Emperor of Japan

by Donald Keene

  It did not take long, however, before the Risshi-sha itself became involved in major national issues, although the Satsuma Rebellion caused a shift in its activities. Itagaki, who had been a firm supporter of Saigō, returned to Kōchi after the outbreak of the war in 1877. The defeat of Saigō’s forces by the government army made it clear that it was useless to attempt to oppose the government by military means; therefore, the Risshi-sha’s message would be spread by speeches and newspaper articles, not swords.

  Although Itagaki was the founder and best-known member of the Risshi-sha, a more effective crusade for freedom and popular rights was carried out by the youthful Ueki Emori (1857–1892), only twenty at the time. Ueki came from a high-ranking Kōchi samurai family. In 1872 he went to Tōkyō to study.23 He read widely, especially about law, political economy, and natural science, and he also became interested in Christianity, often attending church.

  Ueki returned to Kōchi at the end of 1873. Five months later, an address by Itagaki at the Risshi-sha deeply impressed him, and he began to study theories of freedom and parliamentary structure. He returned to Tōkyō in 1875 to continue his studies, this time reading more traditional works, especially those of the Wang Yang-ming school of Confucianism.24 In that year, he started contributing articles to the leading newspapers, his first positive steps as an activist in the cause of freedom and popular rights. In 1876 he was imprisoned for a piece he wrote entitled “Ape Men and the Government,” in which he argued that what distinguished men from apes was their capacity for thought and imagination but that by imposing restrictions on speech, the government had reduced men to the status of apes.25 As yet, however, Ueki had doubts about the country’s holding elections before the populace was sufficiently educated to cast its votes intelligently.

  In the same year, after the outbreak of the Satsuma Rebellion, Ueki returned to Kōchi. He lodged in Itagaki’s house for a time and began to work actively for the Risshi-sha. He was the main author of a petition in favor of opening a parliament, and the Risshi-sha published various short-lived magazines to which Ueki contributed. Ueki also began to establish a reputation as a speaker. In 1877 alone, he gave thirty-four lectures, generally to crowds of 1,000 or 2,000. He recorded in his diary that on June 23 of that year he lectured at a theater that accommodated 2,000 people, but another 2,000 were turned away. The press was so great that the meeting had to be closed halfway through. Kōchi was the spearhead of the Freedom and Popular Rights movement, and intellectuals from all over the country were drawn there. By this time, Ueki had become absolutely convinced of the need for a parliament, and he blamed the Satsuma Rebellion for its absence.26

  Ueki’s advocacy of freedom extended to sex: he declared that the object of human beings was “to satisfy their desires, to exhaust their pleasures, and to attain the highest happiness.”27 His diary records the sexual fantasies of his dreams. In one he dreamed, “I slept in the same bed with the emperor, slept with the empress and had intercourse with her.”28 His strange identification with the emperor recurs again and again in the diary, where he often refers to himself as tennō (emperor) and uses the appropriate honorifics. From 1883 he even dated the beginning of each year by the years since Emperor Jimmu founded the nation, by the Christian calendar, and by the anniversary of the “birth of the Great Emperor of the Universe,” meaning himself. On March 13, 1884, Ueki wrote in his diary, “The emperor this night made a progress to Yoshiwara. At the Kōzenrō he sent for the courtesan Nagao.”29

  Ueki nowhere explained why he kept referring to himself as the emperor. He certainly had an unusual interest in the person of the emperor. Entries in his diary, normally devoted exclusively to his own doings, from 1873 mention progresses of the emperor, the birth of royal children, and glimpses he had obtained of the “dragon countenance.” It is conceivable that this obsession with the emperor was the reverse side of his antimonarchist sentiments. On August 2, 1879, Ueki had a dream that he recalled in these terms: “I was in Tōkyō, and somebody got angry with me because, he said, I had failed to show respect for the emperor in the course of an argument, or maybe it was that I said something close to advocating a republican form of government. Anyway, he sent two young men to stab me. I was slightly wounded, but did not die.”30

  Needless to say, such diary entries have no connection with Meiji himself, but Ueki’s friend Yokoyama Matakichi wrote that in the final years of Ueki’s short life, “One might say that he had gone crazy. He thought that he was the emperor.”31 If Ueki had been no more than a madman, his curious references to himself as the emperor would be of no interest; but at the time he wrote these words, he was actively engaged in giving lectures and writing articles in support of freedom and popular rights.

