CHAPTER IVISITING THE IMPERIAL DIET
The utter strangeness of feeling which came over me when, in May of 1892, I first landed in Japan, will never be repeated by any experience of travel in the future amidst other scenes, no matter how wholly new they may chance to be. Between Vancouver, so like one of our own Western towns, and the Land of the Rising Sun, nature provided nothing to prepare the mind for a distinctly different type of landscape and of civilisation. There was only the monotonous watery waste of the Northern Pacific, and the equally monotonous roll of the Empress of China, as she mounted one side and slid down the other, of its long-sweeping billows. There was indeed good company on board the ship. For besides the amusement afforded by the “correspondent of a Press Syndicate,” who boasted openly of the high price at which he was valued, but who prepared his first letter on “What I saw in China,” from the ship’s library, and then mailed it immediately on arrival at the post-office in Yokohama, there were several honest folk who had lived for years in the Far East.Each of these had one or more intelligent opinions to impart to an inquirer really desirous of learning the truth. Even the lesson from the ignorance and duplicity of this moulder of public opinion through the American press was not wholly without its value as a warning and a guide in future observations of Japan and the Japanese. The social atmosphere of the ship was, however, not at all Oriental. For dress, meals, hours, conversation, and games, were all in Western style. Even with Doctor Sato, the most distinguished of the Japanese passengers, who was returning from seven years of study with the celebrated German bacteriologist, Professor Koch, I could converse only in a European language.
The night of Friday, May 27, 1892, was pitchy dark, and the rain fell in such torrents as the Captain said he had seldom or never seen outside the tropics. This officer did not think it safe to leave the bridge during the entire night, and was several times on the point of stopping the ship. But the downpour of the night left everything absolutely clear; and when the day dawned, Fujiyama, the “incomparable mountain,” could be seen from the bridge at the distance of more than one-hundred and thirty miles. In the many views which I have since had of Fuji, from many different points of view, I have neverseen the head and entire bulk of the sacred mountain stand out as it did for us on that first vision, now nearly twenty years ago.
The other first sights of Japan were then essentially the same as those which greet the traveller of to-day. The naked bodies of the fishermen, shining like polished copper in the sunlight; the wonderful colours of the sea; the hills terraced higher up for various kinds of grain and lower down for rice; the brown thatched huts in the villages along the shores of the Bay; and, finally, the busy and brilliant harbour of Yokohama,—all these sights have scarcely changed at all. But the rush of rival launches, the scramble of the sampans, the frantic clawing with boat-hooks, which sometimes reached sides that were made of flesh instead of wood, and the hauling of the Chinese steerage passengers to places where they did not wish to go, have since been much better brought under the control of law. The experience of landing as a novice in Japan is at present, therefore, less picturesque and exciting; but it is much more comfortable and safe.
The arrival of the Empress of China some hours earlier than her advertised time had deceived the friends who were to meet me; and so I had to make my way alone to a hotel in Tokyo. But notes despatchedby messengers to two of them—one a native and since a distinguished member of the Diet, and the other an American and a classmate at Andover, within two hours quite relieved my feelings of strangeness and friendlessness; and never since those hours have such feelings returned while sojourning among a people whom I have learned to admire so much and love so well.
