We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 November 2008
For a little over twenty years the Meiji press demonstrated a remarkable degree of vitality, resilience, and strength of purpose in the face of severely repressive laws of which the most onerous and irksome were those authorizing the government to ban and suspend publications. When, in March 1897, the 26th Century Affair culminated in the passage of revised press laws eliminating that dreaded power, the new freedom was largely the product of leadership which came from the press itself, and particularly from that part of the press often characterized as ‘conservative’, ‘right-wing’, ‘nationalist’ or even ‘ultra-nationalist’.
1 Nihon, for example, has often been characterized as nationalistic or conservative. See Mason, R. H. P., Japan's First General Election, 1890, Cambridge, 1969, p. 117Google Scholar, where Kuga Katsunan's newspaper is described as ‘the Right-wing newspaper, the Nippon Shimbun’. A countervailing interpretation is found in Masao, Maruyama, ‘Kuga Katsunan—Hito to Shisō’, Chūō Koron, 02 1947, pp. 37–44Google Scholar; Masao, Maruyama, ‘Meiji Kokka no Shisō’, in Kenkyūkai, Rekishigaku, ed., Nihon Shakai no Shiteki Kyūmei, Tokyo, 1959, pp. 181–236.Google Scholar Much information about Kuga and his ideas can be found in Pyle, Kenneth B., The New Generation in Meiji Japan, Stanford, 1969.Google Scholar Excellent although brief biographies of Kuga are found in Yanagida, Izumi, ‘Kuga Katsunan’, in Sandai Genronjinshū, Tokyo, 1963, V, 119–82Google Scholar; Ozaki, Takeshirō, ‘Meiji no Shimbunjin—Kuga Katsunan’, Shūkan Jiji, 7, 14, 21 and 28 09, and 5 10 1968.Google Scholar It is apparent that contemporaries referred to the Kuga newspaper as either Nihon or Nippon according to their individual predelictions. The author of this article has chosen to call the newspaper Nihon, which is the reading his family recalls as being the one Kuga himself preferred. For biographical treatment and other materials regarding Takahashi Jiji, see Teitarō, Kawanabe, Jiji Genkōroku, Tokyo, 1899.Google Scholar
2 Shunjirō, Aoe, Ajiyabito—Naitō Konan, Tokyo, 1971, p. 148.Google Scholar
3 For Katsunan's account of his friendship with Takahashi, see ‘Jijian no shorai’, in Kawanabe, , pp. 1–5.Google Scholar
4 For excerpts from these articles, see Saburō, Shimizu, Nihon Shimbun to Asahi Shimbun: Jiji Koji Takahashi Kenzō to Nijūrokuseiki Jiken, Tokyo, 1963, pp. 115–19.Google Scholar This volume, containing the texts of many 26th Century articles as well as other materials, was produced in 1963 by Asahi Shimbun, for private circulation, as a part of its extensive compilation of documents relating to the history of Japanese journalism. The author of this article is indebted to Mr Shimizu for presenting her with a copy of this valuable book and also for his generous and thoughtful advice during her study of the 26th Century Affair.
5 ‘Daijin Sekininron,’ Katsunan Bunroku, Kyoto, 1933, p. 454.Google Scholar
6 Ozaki, , ‘Meiji Shimbunjin—Kuga Katsunan’, (5) Shūkan Jiji, 5 10 1968, p. 49.Google Scholar
7 Shihenshūshitsu, Asahi Shimbunsha, Ueno Riichi Den, Tokyo, 1959, p. 487.Google Scholar
8 Shimizu, , p. 269.Google Scholar
9 Shimizu, , pp. 277–81Google Scholar, gives the text of ‘Shinkazoku to Kunaidaijin ika tōgaikan no Sekinin’.
10 Shimizu, , pp. 281–6.Google Scholar See also Jiichirō, Nomura, Bejukanwa, Tokyo, 1963.Google Scholar When he was released from prison, Nomura went to Ōsaka Asahi as henshūshomeinin or signer of editorials, a post for which he was thought to be ‘experienced’. Nomura's account, sixty-odd years later, in Shimizu, pp. 343–5.
