Japan, Its History, Arts, and Literature
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a 1 \ .*.-* Oriental AMBASSADORS' EDITION Limited to Seven hundred fifty numbered and registered copies of which this is No. /Iff / JAP A N ITS MIST D LI' KY VOLUME V KIYOMIZU TEMPLE J. B. MILLET COMPANY BOSTO .'OKYO ITS HISTORY, ARTS, AND LITERATURE CAPTAIN F. BRIXKLEY J. B. MILLET COMPANY BOSTON AND TOKYO COPYRIGHT, 1902 BY J. B. MILLET CO. ESTERKD AT STATIONERS 11 ALL, LONDON, KNGLAND THE PLIMPTON PRESS [W -D -o] KOBWOOD 1IASS U S A CONTENTS CHAPTER I page FINANCIAL AND ECONOMICAL CONDITIONS .... i CHAPTER II 28 JAPAN'S FOREIGN POLITICS CHAPTER III STEPS OF PROGRESS 77 CHAPTER IV CREED AND CASTE i 8 CHAPTER V RELIGION AND RITES X 4 2 CHAPTER VI SUPERSTITIONS I 9 APPENDIX 249 ILLUSTRATIONS Page Kiyomizu Temple, Kyoto Frontispiece Raking a Rice Field 32 Threshing Grain 96 Buddhist Priests 128 Wooden Bridge at Iwakuni 160 A Japanese Cemetery 192 JAPAN ITS HISTORY ARTS AND LITERATURE Chapter I FINANCIAL AND ECONOMICAL CONDiriONS affairs naturally occupied a prominent place in Japan's modern career. At one time, indeed, her condi- FINANCIALtion caused much uneasiness and elicited from on-lookers many predictions of disaster. But by skilful management her statesmen rescued her from embarrassment and falsified all sinister forecasts. The story of that achievement may well occupy attention for a moment. It has been shown that in Tokugawa days the land throughout the Empire was regarded as State property, and parcelled out into numerous fiefs, the feudatories holding it in trust and being empowered to derive certain revenue from it. The standard of taxation varied more or less in different districts, but, at the time of the Restora- tion in I 867, the most generally recognised prin- VOL. V. I I JAPAN of the ciple was that four-tenths gross produce went into the hands of the tax-collector and six- tenths to the farmer. This rule applied to the for other rice crop only, the assessments kinds of produce being levied, partly in money and partly in manufactured goods, at rates often of a very arbitrary nature. Forced labour also was exacted, and tradesmen were subjected to mone- tary levies as official necessity arose. Neglecting all these factors of uncertain dimensions, since they do not admit of arithmetical statement for the purposes of a general review, and taking the case of rice only, the data are that the total yield of that crop in 1867 was 154,000,000 bushels, approximately, of which the market value then ruling was 24,000,000 pounds sterling, or 240,000,000 yen, and it follows that the grain tax alone represented 96,000,000 yen on the lowest calculation, the farmers' portion being 144,000,000. Thus much premised, a basis is obtained for comparing the burdens of the people in ante-Meiji and in post-Meiji days. When the administration reverted to the Throne in 1867, the central treasury was of course empty, and the funds hitherto employed for governmental purposes in the fiefs did not at once begin to flow into the coffers of the State. They continued to be devoted to the support of the feudatories, to the payment of the samurai, and to defraying the expenses of local adminis- tration, the central treasury receiving only what- 2 FINANCIAL CONDITIONS ever small fraction remained after these various outlays. The Shogun himself did not, on abdicat- ing, hand over to the sovereign either the con- tents of his treasury or the control of the lands from which he derived his revenues. He con- tended that funds for the government of the nation as a whole should be levied from the people at large. Matters were further compli- cated by the fact that the impecunious Ministry had to engage in campaigns which, though they placed the treasury in command of some limited sources of revenue, had also the effect of aug- menting its liabilities. The little band of men who had assumed the direction of national affairs saw no exit from the dilemma except an issue of paper money. This was not a novelty in Japan. Paper money had been known to the people since the middle of the seventeenth century, and at the moment of the mediatisation of the fiefs, no less than sixteen hundred and ninety-four varieties of notes were circulating in the various districts. There were gold notes, silver notes, cash notes, rice notes, um- brella notes, ribbon notes, lathe-article notes, and so on through an interminable list, the circulation of each kind being limited to the confines of the issu- ing fief. Many of these notes had served a useful purpose in tradal transactions, but those officially issued by the feudal chiefs had in some cases ceased to have any purchasing power, and must in every case have become valueless when the fiefs ceased