A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower (50 page)

To this end It
went to Europe the following year to study various constitutions, confirmed his preference for the Prussian model, and on his return to Japan worked on the draft constitution with a number of appropriate German advisers.
⁵¹
Work on the draft constitution went relatively slowly, at a pace It
preferred. It gave him time to put in place safeguards to counterbalance the imminent risky experiment in democracy.
⁵²
In 1884 he created a peerage to fill the seats in the anticipated House of Peers, most peers being former
daimy
. He himself was eventually to attain the highest rank, prince. In 1885 the senate was replaced by a cabinet comprising ministry heads, who were largely the oligarchs themselves. It
himself took the position of prime minister, the first person in Japan’s history to occupy this western-style position. Then, when the draft was finished in April 1888, It
promptly established a supra-cabinet Privy Council to discuss and approve it on the emperor’s behalf. He resigned as prime minister so that he himself could head this new body and thereby make sure his own handiwork was approved.
⁵³

The finished document, the first ever full and formal constitution adopted outside the western world, was promulgated on 11 February 1889.
⁵⁴
This date was the anniversary of the claimed date – according to the ancient
Nihon Shoki
– of the founding of the Japanese state, 11 February 660 BC. The timing was deliberate. Both the date and the constitution itself were part of the machinery creating Japan’s modern myths.

Respect for the emperor was vital for this. In fact, not only did the first article of the constitution stress the immutable sovereign rights of the emperor, the very constitution itself was presented in the form of a gift from the emperor to his people. An imperial oath that accompanied the promulgation stressed that the lineage of the document went back to the Sun Goddess Amaterasu herself, and that the constitution was merely a reiteration in modern form of precepts that had always been followed by the imperial rulers of the land.

Although outwardly great reverence was displayed for the emperor, a closer reading shows his position was in fact ambivalent. He was in theory given absolute power but was in practice constrained.
⁵⁵
All imperial decrees required the counter-signature of a minister of state. The government did, after all, have to govern, and it couldn’t risk having an emperor get in the way.

A bicameral Diet (parliament) was provided for, consisting of an upper and lower house. The House of Peers was to comprise higher-ranking nobles, elected lower-ranking nobles, and imperial appointees (typically scholars), while the House of Representatives was to comprise elected members only. However, the right to vote was given only to adult males paying at least 15 yen per annum in taxes, which meant about 2 per cent
of the adult population. Ministers were not responsible to the Diet but to the emperor. The military was also, in matters of command, answerable only to the emperor, the supreme commander of the army and navy. Various popular rights were guaranteed, such as freedom of speech, religion, association, and so forth, but on the other hand these were offset by qualifications such as ‘within limits not prejudicial to peace and order’.

The constitution was in some ways a step forward for democracy, but one that still left the oligarchs, who acted in the name of the emperor, with the upper hand. It allowed the popular parties to have their say, but did not oblige the oligarchs to listen. It did not allow for effective party government.
⁵⁶

The nature of the cabinet per se was not fully clear in the constitution but was explained the following day by Prime Minister Kuroda Kiyotaka (1840–1900): ‘The government must always steadfastly transcend and stand apart from political parties, and thus follow the path of righteousness.’
⁵⁷
The cabinet was, according to Kuroda, ‘transcendental’ (
ch
zen naikaku
), since it transcended the partisan interests of party politics.

A few days later It
said much the same: ‘The emperor stands above the people and apart from every party. Consequently, the government cannot favor one party above the other.’
⁵⁸
The first election for the Diet was held on 1 July 1890, and the Diet convened on 25 November that year.

In October that same year, as if by way of balance to these risky democratic steps, the
Imperial Rescript on Education
was issued. Freedoms and rights had to be channelled to the right ends.

The
Rescript
certainly seemed to be needed. The election showed that the oligarchs had underestimated the party politicians, many of whom who had developed considerable electioneering skill through their experiences in prefectural assemblies. Out of 300 seats in the House of Representatives, a re-formed Liberal Party took 130, while 41 went to the Progressive Reform Party. This did not bode well for the oligarchs. Many other independents and minor party representatives also indicated they were by no means going to accept uncritically any authoritarian pronouncements by the oligarchs.
⁵⁹

In the Diet itself there was open criticism of the high-handed nature of the oligarchy, and the elected members used every possible means to exert their influence. The first budget, for example, was resisted in the Diet, and had to be slashed by over 10 per cent with particular effect on the salaries of the oligarchs and the elite bureaucrats who supported them.

Over the next few years the oligarchs resorted to questionable or even downright illegal methods to force their policies through.
⁶⁰
It
on occasion used the tactic of making support a matter of moral obligation by couching proposals as personal requests from the emperor. Kuroda’s successors as prime minister, Yamagata and then Matsukata, both resorted to bribery and intimidation. In the notorious February 1892 election, which Matsukata tried to manipulate and which involved blatant and brutal government interference,
⁶¹
25 people were killed.

Matsukata resigned a few months later and It
became prime minister for a second term (till 1896). It
was becoming ever more pragmatic, and was now thinking that he should – in traditional Japanese style – not simply confront the foe but learn from it, and to an extent even align with it, blurring the divisions. He almost immediately started constructive and cooperative negotiations with the Diet, and even suggested the formation of a government party with the aim of winning seats in the Diet. However, Yamagata and other hard-line oligarchs were alarmed by this apparent softness, and It
’s party plans were held in check. An uneasy and tense atmosphere prevailed in the political arena. Authoritarianism and democracy did not sleep easily in the same bed.