Читать книгу The Making of Modern Japan - John Harington Gubbins - Страница 9

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The signature of the Treaty was loudly condemned by the Court party, the ex-Prince of Mito being conspicuous amongst those who protested. He addressed a violently worded remonstrance to the Council of State, impugning the action of the Government, which was accused of disrespect to the Throne, and disobedience to the Imperial commands. The Regent retorted by striking at once at his enemies with all the force of his newly acquired position, and the prestige of his success in the matter of the succession. The ex-Prince of Mito and the Prince of Owari were confined to their yashikis (a term applied to the feudal residences occupied by daimiōs during their period of service in Yedo); while the latter, together with the daimiōs of Échizen, Tosa and Uwajima, was forced to abdicate. And when the Court, growing uneasy at this sudden reassertion of authority on the part of the Shōgunate, summoned the Regent, or one of the Gosanké, to Kiōto to report on the situation, a reply was sent to the effect that the Regent was detained by State affairs, and that the ex-Prince of Mito and the Prince of Owari were confined to their clan yashikis. A mission, however—the third in succession—proceeded to Kiōto from Yedo. This submitted a report on the subject of the Treaty, which explained the reasons for its signature in advance of Imperial sanction as being the arrival of more Russian and American ships; the defeat of China by the English and French; the news that these two countries were sending to Japan special envoys instructed to carry matters with a high hand; and the advice to sign at once given by the American minister. The Court’s eventual pronouncement in favour of the Treaty displayed in a striking manner the perverseness and inconsequence which characterized Japanese official procedure at that time. The decree conveying the Imperial approval expressed the satisfaction with which the Throne had received the assurance that the Shōgun, the Regent and the Council of State, were all in favour of keeping foreigners at a distance; and urged on the attention of the Shōgun “the Throne’s deep concern in regard to the sea in the neighbourhood of the Imperial shrines and Kiōto, as well as the safety of the Imperial insignia,” which, put into plainer language, meant that no port should be opened near Isé, or the capital. Two suggestions have been made on good authority regarding this decree: (1) that the Shōgun’s agents in Kiōto were directed to accept anything which established the fact of an understanding with the Court having been effected; and (2) that the agents in question succeeded in persuading the Court that, though the signature of this particular Treaty was unavoidable, the Yedo Government was not really in favour of foreign intercourse. Both suggestions are probably correct. In any case the Court’s action in ignoring the Throne’s previous approval of earlier treaties was calculated to stiffen opposition to the Shōgun’s diplomacy, and was thus doubtless responsible for some of the subsequent difficulties attending foreign intercourse, notably in connection with the opening of the port of Hiogo, which, with the consent of the Treaty Powers, was postponed until January, 1868.

As showing how meaningless the Imperial approval, in reality, was it may be well to note that the English text of the Treaty in question provided for the exchange of ratifications at Washington on or before the 4th July, 1859, failing which, however, the Treaty was, nevertheless, to come into force on the date in question. The Treaty went into operation on the date fixed, but the exchange of ratifications did not take place until 1860. The ratification on the part of Japan is described as the verification of “the name and seal of His Majesty the Tycoon.”

