Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Jacobites" to "Japan" (part) Volume 15, Slice 2

Part 37

Chapter 373,363 wordsPublic domain

Analysis of Japan's foreign trade during the Meiji era shows that during the 35-year period ending in 1907, imports exceeded exports in 21 years and exports exceeded imports in 14 years. This does not suggest a very badly balanced trade. But closer examination accentuates the difference, for when the figures are added, it is found that the excesses of exports aggregated only 11 millions sterling, whereas the excesses of imports totalled 71 millions, there being thus a so-called "unfavourable balance" of 60 millions over all. The movements of specie do not throw much light upon this subject, for they are complicated by large imports of gold resulting from war indemnities and foreign loans. Undoubtedly the balance is materially redressed by the expenditures of the foreign communities in the former settlements, of foreign tourists visiting Japan and of foreign vessels engaged in the carrying trade, as well as by the earnings of Japanese vessels and the interest on investments made by foreigners. Nevertheless there remains an appreciable margin against Japan, and it is probably to be accounted for by the consideration that she is still engaged equipping herself for the industrial career evidently lying before her.

Trade with Various Countries.

The manner in which Japan's over-sea trade was divided in 1907 among the seven foreign countries principally engaged in it may be seen from the following table:--

Exports to Imports from Total £ (millions). £ (millions). £ (millions).

United States 13½ 8½ 22 China 8¾ 6¼ 15 Great Britain 2¼ 11¾ 14 British India 1{1/3} 7(2/3) 9 Germany 1{1/8} 4(7/8) 6 France 4{1/3} (2/3) 5 Korea 3{1/3} 1(2/3) 5

Among the 33 open ports of Japan, the first place belongs to Yokohama in the matter of foreign trade, and Kobe ranks second. The former far outstrips the latter in exports, but the case is reversed when imports are considered. As to the percentages of the whole trade standing to the credit of the five principal ports, the following figures may be consulted:--Yokohama, 40%; Kobe, 35.6; Osaka, 10; Moji, 5; and Nagasaki, 2.

VI.--GOVERNMENT, ADMINISTRATION, &C.

_Emperor and Princes._--At the head of the Japanese State stands the emperor, generally spoken of by foreigners as the _mikado_ (honourable gate[9]), a title comparable with sublime porte and by his own subjects as _tenshi_ (son of heaven) or _tenno_ (heavenly king). The emperor Mutou Hito (q.v.) was the 121st of his line, according to Japanese history, which reckons from 660 B.C., when Jimmu ascended the throne. But as written records do not carry us back farther than A.D. 712, the reigns and periods of the very early monarchs are more or less apocryphal. Still the fact remains that Japan has been ruled by an unbroken dynasty ever since the dawn of her history, in which respect she is unique among all the nations in the world. There are four families of princes of the blood, from any one of which a successor to the throne may be taken in default of a direct heir: Princes Arisugawa, Fushimi, Kanin and Higashi Fushimi. These families are all direct descendants of emperors, and their heads have the title of _shinno_ (prince of the blood), whereas the other imperial princes, of whom there are ten, have only the second syllable of _shinno_ (pronounced _wo_ when separated from _shin_). Second and younger sons of a _shinno_ are all _wo_, and eldest sons lose the title _shin_ and become _wo_ from the fifth generation.

_The Peerage._--In former times there were no Japanese titles of nobility, as the term is understood in the Occident. Nobles there were, however, namely, _kuge_, or court nobles, descendants of younger sons of emperors, and _daimyo_ (great name), some of whom could trace their lineage to mikados; but all owed their exalted position as feudal chiefs to military prowess. The Meiji restoration of 1867 led to the abolition of the _daimyos_ as feudal chiefs, and they, together with the kuge, were merged into one class called _kwazoku_ (flower families), a term corresponding to aristocracy, all inferior persons being _heimin_ (ordinary folk). In 1884, however, the five Chinese titles of _ki_ (prince), _ko_ (marquis), _haku_ (count), _shi_ (viscount) and _dan_ (baron) were introduced, and patents were not only granted to the ancient nobility but also conferred on men who had rendered conspicuous public service. The titles are all hereditary, but they descend to the firstborn only, younger children having no distinguishing appellation. The first list in 1884 showed 11 princes, 24 marquises, 76 counts, 324 viscounts and 74 barons. After the war with China (1894-95) the total grew to 716, and the war with Russia (1904-5) increased the number to 912, namely, 15 princes, 39 marquises, 100 counts, 376 viscounts and 382 barons.

