Origins of the modern Japanese state 039449413X, 0394709276

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The Pantheon Asia Library New Approaches to the New Asia

No part o f the world has changed so much in recent years as Asia, or awakened such intense American interest. But much o f our scholar­ ship, like much o f our public understanding, is based on a previous era. T he Asia Library has been launched to provide the needed information on the new Asia, and in so doing to develop both the new methods and the new sympathies needed to understand it. Our purpose is not only to publish new work but to experiment with a wide variety o f approaches which will reflect these new realities and their perception by those in Asia and the West. Our books aim at different levels and audiences, from the popular to the more scholarly, from high schools to the universities, from pictorial to documentary presentations. All books will be available in paperback. Suggestions for additions to the Asia Library are welcome.

Other Asia Library Titles The Japan Reader, edited by Jon Livingston, Joe Moore, and Felicia Oldfather Volume 1 Imperial Japan: 1800-1945 Volume 2 Postwar Japan: 1945 to the Present A Chinese View of China, by John Gittings Remaking Asia: Essays on the American Uses of Power, edited by Mark Selden Without Parallel: The American-Korean Relationship Since 1945, edited by Frank Baldwin Chairman Mao Talks to the P eople: Talks and Letters, 1956-1971, edited by Stuart Schram A Political History of Japanese Capitalism, by Jon Halliday

Origins of the

M odern Japanese State Selected Writings o f E. H . N O R M A N

Edited, with an Introduction on “E. H. Norman, Japan and the Uses of History,” by John W . Dower

P A N T H E O N B O O K S A Division o f Random House, New York

Copyright © 1975 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Norman, E. Herbert, 1909-1957. Origins of the Modern Japanese State. (The Pantheon Asia Library; New Approaches to the New Asia) "E. H. Norman: A Bibliography” : pp. 465-68 Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Japan—History—Meiji period, 1868-1912. 2. Japan—Politics and government—1600-1868. 3. Japan —Politics and government—1868-1912. 4. Norman, E. Herbert, 1909-1957. I. Dower, John W., ed. II. Title. DS882.N64 1975 952.03'1 74-4773 ISBN 0-394-49413-X ISBN 0-394-70927-6 pbk.

Manufactured in the United States of America FIRST EDITION

4^2

..4

Contents

Editor’s Preface

vii

Japanese Names and Titles

ix

E. H. N orman , Japan

U ses

of

H istory

Preface : T he Shrine

of

C lio

and the

3

By John W. Dower

By W ay

of a

J a p a n ’s E m e r g e n c e

'

as a

M

odern

St a t e

103

109

Introduction

110

The Background of the Meiji Restoration

118

The Restoration

156

Early Industrialization

211

TThe Agrarian Settlement and Its Social Consequences Parties and Politics

Feu d al B ackgrou n d

243 274

of

J a p a n e s e P o l it ic s

Author’s Preface

317 319

Late Feudal Society The Politics of Transition and the Role of the Samurai

358

The Shizoku Opposition, 1868-78

389

The Autocratic State

435

E. H.

N

orman

:

A

465

B ib l io g r a p h y v

CONTENTS

VI

A L ife

469

Glossary of Japanese Terms and Phrases

473

Index

481

About the Author

499

E. H.

N

orman

:

