First published in 2004 by
Kegan Paul International
This edition first published in 2011 by
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Kegan Paul, 2004
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ISBN 10: 0-7103-0917-1 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-0-7103-0917-4 (hbk)
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FOREWORD
W HEN A NIPPONESE SPEAKS OF THE FATHERS OF HIS country, he refers to them as Genros, elder statesmen. They participated in the wars of the Meiji Restoration, and in 1889 under Emperor Meiji they drew up the Imperial Constitution upon which the present political system is based. The Genros continued to serve as guardians of that document and as advisers to the Emperor. Their most important duty was to recommend a choice of Premiers to His Majesty.
In 1916 death had so thinned their ranks that the survivors recommended for their body a man who had fought with them in 1868 when he was a young courtier. They had sought his counsel before. This man, the President of the Privy Council, the second President of the Seiyukai Party, twice a Premier, and Nippons Chief Delegate to the Paris Peace Conference, was Kimmochi Saionji, or as the Nipponese say, Saionji Kimmochi.
All the other elder statesmen have died. Since the Constitution makes no mention of this office, Prince Saionji, now eighty-eight years old, will be the last Genro.
The story of Saionjis long years embraces the history of New Nippon, which the West has chosen to call Japan. In 1849, when he was born, the government had been in the hands of the Tokugawa Shoguns for over two and a half centuries. Saionji was eighteen when Emperor Meiji ascended the throne. Under him a united nation began her progress.
That progress had been given an impetus by the arrival of Commodore Perry in 1854. Western commerce and civilization roused the Island Empire. Liberal ideas of the nineteenth century crossed the seas.
Following the Franco-Prussian War, Saionji spent some time in France where among other leaders he met Clemenceau.
He returned home ready to put his new ideas into practice in his brief editorship of a radical newspaper. His convictions became less arbitrary when he entered political life, but throughout his public career he was known as a liberal.
In his childhood he had been a favorite of Emperor Komei and was appointed the Emperors Child-Chamberlain and Middle General; under Emperor Meiji, whose close personal friend he was, he served twice as Premier. It was under Emperor Taisho that he was sent to the Paris Peace Conference, and at present he acts as the sole Councillor to His Majesty. In these various capacities his influence resulted in the appointment of thirteen Premiers, among them the latest, Prince Konoe Fumimaro.
During Saionjis lifetime, up to this writing in June 1937, Nippon engaged in four major conflicts: the Sino-Nipponese War in 1894-1895, the Russo-Nipponese War in 1904-1905, the World War in 1914-1918 and the 1931-1932 Manchurian Expedition.
Industrially, some small undertakings have grown into vast monopolies, notably, the Mitsui, Mitsubishi and Sumitomo Houses, the last headed by Saionjis younger brother Kichizayemon who was adopted into the Sumitomo family. Socially, the Nipponese have turned from their centuries-old customs to a widespread adaptation of Western ways.
Through the maze of readjustment, Nippon looks to Saionji as her guide. When too much modernization threatens her national integrity, she values his leadership, for he has seen the old order and the new, and whatever the Grand Old Man of the Empire thinks suitable for the nation is acceptable to the man in the street. Reactionary political factions have not always agreed: there have been threats against his life when the extreme nationalists resented his opposition to their demands. Moralists at home and abroad did not approve when the seventy-year-old statesman brought his third young common-law wife with him to the Paris Peace Conference. Nor has the legend about his theoretical bachelorhood condoned in their eyes the fact that he has not troubled to marry any of his successive mistresses, although he had children by them. But these are the trivia of small souls. Throughout Nippon there is a vast awe for the man who lives alone in his Okitsu home, one hundred miles south of Tokyo.
Basing this romance on authentic historical facts, I have with all sincerity attempted to reproduce the life of Prince Saionji Kimmochi, the Last Genro of Nippon.
BUNJI OMURA
NEW YORK CITY
June 1937
CHAPTER I
COURTIER
I T WAS IN KYOTO IN 1862.
In his home within the enclosure of the Imperial Palace, a twelve-year-old boy sat on the matted floor, reading. Beside him lay a biwa.
He heard the whinny of a horse. The book slid to the mat, and his hands reached hastily for the musical instrument.
Kimmochi, we are going to ride.
Tokudaiji Kinzumi stood looking at his son who had been adopted ten years ago by the house of Saionji. Tokudaiji was wearing a simple courtier garb, a riding hakama and a short sword. The small upright headgear was tied under his chin. A black mustache with twisted ends heightened his dignity. Both father and son had round brown eyes, an aristocratic nose and an oval face. Severity marked the mans features.