Hostility to foreigners at this time, however, was a feeling common to most Japanese, even Shōgunate officials being no exception to the rule. Writers on Japan mention as one cause which served to increase this feeling the drain of gold from Japan, which began as early as the operations of the first Portuguese traders. Another—adduced by the Japanese Government itself—was the great rise in prices which followed upon the opening of Treaty ports. Sir Rutherford Alcock, in the Capital of the Tycoon, adds a third—the memory of the troubles connected with the Christian persecution in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and of the serious alarm then entertained by the Japanese authorities at the undisguised pretensions of the Pope. The understanding regarding the Treaty question arrived at by the Regent with the Court did little to check the growth of anti-foreign feeling, for the Court continued its intrigues as before, and the Regent’s death, in the spring of 1860 at the hands of assassins instigated by the ex-Prince of Mito, provided a further opportunity. The effects of the fierce anti-foreign crusade upon which it then embarked were seen in the murder of the Secretary of the American Legation, in the successive attacks made on the British Legation, and in other violent acts by which foreigners were not the only sufferers. Yielding to the pressure of public opinion, the Government itself became almost openly hostile. Placed in this difficult position, the representatives of the Treaty Powers found both dignity and safety compromised. What, they might well ask, was to be gained by protests to the Japanese authorities in regard to acts with which the latter’s sympathy was barely concealed, of which they not infrequently gave warning themselves, but against which they were unable, or unwilling, to afford protection? Under these circumstances it is not surprising that the representatives of Great Britain, France, Germany and Holland should in 1862 have retired temporarily from the capital to Yokohama—an example not followed by the American representative; nor that the British Legation on its return, at the Japanese Government’s request, four weeks later, should have been immediately attacked in spite of a formal guarantee of protection. In respect of this attack, in the course of which two sentries were murdered, an indemnity was afterwards paid. Matters were further aggravated by the murder in September of the same year (1862) of Mr. Richardson, a British subject, on the high road near Yokohama by the bodyguard of a Satsuma noble, Shimadzu Saburō, who was on his way back to Kiōto from the Shōgun’s Court in Yedo. A formal apology for this outrage was demanded by the British, together with the payment of an indemnity.

The growing power of the Court and the anti-foreign party, for the two were one, showed itself also in its behaviour to the Shōgunate after the Regent’s death.

The adherents of the ex-Prince of Mito—who survived his adversary by only a few months—held up their heads again, while the late Regent’s friends were, in their turn, dismissed from office, fined, imprisoned or banished. Nor did the Shōgun’s marriage to the Mikado’s sister in the spring of 1862 materially improve the relations between Kiōto and Yedo, or moderate the high-handed attitude of the Court. In the summer of the same year the Shōgun was peremptorily summoned to Kiōto, which had not seen a Shōgun for two hundred and fifty years, to confer with the Court regarding the expulsion of foreigners; Prince Kéiki, the unsuccessful candidate for the office of Shōgun in 1858, was made Regent, and appointed guardian to his rival on that occasion, the young Shōgun Iyémochi, in the place of a nearer and older relative; while the ex-Prince of Échizen, one of the late Regent’s enemies, was made President of the Council of State. That nothing should be wanting to indicate its displeasure at the position taken up by the Shōgunate in regard to foreign affairs, the Court went so far as to order the Shōgun’s consort, who in accordance with custom had, on her marriage, assumed the title usual in those circumstances, to revert to her previous designation of princess. Other signs of the times, showing not only the anti-foreign spirit of the Court, but its determination to strike at the root of Tokugawa authority, could be noted in such incidents as the relaxation of the conditions of the residence of feudal nobles in Yedo, and the release of the hostages formerly exacted for their good conduct whilst in their fiefs; the solemn fixing at a Council of princes, attended by the Shōgun and his guardians, of a date for the cessation of all foreign intercourse; the revival of the State processions of the Mikado to shrines, which had been discontinued at the beginning of the Tokugawa rule; and the residence for long periods at Kiōto of feudal nobles, in defiance of the Tokugawa regulation which forbade them even to visit the Capital without permission—a step which showed that they were not afraid of its being known that they sided openly with the Court against the Shōgunate. The same spirit accounted for the attempt to associate the Shōgun and his Regent-guardian with the taking of a religious oath to expel foreigners, and, finally, for the fact that while so much that was incompatible with friendly relations with Treaty Powers was taking place, a mission sent to those very powers was engaged in persuading them to consent to the postponement for five years of the dates fixed for the opening of certain ports and places to foreign trade and residence. This consent was given, and was recorded, in so far as Great Britain was concerned, in the London Protocol of June 6th, 1862.

The communication to the foreign representatives of the decision to close the country duly took place on the 24th June, as arranged. But nothing came of it. The foreign governments refused to take the matter seriously, merely intimating that steps would be taken to protect foreign interests, and five months later the Shōgunate asked for the return of the Note.

