The Making of Modern Japan / An Account of the Progress of Japan from Pre-feudal Days to Constitutional Government & the Position of a Great Power, With Chapters on Religion, the Complex Family System, Education, &c.

by John Harington Gubbins

In his despatch to the British Minister in Tōkiō notifying the signature of the Agreement the Marquess of Lansdowne observed that it might be regarded as the outcome of the events which had taken place during the last two years in the Far East, and of the part taken by Great Britain and Japan in dealing with them. Count Hayashi, in his Secret Memoirs, published in London in 1915 after his death, confirms this statement, but puts the date at which tendencies began to take shape in this direction somewhat further back. The idea of an alliance between the two countries first came, he says, into the minds of Japanese statesmen soon after the triple intervention of 1895, and was favoured by Count Mutsu, who was at the time Minister for Foreign Affairs. The effect of that intervention, he explains, was to cause a regrouping of Powers in the Far East: France, Russia and Germany forming one group, while Great Britain, Japan and the United States represented another. Having this regrouping in view, he himself, in the summer of that year, suggested the desirability of such an alliance, should the unfriendly attitude of certain Powers towards Japan be continued. The suggestion was made in articles contributed to a leading Tōkiō journal after he had ceased to be Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs, and on the eve of his appointment as Japanese Minister to China.

The following extracts from a summary of these articles, which is given in the Memoirs, show how, undismayed by the retrocession of the Liaotung peninsula, Japanese statesmen still held firmly to their settled policy of attaining for the nation a footing of equality with Western Powers, realizing perhaps more clearly than before that the increase of Japan’s naval and military strength was the only means of attaining their object.

“We must,” the writer of the articles says, “continue to study according to Western methods, for the application of science is the most important item of warlike preparations that civilized nations regard. If new ships of war are considered necessary, we must build them at any cost. If the organization of the army is found to be wrong ... the whole military system must be entirely changed. We must build docks to be able to repair our ships. We must establish a steel factory to supply guns and ammunition. Our railways must be extended so that we can mobilize our troops rapidly. Our oversea shipping must be developed so that we can provide transports to carry our armies abroad. This is the programme that we have to keep always in view.... What Japan has now to do is to keep perfectly quiet, to lull the suspicions that have arisen against her, and to wait, meanwhile strengthening the foundations of her national power, watching and waiting for the opportunity which must one day surely come in the Orient. When that day comes, she will be able to follow her own course.”

How sedulously all the steps indicated were subsequently carried out is now common knowledge. Preparations on a scale so extended could mean only one thing—provision against the possible eventuality of war with the Power that might stand in the way of Japan’s “following her own course.”

Marquis Saionji.
Descended from an ancient family of Court Nobles. A prominent figure in diplomacy and parliamentary life. He was chief delegate for Japan at the Versailles Conference.

General Prince Katsura.
Rendered distinguished services in the war with China and Russia; he was conspicuous both as soldier and statesman.

The idea of an alliance, or some sort of understanding, between the two countries thus put forward in 1895 seems to have gradually made way both in Japan and in Great Britain. We learn from the same Memoirs that in 1898 Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, then Colonial Minister, expressed to Viscount (then Mr.) Kato, who was at that time Japanese Minister in London, the readiness of Great Britain to enter into an agreement with Japan for the settlement of affairs in the Far East, and that the latter, in reporting the conversation to the Foreign Minister in Tōkiō, strongly supported the suggestion. The subject, it appears, was again discussed in the course of a conversation which Count Hayashi had with the late Marquis Itō and with Marquis (then Count) Inouyé in Tōkiō in 1899, prior to his (Count Hayashi’s) appointment as Minister in London. His account of what passed on this occasion shows that the Japanese Government was at that time hesitating between two opposite courses—an agreement, or alliance, with Great Britain, and an understanding with Russia; and it seems to have been thought that the latter Power was in a position to offer better terms. Soon after his arrival, early in January, 1900, to take up his post in London the new Minister met the late Dr. Morrison, then Times correspondent in Peking, with whom he discussed the question of an alliance between the two countries. He seems then to have formed the impression that most British journalists were in favour of an Anglo-Japanese alliance.

It was not, however, until the following year that the question began to assume a practical aspect. The first move came from an unexpected quarter, the German Embassy in London. In March, 1901, Freiherr von Eckhardstein, who was then, owing to the illness of the German Ambassador, in the position of Chargé d’Affaires, called on Count Hayashi and expressed the opinion that a triple alliance between Germany, Great Britain and Japan was the best means of maintaining peace in the Far East. He suggested that he (Count Hayashi) should take the initiative in proposing this alliance. The latter, who had, as we know, been one of the first to advocate an Anglo-Japanese alliance, reported the suggestion to his Government, and was instructed to sound the British Government unofficially on the subject. Much light is thrown on the subsequent course of negotiations by the Memoirs already mentioned, and Freiherr von Eckhardstein’s “Reminiscences” (Lebens Erinnerungen und Politische Denkwürdigkeiten), published in Leipzig in 1920. The ball thus set rolling, the question was, we learn, discussed informally from time to time, on the one hand between the Japanese Minister and Lord Lansdowne, and, on the other, between the latter and the German Chargé d’Affaires; but it was never reopened by the German Embassy with the Japanese Minister.