The Problem of China Part 5

As Spain and Portugal were at this time both subject to Philip II, the Portuguese also suffered from the suspicions engendered by this speech.

Moreover, the Dutch, who were at war with Spain, began to trade with j.a.pan, and to tell all they knew against Jesuits, Dominicans, Franciscans, and Papists generally. A breezy Elizabethan sea captain, Will Adams, was wrecked in j.a.pan, and on being interrogated naturally gave a good British account of the authors of the Armada. As the j.a.panese had by this time mastered the use and manufacture of fire-arms, they began to think that they had nothing more to learn from Christian nations.

Meanwhile, a succession of three great men--n.o.bunaga, Hideyos.h.i.+, and Iyeyasu--had succeeded in unifying j.a.pan, destroying the quasi-independence of the feudal n.o.bles, and establis.h.i.+ng that reign of internal peace which lasted until the Restoration--period of nearly two and a half centuries. It was possible, therefore, for the Central Government to enforce whatever policy it chose to adopt with regard to the foreigners and their religion. The Jesuits and the Friars between them had made a considerable number of converts in j.a.pan, probably about 300,000. Most of these were in the island of Kyushu, the last region to be subdued by Hideyos.h.i.+. They tended to disloyalty, not only on account of their Christianity, but also on account of their geographical position. It was in this region that the revolt against the Shogun began in 1867, and Satsuma, the chief clan in the island of Kyushu, has had great power in the Government ever since the Restoration, except during its rebellion of 1877. It is hard to disentangle what belongs to Christianity and what to mere hostility to the Central Government in the movements of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. However that may be, Iyeyasu decided to persecute the Christians vigorously, if possible without losing the foreign trade. His successors were even more anti-Christian and less anxious for trade. After an abortive revolt in 1637, Christianity was stamped out, and foreign trade was prohibited in the most vigorous terms:--

So long as the sun warms the earth, let no Christian be so bold as to come to j.a.pan, and let all know that if King Philip himself, or even the very G.o.d of the Christians, or the great Shaka contravene this prohibition, they shall pay for it with their heads.[45]

The persecution of Christians, though it was ruthless and exceedingly cruel, was due, not to religious intolerance, but solely to political motives. There was reason to fear that the Christians might side with the King of Spain if he should attempt to conquer j.a.pan; and even if no foreign power intervened, there was reason to fear rebellions of Christians against the newly established central power. Economic exploitation, in the modern sense of the word, did not yet exist apart from political domination, and the j.a.panese would have welcomed trade if there had been no danger of conquest. They seem to have overrated the power of Spain, which certainly could not have conquered them. j.a.panese armies were, in those days, far larger than the armies of Europe; the j.a.panese had learnt the use of fire-arms; and their knowledge of strategy was very great. Kyoto, the capital, was one of the largest cities in the world, having about a million inhabitants. The population of j.a.pan was probably greater than that of any European State. It would therefore have been possible, without much trouble, to resist any expedition that Europe could have sent against j.a.pan. It would even have been easy to conquer Manila, as Hideyos.h.i.+ at one time thought of doing.

But we can well understand how terrifying would be a map of the world showing the whole of North and South America as belonging to Philip II.

Moreover the j.a.panese Government sent pretended converts to Europe, where they became priests, had audience of the Pope, penetrated into the inmost councils of Spain, and mastered all the meditated villainies of European Imperialism. These spies, when they came home and laid their reports before the Government, naturally increased its fears. The j.a.panese, therefore, decided to have no further intercourse with the white men. And whatever may be said against this policy, I cannot feel convinced that it was unwise.

For over two hundred years, until the coming of Commodore Perry's squadron from the United States in 1853, j.a.pan enjoyed complete peace and almost complete stagnation--the only period of either in j.a.panese history, It then became necessary to learn fresh lessons in the use of fire-arms from Western nations, and to abandon the exclusive policy until they were learnt. When they have been learnt, perhaps we shall see another period of isolation.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 40: The best book known to me on early j.a.pan is Murdoch's _History of j.a.pan_, The volume dealing with the earlier period is published by Kegan Paul, 1910. The chronologically later volume was published earlier; its t.i.tle is: _A History of j.a.pan during the Century of Early Foreign Intercourse_ (1542--1651), by James Murdoch M.A. in collaboration with Isoh Yamagata. Kobe, office of the _j.a.pan Chronicle_, 1903. I shall allude to these volumes as Murdoch I and Murdoch II respectively.]

