Makers of Japan

by J. Morris

But when every liability had been taken into consideration it was the Vice-minister’s somewhat mournful conviction that the Reserve was not equal to even one-tenth of the total of the bills and various other kinds of paper money in existence, for there were 20,000,000 yen worth of the Hans notes out somewhere, and 55,000,000 worth of the Dai-jo-kwan paper, issued to meet the unavoidable cost of setting up the new administration in 1868. This financial difficulty, indeed, was but one of the many problems that the Government of the Restored Imperial Rule was faced with at the beginning of its career, apart from all considerations of the opposition that it had to expect from those who were averse to the change and resolved to appeal to arms in support of their convictions. Indeed, the insight which even a superficial examination of the financial position in the early years of Meiji is apt to afford the student must tend to add to the wonder always experienced that the marvellous results which it is on all sides acknowledged were achieved by the men in power were attained with no greater sacrifices than those which had to be recorded. The spirit in which the individual members of the administration set about their tasks is, however, well exemplified by the tone of the memorandum addressed by the Department to the Government in December 1872. These were its terms:—

“It is our purpose to persist in our efforts to increase the Reserve Fund and bring it up to an amount which may one day prove to be of great service to the financial administration of the country. It is, therefore, our earnest prayer that not only during the time that we are in office, but down to a hundred years yet to come, in pursuance of the plan here laid out, efforts shall be made year after year to augment the fund, thus protecting and advancing the prosperity of the nation, in order to establish the foundation of popular confidence in the national currency, and furthermore that the fund shall positively never be spent for expenditures under the General Account.

Should the Cabinet find our scheme acceptable, we would most humbly beg for the immediate sanction of his August Majesty, with the counter signatures of all the Ministers of State. With these prayers we hereby submit this memorandum to the careful consideration of the Government.”

From that time forward the Government never neglected any opportunity of augmenting the Reserve Fund, and when at a later date the change to the adoption of a gold standard was in preparation the fund which had been so wisely initiated in 1872 was of the greatest help in partly paving the way for the resumption of specie payments by Count Matsukata.

In 1878 it was decided that a sum of 10,000,000 yen in gold should be kept, as part of the Reserve Fund, in the Government Treasury, the remainder being turned into floating capital, and it was ordered at the same time that 20,000,000 yen should be added annually out of the general account to the Sinking Fund, having for its object the redemption of public debts, both domestic and foreign.

It would be very difficult to set forth in detail the many services rendered to his country by Count Inouye in the domain of finance, but enough has been adduced already in the way of proof that his guiding hand was of immense value to the nation in the critical period which followed on the Restoration of Imperial Rule, and for many years after while the national finances were being gradually established on the substantial footing they have in later years been shown to possess. It was as Foreign Minister in several administrations that Count Inouye also distinguished himself, having held that portfolio at various times during the existence of the Dai-jo-kwan, which only gave place to the Cabinet in 1886. It was while he was Minister for Foreign Affairs in 1882 that a systematic attempt was made to bring about an amicable adjustment of the outstanding questions relative to the position of foreigners in Japan, a conference of representatives of the treaty powers meeting at Tokio to seriously consider revision in all its bearings. Minister Inouye, who had some time previously changed his name from Bunda to Kaoru, had throughout held it to be impossible for the nation to preserve the attitude which the advocates of an exclusive policy had sought to maintain towards the Occidental powers, and at the conference he boldly stood up for the wholesale opening of the ports to foreign trade, with a corresponding abandonment of consular jurisdiction on the part of the Western nations, in recognition of the Emperor of Japan’s sovereign rights over every foot of Japanese soil. The agreements to be entered into on this give-and-take basis were to be valid for twelve years, though there was a suggestion that the tariff, and the regulations in general as to foreign commerce, should be subject to alteration at the end of eight years. Some of the foreign delegates were dissatisfied with this proposal, while on the side of the Japanese there was no little repugnance evinced even in high quarters to the idea of throwing the whole country open to trade. There were other difficulties, too, in regard to the period that should elapse before the provisions respecting the admission of foreigners to the interior should come into force, and the suggested appointment of foreign judges to the Japanese Courts after the style of the Mixed Courts in China. Finally the conference broke up without reaching any conclusions on these knotty questions, though it was something to reflect upon that a genuine effort had been made on both sides to remove the obstacles to a better understanding. In 1884 there were clear indications that the Foreign Minister’s policy was gaining ground, symptoms of a disposition to welcome foreigners being manifested where previously there had been violent antagonism to the project.

