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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 March 2011
Ōkubo Toshimichi (1830–1878) emerged as the dominant figure of the Meiji oligarchy in November 1873. He retained that uneasy position until his death under his assassins' swords on May 14, 1878. During the four and one-half year interval Ōkubo served Japan well, although the fact of his assassination and public reaction to it revealed that he was anything but a popular figure in his lifetime. As Home Minister (Naimukyō) during most of that period, he advanced the process of political centralization substantially and channelled state energies and resources into economic development. Authoritarian political techniques inherited from the feudal past enabled him to force the pace of modernization for his country.
1 During the period, 1871–1878, the following Councilors (Sangi) formed the inner circle of the oligarchy: from Satsuma came Saigō Takamori, Ōkubo Toshimichi, Terashima Munenori, and Kuroda Kiyotaka; from Chōshū, Kido Kōin, Itō Hirobumi, Yamagata Aritomo, and Inoue Kaoru; from Hizen, Ōkuma Shigenobu, Soejima, Taneomi, Ōki Takatō, and Etō Shimpei; from Tosa, Itagaki Taisuke and Gotō Shōjirō; and out of the old Tokugawa bureaucracy, Katsu Awa. Two low-ranking court nobles, Sanjō Sanetomi and Iwakura Tomomi, occupied posts above the Councilors, working chiefly as mediators between quarrelling factions within the oligarchy rather than as policy innovators. All of these men, Etō and Katsu excepted, signed the Pact of Unity on the eve of the Iwakura mission's departure for America and Europe in December 1871. For text of this pact see Magoya, Katsuda, Ōubo Toshimichi den [Biography of Ōkubo Toshimichi] (3 vols., Tokyo, 1910–1911), III, 21–25.Google Scholar
2 Beasley, W. G., “Councillors of Samurai Origin in the Early Meiji Government, 1868–9,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, XX (1957), 98–99Google Scholar. Most biographical details have come from Katsuda, Ōkubo den, I, passim.
3 Ōkuma (1838–1922) served as Finance Minister and Councilor; Itō (1840–1909) as Public Works Minister and Councilor.
4 Kazuo, Yamaguchi, “Opening of Japan at the End of the Shogunate and its Effects,” in Keizo, Shibusawa, ed., Japanese Society in the Meiji Era (Tokyo, 1958), pp. 1–6.Google Scholar
5 Smith, Thomas C., Political Change and Industrial Development in Japan: Government Enterprise, 1868–1880 (Stanford University Press, 1955), p. 67.Google Scholar
6 On Ōkubo's personality transcribed reminiscences of family members and political associates are especially useful as recorded in Shien, Matsubara, Ōkubo Toshimichi (Tokyo, 1912)Google Scholar. See also Inehiko, Tanaka, Ōkubo Kōtō den [Biography of Ōkubo Kōtō] (Tokyo, 1911), pp. 1–2, 10, 12–13Google Scholar; Dr. J. C. Berry, No. 11 in Kaikan, Aoyama, Kōtō Sensei ibokushü [Collected Commemorative Essays on the Honorable Kōtō] (Tokyo, 1927)Google Scholar. Kōtō, Ōkubo's go, means “East of the Kōtsuki River.” It derives from the location of his boyhood home in Kagoshima.
7 Takao, Tsuchiya, Hoken shakai hokai katei no kenkyū [A Study of the Process of the Collapse of Feudal Society] (Tokyo, 1927), pp. 393–396Google Scholar; Hironari, Oyama, “Bakumatsu Satsuma-han no ishin undō to sono haikei” (“The Restoration Movement of Satsuma-han and its Background at the End of the Bakufu Era”), Saitama Daigaku kiyo, IV (1955), 96–98.Google Scholar
8 Toshihiko, Ikeda, Shimazu Nariakira Kō den [Biography of Lord Shimazu Nariakira] (Tokyo, 1954), pp. 306–326Google Scholar; Smith, Industrial Development in Japan, p. 10.
9 Tsuru, Shigeto, “Development of Capitalism and Business Cycles in Japan,” (unpublished MS, Harvard University, Widener Library)Google Scholar quoted in Lockwood, William W., The Economic Development of Japan: Growth and Structural Change (Princeton University Press, 1954), pp. 324 fn.Google Scholar
10 Ikeda, Shimazu Nariakira, pp. 333–336.
11 Tsunoda, Ryusaku, ed., Sources of Japanese Tradition (Columbia University Press, 1958), pp. 553, 564–578Google Scholar; Katsuda, Ōkubo den, III, 510–511.
12 Katsuda, Ōkubo den, I, passim.; Kagoshima-ken, Kagoshima-ken shi [History of Kagoshima Prefecture] (5 volumes, Kagoshima, 1939–1943), II, 108–9, 114–6, 131.