Sir Rutherford Alcock in the course of a lengthy review of the situation, in which he seems to have foreseen clearly that the reopening of the country would eventually lead to civil war, came, though unwillingly, to the conclusion that foreign governments, if they wished to ensure the observance of the treaties, must be prepared to use force, and make reprisals; in fact, that opposition to foreign intercourse would not cease until the nation should, by drastic measures, have been persuaded of the ability of foreign Powers to make their Treaty rights respected. The effect of the reprisals made by the British Government in the Richardson case, in the course of which the town of Kagoshima was bombarded, and partly destroyed, besides the exaction of an indemnity, went some way to prove the correctness of this view. Its truth was further demonstrated when a second and graver incident occurred. This was the firing upon foreign vessels in the Straits of Shimonoséki by Chōshiū forts on June 24th, 1863. The date on which the outrage occurred was that fixed at the Council of feudal nobles, attended by the Shōgun and the Regent, his guardian, in Kiōto for the opening of negotiations with the foreign representatives for the closing of the country. It was also that on which, in accordance with the decision then taken, a communication had been made to them by the Council of State. The coincidence of dates gave a more serious aspect to the affair, though the complicity of the Shōgunate was never whole-hearted. In this case, also, it became necessary to take the drastic measures which to the British Minister in question had seemed to be inevitable sooner or later. Neither the first reprisals, however, instituted at once by the French and American naval authorities, nor the lengthy negotiations with the Japanese Government which followed, were of any effect in obtaining redress. For more than a year the straits remained closed to navigation. Eventually joint operations against the hostile forts conducted in August, 1864, by a combined squadron of the four Powers immediately concerned, accomplished the desired result. The forts were attacked and destroyed, an undertaking that they should be left in a dismantled condition was extorted, and an indemnity of $3,000,000 exacted. The lessons thus administered lost none of their force from the fact that the clans punished were the two most powerful, and those in which hostility to foreigners was perhaps most openly displayed. Both this and the Kagoshima indemnity were paid by the Yedo Government, and not by the offending clans. Were further proof needed of the strange condition of affairs at this time in Japan it is supplied by the fact that in both cases the drastic measures taken resulted in the establishment of quite amicable relations with the clans in question. This unlooked-for result points to the existence, both in the nation at large, and in individual clans, of a small minority which did not share the prevailing hostility to foreigners.

Towards the end of 1863 the British and French Governments came to the conclusion that the unsettled state of things in Japan, and the anti-foreign feeling, which showed no signs of decreasing, made it advisable to station troops in Yokohama for the protection of foreign interests. Accordingly contingents of British and French troops were landed, and established in quarters on shore, by arrangement with the Japanese authorities. Their presence served admirably the purpose intended; no collision or friction occurred between these garrisons and the Japanese, and in 1875, when their presence was no longer needed, they were withdrawn.

The Shōgun had been very reluctant to comply with the Imperial summons to Kiōto. His ministers had endeavoured to arrange for the visit to be limited to ten days. Once there, however, he was detained on various pretexts until June in the following year, by which time the Court had already embarked on its anti-foreign policy, and the Shimonoséki incident had occurred. His return to Yedo was the signal for the outbreak of further bickering between the Court and the Shōgunate, which revealed the same disposition on both sides to shut the eyes to facts, and change position with startling inconsistency. Ignoring its recent co-operation with the Imperial Court and feudal nobles in the anti-foreign policy initiated at the Capital, the fixing of a date for the expulsion of the foreigner, and the communication of its decision to the foreign representatives, the Shōgunate presented a memorial to the Throne pointing out how unfavourable was the present moment for pushing matters to extremity in the matter of foreign intercourse. The Court, for its part, while testifying its pleasure at the revival of the ancient practice of visits to the Capital, rebuked the Shōgun for not keeping the Throne more fully informed of his movements, for having gone back to Yedo in a steamer, and for his unsatisfactory behaviour in regard to foreign relations. Further indications of the general confusion of ideas and vacillation of purpose which characterized the proceedings of persons in authority appear in the expulsion of Chōshiū clansmen from Kiōto as a mark of the Court’s strong disapproval of the action of the Chōshiū clan in the Shimonoséki affair, as well as in the startling pronouncement made by the Échizen clan—whose chief’s enforced abdication has already been mentioned—in favour of foreign intercourse, and of the “new Christian religion,” and condemning alike both the policy pursued by the Court, and that of the Shōgunate.

