Part 1 (1/2)
The Empire of the East.
by H. B. Montgomery.
PREFACE
On my return from another visit to j.a.pan a few months ago I found those persons in this country with whom I was brought into close a.s.sociation extremely curious and strangely ignorant regarding that ancient Empire. Despite the mult.i.tude of books which have of late years been published about j.a.pan and things j.a.panese a correct knowledge of the country and the people is, so far as I can judge, altogether lacking in England. Indeed the multiplicity of books may have something to do with that fact, as many of them have been written by persons whose knowledge, acquired in the course of a flying visit, was, to say the least, perfunctory, and who had no opportunities for viewing the life of the people from within and forming a sound judgment on many matters upon which the writers have dogmatically p.r.o.nounced. I, accordingly, came to the conclusion not only that there was room for one more book on j.a.pan, but that another book was greatly needed--a book not technical, historical, abstruse or recondite, but a book describing in simple language j.a.pan as it was, is, and will be.
This is the task I set before myself when I commenced to write this volume, and the reader must be the judge to what extent I have been successful in the accomplishment thereof. I have touched but lightly on the material development of the country of recent years. I know from experience that though statistics are the fad of a few they are caviare to the great ma.s.s of the public. Nor have I dealt at all with politics or political parties in new j.a.pan. It is, I think, unfortunate that the j.a.panese people, in adopting or adapting English inst.i.tutions, should have introduced the political party system so much in evidence in Great Britain and other European countries.
Whether that system works well in the West, where it has been in existence for centuries and is not always taken over-seriously by party politicians themselves, is a question upon which I shall express no opinion. But I think it is problematical whether such a system is well adapted for an Oriental people, possessed of and permeated by an ancient civilisation--a people whose feelings, sentiments, modes of thought, prejudices and pa.s.sions are so essentially different from those of Western nations. Be that as it may, j.a.panese politics find no place in this work.
The morality or otherwise of the j.a.panese is a matter which has been much discussed and written about. The views of speakers and writers in regard thereto, so far as I have been able to ascertain them, have been largely affected by their prejudices or the particular standpoint from which they have regarded the matter. The result, in my opinion, has been that an entirely erroneous conception of the whole subject of j.a.panese morality has not only been formed but has been set forth in speech or writing, and a grave injustice has been done to the j.a.panese in this matter, to say nothing of the entirely false view of the whole question which has been promulgated. In this book I have endeavoured to deal with this th.o.r.n.y subject, so far as it can be dealt with in a book, free from prejudice or preconceived ideas of any kind. I have simply confined myself to facts, and have endeavoured to represent the whole matter as it appears to the j.a.panese and to morality according to the j.a.panese standard.
I have deemed it necessary to deal at some length with the various phases of j.a.panese art, which it is no exaggeration to say has permeated the whole nation so that the j.a.panese may truthfully be termed the most artistic people in the world. Of course it is impossible to deal exhaustively in a work of this kind with j.a.panese art. I have, however, endeavoured to describe the princ.i.p.al art industries of the country and to set forth what I may term the catholicity of art in j.a.pan. I have also dealt with the question how far art has been affected by the Europeanising of the nation which has taken place of recent years, and the effect thereof.
The religion of the j.a.panese, the Const.i.tution, the home life of the people, the Army and Navy, the financial position of the country are all subjects treated as fully as possible, inasmuch as they are matters essential to be understood in order to realise the j.a.pan of to-day. The j.a.pan of the future I have attempted to forecast in two final chapters.
But the j.a.pan of to-day and the j.a.pan of the future can neither be understood nor realised unless the reader have in his mind some idea as to the j.a.pan of the past--not the barbaric or uncivilised j.a.pan brought into contact with civilisation and suddenly discarding its barbarism, which is, I fear, the conception many persons still have, but, as I have sought to show, a highly civilised country holding itself aloof from European influences and excluding, so long as possible, the European invasion of its sh.o.r.es just because it had convinced itself by painful experience that European ideas and manners and methods were undesirable and unsuitable for a great island nation which possessed and cherished a civilisation of its own, had high artistic ideas and ideals, had its own code of morals, its own conception of chivalry, and was, on the whole, undoubtedly happy, contented, and prosperous. I trust the chapter I have written on this subject will tend to dispel many erroneous ideas.
