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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78440 ***
+
+Transcriber’s Notes:
+
+Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_), and text
+enclosed by equal signs is in bold (=bold=).
+
+An additional Transcriber’s Note is at the end.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HEADLINE BOOKS
+
+No. 29
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HEADLINE BOOKS
+
+  =CHANGING GOVERNMENTS=
+      Amid New Social Problems
+
+  =SHADOW OVER EUROPE=
+      The Challenge of Nazi Germany
+
+  =BRICKS WITHOUT MORTAR=
+      The Story of International Cooperation
+
+  =BATTLES WITHOUT BULLETS=
+      The Story of Economic Warfare
+
+  =IN QUEST OF EMPIRE=
+      The Problem of Colonies
+
+  =HUMAN DYNAMITE=
+      The Story of Europe’s Minorities
+
+  =THE PEACE THAT FAILED=
+      How Europe Sowed the Seeds of War
+
+  =NEW HOMES FOR OLD=
+      Public Housing in Europe and America
+
+  =WAR ATLAS=
+      A Handbook of Maps and Facts
+
+  =THE BRITISH EMPIRE UNDER FIRE=
+
+  =SPOTLIGHT ON THE BALKANS=
+
+  =CHALLENGE TO THE AMERICAS=
+
+  =LOOK AT LATIN AMERICA=
+      With 25 Maps and Charts
+
+  =AMERICA REARMS=
+      The Citizen’s Guide to National Defense
+
+  =SHADOW OVER ASIA=
+      The Rise of Militant Japan
+
+  =WAR ON THE SHORT WAVE=
+      (In preparation)
+
+
+
+
+SHADOW OVER ASIA
+
+
+  THE RISE OF MILITANT JAPAN
+
+  by
+  T. A. BISSON
+
+  Illustrated by
+  GRAPHIC ASSOCIATES
+
+  THE FOREIGN POLICY ASSOCIATION
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  COPYRIGHT 1941
+
+  FOREIGN POLICY ASSOCIATION, INCORPORATED
+  22 EAST 38TH STREET, NEW YORK, N. Y.
+  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
+
+  _Published April 1941_
+
+  _Typography by Andor Braun_
+
+  PRODUCED UNDER UNION CONDITIONS AND
+  COMPOSED, PRINTED AND BOUND BY UNION LABOR
+
+  MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+     I. The Shadow                      7
+
+    II. Introducing Imperial Japan     11
+
+   III. Imitating the Chinese          20
+
+    IV. Japan Bars Her Door            25
+
+     V. How the Door Was Opened        33
+
+    VI. Catching Up with the West      39
+
+   VII. Who Rules Modern Japan?        45
+
+  VIII. Creating a Modern Empire       53
+
+    IX. Japan and the First World War  59
+
+     X. Go Liberal, Go Fascist?        65
+
+    XI. The Shadow Deepens             73
+
+   XII. War with China                 83
+
+  XIII. Shadow Over Asia               91
+
+  Suggested Reading                    95
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: WHERE THE SHADOW LIES]
+
+
+
+
+I. The Shadow
+
+
+On the morning of September 27, 1940 the cables hummed with news of a
+momentous ceremony. Japanese diplomats in Berlin had signed a military
+pact with Germany and Italy. That evening in Tokyo the Japanese people
+received a message from Emperor Hirohito. In their newspapers they
+read: “We are deeply gratified that a pact has been concluded between
+these three powers.” The Emperor had spoken. A new alliance had been
+formed. And a lengthening shadow was spreading over Asia.
+
+
+TEN YEARS AGO AND NOW
+
+The shadow had first been cast on another September day nearly ten
+years before, when a railway explosion at Mukden had served as an
+excuse for the Japanese military to take over Manchuria. As we look
+back now with the advantage of hindsight, that day--September 18,
+1931--looms up as an important milestone. For Japan’s seizure of
+Manchuria ended one historic era, and began another. It abruptly broke
+up the period of comparative peace that had succeeded the first World
+War. And it ushered in our present period of strife and unsettlement.
+Its indirect effects on European developments were also very great. We
+know that Japan’s defiance lowered the prestige and authority of the
+League of Nations. It showed how hard it was to secure international
+cooperation strong enough to check determined aggression. Japan’s
+example undoubtedly influenced Mussolini and Hitler in the bold moves
+they made later on in Europe.
+
+After 1935 German and Italian expansion in Europe paralleled Japan’s
+drive in the Far East. All of these movements steadily widened their
+scope. Increasingly these three powers played into one another’s hands,
+and helped one another’s advance. The anti-Comintern pact of November
+1936 drew them closer together. But they were not formally allied
+until September 27, 1940, when Japan signed the military pact with the
+Axis powers.
+
+This pact had startling implications. True, Germany and Italy were
+separated from Japan by vast distances. As long as Britain controlled
+the seas, the new allies could not actually join military forces. But
+Germany had only to put pressure on the French authorities at Vichy in
+order to help Japan win control over Indo-China. An Axis break-through
+in the Mediterranean, moreover, could swiftly bring her much greater
+aid.
+
+
+TOWARD A “NEW ORDER”
+
+It was this possibility that made Japan’s aims, as outlined in the
+alliance, so significant. Berlin and Rome waved Japan ahead toward the
+conquest of “Greater East Asia.” Until 1940 Tokyo’s official claims
+had reached out only to Manchuria and China. But the new term brought
+southeast Asia into the picture as well. This area would certainly
+include Indo-China, Siam, Burma, Malaya, the Dutch East Indies and the
+Philippines. On its outskirts lie Australia, New Zealand and India. By
+formally announcing “Greater East Asia” as Tokyo’s sphere of influence,
+the Axis-Japan pact served as a blueprint of the Far Eastern sector of
+the world order which the Axis alliance hoped to establish.
+
+
+WHAT IS “GREATER EAST ASIA”?
+
+The new allies were seeking control over three continents. Germany
+and Italy were bidding for domination over Europe, Africa and the
+Near East, creating new and urgent problems for us. Tokyo’s bid for
+supremacy in “Greater East Asia” raised problems which were just as
+great. To many of us these problems seemed far away--much more remote
+than those of Europe, to which we are bound by so many close ties. Yet
+we know now that we should be making a mistake if we tried to close our
+eyes to them.
+
+More than one billion people, or half the earth’s population, live in
+the area embraced by “Greater East Asia.” It is thus one of the most
+populous regions of the globe. Its territorial spread is equally large.
+Its outside limits range from northern Japan to Australia, and from
+China and India to New Zealand. The whole North and South American
+continents, excluding Canada, could be fitted comfortably into this
+vast territory.
+
+It is, besides, an area of great contrasts--greater, probably, than
+in any other region of the world. In a score of different localities
+conditions vary widely--climate, people, language, religion, economic
+life, government. Coolies working in Korean rice fields are a far
+cry from English-speaking Australian sheep ranchers, peasants in the
+remote interior of China from Malayan tin miners or East Indian rubber
+planters, Indian bazaars under a burning sun from Manchurian cities
+deep in their winter snows.
+
+
+A COLONIAL REGION
+
+Another feature of this region became especially important after
+Germany had conquered several European powers with Far Eastern
+possessions. For eastern Asia is one of the greatest colonial areas
+of the world, not even excepting Africa. From Korea to India runs a
+continuous chain of Japanese, French, American, Dutch and British
+holdings. Only Japan in the north, and Australia and New Zealand in the
+south, may be counted as fully independent countries. So this region
+is the scene not only of imperial rivalries, but of struggles for
+independence on the part of native peoples.
+
+Thus many factors enter into the international developments affecting
+this region. Countless threads of policy connect it with Europe. They
+run to Berlin, and are woven into Hitler’s plans; to London, where
+they tie in with the problem of what naval and air forces the British
+can spare for the Far East; to Vichy, and the attitude of the French
+Government there; and to the refugee Netherlands authorities in
+Britain taking counsel on the fate of their colonies. Moscow is caught
+up in this diplomatic network, and so is Washington--their moves can
+exert decisive influence on the course of events.
+
+
+JAPAN PULLS THE STRINGS
+
+Yet the main moving force in Far Eastern developments is Japan. In
+fact, Japan has been pulling the strings ever since September 18,
+1931. The challenge to the _status quo_ in East Asia proceeds from
+Tokyo, just as in Europe it proceeds from Berlin. Like Germany, but in
+even greater measure, Japan has the strategic advantage of a central
+position. She need not take too seriously the protests of European
+powers halfway across the globe, and she is well aware that the main
+centers of strength in the United States and the Soviet Union are
+almost equally distant. Only Japan, of the major powers, has her home
+bases wholly within the Far Eastern region.
+
+And so today we are forced to think more and more about Japan. In large
+part we are concerned with the immediate present. We want to know what
+Japan is doing, and what she intends to do. Yet we can understand her
+present foreign policy and form some idea of her probable future moves
+only if we know something of her past as well. We must seek out the
+forces that have shaped modern Japan.
+
+So in this book we shall go back to the legendary traditions of the
+Japanese nation, today being revived by Japanese patriots and preached
+as a state religion. We shall see how the belief in hereditary power
+as the privilege of the few has been strong in Japan from the earliest
+times, resisting the influence of democratic ideas from both China and
+the West; how even when Japan set up a constitutional government, the
+seats of ancient privilege were preserved; and how Japan, with her
+military leaders in the saddle, finally set out on the road to Empire.
+
+
+
+
+II. Introducing Imperial Japan
+
+
+Japan proper, consisting of four closely connected islands, has often
+been compared to the British Isles. A map of the Eurasian continent
+shows the similarity of their geographical position. Japan’s island
+chain is much longer, but it clings to the Asiatic mainland very much
+as the British Isles cling to the European mainland. The Straits of
+Tsushima take the place of the English Channel.
+
+Actually, however, Japan is much farther from the mainland than
+Britain, even in the narrow waters of Tsushima. The steamer from
+Shimonoseki takes nearly eight hours in crossing over to Fusan, on the
+tip of the Korean peninsula. This fact has had important historical
+results. The stretch of water has been wide enough to make invasion
+difficult--at least until modern times. Yet it has not been so wide as
+to bar cultural exchanges with the mainland.
+
+
+JAPAN AND THE ASIATIC MAINLAND
+
+During historic times, for roughly 2,000 years, Japan was never
+successfully invaded. In 1066 William the Conqueror successfully
+invaded England. But two centuries later, in 1274 and 1281, Kublai
+Khan’s Mongol-Chinese armies twice failed to conquer Japan. For long
+periods, when Japan’s rulers so wished, they were able to isolate their
+country more or less completely from the Asiatic mainland.
+
+On the other hand, Japan was close enough to the continent to benefit
+from the earlier growth of civilization there. From the very beginning
+of Japanese national life, we can trace significant advances to the
+coming of peoples and cultures from the Korean peninsula. At times,
+notably in the seventh and eighth centuries, the flood of cultural
+influences from China almost swamped Japan and threatened to sweep away
+her native institutions. During the past century Western influence has
+caused equally great changes in Japanese life. Each time, however, a
+solid core of Japanese tradition resisted destruction, and shaped the
+new elements into a social pattern characteristically Japanese.
+
+
+JAPAN’S ISLAND HOME
+
+Many local features of Japan’s island home are as important as its
+geographical position. Its natural beauties have fed the highly
+developed aesthetic sense of the Japanese people. No one who has
+traveled the Inland Sea can forget its sparkling waters, or the lovely
+islands which dot its surface. The majestic beauty of Mt. Fuji is world
+famous. Hallowed associations enhance its snow-capped splendor for the
+Japanese.
+
+Not all characteristics of the group of Japanese islands are so
+favorable. Many of its mountains are volcanic in origin. Several
+volcanoes are still active. Earthquakes occur frequently. (The
+disastrous earthquake of 1923, with over 150,000 dead and injured, is
+still fresh in our memories.) Typhoons, sweeping in from the sea in
+destructive assault, are also common. So nature contributes an element
+of insecurity to the life of the Japanese, offsetting the protection
+their isolation gives them.
+
+Today other natural features give rise to a more serious insecurity.
+Japan’s territory is small, barely the size of California, the
+population is large and prolific. Four-fifths of the islands are so
+mountainous that they are useless for the intensive rice cultivation
+which is the principal Japanese agricultural pursuit. In recent times,
+when modern industry became necessary, the Japanese islands were found
+to lack most minerals. Water power is abundant, and can be harnessed to
+produce electricity. There are considerable reserves of coal, though
+not of good coking quality. But there is little iron, and even less of
+the minor but still important metals. To these factors, which have not
+prevented the Japanese from becoming an industrial nation, we shall
+have to return later on.
+
+
+WHO ARE THE JAPANESE?
+
+Like all modern peoples, the Japanese of today are a mixed race. In
+prehistoric times one migrant people after another overran the islands.
+The ocean set a barrier to further migration. So the invaders had to
+settle down, either exterminating the people already there or else
+intermarrying with them.
+
+[Illustration: JAPAN’S ISLAND HOME]
+
+The last invasions must have occurred early in the Christian era.
+Scholars are not agreed on the exact racial proportions of the groups
+which mingled to form the modern Japanese people. The basic stock is
+probably Mongolian, the result of migrations through Korea from the
+north Asiatic continent. There is apparently a southern admixture,
+coming from either southeast China or Malaysia. Many of these groups
+were late invaders of the islands. They found there an Ainu people,
+possibly of Caucasian racial origin. Ainu remnants still survive in
+Japan, but most of them have been absorbed or exterminated in the
+course of centuries of warfare.
+
+[Illustration: EARLY INVADERS AND SETTLERS]
+
+Three main racial elements thus entered into the making of the Japanese
+people. To the Mongol strain is undoubtedly due the warlike spirit of
+the Japanese, while from southeast Asia comes a mythology that has been
+interwoven with Japan’s political institutions. Later, there were also
+many Chinese and Korean immigrants. By the end of the seventh century,
+according to one source, more than one-third of Japan’s noble families
+claimed Chinese or Korean descent.
+
+[Illustration: A Magatama, or bead ornament, common in early Japanese
+tombs. Often made of jade, nephrite or chrysoprase--materials found not
+in Japan but in the Ural-Baikal regions.]
+
+
+EARLY JAPANESE INSTITUTIONS
+
+To understand modern Japan, we need to study the past even more than in
+the case of most Western nations. For survivals of ancient traditions
+play a large part in Japan’s national life today. These beliefs and
+practices can be traced back for nearly two thousand years. What were
+these institutions like in their earliest form?
+
+Historians give only a partial answer to this question. The latest
+island invaders, who became the dominant Japanese, were a group of
+clans or tribes. Leadership in these clans was hereditary. The clan
+elder was both chieftain and high priest. He supervised or performed
+sacrifices to the clan god, who was usually held to be his direct
+ancestor. All clansmen were supposedly united by blood ties to the clan
+elder, and thus shared in the divine descent.
+
+
+“THE WAY OF THE GODS”
+
+Societies ruled by a priest-king, usually called “theocracies,” have
+existed in many parts of the world. In Japan, however, theocracy
+grew all the stronger because of a mythological tradition, later
+called Shinto, or “Way of the Gods,” centering about a Sun Goddess
+(Amaterasu). There were many aspects to Shinto, including an early
+nature worship. But its main feature came to be the story of the Sun
+Goddess, whose descendants were the Japanese people. Early in their
+history the rulers of Japan raised this myth to the dignity of a state
+cult. The chieftain of the Yamato clan, the strongest of all, claimed
+direct descent from the Sun Goddess. This claim was a very real thing
+in Japan. It was taken much more literally than our vaguer Western idea
+of “the divine right of kings,” which persisted until the eighteenth
+century in Europe.
+
+The clansmen were aristocrats who handed on their privileges from
+father to son, and to whom war was second nature. But agriculture, in
+the shape of the cultivation of rice, was already a cornerstone in
+the economy of this early Japanese society. Under the clansmen were
+“guilds” of farmers and artisans, who did most of the productive work.
+Membership in these producing units also passed from father to son.
+These serfs, as well as a smaller number of actual slaves, were made up
+largely of war captives, conquered natives, or immigrants from Korea.
+
+[Illustration: JAPAN’S EARLY SOCIETY (5-6th CENTURIES)]
+
+The chief ideas of this primitive Shinto society are quite clear.
+There was a strong emphasis on the hereditary principle. The idea of
+an aristocracy of the blood was strengthened by the idea of descent
+from the gods. Government was by men, not by law. The clan or group,
+not the individual, was important. The mass of the people lived to
+serve their rulers. We shall see how these primitive ideas--so like the
+totalitarian ideas of today--have influenced Japanese history through
+the centuries.
