And God and Man on Earth. 



17: 



In Japan the Emperor is the centre of the nation, 

 the sun 1)1 the Japanese universe, and the keystone 

 of the natii.nal arch. As a leading Japanese hterary 

 man and ni\v<paper editor, Mr. Ichiro Tokutomi, omc 

 Siiid : ■' Our country is our idol, and patriotism our 

 first doctrine. From the Emperor downwards, the 

 vast majority have no other religion." " The love 

 that we bear to our Emperor," .says Dr. Nitobe, 

 " naturally brings with it a love for the country over 

 which he reigns. Hence our sentiment of patriotism 

 — I will not call it a duty, for, as Dr. Samuel Johnson 

 rightly suggests, patriotism is a sentiment and is more 

 than duty — I say. our patriotism is fed by two streams 

 of sentiment, namely, that 

 of personal lo\-e to the 

 monarch, and of our com- 

 mon love for the soil which 

 gave us birth and provides 

 us with hearth and home. 

 Nay, there is anothersource 

 from which our patriotism 

 is fed ; it is that the land 

 guards in its bosom thi- 

 bones of our fathers." 



Japan has never known 

 schism and division in 

 times of crisis. Even durinL' 

 the feudal times, with con- 

 stant internecine struggle--. 

 it needed but a national 

 peril to consolidate the 

 whole nation around the 

 Eciperor. During the year-- 

 of the Shogunate, while 

 non-Imperial hands held 

 the reins of actual power, 

 they always did so on be- 

 half of the I^mperor. 

 There was no design upon 

 the Imperial position ; 

 everything in the .ibstract 

 was his. None of the 

 daimyos owned the land 

 they possessed ; it was all 

 the property of the Em- 

 peror. It was this fact 

 which made the ending of the feudal system so much 

 less difficult than it would otherwise have been. The 

 memorial in which the feudal lords gave up their 

 lands contained the following remarkable passage : — 

 " The country where we live is the Emperor's land ; 

 the food which wc eat is grown bv the Knnjeror's 

 man. How can wc make it our own ? \\e now 

 reverently offer up the lists of our possessions and 

 men, with the prayer that the Emperor will take 

 ;'ood measures for rewarding those to whom reward 



due, and lor taking from those to whom punishment 

 ■ due. Let the Imperial orders be issued for altering 

 ,m'l remodelling the territories of the various clans. 



H.I.M. the late Emperor Mutsubito. 



Let the civil and penal codes, the military laws, all 

 proceed from the. Emperor, Let all the atlairs of the 

 Empire, great and small, be referred to him," The 

 history of Japan's Emperors is crowded with instances 

 of remarkable monarchs, who, in many cases, volun- 

 tarily sacrificed their thrones to more worthy successors 

 for the good of the State, 



In the old days the Emperor Nintoku (the Virtuous 

 Emperor) lived in poverty, having remitted all taxation 

 for three years in order to lighten the burdens of his 

 people. To him is ascribed the saying, " When heaven 

 sets up a prince in power, it is not for the sake of the 

 holder of the power, but of the people. The people's 



po\erty is my poverty, 

 and their prosperity is my 

 prosperity," This senti- 

 ment is held to-day as 

 much as it ever was years 

 ago, and its effects may be 

 seen in the granting to the 

 people of Japan, by the 

 free will of the Emperor, 

 since the Restoration, the 

 constitution assuring full 

 private and public liberty. 

 It must not be overlooked 

 that these concessions, 

 these limitations of the 

 powers of the Emperor, 

 were not forced from the 

 sovereign b\' wars or re- 

 bellions, but were the 

 natural outcome of the 

 relations between govern- 

 ing and governed. " In 

 one particular," says Count 

 Katsura, "'the constitution 

 of Japan has, in the eyes 

 of Japan, a peculiar glory. 

 It was not. as has been the 

 case in many countries, 

 the fruit of a long struggle 

 between the nation and the 

 'J'hrone. It was the gift of 

 the Emperor ; freely given, 

 gratefully received — a 

 sacred treasure which both alike will guard with care," 

 The granting of this constitution by the Emperor 

 is one of the greatest e\idences of the solidarity of the 

 national interests and .sentiments of rulers and ruled 

 in lapan. No other consiilution so anipl\- secures the 

 rights of the sovereign, and at the same time guarantees 

 the rights of subjects, and it has been in u.se long enough 

 to prove its effectiveness. Japan was a purely feudal 

 country until less than forty years ago, and the Emperor 

 of Japan possessed a position infinitely superior to that 

 of the Tsar, when he freely gave to his subjects the 

 constitution whii'h they now enjoy. In no other 

 country has so great a change, affecting the very foun- 



