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The Economic Rehabilitation of the Samurai in the Early Meiji Period

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Harry D. Harootunian
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The Meiji Restoration of 1868, unquestionably the most important event in modern Japanese history, brought in its wake social and economic changes of a revolutionary nature. With the overthrow of the Tokugawa bakufu, the subsequent abolition of the han system, the equalization of classes, and the establishment of a conscript army, the need for a hereditary military class ceased to exist. Certainly, the presence of a samurai class, numbering approximately 1,800,000, or 400,000 families, stranded in a society in process of divesting itself of all feudal fetters, constituted an acute problem. The continued existence of this vast army of unemployed retainers could have easily hamstrung all efforts to modernize. And it is hardly surprising that the new Meiji leaders realized at the inception of the new regime that if the work of the Restoration was to be completed successfully, it was necessary to work out a satisfactory settlement for the samurai class.

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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 19 , Issue 4 , August 1960 , pp. 433 - 444
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Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1960

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References

1 Iwakurakō jikki, ed. Tada Takamon (Tokyo, 1927) II, 545; see also Hidezō, Yoshikawa, Shizoku jusan no kenkyū (Tokyo, 1943), p. 244.Google Scholar Hereafter, this work will be cited as SJK.

2 Iwakurakō jikki, II, 547.

3 For the views of government members, see Hiroharu, Fukaya, Kashizoku chitsurohit shobun no kenkyū [A Study of the Samurai Pension System], (Tokyo, 1942), pp. 258–268Google Scholar; 279 ff.

4 It has been rightly observed by many Japanese historians that the beginnings and development of die so-called “popular rights movement” merely expressed a segment of samurai discontent, that jiyū minken, for the founders of the movement, actually meant shizoku minken (samurai rights). See Harootunian, Harry D., The Samurai Class during the Early Years of the Meiji Period in fapan (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 1957), pp. 97–114Google Scholar; Yasui, Goto, “Shizoku minken no rekishi teki hyomen” (“Historical analysis of shizoku minken”), Jimbun gaktthā, IV (1954), 139.Google Scholar Professor Gotō argues that in reality Itagaki Taisuke's espousal of liberal symbols was not much different than the rebel ideology of Saigō Takamori. For Professor Gotō, the movement for political democracy proved to be little more dian another wing of die samurai opposition to oligarchical government (hambatsu).

5 Hidezō, Yoshikawa, “Meiji seifu no shizoku jusan” (“The samurai rehabilitation policy of the Meiji government”), in Meiji Ishin keizaishi kenkyū, ed. by Eijirō, Honjo (Tokyo, 1931), p. 584.Google Scholar Hereafter cited as MIKK.

6 Quoted in Smith, Thomas C., Political Change and Industrial Development in Japan: Government Enterprise, 1868–1880, (Stanford, 1955), p. 34.Google Scholar For a detailed analysis of Iwakura's views on shizoku jusan, see Yoshikawa, , SJK, pp. 243–257.Google Scholar

7 For an explanation of how samurai represented an “exploitable social stratum” from which recruitment for change could be made, see my article, “The Progress of Japan and die Samurai Class,” Pacific Historical Review, III (1959). 257–259.

8 For the philosophic antecedents of this slogan and its relationship to modern Japanese nationalism, see Masaō, Maruyama, Kindai Nihon seiji shisōshi Kenkyū (Tokyo, 1954), pp. 343–346.Google Scholar

9 For the samurai contribution to modern Japanese society, especially those elements which have been molded by samurai thought and conduct, see Shigetaka, Fukuchi, Shizokji to shizoku ishiki (Tokyo, 1956).Google Scholar

10 Yasumasa, Nakayama, ed., Shimbun shusei Meiji hennenshi (Tokyo, 1935), I, 417.Google Scholar Hereafter cited as SSMH.

11 Actually, there was another method which the government adopted to aid the samurai. At the outset of the Meiji period, grants of money were offered to samurai who were willing to surrender their family pensions. However, this method was abandoned at the time the government called for the voluntary commutation of pensions. Yoshikawa, , SJK, pp. 149–157.Google Scholar

12 Yoshikawa, , SJK, p. 115.Google Scholar

13 Reclamation also stimulated the growth of native industries. Many of the kaikon kaisha were ultimately organized with the express purpose of using the reclaimed land for some sort of commercial enterprise. In spite of the limited nature of this development, a contemporary newspaper in 1874 reported enthusiastically one such success story in Ibaraki prefecture when a group of 433 samurai banded together and pooled their finances in order to establish a mulberry company. The newspaper article “… hoped that the example of this group would establish a pattern in promoting areas of individual industry throughout the country.” SSMH, I, 136. The Tokukōsha of Okayama prefecture was another such cooperative enterprise, established in 1875. For its statement of aims, see its charter in Ken, Okayama, Okayama kenji kiji [Political affairs of Okayama prefecture], (Okayama, 1939–1942), IV, 499Google Scholar; III, 450 ff.

