Makers of Japan

by J. Morris

The opening of the railway in 1872 from Tokio to Yokohama, though of no great length, made communication between the capital and its port a far more easy matter than it had been at the time when the Tokaido was the only highway and traffic was liable to dislocation by the passage of a daimio and his retinue of two-sworded samurai. It is true that for some two or three years prior to the date on which the regular service of trains between the two places began to work a revolution in the system of travel there had been a steamer or two plying to and from the wharf at Tsukiji, near the Hama-go-ten Palace, in Tokio, and the jetty at Yokohama which then existed near the northern end of the “Bund” or Esplanade. But the accommodation, though the residents freely enough availed themselves of such facilities as the service afforded, was of the most limited and primitive character, and was necessarily wholly inadequate to the demand for the means of transport of that almost pauseless ebb and flow of the tide of humanity along the shores of the bay which from the days of Kaempfer had never failed to attract the attention of travellers. One of the saddest incidents of the early days of the new era was the explosion of the small steamer Yeddo as she lay at the Tsukiji “hatoba” with steam up in readiness for her daily voyage to Yokohama, some scores of lives being sacrificed on that occasion. The Yeddo was one of the pioneers of the coasting trade of Japan, which has since grown to proportions truly enormous.

While the railway to the “Eastern capital” was being built, another line was commenced from the newly opened port of Kobé-Hiogo to Osaka and on to the “Western capital” of Kioto. It was officially opened for traffic in 1873, the Emperor being present on the occasion, which gave rise to great national rejoicing. The improved methods of transport had by that time been extensively supplemented by greatly enhanced facilities for intercommunication in the form of telegraph lines, which had been stretched over practically the entire length of the highroad from Tokio to Nagasaki, close upon 1000 English miles. The work was done in the days when the peasantry of the interior had no conception of the value of such aids to commerce and were not easily to be persuaded to refrain from interference therewith. In many cases the telegraph poles were uprooted as soon as they were planted in the ground, and in others the opposition to the innovation took the form of active hostility to the individuals, both native and foreign, charged with the duties of carrying out the proposed works. The origin of this antagonism, however, was to be ascribed solely to local prejudice, and the punishment of the ringleaders proved to be a sufficient deterrent to the rest, for after the first few months the attacks entirely ceased.

At this stage the residents of the Capital had become somewhat accustomed to see the Emperor riding or driving through the streets of the metropolis, for he periodically reviewed his troops on the Hibiya parade ground, and not infrequently was to be seen visiting places at some distance from his capital. The greatest concern was manifested by all classes when, late one night in the spring of 1873, the signal guns were heard to announce that a fire had broken out within the castle. There was a prompt muster of the forces forming the Tokio garrison and for a while the utmost consternation prevailed. The damage done was immense, and the actual source of the outbreak was discovered to have been in such dangerous proximity to the imperial apartments as to suggest for the moment that there had again been a preconcerted arrangement to seize the person of his Majesty, in the confusion which might well have been expected to arise on the warning guns being fired. Happily the monarch was efficiently guarded, and whatever may have been the true cause of the conflagration there was no difficulty in removing the Court to another palace at Akasaka, in the suburbs, wherein his Majesty dwelt during the rebuilding on a modern design of the imperial residence within the Honmaru. In the thoroughfares of Tokio were at this time to be seen scores of Satsuma samurai, retainers of the feudal chieftain Shimadzu Saburo, who was occupying the position in the new Government of Sa-dai-jin, or Vice-president of the Left, as already mentioned, and these ardent spirits of the warlike clan of the south found much in the changes that were then taking place to be displeased with. They persisted in wearing their two swords in their belts, and had their hair dressed in the old-fashioned queue. Their retention of the old style of costume, too, with its loose trousers, sandals for the feet, and lacquered helmet tied with cords for the chin, among a population that was already beginning to adopt foreign fashions to a notable extent, made them conspicuous and provoked the ridicule of the lower classes. This the Satsuma clansmen were quick to resent, and here and there slight skirmishes were recorded, the general effect being to create a feeling of uneasiness which lasted for many weeks until the Satsuma chieftain, as elsewhere explained, resigned his office and returned to his stronghold of Kagoshima in the summer of 1873.

