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Ozaki Yukio: Political Conscience of Modern Japan
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 August 2016
Extract
Many Japanese rose to political greatness during the turbulent history of modern Japan from the collapse of the Tokugawa regime in 1867 to the recovery of independence in 1952. Such men as Itō, Yamagata, Ōkuma, Konoe, Tōjō, and Yoshida (to name only a few of the more important figures) have occupied in turn the center of the political stage and exerted great influence, for good or ill, on the course of recent Japanese political history.
Throughout the entire period from Meiji to MacArthur Japan, however, one solitary figure stood by the proscenium arch, occasionally entering into the action of the play, but more often serving as a persistent critic of both actors and audience. This stern and durable individual was Ozaki Yukio (1858-1954), whose death at the age of ninety-five removed the oldest veteran of the Japanese Diet, and closed the career of a man who might well be called the political conscience of modern Japan.
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- Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1956
References
1 The title of one of Ozaki's two works in English, published in Yokohama by Kelly and Walsh, 1918. The three principal works by Ozaki cited in this article are: Nikon kokumin ni tsugu [To the Japanese People] (Tokyo: Kohaku Shobō, 1947); Minshu seiji tokuhon [Primer of Democratic Politics] (Tokyo: Nihon Hyōronsha, 1947); and Sotsu-ō no yawa [Late Thoughts of an Old Man] (Tokyo: Kyōbundō, 1948). These will be cited as NKT, MST and SNY.
Much of the material in this article is derived from the writer's unpublished M.A. thesis, “He Who Stands Most Alone—The Life and Political Philosophy of Ozaki Yukio,” Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 1950. Residence in Japan during 1952-53 for pre-doctoral research, supported by the Social Science Research Council and the Michigan Center, enabled the writer to visit Ozaki several times at his home in Zushi, Kanagawa-ken. Members of the family and household, especially Ozaki Yukiteru, the eldest son, and Namiki Takehiko, former secretary, were extremely helpful.
2 Isa Hideoa, Ozaki Yukioa (Tokyo: Bun'ensha, 1947), p. 16. This work, and another by the same author, Ijin Ozaki Yukio [The Great Ozaki Yukio] (Toyko: Bunsendō, 1947), are the best biographical sources available. According to his family, Ozaki kept no correspond-ence files or diaries, and no really definitive biography has appeared, but Ozaki's published writings cited herein provide much useful raw material.
3 Ozaki Yukio, p. 17.
4 Ozaki Yukio, p. 18.
5 He became the editor of the Niigata shimbun in 1878, and later worked with Yano on the Höchi shimbun.
6 Ozaki Yukio, pp. 43-44. Ozaki sent over 1,000 pages of commentary back from Europe to the Asano shimbun, and made a special study of British parliamentarianism, to follow up his earlier Keiō study and his translations of Spencer and others.
7 Ozaki ran in Mie-ken, where his father's position as a prefectural official was very influential in his election. Mie remained his electoral district, even though he seldom visited it in later years.
8 This is the version given in Ozaki Yukio, p. 99, and supported by Ozaki's own writings. Since Ozaki deviated from his prepared script, there was disagreement over the actual wording. The reference to republicanism was certainly a boner, but no one contested the main point of the speech about the growth of plutocratic influence.
9 “People misunderstood Ozaki's action because he had fought clan government by men like Itō for many years as a militant leader of the Kaishintō and Shimpōtō. Yet he was not satisfied with these parties, and thought that helping ltd form a new party was best for the country.” Ozaki Yukio, p. 108. The Yamagata faction of the bureaucracy bitterly opposed Itō's new party, and Ozaki delighted in continuing his running fight with at least the military branch of the clan oligarchy.
10 NKT, pp. 45-47.
11 MST, pp. 99-101.
12 SNY, pp. 18-19.
13 For his plea, see MST, pp. 105-107.
14 See Ozaki's Nihon kenseishi o kataru [On Japanese constitutional history] (Tokyo: Mōnasu, 1928), I, 353-355 for his prewar speech attacking the Seiyukai Cabinet's misuse of Home Ministry powers over election machinery.
15 Ijin Ozaki Yukio, p. 16.
16 Ijin Ozaki Yukio, p. 176. The biographer's tendency to rationalize the weaknesses of his subject is more evident in this work than in his more straightforward Ozaki Yukio volume.
17 Ijin Ozaki Yukio, p. 180.
18 In February 1941 Ozaki tried to make a Diet speech critical of the Konoe Cabinet, but fellow members used rules of the Diet to prevent his taking the floor. See Ozaki Yukio, p. 70.
19 NKT, pp. 38-39. “They allege the I.R.A.A. helps to express the public will, but there should be no such means outside the Diet.… It is plotting a dictatorial government and must stop.”
20 Quoted in Ijin Ozaki Yukio, pp. 80-81. This was the original wording, which the Government censored before releasing the letter.
21 “The Japanese certainly like assassinations. Unless we stamp out government by assassination, good government is impossible” (NKT, pp. 88-89). Ozaki said that his fear of assassination, which led him to think of every book after 1931 as his last, showed him to be a coward compared with the fearless Inukai. However, Ozaki was not immune to Japanese sentimentality toward “patriotic” assassins: “He who would destroy me in sincere love of his country may also be considered noble“ (Japan at the Crossroads [London, 1933], p. 10).
22 NKT, p. 89.
23 This occurred at the Meiji-za in Tokyo, Ozaki escaping w3ith minor wounds. He continued to speak, as had Teddy Roosevelt in 1912.
24 MST, pp. 118-119.
25 MST, p. 69.
26 MST, pp. 66-68.
27 NKT, pp. 47-49.
28 SNY, pp. 35-36.
29 NKT, p. 47.
30 MST, p. 133.
31 MST, p. 66.
32 His deafness became total in 1951, and he was permanently bedridden shortly thereafter. During the writer's visits with him in 1952-53, his frail body was propped up in bed, but his eyes and voice were still strong. He answered all questions in English, although they were written in Japanese on a tablet. Ozaki was a very impressive figure even in his last years.
33 MST, pp. 41-42.
34 Quoted in Ozaki Yukio, p. 262.
35 MST, pp. 102-103. The chapter is entitled,“Kyutai izen” [“The Old Order Remains Unchanged”].
36 MST, pp. 97-98.
37 “To break the power of the clans, we teased the ministers to attack us, tried to pull them down, and called them names… The things we did were never good, nor was it the right course… But today's Japan is different from Meiji Japan, and ministers and bureau-crats are no longer any problem” (MST, pp. 127-128). Opposition Socialists have not agreed with the latter statement.
38 MST, pp. 122-123.
39 MST, p. 121.
40 MST, p. 49.
41 SNY, pp. 33-34.
42 Quoted in Ijin Ozaki Yukio, p. 151.
43 Ozaki told the writer he could not understand why he was defeated. He had not been able to campaign in 1952, but he won that campaign with Yukiteru's help. In 1953 his son was busy with his own ill-fated campaign for re-election to the House of Councilors; the parties decided to make a strong bid for Ozaki's seat, and they used the effective argument that a bedridden nonagenarian was not a suitable representative for Mie. Ozaki ran sixth in a field of nine, winning only 10 per cent of the vote.
44 In a survey conducted by the writer in three localities, 60 per cent of a 1,200 sample identified Ozaki, compared with 40 per cent for Foreign Minister Okazaki, and 37 per cent for Right Socialist leader Kawakami.