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Aspects of Tokugawa Bureaucracy and Modernization
Author(s) -
DOWDY EDWIN
Publication year - 1970
Publication title -
australian journal of politics and history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.123
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1467-8497
pISSN - 0004-9522
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8497.1970.tb01312.x
Subject(s) - modernization theory , feudalism , meiji period , bureaucracy , government (linguistics) , meiji restoration , administration (probate law) , political science , state (computer science) , central government , economic history , public administration , economy , history , law , local government , politics , economics , ancient history , linguistics , philosophy , algorithm , computer science
There is perhaps in all history no parallel case to the swiftness and effectiveness of Japanese modernization in the few years following the Meiji Restoration of 1868. A few examples of it will suffice to indicate its extent and thoroughness. The feudal lords (daimyõ) returned their fiefs to the state in 1869, and the new prefectures were created in 1871. At the end of 1869 a telegraphic service began between Tokyo and Yokohama. In 1870 smallpox vaccination was made compulsory throughout the country. In 1871 there was new coinage based on the gold system, and the old currencies were abolished. By the following year a railway line existed from Yokohama to Shimbashi in Tokyo, and a government‐operated spinning mill was set up in Tomioka in Gumma prefecture. A national system of primary education was established in these years, and the government not only planned but also intervened with investment in industrial developments, especially in heavy industry. Of quite fundamental importance were the missions which the government sent to Europe and the United States of America to study and report on various governmental, legal, and military systems. In all this there was obviously much central planning, central control and capable administration. There was also, and had to be, a fairly compliant and literate populace. Less obviously, one may assume that there were certain ‘growing points’ in the traditional values and social structure for the modernizing processes to develop from; evidence for that assumption will be offered below.