Directory_and_Chronicle_1841 — Page 28

1841.

Notices of Japan, No. V.

11

supposed virtually-absolute sovereign, who is still so called by many writers, we find, upon carefully examining the details given by those same writers, to be nearly as destitute of real power, as much secluded from the public eye, and en- meshed in the inextricable web of law and custom, as his nominal master.

The siogoun* scarcely ever stirs beyond the precincts of his spacious palace inclosure; even his religious pilgrimages, and his journeys to Miyako to do homage, or in Japanese phrase, make his compliment, to the mikado, being now performed by a deputy. The business of government is represented as wholly unworthy of engaging his thoughts; and his time is said to be so skillfully oc- cupied, as scarcely to leave him leisure, had he the wish, to attend to the affairs of the empire.

The mere official duties of ceremony imposed upon the siogoun-the obser- vances of etiquette, the receiving the homage or compliment, and the presents of those permitted and bound to offer both, upon frequently recurring festival days and the like-are represented as sufficient fully to occupy three individuals. These important ceremonies are regulated and conducted by a host of courtiers, holding what we should call household offices, and always about the person of the siogoun. But lest any notion of degradation in this actual nullity, any percep- tion of being, like the mikado, but the shadow of a sovereign, should germinate in the imperial breast, or be planted there by some ambitious favorite, both the siogoun and his court are constantly surrounded and watched by the innumera- ble spies of the council of state, which now constitutes the real executive power. The members of the council of state are differently given by different writers; but the best authorityt makes them thirteen-to wit, five councillors of the first class, uniformly selected from the princes of the empire, and eight of the second class, selected from the nobility. Other ministers are mentioned who do not appear to be comprehended in the council; these are the temple lords, who seem to be laymen, though the actual regulators of all religious matters, and the two ministers, called by some writers commissioners for foreign affairs, by others lieutenants of police, or heads of the spies ; and, indeed, the concerns of Japan with foreigners should naturally belong rather to the police department than to any especial minister. The councillors of both classes are almost uniformly chosen from amongst the descendants of those princes and nobles who distin- guished themselves as partisans of the founder of the present siogoun dynasty, during the civil war that preceded, and the intrigues that assisted his usurpation. Over the council presides a councillor of the highest class, and he is invariably a descendant of Ino Kamon no kami, a minister who rendered an essential service to the same usurper's posterity. This president is entitled Governor of the Em- pire: and his office, if resembling that of an European premier, or rather of an oriental vizier, appears even to transcend both in authority. All the other councillors and every department of administration are subordinate to him; no affair can be undertaken without his concurrence; and a notion is said to prevail in Japan, that he is individually empowered to depose a siogoun who should go- vern ill, and to substitute another, of course the legal heir, in his place; but this is manifestly a mistaken or confused conception of a power vested in the whole council, though possibly exercised by their president, which will presently be explained, and which it will then appear is not held gratuitously.

* Fischer.

+ Siebold.