That a definite rupture of foreign relations did not take place at this juncture was due to the promptness of the Shōgunate to repudiate its own acts and to the patience and good-humour of foreign governments; possibly also to the division of opinion in the country itself, where the centre of authority was beginning to shift, though the process was still incomplete. In its place there occurred the first threatenings, the beginnings, in fact, of the civil war which an attentive observer had prophesied. Conscious of the Government’s weakness, while piqued by the Court’s inconsistency, the Chōshiū clan brought matters to an issue in the summer of 1864 by making a sudden raid on Kiōto with the object of abducting the Mikado and raising the Imperial standard. The attempt was defeated; nor did the clan fare better in its efforts to repel the invasion of its territory by the Government forces. The resistance offered was soon overcome. Early in the following year (1865) the rebellion was suppressed, the severity of the terms imposed on the clan exciting widespread dissatisfaction. When, shortly afterwards, the same clan again rebelled, owing, it is said, to the excessive character of the punishment imposed, it was perceived that the success of the Tokugawa troops on the previous occasion was due, not to the Shōgunate’s military strength, but to the co-operation of other clans—notably that of Satsuma—in the punitive measures directed against the rebels. On this latter occasion the support of the other clans was withheld, with the result that the second campaign, though conducted under the eye of the Shōgun, who made Kiōto his headquarters for the purpose, was a complete failure. By the end of the year 1866 a compromise, designed to save the faces of both parties, had been effected. Hostilities then ceased. In the course of the negotiations by which this conclusion was reached the weakness of the Shōgunate was still further exposed. The prominent part taken by rōnin, both in the raid on the Capital and in the subsequent proceedings of the clan, as well as the incapacity of the feudal prince and his son, came also to light, together with the fact that the affairs of the fief were controlled by clan retainers, who were divided into two mutually hostile factions, each of which in turn gained the ascendancy.

The ignominy of defeat at the hands of a rebellious clan, added to a bankrupt exchequer, not to speak of the acceptance of a compromise which in itself was a confession of impotence, hastened the crumbling away of what was left of Tokugawa prestige. Fresh energy, at the same time, was instilled into the Court party. The situation became increasingly troubled and confused. While the Imperialists, as they now came to be called, clamoured more loudly than ever for the expulsion of foreigners, the ministers of the young Shōgun—soon to be succeeded very unwillingly by his cousin and guardian, the regent Prince Kéiki—busied themselves with explanations to the Court on the subject of the treaties, and to the foreign representatives on the political situation and the bearing of the Court.

In the meantime, in the summer of 1865, while the Chōshiū imbroglio was at its height, Sir Harry Parkes had arrived in Japan as British Minister. Soon after his arrival his attention had been drawn to the anomalous position of the Shōgun (or Tycoon), who was not the Sovereign of Japan, as described in the treaties, to the difficult situation created by the revival of Imperial pretensions, and to the encouragement afforded to the anti-foreign party by the fact that the Mikado had not yet given his formal sanction to the treaties of 1858, though they had been ratified by the Shōgun’s Government. The foreign representatives, who had already received instructions from their Governments to ask for a modification of the tariff of import and export duties annexed to the treaties of 1858, decided to press both questions together and, at the same time, to communicate to the Shōgunate, on behalf of their Governments, an offer to remit two-thirds of the Shimonoséki indemnity in return for (1) the immediate opening of the port of Hiogo and the city of Ōsaka, and (2) the revision of the Customs tariff on a basis of 5 per cent ad valorem. Accordingly, in November, 1865, a combined squadron visited Ōsaka for that purpose.

