ERNEST SATOW, BRITISH POLICY AND THE MEIJI RESTORATION
00:00 Intro
02:37 Ernest Satow, British Policy and the Meiji Restoration
36:54 Reading of two Japan Times articles
1:06:00 Outro
In 1866 Ernest Satow, on the invitation of the editor of the Japan Times Charles Rickerby, wrote three untitled and anonymous articles on Japanese politics. (The invitation which had been extended previously was to write on any topic he chose, and he had written on a non-political topic - travelling in Japan - before this.) The trigger for the three articles was the inability of Britain to trade with a Satsuma ship which came to the port of Yokohama seeking to trade. Satow's complaint was that the Treaty of 1858, even though it was ratified by the Emperor in 1865, was only a treaty with the Shogun who controlled just one part of Japan. He advocated a new treaty with the Emperor and Confederated Daimyos who would represent the whole of Japan.
Satow's proposal was intended only to increase British trade with Japan, but he was aware that its implications for the polity of Japan were profound, and his articles were very widely published and read throughout Japan as 'British Policy by the English official Satow'. It was read by daimyos, court nobles such as Iwakura Tomomi and most notably a copy was given to Tokugawa Yoshinobu just before he became Shogun in January 1867. Before the end of the year he had returned his power to the Emperor. This is why Professor Akihiro Machida (Kanda University of International Studies) states that the articles in translation had a huge influence (kiwamete jindai na eikyo 極めて甚大な影響).
You can download a free pdf of my paper from Kyutacar, the online academic repository of Kyushu Institute of Technology: https://kyutech.repo.nii.ac.jp/record...