Makers of Japan

by J. Morris

There are six kinds of decorations in Japan, that of the Golden Kite being the Japanese equivalent of the Victoria Cross. Its first grade carries an annuity of £150. The Grand Cordon of the Rising Sun and Paulownia is the Order of Merit, held by very few. Marshal Yamagata has both, and in February 1906, he was invested with the British Order of Merit, at the hands of Prince Arthur of Connaught, an honour which was universally appreciated in Japan. His heir is Mr Yamagata Isaburo, his adopted son, who took office as Minister of Communications in 1906.

XIV
COUNT OKUMA SHIGENOBU

Very few of those who have been prominent as Statesmen in Japan have wholly escaped the personal dangers which there appear to be inseparable from a political career, and though the attacks have not always been fatal they have been painfully frequent in the past forty or fifty years. Count Okuma was maimed by the explosion of a bomb hurled at his carriage as he drove past on his way to the Finance Department one morning in 1889, and has but one leg. The marvel was that he survived the attempt on his life at all, for the fanatic who was guilty of the crime unquestionably intended to murder him outright and did succeed in killing his coachman and groom. Count Okuma, who was raised to the peerage in 1887, is a native of Hizen, having been born in that province, at Saga, in February 1838. He is a big, broad-shouldered man, endowed with a bright, cheery disposition, possessed of most genial manners, and is brilliant and entertaining to a degree in his ordinary conversation. It is generally conceded that in the qualities which go to form a successful politician Count Okuma and Marquis Ito have much in common, for in respect of their prestige as party leaders, and the remarkable mental vigour and activity by which these renowned statesmen have ever been distinguished, there can be no doubt that they both take exceptionally high rank in the public esteem. Both have been the consistent advocates of progress, and both date their service to the Crown from the very beginning of the present reign. In one sense the Count’s success in politics was more noteworthy than that of his colleagues among the Elder Statesmen, since his clan took by no means the leading part in the course of events immediately antecedent to the Restoration of 1868 that fell to the share of Satsuma, for example, or of Choshiu. Hizen nevertheless was a progressive province and its feudal chieftain had set up an ironworks in his territory, and had commenced coal-mining upon a practical basis, long prior to the establishment of foreign industries in the Empire on a large scale. Thus it was that Okuma Shigenobu, who had studied at Nagasaki, came early to the front in connection with the dissemination of foreign ideas, and it was perhaps as much by his energy as that of Marquis Ito that arrangements were made for the construction of the first line of railway connecting Tokio with the port of Yokohama, immediately that the Central Government was removed to the new Capital.

COUNT AND COUNTESS OKUMA

The capital for that railway was found in England, and its Engineers were engaged partly there and partly in India. It seems difficult nowadays to imagine Japan paying 9 per cent. for a Loan, yet that was the rate at which she procured the means of developing the Scheme of Public Works on which the Government embarked, and it is matter of history that the short railway of eighteen miles by which the Japanese metropolis was joined to the chief treaty port in 1872 was phenomenally expensive. In recent times it has been feasible to build railways and execute other works of public utility in Japan on the most economical and satisfactory terms, but thirty-five years ago economy in construction was, owing to the novelty of the undertaking, practically out of the question.

Count Okuma is, in his native tongue, a fluent and effective speaker, and he has a most retentive memory. Early in his life he closely studied Finance, and was an able Minister of that department in the seventies, prior to the institution of the Cabinet, which dates from 1885. In 1881 there were serious differences of opinion between the Count and his colleagues in the Dai-jo-Kwan, and he resigned office, forming a united party named the Shim-po-to, by the amalgamation of several smaller ones, in opposition to the Government of the day. Latterly it has borne the title of Kai-shin-to (from Kai = to alter or correct,—shin = to advance,—to = a party) in Chinese Kai-chin-tang,—and thus it is literally the progressive party in Japan, in contradistinction to the Sei-Yu-Kai or Constitutional party, now headed by Marquis Saionji, but formerly by Marquis Ito. In the Cabinet of Count Kuroda, of 1888, which was replaced by that of Marshal Yamagata within two years, Count Okuma acted as Minister for Foreign Affairs, and it was during his tenure of this post that the Constitution was promulgated in 1889, and Okuma received the congratulations of the Yokohama Chamber of Commerce on the auspicious event and on his personal endeavour to effect a satisfactory revision of the Treaties. He was succeeded at the Foreign Office in the late autumn by Viscount Aoki, and, having just become Minister of Finance, was attacked in the manner already described, for no other than the fancied reason that he was willing to give away too much in respect of concessions to foreigners.

