Читать книгу The Making of Modern Japan - John Harington Gubbins - Страница 11

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In the spring of the following year (1869), when order was finally restored and the young Mikado had held his first audience of foreign representatives, an attempt was made to give practical effect to the Imperial intentions by establishing a deliberative assembly, to which the name of Kōgisho, or parliament, was given. It consisted of 276 members, one for each clan. Here, again, we are struck by the wide range of progressive opinion in the country, irrespective of party feeling and anti-foreign prejudice, for in a manifesto issued by the ex-Shōgun two months before his resignation he had stated his desire “to listen to the voice of the majority and establish a deliberative assembly, or parliament”—the very word Kōgisho being used.

As might have been foreseen, this first experiment, made in an atmosphere of feudalism, was a failure; but Sir Harry Parkes, then British Minister, describing a debate on the subject of foreign trade which took place, said that the result of the discussion, and its general tone, were creditable to the discernment of this embryo parliament.

The treatment accorded to the adherents of the Tokugawa cause when hostilities finally ceased in the spring of 1869, was marked by a generosity as wise as it was unlooked for. In Japan up to that time little consideration had been shown to the defeated party in civil wars. The defeated side, moreover, in opposing the Imperialists had earned the unfortunate title of rebels (Chōteki), reserved for those who took up arms against the Crown. In this instance moderate counsels prevailed. The territories of the daimiō of Aidzu, the backbone of Tokugawa resistance, and those of another northern chieftain, were confiscated; eighteen other daimiōs were transferred to distant fiefs with smaller revenues; while in a few cases the head of a clan was forced to abdicate in favour of some near relative. Retribution went no further. Later on, when the feudal system was abolished, the same liberality was displayed in the matter of feudal pensions, being especially noticeable in the case of two large sections of the military class, the Hatamoto and the Gokénin, who formed the hereditary personal following of the Tokugawa Shōguns.

The generosity shown by the Government led to much discontent in the military class in many clans. This was notably the case in Satsuma, where there were other grounds for dissatisfaction. The position of the Satsuma clan had always been somewhat different from that of other clans. Its situation at the south-western extremity of the kingdom, far from the seat of authority, had favoured the growth of an independent spirit, and the clan had long been noted for warlike qualities. Though subdued by the military ruler who preceded the Tokugawa Shōguns, and professing fealty to the Tokugawa House, the clan had preserved an appreciable measure of importance and prestige, if not independence, which the Shōguns in question had been careful to respect. The previous head of the clan had before his death in 1859 adopted as his heir his brother’s son, then a child of five years. The affairs of the clan had been to a large extent controlled ever since by this brother, Shimadzu Saburō, a name familiar to foreigners in connection with the outrage which led to the bombardment of Kagoshima; but he was in poor health, and at the time when the new Government was formed the control of clan matters had largely passed into the hands of the elder Saigō, a man of commanding personality, whose daring defiance of the Tokugawa authorities in the stormy days preceding the Restoration had made him a popular hero, and of other influential clansmen. Both Shimadzu and the elder Saigō were thorough conservatives, opposed to all foreign innovations. But there was a strong progressive group in the clan led by such men as Ōkubo and the younger Saigō, who were far from sharing the reactionary tendencies of the older leaders. This division of feeling in the clan was one of the causes of the dissensions in the ministry which arose in 1870, and it had important consequences, which were seen a few years later in the tragic episode of the Satsuma Rebellion.

The first note of discord came from Satsuma. One of the first acts of the new Government had been to transfer the Capital from Kiōto to Yedo, which was renamed Tōkiō, or “Eastern Capital.” The Satsuma troops which had been stationed in Tōkiō as a guard for the Government suddenly petitioned to be released from this service. The ground put forward was that the finances of the clan, which had suffered from the heavy outlay incurred during the civil war, did not permit of this expensive garrison duty. But the real reasons undoubtedly were a feeling of disappointment on the part of a majority of the clansmen at what was regarded as the small share allotted to Satsuma in the new administration, and some jealousy felt by the two leaders who presented the petition towards their younger and more active colleagues, combined with distrust of their enthusiasm for reform.

