UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 y
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 i^&29 1 1
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 mW YOKK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
 ATLANTA • SAN PRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 
 
 LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
 
 TORONTO
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT 
 OF JAPAN 
 
 BY 
 
 KENNETH SCOTT LATOURETTE 
 
 PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN DENISON ITNIVERSITY 
 
 PUBLISHED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF 
 THE JAPAN SOCIETY 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1918 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 Copyright, 1918, 
 By the MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published June, igiS.
 
 
 The author wishes to express his grateful obligation to 
 Professor K. Asakawa of Yale University, to Professor Pay- 
 son J. Treat of Leland Stanford Jr. University, to the Rev- 
 erend Sidney L. Gulick, D. D., and to Professor Roger P. 
 McCutcheon of Denison University. Each of these read 
 the manuscript and made kindly and helpful suggestions. 
 To their friendly criticism is due much of whatever value 
 this book may have. 
 
 The author also desires to record his gratitude to the 
 Japan Society for its generous courtesy in suggesting that 
 the book be brought out under its auspices. The author 
 wishes to add, entirely at his own instance, that the Society 
 is in no respects to be held responsible for any views ex- 
 pressed in the book. The manuscript was prepared with- 
 out the knowledge of the Society and imtil completed had 
 not come under the eyes of the latter's officers. No changes 
 were asked for by the Society — the author assumes full 
 responsibility for all facts stated and opinions expressed.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction xi 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. The Geographic Setting of Japan i 
 
 n. From the EarUest Times to the Introduction of Buddhism 9 
 in. From the Introduction of Buddhism (A. D. 552) to the Or- 
 ganization of the Shogunate (A. D. 1192) 21 
 
 IV. The Shogimate: From its Foundation (1192) to the Acces- 
 sion of lyeyasu (1603) 48 
 
 V. The Shogunate: From the Accession of lyeyasu (1603) to 
 
 the Coming of Perry (1853) 67 
 
 VI. The Civilization of the Old Japan 8o- 
 
 VII. The Period of Internal Transformation (1853-1894) 
 
 1. From the Coming of the Foreigner to the Restoration 
 
 of the Emperor (1853-1867) 104 
 
 Vin. The Period of Internal Transformation (1853-1894). 
 
 2. The Reorganization of the Government: From the 
 Restoration of the Emperor to the War with China 
 (1868-1894) 116 
 
 IX. The Period of Internal Transformation (1853-1894). 
 
 3. Foreign Affairs: Economic, Educational and Religious 
 Changes : From the Restoration to the War with China 
 (1868-1894) 148/'" 
 
 X. 1894 to 191 7: Japan Takes Her Place Among the Powers 
 of the World. 
 
 1. The War with China, the Boxer Uprising, and the 
 War with Russia (1894-1905) 164 
 
 XI. 1894 to 191 7: Japan Takes Her Place Among the Powers 
 of the World. 
 
 2. From the Treaty of Portsmouth (1905) to 1917 180 
 
 Xn. The Internal Development of Japan from the War with 
 
 China to the Present (1894-1917) 210 
 
 Bibliography 225 
 
 Index 231 
 
 vii
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Of all the unexpected and startling developments of the 
 remarkable century through which we have just passed 
 none has been more notable than the transformation of 
 Japan. A hundred years ago she was an obscure Asiatic 
 kingdom, by her own volition tightly closed from the 
 world. Then the West, spurred on by the new ambitions 
 and equipped with the new commercial and military appli- 
 ances of the industrial revolution, forced itself upon her. 
 After a few years of hesitation she heartily accepted the 
 new situation and by a series of rapid transformations ad- 
 justed herself to it and is now a factor to be reckoned with 
 in the trade and politics of the world. She has become the 
 dominant figure in the Far East and has established and 
 maintained her hegemony by successful wars against 
 China, Russia, and Germany. She is the formal ally of 
 Great Britain and an important member of the entente 
 group of nations. Her ships carry a large share of the 
 freight and passengers of the North Pacific and are to be 
 found in all the ports of the globe. She is feared and 
 courted by most of the great powers of the earth. 
 
 From the beginning of her metamorphosis her relations 
 with the United States have been intimate. For the first 
 decades unquestioned friendliness marked the intercourse 
 of the two peoples. During the past few years, however, 
 there has been a growing mutual suspicion. America's 
 advance across the Pacific to Hawaii and the Philippines, 
 her interests in China, her unwillingness to admit Japanese 
 to her shores on an equal footing with the nationals of other 
 treaty powers, and her emphasis on the Monroe doctrine in
 
 X INTRODUCTION 
 
 opposition to Japan's commercial ambitions in Latin 
 America, have aroused in the Sunrise Kingdom questionings 
 and resentments. Japan's policies in Asia, especially in 
 China, her growing naval and commercial power on the 
 PacijOic, her insistence on the rights of her subjects in the 
 United States, and Japanese migration to and business 
 enterprises in Latin America have similarly awakened 
 apprehensions in the great republic. Talk of war has been 
 rife and many have feared that the two nations are some- 
 time to come into armed conflict. Some have felt that a 
 clash cannot long be delayed. War seems needless and 
 stupid, but if it is to be avoided Japan must be better 
 imderstood by Americans. Her people, her institutions, 
 her needs, and her ambitions must be studied. The citizens 
 of the United States must not be allowed to grow up 
 with distorted impressions of their Pacific neighbor. If in 
 our continually closer touch with her we are not to blunder, 
 if we are to make our relations of the best advantage to 
 both nations, we must have suflScient knowledge to form 
 the basis of a sane public opinion. 
 
 Such knowledge can best be acquired by an historical 
 survey, one which will trace the development of the Japa- 
 nese people and civilization from their beginnings, and in 
 the light of this development endeavor to make clear the 
 present ambitions and problems of the nation. The Japan 
 of to-day is the product of centuries of growth. The advent 
 of Western civilization sixty years ago did not cause a com- 
 plete break with the past. It has modified profoundly the 
 inheritance bequeathed by that past, but the old Japan 
 must be studied if the new is to be understood. 
 
 It is encouraging that courses which deal with Japan are 
 appearing in our college catalogues. In the congested state 
 of our curricula she is usually covered only in a general, one
 
 INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 semester survey of the entire Far East. This is probably 
 the most that can be expected in all but a few universities, 
 and if rightly conducted such a course can furnish a very 
 fair general knowledge of the great lands of eastern Asia. 
 There is, however, a real dearth of texts suitable in length 
 and scope for such a course. The author knows of no book 
 which can be used with any degree of satisfaction and he has 
 canvassed the field fairly thoroughly during the past few 
 years in search of material for his own teaching. This little 
 volume seeks to fill the gap until something better shall 
 appear. No exhaustive study of Japan has been attempted, 
 but the effort has been made to present a summary of the 
 development of the nation, its people, its civilization, and its 
 problems and policies, which will give the essential facts 
 and at the same time be of sufficient brevity to be covered 
 in the six weeks usually assigned to Japan in the average 
 course on the Far East. It may be that the book will prove 
 of value as well to informal study groups and correspond- 
 ence courses, and to the general reader who wishes a brief 
 survey for his own information. 
 
 The plan, as may be seen by a glance at the table of con- 
 tents, has been to give an introductory chapter on the 
 geographic setting, followed by a succinct narrative of the 
 nation's history to the time of Commodore Perry and a 
 summary of the chief characteristics of its civilization at the 
 inception of intimate contact with the West. Then comes 
 a somewhat more detailed account of the transformation 
 wrought by that contact and of the progress and problems 
 of the new Japan. A carefully selected bibliography has 
 been added for the use of those who may wish to pursue the 
 study in greater detail. If the volume helps at all to a 
 better, more sympathetic understanding of the island em- 
 pire its purpose will have been amply fulfilled.
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Tbde Geographic Setting of Japan 
 
 Japan occupies the greater part of the chain of islands 
 which fringes the coast of Asia from Kamchatka to the 
 southern extremity of the Malay Peninsula. Her posses- 
 sions reach from the northernmost of the Kurile islands, just 
 south of Kamchatka, to the southern cape of Formosa,* 
 a distance of about twenty-five hundred miles and nearly 
 thirty degrees of latitude. The islands held by her number 
 over three thousand and have a total area of 173,786 square 
 miles, or a little more than that of the state of California, 
 and about fifty per cent more than that of the British Isles. 
 Most of the islands are very small and only about six hun- 
 dred are inhabited. The six principal ones, enumerating 
 them in their order from north to south, are Sakhalin, Yezo, 
 the Main Island, Shikoku, Kiushiu and Formosa. Sakhalin 
 is called Karafuto by the Japanese. Only the southern 
 half of the island belongs to them and it is important 
 chiefly for its fisheries. Yezo, or Hokkaido, as it is com- 
 monly known in Japan, was until recently inhabited chiefly 
 by the Ainu, an aboriginal people. It is to-day being rap- 
 idly developed and settled by the Japanese. The Main 
 Island, called in the native tongue Hondo or Honshiu, alone 
 comprises over half the entire area of the insular part of the 
 empire. On it from the earliest historic times has been the 
 center of government. Shikoku, "The Four Provinces," 
 ^ Called Taiwan by the Japanese.
 
 2 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 derives its name from an ancient administrative division 
 of the island, and forms part of the southern border of the 
 Inland Sea, famous for the beauties of its waters, islands, 
 and shores. Kiushiu is literally "The Nine Provinces," a 
 designation also derived from an earlier governmental 
 organization. It is separated from the Main Island by the 
 narrow straits of Shimonoseki, through which passes most 
 of the shipping from the east coast of Asia to North America. 
 It is but a comparatively short distance from Korea and 
 since it is also nearer to China than any other of the prin- 
 cipal islands of the older Japan, it was the gateway through 
 which came most of the influences from the continent. It 
 was, too, the first to be profoundly affected by European 
 intercourse in the sixteenth century. Its chief port, pic- 
 turesque Nagasaki, is still one of the most important har- 
 bors in the empire. Formosa was ceded to Japan by China 
 in 1895 and racially is as yet unassimilated to the rest of the 
 nation. To the north of Yezo he the Kuriles,^ a long hne of 
 thinly settled islands. Kiushiu and Formosa are connected 
 by the Riu Kiu group, which has become definitely Japanese 
 only within the past sixty years. In addition to its islands, 
 Japan now holds the neighboring peninsula of Korea ^ 
 which has about half the area of the insular part of the 
 empire, and has come to dominate the adjoining territories 
 of Southern Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongoha. Of 
 these continental possessions more will be said later. 
 
 THE EFFECTS OF GEOGRAPHY UPON THE JAPANESE PEOPLE 
 AND THEIR HISTORY 
 
 But this enumeration of its main component parts and 
 area reveals Httle of the many important effects that the 
 
 1 Called Chishima by the Japanese. 
 * Called Chosen by the Japanese.
 
 THE GEOGRAPHIC SETTING OF JAPAN 3 
 
 land has had upon its people. Firs t of all, the fact that the 
 historic Japan has been a closely coherent group of islands 
 has promoted unity . As we shall see later, the Japanese, 
 although of diverse origin, are a distinct type, and have, 
 with the exception of a few sections in the north and in the 
 newly acquired islands in the south, attained a remarkable 
 homogeneity. They have as well a highly developed na- 
 tional consciousness. Their intense patriotism has un- 
 doubtedly been furthered by the fact that the sea has 
 separated them from other peoples. 
 
 This insular position has, as well, encouraged individual- 
 ity and continuity in national development. Never since 
 the original, prehistoric migrations of the ancestors of the 
 Japanese have the islands been successfully invaded. No 
 foreigners have interrupted the sequence of events, as in 
 China, by overthrowing the native dynasty and establishing 
 on the throne an alien line of monarchs. Only during the 
 great Mongol Eruptions in the thirteenth century was the 
 nation seriously threatened with foreign domination. The 
 invasions that have succeeded have been those of ideas, not 
 of peoples. The civilization that has been evolved, al- 
 though deeply affected by influences from without, has been 
 distinctive. The free and at times wholesale appropriation 
 of alien cultures has always been marked by a certain vig- 
 orous originality that has put its stamp on all that has been 
 acquired. 
 
 Then the fact that the Japanese are an island people has 
 encouraged them to become a sea-faring folk. This tend- 
 ency has been strengthened by the prevalence of protected 
 bays and the absence of great gaps between islands. The 
 harbors at Nagasaki and Yokohama, to mention only two, 
 are among the best in the world. The Inland Sea, dotted 
 with islands, free from storms, and near the home of early
 
 4 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 Japanese civilization, invited to a life on the water. The 
 Japanese have been famous fishermen. It is but natural 
 that in this day of international commerce they should take 
 kindly to the sea and that their flag should be seen in every 
 port of the world. 
 
 The Japanese islands have, moreover, a peculiarly inti- 
 mate relation to the eastern shore of Asia. Theinneamess 
 to the coast promotes intercourse. In at least three places 
 they so nearly touch the continent that communication is 
 comparatively easy — Sakhalin on the north, Kiushiu and 
 Korea in the center, and Formosa on the south. Of greatest 
 importance has been the second, for it was partly through 
 Korea that the ancestors of the Japanese reached the is- 
 lands. It was through Korea that the main stream of 
 Chinese and Indian culture flowed to Japan. It is through 
 Korea that to-day commercial intercourse with the con- 
 tinent most easily takes place. Through Sakhalin may have 
 come some aboriginal tribes from the north, possibly the 
 ancestors of the modem Ainu. Through Formosa by way 
 of the Riu Kiu Islands^ Malay elements entered, and possi- 
 bly some strains of blood from the mainland. 
 
 This nearness to Asia means, too, that the Japanese are 
 vitally interested in continental affairs. Here is their 
 natural field for commercial and territorial expansion. 
 Here is the natural outlet for their surplus population. 
 They must see to it that no strong foreign power dominates 
 the points where Japan most nearly touches Asia. Hence 
 they fought both Russia and China for Korea, and later 
 annexed it. Hence they demanded that China alienate to 
 no European power the coast of Fuhkien province opposite 
 Formosa. They must also insist that their voice be heard 
 in settling the affairs of their unwieldy neighbor, China, 
 and that her door be kept open to their commerce: they
 
 J' 
 
 \CANTON 
 
 fHON6-HON6
 
 THE GEOGRAPHIC SETTING OF JAPAN 5 
 
 have attempted during the War of Nations so to establish 
 themselves in the great Asiatic republic that they cannot 
 be easily dislodged when the struggle is over^ Their poUcy 
 on the continent has not without some appropriateness been 
 styled their "Monroe Doctrine." It has been inspired 
 largely by the same fear of foreign aggression that gave rise 
 to our insistence on Latin-American independence. We 
 feared lest Europe, by encroaching on the newly won 
 freedom of our sister republics of the south, would threaten 
 our own existence. Japan is apprehensive of a monopoly 
 by Occidental nations of the vast resources of China and 
 Korea that would stifle her legitimate comimercial expan- 
 sion. In the hearts of some of her leaders there has been 
 a passion for expansion, but before we cast a stone we need 
 to remember that it is not yet a hundred years since we 
 talked glibly of our "manifest destiny" and seized vast 
 regions from a defenseless neighbor. 
 
 The length of the chain of islands, combined with the 
 proximity to the coast of Asia, is a factor of importance. 
 In prehistoric days it meant that from many different 
 points diverse racial elements could find their way into the 
 islands. Thus through Sakhalin have come peoples akin 
 to those of Siberia, through Korea various folk from Central 
 Asia, China, and Korea, and from the south some of Malay 
 blood. In more recent times this relationship to the con- 
 tinent has placed Japan in a position to dominate nearly all 
 the east coast of Asia. Great Britain because of her location 
 has long been able to command the ocean routes to north- 
 western Europe and to be queen of the North Atlantic; even 
 more does Japan's geographical position point to her as the 
 logical mistress of the foreign commerce and shipping of far- 
 eastern Asia. 
 
 Her location has made Japan the natural interpreter of
 
 6 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 the culture of the Occident to the Far East. It is no mere 
 accident that she should have been the first nation of that 
 region unreservedly to unbar her doors to the 3S^t. Her 
 great harbors, some facing Asia and some^^Merica, were an 
 open challenge to the Occident when the age of steam began 
 to dot the Pacific with ships. Nor is it an accident that 
 Japan should have led in opening Korea, and that Chinese 
 should have flocked in such numbers to her universities to 
 acquire the new learning. She has geographical reasons for 
 beUeving herself preordained to guide the Far East into 
 the new age. 
 
 Not only have her insularity and her relation to the 
 Asiatic mainland influenced Japan profoundly, but the 
 characteristics of the land itseK have been important. In 
 the first place, the islands are very mountainous. They are 
 badly broken by peaks and ranges. Some of these are of 
 volcanic origin, others the result of folding, but they occupy 
 the larger part of Japan's surface. As a result only a small 
 proportion of the land is tillable. At present about seven- 
 teen per cent, of Japan's area (exclusive of Korea) is listed 
 as arable. Probably another ten per cent, can be reclaimed, 
 although the process will prove costly. This means that 
 the limits of population supported by home-grown food are 
 soon reached. Any excess beyond these limits must either 
 emigrate or busy itself, as in Great Britain, with manufac- 
 turing and commerce. Fortunately there is near at hand a 
 vast continent. In Manchuria, Mongolia, and Siberia are 
 unoccupied lands for immigrants. In China there is a 
 teeming, industrious population, the greatest potential 
 market in the world, and unmeasured supplies of raw 
 material. Nearly the entire eastern coast of Asia is a great 
 granary, and is to become a greater one. Moreover, the 
 mountains of Japan invite to manufacturing. They are in
 
 THE GEOGRAPHIC SETTING OF JAPAN ^ 
 
 places well stocked with coal, and their streams can be 
 harnessed to provide water power. They are, unfortunately, 
 lacking in iron ore, but this is found in great abundance in 
 China proper and Manchuria, not far from navigable 
 streams which connect directly with the sea and with Japan. 
 It is evident that Japan must insist that the door on the 
 neighboring continent be kept open to her, and it is but 
 natural that she should seek special privileges there. Here 
 is a source of food; here is a possible outlet for surplus 
 population; here is a market for her manufactures; here a 
 store of raw materials. 
 
 The mountains cut the islands into small valleys and 
 plains. There are few navigable streams, and in the old 
 days before the advent of railways, telegraphs, and steam- 
 boats, intercommunication was difficult. As in most moun- 
 tain countries, a strong tendency to internal division fol- 
 lowed. The nation separated naturally into small groups, 
 each of which tended to become independent of the central 
 power, and the feudal form of government and the em- 
 phasis on family which we are later to notice easily devel- 
 oped. 
 
 Japan is favored in climate. She lies largely in the 
 temperate zone, the home of the great civilizations of the 
 globe. By some observers she is said to have, more than 
 any other country of Asia, that succession of cyclonic dis- 
 turbances which helps to produce the marked changes in 
 temperature from day to day that are believed by a school 
 of modem geographers to promote human activity and 
 civilization. She has an abundant rainfall. The Black 
 Current,^ a warm ocean stream from the tropics, washes a 
 portion of her shores. Vegetation is luxuriant and as much 
 of her land as is tillable responds splendidly to the efforts 
 ^ Kuro Shiwo.
 
 8 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 of the husbandmen. Her large population could not have 
 been self-supporting for so long had soil and climate ^ot 
 favored her efforts. 
 
 The natural surroundings may, moreover, partly account 
 for the love of beauty which we so associate with the 
 Japanese. The wooded hills, the infinite variety of moun- 
 tain and valley, of lake and harbor and sea, could scarcely 
 have failed to develop in the people any latent sense of the 
 artistic. The land is one of the most beautiful in the world, 
 and the inhabitants have responded to it with a love for 
 flowers, for trees, for birds, for moonlit lakes, for streams and 
 waterfalls. Their poUteness and regard for ordered cere- 
 monial may also be partially the result of long ages spent 
 in an attractive environment. 
 
 The very situation and the natural resources and char- 
 acteristics of the islands, then, have had and still have a 
 profound influence upon the people, their civilization, their 
 ambitions, and their policies. 
 
 Bibliography. (See end of the book for annotations and fur- 
 ther details on these works.) Griffis, The Mikado's Empire; 
 Japan Year Book, 19 16; Hearn, Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan; 
 Mitford, Japan's Inheritance; Nitobe, The Japanese Nation; 
 Encydopadia Britannica, eleventh edition, article Japan.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 From the Earliest Times to the Introduction of 
 Buddhism 
 
 Of the early history of the Japanese we know but im- 
 perfectly. Traditions, myths, and fragments of poetry and 
 religious ritual have told us something. Ethnology and 
 archeology are telling us a little more. The most ancient 
 written records now in existence did not take their present 
 form until the eighth century A. D. The oldest of these, the 
 Kojiki ("Records of Ancient Doings") was finished in 712 
 and was a written transcript of the ancient traditions and 
 records from the memory of one man who had made a busi- 
 ness of collecting them. The next, the Nihongi, ("Chron- 
 icles of Japan"), was completed in 714 ^ and was the work 
 of a number of oflBicially appointed scholars who carefully 
 examined existing records and traditions. It was more 
 profoundly influenced by Chinese thought and language 
 than was the Kojiki, but in both works the original stories 
 were made to conform to the ideas and surroundings of 
 their compilers.^ 
 
 the traditional account of ja'panese origins 
 
 The myths and traditions as they have come down to us 
 give a most naive account of the origin of the land, the 
 
 * An emended edition, called the Nihonshoji, was completed in 720. 
 
 * Another record, the Fudoki, made in 713, was a statement by the 
 provinces of their natural features and traditions. Only fragments of 
 it have survived. 
 
 9
 
 lo THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 people, and the state. Curious and numerous gods and god- 
 desses are seen. After the birth of a series of divinities 
 whom we need not notice, the islands themselves and various 
 gods representing the forces of nature come into existence 
 as offspring of a divine pair, Izanagi and his wife Izanami. 
 Izanami dies and Izanagi goes to the underworld to seek 
 her. He finds her, but angers her, and returns without her 
 to the upper world. He finds himself contaminated by con- 
 tact with the dead, and among other divinities there are 
 born from the pollution which he washes off, the Goddess 
 of the Sun (Amaterasu), the God of the Moon, and the God 
 of Force. ^ The God of Force proved troublesome and so 
 offended his sister, the Sun Goddess, that she retired into a 
 cave and left the world in darkness. The divinities ^ in 
 great distress attempted to induce her to return. At the 
 suggestion of one of their number they performed before 
 her refuge a sacred dance and liturgy, the traditional origin 
 of some of the later religious ritual, and by sounds of mer- 
 riment tempted her to peep out. She was informed that a 
 greater than she had been found, and to convince her a 
 mirror was shown her in which she saw her own face re- 
 flected. Surprised, she gradually came out, and the gods 
 barred the cave behind her to prevent a recurrence of her 
 flight. The God of Force eventually left heaven and from 
 him sprang a race of men in Izumo, a province on the south- 
 west coast of the main island. Ninigi, a grandson of the 
 Sun Goddess, was commissioned by the gods to rule Japan 
 and as a sign of sovereignity was given a chaplet of jewels, 
 a sword, and the mirror that had helped entice his grand- 
 mother out of her cave. These three objects are still the 
 
 * Susanoo. 
 
 " Kami, the Japanese call them, a name not exactly represented by 
 any single English word.
 
 FROM EARLIEST TIMES TO BUDDHISM ii 
 
 insignia of the imperial house of Japan. Ninigi settled in 
 Kiushiu and a descendant of his, known to posterity as 
 Jimmu, or Jimmu Tenno,^ made his way to Yamato, on 
 the peninsula that juts southward from the main island to 
 the east of Shikoku, and there established himself as em- 
 peror. Then followed long centuries and many rulers. 
 Kiushiu, Shikoku, and the southern part of the main island 
 were brought under the sway of the royal house in Yamato, 
 and the conquests were extended among the non- Japanese 
 peoples of the north. One notable warrior, Yamato-dake, 
 whose name is still dear to the nation, made his way as far 
 north as the bay of Tokyo, fighting with the aborigines of 
 the intervening districts. The accession of Jimmu is placed 
 by Japanese annalists at 660 B. C. 
 
 The complete story of these early centuries is a long one,^ 
 but the many attempts that have been made to find in 
 it traces of authentic history disclose only a minimum of 
 fact. The story is, however, still taught in Japan and al- 
 though no longer believed by men of education, it is seldom 
 openly denied and it has had and still has a profound in- 
 fluence upon the nation. According to it the emperor is 
 descended from the gods, and the imperial house has, to use 
 the words of the constitution promulgated in 1890, "a, lineal 
 succession unbroken for ages eternal." ^ It helps to invest 
 the ruling line with the dignity and sanction of the divine 
 and to make disloyalty a sacrilege. Copies of the jewels, 
 sword, and mirror which are said to have been given to 
 Ninigi are still transmitted from emperor to emperor, and 
 
 ^Tenno means "lord of heaven," or emperor. 
 
 2 It may be found in some degree of detail in Brinkley, A History of 
 the Japanese People. 
 
 'The present emperor is by Japanese reckoning the 123rd of the 
 line.
 
 12 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 are emblems of the monarch's divine ancestry. In spite 
 of modem science, the influence of these behefs remains 
 strong. However much the educated may have lost faith 
 in them, openly to deny them might even now be con- 
 strued as treason. 
 
 The nation at large was, moreover, at the time of Perry's 
 coming, believed by the more radical patriots to be de- 
 scended from the gods and so to be superior to all others, 
 and the land was held to be par excellence the country of 
 the gods; of all the earth it was the nearest to heaven 
 when the connection between the two was broken. While 
 never so generally nor so strongly held as the belief 
 in the divine origin of the emperor, these convictions 
 produced an attitude of mind that may still reenforce the 
 intense, almost chauvinistic patriotism that exists in some 
 quarters. 
 
 From these stories, reenforced by ethnology and archeol- 
 ogy, it is possible to reconstruct with some degree of ac- 
 curacy the main outlines of the beginnings of Japan. The 
 earliest inhabitants of the islands seem to have been a race 
 called "cave men." Their very existence is questioned. 
 If they were a real people the only remaining traces of them 
 are pit dwellings and shell mounds, and they must have 
 been in the most primitive stages of culture. Entirely his- 
 torical, however, are a strong race of aborigines,^ probably 
 the ancestors of those Ainu who are still to be found on the 
 island of Yezo and the Kuriles, a hairy, flat-faced people, at 
 present mild-tempered. Of their origin nothing certain is 
 known; some have supposed that they came from northern 
 Asia. When the first Japanese found their way to the 
 islands these aborigines were in possession of most of the 
 land. They were a fierce, rough lot, still in the stone age. 
 * Called Yemishi in the Japanese records.
 
 FROM EARLIEST TIMES TO BUDDfflSM 13 
 
 They were cannibals, and apparently were without family 
 "7 life. They offered a sturdy resistance to the more nearly 
 * civilized invaders and were driven back and subdued only 
 after long centuries of warfare, warfare which continued 
 to within the past few hundred years. They left permanent 
 marks on their conquerors, chiefly in an admixture of blood 
 which is strongest in the north. 
 
 The Japanese of to-day are a mixed race, and are the re- 
 sult of the coalescence of several migrations. We cannot 
 trace with certainty all the streams, but there must have 
 been several of them from various sources, reaching the 
 islands at different times. Not only do traditions and 
 myths indicate a composite origin, but archeological re- 
 mains, consisting principally of graves and their contents, 
 unmistakably show it. The amalgamation, moreover, has 
 never been entirely completed; from the earliest times there 
 have been two pronounced t3^es, the aristocratic, slender 
 of limb and of light complexion, and the plebeian, stocky and 
 dark. The migrations came from the continent for the most 
 part, chiefly by the way of the Korean peninsula, but also 
 from the south. There are strong strains of Malay blood 
 which are apparently due to settlements partly from the 
 continent and partly from the southern islands. Tradition, 
 in fact, tells of a people ^ in Kiushiu which some have 
 thought to be to-day represented by a race in Borneo and 
 to have come northward along the chain of islands from 
 the south. They were conquered by the Japanese from 
 Yamato and very possibly amalgamated with them. Too 
 little is as yet known of the ethnology of the Far East to 
 enable us to determine accurately all the racial affiliations 
 of the Japanese. Some of the groups that have entered into 
 the formation of the Chinese are evidently represented, but 
 
 ^Kiunaso.
 
 14 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 there are differences which must be accounted for on the 
 basis of origin as well as of environment. The Manchu- 
 Korean and the Malay stocks predominate, with the bal- 
 ance in favor of the latter, but there are as well traces of 
 infusion of other blood, part of it Mongol, part of it still 
 undetermined. Some enthusiasts have even seriously 
 claimed to have found an Indo-European admixture. In 
 language the Japanese more nearly resemble some of the 
 groups of northern and central Asia, and especially Korea, 
 but there are also likenesses to the Malay tongues. 
 
 When they arrived in the islands the ancestors of the 
 Japanese were some of them in the bronze and some in the 
 iron age and were evidently much superior to, although 
 probably less numerous than the aborigines whom they 
 found in possession. There were two main centers from 
 which they spread, one in what is now Izumo, and one on 
 the south coast of the island of Kiushiu. The latter was 
 nearer to the southern islands and possibly also to Korea. 
 There was also apparently a center of culture in Yamato. 
 The peoples in all three of these places may have been 
 closely related in blood. The settlers on Kiushiu first con- 
 quered Yamato and then Izmno. The first conquest of 
 Yamato was traditionally made under Jimmu Tenno. At 
 any event it was at Yamato that the Japanese state first 
 had its seat and it was from there that it gradually ex- 
 panded. The time of the foundation of the state was 
 probably several hundred years later than the legendary 
 660 B. C. Extension was not an easy matter; it was 
 achieved only by dint of constant warfare with other 
 Japanese, against the ancestors of the Ainu, who stub- 
 bornly contested every foot of ground, and with other 
 peoples, dimly discerned on the pages of the Kojiki and 
 Nihongi.
 
 FROM EARLIEST TIMES TO BUDDHISM 15 
 
 THE YAMATO STATE 
 
 In the course of some centuries the Japanese hewed out 
 for themselves a state which held in rather loose allegiance 
 the southern part of the main island and Shikoku and 
 Kiushiu. It reached northward toward the center of the 
 main island and was strong enough to undertake a raid on 
 the mainland, A persistent story has come down of an 
 invasion of Korea under the leadership of a redoubtable 
 woman, the empress Jingo. Her son, Ojin, is even more 
 famous and is still revered as Hachiman, the God of War. 
 From monuments and the Korean records we learn that 
 there were several raids on the peninsula by the Japanese. 
 The peninsula was nearer China, the great civilized state 
 of the East Asia of those days, and hence probably had a 
 higher culture than the Japanese, but it was divided into a 
 number of principalities whose quarrels offered great 
 temptations to the island warrior chiefs. For years the 
 Japanese were in possession of a part of southern Korea, and 
 there were frequent movements of Korean emigrants to 
 Japan. The petty Korean states nearest Japan were con- 
 sidered as tributary to the court in Yamato. 
 
 The culture of the little kingdom that centered at Yamato 
 was primitive enough. There were no cities and no care- 
 fully constructed houses. For several centuries writing was 
 either unknown or used only by a very few. Family life 
 was a patriarchy with lingering traces of matriarchy. The 
 land was owned principally by the emperors and the noble 
 families. There was some navigation in small craft, and 
 fish formed a part of the national diet, although probably 
 not so largely as now. Rice and other grains were culti- 
 vated. Many kinds of vegetables were known and used. 
 The dense forests that originally covered the land were
 
 l6 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 gradually cleared away, and tilled fields took their places. 
 Irrigation was practiced. Game was hunted in the forests 
 and formed a part of the bill of fare. Cooking was in 
 unglazed earthen vessels. For clothing, silk was used a 
 little, but the principal fabrics were made from hemp and 
 bark. Cotton %as not introduced from China until later 
 and wool was unknown. There was no money and such 
 trade as existed was carried on by barter. Art was of the 
 crudest, although, contrary to the custom of later ages, 
 the Japanese elaborately decked themselves with personal 
 ornaments. Some of the accouterments of war showed the 
 beginnings of the aesthetic sense. There were a few simple 
 trades, for implements were needed on the farm, in the 
 home, and for battle. Artisans were organized by guilds. 
 Life was largely agricultural and military. The population 
 was divided into a number of different classes; serfs were to 
 be found, and slavery existed, as might be expected from the 
 nearly incessant warfare. There were apparently no codes' 
 of law, and justice was administered in a crude kind of way. 
 The accused frequently swore to his innocence before the 
 gods and as proof of guiltlessness thrust his arm in boiling 
 water or carried a hot iron in his hand. Customs that seem 
 to us cruel were in use. For example, the servitors, wives, 
 and concubines of a chief were buried alive by the grave of 
 their lord. Not until later, and then probably due to 
 influence from the continent, were clay images substituted 
 for the living sacrifices. 
 
 From the beginning the state was based on war, and the 
 prolonged struggle with the Ainu and principalities in the 
 south and west but tended to accentuate this characteristic. 
 Unlike their continental neighbors, the Chinese, the Japa- 
 nese as they expanded were compelled to fight for every inch 
 of soil; as a result their culture had largely a military as well
 
 FROM EARLIEST TIMES TO BUDDIHSM 17 
 
 as an agricultural cast. In China the soldier has usually 
 been considered of secondary importance, an evil to be en- 
 dured only because he is necessary for the defense of the 
 scholars, farmers, and merchants. In Japan, with the ex- 
 ception of a few important centuries, he has dominated the' 
 state. 
 
 The imperial institution apparently dates from the 
 earliest days of the nation. That does not mean that it was 
 originally what we know it to be to-day. It was a gradual 
 growth. At first the ruler was simply the leader who united 
 the various tribes or families in war and formed a nucleus 
 for a loose kind of coherence in the intervals of peace. 
 Theoretically, possibly as a result of the unity made neces- 
 sary by the long warfare with the aborigines and other 
 enemies, he was absolute; practically he shared his power 
 with local chieftains, and the state resembled a federation of 
 tribes under his hereditary leadership. Not all the chief- 
 tains were loyal. Those in the far west and south were 
 often virtually independent and yielded allegiance to the 
 Yamato court only when a vigorous monarch sat on the 
 throne. The emperor was high priest, declared war and 
 peace, and the imperial institution became so firmly fixed in 
 the consciousness of the nation that although much modi- 
 fied, it persisted through all the vicissitudes of later cen- 
 turies. It was never abandoned, and when the great trans- 
 formation of the nineteenth century came it formed the 
 rallying point for the reorganized nation. 
 
 Religion was of the simplest. There was no formal 
 theology and no elaborate system of ethics. Cosmogony 
 was childlike. The people had not yet thought deeply on 
 conduct, and on the mysteries of life and the origin of 
 things. The great forces and objects of nature were deified 
 and the spirits of ancestors were worshipped, especially
 
 l8 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 those of the imperial house: religion came to be, in fact, 
 very largely the cult and bulwark of the royal power. Man 
 was believed to be surrounded by a host of spirits who lived 
 in trees, or rocks, or the air. Animals as well as men might 
 be regarded as divinities. Shrines were few in number and 
 crude in architecture. Ritual was not ornate or compli- 
 cated, and consisted largely in the adoration and pro- 
 pitiation of spirits, gods, and ancestors, and in purification 
 from ceremonial uncleanness. This purification was partly 
 associated with a personal cleanliness which seems then as 
 now to have been a national characteristic. In common 
 with other primitive peoples various objects were held to be 
 taboo, a corpse, for example, and a woman at childbirth. 
 This primitive religion has persisted with amazingly few 
 modifications. Originally it had no distinctive name, but 
 after foreign cults entered, it became self-conscious and was 
 dubbed Shinto, "the Way of the Gods." Present day 
 Shinto is this primitive religion with the changes that it has 
 undergone through the centuries. 
 
 The simple culture here described was the product of 
 centuries through which progress was taking place and 
 changes were always occurring. Only dimly can we picture 
 these times, and even more inadequately can we treat them 
 in a book of this length. 
 
 CHINESE civilization: its contact with japan 
 
 While the Japanese state was growing up around Ya'mato, 
 a mighty civilization was being formed on the neighboring 
 continent. Beginning at least as early as the second mil- 
 lennium before the Christian era, in what is now the north- 
 western section of China proper, the Chinese people had 
 been increasing in numbers and territory, and in the latter
 
 FROM EARLIEST TIMES TO BUDDHISM 19 
 
 half of the first miUennium before Christ they had pro- 
 duced a philosophy, a literature, an art, and an industrial 
 and commercial organization that compare favorably with 
 the best cultures of the ancient Occident. Confucius had 
 meditated on the philosophy, ethics, and statecraft of his 
 race, and, leaving on them the indeUble stamp of a great 
 personality, had transmitted them to posterity in a group of 
 writings and sayings, the major part of the so-called Chinese 
 classics. These have had an influence on a larger proportion 
 of mankind than any other literary collection outside of the 
 Christian and the Buddhist scriptures. Mencius and other 
 philosophers had followed him. The Taoist faith had been 
 developed. Writing had been brought to a high state of 
 perfection in the form of characters, partly pictographs, 
 partly ideographs, partly phonograms, and a literary form 
 had been produced which with remarkably few alterations is 
 the standard for the Chinese written language to-day. Agri- 
 culture, industry, and commerce flourished. Population 
 had multiplied. 
 
 In the third century before Christ the separate Chinese 
 principalities had been welded together into one empires 
 Under the Han dynasty (B. C. 206-A. D. 214), in the flush 
 of newly foimd national unity, the boundaries had been 
 extended to the north, east, and south, and for a time in- 
 cluded much of the territory occupied by the Chinese 
 empire of to-day. Trade had been opened across the cara- 
 van routes of Central Asia and communication established 
 with the outposts of Indian and Greek civilization. 
 
 This expanding culture on the neighboring continent 
 could not but affect Japan. Princes of the Han had set 
 themselves over part of Korea and the civilization they 
 brought with them made itself felt in the Yamato state. 
 In the centuries that followed the Han Japanese embassies
 
 20 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 were sent to the court of China; much that was Chinese was 
 adopted by the semi-barbarous islanders; writing was in- 
 troduced, although the knowledge of it made headway but 
 slowly, and Confucian philosophy became known in court 
 /^circles. Korean and Chinese artisans and merchants im- 
 migrated at times in large numbers, bent upon developing 
 for their own profit the market afforded by the eager, 
 virile, backward Japanese, With them, as with the Oc- 
 cidental merchants of later centuries, came a civilization 
 which the Japanese appropriated and stamped with their 
 own genius. 
 
 This intercourse had been in progress for several centuries 
 and under its stimulus Japanese culture had been slowly 
 developing, when a series of events took place which within 
 a few years was to work a transformation in the island 
 kingdom. The Chinese race was expanding. For cen- 
 turies it was divided into petty states, but a renewed unity 
 came and was followed by further expansion and a flowering 
 of art and literature which profoundly affected all eastern 
 Asia including Japan, The vehicle for this enlarged con- 
 / tribution of culture from China to Japan was Etuddhism^ 
 
 For further reading see: Griffis, The Mikadoes Empire; Cham- 
 berlain's translation of the Kojiki; Aston's translation of the 
 Nihongi; Aston, Shinto; Brinkley, Japan, Its History, Arts, and 
 Literature; Brinkley, A History of the Japanese People; Asakawa, 
 The Early Institutional Life of Japan; Longford, The Story of 
 Old Japan; Longford, The Story of Korea.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 // 
 
 From the Introduction of Buddhism, A. D. 552, to the 
 Organization of the Shogunate, A. D. 1192 "^ 
 
 the origin, development, and spread of buddhism 
 
 Buddhism had taken its rise in northern India in the 
 sixth century before Christ as a reforming movement and a 
 protest against the religious system of the time. Its founder 
 was Gautama,^ a man of noble blood, who after years of 
 inner struggle had found peace of mind and had endeavored 
 to transmit his secret to others. Sharing the beliefs of his 
 times, he taught that life was a long chain of reincarnations, 
 and that it meant poverty, suffering, disease, and death. 
 Suffering, he had discovered, was caused by men's desires 
 and longings. To get rid of it one must quench desire. 
 The stage at which one reached the perfect elimination of 
 desire was called Nirvana and with its attainment the chain 
 of reincarnations with their entailment of suffering was 
 broken. This victory over desire was to be achieved by a 
 combination of methods whose chief practical emphasis 
 was upon a life of meditation, renunciation, and unselfish 
 service. The material world was transient, and man was 
 to learn to think of its goods as a delusion and to free him- 
 self from all longing for them. As Gautama taught it, 
 Buddhism had little to say about the gods. If they existed 
 they were subject to change and would pass away, and had 
 best be ignored. Man could achieve salvation by his own 
 
 ' Usually known as Gautama Buddha, " Gautama the enlightened," 
 or Buddha, "the enlightened."
 
 22 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 strength unaided by the divine. After Gautama's death 
 his system underwent a transformation. It accumulated 
 beliefs and practices alien to the spirit of its founder, whom, 
 however, it deified and made a member of a new pantheon. 
 It spread north and south and in the process was modified 
 by each age and people that accepted it. The northern form, 
 
 ^ called M^ayana, "the Greater Vehicle," evolved in the 
 countries to the northwest of India. It there accumulated 
 many non-Indian elements, developed an art under Greek 
 and Persian influences, and in the organization of its cel- 
 ibate priesthood, its services, and many of its doctrines 
 came so strangely to resemble Eastern and Roman Catholic 
 Christianity that early Roman missionaries could account 
 for the likeness only on the ground of malicious imitation 
 by the devil. In later years scholars have attempted to 
 trace a historical connection between Christianity and 
 Buddhism, and have proved that during the early Christian 
 centuries there was some contact between the two. There 
 was commerce between India and the Roman Orient; the 
 widespread Manichaeism was a mixture of Christian, Persian, 
 and Buddhist teaching; and Nestorian missionaries were 
 to be found in Central Asia. Just how much Buddhism 
 and organized Christianity owe to each other, however, 
 has yet to be finally determined. The southern form of 
 
 ^^Buddhism, called Hinayana, "the Lesser Vehicle," although 
 it departed widely from the simplicity of Gautama, more 
 nearly resembled the primitive faith than did the Mahayana 
 school. 
 
 It ought to be added that Buddhism, especially in its 
 Mahayana form, had a highly developed philosophy. It was 
 by no means a mere collection of superstitions, although, of 
 course, it was not without a crasser side that appealed to 
 the multitude. It had engaged the attention of thousands
 
 FROM BUDDHISM TO THE SHOGUNATE 23 
 
 of earnest, keen minds, who had found in it intellectual 
 satisfaction and spiritual light. They had left on it the im- 
 press of their thought and had helped to make of it a faith 
 that not only had a message for the simple but could com- 
 mand the respect and engage the life-long devotion of the 
 most highly educated. 
 
 Shortly after the time of Christ the northern form of 
 Buddhism was carried to China along the trade routes of 
 Central Asia opened by the Han dynasty, and in the next 
 few centuries, reenforced by the southern form, it achieved 
 great popularity and took its place among the three chief 
 faiths of the empire. 
 
 At the beginning of the third century after Christ the 
 Han dynasty collapsed, and with it Chinese unity. In the 
 earlier years of the intermittent civil war that followed, the 
 Chinese were naturally not inclined to push out to neighbor- 
 ing nations with their culture. At the end of a century and 
 a half or two centuries, however, some of the states into 
 which the empire was divided became strong enough to 
 exert an influence on their neighbors, and Buddhist mission- 
 aries found their way from China to Korea. By the middle 
 of the sixth and the beginning of the seventh century re- 
 union was in sight. Under a short-lived dynasty ^ followed 
 by a much stronger one, the T'ang (620-907), China 
 achieved union, her boundaries were extended beyond any 
 previous limits, and a great development in commerce, 
 art, literature, and religion follo^yed. For a time she was 
 the largest and most prosperous state in the world. To her 
 capital at Si-an-fu came envoys from the peoples of Eastern 
 and Central Asia. Merchants were to be met there from 
 even the distant Roman empire, and Nestorian and Man- 
 ichaean missionaries were to be found in competition, some- 
 iTheSui (589-619),
 
 24 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 times not altogether unfriendly, with the followers of Gau- 
 tama. In the centuries between the Han and the T'ang 
 dynasties, Buddhism had become extremely popular and 
 it was but to be expected that the Chinese should desire 
 to propagate it. What more natural, then, than that 
 Buddhism and Chinese culture should go hand in hand to 
 outlying states? And what more natural than that Japan 
 should be dazzled by the splendor of its great neighbor and 
 under the impulse of contact with its new life should undergo 
 a transformation? One is reminded of the changes wrought 
 in Japan and China in the nineteenth and twentieth cen- 
 turies by contact with Western peoples. The Christian 
 missionary and the merchant and diplomat have gone hand 
 in hand; the missionary, as a rule more altruistic and daring 
 than the others, has been the most powerful agent of Occi- 
 dental culture in the first stages of intercourse. 
 
 Buddhism reached Korea in the second half of the fourth 
 century and was accepted by at least some of the kingdoms 
 into which the peninsula was divided. Southern Korea 
 was, as we have seen, in close touch with Japan, and it was 
 only a question of time until the Indian faith would find its 
 way across the intervening straits to the islands. In 522, 
 indeed, a Buddhist monk came directly from China to 
 Japan; he met with little response, but a few years later, 
 in 545 and again in 552, the king of a Korean state ^ in 
 close alliance with Japan sent Buddhist images and sacred 
 books to the emperor in Yamato and advised the adoption 
 of the new faith. Buddhism did not meet with immediate 
 acceptance. There was, as might be expected, a party of 
 conservatives who wished to reject it. The foreign religion, 
 however, found an advocate in the powerful Soga family. 
 In spite of pestilence and lightning that awakened the angry 
 
 ^ Kudara.
 
 FROM BUDDHISM TO THE SHOGUNATE 25 
 
 fear of the mob, the Soga persisted in erecting and maintain- 
 ing a shrine for the new cult. Riots and even civil war 
 followed, but in time the Soga prevailed, and completely 
 dominated the throne. With their victory the success of 
 Buddhism was assured. The Prince Imperial, Shotoku, 
 one of the most brilliant leaders Japan has produced, was 
 an ally of the Soga and an ardent disciple of the bonzes 
 from the continent. The imperial court fell into line. Tem- 
 ples were built, monasteries were erected, and large num- 
 bers of men and women of noble birth renounced the world 
 for the cloister. There were at various intervals during 
 some centuries several women on the throne who aided the 
 progress of the foreign cult by their fervor. 
 
 CHINESE ANT> OTHER CONTINENTAL INFLUENCES ON JAPAN 
 
 When once espoused by the upper classes the new faith 
 and its attendant civilization achieved popularity with the 
 masses. As in the nineteenth century, a feeling of national 
 pride would not brook any charge of being backward in 
 the race for progress, and when once thoroughly convinced 
 that China's culture was superior, the Japanese set them- 
 selves to adopting it and adapting it to their needs. The 
 process was hastened as the years went by and the brilliant 
 T'ang dynasty was estabUshed and became the master of 
 eastern Asia. The T'ang generals by the conquest of Korea 
 in 667 brought the civilization of the continent to Japan's 
 very doors. Missionaries, merchants, artisans, and scholars 
 from Korea and China journeyed to the islands. Japanese 
 visited Si-an-fu, some of them as students supported by 
 the government, and were dazzled by its wealth and splen- 
 dor. Embassies were sent to the Chinese capital and came 
 back to spread its fame. Japan was being swept into the 
 life of the Far East and sought to conform herself to it.
 
 26 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 The transformation, as might be expected, was most 
 marked at or near the capital, and as in the nineteenth 
 century, the distant rural districts were the slowest to 
 change. The entire nation was involved, however, and all 
 phases of its life were affected. Naturally enough. Bud- 
 dhism flourished. Many temples were erected. Rich and 
 poor took the vows of celibate Buddhist monks and large 
 monastic communities came into existence. Buddhist 
 ethics were preached, and there followed a greater kind- 
 liness in manners and a larger respect for animal life. The 
 idea of reincarnation found acceptance, although never as 
 fully as in India. Hinayana, the southern form of Bud- 
 dhism, at first predominated, but in time it was chiefly the 
 northern form, Mahayana, that prevailed and molded the 
 forms of faith. The stately ritual of the temple services was 
 introduced, and mightily impressed the Japanese, for until 
 now they had been familiar with no other religious cer- 
 emonies than the simple ones connected with their native 
 cult. The elaborate and matured philosophy of Buddhism 
 had opposed to it no organized rival system. It raised and 
 answered questions about existence and the divine which 
 seem never seriously to have troubled the older Japanese, 
 and hence drew attention to and met a genuine need. 
 
 The native cult was not abandoned. In later years, as we 
 shall see, belief in it was reconciled with the acceptance of 
 the new religion by the ingenious theory that its divinities 
 were incarnations of the Buddha and of Buddhist saints. 
 The two faiths continued to exist side by side with mutual 
 tolerance. Shinto was reenforced and to a slight extent 
 modified by Chinese contributions; its reverence for the 
 dead, for instance, was strengthened by contact with 
 Chinese ancestor worship. 
 