11 Naitō, Konan, ‘Omoidebanashi’, Ōsaka Asahi, 3, 4, 5 and 7 01 1927Google Scholar, in Kojirō, Naitō, Naitō Konan Zenshū, Tokyo, 1971, II, pp. 737–8.Google Scholar
12 Ibid.
13 Kazankai, Konoe, Konoe Kazan Kō, Tokyo, 1924, p. 39.Google Scholar
14 Kuga himself could not help being skeptical. He wanted to be optimistic, and indeed served as ‘king-maker’ for the new government, but he persistently refused to take an active role (Kazuo, Kojima, Ichi Rōsejika no Kaisō, Tokyo, 1951, p. 33Google Scholar) and from September on, publicly expressed the fear that the new government would prove to be a mere transient in the Chōshū stronghold. See ‘Mottomo Bijaku no Naikaku’, Nihon, 19 09 1896, p. 1Google Scholar; ‘Senshin to Kōshin’, Nihon, 20 09 1896, p. 1Google Scholar; ‘Gyakkyō ni nareru Naikaku’, Nihon, 21 09 1896, p. 1Google Scholar; ‘Shō-Wai Naikaku no Zentō’, Nihon, 24 09 1896, p. 1.Google Scholar
15 For example, see ‘Senshin to Kōshin’, Nihon, 20 09 1896, p. 1.Google Scholar This indeed was one of the conditions Ōkuma and the Shimpotō insisted on during the negotiations which preceded the Ōkuma-Matsukata alliance.
16 ‘Shō-Wai Naikaku no Zentō’, Nihon, 24 09 1896, p. 1.Google Scholar
17 Naitō, , ‘Omoidebanashi’, Naitō Konan Zenshū, II, 740.Google Scholar The only existing drafts, two of them, undated, in Kuga's handwriting, are not significantly different from the speech. These two drafts, written on cabinet paper, are in the possession of the Kuga family who kindly permitted the author to photograph them.
18 Naitō, , op. cit., pp. 738–40.Google Scholar
19 For example, see Nihon, 13 10 1896, p. 1Google Scholar, ‘Iwayuru Shisei no Hōshin’.
20 The text of Matsukata's speech is found in Shimizu, pp. 231–3.
21 See Takahashi's account, as dictated to Rakuan, Kawanabe, in ‘Matsukata Naikaku no Kōbōshi’, Tōkyō Asahi Shimbun, 17, 18 and 19 02 1898.Google Scholar
22 The text of ‘The Imperial Household Minister’ is found in Shimizu, , pp. 287–94.Google Scholar
23 This estimate of 26th Century's circulation was made by Nomura Jiichirō many years later (Shimizu, , p. 344Google Scholar). For the circulation figures for the major newspapers, including Nihon, in 1896Google Scholar, see Taketoshi, Nishida, Kuga Katsunan Zenshū, V, pp. 659–60.Google Scholar
24 ‘Matsukata Naikaku no Kōbōshi’ (see note 21).
25 For example, see Konan, Naitō, ‘Takahashi Kenzō Den’, in Kawanabe, pp. 64–5.Google Scholar
26 For excerpts from this debate, see Shimizu, , pp. 305–19.Google Scholar
27 ‘Matsukata Naikaku no Kōbōshi’ (note 21).
28 Ibid. See also Shigetaka, Shiga, ‘The Progressives and the Government’, Shimpotō Tōhō, 1 01 1898, p. 1.Google Scholar
29 Shiga, , ‘The Progressives and the Government’.Google Scholar
30 Masaaki, Inoue, and Jirō, Sakaguchi, (editors), Hakushaku Kiyoura Keigo Den, Tokyo, 1935, I, pp. 413–15.Google Scholar In 1898, Hijikata resigned as Imperial Household Minister, a post he had held from 1887. It is clear from Kiyoura's letter to Yamagata, on 14 November 1896, that the 26th Century Affair caused the Chōshū faction to begin to regard Hijikata as a liability.
31 For an account of the effect of the 26th Century Affair on the Shimpotō, see the account of Ozaki Yukio, one of the party's more important leaders. Kankōkai, Ozaki Yukio Den, Ozaki Yukio Den, Tokyo, 1951, pp. 561–4Google Scholar; Shiga.
32 For a daily account of House of Peers politics during the 26th Century Affair, see Kankōkai, Konoe Atsumaro Nikki, Konoe Atsumaro Nikki, Tokyo, 1968, I.Google Scholar
33 In defending Ōkuma's acquiescence in this matter, his biographer made the case outlined above. Hensankai, Ōkuma Kō Hachijūgōnen, Ōkuma Kō Haehjūgōnenshi, Tokyo, 1926, II, pp. 245–50.Google Scholar
34 Shiga, , ‘The Progressives and the Goverment’.Google Scholar
35 Takeshige, Kudō, Teikoku Gikai Shikō, Tokyo, 1908, pp. 452–4.Google Scholar
36 Kazuo, Kojima, Ichi Rōseijika no Kaisō, Tokyo, 1951, pp. 29–30.Google Scholar
37 ‘Matsukata Naikaku no Kōbōshi’.
