Part 13

After an incarceration lasting five months in his native province he was transferred to the Temmacho Prison in Yedo, and its doors closed over him in July 1859. On the 27th of October following he was decapitated in obedience to the orders of the Bakufu, and thus at the early age of twenty-nine ended the career of one of Japan’s most earnest patriots. While his aim was the retention of Japan for the Japanese, and his determined antagonism to the Shogunate arose from its willingness to enter into treaties for the opening of the Empire to foreign trade, the object sought by his followers was the destruction of the Tokugawa dynasty itself, and their opposition to foreign intercourse proceeded not from antipathy to the Occidentals so much as from a paramount desire to put an end to the dual form of administration. The cry of “Expulsion of the Alien” was raised by Yoshida’s disciples in the expectation that acts inimical to the strangers would embroil the Bakufu with those Western Powers, the subjects of which were by degrees attaining a foothold in the country, and that government by the Shogunate would then become an impossibility.

VI

MARQUIS ITO

A Statesman of transcendent ability, the Marquis Ito Hirobumi of necessity has his detractors. By the vast majority of the nation, however, his political views are deemed wholly acceptable, and in regard to the value of his services to his country there are not in Japan two opinions. He was born in September 1841, at Kumagé, in the province of Cho-shiu, otherwise Nagato, in south-west Japan. By birth a samurai, he spent his boyhood in studies suitable to his station in life, and became proficient in the military exercises which were prescribed for the retainers of the feudal barons, but from the time of Commodore Perry’s arrival in 1853 his aspirations became directed into a new channel, and his reading especially took a turn in the direction of the adaptation of foreign methods to the needs of Japan. In this he was associated with many of his fellow-clansmen whose names have become in later years household words in the country of their birth, and are almost equally well known to the people of other lands. Yamagata, Kido, Takasugi, Yamao, Inouye Kaoru, with many others who have since risen to fame, were fellow-students of the political and military systems of the Occidental nations, striving desperately to acquire information that should guide them in their project of raising their country to the level of the leading powers of the world.

The little knot of reformers was headed by Takasugi, a man of samurai rank who was considerably the senior of his colleagues in age, and one of the earliest acts of the party, on ascertaining the attitude of the lord of the province towards the Bakufu, was to put itself in a posture of something like rebellion against his authority. The reformers sought to organise a substantial resistance in Cho-shiu to the policy of the Shogun, who had, it was urged, betrayed the best interests of his country by entering into treaties with foreigners. Ostensibly, if not actually, the leaders of this anti-Bakufu league were hostile to innovations from the Occident, but they were willing to avail themselves of Western arts and sciences to the end that their own position might be strengthened to oppose the Shogun’s administration, and accordingly we find the new military system gaining ground notwithstanding the avowed antagonism of the reformers to the invasion of their country by the originators of that system.

At Hagi, a town beautifully situated on the west coast of Nagato, and the castle town of the lord of that province, the reformers gradually matured their plans and drilled a small army of their fellow-samurai in the martial exercises of the West as set forth in books of which they had become possessed at Nagasaki and elsewhere, mainly in the Dutch tongue. It is recorded of Ito Shunsuke that he earnestly strove to make himself acquainted with Occidental progress, and became by degrees a competent English scholar, thus equipping himself for the course of Western travel which he was able to undertake in the year 1863, when he left his country for the first time on the long voyage to Europe in a sailing vessel belonging to Jardine Matheson & Company of Shanghai, for whom Glover & Company, British merchants of Nagasaki,—a port which had been opened to foreign trade four years previously,—were agents.

Ito Shunsuke, as he was then named, was one of many young men of Samurai rank who, with the view of acquiring information which they felt might the better enable them to do good service to their country, were willing to undergo all kinds of privations and run all risks in order that they might add to their store of knowledge. Glover & Company, as agents for the owners, Jardine Matheson & Company, facilitated the escape of the young men, who were concealed in a garden at Yokohama, their queues having previously been cut off and their hair trimmed in foreign fashion, until the sailing ship was prepared to weigh anchor, when they were stealthily put on board by their English friends. It is due to the Marquis Ito to say that he has never failed to acknowledge in most graceful terms his indebtedness at the outset of his career to the aid he thus received from those who were not of his own land.

