CHAPTER X

Missions to Foreign Governments—Hindrances to Reform—Language Difficulties—Attitude of Foreign Powers.

The numerous measures called for by the abolition of feudalism did not prevent the new Government from turning their attention to foreign affairs. In the same year (1871) which saw the issue of the Decree giving practical effect to the surrender of feudal fiefs a mission composed of Iwakura, Minister for Foreign Affairs, and two Councillors of State, Kido and Ōkubo, was despatched to Europe and the United States. The suite of the mission, which numbered more than fifty persons, included Mr. (afterwards Prince) Itō.

This was the third mission sent from Japan to the Courts of Treaty Powers, and by far the most important. The first of these, despatched by the Tokugawa Government early in 1862, when the conditions surrounding foreign intercourse were rendered precarious by the open hostility of the Court party, had achieved some measure of success in obtaining a postponement for five years of the dates fixed for the opening of the ports of Hiogo and Niigata, and the towns of Yedo and Ōsaka; the reasons by which the request was supported, as well as the conditions on which consent was given, being recorded so far as Great Britain was concerned, in the London Protocol of June, 1862. The reasons were: “the difficulties experienced by the Tycoon and his Ministers in giving effect to their engagements with foreign Powers having treaties with Japan in consequence of the opposition offered by a party in Japan which was hostile to all intercourse with foreigners.” The conditions, shortly stated, were: the strict observance of all other Treaty stipulations; the revocation of the old law outlawing foreigners; and the cessation in future of official interference of any kind with trade and intercourse.

The second was sent by the same Government in February, 1864. Its ostensible object was to apologize to the French Government for the murder of the French officer, Lieutenant Camus, which had taken place in October of the previous year. Its real objects, however, were to endeavour to obtain the consent of Treaty Powers to the closing of the port of Yokohama, a matter in regard to which the Shōgun’s Ministers had already appealed in vain to the foreign representatives; and, incidentally, to take an opportunity if it offered, of purchasing war material. The mission, which never went beyond Paris, returned to Japan in the following August at the moment when arrangements were being completed for the forcing of the Straits of Shimonoséki by a combined foreign squadron. It brought for the approval of the Shōgun’s Government a convention concluded by the members of the mission with the French Government. This somewhat singular instrument, which bore the signature of Monsieur Drouyn de Lhuys, then Minister for Foreign Affairs, provided that it was—after its acceptance by the Shōgun’s Government—to come into force at once, and was to be regarded as forming an integral part of the existing Treaty between France and Japan. It contained, amongst other things, a stipulation for the reopening of the Straits within three months after the return of the mission to Japan, and also provided for the co-operation, if necessary, of the French naval squadron in Japanese waters with the Shōgun’s forces in the attainment of this object. The Shōgun’s repudiation of the agreement prevented the occurrence of what might have been troublesome complications, the only result of the incident being a delay of a few days in the departure for Shimonoséki of the allied squadron.

The ostensible object of this third mission, like that of the first, related to Treaty stipulations. By a clause of the treaties of 1858—the texts of which were more or less identical, while their interpretation was governed by the stipulation regarding “most-favoured-nation” treatment—provision was made for revision _by mutual consent_ in 1872. This consent it was the purpose of the mission to obtain. The number of Treaty Powers had by this time increased to fifteen, but the interests of most of them being very small, it was recognized that if the consent of the chief Powers could be obtained, no difficulties would be raised by others.

The working of the treaties had been on the whole satisfactory, as satisfactory, that is to say, as it was reasonable to expect from the exceptional circumstances attending their negotiation; and there seemed to be no special points in regard to which revision was in any way urgent. This, however, was not the view taken by the Japanese Government. Very soon after the coming into operation of the treaties of 1858 the Japanese authorities and people seem to have taken umbrage at the extra-territorial privileges enjoyed by foreigners in Japan under Treaty stipulations. It is more than probable that this feeling with regard to extra-territoriality may not have been altogether spontaneous, but may have been inspired at this time by foreigners actuated by mixed motives, and inclined to draw hasty conclusions. In any case, the Japanese early became aware that the enjoyment of extra-territoriality was regarded generally as a privilege conceded under pressure to the subjects of countries possessing, or claiming to possess, a civilization more advanced in some respects than that of the country from which the concession was obtained. The pride of the nation rebelled against the discrimination thus exercised, and not unnaturally it was eager to seize the first opportunity that presented itself to get rid of the obnoxious extra-territorial clauses that stood in the way of the exercise of Japanese jurisdiction over foreigners in Japan. This was the main motive underlying the desire for revision of the treaties.

