Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852’1912 (82 page)

When Prince Taruhito read this document, he was astonished by the proximity of the date that
Ō
kuma suggested for opening the parliament. Disregarding his promise to
Ō
kuma, he secretly showed the memorial to Sanj
ō
Sanetomi and Iwakura Tomomi and only then presented it to the emperor for his consideration. Hearing that a memorial from
Ō
kuma had been offered to the emperor, It
ō
Hirobumi asked Sanj
ō
if he might see it. Sanj
ō
obtained the document from the emperor and on June 27 showed it to It
ō
, who was enraged by the contents.
¹⁰
Not only was the date for the opening of the parliament a bare two years hence—far too soon in his opinion—but the proposal that even the advisers closest to the emperor be men chosen by popular election seemed a total denial of the sovereign’s prerogatives. On July 1 It
ō
sent a letter to Iwakura stating his views and threatening to resign if
Ō
kuma’s proposal was accepted. He wrote Iwakura again on the following day, saying that he could not attend meetings of the councillors if
Ō
kuma was present.
¹¹

After attempting without success to mollify It
ō
, Iwakura sent for
Ō
kuma and explained why he had showed the proposal to It
ō
and what It
ō
’s reaction had been.
Ō
kuma defended his radical proposals, using the analogy of a crowd trying to get through a locked gate. If the gate were only half open, there would be indescribable confusion as people pushed and shoved to get in. It was therefore better to open the gate all the way and allow people inside. His plan for opening the parliament in 1883, a bold and even radical step, corresponded to opening the gate all the way.
Ō
kuma and It
ō
subsequently met at Iwakura’s suggestion, and eventually their personal differences were reconciled and It
ō
again attended sessions of the cabinet, but they remained far apart on many political issues.

It
ō
an advocate of gradualism, was intensely concerned about the emperor’s future role. The emperor’s personal decisions—against seeking a foreign loan and against making peasants pay taxes in rice—suggested that he might no longer be willing to play a passive or symbolic role but would insist on actively participating in major decisions. It
ō
feared that this tendency might lead to the emperor’s being held responsible for political actions or might even lead to controversy over the institution of the emperor. He therefore preferred that the emperor play the role of an entirely symbolic leader at the head of a cabinet serving him. It
ō
was particularly wary of palace advisers who, without bearing personal responsibility, might exert influence through the emperor, as he was sure this could only lead to instability in the government.
¹²

The one thing that drew It
ō
and
Ō
kuma together was a mutually shared dislike of Satsuma. When Kawamura Sumiyoshi, a Satsuma man, came up for appointment as navy minister, a position he had formerly occupied, It
ō
strongly opposed the appointment, although it was backed by the navy itself, and he was joined by
Ō
kuma. They deplored the tendency of Satsuma men to consider the navy as their private preserve and were sure that Kawamura was not capable of overseeing its future development. Kawamura was nevertheless appointed, mainly because of the desire of the other ministers to preserve peace in the cabinet by maintaining a balance between Ch
ō
sh
ū
and Satsuma men. They may have also hoped that if Kawamura were appointed, the other Satsuma councillors, who normally did not bother to attend cabinet meetings (in contrast to the diligent Ch
ō
sh
ū
councillors), would once again attend. The ministers had increasing cause to regret the loss of Kido and
Ō
kubo, who had maintained equilibrium between Ch
ō
sh
ū
and Satsuma in the cabinet.
¹³

Despite this setback, It
ō
remained the strongest man in the government. He enjoyed the confidence of both the emperor and the
daijin
(the three top ministers). Sasaki Takayuki noted in his diary, however, that he expected the cabinet to collapse in the not too distant future. He was pleased at this prospect because it would afford the emperor an opportunity to assume the reins of government, as Sasaki had long hoped. He urged the emperor to prepare for this eventuality. The emperor replied that he had expected the minister of the left (Prince Taruhito), as a member of the imperial family, to be superior to the other two
daijin
in his objectives, but now that he had become a cabinet member, Taruhito seemed to have lost the confidence he displayed during his Genr
ō
-in days. Sasaki defended Taruhito, pointing out his good qualities but admitting he showed insufficient energy. The emperor then made a most telling comment: “Even though the
daijin
and councillors performed meritorious service—acts of military valor—at the time of the Restoration, they had no real knowledge of government and had not since then employed people skilled in political affairs. That is what has made inevitable the present difficulties within the cabinet. One can only hope that in the course of time, real statesmen will join the cabinet. The present situation is a product of the times, and all we can do is wait until a sufficiently ripe opportunity permits us to do something about it.”
¹⁴

Here was the crux of a problem that beset the Meiji government. A display of bravery on the battlefield was no guarantee of competence in political office, but most of the cabinet members had been chosen because of distinguished war service, not because of political acumen. The failure of the Satsuma councillors to attend cabinet meetings probably was due to their boredom when having to listen to administrative reports. Meiji’s dislike of the military men Kuroda Kiyotaka and Saig
ō
Tsugumichi reflected his observation of their inability to apply themselves seriously to civil matters.