JAPAN to exist. The first duty of a centralised, pro- have been to re- gressive administration should form the currency : to substitute uniform and sound media of exchange for these unsecured tokens, which hampered trade, destroyed credit, and opposed barriers to commercial intercourse between neighbouring provinces and districts. The political leaders of the time appreciated that duty, but instead of proceeding to discharge it, they saw themselves compelled by stress of cir- cumstances to adopt the very device which, in the hands of the feudal chiefs, had produced such bad results. It was an irksome necessity, and the new Government sought to relieve its conscience and preserve its moral prestige by pretending that the object of the issue was to encourage wealth-earning enterprise, and that the notes would be lent to the fiefs for the purpose of promoting commerce and industry. The people appraised these euphemisms at their true worth, and the new notes fell to a discount of a brief fifty per cent. Then ensued but sharp struggle between rulers and ruled. The Govern- ment resorted to arbitrary measures, sometimes of great severity, to force its notes into circulation at par with silver. But there was no continuity of policy. One day, men were imprisoned for tokens the were discounting paper ; next, they released. In December the authorities officially a of cent in recognised depreciation twenty per ; the following April they withdrew the recogni- FINANCIAL CONDITIONS tion and proclaimed the equality of specie and paper. Now they promised to redeem the notes in thirteen then shortened the years ; they period to five, and again they postponed it indefinitely. Nothing is more notable than the fact that, de- spite this bewilderment and vacillation, the Government's financial credit gradually acquired strength, so that within five years, though the issues of fiduciary paper aggregated nearly 60,000,000 yen, the notes circulated freely throughout the whole Empire at par with silver, and even commanded, at one time, a small premium. It is true that by this epoch the revenues of all the fiefs had become available for the service of the State, and that only one- tenth of their total had been appropriated for the support of the territorial nobles. But the Central Government, having diminished the taxes to about one-half of their former total, as will pres- ently be shown, found the public income too small for the expenditures. The paper money of the fiefs, amounting to 25, 000,000 yen, had been exchanged for treasury notes. The building of railways had been commenced. The foundations of an army and a navy had been laid. A postal system, a telegraph system, a prison system, a police system, and an educational system had been organised. The construction of roads, the improvement of harbours, the lighting and buoy- ing of the coast, had been vigorously under- taken. A mercantile marine had been created. JAPAN Public works had been inaugurated on a consid- erable scale. Many industrial enterprises had been started under official auspices as object- lessons for the people, and large sums in aid of lent to similar projects had been private persons. Thus the Government, living far beyond its in- come, had unavoidable recourse to further issues of fiat paper, and in proportion as the volume of the latter exceeded the actual currency re- quirements of the time, its value depreciated, in 1 8 8 1 fourteen after the Restora- until, , years tion, notes to the face value of 1 50,000, ooo yen had been put into circulation, and eighteen paper yen could be purchased with ten silver coins of the same denomination. On the other hand, the treasury held only 8,000,000 yen in specie, or about one-nineteenth of its total note issues, and no prospect of a return to hard-money payments could be discerned by the public. The Gov- ernment indeed was not without a sense of its responsibilities. Fitful efforts had been made to strengthen the specie value of the fiat paper by purchasing quantities of it from time to time, an operation which inured chiefly to the benefit of speculators on 'change, and large sums totalling 2 3,000,000 yen had been devoted to the promotion of various industries in the hope that their products would go to swell the list of exports and thus draw gold and silver into the country. But, in 1881, it became evident that these superficial devices must be abandoned, and 6 FINANCIAL CONDITIONS that unless a sound programme were adopted and steadily pursued, the credit of the country- would be seriously injured. The Government therefore determined to shape its policy in acord- ance with two distinct ends, first, reduction of the volume of fiduciary notes in circulation, and, secondly, accumulation of a specie reserve.