The book is the result of my own investigations, and the opinions expressed therein are entirely my own. I have, however, read nearly every work on j.a.pan that has appeared in recent years, and when the views put forward in any of these have not coincided with my own I have endeavoured, by impartial investigation and inquiry, to arrive at a correct conclusion in the matter. No doubt some of my views and opinions will be questioned and criticised, but I claim to have written this book with a mind free from prejudices of any kind. I have sought to depict j.a.pan as it really is, not the j.a.pan seen through gla.s.ses of various colours, of which, I think, the public has had enough.
H. B. M.
THE EMPIRE OF THE EAST
CHAPTER I
A GLIMPSE AT THE PAST
I have seen it stated in a popular handbook that j.a.pan possesses a written history extending over two thousand five hundred years, while its sovereigns have formed an unbroken dynasty since 660 B.C., but that the ”authentic history begins about 400 A.D.” ”Authentic history”
is, I consider, not a very apt phrase in this connection. Most j.a.panese history is legendary, and authenticity in history, j.a.panese or European, even much later than 400 A.D., is hopeless to look for. I have no intention of leading my readers into, as I should find a difficulty in extricating them from, the mazes of j.a.panese history at any date. I simply propose to give them a glimpse of j.a.pan as it has appeared to Europeans since it was first ”discovered” by three storm-tossed Portuguese sailors about the year 1542. I say ”discovered” with full knowledge of the fact that Marco Paolo, as early as 1275, dictated to a friend when imprisoned at Genoa that stirring narrative, ”Maravigliose Cose,” which, by the way, was not printed for nearly two centuries later. That narrative was read by and, it is stated, so fired the imagination of Christopher Columbus as to lead him to set out on that voyage of exploration which ended in the discovery of America. Marco Paolo's narrative must, however, be received with caution. I regard it as largely legendary. He never himself visited j.a.pan, and his glowing description of the ”Isles washed by stormy seas and abounding in gold and pearls” was founded on what he had been told by the Chinese he had met during his Eastern travels.
The commencement of European intercourse with j.a.pan may, as I have said, be taken to be 1542, when three Portuguese adventurers in a Chinese junk were driven by stress of weather on a part of the j.a.panese coast under the authority of the Prince of Bungo. The Portuguese were kindly received by the natives, and a treaty or arrangement seems to have been entered into whereby a Portuguese vessel was to be annually despatched to j.a.pan laden with ”woollen cloths, furs, silks, taffetas,” and other articles. Some years later a j.a.panese n.o.ble, Hansiro by name, murdered another j.a.panese and fled the country. He found his way to Goa, where he came under the influence of some Portuguese priests, and was eventually converted to Christianity and baptized. He was, if the records of his career are correct, desirous to bring to his fellow-countrymen not only the knowledge of the Christian religion but many articles of European commerce. The great Apostle of the East and disciple of Ignatius Loyola, St. Francis Xavier, had then recently arrived in Goa, where he appears to have taken up with ardour the project of converting j.a.pan.
Both enterprises, the material and the spiritual, seem to have been organised about the same time. A s.h.i.+p was loaded with articles likely to be in demand in j.a.pan, and Francis Xavier embarked in another vessel, with the j.a.panese refugee and a number of Jesuit priests as missionaries.
The vessels in due course arrived at Bungo, and both priests and traders were cordially, not to say enthusiastically, received.
