Ever since his retirement from office, and his withdrawal to his native province in 1873, the elder Saigō had remained in Kagoshima, the chief town of Satsuma. Here he had established an institution which, in order to disguise its object, was called a “private school.” In reality it was a military college. In its central quarters in that town, and in branches elsewhere, the youth of the clan received a military training. In the autumn of 1875 it was already in a flourishing condition, and in the course of the following year there were in Kagoshima alone some seven thousand pupils, or associates. By this time much uneasiness prevailed. Public apprehension found free expression in the Press, which said that the nation was divided into two parties, one being for the Government, the other for Satsuma, and asked what could be done to preserve peace.
The coming into force in January, 1877, of the edict, issued in the previous year, prohibiting the wearing of swords, was followed by Shimadzu’s resignation of the high office he held in the Ministry. In disgust at this latest move of a Government with which he had never from the first been in sympathy, he left Tōkiō. Not being allowed to travel by sea, he went back to Satsuma by land, following the historic route he and other nobles had so often taken before. The members of his retinue carried in cotton bags the swords they were no longer allowed to wear; and when, at the end of his journey, the gates of the yashiki at Kagoshima closed upon his palanquin, he may have realized that he had passed for ever out of the political life in which he had at one time played so conspicuous a rôle. In the hostilities which followed he took no part, being content to show his disapproval of the new régime by withdrawing into a retirement from which he never again emerged.
Early in 1877 the rebellion broke out. Some excitement had been caused in Satsuma by the rumour of a plot to murder Saigō, and the Government thought it prudent to endeavour to remove a part at least of the stores in the Kagoshima arsenal. The execution of this plan was prevented by cadets of the “private school,” and an officer sent from Tōkiō in the middle of January to arrange matters met with a hostile reception, and was obliged to return without landing. War was now certain. A few days later Saigō took the field, and, marching north rapidly, besieged the castle of Kumamoto, the chief town of the province of Higo. This step is generally held to have been fatal to his success. His proper course, it is thought, would have been to have crossed over at once to the main island and move straight on Tōkiō, trusting to the magic of his name to secure fresh adherents on his way. The rebels had some advantages on their side. Their preparations had been made; their leader was a popular hero; and the reputation of the clan for fighting qualities was unrivalled. So universal was the respect inspired by Satsuma swordsmen in those days that mothers in districts further north would quiet fractious infants by warnings of the coming of the dreaded Satsuma men, just as women in Europe in the last century made use, for the same purpose, of Bonaparte’s name. It was doubtful, moreover, what reliance could be placed on the mixed force sent by the Government to encounter the rebels. But in all other respects the Government was far better equipped for the struggle than its opponents. It had large military supplies, accumulated in anticipation of what was coming, besides money and credit. It had the exclusive use of railways and telegraphs, a small fleet, shipping facilities, and the command of the sea. The Crown, too, was on its side, an important point, as we have seen, in Japanese warfare; and it had the further and somewhat singular advantage of being assisted by the co-operation in army, navy, and civil administration of the picked men, intellectually speaking, of the rebel clan, who had thrown in their lot with the Government, and knew the Satsuma resources better, possibly, than the rebels themselves. One other factor in the struggle remains to be noted—the numerous recruits who flocked to the Imperial standard from districts which had formerly supported the Tokugawa cause. Amongst these Aidzu clansmen were conspicuous. Filled with hatred of their late foes in the Civil War of 1868–9, and eager to take revenge for the disaster which had then overtaken them, they fought with a dogged courage and tenacity, and, as swordsmen, in the close hand-to-hand fighting which was a feature of the war, they more than held their own against their redoubtable antagonists.
The investment of Kumamoto by the rebels gave time for the Imperial forces to concentrate, and the relief of that place in the early summer was the turning-point of the struggle. It closed in September of the same year with the death of Saigō in Kagoshima, to which place he had doubled back with a few followers through the Imperial lines. He died in true samurai fashion. Driven by shellfire from a hill fort in the Satsuma capital, he was retiring to another part of the town, when a bullet struck him in the thigh, inflicting a dangerous wound. He fell, calling on a friend at his side to cut off his head, so as to avoid the disgrace which, according to the military code of the day, would be incurred were it to come into the hands of the enemy. His friend did as he was asked, and made his escape with the head.