The year 1874 was memorable as that of the expedition to Formosa, when Japan chastised the savages of the south-east coast of that island for their ill treatment of Japanese shipwrecked sailors. China’s attention had been drawn to these barbarities, but she had professed her utter inability to put a stop to them, and Japan had then warned the Peking Government that if the savages should continue to subject Japanese mariners or others who might be cast away on Formosan shores to the inhuman treatment which it had been the fate of others in misfortune to experience the Tokio Cabinet would know what to do. A fresh incident arose and Japan was as good as her word. The younger brother of the Saigo Takamori whose fame as a leader will never wane was selected as the Chief of the Expedition, and to him, afterwards the Marquis Saigo, his Majesty entrusted the duty of vindicating the honour of the Japanese Empire, of which it must never be said that it has shown the slightest hesitation to hit out when the interests of its own people have been imperilled. In past years her arm has not always been long enough to extend support to her subjects over-sea, but it is Japan’s aim, as it is that of Britain, to convince the rest of the world that while she repudiates most vigorously the idea that she seeks territorial aggrandisement or covets the recognition of an unchallenged supremacy in the Far East, she at all times resents the slightest attempt to trespass on what are regarded by her statesmen as the boundaries of her national safety. If Japan’s arm is growing longer and her policy seems to be far-reaching, it is but the natural outcome of her resolve to protect her people wherever they may be and to encourage their lawful desires for expansion into fresh fields of enterprise as the result of the remarkable growth of her population at home.

The Formosan expedition proved a complete success, and a detailed account of its progress will be met with elsewhere in these pages. It gave to the newly formed army its first opportunity of displaying to the satisfaction of the sovereign its qualifications as a fighting force, inasmuch as the difficulties which it had to encounter, although its adversaries were savages, were naturally on a formidable scale, and the undertaking bore in this respect a strong resemblance to what have been described as Britain’s “little wars.” The upshot was that the tribesmen of the Formosan east and south-east coasts developed a wholesome fear of the prowess of disciplined troops and from that time forward there were no recorded instances of their maltreatment of mariners, whilst at the present day the best effects are perceptible from the spread of education among them in consequence of the establishment of native schools in Formosa since it became a Japanese Colony. There was, however, an additional advantage secured to Japan by the expedition, in that it served for the time to divert attention from the ever-pressing political questions arising from China’s somewhat irritating attitude, mainly in regard to Korea. From time immemorial the monarch of Korea had paid tribute to Japan at stated intervals much in the way that he had paid an annual tribute to China, but owing to Japan’s preoccupation with other and weightier matters the practice had fallen into desuetude. Instigated by ambitious Chinese officials, as it was generally supposed, Korea had sought to free herself from any and all obligations to continue this practice, and by way of emphasising this reluctance to be bound by old traditions the Koreans had thought fit to attack the Japanese Legation and to otherwise commit unfriendly acts towards their immediate neighbours on the east. The Samurai of Satsuma and the other southern clans clamoured to be led against the Koreans,—and if the Koreans should be supported by China, then against the Chinese as well,—in order that these insults to the Japanese flag might be avenged. It was a strong plea, but it had to be resisted, for Japan was not ready to embark at that time in a great war. Consequently the Government deemed it prudent to be content with the compensation offered and the establishment of a garrison for the Legation at Seoul which might suffice to adequately protect its staff. By the ardent followers of the Satsuma chieftain, however, this was regarded as wholly insufficient, and matters had reached a decidedly perilous stage when the despatch of an expedition to Formosa happily provided an outlet for the superabundant energies of the younger swordsmen. The personnel of the punitive force consisted largely of Satsuma samurai, and right well did the men acquit themselves in the tasks which fell to their share in the mountainous wilds of “the Beautiful Isle.”