_Household Department._--The Imperial household department is completely differentiated from the administration of state affairs. It includes bureaux of treasury, forests, peerage and hunting, as well as boards of ceremonies and chamberlains, officials of the empress's household and officials of the crown prince's household. The annual allowance made to the throne is £300,000, and the Imperial estate comprises some 12,000 acres of building land, 3,850,000 acres of forests, and 300,000 acres of miscellaneous lands, the whole valued at some 19 millions sterling, but probably not yielding an income of more than £200,000 yearly. Further, the household owns about 3 millions sterling (face value) of bonds and shares, from which a revenue of some £250,000 is derived, so that the whole income amounts to three-quarters of a million sterling, approximately. Out of this the households of the crown prince and all the Imperial princes are supported; allowances are granted at the time of conferring titles of nobility; a long list of charities receive liberal contributions, and considerable sums are paid to encourage art and education. The emperor himself is probably one of the most frugal sovereigns that ever occupied a throne.

_Departments of State._--There are nine departments of state presided over by ministers--foreign affairs, home affairs, finance, war, navy, justice, education, agriculture and commerce, communications. These ministers form the cabinet, which is presided over by the minister president of state, so that its members number ten in all. Ministers of state are appointed by the emperor and are responsible to him alone. But between the cabinet and the crown stand a small body of men, the survivors of those by whose genius modern Japan was raised to her present high position among the nations. They are known as "elder statesmen" (_genro_). Their proved ability constitutes an invaluable asset, and in the solution of serious problems their voice may be said to be final. At the end of 1909 four of these renowned statesmen remained--Prince Yamagata, Marquises Inouye and Matsukata and Count Okuma. There is also a privy council, which consists of a variable number of distinguished men--in 1909 there were 29, the president being Field-Marshal Prince Yamagata. Their duty is to debate and advise upon all matters referred to them by the emperor, who sometimes attends their meetings in person.

_Civil Officials._--The total number of civil officials was 137,819 in 1906. It had been only 68,876 in 1898, from which time it grew regularly year by year. The salaries and allowances paid out of the treasury every year on account of the civil service are 4 millions sterling, approximately, and the annual emoluments of the principal officials are as follow:--Prime minister, £960; minister of a department, £600; ambassador, £500, with allowances varying from £2200 to £3000; president of privy council, £500; resident-general in Seoul, £600; governor-general of Formosa, £600; vice-minister, £400; minister plenipotentiary, £400, with allowances from £1000 to £1700; governor of prefecture, £300 to £360; judge of the court of cassation, £200 to £500; other judges, £60 to £400; professor of imperial university, from £80 to £160, with allowances from £40 to £120; privy councillor, £400; director of a bureau, £300; &c.

_Legislature._--The first Japanese Diet was convoked the 29th of November, 1890. There are two chambers, a house of peers (_kizoku-in_) and a house of representatives (_shugi-in_). Each is invested with the same legislative power.

The upper chamber consists of four classes of members. They are, first, hereditary members, namely, princes and marquises, who are entitled to sit when they reach the age of 25; secondly, counts, viscounts and barons, elected--after they have attained their 25th year--by their respective orders in the maximum ratio of one member to every five peers; thirdly, men of education or distinguished service who are nominated by the emperor; and, fourthly, representatives of the highest tax-payers, elected, one for each prefecture, by their own class. The minimum age limit for non-titled members is 30, and it is provided that their total number must not exceed that of the titled members. The house was composed in 1909 of 14 princes of the blood, 15 princes, 39 marquises, 17 counts, 69 viscounts, 56 barons, 124 Imperial nominees, and 45 representatives of the highest tax-payers--that is to say, 210 titled members and 169 non-titled.

The lower house consists of elected members only. Originally the property qualification was fixed at a minimum annual payment of 30s. in direct taxes (i.e. taxes imposed by the central government), but in 1900 the law of election was amended, and the property qualification for electors is now a payment of £1 in direct taxes, while for candidates no qualification is required either as to property or as to locality. Members are of two kinds, namely, those returned by incorporated cities and those returned by prefectures. In each case the ratio is one member for every 130,000 electors, and the electoral district is the city or prefecture.

Voting is by ballot, one man one vote, and a general election must take place once in 4 years for the house of representatives, and once in 7 years for the house of peers. The house of representatives, however, is liable to be dissolved by order of the sovereign as a disciplinary measure, in which event a general election must be held within 5 months from the date of dissolution, whereas the house of peers is not liable to any such treatment. Otherwise the two houses enjoy equal rights and privileges, except that the budget must first be submitted to the representatives. Each member receives a salary of £200; the president receives £500, and the vice-president £300. The presidents are nominated by the sovereign from three names submitted by each house, but the appointment of a vice-president is within the independent right of each chamber. The lower house consists of 379 members, of whom 75 are returned by the urban population and 304 by the rural. Under the original property qualification the number of franchise-holders was only 453,474, or 11.5 to every 1000 of the nation, but it is now 1,676,007, or 15.77 to every 1000. By the constitution which created the diet freedom of conscience, of speech and of public meeting, inviolability of domicile and correspondence, security from arrest or punishment except by due process of law, permanence of judicial appointments and all the other essential elements of civil liberty were granted. In the diet full legislative authority is vested: without its consent no tax can be imposed, increased or remitted; nor can any public money be paid out except the salaries of officials, which the sovereign reserves the right to fix at will. In the emperor are vested the prerogatives of declaring war and making peace, of concluding treaties, of appointing and dismissing officials, of approving and promulgating laws, of issuing urgent ordinances to take the temporary place of laws, and of conferring titles of nobility.