+
+
+BEGINNINGS OF A NATION-STATE
+
+At first the invading clans were not unified. There was little
+centralized government. The Yamato chieftain had only a shadowy
+authority over the other clans. He was “first among equals,” rather
+than an overlord. He controlled directly the territory held by his own
+clan, but not the lands of other clans. Nor did his religious authority
+extend far beyond his own clan.
+
+During the first four or five centuries of the Christian era this
+picture was steadily changing. Most of central and western Japan was
+conquered and occupied as the result of a long series of wars. The
+power of the Yamato clan was growing. Its chieftain was becoming the
+ruler of a centralized state. His position was approaching that of a
+king. Lesser leaders were being attached to this “Emperor,” and were
+assuming the role of ministers at the “court.”
+
+In other ways, too, the various clans were merging into a centralized
+state. The Emperor, as the direct descendant of the Sun Goddess, came
+to be recognized as divine ruler of the whole Japanese people. More and
+more the Japanese thought of themselves as a single patriarchal family,
+headed by “the Sovereign that is a manifest God.” Ancestors of the
+other clan leaders, also divine, were brought into relation with those
+of the Emperor, but in subordinate rank. The strongest clans were able
+to claim descent from deities closely associated with the Sun Goddess.
+
+
+CONQUESTS IN KOREA
+
+These political and religious changes were the outward signs of an
+underlying movement of growth and expansion. A larger and larger area
+of the islands was being occupied. The population was growing, and
+additional economic units, or “guilds,” were being formed. Japanese
+armies were fighting in Korea, where they dominated the southern
+region of the peninsula for long periods. Through this contact with
+the mainland, a stream of Korean immigrants, and even some Chinese,
+flowed into Japan. Many of them were educated scribes, Buddhist priests
+or expert artisans. By the fifth century the Japanese had learned the
+rudiments of Chinese writing, and in the sixth century Buddhism was
+officially introduced from Korea. The wealth of Chinese civilization
+was thus opened up to the Japanese people.
+
+[Illustration: INTERCOURSE WITH KOREA 5-6th Centuries]
+
+
+THE OLD ORDER BREAKS DOWN
+
+By the sixth century, Japan faced new and difficult problems. Old
+forms of government were breaking down. The simple clan rule, based on
+blood ties, was being upset by migrations within, and immigration from
+without. New leaders were faking their family trees, in order to claim
+divine descent. The clan chieftains found their priestly control over
+the people slipping, and had to try the use of political and military
+power instead.
+
+Special difficulties arose when new areas were conquered, or large
+numbers of immigrants arrived. There were disputes between clans, some
+of which favored “guilds” and some a freer order of serfs. The Imperial
+clan proved able to get the richest of the new areas, and to extend
+the lands and increase the people under its control. But this did not
+settle the problem. For the leading clans tried to control the Emperor,
+and fought over rival claimants to the throne.
+
+These bitter quarrels threatened to tear the new state apart. A more
+effective centralization, both of economic and political power, had
+obviously become necessary. The groundwork had been laid, and the
+times called for a drastic change. The model was sought in China, then
+flourishing under the T’ang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.).
+
+
+
+
+III. Imitating the Chinese
+
+
+One of the most dramatic episodes of modern history has been Japan’s
+adoption of Western institutions and techniques. But the interesting
+thing is that such wholesale borrowings were not new in the history of
+Japan. More than a thousand years earlier she had drawn similarly on
+Chinese civilization. That earlier period, moreover, was akin to the
+later in one significant respect--the old Japanese ways persisted under
+the new shell. The changes were only skin-deep. And the more important
+beliefs and practices that featured the early clan society we have been
+studying continued to govern Japanese behavior.
+
+Japan’s contacts with China had begun well before the seventh century,
+the period when they became so marked. At first these contacts had been
+only secondhand, through Korea. Direct relations with China had been
+established early in the fifth century, but had remained unofficial.
+The first official Japanese envoy was sent to the Sui Dynasty in 607
+A.D., and a second embassy followed in 608. In the two centuries after
+630, no less than twelve Japanese embassies visited the T’ang court
+at Ch’ang-an, located on the site of the modern city of Sian (see
+map opposite). These two hundred years were China’s golden age, when
+dazzling Ch’ang-an was the world’s foremost civilized center. Japanese
+monks and scholars accompanied the embassies, often remaining in China
+for long periods of study. They brought back to Japan a thorough
+knowledge of Chinese culture--much as Japanese students have returned
+from Western countries with new knowledge and skills during the past
+eighty years or so.
+
+[Illustration: ROUTES TO THE CONTINENT 7-8th CENTURIES]
+
+
+CHINA BECOMES THE “GLASS OF FASHION”
+
+Chinese civilization, during the seventh and eighth centuries, was
+transplanted to Japan on a vast scale. Nara, the new Japanese capital
+(see map opposite), was built on the lavish model of Ch’ang-an. Court
+society became highly sophisticated. The ability to write a good
+Chinese hand, or turn a Chinese verse, was the indispensable equipment
+of an educated man. The first national histories of Japan were
+written--most of them in the Chinese language. Buddhism flourished.
+Japanese artistic skill expressed itself in masterpieces of sculpture
+and architecture, modeled on T’ang examples but individual in genius
+and execution. Native Japanese poetry flowered and, in general, this
+was the classic age of Japanese culture.
+
+[Illustration: “Japanese artistic skill expressed itself in
+masterpieces of sculpture ... modeled on T’ang examples.”]
+
+In the field of government the Japanese also imitated the T’ang
+system. They declared the land “nationalized”--or subject only to the
+Emperor’s control. They reorganized local government, putting Imperial
+officials in direct control, especially of tax revenues. In China such
+officials were chosen through an examination system, so examinations
+were introduced in Japan. The Emperor was now, in theory at least, the
+all-powerful head of the Japanese state.
+
+
+BUT IT’S CHINA--“WITH A DIFFERENCE”
+
+These reforms were not amateurish. They were based on a good knowledge
+of the principles and practices of the Chinese system. Yet in their
+pure Chinese form they worked against certain ingrained Japanese ideas,
+most of all the hereditary principle. So, from the beginning, the
+Japanese changed the Chinese system as they took it over. The changes
+may not have seemed great at the time, but they were really basic.
+Within a few centuries, the new institutions had produced an entirely
+different result in Japan. Only in form did they bear any resemblance
+to the institutions of China.
+
+The clearest example of such changes is the way Japan’s statesmen
+treated the Chinese examination system. In China, at its best, this
+was a real civil service system. For centuries the path to public
+office lay through success in the examinations. Sons of great families
+undoubtedly had a better chance of succeeding, and bribery and
+favoritism were rife in decadent periods. But the “success story” of
+the Horatio Alger type fills Chinese literature. In not a few cases,
+the poor but brilliant Chinese youth passes the examinations with
+honors, and becomes a powerful and wealthy official.
+
+
+THE ARISTOCRAT’S PLACE IN THE SUN
+
+This system was altogether too democratic for Japan’s clan society,
+with its emphasis on aristocratic lineage. At the very outset it was
+drastically modified. Training schools were set up, but only nobles
+of a certain rank could enter them. These persons alone could take
+the examinations, and qualify for high office. After a time, even the
+examinations were discontinued. Important government posts soon became
+hereditary again. Lower posts in the provinces were usually taken by
+local leaders, instead of officers sent by the Imperial government.
+The higher provincial officials meanwhile stayed at court, and
+delegated their powers to personal followers in the various localities.
+
+A similar development took place in the case of the land reforms. The
+land was “nationalized,” but it proved impossible to preserve the
+public domain. The great estates of the clan leaders were returned
+to them in payment for their official services, and then remained
+hereditary. Powerful individuals encroached on the public lands, or
+impoverished peasants escaped tax exactions by joining their lands to
+privately owned manors, and becoming serfs. In practice, the public
+domain was gradually taken over by private families, the court nobility
+or the great monasteries.
+
+
+THE POWER BEHIND THE THRONE
+
+As these private estates were usually tax-free, the Imperial government
+was soon deprived of its revenue. And so, as time went on, the Emperor
+became a mere figurehead. Elaborate state councils and ministries,
+patterned after those of China, became nothing more than ceremonial
+forms. Yet centralization was maintained for several centuries, with
+the great Fujiwara family as the real power behind the throne. This
+family held vast provincial estates, controlled many of the local
+officials, and dominated the court. By wedding the Imperial princes
+to Fujiwara ladies, it reduced the Emperors to puppets. The Fujiwara
+dictatorship ruled a much more intricate and cultured society than had
+existed in the early clan period. On the surface, this new society was
+Chinese; in fact, it was still run in the old Japanese way.
+
+Changes there had been, however. The courtier had replaced the warrior.
+Instead of fighting clan chieftains, a bureaucracy of civilians now
+ruled. Buddhism had pervaded Japanese society from top to bottom. The
+teachings of Confucius had also been introduced from China. For a time
+the home-grown Shinto religion was overshadowed, and lay dormant. But
+it was not wholly eclipsed. The Emperor reigned, if he did not rule.
+Though the Shinto ritual, playing up the Emperor’s descent from the Sun
+Goddess, might be neglected, it was never lost. Japanese government
+was still theocratic (centering on a priest-king), even if a Fujiwara
+pulled the strings and bureaucrats played all the active roles.
+
+
+
+
+IV. Japan Bars Her Door
+
+
+We must now leap several centuries to about 1550, when the first
+Western traders and missionaries reached Japan.
+
+The Japan of 1550 differed greatly from the Japan of the Fujiwara era
+we left behind us five or six centuries earlier. The Fujiwara power
+had passed away in the twelfth century. Its civilian government had
+grown weak. It could not even keep the peace. As disorder grew in
+the provinces, great independent lords surrounded themselves with
+military retainers on their private estates. A feudal society gradually
+emerged. In 1185 one of these feudal lords established his supremacy
+over the others, and soon obtained Imperial appointment as “Shogun,”
+or Generalissimo. The Emperor’s court still carried on at Kyoto, but
+political control passed increasingly to the Shoguns, who became
+military dictators. A military aristocracy--but a rapidly shifting
+one--dominated Japan. As new feudal lords grew in strength, they would
+challenge the Shogun’s authority and bitter civil wars would follow.
+Strife and disorder amounting to anarchy marked the century which
+preceded 1550.
+
+Then the trend was reversed. By 1590, through the work of three great
+leaders--Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Ieyasu--the country was unified
+again. In the brief period that followed--say, until 1625--Japan was
+confronted with a fateful question. Should it embark on a program
+of military and commercial expansion, similar to that which Western
+nations were just entering upon? For a time it seemed that the answer
+might be “yes.” In the end, it was “no.” And that “no” changed the
+whole course of Far Eastern and perhaps world history. In 1603 Ieyasu
+established the Tokugawa Shogunate, destined to rule Japan for more
+than 250 years. After 1616, under his successors, the seclusion policy
+was gradually adopted, and Japan was practically isolated from the
+outside world.
+
+Was this choice inevitable? We cannot really tell. We do know that in
+the period just before she barred her door Japan was reaching outward
+toward full intercourse with the West.
+
+
+REACHING OUTWARD
+
+For the last thirty years of the sixteenth century were a dynamic
+period in Japanese history. An excess of energy in Japan seemed to
+match the urge for discovery and conquest that stirred the rising
+nations of Europe.
+
+Japan’s domestic and foreign trade had been increasing at a rapid pace.
+Native industries had grown, and trade guilds had flourished. After
+1550 this commercial development leaped forward. Sakai, a great trading
+center, became virtually a free city, ruled by its merchant princes.
+Nagasaki was opened to foreign trade in 1570, and soon developed into
+a thriving port. At this time, too, Japanese ships, often on piratical
+expeditions, were venturing into the waters of the Philippines and
+Siam. In groups and as individuals, Japanese emigrants were found at
+various ports in southeast Asia. Hideyoshi even conceived the project
+of conquering China, but after overrunning Korea in 1592-93, his armies
+(numbering 150,000 men) were defeated.
+
+After 1550 missionaries and traders from Portugal, Spain, Holland and
+England came to Japan in growing numbers. The Japanese eagerly seized
+upon Western products and technical advances, notably in firearms
+and shipbuilding. These commercial contacts with the West modified
+Japan’s economy and stimulated her industrial development. For several
+decades Christianity, introduced by St. Francis Xavier in 1549-51, was
+welcomed. Some of the feudal lords became Christians. By 1617 there
+were some 300,000 Christian converts, or nearly as many as today.
+
+[Illustration: JAPAN’S OVERSEAS ADVENTURES 16-17th CENTURIES]
+
+
+JAPAN SENDS ENVOYS TO SPAIN
+
+For a time, there was the possibility of even more extensive contacts
+between Tokugawa Japan and the West. Ieyasu, the first Tokugawa Shogun,
+deliberately sought to make Japan a great center of international
+trade. China, mindful of Hideyoshi’s Korean invasions, rebuffed him. He
+then turned to the West--that is, to Spain, then the richest trading
+nation of Europe. In 1610 Ieyasu concluded a commercial treaty with the
+Spanish governor of the Philippines. In 1610 and 1614 Japanese envoys
+crossed the Pacific and visited some of the Spanish possessions in
+America. Then they went on across the Atlantic. In Madrid the Japanese
+envoy had an audience with King Philip III on January 30, 1615; later,
+he saw the Pope at Rome. The Spanish king, however, influenced by
+the anti-Christian persecutions that had already occurred in Japan,
+rejected Ieyasu’s request for a treaty establishing trade relations
+with Spain and the Spanish-American possessions.
+
+
+BUT FINALLY PULLS IN HER LINES
+
+It was not until more than two centuries later that such an opportunity
+presented itself again. For soon after Ieyasu’s death in 1616, the
+policy of national seclusion was adopted.
+
+Many factors led to this decision. The narrow intolerance of the
+missionaries, as well as conflicts between rival Jesuit and Franciscan
+orders, had created difficulties almost from the beginning of their
+stay in Japan. More important was the fear that estates of the
+Christian lords might become centers of rebellion, and thus lay
+Japan open to conquest by a foreign power. Persecution began under
+Hideyoshi, and after 1616 a series of anti-Christian edicts was issued.
+The Christian persecutions reached their height in 1622-24, although
+Christianity was not fully stamped out until 1638.
+
+At this time Japanese were forbidden to go abroad, and the building
+of large sea-going vessels was also prohibited. All foreign traders
+and priests either left Japan or were expelled. A small Dutch trading
+center, restricted after 1641 to the islet patch of Deshima, was all
+that remained of the early period of intercourse with the West. By 1650
+the policy of national seclusion, introduced by the Shoguns of the
+Tokugawa clan, was in full force. It was maintained until after the
+middle of the nineteenth century, or well into the modern era.
+
+
+THE DUTCH OASIS ON DESHIMA
+
+We should be on guard, however, against some common errors about this
+important period in Japan’s history. The term “hermit nation” must
+not be taken too literally. Seclusion was not complete. Through the
+Dutch settlement on Deshima, ideas from Europe filtered into Japan.
+A small group of Japanese scholars studied the Dutch language. In
+1745 they prepared a Dutch-Japanese dictionary, and in 1774 a Dutch
+textbook on anatomy was translated. Of course, Japan did not keep
+abreast of Western technical progress during the Tokugawa epoch. But
+valuable beginnings were made, especially in language study, medicine,
+geography, map-making and military science.
+
+Another common error associated with the idea of a “hermit nation” is
+that Tokugawa Japan remained static for two hundred years. In reality
+great internal changes occurred during this period, some of which were
+fundamental. By 1850 Japan was a very different country from what it
+had been in 1650.
+
+The seeming lack of development was most evident in the Tokugawa
+political system. Its broad outlines did not, in fact, change very
+much. The Emperor and his court were kept secluded at Kyoto. The
+real center of government lay in Tokyo, where the Shoguns and their
+ministers ruled. Most of the land was owned by the Tokugawa family and
+the great feudal lords (_daimyo_) closely associated with it. About
+three-eighths, however, was owned by the “outer lords,” such as Choshu
+and Satsuma. These “outer lords” were viewed as potential rebels, and
+were denied posts in the central administration. All of the feudal
+lords had to spend certain months in attendance on the Shogun at Tokyo,
+and had to leave their families there as hostages when they went back
+to their own lands.