On his return to Japan twelve months later he found that his feudal chief, the dai-mio of Cho-shiu, had become involved in a dispute with the Bakufu, or Government of the Sho-gun, concerning right-of-way through the Shimonoseki Straits, which separate the Cho-shiu territory from the adjoining island of Kiu-shiu. The lord of the province was averse to the free entry of foreign vessels into the Inland Sea from the west, and had signified his disapproval by firing on ships that attempted the passage of the straits, from batteries which he had placed on the hills above. The Bakufu had failed to convince the Cho-shiu chieftain that the channel ought to be open to all comers, and despairing of its own ability to put a stop to the systematic interference with foreign shipping, had authorised the admirals of the Western Powers to take such measures as they thought fit. Ito Shunsuke, with his knowledge of the naval and military strength of the Occident amplified by personal inspection at the European capitals, saw that his lord was inviting disaster by his arbitrary treatment of the strangers, and sought to dissuade him from continuing the attacks on passing shipping, but the feudal baron was resolved to persist in his endeavour to check the influx of foreign ideas, and Ito had to return to the ship in which he had taken passage, with this express object in view, from Yokohama, with his mission unfulfilled. The foreign men-of-war had been at the time assembled in Yedo Bay preparatory to setting out for the Inland Sea, on their way to the Shimonoseki Straits to engage the Choshiu batteries, and the two young men of that province, for in this matter Ito was associated with his fellow-clansman Inouye, deemed it expedient to endeavour to convince their lord that however skilful might be the Choshiu gunners, it would be impossible for them to hold their own against the formidable armaments of the Western warships. In this long and self-imposed, and, as it turned out to be, useless journey to the capital of his native province from the coast, Ito was accompanied by this friend and fellow-student Inouye, who had likewise been to Europe with him,—no other than the present Count Inouye Kaoru, who is elsewhere referred to in this book.

To appreciate the nature of the services thus early rendered to his clan and to the nation at large, it must be remembered that the laws under which emigration to countries abroad was prohibited, and which had been framed in the days of Iyeyasu, were still in force. Special permission was needed for any Japanese to quit his native shores, and in case of surreptitious departure without the formality having been observed it was somewhat risky to return. Ito and Inouye had contrived to reach Europe without complying with the regulations, and were liable to certain penalties in consequence, so that in undertaking to visit Choshiu with the object of making representations to their chieftain Mori they had to brave his anger for their disobedience to the regulations in the first place, apart from the character of their mission, which was, to say the least of it, one not calculated to appease the wrath of a noble who held strong views on the subject of dealings with foreigners in general. The journey from the little coast town in the Inland Sea where the envoys, garbed as doctors of medicine, were put ashore by a boat from the British warship _Barrosa_ in which they had come south from Yokohama was not more than sixteen Japanese leagues (forty English miles) in length, but the track lay across mountains, and the only means of conveyance were _kago_ of the type used in the hills, mere baskets slung from poles borne on the shoulders of two men, who walked at about four miles an hour. The mission, as already said, was a complete failure, for the lord of Cho-shiu refused to pay any attention to the letters from Foreign Ambassadors, or to listen to the faintest suggestion that his batteries were not a match for anything that the foreign ships might carry, and he was resolved that the gates of Bakan,—otherwise Akamagaseki, the Red Horse Barrier,—should not be thrown open without a struggle. The _Barrosa_ returned to Yokohama, and shortly afterwards the combined fleet, comprising British, French, Dutch, and American vessels, accordingly steamed south to the Straits, and the memorable battle of Shimonoseki, of 1864, was fought, with the result that the Cho-shiu guns were speedily silenced. On a low hill at the back of the town, overlooking the swift-flowing waters of the straits, is a tiny graveyard where repose the Cho-shiu men who fell in that final effort to close the door to Western trade. On the opposite shore are two or three neglected graves which local tradition declares to be the burial places of the French soldiers who were victims to the Cho-shiu artillerymen. The gunners were aided by archers, one of the foreigners killed having been transfixed by an arrow. Some day it may be feasible, perhaps, to have the spot suitably marked where rest those who did their duty as gallantly as did their foes whose memories are honoured with well-kept tombs on the other side of the narrow channel in which the fierce combat occurred. It was long believed that the foreigners who fell were buried at sea, but still living witnesses of the battle aver that three bodies were brought ashore on the Moji side and interred in the field which abuts on the beach, and where mounds of earth are distinctly traceable, or at all events were visible when the writer was engaged in work there some years ago. In his task he had the assistance of several Cho-shiu men who had taken part in the operations against us, and who bore the scars of injuries received while serving their own guns. There was not the slightest sign at any time manifested of resentment,—though the fight had taken place too recently to be other than fresh in the memory. It was felt that the best use had been made of the weapons that the province then possessed, and that no disgrace attached to defeat under such conditions,—moreover, had not the British bluejackets landed immediately the firing ceased, and striven might and main to extinguish the flames which had been ravaging the town as a consequence of the fight in its immediate neighbourhood? The inhabitants of Shimonoseki will never forget that the victors proved themselves to be generous foes, and nothing but good will has been exhibited towards strangers in the now flourishing port ever since.

