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Marquis ; was a Japanese politician and the 8th (30 June 1898–8 November 1898) and 17th (16 April 1914–9 October 1916) Prime Minister of Japan. One of the most popular statesmen in Japanese history, Okuma was also an early advocate of Western science and culture in Japan, and founder of Waseda University.
Early life Okuma was born Hachitaro, the first son of an artillery officer, in Saga, Hizen Province (modern day Saga Prefecture) in 1838. During his early years, his education consisted mainly of the study of Chinese Confucian literature and derivative works such as Hagakure. However, he left school in 1853 to move to a Dutch studies institution. The Dutch school was merged with the provincial school in 1861, and Okuma took up a lecturing position there shortly afterward. Although Okuma sympathized with the sonnō jōi movement, he also advocated mediation between the rebels in Choshu and the Shogunate in Edo. During a trip to Nagasaki, Okuma met a Dutch missionary named Guido Verbeck, who taught him the English language and provided him with copies of the New Testament and the American Declaration of Independence. These works are often said to have affected his political thinking profoundly, and encouraged him to support efforts to abolish the existing feudal system and work toward the establishment of a constitutional government. Okuma frequently traveled between Nagasaki and Kyoto in the following years and became active in the Meiji Restoration. In 1867, he traveled to Edo with Soejima Taneomi to propose an imperial restoration plan to Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu: the Shogun responded by declaring the men ronin and ordered them arrested as they proceeded back to Kyoto. Okuma spent a month under house arrest in Saga. Meiji period political life Following the Boshin War in 1868, Okuma was placed in charge of foreign affairs for the new Meiji government, and was soon given an additional post as head of Japan's monetary reform program. He made use of his close contacts with Inoue Kaoru to secure a positions in the central government in Tokyo. He was elected to the first Diet of Japan in 1870 and soon became Minister of Finance, in which capacity he instituted property and taxation reforms that aided Japan's early industrial development. He also unified the nation’s currency, created the national mint, and a separate Ministry of Industry; however, he was dismissed in 1881 after a long series of disagreements with members of the Satsuma and Choshu clique (hambatsu) and the Meiji oligarchy, most notably Ito Hirobumi, over his efforts to secure foreign loans, to establish a constitution, and especially over his exposure of illicit property dealings involving Prime Minister Kuroda Kiyotaka and cronies from Satsuma. In 1882, Okuma co-founded the Constitutional Progressive Party (Rikken Kaishinto) which soon attracted a number of other leaders, including Ozaki Yukio and Inukai Tsuyoshi. That same year, Okuma founded the Tokyo Semmon Gakko in the Waseda district of Tokyo. The school later became Waseda University, one of the country's most prominent institutions of higher education. Despite their continuing animosity, Ito again appointed Okuma to the post of Foreign Minister in February 1888 to deal with the difficult issue of negotiation revisions to the "unequal treaties" with the Western powers. The treaty he negotiated was perceived by the public as too conciliatory to the Western powers, and created considerable controversy. Okuma was attacked by a member of the Genyosha in 1889, and his right leg was blown off by a bomb. He retired from politics at that time. However, he returned to politics in 1896 by reorganizing the Rikken Kaishinto into the Shimpoto (Progressive Party). In 1897, Matsukata Masayoshi convinced Okuma to participate in his second administration as Foreign Minister and Agriculture and Commerce Minister, but again, he remained in office for only one year before resigning. In June of 1898, Okuma co-founded the Kenseito (Constitutional Government Party), by merging his Shimpoto with Itagaki Taisuke's Jiyuto, and was appointed by the Emperor to form the first partisan cabinet in Japanese history. The new cabinet survived for only four months before it fell apart due to internal dissention. Okuma remained in charge of the party until 1908, when he retired from politics. After his political retirement, Okuma became president of Waseda University and chairman of the Japan Civilization Society. He translated a number of European and American texts into Japanese, and gathered support for Japan's first expedition to Antarctica. Taisho period political life Okuma returned to politics during the constitutional crisis of 1914, when the government of Yamamoto Gonnohyoe was forced to resign in the wake of the Siemens scandal. Okuma organized his supporters, together with the Rikken Doshikai and Chuseikai organizations, into a coalition cabinet. The 2nd Okuma administration was noted for its active foreign policy. Later that year, Japan declared war on Germany, thus entering World War I on the Allied side. In 1915, Okuma and Kato Takaaki drafted the Twenty-One Demands and on China. However, Okuma’s second administration was also short-lived. Following the Oura scandal, Okuma's cabinet lost popular support, and its members held mass resignation in October 1915. In 1916, after a long argument with the genro, Okuma resigned as well, and retired from politics permanently. Okuma returned to Waseda, and died there in 1922. 300,000 people attended his state funeral in Tokyo's Hibiya Park. He was buried at the temple of Gokoku-ji. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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