+
+
+FOUR CLASSES OF SOCIETY
+
+Efforts were made to draw strict class lines. The feudal lords and
+their military retainers, or _samurai_, held the highest rank. The
+farmers came next, but they were severely taxed and harshly treated.
+The townspeople were looked upon as the lowest class of all. A
+_samurai_ had the right to cut down a merchant with his sword, but very
+early in the Tokugawa period he learned to respect the power of the
+merchant’s purse.
+
+[Illustration: JAPAN’S PRE-RESTORATION SOCIETY
+
+DAIMYO (A Feudal Lord) Ruler but heavily in debt
+
+SAMURAI (Military Retainers) Poor but proud
+
+PEASANTS Poor and downtrodden
+
+MERCHANTS Despised but wealthy]
+
+Yet all measures to preserve a rigid centralized feudalism, and to
+maintain Tokugawa rule, proved futile. Halfway through the period
+serious economic problems began to appear. By 1850 the whole system was
+on the verge of collapse.
+
+
+THE SHOGUNS FAIL TO CONTROL THE MERCHANTS
+
+In their attempts to prevent change, the Shoguns were unable to master
+one basic element in their society--trade and industry. Even before the
+Tokugawa regime was established, as we have seen, Japan’s commerce had
+already grown sizable. Foreign trade was then cut off. But internal
+trade, stimulated by a long period of peace, continued to develop. New
+luxury goods of many varieties were produced, and industry prospered.
+The merchant class in the cities grew wealthy and powerful. Large
+business houses, including the present Mitsui firm, were founded.
+Money, instead of rice, became the medium of exchange. The transition
+to a money economy was gradual, but it worked a revolution in Japanese
+society.
+
+Incomes of the _daimyo_ and _samurai_ were in rice. The rice had to
+be changed into money, and great exchange marts--similar to our modern
+commodity exchanges--grew up in Osaka. The rice brokers “rigged”
+prices. Dizzy price fluctuations occurred. The feudal lords and their
+_samurai_ fell into debt to the rice brokers and the money lenders.
+Government intervention did not help matters. The Shogunate either
+debased the coinage, or tried vainly to control prices by decree. The
+farmers suffered most of all--from the change to money, from the price
+fluctuations, and from still heavier taxes when the feudal lords became
+indebted to the merchants. After 1725 the number of farmers declined;
+after 1750 peasant uprisings were frequent.
+
+
+AND FACE A RISING REVOLT
+
+In other ways, too, loyalty to the Shogunate was undermined. The luxury
+of the towns stimulated a type of life quite the opposite from that
+inspired by the Spartan ethical code, called Bushido, of the _samurai_.
+Rich townspeople craved amusement--and painting, the drama, and the
+novel flourished. No laws could prevent the _samurai_ from being drawn
+to this life, nor could executing a more than usually lavish merchant
+or usurer turn back the tide of the new age.
+
+Other intellectual currents were more acutely dangerous to the
+Shogunate. Ancient history, literature and religion were studied, and
+there was a revival of interest in Shintoism. From these historical and
+literary schools there grew a political movement, aimed at restoring
+the Emperor to his former place as ruler of the nation.
+
+Thus, by the middle of the nineteenth century, the country was ripe
+for revolt. In the background lay the misery and distress of the
+farmer. But the active promoters of this revolutionary overthrow of
+the Shogunate were discontented groups within the ruling class. Four
+of these groups banded together to bring about the Restoration: (1)
+the “outer lords” of Choshu, Satsuma and the other western fiefs; (2)
+the lesser _samurai_, ambitious and energetic; (3) the merchants, who
+desired removal of feudal restrictions on their business activities;
+and (4) the court nobles of ancient lineage who still clung to the
+Emperor at Kyoto. This was a powerful coalition, and sooner or later
+it would undoubtedly have brought down the Shogunate through its own
+strength. As it happened, pressure on Japan from Western nations came
+to its aid and hastened the outbreak of the revolt that was brewing
+inside the country.
+
+
+
+
+V. How the Door Was Opened
+
+
+By the nineteenth century, a new flood of Western influence was
+sweeping into the Far East. As in the age of exploration and discovery,
+the West was knocking at the door.
+
+In those earlier days, we must remember, the West had had little to
+offer in the way of progress. In fact, in the arts and in the graces
+of civilized life, the East could have given pointers to the West. But
+now the West came strong in the might of the industrial revolution.
+Master of machine technique, it was turning out manufactured products
+in larger and larger quantities. It was extending international trade
+by leaps and bounds. It was seeking new markets and sources of raw
+materials throughout the world. And the most powerful of the Western
+countries were staking out colonies wherever they could.
+
+
+A PERIOD OF TRANSITION
+
+1853 to 1868 were the years of transition for Japan. They were crowded
+with events that laid the cornerstone of the modern Japanese Empire.
+
+Two broad trends were uppermost during these years. First, there was
+the coming of the Western powers with their demand for diplomatic
+relations, trade and intercourse--in a word, for the end of the
+seclusion policy and the opening of Japan’s door. Of course, the
+Shogun, as the ruling power, had the job of dealing with the Western
+nations. Too weak to resist, he had to give way. And his enemies at
+home seized on this opportunity to discredit him. The second main
+trend, therefore, was the sharpening of Japan’s internal conflict.
+
+The extraordinary thing about this internal conflict in Japan was this.
+The groups opposing the Shogunate were revolutionaries: they rejected
+the existing system and fought for a new one. They sought progress for
+Japan--and progress meant opening the country to Western influence.
+Yet in their struggle with the Shoguns they were all against the
+foreigner. The reason is not far to seek. Anti-foreign demonstrations
+provided a handy weapon for attacking and discrediting the Shogunate.
+As we shall see later on, when it had served its purpose, this weapon
+was dropped.
+
+But, meanwhile, let us look a little more closely at the two broad
+trends we have mentioned. Let us see first how, by a series of steps
+taken between 1853 and 1867, Japan’s door was gradually opened.
+
+
+THE “UNEQUAL” TREATIES
+
+What happened to Japan in her relations with the Western powers at this
+time had previously happened to China. For a long time there had been a
+closely regulated Western trade at Canton. During the early nineteenth
+century this trade had steadily expanded. China’s last-minute
+efforts to keep real control in her own hands were unsuccessful. The
+Anglo-Chinese war of 1839-42, and further conflicts in 1857-60, ended
+China’s seclusion and forced the Manchu authorities to treat with the
+Western powers on terms of diplomatic equality. The treaties signed at
+this time--later called the “unequal” treaties--actually established
+China’s _in_equality. Not only were new ports opened to Western trade.
+But a fixed schedule of Chinese tariff dues, usually not exceeding
+5 per cent, was also enforced. In addition, Western nationals were
+exempted from trial under Chinese law. Instead, they were to be tried
+in courts set up by their own consuls in China. This was the system
+known as “extraterritoriality.”
+
+These events in China did not pass unnoticed in Japan. Many of the
+Japanese leaders, despite the Shogunate’s policy of isolation, were
+aware of what was happening in China. They began to be alarmed over
+Japan’s future, fearing that the Western powers would soon be knocking
+at Japan’s door. And sure enough, very soon they were.
+
+
+COMMODORE PERRY BRINGS A LETTER
+
+The visits of Commodore Perry’s squadron to Japan in 1853 and 1854,
+bearing President Fillmore’s letter asking for the opening of trade
+relations, were the prelude. Commodore Perry secured the first treaty,
+on March 31, 1854. More important was the commercial treaty (July
+29, 1858) negotiated by Townsend Harris, first American Minister to
+Japan. This treaty opened five Japanese ports to Americans for trade
+and residence, and--like the treaties with China--provided for a fixed
+tariff schedule and extraterritoriality. It was the model for similar
+agreements, also concluded in 1858, with England, France, Russia and
+Holland. All of these treaties were signed by the Shogun, but not by
+the Emperor. Later, as the Emperor’s power grew, the opposition sought
+to prevent application of the treaties on the ground that the Emperor
+had not ratified them. In November 1865, however, an Allied naval
+demonstration off Osaka forced the Emperor to give his signature.
+Finally, in June 1866, a tariff convention set 5 per cent as the duty
+on practically all imports and exports.
+
+We shall have to return to these treaties a little later. For soon
+after the Restoration of the Emperor, they became a galling yoke to the
+Japanese. The tariff and extraterritorial provisions, in particular,
+were resented as shackles on the full exercise of Japan’s sovereignty.
+Three long decades were to pass before Japan gained enough strength,
+toward the close of the century, to revise these unequal treaties.
+
+
+THE INTERNAL STRUGGLE IN JAPAN
+
+At the time the treaties were negotiated, however, the issue was not
+one of equality. The issue was whether there should be any treaties
+at all. For many Japanese wanted no opening of Japan’s door. After
+the first treaties, nevertheless, a growing number of Westerners
+began to live in the ports opened to foreigners. The cry to “expel
+the foreigner” was then raised. Coupled with this slogan was the
+challenging demand to “revere the Emperor”--a direct call to revolution
+against the Shogun. The whole country was aroused. It seethed with
+internal strife and dissension, with plots and counter-plots, and even
+with armed conflict.
+
+The anti-foreign movement was merely the spark that set off a
+bonfire that had been long in the making. By 1850 the Shogunate
+was nearly bankrupt. The feudal lords, or _daimyo_, were in the
+same position. Most of their landed property was mortgaged to the
+merchant-bankers--the rising capitalist class. Thousands of _samurai_
+were poverty-stricken. The condition of the peasantry, taxed more and
+more heavily to pay for the debts of the feudal lords, was desperate.
+Even the wealthy merchants, irked by feudal restrictions and the social
+and political inferiority that was forced upon them, were dissatisfied.
+The demand for change was growing broader and deeper.
+
+
+SUPPORTERS OF THE EMPEROR
+
+In Kyoto the Emperor had become the center of an active and
+determined political movement. Its platform--anti-foreign and
+anti-Tokugawa--called for the restoration of the Imperial power. The
+court nobles and a growing number of the _samurai_ and feudal lords
+supported it. Wealthy merchant-banker families, such as the Mitsui
+house, provided it with cash. Above all, the movement was eventually
+backed by a coalition of the western clans, notably those of Choshu and
+Satsuma. The part these clans played, both in the Restoration movement
+and in the later Imperial government, was decisive.
+
+
+THE ROLE OF THE WESTERN CLANS
+
+These clans, you will remember, were ruled by so-called “outer lords,”
+who were denied a part in the Tokugawa administration. The fact that
+they were so far from the center of government at Tokyo encouraged them
+to be independent. Moreover, they were in many respects the strongest
+and most progressive of the leading Japanese clans. In developing
+manufacture and trade as a means of boosting clan revenue, Satsuma,
+Choshu, Tosa and Hizen were far ahead of other clans. They fostered not
+only handicrafts, porcelain manufacture, sugar-refining and textile
+mills, but mining, iron foundries, gun-making, shipbuilding and allied
+military industries. Choshu also made a revolutionary change in its
+army, by including commoners as well as the _samurai_ in its ranks.
+
+[Illustration: THE RISE OF THE WESTERN CLANS (Mid-19th Century)]
+
+In these western clans, the anti-foreign spirit was at first intense.
+For some years, in defiance of the Shogunate, the clans carried on
+what was practically an independent war against the Western powers and
+the new treaty rights of Westerners in Japan. They frequently attacked
+foreigners and their employees. Things came to a head in 1863-64, when
+they tried to expel the foreigners. In August 1863, in retaliation for
+the murder of an Englishman by Satsuma clansmen, a British squadron
+bombarded the Satsuma port of Kagoshima. And in September 1864 an
+Allied fleet (British, Dutch, French, American) destroyed Choshu forts
+at Shimonoseki which had been firing on Western vessels passing through
+the narrow straits.
+
+These decisive proofs of Western military and naval superiority gave
+Satsuma and Choshu pause. Both clans stopped their anti-foreign
+activities. They had long seen the need of acquiring modern armaments.
+This determination was now made doubly strong. Many other leaders came
+to see that Japan could not keep her door shut forever, and that her
+salvation lay in mastering Western techniques. Once having grasped this
+principle, they acted on it boldly and unhesitatingly.
+
+
+THE RESTORATION
+
+The Emperor’s prestige--and, indeed, actual authority--had grown
+steadily throughout this transition period. As early as 1858,
+recognizing the Emperor’s new importance, the Shogun sought his
+approval of greater intercourse with the West. In 1863 the Shogun even
+obeyed an Imperial summons to Kyoto. The advent of a new Shogun and
+a new Emperor in 1867 made the transfer of authority all the easier.
+In November 1867 the new Shogun resigned, and on January 3, 1868 the
+Emperor Meiji, backed by the western clans, formally assumed control of
+the nation. Six months later the Tokugawa forces, taking the field in
+opposition to the seizure of power by the western clans, were defeated
+in pitched battle. A new Empire had been founded.
+
+
+
+
+VI. Catching up with the West
+
+
+Great difficulties faced the early Meiji reformers. Their essential
+task was to catch up with the West. For two centuries Japan had kept
+to herself. During this period the Western world had made gigantic
+technical advances, greater than man had achieved in all preceding
+history. Japan had been left far behind. She was forced to do in
+decades what the West had done in centuries.
+
+How could Japan accomplish such a task? In both economy and government
+she was still largely feudal and decentralized. There was no real
+national state, as we understand that term today. Instead, there were a
+hundred competing clans, each with its own territorial lord. And over
+all lay the shadow of Western aggression, dictating speed and more
+speed.
+
+
+TACKLING THE PROBLEM
+
+From the outset of the Meiji era, anti-foreignism was dropped. Emperor
+Meiji’s famous Charter Oath (April 6, 1868) contained this statement:
+“Knowledge and learning shall be sought for throughout the world in
+order to establish the foundations of the Empire.”
+
+A period of borrowing from the West, comparable only to the earlier
+imitation of China, set in. One after another, Japanese official
+missions were sent abroad. Foreign advisers--British, French, Dutch,
+German, American--were employed in many different fields. Large numbers
+of Japanese students entered the universities of Western countries.
+For a short time imitation of the West went to extremes; in many
+externals, Western ways became a fad. On the whole, however, there was
+strict control over the process of borrowing, and careful adaptation to
+Japanese needs.
+
+In keeping with Japan’s traditions, a limited group maintained firm and
+despotic power at all times. The Meiji political reforms clothed old
+ideas of government in new garments. Emperor Meiji (1868-1912) reigned
+again, and with some degree of authority. But actual power during his
+long reign lay in the hands of the small group of men who surrounded
+him. There was no thoroughgoing mass upheaval, forcing recognition of
+popular rights. Reforms were dictated from the top down.
+
+
+THREE NEW TRENDS
+
+The great changes which occurred during the Meiji era may be grouped
+under three main headings. There were, in the first place, the economic
+reforms which merged the old feudal lords and _samurai_ into a new
+society, and laid the foundations of Japan’s modern industries. Then,
+there was a political movement which led finally to the Emperor’s
+proclamation of a written constitution. Finally, there was a cautious
+development of foreign policy by which Japan, at first on the
+defensive, later embarked on an expansionist program and fought its
+wars with China and Russia. In this chapter we shall look at the first
+of these trends.
+
+
+ABOLITION OF FEUDAL RIGHTS
+
+Between 1868 and 1877 a series of basic reforms gave centralized
+control to the Imperial government. The four western clans returned
+their lands to the Emperor, thus enabling him to order the other clans
+to do the same. In this way the government took over the land taxes,
+the main source of revenue. But the lords, though they no longer
+held the land registers, were still political rulers in their feudal
+domains. So, in 1871, an Imperial decree established prefectures,
+with Imperial governors, in place of the old clan divisions. Finally,
+the feudal lords lost their private armies. At first, the Imperial
+government’s army consisted mainly of the military forces of the
+western clans. By 1873, however, the government was able to enforce
+a system of universal military service, and thus build up a national
+conscript army under its own absolute control.
+
+Why, you ask, did the feudal lords accept so easily this rapid loss of
+their former powers? In large part, it was a result of the lead taken
+by the western clans, whose _samurai_ statesmen held the reins in the
+Imperial government. For they were prepared to back the new measures
+with military action, if necessary. But a second factor was equally
+important. The clan lords, especially the great _daimyo_, were well
+paid for the surrender of their old privileges. Their lands were not
+confiscated outright. Large annual grants of money were allotted them
+out of central revenues. But the payments originally promised in this
+huge pension scheme turned out to be too heavy for the central treasury
+to meet. The government therefore first reduced the pensions and then,
+in 1876, compulsorily ended them by means of lump-sum payments, in
+cash or short-term bonds. Though this drastic scaling down of the
+original pension scheme amounted to repudiating its earlier promises,
+the government had no other way of avoiding bankruptcy. As it was, the
+total cost of commuting the pensions came to nearly 211 million yen--a
+large sum for that period. In many respects, this way of dealing with
+the pensions laid the basis of the new Japanese society which has since
+developed.