Foreigners were evidently not then excluded from j.a.pan, and no objection whatever was made to the Christian propaganda in any part of the country. The efforts of the Jesuit missionaries were crowned with remarkable success. All ranks and cla.s.ses, from priest to peasant, embraced the Catholic faith. Churches, schools, convents, and monasteries sprang up all over the country. The only opposition came from the Bonzes, or native priests, who felt their influence and power declining. They appealed to the Emperor to banish the Roman Catholic priests, but the imperial edict simply was, ”Leave the strangers in peace.” For forty years or thereabouts Catholicism not only flourished but was triumphant. Indeed, a j.a.panese mission of three princes was despatched to Pope Gregory XIII. laden with valuable presents. The arrival of this mission was acclaimed as a veritable triumph throughout Catholic Europe. By a stroke of irony its advent there was almost contemporaneous with not only the overthrow but the almost total extinction of Christianity in j.a.pan. The edict for the banishment of the missionaries was published in 1587. It was followed by persecutions, martyrdoms, and the rasing of all the Christian churches and buildings--the destruction, in a word, of Christianity in j.a.pan. This was in due course followed by not only the expulsion of all foreigners from the country--with the exception of the Dutch, who were allowed to have a factory at Nagasaki--but the enactment of a law, rigidly observed for two and a half centuries, that no j.a.panese should leave his country on any pretence whatever, and no foreigner be permitted to land therein. Prior to this edict the j.a.panese had been enterprising sailors and had extended their voyages to many distant lands. What, it might be asked, was the reason of or occasion for this violent change in the att.i.tude of the j.a.panese to Christianity and the presence of Europeans in their midst? It is impossible, at this length of time, to arrive at a correct answer to this question, largely mixed up as it has been with the _odium theologic.u.m_. We have been told that the result was greatly or altogether due to the pride, arrogance, and avarice of the Roman Catholic priests; to the pretensions of the Pope, which came to be regarded with suspicion by the feudatory princes of j.a.pan, as also to the cupidity and cunning of the traders. How far any or all of these alleged causes were responsible for the change in j.a.panese opinion I shall not venture to p.r.o.nounce. Suffice it to remark that, whatever the cause, there must have been some powerful, impelling influence at work to induce the nation not only to cast out the stranger within its gates, but to exclude him for two and a half centuries, and veto any inhabitant of j.a.pan leaving its sh.o.r.es and thus being brought into contact with, and stand the chance of being contaminated by, the foreigner. We may regret the destruction of Christianity in j.a.pan, but at the same time we may, I think, accept the fact that the uprising of j.a.pan against the foreigner at the close of the sixteenth century was simply the result of the gorge which had arisen in the nation against the foreigner's manners, methods, and morals, his trampling underfoot of national prejudices and ideas, his cupidity, his avarice, his cruelty, his attempt to impose on j.a.panese civilisation a veneer which it did not desire and deemed it was much better without. It must be remembered that the missionaries and the traders had a common nationality, and that the j.a.pan of the sixteenth century did not find it possible to differentiate between them.
Down to the nineteenth century we have to rely for our knowledge of j.a.pan and the j.a.panese on the narratives of the few travellers who managed to visit that country more or less by stealth, or from the information derived from Europeans serving in the Dutch factory at Nagasaki. Every Englishman has heard of Will Adams and his j.a.panese wife, but though his career was romantic and interesting it has added but little to our knowledge of j.a.pan at the time of his visit thereto.
In 1727 Dr. Kaemfer's work on j.a.pan was published. Kaemfer had been physician to the Dutch factory at Nagasaki, and, accordingly, had some opportunities of studying j.a.panese life and character. His book in the original form is rare, but I am glad to say that a cheap edition, a reprint of the English edition produced by the Royal Society in 1727, has recently been published in this country. Kaemfer's work is spoiled and its utility or reliability largely impaired by the fanciful theories put forward by the author respecting the origin of the j.a.panese. Much of his information is, of course, mere hearsay, and a great deal of it, by the light of what we now know, is not only misleading but nonsensical. A considerable amount of s.p.a.ce is devoted by Kaemfer to chimerical animals, and he dilates upon the awful sanct.i.ty that surrounds the person of the Emperor. ”There is,” he remarks, ”such a Holiness ascribed to all the parts of his Body that he dares not cut off neither his hair, nor his beard, nor his nails.
