Part 17

Long prior to his journey to Western lands he had come in contact with Western people to no inconsiderable extent, as a brief allusion to the part he took in the reception of the Duke of Edinburgh in 1869 will suffice to show. But first it should be explained that as a Court noble he had in the preceding year accompanied his present Majesty from Kioto to Yedo, thenceforward to be known as Tokio. The youthful sovereign travelled by the famous To-kai-do, or road of the Eastern Sea, and as it was the first and last occasion on which the sovereign journeyed under conditions that have long since ceased to exist, it may be worth while to recall some of the features of the imperial procession and the methods of travel which down to that date were adopted in Japan. Matters have in this respect been completely changed, for the railways have revolutionised everything. The _honjins_ at which the daimios stayed for the night when journeying by easy stages from their provinces to the Shogun’s capital at stated periods and back to their domains have mostly disappeared,—the post stations, where their servitors hired baggage ponies and their palanquin bearers were changed, every few miles, still exist on most roads, but the palanquins have been replaced by the “man-power-car” (jin-riki-sha), a vehicle then uninvented. The stately manners and elaborate courtesy of the old regime have been replaced by a certain brusqueness that sometimes offends. The journey from Kioto to Yedo formerly occupied four weeks. The average rate of progress was thus about twelve miles per day, but it was not uniform, and much depended on the character of the road, and of the weather. The Emperor rode in a specially constructed “norimono” (_lit._: thing for riding in) and was hidden from the gaze of the vulgar by silk-gauze curtains. The bearers of the imperial vehicle had been trained to perfection in the art of carrying it steadily,—to the degree, indeed, that they could run fast with it when a bowl brimful of water had been placed inside and not spill a drop, if we may credit the assertions of those who formerly made their journeys in this fashion,—and were carefully matched for height to prevent any oscillation. In the month of November, when the Emperor removed to his new capital, the days were warm and sunny, and the nights cool, so that the time chosen was the pleasantest for travelling of all the year, and as the _honjin_ keepers had been warned of his Majesty’s approach by advance couriers all had been made ready for his fitting reception. By his express command no levy of any sort was made but, down to the smallest article needed for use on the road, everything was paid for. As the procession neared Kanagawa some of the Yokohama residents were present at the roadside to witness its passage through the little town, and it is supposed that his Majesty, then not quite seventeen years of age, obtained his first view of the strangers in his realms through the gauze-curtained windows of his norimono. The advance was slow and dignified. There were 1000 soldiers marching in scattered parties of from forty to two hundred, with a few flags, and several bands of music playing a weird air that no one recognised. Beyond this there was not a sound. The people bowed profoundly, but in perfect silence, as the ruler of Japan passed by. Following the Emperor came Prince Iwakura, in a norimono, and some twenty other nobles of the Court, as also three or four territorial lords, each with his own retinue. Slowly the procession wended its way along the “Eastern Sea Road” at a foot pace, until the castle of Yedo which had for two and a half centuries sheltered the deputy ruler, but thenceforward to be the headquarters of the real sovereign, came in sight, from the suburb of Shinagawa. Soon the imperial norimono had been borne across the inner moat and the Emperor had reached his palace, not again to appear in public for a long time, and then not in a norimono but in a wheeled vehicle of European pattern drawn by well-groomed horses.

Next year there came to Japan Prince Alfred of England, and with his reception as the first foreign prince to visit Japan under the new order of things created by the Restoration Prince Iwakura had all to do. At the time he gracefully said that the Government had given to the reception of the English prince the most anxious consideration, inasmuch as it was of all things wished that the utmost friendship should be shown towards Foreign Powers, and the Government was ready to promote the formation of intimate relations even though in doing so they might have to sacrifice to some degree the ancient usages and ideas, so much so that the Emperor would be compelled to observe an altogether new etiquette in receiving Prince Alfred in a way that would be acceptable to Great Britain, but that it afforded intense gratification to reflect that this compliment would in the first instance be paid to an English prince, and would form some slight acknowledgment of the abundant proofs which Japan had received of the thorough good will of England and of the Government of Queen Victoria.

It is ancient history now, but the _Galatea_ dropped anchor at Yokohama on Sunday, the 25th of August 1869. The royal standard, however, was not hoisted by her until the 31st, and then all the warships in harbour and the fort of Kanagawa broke into a tremendous salute, which later the _Galatea_ returned with the flag of Japan at the main. On the 1st of September the Duke took up his residence in the palace of Hama-go-ten, in Tokio, which had been made ready for him, and on the 4th he went to the palace within the castle to meet the Ten-shi, who welcomed his guest in the Audience Chamber, and then invited him to a less formal meeting in the adjoining garden of Fuki-age. Refreshments were served in the maple pavilion, and the Emperor awaited the Duke’s coming in the tiny pavilion by the waterfall. As Prince Alfred entered the Ten-shi rose and bowed courteously, and begged his guest to be seated. The suites remained standing, while the Emperor said “It affords me great pleasure to receive a prince who has come so far, and I hope you will remain long enough to repay you for the fatigues of the journey.” The best wishes were expressed on both sides for cordial relations between England and Japan and the memorable interview was brought to a conclusion.

