As Minister-President of State it fell to the lot of Count Ito, on the receipt of this historic document, to advise his Japanese Majesty to comply with the recommendation therein set forth, and to incur all the odium that attached in Japan itself to what was looked upon by the less thoughtful of the population as an abject surrender to the aggressive European Powers which were leagued in an unholy intrigue to deprive Japan of the legitimate fruits of her victory over China. For a time Count Ito went in danger of his life, for there are not rarely to be found those in Japan who are willing to regard themselves as the appointed agents of the gods for the punishment of what they deem to be an indignity brought upon the nation, no matter what the circumstances may have been. But that the Minister went well guarded at the express command of his sovereign in these days of uncommon excitement he might have shared the fate of other true patriots whose history is briefly recorded in this volume.
By his imperial master the Minister-president of the day, however, was throughout praised for the part which he took in respect of the war and of the settlement reached on its conclusion, and a signal mark of his Majesty’s favour was given in the statesman’s elevation to the rank of Marquis in connection with these notable events.
In 1897 Marquis Ito visited Great Britain for the fourth time, the occasion being the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria. The representative of the Ten-shi was Admiral his Royal Highness the Prince Arisugawa, so well known in the British Navy, he having served his apprenticeship to the sea in H.M.S. Iron Duke, after a course of education at Greenwich Naval College. Marquis Ito was for some weeks in London in the summer of that year, and paid a fifth visit to this country in 1900, to which reference will be made later on.
In the year 1898 the Marquis headed a ministry which included:—
| Count Inouye: | Finance Minister. | |
| Baron Nishi: | Foreign do. | |
| Viscount Yoshikawa: | Home do. | |
| General Katsura: | War do. | |
| Marquis Saionji: | Education do. | |
| and the late | Marquis Saigo: | Minister for the Navy. |
In 1900 he took office for the fourth time as Minister-president, with Baron Suyematsu, so well known in Europe of recent years for his contributions to the literature of the day and for his reasoned and fearless championship of his country’s cause on the lecture platform and elsewhere, as the Minister of the Interior. In this Cabinet was Mr Takaaki Kato, formerly Japan’s representative at the Court of St James, who held the portfolio of Foreign Affairs, General Viscount Katsura, now Premier, was Minister for War, and Admiral Baron Yamamoto was Minister for the Navy, a position which he occupied under successive administrations, from 1899 until January 1906.
In 1900 Marquis Ito associated himself with the doctrines of party government, and an immense step was taken in that direction by the formation of a political body named the Sei-Yu-kai, pledged to the adoption and support of Constitutional methods. His views on the duty of a political party were set forth in a manifesto at the time and may with advantage be introduced here:—
“If a political party aims, as it should aim, at being a guide to the people, it must first commence with the maintenance of strict discipline and order in its own ranks, and above all must shape its own conduct in accordance with an absolute and sincere devotion to the public interests of the nation. It must, moreover, avoid falling into the fatal mistake of conferring posts on persons of doubtful qualifications merely because they happen to be members of its own political organisation.”
It is probable that when this Association was formed its founder intended that it should be a party of such wide scope that it would embrace all the then contending factions, and that thus while seeking to promote the principles of party government it would at the same time do away with the friction that was so much to be deplored. Nominally it did unite the factions under one leadership, but, sad to say, the friction in great part remained, and dissension was still rife within the party, to the manifest impairment of its capabilities for the attainment of the general weal. By Marquis Ito it has always been claimed that the Constitution was not a matter of agreement between the sovereign and his subjects, but a magnanimous grant of privileges to them by the Emperor purely on his own initiative, and it is not for the people, therefore, to question any of its provisions. Its sole aim, regarded from this lofty standpoint, is the substantial progress and well-being of the country, and it was because the leaders of political parties became too eager in their strife for the possession of power, to the detriment of their usefulness as regarded the advancement of the nation, that the idea of forming the Sei-yu-kai arose in the first place. Marquis Ito in former years was stoutly opposed to the theory of party government, and though he headed the association with which he was for two or three years closely identified, it may be held with some show of reason, perhaps, that he was never entirely enamoured of the system, for he has often alluded to the mischief which the friction inseparable from party rule is apt to create as altogether regrettable, and calling for the introduction of some form of administration of the country’s affairs that should be free from the drawbacks which he recognises and deplores. Marquis Ito, in truth, assents to the proposition that party government has its advantages as well as its disadvantages, but he is by no means a whole-souled convert to the doctrine that it is the best that could be devised for Japan. He aims at something higher and nobler, and though he is prepared at all times to admit that excellent work has been done in the thirty-eight years of his present Majesty’s reign, he would ascribe the national progress to the circumstance that the people have acted together under the guidance of the Imperial Oath, taken at the beginning of the Mei-ji era, when the present ruler ascended the throne, in which it was proclaimed that “a deliberative assembly should be formed; that the uncivilised customs of former times should be abandoned; that the impartiality and justice displayed in the workings of nature should be adopted as a basis of action; and that learning should be sought throughout the world in order that the foundation of the Empire should be firmly established.” There has never been discernible any slackening of the marvellous energy with which Japan entered upon the quest of those most commendable objects, and the only tendency towards reaction that the most uncharitably disposed of critics has been able to discover was in reality nothing more than a desire, and that most temperately and dispassionately expressed, for the preservation of the national spirit, at a moment when it appeared to be in some danger of undergoing temporary eclipse. In Europe constitutional government has been the growth of centuries, but to Japan it is still comparatively new. Even in the West the personal element is by no means obliterated, and it is unlikely that Japanese politicians would be found wholly capable of eliminating that element and of giving to the world an example of a perfect civilisation in which individual ambitions and the jealousies of cliques should become completely subordinated to love of country and zeal for public welfare. Nevertheless much has been accomplished in the direction of the elevation of political life to a high standard of purity, far above the sordid and despicable strivings for place and power that too often disgrace those countries of the Occident which ought to be foremost in setting the despised Orient a good example. It is a wise provision of the Japanese Constitution, if we may judge by results, that renders it impossible for the Cabinet to be affected by an adverse vote in Parliament, the appointment or dismissal of Ministers remaining the sole prerogative of the sovereign, as when once a Ministry has been invested with the imperial authority to perform its functions it holds a place removed from interference by party considerations with its deliberations, and from any unwarrantable intrusion, by even the members of its own side in the Diet, upon its complete privacy and abstraction from political concerns during its discharge of its duties to the State. There may be those in Europe who will yearn for the freedom which the observance of such a rule as this implies, and will be prone to regard the Japanese as a people who have found a way to improve upon the systems which served them to some extent as models for their modernised institutions.