[Footnote 41: Murdoch I. pp. 113 ff.]

[Footnote 42: Ibid., II. pp. 375 ff.]

[Footnote 43: Murdoch I. p. 147.]

[Footnote 44: Murdoch, II, p. 288.]

[Footnote 45: Murdoch II, p. 667.]

CHAPTER VI

MODERN j.a.pAN

The modern j.a.panese nation is unique, not only in this age, but in the history of the world. It combines elements which most Europeans would have supposed totally incompatible, and it has realized an original plan to a degree hardly known in human affairs. The j.a.pan which now exists is almost exactly that which was intended by the leaders of the Restoration in 1867. Many unforeseen events have happened in the world: American has risen and Russia has fallen, China has become a Republic and the Great War has shattered Europe. But throughout all these changes the leading statesmen of j.a.pan have gone along the road traced out for them at the beginning of the Meiji era, and the nation has followed them with ever-increasing faithfulness. One single purpose has animated leaders and followers alike: the strengthening and extension of the Empire. To realize this purpose a new kind of policy has been created, combining the sources of strength in modern America with those in Rome at the time of the Punic Wars, uniting the material organization and scientific knowledge of pre-war Germany with the outlook on life of the Hebrews in the Book of Joshua.

The transformation of j.a.pan since 1867 is amazing, and people have been duly amazed by it. But what is still more amazing is that such an immense change in knowledge and in way of life should have brought so little change in religion and ethics, and that such change as it has brought in these matters should have been in a direction opposite to that which would have been naturally expected. Science is supposed to tend to rationalism; yet the spread of scientific knowledge in j.a.pan has synchronized with a great intensification of Mikado-Wors.h.i.+p, the most anachronistic feature in the j.a.panese civilization. For sociology, for social psychology, and for political theory, j.a.pan is an extraordinarily interesting country. The synthesis of East and West which has been effected is of a most peculiar kind. There is far more of the East than appears on the surface; but there is everything of the West that tends to national efficiency. How far there is a genuine fusion of Eastern and Western elements may be doubted; the nervous excitability of the people suggests something strained and artificial in their way of life, but this may possibly be a merely temporary phenomenon.

Throughout j.a.panese politics since the Restoration, there are two separate strands, one a.n.a.logous to that of Western nations, especially pre-war Germany, the other inherited from the feudal age, which is more a.n.a.logous to the politics of the Scottish Highlands down to 1745. It is no part of my purpose to give a history of modern j.a.pan; I wish only to give an outline of the forces which control events and movements in that country, with such ill.u.s.trations as are necessary. There are many good books on j.a.panese politics; the one that I have found most informative is McLaren's _Political History of j.a.pan during the Meiji Era_ 1867-1912 (Allen and Unwin, 1916). For a picture of j.a.pan as it appeared in the early years of the Meiji era, Lafcadio Hearn is of course invaluable; his book _j.a.pan, An Interpretation_ shows his dawning realization of the grim sides of the j.a.panese character, after the cherry-blossom business has lost its novelty. I shall not have much to say about cherry-blossom; it was not flowering when I was in j.a.pan.

Before, 1867, j.a.pan was a feudal federation of clans, in which the Central Government was in the hands of the Shogun, who was the head of his own clan, but had by no means undisputed sway over the more powerful of the other clans. There had been various dynasties of Shoguns at various times, but since the seventeenth century the Shogunate had been in the Tokugawa clan. Throughout the Tokugawa Shogunate, except during its first few years, j.a.pan had been closed to foreign intercourse, except for a strictly limited commerce with the Dutch. The modern era was inaugurated by two changes: first, the compulsory opening of the country to Western trade; secondly, the transference of power from the Tokugawa clan to the clans of Satsuma and Choshu, who have governed j.a.pan ever since. It is impossible to understand j.a.pan or its politics and possibilities without realizing the nature of the governing forces and their roots in the feudal system of the former age. I will therefore first outline these internal movements, before coming to the part which j.a.pan has played in international affairs.