Reference has already been made to the constant anxiety of the Court to keep foreigners away from the neighbourhood of the Capital. The sensation created, therefore, by the appearance of foreign ships of war in the Bay of Ōsaka can readily be imagined. It was a repetition of what had occurred when Perry came. The action taken by the Court was the same. The demands of the foreign representatives were referred, as in Perry’s case, to a council of feudal nobles. These having concurred in the view already put forward by the Shōgun, and strengthened by his offer to resign, should this be desired, the Court intimated its intention to accept the advice. When, however, the necessary decree was issued, it was found to contain a clause making the sanction dependent on the alteration of certain points in the treaties which did not harmonize with the Imperial views, and insisting on the abandonment of the stipulation for the opening of Hiogo. The decree was duly communicated to the foreign representatives. But the Shōgunate in doing so, baffled it may be by the task of endeavouring to reconcile Imperial instructions with the fulfilment of Treaty obligations, or using, perhaps unconsciously, the disingenuous methods of the time, concealed the clause which robbed the sanction of much of its force. The treaties were sanctioned, it explained, but the question of the port of Hiogo could not be discussed for the moment. As for the tariff, instructions would be sent to Yedo to negotiate the amendment desired. This omission on the part of the Shōgunate to represent things as they really were misled foreign governments, and caused serious misunderstanding in the sequel.

The promise regarding the tariff was duly kept. It was fulfilled in the following year (1866) by the signature in Yedo of the Tariff Convention. A point to be noted in this instrument is the declaration regarding the right of individual Japanese merchants, and of daimiōs and persons in their employ, to trade at the Treaty Ports and go abroad, and trade there, without being subject to any hindrances, or undue fiscal restrictions, on the part of the Japanese Government or its officials. Its insertion was due to the determination of foreign governments to put an end to official interference with trade—a relic of the past, when all foreign commerce was controlled by the Shōgunate—and to their wish, in view of the reactionary measures threatened by the Court, to place on record their resolve to maintain the new order of things established by the treaties. Owing to the Shōgunate’s monopoly of foreign trade, which was what its control had virtually amounted to, the profits of commerce had swelled the coffers of the Government to the detriment of clan exchequers—a feudal grievance which was not the least of the causes responsible for hostility to the Yedo Government, and, indirectly, for anti-foreign feeling.

The course of affairs during the fifteen years which followed the conclusion of Perry’s Treaty has been described with some minuteness. This has been necessary owing to the complex character of the political situation, both foreign and domestic, during this time, and also because an acquaintance with certain details is essential to the comprehension of subsequent events. One of the features of the struggle between the Court and Shōgunate, to which attention has been called, was the gradual movement of several of the leading clans to the side of the Court. The stay of the chiefs of these clans in Kiōto, in defiance of Tokugawa regulations, led to the gradual loosening of the ties which bound the territorial nobility to Yedo, and to the shifting of the centre of action to the Capital, where the final scene of the drama was to be enacted.

At the end of the year 1866 both the Shōgun and his guardian, Prince Kéiki, were in Kiōto. There the Emperor Kōmei died early in the ensuing spring, his death being followed within a few days by that of the young Shōgun. The Emperor Mutsuhito, who was only fifteen years of age, succeeded to the Throne, and Prince Kéiki became Shōgun much against his will. Far from inheriting the forceful character of his father, the ex-Prince of Mito, the new Shōgun was of a retiring disposition. Though possessed of great intelligence and no small literary ability, he had a distaste for public affairs. Well aware of the difficulties of the time, and of the trend of tendencies unfavourable to the continuance of dual government, he was reluctant to undertake the responsibilities of the high office to which he was appointed. Not improbably, too, he may have inherited some portion at least of his father’s political doctrines. When, therefore, in October of that year (1867) the ex-daimiō of Tosa (whose abdication had been enforced eight years before by the Regent Ïi) presented a memorial to the Government, advising “the restoration of the ancient form of direct Imperial government,” the Shōgun took the advice tendered, and resigned. His decision was communicated in writing by the Council of State to the foreign representatives. In this document, which explains briefly the origin of feudal duarchy and of Tokugawa rule, the Shōgun dwells on the inconvenience attending the conduct of foreign relations under a system of dual government involving the existence of what were virtually two Courts, and announces his decision to restore the direct rule of the Mikado; adding, however, the assurance that the change will not disturb the harmonious relations of Japan with foreign countries. The statement also, it should be noted, contains an explicit declaration of the liberal views of the retiring ruler, who does not hesitate to express his conviction that the moment has come to make a new departure in national policy, and introduce constitutional changes of a progressive character.

