A feature to be noted in connection with this land reform is the change that was made in the title to land. Hitherto the registration of land in the local land register, in accordance with the practice of centuries, as well as entries regarding the transfer of land recorded in the same land register, had constituted the holder’s title. Henceforth the title to land was determined by the possession of a title-deed. The new system, however, did not come to stay. After a trial of over fifteen years it was abandoned in March, 1889, in favour of the old method of registration in the land books of a district which, with certain later modifications in matters of detail, is now in force.
The reclassification of land—one of the results of the land reform—was set forth in an elaborate schedule, into the details of which it is unnecessary to enter. A reference to the various classes into which land was divided establishes two facts:
1. All cultivated land, with a few exceptions, belongs to the people. 2. All waste land, with a few exceptions, belongs to the Government.
To these we may add a third, that all land in Japan is subject to land-tax, with three exceptions:
(a) Government land. (b) Land held for religious purposes. (c) Land used for purposes of irrigation, drainage, and roads.
CHAPTER X
Missions to Foreign Governments—Hindrances to Reform—Language Difficulties—Attitude of Foreign Powers.
The numerous measures called for by the abolition of feudalism did not prevent the new Government from turning their attention to foreign affairs. In the same year (1871) which saw the issue of the Decree giving practical effect to the surrender of feudal fiefs a mission composed of Iwakura, Minister for Foreign Affairs, and two Councillors of State, Kido and Ōkubo, was despatched to Europe and the United States. The suite of the mission, which numbered more than fifty persons, included Mr. (afterwards Prince) Itō.
This was the third mission sent from Japan to the Courts of Treaty Powers, and by far the most important. The first of these, despatched by the Tokugawa Government early in 1862, when the conditions surrounding foreign intercourse were rendered precarious by the open hostility of the Court party, had achieved some measure of success in obtaining a postponement for five years of the dates fixed for the opening of the ports of Hiogo and Niigata, and the towns of Yedo and Ōsaka; the reasons by which the request was supported, as well as the conditions on which consent was given, being recorded so far as Great Britain was concerned, in the London Protocol of June, 1862. The reasons were: “the difficulties experienced by the Tycoon and his Ministers in giving effect to their engagements with foreign Powers having treaties with Japan in consequence of the opposition offered by a party in Japan which was hostile to all intercourse with foreigners.” The conditions, shortly stated, were: the strict observance of all other Treaty stipulations; the revocation of the old law outlawing foreigners; and the cessation in future of official interference of any kind with trade and intercourse.
The second was sent by the same Government in February, 1864. Its ostensible object was to apologize to the French Government for the murder of the French officer, Lieutenant Camus, which had taken place in October of the previous year. Its real objects, however, were to endeavour to obtain the consent of Treaty Powers to the closing of the port of Yokohama, a matter in regard to which the Shōgun’s Ministers had already appealed in vain to the foreign representatives; and, incidentally, to take an opportunity if it offered, of purchasing war material. The mission, which never went beyond Paris, returned to Japan in the following August at the moment when arrangements were being completed for the forcing of the Straits of Shimonoséki by a combined foreign squadron. It brought for the approval of the Shōgun’s Government a convention concluded by the members of the mission with the French Government. This somewhat singular instrument, which bore the signature of Monsieur Drouyn de Lhuys, then Minister for Foreign Affairs, provided that it was—after its acceptance by the Shōgun’s Government—to come into force at once, and was to be regarded as forming an integral part of the existing Treaty between France and Japan. It contained, amongst other things, a stipulation for the reopening of the Straits within three months after the return of the mission to Japan, and also provided for the co-operation, if necessary, of the French naval squadron in Japanese waters with the Shōgun’s forces in the attainment of this object. The Shōgun’s repudiation of the agreement prevented the occurrence of what might have been troublesome complications, the only result of the incident being a delay of a few days in the departure for Shimonoséki of the allied squadron.
The ostensible object of this third mission, like that of the first, related to Treaty stipulations. By a clause of the treaties of 1858—the texts of which were more or less identical, while their interpretation was governed by the stipulation regarding “most-favoured-nation” treatment—provision was made for revision by mutual consent in 1872. This consent it was the purpose of the mission to obtain. The number of Treaty Powers had by this time increased to fifteen, but the interests of most of them being very small, it was recognized that if the consent of the chief Powers could be obtained, no difficulties would be raised by others.