What happened, nominally, in 1867 was that the Mikado was restored to power, after having been completely eclipsed by the Shogun since the end of the twelfth century. During this long period, the Mikado seems to have been regarded by the common people with reverence as a holy personage, but he was allowed no voice in affairs, was treated with contempt by the Shogun, was sometimes deposed if he misbehaved, and was often kept in great poverty.

Of so little importance was the Imperial person in the days of early foreign intercourse that the Jesuits hardly knew of the Emperor's existence. They seem to have thought of him as a j.a.panese counterpart of the Pope of Rome, except that he had no aspirations for temporal power. The Dutch writers likewise were in the habit of referring to the Shogun as "His Majesty," and on their annual pilgrimage from Das.h.i.+ma to Yedo, Kyoto (where the Mikado lived) was the only city which they were permitted to examine freely. The privilege was probably accorded by the Tokugawa to show the foreigners how lightly the Court was regarded. Commodore Perry delivered to the Shogun in Yedo the autograph letter to the Emperor of j.a.pan, from the President of the United States, and none of the Amba.s.sadors of the Western Powers seem to have entertained any suspicion that in dealing with the authorities in Yedo they were not approaching the throne.

In the light of these facts, some other explanation of the relations between the Shogunate and the Imperial Court must be sought than that which depends upon the claim now made by j.a.panese historians of the official type, that the throne, throughout this whole period, was divinely preserved by the Heavenly G.o.ds.[46]

What happened, in outline, seems to have been a combination of very different forces. There were antiquarians who observed that the Mikado had had real power in the tenth century, and who wished to revert to the ancient customs. There were patriots who were annoyed with the Shogun for yielding to the pressure of the white men and concluding commercial treaties with them. And there were the western clans, which had never willingly submitted to the authority of the Shogun. To quote McLaren once more (p. 33):--

The movement to restore the Emperor was coupled with a form of Chauvinism or intense nationalism which may be summed up in the expression "Exalt the Emperor! Away with the barbarians!" (Kinno!

Joi!) From this it would appear that the Dutch scholars' work in enlightening the nation upon the subject of foreign scientific attainments was anathema, but a conclusion of that kind must not be hastily arrived at. The cry, "Away with the barbarians!" was directed against Perry and the envoys of other foreign Powers, but there was nothing in that slogan which indicates a general unwillingness to emulate the foreigners' achievements in armaments or military tactics. In fact, for a number of years previous to 1853, Satsuma and Choshu and other western clans had been very busily engaged in manufacturing guns and practising gunnery: to that extent, at any rate, the discoveries of the students of European sciences had been deliberately used by those men who were to be foremost in the Restoration.

This pa.s.sage gives the key to the spirit which has animated modern j.a.pan down to the present day.

The Restoration was, to a greater extent than is usually realized in the West, a conservative and even reactionary movement. Professor Murdoch, in his authoritative _History of j.a.pan,_[47] says:--

In the interpretation of this sudden and startling development most European writers and critics show themselves seriously at fault. Even some of the more intelligent among them find the solution of this portentous enigma in the very superficial and facile formula of "imitation." But the j.a.panese still retain their own unit of social organization, which is not the individual, as with us, but the _family_. Furthermore, the resemblance of the j.a.panese administrative system, both central and local, to certain European systems is not the result of imitation, or borrowing, or adaptation. Such resemblance is merely an odd and fortuitous resemblance. When the statesmen who overthrew the Tokugawa regime in 1868, and abolished the feudal system in 1871, were called upon to provide the nation with a new equipment of administrative machinery, they did not go to Europe for their models. They simply harked back for some eleven or twelve centuries in their own history and resuscitated the administrative machinery that had first been installed in j.a.pan by the genius of Fujiwara Kamatari and his coadjutors in 645 A.D., and more fully supplemented and organized in the succeeding fifty or sixty years. The present Imperial Cabinet of ten Ministers, with their departments and departmental staff of officials, is a modified revival of the Eight Boards adapted from China and established in the seventh century.... The present administrative system is indeed of alien provenance; but it was neither borrowed nor adapted a generation ago, nor borrowed nor adapted from Europe. It was really a system of h.o.a.ry antiquity that was revived to cope with pressing modern exigencies.

