The Constitutional Development of Japan, 1853–1881/Chapter 4
Chapter IV.
Influences that shaped the Growth of the
Representative Idea of Government.
We have seen in the last two chapters how the Shogunate and feudalism fell, and how the Meiji government was inaugurated. We have also observed in the memorials of leading statesmen abundant proof of their willingness and zeal to introduce a representative system of government. We have also seen the Kogisho convened and dissolved.
John Stuart Mill has pointed out, in his Representative Government, several social conditions when representative government is inapplicable or unsuitable:
1.When the people are not willing to receive it.
2.When the people are not willing and able to do what is necessary for its preservation. "Representative institutions necessarily depend for permanence upon the readiness of the people to fight for them in case of their being endangered."
3.When the people are not willing and able to fulfil the duties and discharge the functions which it imposes on them.
4.When the people have not learned the first lesson of obedience.
5.When the people are too passive; when they are ready to submit to tyranny.
Now when we look at the Japan of 1871, even her greatest admirers must admit that she was far from being able to fulfil the social conditions necessary for the success of representative government. Japan was obedient, but too submissive. She had not yet learned the first lesson of freedom, that is, when and how to resist, in the faith that resistance to tyrants is obedience to truth; that the irrepressible kicker against tyranny, as Dr. Wilson observes, is the only true freeman. In her conservative, almost abject submission, Japan was yet unfit for free government. The Japanese people were willing to do almost anything suggested by their Emperor, but they had first to learn what was meant by representative government, "to understand its processes and requirements." The Japanese had to discard many old habits and prejudices, reform many defects of national character, and undergo many stages of moral and mental discipline before they could acclimatize themselves to the free atmosphere of representative institutions. This preparation required a period of little over two decades, and was effected not only through political discipline, but by corresponding development in the moral, intellectual, social, and industrial life of the nation.
I remarked in the beginning that the political activity of a nation is not isolated from other spheres of its activities, but that there is a mutual interchange of action and reaction among the different factors of social life, so that to trace the political life of a nation it is not only necessary to describe the organ through which it acts, the governmental machinery, and the methods by which it is worked, but to know the forces which move it and direct its course." Now these forces are political as well as non-political. This truth is now generally acknowledged by constitutional writers. Thus, the English author of "The American Commonwealth" devotes over one-third of his second volume to the account of non-political institutions, and says "there are certain non-political institutions, certain aspects of society, certain intellectual or spiritual forces which count for so much in the total life of the country, in the total impression it makes and the hopes for the future which it raises, that they cannot be left unnoticed."[1]
If this be the case in the study of the American commonwealth, it is more so in that of Japanese politics. For nowhere else in the history of nations do we see "nonpolitical institutions" exerting such a powerful influence upon the body politic as in New Japan. In this chapter we shall therefore note briefly the growth of so-called "nonpolitical institutions" during a period of about a decade and a half, between 1868 and 1881, and mark their influence upon the development of representative ideas.
I. — Means of Communication.
1.Telegraph. At the time of the Restoration there was no telegraph in operation, and "for expresses the only available means were men and horses." In 1868 the government began to construct telegraphs, and the report of the Bureau of Statistics in 1881 shows the following increase in cach successive year:
| Year. | Telegraph Offices. |
Miles. Ri Cho. |
Number of Telegrams. | |||
| 1869–1871 | 8 | 26.04 | 19,448 | |||
| 1872 | 29 | 33.11 | 80,639 | |||
| 1873 | 40 | 1,099.00 | 186,448 | |||
| 1874 | 57 | 1,333.20 | 356,539 | |||
| 1875 | 94 | 1,904.32 | 611,866 | |||
| 1876 | 100 | 2.214.07 | 680,939 | |||
| 1877 | 122 | 2,827.08 | 1,045,442 | |||
| 1878 | 147 | 3,380.05 | 1,272,756 | |||
| 1879 | 195 | 3,842.31 | 1,935,320 | |||
| 1880 | 195 | 4,484.30 | 2,168,201 |
All the more important towns in the country were thus made able to communicate with one another as early as 1880. In 1879 Japan joined the International Telegraph Convention, and since then she can communicate easily with the great powers of the world through the great submarine cable system. "Compared with the state of ten years ago, when the ignorant people cut down the telegraph poles and severed the wires," exclaims Count Okuma, "we seem rather to have made a century's advance."
