I have mentioned in Chapter III. the overthrow of feudalism and its causes. Its immediate effect on the nation, in unifying their thoughts, customs, and habits, was most remarkable. From this time we see the marked growth of common sentiment, common manners, common interest among the people, together with a love of peace and order.
While the government at home was thus tearing down the old framework of state, the Iwakura Embassy in foreign lands was gathering materials for the new. This was significant, inasmuch as five of the best statesmen of the time, with their staff of forty-four able men, came into association for over a year with western peoples, and beheld in operation their social, political and religious institutions. These men became fully convinced that "the wealth, the power, and the happiness of a people," as President Grant told them, "are advanced by the encouragement of trade and commercial intercourse with other powers, by the elevation and dignity of labor, by the practical adaptation of science to the manufactures and the arts, by increased facilities of frequent and rapid communication between different parts of the country, by the encouragement of immigration, which brings with it the varied habits and diverse genius and industry of other lands, by a free press, by freedom of thought and of conscience, and a liberal toleration in matters of religion."[1]
The impressions and opinions of these men on the importance of a free and liberal policy can be gleaned from the speeches they made during the western tour, and some of their writings and utterances on other occasions.
The chief ambassador, Iwakura, in reply to a toast made to him in England, said: "Having now become more intimately acquainted with her (England's) many institutions, we have discovered that their success is due to the liberal and energetic spirit by which they are animated."[2]
Count Ito, the present President of the Privy Council, in his speech at San Francisco, said: "While held in absolute obedience by despotic sovereigns through many thousand years, our people knew no freedom or liberty of thought. With our material improvement they learned to understand their rightful privileges, which for ages have been denied them."[3]
Count Inouye, the ex-Minister of State for Agriculture and Commerce, in his memorial to the government in 1873, said: "The people of European and American countries are for the most part rich in intelligence and knowledge, and they preserve the spirit of independence. And owing to the nature of their polity they share in the counsels of their government. Government and people thus mutually aid and support each other, as hand and foot protect the head and eye. The merits of each question that arises are distinctly comprehended by the nation at home, and the government is merely its outward representative. But our people are different. Accustomed for ages to despotic rule, they have remained content with their prejudices and ignorance. Their knowledge and intelligence are undeveloped and their spirit is feeble. In every movement of their being they submit to the will of the government, and have not the shadow of an idea of what 'a right' is. If the government makes an order, the whole country obeys it as one man. If the government takes a certain view, the whole nation adopts it unanimously.... The people must be recalled to life, and the Empire be made to comprehend with clearness that the objects which the government has in view are widely different from those of former times."[4]
If the passages quoted illustrate statesmen's zeal to introduce western civilization, and to educate the people gradually to political freedom and privileges, their actions speak more eloquently than their words. In order to crush that social evil, the class system, which for ages had been a curse, the government declared all classes of men equal before the law, delivered the eta—the class of outcasts—from its position of contempt, abolished the marriage limitations existing between different classes of society, prohibited the wearing of swords, which was the peculiar privilege of the nobles and the Samurai; while to facilitate means of communication and to open the eyes of the people to the wonders of mechanical art, they incessantly applied themselves to the construction of railroads, docks, lighthouses, mining, iron, and copper factories, and to the establishment of telegraphic and postal systems. They also codified the laws, abolished the use of torture in obtaining testimony, revoked the edict against Christianity, sanctioned the publication of newspapers, established by the decree of 1875 the "Genro-in (a kind of Senate) to enact laws for the Empire, and the Daishin-in to consolidate the judicial authority of the courts,"[5] and called an assembly of the prefects, which, however, held but one session in Tokio.
While the current of thought among the official circles was thus flowing, there was also a stream, in the lower region of the social life, soon to swell into a mighty river. Social inequality, that barrier which prevents the flow of popular feeling, being already levelled, merchants, agriculturists, tradesmen, artisans and laborers were now set at liberty to assert their rights and to use their talents. They were no longer debarred from places of high honor.
The great colleges and schools, both public and private, which were hitherto established and carried on exclusively for the benefit of the nobles and the Samurai, were now open to all. And in this democracy of letters, where there is no rank or honor but that of talent and industry, a sentiment was fast growing that the son of a Daimio is not necessarily wiser than the son of a peasant.
Teachers of these institutions were not slow to infuse the spirit of independence and liberty into their pupils and to instruct the people in their natural and political rights. Mr. Fukuzawa, a schoolmaster, an author, and a lecturer, the man who exercised an immense influence in shaping the mind of young Japan, gave a deathblow to the old ideas of despotic government, and of the blind obedience of the people, when he declared that government exists for the people and not the people for the government, that the government officials are the servants of the people, and the people their employer. He also struck a heavy blow at the arrogance and extreme love of military glory of the Samurai class, with whom to die for the cause of his sovereign, whatever that cause might be, was the highest act of patriotism, by advocating that "Death is a democrat, and that the Samurai who died fighting for his country, and the servant who was slain while caught stealing from his master, were alike dead and useless."