The outcome was that the clans of Satsuma and Choshu acquired control of the Mikado, made his exaltation the symbol of resistance to the foreigner (with whom the Shogun had concluded unpopular treaties), and secured the support of the country by being the champions of nationalism. Under extraordinarily able leaders, a policy was adopted which has been pursued consistently ever since, and has raised j.a.pan from being the helpless victim of Western greed to being one of the greatest Powers in the world. Feudalisim was abolished, the Central Government was made omnipotent, a powerful army and navy were created, China and Russia were successively defeated, Korea was annexed and a protectorate established over Manchuria and Inner Mongolia, industry and commerce were developed, universal compulsory education inst.i.tuted; and wors.h.i.+p of the Mikado firmly established by teaching in the schools and by professorial patronage of historical myths. The artificial creation of Mikado-wors.h.i.+p is one of the most interesting features of modern j.a.pan, and a model to all other States as regards the method of preventing the growth of rationalism. There is a very instructive little pamphlet by Professor B.H. Chamberlain, who was Professor of j.a.panese and philosophy at Tokyo, and had a knowledge of j.a.panese which few Europeans had equalled. His pamphlet is called _The Invention of a New Religion_, and is published by the Rationalist Press a.s.sociation. He points out that, until recent times, the religion of j.a.pan was Buddhism, to the practical exclusion of every other. There had been, in very ancient times, a native religion called s.h.i.+nto, and it had lingered on obscurely. But it is only during the last forty years or so that s.h.i.+nto has been erected into a State religion, and has been reconstructed so as to suit modern requirements.[48] It is, of course, preferable to Buddhism because it is native and national; it is a tribal religion, not one which aims at appealing to all mankind. Its whole purpose, as it has been developed by modern statesmen, is to glorify j.a.pan and the Mikado.

Professor Chamberlain points out how little reverence there was for the Mikado until some time after the Restoration:--

The sober fact is that no nation probably has ever treated its sovereigns more cavalierly than the j.a.panese have done, from the beginning of authentic history down to within the memory of living men. Emperors have been deposed, emperors have been a.s.sa.s.sinated; for centuries every succession to the throne was the signal for intrigues and sanguinary broils. Emperors have been exiled; some have been murdered in exile.... For long centuries the Government was in the hands of Mayors of the Palace, who subst.i.tuted one infant sovereign for another, generally forcing each to abdicate as he approached man's estate.

At one period, these Mayors of the Palace left the Descendant of the Sun in such distress that His Imperial Majesty and the Imperial Princes were obliged to gain a livelihood by selling their autographs! Nor did any great party in the State protest against this condition of affairs. Even in the present reign (that of Meiji)--the most glorious in j.a.panese history--there have been two rebellions, during one of which a rival Emperor was set up in one part of the country, and a Republic proclaimed in another.

This last sentence, though it states sober historical fact, is scarcely credible to those who only know twentieth-century j.a.pan. The spread of superst.i.tion has gone _pari pa.s.su_ with the spread of education, and a revolt against the Mikado is now unthinkable. Time and again, in the midst of political strife, the Mikado has been induced to intervene, and instantly the hottest combatants have submitted abjectly. Although there is a Diet, the Mikado is an absolute ruler--as absolute as any sovereign ever has been.

The civilization of j.a.pan, before the Restoration, came from China.

Religion, art, writing, philosophy and ethics, everything was copied from Chinese models. j.a.panese history begins in the fifth century A.D., whereas Chinese history goes back to about 2,000 B.C., or at any rate to somewhere in the second millennium B.C. This was galling to j.a.panese pride, so an early history was invented long ago, like the theory that the Romans were descended from aeneas. To quote Professor Chamberlain again:--

The first glimmer of genuine j.a.panese history dates from the fifth century _after_ Christ, and even the accounts of what happened in the sixth century must be received with caution.

j.a.panese scholars know this as well as we do; it is one of the certain results of investigation. But the j.a.panese bureaucracy does not desire to have the light let in on this inconvenient circ.u.mstance. While granting a dispensation _re_ the national mythology, properly so called, it exacts belief in every iota of the national historic legends. Woe to the native professor who strays from the path of orthodoxy. His wife and children (and in j.a.pan every man, however young, has a wife and children) will starve. From the late Prince Ito's grossly misleading _Commentary on the j.a.panese Const.i.tution_ down to school compendiums, the absurd dates are everywhere insisted upon.