+
+
+LORDS INTO CAPITALISTS
+
+The _daimyo_, or great feudal lords, did not fare so badly in the
+financial settlement of 1876. They were relieved of all their debts,
+and of their previous obligations to support their military retainers,
+the _samurai_. They retained great slices of their former lands, which
+they now held as private owners--that is, with fewer responsibilities.
+Moreover, they acquired large sums of money when the pensions were
+commuted. These sums they invested in banks, stocks and industries,
+as well as in landed estates. The _daimyo_ were thus merged into the
+new society, no longer as territorial rulers but as wealthy financial
+magnates, controlling the economic life of the countryside.
+
+So, from their own point of view, commutation of the pensions was
+a master-stroke by Japan’s new rulers. It helped to throw caste
+distinctions of the old feudal type into the melting pot. It won
+the allegiance of the clan lords to the new order simply by making
+allegiance worth their while.
+
+
+THE LOT OF THE _SAMURAI_
+
+But in other respects this bold reform created a number of serious
+difficulties. The _samurai_ class as a whole was plunged into great
+distress. A few of them, especially those from the western clans,
+immediately won high positions in the new government. But most of them
+were left to sink or swim in a strange new world. Their small pension
+payments soon dribbled away, and it was hard for them to find means of
+support. They had other grievances. A law of 1877 forbade them to wear
+their two swords--traditional mark of honor of the _samurai_ class.
+1877, too, was the year when the _samurai_ were replaced by the new
+conscript army. During this critical year a serious military revolt,
+centering in Satsuma but joined by all the forces opposed to the new
+order, broke out. It was crushed by the Imperial government’s new army,
+made up largely of commoners and partly modernized. Thus the last
+challenge to the new order was defeated.
+
+
+HARD TIMES FOR THE PEASANTS
+
+The peasants had an even harder time than the _samurai_. Many local
+peasant revolts took place in the years up to 1877. Imperial forces
+suppressed them, and so prevented the peasants from indulging in mass
+confiscations of lands.
+
+Yet great changes were taking place. For the peasants were no longer
+feudal serfs. They became landholders, and they could serve in the
+army. But the individual peasant secured only a very small plot of
+land. As a private owner, his situation was most precarious. He had
+to face the risks of drought or flood, pay taxes in money instead of
+rice, and cope with price changes in the market. His land soon had to
+be mortgaged, and could then be taken away by foreclosure. Indeed,
+many peasants quickly lost their lands in the early years of the new
+order. By 1892 nearly 40 per cent of the total cultivated area was
+worked by tenants. This proportion has persisted, while the number of
+part-tenants has increased.
+
+Japanese agriculture, moreover, remained backward in technique and
+social organization. The landlords became parasites. Instead of working
+the land as a capitalist enterprise for profit, they were intent only
+on drawing high rents--often as much as 60 per cent. This system had
+far-reaching effects on Japan.
+
+As the number of tenants grew, and the land became divided into smaller
+and smaller plots, the farm areas in Japan became overpopulated. Only
+a part of the unneeded farm workers could find a place in industry.
+Competing for jobs, they kept wages low. Low wages, of course, were a
+boon to industrial development. But what industry gained in one way
+it lost in another. For the farmers and the workers were too poor to
+buy much. The country’s purchasing power grew only very slowly. Thus
+the home market for factory products was limited, and industry did not
+develop as fast as it might otherwise have done. Very early Japan’s
+new factory industries had to turn to the foreign market. As the
+limitations on Japan’s home market have persisted down to the present
+time, the pressure for foreign trade expansion has grown steadily more
+urgent. Here is one underlying cause for Japan’s current policy of
+military expansion.
+
+
+INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT
+
+But changes in agriculture, as we have seen, did help to make possible
+the growth of a modern Japanese industry. Peasants who lost their
+lands, or artisans thrown out of work, became available as factory
+workers. Here was industry’s labor force.
+
+Many other changes helped industry along. Foreign trade, long
+prohibited, had begun to grow rapidly in the ’sixties. Clan barriers
+to internal trade were leveled. Hundreds of different kinds of money,
+issued by the various clans, had circulated. These were now abolished,
+and a single national currency instituted. Railways were built, and
+telephone and telegraph systems laid down. These improvements made a
+freer sale and exchange of goods throughout the country possible. Thus
+a home market--even if a very limited one--was established.
+
+For the introduction of modern, large-scale industry, however, two
+further things were needed--technique and capital. Foreign experts,
+acting both as direct advisers in industry and as instructors in the
+new technical schools, provided the first of these requirements.
+The second was harder to fill. The banking-trader houses and the
+pensioned-off lords had some capital. But it was not enough to finance
+the big factory projects, especially where quick profits seemed
+unlikely. So the Imperial government had to step in and supply the
+capital in most of the larger enterprises. It paid special attention to
+the armament industries--mining, metallurgy, shipbuilding.
+
+
+NURSING INFANT INDUSTRIES
+
+The clan bureaucrats in the government nursed the construction of this
+new industrial plant with extreme care and pride. Many of them fell in
+love with machinery and engineering technique. They worked closely with
+the great business houses, grafting industry on to firms that had been
+mainly concerned with trade or banking. The budding capitalists were
+not financially strong enough to develop industry by themselves. So the
+clan statesmen took them into partnership. It was the clan statesmen,
+however, who headed the combination--an important factor in Japan’s
+political growth, then and later.
+
+But the clansmen did not wish to keep all industry under government
+control. They only wanted to see that it developed quickly. Then
+the businessmen could handle it, or at least all but the strategic
+industries. The government kept control of railways, telephones,
+telegraphs, arsenals and naval shipyards. But in the case of many other
+industries, it supplied the capital and started their development,
+then turned them back to the great business houses, often at very low
+prices. In this way the capitalists were spoon-fed by the government.
+Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo and other houses obtained ready-made
+facilities in many fields--cotton-spinning mills, glass and cement
+factories, mining enterprises, shipyards. The giant Mitsubishi monopoly
+in commercial shipping, for example, got its start through the gift and
+cheap purchase of government vessels.
+
+By 1890 some 200 steam factories were in operation in Japan. The
+development of a machine industry was making good headway.
+
+
+
+
+VII. Who Rules Modern Japan?
+
+
+We are now able to distinguish the main groups which were to rule the
+modern Japanese Empire. Within the quarter century from 1853 to 1877 a
+new leadership had emerged.
+
+True to Japan’s history and tradition, control was concentrated in
+a few hands. The ruling group was composed of the clan leaders,
+dominating the government bureaucracy (since grown to nearly 500,000
+office holders); the old feudal lords with great landed estates; and
+the business group--bankers, traders and industrialists.
+
+
+HAND IN GLOVE
+
+At the head of this partnership were the clan leaders, and a few
+representatives of the old court nobility. The clan bureaucrats, as
+they came to be called, held the influential posts in the new Imperial
+government. To a large extent, their dictatorial powers carried on
+the old feudal tradition. Many of them were civilians, but they also
+controlled the army (Choshu) and the navy (Satsuma). The business
+people, on the other hand, especially in the beginning, were definitely
+in a subordinate position. It was the government which controlled most
+of the early industrial enterprises, as we have seen. Not until much
+later, after the World War of 1914-18, did trade and industry reach a
+size which enabled the capitalists to make themselves felt politically.
+
+It was the existence of the “upper crust” and the inferior status of
+business that largely determined the character of the new political
+institutions established during the Meiji era. They were designed,
+it is true, to serve the purposes of the whole combination of ruling
+groups. But at the same time the clan bureaucrats took good care to set
+up the machinery they needed to perpetuate their own supremacy.
+
+
+CONSERVATIVES VS. LIBERALS
+
+For a decade after the Restoration of 1868, an outright dictatorship
+functioned in Japan. The powers of the clansmen were almost unlimited.
+Within the ruling group itself, however, there were wide differences of
+opinion on some points. One important question was what institutional
+forms the new government should adopt. Headed by Itagaki (a Tosa
+_samurai_), the more liberal reformers wanted to set up a fully
+representative government modeled on the advanced Western democracies.
+But most of the clansmen opposed such a radical step. In the end,
+however, the conservatives accepted the necessity of a _written_
+constitution--which they drew up themselves.
+
+Even this concession was made grudgingly, and only after it had become
+absolutely necessary. But several factors worked in favor of the
+liberals. The prestige of Western institutions was high at this period.
+An article in the Emperor’s Charter Oath, moreover, was interpreted as
+a pledge to inaugurate a “deliberative assembly.” Quoting this pledge,
+the liberals started a political campaign which won considerable
+support. Finally, the rising capitalists needed a representative system
+in order to secure a real voice in the government. Despite all these
+advantages, in the end the liberals were outmaneuvered in the political
+arena. They obtained a constitution, it is true, but one which was
+written and imposed by the conservative clansmen. The result was not a
+democratic Bill of Rights but a highly autocratic document. With but
+few exceptions, the liberals’ failure at this time was characteristic
+of Japan’s later history.
+
+
+THE LIBERALS LOSE
+
+The political struggle reached its climax in the second decade after
+the Restoration. In the press and on the public platform, the liberals
+waged their campaign. In 1878 they succeeded in getting provincial
+assemblies with limited powers, and in 1880 local (town, city and
+village) assemblies. In 1881, riots followed the exposure of graft in
+the central administration. To save their position, the conservatives
+had the Emperor issue a declaration promising a National Assembly in
+1890--nine years ahead.
+
+But the political struggle did not abate. It now turned on what should
+be the terms of the constitution which was to establish the elective
+assembly. The conservatives meanwhile took strong measures against
+the opposition. They strictly enforced laws curbing the press. They
+suppressed Itagaki’s political party in 1884. In 1887 martial law was
+proclaimed in Tokyo, and the opposition leaders were driven from the
+capital. In this way the conservative bureaucrats got a free hand in
+drafting the new constitution and putting it over.
+
+Hirobumi Ito, its main architect, had gone abroad in 1882 to study
+Western constitutional practices. He was greatly impressed by
+Bismarck, and took the Prussian Constitution as his model. First,
+certain preparatory changes were made. A nobility of five orders
+was established in 1884, and a Cabinet in 1885. A civil service was
+started, and in 1887 a Supreme War Council was set up to advise the
+Emperor on military and naval affairs. In 1888 Ito became president
+of the Privy Council, which was given authority to revise the draft
+constitution he had prepared. Ito’s work of framing the document was
+carried out “in absolute secrecy.” After it had been read in private
+to a small group of officials, the Emperor promulgated the new
+constitution on February 11, 1889. The first elections to the Imperial
+Diet were held in 1890.
+
+
+A GIFT OF THE EMPEROR
+
+The Constitution was a “gift” of the Emperor. It was not intended
+to establish popular government. Its preamble emphasized the old
+theocratic (priest-king) traditions of Japan. The Emperor “inherited”
+the right to rule “from Our Ancestors,” and ruled “in lineal
+succession unbroken for ages eternal.” Ito and his colleagues not only
+incorporated these traditional ideas into the Constitution. They made
+them the cornerstone of the new system of universal education, and
+thus instilled them in the mass of the Japanese people. Reverence for
+the Emperor as a divine ruler helped enormously to keep the new regime
+solidly in place.
+
+[Illustration: JAPAN’S RULING SYSTEM THE GOVERNMENT UNDER ITO’S
+CONSTITUTION]
+
+Practically all the government’s powers, both civil and military, were
+vested in the Emperor. Vast economic power bolstered his political
+authority. No longer, as on occasion in feudal times, could the Emperor
+become penniless. For court expenses, the Imperial Family receives
+an annual grant of 4,500,000 yen (more than a million dollars). Its
+holdings in lands and blocks of shares, estimated at over one billion
+yen, provide a large additional income. So it is one of the wealthiest
+families in Japan.
+
+
+THE EMPEROR MUST BE “CONSTITUTIONAL”
+
+The Emperor’s powers are exercised on the advice of his ministers,
+in accordance with constitutional practice. He is not supposed to
+act on his own authority. Real power, therefore, resides not in the
+Emperor but in his advisers, acting through the agencies set up by
+the Constitution. On the surface, these agencies _seem_ to establish
+a system of representative government. There is a Cabinet, and a Diet
+with two houses--the House of Peers and the House of Representatives.
+And political parties like those of the Western democracies soon formed
+to contest elections in Japan.
+
+But there the resemblance ends. There is not only the supposedly
+divine power of the Emperor. The democratic forms themselves are a
+shell, empty of the real meat of popular government. In all effective
+representative systems, as we well know, the legislature--particularly
+its lower house--has real authority. Not so under Ito’s Constitution.
+Ito ranged an overwhelming battery of aristocratic, bureaucratic and
+militarist influence in five powerful agencies of government. You can
+see from our chart on page 49 what these agencies were. They completely
+eclipsed the House of Representatives. Moreover, they often dominated
+the Cabinet, or disputed its authority. And through them, as much as
+through the Cabinet, the clansmen ruled Japan with a tight rein. Let us
+see how each worked out in practice.
+
+
+NON-POPULAR AGENCIES OF GOVERNMENT
+
+First, there were the Elder Statesmen (or _Genro_). They were a body
+completely outside the Constitution. Survivors of the early Meiji
+clansmen, they had prestige and experience. For several decades after
+1900 they held the government in the hollow of their hands. They made
+and unmade Cabinets, shuffled the Premiership among themselves, decided
+on war and peace. Their last representative, Prince Saionji, died in
+November 1940 at the age of 92. So from now on there will be no more
+_Genro_ to be reckoned with.
+
+Next comes the Imperial Household Ministry. Two officials here occupy
+key positions. The Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal holds the seals which
+must be affixed to state documents. And the Minister of the Imperial
+Household has charge of matters connected with the Imperial Family.
+These men are not only themselves powerful advisers of the Emperor. But
+appointments to see the Emperor must be made through them. So at times
+they have been able to bar their political opponents from reaching the
+Imperial ear. Usually they hold office for life or until they wish to
+resign.
+
+The Privy Council is likewise a useful piece of machinery for Japan’s
+ruling group. It is the supreme advisory body to the Emperor. It
+consists of 26 life members, usually of great age. Cabinet Ministers
+serve as members of the Council _ex-officio_, but are outvoted by
+at least two to one. Among other things, the Privy Council ratifies
+treaties, approves amendments to the Constitution, and passes on
+Imperial ordinances.
+
+The House of Peers consists of about 400 members, of whom more than 200
+are drawn from the nobility, 125 are life appointees, and nearly 70 are
+elected from the largest taxpayers. It is an extremely aristocratic and
+conservative body. Yet its powers equal those of the lower house. And
+its members can become Premiers or Cabinet Ministers.
+
+Lastly, the Army and Navy, with their General Staffs and their
+representatives on the Supreme War Council, are largely independent
+of civilian control. The chiefs of the General Staffs and the War and
+Navy Ministers have direct access to the Emperor. This means that they
+can go over the Premier’s head to appeal any decision of his to the
+Emperor. The War and Navy Ministers cannot be civilians. They must be
+ranking officers in active service. Since they are nominated by the
+Supreme War Council, the latter body can overthrow a Cabinet by simply
+ordering them to resign. Or it can prevent the formation of a new
+Cabinet which it does not like by refusing to offer nominations for the
+War and Navy Ministries.
+
+
+THE PEOPLE’S REPRESENTATIVES
+
+As against these aristocratic, bureaucratic and military organs of
+government, the popular will can be expressed only through the House of
+Representatives. The position of the House is very weak, especially in
+comparison with the normal legislature of a full-fledged democracy.
+
+For Ito saw fit to curb the powers of the Diet’s lower house by
+a series of drastic restrictions. Large fixed, or non-votable,
+expenditures limit its control over the public purse. If appropriations
+are not voted, the Cabinet has the right to enforce the preceding
+year’s budget. Most bills are introduced not by Diet members but by the
+Cabinet, which also possesses an absolute veto. Moreover, the Cabinet
+can issue Imperial ordinances which, with few qualifications, have
+the force of law. It can dissolve the lower house, and thus force an
+election--an expensive proceeding for the deputies. And for several
+decades only part of the people could vote. Not until 1925 was full
+manhood suffrage (age 25) adopted. During elections the Home Ministry
+has often intimidated the voters. And popular rights are further curbed
+by a controlled press, a strong centralized police force, a large
+degree of central domination of local government, and the possibility
+that one may be arrested and held indefinitely without trial (because
+Japan has no _habeas corpus_ law).