There were, however, additional objects in view in sending the mission. To the foreign representatives the Government explained their anxiety to communicate to the Governments of Treaty Powers details of the internal history of their country during the years preceding the revolution of 1868, and their wish to inform them of the actual state of affairs, and the future policy it was intended to pursue. They also considered it important, it was added, to study the institutions of other countries and to gain a precise knowledge of their laws, of the measures in force regarding commerce and education, as well as of their naval and military systems.

So far as these minor objects were concerned, the proceedings of the mission were attended with success. This was shown not only by the period of its absence abroad, which extended over two years, far longer than had been intended, but also by the rapid progress of the work of reform after its return. The information gained by its members, amongst whom were some of the most talented men of the day, was later on of much service to their country; while the insight they gained into foreign affairs, and the disposition of foreign Governments towards Japan, was of the greatest value. In the matter of the ostensible purpose of the mission, however, nothing was accomplished. The efforts of the ambassadors in this direction met with no encouragement. The foreign Governments concerned were indisposed to overlook the constant obstructions to the fulfilment of Treaty stipulations caused by indifference and ill-will on the part of Japanese officials. Nor, in view of the short interval that had elapsed since Japan had emerged from feudalism, were they in any haste to gratify the aspirations expressed in the Letter of Credence presented by the head of the mission to the President of the United States—the first country visited—which spoke of an “intention to reform and improve the treaties, so that Japan might stand on an equality with the most enlightened nations.” They accordingly declined to enter into any discussion on the subject on the ground that the moment had not arrived when the discussion could be useful.

The rebuff thus administered caused disappointment and ill-feeling, and led before long to the beginning of an agitation for Treaty revision, which did much mischief to foreign relations; was frequently used as a convenient cry by politicians in the course of attacks directed against the Government of the day; and lasted until the first of the new revised treaties was signed by Great Britain in the summer of 1894. Its chief effect, however, so far as foreigners were concerned, was to strengthen the Japanese Government in its determination to resist all efforts on the part of foreign Powers to obtain further access to the interior of the country, and to restrict in every way possible the granting of any additional facilities for foreign trade and intercourse under existing treaties.

Much space has been devoted in previous chapters to the abolition of feudalism as being the starting-point of Japan’s modern progress. The immediate effect of that step, as well as the various measures relating to land tenure and land taxation, which were its natural sequel, have also been explained in some detail. There is, however, no intention to trace with the same minuteness, or in strict chronological order, the successive stages of the work of reform. Our purpose being to give a general idea of the process which brought about the gradual transformation of an Oriental country into a progressive modern Empire, we shall pass lightly over many matters, dwelling mainly on such conspicuous and outstanding features as will illustrate most clearly the character and course of Japan’s modern development.

Before touching on other measures of reform undertaken in the first years following the Restoration, it may be well to glance at the conditions under which the work of reform proceeded. The initial difficulty which hampered the reformers at the outset was the absence of any definite scheme of reconstruction. Beyond the surrender of feudal fiefs nothing in the nature of a detailed programme had been thought out. They had to feel their way. As one of the leading figures in the events of the Restoration said some years later, “They could not look far ahead; it was sufficient if they could agree on the next step to be taken.” Another difficulty with which they had to contend was the question of language. The spread of Christianity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had not been accompanied by the introduction, to any appreciable extent, of any of the languages of the three nationalities—Portuguese, Spanish and Italian—to which the early missionaries belonged. The use of Latin in the religious services, and the study of Japanese by the missionaries, had rendered this unnecessary. And when Christianity disappeared, what little Portuguese, or other Latin language, had come with it disappeared too. But with the advent of the Dutch things were changed. The Dutch language became the medium of commerce, and also the medium through which all Western learning, and indeed all knowledge of the West, was received. A class of Dutch-speaking interpreters, who found employment in foreign trade, grew up; and with the enterprise, unsubdued by constant official repression, and the curiosity for what is new, which have always distinguished the Japanese people, men took to learning Dutch in order to educate themselves.