This question of fict.i.tious early history might be considered unimportant, like the fact that, with us, parsons have to pretend to believe the Bible, which some people think innocuous. But it is part of the whole system, which has a political object, to which free thought and free speech are ruthlessly sacrificed. As this same pamphlet says:--

s.h.i.+nto, a primitive nature cult, which had fallen into discredit, was taken out of its cupboard and dusted. The common people, it is true, continued to place their affections on Buddhism, the popular festivals were Buddhist; Buddhist also the temples where they buried their dead. The governing cla.s.s determined to change all this. They insisted on the s.h.i.+nto doctrine that the Mikado descends in direct succession from the native G.o.ddess of the Sun, and that He himself is a living G.o.d on earth who justly claims the absolute fealty of his subjects. Such things as laws and const.i.tutions are but free gifts on His part, not in any sense popular rights. Of course, the ministers and officials, high and low, who carry on His government, are to be regarded not as public servants, but rather as executants of supreme--one might say supernatural--authority. s.h.i.+nto, because connected with the Imperial family, is to be alone honoured.

All this is not mere theorizing; it is the practical basis of j.a.panese politics. The Mikado, after having been for centuries in the keeping of the Tokugawa Shoguns, was captured by the clans of Satsuma and Choshu, and has been in their keeping ever since. They were represented politically by five men, the Genro or Elder Statesmen, who are sometimes miscalled the Privy Council. Only two still survive. The Genro have no const.i.tutional existence; they are merely the people who have the ear of the Mikado. They can make him say whatever they wish; therefore they are omnipotent. It has happened repeatedly that they have had against them the Diet and the whole force of public opinion; nevertheless they have invariably been able to enforce their will, because they could make the Mikado speak, and no one dare oppose the Mikado. They do not themselves take office; they select the Prime Minister and the Ministers of War and Marine, and allow them to bear the blame if anything goes wrong. The Genro are the real Government of j.a.pan, and will presumably remain so until the Mikado is captured by some other clique.

From a patriotic point of view, the Genro have shown very great wisdom in the conduct of affairs. There is reason to think that if j.a.pan were a democracy its policy would be more Chauvinistic than it is. Apologists of j.a.pan, such as Mr. Bland, are in the habit of telling us that there is a Liberal anti-militarist party in j.a.pan, which is soon going to dominate foreign policy. I see no reason to believe this. Undoubtedly there is a strong movement for increasing the power of the Diet and making the Cabinet responsible to it; there is also a feeling that the Ministers of War and Marine ought to be responsible to the Cabinet and the Prime Minister, not only to the Mikado directly.[49] But democracy in j.a.pan does not mean a diminution of Chauvinism in foreign policy.

There is a small Socialist party which is genuinely anti-Chauvinist and anti-militarist; this party, probably, will grow as j.a.panese industrialism grows. But so-called j.a.panese Liberals are just as Chauvinistic as the Government, and public opinion is more so. Indeed there have been occasions when the Genro, in spite of popular fury, has saved the nation from mistakes which it would certainly have committed if the Government had been democratic. One of the most interesting of these occasions was the conclusion of the Treaty of Portsmouth, after the Sino-j.a.panese war, which deserves to be told as ill.u.s.trative of j.a.panese politics.[50]

