Inoue Kowashi

2020/03/27

Image: From the National Diet Library website

December 1880 (Meiji 13). Fukuzawa Yukichi received a request from three councilors—Okuma Shigenobu, Ito Hirobumi, and Inoue Kaoru—to publish a government organ. Although Fukuzawa initially showed a stance of refusal, he eventually viewed it positively, intending to take the first step toward realizing his long-held ambition of "harmony between the government and the people." It could be said that this was the moment when the "government" came closest to Fukuzawa, the representative of the "people." However, only a few months later, the plan was scrapped without Fukuzawa's knowledge. This was the Political Crisis of 1881 (Meiji 14).

"Once Fukuzawa Yukichi's books are published, the youth of the world follow him blindly; it touches their brains and soaks into their very souls, such that a father cannot restrain his son, nor an elder brother forbid his younger brother. How could government decrees and orders possibly reverse this?" This is a passage from an opinion piece written by Inoue Kowashi, said to be one of the masterminds behind the Political Crisis of 1881, one month after the event.

Inoue Kowashi was born in 1843 (Tenpo 14) in the Higo Kumamoto Domain as Takuma, the third son of Iida Gongobei, a low-ranking samurai. He was hailed as a child prodigy from an early age. In 1852 (Kaei 5), he was discovered by his lord Nagaoka Korekata and entered the Nagaoka family's private school, Hiyudo, where he spent five years. Furthermore, on Korekata's recommendation, he studied under the Confucian scholar Kinoshita Saitan in 1857 (Ansei 4). In 1862 (Bunkyu 2), again on Kinoshita's recommendation, he went to study at the domain school, Jishukan. At Jishukan, he sometimes visited Yokoi Shonan, a graduate of the same school, to engage in discussions.

During this time, he was adopted by Inoue Mosaburo and took the surname Inoue. In 1867 (Keio 3), he joined the French Language Training Center in Yokohama established by the Edo Shogunate, but returned home early amidst the chaos of the Restoration of Imperial Rule. Nevertheless, he next headed to the French Language Training Center in Nagasaki. However, this time too, he had to give up as the Kumamoto Domain joined the Boshin War. He was ordered by the domain to go to the front. In reality, the Kumamoto Domain troops had almost no role and returned home quickly. Afterward, he stayed in Nagasaki for about a year on domain instructions. In 1870 (Meiji 3), he attended Daigaku Nanko, and the following year, he entered the service of the Ministry of Justice of the Meiji government. In 1872 (Meiji 5), he changed his name from Takuma to Kowashi.

As a bureaucrat, Kowashi served various influential figures throughout his life. Because he could speak French, he traveled to Europe as a member of the Western mission led by Minister of Justice Eto Shinpei. In 1875 (Meiji 8), utilizing the results of his travels abroad, he translated and published "The Law of National Construction." After returning to Japan, he was highly valued by Okubo Toshimichi. In 1874 (Meiji 7), he accompanied Okubo to suppress the Saga Rebellion. In 1877 (Meiji 10), he accompanied Ito during the Satsuma Rebellion. In 1878 (Meiji 11), after Okubo's assassination, he established his position as a brain for Iwakura Tomomi, and in the same year, he accompanied Ito on negotiations with Qing China regarding the Ryukyu Disposition. In 1884 (Meiji 17), he also accompanied Inoue Kaoru, who was dispatched for peace negotiations in response to the Imo Incident and Gapsin Coup in Korea.

Kowashi was a bureaucrat who was highly valued, as expressed by Ito as a "person of peerless loyalty," and was requested to accompany leaders at various key points. His positions included Senior Secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Senior Secretary of the Cabinet, and Senior Secretary of the Grand Council of State. In 1888 (Meiji 21), he became the Director-General of the Legislative Bureau, and in 1893 (Meiji 26), he served as the Minister of Education in the second Ito Cabinet. He was also involved in drafting the Imperial Edict on the Opening of the Diet, the Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors, the Imperial House Law, the Imperial Rescript on Education, and the draft of the Meiji Constitution. In these creation processes, he sometimes strongly asserted his own ideas and possessed the forcefulness to incorporate them into the drafts. He was truly a person directly involved in the foundation of the Meiji government's construction. Since the evaluation and process of each achievement are vast, I would like to touch upon his character here through the Political Crisis of 1881, which is most deeply related to Fukuzawa.