2.Postal System. "Previous to the Restoration," to quote further from Count Okuma, "with the exception of the posts sent by the Daimios from their residences at the capital to their territories, there was no regularly established post for the general public and private convenience. Letters had to be sent by any opportunity that occurred, and a single letter cost over 25 sen for a distance of 150 ri. But since the Restoration the government for the first time established a general postal service, and in 1879 the length of postal lines was 15,700 ri (nearly 40,000 English miles), and a letter can at any time be sent for two sen to any part of the country. In 1874 we entered the International Postal Convention, and have thus obtained great facilities for communicating with foreign countries."[2]
3.Railroad. The first railway Japan ever saw was the model railway constructed by Commodore Perry to excite the curiosity of the people. But it was not until 1870 that the railroad was really introduced into Japan. The first rail was laid on the road between Tokio and Yokohama. This road was opened in 1872. It is 18 miles long. The second line was constructed in 1876, and runs between Hiogo and Kioto via Osako. And the year 1880 saw the opening of the railroad between Kioto and Otsu. This line between Hiogo and Otsu is 58 miles long. So at the end of the period which we are surveying Japan had a railway system of 31 ri and 5 cho (about 78 English miles).
This was nothing but a child-play compared with the railroad activity which the later years brought forth, for now we have a railway system extending over one thousand two hundred miles. But this concerns the later period, so we shall not dwell upon it at present.
4.Steamers and the coasting trade. In 1871 the number of ships of foreign build was only 74, but by 1878 they had reached 377. The number of vessels of native build in 1876 was 450,000, and in 1878 had reached 460,000.[3]
"Since the Restoration the use of steamers has daily in creased, and the inland sea, the lakes and large rivers are now constantly navigated by small steamers employed in the carrying trade."[3]
With the increased facility of communication, commerce and trade were stimulated. In 1869 the total amount of imports and exports was 33,680,000 yen, and in 1879 64,120,000 yen. Imports had grown from 20,780,000 yen to 36,290,000 yen, and exports from 12,909,000 yen to 27,830,000 yen; in the one case showing an advance from 2 to 3, in the other from 2 to 5.[3]
II. — Educational Institution.
Previous to the Restoration, the schools supported by Daimios and the private schools were few in number; but since that epoch the educational system has been vastly im proved, with a resulting increase in the number of schools and pupils. In 1878, of high, middle, and primary schools there were altogether 27,600, with 68,000 teachers and 2,319,000 pupils.[3] The following table shows the compara tive history of educational institutions within three years, 1878–1880 (inclusive):
| Teachers. | Pupils. | |||||||||
| Year. | Institutions. | Male. | Female. | Male. | Female. | |||||
| 1878 | 27,672 | 66,309 | 2,374 | 1,715,425 | 610,214 | |||||
| 1879 | 29,362 | 71,757 | 2,803 | 1,771,641 | 608,205 | |||||
| 1880 | 30,799 | 74,747 | 2,923 | 1,844,564 | 605,781 | |||||
Furthermore, hundreds of students went abroad yearly, and returning, powerfully influenced the destiny of their country.
III. — Newspapers.
It was in 1869 that the Emperor sanctioned the publication of newspapers. Magazines, journals, periodicals and newspapers sprung up in a night. The number of newspapers published in 1882 was about 113, and of miscellaneous publications about 133. It is to be noted that the newspapers defied the old censorship of prohibition under very sanguinary pains and penalties. Their circulation increased every year. The total newspaper circulation in 1874 was but 8,470,269, while in 1877 it was 33,449,529. In his consular report of 1882, Consul-General Van Buren makes an approximate estimate of the annual aggregate circulation of a dozen noted papers of Tokio to be not less than 29,000,000 copies.[4]
The publication of books and translations kept pace with the growth of newspapers. Observing the effects of these literary activities, Mr. Griffis well says: "It is the writer's firm belief, after nearly four years of life in Japan, mingling among the progressive men of the empire, that the reading and study of books printed in the Japanese language have done more to transform the Japanese mind and to develop an impulse in the direction of modern civilization than any other cause or series of causes."
Meanwhile, great changes were affecting law and religion. Here it is sufficicut to observe that the old law which had been hitherto altogether arbitrary — either the will of the Emperor or of the Shogun — was revised on the model of the Napoleonic code and soon published throughout the land. The use of torture to obtain testimony was wholly and forever abolished.
With the incoming of Western science and Christianity, old faiths began to lose their hold upon the people. The new religion spread yearly. Missionary schools were instituted in several parts of the country. Christian churches were built in almost all of the large cities and towns, and their number increased constantly. Missionaries and Christian schools had no inconsiderable influence in changing the ideas of the people.
Such, in brief, have been the changes in the industrial, social and religious condition of Japan from 1868 to 1881. After this study we shall not much wonder at the remarkable political change of Japan during the same period, which I shall endeavor to describe in the next chapter.