14 The full text of the memorial can be found in Ökubo Toshimichi bunsho, ed. by Hayakawa Junzaburō, (Tokyo, 1927–29), IX, 40–52.

15 Tōsaku, Azuma, Meiji shakai seisakushi (Tokyo, 1941), pp. 78–79.Google Scholar

16 This third suggestion was actually the substance of an earlier memorial entitled “Shokusan kigyō ni kan-suru kengisho” (“Petition relating to the encouragement of industrial production”), in Ökubo Toshimichi bunsho, V, 561.

17 An example of one such project was the reclamation of Lake Inawashirō in Asaka district of Fukushima prefecture in northeastern Japan. The project was begun in 1879 after it was estimated by government surveyors that drainage of the lake would make accessible approximately 9,800 acres of arable land. Shortly after drainage of the lake began, the central government turned the administration of the project over to local authorities. In 1880, the prefecture offered a limited number of samurai families such things as expense funds, farm equipment, and land up to seven acres a family. Recruitment was not limited to samurai of the Fukushima area, for samurai of other locales were also enlisted. For a description of this project see Tsuyoi, Tsunoshita, “Asaka kokuei kaikonsho ni okeru shizoku ijū” (“Samurai immigration to the national reclamation project in Asaka”), Keizaishi kenkyū, I (1941), 156–174.Google Scholar

18 Yoshikawa, , SJK, pp. 115–126.Google Scholar

19 For the official statement vis a vis Hokkaido, see Yoshiô, Matsushita, Kindaō Nihon gunjishi, (Tokyo, 1944), pp. 190–208.Google Scholar

This is a documentary history in which the original decrees relating to Hokkaido are reproduced.

20 Quoted in Yoshikawa, , SJK, p. 131.Google Scholar

21 According to the size of families, emigrants could expect in addition to land, some expense funds, utensils, tools, and food.

22 Yoshikawa, , SJK, pp. 134–136.Google Scholar

23 For a breakdown of figures relating to recruitment see Shinsen Hokkaidōshi (Tokyo, 1934), III, 859–860.

24 Jintarō, Fujii and Hidesuke, Moriya, Meiji jidaishi (Tokyo, 1930), II, 664–665.Google Scholar

25 Matsushita, , Kindai Nihon gunjishi, pp. 190–91.Google Scholar To fulfill this objective, the government turned to the impoverished samurai of northeastern Japan. The official decree reads: “Samurai of Aomori, Miyagi, Saketa … and the old prefecture of Hakodate … will be recruited as tondenhei.” It is more than probable that the government selected these areas not only for their geographic proximity to Hokkaido, but also because samurai from these northern han had fought with the Tokugawa during the Restoration wars of 1867.

26 This figure is based on the reports in the Hokkaidō shi (Tokyo, 1918), XXII, 1–9.

27 Yoshikawa, , SJK, p. 146.Google Scholar

28 Approximately 310, 971 ex-samurai received, in exchange for their military pensions, public bonds amounting to ¥113,000,000. Takao, Tsuchiya and Hyōhei, Ouchi, ed., Meiji zenki zaisei shiryō shusei (Tokyo, 1932), IV, 121.Google Scholar

29 The term used to denote commoner in the Meiji period is confusing. On more than one occasion low-ranking samurai (e.g. ashigaru, sotsu, chūgen, etc.) were officially merged with peasants and merchants, so that by 1878 it was difficult to determine what percentage of heimin originally had been commoners and what percentage were of samurai origin.