The Political Crisis of 1881 was an incident in which Councilor Okuma Shigenobu and his faction were expelled from the political world. At that time, the movement for petitions to open a national diet was gaining momentum among the public. Although the government had solidified its intent to open a diet and establish a constitution, there was internal conflict regarding the timing. Okuma, who desired an immediate opening, submitted an "Opinion on Constitutional Government" in March 1881 in the form of a secret memorial to Lord Chancellor Arisugawa-no-miya, without consulting other councilors or Minister of the Right Iwakura Tomomi. Ito, who learned of this later, was furious, and Iwakura had Inoue Kowashi provide an opinion on a counter-constitutional proposal. Around the same time, the government's decision to sell off government-owned properties of the Hokkaido Development Commission at a low price was exposed by a scoop in the "Tokyo Yokohama Mainichi Shimbun."

Criticism of the government reached its peak, combined with petitions for the opening of the diet. Among the anti-Okuma faction, the dominant view was that this government criticism movement was a conspiracy initiated by Fukuzawa, who had colluded with Okuma, inciting his students and using Iwasaki Yataro as a source of funding. Thus, the background of the political crisis was the dismissal of Okuma and the bureaucrats of the Mita faction under Fukuzawa's influence in October. Simultaneously with the expulsion, the government announced the cancellation of the sale of government properties to calm public opinion and promised to open the diet ten years later in 1890 (Meiji 23).

In political history, this crisis is positioned as the catalyst for the establishment of Satsuma-Choshu clan politics and the catalyst for a major shift toward the enactment of a Prussian-style constitution. In other words, it was a political crisis that served as a major turning point in directing the Meiji state system.

So, was Fukuzawa actually plotting a conspiracy? As mentioned at the beginning of this article, during this period, far from criticizing the government, Fukuzawa had solidified his intent to be involved in the publication of a government organ. Initially, immediately after receiving the request from the three councilors—Okuma, Ito, and Inoue Kaoru—Fukuzawa intended to decline. However, later, he heard from both Ito and Inoue Kaoru that they would never betray him and definitely wanted his cooperation, along with their intention to open the diet and further consider a party cabinet system. During this period, as shown in his book "Transition of People's Way of Thinking," Fukuzawa was envisioning the realization of a British-style parliamentary cabinet system and a two-party system. He was deeply impressed by their intentions, thinking it would be "the happiness of the Meiji government" and "a blessing for Japan," and decided to cooperate.

However, this political crisis occurred only a few months later. It is true that several of Fukuzawa's students were giving public speaking engagements criticizing the government across the country. However, letters from that time prove that Fukuzawa himself took a negative attitude toward those actions. For Fukuzawa, being recognized as a political enemy was a bolt from the blue, with no basis in his own memory. Following the crisis, the friendly relations with Inoue Kaoru and Ito Hirobumi were unilaterally severed, and the promise to publish the newspaper was also reneged upon.

Fukuzawa, who should have been unrelated to the government's power struggle, was made into a political enemy. The key to that process was Inoue Kowashi. During this period, Kowashi persistently cited the names of Fukuzawa and the Kojunsha, emphasizing their connection with Okuma and criticizing their thought and influence at every turn.