 Chinese writing and literature achieved popularity. The
 
 FROM BUDDHISM TO THE SHOGUNATE 27 
 
 Chinese written character had been known, as we have 
 seen, for some time, but its use had been confined to a 
 comparatively narrow circle. It was now studied more 
 extensively, although for years the common people and 
 even the higher classes away from the capital did not use 
 it. The task of adapting it to Japanese needs was no light 
 one. The two languages, Japanese and Chinese, were ap- 
 parently entirely unrelated. One was polysyllabic, the 
 other monosyllabic, and their grammatical constructions 
 were very different. The Chinese characters, moreover, 
 do not form an alphabet, but are pictographs, ideographs, 
 and phonograms. Thus \, in another form 4 , is man, 
 and was originally meant to represent two human legs: 
 ^ or f is hand, and was in the beginning «^, a crude 
 attempt at a picture of the five digits; >f and H (mean- 
 ing two) combine to form ■tl, meaning the duties between 
 two men or man and man, and rather crudely translated 
 "benevolence." Most of the characters are phonograms. 
 Thus there is a character ^ now pronounced fu and mean- 
 ing primarily "to brood on eggs." Combined with A it 
 forms ^ and represents another word also pronounced 
 fu and meaning a prisoner of war. Combined with ■**", 
 meaning grass, it forms ?p which represents a word which 
 is also pronounced fu and means the inner skin of a kind 
 of water plant. And these examples could be multiplied 
 by the hundreds. In adapting these characters to Japa- 
 nese use, two methods could be employed. They could 
 be used phonetically; that is, a Japanese word could be 
 reproduced by Chinese characters with regard not to their 
 meaning, but merely to their sound in Chinese. Thus the 
 Japanese word for mountain is yama. It could be written 
 by two Chinese characters pronounced ya and ma, say 
 for example ^ (ya), a particle implying doubt, and i^
 
 28 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 (ma), meaning horse. This, however, is clumsy, as the 
 Chinese characters do not suggest the idea, and there are 
 syllables in Japanese for which there exist no correspond- 
 ing Chinese sounds or characters. On the other hand, the 
 Japanese word could be represented by the Chinese charac- 
 ter having the same meaning. In this latter way the 
 Chinese word itself might be taken over into the lan- 
 guage. Thus yama was written by the Chinese character ill , 
 meaning mountain, and given either its Japanese pronun- 
 ciation, yama, or its Chinese pronunciation, shan or san. 
 The famous volcano Fuji is either Fujiyama or Fujisan. 
 Both methods of adapting the Chinese characters were 
 used at first and great confusion resulted, but the estab- 
 hshed method gradually came to be the latter, i. e., em- 
 plying the character which represented not the Japanese 
 'sound but the idea. This brought into the Japanese lan- 
 guage many new words, since the character could be given 
 either its Chinese or its Japanese pronunciation. There 
 also came into the language many new ideas. Chinese 
 came to bear much the same relation to Japanese that 
 Latin does to English. The feat of adapting Chinese was 
 no easy one. So unrelated were the two languages orig- 
 inally that it was probably as difficult to use Chinese 
 characters to write Japanese as it would be to use them to 
 write English, 
 
 With the written character came Chinese literature in 
 all its wealth — philosophy, history, poetry, cosmogony, 
 and science. It was the accumulation of centuries of de- 
 velopment. There were the writings not only of Con- 
 fucius, Mencius, and their contemporaries, of Laotze and 
 the early Taoist worthies, but the rich store produced 
 under the brilliant Han dynasty and the new flood that 
 was issuing from the facile pens of the T'ang scholars. It
 
 FROM BUDDHISM TO THE SHOGUNATE 29 
 
 was on the whole a literature as able and as rich as that 
 which came down to northern Europe from ancient Greece 
 and Rome. Under its influence a Japanese literature 
 began. The legends and stories of the earlier days were 
 recorded, materials that later entered into the Kojiki and 
 the Nihongi. 
 
 With the language and literature came art. Painting and 
 sculpture had reached a high stage of perfection in China, 
 first under the Han and than under the T'ang. Buddhism 
 had brought with it to China a well developed iconography, 
 combining Indian, Greek, and Central Asiatic elements. 
 Under its stimulus the Chinese genius had produced works 
 which in technique, feeling, and insight were of a very high 
 order. The scanty remnants are still the delight of lovers 
 of the beautiful in all nations. The latent Japanese genius 
 was aroused by the examples presented and began to pro- 
 duce in great abundance pictures of Gautama and of 
 various sacred episodes. Buddhist statues and carvings 
 were imported; architecture became prominent for the 
 first time; Buddhist temples were erected on the model of 
 those on the continent, marked contrasts to the unpreten- 
 tious buildings that had done for the Shinto worship and 
 the flimsy structures in which even royalty had been wont to 
 live. Inspired by the construction of temples, better and 
 more permanent dwellings were erected for the emperor 
 and the nobility. 
 
 Various handicrafts were introduced from Korea and 
 China and the Japanese became familiar with new utensils 
 and implements, with better textiles and industrial methods. 
 Chinese medicine and military science were brought in. 
 The Chinese calendar was formally adopted. Chinese 
 costumes were introduced, and their use and form carefully 
 regulated by law. Roads were built, probably for the first
 
 30 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 time. Communication by land now supplemented that by 
 boats, heretofore the chief means of transportation. Ship- 
 building was improved and commerce grew. A system of 
 weights and measures was adopted. The importation of 
 the precious metals stimulated the Japanese to open mines 
 of their own. Silver was discovered in the islands and 
 shortly afterward, copper. With the working of native 
 ores came the minting of money. In the early years of the 
 eighth century the first true coins were struck; as in China 
 they were mostly of copper. 
 
 There was an immigration of Koreans and Chinese. 
 Some of course were Buddhist missionaries, drawn partly by 
 zeal and partly by ambition. Some were handicraftsmen. 
 Others were merchants who were interested in exploiting 
 the resources of the newly opened islands. Still others were 
 scholars, attracted by the rewards offered by the court and 
 the nobility for men of learning. As a result, an infusion of 
 Korean and Chinese blood found its way into Japanese 
 veins, increasing the complexity of a stock that was already 
 a composite of several races. 
 
 There were great social transformations. Wealth in- 
 creased and with it the difference between rich and poor 
 was accentuated. A greater emphasis was laid upon agri- 
 culture. The Japanese family was modified and strength- 
 ened by contact with Chinese ideals, which were, briefly, 
 that orderly family life and its attendant veneration for 
 ^^ ancestors are the basis of society. They found Japan not 
 entirely unprepared to accept them, for the family systems 
 of the two countries were fundamentally the same, but they 
 greatly strengthened and modified existing tendencies. 
 Chinese ethics, an outgrowth of the family system, effected 
 a change in Japanese moral standards.
 
 FROM BUDDHISM TO THE SHOGUNATE 31 
 
 THE POLITICAL CHANGES DUE TO CONTACT WITH CHINA AND 
 THE CONTINENT 
 
 Especially noteworthy was the reorganization which took 
 place in the state. Prince Sh otoku , as we have seen, was an ' 
 ardent advocate of the new religion. He was equally in 
 favor of the new culture. He was a student not only of 
 Buddhism, but of the great historic classics of China, the 
 writings of Confucius and his school, and was an eager and 
 intelligent admirer of the political machinery of the T'ang. 
 It was due partly to his initiative that a complete reorgani- 
 zation of the government took place. In 604 he issued his*- 
 "constitution" in seventeen articles, sometimes called 
 Japan's first written code of laws. This was not an elaborate 
 legal document, however, enumerating specific crimes and 
 prescribing penalties, but an attempt to apply in a some- 
 what general way Buddhist and Confucian ethical principles'^ 
 to oflScial life. It was a body of mora]jnasnis sent out as 
 instructions to the dignitaries of the state to guide them in 
 the performance of their duties. Reverence for Buddhism 
 and loyalty to the emperor were insisted upon, a high 
 standard of personal rectitude was encouraged, and justice 
 and integrity were commanded in the fulfillment of public 
 duty. In 645,^ after the death of Shotoku, a complete 
 reorganization of the state took place, so thorough that this 
 date may be regarded as the time when the real revolution 
 in government occurred. Additional reforms followed under 
 succeeding monarchs, usually along the lines marked out 
 in 645, for over a period of nearly a century. In 701, for 
 
 > Under the emperor Kotoku, 645-654. They are known as the 
 Daika reforms.
 
 32 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 example/ a revised code of statutes was promulgated which 
 dealt with practically all phases of olOScial life. 
 
 The changes made during these years consisted mainly 
 in an attempt to adapt to Japan the governmental system 
 of China. The process was revolutionary and not alto- 
 gether successful. China was a great agricultural, indus- 
 trial, and commercial state whose organization headed up 
 in an absolute monarch through a hierarchy of officials care- 
 fully chosen by competitive civil service examinations. 
 The government existed in theory for the good of the 
 people and was interested in everything pertaining to their 
 welfare. Now, the Japanese were a militaiy_and an agricul- 
 tural folk; their state was small and was made up of a 
 cluster of principalities under local chieftains loosely ac- 
 knowledging the headship of a hereditary ruler who was 
 supposed to be descended from the gods. The attempt was 
 made to reproduce in this very alien surrounding a political 
 organization which had been developed to meet an entirely 
 different set of needs. Temporarily, for many decades 
 indeed, it seemed to succeed. The capital was located 
 ^permanently at Nara in Yamato, and was not as formerly 
 moved on the death of each sovereign. At Nara a city was 
 laid out on the plan of the great Chinese capital, Si-an-fu. 
 Here the emperors resided from 7 09 to^ 4, when the seat of 
 government was transferred to a new site, the present 
 Kyoto, ^ and a new and larger city was built, also on the 
 lines of the Chinese prototype. This was the home of the 
 emperors until the nineteenth century. 
 
 * Under the emperor Mommu (697-707). The codes are known as 
 the Daiho laws. 
 
 *The period during which the capital was at Nara (708-784) is 
 known as the Nara epoch, and the first few centuries at Kyoto are 
 known from an older name for Kyoto as the Hei-an epoch (794-1159).
 
 FROM BUDDHISM TO THE SHOGUNATE 33 
 
 The permanent location of the capital, however, came 
 almost at the culmination of a series of changes which 
 entirely altered the administration of the kingdom. The 
 outstanding feature of the "reforms" was the increase in 
 the power of the Japanese monarch. His position already 
 had much of sanctity attached to it. It was now made 
 even more commanding, the source of all authority. The 
 adoption of the Chinese system, in fact, seems to have been 
 made under astute ministers and rulers who deliberately 
 planned to use it to strengthen the power of the throne^ 
 against that of the nobles, and to eliminate as far as possible 
 the hereditary principle from every office but that of the 
 monarch. It was in the main the constitution which had 
 been evolved in China in the victorious struggle of the 
 emperor against the hereditary local princes. One of the 
 earhest evidences of the growing authority of the Japanese 
 monarch is to be found in the "constitution" of Prince 
 Shotoku. Still further proof was afforded by the fall of the 
 powerful Soga family, an integral part of the program of 
 the reforms of 645. For years the Soga had dominated 
 successive monarchs, but they were now deposed, and less 
 than seventy years later were exterminated. 
 
 It must be added that the Chinese theory of imperial 
 succession was not accepted. In the continental empire 
 the monarch was believed to hold his office by virtue of the 
 "Mandate of Heaven," and if the ruling house proved im- 
 worthy that mandate might be withdrawn and given to 
 another. Hence rebellion against a corrupt dynasty was 
 justified, and family followed family on the throne. The 
 position was sacred, but the occupant might be xmworthy, 
 and if so, he could be removed. The Japanese did not ac- 
 cept this theory. In fact, the reformers emphasized with 
 renewed force the sanctity of the imperial family, and its
 
 34 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 unbroken descent from the gods. Rebellion against the 
 throne was held to be the height of impiety. A change of 
 dynasty would have been utterly abhorrent. 
 ^y^K di\dsion between civil and military officials was made. 
 No longer were the duties of the soldier and the adminis- 
 trator to be combined as in the earlier days, when the nation 
 was, in many respects, a congeries of tribes and families 
 rather loosely united by allegiance to the royal house, but a 
 sharp division of functions was introduced on the model of 
 the system in use in China. A hierarchy of civil officials was 
 created and these were to be chosen partly on the basis of 
 >noble blood, and partly by means of ciyil_service examina- 
 tions based largely on the classics of the Confucian cult. 
 Capacity for administration was thus measured, as on the 
 continent, by the ability to produce an elegant and learned 
 essay in Chinese. To prepare candidates schools were 
 ^established in the capital and the provinces. A central 
 ministry of eight departments was organized, after the 
 system in use at Si-an-fu. Codes of laws were issued, in- 
 spired by Chinese models. The attempt was made to insure 
 justice for every member of the body politic, even to the 
 humblest. Althpugh the old noble families were retained, 
 many of the existing social gradations were abolished, and 
 a new division of classes was introduced. All Japanese, 
 irrespective of rank, were to be subject to the emperor and 
 to his courts and his laws. Any might freely petition the 
 monarch for the redress of grievances. 
 
 Military conscription was introduced, again under the 
 influence of the continent. From a third to a fourth of the 
 able-bodied citizens were to be in the service at one time. 
 
 All the soil was appropriated by the emperor. A few 
 families had previously been monopolizing most of the land, 
 reducing the mass of the rural population to a condition re-
 
 FROM BUDDHISM TO THE SHOGUNATE 35 
 
 sembling serfdom, and threatening the power of the crown. 
 State ownership was now asserted, the land was redivided, 
 and each man and woman was given a share. To prevent 
 the soil from being engrossed again by a few landowners and 
 to allow for the growth of population, a redistribution of the 
 fields was to take place every six years. Tracts of land were 
 allotted to ofl&cials, whose salaries were to be paid by the 
 income from their estates and not by exactions from the 
 peasants. Forced labor was reorganized and was to be 
 partly commuted for taxes in farm produce. A premium 
 was put on reclamation by granting a larger degree of 
 private ownership in lands acquired through it; the Japan- 
 ese still occupied only a part of the surface of the islands and 
 expansion must be encouraged. The system of taxation was 
 made over: ojQ&cials were for the most part exempt, but an 
 effort was made to effect an equable levy upon the people at 
 large. 
 
 The entire population was divided somewhat on Chinese 
 hnes into groups made up of five households each, and into 
 larger units of fifty households. These groups were for 
 purposes of police and mutual defense. In true Chinese 
 style the collective responsibility of a group for the conduct 
 of each of its members was insisted upon. The criminal 
 code of the great continental empire was taken over, al- 
 though in a modified form, and for more than a century was 
 the standard by which Japanese cases were tried. 
 
 It must be remembered that these innovations in ad- 
 ministration wrought by contact with the culture of the 
 continent were not as sudden as this brief summary might 
 lead one to believe. They were embodied in various codes 
 which embrace a period covering most of the seventh and 
 part of the eighth century. The modification of national 
 life under the influence of intercourse with the mainland
 
 36 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 was the predominant fact in Japan's history from the middle 
 of the sixth to late in the eighth century. It recurred, al- 
 though at long intervals and with less prominence, until the 
 coming of the Europeans in the nineteenth century, every 
 new burst of culture in China making itself felt in Japan. 
 By the end of the eighth century, however, the T'ang 
 dynasty had begun to weaken and the brilliancy of its 
 culture had become dimmed. China for the time could not 
 exert as strong an influence as she had under the earlier 
 monarchs of that house. 
 
 JAPANESE MODIFICATIONS OF FOREIGN CULTURE 
 
 It is also to be noted that the Japanese were not blind 
 imitators. As in the nineteenth century, they were eager 
 to take from foreign civilizations what seemed suited to 
 their needs. They were keenly sensitive and feared so 
 greatly the epithet "barbarian" that they exerted every 
 effort to equal in culture the most advanced peoples with 
 whom they were acquainted. From the very first, however, 
 they tried to adapt what they borrowed to the needs of 
 their peculiar situation, and as time went on they more and 
 more modified what they had received and were stimulated 
 to make contributions of their own. They began thinking 
 for themselves in matters of religion, and in the latter part 
 of the eighth and the early part of the ninth centuries, the 
 Tendai and the Shingon sects arose, each based on ideas 
 introduced from China, but owing its introduction and 
 much of its form to a Japanese. Tendai attempted to 
 reform the current Buddhism chiefly by introducing a more 
 nearly perfect philosophy and a greater asceticism. It 
 made salvation possible, not after numbers of reincarnations 
 through unmeasurable periods of time, but here and now by
 
 FROM BUDDHISM TO THE SHOGUNATE 37 
 
 a knowledge of the Buddha nature that could be acquired 
 through wisdom. It was also marked by an elaborate 
 hierarchy. Its founder, one Saicho (known to posterity as 
 Dengyo Daishi), lived from 767 to 822. He spent many 
 years in China studying the parent sect, and oii returning 
 to Japan became very popular. Shingon introduced an 
 esoteric system of faith and conduct, teaching three great 
 secret laws regarding body, speech, and thought. These 
 three secrets had to do with proper postures, magic for- 
 mulae, and prayers, and helped make possible a communion 
 with the deities and union with the Infinite. It resembled 
 the Gnosticism of the early Christian centuries of the West, 
 with which, indeed, some have attempted to establish a 
 historic connection. Its founder, Kukai, known to posterity 
 as Kobo Daishi, was a contemporary of Saicho. Like the 
 latter, he visited China and there learned the principles of 
 the sect that he later propagated in his native land. He 
 was famous in his generation as saint, artist, and calligra- 
 pher. 
 
 The use of the Chinese written character was made 
 easier by introducing syllabic signs, the Katagana (square 
 forms) and the Hiragana (script forms), which were simpler 
 to learn and helped to make the written language conform 
 more nearly to the vernacular than it had in its purely 
 Chinese dress. They are in use to this day and are famihar 
 to all who have ever glanced at Japanese papers or books. 
 Native schools of art and Hterature were developed. Even 
 the administrative machinery was not a blind copy but an 
 attempt at intelligent eclecticism. 
 
 The new system of administration had no sooner been 
 completed than it began to reveal a growing discrepancy 
 with real conditions. This was partly because the adapta- 
 tion of Chinese models to the local situation had not been
 
 38 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 perfect: the attempt to transfer institutions which had 
 been devised to meet entirely different conditions, unless 
 most carefully done, could not fail to end in disaster. There 
 were three outstanding results: the control of the monarchy 
 by the Fujiwara family through a series of regencies, the 
 rise of a kind of feudalism, and the growth of a military 
 class in numbers and power, culminating in its control of 
 the government. 
 
 SUPREMACY AND DECLINE OF FUJIWARA FAMILY 
 
 V' The Fujiwara family, next to that of the emperor the most 
 illustrious in Japan, claims for itself divine origin. As early 
 as the seventh century it had begun extensively to lay its 
 hands on the government. Its founder, the high-minded 
 and able Kamatari, had laid the foundation for its greatness 
 by his part in the reforms of 645. As the strong emperors 
 who helped in the great reorganization of the administra- 
 tion were succeeded by weak ones, the Fujiwara clan 
 gradually tightened its hold in the government. It assumed 
 but few military positions, for these by the borrowed 
 Chinese standards were held to be socially inferior, but 
 gradually obtained most of the important civil offices for 
 the possession of its scions. These held the chief governor- 
 ships of the provinces and the leading positions at court. 
 The plan of choosing the members of the civil bureaucracy 
 that was in use in China had never been applied in its 
 entirety to Japan, and the reformers of 645 had filled the 
 offices partly from the noble families. Even as much of the 
 continental system as had been adopted was gradually al- 
 lowed to fall into disuse. The theory of short tenure, which 
 prevented an office from being monopolized by any one 
 person or family, was little by httle ignored. The terms of
 
 FROM BUDDHISM TO THE SHOGUNATE 39 
 
 ofl&ce were first lengthened, then reappointments were al- 
 lowed, and eventually the various positions were held for 
 life and transmitted to the occupants' heirs. The Fujiwara 
 filled the bureaucracy with its own members and made the 
 offices hereditary, so that the institutions designed to 
 weaken the power of the nobles and to strengthen the 
 position of the monarch were used to defeat their own ob- 
 ject. The Fujiwara, as unperial councilors, had the priv- 
 ilege of opening all petitions before they were handed to the 
 throne. They saw to it that the emperors' consorts were 
 chosen from their own women, and that heirs to the throne 
 were selected only from among sons of Fujiwara mothers. 
 Even to-day the empress is one of the family, as have been 
 most of her predecessors for more than a thousand years. 
 Members of the clan were finally appointed regent ^ and 
 in all but name became the rulers of the kingdom. The 
 family never, it is true, sought to usurp the throne; they 
 rather sought to elevate its nominal dignity. But as the 
 position became more sacred they saw to it that its occu- 
 pant had less and less to say in matters of actual govern- 
 ment. Finally, as soon as an emperor reached an age at 
 which he might conceivably assert himself he was forced 
 to take the vows of a Buddhist monk and retire to the 
 cloister, to make way for a minor who could offer no opposi- 
 tion to Fujiwara ambitions. There frequently were several 
 such ex-emperors hving at one time. 
 
 This Fujiwara supremacy was not attained without a 
 struggle, for from time to time the monarchs asserted them- 
 selves. Thus the emperor Kwammu (782-805), one of the 
 most vigorous of the wearers of the unperial crown, removed ^ • 
 the capital from Nara to the present Kyoto (794), appar^'^ltV^ 
 ently in an attempt to free the court from the traditions of 
 ^ The ofl&cial title of this office was Kwambaku.
 
 40 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 luxury and royal impotence that had begun to associate 
 themselves with the older city, and also possibly in the 
 hope that by placing the capital more nearly in the center 
 of the Japanese state he might more efifectively control its 
 administration. Another ^ from the vantage of his re- 
 tirement in a monastery sought to direct the affairs of the 
 nation through the infant puppets that were set up in his 
 stead. Occasionally other families sought to wrest from the 
 Fujiwara their power. 
 
 The descendants of the great Kamatari were not to be 
 deprived of their offices. The high posts at the court con- 
 tinued to be filled by them until the end of the old system 
 in the nineteenth century. They were, however, rendered 
 impotent by the introduction of a form of government by 
 
 ^4ht military class. The Fujiwara were left in the possession 
 of their titles but they were to become powerless in the 
 provinces and in all but the immediate entourage of the 
 imperial court. This change was brought about by a grad- 
 ual evolution which was partly the result of the weakness 
 of the system that the Fujiwara themselves had created, 
 and partly of the growth in power of the military class. 
 The period of Fujiwara supremacy was one of great luxuryV' 
 The court at Nara and Kyoto was maintained on a most 
 
 / expensive scale. Elaborate palaces were built and a costly 
 standard of living was maintained. The court nobility gave 
 themselves over to writing poetic couplets, to flower fes- 
 tivals, love intrigues, gambling, and the refinements of a 
 beauty-loving but sensual existence. Many arts and 
 pastimes were developed, partly on Chinese models, and 
 were the basis of much of that beauty and refinement that 
 
 * Shirakawa of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Two other 
 emperors who became notably restive under Fujiwara dictation were 
 Daigo (898-930) and Sanjo (1012-1017).
 
 FROM BUDDHISM TO THE SHOGUNATE 41 
 
 were to be so much admired by westerners who saw Japan 
 in the early nineteenth century. Exquisite fabrics were 
 produced, and fine paintings and carvings appeared. Ar- 
 chitecture was improved: palaces and temples were built 
 in profusion. Music was perfected. The position of dancing 
 girls arose almost to the dignity of a profession. Festivals 
 for viewing the flowers, for gazing at the newly fallen snow, 
 for enjoying the moonlight, were introduced. Great sums 
 of money were spent on Buddhist temples and monasteries 
 and on elaborate religious exercises. Huge, costly metal 
 images became the rage. At times half or more of the 
 revenue of the state was spent for religious purposes. As 
 the effeminacy and moral degeneracy of the court increased 
 its devotion to religious exercises was intensified. Bud- 
 dhism was never more popular. So powerful did the priest- 
 hood become that it is of record that one Buddhist monk ^ 
 became the paramour of the empress ^ who at that time sat 
 alone on the throne, and aspired to become monarch. 
 
 The court and its masters, the Fujiwara, were gradually 
 losing control of the provinces and of all but the districts 
 around the capital. Taxes to pay the expenses of the court 
 and especially of the Buddhist church reached enormous 
 proportions. The cost of government was increased by the 
 necessity of administering the additional territories occupied 
 by the expanding nation. The expenses of administration 
 were augmented without a corresponding increment in the 
 revenue, and the growing burden of taxation fell more and 
 more upon a few of the peasantry. A system of estates 
 immune from taxation and virtually free from the control 
 of the machinery of the capital was slowly forming, re- 
 sembling in time the feudalism of the European middle 
 ages. By the reforms of 645 the arable land of the country 
 ^ Dokyo. * Shotoku (765-770).
 
 42 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 was to be redivided among the people at stated intervals. 
 For a while this plan was fairly well carried out. As time 
 passed, however, it fell into abeyance. The nation was ex- 
 panding to the north and west, and most of the land that 
 was reclaimed on the frontiers gradually, either by the direct 
 grant or through the weakness of the central government, 
 came to be held in perpetuity. As the nation grew, these 
 reclaimed lands eventually formed the larger part of its 
 area. Then for meritorious services or because of some 
 special influence at court, individuals would be given es- 
 
 /tates to hand down to their descendants. Large tracts 
 were similarly held by temples and monasteries as a per- 
 manent possession. Occasional edicts attempted to revive 
 the periodical redistribution of lands, but failed to work a 
 lasting cure. Owners of estates frequently extended their 
 domains by forcibly annexing adjoining lands. The estates 
 held in perpetuity were, too, as a rule partly or entirely 
 exempt from taxation and the control of the representatives 
 of the central government. This exemption was at first 
 largely confined to temple lands and estates specifically 
 granted by the government, and was recognized by formal 
 charters, but in time it came to apply to all of the estates. 
 For protection against disorder, or to escape taxation, 
 many smaller landowners surrendered their holdings to the 
 more powerful lords and monasteries ana received them 
 
 /oack as fiefs, a custom almost exactly corresponding to 
 "commendation" in feudal Europe. Thus in time most of 
 the area of the nation was comprised in great, immune 
 estates and was practically lost to the jurisdiction of the 
 Kyoto government. A governor often found that only one 
 per cent, or less of the land of his provinces was subject to 
 him, and so did not leave the capital to proceed to his post. 
 Finally the vast majority of the landowners, great and small,
 
 FROM BUDDHISM TO THE SHOGUNATE 43 
 
 in all the provinces but those nearest to Kyoto were bound 
 to the central power only by a formal allegiance to the 
 emperor. They levied their own taxes, quarreled and 
 fought with each other, and administered a rude justice 
 without reference to the Fujiwara-controlled court. By 
 the end of the eleventh century the central goverimient was 
 ready to collapse. Brigandage and military service became 
 the only refuges from the intolerable taxation laid by the 
 court on the lands that were not in the manors, and robbers 
 openly infested even the streets of the capital. 
 
 FEUDAL STRUGGLE FOR CONTROL OF THE EMPIRE 
 
 During the centuries that the Fujiwara were making 
 themselves supreme at court, warrior families were strength- 
 ening themselves in the outlying provinces, especially in the 
 north, and a mihtary class was appearing. In the reforms 
 of the seventh and eighth centuries the attempt was made 
 to establish universal responsibility for military service, 
 but this proved a failure. With the decline of the power of 
 the central government, and the growth of disorder, the 
 proprietors of the great tax-free estates were forced to de- 
 pend on their retainers for police purposes and for aid 
 against their neighbors. On these estates, then, there were 
 to be found professional warriors who were recruited partly 
 from the police, partly from the lords' own retainers, partly 
 from wanderers from sections where the conditions of life 
 had become intolerable, and partly from adventurous fel- 
 lows for whom no career was open at home. These profes- 
 sional warriors gradually came to be controlled by a new 
 nobility, purely military and feudal, and quite distinct from 
 the older civil nobility that had its center at Kyoto. This 
 miht ary nobility was foimded by members of the imperjaJ
 
 44 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 family who, for reasons that need not here detain us, had 
 assumed new family names and had become nobles of in- 
 ferior rank. They had sought their fortunes away from 
 the capital, in the provinces, as local oflScials and as man- 
 agers of the estates that were held by the absentee civil 
 nobility. As years passed they became the actual masters of 
 the estates they managed, or of new estates, and the leaders 
 of the warriors who formed the only source of protection 
 in the midst of the general disorder. The strongest of these 
 estates were in the westf where new lands were being re- 
 claimed, and in the nortlf, where a long war of expulsion 
 was being waged with the aborigines. All these estates were 
 far removed from the demoralizing luxury of the court, and 
 by constant fighting among themselves and with the Ainu, . 
 a military class was developed, inured to hardship, loyal to 
 its leaders, and paying but scanty respect to the fashionable 
 fops who directed afifairs at the capital. The warriors, or 
 ^ bushi as they were called, became in time a hereditary 
 ^-caste, closed to outsiders. They possessed an ethical code 
 all their own, the basis of the later rather elaborate hushido 
 ("way of the bushi") of which we are to hear more later. 
 
 With the decay of the administrative system controlled 
 by the Fujiwara it was only a question of time until the 
 military chiefs should struggle for the mastery of the em- 
 pire. The two outstanding soldier families were the Taira 
 and the MinamotOjIjoth claiming descent from cadet mem- 
 bers of the imperial family and both made strong by long 
 residence on the frontier. Generally speaking, the Taira 
 led in the south and west, the Minamoto in the north and 
 east, near the present Tokyo. 
 ^^^^ About the middle of the twelfth century the disintegra- 
 tion at Kyoto could no longer be concealed. The Buddhist 
 monasteries and Shinto fanes erected by the gifts of many
 
 FROM BUDDHISM TO THE SHOGUNATE 45 
 
 pious generations had some of them become the abode of 
 armed monks and the refuge of desperadoes. They ter- 
 rorized the weakened capital until the strong military 
 chiefs of the provinces were called in by the distressed 
 court to restore peace. Nothing loath, the Taira and 
 Minamoto quickly responded. The warlike monks were 
 put down, and then court intrigues and rivalries in the 
 ranks of the Fujiwara led to civil strife which gave the two 
 i • great soldier families further reason for interference. 
 Finally the Taira and Minamoto fell to fighting for the 
 control of the capital and the person of the emperor. So 
 strong was the reverence for the past and for the imperial 
 family that no one thought of usurping the throne or even 
 the office of regent, for this last had been held traditionally 
 by the Fujiwara. The military chiefs, however, did seek to 
 place themselves so firmly in control that the emperor and 
 court nobility, while retaining their ancient titles, could not 
 hope to exert an appreciable influence on the administra- 
 tion. 
 
 In the long civil wars which followed,^ the Taira were 
 first victorious and estabhshed themselves in Kyoto. Their 
 leader, Kiyomori, became prime minister and virtual ruler of 
 Japan. He killed the leader of the Minamoto, Yoshitomo, 
 and exterminated as far as possible all other members of 
 that family who seemed to give promise of seriously con- 
 testing his power. A few escaped, principal among whom 
 were Yoritomo and Yoshitsune, two sons of Yoshitomo by 
 different mothers. Yoritomo was spared because of his 
 beauty and extreme youth and lived an obscure life of 
 exile until he reached maturity. Yoshitsune's mother 
 bought the life of her three sons by becoming the mistress of 
 
 * They lasted for about fifty years and cover the period known as 
 the Gempei era (11 59-1 199).
 
 46 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 Kiyomori. All three boys were brought up in monasteries. 
 The future of two of them does not concern us, but Yo- 
 shitsune is a name to be remembered, for he is regarded by 
 Japanese as their greatest military captain. Kiyomori, 
 after the defeat of his enemies, exercised an almost despotic 
 power and became extremely arrogant. He was not a 
 political genius of the first rank, however, and failed to 
 organize the empire in a way that would prevent the recur- 
 rence of such disorders as had brought him into power. 
 He died in 1180 and Yoritomo and Yoshitsune, now in the 
 flush of vigorous manhood, raised the Minamoto banner. 
 They were reenforced by an independent insurrection led 
 by a cousin, Yoshinaka. Five years of war followed. The 
 two brothers championed an ex-emperor who wished to be 
 restored to the throne, while the Taira retained possession 
 of the puppet child-monarch. Yoshitsune was the brilliant 
 military leader and the idol of the Minamoto forces; 
 Yoritomo was a crafty, able organizer, and was by force of 
 character as well as birthright the head of the family. The 
 Taira were driven out of Kyoto after a stubborn resistence, 
 and were defeated in a memorable engagement near the 
 present Kobe. They retired eastward and a final decisive 
 battle was fought in the Straits of Shimonoseki. Here the 
 Taira forces were overwhelmed: Kiyomori's widow, scorning 
 capture, cast herself into the sea and carried to death in her 
 arms the boy-emperor. Only a small remnant escaped, to 
 live as outlaws in the fastnesses of Kiushiu. The exploits 
 of the heroes of these memorable years have ever since been 
 the delight of the story-tellers of the nation and are re- 
 counted to the admiring youth of each succeeding genera- 
 tion. After the final defeat of the Taira, the popularity of 
 Yoshitsune aroused the apprehensions of Yoritomo. 
 Yoshinaka had already been treacherously led into dis-
 
 FROM BUDDHISM TO THE SHOGUNATE 47 
 
 loyalty and had been disposed of. Yoritomo now trumped 
 up a charge of treason and ordered Yoshitsune's execution. 
 The latter fled, but was betrayed, and committed suicide 
 rather than be killed by his heartless brother. Yoritomo 
 was supreme. 
 
 For further reading see: Griffis, The Mikadoes Empire; the 
 Kojiki and Nihongi; Lloyd, The Creed of Half Japan; Brinkley, 
 Japan, Its History, Arts and Literature; Brinkley,^ History of the 
 Japanese People; Davis, Japan from the Age of the Gods to the 
 Fall of Tsingtao; Asakawa, The Early Institutional Life of Japan; 
 Longford, The Story of Old Japan.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 The Shogunate: from its Foundation (it 92) to the 
 Accession of Iyeyasu (1603) 
 
 organization of the bakufu 
 
 It now became the difficult task of Yoritomo to organize 
 the power he had wrested from the Taira in such a way that 
 it would remain in the hands of his family. He placated the 
 powerful Buddhist monks and restored to the civil nobility 
 lands which had been lost during the long wars. He did not 
 attempt to usurp the imperial throne, nor even to remove 
 the Fujiwara nobility from their offices. He preserved the 
 court at Kyoto with its old offices and nominally with its 
 ^^^ ■''atithority. It was still in theory the source of all power in 
 '^ the state, and it was encouraged to maintain its ceremonies. 
 Yoritomo made it innocuous, however, by estabHshing side 
 by side with the older civil officialdom a military adminis- 
 tration owing allegiance to himself. With imperial sanction, 
 he appointed, in all the provinces, military constables ^ and 
 in most districts and private estates military tax-collectors.^ 
 These constables and tax-collectors were Yoritomo's own 
 vassals, owing allegiance to him. They did not displace 
 the regular local officials appointed by the civil government 
 at Kyoto, but shared and eclipsed their authority and 
 transacted official business with greater promptness and 
 efficiency. Taxes were levied on all lands but those of the 
 religious orders: the great estates of secular princes were 
 not, as during the later years of the Fujiwara, exempted 
 
 * Called shugo. * Called jito. 
 
 48
 
 THE SHOGUNATE 49 
 
 from these burdens. This military organization was called 
 the Bakufu, literally "camp office." Yoritomo was, of 
 course, its head, and in 1192 was given the title of "sei-i-tai- 
 shogun," or "great barbarian-subduing general," a title 
 usually abbreviated into "shogun." Strictly speaking the 
 word "shogun," meaning simply "general," was not new 
 but had for some time been a common appellation for 
 military officers of the highest rank. The center of the 
 bakufu Yoritomo did not leave at Kyoto, but removed to 
 the north to Kamakura, not far from the present Tokyo, 
 where he established a separate capital. Kamakura was 
 remote from the contaminating luxury of Kyoto, which had 
 proved so disastrous to the Fujiwara and even to the 
 Taira chief, and from the intrigues of the court nobility. 
 It was also nearer the military principalities of the north on 
 whose support the Minamoto primarily depended. Thus 
 there came to be two administrative systems, the one civil, 
 the other military, each with its own hierarchy of officials, 
 and each with its capital. The military, of course, pre- 
 dominated, although theoretically it was subordinate to 
 the civil, and the shogun acted only as the deputy of the 
 emperor. Of the elaborate organization copied from 
 China in the seventh and eighth centuries only the impotent 
 forms remained. Yoritomo must be ranked as one of the 
 greatest political geniuses of his nation, for with varying 
 vicissitudes and with only a brief interruption the dual 
 form of government that he inaugurated endured essen- 
 tially unaltered ijntil past the middle of the nineteenth 
 century, a period of more than six and a half centuries. 
 Had Japan been as seriously menaced by outside enemies 
 as was China, however, it is quite possible that the 
 divided authority of the system would have proved dis- 
 astrous.
 
 50 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 Yoritomo's descendants were unable long to retain the 
 control of the machinery that he had so carefully put in 
 operation. His house speedily suffered the fate that had 
 befallen both the imperial and the Fujiwara families. His 
 son proved incompetent and the real power fell into the 
 hands of the Hojo family, from which had come the consort 
 of the first shogun. The able head of that house ^ had 
 helped in the establishment of the bakufu. He and his 
 treacherous son ^ by subtle intrigues succeeded in killing 
 the heirs of Yoritomo or reduced them to mere puppets. 
 The HoJo themselves never usurped the shogunate, out- 
 wardly retaining for the position the same reverence that 
 the Fujiwara had observed toward the institution of the 
 emperor. The office was kept in the hands of minors, how- 
 ever, whose retirement was forced when they approached 
 maturity. At first the office was reserved for the heirs of 
 Yoritomo, but as his direct line died out, young scions of 
 j^ the Fujiwara or of the imperial family were appointed. 
 The heads of the Hojo were content with the title of 
 "regent" ^ and with the substance of power. This latter 
 they wielded with relentless energy and controlled emperors 
 and shoguns with an iron hand. When, early in the history 
 of their rule, an ex-emperor "* attempted to assert his au- 
 thority and end the dual government, he was ruthlessly 
 defeated, the ruling emperor was forced into a monastery, 
 and the Hojo appointed one of their number as military 
 governor of Kyoto, thereafter controlling the imperial suc- 
 cession at will. Never had the royal house been treated 
 with such scant ceremony. The period of the Hojo 
 domination is known by their name and lasted from 1199 
 to 1333. 
 
 • Hojo Tokimasa. ' Shikken. 
 
 *Hojo Yoshitoki. *Go-Toba, in 1221.
 
 THE SHOGUNATE 51 
 
 THE HO JO ERA 
 
 The Hojo era, in spite of civil strife and military rule, 
 was not without progress in culture and art. New sects 
 of Buddhism arose, the expression of fresh needs and of 
 originality in reHgious thinking. Like the earlier divisions 
 of Buddhism that we have mentioned, all but one of these 
 had their origia outside Japan and were brought in from 
 China. They were modified, however, by their Japanese 
 adherents. In the latter half of the twelfth century the 
 Jodo ("Pure Land") sect had been added to the Tendai 
 and the Shingon groups. It taught salvation by faith in 
 Amida. This Amida or Amitabha, "the Buddha of Infinite 
 Light," was without beginning or end and was the father of 
 all beings. He had been incarnated at different times and 
 in various forms to bring salvation to men and at his last 
 appearance had vowed that he would not accept deliverance 
 by entering Buddhahood unless by so doing he could make 
 salvation possible for all men. He succeeded after much 
 suffering and opened a Paradise for the redeemed. Jodo 
 taught that Paradise was open to all who called on Amida 
 with faith. One is forcibly reminded of Christian teaching, 
 and some scholars have believed that they have established 
 the existence of an historic connection. 
 
 In the thirteenth century three more sects appeared. 
 The first, Shinshu, a form of Jodo, has sometimes been called 
 Buddhist Protestantism. It dispensed with elaborate acts 
 of devotion and ritual. Its priests married and it had no 
 monasteries. It translated its scriptures into the ver- 
 nacular and taught that salvation was achieved not 
 through abstruse philosophy or penances, abstinence from 
 meat, and elaborate ceremonies, but through simple faith 
 in Amida and devout prayer, purity, and earnestness of life.
 
 52 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 The second, or Zen group of sects, had a great influence 
 over the military class. It owed its origin to an Indian 
 priest who had come to China in the sixth century and had 
 attempted to reform the Buddhism of that land. Enlighten- 
 ment was to be obtained not primarily from books, but as 
 Gautama had found it, through meditation. Zen found its 
 way to Japan, and was greatly modified there. It demanded 
 of its followers a mode of intense mental concentration; to 
 know truth one must learn to look at the world from an 
 entirely new angle, and become indifferent to the vicissitudes 
 of Ufe. Zen encouraged a studied and primitive simplicity 
 and symbolized through it the deepest meanings. It valued 
 reserve, a perfect self-control backed by concentrated 
 energy. Its sternness and^Tts austerity were in contrast to 
 the softer teachings and ornate temples of the older sects, 
 Tendai and Shingon, that had appealed to the luxurious 
 court at Kyoto, It impressed mightily the warrior class 
 and while only a few practiced fully its exacting, rigorous 
 methods, it had a great effect upon feudal life. Painting, 
 architecture, landscape gardening, social intercourse and 
 etiquette, hterature, and calligraphy all showed its in- 
 fluence, particularly in the later feudal ages. 
 
 The third, or Nichiren group, bears the name of its 
 founder, an earnest, zealous preacher. He was distressed 
 by the religious and political decay of his day and as a 
 remedy taught a kind of monotheism, a belief in Gautama, 
 not Amida, as the Eternal One. He laid especial emphasis 
 on one book of the Buddhist scriptures. He bitterly de- 
 noimced the other sects and the evils of his times, and was 
 frequently in peril of his life at the hands of irate rulers. 
 His followers have used spectacular methods of reaching 
 the people. Far from restoring unity in Buddhism the sect 
 has itself broken up into many subdivisions.
 
 THE SHOGUNATE 53 
 
 As time went on Kamakura began to take on an air of 
 luxury and refinement. Magnificent temples were erected. 
 Tea was introduced from China and with its use there began 
 an elaborate ceremonial of tea-drinking closely associated 
 with the Zen sect and meant to have moral as well as aes- 
 thetic significance. With tea came porcelain utensils from 
 the continent, and in the attempt to copy them the Japanese 
 for the first time began to produce superior pottery of their 
 own. Sculpture flourished, especially in wood. Some 
 specimens bear comparison with the best of the work of the 
 Occident. Sword-makers raised their handicraft to the 
 rank of a fine art. Two notable schools of painting devel- 
 oped. One of them, in Kyoto, while admiring the old 
 Chinese masters, aspired to be distinctively Japanese. 
 The other, in Kamakura, adhered closely to the form in use 
 on the continent and remained decidedly Chinese. > 
 
 Once during the period Japan was seriously threatened 
 by foreign invasion. The Mongols, a Central Asiatic tribe, 
 having achieved unity under some remarkably able leaders 
 and generals, in the thirteenth century overran Central and 
 Western Asia and Eastern Europe, and established them- 
 selves on the throne of China. In the latter part of the 
 thirteenth century the Mongol emperor of China, Kublai 
 Khan, decided to attempt the annexation of Japan. A first 
 expedition was sent in 1274 but was beaten back, and a 
 second more elaborate one was dispatched seven years later. 
 Against the invasion the Japanese united as one people, 
 forgetting for a time their divisions. It needed all their 
 strength to repulse it, for Kublai had endeavored through 
 years of preparation to concentrate on it the resources of 
 all his vast domains. His Chinese dominions had been 
 annoyed by Japanese pirates and his wrath had been 
 aroused by the ignominious death that the Hojo had in-
 
 54 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 flicted on his messengers. The Japanese bravely assaulted 
 the armada which bore the invading army and held it at 
 bay until one of the sudden storms of the region arose and 
 destroyed it. It was probably the most notable deliverance 
 in the nation's history. Japan remained the one civilized 
 state in the Far East that had successfully resisted the 
 Mongol arms. 
 
 THE ASHIKAGA PERIOD 
 
 In time the power of the Hojo was weakened. The de- 
 feat of the Mongol invasion strained their resources and for 
 various reasons added little to their prestige. The luxury 
 of the life at Kamakura did its baleful work. The regents 
 became corrupt and followed the evil custom of retiring 
 early in life, each in turn leaving his position to a child who 
 was controlled either by his ministers or an ex-regent. The 
 government presented the sorry spectacle of a puppet 
 guardian of a puppet shogun who was in turn the agent of a 
 puppet emperor. Dire mismanagement followed. When 
 dissatisfaction was j^ i^s^height there chanced to be on the 
 imperial throne a monarch, Go-Daigo, who, imlike most of 
 his immediate predecessors, was a mature man at the time^ 
 of his accession. He made aTdesperate efifort to regain the 
 substance of the power whose shadow he enjoyed, and to 
 end the dual government. Years of civil war followed. 
 For a time the Hojo prevailed and Go-Daigo was driven 
 into exile. The Hojo tyranny, however, had aroused such 
 great opposition that many of the military class rallied to 
 the support of the emperor. Aided by them, especially 
 by a scion of the Minamoto, Ashikaga ^ Takauji, and by 
 two who are still greatly honored in Japan as noble patriots, 
 Nitta Yoshisada and Kusonoki Masashige, the emperor 
 ^ His family name was Ashikaga.
 
 THE SHOGUNATE 55 
 
 finally prevailed. Kamakura was taken and sacked and 
 the Hojo rule came to an end. Go-Daigo, while brilliant 
 and capable, was lacking in political discretion. After the 
 victory he divided the spoils among his followers with such 
 injustice that dissatisfaction arose. A disproportionate 
 amoimt of the lands of his enemies went to his favorites 
 among the incompetent court nobility and to the scheming 
 Ashikaga Takauji, to the discomfiture of many loyal soldiers 
 who had helped him in the day of battle. The discontent 
 found a leader in Takauji, who turned against his imperial 
 master. Nitta Yoshisada and Kusonoki Masashige, al- 
 though they had been shabbily treated by Go-Daigo, re- 
 mained loyal to him. After a struggle of some months, in 
 which the tide of battle flowed and ebbed, these two cham- 
 pions of the throne were killed and Go-Daigo was driven 
 from Kyoto (1336). Takauji placed upon the throne his 
 own candidate from the imperial line and had himself 
 appointed shogun. This appointee of Takauji was declared 
 by Go-Daigo to be a usurper and two rival royal lines came 
 into existence. The Ashikaga and their candidate retained 
 control of Kyoto and most of the nation, and Go-Daigo and 
 his descendants, according to native historians the legit- 
 imate house, held sway in Yamato. For over half a century 
 civil war between the two lines was kept up. Private feuds 
 added to the disorder and for a time all centralized author- 
 ity seemed to be doomed. A reconciliation was reached 
 between the rival branches of the imperial house, by the 
 southern court practically yielding its claim to the throne 
 and imiting itself with the northern. 
 
 The two centuries (1392-1603) that followed the union of 
 the two courts ^ were not destined to be peaceful. The 
 
 ^ Called the Muromachi period from the section of Kyoto where the 
 Ashikaga shogxms built their palace.
 
 56 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 habit of disorder had become too firmly fixed during the 
 years of civil strife to be quickly overcome, and Takauji 
 had not proved himself the able organizer that Yoritomo 
 had been. He had attempted too often to quiet opposition 
 by kindness rather than vigorous cruelty and had helped 
 to endow rival families with wide lands. After the union 
 of the dynasties, civil war continued for several decades 
 over the disputes that had arisen while the two were sep- 
 arate. To hold the southern court in check the Ashikaga 
 shoguns had located their seat at Kyoto, and Kamakura, the 
 former capital of the hakufu, became a center of sedition. 
 Then there were conflicts over the succession to the sho- 
 gunate, and candidates, often mere puppets, were cham- 
 pioned by rival parties. The power of the individual mil- 
 itary families grew, and away from the immediate vicinity 
 of Kyoto each was erecting for itself what was virtually 
 an autonomous domain. In their struggles for the sho- 
 gimate and with the southern party the Ashikaga had been 
 forced to grant, as the price of support, extensive estates to 
 the military families, and rights of autonomy which Yor- 
 itomo would never have thought of conceding. 
 
 Disorder extended even beyond the bounds of the empire. 
 Daring Japanese merchant pirates harrassed the shores of 
 China, plundering and burning cities and towns, avenging 
 the invasion of the Mongols and the failure of the Chinese to 
 grant satisfactory trading privileges. They raided such 
 centers as Ningpo, Shanghai, and Soochow and extended 
 their operations to the Philippines, and to Siam, Burma, 
 and India. For a time it seemed that the Japanese might 
 become a seafaring people, and anticipate by three hundred 
 and fifty years their commercial achievements of the 
 twentieth century. 
 
 Internal disorder was augmented by Buddhist warrior-
 
 THE SHOGUNATE 57 
 
 monks. Monasteries had grown rich on the gifts of pious 
 emperors, shoguns, and nobles, and sometimes housed 
 groups of thousands of trained fighters. In the years of dis- 
 order many of the inmates of these religious houses had 
 armed themselves. More than frequently men assumed 
 the robes of the priest for other than religious reasons and 
 in time the greater monasteries had become the abode of 
 desperadoes who terrorized the surrounding country. One ^ 
 even dominated Kyoto and for years kept it in constant 
 dread. 
 
