–1919), submitted a bill of financial retrenchment involving the suspension of government enterprises, but he was opposed by five members of the cabinet, mainly because of their personal annoyance with him. Itō was called in to mediate, but the solution he proposed only intensified the conflict. Finally, the entire cabinet except for Watanabe submitted their resignations.

  On May 3 Watanabe presented to the emperor his views on the financial situation. Afterward, the emperor sent for Saionji and asked him what he thought of Watanabe’s opinions. Saionji replied that allowing Watanabe to have his way would set a bad example. He proposed asking Watanabe to resign. If he refused, Saionji would inform him that the emperor desired his resignation.

  Saionji went to see Watanabe and, after considerable exhortation, persuaded him to resign. That day, Watanabe went to the chief chamberlain, Tokudaiji Sanetsune, with two different letters of resignation and asked him which one he should submit. In the first, he gave failing health as his reason for resigning; in the second, he said he was resigning because everybody else in the cabinet was resigning. Tokudaiji said it was customary in such circumstances to attribute one’s resignation to one’s health. Watanabe followed his advice.12

  In the meantime, the emperor’s first grandchild, a boy, was born to the crown prince’s consort on April 29. Officials crowded the crown prince’s palace to voice congratulations, but the crown prince did not return from Hayama for a look at his son until May 3.13 The baby was healthy, and joy over his birth was not tinged with the apprehension that had accompanied the births of the emperor’s children. On May 5 the emperor gave the infant a name and title. From among three names submitted, he chose Hirohito, and from two titles, Michinomiya.14 The emperor inscribed the names on separate sheets of parchment and gave them to Tokudaiji for delivery to the crown prince, who returned to Odawara the next day.15

  Itō’s petition to resign was finally accepted by the emperor on May 10. Inoue Kaoru was asked to form a cabinet but failed. On May 26 the emperor commanded General Katsura Tarō, who had been strongly recommended by the genrō, to form a cabinet. Katsura delayed responding, saying that he hoped to persuade Itō to change his mind. He asked the emperor to join his voice in urging Itō to reassume the post of prime minister. The emperor had Tokudaiji telegraph Itō, requesting him to come at once to Tōkyō for an audience.16

  Itō firmly declined to reassume his post. Katsura, whose hesitation to accept the premiership seems to have been prompted by deference to Itō and not by doubts of his own ability, asked Tokudaiji to inform the emperor on June 1 that preparations for the new cabinet had been completed. He requested that the inauguration ceremony take place on the following day.

  The cabinet consisted entirely of new men except for the army and navy ministers who, at the emperor’s request, remained in office. It was unusual in that it contained not one genrō. The military coloring of the cabinet was not confined to Katsura: all members were associated with Yamagata. This facilitated relations with the House of Peers, although it posed a problem regarding relations with the House of Representatives, now controlled by the Seiyūkai.

  On June 21 Hoshi Tōru (1850–1901), a member of the House of Representatives and a leading figure in the Seiyūkai, was assassinated. Hoshi is one of the most enigmatic figures of the entire Meiji era. Encyclopedia articles describe him as an arrogant and corrupt politician and sometimes compare him with similar Japanese politicians of recent times. Hoshi’s meritorious acts are usually passed over quickly by writers who prefer to dwell on his faults, but he may strike a modern reader as the first specifically modern politician in the good as well as the bad sense.

  Hoshi was the first major political figure to come not merely from the class of commoners but from the lowest depths of society. His father, an alcoholic plasterer, deserted his wife and their three children, leaving them penniless. Hoshi’s eldest sister was sold to a brothel, and his second sister was indentured as a servant. His mother was so exhausted by the strain of feeding herself and her baby that she planned to throw Hoshi into a pond, only to decide at the last moment to let him live because he was a male.17 Later she married a kindly man�
�a quack doctor and fortune-teller by profession—and the family of five was able to live together in an Edo slum.

