JAPANESE CIVIL CODE 373 



warm debates, the bill was passed by both Houses of the Imperial 

 Diet and the operation of the Code was postponed by Law no. 8 

 until the 31st of December, 1896. Thus the so-called "Postpone- 

 ment Campaign" resulted in the victory of the "Postponement 

 Party"; and in the following year a Codification Committee was 

 established by an Imperial Edict. The constitution of this committee 

 affords a very important clue for understanding the character of the 

 new code. The committee, with Marquis Ito, then Prime Minister, 

 as its president, consisted of members of both Houses of the Diet, 

 professors of the Imperial University, members of the Bench and the 

 Bar, with other eminent jurists and leading representatives of com- 

 merce and industry. The number of the members varied from time 

 to time, but throughout, care had been taken in the appointment 

 of members to represent every interest in society and also to repre- 

 sent English, French, and German schools of Japanese lawyers. 

 The "Postponement Campaign" was very fierce while it lasted, 

 but when the question was once settled, both parties threw off their 

 animosity and joined hands in the work of giving the nation a code 

 which would meet the exigencies of the time. The appointment of 

 the three special members to prepare the draft also shows a concilia- 

 tory spirit on all sides. Professors Tomii, Ume, and myself were 

 appointed to prepare the original draft which was to be submitted 

 to the deliberation of the committee. Professor Tomii, although he 

 had studied law in Paris and is docteur en droit, and thus belonged 

 to the French school, sided with the "Postponement Tarty," and 

 not only formed a remarkable exception among his comrades, but 

 was one of the stanch advocates of postponement and revision. 

 Professor Ume, who had studied law in Lyons and is also docteur en 

 droit, was one of the champions of the "Anti-Postponement Party." 

 I myself studied English law in the Inns of Court in London and am 

 a member of the English Bar; and I belonged to the " Postponement 

 Party." Both Professor Ume and I also studied law in the University 

 of Berlin, after we had finished our courses in France and England 

 respectively. Thus it will be seen that two out of the three framers 

 of the Code represented the French section, but one of them be- 

 longed to the " Postponement Party." While two belonged to the 

 French and one to the English school, two of them had studied 

 German law. 



The constitution of the committee, especially that of the Drafting 

 Committee, made it clear that they could not agree to take the law 

 of any one country as an exclusive model upon which to frame the 

 new code. Professor Boissonade's code was principally based upon 

 the French Civil Code, but the framers of the revised code agreed 

 to collect the codes, statutes, and judicial reports of all civilized 

 countries which existed in the English, French, German, or Italian 



