Hist 381 The Political Crisis of 1881

One of the ways that the "outsiders" in the Popular Rights Movement chose to criticize the "insiders," the Oligarchs, was to accuse them of governing by means of cliques based on residence in the old feudal domains, or "Han." They called this hanbatsu or government by "clique" (batsu) based in the four key han of: Sat-Cho-To-Hi, but especially the two big ones, Sat-Cho. it was a critique that accused them of keeping the political participation rate too low by keeping other, able, talented people on the outside.

The following take on the Political Crisis of 1881 can be found at National Diet Library's website:

In 1881 (Meiji 14), OKUMA Shigenobu delivered a secret memorial to the Emperor that was quite radical in nature, arguing for the adoption of a British-style parliament and the drafting of a constitution at the beginning of 1883 (Meiji 16). Moreover, it came at a time when divisions over fiscal policy were already becoming apparent, causing the rifts within the government to widen even more. At this juncture, public opinion was reaching the boiling point regarding the government's disposal of property held by Hokkaido Development officer. The clamor to halt the sale of government assets somehow ended up linked with the movement to establish a parliament. Many individuals close to OKUMA participated in that movement, and he was suspected of being one of the masterminds along with FUKUZAWA Yukichi. The government, forced to, put a halt to the sale of government assets and dismissed OKUMA from his post. At the same, an Imperial Rescript was issued calling for a national parliament to be established in 1890 (Meiji 23).

This document is OKUMA's memorial that was in the possession of the Emperor and had been copied by ITO in his own hand on June 1881.

So, Okuma rocked the boat by handing in his opinion last, and his draft was much more radical than the others. Following the British system of majority rule based on the party with the majority in the lower house being called upon to form the goverenment and provide the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, he eschewed the gradualist approach and called for an almost immediate implementation of a constitution, a legislative assemby, and a cabinet system based on the British model of a "responsible" cabinet, i.e., it would fall when given a vote of no-confidence by the legislature. This, by everyone else's standard, was too radical. Okuma was fired and replaced as Finance Minister by Matsukata Masayoshi from Satsuma. At the same time, complicating matters for Itô, information was leaked to the press about the proposed sale of the assets of the Hokkaido Colonization Office set up in 1869 but which had never turned a profit. It was going to be sold to a consortium of business men headed by an "old crony from Satsuma at a nominal cost to be paid with an interest-free loan from the government." (McClain, 191) It was an embarassment for the government and Okuma and the popular rights movement advocates seized upon it and made it an issue.

Itô responded by announcing that a constitution would be drafted and granted within the decade, which it was. But the system it created bore little resemblance to the British model, favoring instead the Prussian approach which severely curtailed the power of the people and their representatives in favor of the executive and the monarch.

What did Itô do next? He went to Europe on a whirlwind Constitutional Study Tour, starting in Berlin where he met with constitutional scholars Rudolph von Gneist and Albert Mosse, then on to Vienna to meet with Lorenz von Stein, and England to meet Herbert Spencer. Itô wrote gleefully in his diary that

Thanks to the famous German scholars Gneist and Stein, I have come to understand the essential features of the structure and operation of states....The situation in our country is charactereized by the erroneous beliefs that the words of the English, American, and French liberals and radicals are essential verities. I have acquired the arguments and principles to retrieve the situation!

How did he do this? In 1883, Ito established the Office for the Study of the Constitution in order to prepare for power sharing which he was reluctant to do! Clearly, Itô was not interested in a liberal, participatory vision of representative government. Rather, he favored one where sovereignty was lodged in the monarch, not the people, and the Cabinet Ministers would be appointed by and responsible only to the emperor and completely independent of the Legislature--the polar opposite of the British model of responsible party-based cabinets.

Even before the new constitution was presented to the people of Japan, steps were taken to ensure that real power would remain in the hands of Emperor Meiji's select group of advisers.

1. In 1884, a Western-style peerage, a system of nobility, was created to form a pool from which members of the House of Peers could be appointed. They would provide a conservative check on a popularly elected lower house. Senior imperial government advisers, former daimyo, and high-ranking military officers were given titles that would make them eligible to sit in the House of Peers. Some critics considered this a complete sell-out of the early Meiji government's eradication of the old feudal class system.