Interest will always attach to this first meeting of the Japanese Emperor with a member of another ruling house, for it signalised a vast alteration in the views of the Japanese aristocracy as well as the beginning of cordial relations between the two powers which have with the lapse of time grown closer and closer, and promise to be eternal. It is due to the memory of Prince Iwakura to show, as it has here been sought to do, that he most clearly appreciated the benefits which were certain to accrue from the maintenance of a mutual understanding between his country and ours, and did all that it was feasible in that epoch to do to cement the ties which were thus early growing up between nations destined to be one day absolutely allied.

In 1870 Prince Iwakura was despatched on an important mission to the lord of Satsuma province, being the bearer of a request from the Emperor that the daimio Shimadzu Saburo, then dwelling at Kagoshima, should come to Tokio and give his assistance in affairs of State, by taking his seat at the Grand Council. The Emperor wrote a special letter to Shimadzu,—who was virtually all powerful in Satsuma, though nominally the uncle and truly the father of the daimio of the clan,—to the effect that the Dainagon Tomiyoshi (Iwakura) was charged to convey the expression of his Majesty’s esteem and calling upon him (Shimadzu) to join in the great work of reforming the national institutions. To Iwakura the Imperial Commission was given in these terms:—

TO IWAKURA DAINAGON:

His Majesty desires to present a sword to the shrine of _Shokoku Daimojin_ at Kagoshima in Satsuma, and to take an oath to the god to exalt the destinies of the State.

You will therefore proceed thither and worship in obedience to this desire of his Majesty.

SANJO SANETOMI: TOKUDAIJI SANENORI:

The Satsuma lord found an excuse for non-compliance at the time with the sovereign’s command, though he ultimately went up to Tokio with a retinue of armed samurai, at a date when the wearing of two swords in the girdle had become an anachronism, and then made but a brief sojourn there.

The next mission undertaken by Prince Iwakura was that alluded to at the outset,—the visit to America and Europe.

With him, as Vice-ambassadors, were four of the heads of departments of State, and a number of Secretaries and clerks belonging to the several departments represented. The dominant idea seems to have been that the chiefs should form a council of five among themselves, and be able to adequately represent the views of their sovereign. The prince had some months prior to the leadership of this mission being conferred upon him been made Minister for Foreign Affairs, and what was a most exceptional thing at that time, indeed an altogether unprecedented honour, the Emperor paid him a visit at his own residence in Tokio, and thus addressed him:

“I have purposely called on you to thank you for your zeal in my service. Ever since the Reform you have exerted yourself day and night to secure the happiness and tranquillity of the empire, and the present state of prosperity has principally depended on you.”

When Prince Iwakura was chosen to lead a mission to the Western Powers it is to be inferred from this commendatory utterance of the sovereign how great was the importance that was attached to its successful fulfilment, and there can be no doubt that much was anticipated from it in the shape of compliance by the Governments to which it was accredited with a desire that the Japanese Government had very much at heart, and that was the revision of the treaties entered into twelve to fifteen years before with foreign powers,—a revision which it took many years to bring about but was at last amicably effected in 1894.

The Embassy left Yokohama by a Pacific Mail Company’s steamer in December 1871, and it was absent altogether a year and nine months. Everywhere it was well received, but the results were not quite satisfactory, for when it returned the vexed question of extra territoriality was no nearer a settlement in accordance with Japan’s views than when it set out.

On his return Iwakura found a strong party in the Government in favour of inflicting punishment on Korea for wrongs and insults that it was declared the nation had sustained at the hands of the people of the neighbouring peninsula. As Korea was tributary to China, this meant going to war with the Chinese, and Iwakura was profoundly opposed to an adventure of this character in the then state of the Empire’s naval and military forces. A split in the Government followed, and the members of the war party, which included Goto Shojiro, Itagaki Taisuke, Saigo Takamori, Soyeshima, and Yeto Shimpei, all resigned, their places in the administration being taken by Ito Hirobumi, Katsu Awa-no-kami, Okubo, and Terashima.