The war was a heavy drain on the Government exchequer. An official estimate of its cost, made in 1893, placed it as high as £82,000,000, an estimate which seems excessive. But the benefits resulting from the dangerous crisis through which the nation had safely passed far outweighed the sacrifice in lives and treasure. Nor is it easy to see how they could have been gained in any other way. The suppression of the rebellion was more than a mere victory for the Government. It meant the triumph of a progressive policy over the mediævalism of old Japan. The reactionary and disturbing elements in the country had been taught that the new order of things must be accepted. The new conscript army had dispelled all doubts of its efficiency and had demonstrated, to the surprise of everybody, that the fighting spirit was not the inheritance solely of the former military class, but that an army recruited from all classes of the people was an institution on which the State could safely depend. Moreover, the administrative organization having successfully passed the severest test to which it could have been put, the Government felt that it had acquired the confidence of the nation, and also of foreign Powers, to a degree unknown before. One result, therefore, of the rebellion was that the Government emerged from the struggle stronger and more compact than before. To this must be added another even more striking: the fact that the Satsuma influence in the Government remained unimpaired in spite of recent events. This may be explained partly by the circumstance, already noted, that the party in the rebel clan in favour of progress had never wavered in its allegiance to the Government, and, perhaps also, partly by the generosity shown to the vanquished by the victors. The liberal policy, quite opposed to the traditions and the spirit of that day, adopted by the Imperialists at the close of the war of the Restoration was again followed after the Satsuma rebellion. No stigma, when hostilities had ceased, attached to the men who had fought for the clan. The temple dedicated shortly afterwards to those who had fallen in the conflict was erected to the common memory of all, both loyalists and rebels. From that moment, too—though the tendency in this direction had shown itself earlier—the administration, instead of being, as after the Restoration, a government of the four leading clans, became frankly a government of the two clans of Satsuma and Chōshiū, a character it retains to-day.
The leading fact which emerges from the foregoing account of events is the grave difficulties with which the Government established after the Restoration had to contend. One sees the contest going on between old and new Japan, and the conflict of views which divided the men who carried out the revolution; one notices how tenaciously, in spite of edicts and regulations, old feudal instincts survived; and one realizes what courage and skill were needed to enable the Ministry of reformers to steer a middle course between those who wished to put back the hands of the clock and those who wanted the rate of progress to be still faster.
During the period of civil commotion, which ended with the suppression of the Satsuma rebellion, the work of reconstruction did not stand still altogether. To this period belong the birth of the Press and the formation of the Mitsu Bishi, the earliest Japanese steamship company; the first assembly of provincial governors, which, after the suppression of the Satsuma rebellion, became a yearly feature of administrative procedure; the issue of regulations which were the first step in the revision of local administration in towns and villages; and the creation of a High Court of Justice (Daishinin) and a Legislative Chamber, or Senate (Genrō-in), composed of officials, that continued in existence until 1890. The Imperial message delivered at the opening of the first session announced the desire to establish representative government gradually, and described the creation of the Senate as a first step in this direction. In some respects the functions of this Chamber were more those of an Advisory Council than a Senate of the character found in Western Constitutions. It had no power to initiate legislation, nor to give it final effect. But it filled a useful place as a provisional institution in the machinery of administration. It facilitated the work of government by drafting new laws, and by discussing and suggesting alterations in any measures submitted for its consideration. In the domain of foreign affairs, too, by the establishment of treaty relations with Korea, and the conclusion of an agreement with Russia regarding Saghalien and the Kurile islands, to which reference has already been made, controversies of a troublesome nature were definitely settled. With the restoration of order the work of reconstruction proceeded more rapidly. A Stock Exchange and a Chamber of Commerce were formed in the Capital, where also the first National Industrial Exhibition was held; a bimetallic system of currency was introduced; while the complications attending the double allegiance of Loochoo were put an end to by the annexation, already recorded, of that island. A further step was also taken in the direction of appeasing popular clamour for representative government by the promise made in 1878 of introducing prefectural assemblies at an early date.