The garrison was allowed to go home, and the elder Saigō also returned to his province. The moment was critical. The Government could not afford to lose the support of the two most prominent Satsuma leaders, nor, at this early stage in the work of reconstruction which lay before it, to acquiesce in the defection of so powerful an ally. In the following year (1871), therefore, a conciliatory mission, in which Iwakura and Ōkubo were the leading figures, was sent to the offended clan to present in the Mikado’s name a sword of honour at the tomb of Shimadzu’s brother, the late daimiō of Satsuma. The mission was also entrusted with a written message from the Throne to Shimadzu urging him to come forward in support of the Mikado’s Government. By this step clan feeling was appeased for the moment, and Saigō returned to the Capital, and became a member of the Government.

How unstable was the condition of things at that time was illustrated by the changes in the personnel of the Ministry which took place in September of the same year, and the administrative revision which followed within a few months. The effect of the first was to strengthen the progressive element in the administration at the expense of the old feudal aristocracy. The Cabinet, as reorganized, consisted of Sanjō as Prime Minister and Iwakura as Minister for Foreign Affairs; four Councillors of State, Saigō, Kido, Itagaki and Ōkuma, represented the four clans of Satsuma, Chōshiū, Tosa and Hizen, while another Satsuma man, Ōkubo, became Minister of Finance. The effect of the revision of the constitution was to divide the Dajōkwan, or Central Executive, established in the previous year, into three branches, the Sei-in, a sort of Council of State presided over by the Prime Minister; the Sa-in, a Chamber exercising deliberative functions, which before long took the place of the Kōgisho; and the U-in, a subordinate offshoot of the Council of State, which was shortly afterwards merged in that body. These administrative changes had little real significance. Their chief interest lies in the fact that they show how obsessed some enthusiastic reformers were with the idea of deliberative institutions, of parliamentary methods of some kind, being embodied in the framework of the new constitution; and in the further fact that the new chief Ministers of State, under this reorganization, the Daijō Daijin, Sadaijin, and Udajin, borrowed their official titles from the Chambers over which they presided. Sir Francis Adams, describing these changes in his History of Japan mentions that the deliberative Chamber was regarded at the time as “a refuge for political visionaries, who had thus an opportunity of ventilating their theories without doing any harm,” and that “the members of the subordinate executive Chamber (the U-in), who were supposed to meet once a week for the execution of business, never met at all.” He added that he had never been able to learn what the functions of this Chamber were supposed to be, or what its members ever did. The real work of administration was carried on by the small but active group of reformers of the four clans, who were gradually concentrating all authority in their own hands.

The high ministerial offices thus created were filled by Sanjō, Shimadzu and Iwakura. The last-named, the junior in rank of the three, shared with Kido and Ōkubo the main direction of affairs. The other two were mere figure-heads, though their positions at Court and in Satsuma, respectively, gave strength to the Government.

Kido Junichirō.

In recognition of the services rendered to the state before the creation of the new peerage his son was ennobled after his father’s death. His death occurred before the creation of the new peerage, but his son, the present Marquis, was ennobled in recognition of his father’s services.

Shimadzu’s appointment was a further step in the conciliation of Satsuma, a development of the policy of timely concessions which had averted a rupture with that clan. The conclusion of the alliance between the four clans, which made the Restoration possible, had, as we have seen, been a difficult matter. A still harder task confronted the new Government. This was to maintain the alliance for future purposes,—to ensure the further co-operation of the same clans in the work of reconstruction. The first step in the new direction, the formation of a Government to fill the place of the Shōgunate, had been taken. Even if this Government had the defects of its purely artificial character, even if it were nothing better than a jejune attempt to combine things so incompatible as Eastern and Western institutions, feudal and pre-feudal systems, it had at least the merit of being the outcome of a genuine compromise brought about by the pressure of political need. Of the grave difficulties attending the work of reconstruction both the conservative and anti-foreign, as well as the progressive elements in the Ministry—the two parties to the compromise—must have been more or less conscious. The discontent in Satsuma was only one of many symptoms of grave unrest which showed themselves throughout the country. A sinister indication of the gradual decay of Tokugawa authority had been furnished by the discontinuance in 1862 of the enforced residence of feudal nobles at Yedo, with all its attendant results. This decay had carried with it the weakening of feudal ties. Laxity of clan administration, its natural consequence, had given opportunities for mischief to the dangerous class of clanless samurai, or rōnin. Of these they were not slow to avail themselves, as was shown by the frequency of murderous attacks on Japanese and foreigners alike; and the fear of combined action on the part of these ruffians which might at any moment threaten the safety of the whole foreign community had led to the stationing of foreign troops in Yokohama, The action, moreover, of the Imperialists in encouraging anti-foreign feeling for their own immediate purposes had brought its own nemesis by giving rein to the turbulent impulses in the national character. Clan jealousies, too, which the alliance of four clans had stifled for a time, began to reassert themselves.

