CHAPTER 15

THE MEIJI ERA AND POLICIES FOR

MODERNIZATION
Tokugawa Period
preconditions for development "accidental"
progress never consciously adopted as administrative
goals
Meiji Era
Japan: catch up to Western technology
Being modern for 19th century Japan entailed:
1. industrial capitalism (economy)
2. liberal or quasiliberal constitutionalism (politics)
Goals = clear cut but few; authority = in hands of
small people enyoing widespread support
Post-1912 Foreign relations
Central objective: Western countries to bakufu: sign
treaties = Japan's status negotiate treaties for
revision
Enforcement of valuable unanimity of opinion on the
nature and important of tasks confronting the nation's
diplomats
40 years of Meiji era: period of intensive and
extensive reordiering keep pace instead of instigating
change
Achievements Complexity of social, political, and
diplomatic situation thereafter
The Meiji Restoration of 1868
Return to effective rule by centralized monarchy
Rationale: Idea of restoring the emperor to his rightful
position usurped by the Fujiwara and a succession of
shoguns
BENEFICIARY
- Young and new-ascendant Emperor Meiji (1852-1912)

SPONSORS: "Loyalist" samurai from the western

tozama han of:
a. Satsuma (Kagoshima Prefecture)
b. Choshii (Yamaguchi Prefecture) and'
c. Tosa (Kochi Prefecture).
- consorted with court nobles opposing the bakufu
- successful implementation of major military,
administrative, and fiscal reforms in and subsequent to
the Tempo Era by respective han = good position to
intervene in national politics
Conspirators' first objective = overthrow bakufu;
bakufu as hindrance to formation of national
government under the throne
November 1867: Tokugawa Yoshinobu (1837-1913)
voluntarily steps down from office, refuses to nominate
successor, and steps aside with respect to the imperial
decision took the court by surprise bakufu
instructed to continue administration for time being
December 1867: Okubo Toshimichi (1830-1878)
persuades group of radical court nobles in the prompt
restoration of emperor. People aware include:
1. Shimazu Hisamitsu (1817-87), effective ruler of
Satsuma,
2. Yamanouchi Toyoshige ( 1827 -72), Shimazu's Tosa
counterpart
3. Goto ShOjiro ( 1838-97), chief minister of Tosa
4. Representatives of the han governments of Aki
(Hiroshima Prefecture), Echizen (Fukui Prefecture), and
Owari (Aichi Prefecture)
January 3 1868: Iwakura Tomomi (1825-1883) takes
charge of a draft statement proclaiming Imperial
Restoration to be read forthwith
- troops under Saigo Takamori (1827-1877) secures the
palace; daimyo and courties accept
- Yoshinubo's resignation accepted; high offices of
bakufu abolished
- demand of surrender of tenryo (shogun territories)

- Meiji Restoration akin to a "palace revolution"

- Tokugawa Yoshinobu tends passively; vassals in
northern provinces did not give in so easily
War of Restoration (Kyoto; January 1868 - Hokkaido,
June 1869)
- Edo renamed Tokyo (or Eastern capital)
- bakuhan pluralism permit changes within existing
structure and traditions rather than from outside
- Meiji Restoration neither a Norman conquest nor a
French revolution
Pre and post-1868 proponents of change: middle and
lower samurai ranks and from rural merchants
- 90% of population had little or nothing to do with the
politics of the time
- Pre 1868 main impetus against bakufu: nationalist
xenophobia by young samurai and politically-minded
landlord entrepreneurs
- Sonno joi ("revere the emperor, expel the barbarian!")
movement triggered by unequal treaties bakufu
attacked for being unable to stand up to the foreigners
Importance of foreign policy to Meiji restoration
- underplayed by modern historian in Wests
- most proximate cause of the Restoration: failure of the
bakufu's seclusion policy dating to the preindustrial age
- ISSUES: (1) technological superiority of the West; (2)
American interest to exploit Japan; (3) problem of
castaways; (4) continuation of Protestant missionary
tasks
- Commodore Matthew Perry commands a naval
squadron of 10 ships carrying a letter from President
Fillmore to Japanese emperor requesting trade and
diplomatic relations (i.e. gunboat diplomacy)
- 1854: bakufu signed preliminary treaty (direct
relations not trade)
- 1858: full treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation
concluded through Townsend Harris

- 1860: assassination of Ii Naosuke; bakufu kept control

over external and internal developments
- 1862 - samurai escort of Satsuma daimyu kills
Englishman Richardson on highway outside Yokohama
- 1863 - bombardment of foreign shipping in straits of
Shimonoseki by Choshu batteries
daimyo slow to adapt; Tokugawa gov't caught
between conflicting foreign and domestic pressures
Restoration: change from negative and introverted
sonno joi stance to acceptance of foreigners in Japan
and a resolve to "base actions on international usage"
did nothing to solve basic problems of the treaties
threat to Japanese economy as violation to sovereign
rights try different approaches crucial breakthrough
upon British agreement to new and equal treaty in 1894
other Powers followed suit
Modernization Western resemblance in Japanese
legal and political institutions
Rokumeikan (Hall of the Baying Stag), a pleasure
pavilion erected in 1880s: Prime Minister Ito Hirobumi
(1841-1909) and foreign minister Inoue Kaoru (18351915) took lead in entertaining Westerners
- The Prime minister's fancy-dress ball in his own
residence
- Rokumeikan diplomacy public approval
Desire for economic penetration into Korea extending
beyond the peninsula and other parts of China
- 1875: Japan surrenders claims to Sakhalin in return for
Kurile Islands
- 1879: Ryukyu (Okinawan) Islands incorporated in
mainland Japan through extension of prefectural
system; Sho Tai, local king, brought to Tokyo and made
pensioner of the Japanese court
- 1874: vengeance upon Taiwanese native for attacks
on Okinawan fishing vessels
- 1876 Treaty of Kanghwa: Japan-Korean relations
formalized

- 1895: Japan sends troops to the peninsula, denouncing

Chinese army in Korea and Chinese reluctance to
cooperate in reforming the country's administration
Sino-Japanese War (naval and land)
- April 1895: China cedes Taiwan to Japan
Russia, Germany, and France prevents Japan from
making territorial gains in the expense of China
Between post-Sino-Japanese War and pre-RussoJapanese War
- 1895: murder of recalcitrant queen plotted by
Japanese officials in Seoul with Tokyo unaware
- Anti-Japanese elements in Korea prior Chinese defeat
turns to Russia
- 1890s: aggressive expansionist policies in Northeast
Asia building of the trans-Siberian railway
- 1900s: Russia = dominant power in Manchuria
- Japanese contest Russian presence; negotiations fail
1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War
- Japanese troops led by General Nogi Maresuke (18491912) wins
- January 1905: Japan captures Port Arthur
- May 1905 - naval victory by Admiral Togo Heihachiro
(1847-1934) in Tsushima
Treaty revisionism + definition of national frontiers =
SUCCESS
- Theodore Roosevelt = intermediary in subsequent
peace negotiations
- Treaty of Portsmouth (New Hampshire): Russia cedes
Sakhalin and Port Arthur to Japan
- Japan as "natural" sphere of influence in northeast
Asia
- 1902 Anglo-Japanese alliance: British acknowledges
Japan's interests in Korea in return for Japan's
acceptance of British predominance in Yangtze Valley;
Russia as looming enemy
- Japanese acquisition of two important colonies
1. Taiwan (Formosa)

2. Korea
Problem of Public Diplomacy: Shimonoseki +
Portsmouth treaties (terms) satisfaction in Japan
Martial Law in Tokyo
War tensions and national hatreds and rivalries left
unease
Economic Policies and Beginnings of Industrialization
Expansion of Tokugawa experiment with foreign
technology into pervasive and self-perpetuating
program of modernization
Rejection of of essentially defensive mentality behind
efforts at shipbuilding and gun casting in favor of a
broader industrialization detriment of traditional
social and political ordering of society
Industry and a modern economy national security &
national greatness
Incapability of the samurai class to promote economic
modernization
Changing Tokugawa economy
- credit and bills of exchange and semi-permanent
business connections
- high degree of literacy and abundance of manual skills
associated with handicrafts in a traditional society
- spirit of entrepreneurship
- problem of adverse foreign trade and consequent
outflow of gold and silver due to importative tendencies
- development of modern industries and enlarge range
of goods available for export due to inability to impose
tariffs
- new industries to help the samurai
- new methods in old industries like agriculture and
textiles
- hire foreign experts and send Japanese students
abroad
- encouraging settles, especially from northern Honshu
and samurai through considerable financial inducement

to emigrate as tondehei (soldier-settlers), diving time

between routine military training and agricultural labor
- develop Hokkaido's mineral resources (e.g. coal),
timber, fisheries, and improve agriculture
- Hokkaido Development Board (Kaitakushi) under
supervision of Kuroda Kiyotaka (1840-1900) roads
and harbors built + land cleared + city of Sapporo
immigrants! economic growth
- beer as a Japanese product
- 1885 government operating a nationwide electric
telegraph system; Nihon Yiisen Kaisha (Japanese
Mailship Company) formed by Mitshubishi Company
- modern vessels for imperial army and merchant
marine purchases overseas
- establishment of the steel industry
- development of internal combustion engine
- forging vital program of harbor improvements and
navigational aids
- planning of Japanese railways
- 1872: emperor opens a twenty-nine-kilometer line
between Yokohama and Tokyo built by British engineers
on a British-raised loan
- 1880 construction of the Kyoto-Otsu line without
foreign help
- 1879 government sponsors private-public partnership
with company Nihon Tetsudo Kaisha (Japan Railway
Company)
- 1884 opening of 1st NTK line connecting Tokyo with
Maebashi
- 1891: Aomori (far north of Honshu), to Tokyo, to Kobe
travel made possible
- inheritance of mining enterprises from bakufu
- 1868 Sado gold and silver mines badly run down
situation improves upon foreign advise
- Japan = 4th in world copper production; source: Ashio
mine (Togichi Prefecture) improved by Furukawa Ichibei
(1832-1903)

- 1877: annual production: 53 tons

- 1901: annual production: 6,400 tons
- 1917: annual production: 15,000 tons
- exploitation of coalfields in northern Kyushu as one
pillar of the new economy
- textile manufacturing as dominant industry
- establishment of traditional sericulture
- 1878 government raises domestic loan to by cotton
machinery in England
- 1881: Ohira (Aichi prefecture) model mill opens
- 1882: Kamiseno (Hiroshima prefecture) model mill
opens
- 1822 - 8,000 factories and spindles
- 1877 - 77,000
- 1887 - 971,000
- 1913 - 2,415,000
- woolen cloth remained a luxury import throughout the
Meiji period
- fiscal reform and development of modern banking
- circulation of han paper notes and new and old bakufu
coinage
- 1885: Bank of Japan could solely print notes other
types of paper money's gradual disappearance
- difficulty in full convertibility of paper money into gold
and silver coin
- 1880 Matsukata Masayoshi (1835-1924), new finance
minister, followed a rigorous policy of retrenchment and
deflation; withdrawal of paper money print before
- 1886 paper yen made convertible into silver yen
- 1897 Japanese currency fully convertible into gold
- tax reform as major preoccupation
- uniform system of land and other taxes replaced
bakuhan imposts
- 1877 3% land tax
- 1884 - new system yield roughly equivalent of the old
taxes

- 1870s inflation sharp reduction in real value of taxes

farmers prospered upon increase of price but not
taxes
- land tax largest single source of revenue
- 1872 Ito Hirobumi advises (from US) new
regulations promulgated setting up national banks
- 1890s economic turbulence takes over system of
banking precious metals to conserve revision of
notes
- 1876: national banks flourish
- 1882: 143 national banks in operation
- 1876 Mitsui Company founds first private bank
- 1893 enforcement of regulations
- 1899 conversion of banks from public to private and
dissolution of public banks
- transfer of industries from public (government) to
private hands
- 1868: population: 30 M
- 1912: population: 50 M
- raise in standards of living
- Fukuwara Ichibei or "copper king"; Iwasaki Yataro
(1834-1885), country samurai from Tosa founded the
Mitsubishi Company
; Shibusawa Eiichi (1840-1931) introduced modern
business techniques to Japan
- modern Japan not the creation of statement and
business tycoons people finished what their
government and other leaders hand started helped
materially push society into its new age
Domestic Politics and the Transition to Constitutional
Rule
1889 inauguration of constitutional forms of
government notable illustration of assimilation of
Western ways
- creation of a national Diet (parliament) and an
independent judiciary share untrammeled powers

- JUDICIARY: defer to decisions of professional judges

and not tamper; LEGISLATURE: win approval of law
makers
End result of adoption: IMPERFECT
1. pressures from legacy of traditional thought and
institutions
2. sense of competition from West
3. Conditions newly generation and great
transformation underway
4. Government never a solid unified bloc but a coalition
of different and sometimes competing interests
- loyalist politicians from Satsuma, Choshfi, Tosa, and
Hizen contributed little for national unification
- strange mixture of improvisation and antiquarianism
brought back prominence to the throne and an array of
court titles and institutions that went back to the Nara
period
- senior posts filled in purely ornamental way by
members of the imperial family, aristocrats, and daimyo
- Council of State as representative assemblies
April 1868 pronouncement of "charter oath" or "fivearticle oath" political strife
1870 government situation improves
August 1871: abolition of domains not voluntarily
returned to the throne by decree
1872: conscription regulations went into fure
1871 + 1872 political changes buried the old order of
local autonomy and samurai privilege
Samurai
- deprived of tradition privileges as martial and
bureaucratic elite
- outraged by Westernizing proclivities by government
- had to accept commutation of their hereditary
pensions
Summer 1873: Saigo Takamori resigned in disgust to
decision to not wage way against Korea and left Tokyo
for his native Satsuma

 February-November 1877: full scale Satsuma rebellion

Battle of Shiroyama: Satsuma rebellion crushed
1874: officials Itagaki Taisuke (1837-1919), Goto
Shojiro and few other Tosa officials also left government
in protest formation of Liberty and Popular Rights
Movements (Jiyii Minken Udo) demand for written
constitution and national assembly
Aikokusha (Patriotic League) - association of liberal
groups founded by Goto and Itagaki supported by
rural landlord-entrepreneurs and professional urban
middle class campaign through speeches, journalism,
and direct petitions to the throne
- Okubo: favors written constitution define and delimit
political authority; protect people legally against
bureaucratic arbitrariness; based on administrative and
social efficiency rather than deep philosophical
conviction
Kido: statist reasoning; concern for purely individual
ends and interests detected
1873 Okubo's political isolation ends
February 1875: Osaka Conference: Okubo agrees with
Saigo and Itagaki
April 14 1875: emperor solemnly declared to abide by
the charter oath and establish a constitutional form of
government
1876 period of pause and uncertainty; Kido dying;
Itagaki resigned again in protest; Saigo's hostility and
Satsuma truculence
1878 assassination of Okuba because he had
"monopolized power" ironically while he was preparing
legislation to permit elected local government
assemblies
Autumn of 1882: resignation of Okuma Shigenobu
(1838-1922)
1879: Iwakura suggest emperor ask each of his
minister for written opinion on the question of future
constitutional developments replies favor existing

"1875" policy of gradual advance to future

constitutionalism
October 12 1881: emperor announced that a
parliament would be summoned i in 1889
1882: Ito leaves Japan with small party of advisers to
study at first hand European political theory and
constitutional practice
August 1883: return of Ito
1885: Ito becomes prime minister; modern cabinet
system replaces Dajokan
Mid-1880s: Yamagat constructively revises entire
system of local government Municipal Code and the
Town and Village Code of 1888.
1887: Ito becomes busier hands over post of PM to
Kuroda; actual draft done in secret with help of a small
committee, advise of Hermann Roesler, a German
professor of jurisprudence at Tokyo Imperia University
1888: final draft deliberated and ratified
February 11 1889: emperor promulgates Meiji
Constitution
Formation and Development of Political Parties
The constitution had been a triumph for men in power.
1. Liberal Party (Jiyiito) = from Aikokusha; professing
liberty, rights, and general happiness
2. Constitutional Progressive Party (Riken Kashinto) =
March 1882 by Okuma Shigenobu in favor of
constitutional and parliamentary rule but less
doctrinaire than Jiyiito
3. Constitutional Imperial Party (Rikken Teseito = by
Ito's political friends, dedicated to constitutionalism as
understood by the governments
- Liberals and Progressive berate authorities
1884: Liberal Party and Imperial Party formally
dissolved; Progressive quiescent following the
resignation of Okuma Shigenobu from post of party
president

 1880s - time of agricultural distress in Japan;

Matsukata's deflationary policies worsened by poor
harvests and near famine in the north
1886: Goto Shojiro launches campaign against
government's handling of the treaty problem Inoue
Kaoro's pro-government party (i.e. Imperial Party)
revived
End of 1887: government's promulgation of a
seemingly draconian peace preservation ordinance
does not affect Imperial Party resurgence
July 1980 - first general election for lower house (i.e.
House of Representatives) of the new Imperial Diet
- Progressives fought as one party; Liberals as three
factions
- Liberal-Progressive majority and old-guard statesmen
bureaucratic cabinets in gridlock
- 1892: government's use of force failed to secure
majority in 2nd general election
- criticism from Independents and right-wingers in
House of Peers
- failure to agree by Liberals and Progressives on
division of posts failure of first party cabinet
1900: Ito takes Liberals under his wing and forming
them into a new party called Rikken Seiyiikai greater
domestic stability
- Yamagata Aritomo - rival to the Ito-Liberal alliance;
conservative and autocratic; came to see that
constitutional government could not be expected to
operate properly unless political parties were given a
change to share executive power.
- concessions came more easily to Ito and Yamagata;
both old and ambition is to be "elder statesmen"
(genro)
- alternation of Seiyiikai cabinets headed by Saionji
Kimmochi ( 1849-1940), a court noble associated with
ItO, with spells of government by a capable Choshii

army general, Katsura Taro (1847-1913), who was a

protg of Yamagata.
- Political party activity: fractionalized and corrupted
Process of interaction grown out of pluralist, cellular
structure of the old bakuhan regime
Interests to be filled: Satsuma and Choshu; each with
a powerful base and characteristic political style
Ito and Yamagata Choshu; Saigo Satsuma
(reactionary); Itagaki Tosa (liberal and regionalist)
Three great classes (oversimplification) at some
degree and at one time or another came against the
Meiji government:
1. shizoku = ultraconservative or militant radical
2. rural entrepreneurs = liberals
3. new business and professional class of towns and
cities = progressives
- numerous, widely dispersed, and self-confident
- none cannot be forcibly eliminate by government
- vital to the maintenance of political stability of the
time
The Constitution and the Ideology of Kokutai
The creation and operation of the Meiji constitution
are not wholly attributable to the old regime's pluralist
structure; traditional values also played an important
role
Lack of official ideology in the Meiji era's early years
1912: death of the Emperor; Kokutai as official
ideology established
- new system of compulsory primary education gave
ample opportunity for its indoctrination, and the
military, in particular, had contact with every ablebodied male during his term of conscription.
- term = "the distinctive character of Japan's institutions
and processes of government"
- clearly conservative in inspiration

- hardly a dogma of extreme nationalism mixed with

totalitarianism that it came to be after 1930
- nationalism as supreme justification for public policy
- other important elements of kokutai: (1)a sense of the
state as a hierarchically ordered family, and; (2) the
practice of having its senior members make decisions
by a process of mutual consultation and consensus
- 1889 constitution "sacred and inviolable" description
Emperor (in office and in person) as ultimate sanction
and symbol of Kokutai
- theocratic patriarchs and constitutional monarchs
- imperial institution modernized in the official cult of
state Shinto
- linked local and national cults in a single, albeit
complex, organization aimed at the inculcation of
patriotism and loyalty to the throne
- in force until reinterpretation after the Pacific War
- sovereignty resided in the emperor alone;
contradicted idea of natural rights natural rights as
gift from the emperor
Measure of authoritarianism may have helped
preserve constitutional government in its early stages
- principal issues raised by constitution turned on locus
of power, not locus of sovereignty
- "formal supremacy" in part of the emperor
Constitutionally provided separation of powers
system of checks and balances
- deadlock danger
- genro as extraconstitutional but vital coordinating
element
- genro as living monument to principle of consensus
- degrees of autonomy enjoyed by the civil bureaucracy
- constitution said nothing about primacy of civilian rule
Early 20th century: Yamagata Arimoto secured
quasiconstitutional ordinances protect nation's
fighting strength from encroachments & corruption of
political parties

- emperor as head of state

- essence of kokutai: tawdry mysticism and febrile
nationalism
- conservationist functions psychological reassurance
and direction in times of stress and sweeping change
echoes worst of national propaganda national
surrender and humiliation at end of the Pacific War as
demonstration
Meiji Society
Quick action of Meiji leaders in implementing related
concepts of social and legal equality
Mainstays of the new-nation state (i.e. wealth
distinctions and property rights in capitalism to
bureaucrat and elite linkages)
Career paths opening (e.g. to women and the social
handicapped youth)
1870: social scale, peasants, craftsmen, and unskilled
laborers were completely free to change their jobs and
places of residence
"Revolution from above"
- misleading POV
- presence of revolution
- instigated from above
- masses no means simply raw material in the process
of social transformation
- transport, information, and formal education were all
staples of the new society and, coupled with the
modernization of small businesses which were entirely
in private hands, reveal very well its popular dimension.
1890: printed matter included numerous Western
publications, imported or translated; and newspapers
attained a very high standard
1872: anticipated establishment of a uniform system
for all of the country's children

 1880s: devising viable system left to Mori Arinori

(1847-1889) "ruthless centralization" serious
administrative difficulties
Post-Tokugawa elitism = virtue linked to merit, not
birth

Transformation mixture of governmental and

private initiatives and through policies of trial and error
Meji period: education abandon its traditional,
narrow conservationist function assume a new role
chief vehicle for importation of substance as well as
forms of modernity