 The anarchy was still further increased by the extrav- 
 agance of the Ashikaga shoguns. With their capital at 
 Kyoto, they had fallen victims to the luxury and vices 
 traditionally associated with the imperial court. Their 
 excesses had weakened their moral fiber and had neces- 
 sitated the levy of burdensome taxes. The military fam- 
 ilies, as their power grew, contributed less and less to the 
 national treasury, and the burden of supporting the state 
 fell on a narrowing region around Kyoto. The load finally 
 became unbearable and the populace rose in riots, refusing 
 to pay taxes and asking that all debts be cancelled. Under 
 the later Ashikaga the capital was partly in ruins from the 
 civil strife and the revenues had so fallen off that the nobles 
 of the imperial court were forced to become pensioners of 
 the feudal chiefs. The emperors were in dire distress.. 
 The coronation of one had to be deferred for lack of funds 
 to defray the expenses; another is said to have been re- 
 duced to the straits of selling his autographs and becoming a 
 copyist of poems and extracts from the classics to obtain the 
 necessities of Hfe. The body of still another is said to have 
 remained unburied for many days for lack of funds to meet 
 the funeral charges. 
 
 ^ Hiyeisan.
 
 58 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 One Ashikaga shogun ^ brought down on his head the 
 curses of all future Japanese patriots by acknowledging the 
 overlordship of China and accepting from its emperor the 
 title of "King of Japan." Under several of these shoguns 
 trade with the Middle Kingdom was carried on as an 
 official monopoly. The government's ships went to Ningpo 
 and were treated by the Chinese as bearers of tribute. The 
 Ashikaga calmly acquiesced, for the expeditions were 
 lucrative and the proceeds were a welcome addition to the 
 revenues of the state. 
 
 The anarchy was further increased by the arrival of 
 Europeans. The explorations of the Portuguese in the age 
 of discoveries, during the fifteenth and early sixteenth cen- 
 turies, so familiar to all students of Western history, had 
 finally brought them to Japan. Europe had probably first 
 heard of the country from the Venetian traveler, Marco 
 Polo, who had spent some years at the court of Kublai 
 Khan at the time the Mongol expedition against Japan was 
 being organized. He brought back to the Occident mar- 
 velous tales of the riches of the islands, and it was partly 
 the hope of rediscovering the country that led Columbus to 
 undertake his famous search for a direct Western route to 
 the East. It was in 1542, nearly fifty years after Vasco da 
 Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope, that the Portuguese 
 reached Japan, the first Europeans to view its shores. They 
 established commerce, chiefly with the ports of the southern 
 island, Kiushiu. They brought with them two things which 
 were to affect profoundly the future of the nation, firearms 
 and Christianity. 
 
 Firearms were a new weapon to Japan and their use 
 partly helped the feudal lords to achieve a larger independ- 
 ence of the central government. Their use also transformed 
 
 ^ Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358-1408), the third shogun of the line.
 
 THE SHOGUNATE 59 
 
 the strongholds of the military chiefs. No longer were 
 wooden structures and simple earthen walls sufficient de- 
 fense. There arose great castles with massive walls of stone 
 which are still the wonder of the tourist. 
 
 Christianity was first brought by the zealous and heroic 
 Jesuit, Francis Xavier, who arrived in Japan in 1549, with 
 some Portuguese and Japanese companions. Xavier was 
 in the islands about two years and penetrated as far as 
 Kyoto. He was followed by other members of the Society 
 of Jesus. The message of these earnest men found a quick 
 and eager response. In ceremonial, doctrine, and organiza- • 
 tion Roman Catholic Christianity seemed to the Japanese 
 but little different from the Buddhism to which they were 
 already accustomed. Accepting Christianity meant a 
 further share in the valuable trade with the merchants of — 
 the West, so they were predisposed in its favor. Buddhism 
 had partly failed to meet the religious needs of the people J 
 and at this time was at a low ebb morally and spiritually. 
 For reasons that we shall see later the new faith was favored 
 at the capital. By 1581, or in less than a generation after 
 Xavier's arrival, there were reported to be two hundred 
 churches and one hundred and fifty thousand Christians. 
 At the height of the mission the converts are said to have 
 numbered six hundred thousand, although this figure may 
 be an exaggeration. Two embassies from feudal lords were 
 sent to Rome, and for a time it seemed as though Japan 
 were about to become a Christian country. The new faith, 
 however, added to the existing discord in the nation. Its 
 missionaries were intolerant and insisted that the Christian 
 lords use force to stamp out Buddhism and Shinto. This 
 naturally led to opposition and disturbances. Moreover, 
 following in the wake of the Portuguese Jesuits came 
 Spanish Dominicans, Franciscans, and Augustinians from
 
 6o . THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 the Philippine Islands. These friars fell to quarreling with 
 the Jesuits and the confusion was accentuated. 
 
 What with the rivalries of the military chiefs, the Bud- 
 dhist warrior-monks, the weakness of the central govern- 
 ment, the anarchy at the capital, the introduction of fire- 
 arms, and the divisions caused by Christianity, it seemed for 
 a time that the nation might break up. 
 
 All was not dark, however. In the first place, the period 
 was not one of utter depravity and barbarism. In spite of 
 civil war, in spite of the robbers that infested the capital 
 and the provinces, in spite of disunion, there was some 
 progress in culture. Even at Kyoto there were occasional 
 times of quiet when the arts of peace might flourish. At the 
 courts of some of the great feudal barons, or daimyo ("great 
 name"), as they came to be called, there was to be found a 
 regard for the refinements of life, even though the lu^ry of 
 the capital was despised. Here and there were towns, 
 partly the result of the semi-piratical commerce with the «^ 
 continent. The Zen sect of Buddhism and its closely allied[^ 
 ceremony of tea-drinking grew in popularity. Artistic danc- 
 ing had its votaries, as it had had from the dawn of the 
 nation's history, and a severely classical style that was 
 evolved then is still in vogue in aristocratic circles. Under 
 the auspices of Buddhism the drama began its growth. 
 The tasteful arrangement of flowers became popular as a 
 special study. Landscape gardening, for which Japan is 
 so justly famous, received much attention. It owed its 
 inception, as does so much else that is good in Japan, to 
 Chinese models, but these had been greatly unproved upon. 
 The studied simphcity and attempt to preserve nature, for 
 instance, that are the ideals of one school of Japanese 
 gardeners, are in sharp contrast to the elaborate formaUsm 
 of the continental artists. The burning of incense took on
 
 THE SHOGUNATE 6l 
 
 the proportions of an exacting, complicated avocation in 
 polite society. Wrestling was evolved from its earlier and 
 simpler forms to a specialized vocation. Sword-making, as 
 might be expected in an age so largely military, attained the 
 rank of a fine art. The secrets of manufacture were handed 
 down from father to son and choice specimens were as 
 famous as the greatest paintings and almost as costly. 
 Painting was not entirely neglected, but was pursued by 
 some whose names rank with the greatest that Japan has 
 produced.^ Bushido, "the way of the warrior," the ethical 
 code of the military class, was elaborated. 
 
 JAPAN UNDER CONTROL OF MILITARY LEADERS 
 
 In the second place, out of the anarchy of these years 
 arose the men who were to reestablish order, vigorous 
 leaders without whom the Japan of to-day would have been 
 impossible. It was natural that the shifting fortunes and 
 the struggles of such troublous times should enable the 
 strongest men to come to the front. Birth coxmted for less 
 than it had in some previous centuries, and the man of 
 merit and ability had a much better chance of recognition 
 than he would have had in peaceful times when society was 
 more stereot)^ed. Members of the lower orders of the 
 military class arose and struggled to establish their su- 
 premacy. Three of these stand out preeminently, as suc- 
 cessive masters of the nation, Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi 
 Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa lyeyasu, more commonly re- 
 ferred to simply by their personal names Nobunaga, 
 Hideyoshi, and lyeyasu. The last was to organize a form of 
 government that was to endure until past the middle of the 
 nineteenth century. 
 
 1 Two of the greatest painters of the time were Sesshu and Moton- 
 obu. They followed the models of the Sung dynasty artists of China.
 
 62 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 The first of these, Nobunaga, rose through a series of 
 successful wars with his neighbors and in 1568, at the in- 
 vitation of the emperor, came to Kyoto to restore order. 
 Partly through the favor of the imperial house he made 
 himself master of Kyoto and reduced the shogun to the 
 position of a mere puppet. From that time his life was 
 largely a series of wars waged to maintain his position. He 
 fought other feudal lords who desired to emulate his success. 
 He fought the warrior-monks and subdued them, destroying 
 one great monastery at Osaka and another ^ that dominated 
 the capital. In his hatred of these monks and Buddhism in 
 general he viewed with favor the coming of the Jesuits and 
 furthered their propaganda, quite possibly in the hope that 
 this new sect might help him in his fight with the older. He 
 did not formally assume a high office but was content to 
 rule the empire simply as the most powerful of the feudal 
 princes. In one of his wars (1582) he was trapped unex- 
 pectedly by a vassal and, in accordance with the traditions 
 of his class, committed suicide rather than allow himself to 
 be captured in disgrace. Nobunaga had had two able 
 lieutenants, Hideyoshi and lyeyasu, who were now in turn 
 to dominate the nation. 
 
 Hideyoshi is one of the most remarkable men that Japan 
 has produced, and has at times been called its Napoleon. 
 He was of humble birth, not being even of warrior (samurai) 
 rank. His youth was spent in the most desperate poverty. 
 As a lad of six he lost his father. At sixteen he was able to 
 attach himself to a small daimyo with whom he became 
 popular. He later joined Nobunaga, by sheer abihty arose 
 to high command, and eventually became one of the two 
 chief Heutenants of his master. 
 
 lyeyasu was of Minamoto blood and so was eligible for 
 
 ^ Hiyeisan.
 
 THE SHOGUNATE 63 
 
 the position of shogun. He owed his position, however, not 
 so much to family connections as to genius, and was to 
 emerge as the final organizer of the feudal system and one 
 of the ablest statesman that his nation has produced. He 
 was frugal and hardworking, and could bide his time with 
 infinite patience. While he was utterly unscrupulous in the 
 use of means for attaining his own ends and never allowed 
 his heart to interfere with his designs, he won men by his 
 affability and was not without feelings of generosity and 
 justice. His resourcefulness seemed inexhaustible and his 
 judgment almost infallible. 
 
 The sons of Nobunaga proved incapable of maintaining 
 their leadership of the nation after their father's death. 
 Civil strife followed and out of it Hideyoshi emerged as 
 master. lyeyasu, for a time his enemy, soon allied himself 
 with him, and became his chief lieutenant. By a combina- 
 tion of tact and force Hideyoshi put down opposition and 
 united all Japan under his sway. He crushed his opponents, 
 even in remote districts like Kiushiu, by masterful cam- 
 paigns, and then often won the support of the vanquished 
 by generous terms. He was a remarkably accurate judge 
 of men, a skillful strategist, and an extremely able adminis- 
 trator. While he never overcame some of the defects of his 
 plebeian birth and early training, these did not seriously 
 handicap his success. Not being of Minamoto blood he 
 could not become shogun, but he had himself adopted by 
 one of the Fujiwara and was appointed to the post of regent, 
 an office heretofore reserved to members of that aristocratic 
 family, and later was given the title of Taiko, "great merit," 
 by which he is usually known to Japanese readers. He is 
 the one instance in the nation's history of the rise of a com- 
 moner to the highest position open to a subject. 
 
 After subjugating the nation, Hideyoshi gave himself to
 
 64 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 the task of unifying and increasing his power. At first he 
 favored Christianity, but he soon came to oppose it, for he 
 felt it to be a source of dissension, and feared that it might 
 pave the way for an invasion by the Spanish or Portuguese. 
 Because of greater interests elsewhere, however, he did not 
 strictly enforce against it his edicts of proscription. He 
 built extensively in Osaka, the port of Kyoto, and laid the 
 foimdations of the prosperity of that city. Not content 
 with controlling Japan, he dreamed of foreign commercial 
 and political expansion. He encouraged daring Japanese 
 mariners to sail to Macao, the Philippines, Cambodia, and 
 Annam. 
 
 Near by was Korea, and Hideyoshi planned to reduce it 
 and use it as a gateway for the conquest of China. He 
 probably felt, too, that a foreign expedition would be a con- 
 venient channel into which to divert the martial spirit of 
 the feudal lords, and prevent their plotting against him. 
 War was forced and in 1592 Hideyoshi's armies crossed to 
 the mainland and began their attack. This was carried on 
 with great cruelty and won for the Japanese the abiding 
 hatred of the Koreans. The invasion also involved the 
 islanders with China, for the Celestial Empire claimed the 
 peninsula as a vassal state and felt that its possession by an 
 alien power would be a menace to the imperial borders. 
 Korea had been united some centuries before, but was then 
 in decay and found it difficult to offer an effective resistance. 
 The prolonged attack was only partially successful; it 
 drained Japan of men and money and caused endless 
 anxiety to its author. Peace negotiations were begun with 
 China but were angrily broken off by Hideyoshi when he 
 learned that he was to be invested by the emperor of China 
 with the title of a tributary king. Finally after the Taiko's 
 death in 1598 the troops were recalled. The Japanese
 
 l^E SHOGUNATE 65 
 
 power in the peninsula soon dwindled to a shadowy claim of 
 suzerainty which was not vigorously enforced. Occasional 
 embassies were sent from Korea to acknowledge the over- 
 lordship of the island empire, but there was no attempt at 
 interference in the internal affairs of the vassal state. 
 
 Hideyoshi had spent much time in attempting to make 
 the succession secure for his only son, Hideyori, and had 
 perfected an elaborate council of regency jnade up of the_ 
 strong men of the realm with lyeyasu as president. These 
 all solemnly promised to be true to their trust and to their 
 lord's heir. The great warrior was scarcely in his grave, 
 however, before dissensions broke out. Hideyori was a 
 mere lad and of course could not keep the turbulent feudal 
 chiefs under control. Within two years Japan was in two 
 armed camps, one made up chiejfly of southern daimyo and 
 in possession of Hideyori, the other led by lyeyasu, who had 
 thus proved untrue to his trust as president of the regency. 
 jrh^ejtwx>.armies met at Sekigahara not far from Kyoto, and 
 there followed one of the decisive battles of the nation's 
 history. Aided by treason in the enemy's ranks, lyeyasu 
 won, and was henceforth master of the country. Hideyori, 
 his mother, and his immediate followers retired to the 
 strong castle at Osaka which his father had bmlt. Out- 
 wardly he submitted to the Tokugawa and for some years 
 was not molested. He was not constrained to Join the 
 feudal sytsem that lyeyasu was organizing and was even 
 married to that astute person's granddaughter. As Hideyori 
 approached maturity, however, he gave promise of real 
 vigor and ability. There began to gather around him at 
 Osaka all those who were discontented with the Tokugawa's 
 rule. lyeyasu's apprehensions were aroused and in 161 5 
 he trumped up a cause for a quarrel. The castle was at- 
 tacked but proved so impregnable that lyeyasu withdrew.
 
 66 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 feigning a desire for peace. An agreement was entered into 
 by which Hideyori, in exchange for quiet, trustingly but 
 unwisely allowed the outer defenses of his fortress to be 
 razed and the moat to be filled. lyeyasu then returned to 
 the attack, the castle was fired by traitors and Hideyori and 
 his mother perished. All opposition of the Taiko's followers 
 now ceased. 
 
 For further reading see: Griffis, The Mikado's Empire; Lloyd, 
 The Creed of Half Japan; Brinkley, Japan, Its History, Arts 
 and Literature; Brinkley, A History of the Japanese People; 
 Longford, The Story of Old Japan; Longford, The Story of Korea.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 The Shogunate: From the Accession of Iyeyasu (1603) 
 TO the Coming of Perry (1853) 
 
 iyeyasu reorganizes the shogunate 
 
 After disposing of the heir of Hideyoshi, Iyeyasu faced 
 the great task of consolidating his conquests and insuring 
 their permanence in the hands of his family. It is here that 
 his distinctive genius shines out. He was fortunately suc- 
 ceeded by an able son and grandson, Hidetada (1579-1632), 
 „ and lyemitsu (1603-165 1) , who walked in his steps. So well 
 I did these three do their work that the empire was dominated 
 by their house for two and a half centuries and for over two 
 I centuries the country was undisturbed by war. The means 
 I that they used to achieve these ends were various. In the 
 I first place, Iyeyasu had himself appointed shogun (1603) 
 and thus placed himself at the head of the feudalized mili- 
 tary system that had first been organized by Yoritomo, over 
 four hundred years before. He located the military capital 
 |. at Yedo, the present Tokyo, away from the imperial court, 
 nearer the geographical center of the main island and in the 
 North, from which most of his support came. The city 
 became in time the largest in the land. Its castle, the 
 residence of the shoguns, was a massive and extensive piece 
 of masonry and in an altered form is to-day the imperial 
 palace. Iyeyasu surrounded Yedo with fiefs held by mem- 
 bers of his own family, the Tokugawa. All strategic points 
 were placed in the hands of chiefs whom he could trust. 
 Officials responsible to the shogun were put over the prin- 
 
 67
 
 68 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 cipal cities, and the main highway between Tokyo and 
 Yedo was carefully guarded. lyeyasu skillfully distributed 
 fiefs among members of his family and loyal barons wherever 
 there seemed likely to be disaffection. Thus two great 
 families, possible aspirants for the shogunate, were certain 
 to find a strong fief organized near them or between them 
 and given to a Tokugawa. The funds of those barons of 
 whose loyalty there was any doubt were depleted by the 
 enforced construction of great works, especially castles. 
 
 All daimyo were commanded to maintain houses in Yedo. 
 Each was to keep some of his family or retainers there 
 throughout half of the year as hostages for his good be- 
 havior, and each was himself to spend the other half of the 
 year there, where he could be watched. The rules regarding 
 hostages, it may be added, were cancelled by the fourth of 
 the Tokugawa shoguns. Deputy governors under the direct 
 control of Yedo were scattered through the country, and 
 were still another check on the daimyo. The feudal barons 
 were allowed a great deal of liberty within their own fiefs, 
 and the commoners — merchants, farmers, and towns- 
 people — were encouraged to govern their local affairs 
 through guilds, city elders, and village chiefs. All officers 
 were held strictly accountable for the maintainance of 
 order, however, and a habit of discipline and obedience was 
 acquired which was in sharp contrast to the anarchy and 
 excessive individualism of the last years of the Ashikaga. 
 This habit of discipline was to be of service to the nation in 
 the great changes of the nineteenth century. 
 
 The imperial institution was not destroyed, but the em- 
 peror was effectively barred from any active interference in 
 national affairs by the clever expedient of increasing his 
 sanctity. His divine origin was emphasized and was held 
 to remove him from the sordid duties of ruling and of con-
 
 THE SHOGUNATE 69 
 
 ceming himself with the material affairs of his realm. None 
 but his most intimate ministers and the members of his 
 family were to come into intimate contact with him. No 
 others might see his sacred face. He was to devote himself 
 to honoring his imperial ancestors and obtaining their 
 blessings for the realm. He was still held, however, to be 
 the source of all authority and the shoguns were in theor}/-.. 
 merely his servants. He was provided with a modest but 
 sujficient revenue and was allowed to confer empty titles of 
 honor. The old civil or court nobility was preserved and 
 the sanctity in which it was held was increased, but it was 
 provided with only meager stipends, and was given no part 
 in the active administration. The appointment and tenure 
 of the emperor's chief officials were virtually under the con- 
 trol of the bakufu. From this same source, and not from 
 independent estates, were derived the incomes of the 
 monarch and the court aristocracy. To make the imperial 
 impotence doubly certain, Kyoto was surrounded by a 
 cordon of fiefs held by military lords on whose loyalty the 
 Tokugawa could depend, and Osaka, the port to Kyoto, 
 was governed directly by the shogun. 
 
 All classes of society were carefully controlled by minute 
 and exact regulations. The imperial court, feudal lords, 
 warriors, and commoners had their actions, their dress, and 
 their food strictly standardized. Confusion and turmoil 
 were reduced to a minimum by a most elaborate system of 
 governmental supervision. Education, the printing of 
 books, and especially the study and teaching of the works of 
 the Chinese Confucian scholars were fostered, possibly in 
 the belief that by these means public and private morality 
 would be made stable and order become secure. The 
 successive shoguns helped the merchant and farming classes 
 by favorable ndes and public works. This may have been
 
 70 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 done with the conviction that if the country were pros- 
 perous there would be no unrest. 
 
 lyeyasu initiated and his successors completed the consol- 
 idation of the nation by stamping out Christianity and cut- 
 ting off all but the scantiest intercourse with the outside 
 world. We have already seen how the foreign faith was in- 
 troduced by the Jesuits, and how its rapid growth and the 
 discord created by it led to its proscription by Hideyoshi. 
 That proscription was not fully carried out and in the years 
 that followed Christianity continued to spread. Foreign 
 priests kept up their propaganda and many of the inhab- 
 itants, possibly 600,000 in all, principally in Kiushiu and 
 other southern portions of the empire, became Christians. 
 During the earlier years of his rule lyeyasu was apparently 
 not averse to Christianity and distinctly favored the mis- 
 sionaries on several occasions. He seems to have had no 
 religious motive in this, but did it as a commercial measure. 
 He was exerting himself to open up and maintain trade 
 with Europe and the lands of Eastern Asia. For a number 
 of years commercial relations were kept up with Spain 
 through Mexico, and the Dutch and the English were both 
 permitted to establish trading factories in the South. 
 Japanese merchants made their way unopposed by the 
 shogun to the Philippines, Annam, Siam, China, and India, 
 lyeyasu was eager to see a mercantile marine developed and 
 Japan's mines opened. Gradually, however, his attitude 
 underwent a change and toward the latter part of his life he 
 became hostile to Christianity. Hidetada and lyemitsu, 
 especially the latter, were even more bitter and ended not 
 only by stamping out Christianity but by closing the coun- 
 try against all but the slightest contact with the outside 
 world. It is difficult to ascertain all the reasons for this 
 policy, but a few are apparent. An envoy sent to Europe
 
 THE SHOGUNATE 71 
 
 reported unfavorably on what he had seen of the foreign 
 religion in its own home. A shipwrecked Englishman, 
 Will Adams, won the regard of lyeyasu and painted in an 
 unfavorable light the history of the Catholic Church, en- 
 couraging the suspicion that the propaganda of Spanish 
 and Portuguese missionaries was but the preliminary to 
 political aggression. A Christian conspiracy was discovered 
 against the shogun and his authority was defied by a Fran- 
 ciscan father. There were unseemly dissensions and rival- 
 ries between the different missionary orders. The mission- 
 aries, especially the Jesuits, obeyed their religious superiors 
 rather than the temporal authorities, an attitude that was 
 intolerable to shoguns who were trying to insure peace by 
 centralizing all power in their own hands. The Spaniards 
 tried to shut out the Dutch, and the Dutch in turn tried to 
 shut out the English from the Japanese trade. In 16 14 
 lyeyasu ordered that all foreign priests be expelled, that all 
 churches be destroyed, and that all Japanese Christians 
 be compelled to renounce their faith. His determination to 
 enforce the edict was strengthened by the evident sympathy 
 of the Christian communities with Hideyori in his last stand. 
 It was also reinforced by the persistent refusal of the 
 missionaries to leave Japan. They hid themselves, or were 
 deported only to return. Such contumacy boded ill for the 
 peace and unity that it was lyeyasu's chief ambition to 
 establish. lyeyasu died (1616) before he could fully carry 
 out his policy of repression. Hidetada and lyemitsu, how- 
 ever, continued and made more stringent his anti-Christian 
 policy. Missionaries persisted in coming to Japan and many 
 of the native Christians refused to renounce their faith. 
 Their stubborn disobedience strengthened the fears of the 
 shoguns. It seemed evident that the prestige and possibly 
 the supremacy of the Tokugawa was at stake. To the
 
 72 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 alarmed Yedo chiefs it was even conceivable that Japanese 
 independence might be threatened. The foreign faith was 
 proscribed primarily on poHtical, not on religious grounds. 
 As in the early Roman empire, Christianity seemed to mean 
 treason. The most stringent measures were adopted to 
 stamp out the church. Missionaries and converts were 
 apprehended by the thousand and on refusing to renounce 
 their faith were killed, many of them by the most cruel 
 methods. The fine heroism of the martyrs but heightened 
 the apprehensions and determination of the Tokugawa 
 officials. The persecution culminated in a rebellion in 1638 ^ 
 when most of the remaining Christians rose as a unit and 
 made a last stand in an old castle not far from Nagasaki. 
 They were annihilated by the government troops and the 
 church practically ceased to exist. The edicts against it 
 were strictly enforced until well into the nineteenth century. 
 Registration in the Buddhist temples of all persons was made 
 compulsory. All Japanese were forced to profess allegiance 
 to some branch of Buddhism, and all suspected of being 
 recalcitrant were required on pain of death to tread on the 
 emblems of the Christian faith. Only in one or two remote 
 localities, and under disguised forms, did the foreign reli- 
 gion persist. 
 
 The stubborn resistance of the Christians could not but 
 arouse in the shoguns a suspicion of all foreign trade. For 
 a time the effort was made to keep up the much desired com- 
 merce with the Spanish and Portuguese, but as the persecu- 
 tion of the Christians became more severe and missionaries 
 continued to come on the vessels of their nationals, the 
 Yedo officials decided that all intercourse with Spain and 
 Portugal must be stopped. Trade with the former was in- 
 terdicted in 1624 and with the latter in 1638. When, in 
 ^ The Shimabara revolt.
 
 THE SHOGUNATE 73 
 
 1640, the Portuguese tried to resume intercourse, their 
 messengers were decapitated. To make certain that no 
 disturbing influences would invade the empire, all Japanese 
 were forbidden to leave the country and any one who suc- 
 ceeded in doing so was to be executed on his return. The 
 building of any vessels large enough for over-seas traffic was 
 interdicted. The English had for a few years maintained 
 their trading factory but found it unprofitable and closed 
 it. They later desired to reopen commerce but were not 
 permitted to do so. Of all European nations only the 
 Dutch were allowed to continue to send ships. They were 
 by their past history bitterly opposed to the Catholic church 
 and were not at all eager to propagate their Protestant faith. 
 They had even helped the Tokugawa officials to exterminate 
 the Japanese Christians. Less fear therefore was felt of 
 them. Still, they were Christians, and to the timorous 
 officials at Yedo were not entirely above suspicion. Their 
 trade drained the country of specie and restriction was 
 gradually increased until they were eventually allowed to 
 come only to one port, Nagasaki. There their merchants 
 were carefully confined to a small island ^ and were for- 
 bidden to hold any rehgious service. Only a few ships a 
 year could come and the number was eventually reduced to 
 one. Only once a year could any of the Dutch come 
 ashore, and then merely to make a strictly guarded journey 
 to Yedo to do homage to the shogun. The most minute 
 regulations were adopted for all intercourse with them. In 
 spite of the humiliations it entailed the Dutch continued 
 their trade because for many years it was highly lucrative. 
 Their imports were largely silk and piece goods and these 
 they exchanged for gold and copper which sold in Europe at 
 a large profit. 
 
 * Deshima.
 
 74 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 With this slight exception, Japan was now hermetically 
 sealed against contamination from the Occident. The 
 land entered on more than two centuries of hermit life. A 
 few ideas filtered in through the Dutch, and a carefully- 
 regulated one-sided commerce was carried on by the 
 Chinese who were themselves almost equally well sealed 
 against contact with Europe. That this voluntary isolation 
 was a disadvantage is open to question. It is true that it 
 deprived Japan of the stimulus that comes from interna- 
 tional competition, but disintegration might have re- 
 sulted. In the ensuing centuries she was being pre- 
 pared for the great awakening that took place with the 
 renewal of intercourse with the West by Commodore 
 Perry. 
 
 The Tokugawa organization had at last insured internal 
 and external peace. The centuries of disorder and civil 
 strife had come to an end. The system, however, carried 
 within it the seeds of its own destruction. It became an 
 anomaly. Warlike in its origin and purpose, an organized 
 mihtary feudalism, all its strength was now directed to the 
 repression of strife. Its decay was inevitable. It was like 
 the shell of a chrysalis. Within it the nation could rest and 
 become prepared for the transformation of the nineteenth 
 century, but in the shock of that transformation the shell 
 was to be destroyed. The years of peace led to great 
 changes within the nation. For the first time since the 
 seventh century it began to be a unit. The Tokugawa sys- 
 tem forced it to cease to be a group of warring clans, and 
 to act as a whole. True, the forms of feudalism were 
 preserved and the fiefs still existed. National unity was 
 not complete, but the barriers that had helped to divide the 
 nation were being weakened. Although the hakuju issued 
 no extensive codes, it published a system of rules by which
 
 THE SHOGUNATE 75 
 
 the actions of every subject were carefully ordered. Obe- 
 dience to laws issued by a central authority was becoming a 
 habit. 
 
 Moreover, the nation was becoming more prosperous. 
 With order insured, the farmerand the artisan could pursue 
 their occupations unmolested. The state encouraged agri- 
 culture and undertook irrigation and riparian works. Peas- 
 ant proprietorship of land increased, and village self- 
 government was strengthened. Roads were unproved. 
 Internal commerce grew in volume. The attention of the 
 military chiefs was turned from fighting to the pastimes of 
 peace. Luxury sprang up, and extravagant amusements, 
 methods of dress, eating, and living became common. The 
 wishes of the mighty were catered to by a merchant class 
 which itself became wealthy. Commercial capital was 
 accumulated and the currency was improved. Although 
 there were occasional famines and epidemics of disease, 
 population increased. There was but little abject poverty, 
 and the cities had no slums to compare with those of 1 
 modern London or New York. '■~ 
 
 Education became fairly widespread and literature and 
 art flourished. In the capital and the homes of the daitnyo, 
 schools were established and the sons of the rude soldiers 
 became polished men of the world. Lecture halls were 
 maintained for the common people. There was much 
 study of the Chinese classical writers. This had been en- 
 couraged, it will be remembered, by lyeyasu and his 
 successors, and it was given additional impetus by the influx 
 of Chinese scholars after the downfall of the Ming dynasty 
 in the middle of the seventeenth century before the Manchu 
 invasion. For the first time in the nation's history the 
 avowed followers of Confucius became niunerous. There 
 had been for many centuries a few in nearly every genera-
 
 76 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 tion who called themselves such, but the teachings of the 
 Chinese sage had never previously been accorded so wide 
 a hearing. There were many lecturers on Confucianism, 
 and different sects arose, the two principal groups of which 
 followed the Chinese philosophers Chu Hsi and Wang 
 Yang Ming. The first, called Sho Shi in Japanese, had 
 long been known. He had taught that the world and its 
 laws must be studied before the moral code could be deter- 
 mined; knowledge must come first and right conduct would 
 follow. Wang Yang Ming (147 2-1 5 29), on the other hand, 
 held that a man's knowledge of the moral law is intuitive, 
 derived from looking within his own heart. Chu Hsi held 
 that all nature is the result of the working of two forces: 
 Wang Yang Ming held that these two forces are one. Chu 
 Hsi ruled out of the classics much of the supernatural. 
 He belittled religious observances and emphasized the 
 orderly processes of nature. His commentaries on the 
 writings of Confucius were received in China as official until 
 the twentieth century. In Japan, as in China, Chu Hsi was 
 given the support of the state, but Wang Yang Ming had 
 many devoted followers. He appealed strongly to the 
 samurai who adhered to the Zen sect of Buddhism. Most of 
 the upper classes became Confucianists, and while still 
 nominally adherents of Buddhism, rather openly regarded 
 the Indian faith as a mass of superstitions and fit only for the 
 unlettered masses. 
 
 The state encouraged the collection of books. Historians 
 basked in the light of ofl&cial favor and made extensive 
 studies of the nation's past. Painting and ceramics reached 
 new heights of achievement. Colored genre prints and a 
 popular literature were developed to please those of the 
 lower ranks. Famous works of architecture were being 
 produced, such, for example, as the beautiful temples that
 
 THE SHOGUNATE 77 
 
 still adorn the tomb of lyeyasu at Nikko. The old Japan 
 was perfecting its culture. 
 
 ""The old warrior or samurai class was decaying. It is 
 true that its ethical code, bushido, was being elaborated 
 more than ever before into a formal system and that mar- 
 tial exercises and ideals were encouraged. The spectacle of a 
 military caste being served by the entire nation, however, 
 and yet having not fought for decades, was an anomaly. 
 , Luxury was sapping the strength of the feudal soldiers. 
 The heirs of the great daimyo were falling under the control 
 of their retainers, much as the emperors in the old days had 
 fallen under the control of the Fujiwara and then of the 
 shoguns. Even the shoguns were at times dominated by 
 their ministers. The pernicious habit of abdication that 
 had been inaugurated for the emperors centuries before was 
 still popular; lyeyasu himself had retired some years before 
 his death, although he persisted in controlling the adminis- 
 tration from his seclusion. His successors frequently fol- 
 lowed his example. As a result the nominal shogun was 
 often a child and before he had reached middle life abdicated 
 in favor of a youthful heir. 
 
 Moreover, the increased leisure for study and its encour- 
 agement by the hakuju had turned men's thoughts to the 
 past. Japan's history was delved into and compiled and 
 with the work came a renewed love of things Japanese. 
 The language was studied and organized. A vernacular 
 literature, as opposed to one in the classical Chinese, was 
 developed. Shinto, the old native cult, was revived, and 
 with its revival came an increased reverence for the emperor, 
 its head. Buddhism, although it had been made a state 
 religion by the Tokugawa in their efforts to stamp out 
 Christianity, was looked at askance by these patriots, for 
 it too Wcis a foreign faith. But more important politically
 
 r 
 
 78 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 was the discovery by the historians that the emperor was 
 the rightful ruler of the nation and that the shogunate was 
 a comparatively recent innovation. Among a group of 
 scholars the conviction gained ground that the shogun 
 must resign and that the emperor must be restored to his 
 rightful place as the actual as well as the nominal head of 
 the nation. By a strange irony of fate this school of his- 
 torians had its birth in the home of one of the branches of 
 the Tokugawa family. 
 Reenforcing the renewed emphasis upon the institution 
 of the emperor, was the interest in Chinese classical Utera- 
 ture. The Tokugawa officials, when they promoted its 
 study and welcomed the fugitive scholars of the Ming, could 
 not have appreciated how subversive the writings of the 
 Confucian school could prove to the hakuju. The Chinese 
 classics emphasized the position of the monarch and knew 
 nothing of the dual system that existed in Japan. Loyalty 
 to such ideals could not but weaken the position of the 
 shogun, for according to them he was but a minister of the 
 emperor and had usurped the power of his master. 
 
 The great feudatories of the South, former rivals of the 
 Tokugawa, and never completely contented with their rule, 
 could be counted on to aid in any attempted restoration of 
 the emperor, if for no other reason than that it might give 
 them an opportunity to place a new family on the seat of 
 the shogun. 
 
 IMPENDING CHANGE IN NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
 By the middle of the nineteenth century the nation was 
 ripe for change. The old order was decaying. The vigor of 
 the Tokugawa shoguns had so declined that they were more 
 and more controlled by their ministers. Rumors of dis-
 
 THE SHOGUNATE 79 
 
 satisfaction and unrest were beginning to be heard. Some 
 revolution was seemingly about to take place. What form 
 it would have taken had there been no interruptions from 
 without, it is hard to say. By one of the strange coin- 
 cidences of history, however, just as the old Japan was ripe 
 for change it came into contact with the expanding Occident 
 and out of the shock a new nation emerged. 
 
 For further reading see: Griffis, The Mikadoes Empire; Lloyd, 
 The Creed of Half Japan; Brinkley, Japan, Its History, Arts, and 
 Literature; Brinkley, A History of the Japanese People; Longford, 
 The Story of Old Japan; Davis, Japan, from the Age of the Gods 
 to the Fall of Tsingtao; Gary, A History of Christianity in Japan.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 The Civilization of the Old Japan 
 
 One cannot well begin the story of the transition from 
 the old to the new Japan without interrupting to describe 
 the main characteristics of the nation's culture just before 
 the beginning of the change. The Japan of 191 7 is so de- 
 cidedly the child of the Japan of 1850 that to know the 
 first one must be acquainted with the second. 
 
 THE MILITARY CLASS 
 
 ] One of the prominent features of the culture of Japan in 
 ithe eighteenth century was the dominant position of the 
 I mihtary class. This military class, usually headed by the 
 shogun or his ministers, had from the time of Yoritomo con- 
 trolled the state. The few emperors who attempted to 
 assert themselves were forced to rely as firmly upon an 
 army as did the shoguns. There had been gradually per- 
 fected a system closely resembUng the feudalism of medieval 
 Europe and like it primarily military in its forms and ideals. 
 Its name, bakufu, "camp office," and the title of its head, 
 sei-i-tai-shogun, "great barbarian-subduing general," were 
 martial. The shogun based his authority on force, and 
 while in theory he was the servant of the emperor, in prac- 
 tice he was the chief power in the state. Underneath the 
 shogun were the great military lords, the daimyo. In 
 Tokugawa times some of these were cadet branches or 
 direct vassals of the ruling family. Some were descendants 
 
 3o
 
 THE CIVILIZATION OF THE OLD JAPAN 8i 
 
 of former rivals of lyeyasu, and gave to him and his suc- 
 cessors a more or less grudging allegiance. Associated with 
 tne ^imyo were minor chiefs and especially the samurai, 
 uis ordinary knights or soldiers. Their position was 
 hereditary and as a sign of their rank they proudly wore two 
 swords. Most of the siunurai owed allegiance to some 
 baron or to the shogun. From their lords they received a 
 stated"" allowance. Only a few, called ronin, "wave men," 
 were unattached. Their freedom was not normal and was 
 due either to an unusually adventurous spirit, or to some 
 calamity, such as poverty, disgrace, sorrow, or the extinc- 
 tion of their liege's house. The warrior classes had devel- 
 oped their own code of ethics, bushido, of which more will be 
 said later. The lower social orders seemed to exist for the 
 support of this fighting caste. A wide gulf divided the 
 samurai from the commercial and agricultural classes, and 
 the young bloods of the lower orders paid the warriors the 
 sincere flattery of an itni^tion in dress and manners carried 
 as far as the laws would allow. The ideals of the nation, as 
 is usually the case, were molded by the standards and the 
 exploits of the elite. It is true that in spite of warlike exer- 
 cises and education the samurai had lost some of their vigor 
 during the centuries of Tokugawa peace, and that many 
 daimyo had impoverished themselves by luxury and had 
 fallen under the control of their subordinates. The To- 
 kugawa, too, had favored the commoners, possibly in an 
 attempt to offset the power of the daimyo. But the barons 
 and the samurai were still the masters of the nation. 
 
 The presence of this military class was in many respects 
 to be a distinct advantage to Japan in the new age brought 
 by contact with the West. It provided a group of disci- 
 pHned men accustomed to leadership, and whom the nation 
 had been trained to follow. With a few exceptions the
 
 82 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 leaders in the transition from the old to the new Japan were 
 of the military class. The government is still largely 
 dominated by their descendants. In the possession of this 
 special type of military heritage the island empire has had a 
 distinct advantage over China, for there no hereditary 
 nobility with traditions of loyalty and sacrifice is present 
 to lead the nation through the perils which beset the period 
 of change, and the nation itself does not seem to have 
 developed a capacity for discipline and miity as fully as in 
 Japan. Moreover, the military tradition was a partial 
 preparation for competition with the Occident. Europe, it 
 is true, has long since passed from the feudal stage to that 
 of industry and commerce, but the habit of war is still 
 strong upon it, and the mailed fist is. depended upon to 
 further the economic interests of the West. Japan, under 
 the leadership of her samurai, and especially under the 
 influence of her martial tradition, found it comparatively 
 easy to adjust herself to European navalism and militarism. 
 She proved an apt pupil in learning the methods of Occiden- 
 tal warfare. The obedience, physical courage, and willing- 
 ness to fight bred by the ages of her military past have had 
 no small part in enabling her to make herself feared by 
 Western powers and to assume a place among them. The 
 victories of the Russo-Japanese war were made possible 
 partly, although not by any means entirely, by the long 
 centuries of the bakufu. 
 
 In one respect this emphasis upon the military has placed 
 Japan at a disadvantage in the modern age. She was not 
 primarily commercial or industrial. Trade was left to the 
 lower classes. She was lacking in accimiulated commercial 
 capital. She had no fleet, either of merchant or of war 
 craft. For the most part her roads were poor. She was 
 almost entirely self-sufficient and her foreign commerce was
 
 THE CIVILIZATION OF THE OLD JAPAN &$ 
 
 o f the slightest . What industry and trade existed were 
 organized into guilds, a system admirable in its time, but 
 unfitted to cope with the great joint-stock concerns of the 
 Occident. In 1853 Japan entered a world dominated by 
 the ideals of the industrial revolution, bending all its 
 energies to the production and accumulation of wealth. 
 It took her some time to adjust herself to the situation. 
 That she has done so in a little over half a century is marked 
 evidence of adaptability. Moreover, her ethics were 
 military, not commercial. Business integrity had not 
 achieved the place of honor that it occupies in the codes of 
 the commercial West. The trade of feudal days was not 
 characterized by excessive dishonesty, to be sure, but in the 
 early days of Japan's intercourse with the Occident much of 
 her business was carried on by men who were not of the 
 military class, and who were unrestrained by strong tradi- 
 tional standards of probity and became all too apt pupils of 
 the scheming adventurers who were present in the van- 
 guard of the European commercial invasion. 
 
 In the possession of the military ideal the Japanese are 
 in striking contrast to their great continental neighbor. 
 China has been primarily commercial and industrial and 
 only secondarily martial. She has often been devastated 
 by war, but her government has traditionally been in the 
 hands of a civil bureaucracy that is recruited from the 
 ranks of the agricultural, mercantile, and scholarly classes 
 and exercises its power in their behalf. She has found it 
 difficult to organize herself to meet the armies and navies 
 of the West. Japan has, as we shall see, felt compelled to 
 assume the defense of the entire Far East against the aggres- 
 sive Occident, and to that end has annexed Korea and has 
 taken steps toward a protectorate of China. For her abih'ty 
 to do this and for her victories over the Russians and Ger-
 
 84 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 mans, Japan must partly thank the training given by the 
 years of military feudalism. 
 
 The warrior class was organized by fiefs. The feudal 
 system produced loyalty to the local lord rather than to the 
 state or the emperor or even to the shogun. The shogun as 
 head of the Tokugawa family had his personal retainers and 
 his vassals who were true to him, but the land had many 
 daimyo who were jealous of his power, and the samurai who 
 owed them allegiance could be counted on to obey theij lord 
 first, and the shogun second or not at all. Although much 
 weakened, and thoroughly subordinated to loyalty to the 
 emperor, this feudal spirit has persisted in the new Japan. 
 The army is dominated by Choshu, and the navy by 
 Satsuma, both of which we are to hear of later, and at times 
 the rivalries of the two have been important factors in 
 national poUtics. 
 
 THE IMPERIAL INSTITUTION 
 
 (Another powerful survival from Japan's earlier days is 
 the institution of the emperor. The ruling house is de- 
 voutly beHeved to have reigned from ages eternal and to be 
 the direct offspring of the gods. It has formed the rallying 
 point for the ardent spirit of patriotism that has been so 
 marked a characteristic of the new Japan. Here again the 
 island empire has had the advantage of its continental 
 neighbor, for the latter has no native imperial line around 
 which the awakening nation can unite. D3masty has fol- 
 lowed dynasty, and at the time when the Occident burst in 
 on China, her throne was occupied by a race of alien con- 
 querors whose hold in their position was already weakening. 
 The traditional attitude toward Japan's imperial house was 
 a remarkable preparation for the duties of the new age. 
 By the shoguns, especially the Tokugawa shoguns, the
 
 THE CIVILIZATION OF THE OLD JAPAN 85 
 
 emperor's sanctity had been emphasized, thus strengthen- 
 ing his hold on the imagination of his people and heightening 
 the new-bom patriotism of the nineteenth century. More- 
 over, the precedent had been maintained that he should 
 reign but not govern, and the transition to a constitutional 
 monarchy of the European type was an easy one. The 
 shoguns, Hideyoshi, and the Fujiwara premiers had ruled 
 in the emperor's name for well over a thousand years. 
 Fujiwara, shoguns, and even daimyo had in turn been 
 dominated by ministers who were likewise content with the 
 substance of power while preserving the nominal dignity of 
 the princes in whose name they held it. From the shogun 
 who exercised absolute authority in the name of a sacrosanct 
 sovereign who but seldom interfered in the administration, 
 to a ministry, likewise acting for the monarch, was no 
 difficult step. Under both, the emperor has been the 
 source of all authority but has exercised Uttle of it himself. 
 This does not mean that in the new age there has been a 
 ministry responsible to a parliament, although toward this 
 goal there seems to have been progress. It does mean that a 
 group of the ablest in the land won the ear of the emperor 
 and governed in his name, assuming all responsibility for his 
 acts. Just how much personal influence he has exerted has 
 never fully been made public. In the mature years of Meiji, 
 the great monarch of the transition period, it seems at times 
 to have been large: under the present ruler it is probably not 
 so great. Both have scrupulously observed at least an 
 outward loyalty to the ministry. 
 
 MODERN OUTGROWTHS OF OLD IDEALS 
 
 The patriotism of the new Japan, the self-conscious 
 nationalism which so centers in the institution of the em-
 
 86 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 peror, has grown up largely in the past seventy years. 
 Strange as it may seem to those who know only the Japan 
 of the twentieth century, there was but little of what we 
 think of as patriotism untU nearly the close of feudal days. 
 The intense national spirit of to-day is, however, partially 
 an outgrowth of features of the older Japan, the loyalty of 
 ;the samurai to his lord, a keen sensitiveness to ridicule and 
 insult, the solidarity produced by the Tokugawa shoguns, 
 , and the atmosphere of sanctity that surrounded the em- 
 / peror. The individual samurai, as we have seen, had 
 originally little if any feehng of attachment to the emperor 
 at Kyoto or to the nation. He would probably not have 
 tolerated the usurpation of the throne by one not of the 
 hneage of Jimmu Tenno, and he certainly resented the in- 
 vasion of the land by the Mongols, but it was not until well 
 along in the Tokugawa regime that even some of his class 
 began to be passionately conscious that the country was 
 the "land of the gods" and to be sensitive to the impotence 
 of the rightful sovereign. The samurai did, however, have 
 a real sense of loyalty to his lord. Part of his code of ethics 
 was to be willing to sacrifice all that he held dear, wife, 
 children, hfe itself, in the service of his master. At the 
 latter's death he might even commit suicide. So extensive 
 indeed did seK-destruction become on such occasions that 
 it was necessary for the early Tokugawa shoguns to seek to 
 restrain it by law. The spirit of personal loyalty was during 
 the old regime directed toward the lord, but with the passing 
 of feudalism it centered itself on the person and institution 
 of the emperor with an intensity which it is hard for the 
 Occidental to appreciate, and contact with the nations of 
 the West wakened into life a latent but earnest love of 
 country. 
 Another characteristic of the code of the samurai was
 
 THE CIVILIZATION OF THE OLD JAPAN 87 
 
 extreme sensitiveness on points of honor. Personal affronts 
 were often avenged by death. Emphasis was laid on the 
 Confucian precept that a son must not live under the same 
 heaven with the murderer of his father and the stories of 
 the vengeance of sons upon the assassins of their sires are 
 numerous. The retainer pursued unto death the slayer of 
 his lord, even at the cost of his own life and that of his wife 
 and children. The sword of the samurai was ever ready to 
 be drawn to maintain what he deemed his honor. He was 
 intensely proud of his rank, at times arrogantly so. This 
 pride seems almost to be a racial characteristic, for it is 
 older than feudalism. It has survived the latter, and it is 
 national as well as personal. It helps to explain the re- 
 sentment of the Japanese at the discrimination against 
 their fellow-countrjTnen in the Occident. They are in- 
 dignant at the land legislation of California and the at- 
 tempts at exclusion by law from the United States and 
 Canada, partly, it is true, because of the economic dis- 
 advantage at which they are thus placed, but primarily 
 because these measures, which are applied to no Europeans, 
 seem to brand them as inferior and so to be a slur on their 
 national honor. 
 
 Patriotism is partly the result of the solidarity forced 
 upon the nation by the Tokugawa. Before and even during 
 most of their time the national spirit was low. Feudalism 
 tended to break up the country into loosely connected units. 
 The great daimyo of the South at times tended to act as 
 independent monarchs, as, for example, when they entered 
 into commercial agreements with the European traders of 
 the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Tokugawa 
 sought to promote peace by insuring unity and their au- 
 thority was successfully asserted over the entire land. All 
 the nation was controlled by careful regulations from Yedo.
 
 88 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 Commerce, travel, and even dress and food were subject to 
 state supervision. The feeling of nationalism did not pre- 
 vail, it is true, until after the end of the shogunate, but it 
 was the natural outgrowth of the Tokugawa regime. 
 
 The organization of the Tokugawa prepared the way as 
 ' weU for another characteristic of both the old and the new 
 Japan, the predominance of state supervision and social, 
 as contrasted with individual, initiative and activity. As 
 we have seen, all phases of life were subject to regulation 
 and supervision by the shogun's representatives. Foreign 
 conamerce was under official control. Order and peace were 
 maintained by the most rigid conformity to law. Collective 
 responsibiHty was enforced; the family was held account- 
 able for the deeds of its members, and the village for those 
 of its inhabitants. Partly as a result, in the new Japan 
 social action has been emphasized to a high degree. The 
 state has taken the lead in encouraging railways, telegraphs, 
 banking, and foreign commerce. The Japanese merchant 
 marine, for example, whose growth has been so noteworthy, 
 has been heavily subsidized. This emphasis upon collective 
 action has many advantages in the twentieth century, when 
 the nations of the Wiest are being forced by economic com- 
 petition and war to an ever-increasing state direction of 
 industry, transportation, and commerce. Apparently it is 
 the nation which can be best organized in all phases of its 
 life, intellectual, economic, and mihtary, under the unified 
 control of the central government, that has the best chance 
 of winning in the intensified competition of the twentieth 
 century. For this form of state collectivism Japan is by her 
 past training eminently fitted, and when the situation in 
 which she found herself in the nineteenth century made it 
 necessary to develop it, she did so to a high degree. In the 
 struggle for the maritime hegemony of the Pacific and com-
 
 THE CIVILIZATION OF THE OLD JAPAN 89 
 
 mercial leadership in China, she can act as a unit, without 
 the waste that comes from haphazard direction and im- 
 perfect coordination of the efforts of the citizens in many- 
 nations of the Occident. 
 