It had been my expectation to start by next morning’s train for the ancient capital of Kyoto, where I was to give a course of lectures in the missionary College of Doshisha. But in the evening it was proposed that I should delay my starting for a single day longer, and visit the Imperial Diet, which had only a few days before, amidst no little political excitement, begun its sittings. I gladly consented; since it was likely to prove a rare and rarely instructive experience to observe for myself, in the company of friends who could interpret both customs and language, this early attempt at constitutional government on the part of a people who had been for so many centuries previously under a strictly monarchical system, and excluded until very recently from all the world’s progress in the practice of the more popular forms of self-government. The second session of the First Diet, which began to sit on November 29, 1890,had been brought to a sudden termination on the twenty-fifth of December, 1891, by an Imperial order. This order implied that the First Diet had made something of a “mess” of their attempts at constitutional government. The “extraordinary general election” which had been carried out on the fifteenth of February, 1892, had been everywhere rather stormy and in some places even bloody. But the new Diet had come together again and were once more to be permitted to try their hand at law-making under the terms of the Constitution which his Imperial Majesty had been most “graciously pleased to grant” to His people. The memory of the impressions made by the observations of this visit is rendered much more vivid and even a matter for astonishment, when these impressions are compared with the recent history of the sad failures and exceedingly small successes of the Russian Duma. So sharply marked and even enormous a contrast seems, in my judgment, about equally due to differences in the two peoples and differences in the two Emperors. Another fact also must be taken into the account of any attempt at comparison. The aristocracy of Russia, who form the entourage and councillors of the Tsar are quite too frequently corrupt and without any genuine patriotism or regard for the good of the people;while the statesmen of Japan, whom the Emperor has freely made his most trusted advisers, for numbers, patriotism, courage, sagacity, and unselfishness, have probably not had their equals anywhere else in the history of the modern world.
The Japanese friends who undertook to provide tickets of admission to the House of Peers were unsuccessful in their application. It was easier for the foreign friend to obtain written permission for the Lower House. It was necessary, then, to set forth with the promise of having only half of our coveted opportunity, but with the secret hope that some stroke of good luck might make possible the fulfilment of the other half. And this, so far as I was concerned, happily came true.
As our party were entering the door of the House of Representatives, I was startled by the cry of “soshi” and the rush toward us of two or three of the Parliamentary police officers, who proceeded to divest the meekest and most peaceable of its members, the Reverend Mr. H——, of the very harmless small walking-stick which he was carrying in his hand. It should be explained that, according to Professor Chamberlain, since 1888 there had sprung up a class of rowdy youths, calledsoshiin Japanese—“juvenile agitators who have taken all politics tobe their province, who obtrude their views and their presence on ministers of state, and waylaid—bludgeon and knife in hand—those whose opinions on matters of public interest happen to differ from their own. They are, in a strangely modernised disguise, the representatives of the wandering swashbucklers orrōninof the oldrégime.”
After his cane had been put in guard, and a salutary rebuke administered to my clerical friend for his seeming disregard of the regulations providing for the freedom from this kind of “influence” which was guaranteed to the law-makers of the New Japan, we were allowed to go upon our way. Curiously enough, however, the very first thing, after the opening, which came before the House, explained more clearly why what seemed such an extraordinary fuss had been made over so insignificant a trifle. For one of the representatives rose to complain that only the day before a member of the Liberal party had been set upon and badly cut with knives bysoshisupposed to belong to the Government party. The complaint was intended to be made more effective and bitter by the added remark that the Speaker of the House had been known to be very polite, in this and in all cases where a similar ill-turn had been done to one of his own party, to send around tothe residence of the sufferer messages of condolence and of inquiry after the state of his health. In the numerous reverse cases, however, the politeness of this officer of thewholeHouse had not appeared equally adequate to the occasions afforded by the “roughs” of the anti-Government party. To this sarcastic sally the Speaker, with perfect good temper, made a quiet reply; and at once the entire body broke out into laughter, and the matter was forthwith dropped from attention. On my asking for an interpretation of this mirth-provoking remark, it was given to me as follows: “The members of the Speaker’s party had always taken pains to inform him of their injuries, and so he had known just where to distribute such favours; but if the members of the opposite party would let him know when they were suffering in the same manner, he would be at least equally happy to extend the same courtesies to them.”