With the downfall of the Tokugawa Government these disturbing influences came into full play, while the resources of the new rulers for coping with them were very inadequate. From the wreckage of the complicated system of Tokugawa administration little indeed which was of material value to the builders of the new framework of state survived. The hand-to-mouth methods of Tokugawa finance, largely dependent on irregular feudal contributions, had resulted in a depleted Exchequer, more debts than assets being left for the Shōguns’ successors. Nor were the finances of the clans in a better condition. The currency of the country was in a state of hopeless confusion due to the great variety of note and metallic issues in circulation throughout the country, the Shōgunate and most of the clans having their own paper money, which were at a premium, or discount, according to circumstances. Trade and industry were also hampered in their development by the rigid rules which closed the frontiers of clans and provinces to strangers, and by the numerous impediments in the shape of barriers and tolls which obstructed intercourse and the exchange of commodities between different parts of the country. To crown matters, the navy consisted of only a few ships, all of obsolete type with the exception of a monitor bought by the Tokugawa Government from America, and there was no regular army at the service of the State.

The military forces at the disposal of the Shōgunate in former days constituted on paper at least a respectable army for those times, sufficient, coupled with the policy of divide et impera systematically followed by Tokugawa Shōguns, to overawe the feudal nobility whose allegiance was doubtful. The total number of these troops may be reckoned roughly at about 400,000. They consisted of levies from the clans. By a law passed in the middle of the seventeenth century the clans were bound to furnish to the Government fixed quotas of troops, when occasion demanded, the number of men to be supplied being regulated by the revenue of a clan—this revenue, again, being the value of the assessed annual produce of its territories. But the efficiency of these troops had naturally deteriorated during the long period of peace coincident with Tokugawa rule, nor in later Tokugawa days could much dependence be placed on their loyalty to Yedo. The military weakness of the Shōgunate had been exposed in the course of the operations against the Chōshiū clan, nor had sufficient time elapsed for the services of the few foreign instructors employed by the Tokugawa Government to reorganize the army to have any good effect. During the civil war the Imperialists had recourse to the formation of small bodies of irregular troops called shimpei, or “New Soldiers,” recruited mainly from the class of rōnin already mentioned, some of whom were armed with rifles; but these hastily raised troops were untrained, and their lack of discipline was shown when they acted as a voluntary escort to the Mikado on his first visit to the new Capital. From their conduct on that occasion it was obvious that they might easily become a danger to the authorities employing them.

Encouraged by the success which had attended its efforts in Satsuma the mission of conciliation sent to that clan proceeded under instructions to Chōshiū, where a message from the Mikado of import similar to that addressed to the Satsuma noble, Shimadzu, was delivered. Here it was joined by another leading member of the Government, Kido. The mission, thus reinforced, visited in succession, Tosa, Owari and other clans. Besides its general purpose of conciliation, elsewhere, as well as in Satsuma, for the attainment of which it was necessary to enquire into the state of clan feeling, and take what steps might be advisable to allay the prevailing discontent, the chief object of the mission was to enlist the support of the clans concerned for the Government, and organize a provisional force to uphold central authority. The result of its efforts, so far as the chief object was concerned, was the formation of a force of some eight or nine thousand troops, which was obtained from various clans. A favourable augury for the future lay in the fact that it included not only clansmen who had taken part in the Restoration movement, but others who had supported the Tokugawa cause. By this means was formed the first nucleus of what was to develop by slow degrees into a national army.

In view of the slender financial resources at the disposal of the new Government it was decided to exact a forced contribution for the purpose of meeting the immediate needs of the Exchequer. This contribution, to which the term of “tribute” was given, was levied on all classes of the people, officials being called upon to pay a tax amounting to one-thirtieth of their salaries.