 The agency by which state direction has been exercised 
 under the new regime has been the bureaucracy. This has 
 been one of the outstanding features of the administrative 
 system of the new Japan. Its higher positions have been 
 filled largely from the ranks of the samurai and their de- 
 scendants. It has formed a hierarchy that has on the whole 
 dominated the nation. It is a continuation in another form 
 of the spirit of the Tokugawa, a careful and minute control 
 by the government of all phases of human activity. 
 
 Another characteristic of the old Japan was its experience 
 in assimilating foreign culture. The civilization of the pre- 
 feudal ages, as we have seen, was developed largely under 
 the stimulus of contact with China. Even during the feudal 
 ages, so distinctively Japanese, the country was at times 
 and in some phases of its life much affected by the continent. 
 Japanese standards of action, while largely the outgrowth of 
 the people's social needs, were partly molded by Confucian 
 and Buddhist ideals. Bushido, whilje unmistakably in- 
 digenous, showed the effect of both Confucianism and Bud- 
 dhism. Family Hfe and solidarity bore the imprint of con- 
 tinental influence. Feudalism grew up partly as the result 
 of the failure of the attempt to adapt the administrative 
 system of the T'ang to Japanese conditions. The written 
 characters of China were taken over bodily and its literature 
 was read as eagerly in Japan as on the continent. Bud- 
 dhism, so influential in the old Japan, was Indian in origin 
 and reached the islands in Chinese garb. Chinese philos- 
 ophy profoundly influenced Japanese thinkers. And yet 
 the people of Nippon were not blind imitators. As much as
 
 90 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 they admired the civilization of the continent, they were 
 not content to be slavish copyists. Bushido is very different 
 from Confucianism and Buddhism. The Chinese written lan- 
 guage was partly adjusted to Japanese needs by the inven- 
 tion of syllabic marks. A true Japanese Hterature and art 
 were produced, as different from continental models as was 
 any national art or literature in medieval Europe from those 
 of the Roman world. The Japanese were not overwhelmed 
 by the flood of culture from the continent as was the Amer- 
 ican Indian by that of Europe; they built on it, as did the 
 peoples of Northern Europe on that of the Mediterranean 
 basin, a civilization of their own. 
 
 This experience in assimilating alien ideas and institutions 
 was an admirable preparation for the coming of the Eu- 
 ropean. Japan had for centuries been accustomed to em- 
 brace and adapt new ideas from abroad. Her national pride 
 caused her to be fearful of any charge of barbarism, and her 
 past made it natural for this pride to lead her, not to reject 
 the culture of the Occident, but to hasten to adopt as much 
 of it as she needed. She had assimilated the civilization of 
 the Chinese, the highest that she had known. Once she was 
 convinced that that of the West was more powerful she was 
 quick to seize upon it for herself. In this again she had the 
 advantage of China. That country had never known in- 
 timately a culture equal to its own. It had for centuries 
 posed as a teacher, not a learner. A much more severe 
 shock than that which aroused Japan was needed to con- 
 vince the Middle Kingdom that it must adapt itself to 
 the ways of the Occident, and the process of adjustment was 
 accordingly more delayed in beginning and has been more 
 painful. 
 
 Nor is it strange that Japan, having been so apt a pupil, 
 should deem herself a competent teacher. Now that she
 
 THE CIVILIZATION OF THE OLD JAPAN 91 
 
 has so successfully learned of the Occident, she poses as the 
 instructor of the other and less facile peoples of the Far 
 East. To her schools come students from all the Far 
 East. The new terms that she has coined from the Chinese 
 ideographs for objects and ideas of the West are being 
 taken over bodily by her great continental neighbor. She 
 aspires to help organize on the modern lines that she has 
 learned from the Occident the industry and commerce, 
 the armies and the diplomacy of the huge Oriental republic. 
 
 THE CULTURE OF OLD JAPAN 
 
 StiU another characteristic of the old Japan was its love 
 of the beautiful. This aesthetic sense has shown itself in 
 painting, sculpture, ceramics, lacquer, and architecture, 
 in landscape-gardening, in an elaborate code of politeness, 
 in flower festivals, the tea ceremony, in the manufacture 
 and decoration of swords, in dancing, and a score of other 
 ways. It would be out of place in a book of this size and 
 scope to go into any but the briefest of discussions of these, 
 interesting as they are. Art was largely influenced by 
 Chinese models. The great masters of the T'ang, the Sung, 
 the Yiian, and the Ming dynasties, all had their followers in 
 Japan. Each art revival on the continent was felt in Japan. 
 There were developed, however, vigorous native schools, 
 and even in following the foreign schools the islanders 
 showed originality. Like their Chinese prototypes, Japan- 
 ese works of art show the strong influence of Buddhism. 
 Like them, too, the ideal is not so much a photographic 
 reproduction of nature, as an attempt to catch its spirit. 
 To Buddhism the visible world is transient, and it is natural 
 that art produced in its atmosphere should seek to depict 
 the soul that is back of the visible, to portray emotions as
 
 90 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 they admired the civilization of the continent, they were 
 not content to be slavish copyists. Bushido is very different 
 from Confucianism and Buddhism. The Chinese written lan- 
 guage was partly adjusted to Japanese needs by the inven- 
 tion of syllabic marks. A true Japanese literature and art 
 were produced, as different from continental models as was 
 any national art or literature in medieval Europe from those 
 of the Roman world. The Japanese were not overwhelmed 
 by the flood of culture from the continent as was the Amer- 
 ican Indian by that of Europe; they built on it, as did the 
 peoples of Northern Europe on that of the Mediterranean 
 b^sin, a civilization of their own. 
 
 This experience in assimilating alien ideas and institutions 
 was an admirable preparation for the coming of the Eu- 
 ropean. Japan had for centuries been accustomed to em- 
 brace and adapt new ideas from abroad. Her national pride 
 caused her to be fearful of any charge of barbarism, and her 
 past made it natural for this pride to lead her, not to reject 
 the culture of the Occident, but to hasten to adopt as much 
 of it as she needed. She had assimilated the civilization of 
 the Chinese, the highest that she had known. Once she was 
 convinced that that of the West was more powerful she was 
 quick to seize upon it for herself. In this again she had the 
 advantage of China. That country had never known in- 
 timately a culture equal to its own. It had for centuries 
 posed as a teacher, not a learner. A much more severe 
 shock than that which aroused Japan was needed to con- 
 vince the Middle Kingdom that it must adapt itself to 
 the ways of the Occident, and the process of adjustment was 
 accordingly more delayed in beginning and has been more 
 painful. 
 
 Nor is it strange that Japan, having been so apt a pupil, 
 should deem herself a competent teacher. Now that she
 
 THE CIVILIZATION OF THE OLD JAPAN 91 
 
 has so successfully learned of the Occident, she poses as the 
 instructor of the other and less facile peoples of the Far 
 East. To her schools come students from all the Far 
 East, The new terms that she has coined from the Chinese 
 ideographs for objects and ideas of the West are being 
 taken over bodily by her great continental neighbor. She 
 aspires to help organize on the modern lines that she has 
 learned from the Occident the industry and commerce, 
 the armies and the diplomacy of the huge Oriental republic. 
 
 THE CULTURE OF OLD JAPAN 
 
 StiU another characteristic of the old Japan was its love 
 of the beautiful. This aesthetic sense has shown itself in 
 painting, sculpture, ceramics, lacquer, and architecture, 
 in landscape-gardening, in an elaborate code of politeness, 
 in flower festivals, the tea ceremony, in the manufacture 
 and decoration of swords, in dancing, and a score of other 
 ways. It would be out of place in a book of this size and 
 scope to go into any but the briefest of discussions of these, 
 interesting as they are. Art was largely influenced by 
 Chinese models. The great masters of the T'ang, the Sung, 
 the Yuan, and the Ming dynasties, all had their followers in 
 Japan. Each art revival on the continent was felt in Japan. 
 There were developed, however, vigorous native schools, 
 and even in following the foreign schools the islanders 
 showed originality. Like their Chinese prototypes, Japan- 
 ese works of art show the strong influence of Buddhism. 
 Like them, too, the ideal is not so much a photographic 
 reproduction of nature, as an attempt to catch its spirit. 
 To Buddhism the visible world is transient, and it is natural 
 that art produced in its atmosphere should seek to depict 
 the soul that is back of the visible, to portray emotions as
 
 92 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 much as matter. Users of the Chinese character hold callig- 
 raphy to be a fine art, and their emphasis upon line is nat- 
 urally carried over into painting. If allowance is made for 
 these differences in ideals, however, the best work of Japan 
 will bear comparison with much of the best of the Occident. 
 Painting has a long and brilliant history. The collec- 
 tions to be found in America and Europe and the enthusiasm 
 of its Western students bear witness to its appeal to a more 
 than national artistic sense. The enumeration of its dis- 
 tinct schools and great masters would alone require several 
 pages, and there is room here for only a few. There was 
 the Tosa school, largely Japanese in its subjects and meth- 
 ods. There was the priest Meicho (1351-1427), or Cho 
 Densu, who gave himself to portraying the divinities and 
 themes of the Buddhism faith. There was Sesshu (1420- 
 1506), also a priest, who after a close study of the great 
 Chinese masters in their home land branched out on 
 lines of his own and left behind him figures and especially 
 landscapes that five to-day. A younger contemporary of 
 Sesshu, Kano Motonobu (1476-1559), the son of a painter, 
 showed a wide variety of subjects and styles and foimded a 
 school, the Kano, which still has adherents. All of these 
 had catered to the aristocracy. Hishigawa Moronobu 
 (1646-17 13), an embroiderer's draughtsman and so of the 
 lower orders, showed the growing importance of the com- 
 mon people under the Tokugawa in his portrayals, in the 
 splendid technique of the old schools, of the life that he saw 
 around him He gave an impulse too, to illustrations for 
 books and wood-engravings, a means of education and 
 amusement for his own class. Okyo also illustrated the 
 tendencies of the Tokugawa era. He was the son of a 
 farmer, and attempted to break away from the canons of 
 the Chinese schools and to paint nature exactly as he saw it.
 
 THE CIVILIZATION OF THE OLD JAPAN 93 
 
 Then there is color printing of broadsides and illustrated 
 books, also a development of the Tokugawa age, and pri- 
 marily for the masses. It seems to have been distinctively 
 a Japanese idea and not to have been introduced from the 
 continent. 
 
 There were noted sculptors in wood, and workers in 
 'metal, including those who erected the great bronze statues 
 cf Buddha that still charm the traveller. Lacquer and 
 inlay work were known and remarkably well executed. 
 Porcelain had long been imported from China before it was 
 produced in Japan, but the Japanese later spent much 
 labor and skill in its production. A complete history of 
 pottery would fill several large volumes. There were many 
 different schools, often named from a locality, or from a 
 feudal fief whose chief was a patron of the arts. The best 
 examples of the architecture of the past are to be found in 
 Buddhist temples and in the few remaining feudal castles. 
 The well known buildings that adorn the mausoleum of 
 lyeyasu at Nikko, for example, are the delight of all who 
 see them. Part of the landscape gardening is too grotesque 
 to appeal to an Occidental, but most of it, of a naturalistic 
 school, has a real charm for him. Some of it is in miniature, 
 and stunted trees are trained with infinite care to reproduce 
 the forms of those of normal size. The flower festivals at 
 the cherry blossom season are national hoHdays. 
 
 The leisure of the imperial court circles and later of the 
 daimyo under the Tokugawa gave opportunity for the 
 beauty-loving soul of the people to express itself in elaborate 
 and exquisitely perfect etiquette. The courtesy of the 
 period has come down to the present, although at times 
 rudely shaken by the bustle of the industrial twentieth 
 century. Japanese politeness has become proverbial, and 
 the disregard for it that Western nations have at times
 
 94 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 shown in their dealings with Tokyo has frequently helped to 
 produce friction. The ceremony of tea drinking with its 
 different schools and minute regulations, the development 
 of the burning and judging of incense into an elaborately 
 ordered pastime of the leisured, the skill that went into the 
 manufacture and decoration of the sword of the samurai, 
 all seem to be outgrowths of a spirit that sets great store 
 upon the beautiful. Dancing, much of it ceremonial, goes 
 back to the earliest historic times and is said to have taken 
 its rise in the days of the Sun Goddess. The aesthetic spirit 
 has of recent years been at times prostituted for commer- 
 cial purposes, but it still survives and is one of the char- 
 acteristics of the Japan of to-day. 
 
 Of the literature of the old Japan but little need be said. 
 Here, although rather less than in the fine arts, she was 
 strongly influenced by China. Only in poetry did she 
 refuse to conform to foreign models and fully show her 
 originality. This poetry, because of its peculiar canons, 
 defies adequate translation into Western tongues. Japan 
 has had the drama, said in its beginning to have been asso- 
 ciated with Shinto, but later deeply colored by Buddhist 
 ideas. Still later it became completely secular and popular 
 in form and content. 
 
 Japan has not shown a creative spirit in philosophy, 
 ethics, or religion equal to that which molded the life of 
 China, India, or the Semitic races. Her sons have rather 
 been content to adapt divergent alien systems to their own 
 necessities, and to build on contributions from abroad. The 
 philosophers of China were studied and at times criticized. 
 Buddhist priests arose who thought with a sufficiently 
 vigorous independence to be foimders of new sects, but no 
 Japanese has appeared who ranks in originality with 
 Gautama, Confucius, Chu Hsi, Socrates, or Kant.
 
 THE CIVILIZATION OF THE OLD JAPAN 95 
 
 Family solidarity is one of the characteristics of the old' 
 Japan that has persisted in spite of the altered conditions 
 of a new age. It has been one of the ever present factors in 
 Japanese life. Each man must be loyal to his parents, 
 serving them while they are hving, honoring them after 
 their death. The family must be continued by male heirs 
 that the forefathers may not lack descendants to pay them 
 honor. Marriage was universal, and failing offspring, adop- 
 tion could be resorted to to continue the ancestral line. 
 Obedience to parents has been one of the cardinal virtues. 
 The family was more important by far than the individual 
 and each must subordinate his wishes to it. The individ- 
 ualism of the Occident would have been the rankest of 
 heresies. Here the influence of Chinese teachings and 
 models has been very great. In China even more than in 
 Japan, the family is the unit, and there are those who be- 
 lieve that before the advent of Chinese culture the family 
 was of but small importance in Japan. Here also is again 
 the Japanese electicism. Filial piety was not as important 
 as loyalty, and filial duties are perhaps less institutional and 
 more sentimental than in China. 
 
 The wife was more abjectly subordinated to the husband 
 than in the great continental empire. Absolute obedience, 
 self-effacement, and fidelity were required of her, and yet 
 her husband might be unfaithful or divorce her almost at 
 will. Within her sphere she might be greatly honored, but 
 she was always the subject of her lord. It must be added, 
 however, that the Japanese wives were not without their 
 charm, and a very real one; Those of the higher classes 
 were models of unobtrusive courtesy; they had a decided 
 influence over the yoimger years of the children, and left 
 an indelible stamp, chiefly for good, upon the morals of each 
 new generation. The work of the women of the feudal
 
 96 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 classes, while unspectacular, was noble and far-reaching in 
 its effects. The wife by her intense loyalty and self-efface- 
 ment inspired her husband to maintain his ideals and to 
 preserve toward his lord something of the same attitude. 
 The wives of the humbler strata of society were real help- 
 meets for their husbands and frequently shared in the bread- 
 winning. There have been empresses on the imperial 
 throne, although only two of these have sat there in recent 
 centuries. The difference in the status of women in China 
 and Japan is possibly one that is natural between a civiliza- 
 tion that is essentially agricultural and commercial and one 
 that was primarily military. 
 
 RELIGION AND ETHICS OF OLD JAPAN 
 
 In the sphere of religion the Japanese have not been crea- 
 tors of the first rank. They have been religious, and deeply 
 so. Their fine loyalty has made them willing to die for a 
 faith once adopted, as was seen in the persecutions of 
 Christianity. But their reKgious sentiments seem to be 
 influenced largely by their appreciation of the beautiful 
 and by a matter-of-fact attitude toward life. They have 
 not been given to original philosophical or theological spec- 
 ulation, nor even to daring innovations in the field of ethics. 
 They have largely been eclectic; all of their religious beliefs 
 are either foreign in their origin or have been profoundly 
 influenced by foreign ideas. Their primitive faith, it will 
 be remembered, seems to have been a very simple affair. 
 They honored various spirits, the many divinities that had 
 been created by the naive attempts of the race to account 
 for the beginnings of the world, of life, and the nation. 
 There were the Sun Goddess and hosts of other dieties. 
 The spirits of great warriors were reverenced. A few
 
 THE CIVILIZATION OF THE OLD JAPAN 97 
 
 scholars have even suggested, although on very doubtful 
 evidence, that the gods of the aborigines whom the Japanese 
 drove out may have been adopted, on the ground that they 
 were potent in the conquered land and must be propitiated. 
 There were the beginnings of what resembles taboo, and a 
 method of ceremonial purification by water and wind. 
 There were no images, no ornate temples, and no priestly 
 caste. Such ethical standards as existed had little connec- 
 tion with religious belief. 
 
 Under the influence of continental thought and institu- 
 tions, this primitive religion became much changed. The 
 stories of the gods and goddesses were recorded by those 
 who were more or less familiar with the Chinese cosmogony 
 and other foreign myths, and in the process were altered 
 past hope of accurate restoration. The primitive faith 
 seems to have been modified to exalt the power of the mon- 
 arch and to emphasize his divine origin. For centuries the 
 native cult was, as it still is, primarily associated with the 
 ruling house. The Chinese reverence for ancestors was in- 
 troduced, and that phase of the indigenous faith that had to 
 do with the names of the departed was accentuated. Ama- 
 terasu, the Sim Goddess, the ancestress of the emperor, was 
 honored, as were the spirits of the rulers of the past. 
 
 Buddhism came in, and for the first time the native faith 
 achieved self-consciousness and was given a name, Shinto, 
 Chinese in origin, meaning "the way of the Gods," as dis- 
 tinguished from Buppo "the law of the Buddha." For a 
 time Shinto seemed about to be absorbed by Buddhism, 
 for clever monks identified the Japanese divinities as in- 
 carnations of Buddhist saints and deities. 
 
 The indigenous faith persisted, however, in the imperial 
 household and in shrines through the country. During 
 Tokugawa times it was revived by the group of scholars
 
 98 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 who were seeking to emphasize the native as contrasted 
 with the foreign, and the attempt was made to purify it of 
 many of its aUen elements. It passed over from the Toku- 
 gawa to the new age and with the restoration of the emperor 
 achieved a marked official extension in a more purely native 
 form. Its temples are now, as they have traditionally been, 
 simple buildings, reproducing more nearly than any other 
 structures the form of the primitive Japanese house. They 
 have caretakers, who form a sort of hierarchy of priests but 
 are not powerful as a class. There is no image within them, 
 but there are emblems of the deity, usually a sword, mirror, 
 or jewel, the insignia said to have been given by the Sun 
 Goddess to the imperial ancestors. Before the shrines are 
 the torii, resembling ornamental gateways. There was and 
 is no ethical system enforced by Shinto, and it induces but 
 little sense of moral or spiritual guilt. Its ceremonies are 
 confined to formal lustrations, to honoring the spirits of em- 
 perors, of national heroes and ancestors, to entreating bless- 
 ings on the nation, and asking for protection from evil. 
 
 In Buddhism, on the other hand, the old Japan had a 
 most highly developed religion. The faith had come to the 
 nation with all the wealth of the philosophy, art, and or- 
 ganization that it had acquired in the course of its growth 
 in India, Central Asia, and China. Its philosophy was 
 elaborate, teaching that this world is but a passing show, a 
 delusion; that man is chained to it and to suffering in an 
 endless series of rebirths, his lot in each new one being deter- 
 mined by his karma, a term that is rather lamely but suc- 
 cinctly defined as meaning the sum of his actions good and 
 bad in preceding existences. Man is to seek and to find 
 salvation by escaping from the transient world and the 
 chain of existence through the means provided by the faith. 
 These means, it may be recalled, were various, differing
 
 THE CIVILIZATION OF THE OLD JAPAN 99 
 
 somewhat with each sect. Buddhism had a voluminous 
 hterature. It erected magnificent temples, adorned with 
 all the beauty and skill known to the art of the lands through 
 which it had passed, and with the gifts of generations of 
 pious believers. Its celibate priesthood formed a powerful 
 hierarchy, often noted for learning, devotion, and ability. 
 It had a large pantheon, a complete calendar of holidays and 
 feasts, and encouraged pilgrimages to shrines of noted 
 sanctity. It had been the principal vehicle by which 
 civilization had been brought to Japan, and it had received 
 the support of generations of emperors, nobles, and feudal 
 chiefs. Buddhism, indeed, occupied in Japan much the 
 position that the Catholic Church held in the Europe of 
 the middle ages. Both were the means of bringing to a 
 semi-barbarous people a superior and older civilization. 
 Both dominated society by their philosophy, learning, and 
 priesthood, and their elaborate rituals, their art and ar- 
 chitecture. There were six principal sects, it will be re- 
 called, most of them of foreign origin. Each of these devel- 
 oped sub-sects, and there were several minor sects. But 
 while there have been jealousies and quarrels between 
 these divisions there has never been an Inquisition and never 
 mutual persecutions comparable to those that have marred 
 the relations of Christian bodies. In the later years of the 
 Tokugawa, it will be remembered, Buddhism began to lose 
 its hold on the thinking men of the nation. The masses still 
 believed in it, but the educated were inclined to follow the 
 teachings of the great philosophers of the Confucian school. 
 It must not be thought, however, that there was the sharp 
 division between religions that one finds in the Occident. 
 The Japanese for some purposes would frequent the Shinto 
 shrines, for others the Buddhist temples, and could still pay 
 reverence at his ancestral graves and follow the moral pre-
 
 lOO THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 cepts of the Chinese sages without any feeling of inconsist- 
 ency. Even if he had largely lost his faith in Buddhism, 
 he would still resort to its burial rites for his kinsmen, much 
 as an agnostic in Christian lands is apt to desire the services 
 of the church at funerals and weddings. 
 
 Confucianism has been a determining factor in the life 
 and thought of Japan. From the time that continental 
 culture had first reached the islands the Chinese classical 
 writings had been studied, although by only a few until the 
 Tokugawa regime. After the time of lyeyasu Confucius 
 and Mencius were honored and had fuUy as profound an 
 influence upon the feudal classes as had Aristotle upon 
 medieval Europe. Under the early Tokugawa, especially, 
 Chinese literature and the Chinese sages were extremely 
 popular with the military class. Even after the Japanese 
 revival of the middle and later years of the Tokugawa, when 
 the native religion, language, literature, and institutions 
 were given renewed attention by many scholars, Chinese 
 ethics remained popular with most of the samurai. 
 
 The effects of Confucianism on Japan were many. An- 
 cestor worship, so essential a part of the Chinese system, 
 flourished. The five relationships of the classics, between 
 prince and minister, father and son, husband and wife, 
 younger brother and older brother, and friend and friend, 
 became cardinal points in the Japanese moral code, al- 
 though with modifications due to local conditions and habits 
 of mind. Loyalty of the vassal to his lord, complete sub- 
 servience of the children to the paternal will, subordination 
 of the wife to the husband even to the point of self-efface- 
 ment, were encouraged. The moral precepts taught in the 
 schools to-day are largely Confucian in their form. 
 
 Bushido, the ethical code of the military classes, reminds 
 one of the chivalry of feudal Europe. As it existed under
 
 THE CIVILIZATION OF THE OLD JAPAN loi 
 
 the later Tokugawa, it was the result of years of develop- 
 ment. It seems to go back at least to the time when the 
 military class was forming. Under the successors of lyeyasu 
 it was elaborated and largely made over until it lost some 
 rather unlovely features of its earlier years. It was essen- 
 tially Japanese, but in its later and elaborated form it 
 showed the influence of Confucianism and Buddhism, espe- 
 cially the former. Confucius and Mencius, to whom the 
 Chinese system named from the first owed its classical 
 form, it may be added, lived and worked under a feudal 
 organization which in some respects resembled that of 
 Japan. The adaptation of Chinese ethics to bushido was 
 thus facilitated. Perhaps one may say, although the 
 parallelism must not be pushed too far, that somewhat as 
 chivalry showed the influence of the teachings of the 
 Christian church, so bushido gave evidences of having 
 grown up in an environment in which Buddhism and Confu- 
 cianism were present. 
 
 Loyalty was the cardinal virtue of bushido. The samurai 
 must sacrifice life, truth, and even his family if the ser- 
 vice of his lord required it. With the passing of feudal- 
 ism, one may say in parenthesis, the nation, personified 
 in the emperor, has absorbed the loyalty previously 
 paid to the daimyo. Filial piety, the devotion to one's 
 parents and ancestors, although subordinate to loyalty, was 
 prominent. Family unity, promoted by filial piety and by 
 the duties of brothers to one another, was marked. Frugal- 
 ity, simplicity of Hfe, and indifference to wealth were 
 exalted. For recreation military amusements were en- 
 couraged. Bread-winning pursuits and regard for money 
 affairs were held in contempt. The warrior above all 
 valued self-control in the presence of pain, and steeled him- 
 self to endure the most intense agony without flinching.
 
 I02 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 Personal honor was highly esteemed and the sword of the 
 samurai, the sign of his rank, although it must not be 
 drawn but for the gravest reasons, was ever held ready to 
 avenge a slight to its owner or to its owner's lord. Honor 
 was dearer than life and ?n many exigencies seK-destruction 
 was regarded not simply as right, but as the only right 
 course. Disgrace and defeat were atoned for by suicide, and 
 on the death of a daimyo loyal followers might show their 
 grief and affection by it. The knight might protest against 
 grave injustice by suicide, and might by the same means try 
 to dissuade his lord from unwise or unworthy action. Part 
 of the training of every samurai was the ritual for disem- 
 bowelment,^ the approved means of self-destruction, and 
 one of the highest tests of his character was to be able, if 
 the occasion demanded, to perform it calmly and without 
 flinching. If condemned to death, it was held to be a 
 privilege to execute the sentence on one's own body and to 
 be a disgrace to die at the hands of the public headsman. 
 This stoicism and disregard for the material accessories of 
 life were especially encouraged by the Zen sect. This, it will 
 be remembered, had been marked by a stem disciphne and 
 fostered self-reliance, and had been modified by Con- 
 fucianism. 
 
 The wife of the samurai was also influenced by bushido. 
 She was to be self-effacing, and was to hide all traces of 
 suffering or grief. She was taught how to end her hfe with 
 decorum in case the occasion seemed to demand it. By her 
 example she exercised a profound influence over her hus- 
 band. 
 
 Magnanimity to a defeated enemy was encouraged. 
 Fidelity to one's plighted word was part of the code, as was 
 faithfulness to principle and to friends. These considera- 
 ^ Called seppuku or, more vulgarly, hara kiri.
 
 THE CIVILIZATION OF THE OLD JAPAN 103 
 
 tions took precedent over an exact regard for objective 
 facts. 
 
 It must not be thought that bushido, any more than 
 chivahy, was lived up to by all those who professed to be 
 guided by it. The samurai seldom attained to even his own 
 standards. 
 
 -<i:As-iirthexase of chivalry, bushido profoundly influenced 
 not only the upper classes, for whom it was primarily in- 
 tended, but the civil population as well. The lower orders 
 of society copied as far as possible the ethics as well as the 
 manners of the warrior. Bushido, like chivalry, was to 
 remain an active force long after the social order that had 
 produced it had disappeared. 
 
 Such were the more prominent features of the organiza- 
 tion and hfe of the old Japan. They were to be profoundly 
 modified and some of them later disappeared, but they have 
 left an indelible stamp upon the ideals and the culture of the 
 nation. 
 
 For further reading see: Chamberlain, Things Japanese; 
 Griffis, The Mikado's Empire; Binyon, Painting in the Far East; 
 Fenollosa, Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art; Morrison, The 
 Painters of Japan; Aston, A History of Japanese Literature; 
 Chamberlain, Japanese Poetry; Mitford, Tales of Old Japan; 
 Aston, Shinto, The Way of the Gods; Gulick, The Evolution of the 
 Japanese; Heam, Japan, An Attempt at Interpretation; Knox, 
 The Development of Religion in Japan; Lloyd, The Creed of Half 
 Japan; Nitobe, Bushido, The Soul of Japan; Brinkley, Japan, 
 Its History, Arts and Literature,
 
 lo6 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 precedentedly short time and to transport goods in quan- 
 tities hitherto undreamed of. In North America the ex- 
 pansion of the United States had brought European peoples 
 to the east coast of the Pacific; Oregon and Cahfornia were 
 settled in the eighteen forties and fifties. The Russians had 
 reached the west coast after a mighty advance across the 
 vast reaches of Siberia, and had formed settlements in the 
 Amur country and Alaska. Before long the Pacific would 
 teem with a new commerce and the nations of eastern Asia 
 would be compelled to open their doors. By 1850 nearly all 
 India had been brought under either the direct or the in- 
 direct control of Great Britain. The EngHsh, having found 
 China's restrictions on trade intolerable, had fought a war 
 with her which was ended in 1842 by a treaty ^ opening 
 five ports to trade and making provision for commerce and 
 official intercourse between the two nations. This treaty 
 was quickly followed by others between China and the lead- 
 ing powers of the Occident. It was inevitable that pressure 
 would soon be put on Japan to end her hermit existence. 
 
 During the first half of the nineteenth century there were 
 repeated indications of an approaching attempt of Western 
 powers to open Japan. The Dutch, through their closely 
 regulated intercourse at Nagasaki, brought news of im- 
 pending changes. Here and there Japanese were learning 
 Dutch and through the medium of that language were 
 getting an inkling of the importance of the civilization of 
 Europe. A few European works on history, geography, 
 literature, and science were read. From the time when 
 some native surgeons dissected a human body and found 
 that it was more accurately described by the Dutch an- 
 atomical works than by the Chinese, there were those who 
 saw that, the culture of the West was in some respects supe- 
 * The treaty of Nanking.
 
 PERIOD OF INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION 107 
 
 rior to that of the East, and wished to know more of it. 
 Russian ships appeared on the northern coasts as early as 
 the eighteenth century, and envoys from the Czar asked 
 (1804) that regular intercourse be established, only to be 
 met with a peremptory refusal. Russians and Japanese 
 came into conflict in the Kuriles and Sakhalin, and the 
 Japanese were worsted. The Russians might have forced 
 themselves on Japan proper had the Napoleonic wars not 
 intervened to engross their attention elsewhere. In 1846 
 a French ship touched at the Riu Kiu archipelago and ad- 
 vised the islanders to place themselves under French pro- 
 tection as a guard against the British. In 1847 the king of 
 Holland advised the Japanese to abandon their policy of 
 exclusion, and in 1849 warned them that an American fleet 
 might soon be expected. Ships of other European nations 
 touched at Japan from time to time. 
 
 THE PERRY EXPEDITION AND RESULTS 
 
 Fortunately the move that finally opened the country 
 was made by the United States, a power that had no ter- 
 ritorial ambitions in the Far East. The American merchant 
 marine was at that time relatively much more important 
 than it became after the losses of the Civil War. American 
 ships had gone to all corners of the earth and in the Far 
 East were second in numbers only to those of England. 
 Japanese fishermen were occasionally driven across the 
 Pacific to the Aleutians or to the coast of North America. 
 In 1837 one ship ^ made its way nearly to Yedo in the effort 
 to return a few such castaways, and, if possible, to open 
 commerce. She was fired upon, and returned to Canton 
 without having landed her charges. American whalers 
 1 The "Morrison."
 
 io8 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 gradually became numerous in the North Pacific and in 
 several instances were wrecked on the Japanese islands. 
 The surviving sailors were confined, often handled roughly, 
 and as a rule were returned to the outside world only 
 through the kindness of the Dutch. Some arrangements 
 were necessary with the shogun's government to insure good 
 treatment and rescue for the crews. In 1846 an American 
 commodore ^ asked in the name of the president that inter- 
 course be opened, only to be refused. In 1848 the American 
 brig Preble threatened to bombard Nagasaki unless fifteen 
 foreign seamen held there were immediately handed over. 
 CaUfomia was acquired in the forties, and ships were soon 
 sailing from San Francisco to the new treaty ports of China. 
 Since Japan lay in the direct path of such vessels, its ports, 
 if opened, would offer convenient places for restocking with 
 water and provisions, and for refitting. The shipping, 
 especially the whaling interests in the United States, asked 
 the administration to insist that the country unlock its 
 doors. Finally the American government responded and 
 sent a squadron under Commodore Perry to obtain a treaty. • 
 In 1853 Perry arrived in Araga bay near Yedo with a fine 
 display of force, transmitted the president's letter to the 
 Japanese authorities, and since there seemed to be no imme- 
 diate prospects of successful negotiations, sailed away, 
 announcing that it was his intention to return the following 
 spring. His coming created an unprecedented commotion 
 in the island kingdom. The shogun's ministers were sorely 
 perplexed. Even the imperial court was stirred and ordered 
 prayers said at the great national shrines. Perry returned, 
 according to promise, the following spring. Before his 
 steam warships the Yedo authorities felt themselves power- 
 less, and after some negotiations concluded a treaty. 
 * Commodore Biddle.
 
 PERIOD OF INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION 109 
 
 Japan's isolation was not yet entirely at an end. The 
 Perry treaty did not provide for the complete opening of the 
 country. Its emphasis was not upon commerce, but upon 
 the care and safe delivery of shipwrecked sailors, and the 
 provisioning and refitting of passing vessels. Two ports 
 were opened, one (Shimoda) near Yedo and one (Hakodate) 
 on the northern island. An American consulate was to be 
 permitted at Shimoda; trade was to be carried on only in 
 accordance with local regulations, which might be stringent; 
 supphes for vessels were to be purchased only through Jap- 
 anese oflScials. The most-favored-nation clause, customary 
 in the West, guaranteed to Americans any concessions that 
 might be made to other powers. In the two years following 
 the Perry treaty similar covenants were obtained by Eng- 
 land, Russia, and Holland, but in none of them was res- 
 idence or extensive commerce and intercourse provided for. 
 In 1857 Townsend Harris, the United States consul-general, 
 obtained for American citizens the privilege of residing 
 in the open ports, to which was now added Nagasaki. The 
 foreigners were to be xmder the jurisdiction of their consuls 
 and not of Japanese officials and laws. Commerce was pro- 
 vided for in 1858 by a further treaty with the United States, 
 also negotiated by Harris, which remained for many years 
 a model document of its kind and was in force until 1899. 
 By this last treaty customs duties were provided for, and 
 a fixed scale was agreed upon which was not to be changed 
 without the consent of both nations. The reception of 
 diplomatic representatives at the court and the opening of 
 an additional port were also granted. It ought to be added 
 that Townsend Harris obtained these treaties from the 
 shogun, not by any display of force, but mainly by his 
 sympathy, tact, and persistence. The provisions for ex- 
 territoriality and the treaty-established tariff were a partial
 
 no THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 sacrifice by Japan of her sovereign rights, the struggle to 
 regain which was to be a prominent feature in the nation's 
 history for the next thirty-five or forty years. By the first, 
 foreigners were removed from the control of Japanese 
 courts : ^ by the second, the nation surrendered the right to 
 establish its own tariff dues. Both were very galling to the 
 sensitive, patriotic spirit of the people after their significance 
 was recognized. Almost simultaneously with the American 
 treaty of 1858 similar ones were signed with Great Britain, 
 France, and Russia, and others soon followed with twelve 
 more Western powers. Just at this time France and Eng- 
 land were engaged in a war with China, in an attempt to 
 force her doors still further open. As an added effort at 
 European expansion in the Far East this war probably had 
 some influence in hastening the negotiations of the new 
 Japanese treaties. To exchange the ratifications of the 
 American document Japanese envoys were sent to the 
 United States, the first diplomatic mission to visit foreign 
 lands. 
 
 DIVERGENT VIEWS ON ADMISSION OF FOREIGNERS 
 
 The negotiation of these treaties was not at all supported 
 by a unanimous national sentiment. In fact, the coming of 
 the foreigner divided the nation into three camps. The 
 strife between these was, within a few years, to bring to an 
 end the dual form of government, and to pave the way 
 for the transformation of the political structure of Japan. 
 One camp was made up of those who recognized the supe- 
 riority of Western culture, and the impossibility of ignoring 
 it. They were in favor of receiving the foreigner, and learn- 
 ing from him as quickly as possible in the endeavor to match 
 him with his own weapons and at his own game. As Japan 
 
 * For a longer explanation of exterritoriality see below, page 154.
 
 PERIOD OF INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION iii 
 
 had in years past adopted Chinese civilization, the highest 
 that she then knew, so these reformers would have the na- 
 tion now accept that of the Occident, for it was proving 
 itself to be more powerful and efficient than that of the 
 neighboring continent. This group, at first very small, 
 was to predominate within a decade and a half. As time 
 went on it saw that the dual form of government was an 
 anachronism and a handicap in dealing with the centralized 
 powers of the Occident. Some of its members began to work 
 for the restoration to the emperor of the powers exercised 
 by the bakufu. In this respect they found themselves in 
 accord with the native school of historians who had come 
 to regard the shogun as a usurper. A second group saw 
 the impossibility of remaining a hermit nation, but believed 
 in opening the door only as far as was insisted on by the 
 powers. That was the prevailing sentiment at the court of 
 the shogun. The third beheved in keeping the door tightly 
 shut, in abrogating all agreements with the Westerner, 
 and in ousting him and all his ways. This opinion was for 
 much of the time the prevailing one at Kyoto. The im- 
 perial court was not in contact with the foreigner and the 
 incumbent of the throne was presumed to be reactionary. 
 The court was, moreover, from time to time under the con- 
 trol of the Western fiefs. Of these the most prominent were 
 Satsuma and Choshu. From the time of lyeyasu, it will be 
 remembered, they had paid the shogun only a grudging 
 submission; they were hence not inclined to jaeld him un- 
 questioning obedience in his decision to admit the foreigners. 
 At first they had no fixed ideas on the question and were 
 divided both between and among themselves. In time, 
 however, they arrived at the conviction that to admit the 
 Westerner was treason and that they should oppose it 
 with all their might. They sought to win the ear of the
 
 112 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 emperor and induce him to assert his authority and compel 
 the shogun to cancel the treaties. 
 
 THE SHOGUN'S difficult POSITION 
 
 The struggle increasingly centered around Kyoto. Each 
 faction hoped that the emperor would side with them. 
 Part of the time the Western fiefs had his ear, and inspired 
 by them he ordered the shogun to expel the barbarians. 
 The shogun could not comply, for he knew himself to be 
 powerless before the cannon of the foreign gunboats. Nor 
 did he dare to refuse point-blank, for that would be ac- 
 claimed by his opponents as disobedience to his master, 
 and the rising tide of national sentiment would not brook 
 such an insult to the legal head of the state. The shogun 
 therefore temporized. On the one hand he promised 
 Kyoto to carry out its wishes but asked for leeway. On the 
 other he continued his intercourse with the powers but 
 delayed as much as possible the granting of concessions, so 
 much so, in fact, that foreigners, not understanding his 
 dilemma, accused him of insincerity. Had the shogun's 
 ministers at the beginning expressed their determination not 
 to refer foreign affairs to Kyoto they might with firmness 
 have carried their point, but they compromised and were 
 undone. Not willing to ignore Kyoto, the Yedo court 
 sought to control it. The youthful shogun was married to 
 an imperial princess, and later journeyed to Kyoto to pay 
 homage to the emperor and receive his orders. 
 
 THE END OF THE SHOGUNATE 
 
 The situation was fast becoming an impossible one for the 
 shogun. The numbers of Westerners in the treaty ports 
 were increasing. Commerce was growing. Even Christian
 
 PERIOD OF INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION 113 
 
 missionaries were entering and, sheltered by the foreign 
 settlements, were propagating their faith in spite of the 
 anti-Christian sentiment bred by two hundred and fifty 
 years of prohibitory edicts. Serious clashes occurred be- 
 tween the reactionary feudatories and the Occidentals. 
 Foreigners were frequently attacked and occasionally 
 killed by samurai who thought thus to show their anger 
 against the barbarian who had violated the sacred soil of 
 Japan, and to aid in his expulsion. In 1862 some English- 
 men chanced to meet the retinue of the daimyo of Satsuma 
 on a pubHc road and violated, ignorantly but rather in- 
 solently, the Japanese etiquette for such occasions. They 
 .were attacked by the lord's followers and one of them was 
 ^'^U^killed. The Yedo government made ample apology and 
 ^ w paid an indemnity, but the Satsuma baron refused to sur- 
 ' ^ render the guilty samurai as the EngHsh demanded and the 
 V shogun was not strong enough to compel him to do so. The 
 British therefore in 1863 sent a naval force to the Satsimia 
 dominions in Ejushiu and bombarded the capital (Kago- 
 shima) . The other leading Western fief, Choshu, determined 
 in the same year to take action against the hated barbarians. 
 It commanded the straits of Shimonoseki, the narrow 
 passage through which passed foreign ships on their way 
 between Shanghai and the east coast of Japan and North 
 America. An edict from the emperor had been issued with- 
 out the knowledge of the shogun, ordering that the for- 
 eigners be expelled. Choshu gladly obeyed, and the forts at 
 the straits fired at several vessels, American, Dutch, and 
 French. The powers concerned, together with Great 
 Britain, joined in demanding of the shogun that the truc- 
 ulent daimyo be punished, but this the bakufu was quite 
 unable to do. In fact, the Choshu lord killed the ambas- 
 sador sent to him from Yedo. The four powers now sent a
 
 114 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 squadron to Shimonoseki, bombarded and demolished the 
 forts, and destroyed the daimyo's ships. That feudatory 
 thereupon promised the powers that he would not rebuild 
 his forts nor molest foreign ships and also agreed to pay the 
 sum of three milUon dollars. The shogun sent an expedition 
 against Choshu to punish the fief for its insubordination, 
 but could accomplish nothing. He even assumed the 
 indemnity when Choshu failed to pay it. The last install- 
 ment of the indemnity, it may be added, was not paid until 
 1875. The Americans' share proved much larger than was 
 necessary to cover the costs and damages sustained, and 
 later they returned the entire amount to the Japanese. 
 
 The foreign ministers had at first been ignorant of the 
 true nature of the relation of the shogun to the emperor. 
 They had regarded the former as the supreme ruler of the 
 land and the latter as a kind of high priest. In the course 
 of time they discovered their mistake and after the Shi- 
 monoseki affair the able British Minister, Sir Harry Parkes, 
 led in a demand, which had been planned before his ar- 
 rival, for the ratification of the treaties by the emperor. 
 Backed by an allied fleet, the request was presented not at 
 Yedo, but at Hiogo, a port near Kyoto. The immediate 
 opening to foreign residence of that city and Osaka, the 
 port of the capital, and a reduction of the customs duties 
 were requested. Terrified by the show of force, the emperor 
 issued an edict sanctiom'ng the treaties, and the promised 
 reduction of the tariff was agreed to. This incident finally 
 made apparent the failure of the shogun. He had not closed 
 the land against the foreigner as he had promised: he had 
 not even been able to prevent the barbarian from threaten- 
 ing with his fleet the entrance to the imperial city. He had 
 been treated by the foreigners as a minister who was fast be- 
 coming discredited with his master. The emperor, under the
 
 PERIOD OF INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION 115 
 
 guidance of the Western fiefs, vigorously asserted his author- 
 ity and disgraced the bakufu for the bungling way in which 
 its representatives had handled the negotiations at Hiogo. 
 The shogun resigned, but the emperor was not yet ready 
 tojgissume the responsibility of accepting his resignation. 
 /^ The young shogun soon died and was succeeded by a 
 mature man who attempted to restore the waning fortunes 
 of the Tokugawa by a cordial acceptance of Western meth- 
 ods. He began the reform of his army and navy and of the 
 Yedo court, and continued to try to coerce the Choshu fief 
 into obedience. He was too late, however, to save his 
 ofl&ce. An increasingly strong national sentiment de- 
 manded that the incompetent Tokugawa restore its del- 
 egated power, and in 1867 the shogun recognized that to 
 attempt longer to keep up the dual government would be 
 to court disaster for himself and the nation. Accordingly he 
 resigned (October 14, 1867), and an imperial decree followed 
 declaring his office abolished and the duarchy at an end. ) 
 Some of the followers of the Tokugawa resented the mannef^ 
 in which Kyoto, under the control of the Western fiefs, was 
 accomplishing the transfer of the government from the 
 bakufu to the emperor, and raised the standard of revolt. 
 The insurrection was quickly put down by the loyal daimyo, 
 however, and the prestige of the imperial power was only 
 enhanced. The system first foimded by Yoritomo, seven 
 centuries before, had been brought to an end, and the 
 emperor once more exercised direct control over his do- 
 mains. The ex-shogun retired to private life. He lived to 
 see all the changes of the next generation and did not die 
 until the second decade of the nineteenth century. 
 
 For further reading see: Griffis, The Mikado's Empire; 
 Brinkley, A History of the Japanese People; Brinkley, Japan, 
 Its History, Arts, and Literature.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 The Period of Internal Transformation (1853-1894) 
 
 2. THE reorganization OF THE GOVERNMENT FROM THE 
 RESTORATION OF THE EMPEROR TO THE WAR WITH 
 CHINA (1868-1894) 
 
 The end of the shogimate marks the beginning of a new 
 age. Henceforth the ofl&cial policy of the nation was reform 
 on Western hnes. The leaders who engineered the em- 
 peror's restoration had come to recognize that the foreigner 
 must be accepted. At their advice the monarch annomiced 
 his intention to abide by the treaties made by the shogun 
 and to supervise directly the relations with the powers. 
 Only eight months before the resignation of the last shogun 
 had come the death of the emperor Komei. Although only a 
 young man, he had been loyal to the old order, and in so far 
 as his own personal opinions went was rabidly anti-foreign. 
 His successor, Meiji,^ was a lad of only fourteen when he 
 ascended the throne, and was naturally under the influence 
 of his advisers. As he came to manhood's estate he heartily 
 accepted the ideals of the new age. Although the progress 
 of his reign was due primarily to his councillors, he did not 
 hinder them by reactionary tendencies. He was hard- 
 working, tactful, and sanely progressive. He had the good 
 judgment so to accept advice and so to act in conjunction 
 with his ministers that it is hard at times to determine just 
 
 * Meiji is his regnal name. His personal name, by which he is fre- 
 quently referred to in foreign books, was Mutsuhito. He was bom 
 November 3, 1852. 
 
 Z16
 
 PERIOD OF INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION 117 
 
 how much positive influence he had on the policies of his 
 reign. Had he been more self-assertive and less tactful and 
 well poised, he might have been a serious hindrance instead 
 of a help, and his reign would have had a different history. 
 By injudicious acts he might have come to grief as had 
 Go-Daigo in an earlier attempt at the restoration of im- 
 perial power. 
 
 The Western fiefs that had been so instnmiental in bring- 
 ing about the downfall of the shogim had at first been 
 actuated by hatred of the foreigner. As time passed, how- 
 ever, they became convinced that the Westerner could not 
 be expelled. Satsuma and Choshu, two of the leading forces 
 in the coalition, had experienced a change of heart after 
 their rough handling by the foreign fleets. They realized 
 that the "barbarian" was in Japan to stay, however much 
 they might dislike him, and that he could be met only with 
 his own weapons. They became hearty champions of 
 Western methods and provided modem equipment for 
 their troops. Each may possibly have hoped to substitute 
 itself for the Tokugawa in a kind of revised shogunate, but 
 as time passed they saw that the old order could not be 
 revived and that the control of the government must be 
 exercised through other channels. Their adherents, to- 
 gether with those of two other Southern fiefs, Hizen (in 
 Kiushiu) and Tosa (in Shikoku), dominated the new govern- 
 ment, to be sure, although not quite so completely as the 
 Tokugawa had the old, and were to maintain that mastery 
 for many years. The army and navy are still under their 
 control and their voice is strong in national coimcils. But 
 the shogunate was dead and national affairs were hence- 
 forth to be conducted through the instruments of the 
 new age, a bureaucracy, the cabinet, and the Elder States- 
 men.
 
 Ii8 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 THE CENTRALIZATION OF THE ADMINISTRATION 
 
 To the support of the young emperor came all the rad- 
 icals, a growing number, who desired a complete reorganiza- 
 tion of the nation, and who saw in the restored imperial 
 authority the opportunity to develop a monarchy and a 
 government of the European type. The revolution of 1867 
 had been the work of these men, most of them samurai of 
 the lower ranks, not nobles, and they were to be the real 
 architects of the new Japan. The old order was not to die 
 without a struggle; all the nation had not yet heartily 
 accepted the foreigner. From now on, however, the history 
 of the country was to be one of steady development and 
 transformation. The "year period" that nearly spanned 
 the emperor's reign was rightly and prophetically called 
 Meiji, "enUghtened government." ^ 
 
 From 1868 to 1894, when foreign affairs began to be dom- 
 inant in the national mind, the chief interest of the nation 
 was to be in domestic reorganization. The main features 
 of this period of internal transformation may be con- 
 veniently classified under political and constitutional devel- 
 opment, foreign relations, economic progress, intellectual, 
 educational, and literary innovations, and religious and 
 ethical changes. The constitutional and political changes 
 can best be treated first. 
 