It will assist to a better appreciation of what I saw on this occasion, of thepersonneland procedure of the Japanese House of Representatives, if some account is given of its present constitution; this differs from that of 1892 only in the fact that it is somewhat more popular now than it was then. The House is composed of members returned by male Japanese subjects of not less than twenty-five yearsof age and paying a direct tax of not less than tenyen. There are two kinds of members; those returned by incorporated cities containing not less than 30,000 inhabitants, and those by people residing in other districts. The incorporated cities form independent electoral districts; and larger cities containing more than 100,000 inhabitants are allowed to return one member for every 130,000 people. The other districts send one member at the rate of approximately every 130,000 people; each prefecture being regarded as one electoral district. Election is carried on by open ballot, one vote for each man; and a general election is to take place every four years, supposing the House sits through these four years without suffering a dissolution in the interval. The qualifications for a seat in the House are simple for all classes of candidates. Every Japanese subject who has attained the age of not less than thirty years is eligible;—only those who are mentally defective or have been deprived of civil rights being disqualified. The property qualification which was at first enforced for candidates was abolished in 1900 by an Amendment to the Law of Election.
I am sure that no unprejudiced observer of the body of men who composed the Japanese House ofRepresentatives in the Spring of 1892, could have failed to be greatly impressed with a certain air of somewhat undisciplined vigour and as yet unskilled but promising business-like quality. The first odd detail to be noticed was a polished black tablet standing on the desk of each member and inscribed with the Japanese character for his number. Thus they undertook to avoid that dislike to having one’s own name ill used, in which all men share but which is particularly offensive among Oriental peoples. For instead of referring to one another as “the gentleman from Arkansas,” etc., they made reference to one another as “number so or so.” How could anything be more strictly impersonal than sarcasm, or criticism, or even abuse, directed against a number that happens only temporarily to be connected with one’s Self!
It was my good fortune to light upon a time when the business of the day was most interesting and suggestive of the temper and intentions of these new experimenters in popular legislation; and, as well, of the hold they already supposed themselves to possess on the purse-strings of the General Government. What was my surprise to find that this power was, to all appearances, far more effective and frankly exercised by the Japanese Diet than has for a longtime been the case with our own House of Congress. For here there was little chance for secret and illicit influences brought to bear upon Committees on Appropriations; or for secure jobbery or log-rolling or lobbying with particular legislators.
The business of the day was the passing upon requests for supplementary grants from the different Departments of the General Government. It was conducted in the following perfectly open and intelligible way: The Vice-Minister of each Department was allowed so many minutes in which he was expected to explain the exact purpose for which the money was wanted; and to tell precisely inyenhow much would be required for that purpose and for that purpose only. The request having been read, the Vice-Minister then retired, and fifteen minutes, not more, were allowed for a speech from some member of the opposition. The Speaker, or—to use the more appropriate Japanese title—President of the House, was at that time Mr. T. Hoshi, who had qualified as a barrister in London, and who in personal appearance bore a somewhat striking resemblance to the late President Harper of Chicago University. He seemed to preside with commendable tact and dignity.
As I look backward upon that session of the ImperialJapanese Diet, there is one item of business which it transacted that fills me with astonishment. The request of the Department of Education for money to rebuild the school-houses which had been destroyed by the terrible earthquake of the preceding winter was immediately granted. Similar requests from the Department of Justice, which wished to rebuild the wrecked court-houses, and from the Department of Communications, for funds to restore the post-offices, also met with a favourable reception. But when the Government asked an appropriation for the Department of the Navy, with which to found iron-works, so that they might be prepared to repair their own war-ships, the request was almost as promptly denied! To be sure, the alleged ground of the denial was that the plans of the Government were not yet sufficiently matured.