  In January 1880 Ueki wrote an article in which he said that although some people feared a republican form of government, if truly understood, it would prove a blessing to the nation.32 Generally speaking, however, Ueki seemed to take the existence of the monarchy in Japan as a “given.” The constitution he drafted in 1881 provided for an emperor and mentioned some of his prerogatives. He did not openly advocate a republic.33

  Ueki is also remembered for his article “Concerning Equal Rights for Men and Women,” perhaps the earliest example of a Japanese call for equal rights. It was long claimed that Ueki wrote his famous editorial against prostitution (published in February 1882) in a brothel, but there is no evidence to support this. All the same, his advocacy of equal rights for women certainly began while he was still very actively indulging himself with prostitutes. Although he recognized the difficulty of abolishing prostitution in the near future, he urged that efforts be made to educate prostitutes in the principles of liberalism.

  Ueki served the cause of freedom and popular rights through all the movement’s convolutions. In 1880 the Aikoku-sha renamed itself the League for Establishing a National Assembly, and in 1881 it became the Jiyū-tō (Party of Freedom). Ueki prepared a draft of the party’s principles and procedures.

  It is not known what Meiji thought of these developments, but it is unlikely they pleased him. He was certainly aware of the Jiyū-tō members’ anger over such events as the scandal of the Hokkaidō Development Office and thought it advisable to mollify them. On October 12, 1881, he announced that a parliament would be convened in 1890.34

  The announcement took its urgency from the demands of the Jiyū-tō and other political groups to open a parliament, but many important matters of policy were still to be decided. Would the new government be modeled on the British or the Prussian system? Behind national differences was the basic question of whether the constitution would come from the people (British style) or be bestowed by the emperor (Prussian style).

  An even more fundamental problem was the future legislators’ almost total lack of training in parliamentary procedures. At the mass meeting of the Jiyū-tō in October 1881, Gotō Shojirō was chosen as the president and Baba Tatsui as the vice president, but (according to Baba’s diary) Gotō almost never attended meetings. It was therefore left to Baba, who had studied at the Middle Temple in London and was well acquainted with the manner in which sessions of the British Parliament were conducted, to preside. Baba was dismayed by the party members’ ignorance of even the basic rules of parliamentary discussion. When he rebuked them for their ignorance, they answered that regardless of how assemblies were conducted in Europe, they were Japanese and would behave in a “Japanese style.” Baba persisted, and in the end the Jiyū-tō was officially formed.35 Itagaki Taisuke was elected the chairman (Sōri) of the new party.36

  The Jiyū-tō’s future objectives were by no means clear now that the emperor’s proclamation had ensured the convening of a parliament. A rival party, the Rikken kai shintō(Constitutional Reform Party), formed by Ōkuma in April 1882, had a more definite objective, the creation of a British-style parliamentary democracy headed by a constitutional monarch. In his address at the founding of the Rikken kai shintō, Ōkuma emphasized the symbolic (rather than active) role o
f the monarch in the democratic government he favored: “There are some who, though they style themselves the party of ‘respect for the emperor’ and wear the trappings of that virtue, actually seek mainly to establish a few families as the bulwark of the Imperial Household or to protect the Imperial Household with troops. The extremists of this group would push the sovereign to the very forefront, and make him bear directly the administration. They would by their support of the Imperial Household place it in a position of danger.”37

  Ōkuma repeatedly emphasized his devotion to the imperial household. He stated in the same address, “I hope always to work with an ever firmer resolve for the achievement of the glorious work of the Restoration; for the laying of a foundation for our empire which will last through all eternity; and for the everlasting preservation of the dignity and prosperity of the Imperial Household and the happiness of the people.”