Editor’s Preface

It was originally hoped that it would be possible to offer an edition of the complete, or near-complete, writings of E. H. Norman. This proved impossible. T h e possibility then of a volume containing excerpts from his various works was considered and finally rejected, for Norman was too subtle a craftsman. Thus the present volume contains only the text of his great classic, Japan’s Emergence as a Modern State; the heart of a previously unpublished manuscript, Feudal Background of Japanese Politics; and a brief essay hitherto available only in Japanese, a delicate tribute to Clio, which conveys a sense of the man and of his perception of the historian’s task. T h e introductory essay is probably overlong. It grew in the writing of it because Norman’s work as a scholar is so extraordi­ narily provocative, and assumes its full dimensions only in the context of subsequent Western scholarship on Japan; and also because his life and tragic death speak directly to the problem not only of academic freedom but also of scholarly values in the postwar world. Since many o f Norman’s shorter writings are inaccessible or little known in the West, the introduction also represents an attempt to summarize them as judiciously as possible and place them in a broader conceptual framework which, it is hoped, will permit a fuller appreciation of the better-known works themselves. Okubo Genji, Norman’s devoted friend and his major translator in Japan, contributed immeasurably to the present volume. T he bulk of the unpublished materials were obtained from him, and in the course of many long conversations he evoked the complexity of the man and his accomplishments in a manner which cannot be conveyed by the printed word alone. I am grateful also for the insights provided by the Honorable Chester Ronning, Norman’s friend and colleague in the Canadian diplomatic corps; for refer­ ence materials provided by A. E. Blanchette of the Department of External Affairs in Ottawa; and for assistance and encouragement from Mrs. Irene Norman, Professor W illiam L. Holland (editor of Pacific Affairs, University of British Columbia Press), formerly Secretary General of the Institute of Pacific Relations, and Jeanne Morton and James Peck of Pantheon. John

March 1974 v ii

W.

D

ow er

*

JAPANESE NAMES AND TITLES

Personal names appear in the normal Japanese order, sur­ name first and given name second. The only exception to this is in the names of feudal lords, who are often referred to simply by their given names, e.g., Nariakira and Hisamitsu, given names of two successive heads of the Shimazu family (Satsuma clan), or Nariaki, personal name of the lord of Mito, whose surname, of course, was Tokugawa. The titles of all Japanese works have been translated into English when they appear for the first time and afterwards are cited only in transliterated Japanese.

E. H. Norman, Japan and the Uses of History John W . D ow er

T h e publication of Japan’s Emergence as a M odern State in 1940 established E. H. Norman, then thirty-one years old, as the pre­ eminent Western scholar of modern Japan. For more than a decade this work remained perhaps the greatest single influence upon English-language interpretations of the transition from Tokugawa feudalism through the Meiji period. Drawing to a considerable extent upon the research of Japanese scholars, some of whom worked within the Marxist tradition, Japan’s Emergence was trans­ lated into Japanese in 1947 and had a reciprocal influence upon postwar Japanese historiography. Norman, one can assume, must have been gratified by this, for he had a gift, and indeed a passion, for intellectual sharing. In 1943 Norman published a small study, Soldier and Peasant in Japan: The Origins of Conscription, which received lesser attention in the West but is regarded by some Japanese scholars as perhaps even more original than Japan’s Emergence; the Japanese trans­ lation appeared in 1948. In 1944 he prepared a lengthy draft manuscript, Feudal Background of Japanese Politics, for presen­ tation at the January 1945 Hot Springs conference of the Institute of Pacific Relations. Sections of this were appended to the Japanese edition of Japan’s Emergence, and two articles in English (“ Mass Hysteria in Japan” and “ T he Genyosha: A Study in the Origins of Japanese Imperialism” ) derived from this manuscript. T he entire work was never made generally available in English, however, and its unpublished chapters are reproduced in this present volume for the first time. In 1949 Norman published a study of a virtu3

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E . H . N O R M A N , J A P A N A N D T H E USES O F H IS T O R Y