Ito Shunsuke was much occupied for the ensuing two years in Kioto, where his knowledge of Europe became of immense value to his party, and in preparations for the struggle with the Bakufu which it was plain could not be long delayed.

The main incidents of those two years are recorded elsewhere in connection with the career of Prince Sanjo, and it will suffice to mention here that immediately on the resignation of the last of the Sho-guns, whose adherents continued the war, nevertheless, for some months longer, Ito was busily occupied with plans for the institution of government on a Western model, to the careful study of which he had devoted himself while absent in the capitals of Europe. It was a period of intense political excitement and unrest, and as the Marquis not long since declared, little thought entered the minds of men other than the all-absorbing idea of restoring the supreme power to the dynasty of the true sovereigns of Japan, and abolishing for ever the influence of the Tokugawa line of Sho-guns.

It is comparatively little known that the statesman who has been for fifty years prominent in every great work connected with the advancement of his country upon Western lines and has advocated the adoption of every foreign institution that would be calculated to benefit his native land was in his young days opposed to the influx of strangers, having been an ardent follower of the Jo-I party which was adverse to the cultivation of foreign relations. He was brought up in this school of thought, having been a pupil for some time of Yoshida Shoin, who is elsewhere alluded to in this volume, and when he at first favoured the introduction of Western appliances and methods it was purely in order that the defence of the empire should be secured against foreign aggression.

After the Restoration to the direct exercise of the prerogatives of sovereignty of his present Majesty in 1867, and the final suppression of the revolted northern clans, the opening of the port of Hiogo to foreign trade became an accomplished fact, and Ito Shunsuke, as he was still named, received the appointment of Governor. Though the port was officially styled Hiogo, the residences of the foreign merchants, indeed the whole “Settlement” in which they lived and transacted their business, was situated in the adjoining town of Kobé, under which name the port has become best known to Europeans, and latterly as Kobé-Hiogo. It has had many famous men as its Governor in the years that have passed, notably the present Minister to Great Britain, Viscount Hayashi, and the office may be said to have been the stepping-stone to still greater distinction in more than one instance, but Kobé will never forget that he who is often almost affectionately referred to as the “grand old man” of Japan was the first to occupy the chair as its chief magistrate. This was in 1868, when he was yet a young man of twenty-seven, and he was selected, it may be assumed, for this responsible post on account of his exceptional acquaintance with Europe and its people, and with the habits and requirements of foreign residents in general.

His subordinates at Hiogo, during the time he was Governor, were like himself young and progressive men, entirely at one with the propaganda of the new and progressive policy which aimed at the consolidation of the Empire and the development of all its resources. Many proposals were put forward by Governor Ito at this period with the view of remodelling all branches of the imperial polity, in particular with respect to the imposition of taxes, military education, and so on, covering a wide field. Their advocacy of these measures procured for Ito and his associates at the time the designation of holders of the “Hiogo view.” It was really Ito who inspired Kido, the famous statesman whose history is recorded in another chapter, with the resolve to take up the question of the total abolition of the feudal system, and which rapidly gained supporters in many quarters, to the extent that in a few years it came to be an accomplished fact.

As Governor of Kobé-Hiogo, he won the highest esteem of all classes, but he was not destined to remain long in that office, for he was called to Tokio next year to undertake the duties of Finance Vice-Minister, and the following spring he went to the United States to study the monetary system of that country, a task to which he devoted himself for the ensuing twelve months, returning to his own land in 1871.

While away he wrote the following memorandum on “Reasons for basing the Japanese new coinage on the metric system.”

