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Kuga's Commentaries on the Constitution of the Empire of Japan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Barbara J. Teters
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Extract

Kuga Katsunan, regarded by his contemporaries as one of the three leading publicists of the eighteen nineties, was something of a hero to many young intellectuals who were attracted by his synthesis of liberalism and nationalism in the concept known as kokumin. This effort to construct a theoretical justification for fusing the two predominant forces of modern Japan in a union in which the individual and the state would be balanced in a condition of interdependence was Katsunan's contribution to Japan's early liberal tradition. Rejecting for himself the label “liberal” in its orthodox sense of advocacy of doctrinaire individualism, Kuga was no more willing to regard himself as a “nationalist” unless that term were so defined as to include a positive affirmation of the value of the individual. He sought to develop instead a theory within which liberalism and nationalism could coexist in almost perfect balance.

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Articles
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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , February 1969 , pp. 321 - 337
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1969

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References

1 The three towering figures of the newspaper world in the eighteen nineties were Tokutomi Sohō, Asahina Chizen, and Kuga Katsunan. See “Kuga Katsunan” in Shuntei, Toyabe, Shuntei Zenshu (Tokyo, 1909), II, 363–67Google Scholar; Shinzo, Kawabc, Katsunan to Sohō (Tokyo, 1943)Google Scholar.

Kuga Katsunan (Minoru) was born in 1857 to a low-ranking samurai family of Tsu-garu han. He received an excellent traditional education and also engaged in English studies in the han school which was famous for its early introduction of Western knowledge into the curricula. Later he attended the Shihōshō Hōgakkō, the Ministry of Justice Law School where instruction was in French and the subject matter drawn almost entirely from French sources.

In 1881, following his expulsion from the Law School along with Hara Kei and some twenty others, Katsunan entered the Dajōkan Bunshokyoku, later the Gazette Bureau. He also served under Inoue Ki in the Torishirabe Kyoku in the Imperial Household Ministry. With the government reorganization in 1885, he was attached to the Cabinet Official Gazette Bureau and reached the top of the subordinate ranks, but he found the bureaucracy stifling and grew increasingly critical of the hambatsu and its policies. In the Spring of 1888, he left the government service to become, as he himself put it, a rōnin, a masterless samurai.

Tokyo Dempō, published by Kuga from April 1888, through February 8, 1889, was both badly financed and badly organized. Nihon, which made its first appearance on February 11, 1889, was fortunate in its patrons, first, generals Tani Kanjō and Miura Gorō and the former daimyo of Hiroshima, Asano Nagakoto, and later, Prince Konoe Atsumaro. Hasegawa Nyozekan, Ando Masazumi, Kojima Kazuo, Maruyama Kanji, and Ikebe Sanzan were among the distinguished publicists and politicians who began their careers with Nihon which was regarded as one of the most influential newspapers of the era. Kuga was forced by ill health to retire in June 1906, and died in September 1907, at the age of 50.

An excellent, although brief, biography of Kuga Katsunan is found in Izumi, Yanagida, “Kuga Katsunan,” in Sandai Genronpnshü (Tokyo, 1963), V, 119–82Google Scholar.

2 “Kinji Seiron Kō,” Torao, Suzuki, ed., Katsunan Bunroku (Kyoto, 1933), pp. 137–49Google Scholar. This essay, perhaps Katsunan's best known, first appeared in Nihon, July 20-August 30, 1890. He also discussed kokumin in “Kokuminteki no Kannen,” Bunroku, pp. 373–76; Nihon first published this article on February 12, 1889.

3 Michiari, Uete, “Kuga Katsunan: Nationalism to Genronjin,” Asahi Jānaru Henshubu, Nihon no Shisōka (Tokyo, 1963), I, 238–52Google Scholar. Interview with Professor Uete, Tokyo, September 25, 1967. Kuga, “Kuni to Shakai,” Nihon Jin, January I, 1902, pp. 11–12.

4 After he resumed publication of “Kinji Kempō Kō” on February 28, 1889, following promulgation of the Constitution, Kuga almost without exception used the compound shinmin (subject), rather than jinmin (person). The Meiji Constitution, of course, referred to “subjects.”

5 Interview, Professor Uete, September 25, 1967.

6 Pittau, Joseph, “The Meiji Political System: Different Interpretations,” Roggendorf, Joseph, cd., Studies in Japanese Culture (Tokyo, 1963), p. 103Google Scholar.

7 “Kinji Kempō Komacr;,” Bunroku p. 5.

8 ibid., p. 3.

9 Ibid., p. 2.

10 Ibid., p. 3.

11 “Kempō Happu ni okeru Nihon Kokumin no Katsugo,” Nihon, February 15, 1889, p. 2. For Kuga's views on the suffrage issue, see also “Kinji Kempō Kō,” Bunroku, pp. 49–50.

12 Akita, George, Foundations of Constitutional Government in Modern Japan, 1868–1900 (Cambridge, 1967), p. 233CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 “Kinji Kempō Kō,” Bunroku, pp. 46–47.

14 Ibid., pp. 5–7.

15 Ibid., p. 7.

16 Ibid., pp. 8–9.

17 Ibid., pp. 9–13.

18 Ibid., pp. 15–16.

19 Ibid., p. 16.

20 “Nihon Sōkan no Shushi,” Bunroku, p. 366. This statement of the newspaper's purpose appeared in Nihon, February 11, 1889.

21 “Kinji Kempō Kō,” Bunroku, p. 19.

22 Ibid., p. 21.

23 Ibid., p. 22.

24 Ibid.

25 lbid., pp. 24–25.

26 ibid., p. 26.