ally unknown, iconoclastic eighteenth-century intellectual, Ando Shoeki and the Anatomy of Japanese Feudalism; he was attracted to Ando because he found him “ a bold and original m ind,” a man who had endeavored to construct “ a philosophy vindicating resis­ tance to unbridled authority and oppression.” Ando has been rela­ tively ignored in the West, being seen as the portrait of a man of little influence; in Japan, where the translation appeared almost simultaneously, it has been read differently and, like Soldier and Peasant, treated as a work of considerable originality and import. During the early 1950s, Norman published several general histori­ cal essays in Japanese scholarly journals, and in 1956 these appeared in a popular edition under the title Kurio no Kao (The Face of C lio ). T he essays are virtually unknown in the West, and one, the preface to the Japanese edition, is reproduced here; the original English manuscripts of several of these pieces have been utilized in the discussion which follows. Although these works represent N or­ man’s major written legacy, he also prepared a number of reviews, lectures and reports which are generally neglected or inaccessible, but also illuminate his qualities as an historian and as a man. During this entire period, Norman served as a diplomat for the Canadian Government, reaching the peak of his career as Ambassa­ dor to Egypt during the Suez crisis of 1956-7. He died in 1957, in Cairo, by suicide, after a period of recurrent pressure emanating from the United States because o f his early leftist views and asso­ ciations. Norman’s death and the subsequent neglect of his work in the West provide a saddening chapter on both the politics of the postwar era and the politics o f postwar American scholarship on Japan. These, however, seem better left for later discussion, for they are negative concerns and what is memorable about Norman, what makes this present reissue of some of his major writings especially welcome, is his positive contribution to an understanding of Japan and of the tasks of the historian. In his own words, Norman was “ addicted to history,” and the brief tribute to Clio with which this present volume begins suggests the devotion with which he pursued this avocation and the intimate link which he perceived as existing between historical consciousness and man’s fate. Although Japan was his field of specialization, it can be said of Norman as of few other recent Western scholars of Japan that the \yhflle of man’s historical experience was his province. Although he did his doctoral work in Japanese history at Harvard (with a period of research at C olum bia), his prior training was in the classical British tradition, at Victoria College in T oronto and Trinity College in Cambridge, and his earlier academic background lay in ancient and medieval European history. He read in Latin, Greek, French and German, and used also Italian and Chinese. His parents were missionaries in

E . H . N O R M A N , J A P A N A N D T H E USES O F H IS T O R Y

5

Nagano prefecture, and his solid command of Japanese derived from having lived in Japan from birth until his mid-teens. Throughout his writings there breathes both an enviable knowl­ edge of the experience of the West as well as East, and a sense of humility before the “ delicate tracery’’ o f history and the complexity of historical change. “ He was a historian o f the world before he was a historian of Japan,” Maruyama Masao wrote in a moving tribute after Norman’s death, and his profound erudition “ was always there under the surface, gleaming like silver through the interstices of his conversation.” Pleasures and Tasks of the Historian It is worthwhile to dwell briefly on Norman’s view of history, partly because that view was subtle, whereas recent characteri­ zations of his discipline by American scholars have often been rigid and crude; partly also because he addressed the meaning of history most directly in several essays which have been inaccessible to Westerners. But a more compelling reason for doing this is that Norman paused in the midst of his career to step back and ask why history is important, and how the historian can best convey it with greatest relevance and least abuse; and although these seem natural questions for historians to dwell upon, the task is more often post­ poned. For Norman, history had both general and personal value. On the most simple, and-intjrnate level, he spoke (in “ History: Its Uses and Pleasures” ) o f “jhe_jnagicaTpleasure that the reading of history can^give”—the realization that there is no last word on any given subject; the recognition that when~ written by the greats, history has the pathos of a Greek tragedy; the dimensions of irony, mystery and poetry; and this: '‘that peculiar pleasure of reading in the calm o f one’s study o f turbulent events, o f great triumphs and failures or simply of the everyday life of people in bygone ages. T o cast one’s mind into the past and to have described vividly for on^ the passions and ambitions, the hopes and disappointments not only o f great men, buToTpeople like ourselvesTis to Teel an intimation of man’s immortal spirit.” --------- ' Norman’s joy in the s^pall cornersjof history and culture was clearly immense, and one which Tie shared to the great envy and delight o f those privileged to know him. T he stories o f his rich conversational gifts are legion. He once entertained-jbrince Mikas a (whom he tutored on Japanese history between 4947jand KJHjL) with an evening’s discussion of ghosts, and he courted his wife with readings of Latin and Greek poetry. He was strongly attracted to the thought of Epicurus, and shared his love of the ancient Greek philosopher with Japanese acquaintances,_many of whom in turn saw him as the true embodiment of the Epicurean spirit. T he story