13 Diary entry quoted in Norman, E. Herbert, Japan's Emergence as a Modern State (New York, 1940), pp. 127 fn.Google Scholar
14 On the interesting career of Godai Tomoatsu (1836–1885) see Takao, Tsuchiya, Nihon shihon shugi shijō no shidōshatachi [Leading Entrepreneurs in the History of Japanese Capitalism] (Tokyo, 1939), pp. 129–152Google Scholar. Tsuchiya traces Ōkubo's Meiji programs to Satsuma in Ibid., pp. 21–23.
15 Ōkubo Toshimichi monjo [Papers of Ōkubo Toshimichi] (10 vols., Tokyo, 1927–1929), I, 1–6.Google Scholar
16 Kagoshima-ken shi, III, 13–16; Oyama, “Bakumatsu Satsuma-han no ishin undō,” pp. 98–101; Matsubara, Ōkubo, P. 30.
17 The learned, eccentric grandfather, Minayoshi Hōtoku, once a court physician, had become an obscure country doctor by Ōkubo's boyhood—exiled from the Kagoshima castle because of his role in the Chichibu disturbance. Katsuda, Ōkubo den, I, 20; Tsuchiya, Hōken shakai hokai, p. 395; Oyama, “Bakumatsu Satsuma-han no ishin undō,” p. 97.
18 The Loyalists were the Pro-Emperor, or Royalist, men who opposed the Shogunate. Five or six persons held the office of sobayaku at one time, but Ōkubo became the most powerful of the group. Kagoshima-ken shi, II, 108.
19 Beasley, “Councillors of Samurai Origin,” pp. 98–99; Matsubara, Ōkubo, p. 26.
20 Ōkubo Toshimichi to Niiro Tatsuo, December 2, 1869 (Meiji 2/10/29), Ōkubo monjo, III, 312–314.
21 Hisamitsu petitioned the Emperor to ban the very wearing of Western clothes in 1875. Upon rejection of his memorial which called for the undoing of every reform since 1868 and the dismissal of advisers responsible for those reforms, Hisamitsu left Tokyo forever in late 1875. Ōkubo engineered Hisamitsu's dismissal from his largely honorary office of Minister of the Left (Sadaijin) at that time. Katsuda, Ōkubo den, III, 436, 444.
More articulately than Ōkubo, Kido Kōin presented the case against feudalism. Its hereditary system placed in high office daimyo who were often incompetent spendthrifts. Its fragmentation of political power in many centers weakened the country in a period of crisis. Brown, Sidney D., “Kido Takayoshi and the Meiji Restoration,” MS. (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1953), pp. 136–137, 172Google Scholar.
22 A gap in the documentary record prevents us from knowing much about his experiences in the United States in 1872. In Sacramento on February 1, 1872, he did visit the “huge” locomotive building and repair shops; and he saw a steam-driven newspaper press which turned out 2500 papers per hour. Ōkubo Toshimichi nikki [Diaries of Ōkubo Toshimichi] (2 vols., Tokyo, 1927), II, 200. A fire may have destroyed the remainder of the United States portion of the diary. Significantly, three of Ōkubo's sons, including the eminent Makino Nobuaki, studied here.
24 Tsuchiya, Nihon shihon shugi shijō no shidōshatachi, pp. 23–24.
25 Text of Memorial on the Promotion of Industry, May or June, 1874, Ōkubo monjo, IV, 563–564.
26 Ōkubo to Saigō Takamori and Yoshii Tomozane, Berlin, March 21, 1873, Ōkubo monjo, IV, 491–493; Ōkubo to Nishi Tokujiro, Berlin, March 27, 1873, Ibid., IV, 500–501; Summary of Bismarck's speech to the Japanese emissaries in Katsuda, Ōkubo den, III, 53–54.
27 Later his house became the Belgian legation. Under a diary entry of November 29, 1893, the wife of the Belgian minister wrote, “Our new home is a house of historical interest. One of the first houses constructed on European principles—if not indeed the first—it was built in the early days of the Restoration by the Satsuma samurai Ōkubo. … I am told that one of the reasons of his unpopularity, and incidentally the cause of [his] political murder was … the construction of this very European house.” d'Anethan, Baroness Albert, Fourteen Years of Diplomatic Life in Japan (London, 1912), p. 44Google Scholar. Ōkubo's enemies made political capital of this house. They even sent photographs of the large, impressive Printing Bureau building to Satsuma under the pretense that it was Ōkubo's new house. It is said that Saigō decided on a complete rift with Ōkubo's group when he saw this photo. Katsuda, Ōkubo den, III, 461–462. “The house is exceptionally fine; none of our guests has departed without expressing admiration,” wrote Ōkubo to Saisho Atsushi on January 25, 1876. “Even foreigners to whom I have shown the house have praised it, so I am quite pleased,” again Ōkubo wrote to Saisho, March 23, 1876. Ibid., III, 458–459.
28 Matsubara, Ōkubo, pp. 115–116, 210–211, 220–221, 234, 242. Transcribed reminiscences of Ōkubo's sisters and of his son, Toshitake, are especially useful on personal aspects of his life.