27 Ibid., pp. 29–30.

28 Ibid., p. 30.

29 Ibid., p. 31.

30 Ibid.

31 Ibid., p. 32.

32 Ibid., p. 31.

33 Ibid., p. 32.

34 Ibid., pp. 32–33.

35 lbid., p. 35.

36 Ibid., pp. 34–35.

37 Ibid., pp. 35–36.

38 Ibid., p. 36.

39 Ibid., p. 38.

40 Ibid., p. 39.

41 Ibid.

42 Ibid., pp. 39–40.

43 Ibid., p. 40.

44 Ibid., pp. 40–41.

45 Ibid., p. 41.

46 Ibid., pp. 45–46.

47 Ibid., p. 53.

48 On May 11, 1891, a Japanese policeman in Ōtsu attempted to assassinate the Russian Crown Prince whose visit to Japan had precipitated unrest and widespread rumors such as the one that the Crown Prince was in Japan to spy on the country's military defenses. The government's intervention in the judicial process to seek the death sentence for the would-be assassin provoked vigorous criticism from such men as Kuga and Prince Konoe. See Yoshitaro, Hirano, “Minzoku no Dokuritsu to Jōyaku Kaisei to Hōten Hensan,” Hōgaku Shirin (August 1951), p. 1Google Scholar; Michio, Hirao, Shishaku Tani Kanjō Den (Tokyo, 1935), PP. 642–46Google Scholar.

49 “Kinji Kempō Kō,” Bunroku, pp. 54–55.

50 Ibid., p. 54.

51 Ibid., pp. 54–55. Opposition to parliamentary government is a recurring theme in Kuga's early works. His case is most fully stated in “Gensei,” Bunroku, pp. 179–224. “Gensei” appeared first in Nihon, March 6–22, 1893.

52 “Kinji Kempō Kō,” Bunroku, p. 56.

53 Ibid., pp. 55–56.

54 For example, see “Daijin Sekinin Ron,” Bunroku, pp. 445–55. This essay was first published in Nihon, February 2–4, 1894. In the August 5, 1896, issue of Nihon Jin, pp. 9–16, Kuga published a little essay entided “Kempō Han-inai ni oite Sensei Seiji wo okanau no Hihō,” in which he rather systematically went through the Meiji Constitution article by article, discussing what he had learned about its weaknesses while observing the conduct of government since the Constitution went into effect in 1890.

55 Masaaki, Kōsaka, ed., Japanese Thought in the Meiji Era (Tokyo, 1958), pp. 378–83, pp. 387–91Google Scholar.

56 For discussions of Yoshino's constitutional thought, see Perry, Walter Scott, Yoshino Sakuzō, 1878–1933; Exponent of Democratic Ideals in Japan (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1956)Google Scholar and Silberman, Bernard S., “The Political Theory and Program of Yoshino Sakuzo,” Journal of Modern History (December 1959), pp. 310–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Miller's, FrankMinobe Tatsukichi: Interpreter of Constitutionalism in Japan (Berkeley, 1965)Google Scholar is a detailed examination of the Minobe theory. Father Pittau discusses both Yoshino's and Minobe's interpretations of the Meiji Constitution in his essay, “The Meiji Political System: Different Interpretations,” and substantial excerpts from the most significant works of both theorists are found in Ryusaku Tsunoda, comp., Sources of the Japanese Tradition (New York, 1958)Google Scholar.

57 Tabata Shinobu, “Kuga Katsunan no Seiji Shisō,” Doshisha Hogaku (no. 4), p. 1. Masamichi, Rōyama, Hikaku Seiji Kikōron (Tokyo, 1950), pp. 126–29Google Scholar. Yasui Tatsuya, “Kuga Katsunan ni okeru Nashonarizumu,” Shakai Kagaku Kiyo (March 31, 1959), p. 17. Hasekawa Nyozekan, “Miyake Setsurei,” in Sandai Genronjinshu, V, 243. Unfortunately for the historian, Kuga's library was dispersed at the time of his early death and any records concerning it were in the possession of the family of his close friend and associate, Kokubu Seigai, and were destroyed during World War II. Interviews with members of Kuga's family, September 29 and October 15, 1967.

58 “Kinji Kempō Kō,” Bunroka, pp. 44–46.

59 Masao, Maruyama, “Meiji Kokka no Shisō,” in Kekyūkai, Rekishigaku, ed., Nihon Shakai no Shiteki Kyūmei (Tokyo, 1959), pp. 181–236.Google Scholar

60 “Newspapers in Japan, 1895,” Taiyō (October 5, 1895), p. 2. There is no evidence as to whether Minobe and Yoshino were among Nihon's regular readers. Governor Minobe Ryōichi, in a letter to the author dated October 17, 1967, wrote that he did not recall his father ever mentioning either Kuga Katsunan or Nihon, although he believes he remembers the magazine Nihonjin, to which Kuga frequently contributed, arriving regularly at the family home. In view of die Governor's age, it is likely that what he recalls is rather Nihon oyobi Nihonjin, Nihonjin's successor which came into existence following Kuga's retirement from Nihon when Miyake Setsurei and other members of the newspaper's staff found the new management unacceptable and fled to Nihonjin. The name of the magazine was then changed to indicate that the old Nihon was still alive in a new form.

The only evidence regarding Yoshino Sakuzō and Kuga is to be found in the catalogue of Yoshino's library, in the possession of the Tokyo University Law Faculty's Library of Meiji Periodicals, which indicates that Yoshino owned most of Katsunan's works.

61 Nyozekan, Hasegawa, Am Kokoro no Jijoden (Tokyo, 1950), p. 369Google Scholar.

62 “Jiyū Shugi Ikan,” Bunroku, p. 63. “Jiyū Shugi Ikan” first appeared in Nihon, January 15–20, 1890.