_Procedure of the Diet._--It could scarcely have been expected that neither tumult nor intemperance would disfigure the proceedings of a diet whose members were entirely without parliamentary experience, but not without grievances to ventilate, wrongs (real or fancied) to avenge, and abuses to redress. On the whole, however, there has been a remarkable absence of anything like disgraceful licence. The politeness, the good temper, and the sense of dignity which characterize the Japanese, generally saved the situation when it threatened to degenerate into a "scene." Foreigners entering the house of representatives in Tokyo for the first time might easily misinterpret some of its habits. A number distinguishes each member. It is painted in white on a wooden indicator, the latter being fastened by a hinge to the face of the member's desk. When present he sets the indicator standing upright, and lowers it when leaving the house. Permission to speak is not obtained by catching the president's eye, but by calling out the aspirant's number, and as members often emphasize their calls by hammering their desks with the indicators, there are moments of decided din. But, for the rest, orderliness and decorum habitually prevail. Speeches have to be made from a rostrum. There are few displays of oratory or eloquence. The Japanese formulates his views with remarkable facility. He is absolutely free from _gaucherie_ or self-consciousness when speaking in public: he can think on his feet. But his mind does not usually busy itself with abstract ideas and subtleties of philosophical or religious thought. Flights of fancy, impassioned bursts of sentiment, appeals to the heart rather than to the reason of an audience, are devices strange to his mental habit. He can be rhetorical, but not eloquent. Among all the speeches hitherto delivered in the Japanese diet it would be difficult to find a passage deserving the latter epithet.

From the first the debates were recorded verbatim. Years before the date fixed for the promulgation of the constitution, a little band of students elaborated a system of stenography and adapted it to the Japanese syllabary. Their labours remained almost without recognition or remuneration until the diet was on the eve of meeting, when it was discovered that a competent staff of shorthand reporters could be organized at an hour's notice. Japan can thus boast that, alone among the countries of the world, she possesses an exact record of the proceedings of her Diet from the moment when the first word was spoken within its walls.

A special feature of the Diet's procedure helps to discourage oratorical displays. Each measure of importance has to be submitted to a committee, and not until the latter's report has been received does serious debate take place. But in ninety-nine cases out of every hundred the committee's report determines the attitude of the house, and speeches are felt to be more or less superfluous. One result of this system is that business is done with a degree of celerity scarcely known in Occidental legislatures. For example, the meetings of the house of representatives during the session 1896-1897 were 32, and the number of hours occupied by the sittings aggregated 116. Yet the result was 55 bills debated and passed, several of them measures of prime importance, such as the gold standard bill, the budget and a statutory tariff law. It must be remembered that although actual sittings of the houses are comparatively few and brief, the committees remain almost constantly at work from morning to evening throughout the twelve weeks of the session's duration.

_Divisions of the Empire._--The earliest traditional divisions of Japan into provinces was made by the emperor Seimu (131-190), in whose time the sway of the throne did not extend farther north than a line curving from Sendai Bay, on the north-east coast of the main island, to the vicinity of Niigata (one of the treaty ports), on the north-west coast. The region northward of this line was then occupied by barbarous tribes, of whom the Ainu (still to be found in Yezo) are probably the remaining descendants. The whole country was then divided into thirty-two provinces. In the 3rd century the empress Jingo, on her return from her victorious expedition against Korea, portioned out the empire into five home provinces and seven circuits, in imitation of the Korean system. By the emperor Mommu (696-707) some of the provinces were subdivided so as to increase the whole number to sixty-six, and the boundaries then fixed by him were re-surveyed in the reign of the emperor Shomu (723-756). The old division is as follows[10]:--

I. The _Go-kinai_ or "five home provinces" i.e. those lying immediately around Kyoto, the capital, viz.:--

_Yamashiro_, also called Joshu | Izumi, also called _Senshu_ _Yamato_ " Washu | _Settsu_ " Sesshu _Kawachi_ " Kashu |

II. The seven circuits, as follow:--

1. The _Tokaido_, or "eastern-sea circuit," which comprised fifteen provinces, viz.:--

2. The _Tozando_, or "eastern-mountain circuit," which comprised eight provinces, viz.:--

Omi or _Goshu_ | Kozuke or _Joshu_ _Mino_ " Noshu | Shimotsuke " _Yashu_ _Hida_ " Hishu | Mutsu " _Oshu_ Shinano " _Shinshu_ | _Dewa_ " Ushu

