A history of the Japanese people

by F. Brinkley; Dairoku Kikuchi

The compromise mentioned above as having been effected between Yedo and Kyoto had the effect of stultifying the previously drafted edict which condemned the shogun for concluding a treaty without consulting the feudatories. The edict had not been publicly promulgated, but it had come into the possession of the Mito feudatory, and by his orders had been enclosed in the family tomb, where it was guarded night and day by a strong troop of samurai. The Bakufu insisted that to convey such a document direct from the Throne to a feudatory was a plain trespass upon the shogun's authority. Mito, however, refused to surrender it. The most uncompromising conservatives of the fief issued a manifesto justifying their refusal, and, as evidence of their sincerity, committed suicide.

ASSASSINATION OF II

Nariaki, the Mito baron, now instructed his vassals to surrender the edict. He may have shared the views of his retainers, but he was not prepared to assert them by taking up arms against his own family. In the face of this instruction the conservative samurai had no choice but to disperse or commit suicide. Some twenty of them, however, made their way to Yedo bent upon killing Ii Kamon no Kami, whom they regarded as the head and front of the evils of the time. The deed was consummated on the morning of the 24th of March, 1860, as Ii was on his way to the shogun's castle. All the assassins lost their lives or committed suicide.

ATTITUDE OF THE JAPANESE SAMURAI

The slaying of Ii was followed by several similar acts, a few against foreigners and several against Japanese leaders of progress. Many evil things have been said of the men by whom these deeds of blood were perpetrated. But we have always to remember, that in their own eyes they obeyed the teachings of hereditary conviction and the dictates of patriotism towards their country as well as loyalty towards their sovereign. It has been abundantly shown in these pages that the original attitude of the Japanese towards foreigners was hospitable and liberal. It has also been shown how, in the presence of unwelcome facts, this mood was changed for one of distrust and dislike. Every Japanese patriot believed when he refused to admit foreigners to his country in the nineteenth century that he was obeying the injunctions handed down from the lips of his most illustrious countrymen, Hideyoshi, Ieyasu, and Iemitsu—believed, in short, that to re-admit aliens would be to expose the realm to extreme peril and to connive at its loss of independence. He was prepared to obey this conviction at the cost of his own life, and that sacrifice seemed a sufficient guarantee of his sincerity.

THE FIRST FOREIGNERS

It must be conceded, too, that the nineteenth-century foreigner did not present himself to Japan in a very lovable light. His demeanour was marked by all the arrogance habitually shown by the Occidental towards the Oriental, and though the general average of the oversea comers reached a high standard, they approached the solution of all Japanese problems with a degree of suspicion which could not fail to be intensely irksome to a proud nation. Even the foreign representatives made it their habit to seek for trickery or abuse in all Japanese doings, official or private, and though they doubtless had much warrant for this mood, its display did not tend to conciliate the Japanese. Many instances might be cited from the pages of official records and from the columns of local newspapers, but they need not be detailed here.

Moreover, there were difficulties connected with trade. The framers of the treaties had found it necessary to deal with the currency question, and their manner of dealing with it was to stipulate that foreign coins should be exchangeable with Japanese, weight for weight. This stipulation did not take into any account the ratio between the precious metals, and as that ratio was fifteen to one in Europe and five to one in Japan, it is obvious that, by the mere process of exchange, a foreign merchant could reap a rich harvest. Of course this was never intended by the framers of the treaty, and when the Japanese saw the yellow metal flowing away rapidly from the realm, they adopted the obvious expedient of changing the relative weights of the gold and silver coins.

It may be doubted whether any state would have hesitated to apply that remedy. Yet by the foreigner it was censured as a "gross violation of treaty right" and as "a deliberate attempt on the part of the Japanese authorities to raise all the prices of the native produce two hundred per cent, against the foreign purchaser." The British representative, Sir Rutherford Alcock, in a despatch written to his Government, at the close of 1859, penned some very caustic comments on the conduct of his countrymen, and did not hesitate to declare that "in estimating the difficulties to be overcome in any attempt to improve the aspect of affairs, if the ill-disguised enmity of the governing classes and the indisposition of the Executive Government to give partial effect to the treaties be classed among the first and principal of these, the unscrupulous character and dealings of foreigners who frequent the ports for purposes of trade are only second and scarcely inferior in importance, from the sinister character of the influence they exercise."

It is only just, however, to note the other side of the picture, and to observe that the foreign merchant had many causes of legitimate dissatisfaction; that his business was constantly hampered and interrupted by Japanese official interference; that the ready recourse which Japanese samurai had to deeds of blood against peaceful strangers seemed revoltingly cruel; that he appeared to be surrounded by an atmosphere of perplexity and double dealing, and that the large majority of the Anglo-Saxon tradesmen visiting Japan in the early days of her renewed intercourse had nothing whatever in common with the men described in the above despatch.