MORI ARINORI, 1847-89 from Diplomat to Statesman [London, 1880-84]

5 MORI ARINORI, 1847-89 From Diplomat to Statesman [London, 1880-84] ANDREW COBBING Mori Arinori n January 1880, Mori Arinori arrived in London as the third resident minister I from Japan to be appointed to the Court of St James's. Still only thirty-two years of age, he brought with him a reputation as an outspoken champion of radical social reform. Enlisted by the new government after the Meiji Restoration, he had quickly gained notoriety in 1869 for his infamous proposal to remove the samurai's traditional right to bear his swords.Then, in his time as japan's first minister to the United States from 1870 to 1873, he had advocated religious freedom and even suggested adopting English as the official language. On his return from Washington he had gone on to found the Meirokusha, japan's first modern intellectual society, which spread progressive ideas through the distribution of its Meiroku Journal. This was the man whom the indefatigable Victorian traveller Isabella Bird described as an 'advanced liberal' when she met him on a visit to Tokyo in 1878. 1 Once likened to a 'lone pine atop a winter mountain', the young Mori frequently cut an isolated figure in the world of Meiji politics." Four years of diplomatic service in London, however, were to effect a profound change in his outlook and bring him closer to the mainstream of government affairs. He returned in 1884 as a statesman in the making, and went on to impose such a centralized and elitist structure on Japan's education system that he was even suspected of forsaking his radical past. Ironically, perhaps, the catalyst in Mori's apparent transition from liberal to conservative was none other than Herbert Spencer, the celebrated Victorian pioneer of social science. It was under his guidance that Mori would consciously set about diagnosing the prevailing maladies in the body politic of japan and devise his own prescriptions to revitalize the Meiji State. On their arrival early in 1880, Mori, his wife and their two young sons moved into the japanese legation building at No.9 Kensington Gardens in Notting Hill. 46 JAPANESE ENVOYS IN BRITAIN, 1862-1964 Clara Whitney, an American friend of the family passing through, observed: 'We found them luxuriously situated and very well pleased with London.' Equipped with an 'elegant barouch [sic]', Mori, it seems, felt quite at home, as he escorted his guests to city sights from the Tower of London to St Paul's. Some weeks later, Clara recorded how, on one occasion at dinner, 'Mr Mori regaled us with tales of his boyhood and what a savage he was when he first came to London some fourteen years ago." Mori's appointment as minister to Britain thus marked something of a nostalgic return. Born in 1847 in Satsuma, Japan's southernmost domain, he received a traditional Confucian education in his early years under the strict supervision of his parents - he told Clara over dinner they were 'real ancient Samurai'." He was sixteen years old when the Royal Navy bombarded his home-town of Kagoshima in 1863, an experience that prompted Satsuma to try and learn from Britain rather than challenge the military supremacy of the Treaty Powers. Two years later, he was one of the nineteen young Satsuma officers who were sent abroad to study as a result, smuggled out of the country in defiance of the Tokugawa regime's ban on overseas travel. He spent two years at University College, London, including trips to Russia and France. Increasingly short of funds, however, he and his five remaining companions were persuaded by their mentor, Laurence Oliphant, to cross the Atlantic for a further year abroad at a Utopian Christian colony in New York State. There, in the company of the eccentric Thomas Lake Harris's 'Brotherhood of the New Life', he pursued his studies on life in the West to the extent that, when he returned to Japan in 1868, he brought with him not just polished English skills but also a passionate belief in the powers of rationalism and an almost Western-style persona that set him apart from other young leaders in the new Meiji government. Twelve years later, back in London, the Mori family spent the first few months of their stay in England entertaining guests, attending diplomatic functions, and travelling abroad on short holidays to Holland and SWitzerland. By now they were accustomed to the social side of diplomatic life, as Isabella Bird had noted when remarking that 'his wife dresses tastefully in English style, and receives his guests along with himself'.5 Perhaps the most singular development in these early months was on 1 June, with the removal of the Japanese Legation to a new location at No.9 Cavendish Square. Costing more than double the rent of their former residence, Ernest Satow thought it 'a fine house' when he called on Mori for lunch some time later. He found 'his wife as bashful as ever', and commented that the boys were now speaking English 'quite naturally', having 'entirely forgotten their japanese'." MORI AS MEIJI DIPLOMAT Mori's new surroundings were in keeping with his keen awareness of outward appearances. In practice, his everyday duties consisted largely of correspondence relating to the Imperial Navy, from purchasing and refitting cruisers to training Japanese cadets and preparing visits to dockyards. As one attache at the legation later recalled, the diplomatic staff also spent much of their time polishing their social skills and refining their knowledge of current affairs so as 'to show what a fine impression the Japanese could make on foreign soil'." This was all part of the Foreign Ministry's new initiative to try and raise Japan's profile in the eyes of the Treaty Powers. Ultimately, the objective was to win support for a.

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