 The end of the shogunate was of course only the first 
 
 *The Japanese have the custom, derived from China, of dating 
 events not by centuries or by reigns, but by reign names. These are 
 not necessarily coextensive with reign of the sovereign, for the name 
 may be changed several times during the life of one monarch. The 
 Meiji era began January 25, 1868. The emperor Meiji had ascended 
 the throne January 13, 1867. The Meiji era ended with his death, 
 July 30, 191 2.
 
 PERIOD OF INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION 119 
 
 step toward the reorganization of the government. The 
 first need of the state was centralization. The nation must 
 act as a unit if it was to succeed in competing with Occiden- 
 tal powers. It must have nicely articulated political 
 machinery that would operate on every individual in the 
 land, and that could be directed by a united executive. 
 The first step toward centralization had been taken when 
 the shogunate was abolished, but it was only the first step. 
 There was no adequate machinery for carrying on the 
 government imder the new regime. For nearly eight hun- 
 dred years the emperor had delegated his authority to the 
 bakufu and precedents for the organization of the state 
 imder his direct supervision had to be sought for in the re- 
 forms of the seventh and eighth centuries. At first (1868) a 
 kind of ministry or council was formed, intended to be some- 
 what like the one copied from the China of the T'ang 
 dynasty. It was made up of members of the Western fiefs 
 and of the court nobility. It could be but little more than 
 a makeshift, pending the time when something better could 
 be found. It was not, however, an exact copy of its an- 
 cient prototype, since provision was made for a deliberative 
 gathering of the samurai and court nobihty. This assem- 
 bly, which actually met in 1869, was an abortive attempt 
 to adapt to Japanese use the representative institutions of 
 the Occident. 
 
 In 1868 the capital was moved from Kyoto to Yedo, 
 which was now renamed Tokyo, "Eastern Capital," and 
 the emperor took up his residence in the castle-palace of 
 the shogim. The change emphasized the break with the 
 seclusion and impotence of the past and the assumption by 
 the emperor of the functions formerly intrusted to the sho- 
 gun. No longer was. the monarch kept in veiled seclusion, 
 but rode out openly to show his face to his subjects and to
 
 I20 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 receive their homage. The transfer of the capital also 
 brought the emperor nearer to the geographic center of his 
 domains, and by establishing the seat of his government on 
 the coast it gave an unmistakable demonstration of his 
 frank and cordial acceptance of intercourse with foreigners 
 and facilitated his relations with them. This attitude 
 toward the Westerners was reenforced by an edict de- 
 noxmdng all violence against them, and by an imperial 
 audience to the representatives of the treaty powers. 
 
 Shortly after the restoration the emperor's advisers put 
 in his mouth a " charter oath " to indicate the lines on which 
 future changes were to be made. This remarkable document 
 has been somewhat freely translated as follows: 
 
 "The practice of argument and debate shall be univer- 
 sally adopted and all measures shall be decided by impar- 
 tial discussion. 
 
 "High and low shall be of one mind, and social order 
 shall thereby be perfectly maintained. It is necessary that 
 the civil and military powers be concentrated in a single 
 whole, that the rights of all classes be assured and the na- 
 tional mind be completely satisfied. 
 
 "The uncivilized customs of former times shall be broken 
 through, and the impartiaUty and justice displayed in the 
 working of nature shall be adopted as a basis of action. 
 
 "Intellect and learning shall be sought for throughout 
 the world, in order to establish the foundations of the 
 Empire." 
 
 Here was a combination of the old and the new, a mixture 
 of Chinese and Japanese philosophy and phraseology with 
 Western ideas. The Confucian cosmogony, the foreshad- 
 owing of parliamentary government, the centralization of 
 the state, the determination to learn from the entire world, 
 were all in it.
 
 PERIOD OF INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION 121 
 
 With the oath came another adjustment of the machinery 
 of government, including principally a council of state ^ 
 which was to have the control of the government for some 
 years. 
 
 With the passing of the shogunate and the coming of 
 the new age, feudalism was evidently an anachronism. 
 Already under the peace imposed by the Tokugawa it had 
 begun to lose its strength. Its armies, in which the in- 
 dividual prowess of the warrior and the glory of each fief 
 were valued more than discipline and group strategy, would 
 be of but little use in defense against a European power. 
 Its decentralization was a handicap in the struggle for na- 
 tional solidity and reorganization. With the loss of its 
 head, the shogun, and the reassertion of the authority of 
 the civil arm, represented by the emperor, its continuation 
 would be an anomaly. The reform leaders, as a rule drawn 
 from the ranks of the samurai of the more progressive fiefs, 
 were the first to recognize the wisdom of abandoning the 
 old system, and a public agitation for abolishing feudalism 
 began. Civil officials were appointed to represent the cen- 
 tral government in each of the fiefs, and a bureaucracy con- 
 trolled by Tokyo was thus begun. In 1869 the four great 
 daimyo of the southwest offered to the emperor the reg- 
 isters of their lands and people as a symbol of the transfer 
 to him of the local administration. Then followed a re- 
 markable spectacle, a splendid example of the old loyalty 
 and the newly aroused patriotism of the empire; the vast 
 majority of the nearly three hundred remaining feudal 
 lords voluntarily surrendered their fiefs. No longer was 
 the allegiance of the samurai to be first of all for the daimyo; 
 no longer was Japan to be a loose collection of fiefs. The 
 love of country for which the centuries of imion under the 
 ^ Daijokwan.
 
 122 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 Tokugawa and the loyalty inculcated by bushido were a 
 preparation had, within a few years, been aroused by con- 
 tact with Western peoples and had made possible a unified 
 administration under the emperor. The daimyo must 
 not, however, be regarded as moved purely by an impulse 
 to voluntary, heroic self-abnegation. Strong pressure was 
 brought to bear on them by the reformers. Numbers 
 of them had long exercised only a nominal authority: in 
 the decay of feudalism the real power in many fiefs had 
 fallen into the hands of ministers and retainers, and the 
 daimyo were not averse to giving up a power of which they 
 had only the shadow. Moreover, the central government 
 guaranteed the feudatories incomes of one-tenth of their 
 former revenues, and the expenses of local administration 
 need no longer be met by them. The surrender of the fiefs 
 was followed (1871) by an imperial edict which finally 
 abolished feudalism. 
 
 The pensions which were promised the ex-daimyo and 
 samurai proved to be so heavy a drain on the national 
 exchequer that before many months the emperor's ad- 
 visers were endeavoring to find some means of reducing 
 them. In 1873 a plan was announced for commuting the 
 pensions for cash and government bonds. Although the 
 established proportion for commutation provided the 
 samurai with siuns the return from which would be much 
 less than their pensions, many of them willingly acceded, 
 partly out of patriotism, partly out of ignorance of business 
 methods, and partly because the code of the samurai had 
 insisted that it was beneath his dignity to be seriously 
 concerned about money. Before long (1876) commutation 
 was made compulsory and the special support by the state 
 of an hereditary warrior caste came to an end. 
 
 The end of feudalism was followed in the course of the
 
 PERIOD OF INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION 123 
 
 next few years by acts which perfected as thoroughly a 
 centralized government as the most highly organized states 
 of the Occident. In the first place, for the old feudal army 
 made up of contingents furnished by individual fiefs and 
 recruited exclusively from the samurai, there was substi- 
 tuted a national army, drawn from aU ranks of society. To 
 no class was there now reserved the privilege of defending 
 the state; the opportunity for doing so was not only offered, 
 but forced upon all by a system of compulsory military 
 training and service which applied to men of suitable age 
 regardless of station or birth. The new army was first 
 patterned after French models, and then, subsequent to the 
 Franco-Prussian war, after the German system. 
 
 An act essentially related to this nationalizing of military 
 service was the removal of many of the old social distinc- 
 tions. The difference between the civil or court nobility 
 and the military class was abolished. The new aristocracy 
 that was later created was neither civil nor military, but 
 national. The former distinctions between the warriors and 
 the commoners were cancelled. Within the commoner class 
 itself the ancient gradations which had condemned certain 
 groups to hereditary dishonor and had imposed on one of 
 them the opprobrious title of "not human" (hi-nin) were 
 annulled. Many of the samurai voluntarily laid aside their 
 swords, the badge of their rank: in 1876 the rest were 
 compelled to do so. All subjects of the emperor were now 
 on an equal footing in the eyes of the law. From the ranks 
 of the ex-samurai, however, came most of the leaders of the 
 new Japan, and while the class ceased to have a legal 
 existence, individual members of it, by force of character 
 and tradition, were to dominate and guide the nation for 
 years to come. 
 
 In place of the local administration by feudal lords, an
 
 124 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 elaborate bureaucracy was organized. Its members were 
 appointed by and were responsible to the authorities in 
 Tokyo, and to it was intrusted the entire administration of 
 the country, local as well as national. Through it the 
 humblest subject of the emperor was protected and super- 
 vised by the direct representatives of the monarch himself. 
 At its inception the bureaucracy was naturally recruited 
 largely from members of the samurai class, for these were the 
 only ones who were trained in governmental administra- 
 tion. No one was allowed to hold oflSce in the fief of which 
 he had been a member, however, and as time went on the 
 ranks of the civil service were recruited from the successful 
 candidates at competitive examinations. These last were 
 open to all classes, regardless of birth, and have helped to 
 bring into official life large numbers of men who are not of 
 the military class. The model and precedent for this 
 bureaucracy were found partly in the reforms of the seventh 
 and eighth centuries. The Japanese of the Meiji era, how- 
 ever, were influenced as well by Occidental models, the 
 example of Germany being especially potent later. 
 
 The leaders in the reform movement early planned a 
 national code of laws. The feudal customs of the old days, 
 varjdng from fief to fief, could not meet the conditions of 
 the new age. Moreover, exterritoriality, which seemed to 
 reflect on the character of existing courts and laws by 
 exempting foreigners from their jurisdiction, was gall and 
 wormwood to the sensitive Japanese. Impelled by the 
 hope of ending it by removing the cause for its existence, 
 the new government pushed as rapidly as possible the 
 formation of codes along Occidental lines. By 187 1 two 
 volumes of the criminal code were ready and some offenses 
 against foreigners were tried by it. The use of torture and 
 of punishments which, judged by Western standards, are
 
 PERIOD OF INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION 125 
 
 excessive or barbarous, was abolished. Trial by jury was 
 not adopted, but a coUegiate judiciary was instituted and 
 every effort was made to render it efficient and above re- 
 proach. 
 
 The currency system was thoroughly reorganized and 
 nationalized. Under the old regime many kinds of money 
 had been in circulation, both coin and paper. Paper 
 money, suggested by Chinese precedent, had been in use, 
 and each fief had felt itself free to issue it. The result was 
 confusion and instability. The newly centralized govern- 
 ment was under the necessity of instituting a uniform na- 
 tional currency. The support of the mercantile classes 
 would thus be assured, and every new coin and bill would be. 
 evidence to the public of the power of the emperor and the 
 Tokyo administration. National prosperity would also be 
 promoted. A commissioner (Ito) was sent to the United 
 States to study its finances. On his return the decimal 
 system was introduced, a new coinage was issued, and a 
 plan of national banks and paper currency was adopted 
 which resembled the one in use in America. At the advent 
 of Perry the ratio of gold to silver in Japan had been about 
 four to one. Foreigners had quickly taken advantage of 
 the situation and had bought up all of the more precious 
 metal that they could lay hands on, exporting it under the 
 protection of the treaties. As a result the distressed officials 
 altered the ratio to the fifteen and then the sixteen to one 
 current in the West. But in the meantime gold had dis- 
 appeared and the cheaper silver had taken its place. The 
 process was helped by an unfavorable balance of trade. 
 The nominal bimetallism of the nation was destroyed by 
 these agencies and the currency was reduced practically to a 
 silver basis; the nation was not to go on a gold basis until 
 after the Chino- Japanese war. Before many years a finan-
 
 126 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 cial crisis made necessary a reorganization of the banking 
 system and the American plan was modified by the founda- 
 tion of a central national bank along the lines so common 
 in Europe.^ This strengthened the control exercised by the 
 central government over the banking organization of the 
 nation, and aided as well in the marketing of the government 
 bonds and in the financing of its other undertakings. 
 
 An official revival of Shinto was encouraged to increase 
 the respect paid to the emperor. Under the early Tokugawa 
 Buddhism had had more official favor shown it than had 
 Shinto, possibly because of the aid it afforded in exter- 
 minating and guarding against Roman Catholic Chris- 
 tianity. During the last years of the Tokugawa a Shinto 
 revival, it will be remembered, had helped to pave the way 
 for the restoration of the emperor's power. After 1869 
 Buddhism, while still recognized, was virtually disestab- 
 lished and in places discouraged, and Shinto became the 
 official cult of the nation. Shinto was made to emphasize 
 more than ever the memory and achievements of the em- 
 peror's ancestors, and became closely identified with the 
 growing spirit of patriotism. Through Shinto a religious 
 tinge was given to the love of country. Patriotic and re- 
 ligious enthusiasm combined to emphasize national con- 
 sciousness and unity. 
 
 A national postal service was begun even before the 
 end of feudalism, and, supplemented by a telegraph sys- 
 tem introduced and managed by the government, it be- 
 came an efficient instrument for promoting national con- 
 sciousness. The new national school system, of which 
 more will be said later, was directed from Tokyo and also 
 helped to strengthen the unity of the country. 
 
 The agents of this transformation and centralization 
 ^ The Bank of Japan was modeled after the Bank of Belgium.
 
 PERIOD OF INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION 127 
 
 were a gfv^up of young, able men, drawn almost exclusively 
 from the lanks of the samurai. For the most part they 
 were those who had early seen the necessity of admitting 
 the foreigner and adjusting the nation to his ways, and 
 who had made themselves familiar, often at grave personal 
 risk, with Western civilization either by residence abroad 
 or by diligent study and travel. Prominent among them 
 were Iwakura and Sanjo, court 'nobles, Kido, Yamagata, 
 Ito, and Inouye, all four of them samurai of Choshu, 
 Okubo and Saigo, both samurai of Satsuma, and two other 
 samurai, Itagaki and Okuma, the one of Tosa the other of 
 Hizen. Others equally famous in their time might be 
 mentioned, but these names at least should be remem- 
 bered by all who seek to be famiUar with the new Japan. 
 Most of them were from the South and Southwest, from 
 those fiefs which had been prominent in bringing about 
 the restoration. Under them the control exercised by the 
 southern feudatories over the government was to be main- 
 tained for many years. These ex-feudatories had the ear 
 of the emperor and dominated the civil bureaucracy and 
 the army and navy. Okuma and Itagaki were later to 
 break with the others and to head hberal movements. 
 
 OPPOSITION TO THE NEW ORDER 
 
 This centralization of the government, although rela- 
 tively and strikingly rapid, was not the work of one year 
 or of two, and was not finished until the middle of the 
 eighteen eighties. But it was not completed without a 
 struggle with the forces of the old regime. The mass of 
 the nation, it is true, was increasingly in sympathy with 
 the reform leaders, but nearly every step in advance met 
 with violent opposition. It was some years before West-
 
 128 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 emers were entirely safe from the swords of ar.ti-foreign 
 rowdies and fanatics, even though the emperor had placed 
 the strangers under his special protection. Irreconcilables 
 haunted the unlighted streets and alleys of Tokyo at 
 night and assailed unwary foreigners. Two samurai at- 
 tacked the foreign escort of the British minister when the 
 latter was on his way to his first audience with the em- 
 peror. The emperor's ministers were often, in personal 
 peril of violence from conservative agitators, and at least 
 one, Okubo, actually lost his life at their hands. Not all 
 the nation could see that the changes were wise. Many 
 bitterly resented the abandonment of time-honored Japa- 
 nese customs and methods for the foreign ways. Incipient 
 insurrections broke out from time to time, only to be put 
 down. Finally, in 1877, the opposition culminated in a 
 well organized rebellion in the South, the suppression of 
 which taxed the powers of the new government. The leader 
 of the rebellion was Saigo, a samurai of Satsuma. He had 
 been among the reformers in the earlier stages of the re- 
 organization movement. However, he had broken with 
 the majority of the group who were at the head in Tokyo. 
 He had wished to preserve military service as the exclusive 
 privilege of the samurai, and had opposed the creation of 
 the national army recruited by conscription from all ranks. 
 He had, moreover, favored a war with Korea. That coxm- 
 try had haughtily broken off relations with Japan when 
 the latter admitted the foreigner, and Saigo would have 
 avenged the insult with an armed expedition. Since war 
 would check internal reorganization, the more radical re- 
 formers opposed him and Saigo retired from the cabinet. 
 Leaving Tokyo, he went south to Satsuma and here there 
 began gathering around him all the forces of discontent. 
 Imposing in person, able, apparently the embodiment of
 
 PERIOD OF INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION 129 
 
 all the virtues of the samurai of the old school, he soon 
 found himself surrounded by a formidable army. All those 
 opposed to the iconoclasm of the ministry to the seeming 
 abandonment of the nation's individuality, flocked to him. 
 He was cordially supported by the ex-daimyo of Satsuma, 
 who was himself of the moderate conservatives. In 1877, 
 the Satsuma discontents raised the standard of revolt 
 against the government. Saigo, probably reluctantly, al- 
 lowed himself to be dragged into the rebellion as its 
 head.* Against these recalcitrant samurai were brought 
 the forces of the new national army in which commoners 
 and ex-sumurai fought side by side. The Tokyo govern- 
 ment called out more troops than were actually needed, 
 partly to demonstrate to the nation the efliciency of the 
 new system and partly to insure victory. The fighting 
 was fierce, but the outcome was not long, if ever, in doubt. 
 The Satsuma rebels were defeated and those of their leaders 
 who escaped death in battle committed suicide. The new 
 order had met the old on the field of battle and had con- 
 clusively demonstrated its superiority. The new national 
 army, drawn from all classes, had overwhelmed the forces 
 of imrecondled feudalism and serious armed opposition 
 to the new age was at an end. 
 
 THE MOVEMENT TOWARD CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT 
 
 The triumph of centralization was but one phase of the 
 political transformation of Japan. A little later in its 
 inception, but of no less importance and absorbing interest, 
 was a movement toward constitutional government, the 
 
 ^ It ought to be added that Saigo's motives and the exact process 
 by which he became the leader of the revolt have been a mooted 
 question.
 
 I30 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 result of contact with the democracy of the Occident. All 
 thoroughgoing reformers were united in demanding the 
 end of feudalism and the restoration of the emperor. One 
 group of them, however, was in favor of an autocracy sup- 
 ported by a bureaucracy, and another believed piat the 
 elected representatives of the nation should have an im- 
 portant share in the government. The one found in Ger- 
 many and the Prussian system a model which more nearly 
 than any other in the Occident represented its ideal. It 
 was supported by the conservative ex-samurai, a majority 
 of that body, and retained control of the government. The 
 other represented different shades of opinion, but in the 
 main saw its ideal in England and the limited monarchies 
 of the West. It advocated placing the administration in 
 the hands of a ministry responsible to a parliament elected 
 by the nation. 
 
 Constitutional government was seemingly foreshadowed 
 in the imperial oath of 1869 when the advisers of the young 
 monarch put into his mouth the promise that "argument 
 and debate shall be adopted and all measures shall be 
 decided by impartial discussion." The exact meaning of 
 this promise was and is a matter of some dispute. Its lan- 
 guage was ambiguous and it might be also translated, 
 "An assembly widely convoked shall be established, and 
 all affairs of state decided by impartial discussion." Its 
 import was even more a matter of dispute. Some held it 
 to be a definite promise of parliamentary government; 
 others maintained that it did not have any Occidental 
 institution in mind. The latter position is probably more 
 nearly correct. The framers of the oath seem to have in- 
 tended nothing more than an assembly of the feudatories 
 and the court nobility, for with the exception of the loss 
 of the shogun, its head, feudalism was still largely intact
 
 PERIOD OF INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION 131 
 
 at the time the oath was taken. The samurai and nobles 
 would meet by virtue of their hereditary positions, not 
 as elected spokesmen of the nation. Such an assembly 
 did convene in 1869.^ Its functions were purely consulta- 
 tive. It was to be a means of ascertaining the opinion of 
 the warrior and noble classes, the only groups which had 
 in the past been concerned with the active government. 
 The gathering proved a fiasco. Membership in it was not 
 highly esteemed, and it accomplished nothing of note. 
 The government was carried on through other agencies. 
 In 1870 the gathering was prorogued and in 1873 dissolved. 
 Although the institution which seems to have been con- 
 templated by the charter oath had failed, the oath itself 
 was to be taken up by the hberals and to be interpreted as 
 a promise of a truly national assembly with extensive 
 powers. By 1873 ^^^ statesmen of the nation knew more 
 of Western institutions than they had in 1869. An official 
 mission had visited America and Europe and had been 
 much impressed by what it had seen. On its return to 
 Japan one of its leaders ^ presented to his colleagues in 
 the government a memorandum advocating a constitutional 
 monarchy, but did not suggest any very definite institu- 
 tions through which this should be carried on. This was 
 the true beginning of the struggle for representative gov- 
 ernment. The history of subsequent developments is an 
 interesting one, but only its main features can here be 
 presented. The movement drew its support principally 
 from two groups of people. The fijst was made up of the 
 radical wing of those who favored the adoption of Occi- 
 dental ways. They advocated an enthusiastic and whole- 
 sale Westernization of Japan and were in favor of discard- 
 ing all the customs and institutions which from the for- 
 1 It was called the Kogisho. * Kido.
 
 132 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 eigners' standpoint marked the nation as peculiar and 
 barbarous. They wished Japan to take its place at once 
 with Western powers by copying all the trappings of Occi- 
 dental civilization. The younger students, both those 
 who were returning from America and Europe and those 
 who were the product of the new schools in Japan, some 
 of the editors of recently established newspapers, and some 
 of those who were in intimate contact with foreign books 
 or foreigners in the treaty ports, formed the bulk of this 
 group. The more extreme among them had imbibed or 
 were to imbibe many of the most radical political theories 
 of the West. They were to read the books that had pre- 
 ceded the French Revolution, such as Rousseau's Social 
 Contract. No one ever talked of abolishing the monarchy: 
 the imperial institution had too firm a hold on the imagina- 
 tion of the nation for that. Many did, however, believe 
 in a ministry responsible for all its acts to a national as- 
 sembly elected on the basis of a liberal franchise. The 
 second group was made up of some of those of the govern- 
 ing class who had broken with the men in power, and who 
 desired to make political capital out of the agitation. They 
 apparently hoped that by championing the constitutional 
 movement they would either oust the ministry or force it 
 to make terms with them. 
 
 Early in 1874 a group of of&cials who had differed from 
 the government on its Korean policy and had resigned, 
 presented a memorial protesting against the arbitrary 
 acts of the heads of the bureaucracy and advocating an 
 elective assembly. Of these protestants Itagaki should 
 be remembered for his part in the later struggle for a con- 
 stitution. The government was inclined to make conces- 
 sions to these former officials, apparently in the hope that 
 it could win their support and forestall more demands
 
 PERIOD OF INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION 133 
 
 later. Accordingly a compromise was arranged ^ by which 
 the two factions were reconciled and important constitu- 
 tional changes were agreed upon which were a step, although 
 a very short one, toward representative government. A 
 senate * was established as a legislative chamber. It was 
 to have deliberative powers but not those of initiating 
 measures, and it was to be made up exclusively of ap- 
 pointed members of the noble and official classes. There 
 was to be a reorganization of the departments, including 
 the establishment of a high court of justice, to obtain a 
 separation between the judicial, executive, and legislative 
 branches of the government. This was obviously done 
 under the influence of the theory of the division of func- 
 tions that so greatly influenced the constitutions of the 
 West. In addition, an assembly of the prefectural gover- 
 nors was to be convened to bring the Tokyo authorities 
 in touch with the needs of the people. None of these 
 changes provided for popular election or for representation 
 of any but the official classes, but they were meant to 
 qualify the absolute power of the group that surrounded 
 the emperor. The nation was probably not ready safely 
 to take advantage of further concessions. 
 
 The changes promised in 1874 could not, however, be 
 expected permanently to satisfy the liberals. Neither the 
 senate nor the assembly of governors proved very effective, 
 and of course, since they were representative only of of- 
 ficialdom, both were easily controlled by the ministry. 
 By 1877 the agitation for a constitution was again in evi- 
 dence. It was more insistent than before and was no longer 
 confined to liberal or dissatisfied members of the ruling 
 
 * At the so-called Osaka conference, 1874. 
 
 « Genro-in, not to be confused with the Genro or Elder Statesman, 
 a later institution.
 
 134 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 class. Radical ideas were spreading under continued con- 
 tact with the democracy of the West, and political bodies 
 sprang up which advocated representative institutions and 
 sent out lecturers and agitators to instruct and arouse the 
 people. The movement grew in intensity, and in 1878, 
 moved by the assassination of one of the prominent minis- 
 ters (Okubo), the government partially gave way and an- 
 nounced the organization of local assemblies. These were 
 elective bodies, chosen by a Hmited franchise. There was 
 to be one in each prefecture and they were to be merely 
 advisory to the governors. They were to meet for one 
 month each year and were to have a voice principally in 
 the levying and spending of local taxes and in the super- 
 vision of accounts. They could also petition the central 
 government. On the whole these assemblies worked well. 
 Later (1880) similar ones were organized in the cities, 
 towns, and villages. Occasionally they came into collision 
 with the representatives of the central government, but 
 they served to give the people a voice in local finances and 
 were training schools for the national parliament. 
 
 The grant of these local assemblies did not, however, 
 silence the liberals. Their demands were only intensified, 
 as no national assembly was yet provided for, and revolu- 
 tionary ideas from the Occident were spreading with each 
 month that intercourse with Westerners continued. Me- 
 morials asking for a national assembly were presented to the 
 government by various bodies. A convention of the liberal 
 clubs met, and by a demonstration emphasized their de- 
 sires. Many of the newly founded newspapers cham- 
 pioned the movement. Finally, in October, 1881, the 
 government yielded and in the name of the emperor prom- 
 ised that a national assembly would be convened in 1890 
 and that a constitution would be granted. The next year
 
 PERIOD OF INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION 135 
 
 Ito was sent abroad to study the form of constitutions in 
 use in the West, and became on his return the head of the 
 commission that was to frame a similar document for Japan. 
 Of Ito it ought to be added that he was the most promi- 
 nent statesman of Japan in the last two decades of the nine- 
 teenth century. He had begun life as a samurai of Choshu 
 and was originally, like his master, anti-foreign. He early 
 became convinced of the necessity of reform after Western 
 models, however, and together with Inouye and three others, 
 in 1863, braving the edicts which still made it a capital 
 offense to go abroad, secretly went to Shanghai. From 
 there he and his companions sailed to London, Ito and 
 Inouye working their passage before the mast. In London 
 the latter two spent a year, studying. When Choshu be- 
 came embroiled with the powers, Ito hurried back to Japan 
 in an attempt to prevent his fief from persisting in its trucu- 
 lent attitude towards foreigners. He did not succeed, and 
 for a time was in imminent peril of his life. After the 
 restoration, however, and the frank recognition by the 
 country of the new age, he quickly rose in office, and was 
 for years to be the dominant figure at Tokyo. 
 
 FORMATION OF PARTIES, PARTY AGITATION 
 
 Following the promise of 1881, three parties arose to 
 prepare the way for government under a constitution, and 
 to mold by their action the terms of that document. The 
 first of these, called the Liberal Party, ^ had as its leader 
 Itagaki, who had earlier been a member of the group that 
 had helped guide the nation through the Restoration. He 
 was a zealous advocate of giving the people a voice in the 
 government and his party represented the extreme wing 
 
 1 Jiyuto.
 
 136 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 of the radicals. He has sometimes been called the Rousseau 
 of Japan, and while the parallel is not an accurate one, he 
 and his party stood for what they deemed the rights of 
 man. Occasionally the more rabid members of his party 
 employed violent measures to further their cause, and they 
 often used virulent language. 
 
 The next party was the Liberal Conservatives.^ Its 
 leader was Okuma, another ex-samurai. He had early 
 acquired a knowledge of English and Dutch and with them 
 a conviction of the need of reforming Japan. He had been 
 a member of the government and had remained in it longer 
 than had Itagaki. Having chafed under the strong control 
 exercised over the administration by the ex-samurai of 
 Satsuma and Choshu, he finally broke away and organized 
 a party, apparently in the hope of weakening the Sat-Cho 
 (Satsuma-Choshu) combination by bringing into the gov- 
 ernment the element of popular representation. The 
 Liberal Conservatives were the more moderate wing of the 
 advocates of representative government. They favored a 
 gradual extension of the franchise, the development of 
 local self-government, and a policy of internal reorganiza- 
 tion as opposed to imperialism. They stood also for a soimd 
 currency. The party would naturally attract to itself 
 many elements in the nation which, while opposed to the 
 Sat-Cho oligarchy, were not willing to go to the lengths 
 proposed by Itagaki and his followers. 
 
 A third party was the Constitutional Imperialists.^ It 
 was made up of the conservatives, and while in favor of a 
 constitution, was opposed to any action that would weaken 
 the sovereignty of the emperor. It favored a restricted 
 electorate, an absolutfe imperial veto over all legislation, 
 and a bicameral legislature as opposed to the more demo- 
 ^ Kaishinto. * Rikken Teiseito.
 
 PERIOD OF INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION 137 
 
 cratic one-chamber plan. It was, however, in favor of an 
 independent judiciary, of keeping military and naval 
 officers out of politics, and of a rather wide freedom of 
 speech and assembly. The party itself was transient and 
 numerically small, but men in the government and their 
 supporters held similar opinions, and the principles it 
 advocated proved more influential than did those of its 
 opponents. Many of the ideas championed by it were to 
 be found in the finished constitution. 
 
 Following the formation of these parties there came 
 some months of popular agitation. Each went to the na- 
 tion with its views. Public mass meetings were held, and 
 many of the radical newspapers became violent in their 
 advocacy of their pet theories. So disturbing were the dis- 
 cussions that the government felt called upon to adopt 
 repressive measures, and by muzzling the press and public 
 meetings it produced for a time a semblance of calm. The 
 Japanese were as yet too unaccustomed to the institutions 
 of the West to exercise the self-restraint in public speech 
 that is necessary to a well-conducted popular government. 
 They were obviously still unprepared for the party system 
 involved in such a constitution as that of England. 
 
 CHANGES PREPARATORY TO THE CONSTITUTION 
 
 Ito returned from his tour of the West in 1883 and almost 
 at once changes were begun preparatory to the reorganiza- 
 tion of the government involved in the adoption of a con- 
 stitution. Of all the forms of limited monarchies he had 
 seen, Ito was most impressed with that of Germany. He 
 had been greatly influenced by Bismarck and by the re- 
 juvenation of the Fatherland that was taking place imder 
 the empire. He felt that the spirit of the German govern-
 
 138 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 ment, with its traditions of autocratic monarchy and its 
 bureaucracy, was more nearly that of the new Japan than 
 was that of any other important Occidental power. His 
 modifications of Japanese institutions clearly show how 
 deeply he had been stirred by these convictions. He began 
 (1884) by rehabilitating the nobility. That of past ages 
 had officially disappeared with the Restoration. It now 
 seemed to Ito wise to create a new one as the preliminary 
 to an upper house of a national legislature, and as a means 
 of strengthening the government with the support of the 
 more powerful, conservative classes. The orders of the 
 new nobility, five in mmiber, were modeled on those of 
 Europe and were conferred on former court nobles and 
 feudatories of the old regime, and upon those who had 
 been prominent in the restoration movement. 
 
 The next step was the remodeling of the cabinet to a 
 form corresponding somewhat to that of Germany. The 
 prime minister, like the German chancellor, was now to 
 have the guidance of all the other ministers, and was to be 
 responsible for the entire conduct of the administration. 
 The bureaucracy was modified by the introduction of 
 examinations. Official appointments to the civil service 
 were henceforth to be made on the basis of success in exam- 
 inations which were open to all subjects of the emperor. 
 This change was eventually to make the civil bureaucracy a 
 truly national body and was to remove it from the monopoly 
 of the ex-samurai. 
 
 THE FRAMING AND PROMULGATION OF THE CONSTITUTION, 
 
 1889 
 
 The framing of the constitution was meanwhile under 
 way. That task was not intrusted to a popular representa- 
 tive assembly. The document was to be granted by the
 
 PERIOD OF INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION 139 
 
 emperor out of his own kindness, and in constructing it the 
 nation was to have no direct voice. The work was placed 
 in the hands of a group of men, chief of whom was Ito, who 
 carried it on in secret, where each step in the process would 
 not be subject to the criticism of a violently partisan press. 
 Ample time was taken, and finally, in 1889, the completed 
 constitution was sanctioned by the emperor and was 
 officially promulgated by him amid great pomp and cere- 
 mony. 
 
 THE TERMS OF THE CONSTITUTION 
 
 The chief provisions of the docimaent are as follows: 
 First, the institution of the emperor is emphasized. He is 
 declared to be of a line that has been "unbroken from ages 
 eternal." He is the source of all authority and combines 
 in himself all sovereignty. He sanctions all laws and orders 
 them to be promulgated and executed. He convokes and 
 prorogues the diet and dissolves the lower house. While the 
 diet is not sitting, he can issue ordinances which have the 
 force of law. He is the head of the ex6cutiV^ branch of the 
 government, appoints and dismisses all officers, and deter- 
 mines their salaries. He is supreme commander of the army 
 and navy and declares war, makes peace, and concludes 
 treaties. He confers titles of nobility and has the power of 
 pardoning and of granting amnesty. He is, in other words, 
 virtually supreme. While all these functions are in practice 
 exercised by his ministers, the latter are responsible to 
 him, not to the diet, and he may interfere at any time with 
 their actions. Still the emperor does not openly interfere 
 in or guide the administration as in Germany. In many 
 respects he reigns but does not govern. He has never under 
 the new regime openly exercised any direct power. His 
 official acts of importance are as a rule taken only after
 
 I40 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 consultation with his privy council or his ministers. Neither 
 is his position exactly parallel to that of the English sov- 
 ereign, for constitutionally he could act directly if he wished, 
 and his crown is not founded upon the will of the legisla- 
 ture. As in feudal days all government was through the 
 shogun, so now it is through the cabinet and the privy 
 council. The emperor is, however, consulted as he was not 
 in the days of the Tokugawa, and has a much larger share 
 in the government than then. 
 
 Many rights are conceded to the subjects of the emperor. 
 All Japanese are to be Hable for taxes and military service, 
 but, subject to the restrictions placed by law, they have 
 equal rights to appointment to office, they can change their 
 abode, their houses are free from search, and they have 
 freedom of speech, public assembly, writing, association, 
 and religion. They can be arrested only according to law 
 and must be tried by legally appointed judges. Their 
 property is inviolate, and they have the right of petition. 
 While the recognition of these rights marked a great ad- 
 vance over feudal days, it must be remembered that they are 
 not as unlimited as would at fijrst appear. The fact that 
 most of them are "subject to the restrictions placed by 
 law" makes it possible for the government to curtail them 
 if necessary. 
 
 The Imperial Diet consists of two chambers, the House of 
 Peers and the House of Representatives. The first as later 
 modified is made up of members of the imperial family and 
 of the two higher ranks of the nobility, of representatives 
 elected by their peers from the three lower ranks of the 
 nobility, of distinguished men nominated by the emperor, 
 and of some of the highest taxpayers, elected by their 
 fellows. It is, evidently, a conservative body, and can be 
 counted upon to check any ultra-liberal tendencies in the
 
 PERIOD OF INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION 141 
 
 lower house. The House of Representatives is made up 
 wholly of elected members. These represent districts which 
 theoretically are as nearly equal in population as possible. 
 The franchise is limited by property qualifications. The 
 diet must meet yearly, and the duration of the session, 
 although it may be altered by the emperor, is fixed at three 
 months. Members have freedom of debate and are not 
 subject to arrest. No law can be passed without the consent 
 of the diet, and it may initiate legislation. The government 
 may also initiate legislation. No new tax can be imposed 
 without the consent of the diet, and the annual budget must 
 be approved by it. The diet does not, however, have the 
 complete power of the purse, for certain matters, the control 
 of salaries and the expenditures of the imperial house, are 
 outside its jurisdiction, and if it refuses to pass a budget, 
 that of the preceding year will be kept in force as the stand- 
 ard. The emperor has an absolute veto over legislation. 
 The diet has the important privilege of interpellation, or of 
 putting questions to the different members of the cabinet. 
 Both houses may address the crown, and by this means may 
 present grievances and virtually impeach a minister. The 
 diet does not have the power that is wielded by the English 
 Parliament. It resembles rather the German diet. The 
 cabinet is not responsible to it, and were it not for public 
 opinion an obdurate emperor might almost dispense with 
 it. Moreover, the upper house has in many matters an 
 effective check over the lower one, and since the former is 
 conservative, it can prevent any radical measures from be- 
 ing enacted by the latter. 
 
 A Privy Council is provided for, which, unlike that of 
 England, is not an honored but now powerless relic of the 
 past out of which the cabinet has emerged. It is a distinct 
 body, appointed by the emperor, and exists for purposes of
 
 142 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 personal consultation with him. It is made up of the 
 distinguished statesmen of the land. Cabinet ministers are 
 members ex-officio. 
 
 There is an institution, the Elder Statesmen, which is not 
 provided for by the written constitution, but which is so 
 prominent a feature of the unwritten constitution that it 
 must be spoken of in connection with the former. The 
 Elder Statesmen, or Genro, are an unofficial body made up 
 of members of the group of samurai who led in the re- 
 organization of the government. They have the ear of the 
 emperor and by virtue of that and of their achievements 
 occupy a commanding position in the nation. Their func- 
 tion is purely advisory, but in times of great national crisis 
 they have often had more weight than privy council, 
 cabinet, or diet. Very influential during the nineties and 
 the first years of the twentieth century, the Elder States- 
 men as an institution, unless recruited from younger men, 
 must soon become extinct with the death of the original 
 members. At the present (19 18) only four of them remain 
 active, and that in spite of the fact that two have been 
 officially added from the older men not heretofore classed 
 with the group. 
 
 The Cabinet has charge of the executive side of the 
 government and is responsible to the emperor, not to the 
 diet. At its head is the premier, who, like his German 
 prototype, as has been said, is its dominant figure. 
 
 A judiciary is provided for, to be filled by appointment, 
 and to hold office during good behavior. As in some Euro- 
 pean countries, however, a separate set of courts exists for 
 administrative cases, or those involving government officers, 
 and over these the ordinary courts are not given jurisdiction. 
 
 The constitution was the first to be granted by a monarch 
 of East Asia. With all its conservatism it marked the en-
 
 PERIOD OF INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION 143 
 
 trance of the liberal democratic theories of the West into 
 the autocratic Far East. Then too, although conservative, 
 it is so elastic that its real working may change with the 
 political education of the people, and still retain its form. 
 Especially is this true as regards the responsibility of the 
 I cabinet. Ito was sagacious. It was a far cry from the 
 feudalism of i860 to the constitutional monarchy of 1890. 
 The constitution so adopted had now to be put into 
 force. It has, on the whole, worked well. Its chief weak- 
 ness, and a very real one, has been the conflicts that it 
 renders almost inevitable between the two houses of the 
 diet, and especially between the lower house and the execu- 
 tive. With the exception of war times, when factional 
 differences have been forgotten in the face of the common 
 enemy, few years since 1890 have passed without a struggle 
 between the political parties and the cabinet. The former 
 have been striving to make the latter responsible to the 
 House of Representatives, as in England, Italy, or France. 
 At times they have seemed to gain a measure of success, 
 but more frequently they have failed. Too often the 
 government has obtained peace and support by questionable 
 concessions to individual members of the house. 
 
 STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE PARTIES AND THE MINISTRY 
 
 The struggle began with the preliminaries to the first diet. 
 The parties of the early eighties had for a time been quies- 
 cent, but with the adoption of the constitution at least two 
 were revived, the Liberals (Jiyuto) under the leadership of 
 Itagaki, and the Liberal Conservatives (Kaishinto) di- 
 rected by Okiuna. Both Liberals and Liberal Conserva- 
 tives demanded that the ministry be made responsible to 
 the lower house, and formed a temporary imion as an
 
 144 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 opposition party. The elections went off quietly. There 
 was a general interest in them; in most districts three or 
 four candidates appeared for each seat and the large ma- 
 jority of the half million or so to which the franchise was 
 confined appeared at the polls. The opposition parties won 
 a decided majority of the seats of the lower house. This, 
 by the way, was quite representative of the various groups 
 of the nation; the ex-samurai, while numerous, were in the 
 minority; the leading occupations of the country were 
 represented in about their just proportion: the lower house 
 was not, as is the American congress, largely a body of 
 lawyers. The upper house was, as might be expected, a 
 dignified and conservative body. 
 
 The diet had no sooner met than the opposition began to 
 make trouble for the government. The budget, which by 
 the constitution must be presented to the diet, seemed the 
 most promising point of attack, and on it the struggle raged 
 furiously. Both Liberals and Liberal Conservatives saw 
 in the partial control of the diet over the purse their oppor- 
 tunity to force the ministry to its knees. The government 
 was compelled to compromise and granted two-thirds of the 
 demands of the opposition. The ministry, however, while 
 compelled to recognize the power of the parties, did not 
 concede the main point at issue, that of responsibility to 
 the lower house. The struggle between the legislature and 
 the cabinet therefore did not abate, and finally in disgust 
 the government exercised its constitutional right and in the 
 name of the emperor dissolved the diet. 
 
 Li the elections to the second diet the government made a 
 determined effort to obtain control of the lower house, an 
 act that in itself was a partial concession to the contention of 
 the party politicians. It used every possible legal and some 
 illegal means to insure the return of a majority of its candi-
 
 PERIOD OF INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION 145 
 
 dates. Bribery, intimidation, and repressive laws were all 
 employed, and the contest was marked by scenes of violence. 
 In spite of these drastic measures, when the diet assembled 
 the ministry found its supporters in the House of Represent- 
 atives still in the minority. In addition the government 
 had seriously damaged its prestige by its election methods. 
 The struggle between legislature and executive was in- 
 evitably renewed, the chief points of attack still being 
 financial. Upper and lower houses were at variance, for the 
 upper house rather consistently sided with the government. 
 So difficult did the ministry find its task that its reorganiza- 
 tion became necessary, and Ito, the framer of the constitu- 
 tion, felt called upon to accept the premiership. This 
 cabinet change, while caused by party opposition, was by 
 no means made in consultation with the politicians of the 
 lower house, and they were no more disposed to be con- 
 ciliatory toward the new cabinet than they had been toward 
 the old. Ito had finally to meet their demands for a curtail- 
 ment of expenditures by resorting to a direct message from 
 the emperor which announced a voluntary contribution of 
 a tenth of the expenses of the imperial household to the 
 defense fund of the nation, called upon all officials to make 
 a similar sacrifice, and asked that the diet cooperate by 
 striving for harmony with the government. Ito further 
 instituted extensive retrenchments in government expenses, 
 and even made arrangements with Itagaki and the Liberals 
 to obtain their support in the lower house. The result of 
 these strenuous efforts was simply to shift the attack of the 
 opposition groups from the budget, from which respect for 
 the sovereign's expressed wish restrained them, to other 
 points in the policy of the government. They were bent on 
 hindering and irritating the oligarchy in every possible way 
 until the principles for which they contended should be
 
 146 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 granted. Again the government was forced to confess 
 failure, and the second diet, like the first, was dissolved. 
 
 The third House of Representatives, elected in 1894, was, 
 like its predecessors, in the control of the enemies of the 
 government. Ito's agreement with the Liberals won their 
 support, but his former adherents were angered by his 
 apparent concession to the principle of party government 
 and went over to the camp of the opposition. Ito found that 
 he had simply exchanged the aid of one group for that of 
 another. The third House of Representatives, then, Hke 
 its predecessors, had a nearly continuous record of disagree- 
 ment with the ministry. After a bitter attack on the 
 foreign policy of the government, and a decision to present 
 in an address to the emperor its lack of confidence in the 
 cabinet, the lower house, and with it the diet, were again 
 dissolved. 
 
 TEMPORARY PARTY TRUCE DURING THE WAR WITH CHINA 
 
 Before the new elections war had broken out with China 
 and in that spirit of patriotism which in Japan seems always 
 stronger than factional interests, the diet imited solidly in 
 a cordial support of the government. Partisanship was 
 abandoned in the enthusiasm of the attack on the common 
 enemy, and was not again to be displayed until after peace 
 had been declared. The first period of struggle for a re- 
 sponsible ministry had come to an end. It was evident, 
 however, that the strife would be resumed when the ex- 
 ternal danger was past. The only hope of lasting peace 
 under the existing constitution was the unconditional 
 surrender either of the liberals or of the executive. The 
 ministry must not be thought to have been moved entirely 
 or even primarily by selfish motives. Its leaders seem
 
 PERIOD OF INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION 147 
 
 sincerely to have believed, and probably with justice, that 
 the nation was not yet ready for a government by a cabinet 
 responsible to a representative parliament. The further 
 history of the struggle must, however, be deferred to a 
 subsequent chapter. 
 
 For further reading see; Griffis, The Mikadoes Empire; 
 Brinkley, Japan, Its History, Arts, and Literature; Brinkley, 
 A History of the Japanese People; McLaren, A Political History 
 of Japan during the Meiji Era; Okuma, Fifty Years of New Japan.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 The Period of Internal Transformation (1853-1894) 
 
 3. foreign affairs, economic, educational, and re- 
 ligious CHANGES FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE WAR 
 WITH CHINA (1868-1894) 
 
 THE ESTABLISHMENT OF DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH THE 
 
 WEST 
 
 For the past several pages we have been discussing the 
 transformation wrought in the spirit and structure of the 
 Japanese government by the coming of the Westerner. 
 This was perhaps the predominating feature of the years 
 between 1853 and 1894. Of almost equal interest, however, 
 was the development of the foreign policy of the nation. 
 Through all but their earliest years the policy of the Toku- 
 gawa toward other countries can be summed up in one 
 word, isolation. The coming of Perry brought this hermit 
 existence to a final and irrevocable end. It took some years 
 to impress upon all the nation a recognition of that fact, 
 but when once it was acknowledged, the necessary readjust- 
 ments to the demands of the new age were resolutely made. 
 The establishment of the legations of Western powers in 
 Tokyo was allowed and the young emperor at the advice of 
 his ministers received the foreign diplomats in person and 
 exerted himself to maintain friendly relations between them 
 and his administration. Japanese legations were estabHshed 
 in the capitals of the various treaty powers, and the island 
 empire sought to conform itself to the international usages 
 of the Occident. 
 
 148
 
 PERIOD OF INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION 149 
 
 THE GROWING SPIRIT OF NATIONALISM AND IMPERIALISM 
 
 The spirit of nationalism and patriotism which had been 
 growing, even if feebly, under the Tokugawa regime, and 
 which had been roused into sudden, vigorous life by contact 
 with the nations of the West, had expressed itself inwardly 
 in a centralization and complete reorganization of the 
 state. In foreign relations it showed itself in the main in 
 three ways. The first, a passing phase, was the attempt of 
 the conservatives to rid the nation of the defihng touch of 
 the foreign barbarians and to renew the policy of exclusion. 
 Except for the mistaken zeal of unorganized samurai this 
 had practically disappeared before the seventies. The 
 second was the rise of a spirit of imperialism, a desire to 
 expand, which showed vigorous life almost from the day 
 of its birth, and which was to have a large share in the wars 
 and diplomacy of the eighteen nineties and the twentieth 
 century. The third was a demand for equality with West- 
 ern powers, arising from a spirit of national pride which 
 could not brook invidous discrimination by any people. It 
 showed itself principally in a demand for restored tariff and 
 judicial autonomy through the revision of the treaties and 
 the aboHtion of exterritoriality, and was in the twentieth 
 century to lead to bitter resentment of the treatment of 
 Japanese on the Pacific coast of the United States. 
 
 The spirit of imperiaHsm first showed itself after the 
 Restoration in a demand that all territories inhabited by 
 Japanese, or belonging naturally to the archipelago, be 
 occupied by the emperor's government. The conviction 
 was expressed that the Riu Kiu Islands, the Bonin Islands, 
 the Kuriles, Sakhalin, and Yezo were all rightfully Japa- 
 nese, and even that Korea, because of Hideyoshi's invasion
 
 I50 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 and the periodical "tribute-bearing" embassies from its 
 court to Yedo, should be dealt with as a subject state. 
 Yezo was indisputably Japanese, and under the Tokugawa 
 it had been held by one of the northern daimyo and the 
 shogun. Its population was made up largely of Ainu, 
 however, and only a few Japanese were to be found there. 
 A special bureau was now organized by the imperial gov- 
 ernment to oversee it, and a vigorous policy of colonization 
 and development was adopted. So successfully was the 
 work carried on that the island speedily became a con- 
 venient outlet for the surplus population of the empire, a 
 kind of frontier province. With Sakhalin and the Kiuriles 
 the imperialistic policy was not so successful. Russia also 
 laid claim to these territories and the controversy was 
 settled in 1875 by an agreement whereby Japan's sov- 
 ereignty over the Kuriles was to be acknowledged in return 
 for the renunciation of all her claims to Sakhalin. Sak- 
 halin, it may be added, was of strategic importance to 
 Russia, for it commanded not only much of the littoral of 
 Eastern Siberia, but the mouth of the Amur river, the 
 main artery of that region. The Bonin Islands, a desolate 
 no-man's-land in the Pacific whose only possible importance 
 was as a naval and commercial station, were occupied with- 
 out opposition in 1878. 
 
