Emperor of Japan

by Donald Keene

  As the result of his armies’ victories, the king of Prussia, Wilhelm I, was crowned as kaiser of Germany at Versailles in January 1871 and sent notification of his new eminence to Emperor Meiji. The latter responded with a message of congratulations and two albums of Yamato-e, a return gift for the war pictures the kaiser had sent the previous autumn. The distance between Japan and Europe was still enormous, but Japan had assumed a role important enough in the world for the emperor to be kept abreast of the news of his “cousins,” the crowned heads of Europe.

  The most important development with respect to bringing Japan into closer contact with the rest of the world at this time was undoubtedly the departure of the Iwakura mission for America and Europe on December 23, 1871.24 The treaty of commerce signed with the United States in July 1858 had stated that its provisions might come up for reconsideration in 171 months, so this was an appropriate time for the mission to visit the countries with which Japan had signed treaties.25 The treaties had provided for extraterritoriality and fixed import tariffs, both highly unpopular with the Japanese as infringements on their sovereignty. It was hoped that these objectionable provisions might be eliminated by negotiation.

  In February 1871 Itō Hirobumi, then in Washington, wrote to various highranking officials proposing that a mission of outstanding officials be dispatched in the near future to Europe and America to examine in each country the situation with respect to friendly relations, trade, and customs duties, as advance preparation for fulfilling the conditions necessary for revision of the treaties. Itō hoped that members of the proposed mission would succeed in convincing persons in the countries they visited that Japan had reached maturity as a modern state and therefore should not be treated as a backward country whose laws and finances could not be trusted. The chief purpose of the mission would be to win the confidence of the major Western countries and to communicate to them the government’s desire for revision of the treaties.

  In May 1871 the government ordered Councillor Ōkuma Shigenobu (1838–1922) and Yoshida Kiyonari (1845–1891), an official of the Finance Ministry, to examine the advisability of sending a mission to the West in the hopes of revising the treaty. They concluded that a mission should be sent, and the cabinet prepared a statement that was submitted to the emperor.

  Starting from the assumption that relations between countries should be on a basis of equality, the statement asked why Japan had signed unequal treaties with foreign countries. It blamed this on the laziness and temporizing habits of the officials of the late Tokugawa period. At the time of the Restoration, men had wished to reclaim Japanese rights and escape from the humiliation to which the treaties subjected Japan, but the treaties were in force and could not be changed. The time had now come to discuss with foreign governments revision of the treaties and friendship based on equality. Because revisions would have to be based on international law, anything in the Japanese system or its laws not in consonance with international law would have to be changed. This might take a year or more, but because it was clearly stated in the treaties that a revision might commence on July 1, 1872, a great opportunity now existed. But the diplomats of each nation would undoubtedly seek the advantage of their own country, and if anything in the Japanese system, laws, or religion was contrary to generally accepted morality, they were likely to attack it and insist on Japan’s immediate compliance with their ways as the price of treaty revision. This would not be easy for the Japanese, and the result was likely to be confrontation over the conference table.

  A mission might be useful in avoiding this kind of disagreement. Its members would pay courtesy calls on foreign countries to express the hope that the changes in the Japanese government would enable closer ties than before. They would also inform each country that treaty revision was the goal of the Japanese government and propose negotiations. Sending a mission to the countries of Europe and America was the best way to discover what Japan would have to do in order to be accepted as a member of the community of nations. Specialists attached to the mission would observe the countries’ systems, laws, economy, education, and so on in order to determine how they might be adopted in Japan. The mission would give the Japanese the opportunity to change their own country in ways that would convince foreign countries that Japan should be considered an enlightened nation.26

  A second memorandum described some of the changes that would have to be made in Japanese laws, in the freedom for foreigners to come and go and live where they pleased, in education for enlightenment, and in removing obstacles to religious freedom.

  It is likely that if these proposals had been followed as they stood and the mission had not attempted to obtain immediate treaty revision, it would have been acclaimed as an unqualified success, but the mission’s inability to obtain revision has caused many historians to speak of its disastrous failure. This attitude was not, however, shared by foreigners of the time, who eagerly claimed recognition for their part in a glorious page of Japanese history. W. E. Griffis, writing in 1900, stated,

  Perhaps the most remarkable event of the year 1871 was the dispatch of the great embassy to Christendom, that is, to America and Europe, of which it may be said, without any exaggeration, whatever, that Guido F. Verbeck was the originator and organizer, as we shall see.

  From Tokio, November 21, 1871, Mr. Verbeck wrote:

  “The government is going to send a very superior embassy to America and Europe…. It is my hope and prayer that the sending of this mission may do very much to bring about, or at least bring nearer, the long longedfor toleration of Christianity…. Eight or nine of the names are of former scholars of mine. We pray that the results may be good, and further, under the Divine blessing, the boon of religious toleration. I have worked in that direction all I could.”27

  Verbeck recalled that on October 25, 1871, Iwakura had requested him to call. His first question was, “Did you not write a paper and hand it to one of your chief officers?”28 He was referring to a paper Verbeck had sent to Ōkuma several years earlier, recommending the sending of an embassy to Europe and America. Iwakura said he had not heard of the paper until three days before but was now having it translated.

