A goodly number assembled for the March meeting, and we were especially happy to have in our midst H.E. the Netherlands Ambassador, Mr. Egbert F. Jacobs. After announcing the highlights of this year's programme of events, Dr. Berendt introduced our speaker, Prof. Ian Ruxton of the Kyushu Institute of Technology, who presented a paper on "Readings from the Diaries of Sir Ernest Satow, British Minister in Japan, 1895-1900: A Diplomat Returns to Japan". This paper will shortly be published in Vol. IV of Biographical Portraits produced by the Japan Society in London.

The great scholar-diplomat Sir Ernest Satow (1843-1929) was cheated of the title of "ambassador" to Japan, as the legation was not elevated to an embassy until the conclusion of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance in 1902, of which this year sees the centenary; by that time Satow had been transferred to the more prestigious legation in Peking. He was the ideal candidate for the post in Tokyo, which was offered to him by the Foreign Secretary Lord Kimberley, as he had previously been at the legation from 1862 to 1882 (with two home leaves). Since 1882 he had served as minister in Siam, Uruguay and Morocco. Prior to his arrival in Tokyo a treaty providing for the abolition of extraterritoriality for British subjects had been signed in 1894, to take effect in 1899, and Japan had won the Sino-Japanese War, leading to the treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895; however this treaty was modified under pressure from Russia, France and Germany, and Japan had to give up the newly-ceded Liaotung Peninsula.

In London, Satow was urged to leave for Japan as soon as possible, as his language skills were needed. Lord Kimberley regarded Japan as Britain's natural ally against Russia; China should be kept as a friend, but could not be relied on. He especially urged Satow to treat the Japanese on a footing of equality and not to bully them. In June 1895, the government changed, and Lord Salisbury became Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary. He was more sceptical than Kimberley about Japan's capability of preventing Russia from gaining an ice-free port in the east. Before his departure for Japan, Satow was knighted by Queen Victoria with the KCMG for his services in Morocco. Apparently little was said on that occasion, but the diaries record a later discussion when Satow was on leave in 1897 to attend the Queen's diamond jubilee.

Satow arrived in Yokohama on July 28th, 1895, having travelled via new York and Vancouver. On August 1st he met his old friend Ito Hirobumi, now Prime Minister, and learnt the background to the giving up of Liaotung; they also discussed the question of Korea and Formosa and the revision of the unequal treaty. On August 9th he had an audience with the Emperor and Empress, who both expressed their pleasure at the fact that Anglo-Japanese friendship would be enhanced by his thorough knowledge of Japan.

The first problem faced by Satow was that of relations with China, where the government system was "thoroughly rotten" and the country was in danger of being partitioned among the European powers. Korea had for centuries been a vassal of China, and in 1876 Japan put pressure on China to open the country up to Japanese trade, and the unequal Treaty of Kanghwa was signed. Satow felt that Japan was a much better country than China to lead to Korea's modernization, and in a private letter to Lord Salisbury wrote that Japan's "chief care is for the maintenance of her position in Korea, and nothing but a Russian attempt to swallow up the Peninsula will in my opinion turn her aside from her present policy of lying low until her armaments are completed in 1903." He told Ito that Britain, like Japan, wished to prevent Russian annexation of Korea, and agreed that neutralization of Korea agreed upon by several powers would be better than pressing for Korean independence, which would give Russia a freer hand. In Satow's view Korea was "quite incapable of reform from within" , while Ito believed that Korea could not survive as an independent state, but Japan was still too weak to prevent Russian annexation.

On October 8th Japan engineered a coup d'etat in Seoul in which the Korean Queen Min Bi was assassinated. The Korean royal party appealed to Britain for help, but Satow was unable to assist. In the ensuing Sino-Japanese War the Chinese were swept out of Korea. In 1897 Foreign Minister Okuma Shigenobu suggested to Satow that Britain might establish a legation in Korea, but Satow was wary of antagonizing the Russians by so doing. At the same time he was urged by a Korean exile to get Britain to take a more active role; Satow replied that Britain had no direct interests in Korea, and the Koreans "must be patient for a few years". In conversations with Foreign Minister Aoki Shuzo in 1899, Satow observed that Japan would not be ready for war with Russia till 1903, but Aoki replied that Japan might be obliged to act before that. Satow saw Ito for the last time on May 2nd, 1900, before returning to England, and already he could see clearly that, though Japan would get no advantage from fighting Russia, Russia regarded Japan as the only obstacle to her designs in the Far East.

