Makers of Japan

by J. Morris

A rough-hewn granite slab, bearing an inscription on its one smoothed side, stands amid a clump of azalea bushes to mark the spot where the patriot fell. The band of fanatics who slew him no doubt fancied that they were serving the best interests of their country by thus putting an end to a noble and promising career, owing to his avowed conviction of the advantages to be reaped by the adoption of the kai-koku policy, which they had been taught to believe would be injurious.

When brought to trial the culprits declared, however, that they killed the Minister because he was a traitor to his clan. How utterly unfounded and altogether preposterous was the accusation will be evident from the brief story of his meritorious career which follows. He left a record of unswerving patriotism, of bold and energetic administration of national affairs, of far-seeing and well-judged advocacy of all that could be deemed beneficial to his country in the political and economical systems of other lands, which he had made from the first his especial study. Okubo Ichi-o, or Toshimichi, was born in 1836, and from a comparatively early age acquired no little fame as a student of Chinese literature. He sought and obtained from the beginning sound knowledge of the affairs of the outside world that to most of his countrymen was in those days a sealed book. Foreigners, with Okubo, were never the enemies of Japan, but people with whom, on the other hand, it should be to the national interest to cultivate a permanent friendship. That their good will should be secured for the reformed system of government which he foresaw would ultimately have to replace that of the oppressive Baku-fu,—an administration based upon an anachronic feudalism,—was always with him a matter of real concern, and to obtain it he devoted his whole energies. His zeal and daring led him to urge on the sovereign the desirability of his assuming the reins of active government, and to put forward in the first instance a definite proposal to the effect that the seat of government should be transferred to Osaka, the seaport only twenty-seven miles distant, where the magnificent castle built by Hideyoshi on the banks of the river Yodo might be made a fitting residence for the monarch.

In his truly remarkable Memorial to the Emperor he pointed out that no such revolution as that which had just taken place had ever previously occurred since the creation of Japan. The Memorial was dated March 1868, and in alluding to it here my endeavour is to give precedence to the Minister’s first great effort in the direction of progress, and with which it is inevitable that his name should be for ever associated. Okubo proceeded in his Memorial to argue that the time was peculiarly opportune for the fulfilment of the great undertaking of restoring the ancient constitution of the Ten-shi’s realms, a task which he held had only been half accomplished by the defeat at Fushimi of the Bakufu’s forces. “If,” he wrote, “the Imperial Court should seek only a temporary advantage, instead of insuring permanent tranquillity, we shall have a repetition of the old thing, like the rise of the Ashikaga after the destruction of the Hojo. We shall be rid of one traitor only to have another arise. The most pressing of your Majesty’s pressing duties at the present moment is not to look at the Empire only, and judge solely by appearances, but to consider carefully the actual state of the whole world,—to reform the inveterate and slothful habits induced during hundreds of years,—to give union to the nation,—so that the whole Empire shall be moved to tears of gratitude, and both high and low appreciate the blessing of having a Sovereign in whom they can place their trust.”

The memorialist went on to recommend very strongly a transfer of the Capital to Osaka, as being the fittest place for the conduct of foreign relations, for enriching the country and strengthening its military powers, for adopting successful means of offence and defence, and for establishing an army and navy. He was anxious that the young Emperor, then only in his sixteenth year, should set out on the journey to Osaka without loss of time. But there were cogent reasons why the new organisation should be centred in the city that had for centuries been the recognised headquarters of the executive, and Tokio, the present capital, was ultimately fixed upon as the future seat of the Central Administration.