2. In 1885, a Cabinet of Ministers of state was set up based on the German model of that time. At the head of this cabinet would be a Prime Minister selected by Emperor Meiji and his advisers. The Prime Minister would be permitted to choose the members of the cabinet. The cabinet would be primarily responsible to the emperor, and only secondarily responsible to the proposed parliament.

3. In 1888, a Privy Council was created to be the highest advisory body under the new constitution to Emperor Meiji on domestic and foreign affairs. The Privy Council would not be responsible to the proposed National Parliament for advice given to the emperor, and its members would be selected by the emperor and his advisers. In fact, it would be the Privy Council that would "pass" the new constitution (in secret) and proclaim it as a gift to the people from their emperor. This was a far cry from the constitutional convention idea that Liberal Party members favored. So instead of a "We the people" opening line, the Meiji Constitution spoke of "We the emperor do hereby bequeath to the people of Japan...."

4. Also created at this time was a new cabinet position, the Minister with the portfolio of the Imperial Household Ministry, and also a Nobleman, the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal. All these were part of a move to "buttress" and protect the imperial institution and the Ministers who ruled in his name.

5. Not surprisingly, when the old Dajôkan or Council of State was converted to a Cabinet system in 1885 consisting of a Prime Minister (Itô himself) and 9 other ministers, including the new Home Ministry which was in control of a centralized police force. Eight of these 9 ministers came from either Satsuma (4) or Choshu (4). So, the old Oligarchic System of rule was alive and well!

6. In 1885, Itô gathered a few close allies around him, retreated to his home and his vacation residence on Enoshima island, invited the Germans Mosse and Rosesler, and worked for three years preparing a draft of the Constitution.

7. Yes, a parliament would be created and it would have an elected people's house, called the House of Representatives; but it would be able to do little more than debate legislation introduced by the imperial government. Initiative for legislation was lodged in the Executive side; Ministers and their Ministries drafted bills and submitted them to the Diet for approval.

8. The Upper House or House of Peers could be counted on to oppose the will of the Lower House in the Diet unless they happened to agree with it. Since legislation passed by the people's representatives had to be approved by the unelected House of Peers to become law, and could be vetoed by Emperor Meiji even if passed by both houses, the 1889 constitution would produce only a semblance of genuine democratic government.

And yet, we would do well to recall Ian Buruma's words about this whole struggle between the Oligarchs v the supporters of the Popular Rights Movement: "What is surprising about early Meiji history is not that the Satsuma and Chôshu autocrats found popular soverignty uncongenial, but that so many Japanese took the opposite view." (Inventing Japan, p. 40) Indeed, many of the voices we will be listening to in this next section of the course took this oppositional stance. The conservative constitutional edifice that the oligarchs created did not go uncontested!

In 1889, Emperor Meiji presented the new constitution to the people of Japan as a royal gift. Strict censorship ensured that the constitution was received by the people without apparent dissent. It was a constitution that would give the vast mass of Japanese people no real say in their government. It would give Japan some appearance of being a democracy but still preserve the authoritarian rule of Emperor Meiji and his select group of advisers. It was a constitution that would give the elected people's house of the Japanese parliament no significant control over government finances, or domestic and foreign policy. This denial of genuine democracy would continue until the end of World War II in 1945.

Behind thise façade of democratic government created by the 1889 constitution, the real power in Japan's government was exercised by an elite group comprising the Imperial Family, an advisory body of elder statesmen called Genrô, the Privy Council, the army and navy ministers, the military high command, and the unelected upper house of the parliament called the House of Peers. This select and ultra-conservative group included members of the nobility, former great feudal lords (daimyo), former western clan samurai who engineered restoration of power to the emperor, high-ranking military officers, and the great merchant families (zaibatsu) which had financed the imperial restoration.

(adapted from: http://www.pacificwar.org.au/foundationJapmilaggro/FacadeofDemocracy.html)

 

So maybe there is some truth to what E.H. Norman had to say about the nature of the Meiji Restoration and its product being an "Absolutist State." But what is interesting is that there were many Japanese who did not share in the strong state-centered model embraced by the Oligarchs and the Meiji Constitution. Initially, we might not have heard so much about them but their "stories" are becoming more available and I have grouped some of them under the rubric of people who held "Alternate Visions" from the mainstream ones.

 

 

 

 

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