ciliation and forbearance. There may be parties in more or less intimate connection with the Government ready to suggest to them that such a policy on our part is due to the impossibility of the British Government adopting any other course, or resorting to means of reprisal and coercion under any circumstances. A rougher and sterner discipline may be needed with such men as the Daimios and their supporters, to teach them the wisdom of maintaining peaceable relations by observing the obligations of treaties, instead of provoking to acts of hostility a Power that can at any time crush their best efforts at resistance, and, whatever may be the treacherous suggestions they may receive from foreign sources, will do so, if all milder means should fail.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

The Government of Japan and its Administrative Machinery.-Relations of Life of Rulers and Subjects.-Husband and Wife.-The Relation of the Sexes.-The Position of Woman in the social Scale.-Influence of Art and Culture.-Religious Systems.

Of the Government of Japan we have much yet to learn, both as regards the actual machinery and the official hierarchy under which the administration of the affairs of the Empire is carried on. The relative position, weight, and influence of the constituted powers-Mikado, Tycoon, and their respective high officers-all need farther elucidation. The old and the new noblesse, in their relations as feudatories of one or both Sovereigns, and to each other, and to the people, especially demand careful consideration. These may be held to constitute the moral, as the mere administrative machinery supplies the more tangible elements of a Government.

As regards the last, and the hierarchy established among the officers of the Tycoon's Government, I have various data, some of them derived from official, and others from private sources of a more or less reliable nature. The lists of Daimios, with their revenues and territories; of the Tycoon's Court and administration, given in the Appendix,* are taken from the of ficial Red Book of Yeddo. This was very difficult to obtain in the first instance, simply because the Government of the Tycoon did not choose we should have any books, maps, or other means of information, even of those open to all the natives, and purchasable by them for a few cash. The book in question is *See Appendix D.

as common among the Japanese as our own Red Book, or the Gotha almanac. I doubt not, could it ever be traced how the copy I possess came into my hands, it would fare very ill with any parties concerned. I have, in addition, met quite recently with a contribution to one of the local journals on the subject of titles in Japan,' which appears to be written by one well informed on many particulars connected therewith, not generally known; and I think the writer's information, upon the whole, is correct. The paper will be found in the Appendix.*

The following brief summary of the public officers, with their relative duties and ranks, in addition to the lists, etc., contained in the Appendix, will, I hope, serve to give the reader a tolerably clear idea of the whole.

The SEOGUN, or DAI-SEOGUN, rendered in the Treaties TyCOON, is the chief. Kampfer styles him Crown General, Vice Regent, Generalissimo, and Emperor indifferently. The truth being that the successor of the originally usurped authority of executive chief, which has become, for the last two centuries, hereditary in the families of the descendants of Jejassama, otherwise Gongen Sama, receives various titles from the reigning Mikado. The first in order and most common is SEOGUN, or DAI-SEOGUN. Though authorities differ even in Japan as to its exact meaning, it seems derived from, or to be the equivalent of the Chinese term Ta-tsiang-kiun, the great chief, or commander of the army;' and as the Japanese are supposed to be a nation of soldiers, he who is at the head of the army is virtually the head of the nation. Hence nothing will induce a Japanese at Yeddo to admit that the Tycoon's title only means a generalissimo of the army. What rendering the inhabitants of Miaco and the Mikado's territory might give is not so clear.

6

After the Tycoon, irrespective of the Gotairo, or Regent, an office that only comes into existence when the Tycoon is a minor, the Kokushi follows next in importance. It is a Council, composed of either eighteen or twenty-four (for there is some doubt which is the number). Among these are some of the most powerful Daimios of the ancient aristocracy who represent the Mikado at Yeddo. Although ostensibly they take no active part in the Government, there seems very little doubt that not only are they a serious check on the Tycoon and his own Council of Ministers, but something very like control and direction must be among their attributes and the functions they exercise. The theory appears to be that they are a con* See Appendix F.

sultative Council, with whom there is no initiative or active participation in the administration of affairs; and the Tycoon need not recognize their existence, save only in cases where there is a question of departure from the fundamental laws or traditional customs, when their sanction and that of the Mikado are both essential to give validity or legality to any change, as, for instance, such a step as entering into Treaties with Western Powers, which for more than two centuries had been prohibited.

In such a grave and momentous question as a total change of national policy, there is reason to believe either law or custom renders essential an appeal to a Great Council of all the Daimios possessing a revenue over 50,000 kokous of rice,* said to number some 342. How they are convened, in what manner they deliberate and give their opinions or votes, is not known, I believe, by any foreigner. The necessity of convening such a Great Council of the nation was urged on Commodore Perry by the Government of the then existing Tycoon as the reason for a year's delay in giving him any answer; how far truly or not, of course, may be open to question.