+
+The development of a Cabinet with independent power, responsible
+to the lower house of the Diet, would seem impossible under these
+circumstances. Entrenched positions were held by the aristocrats,
+the bureaucrats and the militarists. For if they did not control the
+Cabinet, always a necessary citadel of power, they could be sure of
+bringing about its downfall. A responsible Cabinet did emerge in the
+post-war years. But, as we shall see, this period was short-lived.
+After 1930, largely through the pressure of the militarists, the
+pendulum swung back.
+
+
+
+
+VIII. Creating a Modern Empire
+
+
+By 1890, when the first Diet elections were held, the foundations of a
+new Empire had been laid. In the few short years since 1868, the old
+feudal society had undergone a profound change. Agriculture was still
+the key to Japan’s economy, but factory industry and foreign trade were
+growing in importance. A strong centralized state had come into being.
+Modern methods were revolutionizing science, education, medicine, law
+and many other fields. There was an army recruited through universal
+service and trained in Western ways, and the beginnings of a modern
+navy.
+
+
+JAPAN LOOKS ABROAD
+
+The Meiji statesmen were now ready to turn their attention to foreign
+policy. Even before the Restoration many of the Japanese leaders had
+favored territorial expansion. During the years of internal reform,
+however, they had cautiously refrained from rash adventures abroad.
+A strong movement in favor of a punitive expedition to Korea had
+developed in 1871-73, but the dominant clan bureaucrats had skilfully
+prevented the outbreak of war. They had permitted a Formosan expedition
+in 1874, but had settled the resulting issues peacefully with China.
+Some small gains had been made. The Bonin Islands were annexed in 1876,
+and the Liuchiu Islands in 1879. A naval demonstration in 1876 secured
+to Japan special treaty rights in Korea, which led to more and more
+intervention in Korean affairs.
+
+But these were not the foreign problems which chiefly occupied the
+early Meiji leaders. First and foremost, they were trying to change the
+unequal treaties concluded with the Western powers at the end of the
+Tokugawa period. These treaties, you will remember, permitted Western
+nationals to be tried in their own consular courts (the system of
+extraterritoriality), and fixed Japan’s tariff at the low rate of 5
+per cent. The struggle to throw off these irksome restrictions was the
+central issue in Japan’s foreign relations down to 1894.
+
+
+FIGHTING THE UNEQUAL TREATIES
+
+The Japanese made many efforts to regain control of both tariffs
+and courts before they finally won success. An official mission
+under Prince Iwakura toured Western capitals in 1871-73 but failed
+to gain treaty revision. As other attempts also came to nothing, an
+intense popular resentment developed in Japan. In 1889, just when his
+negotiations for treaty revision were progressing favorably, a bomb
+tore off Count Okuma’s leg. Success was not won, however, until a new
+treaty was concluded with Great Britain on July 16, 1894. The other
+powers soon followed suit. Japan’s law courts had been modernized, and
+she now enforced new civil, commercial and criminal codes. In 1899,
+when the new treaties went into effect, all Westerners became subject
+to Japanese law. These treaties thus brought the extraterritorial
+system to an end. But they all contained tariff schedules that lasted
+for 12 years, so that Japan did not secure full control over her own
+tariffs until the treaties expired in 1911.
+
+
+WAR WITH CHINA
+
+On July 25, 1894, nine days after signature of the “equal” treaty with
+Great Britain, Japanese naval forces suddenly attacked and sank a
+transport carrying Chinese troops to Korea. War was formally declared
+on August 1. Thus, by an unusual coincidence, Japan was at war with
+China two weeks after she had won her twenty-five-year campaign for
+treaty revision.
+
+[Illustration: IN QUEST OF EMPIRE (1876-1923)]
+
+Japan’s statesmen had correctly estimated the weakness of China, as
+well as their own degree of preparedness. They did not plunge into war
+on a hasty impulse. The army and navy were tuned for action. With
+harsh realism, the Japanese leaders unhesitatingly adopted a program of
+expansion by force as soon as conditions seemed favorable. Their fight
+for treaty revision had been a fight for equality with the Western
+powers. They believed that even fuller recognition of equality would
+come after a successful war. They were also driven by strong economic
+considerations. The restrictions of the narrow home market were already
+irking Japan’s youthful cotton textile export houses, and they were
+trying to pry their way into the Korean and Chinese markets. Victory in
+the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 opened both these markets to Japanese
+manufacturers. It was a significant omen of the future that the new
+Japan should have discovered, so early in its career, that resort to
+the sword might help to overcome the handicaps of its late appearance
+on the international scene.
+
+We should also take note of several other results of Japan’s first
+modern war. The territorial gains--Formosa and the Pescadores
+Islands--were a welcome prize. More important was China’s formal
+recognition of Korean independence, which left Japan practically a free
+hand in the peninsula. By its new commercial treaty with China, Japan
+also gained the benefits of extraterritoriality and low tariff rates
+in that country--the system she hated so heartily when it was applied
+against herself, as it still was at that time. The war indemnity of
+nearly $180,000,000, moreover, helped Japan to expand its armaments
+still further in preparation for the war with Russia in 1904.
+
+
+THUS FAR AND NO FARTHER
+
+An episode which heightened Japan’s sensitiveness in her foreign
+relations marked the peace settlement. In the Treaty of Shimonoseki,
+China had agreed to cede Japan the Liaotung Peninsula in South
+Manchuria. Germany, Russia and France objected to this territorial
+cession, and backed their objections by an ultimatum to Tokyo
+threatening war. Japan was forced to submit, and in exchange for
+a slight increase in the indemnity, the territory was returned to
+China. More than the pre-Restoration bombardments of Kagoshima and
+Shimonoseki, more even than the galling yoke of the unequal treaties,
+this “tripartite intervention” rankled in Japanese hearts. This sense
+of humiliation was not lessened in 1898, when Russia secured from China
+a 25-year lease of the southern tip of the disputed Liaotung Peninsula
+and proceeded to fortify Port Arthur and join Harbin to Dairen by a new
+railway line.
+
+
+WAR WITH RUSSIA
+
+On the whole, however, the gains of the war had proved sufficient to
+justify the calculations of Japan’s leaders, and to strengthen the
+forces within Japan that were working toward expansion. In 1900 Japan
+took part as an equal with the Western powers in quelling the famous
+Boxer Uprising, in China, and shared in the returns from the Boxer
+Indemnity which they later imposed as a punishment on the Chinese. The
+fact that the British thought it worth while to sign an alliance with
+Japan in 1902 was an additional testimony to her growing prestige.
+Fortified by this alliance, and by strenuous efforts to build up her
+military and naval forces, Japan emerged successfully from her clash
+with Tsarist Russia in 1904-05.
+
+The peace terms did not include the indemnity Japan coveted, largely
+because she was too exhausted to continue the struggle. But still there
+were substantial gains. Japan won a protectorate over Korea, which
+she converted to full annexation in 1910. The Russian leasehold at
+the tip of the Liaotung Peninsula was transferred to Japan, and also
+the Russian railway lines in South Manchuria. Finally, Russia ceded
+the southern half of Sakhalin Island to Japan, and granted important
+fishing rights in northern Pacific waters to Japanese interests.
+
+The Treaty of Portsmouth, which set forth these terms and in which
+President Theodore Roosevelt mediated, established Japan as the rising
+power in the Far East. In 1905, three weeks before the treaty was
+signed, the Anglo-Japanese Alliance was extended for ten years, with
+provisions sanctioning Japan’s paramount interests in Korea.
+
+
+END OF THE MEIJI ERA
+
+In the decade spanned by the two wars, Japan had forged rapidly ahead
+in her economic development. Her foreign trade, which totaled only 265
+million yen in 1895, had jumped to 810 million in 1905 (see chart,
+page 61). Her steam shipping had shown an even more extraordinary
+spurt--from 15,000 tons in 1893 to 1,552,000 tons in 1905.
+
+[Illustration: HOW JAPAN’S FOREIGN TRADE HAS GROWN]
+
+On the political side, the new constitution worked out pretty much as
+the clan statesmen had expected. For a short time the bureaucrats had
+some difficulty with the Diet, where a liberal opposition threatened
+to develop. But they soon checked this tendency. They intimidated
+or bought off opposition leaders. They embarked on a policy of war
+and expansion--which the liberals supported. And, eventually, they
+organized parties headed by members of the bureaucracy itself--in the
+first instance, Prince Ito.
+
+The Meiji Emperor died on July 30, 1912. During his long reign of
+nearly 45 years, all the great changes which we have been considering
+had taken place. From a weak feudal state, Japan had been transformed
+into a great power. Two years after Emperor Meiji’s passing, the
+outbreak of the World War ushered in a period of still more ambitious
+expansion and growth.
+
+
+
+
+IX. Japan and the First World War
+
+
+The World War gave Japan her great opportunity, which her leaders were
+quick to seize. The conditions created by World War No. 1 might have
+been made to order for Japan. They brought all her strategic advantages
+into play, and were ideally adapted to meet her economic necessities.
+
+Japan was not compelled to fight a full-dress war. The Western powers
+were more than occupied on the European battlefields, so Japan was
+given pretty much of a free hand in the Far East. And the line-up of
+powers in 1914-18 added greatly to the strategic advantage of her
+geographic location. Britain and Russia were Japan’s allies from the
+outset, while the United States could not offer firm opposition to
+Japanese expansion. Thus Japan was able to achieve a great deal with
+very little effort.
+
+Conditions on the economic side were no less favorable. As Japan’s
+military and naval operations during the war were relatively slight,
+the costs were small. On the other hand, her economic gains were
+exceedingly large. For next to the United States, Japan was the
+greatest supplier of the warring nations.
+
+
+MAKING HAY WHILE THE SUN SHINES
+
+It was the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, renewed for the third time in 1911,
+which gave Japan formal diplomatic cause for entering the war. On
+August 23, 1914 she declared war on Germany.
+
+After a brief struggle, the German forces at the leasehold of Tsingtao,
+in Shantung province, surrendered on November 7. A month later the
+whole of Shantung province was in Japanese hands. Then followed the
+famous Twenty-One Demands on China. On May 25, 1915, at the point of
+a gun, China signed treaties and notes incorporating many of these
+Twenty-One Demands. Among other things these treaties confirmed
+Japan’s newly won position in Shantung province, and extended her
+railway and territorial rights in South Manchuria to the end of the
+century. American protests helped to block the most sweeping demands,
+which would have made China a Japanese protectorate. Meanwhile the
+Japanese navy had scoured the Pacific, and had occupied all the German
+islands north of the equator.
+
+
+THE SECRET TREATIES OF 1917
+
+During the early months of 1917, Japan turned to diplomacy in order to
+be sure that she would be able to keep her territorial gains after the
+war. The United States had not yet entered the war, and the military
+fortunes of the Allied powers in Europe were at a low ebb. Making good
+use of this situation, Japan negotiated secret treaties with Britain,
+France, Russia and Italy. Signed in February and March 1917, these
+agreements pledged that Japan’s claims to the German islands north
+of the equator and to the former German rights in Shantung would be
+supported at the peace conference. But the Japanese did not secure
+American support of these claims. In the Lansing-Ishii agreement
+of November 2, 1917, the United States offered merely a qualified
+recognition of Japan’s “special interests in China.”
+
+The secret treaties with the Allied powers were shrewdly drawn and
+enabled Japan to come off victorious at the Paris Peace Conference.
+Her newly established position in Shantung province, as well as the
+extensions of her rights in South Manchuria, were accepted and written
+into the Versailles Treaty. The German islands north of the equator
+were awarded Japan as a Class C mandate, the kind of mandate which
+came closest to annexation. American opposition to these decisions cut
+no ice, mainly because of Japan’s secret agreements with the Allies.
+On only one big issue was Japan defeated at the conference. Her
+statesmen had demanded that a clause on racial equality be inserted in
+the peace treaty. This demand was rejected, largely because the Western
+powers were afraid that it would let down the bars against Japanese
+immigration to their countries.
+
+
+FLIES IN THE OINTMENT
+
+But despite the acceptance of her territorial gains at the peace
+conference, by 1919 Japan’s difficulties were increasing. A student
+uprising in Peking drove out the pro-Japanese Anfu clique that had
+controlled the Chinese government. Opposition to the Shantung award
+was growing in the United States, and the American navy was rapidly
+becoming the most powerful in the world. Two years later Japan’s
+position had become still weaker. A boycott was severely reducing
+Japanese trade in China. The costs of the naval-building race with the
+United States were a heavy burden. Japanese intervention in Siberia,
+which continued after the armed forces of the Western powers had
+been withdrawn, was not succeeding. And expenditure on the Siberian
+occupation, ultimately totaling about 800 million yen, together with
+the naval-building costs, was straining the Japanese budget. These
+various factors were discrediting the Japanese militarists at home, and
+liberal Japanese were beginning to speak out against them.
+
+
+SLOWING DOWN JAPAN’S DRIVE
+
+Under these conditions, the United States was able to summon the
+Washington Conference, at which important agreements on naval
+limitation and Pacific questions were reached early in 1922. By
+accepting a battleship ratio of 3 tons as against 5 each for Britain
+and the United States, Japan was relieved of the costs of the naval
+race. Her security in Far Eastern waters was further increased by the
+provision restricting fortification of island bases in the Pacific. The
+Four-Power Pact, signed by Britain, France, the U. S. and Japan, and
+pledging respect for insular possessions in the Pacific, replaced the
+Anglo-Japanese Alliance.
+
+In return for these contributions to her security in Far Eastern
+waters, Japan made a number of important concessions. By an agreement
+with China, she restored Shantung province to Chinese control. Japan
+also signed the Nine-Power Treaty, which pledged all its signatories to
+respect China’s territorial and administrative integrity and the “open
+door”--or equal commercial opportunity for all nations--in China.
+
+In later days, some of the provisions of these Washington Conference
+agreements came to be bitterly attacked in Japan, especially by
+military and naval extremists. It is an open question as to how far
+these criticisms were justified. It was chiefly the effectiveness of
+the Chinese boycott that forced the restoration of Shantung province.
+Japan’s major concession was in the Nine-Power Treaty, by which she
+agreed to lay down the sword and accept the results of peaceful
+commercial competition in China. But there was no machinery provided to
+enforce this treaty. The naval limitation treaty relieved Japan of the
+heavy costs of the 1921 naval race and at the same time, even under the
+5-5-3 ratio, left her able to dominate the China coast. She was thus in
+a strategic position to renew her expansionist program--which she did
+in 1931.
+
+
+WORLD WAR GAINS
+
+Moreover, the World War settlement for Japan, as finally reached at
+Washington, was no empty achievement. Japan had not obtained her larger
+ambitions in China or Siberia, it is true. But the former German
+islands north of the equator--of great strategic, if not economic,
+importance--were now a Japanese mandate. Japan’s rights in South
+Manchuria had become much more firmly established. Her naval and
+commercial fleets had greatly expanded, she occupied a permanent seat
+on the Council of the League of Nations, and she was recognized as one
+of the half-dozen Great Powers. Japan had also made important economic
+gains, to which we must now turn our attention.
+
+
+THE WAR BOOM
+
+It was in the economic field, perhaps, that Japan reaped her greatest
+gains from the World War. For her shops and factories were kept busy
+supplying the belligerent countries, their colonial populations, and
+the American market. Her allies controlled the seas, and Japanese ships
+sailed all of them. This freedom of the seas was an important factor
+for Japan, who had become increasingly dependent on international trade.
+
+Japan’s war boom was, in many respects, very similar to that enjoyed
+by the United States. The relative increase in trade was even greater.
+Between 1914 and 1920 Japan’s total foreign trade increased from 1,187
+million yen to 4,285 million, or by nearly four times (see chart,
+page 61). Through 1918, moreover, exports increased much faster than
+imports. For Japan this meant a chance to stock up on her reserves
+of gold and foreign currencies, which had always been low. In the
+1914-18 period, exports outran imports by 1,460 million yen. This
+figure contrasted with an import excess of 1,158 million yen during the
+preceding 20 years.
+
+What we have said so far applies only to trade in goods. But returns
+on invisible trade items, such as shipping services, were also
+high--totaling more than 1,500 million yen for the 1914-18 period.
