A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower (47 page)

Other transport developments in Meiji Japan included the invention of the rickshaw (‘
jinrikisha
’, ‘human-power vehicle’) in 1869, and the opening of steamship and stagecoach services – almost always owned and operated in the early years by foreigners – in 1868.
²¹

The government attached great importance to transport development, for it recognised its infrastructural value to the economy and general strength of the nation. Between 1870 and 1874 one-third of the state’s investments were in railway construction alone.
²²
The social commentator Tsuda Mamichi (1829–1903) wrote in June 1874 that he saw the development of transport as the single most important priority in achieving national prosperity, one even that ‘should certainly rank ahead of the military system and building schools’.
²³

In social and demographic terms, the spread of both intra-city and inter-city transportation brought new patterns of urbanisation. Population clusters arose around the stations, especially at intersections of routes. ‘Urban sprawl’ became noticeable as distance became less of an obstacle. People’s worlds expanded as they could now travel quite freely. They were no longer confined to their own community.

Very importantly, the spread of transport also meant that people could now live apart from their place of work. That is, the age of commuting – for which Japan is now notorious – had begun. Within a few decades rush-hour commuting was already to become a problem. The
Niroku
newspaper complained in its 23 March 1910 issue that ‘Usually the people at the end of the line and the next few stops are able somehow to get aboard, but no-one waiting at stops further along the way has a chance unless he fights like a madman.’
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And, like Japan today, some males took advantage of the forced mixing of the sexes in crowded train carriages.
²⁵

At a less obvious level, thought patterns were also changing. Through translations and an increasing ability to read English and other languages, a whole wave of western writings by novelists, philosophers, and scientists flooded into the country, from Goethe to Darwin to Mill to Rousseau. This created a maelstrom of often contradictory and irreconcilable ideas and influences that were not necessarily recognised as such.

Japanese literature of the day showed particular confusion, blurring romanticism and naturalism, utilitarianism and escapism. But it also showed the authority of things western. Just as – in time-honoured fashion – the young leaders of the Restoration needed the authority of the emperor to legitimise their acts, so too did many writers seek the authority of western figures to add weight to their thoughts or justify their own circumstances. Even fictional works of the day are littered with references to this and that western writer or thinker. This was not only among authors who positively promoted western models of one sort or another. Remarkably, western models were also used to portray the frustrations and failures of those Japanese unable to cope with the bustling dynamism of the westernisation process itself. The Russian literary concept of the ‘superfluous man’ appealed particularly to those Japanese who felt bewildered and left behind by all the changes.
²⁶

The superfluous man in Japan was a loser in a tough world of winners and losers, a world where people were suddenly left largely on their own to succeed or fail on their own strengths. The rigidly prescribed orthodoxy of the Tokugawa era had at least meant that people had a fixed place, and were told how to think and act. That security had now gone. Freedom proved a two-edged sword.

Not surprisingly, the related ideas of ‘survival of the fittest’ and ‘self help’ were very popular. Samuel Smiles’ work
Self Help
(1859), on the theme of ‘Heaven helps those who help themselves’, was one of the first English works to be translated into Japanese, in 1871. It was a best-seller.

The self-help philosophy fitted perfectly with the sentiments of Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835–1901), one of Meiji Japan’s most influential educators and advocates of westernisation.
²⁷
In his work
Gakumon no Susume
(An Encouragement of Learning) of 1872, he wrote:
²⁸

There are no innate status distinctions between the noble and base, the rich and the poor. It is only the person who has studied diligently, so that he has a mastery over things and events, who becomes noble and rich, while his opposite becomes base and poor.