At this juncture Mr. Kojiro Matsukata, the third son of Japan’s great financier, Marquis Matsukata, came into the gallery where we were sitting and offered to take me into the House of Peers. But before I follow him there let me recall another courtesy from this same Japanese friend, which came fifteen years later; and which, by suggesting contrasts with the action of the Diet in 1892, will emphasise in a picturesque way the great and rapid changeswhich have since then taken place in Japan. On the morning of February 19, 1907, Mr. Matsukata, who is now president of the ship-building company at Kawasaki, near Kobe, showed me over the yards. This plant is situated for the most part on made ground; and it required four years and a half to find firm bottom at an expense of more thanyen1,000,000. The capital of the company is now more thanyen10,000,000. All over the works the din of 9,000 workmen made conversation nearly impossible. But when we had returned to his office, a quiet chat with the host over the inevitable but always grateful cups of tea, elicited these among other interesting incidents. Above the master’s desk hung the photograph of a group which included Admiral Togo; and still higher up, above the photograph, a motto in the Admiral’s own hand-writing, executed on one of his visits to the works—he having been summoned by the Emperor for consultation during the Russo-Japanese war. On my asking for a translation of the motto, I was told that it read simply: “Keep the Peace.” Just two days before the battle of the Sea of Japan, Mr. Matsukata had a telegraphic message from Togo, which came “out of the blue,” so to say, and which read in this significant way: “After a thousand different thoughts, now one fixedpurpose.” In the centre of another group-photograph of smaller size, sat the celebrated Russian General, Kuropatkin. This picture was taken on the occasion of his visit to the ship-yards some years before. Mr. Matsukata became at that time well acquainted with Kuropatkin, and described him to me as a kindly and simple-minded gentleman of the type of an English squire. He was very fond of fishing; but like my friend, the Russian General Y——, he appeared to have an almost passionate abhorrence of war. He once said to my host: “Why do you buildwarships; why not build only merchant ships; that is much better?” To this it was replied: “Why do you carry your sword? Throw away the sword and I will stop building war ships.” And, indeed, in most modern wars, it is not the men who must do the fighting or the people who must pay the bills, that are chiefly responsible for their initiation; it is the selfish promoters of schemes for the plunder of other nations, the cowardly politicians, and perhaps above all, the unscrupulous press, which are chiefly responsible for the horrors of war. Through all modern history, since men ceased to be frankly barbarian in their treatment of other peoples and races, it has been commercial greed, and its subsidised agents among the makers of laws andof public feeling, which have chiefly been guilty for the waste of treasure and life among civilised peoples.
But let us leave the noise of the Kawasaki Dock Yards, where in 1907 Russian ships were repairing, Chinese gun-boats and torpedo and other boats for Siam were building, and merchant and war ships for the home country were in various stages of new construction or repair; and let us return to the quiet of the House of Peers when I visited it in May of 1892. After a short time spent in one of the retiring rooms, which are assigned according to the rank of the members—Marquis Matsukata being then Premier—we were admitted to the gallery of the Foreign Ambassadors, from which there is a particularly good view of the entire Upper House.
The Japanese House of Peers is composed of four classes of members. These are (1) Princes of the Blood; (2) Peers, such as the Princes and Marquises, who sit by virtue of their right, when they reach the age of twenty-five, and Counts, Viscounts, and Barons, who are elected to represent their own respective classes; (3) men of erudition who are nominated by the Emperor for their distinguished services to the state; and (4) representatives of the highest tax-payers, who are elected from amongthemselves, and only one from each prefecture. Each of the three inferior orders can return not more than one-fifth of the total number of peers; and the total of the non-titled members must not be greater than that of the titled members. It is thus made obvious that the Japanese House of Peers is essentially an aristocratic body; and yet that it represents all the most important interests of the country in some good degree—whatever may be thought of the proportion of representation assigned to each interest. The care that science and scholarship shall have at least some worthy representation in the national counsels and legislation is well worthy of imitation by the United States. And when to this provision we add the facts, that a Minister of Education takes rank with the other Ministers, that the Professors in the Imperial Universities have court rank by virtue of their services, and that the permanent President of the Imperial Teacher’s Association is a Baron and a member of the House of Peers, we may well begin to doubt whether the recognition accorded to the value of education in relation to the national life, and to the dignity and worth of the teacher’s office, is in this country so superior to that of other nations, after all.