+The wartime balances for both types of trade came to more than 3,000
+million yen--on the right side of the ledger. As a result, Japan’s
+financial reserves greatly increased. Extensive loans and investments
+were made in foreign countries, and large holdings in gold and foreign
+exchange were piled up.
+
+Japan emerged from the war stronger financially and economically than
+she had ever been before. Nevertheless, she was to suffer a series of
+economic setbacks in the post-war period.
+
+
+
+
+X. Go Liberal, Go Fascist?
+
+
+Even before the war ended, there had been signs of economic distress
+within Japan. While the profits from the war boom were going into the
+pockets of a small group, a sharp rise in the cost of living had caused
+suffering among the masses of the people. Speculators were profiteering
+in rice, which soared from 20 or 25 yen to more than 50 yen on the
+five-bushel unit. In the summer of 1918 there were serious “rice
+riots,” and troops were called out to suppress the demonstrations.
+During the war, moreover, trade union and socialist ideas had taken
+root in Japan, paving the way for the growth of labor unions and
+left-wing parties in the post-war years.
+
+
+UPS AND DOWNS
+
+Then came the world slump in 1920-21, which led to a sudden collapse
+of Japan’s war boom. Partial recovery had no sooner set in than it
+received a sharp jolt from the disastrous earthquake of 1923. To
+meet these setbacks, Japan drew heavily on the financial reserves
+accumulated during the war. Reconstruction after the earthquake created
+another short-lived boom--ended by a bank panic in 1927.
+
+Despite post-war difficulties, however, Japan managed to keep her
+industry on the up grade. The great advances made during the war were
+maintained and consolidated. In the post-war slump the number of
+factory workers had declined, but in 1927-28 they reached the wartime
+level of 2,000,000 again. Throughout the ’twenties, except for a sharp
+drop in 1921, Japan’s total foreign trade continued to hold the new
+average level of 4,000 million yen. Population leaped forward, from
+about 50 million persons in 1914 to 56 million in 1920, and to nearly
+65 million in 1930 (see chart, page 69).
+
+[Illustration: A GROWING POPULATION]
+
+
+BIG BUSINESS TO THE FORE
+
+During and after the war, Japan’s business groups had come of age.
+They were no longer subordinate to the other ruling forces in the
+state. Japan’s effort to overtake the West, as we noticed, had led to
+a close tie-up between government and industry. This relationship had
+made it easy for Japan’s great business houses to become monopolies.
+From the beginning they had united banking, trade and industry under
+one roof. Post-war developments, such as the financial crisis of 1927,
+had carried the process of financial concentration beyond even what
+was characteristic of Western countries. By this time half-a-dozen of
+Japan’s huge family combines, such as Mitsui and Mitsubishi, dominated
+Japanese economy. They had become one of the most powerful financial
+ruling groups in the world.
+
+[Illustration: ONE OF JAPAN’S FAMILY EMPIRES]
+
+
+BUT INDUSTRY DEPENDS ON FOREIGN TRADE
+
+And here we have to point out the striking paradox in Japan’s new
+economic society. It was still largely agricultural. In 1925 more than
+half the people were dependent on agriculture for their livelihood.
+But the peasants were too poor to buy the typical consumption goods
+(automobiles, for example) that were staples in the home markets
+of Western countries. Thus it was impossible for Japan to develop
+modern factory industries turning out _all_ lines of consumption
+goods. Only in cotton textiles, with their special export market,
+and in shipbuilding and metallurgy, serving the army and navy, were
+large-scale factories practical. In 1928 the greater part of Japan’s
+manufactured goods was produced in industrial units employing ten,
+five or even fewer workers. Firms like Mitsui and Mitsubishi, however,
+contracted for the output of these small-scale industrial units and
+then sold it, often in foreign markets.
+
+Thus Japan, although she had made great strides in some lines of
+industry, had become dangerously dependent on international trade.
+After 1929, with the onset of the world depression, the difficulties
+of this situation were plain to see. Quotas and tariffs barred even
+Japan’s low-priced goods. Old sores rankled, particularly those
+affecting immigration. The Exclusion Act, passed by the American
+Congress over the President’s disapproval in 1924, cut the deepest.
+In fact, it undid most of the good effects of the generous aid America
+gave Japan after the earthquake in 1923.
+
+
+THE LIBERALS TAKE A HAND
+
+These post-war years, especially after 1921, witnessed a brief
+flowering of parliamentary democracy in Japan. None of the architects
+of the Constitution, least of all Ito, had foreseen this possibility.
+Yet in the late ’twenties it seemed as if the Cabinet might win
+unchallenged power, that party government would reign supreme, and that
+the House of Representatives would become the true seat of authority.
+
+This change came about quite naturally, through the increasing
+influence of the great business houses. By 1925 the industrialists
+and the bankers, or their representatives, held many of the leading
+offices which the clansmen had formerly made their own. They held the
+presidency of the Privy Council, and the key posts in the Imperial
+Household Ministry. They were influential in the House of Peers, in
+the bureaucracy and even in the Army and Navy. Generals and admirals
+could actually be found to support the policies of party governments.
+All the Elder Statesmen except Prince Saionji had died. And even he,
+being related to the Sumitomo banking house, was in sympathy with the
+capitalist outlook. As Prince Saionji was the Emperor’s chief adviser
+on the choice of a new Premier, he occupied the most strategic position
+in the state. In the 1925-31 period, on his nomination, six consecutive
+governments were formed by party Premiers holding majorities in the
+Diet’s lower house.
+
+
+POLITICAL PARTIES
+
+Party influence, increasing with the growth of capitalism in Japan,
+reached its height during these years. At an earlier period the clan
+bureaucrats had manipulated the parties to suit themselves--usually
+with little difficulty. But as time passed, the parties formed closer
+and closer ties with the great business houses. Mitsubishi interests
+were linked with the Minseito party, Mitsui with the Seiyukai party.
+The Election Law was gradually amended, increasing the number of
+voters, until in 1925 manhood suffrage was adopted. This change forced
+Diet members to spend large sums in electioneering, and made them more
+dependent on capitalist support. Consequently, it strengthened the
+capitalists’ control over the Minseito and the Seiyukai. At the same
+time it made possible the rise of labor and left-wing parties, which
+began to win Diet seats.
+
+After 1925 the Cabinets formed by the Minseito and Seiyukai parties
+began to have to account directly to their majorities in the House of
+Representatives for what they did. Parliamentary government was by no
+means fully established, however. An adverse vote in the lower house
+did not, as a rule, overthrow these Cabinets. More often they fell
+because of backstage maneuvers in the Privy Council or the House of
+Peers. Nor were their leaders and policies always liberal. For a time
+General Baron Tanaka was president of the Seiyukai. He represented the
+aggressive, militarist wing of the Choshu clan. The Seiyukai Cabinet of
+1927-29, formed under his Premiership, carried out a “positive policy”
+of military intervention in China. Tanaka had to be a party leader in
+order to become Premier. But his policy showed the strength of old
+tendencies, even in a generally liberal era.
+
+On the other hand, the succeeding Minseito Cabinet (1929-31) was the
+strongest and most liberal party government which has ever held office
+in Japan. It came the nearest to establishing democracy there. It
+also had to meet the first onslaught of the military-fascist forces
+that have since become so powerful. In the story of Japan’s political
+development, it thus represents a critical turning point of unusual
+significance.
+
+
+SWAN SONG OF THE JAPANESE LIBERALS
+
+The Minseito Cabinet of 1929-31 was liberal, but by no means radical.
+It was, in reality, a government of “big business.” Its liberalism
+stood out mainly in its moderate foreign policy, which contrasted
+sharply with Tanaka’s earlier aggressive moves. It was headed by
+distinguished leaders: Hamaguchi (Premier), Shidehara (Foreign
+Minister) and Inouye (Finance Minister).
+
+This Cabinet labored, however, under a fatal handicap, similar to that
+which confronted President Hoover in our own country. For it entered
+office in July 1929, at the height of the post-war boom. The Wall
+Street crash, and the spreading world depression, immediately followed.
+The swift change in economic conditions during its period in office had
+much to do with its final overthrow.
+
+Hamaguchi and his Cabinet aides began with a great victory on the issue
+of the London Naval Treaty of 1930. This treaty extended limitations to
+cruisers and destroyers, as well as capital ships. The army and navy
+die-hards opposed it bitterly. The people and the press supported the
+Cabinet’s fight for it. On October 1, 1930 the Privy Council ratified
+the treaty. The Cabinet and the people had won.
+
+For the moment it seemed as if the Cabinet had brought the army and
+navy under control. Real democracy seemed possible. But the triumph was
+short-lived. It was the swan song of parliamentary government in Japan.
+In November 1930 Premier Hamaguchi was shot by an assassin; eight
+months later he died from his wounds. His loss seriously weakened the
+Cabinet, and cut down its chance of success on new issues which were
+developing.
+
+
+THE DEPRESSION STRIKES JAPAN
+
+By the end of 1930 the depression had struck Japan with full force. It
+laid the Cabinet open to attack by the rising military-fascist forces.
+
+The most serious consequences of the depression were felt in Japan’s
+foreign trade. In 1929 Japan’s export-import trade stood at 4,365
+million yen. In 1930 it fell to 3,016 million, and in 1931 to 2,383
+million. In two years Japan’s trade was cut nearly in half. Even at
+that period, few Western countries suffered such a rapid and severe
+contraction of their foreign trade.
+
+The effects of this decline on Japan’s economy were catastrophic.
+Agriculture and industry were both hard hit. The income from rice and
+silk declined until there was actual famine in some rural districts.
+Industrial unemployment mounted to three million, higher than ever
+before in Japan. The middle-class professionals and wage-earners
+suffered wage cuts, or were thrown out of work. There was general
+social unrest, and Marxist doctrines won a wide acceptance. Strikes in
+industry, and tenant conflicts in rural areas, became commonplace.
+
+In the light of these conditions, the weaknesses of Japan’s economy
+stood out in bold relief. Fully half the home market consisted of
+poverty-stricken peasants. To put the rural population back on its feet
+and enable it to buy the products of industry, drastic social reforms,
+such as rent reductions and debt moratoria for the farmers, were
+obviously needed. Neither the landowners nor the great business houses
+were prepared to embark on such a “new deal.” The army had a different
+solution--aggressive expansion abroad and military-fascist repression
+at home.
+
+This army program led to a finish fight with the Minseito Cabinet. And
+the army leaders fought--and won--their campaign in Manchuria.
+
+
+THE ARMY STRIKES IN MANCHURIA
+
+The Minseito Cabinet had been trying to pursue a “friendly policy”
+toward China. Baron Shidehara, the Foreign Minister, wanted friendly
+relations with all countries. In this way he sought to foster Japan’s
+foreign trade, and thus solve Japan’s economic problems. But he could
+not control the army, especially after the depression had cut down
+trade and brought unrest to Japan.
+
+During the summer of 1931 a series of “incidents” occurred in
+Manchuria, in which the hand of the military was plainly to be seen. At
+home in Japan the army used these incidents to arouse popular support
+for “positive” action in defense of supposedly threatened Japanese
+interests. General Minami, new War Minister in the Cabinet, openly
+supported this propaganda campaign. Baron Shidehara attempted to reach
+a peaceful settlement of the Manchurian issues. But in vain. On
+September 18, 1931--the historic date we mentioned at the beginning of
+this book--the army struck in Manchuria. The “Mukden incident”--alleged
+blowing up of a section of the South Manchuria Railway track--served as
+an excuse for the Japanese army to occupy the chief Manchurian cities.
+
+This independent _coup d’état_ by the army dealt a fatal blow to
+the Minseito Cabinet. Baron Shidehara was forced into the position
+of apologizing for the army’s actions, though he must have heartily
+detested them. On December 11, 1931 the Cabinet resigned.
+
+
+
+
+XI. The Shadow Deepens
+
+
+The fall of the Minseito Cabinet marked the end of an era. The crisis
+of 1930-31 had unleashed new forces. And these forces were destined to
+mold Japan’s policy in the decade that followed.
+
+At their head was the army. Not _all_ of the army leaders, however. At
+times the “army extremists” seemed to be only a small minority. Their
+power rose and fell. Yet they took command of Japan’s foreign policy,
+and gained more and more control over her domestic policy. And as time
+passed, their outlook was increasingly stamped on the army as a whole.
+
+
+THE ARMY EXTREMISTS
+
+Who were the army extremists? Names are not important, except as labels
+of a whole group. There has been no outstanding fascist leader in
+Japan, such as Mussolini in Italy or Hitler in Germany. It is enough
+for us to note that, in the 1930-32 period, the high army leadership
+centered in three generals--Araki, Muto and Mazaki. This trio was
+supported by a powerful group of “young officers,” such as Doihara and
+Itagaki, who have since become ranking generals.
+
+These men were not from the old clan aristocracy. They came mostly
+from the lesser clans, or from the middle classes in town and village.
+They knew at first hand the sufferings of the farmers and the small
+tradesmen. Like Mussolini and Hitler, they claimed to be the friend of
+the common man. They bitterly denounced the “corrupt alliance” of the
+political parties and the capitalists.
+
+All this was part of their fight for political control at home. They
+wanted a “national socialist” reformation in Japan. By this they
+meant that the army, under the Emperor, should run the government.
+They wanted the political parties suppressed and industry run by the
+state--all, as they said, for the benefit of the common man.
+
+On the home front, the army extremists have had little success. None of
+their glowing promises of economic “reforms” has been carried out. In
+the foreign field, however, their program has been largely adopted. We
+must now see what their aims in foreign policy were.
+
+
+THE DEMAND FOR “LIVING SPACE”
+
+At the heart of the military-fascist program in Japan, just as in
+Germany and Italy, lay a demand for territorial expansion. The army
+extremists made careful plans for a series of bold moves. First,
+Manchuria and Mongolia were to be conquered, then China, then the
+rest of Asia. In the past decade we have seen this seemingly wild and
+visionary program translated into reality to an extraordinary degree.
+In fact, the actual course of Japan’s foreign policy has followed it
+very closely.
+
+With territorial expansion was linked an economic idea--that of
+regional self-sufficiency, or the “bloc economy.” In 1931, Manchuria
+was called Japan’s “economic life-line.” In 1932-33 the watchword was
+the “Japan-Manchoukuo economic bloc.” After 1937 the demand was for
+a “Japan-China-Manchoukuo bloc.” Finally, the slogan today is for a
+“Greater East Asia,” to include the rich territories of Indo-China,
+Malaya, the East Indies and the Philippines.
+
+What the army leaders were chiefly seeking through this program was
+to overcome Japan’s dependence on the international market. They were
+proposing a basic alternative to Shidehara’s plan for the peaceful
+development of international trade. In 1930-31 they had seen Japan’s
+foreign trade suddenly collapse, plunging the country into an economic
+crisis. They were determined that this should not happen again. The
+answer, they felt, lay in extending Japan’s political control over
+a vast region. The markets and raw materials of such an area, they
+thought, would make Japan economically independent of the rest of the
+world.
+
+
+WEIGHTING THE SCALES
+
+The army extremists were not the only ones to share these views. They
+had supporters in the bureaucracy, even in the highest positions. Many
+naval officers also supported them, although the navy as a whole was
+more conservative than the army. And, despite their anti-capitalist
+propaganda, they had close relations with some business groups who
+hoped to profit from the expansion program.
+
+Though the military-fascist leaders did not succeed in organizing a
+unified mass fascist party, they wielded extraordinary powers. They
+influenced public opinion through the Ex-Servicemen’s Association,
+with its three million members. They also had a host of reactionary
+societies to work through. Some of them were dignified patriotic
+societies, with members from the highest ranks of Japanese society.
+Others went in for espionage, strike-breaking, or outright terrorism.
+Finally, the army had its special powers under the Constitution, such
+as dictating the choice of War Minister, and going direct to the
+Emperor over the head of the Premier.
+
+To all these powers the extremists now added two special techniques
+and used them for all they were worth. One was resorting directly to
+military action, without waiting for authorization from the Cabinet.
+Underlings in the field could plot “incidents” which committed their
+superior officers and the government to certain courses of action. The
+Manchurian occupation was largely brought about in this way.
+
+The second technique was terrorism, or direct action, against political
+opponents at home. Public opinion in Japan does not automatically
+condemn assassination, especially if it appears to have been inspired
+by patriotic or disinterested motives. The list of distinguished
+Japanese who have been assassinated is very long--Okubo, Ito, Hara (the
+first commoner to become Premier), Hamaguchi, to mention a few. Since
+1931 many others have been added to this list, and their deaths have
+all helped the military-fascists to rise to power.
