On the 6th of November 1868, when the British Minister, the late Sir Harry Parkes, was reviewing the British garrison at Yokohama, a Japanese equestrian, wearing the native robes of white silk which befitted his rank as a kuge or Court noble,—his horse led by two grooms or “bettos,” and attended by forty soldiers in blue serge uniforms, with black cloth caps,—a man of slight physique, and particularly juvenile in appearance,—sat placidly in his saddle watching with an interested air the movements of the foreign troops as they executed a series of evolutions and marched past the representative of Queen Victoria. The visitor, who had come from Tokio to attend the review, was Prince Sanjo, the first Prime Minister of Japan, and leader of the newly formed Government of the Restored Imperial Rule. A few minutes later Sir Harry, with a well-turned compliment on the skill of Japanese swordsmen, and a graceful acknowledgment of his indebtedness personally to the valour of one of their number, handed to the Japanese statesman the sword sent by the British Queen for presentation to Mr Nakai Kozo, in memory of the day when Nakai and Goto Shojiro, as is elsewhere related at length, saved the life of the British Minister when he was attacked by outlaws in the streets of Kioto in March of the same year. Prince Sanjo passed on the gift to Mr Nakai with his own congratulations to the recipient on the performance of a brilliant feat of arms, and thus closed an incident that served to remind those present of an exceptionally stormy period in the history of the nation, and which happily was then giving place to comparatively settled conditions. Prince Sanjo had come from Kioto to Yedo, thenceforward to be the capital of the Empire under the title of Tokio, in the month of June, in attendance on the Emperor, who then removed to the former headquarters of the Shogunate and gave to the place its new name. Sanjo was at that time Fuku-Sosai, ranking next to the Emperor’s uncle, Prince Arisugawa Taruhito, who occupied in the first administration formed under the Restored Imperial regime the position of Sosai—i.e. Supreme Director of the Government. The decisions of the So-sai were unchallengeable, and it was an office which only a prince of the blood might hold. Sanjo had always, even during the lifetime of the present Emperor’s father, sided with those who recognised the need of reforms, and when, in the autumn of 1868, the Department of the So-sai was abolished and the Dai-jo-kwan, or Supreme Governing Council, was constituted, thus resuscitating an ancient advisory body that had had a prior existence in the eighth century, he succeeded to the post of president, or Dai-Jo-Dai-Jin, thereof, and occupied it from that time forth until the dissolution of the Council on the reconstitution of the Government in the year 1886.

The Ministry of the Restored Rule was soon after its institution reorganised so as to give equal representation to the four leading clans that had been directly concerned in the revival of direct imperial control—viz. Satsuma, Choshiu, Tosa, and Hizen. Up to the year 1886 the Dai-jo-kwan was a separate body, distinct from the Council of Ministers or heads of departments. But in that year the two Councils were fused into one, and became the Cabinet as it exists at the present day. In Japan, it will be remembered, the Cabinet is appointed directly by the sovereign, and is entirely independent of any political party that may be predominant in the Diet. The Ministry at the outset of the Meiji era included those energetic reformers, Ito Shunsuke (afterwards Hirobumi) and Inouye Bunda (afterwards Kaoru) both Choshiu Samurai, and in Prince Sanjo they found an able and ardent supporter of their views. His influence was apparent in the tolerant attitude of the Court party towards the policy of the new government, and as the motto of the administration was then, and still is, “a strong Japan, for defence, and if need be, for aggression,” it is not easy to see in what respect the Imperialistic conservatism of the Kioto nobles was stultified by the doctrine enunciated in the Council Chamber at the capital. The retention of Japan for the Japanese was the object sought by both sides, but while one would have attempted to realise it by the expulsion of the subjects of the Occidental Powers, the other party in the State was willing to believe that Japan’s safety and territorial integrity were best to be preserved by the assimilation of those arts and sciences that had given to the Western peoples their capabilities of waging successful warfare, and of thereby imposing their will upon others. The policy which commended itself to Japan at that epoch was certainly not inspired by a mere love of change, nor by any pronounced preference for foreign ways, nor was it ascribable to a passion for learning, in the abstract, but it was directly prompted by a well-grounded political incentive to action that has never lost its hold on the minds of Government or people, and is indubitably as strong to-day as when its principles were first assented to by the nation at large, close upon forty years ago.

Prince Sanjo belonged to the eighth Kuge family, and was therefore a descendant of the Fujiwara house which has from very early days provided consorts for the Emperors. The mothers and wives of the sovereigns of Japan have all been Fujiwaras by descent, and the rule still holds good that the princesses of the blood shall marry into Fujiwara houses. The retention of Prince Sanjo in the office of Prime Minister on the establishment of the Dai-jo-kwan was a wise step of which the good effects were incalculable, inasmuch as it tended towards the reconcilement of those antagonistic sections of the community which were to be classed respectively as adherents of the old and of the new systems. At the beginning he was himself an opponent of the kai-koku policy which favoured the opening of the country to foreign trade and intercourse, but in the end he vastly aided the accomplishment of those plans to which he had finally accorded his unqualified approbation. As a Fujiwara he could not be other than a devoted servant of the throne,—as a convert to the doctrine of reform he was a pillar of strength to the Government of the Restored Imperial Rule, and a strenuous advocate of the adoption of methods calculated to place his country in the van of Asiatic powers. The Fujiwaras in the ninth century assumed regal control, in their tenure of the office of Kwambaku,—an ancient title borne by the Prime Minister of the State,—and the holder of it in A.D. 888 had wielded absolute sway, arranging all affairs with and on behalf of the then reigning Mikado, who seems to have been content to efface himself and to permit the Minister to exercise sovereign powers. Thus the prestige of the Fujiwara house was a valuable prop to the edifice of State and the influence exerted by the prince as Premier throughout his long occupancy of the exalted office was ever thrown into the scale of solid advancement.