Next in order follows the Gorogio, or administrative Council of the Tycoon-his cabinet, in effect, consisting of five Daimios of the third class, I believe always selected from among the more modern aristocracy, and never from the elder stock. How they are nominated, whether by the free and uncontrolled choice of the reigning Tycoon, at the dictation of others, or in compliance with some understood limitations, no foreigner, I am persuaded, is in a position to speak with any certainty. There was much during the three years to lead those in direct communication with the members of the Gorogio who acted as Ministers of Foreign Affairs to conclude that other and more influential or powerful Daimios than they had any pretensions to be held a controlling power, whose nominees the Council probably were, and subject, in matters connected with the Foreign relations of the country more especially, to an overruling influence or more positive dictation. Or numbers among the inferior noblesse may compensate for individual importance, and the check may be in this body, both on the Council of the Tycoon and on the chief Princes too.

Subordinate to this first Council of Ministers is a second Council, consisting of eight members-Daimios also, but of the third or fourth class, and with small revenues. Their functions, so far as can be learned, are purely administrative. Next in order should be enumerated the Buñios. These ap

* See lists of Daimios, with their revenues, Appendix D.

pear to be very numerous, and with very various functions. A variable number of this class, from five to ten generally, act as Governors of Foreign Affairs, performing many of the duties of Under Secretaries of State in Europe, and are called Gaikoku Buñio. From this class are selected all the Governors of the towns and the consular ports, as also the Judges. The Gisha Buñio, the Governor of Yeddo, is an officer of such high importance that he is said to rank next to the Gorogio. All the Samourai and two-sworded men, and all the Bonzes or priests of the whole empire are said to be under his jurisdiction. The Matchi Buñio may be considered as a sort of civil Governor, under whose jurisdiction are placed all the rest of the inhabitants of the capital.

Many of the more subordinate offices are filled up from a large class of Government officers, not Daimios, but belonging to the Hattamotto, or vassals directly dependent on the Tycoon, corresponding to the 'gentry and literati' of China, so often quoted in official correspondence, and receiving annual salaries, ranging from 3000 kokous to 200 pios of rice, or say £2000 to £38. A classification and enumeration of these will be found in the Appendix.* As regards the military administration and means of defense, a certain number of Daimios holding fiefs from the Tycoon probably, said to be twenty-six in number, are intrusted with the defense of the Tycoon, and obliged to furnish military contingents. It was some of these who were called upon to supply guards to the Legations when the Tycoon's Government deemed such measures of protection necessary. And it was one or more of these military retainers who attempted in the night to cut his way to the room of the British Chargé d'Affaires after my departure.

Into the farther question of honorary offices, rank and order of precedency as established between the Mikado's Court and the Tycoon's, I do not propose to enter in any detail; first, because I consider most of the information we possess too uncertain and imperfect to be much relied upon; and, secondly, because, although we have heard a good deal of the Tycoon's investiture by the Mikado, and of the fourth rank being assigned him, by which he is placed not only lower than that of other Daimios or courtiers and ministers about the person of the Mikado, I think such distinctions have little influence on the real march of affairs. It may be true enough that, according to the Red Book of Japan, the Quambuku or Prime Minister of the Mikado is classed as the second person in the realm, and takes rank before the Tycoon, but practical* See Appendix D.

ly what does this amount to? Does it give him any real power to direct or meddle with the administration of affairs, or merely to approach three mats nearer the august person of a powerless Mikado, or receive more genuflexions in the day from other superannuated courtiers, condemned like himself to a life of utter insignificance in all save a name or a title? He may come next after the Sovereign de jure, as an Archbishop of Canterbury or a Speaker of the House of Commons, and take precedence of a Prime Minister, but with a like absence of any real significance or share of power. So there may be whole classes of Daijo-daijins, or Sho-dijo-daijins, Sodaijins, etc., and all taking official rank before the Tycoon, who yet have no more voice in the administration of the Empire than so many pasteboard and bedizened dummies among the properties of a provincial theatre. These high-sounding titles I can only regard as so many fossilized relics of a past order, which have no vitality or real significance in the world, and no interest for the actual living men around them, who constitute the Japanese nation.

Japan appears to be actually governed, at the present day, by a sort of feudal aristocracy, recalling in some respects that of the Lombard dukes, and France under the Merovingian kings, or the early state of the Germans when their kings were elected out of particular families. A confederation of Princes and territorial Seigneurs possess the land, enjoying apparently very much the same kind of jurisdiction as our own barons in the days of the Saxon rule or the first Plantagenets. The Prince of Satsuma, with his colonial dependencies of the Loochoo Islands; the Prince of Xendai, with large territories; the Prince of Kaga, and many others, each with larger revenues and more men-at-arms, probably, than the virtual and de facto Sovereign, the Tycoon himself, could bring into the field, might any one of them play the part of an Earl of Warwick. If not in the present day, yet not three centuries ago, these were in the habit, separately or in combination, of setting not only the Tycoon, but his and their Sovereign, the Mikado, at defiance with arms in their hands. It was their feuds and rebellions which, in the twelfth century, gave to Yoritomo the means of usurping the quasi sovereignty of the Tycoonat, only then constituted by the victorious commander-in-chief of the imperial armies, which were originally set in motion for their subjugation. Taico-sama, toward the close of the sixteenth century did much to break the still dangerous power of these semi-feudatory but really independent princes. He only sueceeded, however, by courting the alliance of some of the more