“THE PICTURESQUE MOAT AND ANCIENT WALL”
“THE PICTURESQUE MOAT AND ANCIENT WALL”
“THE PICTURESQUE MOAT AND ANCIENT WALL”
The appearance of the Chamber occupied by thePeers was somewhat more luxurious than that of the Lower House; although it was then, and still is, quite unimposing as compared with buildings used for legislative purposes in this country and in Europe. Indeed, everywhere in Tokyo, the ugly German architecture of the Government buildings contrasts strikingly withthe picturesque moat and ancient wallsof the Imperial grounds. More elaborate decoration, and the platform above which an ascent by a few steps led to the throne from which His Majesty opens Parliament, were the only claims of the Upper Chamber to distinction. Thepersonnelof the members seemed to me on the whole less vigorous than that of the Lower House. This was in part due to the sprinkling of youthful marquises, who, as has already been explained, take their seats by hereditary right at the age of twenty-five. In marked contrast with them was the grim old General T——, a member of the Commission which visited the United States in 1871, who asserted himself by asking a question and then going on to make a speech, in spite of the taunts of two or three of the younger members. The manner of voting in the Upper House was particularly interesting; as the roll was called, each member mounted the platform and deposited either a white or a blue card in a blacklacquer box which stood in front of the President of the Chamber.
Here the business of the day was important on account of the precedent which it was likely to establish. A Viscount member had been promoted to a Count, and the question had arisen whether his seat should be declared vacant. The report of the committee which disqualified him from sitting as a Count was voted upon and adopted. Then came up the case of two Counts who were claimants for the same seat. The vote for these rival candidates had stood 30 to 31; but one voter among the majority had been declared disqualified; because, having held a Viscount’s seat, on being promoted to a Count, he had attempted to vote as a Count. All this, while of importance as precedents determining the future constitution of the House of Peers, had not at all the same wide-reaching significance as the signs in the Lower House of the beginnings in Japan of that struggle which is still going on all over the world between the demands of the Central Government for money and the legislative body which votes the appropriations to meet these demands.
It was under very different circumstances that I witnessed a quite dissimilar scene, when in December of 1906 my next visit was paid to the Imperial Dietof Japan. This occasion was the opening of the Diet by the Emperor in person. Now, while my court rank gave me the right to request an official invitation to the ceremony, the nature of the ceremony itself required that all who attended should come in full dress and wearing their decorations, if they were the possessors of decorations at all. It was also required that all visitors should be in their respective waiting-rooms for a full hour before the ceremony began. None might enter the House later than ten o’clock, although His Majesty did not leave the palace until half-past this hour. This waiting, however, gave a not undesirable opportunity to make some new acquaintance, or to have a chat with two or three old friends. But besides the members of the various diplomatic corps and a French Count, who appeared to be a visitor at his nation’s Embassy, there were no other foreigners in the waiting-room to which I was directed on arrival.
During the hour spent in waiting, however, I had a most interesting conversation with Baron R——, an attaché of the German Embassy, who seemed a very clever and sensible young gentleman. The excitement over the recent action of the San Francisco School Board was then at its extreme height; and on discussing with him an “open letter” which Ihad just published, explaining in behalf of my Japanese friends the relation in which this action, with some of the questions which it raised, stood to our national constitution, I found him thoroughly acquainted with the historical and the political bearings of the whole difficult subject. I could not avoid a regretful sigh over the doubt whether one-half of our own representatives, or even of our foreign service, were so well informed on the nature of our constitution and its history as was this German diplomat. However this may be, certain it is that a higher grade of culture is eminently desirable in both the legislative and diplomatic classes of our public service. In the same connection the Baron gave it as his opinion that Japan had produced in this generation a nobler and more knightly type of individual manhood than can be found in any country in Europe. Such a verdict can, of course, never acquire any higher trustworthiness than an individual’s opinion. But if we ask ourselves, “Where in the world is another city of 45,000 inhabitants to be found, which has produced in this generation six generals who are the equals of Field Marshall Oyama, Admiral Togo, and Generals Oku, Count Nodzu, and the two Saigos?” I imagine the answer would be exceedingly hard to find. Perhaps the truth is, as one of mybest informed Japanese friends once quaintly said: “In America you have a few big, bad men, and a good many small good men; but in Japan we have a few big, good men and a good many small bad men.” At any rate, the six “big men,” whose names have just been mentioned, were about fifty years ago living and playing as boys together in an area so small that the houses and yards of their parents, and all the space intervening, might have been covered by a ten-acre lot.