 The Riu Kiu Islands presented a somewhat more dif- 
 ficult situation. By blood and language their inhabitants 
 were related to the Japanese. They had been subdued by 
 Satsuma during feudal times and for two centuries or so 
 had been considered part of its domains. They had sent 
 tribute embassies to Peking and yet as an independent 
 state had made treaties with several Western powers. In 
 1868 Japan definitely claimed the islands as her own, and 
 when in 187 1 certain of their inhabitants were killed by
 
 PERIOD OF INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION 151 
 
 the savages of Fonnosa she undertook to avenge them. 
 Now, Formosa was a dependency of China, and Tokyo 
 demanded redress at Peking on the ground that the men 
 of Riu Kiu were Japanese subjects. Peking both denied 
 Japan's authority and disowned jurisdiction over the sav- 
 ages of Formosa. Japan replied (1874) by sending a puni- 
 tive expedition that seized and occupied southern Formosa. 
 When China protested, Japan demanded an indenmity 
 for her trouble. The two nations nearly came to blows, 
 but Peking finally yielded, paid an indenmity, and the 
 Japanese withdrew. In the meantime Japan had persuaded 
 the king of the Riu Kiu islands to surrender his treaties 
 with Western nations and accept her rule. She extended 
 her provincial administration over the islands in 1876, thus 
 making them an integral part of her empire. China still 
 protested and declined to agree to a proposed division of 
 the islands between herself and Japan, but the latter quietly 
 persisted and succeeded in retaining possession of the entire 
 group. 
 
 RELATIONS WITH KOREA 
 
 In Korea the situation was still more difficult. Like the 
 Riu Kiu islands, Korea had in years past recognized the 
 simultaneous suzerainty of both Japan and China. Tribute- 
 bearing embassies were sent both to Peking and Yedo. 
 China was nearer and more powerful, and the historic 
 source of culture, so Korea had more respect for her. Nor 
 had Korea forgotten the resentment roused by the cruel- 
 ties of Hideyoshi's invasion. When Japan admitted the 
 foreigner and began remodeling her government, Korea 
 took the opportunity to break ofif rather insolently all 
 relations with the traitor to Oriental seclusion. Such an 
 attitude roused anew the Japanese desire to exert an in-
 
 152 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 fluence in the peninsula. Moreover, some of Japan's states- 
 men began to fear Russian aggression, for that power had 
 recently (1868) acquired the territory east of the Ussuri 
 River and had established a port, Vladivostok, almost on 
 the northern boundary of Korea. The Russian bear would 
 evidently not be content to rest there in a harbor closed 
 by ice during the winter months. Japan controlled what 
 were virtually the only two exits from Vladivostok to the 
 Pacific. The one, the narrow Tsugaru Strait between 
 Yezo and the Main Island, was evidently Japanese. The 
 other, the broad straits between Korea and Kiushiu, had 
 planted in their midst the two Japanese-owned islands of 
 Tsushima and Iki. Russia once in the eighteen eighties 
 tried to seize Tsushima but was balked by Great Britain. 
 She would evidently be glad to get possession of Korea, 
 which, weak, backward, and ruled by a corrupt and in- 
 efficient government, could not, unless aided from with- 
 out, hope to offer successful opposition to the great Euro- 
 pean power. The Russian might prove an unpleasantly 
 aggressive neighbor to Japan were he established on the 
 peninsula. One group among the Japanese leaders de- 
 manded a vigorous assertion of the interests of their coimtry 
 in the Hermit Kingdom. The majority of the reforming 
 statesmen were unwilling, however, to commit the nation 
 to a vigorous continental program until the work of in- 
 ternal reorganization should be more nearly complete. It 
 was dissatisfaction with the poHcy of the majority, it will 
 be recalled, that paved the way for Saigo's break with the 
 government and the subsequent Satsuma revolt. The 
 government did not forget Korea, however. When in 
 1875 a Japanese gunboat was fired on by a Korean fort the 
 emperor's advisers decided that vigorous action was neces- 
 sary. An armed expedition was sent the following year.
 
 PERIOD OF INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION 153 
 
 It adopted the plan used by Perry with the shogun's 
 ofl&cials and by tactful intimidation obtained a treaty with 
 Seoul. China, it may be added, offered no opposition 
 when Korea negotiated the treaty as an independent power. 
 Japan thus took the lead in opening Korea to the outside 
 world and began to encourage within her the idea of re- 
 .organization along Western lines. Treaties with Occidental 
 powers followed, commerce sprang up, and a reform party 
 came into existence. China looked with no friendly eye 
 upon the activity of the "island dwarfs," as she chose to 
 call the Japanese. She was still the bulwark of Far Eastern 
 conservatism, and naturally espoused the cause of the 
 reactionary party at Seoul. She maintained a "resident" 
 there who, as the representative of her suzerainty, had great 
 influence. Japan as naturally championed the reform 
 party. Conflicts arose between the factions, and in 1882 
 the conservatives attacked and burned the Japanese lega- 
 tion and forced its inmates to flee for their lives. In return 
 the Japanese demanded and received an indemnity and 
 the privilege of guarding their legation with their own 
 troops. In 1884 occurred another collision between the 
 conservatives and the radicals. The one called on China 
 for assistance, the other on Japan. Both powers responded 
 and in 1885 they agreed to withdraw their troops on the 
 mutual written understanding that: "In case of any dis- 
 turbance of grave nature occurring in Korea which might 
 necessitate the respective countries or either sending troops, 
 it is hereby understood that each shall give to the other 
 previous notice in writing of its intention to do so and that 
 after the matter is settled they shall withdraw their troops." 
 Affairs in the peninsula temporarily quieted down, but the 
 friction between reformers and reactionaries continued 
 and was to lead in 1894 to war between Japan and China.
 
 154 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 TARIFF AND LEGAL READJUSTMENTS 
 
 The agitation for the revision of the foreign treaties was 
 an outgrowth of the sacrifice of Japan's judicial and financial 
 autonomy embodied in them. When the treaties were 
 negotiated the Japanese laws were still what they had been 
 in feudal days, and the powers did not think it Just to sub- 
 ject their citizens to them or to the local courts. Each 
 Western nation stipulated that aU cases in which its sub- 
 jects or citizens were defendants should be tried by its 
 consuls and imder its own laws. The residence of foreigners 
 was restricted to certain specified "treaty ports." This 
 "exterritoriality" was in force in China and Turkey and 
 wherever Western nations were in treaty relations with a 
 non-Christian state. Tariff duties, as in China, were also 
 made a matter of formal agreement: otherwise they might 
 be subject to frequent and arbitrary modifications. The 
 Japanese felt that exterritoriality and the sacrifice of tariff 
 autonomy were a mark of inferiority. This the patriotic 
 spirit of the nation could not willingly tolerate. Moreover, 
 under exterritoriality wrongs committed by foreigners to 
 Japanese frequently went without redress and unpunished, 
 and too many consular courts, especially of the smaller 
 nations, were poorly administered. Under the conven- 
 tional tariff, too, the rates had been so manipulated by the 
 powers that the average five per cent ad valorem really 
 yielded but half that much. Japan was in great need of 
 revenue, and felt keenly the curtailment of her rights to 
 raise it from this perfectly legitimate source. One of the 
 first acts of the government of the Restoration was to plan 
 for the removal of these restrictions, and in 187 1 an em- 
 bassy was sent to Europe and America to ask for it. Such
 
 PERIOD OF INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION 155 
 
 a concession had never been granted by Christendom to a 
 non-Christian power and since Japanese laws and law 
 courts were yet to be reorganized, the failure of the mis- 
 sion was certain before it started. The agitation, however, 
 had only begun. In 1878 the United States agreed to a 
 treaty on the terms desired by Tokyo, but the document 
 was not to go into force unless the other powers made 
 similar concessions. This Europe was unwilling to do. 
 Then the Japanese foreign office tried conferences of the 
 Tokyo representatives of the powers. Two of these gather- 
 ings were held, one in 1882 and another in 1886, but both 
 failed, Japan seemed to Westerners still unprepared to 
 be trusted with full control over the lives and property of 
 strangers. In the meantime the Japanese thinking public 
 had taken up the agitation, and from the early eighties 
 tariff autonomy and the abolition of exterritoriality were 
 vigorously demanded both from the press and the public 
 platform. Halfway measures were denounced. A com- 
 promise agreed to by the 1886 conference of the representa- 
 tives of the powers and favored by the government, would 
 have extended the jurisdicrion of Japanese courts to for- 
 eigners, provided that all cases in which Westerners were 
 involved should be submitted to courts to which foreign 
 judges had been appointed. This concession the Japanese 
 public would not tolerate. 
 
 Hand in hand with the demand for treaty revision went 
 an earnest attempt so to conform national institutions to 
 Occidental standards that all reasons for discrinunation 
 would cease to exist. European customs and dress were 
 copied. The new education was promoted. The formation 
 of laws on Western models was pushed. A new civil code 
 was compiled on the general lines in use in the Occident. A 
 code of commercial law was drawn up resembling closely
 
 156 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 that of Germany, and French models were followed in 
 framing the criminal law. Judges, appointed from those 
 specially trained for the profession, were to serve during life 
 or good behavior. In 1890 the codes were finally approved 
 by the emperor. 
 
 The reasons for exterritoriality were fast ceasing to exist 
 and the powers could evidently not long, with any show of 
 justice, continue to maintain it. In 1888, Mexico signed a 
 treaty granting to Japan judicial autonomy, and the United 
 States had long been known to be willing to take a similar 
 step as soon as the leading European powers would agree 
 to do so. The lower house of the diet kept urging the 
 ministry to push the negotiations, and the government, 
 nothing loath, took the question directly to the European 
 capitals. Finally in 1894, Great Britain, whose trade was 
 larger and whose subjects resident in Japan were more 
 numerous and more opposed to a change than those of any 
 other Western power, signed a treaty drawn in the revised 
 form desired by Japan, and the United States followed. 
 The other powers conformed in the course of the next three 
 years. Japan had so effectively demonstrated her com- 
 plete reorganization that further delay would have been 
 palpably unjust. In 1899, exterritoriality came to an end, 
 consular courts and foreign "settlements" were abolished, 
 and Westerners became subject to Japanese courts and 
 laws. It must be said that on the whole the Japanese have 
 proved highly worthy of the trust. Tariff autonomy was 
 partially restored in 1899, although it did not completely 
 go into effect until more than a decade later (191 1). For 
 the first time in history an Asiatic country was admitted 
 to the circle of Occidental powers on the basis of full equal- 
 ity. The concession was a notable achievement for Japan- 
 ese patriotism and ability.
 
 PERIOD OF INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION 157 
 
 The political reorganization and the assumption of a new 
 international status were the most prominent features of 
 the years between the coming of Perry and 1894. They 
 were, as well, the most important, for the government has 
 taken the lead in activities which in most countries are left 
 to the initiative of individual citizens. The changes in the 
 structure, policies, and position of the state, were, however, 
 only part of the transformations in progress in all phases of 
 the nation's life. Impact with the West was producing a 
 revolution in commerce, finance, transportation, industry, 
 dress, thought, education, and religion, in some of its phases 
 more complete than that wrought by the coming of Bud- 
 dhism and Chinese culture over a thousand years before. As 
 in that earlier transition period, the government led, but 
 also as then, the people followed, in time with enthusiasm. 
 
 ECONOMIC EEORGANIZATION 
 
 Commerce, naturally, sprang up almost as soon as the 
 Perry treaty had been signed. Naturally, too, it was many 
 years before it attained large proportions. Not until after 
 1887 did it exceed fifty million dollars. The nation had so 
 long been closed to the outer world that it took time to 
 develop a demand for foreign goods and the ability to pay 
 for those purchased. Until at least 1881, the balance of 
 trade was against Japan, and she was drained of her specie. 
 After 1887 commerce grew more rapidly, thanks partly to a 
 more active supervision by the government and partly to 
 the internal reorganization of the industry of the country. 
 Its period of greatest increase was to be after the war with 
 China. During its earlier years this revived commerce was 
 largely under the control of the foreign middleman. It was 
 he who came to Japan, purchased from the local merchants,
 
 158 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 and exported to other lands. In too many instances he 
 was not an ideal representative of the West. Adventurers 
 who had followed the flags of foreign powers strove to 
 exploit the new Japan to their own advantage. Their code 
 of business ethics was often not of the best; they regarded 
 the Japanese as inferior "Asiatics," and dishonesty and 
 overweening selfishness marked far too many of their 
 transactions. The Japanese had been unaccustomed to 
 foreign commerce and time was required to produce an 
 adequate machinery to handle it. The government tried to 
 help, but in the early days many of the merchants who 
 dealt with the foreigner aped his ethics along with his other 
 business methods, and a report of Japanese commercial 
 dishonesty became current. While conditions later im- 
 proved, the story still spread, for unfortunately there was 
 some basis for it. It lost nothing in the telling and gave 
 the average Westerner an impression, greatly exaggerated, 
 that Japanese business men were unreHable. 
 
 With the growth of commerce, banks naturally sprang up. 
 At first the government experimented with various devices, 
 and in 1873 established a national banking system patterned 
 largely after that in use in the United States. The country 
 was being drained of its specie, however, and the banks 
 and the national treasury were on a precarious paper basis. 
 In 1 88 1 the government was led to organize in addition a 
 great central institution, now the Bank of Japan, and, to 
 assist in trade and foreign exchange, a secondary institution, 
 now the Yokohama Specie Bank. Through the latter it 
 took over for a time the foreign commerce of the country 
 and by an ingenious device built up a metal reserve and 
 made possible the resumption of specie payments. In the 
 following years the older national banks were converted 
 into ordinary joint-stock concerns and their note issues
 
 PERIOD OF INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION 159 
 
 were redeemed and retired. Postal savings banks were 
 introduced. Before 1900 the system finally took the form 
 whose main features it has ever since preserved, a great 
 national Bank of Japan which alone issues notes, and center- 
 ing in it a system of private, joint-stock concerns. There 
 were to be added in the years after 1894 agricultural and 
 industrial banks for the aid of farmers and manufacturers. 
 As in most branches of the nation's Ufe, laws and state super- 
 vision carefully regulate all private financial institutions. 
 
 With the growth of commerce came, too, an improvement 
 in means of transportation. Steamships plied the coastal 
 waters of the islands. At first most of them were built 
 abroad and were the property of foreigners, but before long 
 they began to be constructed and owned at home. Here 
 again the government gave its encouragement, and heavily 
 subsidized companies laid the basis for the phenomenal 
 growth of the twentieth century in domestic and foreign 
 shipping. The state was a pioneer in railway building. In 
 spite of earnest opposition by the conservatives a line was 
 begun between Tokyo and its port, Yokohama, and was of- 
 ficially opened by the emperor in 1872. The state continued 
 to promote railways and most of the earlier ones were con- 
 structed either by it or by government-aided companies. 
 Later the privately owned lines predominated, but, as we shall 
 see, they have been nationalized within the last few years. 
 Telegraph lines were built by the state and in 1886 were 
 united with the postal service under a joint bureau. The 
 telephone was introduced in 1877, also under official auspices. 
 
 In industry the state again had a prominent part, and 
 owned directly plants for as divergent purposes as paper- 
 making and cotton-spinning. By 1890 there were over two 
 hundred steam factories in the country and the ancient 
 handicrafts were beginning to be supplanted by the meth-
 
 i6o THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 ods of the industrial revolution. The great industrial 
 development of the nation, however, was not to take place 
 until after the war with China. 
 
 The government led, too, in bettering agriculture. After 
 the Restoration the peasant was made the owner of the soil 
 that he had cultivated for the feudal lords under the old 
 regime, and payments of taxes in money was substituted for 
 forced labor and for payment in the products of the soil. 
 Western agricultural experts were brought in to suggest 
 improvements in the time-honored methods of the farmer, 
 and new breeds of cattle and horses were introduced. 
 
 In the reorganization of banking, commerce, trans- 
 portation, industry, and agriculture, then, the state, di- 
 rected by the reformers, had a major part. For this there 
 were two reasons. First, the state was the only institution 
 which had the organization, the mobile capital, and the 
 credit to undertake operations on the large scale necessary 
 for successful competition with the industrialized West. At 
 the coming of Perry there were few if any large commercial 
 fortunes in the country, capital was in land, and industry 
 and trade were rudimentary and without an organization 
 fitted to cope with that of the Occident. In the second 
 place, an emphasis upon the state had been encouraged by 
 the Tokugawa shoguns, for they sought to exercise a 
 paternalistic supervision over all the life of the nation. It 
 was but natural that the ministers of the Restoration should 
 follow the precedent of past ages. 
 
 EDUCATIONAL AND RELIGIOUS TRANSFORMATION 
 
 The government led the way in remaking the educational 
 system of the land. Before the downfall of the shogunate, 
 Japanese students had begun to find their way to the West,
 
 PERIOD OF INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION i6i 
 
 partly on their own initiative, and partly as state pen- 
 sioners. With the Restoration scores of students went to 
 Europe and America to drink of the new learning at its 
 sources. They returned bursting with ideas and became 
 ardent supporters and leaders of the reform movement. 
 The embassy that in 187 1 went abroad to ask for a revision 
 of the treaties came back with the determination to in- 
 augurate, among other things, a modem school system, 
 and in 1872 a law was passed which was the basis of uni- 
 versal compulsory primary education. A complete pro- 
 gram of public instruction was gradually carried out, be- 
 ginning with the elementary school and leading through 
 the "middle" and "high" schools, to a culmination in 
 the national universities. Enthusiastic private efifort sup- 
 plemented that of the state, and Christian missionary in- 
 stitutions added their contribution. Foreign teachers 
 were engaged by the score, among them some who later 
 not only interpreted the West to Japan, but Japan to the 
 Occident. Translations of Western books were made. 
 England was the great commercial power of the Far East; 
 Japan had been opened by America and many of her youth 
 were there in school. It was but natural then, that EngUsh 
 should be studied extensively and should be the language 
 through which the Japanese chose to acquire Western 
 learning. Fresh combinations of the convenient Chinese 
 characters were formed to express the new ideas that were 
 constantly pouring in. Newspapers sprang into existence, 
 some of them encouraged by the state, but many of them 
 edited by men who had been too recently introduced to 
 Western thought and institutions to have their radicalism 
 balanced with the sound judgment bom of experience. 
 So numerous and influential did such sheets become that 
 by the eighties the government found it necessary to curb
 
 1 62 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 them' with press laws. A simpler form of literary style 
 appeared and a begimiing was made toward conforming 
 the language of the printed page more nearly to the ver- 
 nacular: education and the new ideas were being brought 
 to the man on the street. 
 
 Even in reHgion, that most conservative side of a 
 people's life, innovations were being made. By their ex- 
 periences of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the 
 Japanese had been taught to view Christianity with min- 
 gled fear, contempt, and hate. The stringent prohibitions 
 against it remained on the public edict-boards until 1872 
 and complete religious toleration was not granted until 
 after the promulgation of the constitution. As late as 
 the sixties a few remnants of the church of the seven- 
 teenth century that had preserved their faith through 
 more than two centuries of the severest prohibitions were 
 discovered and persecuted. Under the shelter of the treaty 
 ports, however, missionary activity was begun by foreign 
 representatives of Protestant, Greek, and Roman Catholic 
 communions, and the foundations of the church were laid 
 anew. A niunber of notably able men were among the 
 missionary pioneers, and had a share in remolding not only 
 the religious thought but other phases of national life. In 
 the eighties, when all things foreign shared in the popu- 
 larity that attended the national enthusiasm for transfor- 
 mation, the Christian church grew rapidly. The centuries 
 of prejudice could not be entirely forgotten, however. A 
 reaction took place during the nineties and Christianity 
 for a while gained ground but slowly. 
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TRANSITION PERIOD 
 
 To the traveller or foreign resident in Japan the years 
 of marked transition were at times amusing, at times be-
 
 PERIOD OF INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION 163 
 
 wildering, and always interesting. With the momentous 
 alterations in political institutions, in commerce, trans- 
 portation, industry, education, thought, and religion, there 
 were other changes, some of them much more superficial, 
 but all of them significant. A mixture of costumes was to 
 be found, often ludicrous. To Japanese houses were added 
 foreign rooms fitted out with European furniture. Business 
 blocks and public buildings were erected either in an 
 avowedly foreign architectural style, or in a curious mix- 
 ture that was neither Occidental nor Oriental and that 
 tried to be both. The nation was attempting to find it- 
 self, to adjust itself to the new world into which it had 
 been forced. 
 
 By 1894 the crisis of the transition period had passed. 
 The government had been completely reorganized and a 
 constitution had been given several years of trial. An 
 army and navy had been built up after approved Western 
 models. A modem school system was in successful opera- 
 tion. Tariff and judicial autonomy were on the point of 
 being granted. Industry and commerce were giving 
 promise of vigorous life. The reorganization was not com- 
 plete and its fruits were only beginning to be seen, but in 
 the main the shock caused by internal adaptation to the 
 modern world was over. From 1894 on, the reorganized 
 Japan was to expand and take her place as an equal and 
 an increasingly important member in the family of nations. 
 
 For further reading see: GriSis, The Mikado's Empire; 
 Brinkley, Japan, Its History, Arts, and Literature; Brinkley, A 
 History of the Japanese People; McLaren, A Political History oj 
 Japan during the Meiji Era; Okuma, Fifty Years of New Japan; 
 Cary, A History of Christianity in Japan.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 1894 TO 191 7: Japan Takes her Place Among the 
 Powers of the World 
 
 I. the war with china, the boxer uprising, and the 
 war with russia (1894-1905) 
 
 japan's interest in foreign affairs after 1894 
 
 By 1894, as we have seen, the wtork of the internal re- 
 organization of Japan had been brought to a point where it 
 no longer needed the entire attention of the nation, and 
 where it was not only safe but necessary to take a more 
 active part in international afifairs. The new Japan was 
 certain to enter a period of expansion in population, in- 
 dustry, and commerce. This expansion, together with 
 her intense patriotism and the existing conditions in the 
 Orient, was certain to bring on serious clashes with other 
 countries. The first trouble was in Korea, and out of it 
 was to come a long train of events which has not yet 
 ended, and which has been momentous for the entire 
 world. 
 
 It was but natural that there should be friction in Korea. 
 Here, it will be recalled, China S,nd Japan had temporarily 
 adjusted their differences by the agreement of 1885, but 
 both had continued their intrigues. In the background 
 was the Russian, who, as Japan's statesmen well knew, 
 was more to be feared then China. Unless heroic measures 
 were taken, tjtie feeble and reactionary Korea would fall 
 
 164
 
 JAPAN AS A WORLD-POWER 165 
 
 an easy prey to the ever-expanding empire of the north. 
 Were the Land of the Morning Cahn ^ to become Russian, 
 Japan believed that she would have a relentlessly aggres- 
 sive power at her very doors, that her commerce with the 
 neighboring continent would be stifled by unfavorable 
 restrictions, and that the natural outlet of her growing 
 population would be threatened. It must be remembered 
 that the Czar's frontiers in Asia had for centuries been 
 steadily advancing. Long before the time of Peter the 
 Great, cossacks and hardy pioneers had crossed the Urals. 
 They had made their way to the Pacific before the eight- 
 eenth century, claiming the land for their imperial master 
 as they went. Russia had clashed with the Chinese, and 
 ^had taken away from them first the northern shores of the 
 Amur, and then the territory east of the Ussuri. She was 
 expanding in the Trans-Caspian region and was threaten- 
 ing India from the northwest and China from the west. 
 We have already seen that she desired a foothold in southern 
 Korea to make sure of a safe passage from Vladivostok to 
 the open Pacific. She would undoubtedly welcome the 
 acquisition of ice-free ports in Korea or North China as 
 outlets to Siberian railways and trade routes, and as open 
 doors to the commercial and naval control of the Far East. 
 She was already intriguing in Korea and was so strong in 
 Peking that she might succeed in using China as a cat's-paw. 
 No wonder that Japan, as yet not certain of herself, should 
 fear the Russian menace, and should seek to strengthen 
 the hands of the reform party in Seoul in its attempts to 
 reorganize the inefl&cient and corrupt government and 
 make it capable of holding its own against foreign ag- 
 gressors. 
 
 1 More accurately, "Morning Freshness," but the term given above 
 is the usual translation of the Chinese characters.
 
 1 66 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 WAR WITH CHINA OVER KOREA, 1894-1895 
 
 Between the reactionaries, supported by China, and the 
 reformers, encouraged by Japan, there were frequent clashes, 
 and the Korean government became, if possible, more 
 hopelessly impotent than ever. The agreement of 1885 
 could not be a permanent settlement of the difficulty, for 
 the joint interests it recognized could only be a source of 
 friction, China treated Korea as a tributary, scorning the 
 Japanese contention that she was independent. Friction 
 increased in Seoul, ^ and finally, when a rebellion broke out 
 in the unhappy land, China sent troops to suppress it and 
 announced her action to Japan. She did not, be it added, 
 strictly obey the letter of the convention of 1885, for the 
 notice was sent after and not before the troops were dis- 
 patched. When the Chinese action became known, Japan 
 promptly prepared to send a force to Korea, as was her 
 right under the convention of 1885, and notified China to 
 that effect. Although the rebellion that had been the occa- 
 sion for sending the troops quickly died down, Japan and 
 China both kept their forces in Korea. Japan proposed 
 that Peking unite with her in permanently reorganizing the 
 peninsula's government and in putting down disorder. 
 China declined, refusing to admit that Korea was inde- 
 pendent, and claimed the right to fix limits both to the 
 number of Japanese troops that could be sent, and to their 
 use. China evidently suspected the Japanese of a desire 
 to control the peninsula and intended to assert unmis- 
 takably her own exclusive suzerainty over the land. Japan 
 was at that time in the midst of a bitter struggle between 
 the lower house of the diet and the ministry, and China 
 
 • The Chinese resident in the years before the war was Yuan Shih 
 EL'ai, later to be president of China.
 
 JAPAN AS A WORLD-POWER 167 
 
 evidently thought her too torn by internal strife to become a 
 formidable antagonist. She had, moreover, a profound 
 contempt for these "island dwarfs" who had once copied 
 her civilization and had now partly abandoned it for that 
 of the West. China began sending more troops to Korea, 
 although she had been warned by Tokyo that such action 
 would mean war. While one group of reenforcements was 
 on its way, an armed clash occurred with the naval forces 
 of the Japanese. War followed (July, 1894). The details of 
 the conflict need not here be narrated. To China's surprise 
 the Japanese ceased their internal dissensions, and with the 
 splendid loyalty for which they are noted, united solidly and 
 enthusiastically in support of the emperor's forces. The 
 ministry was possibly not at all unwilling to turn the current 
 of popular thought from the struggle for a responsible 
 cabinet to imperiahsm. Indeed, some have claimed to see 
 in the war a clever ruse of the government to withdraw the 
 attention of the nation from the constitutional struggle by a 
 pohcy of foreign expansion. The Chinese were beaten on 
 land and sea. Their navy, made up of modem ships, was 
 decisively defeated and its remnants were sunk or captured. 
 Port Arthur and Talien, naval stations on the Liaotung 
 Peninsula, and commanding South Manchuria, were cap- 
 tured. Both places had been fortified under the direction 
 of European engineers, and Port Arthur, with its splendid 
 natural harbor, was considered especially strong. Mukden, 
 the capital of Manchuria, was threatened; Wei-hai-wei, the 
 great harbor-fortress of Shantung, was taken. Japan thus 
 dominated the naval approaches to North China and 
 Peking. A successful expedition was sent to Formosa and 
 the neighboring Pescadores Islands. China was compelled 
 to sue for peace. By the treaty that ended the war, the 
 complete independence of Korea was formally acknowl-
 
 i68 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 edged by both powers; ^ the Liaotimg Peninsula in Southern 
 Manchuria was ceded to Japan; Formosa and the Pesca- 
 dores were given her; a large indemnity (200,000,000 taels, 
 about $150,000,000) was to be paid her; and China agreed to 
 open up the Yangtze River and certain additional treaty 
 ports to the trade of the world. The dwarf had worsted the 
 giant, and had demonstrated that it was a factor to be 
 reckoned with in the Far East. 
 
 Europe had watched the war with interest and surprise, 
 and some of the powers viewed the outcome with alarm. 
 Russia saw her plans for southern expansion blocked and her 
 influence in North China threatened. The German emperor 
 saw in Japan's victory the beginning of the military re- 
 habilitation of Eastern Asia and feared, or pretended to 
 fear, that a yellow wave of conquest would eventually 
 shake to its foundations European world-supremacy. Even 
 before the treaty of peace had been negotiated it seems that 
 Russia had given assurance to Peking that Japan would 
 not be allowed to retain the Liaotung Peninsula. Soon 
 after the treaty was signed, Russia, instigated by Germany 
 and seconded by her ally, France, lodged protests in Tokyo. 
 These were courteous, but firm, for they said that the terms 
 of the treaty threatened the peace of the Far East. At the 
 same time Germany presented a note with a similar purport, 
 but curt and offensive in its language and in the method 
 chosen for transmission. The only course open to Japan 
 was compliance. She had no ally and could not hope to 
 resist successfully the armed forces of the three powers. 
 With as good face as was possible under the circumstances 
 she "accepted the advice," and gave back to China the 
 
 * The treaty of Shimonoseki (April, 1895). The Chinese negotiator 
 was the famous Li Hung Ch'ang, the greatest Chinese statesman of 
 the time.
 
 JAPAN AS A WORLD-POWER 169 
 
 Liaotung Peninsula in return for an additional indem- 
 nity. 
 
 The Japanese public was bitterly disappointed with the 
 outcome of the war. To many the original treaty had 
 seemed too mild. Then came the retrocession of the 
 Liaotung Peninsula, a blow to the national pride as severe 
 as it was unexpected. A conflict between Japan and Russia 
 became almost inevitable. The ministry at once began a 
 policy of naval and military expansion. Taxes were in- 
 creased and sums far larger than the indemnity received 
 from China were spent, in preparation for the coming strug- 
 gle. Japan's leaders saw that if she was to win from Euro- 
 pean powers the recognition of her right to a voice in Far 
 Eastern affairs, she must have an effective armament. 
 
 With the growth of the army and navy, the position of the 
 Satsuma and Choshu groups was strengthened. The ex- 
 samurai of these former fiefs of the South had succeeded in 
 controlling the fighting arms of the nation, and now with 
 the great program of preparedness, exerted a much stronger 
 influence than formerly over all the policies of the govern- 
 ment. They stood, very naturally, for territorial expansion 
 and for a vigorous policy on the continent. They did not 
 want for opposition, as we shall see a little later, but the 
 force of events aided them in committing Japan to a policy of 
 imperialism, a policy that has since led her into three wars 
 and has made of her an important factor in world-politics. 
 
 The war with China spectacularly impressed on the 
 world the importance and the thoroughness of the trans- 
 formation that had been wrought in Japan in the preceding 
 forty years. With one or two exceptions, and then only 
 when great provocation had been given, the Japanese had 
 throughout the struggle scrupulously observed the regula- 
 tions of the international law of the Occident. They had
 
 lyo THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 demonstrated their ability to use the weapons and or- 
 ganization of the West. 
 
 Japan was not, however, to attain easily to a full recogni- 
 tion of her claim to a voice in the affairs of China, to a 
 predominant interest in Korea, and to an open door into 
 Manchuria. As a reward for her interference in 1 895 , Russia 
 was given by Peking the privilege of building the trans- 
 Siberian railway that was to bind together her Siberian and 
 European possessions, directly across Northern Manchuria 
 to Vladivostok. It need not, as was originally planned, 
 follow the more tortuous all-Russian route along the Amur 
 and the Ussuri. This would, of course, give the Czar a 
 decided hold on Northern Manchuria, which was admittedly 
 Chinese territory. Russia guaranteed a loan raised in Paris 
 by China to pay off the indemnity due Japan, an act which 
 might be the precedent for a financial protectorate over the 
 great Middle Kingdom and which at least seemed to impose 
 on Peking a debt of gratitude to St. Petersburg. Russian 
 intrigues continued in Korea and served greatly to embar- 
 rass the Japanese. The latter, in fact, played directly into 
 the hands of Russia by a bungling management of their 
 interests in Seoul. The Japanese agent there ^ was im- 
 plicated in an attack on the royal palace that resulted in 
 the murder of the queen and the escape of the king to the 
 Russian legation, where he lived for two years. Many 
 Japanese merchants and settlers in the peninsula needlessly 
 antagonized the Koreans by an overbearing attitude, dis- 
 honest business dealings, and even violence. Tokyo had 
 good reason to fear that the agents of St. Petersburg would 
 obtain more than a passing hold on Korea, and from that 
 vantage point embarrass Japan's commerce with the 
 continent and threaten her coasts. 
 
 ' Miura.
 
 JAPAN AS A WORLD-POWER 171 
 
 Then in 1897 began a scramble of European powers for 
 leased territories and spheres of influence in China. In the 
 last quarter of the nineteenth century Western nations 
 were entering on a new period of colonial expansion. Africa 
 had recently been divided, unclaimed islands of the sea 
 were being occupied, and the territorial integrity of all 
 weak nations was threatened. China's impotence had been 
 made unmistakably apparent in her war with Japan, and 
 European powers were not slow to take advantage of it. 
 In 1897, Germany availed herself of the murder of some of 
 her subjects — missionaries — by a Chinese mob, and de- 
 manded a ninety-nine year lease on the strategic harbor of 
 Kiao Chau in the province of Shantung, where the outrage 
 had taken place. Here she began building a model city, 
 Tsingtao, and connected it with the interior by railway 
 lines for which she had been granted concessions. She was 
 given the privilege, too, of working the valuable coal mines 
 of the province. A httle later Russia, as compensation, 
 demanded and obtained a lease on Port Arthur and Dalny 
 on that Liaotung Peninsula of which she had deprived 
 Japan scarcely three years before. She connected them 
 with the Siberian railway by a branch line which China 
 ostensibly had the right of purchasing at the expiration of a 
 certain number of years. A Russo-Chinese bank was 
 established, professedly a joint enterprise of the two na- 
 tions, as the name indicates, but with the first-named 
 partner predominant. Russia had thus obtained what was 
 for most of the year an ice-free terminus for her Siberian 
 railway and was in a position to dominate all Manchuria 
 and North China. She could effectively block Japanese 
 commercial and industrial expansion by virtually closing 
 the ports of Manchuria to all non-Russian trade. And this 
 she tried to do. Great Britain, it may be added, at the
 
 172 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 same time obtained a lease on Wei-hai-wei, the fortified 
 harbor that commanded the approach to Peking from the 
 Shantung side, and marked out for herself a "sphere of 
 influence" in the Yangtze Valley within which she was to 
 have the preference in commerce and in providing capital 
 for railways, industry, and mines. France was given a lease 
 and a sphere of influence in South China. Neither Great 
 Britain or France were as yet to be serious rivals of Japan, 
 however. 
 
 japan's part in repressing boxer outbreak 
 
 Following this "leasing" of her territory and the parti- 
 tioning of the empire into spheres of influence there was 
 a reform movement in China. Led by the young emperor, 
 the progressives made a serious effort to reorganize their 
 nation, as Japan had done, by adopting Occidental methods. 
 A reaction followed which culminated in the uprising of 
 1900, an armed attempt, led by the Boxers and sanctioned 
 by the imperial court, to rid the land of the Westerner. 
 The foreign residents in Peking were besieged in the lega- 
 tion quarter and Christian missionaries and their converts 
 were killed in exposed stations throughout North China. 
 Japan was looked to by the powers to help restore order, 
 and joined in a relief expedition that rescued the beleaguered 
 foreigners in Peking. By the discipHne and efficiency of 
 her contingent she won the respect of the world and demon- 
 strated her right to a voice in all international councils 
 over Chinese affairs. 
 
 events preceding RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR 
 
 Russia had taken advantage of the Boxer disturbances 
 to rush troops into Manchuria, ostensibly to protect her
 
 JAPAN AS A WORLD-POWER 173 
 
 citizens and her property. After the uprising was over she 
 still maintained her forces in that region and seemed deter- 
 mined on a permanent occupation. Japan protested, and 
 the United States, newly aroused to an interest in the Far 
 East by her entrance into the Philippines, attempted to 
 insure in Manchuria, as elsewhere in China, the principle 
 of territorial integrity and the "open door," or equal 
 economic and political privileges for the citizens of all 
 nations. Russia at times seemed to comply and promised 
 to remove her troops. In reality she had no serious inten- 
 tion of yielding and sought an agreement with China 
 which would virtually have turned Manchuria into a Rus- 
 sian province and which failed only because of the strong 
 protests of the United States, Great Britain, and Japan. 
 She did, however, obtain special privileges in the coveted 
 region and in 1903 appointed a "viceroy" to administer 
 her interests on the Amur and in Manchuria, treating the 
 latter region almost as though it were already her own. 
 
 It became increasingly evident to Japan that she must 
 fight. Russia seemingly had no intention of withdrawing 
 from Manchuria and declined seriously to recognize the 
 Japanese claim to a voice in the affairs of that district. 
 Should she stay she would probably succeed in keeping the 
 door closed and in crippling the growth of Japanese com- 
 merce. She would certainly threaten Japanese interests 
 in Korea. Japan sought by every honorable means to 
 avoid an appeal to arms. She tried negotiations, but the 
 Russians would not concede that she had any right to be 
 heard in Manchurian questions, and although they ac- 
 knowledged that she had special interests in Korea, they 
 insisted on placing restrictions on her control of that king- 
 dom. Japan would probably have welcomed an alliance 
 with Russia had the latter been willing to make what
 
 174 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 seemed to Tokyo a fair division of influence in the Fax 
 East. This alliance, indeed, was a favorite aim of Ito. 
 
 Foreseeing the approaching conflict, Japan continued 
 to strengthen her army and navy and entered into a pact 
 with Great Britain. This Anglo- Japanese Alliance, con- 
 cluded early in 1902, was limited in its scope to China and 
 Korea, and recognized the special interests of Great Britain 
 in China and of Japan in China and Korea. It provided 
 that in case either ally went to war with another power to 
 defend these interests the other would remain neutral and 
 would use its influence to keep other powers from attacking 
 its ally. In case one or more additional powers were to 
 join in the hostilities against one ally, the other agreed to 
 come to its assistance. The two were to make war and 
 peace together. The agreement was to be in force for five 
 years. England was beginning to see threatened the 
 dominant commercial position she had held in China in 
 the earlier years of the nineteenth century and especially 
 feared Russian aggression. She was quite willing to see 
 Japan attack her rival. The agreement was, however, 
 chiefly of benefit to Japan, for it gave her the prestige of 
 alliance with the leading financial, naval, and commercial 
 power of the world, and virtually insured the isolation of 
 Russia in the coming struggle: other European powers 
 would probably not care to join the Czar at the expense of 
 a war with England. It gave to Japan, too, the much 
 needed support of the London bankers. 
 
 THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR, 1904-1905 
 
 Even with the British alliance the outcome of a war 
 with Russia was by no means a certain victory for Japan, 
 and the latter sought by long negotiations to preserve
 
 JAPAN AS A WORLD-POWER 175 
 
 peace. St. Petersburg persistently refused to grant Japan's 
 demands and seemingly held her in contempt. The Japa- 
 nese offered to recognize Manchuria as outside their sphere 
 of influence providing Russia would similarly state that 
 Korea was outside her own sphere. This St. Petersburg 
 refused to do. Not only that, but Russian activities at 
 Seoul and on the southern coast and northern frontiers of 
 Korea convinced Tokyo that the imperialists in charge of 
 the Czar's government were engaged in a deliberately ag- 
 gressive policy in the peninsula itself. From Japan's stand- 
 point the only alternative was war. Both powers had been 
 actively preparing but Japan obtained the initial advantage 
 by a prompt attack following the severance of diplomatic 
 relations (February, 1904). For over a year hostilities 
 continued. Russia fought under a handicap; the field of 
 battle was thousands of miles from her European posses- 
 sions, the source of most of her men and supplies, and the 
 only connecting link was a single-track railway; her ad- 
 ministration, particularly of her navy, was handicapped 
 by corruption and incompetency. The Japanese were 
 near home and were splendidly organized and led. Their 
 courage, ability, and efficiency were the surprise and ad- 
 miration of the neutral world. The Russian armies re- 
 sisted stubbornly but were steadily driven back. The 
 Czar's fleets which might have imperiled Japan's com- 
 munication with her armies on the continent, were de- 
 stroyed or penned up in Port Arthur. Port Arthur itself 
 was captured after a desperate resistance, and a few weeks 
 later Mukden, the capital of Manchuria, fell before the 
 Japanese attack. The Baltic fleet, after a famous cruise 
 aroimd the Cape of Good Hope, was destroyed in the 
 Straits of Tsushima between Japan and Korea in the 
 "Battle of the Sea of Japan." The island empire's com-
 
 176 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 mand of the eastern seas could no longer be endangered. In 
 spite of her reverses Russia was by no means crushed: but 
 for internal disturbances she might still have persisted and 
 won. The war was, however, unpopular at home, and 
 when a revolution broke out St. Petersburg was quite 
 ready to begin peace negotiations. . The Japanese states- 
 men were equally willing to negotiate. Success on the field 
 of battle had so far been with them, but their finances, 
 already overloaded by the years of preparation, were 
 threatening to give way under the strain of prolonged war. 
 The island empire was not a wealthy land and could not 
 continue to borrow indefinitely. Consequently when 
 President Roosevelt offered his mediation both powers wel- 
 comed it. 
 
 The resulting negotiations were held at Portsmouth, 
 New Hampshire, and were concluded (September, 1905) by 
 the treaty bearing the name of that city. By this treaty 
 (i) Japan's "paramount political, military, and economic 
 interests" in Korea were recognized; (2) the simultaneous 
 evacuation of Korea by both was agreed upon; (3) Russia 
 transferred to the Japanese the lease of the portions of the 
 Liaotung peninsula held by her, and her railways and 
 mining privileges in Southern Manchuria; ^ (4) the southern 
 half of Sakhalin was given to Japan by Russia; (5) certain 
 fishing privileges were conceded to Japanese in the seas to 
 the North and West of their islands; and (6) each power 
 was to reimburse the other for the expense of the main- 
 tenance of prisoners of war, the balance being in favor of 
 the Japanese by about twenty milhon dollars. In addi- 
 tion (7) each was allowed to keep armed railway guards in 
 Manchuria up to a certain specified maximum per mile of 
 track, (8) neither was to fortify Sakhalin or use the Man- 
 ' South of Kwan-Cheng-Tze and Chang-Chxm.
 
 JAPAN AS A WORLD-POWER 177 
 
 churian railways for strategic purposes, and (9) both were 
 to restore and respect Chinese sovereignty in Manchuria 
 except in the leased territory, and were to maintain there 
 the open door of equal commercial and industrial oppor- 
 tunity to all nations. 
 
 The treaty was intensely unpopular in Japan. The 
 mass of the nation had expected a large indemnity and the 
 victory had seemed so decisive that the terms of peace 
 appeared not to have given the victor all she had justly 
 earned by her success and her sacrifice of blood and treasure. 
 The Japanese envoys at Portsmouth had at the beginning 
 of the negotiations demanded a large indemnity, probably 
 not in the expectation of obtaining it, but as a diplomatic 
 move to induce the Russians to make larger concessions 
 of territory than they would have made had they thought 
 their opponents would accept peace without a money 
 payment. The demand for the indemnity was dropped 
 at the proper moment, but the Japanese public did not 
 understand the game that had been played and was bit- 
 terly and angrily disappointed. Even the United States 
 shared temporarily in the abuse heaped by the populace 
 on the treaty, for its president had acted as mediator and 
 had intervened to prevent the rupture of the peace con- 
 ference, and it was on American soil that the negotiations 
 had been carried on. 
 
 SEQUELS TO THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR 
 
 And yet Japan's imperialists had every reason to be 
 satisfied with her gains. She had blocked the Russian 
 advance and had established herself firmly in Korea and 
 Southern Manchuria. She had risen to the position of a 
 world power; she was the one non-European nation since
 
 178 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 the wave of Turkish invasion had begun to subside that 
 had faced successfully on the field of battle a first-class 
 Occidental power. Her victory was heralded all through 
 the East and gave heart to the nationaUst and reform 
 movements in Persia, India, and China. Far Eastern 
 peoples, however little they might like her, looked to her 
 as a model and as a prophecy of independence from the 
 yoke of the European. Japan had demonstrated that the 
 Westerner was not invincible. He could be defeated with 
 his own weapons. 
 
 Japan's prestige was greatly increased in the Occident. 
 In August, 1905, while the Portsmouth negotiations were 
 still in progress, the Anglo- Japanese alliance was renewed. 
 The maintenance of the peace of the Far East, the integrity 
 of China, and the open door into that land were provided 
 for, as in the last agreement. The scope of the alliance was 
 extended to India and the Far East in general, an advantage 
 to England, and Japan's special interests in Korea were 
 again recognized. In case the rights of either power within 
 the prescribed areas were assailed even by one outside power 
 the other was to come to the aid of its ally. England was 
 still fearful of Russia, and desired support in case of a 
 possible attack on India. The aUiance, it might be well to 
 add, was again renewed in 191 1, this time also, as in 1905, 
 for ten years. The triple entente had by this time been 
 formed by England, France and Russia, and British fear of 
 the latter's aggression on India and China had been re- 
 moved, at least for the time; but Germany was now looming 
 on the horizon as a very possible danger and it seemed wise 
 to have an agreement with Japan in the event of attack from 
 that quarter. The only changes of importance in the last 
 renewal were the omission of reference to Korea, which, 
 as we shall see later, was annexed by Japan in 1910, and
 
 JAPAN AS A WORLD-POWER 179 
 
 the provision that neither power should by the alliance be 
 drawn into war with a nation with which it had a treaty of 
 general arbitration. This last change, in the eyes of many, 
 was designed to release England from any obhgation to help 
 Japan in the event of war between the latter and the 
 United States, for Great Britain had lately negotiated with 
 America a treaty — which had not yet been ratified — of the 
 kind specified. But it is well to note that Japan had in 
 1908 also concluded a treaty of arbitration with the United 
 States. In that same year the latter two nations had also, 
 by the Root-Takahira agreement, expressly declared to 
 each other that their policy was to maintain the status quo 
 and to respect each other's territorial possessions in the 
 Pacific, to preserve the independence and integrity of 
 China and the open door, and to communicate with each 
 other as to the proper action to be taken in case those 
 principles were threatened. France and Russia in 1907 both 
 entered into agreements with Japan for the joint support 
 of the peace of the Far East, recognizing the independence 
 and integrity of China. This was a natural accompaniment 
 of the formation in the same year of the triple entente. By 
 these agreements and others to be mentioned later, Japan 
 made certain the recognition of her voice in Far Eastern 
 afiFairs. She could no longer, as before 1894 or even before 
 1904, be ignored or treated lightly. 
 
 For further reading see: Brinkley, Japan, Its History, Arts 
 and Literature; Brinkley, A History of the Japanese People; 
 Asakawa, The Russo-Japanese Conflict; The Secret Memoirs of 
 Count Hayashi; Hornbeck, Contemporary Politics in the Far East.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 1894 TO 1 9 18: Japan Takes Her Place Among the 
 Powers of the World 
 
 2. from the treaty of portsmouth (1905) to 1918 
 
 reorganization of possessions and dependencies 
 
 After the treaty of Portsmouth the Tokyo statesmen set 
 themselves to the task of organizing their territorial acces- 
 sions in a way that would repay the nation for the great 
 sacrifices entailed by the two wars. Formosa, of course, had 
 been theirs since 1895. It had been one thing, however, to 
 exact it of China, and another to occupy it and make of it a 
 profitable colony. Its west coast was inhabited by Chinese 
 who resented the transfer to new masters and offered them 
 armed resistance. When this was put down the Japanese 
 faced the more serious enemy of -disease, for the land had 
 been notoriously unhealthful and the Chinese population 
 had l^n maintained only by continued immigration from 
 the mainland. Japanese doctors have succeeded in reducing 
 the death rate by modern sanitation and medicine. The 
 eastern section of the island was mountainous and was in- 
 habited by savage tribes of head-hunters. Some of these 
 the Japanese have induced to settle down and become peace- 
 ful agriculturalists. The recalcitrants have been restricted 
 to increasingly narrow localities by drastic police measures 
 and constant vigilance. Japanese administration in its 
 initial stages was honeycombed with corruption; it took 
 time to evolve an honest, efficient government. For years 
 • 180
 
 JAPAN AS A WORLD-POWER i8i 
 
 Formosa was a drain on the imperial treasury. Eventually, 
 as order was restored, new industries were introduced and 
 old ones improved, railways were built, administrative 
 efficiency was increased, and the island ceased to be a dead 
 weight on the nation and became more nearly a contributor 
 to its wealth. Irrigation has been fostered; the valuable 
 forests have been conserved and improved. The adminis- 
 tration has encouraged the three great staple crops, tea 
 (in the northern part of the island), rice (in the center), and 
 sugar (in the south). The production of sugar has been 
 especially aided, for the larger part of Japan's supply is 
 imported. Education has been encouraged. The colonial 
 officials have made an eager and careful study of European 
 colonial adpiinistrations and are trying to raise the islanders 
 as rapidly ^as possible to an equality with Japan in civiliza- 
 tion and prosperity. 
 