Very possibly the retirement of the Shōgun might have been arranged in a peaceable manner, for his views were no secret to his supporters, though few shared them. Unfortunately, the Court, acting under the influence of leading clans hostile to the Yedo Government, and bent on a rupture, suddenly issued a decree abolishing the office of Shōgun, and making a change in the guardianship of the palace, which was transferred from Tokugawa hands to those of the opposition. This decree was followed by others proclaiming the restoration of direct Imperial rule; establishing a provisional government of Court nobles, daimiōs and the latter’s retainers; remitting the punishment imposed on the Chōshiū clan; and revoking the order expelling it from the Capital. The action of the Court made compromise impossible. The Shōgun withdrew to Ōsaka, whence, after a half-hearted effort to reassert his authority by force of arms, he returned to Yedo. The civil war that ensued was of short duration. The Tokugawa forces were no match for the Imperial troops, who were superior both in numbers and discipline. Although a small remnant of the ex-Shōgun’s adherents held out for some months in certain northern districts of the main island, and still longer in the island of Yezo, by the spring of 1869 peace was everywhere restored.

It has been said by a leading authority on Japan, as one reason for the fall of the Shōgunate, that dual government was an anachronism. This in itself presented no insuperable obstacle to its continuance; for the figure-head system of government, which flourished in an atmosphere of make-believe, was one which had grown up with the nation and was regarded as the normal condition of things. To its inconvenience, however, in the conduct of foreign relations the use of the title of Taikun (Tycoon) in the eighteenth century, and a resort to the same device in the nineteenth, bear witness. And it is reasonable to suppose that a system of administration so cumbrous would have failed to satisfy for long the practical exigencies of modern international intercourse. In no case, however, could the Tokugawa Government have lasted much longer. It carried within itself the seeds of its dissolution. It was almost moribund when Perry came. The reopening of the country simply hastened the end. It fell, as other governments have done, because it had ceased to govern.

Before its rule ceased the Tokugawa House had abandoned its dynasty. The three main branches—Mito, Owari and Kishiū—each in turn deserted the Tokugawa cause; their example being followed by leading feudal families, such as the Échizen clan, which were connected with the ruling House.

When the long line of Tokugawa rulers came to an end, it had been in power for more than two and a half centuries. Of the fifteen Shōguns of the line, only the founder and his grandson, the third Shōgun, showed any real capacity. The former was brilliant, both as soldier and statesman; the latter had administrative talent. None of the others was in any way distinguished. Nor was this surprising. The enervating Court life of Kiōto had been copied in Yedo. Brought up in Eastern fashion from childhood in the corrupt atmosphere of the women’s apartments, Mikado and Shōgun alike grew up without volition of their own or knowledge of the outside world, ready for the rôle of puppets assigned to them. The last of the Shōguns was no exception to the rule. Had it been otherwise, there might have been another and quite different story to tell.