The question of Formosa was different. It was a commercial issue rather than a political one. In particular Satow had to negotiate with the Japanese government over the camphor trade. Japan tried strictly to enforce the Chinese 1867 regulations limiting the trade; but after protests by Satow and the German Minister, the camphor trade was conceded to foreign firms until the new treaties came into effect in 1899. Opium was another matter. When asked if it would be safe to take a permissive line, Satow replied that the British Opium Commission had said that opium was less harmful than alcohol and that it was frequently smoked in the open by Chinese labourers. Other issues that were frequently discussed concerned such items as foreign ownership land, prison conditions and the access of consuls to arrested foreigners, certificates of origin for imported goods, and press laws.

Apart from Satow's public life, the diaries also reveal his personal life. During his earlier tour he had taken a Japanese "wife", Takeda Kane, whom he could not marry as a diplomat, and he had two sons, Eitaro and Hisayoshi, who were now, in 1895, fifteen and twelve years old. Usually only slight references are made to them in the diaries, in languages such as Latin, Italian and Spanish, so we find "dined tutti a tre" or "dined con los muchachos". But there is one quite long entry for December 30th, 1895, describing a day's walk over mountain passes to Shizuura near Numazu. Besides the reunion with his family, Satow was also able to renew acquaintance with old friends such as Basil Hall Chamberlain.

Another personality who appears in the diaries is Satow's "confidential source" Asaina Kansui. who was paid to supply information on Japanese government decisions, though it is not clear how useful he was to Satow.

Satow decided he liked Chuzenji better than Hakone as a summer retreat. He first rented a small house by the lake, and later built a villa on the other side, which is still used by the ambassador today. He records that he went to the building site on May 30th, 1896, with the architect Josiah Conder.

Satow was President of the Asiatic Society of Japan from 1895 to 1900, and there are twelve references to the Society in the diaries. He was a founder member, and read many papers in the early days; during this latter period he lectured on "The Jesuit Mission Press in Japan" and "The Cultivation of Bamboos in Japan", and these are both published in Vol. 27 of Series 1 of the Transactions. At one stage he discussed with Chamberlain a proposal to wind up the Society, as there were too many "twaddly papers" , but fortunately he later relented. His scholarly interests also included Greek and Latin, and he frequently attended concerts and amateur dramatics.

When the time came to leave Japan, Satow accepted the transfer gladly, as it would bring better pay (£5,000 a year rather than £4,000). But several of the high-ranking Japanese regretted his departure, including Ito. His final audience with the Emperor and Empress was on April 24th, 1900, and he sailed from Yokohama on May 4th.

Prof. Ruxton followed up his lecture by showing parts of a video made by Antelope Films in cooperation with Asahi Television, dramatizing "Satow: A Diplomat in Japan", and reading a few extracts from the diaries themselves. He then answered a number of questions, mainly focussing on Satow's family. Eitaro was diagnosed with TB in London in 1900, and was advised to go and live in the United States, where he died some time before his father. Hisayoshi studied botany in England 1910-1916, but Satow then sent him home to his mother, who was lonely. He saw Kane only once more, in 1906, when he called in at Japan on his way home from China, but they exchanged letters and she survived him by two or three years.

The meeting concluded with a vote of thanks proposed by ASJ member Mr. Shozo Nagaoka, whose Japanese translation of Ruxton's "The Diaries and Letters of Sir Ernest Mason Satow" will be published later this year (and is offered to ASJ members at a special rate). Ruxton's edition of the complete diaries of 1895-1900 is scheduled to be published in November by Edition Synapse, and a representative of the company was at the meeting to hand out publicity materials.