Page:Japan by the Japanese (1904).djvu/257

I propose to make a general statement to-day respecting our foreign policy. As you are aware, Ministers of State have frequently, since the first session of the Diet, stated to the House that our foreign policy is based on the principle of opening the country, or, more accurately, of opening and developing the country. I am assured that this foreign policy, or rather national policy, having been fixed and unchanged since the first years of Meiji, the principle of opening and developing the country is unalterable either now or in the future. But I consider it necessary to make more or less additions to what has hitherto been stated. If we inquire what points are practically most important in the foreign policy that may be regarded as the national policy of the Meiji era, we find that to attain an equal footing with other Powers, as declared in the Imperial Edict at the Restoration, has been the impulse underlying all the national changes that have taken place. It was perceived that, in order to attain an equal footing with the Powers, it was necessary to change the national institutions, learning, and education. Hence the replacement of clans by prefectures took place, as well as coinage reform, enforcement of the conscription law, revision of various other laws and promulgation of new ones, establishment of local assemblies, and the granting of local self-government, steps that led at length to the proclamation of the Constitution. This national policy, this so-called opening and development of the country, or, in other words, this principle of attaining an equal footing with the Powers was, I firmly believe, the motive that has enabled Japan to become a nation advanced in civilization and respected by the world.

What I now desire to add to previous statements on the subject is that foreign intercourse is a very difficult affair, not to be regulated at will by a single country, and that it has now