 In 1905 Korea theoretically still had her independence. 
 That had been recognized by Japan on several occasions, 
 and it was ostensibly to insure it that the war with China 
 had been waged. Had the court at Seoul been able to take 
 steps vigorously and promptly to reorganize the administra- 
 ion and to insure the independence of the country against 
 European and Chinese aggression, it is quite possible that 
 Japan would have withdrawn its hand. Tokyo felt, how- 
 ever, that Seoul could not be trusted to manage its own 
 afifairs. There were, it is true, a few earnest and patriotic 
 Korean reformers who might in time, if they had been 
 certain of being unhampered by foreign intrigues, have 
 worked out the salvation of their land; but Japan, after het 
 experiences of the past several decades, was not disposed to 
 grant them a free hand. She had not tried to combat Rus- 
 sian and Chinese intrigues in Seoul and in two wars fought 
 to maintain her interests in the neighboring peninsula \o
 
 i82 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 risk them to the unhampered control of a feeble monarch, a 
 corrupt court, and a few untried and possibly erratic re- 
 formers. Moreover, her imperialistic ambitions had been 
 aroused. Late in 1905, or almost immediately after the 
 treaty of Portsmouth, she obtained the unwilling assent of 
 Seoul to a treaty which turned over to her the control of the 
 foreign affairs of the peninsular kingdom and provided for a 
 Japanese resident-general to supervise the administration. 
 This agreement, it is true, partly nullified the independence 
 that had been repeatedly recognized by Japan, and en- 
 dangered the treaty rights of other powers. But Europe 
 and America consented to the change, and Korean patriots, 
 however bitter they might feel, could not hope to resist 
 successfully. Ito imdertook to fill the post of resident- 
 general. He attempted still to preserve the native court 
 and administrative machinery, and at the same time to 
 parallel it with a system of Japanese advisers and to reform 
 completely the finance, poHce, laws, administration of 
 justice, education, sanitation, industry, and commerce of 
 the land. He naturally had in mind the development of 
 the peninsula for the benefit of his nation, but he professed, 
 and there is no vaUd reason for doubting his sincerity, that 
 he was actuated as well by a desire to promote the interests 
 of the Koreans themselves. His, however, was an almost 
 impossible position. The dual system of government was 
 at best a clumsy one. Korean officialdom could not be 
 purged of inefficiency and corruption in a day, and co- 
 operated sullenly or not at all. The Japanese were heartily 
 disliked by the Koreans as a whole. The inevitablfe friction 
 between the two peoples was increased by the high-handed 
 action of many Japanese officials and immigrants, who 
 looked upon the peninsula as conquered territory and a 
 legitunate field for exploitation. ^ There was in Tokyo,
 
 JAPAN AS A WORLD-POWER ^183 
 
 moreover, a strong party of imperialists who desired the 
 complete amiexation of the country. In 1909, after a term 
 of less than four years, Ito withdrew, virtually confessing 
 his failure, and shortly afterward was assassinated by a 
 Korean fanatic. The form of dual government was main-, 
 tained a few months longer, but in August, 19 10, Korea 
 formally signed a treaty that annexed her to Japan. Under 
 the old name of Chosen Korea was made an integral part of 
 the empire. When one considers the weakness of the coun- 
 try, its important strategic position, the selfishness and 
 ambitions of European powers, and Japan's sacrifices in 
 war, one does not wonder at the annexation, as much as he 
 may regret some features of it. It had been demonstrated 
 that Korea could not maintain her independence: it was 
 simply a question of which power should control her. All 
 things considered, it was probably better for the world and 
 for Korea that that power should be Japan. 
 
 The Tokyo statesmen have tried earnestly and vigorously 
 to increase the wealth of the land and to insure the Japaniza- 
 tion, if one may use that term, of the Chosenese. Brig- 
 andage has been reduced, railway and highway construc- 
 tion promoted, agricultural and sericultural experiment 
 stations have been multipHed, much-needed afiforestation 
 has been undertaken, and industry has been encouraged. 
 By the treaty of annexation, the retired royal house was 
 pensioned and honored and Koreans were promised official 
 positions if they were loyal and competent. Japan evi- 
 dently has wished the Chosenese to become loyal subjects 
 of the emperor. It has been hoped, too, that as rapidly as 
 possible they would become amalgamated with the Japa- 
 nese. It is pointed out that the two peoples are closely 
 related and that the task is quite feasible. To promote its 
 accomplishment the Japanese laws and law courts have
 
 1 84 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 been extended to the peninsula, schools have been founded, 
 and the modern educational institutions of the land, here- 
 tofore largely owned and operated by Christian missionaries 
 from the West, have been made as far as possible to con- 
 form to the Japanese system and to submit themselves to 
 official control. The use of the Japanese language has been 
 encouraged and where feasible required. 
 
 The Chosenese have not faced the prospect of assimila- 
 tion with unalloyed pleasure. There has been at times 
 a deep undercurrent of discontent. Christian missions, 
 begun long before annexation, have prospered as they 
 had in no other Far Eastern land in the nineteenth century, 
 and the Japanese, fearing lest sedition should cloak itself 
 with religion and seek refuge in the church, have naturally 
 been suspicious of the influence of the foreign pastor over 
 his flock. At times friction has occurred, notably over the 
 state supervision of missionary schools and the attempt to 
 secularize them, and over the trial of a number of native 
 Christians, most of them, possibly all of them, innocent, 
 on the charge of plotting against the government. The 
 Japanese have shown no signs of weakening in their pur- 
 pose of completing the assimilation of the peninsula, how- 
 ever, and the Chosenese cannot hope to present more 
 than a passive resistance: they are, indeed, increasingly 
 contented. The land has been a drain on the imperial 
 treasury, but the subsidies have been decreased year by 
 year and it is expected that they will soon be no longer 
 needed. 
 
 Sakhalin, or Karafuto as it is called by the Japanese, 
 has not yet proved a very profitable acquisition. In the 
 southern half, the section ceded by Russia in the treaty 
 of Portsmouth, there are several hundred square miles of 
 arable lands, and a few thousand Japanese have come in
 
 JAPAN AS A WORLD-POWER 185 
 
 and settled on them. The fisheries are to-day the most 
 important income-producing feature of the island. Their 
 annual value has approached the four million dollar mark. 
 The island has several undeveloped sources of income; its 
 forests are the most extensive of any section of the empire, 
 and there are valuable deposits of coal. The Tokyo treas- 
 ury has had to make a yearly contribution to the local 
 budget, however, for the island has been so sparsely settled 
 that it is not yet paying its own way. 
 
 japan's growing interest and power in MANCHURIA 
 
 In Manchuria Japan's position was not as predominant as 
 in Korea nor her policy as clearly indicated for her by local 
 conditions. She had gone to war with Russia ostensibly 
 to defend the open door and the integrity of China. By 
 the fortunes of war, she found herself on the conclusion of 
 peace in the possession of the very Russian holdings in 
 South Manchuria against the prejudicial tendency of which 
 she had protested. Consistency and loyalty to pledges 
 repeatedly made in treaties and conventions with various 
 powers demanded that she scrupulously respect Chinese 
 sovereignty and the principle of equal economic opportunity 
 for all. Many Japanese felt, however, that the war had 
 so altered conditions that a strict adherence to promises 
 made earlier should not be insisted upon. Japanese lives 
 by the thousand had been poured out on Manchurian soil 
 to defend it against Russia, while China, the nominal 
 sovereign, stood idly and helplessly by. Japan had loaded 
 taxes on her people almost to the breaking point and had 
 accumulated an immense war debt which would be a 
 burden on generations yet unborn, while China had spent 
 scarcely a dollar. The Japanese would not have been human
 
 i86 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 had they not desired to use for their own advantage the 
 territory taken at so much cost. Moreover, the successes 
 of the war had strengthened the imperialistic ambitions 
 of the nation. Manchuria was a most tempting field of 
 expansion. It bordered on Korea; it was possessed of im- 
 mense and almost virgin resources of field, mine, and 
 forest; it was still a frontier country; it had been a part of 
 China for less than three centuries and only recently had 
 the Chinese entered it in large numbers; it was now being 
 rapidly settled by these and they were demonstrating by 
 the results of their farming the immense fertility of the 
 land. Japan, moreover, needed room for expansion. Her 
 population was steadily increasing. In 1891 it had been 
 40,718,677, in 1899, 44,260,652, in 1903, 46,732,876, and 
 by 1908 it was to be 49,588,804. The arable land of the 
 islands was not all occupied, but the limit was in sight. 
 The pressure of population must be relieved either by 
 emigration or by promoting industry and the exchange of 
 its products abroad for food. In either case Manchuria 
 was greatly to be desired. It was a comparatively virgin 
 land to which Japanese might go and still for military pur- 
 poses not be lost to the home land.^ Its rapidly increas- 
 ing population offered a promising market, and its mines, 
 forests, and fields were sources of abundant raw materials. 
 Considering all the temptations that Manchuria pre- 
 sented and the cost at which a foothold in it had been ac- 
 quired, it would have been strange, although highly com- 
 mendable, had Japan stayed strictly by her plighted word. 
 She did, however, pay attention to China's claims to sov- 
 ereignty. Even after the treaty of Portsmouth she sought 
 
 ^ It has later been claimed that the Japanese do not care to go much 
 to Manchuria as laborers or farmers, for they are brought into com- 
 petition with the Chinese and their lower standards of living.
 
 JAPAN AS A WORLD-POWER 187 
 
 and obtained from Peking the confirmation of the provisions 
 of that document in so far as they affected Chinese rights. 
 In a set of secret protocols Japan's control in Manchuria 
 was confirmed by provisions that were beHeved by many to 
 threaten the open door: other powers were apparently not 
 to be allowed railway concessions save with the consent 
 of Japan, and the Chinese were not to build lines that would 
 compete with those owned by the Japanese. 
 
 AMERICANS AND THE MANCHURIAN RAILWAYS 
 
 There were efforts to loosen Japan's hold on Manchuria. 
 The ink was hardly dry on the treaty of Portsmouth before 
 Harriman. had agreed with the Tokyo authorities to buy 
 the roads that had been taken from Russia. The great 
 rkan railway genius planned to obtain control of the 
 trans-STBenaiTfoad^ to span the Atlantic and Pacific with 
 steamship lines, and thus to belt the world with a trans- 
 portation system controlled by himself. This arrange- 
 ment, however, stood in the way of Japanese expansion, 
 and while favored by Ito was a^rQgated-<Mi:- t h e advic e of 
 the Japanese chief commissioner to Portsmouth. Both 
 British and American financiers sought from China rail- 
 way concessions in both the Japanese and Russian spheres 
 of influence.^ Harriman negotiated for the lines in Man- 
 churia still held by Russia. The United States through 
 Secretary Knox proposed a scheme for the neutralization 
 of the railways of Manchuria. The powers were jointly to 
 lend China money to purchase the existing Russian and 
 Japanese lines and to construct such additional roads as 
 might be needed . The administration of the roads was to 
 
 1 Principally the railroad from Chinchow in South Manchuria to 
 Aigun on the Amur.
 
 i88 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 be for a time in the hands of an international commission. 
 The plan was significant, for had it been carried out, it 
 would have meant a precedent for the substitution of 
 a benevolent international protectorate over China for 
 "spheres of influence," "leased territories," "special in- 
 terests," and other forms under which each nation was 
 trying to obtain for its exclusive enjoyment some part of 
 the country. If successful, Kjiox's plan would have les- 
 sened intrigues and reduced causes of friction and war. To 
 the American proposal Japanese and Russian expansionists 
 could hardly be expected to agree, and since they were in 
 control at their respective capitals, alarm at the threatened 
 action led the two countries not only to disapprove publicly 
 of the plan, but to enter into an agreement (1910) to act 
 jointly to conserve and coordinate their interests in Man- 
 churia. The former enemies had been driven together by 
 the American suggestion and their common interests. The 
 temptation was great to obtain special privileges for Japa- 
 nese merchants as well as for Japanese raihoads. The ac- 
 cusation was repeatedly made that by manipulation of 
 the customs, railroad rebates, preferential rates of interest 
 in the Manchurian branches of the Yokohama Specie 
 Bank, and the evasion of taxes, the Japanese were obtain- 
 ing favors for their own goods and merchants at the ex- 
 pense of those of other powers. In some instances the 
 complaints may have been well-founded, but if there was 
 a violation of the open door it was more by indirect than 
 by direct methods. It was seldom if ever as apparent as 
 had been that practiced by Russia. 
 
 ""7*^^ japan's interest in china to 1 9 14 
 
 Japan's interest in China was not confined to Manchuria 
 and events were soon to take place which would give her
 
 JAPAN AS A WORLD-POWER 189 
 
 a larger voice in the affairs of her huge neighbor. If Man- 
 churia was a rich field for commercial, mining, and indus- 
 trial exploitation, China proper was even more so. There 
 was a huge industrious and thrifty population variously 
 estimated at from two hundred and fifty millions to four 
 hundred millions, potentially the greatest market in the 
 world. There were great supplies of raw material and of 
 coal and iron, of the last of which Japan, without much 
 iron ore of her own, stood particularly in need. There was 
 the natural field for the commercial expansion that Japan 
 must have if she were to find occupation and food for her 
 increasing population and to insure her continued progress 
 as a nation. Why should she not direct the transformation 
 and organization of this imwieldy, newly awakened land, 
 and the development of its resources? Why should she 
 not make secure Chinese independence of Europe and 
 furnish advisers for the schools, the diplomacy, and the 
 civil and military administration of the great empire? 
 Why should the two lands not form a close alliance under 
 the leadership of Tokyo that would insure to Orientals 
 the possession of the Far East, and exercise a decisive in- 
 fluence in world affairs? Moreover by her possession of 
 Chosen and her special interests in Manchuria, Japan was 
 under the necessity of watching, and if possible controlling 
 diplomacy in Peking. 
 
 By every device known to industry and commerce Japan's 
 trade with the Eighteen Provinces ^ was encouraged. 
 Heavily subsidized steamers plied the waters of the Yangtze 
 and its tributaries; Japanese post-offices and consulates 
 were opened in the main treaty ports; Japanese merchants 
 came in by the hundreds; and Japanese teachers were to 
 be found in Chinese government schools. Since 1901 
 1 A name given to China proper.
 
 I90 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 Chinese students had flocked to Japan by the thousands, 
 finding in Tokyo a nearer and less expensive source of 
 Western learning than the university centers of the Occi- 
 dent. Returning, they had given a decidedly Japanese 
 flavor to the reform movement in their home land. 
 
 The Chinese revolution of 191 1 that overthrew the 
 Manchu dynasty and established in its place a republic 
 gave Japan fresh opportunities for interference in the in- 
 ternal affairs of her neighbor. It is true that the revolu- 
 tion was accompanied by a patriotic movement that re- 
 sented foreign influence, and that Yuan Shih K'ai, the 
 president of the united republic, had been of old, as his 
 country's representative in Seoul before the Chino- Japanese 
 war, an enemy of Japan. But with the revolution came 
 disorder and temporary decentralization. The one led to 
 offenses against a few individual Japanese, which gave 
 Tokyo an opportunity to overawe the Chinese by vigorous 
 demands for satisfaction. The other weakened Peking. 
 Some of those who sought to oppose Yuan naturally looked 
 to Japan for aid. It has not been proved that the Tokyo 
 government ever gave Chinese rebels direct aid, but in- 
 dividual, over-enthusiastic Japanese, some of them officials, 
 were guilty of helping them. The revolution, too, brought 
 a need for more money. Yuan was put to it to find funds 
 to pay his troops and to maintain and reorganize the gov- 
 ernment. A group of foreign bankers, made up originally 
 of representatives of France, Germany, England, and the 
 United States, offered to make a huge loan to be secured 
 by receipts from taxes, notably the salt monopoly, and 
 on the condition that in the future China should borrow 
 exclusively from that group. Japan and Russia demanded 
 and obtained entrance into the charmed circle, and the 
 "sextuple syndicate" seemed about to institute a joint
 
 JAPAN AS A WORLD-POWER 191 
 
 protectorate over China's finances. The American mem- 
 bers of the syndicate withdrew soon after President Wilson 
 came into office, for he had declined his support on the 
 groimd that by the terms of the loan China's autonomy 
 would be jeopardized. The representatives of the remain- 
 ing five powers made the loan, although this did not carry 
 with it quite the drastic monopoly on the finances of China 
 that had at first been contemplated. Japan, with the 
 other four powers, was by it given a firmer hold on China. 
 
 RELATIONS WITH CHINA, 1914-1916 
 
 Then in August, 19 14, came the Great War. By the 
 terms of her alliance with Great Britain Japan was under 
 obligation to come to the former's assistance in case she 
 were attacked in the Far East, and to consider in common 
 with her the measures that should be taken to safeguard 
 any interests in the same region that were threatened by 
 the Germans. Japan was quite ready to assume to the full 
 her obligations under the alliance, for it gave her an un- 
 precedented opportunity to establish herself in China and 
 the Pacific. With the European powers busy elsewhere and 
 with the known reluctance of the United States to use force 
 to preserve the open door, she could do on the neighboring 
 continent almost as she pleased. On August 15th Japan 
 presented a note to the German government "advising" 
 it to withdraw from Far Eastern waters all its men-of-war 
 and armed vessels, to disarm those that could not be with- 
 drawn, and to give up to her the leased territory of Kiao 
 Chau "with a view to the eventual restoration of the 
 same to China." The note made one strangely reminiscent 
 of the German communication to Japan in 1895. Ger- 
 many sent no reply and Japan entered the war. She aided
 
 192 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 England in clearing Asiatic waters of German cruisers and 
 raiders and captured some of the German Pacific islands 
 which, by the way, are not without strategic importance. 
 With some slight assistance from her ally she sent a force 
 to China and after a siege captured Tsingtao and occupied 
 the German railways and mines in Shantung. Count 
 Okuma, then the premier, publicly and in writing dis- 
 avowed any territorial ambitions. Japan said she had 
 "no ulterior motive, no desire to secure more territory, no 
 thought of depriving China or other peoples of anything 
 which they now possess." The temptation offered by the 
 unusual opportunity, however, proved very great, too 
 great, in fact, to be entirely resisted. In the attack on 
 Tsingtao China's neutrality was accorded scant respect 
 and repeated complaints were made by the Chinese of 
 usurpations of authority by Japanese troops and officials 
 in and near the railway zone. Tsingtao was treated as con- 
 quered territory, even to the exclusion of British interests. 
 
 But Japan was preparing for a more far-reaching move. 
 Early in 191 5 she made certain demands on Peking, de- 
 mands which if granted in full would place the huge con- 
 tinental republic completely under the tutelage of its island 
 neighbor. These were in five groups. 
 
 First: in regard to Shantung, China was to promise to 
 give her assent to anything upon which the Japanese and 
 German governments might agree in regard to the rights 
 which the latter possessed in the province. She was to 
 engage not to cede or to lease to any third power any terri- 
 tory within or along the coast of Shantung. She was to 
 give to Japan an additional railway concession and to 
 open new ports to trade. 
 
 Second: in regard to South Manchuria and Eastern 
 Inner Mongolia, the leases on the railways and ports held
 
 JAPAN AS A WORLD-POWER 193 
 
 by Japan were to be extended to ninety-nine years instead 
 of the twenty-five years for which they were first made. 
 Japanese officials and civilians were to have the right not 
 only in the railway zones and treaty ports, but everywhere 
 in the two regions, to travel, to reside, to lease or buy land 
 for trading, manufacturing or agricultural purposes, to 
 engage in any business they wished, and to open such 
 mines as China and Japan might agree upon. Such ex- 
 tensive privileges of residence and ownership of land had 
 not been granted elsewhere in China to foreigners other 
 than missionaries: exterritorial rights had had as a corollary 
 the restriction of most foreign residence and business to 
 treaty ports, where the necessary consular courts could 
 be operated without too much prejudice to Chinese juris- 
 diction. China was to promise, too, that the Japanese 
 government would be consulted before any foreign ad- 
 visers were employed for South Manchuria or Eastern 
 Inner Mongolia, and that before Peking granted a railway 
 concession or made a loan on the security of the taxes of 
 these districts, Tokyo's consent would first be obtained. 
 A lease was to be given Japan on a short railway ^ hitherto 
 outside its control. The effect of this second group of 
 concessions, if they were granted, would be to strengthen 
 Japan's control over some of the richest sections of China 
 to the exclusion of all possible interference from the outside, 
 while still preserving the semblance of the open door and 
 Chinese sovereignty. 
 
 Third: the Han-yeh-ping Company, a home-owned en- 
 terprise which operated the greatest iron works in China,^ 
 and which controlled extensive bodies of iron ore and coal, 
 
 ^ From Kirin to Chang-Chun. 
 
 2 At Hanyang, across the Han River from Hankow, the great river 
 port of Central China.
 
 194 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 was, when the opportune moment arrived, to be made the 
 joint midertaking of Japan and China. Without the con- 
 sent of the former the latter was not to dispose of her rights 
 in the company, and without the company's permission 
 she was not to permit mines in the neighborhood of those 
 owned by it to be worked, or any enterprise affecting its 
 interests to be undertaken. The properties of the Han-yeh- 
 ping Company were in the heart of China, within the 
 region that less than twenty years before had been marked 
 out by the British as a sphere of influence. The company 
 was in financial straits and had already borrowed from 
 Japanese. Its control by the Japanese and the strength- 
 ening of their political influence in that region would be 
 made certain were the demand granted. Japan, sadly 
 deficient in iron ore of her own, would be assured a supply 
 that would probably be adequate for years to come. 
 
 Fourth: China was not to cede or to lease to any other 
 power than Japan any harbor, bay, or island along her coast. 
 
 The fifth group comprised a series of demands which 
 more completely than the other four would, if granted, 
 place China under the tutelage of her neighbor. The 
 Chinese government was to employ Japanese as advisers 
 in poHtical, financial, and military affairs; the police depart- 
 ments of important places in China were to be under the 
 joint administration of the two nations; China was either 
 to purchase of her neighbor fifty per cent or more of her 
 munitions of war, or a joint arsenal was to be established 
 employing Japanese experts and using Japanese material. 
 Japanese hospitals, schools, and churches might own land 
 in the heart of China, and the right to propagate religious 
 doctrines ^ was to be acknowledged. Certain railway conces- 
 
 ^The doctrines were presumably Buddhist. The reason for this 
 demand is somewhat obscure, but it was apparently to encouxage
 
 JAPAN AS A WORLD-POWER 195 
 
 sions in the Yangtze Valley were to be granted, and no foreign 
 capital for the development of Fuhkien, the province opposite 
 Formosa, was to be employed without first consulting Japan. 
 
 These demands aroused a storm of protest in China, 
 vigorous criticism in many foreign quarters, and much 
 opposition even in Japan. To accede to them seemed to 
 the Chinese to mean the virtual surrender of independence. 
 But Peking was not in a position to offer armed resistance. 
 The nation was disorganized and in sad financial straits, 
 and its army could not hope to oppose successfully the 
 fighting machine of its doughty neighbor. Europe was too 
 busy with its own affairs to protest, and the United States, 
 even if it objected, could be counted on not to back up 
 its complaints by force. Long negotiations followed, and 
 early in May Tokyo presented Peking with what was vir- 
 tually an ultimatum, demanding the immediate acceptance 
 of the provisions of the first four groups. The discussion 
 of the fifth group was to be postponed for the time. To 
 this ultimatum China was constrained to yield and by 
 treaties and the exchange of notes granted all that Japan 
 had asked, with the exception of the fifth group, the dis- 
 cussion on which was postponed. It may be noted that 
 while the fifth group was not formally conceded, certain 
 features of it have been partially carried out in practice, 
 for Japanese advisers to the government are increasing 
 in mmibers and influence. 
 
 Disorders in Eastern Inner Mongoha in 19 16 gave Japan 
 the excuse for a demand for still further control over the 
 policing of the region involved. Again China could only 
 protest, but this time Tokyo was in a more conciliatory 
 mood and compromised. 
 
 Japanese Buddhist missionaries to come to China to offset the strong 
 Occidental influence exercised by Christian missionaries.
 
 196 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 Japan was now unquestionably the leading power in 
 China. Her predominance was spectacularly made apparent 
 when in December, 191 5, the Japanese charge d'affaires 
 acted as spokesman for a group made up of himself and the 
 French and British ministers, the latter the dean of the 
 diplomatic corps in Peking, in a formal protest to Yuan 
 Shih K'ai against the substitution of a monarchy for a 
 republic. Japan, as a member of the group that was at- 
 tempting to crush Germany, was evidently not to be put 
 under constraint by her companions in arms. Her position 
 was stiU further strengthened by an agreement with Russia 
 published in July, 1916. The two powers had been drawing 
 together ever since the treaty of Portsmouth, and Japan 
 had been aiding Russia in her struggle with Germany by 
 shipments of supplies across Siberia. Each government now 
 agreed not to enter into any alliance or arrangement with a 
 third power directed against the other, and both promised 
 that in case the Far Eastern territorial rights or special 
 privilege of either were menaced they would "consult with 
 each other regarding the measures to be taken for the 
 purpose of protecting and guarding the said rights and 
 privileges." Although not a formal alliance, it was an 
 agreement for Joint action. This agreement and the Anglo- 
 Japanese alliance insured as much as solemn international 
 promises are capable of doing the friendship and support 
 of the two European powers most influential in the Far East. 
 
 CmNO-JAPANESE RELATIONS IN 1917 
 
 In the simimer of 191 7 more light was thrown on Japan's 
 special position in China by incidents arising from inter- 
 nal troubles in the republic. Yuan Shih K'ai had died in 
 19 16 after a vain attempt to make himself emperor. The 
 republican government that he had restored in the last few
 
 JAPAN AS A WORLD-POWER 197 
 
 weeks of his life was left in the control of two discordant 
 factions, a conservative group, chiefly military, with its 
 stronghold in the north, and a radical group, chiefly from 
 the south. Early in 1917, the first was in control of the 
 cabinet, and the second of parliament. Over both the 
 president, Li Yuan Himg, was trying to preside and insure 
 harmony. In the spring of 191 7 the government received a 
 copy of the note sent by the United States asking that all 
 neutral powers join her in her break with Germany. This, 
 followed by the outbreak of war between America and 
 Germany, precipitated a heated discussion as to whether 
 China should join the entente powers. So bitter did the 
 discussion become that the president was constrained to 
 dismiss the premier, and then the parliament, and civil 
 war seemed about to foUow. The United States now dis- 
 patched a note to Peking, advising China that it was more 
 important for the welfare of the world that she preserve 
 internal peace than that she join in the war. Great Britain, 
 France, and Japan were apparently asked to second the 
 note. Although the texts of the documents were not made 
 public, Japan apparently protested to the United States 
 that because of the former's special interests in China, 
 Tokyo should have been communicated with before the 
 note was sent to Peking. This was tantamount to asserting 
 Japan's supervision of China's foreign affairs, and Great 
 Britain and France by declining to second the American 
 note, seemed tacitly to agree to Japan's position. The 
 incident at first seemed trivial, but it was highly significant. 
 The spectacular transient revival of the Manchu empire by 
 Chang Hsun, followed by the restoration of the republic by 
 the military party and the declaration of war on Germany, 
 seemed to many in Japan to promise further disorder and 
 to show the need for interference.
 
 198 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 Japan failed to obtain the hearty cooperation of the 
 Chinese in her program. She professed, it is true, to have 
 no desire to annex any of their territory, but rather to aid 
 them in reorganizing, and reaching a position where they 
 could defend their independence. She professed to favor a 
 close alliance between the two nations to the mutual 
 advantage of both; Japan to protect China during her 
 years of weakness against the aggressions of Western powers 
 and to aid in her political and military reconstruction and 
 her economic development, and China to provide Japan 
 with a market and a source of raw materials. The Japanese 
 pointed out that the two nations were closely related in 
 blood and in culture and that it would be to the advantage 
 of both if they acted together. For the time, they said, 
 Japan would need to lead, even in China's internal affairs, 
 but she could not hope to annex her huge neighbor and 
 eventually the latter would be able to stand on her own 
 feet. Unfortunately for the realization of this hope, neither 
 people could heartily or harmoniously cooperate with the 
 other. The Chinese had, until a little over half a century 
 before, regarded Japan as an inferior state, one which had 
 borrowed from them all the culture that separated her from 
 barbarism. They could not quickly forget the earlier re- 
 lationship and chafed with helpless rage under Japan's 
 assumptions and aggressions. While the great growth of 
 Japanese commerce on the continent was possible only 
 because the Chinese traded with them, the latter despised 
 and feared their island neighbors even while they bought 
 from them, and contrasted scornfully the cheap and conse- 
 quently flimsy articles sold them by Japan with the corre- 
 sponding more expensive and substantial European prod- 
 ucts. The Japanese, moreover, were not in a frame of mind 
 that would enable them easily to placate Chinese resent-
 
 JAPAN AS A WORLD-POWER 199 
 
 ment. Their successes during the past few decades and 
 their traditional national pride had not promoted a humble 
 or conciliatory spirit. In spite of the many things that the 
 two peoples had in common, and their many points of con- 
 tact, it is doubtful whether they really understood each 
 other. Their histories and ideals, had, after all, been very 
 different. Even the best of the Japanese felt a certain con- 
 tempt for their neighbors. It was true that the Chinese 
 were successful merchants and that in ages past their culture 
 had been dominant in the Far East; but had they not been 
 unable quickly to adjust themselves to the new age, and 
 were they not proving themselves incompetent to organize 
 a government that could maintain its independence? As 
 the Japanese had annexed Korea to prevent its absorption 
 by Russia, so, they thought, they might need to supervise 
 China to prevent Western powers from doing so and slam- 
 ming to the door of economic opportunity. Many Japanese 
 felt that Manchuria more properly belonged to them than to 
 China. It had never, they claimed, been an integral part of 
 China proper but had been held merely as a dependency until 
 fear of foreign aggression led to its incorporation into the 
 provincial system. The Chinese had not shed their blood 
 nor spent their treasure for it as had the Japanese. In the 
 hght of these sentiments, friction between the two peoples 
 was inevitable. Under a new ministry ^ Japan in the latter 
 part of 19 16 began to adopt a more conciliatory attitude in 
 an attempt to allay Chinese suspicions and promote har- 
 monious cooperation, but, while she met with some success, 
 her motives were still suspected by the mass of the Chinese 
 nation. Whether or not the two peoples could get along 
 peaceably together, it was evident that China would for years 
 to come be the dominant factor in Japan's foreign pohcy. 
 ^ Under Terauchi.
 
 200 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 The collapse of Russia in 191 7 and 19 18 brought with it 
 developments the outcome of which cannot, in the spring 
 of 1918, be accurately predicted. Japan's intervention in 
 Vladivostok has the consent of her European alhes, at 
 least outwardly, and that in spite of the reluctance of 
 the United States to see any action taken by the entente 
 powers which may seem to smack of territorial aggres- 
 sion or serve to alienate the Russian people. Japan 
 professes to entertain no purpose of permanent occupa- 
 tion, but the future of Russia is so fraught with imcer- 
 tainty, and some of the territories concerned are so rich 
 in minerals, particularly in coal and iron, that sceptical 
 observers may well be pardoned if at times they doubt 
 whether, if Japan once really occupies the region, she will 
 find withdrawal convenient or possible. 
 
 RELATIONS BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND JAPAN, 
 
 1894-1917 
 
 During the years since 1894 Japan's relations with the 
 United States had been undergoing a change. From the 
 time of the Perry expedition the two countries had had for 
 many years the most cordial attitude toward each other. 
 The United States had never been suspected of territorial 
 ambitions in the Far East. She had repeatedly by acts of 
 generosity demonstrated the cordiality of her friendship for 
 her trans-Pacific neighbor. She looked with a kind of elder- 
 brotherly pride upon the rapid development of a nation that 
 she had come to regard as a protege, and saw in it no menace 
 to her own safety. The two nations cooperated in seeking 
 to maintain the open door in Manchuria after the Boxer 
 uprising. In the war with Russia American sympathies 
 were all with the Japanese and New York bankers loaned a
 
 4 
 
 JAPAN AS A WORLD-POWER 201 
 
 large proportion of the funds needed for the struggle. In 
 return Japan looked upon America as the one great Western 
 power from whom she had nothing to fear and was moved by- 
 gratitude for the evidences of disinterested friendship that 
 had been shown her. any Japanese students found their 
 way to American universities and took back with them a 
 hearty admiration for the country where they had spent 
 their college days. The United States, moreover, had pro- 
 vided Japan a market for tea and raw silk, especially the 
 latter, and was her best customer, better even than China. 
 In return Japan bought from the United States large 
 quantities of raw cotton, manufactures, machinery, iron, 
 and steel. 
 
 By the close of 1905, however, friction between the two 
 countries began to develop. A small and uninfluential 
 portion of the Japanese public was temporarily inclined to 
 regard the United States as partly responsible for the terms 
 of the intensely mipopular treaty of Portsmouth. This 
 slight resentment would quickly have died out had there not 
 soon been added other causes for trouble. The first of 
 these was the immigration question. The Pacific Coast 
 states of America were poorly supplied with the cheap labor 
 needed for their development. Chinese coolies had been 
 excluded by law and the newer European immigration did 
 not quickly find its way across the continent. H Unskilled 
 Japanese workmen, then, found an open field for their 
 services, at wages far in excess of what they could hope for 
 at home. Numbers came to the Pacific Coast and especially 
 to California and were accompanied or followed by a few 
 merchants and professional men. Immigration was swelled 
 by the annexation of Hawaii. Tens of thousands of Japa- 
 nese had come to the islands during the years of independ- 
 ence to work on the plantations, and still form the largest
 
 202 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 single racial element of the very heterogeneous population 
 of that territory. After 1898 they began to go to the con- 
 tinent. This influx of cheap Asiatic labor alarmed the 
 people of the coast states, especially the labor unions. 
 The Japanese, it was felt, could not be assimilated easily 
 if at all. Their home country was known to be crowded 
 by a rapidly growing population, and it was feared that 
 unless their immigration were stopped, they would soon 
 form a large un-American group on the thinly settled 
 Pacific Coast. White laborers would be unable or unwilling 
 to compete with a race whose standards of living were 
 traditionally so much lower than their own and would 
 either become poverty-stricken or withdraw; the coast 
 states would be fiUed with an ever increasing Oriental 
 population and might in time become a Japanese rather 
 than an American community. These fears were to some 
 extent justified, but they were largely unfounded, for the 
 Japanese proved to be more assimilable than the Chinese, 
 more eager to learn the language and to adopt the ways 
 and standards of living of their adopted country, and in 
 efficiency and enterprise they were on the whole the equals 
 if not the superiors of the immigrants from South Europe. 
 Some of the student class who have remained in America 
 have risen to the highest ranks in medicine and teaching, 
 and there have been those among their merchants who 
 have become honored, prosperous members of American 
 communities. But for prejudice there would have been 
 little more difficulty in absorbing a reasonable number of 
 them than a somewhat similar number of Greeks or Itahans. 
 Unfortunately, native Americans felt a strong race prej- 
 udice. False or exaggerated reports were circulated which 
 gave the American communities the quite erroneous im- 
 pression that the Japanese were grossly immoral and dis-
 
 JAPAN AS A WORLD-POWER 203 
 
 honest and were spies for their government. With such 
 a prejudice, friction was inevitable, intermarriage was 
 frowned upon, and assimilation made difficult. As early 
 as 1900 there had been some trouble, and the Tokyo gov- 
 ernment, to avoid friction, had passed restrictions on 
 emigration to the United States. In 1903 a labor con- 
 vention in Chicago appointed a commission to study 
 the question and the report was opposed to Japanese 
 immigration. In 1905 a league to exclude Japanese and 
 Koreans was organized in San Francisco, and in 1906 the 
 question came to a head when the San Francisco school 
 officials attempted to segregate the Japanese from the 
 American pupils. Through President Roosevelt's inter- 
 vention the local authorities agreed to drop the matter, 
 but only on the condition that the federal government 
 would undertake to put a stop to further immigration of 
 Japanese from Hawaii, Mexico, and Canada. Congress 
 in 1907 passed an act authorizing the president to prevent 
 a further influx of the unpopular race. The president then 
 by proclamation prohibited the movement from Hawaii, 
 Mexico, and Canada, an act which, in light of existing 
 treaties, was of doubtful constitutionality. He also entered 
 into negotiations with Tokyo which led to the so-called 
 "gentlemen's agreement" by which Japan agreed to pre- 
 vent any of her laboring class from coming to America. 
 
 In 1 9 13 friction again arose over legislation in CaUfor- 
 nia, when, in spite of President Wilson's representations 
 through Secretary of State Bryan, a bill was passed which 
 in effect and purpose, although not by name, forbade 
 Japanese to hold agricultural land in the state except on a 
 short term lease. Similar legislation was talked of in 
 Oregon and Idaho in 191 7 and was withdrawn only on re- 
 quests from Washington. Naturalization has not been
 
 204 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 allowed, and only American-bom Japanese have or can 
 acquire the rights of citizenship. The question of anti- 
 Japanese clauses in the national immigration laws has been 
 seriously debated in Congress. The Japanese people have 
 been deeply offended by this American legislation, partly 
 because of the scant respect for their feelings that has been 
 shown in discussing and enacting it, and partly because it 
 seems to them unwarranted discrimination. It is certainly 
 unnecessary; the number of Japanese that can come to the 
 United States and hold land there is, relatively speaking, un- 
 important so long as Tokyo adheres, as it has so far scru- 
 pulously done, to the "gentlemen's agreement": in 1905 
 there were probably less than icx>,ooo in the United States 
 proper. It is discriminatory, for it seems to violate treaty 
 obligations which guarantee Japan all the rights granted to 
 other powers and it appears to rank the Japanese with the 
 inferior peoples of the earth. This is doubly oflfensive to a 
 nation as keenly sensitive and intensely patriotic as the 
 Japanese. The American legislation has seemed, too, to 
 be a phase of a general policy of the white race to exclude 
 all other peoples from the best of the unoccupied sections 
 of the earth, while refusing these others the privilege of 
 shutting out the white man from their own lands. British 
 Columbia and Australia, for example, have shown nearly 
 as great irritation over Japanese immigration as has Cali- 
 fornia, and that in spite of the existence of the Anglo- 
 Japanese Alliance. There has seemed to be no immediate 
 possibility of a war arising over the question, for Japan 
 is too greatly interested in China to risk losing her ad- 
 vantage there by engaging in hostilities elsewhere. A ma- 
 jority of the American thinking public, moreover, has 
 deplored the anti- Japanese agitation and has objected to 
 having the peace of the nation jeopardized by the hysterical
 
 JAPAN AS A WORLD-POWER 205 
 
 fears of three or four states. The admission of Japanese 
 to the United States and their status when admitted, are, 
 however, questions which will evidently arise again and if 
 America continues to prove discourteous they may com- 
 bine with other causes to bring war. 
 
 Another source of friction between Japan and the United 
 States has been the poUcy of the two powers in the Far 
 East. In 1898 America took the Philippines and in the 
 same year annexed Hawaii. This, from the American 
 standpoint, was the unavoidable result of the force of 
 circumstances. From the Japanese standpoint it was 
 ominous of designs on China. Shortly afterward, as if to 
 confirm Japan's worst suspicions, the United States began 
 to champion the principle of the open door in China, a 
 principle which after 1905 threatened the special interests 
 acquired by Japan in Manchuria through the treaty of 
 Portsmouth. ^ After the Russo-Japanese war, it will be 
 remembered, Harriman offered to buy the South Man- 
 churian railways from Tokyo, and when this was refused, 
 tried to get hold of the Russian lines in North Manchuria. 
 American capitalists attempted to get from China conces- 
 sions for a railway which would have competed with the 
 Japanese roads in Manchuria, and were prevented only by 
 the opposition of Tokyo. Still later came the Knox pro- 
 posal to purchase and operate these same Japanese Man- 
 churian roads by an international syndicate. This from 
 the standpoint of Americans was designed merely to pre- 
 serve the open door and Chinese independence, but to 
 Japan it might well have seemed to be actuated by purely 
 selfish motives and to threaten the fruits of her dearly won 
 victories. Still later Americans began to invest capital 
 in China. American bankers joined in the six-power loan 
 to China until discouraged by President Wilson. The
 
 2o6 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 Standard Oil Company obtained a partial monopoly on 
 the oil fields of China, although that was later surrendered, 
 and an American company entered into negotiations to 
 build great docks in Fuhkien province, opposite the Japa- 
 nese-owned Formosa. In 1916 other American capitalists 
 proposed a loan for railway construction that competed 
 with Japanese interests in Shantung. It was due largely to 
 pressure from the United States that China in 191 7 broke 
 with Germany. All of this seemed very reasonable and 
 just to the average citizen of the United States, if he stopped 
 to think about it at all. He was innocent of any imperiahs- 
 tic intentions in Asia and wanted only an open door of 
 equal opportunity. To some Japanese minds, however, 
 there was a sinister aspect to this American westward ex- 
 pansion. In the course of a hundred years or so the United 
 States had jumped the Mississippi River, crossed the 
 Rockies, occupied the Pacific slope, and since Japan's 
 war with China had spanned the Pacific, occupying Hawaii 
 and the Philippines, and was seeking investments in Chinese 
 mines and railways. What might she not do next? What 
 wonder that many Japanese, misunderstanding the spirit 
 of the American people, should be irritated by their open 
 door policy and regard it as a hypocritical cloak for selfish 
 designs? What wonder that they should think of America 
 as a menace and even if they could be persuaded that for 
 the present she had no selfish motives, should believe that 
 commercial expansion and the investment of capital in 
 China might lead her later to challenge Japan's special 
 interests in that land? Many of them might feel, too, 
 that the open door, splendid in theory, could not be left 
 safely to the protection of Occidental powers. All of 
 Japan's experience had been to the contrary. In the ab- 
 sence of an effective league of nations, the Japanese might
 
 JAPAN AS A WORLD-POWER 207 
 
 well feel that until China should be able to take care of 
 herself, her integrity could be made certain only by the 
 assistance of some one strong power. Japan planned, 
 without doubt, to maintain in China her "special interests," 
 her semi-protectorate over that nation, and there seemed 
 to be no question but that if the United States were to 
 undertake an aggressive policy there that would se- 
 riously jeopardize the position of Japan, the latter would 
 fight, unless prevented by the alignment of European 
 powers. 
 
 Many Americans were suspicious of Japan's designs in 
 the Far East and the Pacific. They feared that she was 
 only waiting her opportunity to seize the Philippines and 
 Hawaii and even portions of the American Continent. They 
 pointed to the large Japanese elements in the Hawaiian 
 Islands as a source of danger, and gave credence to baseless 
 rumors of Japanese political designs on Mexico, and Central 
 and South America. They viewed with alarm the growth of 
 Japanese shipping on the Pacific: it was rapidly increasing 
 while American shipping on the same waters was declining. 
 They lost no opportunity to magnify the Japanese in- 
 fluence and designs in China. As a matter of fact, a few 
 chauvinists in Japan probably hoped that the opportunity 
 would sometime come to obtain possession of the Philippines 
 and Hawaii, and in case of war between the two countries 
 both of these exposed and valuable possessions of the 
 United States would certainly be attacked, but the nation as 
 a whole and its responsible statesmen seem to have been 
 entirely innocent of any thought of seizing wantonly the 
 American Pacific islands or any section of the American 
 coast. They were too much concerned with China to dis- 
 sipate their energies elsewhere. They were frankly out for 
 as large a share of the Pacific trade as possible, but they had
 
 2o8 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 no serious intention of attempting to get it by any other 
 than the approved means of peaceful competition. 
 
 THE LANSmG-ISHH AGREEMENT, NOVEMBER, I917 
 
 Friction between the United States and Japan over 
 China was allayed, at least for the time, by an exchange of 
 notes which grew out of the visit to America in the summer 
 and autumn of 191 7 of a Japanese commission headed by 
 Viscount Ishii. The United States frankly recognized " that 
 territorial propinquity creates special relations between 
 countries . . . [and] that Japan has special interests in 
 China, particularly in that part to which her possessions 
 are contiguous." She expressed her faith that Japan would 
 observe the open door and the territorial integrity and in- 
 dependence of China. To this Japan readily agreed, and 
 declared with the United States, that she was "opposed to 
 the acquisition by any government of any special rights or 
 privileges that would affect the independence or territorial 
 integrity of China or that would deny to the subjects or 
 citizens of any country the full enjoyment of equal oppor- 
 tunity in the commerce and industry of China." The 
 agreement merely recognized existing conditions and re- 
 newed Japan's previous pledges of good faith. It was 
 greeted with no great enthusiasm by the press in either 
 America or Japan, for to many of the public in both coun- 
 tries it seemed that each foreign office had conceded too 
 much. The Chinese were bitter in their denunciation; the 
 agreement seemed to them to be the desertion of their last 
 remaining protector against the aggressions of Japan, and 
 Peking registered a formal refusal to be bound by any con- 
 ventions to which she was not a willing party. As the 
 weeks passed, however, the agreement seemed to have re-
 
 JAPAN AS A WORLD-POWER 209 
 
 lieved the tension between Japan and America. Suspicions 
 were further allayed by several Japanese commissions sent 
 to the United States to insure the full cooperation of the 
 two countries in the war against the Central Powers. 
 
 PROBABLE FUTURE RELATIONS BETWEEN JAPAN AND 
 UNITED STATES 
 
 There seemed then, with all the talk of war, to be no 
 imminent danger of Japan and America coming to an 
 armed clash. America's entrance into the war on the side of 
 the Allies promoted, for a time at least, cooperation and a 
 better imderstanding. The Japanese, unless wantonly or 
 thoughtlessly insulted by discriminatory legislation, would 
 fight only to preserve their position on the continent, and 
 the American public was too indifferent to Chinese affairs 
 and too reluctant to back up her capitalists and merchants 
 by force of arms to go to war to protect China against 
 Japan. It was evident, however, that the two peoples must 
 become better acquainted with each other if friction was to 
 end and relations of mutual confidence and understand- 
 ing to be restored. If the irritation and suspicion were 
 to continue they might eventually lead to an armed clash, 
 and war would probably be indecisive and disastrous for 
 both peoples. 
 
 For further reading see: Abbott, Japanese Expansion and 
 American Policies; Gulick, The American Japanese Problem; 
 Millis, The Japanese Problem in the United States; McCormick, 
 The Menace of Japan; Millard, Our Eastern Question; Kawakami, 
 Asia at the Door; The Secret Memoirs of Count Hayashi; Brinkley, 
 A History of the Japanese People; Hombeck, Contemporary 
 Politics in the Far East.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 The Internal Development of Japan from the War 
 WITH China to the Present (1894-19 17) 
 
 The past several pages have been given to recounting 
 Japan's foreign relations from the close of the Chino- 
 Japanese War. These from the standpoint of the foreigner 
 are probably the most interesting feature of the years 
 following 1895. -^^ study of the development of Japan 
 would, however, be complete without a description of her 
 domestic history during the period. 
 
 ! 
 
 STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE PARTIES AND THE MESTISTRY, 
 
 1894-1917 
 
 In political life the outstanding series of events was 
 the continuation of that struggle between the lower house 
 of the diet and the ministry that had been begun almost 
 with the promulgation of the constitution. The House of 
 Representatives was in the hands of parties which insisted 
 that the ministry be responsible to the diet. This the group 
 of men who controlled the bureaucracy and had the ear of 
 the emperor would not seriously consider. They were for 
 the most part representatives of the leading southern fiefs of 
 feudal days and were unwilling to grant to the people a 
 larger voice in the government, chiefly because of a genuine 
 distrust of the masses, but partly possibly for selfish reasons. 
 The Chinese war had strengthened the hands of the two 
 groups, Satsuma and Choshu, who controlled the army and
 
 INTERNAL DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 211 
 
 navy, and made them less than ever disposed to yield. All 
 internal differences had been dropped in enthusiastic sup- 
 port of the government during the war, but no sooner had 
 the treaty of peace been signed than they reappeared. Ito, 
 whose ministry had carried on the war, formed an alliance 
 with the Liberal Party, ^ and preserved the existing one with 
 the conservatives to insure the support of the legislature for 
 his post helium measures. This combination failed long to 
 maintain an adequate majority in the lower house, and 
 by the close of 1896 Ito had resigned. 
 
 It would merely add confusion to a work of this scope to 
 recoimt in detail all the political history of the next two 
 decades. Only the main events can be given. Even these 
 are confusing, but they help to illustrate the main lines 
 of political and constitutional development. 
 
 If there was not to be a deadlock in the administration it 
 was necessary for the cabinet to have the support of a 
 party, if possible the majority party, in the lower house. 
 The cabinet did not, however, need to seek the ratification 
 of all of its measures by the diet, and it might insist on 
 holding office when backed only by a minority. To obtain 
 support ministries too frequently resorted to the practice 
 made notorious in England by Robert Walpole, and un- 
 fortunately not unknown in the Occident since his time, of 
 corrupting individual members of the diet by the award of 
 office or by out and out bribery. This practice was made 
 the more pernicious by the inability of the diet to enforce its 
 initiative in great constructive pieces of legislation or to do 
 more than block measures proposed by the cabinet. On 
 one side, then, was the cabinet, usually controlled by the 
 ex-samurai who had brought about the reorganization of 
 Japan and of whom the strongest group was the Sat-Cho 
 1 The Jiyuto.
 