The ill feeling in the country engendered by this conflict of opinion led to a determined attempt on Prince Iwakura’s life by men belonging to the Tosa clan, who were caught and executed for their abominable crime. The prince was returning from the imperial palace at eight o’clock in the evening of the 15th of January 1874, in a small open carriage, the hood of which, fortunately, as the night was cold, had been drawn up. Nevertheless, though the hood was a partial protection, he received several wounds from the swords and spears with which the intending assassins had armed themselves. The attack took place on the causeway at Ku-ichi-gai, close to the castle moat, and the driver of the carriage and the _betto_ or groom, were likewise both badly wounded. In endeavouring to escape from his assailants the prince fell headlong into the moat, which happily was not deep at that point, and the assassins, as they deemed themselves to be, took to flight, on the guard at the palace gate approaching with a lantern. Their victim had strength left to shout, and was hauled out of the moat, more dead than alive from his injuries and immersion in the ice-cold water on that winter night. He was a long time confined to his bed, but he eventually recovered to be able to resume his

## part in the official life of the capital.

He died in 1881 deeply mourned by the whole of the Japanese people, who recognised in him perhaps more than in any other statesman of his generation the guide and counsellor of the monarch at critical periods of the nation’s history, and he undoubtedly was honoured by his sovereign with a close personal friendship such as rarely falls to the lot of a subject under any conditions, in Japan or elsewhere.

VIII

PRINCE SANJO SANETOMI

On the 6th of November 1868, when the British Minister, the late Sir Harry Parkes, was reviewing the British garrison at Yokohama, a Japanese equestrian, wearing the native robes of white silk which befitted his rank as a _kuge_ or Court noble,—his horse led by two grooms or “bettos,” and attended by forty soldiers in blue serge uniforms, with black cloth caps,—a man of slight physique, and particularly juvenile in appearance,—sat placidly in his saddle watching with an interested air the movements of the foreign troops as they executed a series of evolutions and marched past the representative of Queen Victoria. The visitor, who had come from Tokio to attend the review, was Prince Sanjo, the first Prime Minister of Japan, and leader of the newly formed Government of the Restored Imperial Rule. A few minutes later Sir Harry, with a well-turned compliment on the skill of Japanese swordsmen, and a graceful acknowledgment of his indebtedness personally to the valour of one of their number, handed to the Japanese statesman the sword sent by the British Queen for presentation to Mr Nakai Kozo, in memory of the day when Nakai and Goto Shojiro, as is elsewhere related at length, saved the life of the British Minister when he was attacked by outlaws in the streets of Kioto in March of the same year. Prince Sanjo passed on the gift to Mr Nakai with his own congratulations to the recipient on the performance of a brilliant feat of arms, and thus closed an incident that served to remind those present of an exceptionally stormy period in the history of the nation, and which happily was then giving place to comparatively settled conditions. Prince Sanjo had come from Kioto to Yedo, thenceforward to be the capital of the Empire under the title of Tokio, in the month of June, in attendance on the Emperor, who then removed to the former headquarters of the Shogunate and gave to the place its new name. Sanjo was at that time _Fuku-Sosai_, ranking next to the Emperor’s uncle, Prince Arisugawa Taruhito, who occupied in the first administration formed under the Restored Imperial regime the position of _Sosai_—_i.e._ Supreme Director of the Government. The decisions of the So-sai were unchallengeable, and it was an office which only a prince of the blood might hold. Sanjo had always, even during the lifetime of the present Emperor’s father, sided with those who recognised the need of reforms, and when, in the autumn of 1868, the Department of the So-sai was abolished and the Dai-jo-kwan, or Supreme Governing Council, was constituted, thus resuscitating an ancient advisory body that had had a prior existence in the eighth century, he succeeded to the post of president, or _Dai-Jo-Dai-Jin_, thereof, and occupied it from that time forth until the dissolution of the Council on the reconstitution of the Government in the year 1886.

[Illustration: PRINCE SANJO SANETOMI]

