Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852’1912 (71 page)

Notes continued to be exchanged between the Japanese and Chinese governments concerning the ownership of the Ry
ū
ky
ū
Islands. Terashima Munenori, the minister of foreign affairs, sent a message to the Chinese government pointing out that the writing, language, religion, and customs of the Ry
ū
ky
ū
Islands were the same as those of Japan and that the islanders’ custom of paying tribute to Japan went back as far as the Sui and T’ang dynasties, a thousand years earlier. In the twelfth century, Minamoto Tametomo had traveled to the Ry
ū
ky
ū
s, married the younger sister of the chieftain, and had a son who became king. Terashima’s letter recounted also the special relationship between the Ry
ū
ky
ū
s and Satsuma and emphasized that now the domain had been abolished, the Ry
ū
ky
ū
Islands were an integral part of the Japanese Empire.

The Chinese responded with proofs that the Ry
ū
ky
ū
s had long acknowledged Chinese sovereignty and denounced the Japanese for having destroyed an independent country. This, they said, represented an act of extreme contempt toward not only China but all other countries. In their response the Japanese once more cited historical evidence for their claim to sovereignty.
²⁶

This was surely not a propitious moment for an outsider to intercede, but after his return from Nikk
ō
at the end of July, Grant asked the emperor to set a day for a meeting, perhaps hoping to find an occasion when the tense situation between Japan and China could be discussed. The meeting took place at the Hama Detached Palace on August 10. The emperor arrived that afternoon in informal dress accompanied by Sanj
ō
Sanetomi, Tokudaiji Sanetsune, and the chief chamberlain, Yamaguchi Masasada. Grant, accompanied by his son and his secretary, was led into the imperial presence. The emperor rose and shook hands with Grant. During the conversation that ensued, Sanj
ō
and the interpreter, Yoshida Kiyonari, were the only Japanese present besides the emperor.
²⁷

The conversation between the emperor, who was then twenty-seven years old, and Grant, who was fifty-seven, lasted for more than two hours. It was recorded in English, presumably by Grant’s secretary, but the transcript is too short to be the full text of all that was said during the two hours. The Japanese seem not to have made their own transcript; the English text was later translated.
²⁸
It is unfortunate that Meiji’s actual words were not preserved. They might have indicated, for example, just how the young monarch addressed a world-famous general and president who was twice his age.

The conversation opened with the emperor’s apologies for not having arranged a meeting with Grant earlier and Grant’s expressions of gratitude for the warmth of the reception he had received in Japan. The remainder of the conversation consists mainly of Grant’s observations and recommendations. He obviously wished to establish himself in the eyes of the emperor as a friend of Japan and, to this end, was blunt in his denunciation of the attitudes of other Europeans and Americans in Asia: “This side of Singapore I have found but few newspapers or periodicals that are capable or willing to reason things upon common footing between the Asiatics, and Europeans and Americans. ‘The Tokio Times’ and ‘The Japan Mail’ are the only papers I have seen that treat eastern nations as if they too had rights that ought to be respected. All the western officials, except very few, are the same. Whatever is their interest they advocate it without regard to the right of China or Japan.”

“Sometimes my blood boils to see this unfairness and selfishness.”
²⁹

Later in the conversation Grant repeated his condemnation of European powers in Asia: “European powers have no interests in Asia, so far as I can judge from their diplomacy, that do not involve the humiliation and subjugation of the Asiatic peoples. Their diplomacy is always selfish, and a quarrel between China and Japan would be regarded by them as a quarrel that might ensue to their own advantage.”
³⁰

These are strong words, but they sound plausible coming from a man convinced that American society, unlike that of the European nations, was egalitarian in nature. Although Grant did not name particular offenders, it is likely that he referred especially to England, the chief among the European powers. Describing people at the farewell party given to Grant when he was about to leave Japan, John Russell Young contrasted the American minister John Bingham with the celebrated Sir Harry Parkes:

Mr. Bingham, whose keen face grows gentler with the frosty tints of age, is in talk with Sir Harry Parkes, the British minister, a lithe, active, nervous, middle-aged gentleman, with open, clear-cut Saxon features, the merriest, most amusing, most affable gentleman present, knowing everybody, talking to everybody. One would not think as you followed his light banter, and easy rippling ways, that his hand was the hand of iron, and that his policy was the personification of all that was hard and stern in the policy of England.
³¹

Grant thought of himself and his countrymen as being unaffected by the haughty ways of Europeans like Parkes, who never ceased his efforts to obtain for England the greatest possible advantages, regardless of what this might cost the nations of Asia. He told the emperor, “None, except His Majesty’s own subjects, can feel more warmly interested for Japan’s welfare than I do. In this regard, however, I am a fair representative of most of the American people.” He was probably sincere in this declaration, though surely it would not have been difficult to find Americans as selfish as the Europeans attacked by Grant, who warned the emperor especially against foreign indebtedness:

There is nothing a nation should avoid as much as owing money abroad…. You are doubtless aware that some nations are very desirous to loan money to weaker nations whereby they might establish their supremacy and exercise undue influence over them. They lend money to gain political power. They are ever seeking the opportunity to loan. They would be glad, therefore, to see Japan and China, which are the only nations in Asia that are even partially free from foreign rule or dictation, at war with each other so that they might loan them on their own terms and dictate to them the internal policy which they should pursue.
³²

Grant also urged the Japanese to be more conciliatory in their negotiations with China over the Ry
ū
ky
ū
question: “Japan in a spirit of magnanimity and justice should make concessions to China. The importance of peace between China and Japan is so great that each country should make concessions to the other.”
³³
One wishes for a concurring reply from the emperor, but all that he said (at least in the transcript) was, “As regarding Loo Chu, It
ō
etc. are authorized to talk with you and will do so shortly.”

