Japan's Modern History, 1857-1937 by Junji Banno;

Author:Junji Banno;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781317682967
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (Unlimited)

The Cabinet decision versus the Emperor’s opinion

The Meiji Emperor and his advisers showed great anxiety concerning Mutsu’s policy of recklessly aiming for war with China, but Mutsu brushed the Emperor’s concerns aside. The way this developed is clear from the following letter that he sent to the Prime Minister, Itō:

The Head Chamberlain, Tokudaiji (Sanetsune), has just paid me a visit to deliver a message from the Emperor; he questioned me in detail concerning the recent Cabinet resolution that was conveyed to the Emperor, and I replied explaining minutely the course of the recent cabinet discussions. I was able to perceive the Emperor’s anxiety about future developments, and in particular about the final part of the cabinet decisions, namely the item not to withdraw our forces from Korea until the Japan–China negotiations are finally settled, and the item that if the Chinese government were not to agree, the Imperial Government should do its best to achieve its objectives relying on its own strength alone. Munemitsu (I myself) gave my detailed opinion about relations between Japan, China and Korea, and about the future fate of the three countries, and explained that if the final two items, which constitute the core of the cabinet decisions, were to be omitted, then the whole basis would be undermined. … I must emphasise that if the Imperial Will were different from decisions of Cabinet, this would indeed be a most serious matter. I shall be honoured if you would visit the Court tomorrow morning, and persuade the Emperor personally.

(Ibid., pp. 59–60)

The letter from Mutsu shows graphically the complexity of Meiji Government foreign policy history. First of all, the Great Japan Imperial Constitution did not envisage situations where the ‘Imperial Will’ and a ‘Cabinet decision’ might differ. In article 55 it was written that “The respective Ministers of State shall give their advice to the Emperor and shall be responsible for it” and in Itō’s Commentaries on the Constitution, he wrote:

But with regard to important internal and external matters of State, the whole government is concerned, and no single Department can, therefore, be charged with the conduct of them. As to the expediency of such matters and as to the mode of carrying them out, all the Ministers of State shall take united counsel, and none of them is allowed to leave his share of the business a burden upon Japan’s Modern History his colleagues. In such matters, it would of course be proper for the Cabinet to assume joint responsibility.

(Marquis Hirobumi Ito [Tr. Baron Miyoji Ito], Commentaries on the

Constitution of the Empire of Japan, 2nd edn., Tokyo, Chuo Daigaku,

1906; reprinted Westport CT, Greenwood Press, 1978, pp. 104–5)

[note: the word ‘Cabinet’ occurs in Itō Miyoji’s translation, but not in

the original Japanese text, nor in the Meiji Constitution itself].

Since going to war with China was “an important internal and external matter of State” this was not a matter for the individual responsibility of the ministers of Foreign Affairs, Army and Navy, but one where it would be proper “for the government as a whole to assume joint responsibility”.

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