29 Kiyoshi, Kiyosawa, Gaiseika to shite no Ōkubo Toshimichi [Ōkubo Toshimichi as Diplomat and Politician] (Tokyo, 1942), p. 11.Google Scholar
30 Yoshio, Sakata, “Nihon ni okeru kindai kanryō no hassei” [“The Development of Japan's Early Modern Bureaucracy”], Jimbun gakuhō, III (1953), 5–8.Google Scholar
31 Fujio, Shimomura, “Iwakura shisetsu no Ōbei haken to taibei kōshō” [“Iwakura Embassy's Mission to Europe and Diplomatic Negotiations with America”] in Kōta, Kodama, ed., Nihon shakai shi no kenkyū [Studies in Japanese Social History] (Tokyo, 1955), pp. 341–345.Google Scholar
32 In addition, foreign experts such as the aforementioned D. W. Ap Jones served in several bureaus of the Home Ministry. An American of French birth, one Charles M. LeGendre, served Ōkubo as a personal adviser for a time.
33 Wilson, Robert A., Genesis of the Meiji Government in Japan 1868–1871 (University of California Press, 1957), pp. 87–99.Google Scholar
34 Text of the ordinance establishing the Ministry quoted in Tsuchiya, Nihon shihon shugi shijō no shidōshatachi, p. 28.
35 Ibid., pp. 28–29. In January 1874 the Home Ministry (Naimushō) had, in addition to the two bureaus mentioned, a Bureau of Census (Kosekiryō), a Bureau of Posts (Ekiteiryō), a Bureau of Public Works (Dobokuryō), a Bureau of Geographical Survey (Chiriryō), and a Bureau of Land Survey (Sokuryōshi).
36 Translation of this memorial in Tsunoda, ed., Sources of Japanese Tradition, pp. 658–662.
37 Conroy, Hilary, The Japanese Seizure of Korea: 1868–1910 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1960), pp. 47–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
38 Katsuda, Ōkubo den, III, 226–246; Conroy, Japanese Seizure of Korea, pp. 49–52.
39 Text of May-June, 1874, memorial in Ōkubo monjo, IV, 561–565.
40 Lockwood, Economic Development of Japan, 25, 34; Takao, Tsuchiya, “Ōkubo Naimukyō jidai no shokusan kōgyō seisaku” [“Economic Development Policy during Ōkubo's Term as Home Minister”], Keizai gaku ronshū, IV (September 1934), 1193–1252Google Scholar, and IV (October 1934), 1290–1352; T'akao, Tsuchiya, “Keizai seisaku ka to shite no Ōkubo Toshimichi” [“Ōkubo Toshimichi as a Maker of Economic Policy”], Chūo Kōron, LX (April 1935), 95–110Google Scholar; Masao, Fukushima, “Meiji shonen no keizai seisaku to shihon bokuchiku no mondai: Ōkubo-Ōkuma kōsō to Matsukata kōsō” [“Economic Policy and the Accumulation of Capital in the Early Years of Meiji-Ōkubo—ōkuma Plans and Matsukata's Plans”], Toyo bunka, No. 9 (June 1952), 1–20.Google Scholar
41 Ōkubo monjo, IX, 40–52; VII, 166–167; Harootunian, Harry D., “The Economic Rehabilitation of the Samurai in the Early Meiji Period,” Journal of Asian Studies, XIX (August 1960), 435–437.Google Scholar
42 Tsuchiya, Nihon shihon shugi shijō no shidōshatachi, pp. 33–37.
43 Katsuda, Ōkubo, III, 504–510; Schwantes, Robert, Japanese and Americans (New York, 1955), p. 52.Google Scholar
44 Katsuda, Ōkubo den, III, 496–497; Tokio Times, February 2, April 28, 1877; Japan Weekly Mail, February 23, 1878.
45 Ōkubo's Memorial to Prince Sanjō, February, 1876, Ōkubo monjo. VII, 45–49; Katsuda, Ōkubo den, III, 521–524.
46 The Tokio Times complained about the inappropriate “modified Gothic” building, of unlabeled objects, and of the poor quality of many. October 6, 1877.
47 Katsuda, Ōkubo den, III, 418, 531–541.
48 Tsuchiya, “Keizai seisaku ka to shite no Ōkubo Toshimichi,” p. 106; Katsuda, Ōkubo den, III, 502–503, 507.
49 See Thomas C. Smith's careful evaluation of these enterprises in Political Change and Industrial Development in Japan.
50 Fukushima, “Meiji shonen no keizai seisaku,” pp. 10–12.
51 Dr. Paul Mayet cited in Lockwood, Economic Development of Japan, pp. 98–99.
52 Takao, Tsuchiya, “Transition and Development of Economic Policy,” in Shibusawa, , ed., Japanese Society in the Meiji Era, pp. 118–119.Google Scholar