The problem of military participation in the government would last well beyond the Meiji period, but at this time it became imperative to keep military men from meddling in politics and, worst of all, disobeying their sovereign. As early as 1874 Kat
ō
Hiroyuki had written an essay in
Meiroku zasshi
that opened, “In enlightened and civilized countries, it is regarded as best and most important for military officials to earnestly obey their sovereigns’ commands.”
¹⁵
In the same year, three generals had resigned their commissions to express their disapproval of
Ō
kubo’s foreign policy.
¹⁶
In reaction to these open displays of political views by the military and especially to the rebelliousness of the soldiers who had joined Saig
ō
during the Satsuma Rebellion, in 1878 Yamagata had drawn up
Gunjin kunkai
(Admonitions to Military Men) for distribution to the troops. Among the principles he laid down was one forbidding military men to discuss the government or political events.
¹⁷

Despite this command, members of the military became involved in the political manifestations that spread throughout the country at this time. In order to control demonstrations which (in its opinion) threatened public security, the government issued on April 5, 1880, sixteen regulations dealing with public gatherings. All manifestations—whether political addresses, attacks on the government’s policy of gradualism, or support of a parliament—would henceforth require police permission. In addition, members of the army, the navy, the police, and the teaching profession were prohibited from taking part in mass meetings or joining political parties.
¹⁸
Military participation in the movement to obtain greater civil rights continued to be an issue: when the Imperial Rescript for Military Men was proclaimed in January 1882, the first article ordered soldiers and sailors not to be confused by public opinion and become involved in politics.
¹⁹

Perhaps because of this pressure on the military to refrain from political action the movement to secure “freedom and popular rights” was led entirely by civilians, mainly men of middle- or lower-rank samurai status. The first political party dedicated to this aim, the Jiy
ū
-t
ō
, or Party of Liberty, was founded on December 15, 1880.
²⁰
Well before this, however, political groups had been formed in many parts of the country, each with a distinctive and auspicious name but not necessarily any concrete objectives. Even those who called most vociferously for a constitution and the opening of a parliament gave little thought to what the constitution should contain or how the legislative body should be organized.
²¹

The Risshi-sha (Self-Help Society) in K
ō
chi was the most prominent of these groups of samurai activists. It was founded in 1874 by Itagaki Taisuke and other men associated with the movement to secure “freedom and popular rights,” but the name itself, derived from the title of Samuel Smiles’s popular book
Self-Help
(
Saikoku risshi hen
), suggested that originally it was more concerned with education and self-improvement for samurai than with the creation of a parliament.
²²
Perhaps that is why Itagaki founded in 1875 the Aikoku-sha (Society of Patriots), a specifically political group intended to create a link between the Risshi-sha and organizations working for freedom and popular rights.

It did not take long, however, before the Risshi-sha itself became involved in major national issues, although the Satsuma Rebellion caused a shift in its activities. Itagaki, who had been a firm supporter of Saig
ō
, returned to K
ō
chi after the outbreak of the war in 1877. The defeat of Saig
ō
’s forces by the government army made it clear that it was useless to attempt to oppose the government by military means; therefore, the Risshi-sha’s message would be spread by speeches and newspaper articles, not swords.

Although Itagaki was the founder and best-known member of the Risshi-sha, a more effective crusade for freedom and popular rights was carried out by the youthful Ueki Emori (1857–1892), only twenty at the time. Ueki came from a high-ranking K
ō
chi samurai family. In 1872 he went to T
ō
ky
ō
to study.
²³
He read widely, especially about law, political economy, and natural science, and he also became interested in Christianity, often attending church.

Ueki returned to K
ō
chi at the end of 1873. Five months later, an address by Itagaki at the Risshi-sha deeply impressed him, and he began to study theories of freedom and parliamentary structure. He returned to T
ō
ky
ō
in 1875 to continue his studies, this time reading more traditional works, especially those of the Wang Yang-ming school of Confucianism.
²⁴
In that year, he started contributing articles to the leading newspapers, his first positive steps as an activist in the cause of freedom and popular rights. In 1876 he was imprisoned for a piece he wrote entitled “Ape Men and the Government,” in which he argued that what distinguished men from apes was their capacity for thought and imagination but that by imposing restrictions on speech, the government had reduced men to the status of apes.
²⁵
As yet, however, Ueki had doubts about the country’s holding elections before the populace was sufficiently educated to cast its votes intelligently.

In the same year, after the outbreak of the Satsuma Rebellion, Ueki returned to K
ō
chi. He lodged in Itagaki’s house for a time and began to work actively for the Risshi-sha. He was the main author of a petition in favor of opening a parliament, and the Risshi-sha published various short-lived magazines to which Ueki contributed. Ueki also began to establish a reputation as a speaker. In 1877 alone, he gave thirty-four lectures, generally to crowds of 1,000 or 2,000. He recorded in his diary that on June 23 of that year he lectured at a theater that accommodated 2,000 people, but another 2,000 were turned away. The press was so great that the meeting had to be closed halfway through. K
ō
chi was the spearhead of the Freedom and Popular Rights movement, and intellectuals from all over the country were drawn there. By this time, Ueki had become absolutely convinced of the need for a parliament, and he blamed the Satsuma Rebellion for its absence.
²⁶

Ueki’s advocacy of freedom extended to sex: he declared that the object of human beings was “to satisfy their desires, to exhaust their pleasures, and to attain the highest happiness.”
²⁷
His diary records the sexual fantasies of his dreams. In one he dreamed, “I slept in the same bed with the emperor, slept with the empress and had intercourse with her.”
²⁸
His strange identification with the emperor recurs again and again in the diary, where he often refers to himself as
tenn
ō
(emperor) and uses the appropriate honorifics. From 1883 he even dated the beginning of each year by the years since Emperor Jimmu founded the nation, by the Christian calendar, and by the anniversary of the “birth of the Great Emperor of the Universe,” meaning himself. On March 13, 1884, Ueki wrote in his diary, “The emperor this night made a progress to Yoshiwara. At the K
ō
zenr
ō
he sent for the courtesan Nagao.”
²⁹