Grant also expressed dissatisfaction with the tariff convention that Japan had signed with foreign countries.
³⁴
Import duties were only 5 percent, far too low, and “export duty is the worst possible thing for any country to have.” He declared that foreign governments should agree to the proposed revision of the treaties. (The Americans had agreed, providing other countries followed, but none did.)
³⁵
Finally, after praising the Japanese educational system, Grant indirectly suggested that foreign professors, with their greater experience, be retained to oversee the younger, Japanese teachers: “In the United States we never hesitate to employ foreigners if they are useful to keep them. The men who made your Engineering school, which has no superior in the world, are men who should be kept as long as you can keep them.”
³⁶

Grant’s recommendations were on the whole admirable, though his caution against haste in establishing a legislative body, made elsewhere in the conversation, may seem strange in view of his evident admiration of the Japanese people and his own democratic beliefs.
³⁷

It is hard to measure how much influence the conversation exerted on the emperor or on Japanese policies. Grant’s warning against foreign loans was probably the part of the conversation that exerted the greatest effect. When
Ō
kuma Shigenobu, the new finance minister, tried to find a way out of the government’s financial difficulties by floating a foreign loan of 50 million yen, his proposal was defeated, and one reason cited was Grant’s warning.
³⁸

Grant’s recommendation that Japan proceed slowly before creating a legislative body accorded perfectly with what most Japanese statesmen favored anyway and need not have been learned from the foreign visitor.
³⁹
Again, the Japanese, long dissatisfied with the tariff regulations that had been imposed on them, did not have to be reminded by Grant of the injustice, but they were as yet unable to compel the European powers to agree to more equitable treaties.

Grant urged that Japan be more conciliatory with respect to the sovereignty of the Ry
ū
ky
ū
Islands, but this recommendation was not followed, nor did the letters he later addressed to Iwakura Tomomi and Prince Kung, proposing that China and Japan negotiate directly, have any immediate effect.
⁴⁰
On December 1, 1879, President Rutherford Hayes informed Congress that the American government had indicated its willingness to promote a peaceful solution of the Ry
ū
ky
ū
dispute,
⁴¹
but advantage was not taken of this offer. Direct negotiations between Japan and China of the kind Grant proposed began at last in August 1880, but even after a settlement was agreed on, the Chinese changed their minds, and possession of the Ry
ū
ky
ū
Islands never again became a matter of negotiation. The outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1894 put an end to any possibility of friendly discussion of the issue along the lines Grant had suggested.

Perhaps the most lasting result of the emperor’s conversation with Grant was to give him greater self-confidence when in later years he had to deal with foreign statesmen. However, the cultural impact of Grant’s visit on Japan went far beyond the conversation with the emperor. He was greeted by enthusiastic crowds wherever he went, and the streets along which he would travel were decorated with lanterns and bamboo.
⁴²

The climax of the celebrations occurred on August 25 when a public festival was held at Ueno Park, ostensibly to commemorate the twelfth anniversary of the capital’s move to T
ō
ky
ō
. The emperor was to be present and visible to the crowds, but it was decided to take the occasion to honor Grant as well. The emperor’s arrival, greeted with music played by military bands, was followed by displays of mounted archery, swordsmanship, and fireworks.
⁴³
General Grant shared the festivities with the emperor, and when they had ended, as Young recorded, the drive back to Grant’s hotel was memorable:

For miles the general’s carriage slowly moved through a multitude that might have been computed by the hundreds of thousands, the trees and houses dangling with lamps and lanterns, the road spanned with arches of light, the night clear and mild, all forming a scene the like of which I had never witnessed, and which I can never hope to see again.
⁴⁴

This celebration recalls the welcome given to the first Japanese embassies by people in the United States and Europe in the 1860s, but it was even more remarkable: surely many in the crowds that cheered Grant had shouted anti-foreign slogans a dozen years earlier, and some may even have planned to kill every foreigner in sight. Hatred had mysteriously turned to love. The plain former soldier had captured the hearts of the Japanese, even the emperor, not by presenting rich gifts but by his unaffected ways and his delight in Japan.

Grant was depicted in numerous woodblock prints that commemorated his visits to the horse races, exhibitions of calisthenics by schoolchildren, the great waterfall at Nikk
ō
, and the theater. In August he presented a curtain to the Shintomi Theater to express his gratitude for the kabuki play he had attended there on July 16.
⁴⁵
The play (in one act with two scenes) was by the outstanding dramatist of the time, Kawatake Mokuami, and was called
A Military Account of the Later Three-Year War in
Ō
sh
ū
. Although it ostensibly depicted how the eleventh-century general Minamoto Yoshiie put down a revolt in the
Ō
sh
ū
region, the play was intended to represent the triumphs of General Grant himself.
⁴⁶
At the first performance, seventy-two geishas danced, wearing kimonos derived from the American flag—red and white stripes for the body and left arm, and stars on a blue background for the right arm.

Grant was otherwise immortalized by a quasi-biography called
Guranto-shi den Yamato bunsh
ō
(Biography of Mr. Grant: Japanese Documents) by the popular novelist Kanagaki Robun. The covers of the little booklets in which the work was printed from woodblocks show the seventy-two geishas as well as Mr. and Mrs. Grant, both holding fans.