JAPANESE GYMNASTS—KIOTO.
During the same year, 1872, two legations and three consulates were established abroad, and from that time forward the number has been increasing until the representatives of Japan’s government are found all over the world. Scores of daily newspapers and hundreds of weeklies have been furnishing the country with information and awakening thought. The editors are often men of culture or students returned from abroad.
The Corean war project had, in 1872, become popular in the cabinet and was the absorbing theme of the army and navy. During the Tokugawa period Corea had regularly sent embassies of homage and congratulation to Japan; but not relishing the change of affairs in 1868, disgusted at the foreignizing tendencies of the mikado’s government, incensed at Japan’s departure from Turanian ideals, and emboldened by the failure of the French and American expeditions, Corea sent insulting letters taunting Japan with slavish truckling to the foreign barbarians, declared herself an enemy, and challenged Japan to fight. About this time a Liu Kiu junk was wrecked on eastern Formosa. The crew was killed by the savages, and, it is said, eaten. The Liu Kiuans appealed to their tributary lords at Satsuma, who referred the matter to Tokio. English, Dutch, American, German, and Chinese ships have from time to time been wrecked on this cannibal coast, the terror of the commerce of Christendom. Their war ships vainly attempted to chastise the savages. Soyejima, with others, conceived the idea of occupying the coast, to rule the wild tribes, and of erecting light houses in the interests of commerce. China laid no claim to eastern Formosa, all trace of which was omitted from the maps of the “Middle Kingdom.” In the spring of 1873, Soyejima went to Peking and there, among other things granted him, was an audience with the Chinese emperor. He thus reaped the results of the diplomatic labors of half a century. The Japanese ambassador stood upright before the “Dragon Face” and the “Dragon Throne,” robed in the tight black dress-coat, trousers, and linen of western civilization, bearing the congratulations of the young mikado of the “Sunrise Kingdom” to the youthful emperor of the “Middle Kingdom.” In the Tsung-li Yamen, Chinese responsibility over eastern Formosa was disavowed, and the right of Japan to chastise the savages granted. A Japanese junk was wrecked on Formosa, and its crew stripped and plundered while Soyejima was absent in China. This event piled fresh fuel on the flames of the war feeling now popular even among the unarmed classes.
FORMOSAN TYPE.
Japan at this time had to struggle with opposition within and without, to every move in the direction of advancement in civilization. Says Griffis, “At home were the stolidly conservative peasantry backed by ignorance, superstition, priestcraft, and political hostility. On their own soil they were fronted by aggressive foreigners who studied all Japanese questions through the spectacles of dollars and cents and trade, and whose diplomatists too often made the principles of Shylock their system. Outside the Asiatic nations beheld with contempt, jealousy and alarm the departure of one of their number from Turanian ideas, principles, and civilization. China with ill-concealed anger, Corea with open defiance taunted Japan with servile submission to the ‘foreign devils.’
“For the first time the nation was represented to the world by an embassy at once august and plenipotentiary. It was not a squad of petty officials or local nobles going forth to kiss a toe, to play the part of figure-heads, or stool-pigeons, to beg the aliens to get out of Japan, to keep the scales on foreign eyes, to buy gun-boats, or to hire employees. A noble of highest rank, and blood of immemorial antiquity, with four cabinet ministers, set out to visit the courts of the fifteen nations having treaties with Dai Nippon. They were accompanied by commissioners representing every government department, sent to study and report upon the methods and resources of foreign civilizations. They arrived in Washington February 29, 1872, and for the first time in history a letter signed by the mikado was seen outside of Asia. It was presented by the ambassadors, robed in their ancient Yamato costume, to the President of the United States on the 4th of March, Mr. Arinori Mori acting as interpreter. The first president of the free republic, and the men who had elevated the eta to citizenship stood face to face in fraternal accord. The one hundred and twenty-third sovereign of an empire in its twenty-sixth centennial saluted the citizen ruler of a nation whose century aloe had not yet bloomed. On the 6th of March they were welcomed on the floor of Congress. This day marked the formal entrance of Japan upon the theater of universal history.”
In its subordinate objects the embassy was a signal success. Much was learned of Christendom. The results at home were the splendid series of reforms which mark the year 1872 as epochal. But in its prime object the embassy was an entire failure. One constant and supreme object was ever present, beyond amusement or thirst for knowledge. It was to ask that in the revision of the treaties the extra-territoriality clause be stricken out, that foreigners be made subject to the laws of Japan. The failure of the mission was predicted by all who knew the facts. From Washington to St. Petersburg point-blank refusal was made. No Christian governments would for a moment trust their people to pagan edicts and prisons. While Japan slandered Christianity by proclamations, imprisoned men for their beliefs, knew nothing of trial by jury, of the habeas corpus writ, or of modern jurisprudence; in short while Japan maintained the institutions of barbarism, they refused to recognize her as a peer among nations.
At home the watchword was progress. Public persecution for conscience' sake vanished. All the Christians torn from their homes and exiled and imprisoned in 1868 were set free and restored to their native villages. Education advanced rapidly, public decency was improved, and the standards of Christendom attempted.
While in Europe Iwakura and his companions in the embassy kept cognizant of home affairs. With eyes opened by all that they had seen abroad, mighty results, but of slow growth, they saw their country going too fast. Behind the war project lay an abyss of ruin. On their return the war scheme brought up in a cabinet meeting was rejected. The disappointment of the army was keen and that of expectant foreign contractors pitiable. The advocates of war among the cabinet ministers resigned and retired to private life. Assassins attacked Iwakura, but his injuries did not result fatally. The spirit of feudalism was against him.