Kinmochi Saionji was a Meiji, Taisho, and Showa period political leader.
Background
Kinmochi Saionji was born in Kyoto on 7 December 1849. He was a son of Tokudaiji Kin’ito, who held the court post of minister of the right. In 1852 he was adopted into the Saionji family, also of the court nobility; for a time he went by the personal name Boichiro: his literary name was Toan. His elder brother Tokudaiji Sanetsune was grand chamberlain to Emperor Meiji, while his younger brother Sumitomo Kichizaemon was a business leader and held the the title of baron.
Education
He went to France in 1871, and although Paris was in turmoil because of the establishment of the Commune, he succeeded in entering the Sorbonne, graduating in 1874. During this period he studied under the legal scholar Emile Acollas and also became friendly with Clcmenceau. During his stay in France he also became acquainted with Nakae Chomin, a scholar of French thought and intellectual leader in the Meiji period. Saionji remained in France for ten years, absorbing the liberal thinking of the time, and returned to Japan in 1880.
Career
In the closing years of the Edo period, Saionji, breaking with the customs of court society, took an increasing interest in affairs of state. In 1868, when power was restored to the emperor, he became a Sanyo (junior councilor) in the newly formed government. In the clashes between the shogunate forces and those loyal to the emperor at Toba and Fushimi, he attracted the notice of Iwakura Tomomi by his enthusiasm for battle. He participated in sub-sequent engagements in the San’in and Hokuriku areas, helping to bring them under imperial control. He was appointed governor of Niigata, but resigned so that he could go abroad for study.
In 1881 he founded a law school called Meiji Hritsu Gakko, the forerunner of Meiji University, and engaged in teaching activities. The same year he also joined Nakae Chomin and Matsuda Masahisa in founding a newspaper called Toyo Jiyu Sliimbun with himself as president, pressing for the establishment of political freedom and popular rights. Iwakura Tomomi, minister of the right and the leading statesman of the time, was much startled by such behavior and urged Saionji to give up his position with the newspaper. Saionji declined to heed the advice, however, and was only persuaded to resign by a privately conveyed request from Emperor Meiji himself.
In 1882 he accompanied Ito Hirobumi when the latter journeyed to Europe to study constitutional systems, he himself concentrating upon a survey of monarchical systems. He returned to Japan in 1883 and became a member of the House of Councilors. He served as minister to Austria in 1885 and minister to Germany in 1887, and later as president of the Bureau of Decorations, vice-president of the Upper House of the Diet, and advisor to the Privy Council. He served as minister of education in the second and third Ito cabinets (1894-96, 1898), and was able to modify the educational policy of the country, tempering the strong note of nationalism that had characterized it earlier and injecting a more cosmopolitan outlook. In 1900 he became president of the Privy Council. In the same year he became one of the founding members of the Rikken Seiyukai, the political party formed by Ito Hirobumi, supporting the movement to form political parties, and in 1903 succeeded Ito as president of the Seiyukai. For a period following the conclusion of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, he and Katsura Taro took turns holding the office of prime minister, and for a time a spirit of cooperation prevailed between the Seiyukai and the old domain cliques within the government. At the time of the resignation, Saionji was accorded treatment as a genro (elder statesman) by the newly enthroned Emperor Taisho.
In 1913, when the movement to preserve the constitution was intensifying its activity, Saionji was privately requested by Emperor Taisho to place restraints on the Seiyukai. He was unable to do so, however, and, accepting responsibility for the situation, offered to resign the position of president of the party. In 1914, Hara Takashi, who had twice served as home minister in the Saionji cabinets, was chosen to succeeded him as president, and he accordingly tendered his resignation. In 1919 he headed the Japanese delegation to the Versailles Conference, and in company with Makino Nobuaki and Chinda Sutemi represented Japan at the conclusion of the international accord. From 1924 he had the responsibility, as the last of the elder statesmen, of recommending persons for the post of prime minister to the emperor. He thus had a considerable voice in political affairs, and hoped to use it to further the cause of party government. But after the assassination of the prime minister by naval officers on May 15, 1932, no more party cabinets were formed, and the military came increasingly to dominate the government, a tendency that Saionji was unable to combat. After the appointment of Konoe Fumimaro as prime minister in 1937, he gave up his role as advisor to the emperor on the formation of cabinets.
On his death in 1940, he was given a state funeral.
Personality
In addition to his political interests, he was a man of refined cultural tastes. While in France, he cooperated with the famous woman poet Judith Gautier in producing a volume of French translations of Japanese poetry, published in 1884, and he had a wide acquaintance among artists and intellectuals.