Darwin’s theories on evolution and natural selection were very popular in Meiji Japan, and so was social Darwinism. This is seen in the appeal of the British philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820–1903), who coined the term ‘survival of the fittest’.
²⁹

Spencer was held in such esteem that he was privately consulted by the highest levels of the mid-Meiji government for advice as to the best policies for the nation. His reply, in a letter of 26 August 1892, was at his request kept secret till after his death, for he feared it would upset his countrymen.
³⁰
Among other things he advised that ‘the Japanese policy should be that of keeping Americans and Europeans as much as possible at arm’s length’. There should be prohibitions on foreign ownership of property and restrictions on foreign business rights, and the Japanese race should be kept pure by not interbreeding with foreigners. In short, he recommended many of the things for which the Japanese government is to this day criticised by Britons and other foreigners.

As it happened, many of the steps he recommended had already been taken anyway by the Japanese government. For example, in 1873 a law had been passed prohibiting the purchase of land by foreigners.
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Spencer’s advice therefore came more as an endorsement.

The Japanese government called upon numerous western experts and specialists in addition to Spencer. Many of them were invited to Japan. They included experts in mining, navigation, coin-minting, transport, banking, law, political science, agriculture, education, and even the armed forces.
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Their role was usually confined to technical matters and they had relatively little scope for making major decisions. By 1875 there were around 520 foreign employees in government employment. Foreign employment then gradually shifted to the private sector, with around 760 being in private employment by 1897.
³³
According to some estimates as much as 5 per cent of total government expenditure during Meiji went on salaries and other expenses related to the employment of foreigners.
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They also accounted for one-third of the budget of Japan’s first modern university, T
ky
University, which was established in 1877 and was a particularly prominent employer of foreign experts.
³⁵

In addition to westerners being invited to Japan to teach, Japanese people visited the west to learn. There were a number of official or semi-official missions to America and/or Europe, the largest and best-known being the earlier-mentioned Iwakura Mission of 1871–3. This had some 50 official members, including key political figures such as It
, O kubo, Kido, and Iwakura himself, and had at least as many persons again (mostly students) accompanying the mission unofficially. That such a major mission could be sent out of Japan – taking so many leaders out of effective operation – so soon after the Restoration is testimony to the confidence of the new government. As with other missions, many of those who went published their thoughts and impressions when they returned to Japan, disseminating the knowledge they had gained. The accounts of their trips were widely read by a literate nation, a nation keen to learn from the west but still a little confused by it all.

4.3   Harnessing the Energies of the People

The self-help philosophy emerging in the 1870s was a potential problem for the new regime. If individuals became too strong and independent, they could prove difficult to control. Their endeavours could become dis-organised and wasted. The authority of the government might even be affected. This would weaken the country and make it vulnerable to the foreign powers, should they start thinking after all about colonising Japan.

On the other hand, it was not easy to make a strong nation out of weak and uncommitted people, and the government very much wanted to lead a strong nation. People had to be encouraged to become strong and able to achieve aims, but, Tokugawa-style, it had to be within limits. Their newly liberated energies had to be harnessed.
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Nationalism was an ideal cause. It tapped nicely into the revived sense of national identity and crisis triggered by the return of the foreign threat, and built on earlier
kokugaku
. It was easy to spread among the public, by methods such as catchphrases. Become strong and build a strong nation. Make your own success the success of the nation. Become strong and show the westerners that Japan is no nation to be toyed with. The cry was not only
oitsuke, oikose
(‘catch up, overtake’) but also
fukoku ky
hei
– ‘rich nation, strong army’.
³⁷
Successism (
risshishugi
) was the order of the day.

Nationalism needed symbols as well as catchphrases. That too worked out nicely for the men whose power was legitimised by the emperor, for
the emperor himself could become the main symbol. Support for the emperor meant support for them, his champions.

In an age when so many different ideologies were competing with each other, it was not necessarily an easy task to bring all public thinking into line. However good the causes might seem, a few determined detractors might create problems. A key tool was indoctrination, but ironically this was hampered by one of Japan’s few real strengths of the day – the nation’s high rate of literacy and education. It would be a pity to sacrifice that. In fact, it was essential to the building of a strong modern nation.