Okuma’s return to ministerial life after seven years spent in retirement, between 1881 and 1888, was a source of general satisfaction to the nation, for the fusion brought about between the Government and the Kai-shin-to by his taking office was regarded as a valuable massing of strength at a critical time, when supreme efforts were being made to secure the abolition of the extra-territorial privileges thereunto enjoyed by the subjects of other nations. On this much-vexed question an undercurrent of discontent had agitated the nation for many years, the obnoxious clause in the proposed new treaty with which Count Inouye was identified in 1887, and which led to his resignation of the post of Foreign Minister which he then held, being one relating to the suggested establishment of mixed Courts, like those in Egypt, or that at Shanghai which has in recent times been the object of much hostile criticism on the part of the Chinese population of that port. Count Okuma in 1889 was anxious to remove this source of irritation from the path of his own countrymen, and sought to minimise the objections to the clause by restricting its application to the Supreme Court, whereas Count Inouye had been ready to admit foreign judges to the lower tribunals also. The misguided “patriot” who threw the bomb which shattered Count Okuma’s limb was not even well posted in regard to the circumstances of the case.

When in 1891 the Privy Council was instituted as the Sovereign’s “last resort of counsel” and Marquis Ito became its president, Count Okuma issued a manifesto to his followers in which he strongly advocated the spread of education and the perseverance by the entire nation in a policy of enlightened tolerance of innovations which make for the industrial and political welfare of the country. He is a firm believer in the advantages of Free Trade, and his experience in former days at the Finance Department, coupled with a marvellously retentive memory for figures, directly tended to enlarge his views upon matters relative to international commerce, a subject on which he is always listened to with the keenest attention. He is ever in sympathy with the national hopes and desires and enjoys for that reason immense popularity with the masses of his countrypeople, but although there is everywhere the highest appreciation of his eminent qualities, singularly enough, Count Okuma has not shone particularly as a Statesman when holding office. He is, on the other hand, great in opposition, and to his untiring endeavours to stimulate the energies of the Government of the day, at any time during the past quarter of a century, may be ascribed no little of the success which has attended the efforts of those Cabinets which have been most conspicuous for effective legislation. But if his attitude, in the ordinary way, has consistently been that of an opponent of the Government, he has given it most loyal support in national crises, putting aside all considerations of party and rendering to the Ministry the invaluable assistance which he alone, as leader of a practically united Opposition in the Diet, has of late years been in a position to offer. At the Election in February 1891 the Yamagata Ministry was defeated and Count Matsukata took office, but Count Okuma remained outside the Cabinet until 1896 when his party joined hands with that represented by the Second Matsukata Administration and Count Okuma accepted the portfolios in it of Foreign Minister and Minister of Commerce and Agriculture. But the alliance was destined to be very short-lived, and in June 1898 a Coalition was brought about between the Jiyuto, or party of Freedom, headed by Count Itagaki, and the Kai-shin-to, or party of progress. In the Cabinet then formed Count Okuma was Minister-President, but it existed no longer than the following October, and after being Premier four months the Count gave way to Marshal Yamagata. The official career of the great progressive leader may be said to have terminated at that point, but he has continued to wield an immense political influence and he is above all things interested in educational projects and has striven might and main to promote the spread of Western knowledge in his own land. Where Marshal Yamagata may be credited with the development of a military power that has made of Japan a nation to be envied for the perfection with which her sons have been trained to fight her battles, and Marquis Ito has striven successfully to secure for the country the blessings of constitutional Government, Count Okuma has made it all his life the one aim of his existence to promote the adoption of an educational system throughout the Empire which shall be effective and thorough, and if he has in this way led successive Governments to regard the work of education as a pressing duty laid upon them, and to expend large sums in its fulfilment, he has not hesitated to devote large sums from his own purse to the attainment of his ideal. As a rich man he has been able to do a great deal to further the cause which he has always had at heart, and he certainly has displayed a most commendable readiness to add practice to precept when advocating the allocation of Government funds to the endowment of schools and colleges. The University of Waseda, which he founded in 1882, has prospered exceedingly, and is numbered among the most valuable of those institutions,—and they are many,—which afford facilities to the Japanese youth for the acquisition of a liberal education. The Japanese name of the College is Semmon Gakko, and Waseda is the suburb of Tokio in which stands the Count’s mansion, adjacent to the institution in which he takes a natural pride. It aims at the higher education of girls as well as boys, and among other things it possesses an extensive publishing bureau, designed to provide for the efficient translation into Japanese of foreign works of an educational character. Here his own articles for foreign magazines have at times been rendered into English, for though the Count is fairly conversant with our tongue he does not attempt to speak or write it save on very rare occasions.