3. The _Hokurikudo_, or "northern-land circuit," which comprised seven provinces, viz.:--

Wakasa or _Jakushu_ | _Etchiu_ or Esshu _Echizen_ " Esshu | _Echigo_ " Esshu _Kaga_ " _Kashu_ | _Sado_ (island) " Sashu _Noto_ " Noshu |

4. The _Sanindo_, or "mountain-back circuit," which comprised eight provinces, viz.:--

_Tamba_ or Tanshu | _Hoki_ or Hakushu _Tango_ " Tanshu | Izumo " _Unshu _Tajima_ " Tanshu | Iwami " _Sekishu_ Inaba " _Inshu_ | _Oki_ (group of islands)

5. The _Sanyodo_, or "mountain-front circuit," which comprised eight provinces, viz.:--

Harima or Banshu | _Bingo or Bishu Mimasaka " Sakushu | Aki " _Geishu_ _Bizen_ " Bishu | _Suwo_ " Boshu _Bitchiu_ " Bishu | Nagato " _Choshu_

6. The _Nankaido_, or "southern-sea circuit," which comprised, six provinces, viz.:--

Kii or _Kishu_ | _Sanuki_ or Sanshu _Awaji (island)_ " Tanshu | _Iyo_ " Yoshu Awa " _Ashu_ | _Tosa_ " _Toshu_

7. The _Saikaido_, or "western-sea circuit," which comprised nine provinces, viz:--

III. The two islands, viz.:--

1. Tsushima or _Taishu_ | 2. _Iki_ or Ishu

Upon comparing the above list with a map of Japan, it will be seen that the main island contains the Go-kinai, Tokaido, Tozando, Hokurikudo, Sanindo, Sanyodo, and one province (Kishu) of the Nankaido. Omitting also the island of Awaji, the remaining provinces of the Nankaido give the name Shikoku (the "four provinces") to the island in which they lie; while Saikaido coincides exactly with the large island Kiushiu (the "nine provinces").

In 1868, when the rebellious nobles of Oshu and Dewa, in the Tozando, had submitted to the emperor, those two provinces were subdivided, Dewa into Uzen and Ugo, and Oshu into Iwaki, Iwashiro, Rikuzen, Rikuchu and Michinoku (usually called Mutsu). This increased the old number of provinces from sixty-six to seventy-one. At the same time there was created a new circuit, called the _Hokkaido_, or "northern-sea circuit," which comprised the eleven provinces into which the large island of Yezo was then divided (viz. Oshima, Shiribeshi, Ishikari, Teshibo, Kitami, Iburi, Hiaka, Tokachi, Kushiro, and Nemuro) and the Kurile Islands (Chishima).

Another division of the old sixty-six provinces was made by taking as a central point the ancient barrier of Osaka on the frontier of Omi and Yamashiro,--the region lying on the east, which consisted of thirty-three provinces, being called _Kwanto_, or "east of the barrier," the remaining thirty-three provinces on the west being styled _Kwansei_, or "west of the barrier." At the present time, however, the term Kwanto is applied to only the eight provinces of Musashi, Sagami, Kozuke, Shimotsuke, Kazusa, Shimosa, Awa and Hitachi,--all lying immediately to the east of the old barrier of Hakone, in Sagami.

_Chu-goku_, or "central provinces," is a name in common use for the Sanindo and Sanyodo taken together. _Saikoku_, or "western provinces," is another name for Kiushiu, which in books again is frequently called _Chinsei_.

_Local Administrative Divisions._--For purposes of local administration Japan is divided into 3 urban prefectures (_fu_), 43 rural prefectures (_ken_), and 3 special dominions (_cho_), namely Formosa; Hokkaido and South Sakhalin. Formosa and Sakhalin not having been included in Japan's territories until 1895 and 1905, respectively, are still under the military control of a governor-general, and belong, therefore, to an administrative system different from that prevailing throughout the rest of the country. The prefectures and Hokkaido are divided again into 638 sub-prefectures (_gun_ or _kori_); 60 towns (_shi_); 125 urban districts (_cho_) and 12,274 rural districts (_son_). The three urban prefectures are Tokyo, Osaka and Kioto, and the urban and rural districts are distinguished according to the number of houses they contain. Each prefecture is named after its chief town, with the exception of Okinawa, which is the appellation of a group of islands called also Riukiu (Luchu). The following table shows the names of the prefectures, their areas, populations, number of sub-prefectures, towns and urban and rural divisions:--

Prefecture. Area in Population Sub- Towns Urban Rural sq. m. Prefectures. Districts Districts