+
+
+AGAINST THE ARMY?
+
+On the surface it has often seemed that the capitalists were the chief
+opponents of the army extremists in the political struggle of the
+past decade. This is only partly true. These two groups have been the
+strongest political forces in Japan. They have both sought to win the
+bureaucrats and public opinion to their side. On the other hand, they
+are in agreement on many points.
+
+For the capitalists, as well as the military, are interested in
+territorial expansion, and have taken advantage of its results in
+China. Many of them favored the Manchurian invasion, because they saw
+that it would give the widespread social discontent in Japan a safe
+outlet. But at the same time, the capitalists tend to be more cautious
+than the army leaders in foreign policy. They do not want to take
+risks, or to plunge recklessly into a big war if the chances of success
+are slight.
+
+Even on the home front, there is an area of agreement between the
+army extremists and the business men. Both wish to maintain their
+ruling position against the threat of social revolution. The Minseito
+government took measures to stamp out revolutionary groups as early as
+1929-30. There is full agreement on regimentation of this kind. But the
+capitalists have bitterly opposed the army’s efforts to take over _all_
+political power, or to seize control of their business enterprises.
+
+Keeping these general tendencies in mind, we can now turn to a
+consideration of the events of the past decade.
+
+
+THE EXTREMISTS TAKE DIRECT ACTION
+
+The “Mukden incident” of September 18, 1931 marked the halfway point
+in the sharp political struggle which was then convulsing Japan. Its
+violent phase lasted for eight months longer, until May 15, 1932.
+
+We have already seen the first result of this struggle--the overthrow
+of the Minseito Cabinet. The Seiyukai party took up the reins of power
+in mid-December 1931. It proved to be the last one-party government to
+hold office during that decade. Inukai, its Premier, was a moderate; so
+also was Takahashi, the aged Finance Minister. General Araki, symbol
+and titular leader of the army extremists, was the Minister of War.
+
+Not content with having forced a change of Cabinet, the extremists
+still pressed the attack on party government. Inouye, Finance Minister
+in the previous Minseito Cabinet, was assassinated on February 9, and
+Baron Dan, head of the Mitsui interests, was shot on March 5. Both were
+victims of the Blood Brotherhood League, organized to use terrorism
+against the “corrupt political parties, slaves of the capitalists.”
+More plots followed. Then, on May 15, 1932, Premier Inukai in turn was
+assassinated. His death was the climax of an outbreak supported by high
+army officers, who had planned to seize control of the government.
+
+
+CONQUEST IN MANCHURIA
+
+After this affair, things quieted down a little at home. But the
+extremists had meanwhile had their way in the sphere of foreign policy.
+Japanese troops had spread over most of Manchuria. In February the
+Japanese attack on Shanghai had occurred. In March the “independent”
+state of Manchoukuo was established. Far from being independent, it was
+really the plaything of Japan’s army extremists who had planned the
+“Mukden incident.”
+
+Another year passed before the Manchurian issues were fully ironed
+out. In September 1932 the Japanese government formally recognized
+Manchoukuo. Early in 1933, on basis of the Lytton Report, the League
+of Nations passed judgment on Japan. The army at once moved again in
+Manchuria. In March 1933 Japanese troops occupied Jehol province, and
+added it to Manchoukuo. In May these troops advanced to the gates of
+Peiping and Tientsin, and enforced “demilitarization” of the region
+immediately south of the Great Wall of China. Meanwhile, Japan had
+withdrawn from the League of Nations. For the time, her conquest of
+Manchuria had been made good in her own eyes, if not in the eyes of the
+world.
+
+
+PEACEFUL INTERLUDE (1933-35)
+
+The period from the middle of 1933 to the end of 1935 was “peaceful”
+only by contrast with the years before and after. The contrast is
+sufficiently striking, however, to justify our using the term.
+
+Two strong Cabinets, headed in turn by Admirals Saito and Okada,
+old-line naval administrators opposed to extremism, governed Japan
+during these years. The Saito Cabinet had entered office in May 1932,
+after the death of Inukai. Party men held only a few of the lesser
+Ministries. Nevertheless, the Cabinet was in the main moderate. The key
+Finance Ministry, in particular, was in the capable hands of Takahashi,
+who allowed only limited increases in the defense budgets. Early in
+1934 the fiery Araki resigned from the War Ministry. Araki’s successor
+carried out a partial “purge” of the army extremists.
+
+
+KEEPING THE ARMY QUIET
+
+There were several reasons for this moderate trend. For one thing,
+foreign trade had turned upwards in 1932, and by 1935 Japan was again
+enjoying a trade boom which soon overcame the worst effects of the
+economic crisis and tended to calm the political waters.
+
+In the second place, the army extremists were kept busy with their
+experiment in Manchoukuo, where they were trying to realize their
+goal of “state socialism.” They were building strategic railways, and
+fostering the growth of Manchurian industry. They met with opposition
+from business interests at home, and found it hard to raise sufficient
+capital for their projects in Manchuria. In order to secure greater
+influence over these economic questions, the extremists forced the
+establishment inside the Cabinet of a Manchoukuo Affairs Board. Here
+the army was in the saddle. And the extremists did secure enough
+capital for their projects to provoke the wise old Takahashi into
+issuing a warning that Japan’s finances could not stand such a large
+and continuing investment drain to Manchoukuo.
+
+On the whole, however, the army men were disappointed with the economic
+results in Manchoukuo. By 1935 they were trying to bring North China
+into their Manchurian realm, and thus enlarge their economic bloc. In
+November 1935 Doihara, the “Lawrence of Manchuria,” tried to detach
+five of the northern provinces from Chinese control. The extremists
+also planned these moves as part of an effort to strengthen their
+position at home. For there they were being steadily pushed into the
+background.
+
+
+DYING FLICKERS OF DEMOCRACY
+
+Plots were still being hatched within Japan, even during this
+“peaceful” period. But the moderates were reasserting their control.
+They kept the high posts in the Privy Council and the Imperial
+Household Ministry. The Cabinet was firmly set for a moderate course.
+Even the parties’ strength was reviving. The climax of this trend came
+with the general election of February 1936. For the voting showed that
+the people had swung decisively away from the extremists. Japan’s labor
+party elected eighteen Diet members, while three left-wing proletarians
+won Diet seats. It was thought that a new Cabinet, with much greater
+party influence, might now be formed.
+
+But the extremists were unwilling to admit defeat. Their answer came
+in the military uprising of February 26, 1936--known in Japan as the
+“2-26” affair.
+
+
+THE “2-26” UPRISING
+
+The direct participants in this historic revolt were some 1,400 troops,
+with their lower officers. No upper officers openly joined them. Yet
+the insurgents had contact with the highest army quarters. And General
+Mazaki, an outstanding army extremist, was kept under detention for a
+year after the outbreak.
+
+A long death list had been prepared. Actually only three high officials
+were killed: Takahashi, the moderate Finance Minister; Admiral Saito,
+the former Premier, then Lord Privy Seal; and General Watanabe, who
+had been responsible for shifts in army officerships. Premier Okada
+escaped, but his brother, who resembled him, was killed. Outside of
+Tokyo both Count Makino, former Lord Privy Seal, and Prince Saionji,
+the last Elder Statesman, managed to escape attacks directed against
+them.
+
+For three days the insurgents occupied the center of Tokyo. They were
+finally disarmed when it became clear that the revolt was not taking
+hold anywhere else. Once again, an attempt to seize the government had
+failed. Nevertheless, the uprising caused an important shift in the
+balance of political power. The trend toward moderation was reversed.
+Under succeeding Cabinets, new policies were adopted which led directly
+toward the war with China in 1937.
+
+
+PRELUDE TO WAR (1936-37)
+
+The chief result of the “2-26” uprising was to give greater power
+over government policy to the army leaders. This power was not
+exercised by the extremists in person, because the military revolt
+had temporarily discredited them in the people’s eyes. A new set of
+army leaders adopted most of their platform, however, and succeeded in
+putting it across. The public strongly opposed the expansionist and
+military-fascist tendencies of the new program, but could do no more
+than delay its realization.
+
+The new program took definite shape under the Cabinet headed by Hirota,
+a bureaucrat with extremist leanings. It called for stronger pressure
+on China, expressed in demands for “Sino-Japanese cooperation.” The
+anti-Comintern pact was concluded with Germany in November 1936. On
+the home front, there were efforts to amend the Election Law in such
+a way as to curb the political influence of the parties. The new
+budget included large increases in defense expenditure. Sections of
+heavy industry, interested in the profits to be reaped from supplying
+armaments for the defense services, threw their support to the enlarged
+arms program. On the other hand, popular opposition to the Hirota
+Cabinet grew steadily. Following strong attacks in the Diet, Hirota
+resigned in January 1937.
+
+General Hayashi, the next Premier, barred the recognized Minseito and
+Seiyukai party leaders from his Cabinet. Within two months he had
+carried through the economic planks of Hirota’s platform. Ikeda and
+Yuki, representing the business houses, took official posts in order
+to handle the financial problems. Premier Hayashi also instituted a
+Cabinet Planning Board, which became an economic general staff for the
+army program.
+
+
+THE PEOPLE VS. THE MILITARY
+
+These rapid steps toward a “wartime economy” met with bitter opposition
+from the parties and even more from the public at large. A wide breach
+opened up between the Hayashi Cabinet and the people. When Hayashi
+dissolved the Diet, he was overwhelmingly defeated in the general
+election of April 1937. Out of 466 members in the Diet’s lower house,
+the government elected less than 50 supporters. It tried to stay in
+office, but finally, on May 31, had to resign.
+
+The popular disapproval of the military-fascist program was shown quite
+unmistakably in this election--even more unmistakably than in the
+earlier election of February 1936. At that time, the extremists had
+defeated the will of the people by the “2-26” uprising. This time they
+used new methods.
+
+Under the Konoye Cabinet, national unity was restored--at least to all
+outward appearances. Party members were included in the Cabinet, and
+Prince Konoye was made the symbol of unity. But the party men chosen
+for Cabinet posts were in sympathy with the military-fascist program,
+and in any case held only minor offices. The chief Ministries were
+cornered by the army leaders and by bureaucrats who supported them.
+
+But merely setting up a new Cabinet was not enough to quell the
+widespread suspicion of the army’s aims. It was necessary to quiet
+opposition voices, reestablish the army’s prestige and really get
+somewhere with the “controlled economy” plans.
+
+How could all this be done? Two months after the Konoye Cabinet entered
+office, Japan was at war with China.
+
+
+
+
+XII. War with China
+
+
+Few of Japan’s leaders expected that the war with China would last for
+years. Their original plans called for a short campaign of five or six
+months. North China, Shanghai and Nanking would be occupied. Chiang
+Kai-shek’s crack divisions would be destroyed in the Shanghai-Nanking
+operations. By Christmas, at the latest, a dictated peace could be
+imposed at Nanking.
+
+
+VICTORIES WITHOUT PEACE
+
+On the military side, these calculations proved surprisingly accurate.
+The victorious Japanese troops _were_ entering Nanking in mid-December.
+And all the strategic railways in North China _were_ under Japan’s
+control. But these military successes did not lead to the expected
+peace settlement. China’s national unity held firm, and Chinese
+resistance continued. If Japan wished to dictate peace terms, she would
+have to wage further battle.
+
+This she proceeded to do. Two big campaigns were fought during 1938.
+In May, after a bitter struggle in Shantung province, Japan’s northern
+and southern armies were able to join forces. In October, after an
+exhausting advance up the Yangtze River, the Japanese captured Hankow.
+A lightning blow in the south led to the occupation of Canton.
+
+China’s main cities, and much of her railway system, were now in
+Japanese hands. But still there was no sign of peace. By the end of
+1938, it was clear that, despite her military triumphs, Japan had
+not won victory. The war had lasted eighteen months, instead of six.
+In lives and money, it had cost Japan far more than the original
+reckoning. And the end was not in sight.
+
+What was happening at home during these first eighteen months of the
+war? Three main trends were clear. First, all popular opposition to
+the war was suppressed. Second, the military took over conduct of
+affairs in China, allowing the Cabinet little or no say. And third,
+a “controlled economy” was set up, although the army leaders did not
+succeed in getting it into their hands. The business houses either
+pared down the controls, or decided how they were to be applied.
+
+
+MAKING THE PUBLIC TOE THE LINE
+
+Various measures to gain public support of the war were adopted. The
+most spectacular was a campaign for “national spiritual mobilization.”
+It began on September 11, 1937 with a patriotic rally in Tokyo,
+addressed by the Premier and other Cabinet Ministers and broadcast
+throughout the country. In the Diet the parties expressed their support
+of the war. Even Japan’s labor party, which had elected 36 Diet members
+in April 1937, swung behind the war policy. The authorities were not
+content, however. In December 1937, the Home Ministry carried out
+large-scale police raids, in which hundreds of persons were arrested.
+Two left-wing labor and party groups, both headed by Kanju Kato, were
+disbanded without notice. Kato himself, who had been elected to the
+Diet by a proletarian constituency in Tokyo, was jailed. The arrests
+also included Baroness Ishimoto, a noted feminist leader, and a great
+many liberals and pacifists.
+
+All sections of Japan’s ruling circles were united in this program of
+suppressing popular opposition to the war. There was more scope for
+disagreement, however, over how the war in China should be conducted.
+But in this dispute the army held all the points of vantage, and soon
+reigned supreme.
+
+
+THE ARMY WINS A FREE HAND IN CHINA
+
+Control of military and naval operations in and off China was given in
+November 1937 to Imperial Headquarters. This special organ included
+all the high army and navy officers. Since it decided military policy
+under the direct authority of the Emperor, it neatly sidetracked
+Cabinet control. Non-military phases of policy in China, however, were
+not so easily disposed of. Here the army used a technique which it had
+tried and tested in Manchuria. In September 1938 army leaders forced
+the establishment of a China Affairs Board, set up within the Cabinet
+but run by military men. Through this board the army kept economic and
+political affairs in China pretty well under its thumb, despite some
+continued opposition from the Foreign Ministry. In the broader field of
+international policy the struggle for power was more acute. It still
+continues, although the army eventually became strong enough to put
+through the alliance with Germany and Italy.
+
+
+THE ECONOMIC WAR MACHINE
+
+The third main trend of which we spoke was the establishment of a
+wartime “controlled economy” in Japan. The state took over more and
+more control of the economic life of the country. Both army and
+businessmen agreed that such control was necessary, but bitterly
+disagreed as to how it should be applied. On the whole, the businessmen
+managed to keep the most important economic regulations in their own
+hands.
+
+The fiercest political struggle during 1938 was waged over the National
+Mobilization Bill. Drafted by the Planning Board under army influence,
+this measure called for drastic economic conscription. The government
+was to have practically unlimited control of social and economic life,
+including finance, industry, trade, labor and the press. With respect
+to labor, the bill provided for compulsory allocation of workers
+to their jobs, prohibited strikes and lockouts, and empowered the
+government to fix wages, hours and working conditions.
+
+This bill met with determined opposition in the Diet. Army supporters,
+using pressure and intimidation, including terroristic attacks on
+Diet members and on party headquarters in Tokyo, pushed it through.
+Nevertheless, the opposition did force certain modifications in
+the original plan. Premier Konoye pledged that it would be applied
+only during a wartime emergency and not invoked in the Sino-Japanese
+conflict, which was still referred to in Japan as an “incident.” The
+Premier also agreed to appoint a majority of Diet members to the
+National Mobilization Council. This Council was to be consulted before
+Imperial ordinances applying various sections of the bill were issued.
+
+But on May 5, 1938, despite Konoye’s pledge to the Diet, several of
+the main provisions of the bill _were_ applied, and new ordinances
+issued since have put many others into effect. Before Premier Konoye’s
+resignation in January 1939, a broad series of control measures was
+in operation. Foreign exchange was strictly licensed. To make up the
+huge war budgets the government had taken over control of capital,
+and restricted new investment to a list of so-called “essential”
+industries. It also rigidly regulated trade, limiting the export
+and import of several hundred commodities. It put the labor control
+provisions of the National Mobilization Act into effect. In June 1938
+it instituted nation-wide price control for certain commodities, and
+has since steadily increased the list of such goods. The Home Ministry
+enrolled several thousand “economic police” officers to enforce the
+price schedules and other features of the economic program.