In 1885 the war party in Japan conceived the notion of an alliance between their country and France against China, there being at the time extreme bitterness of feeling between the French and the Government of Peking, which culminated in the bombardment of Foochow. The reversal of Japan’s traditional policy towards the neighbouring empire which an alliance of the kind at that moment would have entailed was fully appreciated by Japan’s Foreign Minister, who had by this time been raised to the peerage as Count Inouye. It was by his tact that Japan was enabled to steer clear of complications at this juncture, and to retain her influence in affairs at the Chinese capital.

The year following Count Inouye was again immersed in the excessively complicated problem of treaty revision, which it had been Japan’s object to effect for fully fifteen years past. The conferences began in May and lasted throughout the year and well into the next. By the summer of 1887 Count Inouye had by his patience and urbanity brought the negotiations to a stage wherein it really seemed that nothing was requisite beyond the actual signature of the agreements. But at that moment the Cabinet decided, notwithstanding that the British and German representatives were urging on their colleagues the advisability of forthwith surrendering the consular jurisdictions, without any transitional stage, that it was premature to adopt Count Inouye’s views with regard to the opening of the country unrestrictedly to commerce and travel, mainly because it was felt that the safeguards which it was still deemed needful by some of the delegates to insist upon were destructive of the judicial independence of the State. While such were the opinions entertained in some degree even in official circles the hope of adjusting the differences became more than ever slender, and popular antagonism to the grant of any concessions of the kind was once more revived, to the extent that in July 1887 Count Inouye terminated the conference in the conviction that it could serve no useful purpose to prolong its sittings. More than twelve months had been consumed in a fruitless endeavour to reach a satisfactory settlement, and the end seemed to be as far off as ever.

In August, however, the Emperor invited the British Minister, Sir F. Plunkett, to a private audience, and warmly eulogised the part which Great Britain had taken in the prolonged effort to revise the treaties on a basis acceptable to Japan, also intimating his intention of sending to the then Prince of Wales—now his Majesty King Edward VII.—the Grand Cross of the Order of the Chrysanthemum, by the hand of the Imperial Prince Komatsu. The ceremony of investiture subsequently took place at Marlborough House, and the German Emperor was simultaneously the recipient of the order named, likewise in recognition of the friendly part played towards Japan in connection with the Revision Conference.

Count Inouye resigned his post of Foreign Minister, as a matter of course, when the Cabinet refused to endorse his proposition, but he remained in the Government for the time being, his place at the Foreign Office being taken by Count Ito, who was also at that time Prime Minister. Count Inouye became Court Councillor, but in the ensuing summer he was again in the Cabinet as Minister for Commerce and Agriculture, the portfolio of Foreign Affairs having in the previous February been assumed by Count Okuma, on the retirement of Count Ito to become President of the Sumitsu-In, or Privy Council, then newly created as his Majesty’s highest resort of counsel. Ten Cabinet Ministers were given seats as ex-officio members of this council, one of them of course being Count Okuma whose return to official life, after seven years’ retirement following his long service as Minister of Finance between 1873 and 1881, was a source of immense gratification to the people at large as well as to his colleagues in the Ministry, implying as it did a fusion of the interests of the Progressives (Kai-shin-to) and the Government party represented by Counts Inouye and Ito, at a rather critical period in the history of the nation’s affairs. At the Foreign Office the policy of Count Inouye was ably and steadfastly pursued in respect of treaty revision by Count Okuma, who on receiving the congratulations of the Yokohama Chamber of Commerce in 1889 on the promulgation of the Constitution, took occasion to say that “one national aspiration yet remained unsatisfied,—the revision of the treaties.”