A few months prior to the setting out of the Formosan Expedition there had been an insurrection in Saga, the chief town of the Hizen province, led by Yeto Shimpei, who had not long before been a member of the new Government. The rising had been very quickly suppressed, and without much bloodshed, but it was an indication that the policy of the new administration met with scant favour in some of the regions remote from the metropolis, where the spirit of the people was, for want of wider knowledge, very averse to what were viewed as pernicious innovations based upon a wholesale introduction of Occidental manners and customs. Though the antipathy to foreign methods subsided with the punishment of the foremost of the Saga insurgents, the embers were not wholly extinguished, and less than three years later they burst once more into flame at Kagoshima, as will presently appear, and in the meantime the growing hostility in Satsuma to the proceedings of the Tokio Cabinet revealed itself in a variety of ways, though it was the policy of the administration to avoid the danger of driving matters to extremities with the warlike clansmen of the extreme south, at the head of whom stood Saigo Takamori, then resident on his own farm in the vicinity of the castle town which was the Satsuma stronghold and the headquarters of its quasi-independent military organisation. Nevertheless, the clansmen continued their regular drilling and set utterly at naught the remonstrances of the Tokio Government.

Affairs in Satsuma reached their climax in February 1877, when a march to Kioto was decided upon, the military cadets and the clansmen, mustering over 12,000, having resolved on accompanying their leader Saigo Takamori on a journey to the Western capital ostensibly to beg for the intervention of his Majesty in respect of the grievances which Satsuma claimed to be enduring at the hands of the existing Tokio Government. The telegraph promptly carried the news to Kioto of the departure of this formidable force from Kagoshima, and preparations were instantly made to oppose its progress. The Emperor proclaimed Saigo and his followers to be in rebellion, and the Emperor’s uncle, Prince Arisugawa, was directed to inflict punishment on the offenders. The incidents of the campaign in Kiushiu which ensued are set forth at length elsewhere in this volume, and order was not restored in the southern island until the autumn of the year, after a period of the most disastrous strife in which Satsuma was a house divided against itself, inasmuch as there were many of the clan who remained faithful to the imperial standard, notably the younger Saigo, afterwards marquis, and Admiral Kawamura, who commanded the imperial fleet.

The Emperor remained for some time at his Kioto palace before returning to Tokio, and it was known at the time that this outbreak of hostilities in a part of his dominions occasioned his Majesty the most profound sorrow, the more so that Saigo Takamori had led his own forces to victory ten years before, when the imperialists had been plunged into warfare with the adherents of the Shogun. That Marshal Saigo should have been so ill advised as to head an insurrection was to the monarch whom he had in former years served so faithfully a source of the most poignant grief, and the sad end of the arch-rebel, in battle on the crest of Shiroyama, in the town of Kagoshima, made a deep impression on all in Japan. The Emperor’s attribute of magnanimity was displayed only a few years ago in the grant of a peerage to the son of the famous Satsuma leader, and the imperial approval of the erection of a monument to his memory in the public park of Uyeno, in Tokio. The record of Saigo’s rebellion has been effaced, and only his splendid services to the State in the years prior to 1877 are kept in his sovereign’s remembrance.

The period which followed the war in Satsuma was one of uninterrupted industry and persevering endeavour on the part of all the Ten-shi’s subjects to make up for the time which had been lost by the civil war. Immense interest was taken in the advancement of education and the spread of commercial enterprise, the shipping and manufacturing trades being diligently fostered by wise enactments that were often the outcome of the ruler’s own initiative. There can be no doubt that at this period were laid the foundations of that unexampled industrial prosperity which has distinguished the latter portion, down to the present time, of the Meiji era, and which, resting as it does on the most secure basis—one which even a war with a great European power has been powerless to disturb—bids fair to last for ages to come.

In 1880 the Imperial edict appeared establishing the prefectural assemblies, local parliaments which served in not a few instances to develop a talent for debate in political aspirants, and likewise to familiarise the agricultural population, wherein lies the main strength of the nation, with the principles of representative institutions on a larger scale, such as had been foreshadowed by the Imperial promise made at the time of the Emperor’s accession. That promise was reiterated, and a definite date assigned for the opening of the Japanese Diet, by his Majesty in the following year. It was in 1880, too, that the new Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure, on both of which a vast amount of careful consideration had been bestowed, were promulgated, the codes themselves having been compiled with a lucidity and completeness which leave nothing to be desired. There is no ambiguity about the laws of Japan, and as translations have been made and published under the sanction of the Government, accessible to all, it is practicable for a stranger to make himself acquainted with the rules and regulations applicable to every walk of life without the aid of lawyer or interpreter.