Background
Shigetaka Shiga was born in 1863 in the city of Okazaki in present-day Aichi Prefecture; his literary name was Shinsen.
Shigetaka Shiga was born in 1863 in the city of Okazaki in present-day Aichi Prefecture; his literary name was Shinsen.
After graduating from Sapporo Agricultural School (the forerunner of Hokkaido University), he became a middle school teacher in Nagano Prefecture.
In 1886 he sailed on the Japanese warship Tsukaba on a tour of Australia and the islands of the South Pacific. He published an account of the trip in 1887 under the title Nan’yo jiji, which soon won him a reputation as an advocate of Japanese overseas expansion. In 1888 he joined Miyake Setsurci and others in forming a society called the Seikyosha and publishing a magazine, Nihonjin, which called for the preservation of the Japanese national character.
In 1897 he became head of the Forestry Bureau in the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and in 1898 became a councilor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
In 1896 he entered political activity as honorary secretary of the Shimpoto (Progressive Party).