  When Hoshi was old enough to go to school, his stepfather sent him to study under the doctor who had been his own teacher, planning to have the boy follow in his profession. Hoshi was not unusually bright, but with dogged perseverance he learned not only the rudiments of medicine but also the Confucian classics. More important to his future career, he also began to study English. In 1866, when Hoshi was sixteen, he was adopted by a childless samurai who sent him to the Kaiseisho, a school for children of shogunate retainers, where he studied English with Maejima Hisoka, the founder of the Japanese postal service. Maejima was so favorably impressed that he enabled Hoshi to remain at the school even after his samurai ties had been broken.18

  Hoshi was introduced by Maejima to Ga Noriyuki (1840–1923),19 a professor of English at the Kaiseisho, who recognized the boy’s ability and obtained for him his first job as a teacher of English at a naval school. The school was disbanded after the shogunate was overthrown, and Hoshi wrote to Ga asking for another job. Ga introduced him to Mutsu Munemitsu, the governor of Hyōgo, who hired Hoshi to teach at a school he had founded in Kōbe. Mutsu’s patronage was crucial to Hoshi’s success.

  Hoshi’s career was characterized by absolute determination to rise in the world despite his lowly birth and physical weakness. His resentment over his lot in life revealed itself in his hatred of the samurai class and his urge to triumph over those who ran the government. The more elevated his opponent was, the more his fighting spirit would be aroused.20 He overcame the handicap of birth by intelligence and unremitting study and his physical weakness by the constant practice of martial sports. The photographs of Hoshi taken in late years show him as a portly, ugly man who exudes self-confidence.

  Mutsu was appointed as governor of Kanagawa Prefecture in 1871; two years later, Hoshi obtained a position in the Finance Ministry on Mutsu’s recommendation. His main occupation was translating the tax laws of various foreign countries. He lost this job and was placed under house arrest after assaulting a rickshaw coolie and refusing to obey the restraining policemen. He used the time at home to translate a book on heroic men of foreign countries. When Hoshi was released from house arrest, Mutsu urged him to behave himself in the future and (a sign of how highly he regarded Hoshi’s ability) invited him to live in his residence. Hoshi and two students took advantage of this offer and were soon translating Blackwood’s British Laws.

  In 1873 Mutsu obtained for Hoshi a position in the Yokohama customs. He rose rapidly, in January 1874 becoming the tax adviser and superintendent of customs. Everything seemed to be going well when Hoshi’s nemesis struck. In an exchange of documents with the British consulate, he translated the words “Her Majesty” not as jotei (empress) but as joō heika (Her Majesty, the queen). He was accused by the British of lèse-majesté. Hoshi, defending himself, pointed out that Victoria referred to herself as queen and not as empress, but Sir Harry Parkes personally went to the Foreign Ministry to protest and demand that Hoshi be fired and made to apologize. Sanjō Sanetomi, the prime minister, and Terashima Munenori, the foreign minister, urged Hoshi to apologize, but he refused, saying that he was not mistaken. The government, afraid of antagonizing the British, removed Hoshi from his post in order to mollify Parkes.21

  Hoshi retained his post of tax adviser, however, and it was in this capacity that he was sent to study in England in September 1874. In January 1875 he enrolled at the Middle Temple, and two years later he became the first Japanese to obtain the degree of barrister-at-law. Hoshi spent almost all his time in London in his room, studying books of law and philosophy.22

  After his return to Japan, Hoshi was appointed as daigennin (barrister) attached to the Justice Ministry. His main occupation at this time was as a lawyer, but he became increasingly involved with the movement for Freedom and Popular Rights and the Jiyū-tō, attracting the attention of the authorities. In 1882 members of the Jiyū-tō in Fukushima were arrested for having protested against the actions of a tyrannical governor.23 They were accused of attempting to overthrow the government. Hoshi, defending Kōno Hironaka, the central figure among the accused, demonstrated with irrefutable logic that the charge of insurrection did not apply, but the defendants were found guilty all the same.24

  In the meantime, Hoshi had joined the Jiyū-tō, whose program corresponded closely to his own beliefs about society. He felt, however, that the official party newspaper was couched in such high-flown language that the mass of Japanese were unable to understand it. In May 1884 he founded a popular newspaper, written in easy-to-understand language and containing pictures, in order to appeal to the class from which he himself had originated. This attempt to educate the masses was unprecedented at a time when the vote was confined to a fraction of the population.