On the short but decisive struggle which ended in the Restoration nothing in the nature of foreign official influence was brought to bear. The foreign Powers concerned preserved an attitude of strict neutrality, which was reflected in the action of their representatives. The task of maintaining neutrality was rendered easier by the fact that the interests of all the Powers, with one exception, were commercial rather than political. The two leading Powers in the Far East at that time were Great Britain and France, the former’s commercial interests far outweighing those of her neighbour on the Asiatic continent. Germany had not yet attained the position of an empire which she was to reach as the result of the war of 1870, the responsibilities connected with her slowly growing trade being undertaken by the North German Confederation, which was then being formed under the hegemony of Prussia. America, inclined from the first to regard Japan as her protégé, had not yet fully recovered from the effects of the Civil War; and though she had opened up a new avenue of trade with the Far East, the development of her Pacific seaboard was in its infancy. She prided herself on having no foreign policy to hamper her independence, nor had she any organized diplomatic and consular service. The interests of Russia, the exception referred to, were merely political, and of small importance; for neither the Amur Railway nor the Chinese Eastern Railway had been even projected, and the development of Eastern Siberia had hardly begun. The interests of other Treaty Powers were negligible. While, however, under these circumstances the conflict between the Tokugawa Government and the Imperialists lay beyond the sphere of foreign official influence, there were certain unavoidable tendencies which manifested themselves before the Civil War broke out. The presence of French military instructors engaged by the Shōgun’s Government was regarded as possibly attracting a certain extent of French sympathy with the Tokugawa cause—an idea which was strengthened by the attitude of the French representative and the conduct of one or two of these officers, who accompanied the Tokugawa naval expedition to Yezo, where a last stand was made. There was, moreover, quite apart from their official action, a natural bias on the part of most of the foreign representatives in favour of the Shōgunate as being the de facto government, a position it had occupied for two and a half centuries. On the other hand, the formal sanction given in 1865 by the Mikado at the demand of the foreign representatives to the treaties of 1858 had undoubtedly encouraged the Imperialist party in proportion as it had impaired the prestige of the Tokugawa Government. This demand had arisen out of the gradual realization of the fact that the Shōgun was not, as represented in the treaties in question, the real sovereign of Japan. But there was a further reason. From the moment that the Tokugawa Government had at the time of Commodore Perry’s arrival referred the question of reopening the country to the Throne, instead of using the full power of dealing with foreign affairs vested in the Shōgun, there had grown up two centres of authority, one in Kiōto, which was steadily increasing in influence, the other in Yedo. As was pointed out in the letters addressed by the foreign representatives in the autumn of 1864 to the Tycoon (the title given to the Shōgun in the official correspondence of the time), the existence of these two different centres of authority had been at the bottom of most of the complications which had arisen in respect of foreign relations. The representatives were, therefore, it was said, obliged to insist upon the Mikado’s recognition of the treaties, “in order that future difficulties might be avoided, and that relations with foreigners might be placed upon a more satisfactory and durable basis.” In other words, the recognition of the treaties by the Mikado was sought in order to put a stop to the anti-foreign agitation which was paralyzing the Shōgunate’s conduct of affairs and creating a highly dangerous situation. The reluctance of the Shōgunate to comply with this demand did not tend to improve its position with the foreign representatives, while this position was further weakened by its persistence in adhering to the false status given to the Shōgun. The continued use of the term “His Majesty” in official correspondence between the Shōgun’s Ministers and the diplomatic body long after doubts had arisen as to its correctness was productive of mistrust; and their confidence in the Government’s sincerity was shaken by its strenuous efforts for various reasons to isolate foreigners as much as possible, and by proof of its complicity in the matter of the Court’s order for the expulsion of foreigners, as well as in the Shimonoséki affair.

Under these circumstances—and as a result, also, of the friendly communications established with the two leading clans after the carrying out of reprisals—it is not surprising that some time before an appeal to arms took place a tendency to sympathize with the cause of the Sovereign de jure should have shown itself in certain diplomatic quarters. The busy intrigues carried on by both contending parties, which were by no means confined to domestic circles, may have led, and probably did lead, those whose acquaintance with Japanese history, though imperfect, far exceeded that of others, to attach undue weight to the doctrine of active and unimpaired Imperial supremacy sedulously inculcated by the Court party, and thus to arrive at the not illogical conclusion that the Tokugawa Shōguns were the wrongful usurpers they were described as being by Imperialist historians. That this pronounced sympathy, before hostilities began, in favour of what proved to be the winning side was a material factor in the issue of the struggle there is some reason to believe.

Another point claims passing attention. When the Shōgunate ceased to rule, the wide territory known as the Shōgun’s domains came under the control of the new Government. The classification of lands throughout the country for administrative purposes thus fell temporarily into four divisions—the small area known under the Shōgunate as the Imperial domains, the feudal revenue of which had been quite inadequate for the maintenance of the Court; the former Shōgun’s domains, the final disposition of which was in abeyance; the territories of the clans, as modified by the measures taken in respect of those which, having espoused the Tokugawa cause, had held out to the last against the Imperialist forces; and the large cities of Yedo, Kiōto and Ōsaka, which formed a group by themselves.