 212 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 combination. On the other was the diet, its lower house 
 made up largely of party men who were at outs with the 
 government and who found their slogan in the principle of 
 the responsibility of the cabinet to the legislature. 
 
 After the fall of the Ito government a new one was 
 formed which obtained the support of the powerful Progres- 
 sive (Shimpoto) Party — the name assumed in 1896 by the 
 reorganized Liberal Conservatives — ^by giving its leader, 
 Okuma, the foreign office. Okuma found himself blocked 
 by his colleagues on the cabinet in any attempt to exercise a 
 decisive influence on general administration measures and 
 resigned (November, 1897). Shortly afterward the cabinet 
 was dissolved, Ito again became premier, and got together a 
 ministry. His resignation was soon caused by the union of 
 the two strongest parties of the nation, the Progressives 
 (Shimpoto), led by Okimaa, and the Liberals (Jiyuto), led 
 by Itagaki, in a new party, the Constitutionalists (Ken- 
 seito). To the amazement of the nation the emperor, acting 
 on the recommendation of Ito, asked Okuma and Itagaki to 
 form a cabinet. It looked as though the principle of minis- 
 terial responsibility to the diet had at last been conceded. 
 But alas for such hopes! The divergent elements in the 
 new party could not be perfectly welded, internal friction 
 developed, the cabiuet resigned, and the Constitutionalists 
 spUt into their former elements. The Itagaki group re- 
 tained the fusion name, and the Okuma group for a time 
 assumed a modified name but eventually readopted its 
 former title of Progressive (Shimpotp). A Sat-Cho minis- 
 try * in spite of an alliance with yaie powerful Constitu- 
 tionalist rump failed to last long. /ito surprised the nation 
 by accepting the leadership of The Constitutionist party 
 (1900). He reorganized it, renamed it,^ and on the downfall 
 ^ Under Yamagata. * The Rikken Seiyxikai or Seiyiikai.
 
 INTERNAL DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 213 
 
 of the Sat-Cho cabinet came into ofl5ce again as premier. 
 It looked as though the man chiefly responsible for the 
 constitution and the independence of the administration of 
 the legislature had conceded the principle of party govern- 
 ment. Had he not placed himself at the head of what had 
 once been the Liberal Party, the champion of ministerial 
 responsibility? However, the party, not Ito, had changed 
 its convictions. The latter still held to the complete de- 
 pendence of the cabinet officers upon the will of the sover- 
 ereign, and by his maneuver hoped to prevent a deadlock 
 between the executive and the legislature by winning party 
 support. His attempt to insure harmony failed and his 
 cabinet lasted less than a year. Ito, although an ex- 
 samurai of Choshu, had been at outs with the military Sat- 
 Cho group, and national politics were now become chiefly a 
 three-cornered struggle between the former, backed by his 
 party (the Seiyukai), the militaristic section of the govern- 
 ment, and Okuma's party. On the resignation of the Ito 
 ministry (1901) the military group came back into power 
 tmder the premiership of Katsura, and carried the nation 
 through the Russian war. Then, as during the struggle with 
 China, internal dissensions were abandoned in the face of 
 external danger. In 1905 the Katsura cabinet resigned and 
 in 1906 the Ito group, now led by Saionji, a scion of the 
 older court nobility but a believer in party government, 
 formed a ministry. There now followed (1906-1913) four 
 ministries in which Saionji and Katsura alternated as 
 premier. Finally, when Katsura broke with the dominant 
 group in the Sat-Cho combination and formed a party of his 
 own,^ the military group put in a ministry under new 
 leadership.^ Following the downfall of this cabinet (19 14), 
 Okuma, now 77 years of age, whose party, the former 
 * Rikken Doshikai (Unionist). * Yamamoto.
 
 214 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 Progressives, had been renamed the Nationalists (Koku- 
 minto), came into power. The formation of this ministry 
 was seemingly a victory for the principle of cabinet re- 
 sponsibility for which Okmna had so long stood, but his 
 victory was more apparent than real. In 1916, he was 
 forced to give way to the Terauchi cabinet, representing the 
 militaristic group. These cabinet changes, so confusing to 
 the foreigner unfamiliar with local conditions, largely rep- 
 resent stages in the struggle between different factions, some 
 of them in the bureaucracy, some of them in the lower 
 house of the diet. 
 
 RESULTS OF THE PARTY STRUGGLE 
 
 The principle of ministerial responsibility to the diet 
 has not been conceded, but as has been said, a compromise 
 has been reached and maintained, too often by corrupt 
 means, and in a kind of rough way the cabinet has come to 
 represent, more nearly than some foreigners suspect, the 
 sentiment of the nation. Back of all the kaleidoscopic 
 changes, moreover, has been a bureaucracy which remains 
 fairly constant while ministries come and go, and it is 
 partly due to it that national poHcies have shown so steady 
 an evolution as the years have passed. Unchanged by 
 shifting currents of popular opinion has been, too, that 
 remarkable group of men known as the genro, or "elder 
 statesmen." They are the survivors of those remarkable 
 Choshu and Satsuma ex-samurai who directed the trans- 
 formation of the nation. Sadly depleted by death, they 
 still have the ear of the emperor and in times of crisis are 
 called upon by him for advice. Popular opinion is in- 
 creasingly making itself felt in governmental policies. The 
 franchise has been made more liberal; the electorate was
 
 INTERNAL DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 215 
 
 nearly doubled between 1890 and 1902. There is nothing 
 in the constitution that would make impossible the grant- 
 ing of ministerial responsibility to the diet if in time that 
 seemed wise to the emperor and his ministers. 
 
 THE DEATH OF THE EMPEROR MEIJI AND THE ACCESSION OF 
 YOSHEHITO, 191 2 
 
 One must pause long enough to record the death in 191 2 
 of the emperor Mutsuhito, or Meiji as he is posthumously 
 and more correctly known, and the accession of Yoshihito.^ 
 The event greatly stirred the nation, for added to the in- 
 tense loyalty accorded the monarch was the special senti- 
 ment attached to the man who had held the throne in the 
 years of the nation's transformation. He had been indus- 
 trious, public-spirited, broad-minded, and of good judg- 
 ment, willing to take the advice of his ministers. He did 
 much to strengthen and nothing to weaken the intense 
 loyalty of the nation for the throne. His successor seems 
 likely to follow in his steps. What the effect upon the 
 state would be if a self-assertive, injudicious monarch were 
 to come to the throne, it is hard to say: the foundations of 
 the constitution might be shaken. For the present, how- 
 ever, there seems to be no danger of this. 
 
 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND PROBLEMS, 1894-1917 
 
 The years that followed the war with China and the war 
 with Russia saw a remarkable development in the economic 
 life of the nation. In 1907 all but a few hundred miles of 
 the private railways were purchased by the government 
 and extended. Manufactures greatly increased, and Osaka, 
 
 ^ With his accession a new era, Taisho (Great Righteousness) began.
 
 2i6 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 Tokyo, and other cities became large factory centers, re- 
 minding the traveller of the industrialized West. In manu- 
 factures the leading place was held by textile plants which 
 produced cloth and yarn for home and foreign consumption, 
 but there was also a great increase in the output of ma- 
 chinery and chemicals. The European conflict brought 
 unprecedented demands for war supplies, principally from 
 Russia, lessened the competition in China, and opened up 
 new markets in India. Under the stimulus the manufac- 
 turers of the nation have become rich; the number of listed 
 millionaires has passed the five hundred mark. Banks, both 
 public and private, have grown in accumulated capital and 
 deposits. Fire and life insurance companies have appeared 
 and prospered. Originally, many industries were imder- 
 taken imder goverimiental initiative, but as the years have 
 passed and the nation has become adjusted to the new 
 methods, ofl&cial participation has been confined chiefly to a 
 few state monopolies, a protective tariff, research labora- 
 tories, and government-aided industrial banks. Scientific 
 forestry has been encouraged, to develop and conserve the 
 great timbered areas of the islands, more than half of which 
 are in the possession of the state and the crown. Fisheries, 
 one of the great sources of the nation's food, have been 
 subsidized. Agricultural schools and experiment stations 
 aid the farmer in his struggle to provide the growing popula- 
 tion with food-stuffs. Partly as a result, the yield of grain 
 per acre has increased from a tenth to a half. Agricultural 
 banks fostered by the government provide the farmer with 
 money on long-term loans at a low interest rate. The 
 reclamation of waste lands and the clearing of new lands, 
 especially in Yezo, are encouraged. In spite of its grow- 
 ing population the nation still produces nearly aU of its 
 own food. The majority of the farms are cultivated by
 
 INTERNAL DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 217 
 
 their owners and the nation has a sturdy, independent, 
 peasant class. Mining has developed. The copper ores 
 for which Japan was famous in feudal days have continued 
 to yield large and increasing quantities of the metal for 
 export. Zinc and sulphur have been produced in amounts 
 more than sufiScient for home consumption. Iron does not 
 exist in any quantity, Japan's supply of that metal com- 
 ing principally from the continent and America, but coal 
 is found in fairly extensive deposits and is mined both for 
 home consumption and for export. The growth in the 
 mercantile marine has been spectacular. The gross ton- 
 nage leaped from 15,000 in 1893 to 1,522,000 at the end of 
 1905: by March, 1914, it had passed the two million mark, 
 and since the war began with its stimulus to ship-building, 
 the figures have still further increased. Generous govern- 
 ment bounties and subsidies have stimulated the construc- 
 tion of ships and have encouraged the extension of lines to 
 China and on the waters of the Yangtze and its tribu- 
 taries, and to North and South America, Australia, and 
 Europe. Splendidly organized financial and commercial 
 houses have established branches in the leading business 
 centers of the world. It is of interest to notice that the 
 largest of these houses, such as Mitsui and Company, are 
 undertaking a wide variety of enterprises. They manufac- 
 ture, engage in shipping and in commerce, and show much 
 the same tendency toward centralization in finance and 
 industry as does the government in politics. The nation 
 has ceased to be exclusively agricultural and is making 
 giant strides toward the leadership that it aspires to hold 
 in the commercial and manufacturing life of the Far East 
 and the North Pacific basin. Cities have grown by leaps 
 and bounds, Tokyo and Osaka ranking in population 
 among the leading ones of the world. They have as a
 
 2i8 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 rule been well and honestly governed, much more so than 
 many American cities. Modern water-works and sewage 
 systems, electric lights and tramcars, and parks and play- 
 grounds add to their health and convenience. 
 
 And yet the industrialization of the nation is not com- 
 plete. Japanese laborers are not yet, man for man, the 
 equal in efl&dency and skill of those of the West. Too 
 many factory hands are women and children, labor that 
 from its very nature is more or less irregular. A large 
 amount of human energy is still employed to do tasks that 
 in the West are performed by machinery. The iron and 
 steel industry is still in its infancy. The nation does not 
 now, even after the vast additions brought by war pros- 
 perity, possess sufficient stocks of commercial capital of 
 its own to enable it to carry out the plans of development 
 at home and in China to which its ambition calls it. In 
 China the first place in foreign trade is still held by Great 
 Britain. Japan is still staggering under a heavy load of 
 debt acquired in the process of development and through 
 the wars and armaments necessitated by its determination 
 to win and make safe for itself a "place in the sun"; and 
 although taxes are not as heavy as during Tokugawa times, 
 they are still extremely high. The leaders of the nation 
 beheve, however, that the country is just at the beginning 
 of a long age of development that will free it from debt and 
 make it the dominant economic, as it is now the dominant 
 political power, in the Far East. The prosperity brought 
 by the war has seemed to hasten the time when that dream 
 will be realized. 
 
 EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND PROBLEMS, 1894-1917 
 
 The growth of schools and the spread of the new learning 
 have been steady. The system of pubUc education had
 
 INTERNAL DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 219 
 
 been sketched out and inaugurated long before the war with 
 China. The outlines have been filled in since then, how- 
 ever, and new features have been added. The elementary 
 school course, attendance at which is compulsory, has been 
 lengthened from four years to six, and the percentage of 
 children who are not receiving the prescribed instruction has 
 declined to less than two. The number of institutions of 
 learning of practically all classes has increased and the 
 universities are producing scholars who are beginning to 
 make valuable contributions to the world's stock of knowl- 
 edge. Especially noteworthy has been the popularity of 
 technical education. Secondary and higher education for 
 women, while not yet provided for as fully as in many pro- 
 gressive countries of the West, has displayed a rapid 
 growth. Uniform textbooks for the empire have been 
 adopted, teachers are carefully trained, and an earnest 
 effort has been made to raise and keep the standards of 
 efficiency and scholarship up to the highest of the age. 
 Japan, especially Tokyo, is the educational center of the 
 Far East. Chinese students have come by the thousands 
 and representatives are to be found from most of the other 
 principal countries of Eastern Asia. 
 
 The educational system is not without its problems and 
 defects. The teachers are too frequently imderpaid; funds 
 needed for schools have sometimes been diverted for 
 armaments and war expenses. The facilities in the higher 
 institutions are far from sufficient to accommodate all those 
 who apply for admission, and there results a competition 
 which proves a fearful and sometimes unbearable strain on 
 many of the nation's best young men; physical breakdowns 
 and suicides among the student class are alarmingly com- 
 mon. The curricula are in places overloaded and the 
 courses of study are too long. The Japanese boy is under a
 
 2 20 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 handicap in having to learn the difficult Chinese characters 
 and a literary language whose style is quite different from 
 the colloquial. If he acquires an Occidental language, as he 
 is compelled to do in the higher schools, he finds it a more 
 difficult task than does a European, for it is not at all 
 cognate to his own. In spite of problems and obstacles, 
 however, the educational system is noteworthy and has 
 helped remarkably to equip the nation for the new age. 
 
 LITERATURE, 1894-1917 
 
 Newspapers have grown in circulation and influence, 
 especially since the war with China. They are read by 
 everyone and vary from the staid, semi-official sheets with a 
 carefully correct style to the yellow press which nourishes 
 jingoism and talks blatantly of Japan's rights and ambi- 
 tions and of a Pan-Asia led by Japan. A censorship is still 
 maintained and together with a revised press law, attempts 
 to restrain the worst excesses of unbalanced journalism. 
 Translations of foreign works have continued to multiply 
 and native books dealing with modern topics in an easy 
 literary style appear in ever larger numbers. The theater 
 flourishes, both in a native, a modified native, and a foreign 
 style. Art continues, although often sadly commercialized. 
 A few artists and craftsmen still cling to the strictly classical 
 models of the past, a few affect a purely Western style, but 
 the great majority seek to combine the old and the new, and 
 are typical of the eclecticism of the new Japan. 
 
 MORAL, SOCIAL, AND RELIGIOUS CONDITIONS 
 
 The moral and social conditions of the country have 
 distressed many observers, both native and foreign. In 
 these phases of its life the nation has many characteristics of
 
 INTERNAL DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 221 
 
 an age of rapid transition. Cities have grown amazingly and 
 in spite of their honest and efficient administration there 
 have come with them the social and moral problems of their 
 counterparts in the West. Labor unions have appeared, 
 although their organization has been officially discouraged, 
 and during the depression that followed the Russian war 
 strikes occurred. Socialism has found a few adherents, even 
 though it is unpopular with the mass of the nation, and some 
 of its manifestations have been proscribed by the govern- 
 ment. Women and girls are employed in the factories. 
 Too frequently they are exploited by pitiless or careless 
 mill-owners and are compelled to work on excessively long 
 shifts for hopelessly inadequate wages and to live in sur- 
 roundings that are a disgrace to the nation. The social evil 
 has long been present and as in the West it has been alarm- 
 ingly aggravated under the shifting standards of modern 
 life. Commercial morality, while it has risen and was 
 probably never at as low an ebb as is currently believed by 
 the West, is by no means ideal. There is political corrup- 
 tion, although it is not nearly as aggravated or widespread as 
 it has been at times in America. There is, too, a spirit of 
 jingoism and chauvinism abroad in the land which is per- 
 haps the natural outcome of Japan's rapid rise to the posi- 
 tion of a first-class power, combined with her intense 
 patriotism, but which is no less dangerous and unpleasant 
 for her neighbors. Some enthusiasts believe their nation's 
 culture to be the best in the world and speak glibly of the 
 I duty of spreading it. They are not, one is glad to say, 
 
 representative of the best in the nation. With the coming 
 of modern science and Occidental philosophy the traditional 
 religious convictions and with them the moral standards of 
 many have been shattered. Shinto has never been strong 
 on its ethical side. Buddhism has shown signs of renewed
 
 222 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 activity and adaptability under the stimulus of danger. It 
 has some highly educated men among its leaders and has 
 organized Young Men's Buddhist Associations and schools 
 for religious instruction on the models of the approved meth- 
 ods of the Christian church. In spite of these efforts, how- 
 ever, it has lost its hold on numbers, both of the thoughtful 
 and the unthoughtful. The formal instruction in ethics in 
 the public schools, even when reenf orced by patriotism, does 
 not adequately supply that emotional element which is so 
 inseparable from robust morals. While Christianity has 
 partially recovered from its unpopularity of the nineties, 
 and has an influence out of proportion to its numerical 
 strength, it has never been able completely to dispel the 
 impression that it is unpatriotic, an impression which is 
 perhaps partly the fruit of the propagandism of the six- 
 teenth and seventeenth centuries, partly of the international 
 spirit of Christianity, a contrast to the intense and rather nar- 
 row patriotism of Japan, and partly of its Occidental dress. 
 There is, however, cause for encouragement. In some 
 factories the owners are imdertaking to improve the living 
 and working conditions of the employees, and the diet 
 passed a national factory act in 191 1. Abuses have been 
 prevalent in Japan, as in every country in the initial stages 
 of the industrial revolution, but thoughtful men are at- 
 tacking them. In morals, as in most phases of their life, the 
 Japanese are their own severest critics and many of their 
 leading statesmen are keenly alive to the disintegration 
 threatened by the new age and are striving to counteract it. 
 Conferences of representatives of the leading religions of 
 the land have met at the call of the government to con- 
 sider means of meeting it, although one is sorry to say that 
 these gatherings have been too formal and perfunctory to 
 accomplish much. Numerous charitable institutions have
 
 INTERNAL DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 223 
 
 been founded, most of them under Christian auspices, to 
 help alleviate human suffering. There are able and zealous 
 leaders both in the Christian and Buddhist churches who 
 are striving to raise the spiritual and ethical tone of the 
 nation. The leading school authorities have earnestly 
 grappled with the problem of moral education; in each class- 
 room, for example, is posted a copy of the imperial rescript 
 of 1890 setting forth and commanding the observance of 
 fundamental moral principles, and the effort is made 
 through the curriculum to elaborate on these. The people 
 are essentially sound and there is much ground for hope 
 that the vices so often associated with periods of marked 
 transition will not be fastened so firmly on the country as to 
 prove its undoing. 
 
 SUMMARY 
 
 The past few pages picture but hastily and inadequately 
 the changes in the internal life of the nation during the past 
 twenty-five years. Enough has perhaps been said, however, 
 to indicate that transition did not end with the promulga- 
 tion of the constitution or the war with China. It has been 
 going on rapidly ever since and is still in progress. Even in 
 her cities, Japan has not fully adjusted herself to Occidental 
 ways. The industrial revolution has only fairly begun and 
 with it the nation's commercial development. Literature, 
 art, education, and religion are still in a state of flux. In 
 these lines especially the nation is only beginning to emerge 
 from the stage of adaptation and assimilation to that of 
 constructive achievement. What the Japanese genius is to 
 produce and what the nation is to be and do when it com- 
 pletely finishes the process of adjustment, no one can yet 
 accurately predict. Japan will hardly be content to be an 
 imitator and there is much in her past history that leads one
 
 224 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 
 
 to hope for new and valuable contributions to world culture. 
 It is certain, however, that Japan's future is inseparably 
 bound up with that of China. It is certain, too, that the 
 rapid rise to prominence of the Far East during the past 
 half century is to be no transient phenomenon. Japan and 
 China are for better or for worse to bulk increasingly large 
 in world affairs and will need more than ever before to be 
 taken into consideration by Europe and America. 
 
 For further reading see: Japan Year Book; Kikuchi, Japanese 
 EdticaHon; Aston, A Brief History of Japanese Literature; 
 Reinsch, Intellecttuil and Political Currents in the Far East; 
 Gulick, Evolution of the Japanese; Gulick, Working Women of 
 Japan; McLaren, A Political History of Japan During the Meiji 
 Era; Okuma, Fifty Years of New Japan; Hombeck, Contem- 
 porary Politics in the Far East; Porter, The Ftdl Recognition of 
 Japan.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 An exhaustive bibliography would be out of place in a book the 
 size of this. The attempt has been made, however, to give a 
 few of the more important works on the main topics touched on 
 in the preceding pages. 
 
 Wenckstern, Fr. von, a Bibliography of the Japanese Empire, 
 2 vols. This contains a list of the books and articles on 
 Japan in European languages, published from 1859 to 1893, 
 pp. xiv, 338, Leiden, 1895, 1894-1906. 2 vols., Tokyo, 1907. 
 
 General Books of Description, Travel and Statistics 
 
 Chamberlain, Basil Hall, Things Japanese, pp. 11, 408, 4th 
 ed. London, 1902, This is a standard reference book and 
 covers in alphabetical order the principal topics and ques- 
 tions of interest to the average student of Japan. 
 
 Griffis, William Elliott, The Mikado's Empire, 12th ed., 2 
 vols. New York, 1913. This work first appeared in 1876. 
 The present edition contains supplementary chapters 
 bringing the history down to 191 2. This work was long 
 the standard popular authority in English, and while most 
 of it is now somewhat out of date it is still of interest and 
 value. 
 
 Hearn, Lafcadio, Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, 2 vols., 
 1907-10. One of the more important books of an enthu- 
 siastic admirer and naturalized subject of Japan. 
 
 Japan Year Book. Tokyo, 1905. — ^An annual summary. 
 
 MiTFORD, E. Bruce, Japan's Inheritance: The Country, Its 
 People, and their Destiny, pp. 383. New York, 1914. A book 
 in popular style by one who knows Japan well. 
 325
 
 226 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 NiTOBE, Inazo, The Japanese Nation, lis Land, lis People, and 
 Its Life. New York, 1912, pp. xiv, 334. This book is made 
 up of popular lectures delivered in America by a well known 
 Japanese scholar. 
 
 Porter, Robert P., The Full Recognition of Japan, Being a 
 Detailed Account of the Economic Progress of the Japanese 
 Empire to igii. Oxford University Press, 191 1, pp. xii, 789.. 
 
 Periodical Publications 
 
 Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, 20 vols, and still 
 in process of publication. The publications of a learned 
 society whose membership is made up largely of foreigners. 
 
 Art and Architecture 
 
 BiNYON, Laurence, Painting in the Far Exist. London, 1908, 
 pp. xvi, 286. 
 
 Fenollosa, Ernest Francisco, Epochs of Chinese and Jap- 
 anese Art, 2 vols. London, 191 2. Two sumptuous and val- 
 uable volumes by a specialist whose enthusiasm is some- 
 times greater than his judgment. 
 
 Morrison, Arthur, The Painters of Japan, 2 vols. London and 
 Edinburgh, 191 1. 
 
 Education 
 
 Kjkuchi, Baron Dairoku, Japanese Education, London. 1909, 
 pp. xvi, 397. 
 
 Literature 
 
 Aston, William George, A History of Japanese Literature. 
 New York, 1899, pp. xi, 408. A brief manual by an author- 
 ity. 
 
 Chamberlain, Basil Hall, Japanese Poetry. London, 191 1, 
 pp. xii, 260. This prolific scholar has also produced such 
 other books as Aino Folktales, Aino Fairy Tales (3 vols.), 
 and Japanese Fairy Tales in English (1907).
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 227 
 
 KojiKi (translation by B. H. Chamberlain, 1883). 
 
 MiTFORD, A. B., Tales of Old Japan, 2 vols. London, 187 1. In- 
 teresting stories from Japanese sources illustrative of life 
 before the coming of the Westerner. 
 
 NmoNGi (translation by W. G. Aston, 2 vols. London, 
 1896). 
 
 Reinsch, Paul Samuel, Intellectual and Political Currents in 
 the Far East. Boston, 191 1, pp. viii, 396. An admirable 
 work with some important chapters on modern conditions 
 in Japan. 
 
 Religion, Ethics, Ideals, and Family Life 
 
 Aston, William George, Shinto, The Way of the Gods. London, 
 1905, pp. 390. This appeals only to the more serious stu- 
 dent. 
 
 Carey, Otis, A History of Christianity in Japan, 2 vols. New 
 York, c. 1909. The standard account of Christian missions 
 in Japan. 
 
 GuLiCK, Sidney Lewis, Evolution of the Japanese, 5th ed. New 
 York, 1905, pp. XX, 463. A study of national character- 
 istics by an able Christian missionary. 
 
 GuLiCK, Sidney L., Working Women of Japan. New York, 
 1915, pp. xiv, 162. 
 
 Hearn, Lafcadio, Japan, An Attempt at Interpretation. New 
 York, 1904, pp. V, 541. A brilliant interpretation, largely 
 of family and religious life. It must be used with care. 
 
 Knox, George William, The Development of Religion in Japan. 
 New York, 1907, pp. xxi, 204. A brief series of lectures by 
 a careful student. 
 
 Lloyd, Arthur, The Creed of Half Japan. New York, 191 2, 
 pp. X, 393. 
 
 NiTOBE, I. Bushido, The Soul of Japan, loth ed. New York, 
 1905, pp. XXV, 203. A sympathetic, perhaps a too sym- 
 pathetic, interpretation of Japan for Western readers by an 
 eminent scholar.
 
 . 228 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Japanese-American Relations 
 
 Abbott, James Francis, Japanese Expansion and American 
 Policies. New York, 1916, pp. viii, 267. A fair, dispassion- 
 ate discussion. 
 
 GuLiCK, Sidney Lewis, The American Japanese Problem. New 
 York, 1914, pp. X, 349. A study by a friend of Japan. 
 
 Japan and Japanese- American Relations. Clark University 
 Addresses, ed. by George H. Blakeslee. New York, 1912, 
 pp. xi, 348. A series of addresses on various Japanese 
 topics by experts. 
 
 KLawakaao, Kiyoshi K., Asia at the Door. New York, c. 1914, 
 pp. 269. A statement of the Japanese side of the question 
 by one who has long been a resident of the United States. 
 
 MiLLis, Harry Alvin, The Japanese Problem in the United 
 States. New York, 191 5, pp. xxi, 334. The sub-title, An 
 investigation for the commission on relations with Japan, 
 appointed by the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in 
 America, indicates the approach to the subject from which 
 the study was made. It is a thorough, fair-minded presenta- 
 tion based on a careful examination of the facts. 
 
 McCoRMiCK, Frederick, The Menace of Japan. Boston, 1917, 
 pp. vi, 372. Written with a bitterly anti- Japanese bias by a 
 newspaper correspondent who has long been conversant 
 with Far Eastern affairs. 
 
 Millard, Thomas Franklin Fairfax, Our Eastern Question, 
 America's Contact with the Orient and the Trend of Relations 
 With China and Japan. New York, 1916, pp. 543. 
 
 NiTOBE, I., The Intercourse between the United States and Japan. 
 Baltimore, 1891, pp. ix, 198. 
 
 History: Works Covering the Entire Field 
 
 Brinkley, F., Japan, Its History, Arts, and Literature, 8 vols. 
 Boston and Tokyo, 1901-2. This is a standard treatment 
 of the development of the nation.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 229 
 
 Brinkley, F., a History of the Japanese People. New York, 
 191 5, pp. xi, 784. Unlike the last, this is a detailed history 
 confined very largely to the political side of the nation's 
 life. 
 
 Davis, F. Hadland, Japan, From the Age of the Gods to the Fall 
 of Tsingtao. New York, London, 1916. One of the best 
 of the short popular accounts. 
 
 History: Works Covering Specific Periods or Problems 
 
 AsAKAWA, Kanichi, The Early Institutional Life of Japan: A 
 
 Study of the Reform of 645 A. D. Tokyo, 1903, pp. 355. 
 
 A careful study by an exact, painstaking, capable 
 
 student. 
 AsAKAWA, Kanichi, The Ru^so- Japanese Conflict. Boston, 1904, 
 
 pp. xiv, 384. 
 Hayashi, Count Tadasu, The Secret Memoirs of. Ed. by A. M. 
 
 Pooley. London, 191 5. An interesting record of a Japanese 
 
 statesman and diplomat. 
 HoRNBECK, Stanley K., Contemporary Politics in the Far East. 
 
 New York, 1916, pp. xii, 466. One of the best of the books 
 
 covering recent developments. 
 Longford, Joseph Henry, The Story of Old Japan. London, 
 
 1910, pp. xi, 409. 
 
 Longford, Joseph Henry, The Story of Korea. New York, 
 
 191 1, pp. vii, 400. 
 
 McLaren, Walter Wallace, A Political History of Japan 
 During the Meiji Era, 1867-IQ12. New York, 1916, pp. 379. 
 A careful study but with a marked bias against Japanese 
 expansion and the Japanese oligarchy. 
 
 Millard, Thomas Franklin Fairfax, The New Far East. 
 New York, 1906, pp. xii, 319. 
 
 Okuma, Count Shigenobu, Fifty Years of New Japan. English 
 version, ed. by M. B. Huish, 2 vols., 1909. A record by 
 various authors of Japan since its transformation.
 
 230 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Periodicals 
 
 Two monthlies especially useful to the American reader are: 
 The New East, edited by J. W. Robertson Scott, published in 
 
 Tokyo, and under British influence. 
 Asia, the Journal of the American Asiatic Society, published at 
 
 280 Madison Ave., New York City.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Aborigines, see Yemishi. 
 Adams, Will, 71 
 
 Adaptability of Japanese, 89, 90 
 i Agriculture, 30, 160, 216 
 Aigun, 187 
 
 Ainu, I, 12, 14, 16, 150 
 Aleutian Islands, 107 
 Amaterasu, 10, 94, 96, 97 
 America, see United States. 
 Amida, 51, 52 
 Amitahba, see Amida. 
 Amur, 165, 170, 173 
 Anatomy, 106 
 Ancestor- worship, 17 
 Anglo- Japanese Alliance, 174, 178, 
 
 191 
 Annam, 70 
 
 Arable land in Japan, 6 
 Araga Bay, 108 
 Architecture, 29, 163 
 Army, reorganized, 123 
 Art, 8, 16 
 
 Ashikaga shogunate, 55-62 
 As hik aga Takauji, 55, 56 
 Augustinians, 59 
 Australia, 204, 217 
 
 B 
 
 Bakufu, 48, 49, 67-69, 80, 104 
 Banks, 126, 158, 159, 216 
 Bank of Japan, 126, 158 
 Biddle, Commodore, 108 
 Bismarck, 137 
 Black Current, 7 
 Bonin Islands, 149 
 
 Boxer Rebellion, 172 
 
 British Columbia, 204 
 
 Bryan, W. J., 203 
 
 Buddhism, 20, 21-26, 29, 41, 44, 51, 
 
 52, 59, 62, 72, 77, 89, 91, 94, 98- 
 
 100, 194, 221, 222 
 Buppo, 97 
 
 Bureaucracy, 89, 124, 130, 138 
 Burma, 56 
 Bushi, 44 
 Bushido, 44, 61, 77, 81, 89, 90, 100- 
 
 103 
 
 Cabinet, 138, 142, 210-214 
 
 Calendar, 29 
 
 California, i, 87, 106 
 
 Calligraphy, 92 
 
 Canada, 87, 203 
 
 Canton, 105, 107 
 
 Cave men, 12 
 
 Ceramics, 93 
 
 Chang-Chun, 176, 193 
 
 Chang Hsun, 197 
 
 Charter Oath, 120, 130 
 
 China, 2, 4, 7, 16, 18-20, 23, 30, 52, 
 58, 64, 83, 84, 105, 151, 153, 166- 
 169 
 
 China, Japan in, 189, 206-208; 
 Japanese demands on in 19 15, 
 192-199; Japanese war with, 146, 
 167-169; Japanese trade with, 70 
 
 Chinchow, 187 
 
 Chinese students in Japan, 6 
 
 Chinese written language adapted 
 by Japanese, 27, 28 
 
 Chishima, see Kuriles. 
 
 131
 
 232 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Cho Densu, see Meicho. 
 
 Chosen, see Korea. 
 
 Choshu, 104, III, 113, 114, 117, 127, 
 
 13s, 169, 210 
 Christianity, 22, 23, 51, i6ir, 222; 
 
 introduced to Japan, 59; opposed 
 
 by Hideyoshi, 64; stamped out 
 
 by the Tokugawa, 70-72; in 
 
 Korea, 184 
 Chu Hsi, 76 
 
 Civil service examinations, 32 
 Clay images, 16 
 Climate of Japan, 7 
 Columbus, 58 
 Commerce, 82, 157 
 Confucianism, 69, 75, 78, 89, 100, 
 
 120 
 Confucius, 19, 20, 28, 31, loi 
 Constitution, 1 1 ; of Prince Shotoku, 
 
 31, 33; struggle for, 130-135; 
 
 promulgated, 139; provisions of, 
 
 139-142 
 Constitutionalist Imperialists, 136 
 Constitutionalist Party, 212 
 Copper, 30, 73 
 Costume, 29 
 Cotton, 16, 201 
 Cotton-spinning, 159 
 Courts of law, 124 
 Currency, 125 
 Customs duties, revised, 154-156 
 
 D 
 
 Daigo, 40 
 Daiho, 32 
 Daika reforms, 31 
 Daimyo, 80 
 Dalny, 171 
 Dancing, 94 
 Dancing girls, 41 
 Dengyo Daishi, 37 
 Deshima, 73 
 
 Diet, 140, 141, 143-147, 210-214 
 Dishonesty, in business, 83; alleged 
 
 Japanese trait, 158 
 Dokyo, 41 
 Dominicans, 59 
 Doshikai, 213 
 Dutch, 106-109, "3> trade with 
 
 Japan, 70, 71, 73, 74 
 
 E 
 
 Education, 69, 75, 160, 161, 219, 220 
 Elder Statesmen, 117, 142, 214 
 Emperor, institution of, 17, $3, 84, 
 
 85, 139; imder the Tokugawa, 68 
 England, 70, 73, 105, 106, 109, no, 
 
 152, 156, 171, 173, 190, 197 
 English language in Japan, 161 
 Exterritoriality, established, 109; 
 
 struggle against, 124, 149, 154- 
 
 156; abolished, 156 
 
 Family, 30, 96 
 
 Feudalism, 7; formation of, 41-44; 
 
 decay of under Tokugawa, 74; 
 
 end of, 121, 122 
 Firearms introduced to Japan, 58 
 Fisheries, 216 
 
 Five-power loan to China, 190, 205 
 Flower festivals, 40 
 Forestry, 216 
 Formosa, i, 2, 4, 151, 167, 168, 180, 
 
 181, 206 
 France, no, 113, 156, 168, 172, 179, 
 
 190, 196, 197 
 Franciscans, 59 
 Fudoki, 9 
 
 Fuhkien, 4, 195, 206 
 Fujiwara, 38, 39, 40, 43, 44, 45, 48, 
 
 50, 63, 85 
 Fujiyama, 28
 
 INDEX 
 
 233 
 
 Gautama Buddha, 21, 22, 29 
 
 Gempei era, 45 
 
 Genro, see Elder Statesmen. 
 
 Genroin, 133 
 
 "Gentlemen's agreement," 203, 204 
 
 Germany, i68, 190, 191, 196, 197, 
 
 206; influence of in Japan, 124, 
 
 130, 137, 138, 156 
 Gnosticism, 37 
 God of Force, see Susanoo. 
 God of Moon, 10 
 Go-Daigo, 54, ss 
 Gold, 73 
 Go-Toba, 50 
 
 Great Britain, see England. 
 Greek influence, 29 
 Guilds, 16, 83 
 
 H 
 
 Hachiman, 15 
 
 Hakodate, 109 
 
 Han dynasty, 10, 23, 24, 28, 29 
 
 Han River, 193 
 
 Hankow, 193 
 
 Hanyang, 193 
 
 Han-yeh-ping Company, 193, 194 
 
 Hara-kiri, see Suicide. 
 
 Harriman, E. H., 187, 205 
 
 Harris, Townsend, 109 
 
 Hawaii, 201, 203, 205-207 
 
 Hei-an Epoch, 32 
 
 Hemp, 16 
 
 Hidetada, 67, 70, 71 
 
 Hideyori, 65, 66 
 
 Hideyoshi, 61-65, 66, 85, 151 
 
 Hinayana, 22, 26 
 
 Hi-nin, 123 
 
 Hiogo, 114, 115 
 
 Hiragana, 37 
 
 Hishigawa Moronobu, 93 
 
 Historiography, 76, 77 
 
 Hiyeisan, 57, 62 
 
 Hizen, 117, 127 
 Hojo, 50-55 
 Hokkaido, see Yezo. 
 Holland, see Dutch. 
 Hondo, I, 15 
 Honshiu, see Hondo. 
 
 Idaho, 203 
 
 Iki, 152 
 
 Immigration, of Japanese to United 
 
 States, 201-204 
 Imperialism, 149 
 Incense burning, 60, 94 
 India, 56, 70, 105, 106, 216 
 Indo-European blood in Japan, 14 
 Industrial revolution, 105 
 Inland Sea, 2, 3 
 Inlay, 93 
 Inouye, 127, 135 
 Insurance companies, 216 
 Iron, 201, 217, 218 
 Irrigation, 16 
 Ishii, 208 
 
 Itagaki, 127, 132, 135, 136, 143, 212 
 Ito, 125, 127, 135, 137, 138, 139, 143, 
 
 14s, 146, 182, 183, 187, 212, 213 
 Iwakura, 127 
 lyemitsu, 67, 70, 71 
 lyeyasu, 61, 62, 65-71, 81, 104 
 Izanagi, 10 
 Izanami, 10 
 Izumo, 10, 14 
 
 J 
 
 Japanese language, 27, 28 
 Jesuits, 59, 60, 71 
 Jimmu Tenno, 11, 14, 86 
 Jingo, 15 
 Jito, 48 
 
 Jiyuto, see Liberal Party. 
 Jodo, 51 
 Judiciary, 142
 
 234 
 
 INDEX 
 
 K 
 
 Kagoshima, bombarded by the Eng- 
 lish, 113 
 
 Kaishiinto, see Liberal Conserva- 
 tives. 
 
 Kamakura, 50, 53-56 
 
 Kamatari, 38, 40 
 
 Kamchatka, i 
 
 Kano Motonobu, see Motonobu. 
 
 Kano school of painting, 92 
 
 Karafuto, see Sakhalin. 
 
 Karma, 98 
 
 Katagana, 37 
 
 Katsura, 213 
 
 Kenseito, 212 
 
 Kiao Chau, 171, 191, 192 
 
 Kido, 127, 131 
 
 Kirin, 193 
 
 Kiushiu, I, 2, 4, II, 13, 15, 46, 63, 70 
 
 Kiyomori, 45, 46 
 
 Knox, P. C, 187, 188, 205 
 
 Kobe, 46 
 
 Kobo Daishi, 37 
 
 Kogisho, 131 
 
 Kojiki, 9, 14, 20 
 
 Kokuminto, 214 
 
 Komei, 116 
 
 Korea, 2, 4, 5, 6, 12, 15, 19, 20, 23, 
 25, 29, 30, 64, 83, 128, 132, 149, 
 
 151-153, 164-167, 170, 173. 17s, 
 
 176, 181-184, 199 
 Kotoku, 31 
 Kublai Khan, 53, 58 
 Kudara, 24 
 Kukai, 37 
 Kumaso, 13 
 
 Kurile Islands, i, 12, 107, 149, 150 
 Kuro Shiwo, see Black Current. 
 Kusonoki Masashige, 55 
 Kwambaku, 39 
 Kwammu, 39 
 Kwan-Cheng-Tze, 176 
 
 Kyoto, 32, 39, 40, 42, 43, 44, 46, so, 
 52, 53, 55> 56, 57, 59, 60, 64, 65, 
 69, III, 112 
 
 Labor Unions, 221 
 
 Lacquer, 93 
 
 Landscape gardening, 60, 93 
 
 Lansing-Ishii Agreement, 208 
 
 Laotze, 28 
 
 Law, 16; reorganization of, 124, 155 
 
 Liaotimg Peninsula, 167, 168, 169, 
 
 171 
 Liberal Conservatives, 136, 143-145 
 Liberal Party, 135, 143-146, 211, 212 
 Li Hung Ch'ang, 168 
 Literature, 29, 94 
 Li Yuan Hung, 197 
 Local assemblies, 134 
 Loyalty, loi 
 
 M 
 
 Mahayana, 22, 26 
 
 Main Island, see Hondo. 
 
 Malay elements in Japanese blood, 
 
 4, 5, 13, 14 
 Malay Peninsula, i 
 Manchu Dynasty, 197 
 Manchu-Korean stock, 14 
 Manchuria, 6, 7, 167, 170-177, 185- 
 
 188 
 Manchuria, Southern, 2 
 Manichaeism, 22, 23 
 Marco Polo, 58 
 Marriage, 95 
 Matriarchy, 15 
 Meicho, 92 
 
 Meiji Era, defined, 118 
 Meiji Tenno, 116, 215 
 Mencius, 19, 28, loi 
 Mexico, 70, 156, 203, 207 
 Military class of old Japan and its 
 
 ideals, 80-84
 
 INDEX 
 
 235 
 
 Military conscription, 34 
 
 Minamoto, 44-49, 54, 62, 63 
 
 Ming dynasty, 75, 78 
 
 Mirror of Sun Goddess, 10 
 
 Mitsui and Company, 217 
 
 Miura, 170 
 
 Mommu, 32 
 
 Money, 30 
 
 Mongolia, 6 
 
 Mongolia, Eastern Inner, 2, 192, 
 
 193, 195 
 Mongol invasion, 53, 54 
 Mongols, 3, 14, 58, 86 
 Monroe Doctrine, the Japanese, 5 
 "Morrison," 107 
 Motonobu, 61, 92 
 Mukden, 167, 175 
 Muromachi period, 55 
 Music, 41 
 
 N 
 
 Nagasaki, 2, 3, 73, 106, 108, 109 
 
 Nanking, Treaty of, 106 
 
 Napoleonic wars, 105, 107 
 
 Nara, 32, 39, 40 
 
 Nationalist Party, 214 
 
 Nestorians, 22 
 
 Newspapers, 134, 137, i6i 
 
 Nichiren, 52 
 
 Nihongi, 9, 14, 29 
 
 Nihonshogi, 9 
 
 Nikko, 93 
 
 Ningpo, 56, 58 
 
 Ninigi, 10, 11 
 
 Nirvana, 21 
 
 Nitta Yoshisada, 55 
 
 Nobility, reorganized by Ito, 138 
 
 Nobunaga, 61, 62 
 
 O 
 
 Oda, Nobunaga, see Nobunaga. 
 Okubo, 127, 128, 134 
 
 Okuma, 127, 136, 143, 192, 212, 214 
 
 Okyo, 92 
 
 Ojin, 15 
 
 "Open door" in China, 205 
 
 Oregon, 106, 203 
 
 Origin of Japanese, 12-14 
 
 Osaka, 61, 64, 65, 114, 215, 217 
 
 Osaka Conference, 133 
 
 Ownership of land, 35 
 
 R 
 
 Railways, 159; nationalized, 215 
 
 Religion, primitive, 17, 18 
 
 Restoration, 11 5-1 20 
 
 Rice, 15, 181 
 
 Rikken Teiseito, 136 
 
 Riu Kiu Islands, 2, 4, 107, 149-151 
 
 Ronin, 81 
 
 Roosevelt, Theodore, 176, 203 
 
 Root-Takahira Agreement, 179 
 
 Rousseau, 132, 136 
 
 Russia, 4, 105, 106, 107, 109, no, 
 
 152, 165, 168-179, 185, 196, 200, 
 
 205, 216 
 Russo-Chinese Bank, 171 
 Russo-Japanese War, 175-177, 200 
 
 Saicho, 37 
 
 Saionji, 213 
 
 Saigo, 127-129, 152 
 
 Sakhalin, i, 4, 5, 107, 149, 150, 184, 
 
 185 
 
 Salt monopoly in China, 190 
 
 Samurai, 77, 86; end of the institu- 
 tion of, 1 23 
 
 San Francisco school question, 203 
 
 San jo, 40, 127 
 
 Sat-Cho group, 136, 210-214 
 
 Satsuma, 104, in, 113, 117, 127, 
 169, 210 
 
 Satsuma revolt, 128, 129 
 
 Sculpture, 53, 93
 
 236 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Sea of Japan, battle of the, 175 
 
 Sei-i-tai-shogun, see Shogun. 
 
 Seiyxikai, 212, 213 
 
 Sekigahara, battle of, 65 
 
 Seoul, 166, 17s, 181 
 
 Seppuku, see Suicide. 
 
 Serfs, 16 
 
 Sesshu, 61, 92 
 
 Shanghai, 56 
 
 Shantung, 171, 192, 206 
 
 Shikken, 50 
 
 Shikoku, I, II, 15 
 
 Shimabara revolt, 72 
 
 Shimoda, 109 
 
 Shimonoseki, 2, 46, 113, 114; treaty 
 
 of, 168 
 Shingon, 36, 37, 51, 52 
 Shinshu, 51 
 Shinto, 18, 44, 59, 77, 96-98, 221; in 
 
 Meiji era, 126 
 Shipping, 217 
 Shirakawa, 40 
 Shogun, 49, 80 
 Shogunate, 67 
 Sho Shi, see Chu Hsi. 
 Shotoku, Prince, 25, 31 
 Shotoku, Empress, 41 
 Shugo, 48 
 Siam, 56, 70 
 Si-an-fu, 23, 25, 32, 34 
 Siberia, 5, 6 
 
 Siberian Railway, 170, 187 
 Silk, 16, 73, 201 
 Silver, 30 
 Slavery, 16 
 Social evil, 221 
 Socialism, 221 
 Soga, 24, 25, 33 
 Soochow, 56 
 South America, 217 
 Spanish, contact with Japan, 59, 64, 
 
 70, 71, 72, 105 
 Standard Oil Company, 206 
 
 State initiative and control, 88 
 
 Steamships, 159 
 
 Sugar, 181 
 
 Sui dynasty, 23 
 
 Suicide, 86, 102 
 
 Sulphur, 217 
 
 Sun Goddess, see Amaterasu. 
 
 Sung dynasty, 61 
 
 Susanoo, 10 
 
 Swords and sword-makers, 53, 61 
 
 Taiko, 63, 64 
 
 Taira, 44-49 
 
 Taisho, 215 
 
 Takauji, see Ashikaga Takauji. 
 
 Talien, 167 
 
 T ang dynasty, 23, 24, 25, 29, 31, 36 
 
 Taoism, 19, 28 
 
 Tariff, 109, 149 
 
 Taxation, 35, 41 
 
 Tea, 53, 181, 201 
 
 Tea-drinking, 94 
 
 Tendai, 36, 51, 52 
 
 Terauchi, 199, 214 
 
 Tokimasa, 50 
 
 Tokugawa, family and shogunate, 
 
 67-79, 86, 89, 92, 100; decline of, 
 
 104, IDS, 112-11S 
 Tokugawa lyeyasu, see lyesasu. 
 ,Tokyo (Yedo), 11, 50, 67, 87, 104, 
 I 107, 119, 128, 168, 216, 217 
 Tosa, 117, 127; school of painting, 92 
 Toyotomi Hideyoshi, see Hideyoshi. 
 Tsingtao, 171, 192 
 Tsugaru Strait, 152 
 Tsushima, 152, 175 
 
 U 
 
 United States, 87, 105-110, 113, 114, 
 
 155, 156, 158, 173, 190, 191, 197, 
 200-209 
 Ussuri River, 152, 165, 170
 
 INDEX 
 
 237 
 
 Vasco da Gama, 58 
 Vladivostok, 152, 165, 170, 200 
 
 W 
 Wang Yang Ming, 76 
 War, Chino-Japanese, 167-169; 
 
 Russo-Japanese, 175-177, 200; of 
 
 1914, S, 1Q1-197 
 Warrior Class, its rise, 43, 44 
 Washington (state of), 203 
 Wei-hai-wei, 167, 172 
 Whaling, 107 
 
 Wilson, Woodrow, 191, 203, 205 
 Woman, position of, 96, 102 
 Wrestling, 61 
 
 X 
 
 Xavier, Francis, 59 
 
 Yamato, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17-19, 24, 
 
 32,55 
 Yamato-dake, ii 
 Yangtze River, 168, 172, 189, 195, 
 
 217 
 Yedo, see Tokyo. 
 Yemishi, 12 
 
 Yezo, I, 2, 12, 149, 150, 216 
 Yokohama, 3, 159 
 Yokohama Specie Bank, 158, 188 
 Yoritomo, 45-50, 56, 67 
 Yoshihito, 215 
 Yoshinaka, 46 
 Yoshitoki, 50 
 Yoshitomo, 45 
 Yoshitsune, 45-47 
 Yuan Shih K'ai, 190, 196 
 
 Yamagata, 127, 212 
 Yamamoto, 213 
 
 Zen, 52, 53, 60, 76, 102 
 Zinc, 217 
 
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