The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Hayashi, Count Tadasu

HAYASHI, hä'yạ-shē, Count Tadasu, Japanese statesman and diplomat b. Sakura, 1850; d. Tokio, 10 July 1913. As a boy he lived in the house of an American missionary to learn English, and later was one of the first students sent by the Japanese government to London, where he studied at the University College School. Entering the civil service on his return home he became secretary in the Central government and subsequently governor of Kagawa-ken and Hyogo-ken. He served as Vice-Minister in the Foreign Office from 1891 to 1896, when he was appointed Minister at Peking. In 1898 he was transferred to Saint Petersburg (Petrograd) and in the following year to London, During the six years he spent in London he was largely responsible for the promotion of the two treaties between Great Britain and Japan in 1902 and 1905, both of which he signed. In 1904 the Japanese legation in London was raised to the dignity of an embassy, and Viscount Hayashi thus became the first Japanese Ambassador. The rank of count was conferred on him in 1907. He held ministerial portfolios in the Saioryi cabinets in 1911 and 1912. At the farewell banquet given in his honor by the Lord Mayor of London, the Ambassador assured his audience that the Japanese people firmly intended to maintain the word and spirit of their engagements, and that the sympathy of the British empire toward Japan was reciprocated to the fullest extent. Count Hayashi was the recipient of honorary degrees from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. In 1903 he published in English a book entitled ‘For his People,’ and has also translated into Japanese several English and European classical works on politics and political economy.