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E . H . N O R M A N , J A P A N A N D T H E USES O F H IS T O R Y

is told of a party for visiting scholars at the home of a French diplomat in Ottawa, where the conversation turned to Baudelaire. T o illustrate a point, Norman recited a verse from the poet, pausing in the middle of one line; and when asked why he had paused, explained it was because there was a comma there. An argument followed, and when a volume of Baudelaire was finally produced, Norman was proved correct. “ He could discuss at length,” according to one account, “ such diverse subjects as where the unicorn got its horn, the mating habits of African tribes, the Jesuits in sixteenth-century Spain or the sewerage system of ancient Rom e.” A colleague who had been interned with him in the Canadian Embassy in T okyo for seven months following the out­ break of the Pacific War later described him, not surprisingly, as the “ ideal person to be imprisoned with,” who might in the course of a single nighT~dIscuss~Persian poetry. Italian wines at the time of Catul 1us, the writings of the little-known Englishman Tohn Aubrey, and personal-vignettes concem ing Ceryantes and Voltaire. He con­ versed learnedly on Italian political history with an Italian diplo­ mat in Tokyo, and on the problems of sheep-grazing with farmers at a public fair in New Z ea la n d ^ jxS ok yo during the occupation of Japan, he reportedly attended (jLabuki^s often as several times a week, occasionally adjourning to a nearby Japanese bar, where he would strike up a conversation on the theater with whoever was sitting next to him.1 In his tribute, entitled “ An Affection for the Lesser Names,” Maruyama wrote this of his departed friend: As a historian he had a never-failing interest in the crooked byways off the main roads of history and in the wild flowers—the casual records ancTepisodes—which bloom unnoticed in their hedgerows. He could hold a room in rapt attention with a rich profusion of historical anecdotes. He was less interested in the politicians and the generals and the orthodox scholars who stride boldly through the main streets of history than in the heretics, the slightly cynical withdrawn satirists, the wing-players who tend to be pushed aside in the over-hastv business of teaching history. Epicurus and Lu­ cretius rathertnan Plato or Aristotle, the Levellers rather than Cromwell, Mo-tzu and Chuang-tzu. rather than Confucius or Mencius, Li Cho:wu rather than Chu Hsi or Wang Yang-ming— such was his consistent choice of personalities. But history was more than byway and personal pleasure. For beyond this and more important, Norman argued that “ the study of and continuing interest in history is one of the essential features of i Sidney Katz, “ What Kind of Man Was Herbert Norman?’’ Maclean's Magazine, September 28, 1957, pp. 22ff. The episode involving Prince Mikasa was recalled in the Japanese memorial service following Norman’s death.

E. H . N O R M A N , J A P A N A N D T H E USES O F H IS T O R Y

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a community which is genuinely civilized.” Rather than being a luxury, it is as essential to man’s progress as knowledge of the physi­ cal sciences, and if a less rigid discipline than these, then a more exacting one because of that very fact. >v‘It is for humanity what memory is for the individual. . l i t is' tlie discipline that makes (.the- whole world kin.” U n stressing the civilizing and humanizing' value of a feeling for history, he had ifTmind several things. He believed, optimistically, that this could make men tolerant through “ the realization that no people have a monopoly of courage, o f civic virtues, of scientific creativity, or artistic imagination.” He Hoped that it would .disabuse men, particularly men who ruled, from © attempting to cut the Gordian knot of complex problems with a single violent stroke. And he argued with a passion—that in retro­ spect is all the more moving because we know of his own personal destruction—( Hat history could set men free' His position here was essentially that most often associated with the intellectual legacy of the Enlightenment: that the untrammeled exercise of human rea­ son and