Japan by the Japanese/Chapter 27

In gauging the degree of progress in civilization attained by a people, there is, I believe, no guide so sure and reliable as its public press. The press is a faithful mirror of the life of a people in its manifold aspects. The press may be bad, or it may be good, but it cannot be much worse or much better than the people among whom it exists.

There are men and women who denounce the press of their country, or a section of it, and say hard things about the poor drudges of the editorial room, quite forgetting that they are all the time giving substantial encouragement and instigation to these editors by purchasing, and even enjoying, the abominable productions of their pens. So, in the last analysis, it is not the editor, but the general public, that makes the press. I do not say this in defence of the yellow journals—we have enough of them and to spare; all I want to say is that the press of a country is the best and surest indication of the advance made by its people in culture, manners, and all other things that go into the make-up of the mixed product we call civilization.

In Japan the press has become for good or for evil a great power, and has really attained to the rank of the fourth estate in the land. Its personnel has contained, and still contains, some of the most intellectual men, while several Ministers of State and many leading politicians have gained their early experience on newspapers. It may even be said that in Japan the press serves as a nursery for statesmen.

The origin of newspapers in Japan dates back to very early times. The Chinese boast of the possession of the oldest existing newspaper in the world—their Metropolitan Gazette (the Kin-Pao), which is still published in Peking, being nearly 400 years old. If we cannot claim quite the same sort of distinction, we can still claim for our journalism a history of which we need ​not be ashamed, when I say that the origin of Japanese journalism dates back as far as the early part of the seventeenth century. Long before our doors of seclusion were forced open by the impatient nations of the West, our ancestors had found a device by which they kept themselves in touch with current events and news. The news-sheets of those days were roughly got up, being printed from wooden blocks hastily purchased for each issue. They were meagre in news, uncouth in form, and quite irregular in appearance, there being no fixed date for publication. Neither were they issued by any particular and fixed publisher. Anybody could issue them, and at any time they pleased. These sheets were called Yomiuri, which, being translated, means sold by hawking.

The oldest of these sheets that have been preserved in the archives of some of our princely families bear the date of the very beginning of the seventeenth century, and contain very vivid illustrations of some of the tragic scenes of the fall of the renowned Castle of Osaka, a war which consummated the definite establishment of the Shogunate dynasty of Tokugawa. It is quite possible that even before that time there may have been in existence something corresponding to a Yomiuri; but if so, history has not made any mention about them. We have, then, no valid excuse for carrying back the origin of our journalism further than the beginning of the seventeenth century. That is, however, a sufficiently long record for a comparatively young nation like Japan.

These early newspapers, however, even in the heyday of their prosperity, did not attempt to educate their readers by means of editorials; they were content to give the news. Their example might well be followed by editors of the present day, to the relief of the readers. Even in those early days, however, there was competition over the gathering of news, and too premature ‘intelligent anticipation’ of events led to incorrect news being published. But no time was lost in those early newspaper-offices in getting rapidly on the streets with news of great interest. The story is well known of the immortal fame of the forty-seven rôn-in of Ako, who, after years of most painful and heroic struggle, succeeded in avenging the death of their beloved lord in the early part of the year 1703. History records that on this occasion a full printed description of this tragic event was hawked about the streets of Yedo within a few hours. Considering the imperfect means of communication and the primitive state of the contrivances then in use for gathering and publishing news, this feat speaks volumes for the enterprise and pluck of the poor, much-maligned purveyors of news in those days.

These early newspaper sheets were only published in the ​great cities, such as Yedo (Tokyo), Osaka, and Kyoto. People not fortunate enough to inhabit these cities had to wait for their news until their friends could send the sheet to them. There was in existence a system of distribution of mails, which could work most expeditiously when there was urgent public need. By means of relays of fleet-footed carriers stationed at short intervals, mail-bags were frequently sent over 200 miles in twenty-four hours.

In Japan the art of printing was known some five centuries before the Restoration, and at that time there were thousands of books which had been printed from movable type. There were many imperfections in these movable types, and the results offended the artistic feelings of the people, and prevented them from becoming too popular.

Besides the Yomiuri publications, which were private publications, the feudal Government of Tokugawa published a gazette called the Gosata-Juki, copies of which were supplied to officials and a few privileged persons. It was a daily publication, excepting holidays, and was in this respect more like a modern newspaper than was the Yomiuri. But it contained only official appointments, notifications, and Court news. Exactly when it was started it is impossible to say, but it was generally believed to have been nearly as old as the dynasty itself under which it prospered. It was the progenitor of the Dajo Kwan Nissi, published immediately after the restoration of political power to the Imperial Court thirty-five years ago, and later still of the Official Gazette of the present day.