However, lest he should grow too dirty, they may clean him in the night when he is asleep; because they say that what is taken from his Body at that time had been stolen from him, and that such a theft does not prejudice his Holiness or Dignity.” In a notice of this new edition of Kaemfer's work I have seen it a.s.serted that the book is the foundation of nearly all that was known or written of j.a.pan till the last twenty-five years. How such a statement as this came to be published I quite fail to comprehend. There was plenty of literature in reference to j.a.pan far more reliable than Kaemfer's whimsical ”yarns” at a much earlier period than twenty-five years back. Sir Rutherford Alc.o.c.k's ”The Capital of the Tyc.o.o.n” was, I think, published in 1863. Sir Rutherford was the first resident British Minister in j.a.pan, and his book remains a stirring and, making allowance for the author's prejudices on various matters, on the whole a vivid picture of j.a.pan as it was in the early sixties. Alc.o.c.k's book was followed by many others, and twenty-five years ago the world was so far from being dependent on Kaemfer for its knowledge of j.a.pan that, as I have said, it had even then quite a library of recent and reliable books in regard to that country.
Following Kaemfer, a little later in the eighteenth century, a Swedish physician, Thunberg by name, who also had been attached to the Dutch factory at Nagasaki, wrote a book undoubtedly interesting and of great value. That country, he remarks, is ”in many respects a singular country, and with regard to customs and inst.i.tutions totally different from Europe, or, I had almost said, from any other part of the world.
Of all the nations that inhabit the three largest parts of the globe, the j.a.panese deserve to rank the first, and to be compared with the Europeans; and although in many points they must yield the palm to the latter, yet in various other respects they may with great justice be preferred to them. Here, indeed, as well as in other countries, are found both useful and pernicious establishments, both rational and absurd inst.i.tutions; yet still we must admire the steadiness which const.i.tutes the national character, the immutability which reigns in the administration of their laws and in the exercise of their public functions, the unwearied a.s.siduity of this nation to do and to promote what is useful, and a hundred other things of a similar nature. That so numerous a people as this should love so ardently and so universally (without even a single exception to the contrary) their native country, their Government, and each other--that the whole country should be, as it were, enclosed, so that no native can get out, nor foreigner enter in, without permission--that their laws should have remained unaltered for several thousand years--and that justice should be administered without partiality or respect of persons--that the Governments can neither become despotic nor evade the laws in order to grant pardons or do other acts of mercy--that the monarch and all his subjects should be clad alike in a particular national dress--that no fas.h.i.+ons should be adopted from abroad, nor new ones invented at home--that no foreign war should have been waged for centuries past--that a great variety of religious sects should live in peace and harmony together--that hunger and want should be almost unknown, or at least known but seldom,--all this must appear improbable, and to many as impossible as it is strictly true, and deserving of the utmost attention.” He goes on to say, ”If the laws in this country are rigid, the police are equally vigilant, while discipline and good order are scrupulously observed. The happy consequences of this are extremely visible and important, for hardly any country exhibits fewer instances of vice. And as no respect whatever is paid to persons, and at the same time the laws preserve their pristine and original purity, without any alterations, explanations, and misconstructions, the subjects not only imbibe, as they grow up, an infallible knowledge of what ought or ought not to be done, but are likewise enlightened by the example and irreproachable conduct of their superiors in age.
”Most crimes are punished with death--a sentence which is inflicted with less regard to the magnitude of the crime than to the audacity of the attempt to transgress the hallowed laws of the empire, and to violate justice, which together with religion they consider as the most sacred things in the whole land. Fines and pecuniary mulcts they regard as equally repugnant to justice and reason, as the rich are thereby freed from all punishment--a procedure which to them appears the height of absurdity.