The Ministry of the Restored Rule was soon after its institution reorganised so as to give equal representation to the four leading clans that had been directly concerned in the revival of direct imperial control—viz. Satsuma, Choshiu, Tosa, and Hizen. Up to the year 1886 the Dai-jo-kwan was a separate body, distinct from the Council of Ministers or heads of departments. But in that year the two Councils were fused into one, and became the Cabinet as it exists at the present day. In Japan, it will be remembered, the Cabinet is appointed directly by the sovereign, and is entirely independent of any political party that may be predominant in the Diet. The Ministry at the outset of the Meiji era included those energetic reformers, Ito Shunsuke (afterwards Hirobumi) and Inouye Bunda (afterwards Kaoru) both Choshiu Samurai, and in Prince Sanjo they found an able and ardent supporter of their views. His influence was apparent in the tolerant attitude of the Court party towards the policy of the new government, and as the motto of the administration was then, and still is, “a strong Japan, for defence, and if need be, for aggression,” it is not easy to see in what respect the Imperialistic conservatism of the Kioto nobles was stultified by the doctrine enunciated in the Council Chamber at the capital. The retention of Japan for the Japanese was the object sought by both sides, but while one would have attempted to realise it by the expulsion of the subjects of the Occidental Powers, the other party in the State was willing to believe that Japan’s safety and territorial integrity were best to be preserved by the assimilation of those arts and sciences that had given to the Western peoples their capabilities of waging successful warfare, and of thereby imposing their will upon others. The policy which commended itself to Japan at that epoch was certainly not inspired by a mere love of change, nor by any pronounced preference for foreign ways, nor was it ascribable to a passion for learning, in the abstract, but it was directly prompted by a well-grounded political incentive to action that has never lost its hold on the minds of Government or people, and is indubitably as strong to-day as when its principles were first assented to by the nation at large, close upon forty years ago.

Prince Sanjo belonged to the eighth _Kuge_ family, and was therefore a descendant of the Fujiwara house which has from very early days provided consorts for the Emperors. The mothers and wives of the sovereigns of Japan have all been Fujiwaras by descent, and the rule still holds good that the princesses of the blood shall marry into Fujiwara houses. The retention of Prince Sanjo in the office of Prime Minister on the establishment of the Dai-jo-kwan was a wise step of which the good effects were incalculable, inasmuch as it tended towards the reconcilement of those antagonistic sections of the community which were to be classed respectively as adherents of the old and of the new systems. At the beginning he was himself an opponent of the _kai-koku_ policy which favoured the opening of the country to foreign trade and intercourse, but in the end he vastly aided the accomplishment of those plans to which he had finally accorded his unqualified approbation. As a Fujiwara he could not be other than a devoted servant of the throne,—as a convert to the doctrine of reform he was a pillar of strength to the Government of the Restored Imperial Rule, and a strenuous advocate of the adoption of methods calculated to place his country in the van of Asiatic powers. The Fujiwaras in the ninth century assumed regal control, in their tenure of the office of Kwambaku,—an ancient title borne by the Prime Minister of the State,—and the holder of it in A.D. 888 had wielded absolute sway, arranging all affairs with and on behalf of the then reigning Mikado, who seems to have been content to efface himself and to permit the Minister to exercise sovereign powers. Thus the prestige of the Fujiwara house was a valuable prop to the edifice of State and the influence exerted by the prince as Premier throughout his long occupancy of the exalted office was ever thrown into the scale of solid advancement.

When the Shogun Tokugawa Keiki tendered his resignation in the spring of 1868, he made a strong appeal for the assembling at an early date of the provincial lords in Kioto, in order that they might express individually and collectively their views to the young monarch on the great questions which were then agitating the land. This Council of Dai-Mios met while the war of the Restoration was yet in progress, and the outcome of their deliberations was the revival of the historical Dai-jo-kwan, with a _Dai-jo-dai-jin_, or Chancellor,—to use the term then commonly employed in translation,—a Sa-dai-jin, or Vice-chancellor of the Left, which ranks highest in Japan,—and a Vice-chancellor of the Right, the U-dai-jin. The holders of the Vice-chancellorships under Prince Sanjo were Prince Iwakura and the feudal chief of Satsuma. The administrative departments created—viz. Foreign Affairs, Finance, War, Education, Home Affairs, Justice, Religion, and the Imperial Household—were each presided over by a Minister, and among those who accepted portfolios at that time were many whose names will remain conspicuous for all time in the chronicles of the Empire. Few of them are now alive, but it may with strict justice be said that their labours in laying the foundations of good government for their country were not in vain.

Prince Sanjo was at the head of the government throughout the troublous period when it became necessary, in order to vindicate Japan’s rights, to send an expedition to Formosa, led by Marquis Saigo, and at the far more anxious stage when rebellion arose in Satsuma and it was imperative to prosecute the war against Saigo Takamori and his followers with vigour, lest the spread of principles opposed to the Government policy should ultimately render its position insecure. Throughout it was Prince Sanjo who presided over the deliberations of the Cabinet, and who enjoyed the complete confidence of his imperial master. A great demand arose for the revision of the treaties into which Japan had entered with foreign nations, at a time when she practically had no choice but to throw open her ports to over-sea trade. Year after year this momentous problem, how to procure for the country adequate recognition of its paramount rights, while it chafed under the claims of foreigners to enjoy the immunities afforded by extra-territorial jurisdiction, obtruded itself, but it was not until the Dai-jo-kwan had given place to a Cabinet in 1886 that a satisfactory stage leading to revision was entered upon, and then Prince Sanjo had ceased to be Premier.