After the country was opened for foreign intercourse, during the latter days of the Shogunate Government, about thirty newspapers or periodicals were started in Yedo and Yokohama, a few of them being founded by Japanese in co-operation with foreign residents, but the majority of them were under Japanese management.

Thirty-five years ago the first newspaper worthy of the name, known as the Chugai Shimbun, was started in Tokyo. This was during the first year of the present reign. It was a weekly production, printed at first from wooden blocks, and subsequently from movable types. This paper was edited by Shunzo Yanagawa, a well-known scholar of the day, and he was assisted by a few writers of distinction, including the late Baron Kanda. Unlike the Yomiuri, it was not content with the self-effacing rôle of simply publishing news; it was ambitious enough to print editorial comments on current topics. The contents of its ten pages were very commonplace compared with the newspapers now circulating in Japan.

The business departments of early Japanese newspapers were ​hardly up-to-date, as may be judged from the following notice which appeared in one of them:

‘The editors note with satisfaction the growing prosperity of their venture, and notify their subscribers that, in view of the increased labour and trouble entailed on them by their increasing circulation, the gracious subscribers will kindly spare them the trouble by sending for their copies, instead of having them delivered to them as before.’

The time arrived when the first daily newspaper of modern type in Japan was to be published. In 1871 the Mainichi made its appearance at Yokohama, and was afterwards transferred to Tokyo, where it still maintains an honourable position. This venture was soon followed in Tokyo by a number of new dailies, some of which now hold foremost places in the field of Japanese journalism. Among these are the Nichi-Nichi, the Hochi, the Nippon, and the Yomiuri Shimbun. In 1872 an Englishman named Black, who had done brilliant service under the new Imperial Government, started a daily paper, which was printed in the Japanese language. Himself a consummate master of the language, his paper, the Nisshin-Shinji-Shi, did much to help on the development of Japanese journalism. Unfortunately, the life of Black’s paper was only short, but it had accomplished its work. From that time on the growth and improvement of the Japanese press was rapid and steady, until at the present time there is to be found no town with over 10,000 inhabitants that does not have two or more newspapers. In 1899 the number of newspapers and magazines had mounted to 978, of which only half were devoted to political affairs and news, the others dealing with religion, literature, or science.

As is natural, Tokyo is the principal centre of journalism in Japan, and there are daily published something like thirty or forty newspapers. Of these, the most important are the Jiji, the Nichi-Nichi, the Kokumin, the Mainichi, the Yomiuri, the Chugai-Shogyo, and the Nippon. These papers consist of eight to sixteen pages, and contain editorial articles, general news, miscellaneous matter, and fiction. These leading papers have great political influence, and it is from their staffs that many politicians have arisen.

The people of Tokyo, like the Parisians, prefer to hear what is going on in their own town to hearing news of the outside world. They have a profound contempt for provincial matters, and although they publish dispatches from Osaka or other great towns, it is rather in a perfunctory way. The best energies of ​the Tokyo papers are devoted to the city news, which is considered as an indispensable attraction. Serial novels, sometimes translated from the English or French, are equally attractive.

Formerly there was a belief that the newspaper could be divided into two broad classes—the great papers and the small. This division was based upon the contents rather than upon the size. It used to be considered undignified for the great papers to publish personal news and police-court reports. They relied upon political news for their principal reading matter. The Jiji, Nichi-Nichi, and Kokumin were classed as great papers, while the Yorodzu and Miyako, and later the recently suppressed Niroku, were minor papers. The success of these minor papers showed to the more important sheets that stories of human interest were valuable copy, and they began to include police-court news. It is the newer minor papers which form the Yellow Press of Japan, which it seems must exist in every country.

These yellow papers count among them some of the most widely circulated journals; they are undoubtedly the most prosperous. Most people affect to denounce these papers, and, I believe, some of them consistently; but many of these respectable persons are said to be less consistent, for they somehow manage to keep themselves well informed of the contents of these papers.

According to a malicious rumour, men read them every morning on their way to business; their wives pore over them in their absence; while a third copy finds its way to the servants’ hall. You must not, however, suppose that we take these sensational papers seriously; while enjoying their personal notes and scandals, we attach so little importance to what is contained in their columns that, when our names appear there in unequivocal light, we simply leave the matter alone without taking any notice of it. When these papers are presumptuous enough to meddle with any serious question of State, the rebuff for them is even more signal. I may cite a characteristic story to the point. While the negotiations about the Anglo-Japanese Alliance were going on, and while nobody in Tokyo—except the Government—had even the slightest suspicion of the matter, one of the yellowest journals came out one morning in the December or January before the treaty was signed with a note, under big black headlines, saying that communications were then in progress between London and Tokyo with a view to the conclusion of an alliance between the two countries. Of course, the conductors of the paper expected to create a big sensation all over the country, if not the world; but their self-congratulations were quite unavailing, for, thanks to their ​well-established reputation, their announcement—which was really a big scoop—attracted absolutely no notice whatever.