+
+
+THE MEN AT THE CONTROLS
+
+But despite the sweeping nature of these provisions, the business
+houses managed to keep a fair amount of independence. Their own men
+took key positions in many of the agencies that were enforcing the
+control measures. In the field of capital investment, they could still
+tip the scales. They successfully resisted army pressure for outright
+state control and operation of industry. Nationalization of the vital
+electric power industry, for instance, over which they fought long
+and bitterly, was finally put through only part way, and has been a
+subject of continued dispute.
+
+So it was not the military leaders alone, but the military leaders in
+an uneasy partnership with the businessmen and the party heads, who
+carried out the wartime economic program. The army fascists charted the
+program, it is true, but they were not allowed to run it in their own
+sweet way. The army ruled in China, as it had in Manchuria. But it was
+not the unchallenged dictator at home. There, it shared power with “big
+business.” And big business, despite war restrictions, still operated
+its own enterprises and still reaped its dividends.
+
+
+STALEMATE IN CHINA
+
+A Cabinet under Prince Konoye had held office throughout the first
+phase of the war in China. It resigned in January 1939, when China’s
+refusal to accept a dictated peace had become unmistakable. For Japan
+now no longer won spectacular victories. A stalemate had developed,
+and the war had become a war of attrition. This second phase of the
+war lasted for another eighteen months--until June 1940, when Hitler’s
+victories in Europe shifted the balance of power in the Far East.
+
+The costs to Japan of this second period were no less than before. She
+had to maintain the same number of troops in China, totaling 800,000
+or 1,000,000. Heavy fighting was taking place almost continuously.
+But the hostilities, ranging from Canton to Inner Mongolia, led to no
+decisive results. In some cases Japan occupied new cities, such as
+Nanchang, Nanning and Ichang. In other cases Japanese offensives were
+disastrously routed. Chinese guerrillas, ranging far and wide, limited
+Japan’s area of effective control, even in the so-called “occupied”
+territory. Moreover, the economic gains were not as great as the army
+had expected. Sales of Japanese goods to China steadily increased, but
+imports of Chinese raw materials either declined or rose very slowly.
+
+
+STEPPING ON WESTERN TOES
+
+At the same time Japan’s interference with the interests of the Western
+powers in China became much more direct, and created serious friction.
+Difficulties were most acute at Tientsin, Shanghai and Amoy. The
+Japanese army imposed various restrictions. It kept Western shipping
+off the Yangtze River above Shanghai, and the Pearl River below Canton.
+Western traders had to face many practices--tariffs, exchange controls,
+import and export controls--which were put into effect especially to
+hamper their trade. The Japanese enforced a blockade of the British
+and French Concessions at Tientsin, and stripped British citizens for
+examination before allowing them to enter or leave their Concession.
+Although the Western powers resented these Japanese actions, they
+limited their opposition mainly to protests. In July 1939 the United
+States abrogated its trade treaty with Japan, but did not follow up
+this step by imposing trade penalties.
+
+
+THREE JAPANESE WAR CABINETS
+
+Difficulties on Japan’s home front mounted steadily during the second
+phase of the war. The strain was shown in many ways. One was the
+rapidity with which Cabinets succeeded one another. The first Konoye
+Cabinet, as we have seen, had held office for nineteen months--from
+June 1937 to January 1939. In the second period (January 1939 to July
+1940), there were no less than three Cabinets. Their average length of
+life was only six months. These Cabinets, with their Premiers, held
+office as follows:
+
+  1. Baron Kiichiro Hiranuma, January 5, 1939 to August 29, 1939
+
+  2. General Nobuyuki Abe, August 30, 1939 to January 15, 1940
+
+  3. Admiral Mitsumasa Yonai, January 16, 1940 to July 16, 1940.
+
+
+HIRANUMA AND THE NAZI-SOVIET PACT
+
+Many of the decisive events of this period were closely related to
+the Cabinet changes. Hiranuma, for example, was forced out of office
+by the Soviet-German pact of August 23, 1939. During that summer the
+Hiranuma Cabinet had been dickering with Germany over the details of
+a proposed military pact, while the Japanese army had been fighting a
+minor war with the Soviet Union on the Outer Mongolian frontier. So
+the Soviet-German pact came as a stunning blow to Tokyo, and for a
+time feelings against Germany ran high. The army extremists, who had
+strongly advocated an alliance with Germany, were discredited along
+with Hiranuma. Consequently, extremist influence was not so great in
+the next two Cabinets, headed by General Abe and Admiral Yonai.
+
+
+ABE AND THE PRICE OF RICE
+
+The Abe Cabinet was overthrown five months later for reasons entirely
+different, but equally significant. Here the issue turned mainly on
+Japan’s growing economic difficulties. During the winter of 1939-40 a
+rice shortage developed, and “bootleg” prices soared toward 50 yen per
+_koku_ (the five bushel unit)--dangerously close to the level which
+stimulated the “rice riots” of 1918. In September 1938 the Abe Cabinet
+had fixed ceilings on all prices. When the rice shortage developed, it
+had to back down on its own ruling. In November it raised the official
+price from 38 to 43 yen per _koku_. By this time, however, the farmers
+had already sold their crops, and the gains were reaped by the rice
+dealers.
+
+Outspoken criticisms were expected in the Diet and, rather than meet
+them, the Abe Cabinet resigned in mid-January. The incoming Yonai
+Cabinet had to face the music. One outspoken member of the Minseito
+party, Takao Saito, challenged not only economic conditions, but the
+war itself. His striking speech of February 2, 1940 attacked Wang
+Ching-wei’s proposed regime (Japan’s puppet government) in China
+as nothing more than a “central government in name.” After casting
+doubt on the prospects of achieving the “new order in East Asia,” he
+asked what the Japanese people had received in return for their great
+sacrifices in the war. Even more serious, in the eyes of Japan’s
+army leaders, was Saito’s declaration that, in view of China’s large
+territory and army, it “is doubtful whether Japan can overthrow” Chiang
+Kai-shek’s regime. A critical electric power “famine” which developed
+at this time, and forced many factories to shut down, underlined the
+truth in Saito’s remarks. The Japanese people backed Saito so strongly
+that several months passed before the authorities dared to expel him
+from the Diet.
+
+
+YONAI TRAILS TOO FAR BEHIND NAZI PUSH
+
+But Hitler’s military victories in the spring of 1940, and especially
+the defeat of France, swiftly altered Japan’s position in the Far East.
+The “moderation” which the Abe and Yonai Cabinets had shown in foreign
+policy suddenly vanished. Intense pressure was brought to bear on the
+French authorities in the Far East. In June the French Ambassador at
+Tokyo agreed to stop shipments of goods to China over the Indo-China
+Railway. Less than a month later, the British government also bowed to
+the Japanese demand that the Burma Road be closed for three months. But
+these gains were not enough for the extremist elements within Japan.
+They had received a fresh impetus from Hitler’s successes, and were
+prepared to move far more boldly both on the home and foreign fronts.
+The War Minister, maneuvering for the set-up of an equally bold and
+impetuous Cabinet, suddenly offered his resignation. Thus, on July 16,
+1940, the Yonai Cabinet crumbled.
+
+
+
+
+XIII. Shadow Over Asia
+
+
+Under the second Konoye Cabinet, formed July 22, 1940, the flood
+that had been sweeping over Japan since 1931 reached a new high.
+Territorial aims were enlarged. Expansion was no longer to be confined
+to China. The goal was now a “Greater East Asia,” including all the
+rich colonial territories in southern Asiatic waters. At home, also,
+the pace quickened. The army leaders moved toward full suppression of
+the parties, and a reduction of the Diet’s powers. Obstacles to foreign
+expansion and internal regimentation continued to exist, however, and
+slowed down the fascist advance.
+
+In foreign policy, the Konoye Cabinet made two far-reaching moves. On
+September 27, 1940 it concluded a military alliance with Germany and
+Italy. By this alliance, as we have seen, Japan was allotted “Greater
+East Asia” for her “living space.” This sphere, however, was not yet
+under Japanese control. It had to be won. So the second move was a step
+in the direction of winning it. It was a move into Indo-China.
+
+In September 1940, a French-Japanese agreement admitted a limited
+number of Japanese troops to northern districts of the French colony of
+Indo-China. These troops were the entering wedge. Then Japan pushed her
+control southward to Saigon. Early in 1941, Tokyo dictated a settlement
+of the Thailand-Indo-China conflict, which she hoped would eventually
+yield her full control of Indo-China, and still greater powers over
+Thailand, where Japanese influence was already strong. And Saigon, we
+should add, is only 650 miles north of Singapore.
+
+
+A HARD ROW TO HOE
+
+In other respects, however, the Konoye Cabinet’s expansionist
+program--like that of its predecessors--did not enjoy easy going. For
+the war in China was still not won. In November 1940 Japan formally
+recognized Wang Ching-wei’s Nanking regime (the puppet government
+she herself had created). But this step merely spotlighted Japan’s
+failure to secure peace in China. Tokyo also undertook negotiations
+with the Soviet Union, but with little immediate result. Finally, the
+British and the Dutch strengthened the defenses of both Malaya and
+the Netherlands Indies, and the American fleet at Hawaii served as an
+eloquent warning against any move by Japan on Singapore, strategic key
+to southeast Asia.
+
+
+THE HOME FRONT
+
+On the home front, the Konoye Cabinet clamped down even firmer
+dictatorial control. All political parties “voluntarily” dissolved in
+the summer of 1940. There was a plan afoot to curb the Diet’s influence
+by amending the Election Law to give fewer people votes. And the
+extremists began to organize a mass fascist party, with local units
+throughout the country.
+
+These efforts achieved some practical results. The outspoken criticism
+marking previous Diet sessions was less apparent in 1940-41. The “near
+neighbor” groups, set up by the new fascist party, gave the authorities
+a means of checking up closely on popular opinion, and taking measures
+to suppress opposition as soon as it appeared. Economic difficulties
+were piling up, and the need for repression was becoming greater.
+Rationing of sugar, charcoal and matches, begun in 1940, was extended
+to rice early in 1941.
+
+
+A HORSE TRADE
+
+But the political struggle within Japan, even among its ruling circles,
+was not settled by the Konoye government’s actions. On the contrary,
+it continued as strong as ever. A characteristic “deal” indicated the
+lines along which the struggle was being fought. The military-fascist
+groups were unwilling to permit a general election, due in 1941, to
+take place. On the other hand, the moderates opposed moves to revise
+the Election Law and to strengthen state control over industry. In
+January 1941, a deal was made in which the extremists agreed to drop
+these moves, while the moderates consented to let the Diet run on
+without an election for one year, and to support the government’s
+program in the meantime.
+
+
+EXPANSION OR DEFEAT?
+
+In the early months of 1941, Tokyo increasingly committed itself to a
+policy dictated by the results of a decade of aggression. Since 1937
+Japan had spent nearly 20 billion yen on the war in China, or twice
+the total national debt in 1936. She had suffered more than a million
+casualties, in killed, wounded and diseased. In return for these great
+losses, she expected vast gains.
+
+Thus “Greater East Asia” became the avowed goal of Japan’s foreign
+policy. To Japan’s rulers, it represented the full flowering of the
+“bloc economy” idea. They now considered not only Manchuria and
+China, but the whole of East Asia, necessary for such a bloc. The raw
+materials of southeast Asia, especially the oil, tin and rubber of
+the Indies and Malaya, were needed to make up the deficiencies of a
+“Japan-China-Manchoukuo” bloc. But even with these rich prizes Japan
+would not be entirely self-sufficient economically. She would still
+lack high-grade machinery and certain other products. Nevertheless,
+with the raw materials of East Asia firmly under her control, Japan
+believed she would have sufficient bargaining power to secure the
+foreign currency necessary for buying all she needed in the world
+market.
+
+Japanese statesmen continually stressed this idea of an East Asiatic
+bloc in their speeches. To make its realization possible, they
+concluded the alliance with Germany. Barring an outright German victory
+in Europe, however, the difficulties which confront Tokyo’s advance
+toward mastery of East Asia are still formidable.
+
+For Japan’s economic resources are at a low ebb. Industrial production
+has begun to decline. Foreign trade is falling off, and reserves of
+foreign currency are low. China is unconquered, and relations with
+the Soviet Union are uncertain. The British Empire and the United
+States, which stand guard over southeast Asia, are the mainstays of
+Japan’s foreign trade. By moving against them in that region, Japan
+might risk everything gained thus far. For the first time, she would
+be staking her future on a war with powers that control the seas and
+access to world markets. She would be facing all the dangers that she
+successfully avoided in the World War of 1914-18.
+
+Japan’s geographical location, close to the scene of action in the Far
+East, is still her great strategic advantage. Her economic deficiencies
+have been, and continue to be, her main source of weakness. The ratio
+between these two controlling factors may well determine the immediate
+future. Is Japan’s new Empire to reach out over immensely larger areas,
+or is it to suffer its first great defeat?
+
+
+
+
+SUGGESTED READING
+
+
+BORTON, HUGH. _Japan Since 1931._ New York. Institute of Pacific
+Relations. 1940. Political and social developments within Japan during
+the past decade. Rather technical.
+
+COLEGROVE, KENNETH W. _Militarism in Japan._ New York. World Peace
+Foundation. 1936. The army’s role in Japan, and a study of the
+military-fascist movement. Fairly advanced but readable.
+
+CROW, CARL. _He Opened the Door of Japan._ New York. Harper. 1939. The
+life of Townsend Harris, first American Minister to Japan (1856-62).
+Very readable.
+
+ISHIMOTO, BARONESS. _Facing Two Ways._ New York. Farrar and Rinehart.
+1935. A noted Japanese feminist leader tells the story of her life.
+Popular and readable.
+
+NORMAN, E. HERBERT. _Japan’s Emergence as a Modern State._ New York.
+Institute of Pacific Relations. 1940. Discussion of Japan’s political
+and economic reforms during the Meiji era. Technical.
+
+OMURA, BUNJI. _The Last Genro._ Philadelphia. Lippincott. 1938. The
+story of Prince Saionji’s life, covering the whole period of Japan’s
+modern development. Entertaining narrative style.
+
+REISCHAUER, ROBERT K. _Japan: Government--Politics._ New York. Nelson.
+1939. Sketches the growth of Japanese government from earliest times.
+Fairly advanced but readable.
+
+RUSSEL, OLAND D. _The House of Mitsui._ Boston. Little Brown. 1939.
+Three centuries of the Mitsui family’s history, beginning in Tokugawa
+times. Readable.
+
+SANSOM, G. B. _Japan: A Short Cultural History._ New York. Century.
+1931. The best recent history of Japan, covering events up to 1868.
+Technical.
+
+YOUNG, A. MORGAN. _Imperial Japan, 1926-1938._ New York. Morrow. 1939.
+Also _Japan in Recent Times, 1912-1926_. New York. Morrow. 1931.
+Narrative accounts of more recent phases of Japanese history. Readable.
+
+SUGGESTED PERIODICALS: _Amerasia_; _Asia_; _Far Eastern Survey_; and
+_Pacific Affairs_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A NOTE ON HEADLINE BOOKS
+
+_Shadow Over Asia_ is one of the Foreign Policy Association’s HEADLINE
+BOOKS. The object of the series is to provide sufficient unbiased
+background information to enable readers to reach intelligent and
+independent conclusions on the important international problems of
+the day. HEADLINE BOOKS are prepared under the supervision of the
+Department of Popular Education of the Foreign Policy Association with
+the cooperation of the Association’s Research Staff of experts.
+
+The Foreign Policy Association is a non-profit American organization
+founded “to carry on research and educational activities to aid in the
+understanding and constructive development of American foreign policy.”
+It is an impartial research organization and does not seek to promote
+any one point of view toward international affairs. Such views as may
+be expressed or implied in any of its publications are those of the
+author and not of the Association.
+
+For further information about HEADLINE BOOKS and the other publications
+of the Foreign Policy Association, write to the Department of Popular
+Education, Foreign Policy Association, 22 East 38th Street, New York,
+N. Y.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ABOUT THE AUTHOR
+
+T. A. Bisson has been the Foreign Policy Association’s specialist on
+Far Eastern affairs since 1929. He has taught in China and travelled
+widely in the Far East. In addition to writing numerous Foreign
+Policy Reports, he is the author of _Japan in China_, published by
+the Macmillan Company in 1938, and _American Policy in the Far East,
+1931-1940_, published by Institute of Pacific Relations in 1940.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber’s Note:
+
+Illustrations have been moved to paragraph breaks near where they are
+mentioned, except for the frontispiece.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78440 ***