It will be remembered that in its answer to the Memorials of impatient reformers in 1873, when the first rupture in the Ministry took place, the Government had explained that the introduction of prefectural assemblies must necessarily precede the creation of a National Parliament. Its attitude at that time in regard to the demands of the advanced section of reformers, who were agitating for the establishment forthwith of representative institutions, was clearly expressed in an inspired article which appeared in a Tōkiō newspaper. In this it was pointed out that outside of the official class there was very little knowledge of public affairs, that the immediate need of the country was education, and that the Government could work to better purpose by increasing educational facilities through the establishment of schools than by the hasty creation of a Representative Assembly. The definite promise now made after the lapse of five years was in accordance with the view then expressed as to the necessity of giving precedence to local assemblies, and was fulfilled two years later.
It seems desirable to explain more fully how the Government directed by the four clans which effected the Restoration became a Government of only two of these. When referring to the concentration of administrative authority, after the suppression of the Satsuma rebellion, in the hands of the two clans of Satsuma and Chōshiū, mention was made of an earlier tendency in that direction. This was in 1873, when dissensions in the Ministry first occurred. The opposition then encountered by the Government came from two opposite quarters—from reactionaries on the one hand, and, on the other, from the section of advanced reformers. In each case the jealousies and ambitions of clans and individuals played, as we have seen, a certain part. But whereas the aim of the reactionaries barred the door to compromise, since they were opposed to Western innovations of any kind, all that distinguished the views of the more eager reformers from those of the Government was the question of expediency—in other words, the rate at which progress on modern lines, equally the object of both, should proceed. The reactionaries relied on force to gain their ends. They were met by force, and were crushed. After the failure of local risings, and of the more formidable Satsuma rebellion, it became clear that the Government was not to be deterred from pursuing its policy of gradual reform by the open menace of armed forces. Thenceforth, beyond the isolated attacks of fanatical assassins, to one of which Ōkubo, one of the strongest of the new Ministers, fell a victim in the spring of 1878, the Government had nothing to fear from the reactionary elements in the country. There remained the weapon of political agitation, open to all who disagreed with the Government. To this the advanced reformers resorted.
The charge they brought against the Government of failing to fulfil the promise regarding the creation of representative assemblies made in the Imperial Oath was not wholly unfounded. There was, as we have seen, no obscurity in the wording of the Imperial Oath in this respect. For a document drawn up in a language which lacks the precision of European tongues, the Imperial announcement was singularly clear. It has been stated by more than one writer on Japan, who has dealt with this question, that the Imperial Oath did not mean what it said, and that it is a mistake to suppose that the establishment of representative institutions was seriously contemplated at that time. There is no reason, it is true, to credit the men to whose hands the shaping of the new Government was committed with anything but crude ideas of what the Imperial announcement was intended to convey; for the Oath was not a declaration of rights, but simply a statement of intentions, of the principles on which the new Government was to be conducted. Nor is it likely that at a time when the feudal system was in operation any clear-cut notions of popular rights, as they came afterwards to be conceived, could have existed. Without doubt, too, those responsible for the language of the Imperial Oath purposed to impose class restrictions on the deliberative rights to be granted. This much is clear from the character given to the deliberative element in the new administration. What, however, is equally certain is that in a general, though vague, way there was a hope widely entertained, and supported by the terms of the Imperial Oath, of broadening, and, in a sense, popularizing the basis of administration; and that the fact of representative government and public discussion being important features of administration in certain Western countries was well known to many leading Japanese, who understood them to be typical of advanced conditions of progress, and desired the early establishment of similar conditions in Japan.