  At the end he told me that it was the very and the only thing for them to do, and that my programme should be carried out to the letter,… The embassy is organized according to my paper…. It sailed in two months from the date of my paper becoming known to Iwakura and the emperor.29

  Griffis added,

  One prominent object of the embassy was to secure the removal of the extra territoriality clause in the treaties, that Japan might receive full recognition as a sovereign state. For this, however, the envoys were not, as our American minister, Hon. Chas. H. De Long, told me before they started, armed with full powers from the Emperor.30

  A question that has divided specialists is whether treaty revision was the mission’s prime objective. Those who believe it was emphasize the length of the mission’s stay abroad and the great cost and describe the dejection of its members after their return to Japan. It is clear, however, that treaty revision, though ardently desired, was not the original objective. It may be that De Long, who accompanied the mission to Washington, mischievously suggested to the Japanese that the moment had come to ask the Americans to revise the treaties, perhaps hoping that success would redound to his credit in Japan. The extraordinarily friendly receptions that the Japanese mission received wherever it went in America confirmed the belief that the time was ripe for negotiations.31

  However, when the Japanese arrived in Washington, the secretary of state pointed out that their credentials did not include treaty revision. Ōkubo and Itō accordingly took the long journey back to Tōkyō to obtain the credentials, but despite the time, trouble, and money this had cost,32 Iwakura decided that unilaterally concluding a treaty with the Americans would be disadvantageous to Japan. Under the most-favored-nation clause in the treaties, Japan would have to extend to every other country whatever concessions it made to the United S
tates without necessarily receiving compensation in return. He decided to break off negotiations with America on treaty revision and instead to conduct negotiations at some future time around a conference table with all nations represented. Iwakura, Kido, and Yamaguchi Naoyoshi called on the secretary of state to inform him that it would not be possible for them to reach agreement solely with the United States and that they would therefore return to the mission’s original purpose, paying courtesy calls on the various nations. The mission spent six and a half months in America (including the long wait in Washington) before going on to England and other European countries. But the time was by no means totally wasted, as Kume Kunitake’s extraordinary Beiōkairan jikki, the detailed account of the travels of the mission, makes absolutely clear.

  The philosopher and historian Miyake Setsurei averred that once the mission left the United States, its activities degenerated into an aimless wandering. He said that the members were well aware of this but had no choice but to go on. Miyake admitted that they were intrigued by what they saw in advanced countries and took comfort from the thought that this was enabling them to become familiar with world conditions but said this did not mask their failure, even to themselves.33 There is no trace of dejection, however, in Kume’s lengthy work. Whether or not they were always conscious of it, the members of the mission were helping make Japan into a modern nation.

  The Western nations were reluctant, for economic reasons, to consider revising the unequal treaties, as it was to their advantage to continue their control of Japanese import tariffs. If pressed by the Japanese, they could have justified their opposition in terms of the continuing instances of murders and attempted murders of Europeans and their inability to trust Japanese justice to punish the guilty.34 They could have insisted that the restrictions against Christianity be lifted before treaty revision could be considered. But it was beyond the mission’s powers to guarantee such changes. Although the failure to obtain treaty revision was a severe disappointment, the mission had in fact carried out brilliantly the original terms of its assignment. If the members had not hoped to achieve more—to obtain treaty revision—they would not have wasted the months waiting for Itō and Ōkubo to return from Tōkyō, and there would have been no reason to question their success.

  In any case, they derived from personal experience a kind of knowledge of the West that could not have been obtained in any other way. They had the good fortune to observe the various Western countries at a time of prosperity and optimism, and they would be able to put this knowledge—whether of advanced machinery or politics or merely the etiquette to be observed at a European reception—to good use in Japan. Considered in this light, the Iwakura mission was a stunning success, and the fruits of the long voyages would be shared by the emperor and the entire Japanese people.

  Chapter 23

  While members of the Iwakura mission were still waiting impatiently in Washington for Ōkubo Toshimichi and Itō Hirobumi to return from Japan, plans for another “mission” were being made in Japan. Its object would be similar to the one with which the Iwakura mission was originally charged: to examine conditions at the various places visited and to impress on the people at each place the prestige of the new Japanese government. The major difference was that this mission, headed by the emperor himself, would travel not to foreign countries but to distant parts of Japan.

  On June 16, 1872, it was announced that the emperor planned in the near future to visit by sea the Chūgoku and Saigoku1 areas of Japan. In preparation for the actual journey, a full-scale rehearsal was held on this day.2 The emperor, satisfied with the rehearsal, shortly afterward fixed the date of his departure as July 10. He said, moreover, that he expected this to be the first of many journeys that would eventually take him to every part of the country.