So, when foreign relations were renewed on a wider basis in the middle of the nineteenth century, Dutch was the language to which Japanese and foreigners naturally turned as the medium for the conduct of the newly established intercourse. All communications were carried on in this language, and it became the authentic text of all the earlier treaties, including those of 1858. Harris, the first American representative in Japan, in his diary gives us some idea of the trouble and vexation involved on both sides in wrestling with the language problem. The Dutch the Japanese had learnt was, he tells us, a mercantile patois, the correct Dutch spoken by the Dutch interpreters attached to his mission being quite strange to them. When it came to drawing up written agreements in both languages, they insisted that every word in the Dutch version should stand in the same order as its equivalent in the Japanese version. This, he says, occasioned some difficulty, and we feel that he is not overstating the case.

The employment of Dutch as the medium of communication in the early days of renewed foreign intercourse, though inevitable, was unfortunate. And for this reason. During many years of the Dutch monopoly—so far as Western nations were concerned—of trade with Japan, Holland was at the zenith of her power. If not actually mistress of the seas, she occupied a position of pre-eminence as a maritime state. But by the time the first treaties with Japan were negotiated Holland had lost this high position. She was no longer a great Power, and consequently the knowledge of Dutch possessed by many Japanese ceased to be useful to Japan. It was necessary for some other language to take its place. Thanks to the growing commerce and power of Great Britain and the United States, English was the language which stepped naturally into the breach, and it became necessary for the Japanese to abandon Dutch, and turn their attention to the acquisition of the new language which had superseded it.

So far we have dwelt on the difficulty connected with the languages of the foreigners who had made their more or less unwelcome appearance on the scene, and from whom Japan was intent on borrowing the materials of the contemplated reforms. If we now turn to the other side of the question, the difficulty arising from the Japanese language itself, it will be seen how serious an obstacle to Japan’s modern progress her own language presented.

Until the seventh century of our era Japan had, as we have seen, her own language. This was spoken, not written. Then by one of those unaccountable impulses which affect the destinies of nations, she followed the example of Korea, which had also spoken dialects of her own, and adopted the written language of China. Later on, from the Chinese characters thus borrowed, she evolved syllabaries, filling the place for her of our alphabet for us, and so developed native scripts of her own. But this native written language never prospered in its competition with the Chinese characters from which it was derived. Though it was employed in poetry, and other native classical literature and served a useful purpose as a literary vehicle for women of the upper classes, in whose hands it displayed unexpected potentialities, and for the uneducated masses, it eventually found its most usual place in literature as a simple adjunct to the use of Chinese.

This incubus of two languages, disguised as one, was rendered still more irksome by the fact that the borrowed Chinese written language never became thoroughly assimilated and incorporated with the Japanese spoken language to which it was joined, but preserved a more or less separate identity. It would have simplified matters if the Japanese had given up their spoken language and adopted Chinese in its place. There would then have been a natural harmony and relation between the spoken and written tongues, such as exists in China to-day. Japanese would then have written as they spoke, and spoken as they wrote. But this they did not do. Their own spoken language was there, and had sufficient vitality to resent the intrusion of the alien tongue, though not enough to enable the nation to shake itself free of the incubus it had voluntarily imposed upon itself by this wholesale importation of Chinese characters. In these considerations lies the explanation of the constantly recurring agitation in favour of the adoption of the Roman alphabet in the place of Chinese.

In justice to Chinese characters it is well not to overlook the advantage which a knowledge of them gives to the Japanese people over foreign competitors in their intercourse and trade with China. It should also be borne in mind that the Chinese side, so to speak, of the Japanese language lends itself with peculiar facility to the formation of new words to express new ideas. In this respect it has served to encourage the introduction of Western civilization. These advantages are, nevertheless, counterbalanced to a large extent by the addition to the language of a countless host of dissyllabic words, only to be distinguished one from the other by the attendant hieroglyphs. The result is the creation of a cumbrous vocabulary, based on Chinese, which is growing so fast as to discourage scholarship, thus hampering the very progress it is employed to promote.