When the Shogun Tokugawa Keiki tendered his resignation in the spring of 1868, he made a strong appeal for the assembling at an early date of the provincial lords in Kioto, in order that they might express individually and collectively their views to the young monarch on the great questions which were then agitating the land. This Council of Dai-Mios met while the war of the Restoration was yet in progress, and the outcome of their deliberations was the revival of the historical Dai-jo-kwan, with a Dai-jo-dai-jin, or Chancellor,—to use the term then commonly employed in translation,—a Sa-dai-jin, or Vice-chancellor of the Left, which ranks highest in Japan,—and a Vice-chancellor of the Right, the U-dai-jin. The holders of the Vice-chancellorships under Prince Sanjo were Prince Iwakura and the feudal chief of Satsuma. The administrative departments created—viz. Foreign Affairs, Finance, War, Education, Home Affairs, Justice, Religion, and the Imperial Household—were each presided over by a Minister, and among those who accepted portfolios at that time were many whose names will remain conspicuous for all time in the chronicles of the Empire. Few of them are now alive, but it may with strict justice be said that their labours in laying the foundations of good government for their country were not in vain.

Prince Sanjo was at the head of the government throughout the troublous period when it became necessary, in order to vindicate Japan’s rights, to send an expedition to Formosa, led by Marquis Saigo, and at the far more anxious stage when rebellion arose in Satsuma and it was imperative to prosecute the war against Saigo Takamori and his followers with vigour, lest the spread of principles opposed to the Government policy should ultimately render its position insecure. Throughout it was Prince Sanjo who presided over the deliberations of the Cabinet, and who enjoyed the complete confidence of his imperial master. A great demand arose for the revision of the treaties into which Japan had entered with foreign nations, at a time when she practically had no choice but to throw open her ports to over-sea trade. Year after year this momentous problem, how to procure for the country adequate recognition of its paramount rights, while it chafed under the claims of foreigners to enjoy the immunities afforded by extra-territorial jurisdiction, obtruded itself, but it was not until the Dai-jo-kwan had given place to a Cabinet in 1886 that a satisfactory stage leading to revision was entered upon, and then Prince Sanjo had ceased to be Premier.

Five years previously the nation had passed through a crisis in its financial affairs due to the difficulties arising from a superabundant issue of paper currency, and trade had been temporarily affected in a way to give the maximum of concern to the Ministry. Brave efforts were made, and with an appreciable measure of success, to economise in every department of State. With the revival of commercial prosperity to some extent in the autumn there was promulgated the imperial decree granting a Constitution, to take effect in 1889, and for the assembly of a Parliament in 1890. These gracious fulfilments of the promise vouchsafed to his people by the sovereign at his accession filled the nation with joy, and it was resolved that steps should be taken to frame a Constitution which should be acceptable to the monarch and at the same time satisfy all the legitimate aspirations of his loyal subjects. To this end it was agreed that Marquis Ito should visit Europe, there to complete his studies of Constitutional law and history, in order that he should be in a position to offer the Emperor advice on every point in connection with which information might be desired. By 1884 the internal progress of the Empire was such as to give the utmost confidence to the administration of which Prince Sanjo remained the head, and it had become practicable to regard the unrestricted opening of the country to foreign commerce and residence as being within the domain of practical politics, and indeed within measurable distance.

By the time that it had become desirable, in 1886, to reconstitute the Government on a model more suited to the requirements of a regime based upon parliamentary procedure, the new army of Japan had attained dimensions which warranted the Ministry in entertaining high hopes of its future serviceability as the safeguard of the national interests, and simultaneously the navy had risen to the condition of being a formidable force. The army mustered at this stage over 100,000 of all ranks, and in the fleet there were twenty-six vessels, five of them ironclads, in all mounting some 225 guns. The railway system had grown to a total of nearly 300 miles, and there were 5000 miles of telegraph. In one way and another the outgoing governing council was able to give a thoroughly satisfactory account of its stewardship, for while in Korea there had been rioting resulting in the deaths of a number of Japanese, and the War party at Tokio had clamoured for retaliatory measures at Seoul, a treaty had been negotiated on acceptable terms with the Peking Government and Japan had, by the moderation of her demands for redress, averted the danger which threatened of an open rupture with consequences for which Japan was herself at that period but ill prepared.

On being relieved of his office of Dai-jo-dai-jin Prince Sanjo went nominally into retirement, but his services as an adviser to the Crown were not infrequently called for, until his health failed him in 1889.

His decease took place in February 1891, of influenza, and just before his death the Emperor visited him and conferred on him, as an old and faithful servant, the highest rank that it is possible for a Japanese subject to attain, and which had not been bestowed by an Emperor of Japan on anyone since the Eleventh Century.