  In July 1884 Hoshi delivered in Niigata a speech entitled “The Limitations of Government” in which he attacked the despotic, militaristic governments of Russia and Germany for their interference in the private lives of their citizens. Although he carefully refrained from mentioning Japan, the implications were obvious, and the police, acting under a regulation promulgated in 1880, halted the lecture and dispersed the meeting.

  Hoshi was ordered to report to the Niigata Police Station, but he ignored the summons, saying that the police had no authority to summon him. They finally arrested him anyway and charged him with having slandered public officials. Hoshi had not criticized any official, but he was nevertheless found guilty of having slandered Prime Minister Sanjō and the ministers of the interior, army, navy, education, agriculture and commerce, public works, and imperial household. He was condemned to six months in prison and ordered to pay a fine of forty yen. He was also stripped of his credentials as barrister.25

  Hoshi was not chastened by his time in prison. He continued publishing his illustrated newspaper and waited for the chance to reestablish the Jiyū-tō, which had been dissolved while he was incarcerated. However, in 1888 he was again arrested, this time on the charge of having published secret documents dealing with the negotiations over treaty revision. He was sentenced to a year and a half in prison and had no choice but to sell his newspaper.26

  Hoshi spent his time in prison studying. It was by no means a good place to read books, but from the crack of dawn until nightfall, he read books written in Japanese, English, German, French, and Italian. He was pardoned and released in the amnesty celebrating the proclamation of the constitution in February 1889.

  After leaving prison Hoshi traveled to America and Europe to study their political institutions. What this meant in practice was that wherever he went he visited bookshops, buying books that seemed useful and then shutting himself up in a cheap hotel room to read them. He scorned to imitate politicians like Itō Hirobumi, who boasted of having sat at the feet of Rudolf von Gneist, Lorenz von Stein, and other eminences. Hoshi said that these men were not as famous in Europe as in Japan and that it was ludicrous to give oneself airs just because one had heard them lecture.

  Hoshi visited almost every country of Europe and North America. The journey seems to have changed him. He disappointed his former associates in the Freedom and Popular Rights movement by delivering a speech after his return to Japan in which he urged strengthening armaments,27 acquiring colonies, encouraging Japanese emigration, and starting an active Japanese propaganda campaign abroad.28 His experience abroad, or perhaps the books he read, seems to have opened his eyes to the realities of the world situation, and he talked in terms of power politics.

  Once back in Japan, Hoshi threw himself into refounding the Jiyū-tō as the Rikken jiyū-tō. At the party convention in March 1891, Hoshi’s faction won control. In the second general election in February 1892, Hoshi was elected to the House of Representatives and (with Mutsu Munemitsu’s help) was chosen as president. Everyone expected that Hoshi would take advantage of his position to advance bills favored by the Jiyū-tō, but in fact he was scrupulously fair and d
id not favor members of his own party.29

  Hoshi was soon at loggerheads with Matsukata, the prime minister, whose authority was derived from backers in the Satsuma and Chōshū domains. Hoshi’s arrogance also alienated many members of the House of Representatives. The politics of the time are confusing and need not be treated at length here; suffice it to say that Hoshi was accused of improprieties. He was able to prove his innocence of all charges, but this did not erase the impression that he was guilty; an aura of corruption has clung to him ever since.30 Hoshi was removed from his position as president of the House.

  In 1896 Hoshi was appointed as minister to the United States, mainly (it has been conjectured) because Itagaki and others of the Jiyū-tō found him an embarrassment and wanted him out of the way.31 His two years as minister were successfully spent in dealing with two crucial issues, the threatened rise in import duties on Japanese products and the effects on Japanese in Hawaii of the impending American annexation.

  Hoshi was able to dissuade senators who favored the higher tariffs sponsored by the Republican administration.32 With respect to Hawaii, Hoshi was determined to secure from the Americans the concessions granted earlier to the Japanese by the Hawaiian monarchy. At one point he moved to an extreme position of advocating the annexation of Hawaii by Japan, even if this risked war with the United States.33 Ōkuma Shigenobu, the foreign minister, rejected the proposal as being provocative, but Hoshi succeeded in obtaining a guarantee that Japanese residents of Hawaii would enjoy the same rights as citizens of European countries.34