  On April 6, 1882, having just finished delivering an address in Gifu, Itagaki was attacked and wounded by a man wielding a dagger. Although the wounds were superficial and the assailant was immediately subdued, Itagaki, no doubt believing that he was dying, is reported to have cried, “Itagaki may die, but freedom will never die!”38 The emperor was shocked by the news and immediately sent a chamberlain to find out what had happened.39

  The incident created a great deal of sympathy for Itagaki, and the Jiyū-tō gained new members in all parts of the country. The government, however, imposed more and more stringent regulations on its activities. When members of the party protested the tyrannical actions of the governor of Fukushima in putting down a peasant revolt, they were imprisoned and eventually charged with treason.

  The government had a more ingenious, even Machiavellian, plan for disposing of the Jiyū-tō’s leadership. In March 1882 Itō Hirobumi, along with many advisers, went to Europe to investigate the constitutions of various countries. Itagaki visited him shortly before his departure, and Itō took the occasion to urge Itagaki, who had never been abroad, to go to Europe to study the politics and customs of the different countries. He declared that unless a man was personally acquainted with conditions in Europe, he was likely to be influenced by those who glorified everything foreign and to end up misleading the Japanese people. Itagaki was tempted and replied that he would go if the money for his travels could be arranged.40

  Itō secretly conferred with Inoue Kaoru, and they agreed that the best way to deprive the Jiyū-tō of its strength was to get Itagaki and Gotō Shōjirō to spend considerable time abroad. Itō and Inoue set about raising funds for their travels, eventually obtaining a promise of $20,000 from the Mitsui Bank in return for extending for three years its contract with the army.

  At the end of August 1882 Itagaki suddenly announced that he was going to Europe, and Gotō soon afterward did the same. The two men were completely unprepared to study conditions in Europe. According to Baba Tatsui, they could not even read roman letters, let alone a foreign language. There was no chance they could learn any significant information. Although an interpreter was supplied to assist them, the man’s principal job (though they did not suspect this) was to spy on them and report their activities to Inoue.41

  The two men were never given a satisfactory explanation concerning the source of the money for their travels, but this does not seem to have bothered them. They were so desperately eager to go abroad that they became quite irrational whenever members of the Jiyū-tō questioned the advisability of their making the journey.42

  As might easily have been predicted, the stay in Europe did neither man any good. Gotō spent most of the time in Paris, occasionally (perhaps as a sop to his conscience) making trips to Prussia, Austria, or England. In Vienna, at Itō’s suggestion, for some ten days he attended lectures given by the great Professor Lorenz von Stein. Itō had recommended study with Stein as an antidote to the excessive liberalism expounded by those under the influence of England, France, or the United States and as a way of strengthening the foundations of the imperial household. But Professor Stein’s lectures that year were devoted to miscellaneous remarks about the coup d’état of Napoleon III, and Gotō derived nothing from them.

  Itagaki was proud to have met Clemenceau and Victor Hugo, but his time in France was spent mainly in sightseeing, as the account of his travels published after his return to Japan demonstrated. He succeeded in meeting Herbert Spencer, the idol of Japanese intellectuals, but even as Itagaki was expounding one of his woolly arguments, Spencer cried out in exasperation, “No, no, no!” got up, and left the room.43

  Itagaki and Gotō returned to Japan in June 1883. They discovered that in their absence, the two chief liberal parties, the Jiyū-tō and the Rikken kai shintō, had taken to furious exchanges of mudslinging. This, no doubt, was the result the conservative leaders of the government had hoped for when they bought off Itagaki and Gotō with a trip to Europe. Members of the Jiyū-tō who hoped that Itagaki would enlighten them about the republican form of government in France or the constitutional monarchy in England were disillusioned when they heard him deliver lectures in which he declared that although Japan lagged behind Europe in the standard of living, it was well advanced in government. He urged party members to devote greater efforts to raising the standard of living and warned of the peril to Japan if its navy were not strongly reinforced.44 Nothing was left of the crusading liberal.