As soon as His Majesty had arrived, all those who had been waiting were conducted to their proper chambers in the gallery of the Peer’s House, where I found myself seated with Japanese only, and between those of a higher rank on the right and of a lower rank on the left. The members of both Houses of the Diet were standing on the floor below;—those from the Lower House on the left and facing the throne, and those from the House of Peers on the right. The former were dressed, with some exceptions, in evening-dress, and the latter in court uniform with gold epaulets on their shoulders. All the spectators in the galleries were in court dress. On the right of the platform, from which steps led up to the throne, stood a group of some fifteen or twenty court officials. At about five minutes pasteleven an equal number of such personages came into the Chamber by the opposite door of the platform and arranged themselves so as to form a passage through the midst of them for the Emperor. Not more than five minutes later His Majesty entered, and ascending to the throne, sat down for a moment; but almost immediately rose and received from the hand of Marquis Saionji, the Prime Minister, the address from the throne inscribed on a parchment scroll. This he then read, or rather intoned, in a remarkably clear but soft and musical voice. The entire address occupied not more than three minutes in the reading. After it was finished, Prince Tokugawa, President of the Peers, went up from the floor of the House to the platform, and then to a place before the throne; here he received the scroll from the Emperor’s hand. After which he backed down to the floor again, went directly in front of His Majesty and made a final bow. The Emperor himself immediately descended from the throne and made his exit from the platform by the door at which he had entered, followed by all the courtiers.
All were enjoined to remain in their places until the Emperor had left the House; the audience then dispersed without further regard to order or to precedence.So simple and brief was this impressive ceremony!
Nearly all over the civilised world, at the present time, there seems to be a growing distrust of government by legislative bodies as at present constituted and an increasing doubt as to the final fate of this form of government. The distrust and doubt are chiefly due to the fact that the legislators seem so largely under the control of the struggle which is everywhere going on between the now privileged classes, in their efforts to retain their inherited or acquired advantages, and the socially lower or less prosperous classes, in their efforts to wrest away these advantages and to secure what they—whether rightly or wrongly—regard as equal rights and equal opportunities with their more favoured and prosperous fellows. It is not strange, in view of this so nearly universal fact, that any inquiry as to the past and present success of legislation under constitutional government in Japan, should receive such various and conflicting answers both from intelligent natives and from observant foreigners. There can be no doubt among those who know the inside of Japanese politics that the success of this sort which has hitherto been attained in Japan has been in large measure due to the wise and firm but gracious conductof the Emperor himself; and to that small group of “elder statesmen” and other councillors whom he has trusted and supported so faithfully. But no few men, however wise and great, could have achieved by themselves what has actually been accomplished in the last half-century of the Empire’s history. Great credit must then be given to hundreds and thousands of lesser heroes; and indeed the events of this history cannot be accounted for without admitting that the genius of the race, accentuated by their long period of seclusion, is the dominant factor. The one fault, which most threatens the cause of parliamentary and constitutional government of Japan, is a certain inability, hitherto inherent, to avoid the evils of an extreme partisanship and to learn that art of practical compromises which has made the Anglo-Saxon race so successful hitherto in constitutional and popular government.