According to the coinage system recently adopted in Japan, the silver yen is the standard unit of value, so that it may be used as legal tender in transactions to any amount; the smaller coins, various fractions of one yen, are to be the subsidiary medium of exchange, each kind being permitted as legal tender in transactions amounting to one hundred times its value. There is besides the gold yen, but it is subsidiary, and may be used in the payment of sums not more than ten times its value or one hundred yen. The silver yen is equal in quality to the American dollar, but slightly exceeds the latter in weight. The gold coins are in England and America legal tender to any amount. I presume the Japanese Government is in hopes that gold coin will always remain abundant while silver yen will gradually wear out through constant handling, so that in course of time gold will of itself become the standard unit of value. Just now there is under discussion in the U.S. House of Representatives a bill for establishing an international system of coinage. The ten-dollar gold piece according to that system is to weigh 257·2 grains, or sixteen and two-third grammes. The Japanese ten-yen gold piece weighs 248 grains, but if it were slightly increased in weight to equal the suggested international standard coin, the coinage system of Japan would be established on a sound basis and be for ever free from all fluctuations of exchange value. As to which metal should be the standard of value, the opinion of the economists all tend to coincide in regarding gold as the fittest metal for standard. That Austria, Holland, and some other countries still maintain a silver standard is probably due to the great difficulty of changing the old system. If a system of coinage were to be newly established by any of these countries, there is no question but that the gold standard would invariably be adopted. It will be a wise policy for Japan, therefore, to consider the trend of opinion in Western lands and establish her new system in accordance with the best teachings of modern times. It may be that for the time being, on account of the possible great loss to the country from the too sudden adoption of the gold standard, a silver standard may have to be maintained. Otherwise there is no question that gold is the best metal for the standard of value. If the gold standard is introduced, silver may be fitly coined for a subsidiary medium of exchange, putting a limit to its legal tender amount. It may be as well to establish our system on this basis, making silver provisionally the standard, strictly keeping in view, however, the time when gold will be made to supersede silver as the standard of our system of coinage.

The foregoing memorandum was chiefly instrumental in effecting a change in the coinage policy of the country,—it bore a postscript to the effect that the contents thereof had been penned in haste, but that the main points which Ito wished to emphasise were:—

I. The necessity of slightly reducing the weight of the unit of value of the silver coinage; and

II. To determine the weight of the gold coin according to the metric system.

And it concluded:—

“Written in America on the 29th day of December 1870.”

(Signed) HIROBUMI.

The Government decided to adopt at once the gold standard, and issued the new coinage regulation on the 10th of May 1871. The various measures then taken, and supported at subsequent dates by the administration, proved unavailing, however, to maintain gold monometallism in healthy growth at that period. The issuing of a large amount of inconvertible paper money drove specie, especially the gold coins, out of the country. This and the smallness of the natural output of gold in Japan compelled the Government to have recourse to gold and silver bimetallism in 1878, as being more conducive to the national prosperity at that time.

From this time onward Ito’s rise to power was singularly rapid, he was in truth the man of the hour, the chosen counsellor of the youthful sovereign, the hope of a nation which had at the moment but a faint impression, if any at all, of the part that it would be called on to play in the not distant future, and was as yet merely groping towards the light. The finances of the revivified country needed exceptional ability for their reorganisation, for there were still in operation in the provinces the primitive arrangements for the introduction of which the at times urgent necessities of the feudal lords was often directly responsible, and which it was absolutely essential should be replaced by methods more substantial if local credit were to be maintained,—there were the inevitable heavy expenditures incidental to the adoption of a new system of administration,— a less cumbrous coinage was greatly wanted,—and a workable plan of taxation whereby to support the reformed Government of the country was above everything essential. These were among the matters that pressed for the attention of the department which Ito was called on virtually to control.

Only a few months had elapsed when his services were demanded in a different capacity, but one that afforded still greater opportunities for the display of his talents, for he was chosen by the Emperor to take a most active part in the mission which it was resolved should visit America and Europe, there to gather information on matters of vital importance to the nation, and in December of the year 1871 the party, headed by Prince Iwakura, started from Yokohama in a Pacific mail steamer for San Francisco. Although it was not absolutely the first time that Japan had sent her messengers abroad, for two of the feudal barons with their secretaries had been to Europe on a short visit in the early sixties, the mission of Prince Iwakura, following immediately as it did the assumption by the real monarch of all the duties appertaining to his imperial station, bore a special and striking significance. The departure of the vessel from the bay of Tokio was watched by many thousands of people, and the event was acknowledged on all sides to be full of happy augury for Japan.