Background
Munenori Terashima was born on 21 June 1832 to a samurai family in Satsuma domain (in what is now part of Akune city, Kagoshima prefecture).
宗則 寺島
Munenori Terashima was born on 21 June 1832 to a samurai family in Satsuma domain (in what is now part of Akune city, Kagoshima prefecture).
Munenori Terashima studied rangaku and was appointed as a physician to Satsuma daimyō Shimazu Nariakira. In 1862, he was chosen as a member of the group of students selected by the Tokugawa bakufu to study at the University College London in Great Britain. He also visited France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Russia and Portugal. He returned to Japan in 1863, and participated in the defense of Satsuma during the Anglo-Satsuma War.
With the establishment of the Meiji government in 1868, he became a councilor and officer in charge of foreign affairs in the new government and was assigned to duty in Hyogo. Under the imperial envoy Higashikuze Michitomi, he had his first opportunity to deal directly with the foreign ministers as an official of the government. In the same year he was appointed a judge of Kanagawa Prefecture and a judge in the Bureau of Foreign Affairs.
In 1869 he was made vice-governor of the Foreign Office and later chief assistant of foreign affairs. In 1872 he was assigned a high post in the Japanese embassy in Britain and then promoted to the post of envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary. In 1873 he became a councilor of state and foreign minister. He was transferred to the post of minister of education and later, after serving as chief of the Bureau of Legislation and president of the Genroin (Senate), in 1882, as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary, he was assigned to duty in the United States.
In 1884 he was assigned to a post in the Imperial Household Ministry, in 1886 became an adviser to the Privy Council, and in 1891 became president of the Privy Council.
Munenori Terashima played an important role in negotiations involved in the incident over the Peruvian ship Maria Luz, the treaty that gave Russia Karafuto in exchange for the Chishima (Kurile) Islands, the Kanghwa Treaty on trade between Japan and Korea, and the recognition of Japanese sovereignty over the Ogasawara Islands.
At the same time he was very active in efforts to carry out treaty revisions and restore tariff autonomy to Japan. In 1878 he succeeded in negotiating an agreement by which the United States recognized tariff autonomy for Japan (the so-called Yoshida-Everts Convention), but it was never put into effect because of opposition from the British ambassador Sir Harry Smith-Parkes and others.