As to their circulation, our newspapers fall far behind their foreign contemporaries. The sensational papers, as is the case in every country, sell better than their sober and respectable neighbours. Of these journals, the Niroku, which undoubtedly printed the largest number of copies, claimed a daily circulation of over 150,000; while the Yorodzu, since the suppression of the Niroku the most popular paper of the same class, issues probably 120,000 copies every morning. The others fall far below them. Few newspapers of the respectable class claim, with two exceptions, a circulation of much over 30,000 at most. The average, I believe, is somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000. The exceptions I have named are the two leading papers in Osaka, one having a daily circulation of 150,000, and the other a little over 100,000. In political influence they do not compare with the great dailies of Tokyo. But they stand at the head of journalism in Japan from a business point of view, partly owing to good management, but principally because of the splendid facilities which the unique geographical situation and the long-established business connections of Osaka afford to these papers for getting hold of the most populous and best-developed parts of the empire.

There have been established in Tokyo eight news-agencies, very similar to those in existence in London to-day. The business of these is to supply news to the newspapers. So assiduous are these agencies that it would be possible to start a newspaper in Tokyo without any editorial staff or reporters, and fill the pages with news-agency copy. This agency news is found mostly in the larger papers, there being very little room to spare in the small sheets of the Yellow Press. For instance, the Yorodzu consists of four pages, the last being filled with advertisements. The first page contains a few editorials, some poetry, and an instalment of a novel, also some advertisements. The second page consists of financial, economic, and general news, with special political news. The third page is filled with interesting, smartly-written articles, dealing with items of human interest often collected in the police-court. It was the Yorodzu which first introduced Dumas to the newspaper readers of Japan, to the despair of the rest of the Yellow Press, who could not find anything so attractive to run. But although the yellow journals have a great sale, they do not have any great weight, save among the lowest classes. This task of moulding public opinion is reserved to the larger papers. As has been said before, many statesmen and leaders in the political world have passed from the training-ground of the newspaper-office to official and Parliamentary life. ​Mr. Yukio Ozaki, ex-Minister of Education, and now leader of the Constitutional party in the House of Representatives, had been a journalist for many years; so had Baron Suyematsu, who has occupied several important Cabinet posts under Marquis Ito. Mr. Hara, an able statesman of the younger school, formerly editor of the Osaka Mainichi, was the Minister of Communications in Marquis Ito’s last Administration; and Mr. Inukai, who presided over the Department of Education in Count Okuma’s last Cabinet, made his name in journalism. The present chief editor of the Hochi, Mr. Minoura, has been Vice-Minister of Communications, and Mr. Komatsubara, of the Osaka Mainichi, made a distinct mark in Marquis Yamagata’s last Cabinet as Vice-Minister of Home Affairs. Besides these, there are many equally distinguished politicians who graduated in the school of journalism. Such are Mr. Tokutomi, of the Kokumin; Mr. Asakina, of the Nichi-Nichi; Mr. Kuga, of the Nippon; Mr. Shinada, of the Mainichi; and Mr. Oska, of the Chuo.

Ever respected and honoured in the history of Japan must be the memory of Mr. Fukuzawa, the founder and editor of the Jiji. He did more than any other person to raise the Japanese press to its present high position, where it wields an authority commensurate with the intellect of those who direct it.

The newspapers in Japan are controlled by the Press Law, but this does not mean any serious hampering of their activities. I may safely say that it is practically as liberal as in any other country. From year’s end to year’s end the newspapers are actually criticising most freely the policy and conduct of the Government without any fear of official interference. The only restrictions imposed on the liberty of the press relates to the divulging of State and military secrets in time of contingency. Before this restriction comes in force, however, a previous notice is given to the press, so that there is no danger of a patriotic or right-minded editor being caught in the net of the law unawares.

Lady journalists are coming to the fore in Japan, and are to be found on many of the newspaper staffs. In the opinion of one leading Japanese editor, these young ladies are very clever as writers on social topics and as interviewers. It is, however, to my mind, an open point whether ladies entering journalism will not be sorry for their having taken this decided step.

The newspapers of Japan have always been encouraged by a deep feeling of friendship and admiration for the British nation—a feeling which has found unstinted expression on all important occasions. In its endeavours to lead and educate the people in politics, in commercial development, in national ​expansion, the Japanese press has invariably pointed to Great Britain as a model and example. And nine out of ten editors looked, and still look, to the noble treasures of English literature for inspiration and information in the prosecution of their daily work. It is English journalism and its unique traditions that the best section of the Japanese press constantly keeps in mind in its humble efforts to be a worthy factor in the elevation of its beloved countrymen.

The future before the press of Japan is growing brighter, and so long as it continues in its present way along the path of progress it will increase in power as a guide to the people of Japan.