Suematsu Kenchō

Infobox_Officeholder | name= Suematsu Kenchō
nationality=Japanese


caption=Viscount Suematsu Kencho (1855-1920)
order=Home Minister
term_start= 1900
term_end= 1901
predecessor= Saigō Tsugumichi
successor= Utsumi Tadakatsu
birth_date=birth date|1855|9|30|mf=y
birth_place=Buzen Province, Japan
death_date=death date and age|1920|10|5|1855|9|30|mf=y
death_place=
spouse= Ikuko Itō

Viscount nihongo|Suematsu Kencho|末松 謙澄|Suematsu Kenchō|September 30, 1855 – October 5, 1920 was a Japanese politician, intellectual, and author, who lived in the Meiji and Taishō period periods. Apart from his activity in the Japanese government, he also wrote several important works on Japan in English. Due in part to the effect of Ryotaro Shiba's novel "Saka no ue no kumo", Suematsu's reputation in Japan suffered; as a result, he is still not very well known there.

Early life

Suematsu was born in the hamlet of Maeda in Buzen Province, now part of Yukuhashi, Fukuoka Prefecture. He was the fourth son of the village headman ("shōya"), Suematsu Shichiemon. His name was initially nihongo|Ken'ichirō|謙一郎, he later changed it to the shorter Kenchō. [http://www.ncbank.co.jp/chiiki_shakaikoken/furusato_rekishi/kitakyushu/009/suematsu_nenpu.html NCBank biographical timeline of Suematsu's life] ]

At the age of ten he enrolled in a private school where he pursued studies in Chinese ("kangaku" 漢学). [ [http://www.city.yukuhashi.fukuoka.jp/areamap/u1/suematsu/top.htm Yukuhashi City webpage about Suematsu] ] Suematsu went to Tokyo in 1871, and studied with Ōtsuki Bankei and Kondō Makoto. In 1872, he briefly entered the Tokyo Normal School, but left it soon after. It was around this time that he made the acquaintance of Takahashi Korekiyo.

In 1874, at age 20, Suematsu began working for the "Tokyo Nichinichi Shimbun" newspaper (predecessor to the Mainichi Shinbun), writing editorials under the pen name Sasanami Hitsuichi (笹波篳一). During his time working for the newspaper, he was befriended by its editor, Fukuchi Gen'ichirō.

uematsu at Cambridge

Suematsu arrived in London in 1878 with the Japanese embassy which was dispatched there, and enrolled in Cambridge University in 1881. [Cobbing, "The Japanese Discovery of Victorian Britain", p. 123.] He graduated with a law degree from Cambridge (St. John's College, Cambridge) in 1884, [O'Brien, "The Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1902-1922", p. 202.] returning to Japan in 1886.

Political activities

Suematsu was elected to the Diet of Japan in 1890. Suematsu served as Communications Minister (1898) and Home Minister in his father-in-law Ito Hirobumi's fourth cabinet, 1900-01. He had married Ito's second daughter Ikuko in 1889 when he was 35 and she was 22. As they were from clans which had fought in the 1860s (Kokura and Chōshū), he wittily described his marriage as "taking a hostage".

Suematsu was influential in the founding of Moji port in 1889, approaching Shibusawa Eiichi for finance. He also worked to improve the moral standards of Japanese theatre and founded a society for drama criticism .

In 1904-5 Suematsu was sent by the Japanese cabinet to Europe to counteract anti-Japanese propaganda of the Yellow Peril variety and argue Japan's case in the Russo-Japanese War, much as Harvard-educated Kaneko Kentaro was doing at the request of Ito Hirobumi at the same time in the USA. [Lister, "The Japan-British Exhibition of 1910: Gateway to the Island Empire of the East", p. 94.] Suematsu was promoted from baron ("danshaku") to viscount ("shishaku") in 1907.

Literary activities

Suematsu was also active as a somewhat prominent writer of English works on Japanese subjects. His works include the first English translation of Genji Monogatari (which he wrote while at Cambridge) and several books on aspects of Japanese culture.

* Kenchio Suyematz, trans. "Genji Monogatari : The Most Celebrated of the Classical Japanese Romances". London: Trubner, 1882.
* Baron Suematsu, "A Fantasy of Far Japan; or, Summer Dream Dialogues". London: Constable, 1905.
* Kenchio Suyematsu, "The Risen Sun". London: Constable, 1905.

Notes

References (Books and articles)

* "Suematsu Kencho: International Envoy to Wartime Europe", Ian Nish in [http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/dps/is/is491.pdf 'On the Periphery of the Russo-Japanese War Part II'] , STICERD Discussion paper, LSE, No. IS/05/491, May 2005
* " [http://www.dhs.kyutech.ac.jp/~ruxton/hatenkou.html Japanese Students at Cambridge University in the Meiji Era, 1868-1912: Pioneers for the Modernization of Japan] ", by Noboru Koyama, translated by Ian Ruxton, ( [http://www.lulu.com/content/71869 Lulu Press] , September 2004, ISBN 1-4116-1256-6)
* "Suematsu Kencho, 1855-1920: Statesman, Bureaucrat, Diplomat, Journalist, Poet and Scholar," by Ian Ruxton, Chapter 6, "Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits", Volume 5, edited by Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2005, ISBN 1-901903-48-6
* O'Brien, Phillips P. (2004). "The Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1902-1922". (London: RoutledgeCurzon).
* Lister, Ayako Hotta (1995). "The Japan-British Exhibition of 1910: Gateway to the Island Empire of the East". (London: Routledge).
* Cobbing, Andrew (1998). "The Japanese Discovery of Victorian Britain". (London: Routledge).

See also

*Kaneko Kentaro
*Kikuchi Dairoku
*Inagaki Manjiro
*Cambridge University
*Anglo-Japanese relations
*Japanese students in Britain

External links

* [http://www.city.yukuhashi.fukuoka.jp/areamap/u1/suematsu/top.htm Suematsu's memorial stone] is at Yukuhashi city, Fukuoka prefecture. He was born there.
* Contains a translation of the first 17 chapters of "The Tale of Genji", with an introduction and footnotes, by Suematsu.
* cite book
title=The Risen Sun
author=Kench Suematsu
year=1905
publisher=Archibald Constable
isbn=
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=psoNAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Suyematsu&as_brr=1&ei=vhI4R77yHJPqiQHGx9CJAg, available here from Google Books.