30 Kamekichi, Takahashi, Meiji Taishō sangyō hattatsushi (Tokyo, 1929), p. 108.Google Scholar Cf. Takao, Tsuchiya and Saburō, Okazaki, Nihon shihonshugi hattatsushi gaisetsu (Tokyo, 1938), p. 103.Google Scholar

31 Quoted in Yoshikawa, , SJK, p. 161.Google Scholar

32 In the Okayama kenchō shozō bunsho, there are a number of reports which reveal the impoverished conditions of the samurai of Bizen han. These reports, made by the prefectural Inspection Bureau (Junsatsushi), were usually in the form of an official plea or petition. One such case of 1883 claimed that the bulk of samurai in Okayama “were pressed into unemployment or into menial jobs such as pulling rickshas, while others spent their time in hunger, idleness, and dissipation. … “Poverty, however, is difficult to measure by Meiji standards. It would seem that the most acceptable criterion was unemployment. Although there were many samurai who were unemployed, there were also many who were engaged in occupations which a decade earlier had been looked upon with disdain. Therefore, in describing poverty, the problem is in separating samurai who were actually unemployed from those who held “menial “jobs. See SSMH, IV, 70, 234; also, Hidezō, Yoshikawa, “Meiji shonen shitsugyō mondai “(“The problem of unemployment in the early Meiji period”), Keizaishi kenkyū, 14, (1935), No. 2.Google Scholar

33 Sanyō shimpo (Sanyo News), September 18, 1880.

34 Azuma, , Meiji seisakushi, pp. 23–36.Google Scholar See also the more detailed account by Sawazenji, Hachinoki, “Seinan sengō no infurēshon” (“The Inflation after the Satsuma Rebellion”), Keizaishi kenkyū, 22 (1933), No. 3.Google Scholar

35 Quoted in Yoshikawa, , MIKK, p. 604.Google Scholar

36 Iwakurakō jikki, III, 650.

37 For the opinions of Ōkubo and Iwakura on industrialization and samurai employment, see Azuma, , Meiji seisakushi, pp. 48–57, 62–89.Google Scholar

38 Takahashi, , Meiji Taishō sangyō hattatsushi, p. 103.Google Scholar Professor Takahashi has suggested that former samurai were far better equipped for Western-type enterprises than the traditional merchant. He feels that the merchant was hindered, at all turns, because of his committment to traditional methods of business practice and organization. Yet Takahashi is also aware of the fact that many samurai who tried their hand at a Western-type enterprise failed miserably. Nonetheless, there is abundant evidence to support his original contention. In this connection, one contemporary chronicle bore witness to a woeful, but typical story when it reported the following: “There were many samurai who took up the life of the merchant (chōnin); many opened up curio shops, while others established restaurants, sakeya, tea rooms, fish markets, and the like. But diese same men, either because of negligent partners or lack of experience, were not able to make sufficient gains with which to live … and lost their investments. Soon thereafter … many of these shops began to close.” SSMH, VI, 70.

39 Ōkubo Toshimichi bunsho, V, 561.

40 Yosmkawa, , SJK, pp. 174–175.Google Scholar

41 See the chart in Yoshikawa, , SJK, pp. 190–193.Google Scholar

42 This figure corresponds very closely to my own estimate which is based on the complete tables in Yoshikawa, , SJK, pp. 553–567.Google Scholar

43 Such was the case in Okayama prefecture when the reclamation of Kojima Bay enlisted 144 former samurai, none of whom by 1876 had made a satisfactory living from the allotted lands. Keishū, Inoue, Kojimawan kaikonsho [A history of the reclamation of Kojima Bay], (Okayama, 1921), pp. 21–22.Google Scholar

44 This does not refer to individual members of the class who did make a satisfactory adjustment to the changes of the day and went on to become entrepeneurs, policemen, teachers, bureaucrats, etc. Harootunian, , “Japan and the Samurai Class,” PHR, pp. 260–263.Google Scholar

45 Some writers assert that one third of the laborers, or about 100,000, in the first two decades of the Meiji era were ex-samurai. But there is neither sufficient data nor adequate techniques with which to measure the precise number of samurai in the Meiji labor force. Indeed, it is even difficult to differentiate salaried laborers from those who had investments in the company in which they were employed, managers from workers, etc. See Yoshikawa, , SJK, p. 541Google Scholar; Yasuzō, Horie, Nihon shihonshugi no seiritsu (Tokyo and Kyoto, 1949), pp. 188–189Google Scholar; and Kazuo, Okōchi, Reimeiki no Nihon rodō undō (Tokyo, 1954), pp. 19–24.Google Scholar