The important points to be noted in the foregoing imperfect sketch of the situation which confronted the new rulers at this time is that the revolution was planned and carried out by the military class of certain clans, with the aid of the Court, the rest of the nation taking no part in it; and that the leading men in that class who came to the front and assumed control of affairs were divided into two groups, whose views on future policy were in the main different. On one side were those who clung to the old traditional methods of administration, amongst whom were to be found, nevertheless, men of moderate views. In numbers and influence they were as superior to their opponents as they were inferior in vigour, ability and insight. The other group consisted of a few men of more enlightened and progressive views, who were convinced that the time had come for the nation to break with its past, and that in the establishment of a new order of things, visible as yet only in the vaguest outline, lay the best hope for the future. The conservative, or reactionary, party, as it may now be called, had long obstinately opposed foreign intercourse in any form save that which had kept Dutch traders in the position, virtually, of prisoners of State. Driven by the force of circumstances from that position, they fell back on a second line of entrenchments—resistance to changes of any kind when those changes meant the adoption of foreign customs. There was a fatal flaw of inconsistency in their attitude of which, perhaps, they were not unconscious themselves. They made an exception in favour of foreign innovations which appealed to the nation at large, such as steamships and material of war. Time, too, was on the side of their opponents, not on theirs. The doctrines they upheld were part of an order of things which the nation had outgrown, and was preparing to discard. New ideas were taking hold of men’s minds, and deserters from their ranks were one by one joining the standard raised by the party of reform. Never, even in pre-Tokugawa days, had the nation lacked enterprise. Intercourse with the Dutch had quickened appreciation of what was known as “Western Learning,” and provoked secret rebellion against the Tokugawa edicts of seclusion. Now the spirit of progress was in the air. The tide of reform, which later on was to sweep the less moderate reformers off their feet, had set in.

Fortunately for the country at this juncture there was one point on which both parties were in agreement. Between the leading men on each side there was a general understanding that the abolition of feudalism, repugnant as it was to many, could not well be avoided. The Tokugawa administration had, as we have seen, been established on a feudal basis. The survival of this feudal foundation may well have appeared compatible neither with the removal of the rest of the administrative structure, nor with the avowed principles of the Restoration, however broadly the latter might be interpreted. The Shōgunate, moreover, had filled two rôles, so to speak. Itself part of the feudal system, it was also the central government. The extensive territories, situated in different parts of the kingdom, known as the Shōgun’s domains, the feudal revenues of which amounted to one-third of the total revenue of the country, had, under the Tokugawa régime, been administered by the central government. There were also, as has already been explained, other feudal territories which, for various reasons, had also been subject, either from time to time or permanently, to the same central administration. How to deal with the large area represented by these domains and territories if the feudal system were to continue, would have been a difficult problem. The Shōgun’s domains themselves had for the time being passed into the hands of the new Government which was responsible for their administration, but there were obvious objections to giving to them the permanent character of Imperial domains. Apart from the difficulty of disposing of so wide an area in this way, the adoption of this course would have perpetuated an undesirable arrangement, the dual capacity of ruler and feudal lord having been one of the weak points in the Tokugawa system of administration. It would also have lowered the dignity of the Throne, which in principle at least had been upheld through all vicissitudes, by placing it on the same feudal plane as the defunct Shōgunate, not to speak of the reproach of treading in the footsteps of their predecessors which the new rulers would have incurred. To have made them Crown Lands would have entailed still more awkward consequences. On the other hand, a redistribution of this wide extent of territory amongst new or old feudatories would have occupied much time, and time was of importance in the work of reconstruction in hand. Any step, moreover, in this direction, however carefully designed to reconcile conflicting claims, would have opened the door to grave dissension at a moment when clan rivalry was reasserting itself. These and other considerations, in which questions of national finance—and perhaps also the idea, borrowed from abroad, that feudalism implied a backward state of civilization—may have played a part, doubtless contributed to the unanimity of the decision to cut the Gordian knot by abolishing the feudal system.

That this solution was one which had already found acceptance in many quarters there is clear evidence. It is true that no direct reference to the measure appears in the Charter Oath of April, 1868. But the manifesto announcing the Shōgun’s resignation, issued in the autumn of the previous year, contained the suggestion that the old order of things should be changed, and that administrative authority should be restored to the Imperial Court. The language of the Tosa memorial which inspired this resignation was still plainer. It spoke of the danger to which the country was exposed by the discord existing between the Court, the Shōgun and the feudal nobility, and advocated “the discontinuance of the dual system of administration” and “a return to the ancient form of government.” Making due allowance for the vagueness of the phrases used, if “the discontinuance of the dual system of administration” meant, as it clearly did, the cessation of Tokugawa rule, “the restoration of the ancient” (namely pre-feudal) “form of government” pointed no less plainly to the abolition of feudalism. The same sequence of ideas appears in the letter addressed by the Shōgun at the time of his resignation to the hatamoto, the special class of feudal vassals created by the founder of Tokugawa rule, and in the communication on this subject presented by his Ministers to the foreign representatives on the same occasion.