Okubo was one of the Iwakura Embassy which set out from Tokio at the close of 1871 and visited the United States of America, Great Britain, and the various countries of Europe, ostensibly to announce to the powers what sweeping changes had been effected in Japan from the date of the present ruler’s accession in 1867. The Embassy was headed by Prince Iwakura, and associated with him in addition to Okubo Toshimichi were Ito Hirobumi, Kido Takakoto, and Yamaguchi Naoyoshi. Only one leading member of that mission, the Marquis Ito, now survives. The especial aim of the ambassadors was to procure revision of the treaties with the Western nations which had been entered into by the Government of the Shogun, and under which compacts the position of Japan was considered to be that of a country under the tutelage of America and the European States. There was, however, a duty imposed upon the Mission that was of far greater importance to the future of the Japanese nation even than those already specified, for it was entrusted with the task of collecting information in all quarters regarding foreign institutions, methods of government, laws and their enforcement, and of gathering at first hand every detail needful to the adaptation of the systems of the Occident to the requirements of the Far East. Although at that time a revision of the treaties proved to be impossible of attainment, the mission was in other respects of immense service to Japan, and Okubo, for one, became as fully convinced by what he saw in the West of the advantages of representative government as were those among his colleagues who had previously seen something of its results. Ito, for example, had been to this country before, and so had Hayashi Tadasu, as he then was, the Secretary to the Mission, who had studied for some time in a private college in England. The work of the embassy was most conscientiously carried out, and its members journeyed here and there in search of opportunities to add to their stock of knowledge on every point that conceivably might be of value to the departments of State with which they were for the most part individually as well as collectively identified. In the new administration at Tokio, immediately on the mission’s return, Kido was entrusted with the portfolio of Home Affairs, Ito Hirobumi became Minister of Public Works, and Okubo received the appointment of Gaimukiyo, or Minister for Foreign Affairs. One effect of the visit of the Japanese Ambassadors to the European capitals was speedily visible in the withdrawal of the garrison of British troops which had for years been maintained at Yokohama, the ability of the Imperial Government to protect the foreign residents at the ports opened by treaty to foreign trade having been demonstrated to the satisfaction of the British Government, and the last of the guard of marines which had been quartered on the Bluff in Yokohama took their departure early in 1873.

It is especially noteworthy that the Iwakura Embassy had, even at that early period, been quick to discover traces of the deeply aggressive designs of Russia, and in a memorandum drawn up by Okubo appear the memorable words:—“Russia, always pressing southward, is the chief peril” for Japan. The aim of Japanese statesmanship, from that time forward, became of necessity the safeguarding of the national interests in the adjacent peninsula, and there was a strong party in the Government in favour of going to war there and then in defence of the rights of Japan. But in their travels in Europe the ambassadors had learned enough to convince them that to enter at that stage on a contest with the Colossus of the North would only be disastrous for their country, and the peace advocates, foremost among whom were Prince Iwakura and Okubo Toshimichi, carried the day. Unhappily the stealthy advance of Russia and the question of how to counteract it produced such a divergence of opinion that the newly formed government was torn asunder and the split had consequences for the nation at large which could never have been expected at the time. Among the ministerial advocates of a forward policy at that date were Saigo Takamori and Itagaki Taisuke, who are elsewhere referred to in this volume, and they, in company with Yeto Shimpei and others, resigned office.

Viscount Okubo held an important position under the Tokugawa administration in the days of the Shogun Iyesada, who, owing to ill health, appointed a Tairo, or Regent, whose duty it became to shoulder the heavy responsibilities of that very troublous period of the national history. The Regent was Ii Kamon-no-kami Naosuke, lord of the fief of Hikoné, near Lake Biwa, who was assassinated by Ro-nins, lit.: “Wave-men,”—in other words, men who having become masterless were restless and tempest-tossed by political gales, an element often uncontrollable and for whose vagaries no one should be held primarily responsible,—on the 3rd of March 1860, less than two years after he had entered on his onerous task. It was in reference to that, and to the attitude of the Regent towards foreign powers and the treaties which had been made with them that Viscount Okubo, at a later date penned the following note by way of preface to the memoir of Ii Kamon-no-kami Naosuke written by Mr Shimada Saburo. The original note was in classical Chinese, and the translation was made by Mr Shimada,—himself one of Japan’s foremost scholars, a much-travelled man, and member of the Lower House of the Diet, whose contributions to current literature have been numerous. The memorandum by Viscount Okubo serves to indicate, moreover, his own opinion on the advisability of opening the country to foreign intercourse, and which led to his association with other prominent Makers of New Japan. He wrote:—

On the evening of the sixth month of the fifth year of An-sei era (1858) when I went to see the Tairo, Baron Ii, to inform him of my departure to Kioto on the following day, I told him that as to the appointment of the Shogun’s heir, I had heard it directly from the Shogun himself; but as to the question of foreign affairs, I said that I had embodied my opinion in a poem, and asked him if that were his view. I had the poem written on my pocket paper, and presented it to his consideration. He carefully perused it and said that he approved of it, instructing me at the same time to act up to the spirit of that poem. Now I have the pleasure of appending that poem here as an evidence that the Baron was in favour of opening the country to intercourse with foreign nations. The poem reads:

“However numerous and diversified the nations of the earth may be, the GOD who reigns over them all (or, binds them together) can never be more than one.

Okubo Ichi-o.”