One other difficulty remains to be considered. In turning to the West for inspiration in the work of reconstruction Japan was borrowing not from one country, as before, but from several. Nor was there any natural affinity between her and them, as in the case of the first country, China, which she had laid under contribution. The new ideas, moreover, she was assimilating belonged not to the same, but to different periods of time. There was as great diversity of date, as there was of origin. But they all came together, and had to be harmonized, in some degree, with a foundation of things in its origin Chinese. Japan has been generally regarded as having deliberately embarked on a policy of eclecticism. No other course lay open to her. Out of the crowd of new things which presented themselves she had to make a choice. And the urgency of the moment left her little time in which to make it.

We have noticed some of the difficulties which lay in the path of Japan’s progress, and tended to complicate the work of reconstruction. Let us see what advantages she had to help her. There were not many, and some were moral and not material. The reforming statesmen were helped by the feeling of exaltation common to all political revolutions, as well as by the wave of enthusiasm for what was hailed as the restoration of the direct rule of the Sovereign, though what this would mean, when accomplished, beyond the disappearance of the Shōgunate, none of its advocates had any clear notion. The general feeling in favour of reform which, with exceptions in the case of the former military class, existed throughout the country was also in their favour. Japan, too, in these early years was conscious of the sympathy of Treaty Powers. It has been the fashion amongst a certain class of writers to decry the attitude of foreign Powers, who are represented as unsympathetic and as having held out no helping hand to the young Government then on its trial. This is an erroneous view. Even before the Restoration, at the time when the Court was openly hostile to foreign intercourse, and the Shōgunate, in its extremity, was facing both ways—announcing to the Throne its determination to expel the hated barbarian, while assuring the latter in the same breath of the friendliness of its feelings; conniving at obstruction it would have liked to direct more openly and then feigning indignation at its own misdeeds—the forbearance of foreign Governments, and the patience of their agents, are things of which the West may well be proud. And as soon as the sincerity of Japanese reforms was clearly understood, the sympathy of foreign Governments took a more active shape.

Perhaps, also, we shall be safe in assuming that the new Government was assisted to some extent in the introduction of reforms by the submissiveness of the people they were called upon to rule. Under the influence of Chinese ideas the dividing line separating rulers from ruled was very sharply drawn. Both in Confucian ethics, and in Buddhist teaching, the two foundations of Japanese morality, the greatest weight is given to the virtue of loyalty to superiors, which comprises—and this is an essential point—obedience to constituted authorities. Equal prominence in the same ethics and teaching is assigned to the corresponding duty of the ruler to govern wisely, or, as the phrase runs, “with benevolence.” The conception of the relationship between governors and governed, as it presented itself to the Japanese mind of those days, was that it was the business, the duty, of the Government to govern, the privilege, or right, of the subject to be ruled. The latter looked to those in authority for light and leading. So long as the government was in accordance with Confucian doctrine, conducted with “benevolence,” that is to say, without glaring injustice and tyranny, he was satisfied. The establishment later on of constitutional government and the practical working of a Diet and local assemblies have somewhat modified this habit of mind. But even in the most stormy and tumultuous sessions which have of recent years characterized the development of parliamentary institutions the influence of this old idea has been apparent; while in the earlier periods of which we are now speaking it was a dominant and salutary factor, lightening very materially the task of the administrator.

There was still another agency working in the same direction. This was the new field of activity opened by the changes accompanying the Restoration to the energies of the people, more especially those of the commercial and industrial classes. Their attention was engrossed in a large measure by their own concerns, which were rendered of increased and more varied interest by the upheaval caused by the revolution in national life. They had thus little time, even had the wish been there, to enquire closely into the direction of public affairs.

There was advantage, too, in the fact that Japan had borrowed before, and had, therefore, gained experience in the art of assimilating foreign ideas. She was not new to the work. She was only doing now on a less extensive scale what she had done on a previous occasion. And her task was rendered more simple because what she was now taking from the West lent itself to her immediate requirements, perhaps, in a more practical way than her borrowings of former days from a sister nation.

Finally, we must not overlook the immense advantage she had in the adoption of all reforms which were based on Western models. At no cost to herself, without expenditure of time, thought, labour or money, she took the fruit of generations of toil in Europe and America. She levied toll on all the Western world. Profiting, at once, by the discoveries and improvements made in the course of centuries in every field of human energy, she began in her career of constructive progress at the point which other countries had already reached.