  The Jiyū-tō was disbanded on October 29, 1884, and its bitter rival the Rikken kai shintō was effectively disbanded on December 17 of the same year when Ō kuma and Kōno Togama, its two chief officers, resigned. The liberal parties were dead and would have to be brought back to life during the coming years.

  Chapter 36

  After the turbulent incidents that marked the fourteenth year of Meiji’s reign, 1882—or at least the first half of that year—seemed exceptionally peaceful. The year opened, as usual, with the emperor worshiping the four directions and performing other traditional New Year rituals.

  The first noteworthy event of the year occurred on January 4. That day the emperor summoned Army Minister Ōyama Iwao and personally presented him with the Imperial Rescript for Military Men.1 The rescript was subsequently distributed widely among the military and, by General Ōyama’s command, printed at the head of the pocket notebooks distributed annually for the next sixty and more years to soldiers and sailors, to be read, memorized, and obeyed.

  The rescript opens with an account of the service rendered by the military to the throne in the reign of Emperor Jimmu. In ancient Japan, the emperor himself had commanded the imperial forces, but in later times the court gradually lost its martial vigor as the result of the protracted period of peace. Military power fell into the hands of professional soldiers, the future samurai.

  For some 700 years, the military ruled the country in disregard of the wishes of the imperial family, but by the 1830s and 1840s the shogunate was much weakened. It was just at this time that foreigners first posed a threat to Japanese security, causing Emperor Meiji’s grandfather and father deep distress. He had been more fortunate. When he came to the throne, still young and inexperienced, he was assisted by loyal men who made it possible to return to the ancient system of government, rule by the emperor.

  During the last fifteen years, great changes had taken place. The army and the navy were now personally commanded by the emperor. He declared to the military, “We are your commander in chief. We depend on you as Our trusted retainers; you look up to Us as your chief; our relations must be particularly intimate. Whether We can or cannot protect the nation, render thanks for the blessing of Heaven, and repay the debt We owe to Our ancestors depends on whether or not you carry out to the full your duties as military men.”2

  These statements are followed by a series of five commands indicating what the emperor expected of the military. The first was that as members of the military, they devote their entire loyalty to their country. He asked rhetorically, “Is there anyone born in our country who does not feel the desire to recompense his country?”
It was not sufficient for a soldier to be skilled or learned. Unless he possessed the spirit of “recompensing his country,” he would be no more than a puppet. A military man should consider his duty to maintain loyalty as weighty as the mountains but think of death as being as light as a feather.

  The second injunction commanded lower ranks to show the same respect toward their seniors that they would toward the emperor himself. In return, the upper ranks were commanded not to behave with arrogance or contempt toward lower ranks but to treat them with kindness. Above and below should join in service to the emperor.

  The third injunction was devoted mainly to the importance of courage. Soldiers were warned that real courage did not consist in recklessness; they were enjoined always to be governed by the sense of duty, by steady spiritual strength, and by their intelligence. The members of the military were commanded, moreover, to consider gentleness of the greatest importance in their dealings with civilians; they must try always to earn their affection and respect.

  The fourth and fifth injunctions commanded the military to be true to its words and to practice simplicity.

  The one feature that most clearly distinguishes these injunctions from those that any commander, regardless of country, might issue to his army was the emphasis on the direct connection between the emperor and the soldiers and sailors of his command. Emperor Meiji declared that he relied on his soldiers and sailors to serve as his “hands and feet” and commanded them to look up to him as their head, creating a relationship of mutual, personal dependence. If his men exerted themselves to the utmost, they would share his glory; if they did not, he too would fail.