In 1905, after the battles of Tsus.h.i.+ma and Mukden, it became clear to impartial observers that Russia could accomplish nothing further at sea, and j.a.pan could accomplish nothing further on land. The Russian Government was anxious to continue the war, having gradually acc.u.mulated men and stores in Manchuria, and greatly improved the working of the Siberian railway. The j.a.panese Government, on the contrary, knew that it had already achieved all the success it could hope for, and that it would be extremely difficult to raise the loans required for a prolongation of the war. Under these circ.u.mstances, j.a.pan appealed secretly to President Roosevelt requesting his good offices for the restoration of peace. President Roosevelt therefore issued invitations to both belligerents to a peace conference. The Russian Government, faced by a strong peace party and incipient revolution, dared not refuse the invitation, especially in view of the fact that the sympathies of neutrals were on the whole with j.a.pan. j.a.pan, being anxious for peace, led Russia to suppose that j.a.pan's demands would be so excessive as to alienate the sympathy of the world and afford a complete answer to the peace party in Russia. In particular, the j.a.panese gave out that they would absolutely insist upon an indemnity. The Government had in fact resolved, from the first, not to insist on an indemnity, but this was known to very few people in j.a.pan, and to no one outside j.a.pan. The Russians, believing that the j.a.panese would not give way about the indemnity, showed themselves generous as regards all other j.a.panese demands. To their horror and consternation, when they had already packed up and were just ready to break up the conference, the j.a.panese announced (as they had from the first intended to do) that they accepted the Russian concessions and would waive the claim to an indemnity. Thus the Russian Government and the j.a.panese people were alike furious, because they had been tricked--the former in the belief that it could yield everything except the indemnity without bringing peace, the latter in the belief that the Government would never give way about the indemnity. In Russia there was revolution; in j.a.pan there were riots, furious diatribes in the Press, and a change of Government--of the nominal Government, that is to say, for the Genro continued to be the real power throughout. In this case, there is no doubt that the decision of the Genro to make peace was the right one from every point of view; there is also very little doubt that a peace advantageous to j.a.pan could not have been made without trickery.

Foreigners unacquainted with j.a.pan, knowing that there is a Diet in which the Lower House is elected, imagine that j.a.pan is at least as democratic as pre-war Germany. This is a delusion. It is true that Marquis Ito, who framed the Const.i.tution, which was promulgated in 1889, took Germany for his model, as the j.a.panese have always done in all their Westernizing efforts, except as regards the Navy, in which Great Britain has been copied. But there were many points in which the j.a.panese Const.i.tution differed from that of the German Empire. To begin with, the Reichstag was elected by manhood suffrage, whereas in j.a.pan there is a property qualification which restricts the franchise to about 25 per cent of the adult males. This, however, is a small matter compared to the fact that the Mikado's power is far less limited than that of the Kaiser was. It is true that j.a.pan does not differ from pre-war Germany in the fact that Ministers are not responsible to the Diet, but to the Emperor, and are responsible severally, not collectively. The War Minister must be a General, the Minister of Marine must be an Admiral; they take their orders, not from the Prime Minister, but from the military and naval authorities respectively, who, of course, are under the control of the Mikado. But in Germany the Reichstag had the power of the purse, whereas in j.a.pan, if the Diet refuses to pa.s.s the Budget, the Budget of the previous year can be applied, and when the Diet is not sitting, laws can be enacted temporarily by Imperial decree--a provision which had no a.n.a.logue in the German Const.i.tution.

The Const.i.tution having been granted by the Emperor of his free grace, it is considered impious to criticize it or to suggest any change in it, since this would imply that His Majesty's work was not wholly perfect.

To understand the Const.i.tution, it is necessary to read it in conjunction with the authoritative commentary of Marquis Ito, which was issued at the same time. Mr. Coleman very correctly summarizes the Const.i.tution as follows[51]:--

Article I of the j.a.panese Const.i.tution provides that "The Empire of j.a.pan shall be reigned over and governed by a line of Emperors unbroken for ages eternal."

"By reigned over and governed," wrote Marquis Ito in his _Commentaries on the Const.i.tution of j.a.pan_, "it is meant that the Emperor on His Throne combines in Himself the Sovereignty of the State and the Government of the country and of His subjects."

Article 3 of the Const.i.tution states that "the Emperor is sacred and inviolate." Marquis Ito's comment in explanation of this is peculiarly j.a.panese. He says, "The Sacred Throne was established at the time when the heavens and earth became separated. The Empire is Heaven-descended, divine and sacred; He is pre-eminent above all His subjects. He must be reverenced and is inviolable.

He has, indeed, to pay due respect to the law, but the law has no power to hold Him accountable to it. Not only shall there be no irreverence for the Emperor's person, but also shall He neither be made a topic of derogatory comment nor one of discussion."