When asked for an opinion on Okuma's constitutional proposal by Iwakura Tomomi, he went out of his way to include Fukuzawa's book "Transition of People's Way of Thinking" along with his letter, hinting at the relationship between Okuma and Fukuzawa. In subsequent letters, he again pointed out the commonalities between the Okuma proposal and the Kojunsha's private draft constitution. Just before the crisis, when government criticism across the country was at its peak, he sent a manifesto regarding the threat of Fukuzawa, stating, "Fukuzawa is vigorously advocating radicalism, his faction has reached three to four thousand, traveling widely across the country, already reaching the interior of the Goto Islands, and other regions have been in a state of combined excitement for the past twenty or thirty days; we cannot let this pass as it is."

In a letter to Ito titled "Internal Statement," he wrote that the constitutional research by those petitioning for a diet was rooted in Fukuzawa's private constitution, stating, "Therefore, Fukuzawa's Kojunsha is the greatest machine for ensnaring the majority of the nation and promising a political party," as if Fukuzawa were behind the activities of the civil rights activists. He continued, "Its power is exercised in intangible ways, causing people's brains to ferment in the darkness," and "Its advocate is like leading a hundred thousand elite troops into an uninhabited field," sounding an alarm about Fukuzawa's influence.

This vigilance continued after the crisis, and as shown at the beginning, in the "Opinion on Guiding the People's Hearts" one month later, he appealed to the threat of Fukuzawa, saying, "Once Fukuzawa Yukichi's books are published... how could it be reversed?" In the "Opinion on the Kibun Gakkai" written around the same time, he denied the "theory of harmony between government and people" and even mentioned editorials in the "Jiji Shinpo" such as "On Armament." He appealed to the danger of Fukuzawa and framed him with abnormal obsession.

Among various studies, some suggest that the information about the sale of government properties obtained by the "Tokyo Yokohama Mainichi Shimbun" might have been leaked by Kowashi himself to trigger the political crisis.

Then, what kind of thought led him to avoid Fukuzawa? As later researchers have described him as a "national polity educationist," Kowashi had a strong obsession with his own view of the national polity. That view of the national polity, if quoted from "The Great Harm of Party Cabinets," was that "sovereignty is always held by the Sacred Emperor," and the continuation of the Emperor's rule since Emperor Jimmu was the national polity. Therefore, "if the ruler and the people govern together, the national polity of over 2,500 years will perish." Fukuzawa's idea, as written in "An Outline of a Theory of Civilization," that the validity of the ruler-subject relationship should be judged by whether it is "convenient for civilization" or "inconvenient," and that it is possible to "reform the politics of the monarch," was a dangerous ideology to him.

Furthermore, to maintain the national polity, he considered the Prussian-style constitution, where the monarch holds strong power—which he witnessed during his time studying abroad—to be the ideal. For Kowashi, the British-style ideas shown in "Transition of People's Way of Thinking," such as "reigning but not ruling," the "theory of alternating party cabinets," and "making the cabinet administration hold collective responsibility," were an unforgivable constitution that "cannot coexist with an Imperial House cabinet" and would "unintentionally allow the parliament to grasp half of Japan's sovereignty." Furthermore, Kowashi, who also valued Confucian thought and order, made the philosophy of "Gakumon no susume (An Encouragement of Learning)" a target of criticism, as it "takes Confucius and Mencius as the objects of loathing" and "cannot possibly harmonize with Chinese studies."

In historical documents, it is unlikely that Fukuzawa was aware of Inoue Kowashi's existence. Fukuzawa was politically excluded in the darkness, and both the British-style constitutional system and the theory of harmony between government and people were rejected.

On the other hand, what was created using the funds and human resources gathered for the preparation of the government organ was the "Jiji Shinpo," which advocated for "impartiality and non-partisanship."

It can also be said that the invisible conflict between the two continued after the crisis through the "Imperial Rescript on Education" and the "Shūshin Yōryō: Fukuzawa's Moral Code."

If there had been no political crisis and the British-style parliamentary cabinet system and the moral outlook of the "Shūshin Yōryō: Fukuzawa's Moral Code" advocated by Fukuzawa had been adopted, and if the ideal stance of harmony between government and people had taken root, what kind of fate would Japan have followed thereafter?