  An official statement issued at this time explained the special importance of the journey: ever since the medieval period, the military had kept the emperor shut up inside the walls of his palace, so this would mark the inauguration of a new era. The emperor would travel throughout the country observing its geography, general conditions, people, and climate. It had been a serious fault that no program existed for acquainting the emperor with his country, but this fault was now being remedied. Travels by ship would take the emperor to Ōsaka, Hyōgo, Shimonoseki, Nagasaki, Kagoshima, Hakodate, Niigata, and wherever else on the coasts people had built cities and towns. Such travel would help him devise better plans for the welfare of the entire country. Unfortunately in some villages in the hinterland, people still were ignorant of the court’s benevolent intentions, which meant that the emperor’s influence could not be said to be wholly pervasive. If the present opportunity to correct this situation was not seized, there would be increasing doubts in the country about what the future held, and this would represent a grave obstacle in the path of progress and enlightenment.3

  The actual situation vis-à-vis the emperor was even more serious than the statement suggested. At the start of the Meiji era, many, perhaps most, commoners showed almost no interest in him.4 Ōkubo Toshimichi, aware of this, had long urged that the emperor follow the practice of European sovereigns and show himself to his people. He was sure that it was politically essential to transform the emperor from a mysterious being hidden by walls and curtains into a visible presence familiar to his subjects.

  Nothing in the emperor’s education had prepared him for a role as a public figure. The early descriptions written by Europeans suggest that he was so ill at ease before strangers that even when he spoke his voice was all but inaudible.5 His peculiar manner of walking, presumably learned from the ladies of the ōoku, was commented on,6 and his dress and painted face suggested a being who was an anomaly in this world. The change in the emperor’s appearance and his decision to show himself to his people would occur not because he personally desired change but in response to the suggestions of advisers like Ōkubo.

  The early attempts to “humanize” the emperor were only moderately successful: he did not show himself to the public during his journeys to Tōkyō from Kyōto, and the most that spectators could have seen was his palanquin. However, as early as 1868 images of the emperor began to appear in nishikie, the woodblock prints created for the common people’s enjoyment, suggesting that interest in the emperor had germinated.7

  This development, though welcome, did not go exactly according to plan. Ōkubo intended to make the young emperor into a monarch along the lines of Louis XIV, with the hope that this would represent an intermediary stage in the creation of a constitutional monarchy. Japanese monarchical tradition, however, did not provide promising soil for the cultivation of baroque grandeur. In the case of Louis XIV, “the political techniques of European absolutism were extremely visual: art and power joined in the processions when the king visited cities, in the masques in the palaces, and in the splendid palace buildings and gardens. The king became a visible presence by means of these arts.”8 The monarchy in Japan was nonvisual; not only was the emperor himself invisible, but the blank walls around the Gosho in no way suggested the magnificent architecture and gardens surrounding the French king’s palace at Versailles.

  All the same, when reading an account of Louis XIV and his court, we occasionally may be struck by resemblances to Meiji: “The king was viewed by most of his contemporaries as a sacred figure.”9 Even as a child Louis impressed foreign envoys with his gravity and his poise: “The Venetian envoys noted that in 1643, when he was only five, Louis laughed rarely and scarcely moved in public.”10 He seems to have been schooled in the etiquette of the Spanish court, for it was said of Louis’s father-in-law, Philip IV of Spain, that at audiences he remained virtually immobile, “like a marble statue,” a description strikingly similar to foreign accounts of Meiji at an audience.11 But even though shyness as much as ritual behavior accounted for Meiji’s immobility at audiences, in France or in Spain the king’s statuelike appearance was part of a theatrical presentation. One scholar wrote, “The king’s immobility and v
irtual invisibility should therefore be viewed as part of the theatre of the court. The fact that Philip could not be seen for much of the time was a way of making his public appearances all the more dazzling.”12

  When Louis was a young man, about Meiji’s age at the time he became emperor, he appeared to be a model ruler: “The image of the young king projected in the 1660s was that of a ruler unusually devoted to affairs of state and the welfare of his subjects.”13 But it was not long before Louis’s apparent concern for his people gave way to increasing absorption with himself and his glory. In contrast, Meiji’s concern for his people, exhibited from the time he ascended the throne, continued to grow for the rest of his reign.

  The resemblances between the two monarchs are intriguing, but they are brief and intermittent. Japan had no equivalent of the many equestrian statues of Louis XIV; the elaborate paintings showing the king defending the Catholic faith or winning victories in battles with foreign countries; or the poetry, plays, and musical compositions commissioned in order to enhance Louis’s image both with his contemporaries and with posterity. What has been called a “department of glory” was founded in France to organize the presentation of the king’s image. Meiji’s glory had no need of such a “department.” Instead, his glory stemmed from the length of his reign and the unwavering impression of his deep concern for the Japanese people, not from any beautified image.

  Perhaps the closest resemblance between the two monarchs is found in Norbert Elias’s appraisal of Louis XIV: