Emperor Meiji

“ With this spirit, as soon as they perceived the superiority of the Western civilization, they set to work to introduce it into their country, just as in the 7th and 8th centuries they had adopted and adapted the Chinese civilization. In 1868, the first year of the era of Meiji, the emperor swore solemnly the memorable oath of five articles, setting forth the policy that was to be and has been followed thereafter by the government. These five articles were:—
1. ”

“ Korea is an independent state. She was first introduced into the family of nations by the advice and guidance of Japan. It has, however, been China's habit to designate Korea as her dependency, and both openly and secretly to interfere with her domestic affairs. At the time of the recent insurrection in Korea, China despatched troops thither, alleging that her purpose was to afford a succour to her dependent state. We, in virtue of the treaty concluded with Korea in 1882, and looking to possible emergencies, caused a military force to be sent to that country. ”

“ Judging from her actions, it must be concluded that China from the beginning has been bent upon sacrificing peace to the attainment of her sinister object. In this situation, ardent as our wish is to promote the prestige of the country abroad by strictly peaceful methods, we find it impossible to avoid a formal declaration of war against China. It is our earnest wish that, by the loyalty and valour of our faithful subjects, peace may soon be permanently restored and the glory of the Empire be augmented and completed. ”

“ China's plain object is to make it uncertain where the responsibility resides of preserving peace and order in Korea, and not only to weaken the position of that state in the family of nations - a position obtained for Korea through Japan's efforts - but also to obscure the significance of the treaties recognising and confirming that position. Such conduct on the part of China is not only a direct injury to the rights and interests of this Empire, but also a menace to the permanent peace and tranquillity of the Orient. ”

“ The patriots of the period immediately preceding the Meiji era, known as the "Kinnoka," some of whom lost their lives because of their devotion to the cause of their then impotent Emperor, are accorded the highest honor the nation can give.
The teachings of the Japanese concerning the relations that should exist between parents, and children, and, in multitudes of instances, their actual conduct also, can hardly be excelled. We can assert that they have a keen moral faculty, however further study may compel us to pronounce its development and manifestations to be unbalanced. ”

“ Throughout the centuries including the present era of Meiji, it is the Shinto religion that has provided and that still provides religious sanctions for the social order—even for the new social order that has come in from the West. It is the belief of the people in the divine descent of the Emperor, and his consequent divine right, that to-day unifies the nation and causes it to accept so readily the new social order ”

“ As minister of foreign affairs he conducted the long and abortive negotiations for treaty revision between 1883 and 1886, and in 1885 he was raised to the peerage with the title of count, being one of the first group of Meiji statesmen whose services were thus rewarded. Prior to his permanent retirement from office in 1898, he held the portfolios of foreign affairs, finance, home affairs, and agriculture and commerce, and throughout the war with Russia he attended all important state councils, by order of the emperor, being also specially designated adviser to the minister of finance. ”

“ The integrity of Korea is a matter of constant concern to this Empire, not only because of Our traditional relations with that country, but because the separate existence of Korea is essential to the safety of Our Realm. Nevertheless Russia, in disregard of her solemn treaty pledges to China and her repeated assurances to other Powers, is still in occupation of Manchuria, and has consolidated and strengthened her hold upon those provinces and is bent upon their final annexation. ”

“ Greater than his dead master, Nobunaga, and ingenious in the arts of war and peace, Hidéyoshi compelled the warring daimiōs, even the proud lord of Satsuma,10 to yield to his power, until the civil minister of the emperor, reverently bowing, could say: "All under Heaven, Peace." Now, Japan had once more a central government, intensely jealous and despotic, and with it the new religion must sooner or later reckon. Religion apart from politics was unknown in the Land of the Gods. ”

“ During the past three decades of our reign our constant aim has been to further the peaceful progress of the country in civilisation; and, being sensible of the evils inseparable from complications with foreign states, it has always been our pleasure to instruct our Minister of State to labour for the promotion of friendly relations with our Treaty Powers. ”

“ The Chinese accept Confucius in every detail, {405} both as taught by Confucius and by his disciples.... The Japanese recognize both religions [Buddhism and Confucianism] equally, but Confucianism in Japan has a direct bearing upon everything relating to human affairs, especially the extreme loyalty of the people to the emperor, while the Koreans consider it more useful in social matters than in any other department of life, and hardly consider its precepts in their business and mercantile relations. ”

“ His teaching, which is so often quoted by Japanese gentlemen, was, "Honor the Gods and keep them far from you." His image stands in thousands of temples and in every school, in China, but he is only revered and never deified.
China has for ages suffered from agnosticism; for no normal Confucianist can love God, though he may learn to reverence him. The Emperor periodically worships for his people, at the great marble altar to Heaven in Peking, with vast holocausts, and the prayers which are offered may possibly amount to this: "Our Father who art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name." ”

“ All these people are subjects of the one emperor, and excepting fewer than twenty thousand savages in the northern islands called Ainos, speak one language and form substantially one race. Even the Riu Kiu islanders are Japanese in language, customs and religion. In a word, except in minor differences appreciable or at least important only to the special student, the modern Japanese are a homogeneous people. ”

“ Nittabe, Prince, residence of, site of Shodai-ji temple
Niuchwang taken by Japanese (1894)
Niwa Nagahide (1535-85) , soldier of Nobunaga; councillor
No, dance and drama; Sadanobu regulates costume; masks
No-ami, artist, patronized by Yoshimasa
Nobility, primitive; administrative; growth of power at expense of Emperor; Daika attempts to distinguish from official ranks; titles of hereditary aristocracy annulled by Daika and estates escheated; nobles state pensioners; new titles under Temmu; influence of hereditary nobles against Daiho laws; court society in Heian epoch; in Meiji era ”

“ Certain it is that during the revival of Pure Shintō in the eighteenth century, the scholars of the Shintō school, and those of its great rival, the Chinese, agreed {143} in making loyalty13 take the place of filial duty in the Confucian system. To serve the cause of the Emperor became the most essential duty to those with cultivated minds. The newer Chinese philosophy mightily influenced the historians, Rai Sanyo and those of the Mito school, whose works, now classic, really began the revolution of 1868. ”

“ Done at Shimonosiki, Japan, this 30th day of the 3rd month of the 28th year of Meiji corresponding to the 5th day of the 3rd month of the 21st year of Kwang-Hsu.
Count Ito Hirobumi (L. S.) ,
Junii; grand cross of the imperial order of Paullownia; minister president of state; plenipotentiary of His Majesty the Emperor of Japan.
Viscount Mutsu Munemitsu (L. S.) ,
Junii; first class of the imperial order of the Sacred Treasure; minister of state for foreign affairs; plenipotentiary of His Majesty the Emperor of Japan. ”

“ We hereby declare war against Russia and We command Our Army and Navy to carry on hostilities against that Empire and We also command all Our competent authorities to make every effort, in pursuance of their duties and in accordance with their powers, to attain the national aim with all the means within the limits of the law of nations. ”

“ The future historian will not improbably give to the evolution of Japan in the era of Meiji the foremost place amongst the great events of the second half of the nineteenth century. Only fifty-one years have even now elapsed since the nations of the West, applying to Japan the same forceful methods that had already been applied to China, compelled her most reluctantly to reopen to foreign intercourse the doors which she had kept hermetically sealed for two hundred years against the outer world. ”

“ Living in segregated hamlets, forbidden to marry with heimin, still less with samurai, not allowed to eat, drink or associate with persons above their own class, the eta remained under the ban of ostracism from generation to generation, though many of them contrived to amass much wealth. They were governed by their own headmen, and they had three chiefs, one residing in each of the cities of Yedo, Osaka and Kiōto. All these members of the submerged classes were relieved from proscription and admitted to the ranks of the commoners under the enlightened system of Meiji. ”

“ It was the time most inartistic, if there was ever such a time in any country, when the new Meiji Government had hardly settled itself on the sad ruins of the Tokugawa feudalism, under which all prosperity and peace, even art and humanity, were buried, and the people in general even thought the safety of their lives was beyond reach, now with the so-called Civil War of Meiji Tenth, and then with that or this. ”

“ The Japan 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 Japan 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. ”

“ Why does he study hard? No matter how great a scholar he may become, what is there left of him when he is dead? Only bones."
Miyakawa was the merriest and wittiest in his class; and the contrast between his joyous character and his words seemed to me almost startling. But such swift glooms of thought—especially since Meiji—not unfrequently make apparition in quite young Oriental minds. They are fugitive as shadows of summer clouds; they mean less than they would signify in Western adolescence; and the Japanese lives not by thought, nor by emotion, but by duty. ”

“ There can be no doubt that at this period were laid the foundations of that unexampled industrial prosperity which has distinguished the latter portion, down to the present time, of the Meiji era, and which, resting as it does on the most secure basis—one which even a war with a great European power has been powerless to disturb—bids fair to last for ages to come. ”

“ The Shogun’s administration was prompt to realise, on the opening of the country to trade with Western nations under the treaties, the serious loss which the country was sustaining on account of the disordered state of the coinage, but before any adequate steps were taken towards reform the Shogunate regime came to an end and an new era dawned for Japan under the beneficent influences of the reign of Meiji. ”

“ The lord chief justice resides at Miyako, a man of great power and authority, as having the supreme command, under the emperor, of all the bugiō, governors, stewards, and other officers, who are any ways concerned in the government of the imperial cities, crown lands [Pg 65] and tenements, in all the western provinces of the empire. Even the western princes themselves must, in some measure, depend on him, and have a great regard to his person as a mediator and compounder of quarrels and difficulties that may arise between them. ”

“ In Japan, it will be remembered, the Cabinet is appointed directly by the sovereign, and is entirely independent of any political party that may be predominant in the Diet. The Ministry at the outset of the Meiji era included those energetic reformers, Ito Shunsuke (afterwards Hirobumi) and Inouye Bunda (afterwards Kaoru) both Choshiu Samurai, and in Prince Sanjo they found an able and ardent supporter of their views. ”

“ The Meiji Era.—It must be remembered that when reference is made to the Japanese nation in connexion with these radical changes, only the nobles and the samurai are indicated—in other words, a section of the population representing about one-sixteenth of the whole. The bulk of the people—the agricultural, the industrial and the mercantile classes—remained outside the sphere of politics, not sharing the anti-foreign prejudice, or taking any serious interest in the great questions of the time. ”

“ Having taken her place as a power on an equality with the great world-powers, Japan entered upon the Twentieth Century as the leader of Asiatic nations in introducing modern civilization. The year 1901, in the Japanese calendar, was called the Meiji Era, or Period of Enlightened Rule—a fitting name for the first year of the New Empire in the new century. ”