4 The Meiji Reform
第四章 明治维新
THE BATTLECRY that ushered in the modern era in Japan was Sonno joi, ‘Restore the Emperor and expel the Barbarian.' It was a slogan that sought to keep Japan uncontaminated by the outside world and to restore a golden age of the tenth century before there had been a ‘dual rule' of Emperor and Shogun. The Emperor's court at Kyoto was reactionary in the extreme. The victory of the Emperor's party meant to his supporters the humiliation and expulsion of foreigners. It meant reinstatement of traditional ways of life in Japan. It meant that ‘reformers' would have no voice in affairs. The great Outside Lords, the daimyo of Japan's strongest fiefs who spearheaded the overthrow of the Shogunate, thought of the Restoration as a way in which they, instead of the Tokugawa, could rule Japan. They wanted a mere change of personnel. The farmers wanted to keep more of the rice they raised but they hated ‘reforms.' The samurai wanted to keep their pensions and be allowed to use their swords for greater glory. The merchants, who financed the Restoration forces, wanted to expand mercantilism but they never arraigned the feudal system.
近代日本所利用的口号是“尊皇攘夷”。这个口号旨在使日本不受周围世界的伤害，结束天皇幕府的“双重统治”，恢复十世纪的黄金时代。京都的天皇朝廷代表的是极端保守派。对支持天皇的人来说，尊王派如果占了上风，就要使外国人屈服，并将他们逐出日本。这个口号还意味着恢复日本传统的生活方式，让“改革派”无权参与政事。掌握了大部分封地，势力很大的外样大名成为推翻幕府的急先锋。他们主张王政复古，推翻德川幕府统治，由自己取而代之，其目的是改朝换代。农民也想减轻租税负担，但他们并不热心以“改革”为手段。武士一方面想继续享用年俸，同时又希望得到佩刀的荣誉和特权。商人们则从财政上对尊皇派给予资助。他们愿意有扩大商业贸易的机会，但决不是想彻底摒除封建制度。
When the anti-Tokugawa forces triumphed and ‘dual rule' was ended in 1868 by the Restoration of the Emperor, the victors were committed, by Western standards, to a fiercely conservative isolationist policy. From the first the regime followed the opposite course. It had been in power hardly a year when it abolished the daimyo's right of taxation in all fiefs. It called in the land-registers and appropriated to itself the peasants' tax of ‘40 per cent to the daimyo.' This expropriation was not without compensation. The government allotted to each daimyo the equivalent of half his normal income. At the same time also the government freed the daimyo of the support of his samurai retainers and of the expenses of public works. The samurai retainers, like the daimyo, received pensions from the government. Within the next five years all legal inequality among the classes was summarily abolished, insignia and distinctive dress of caste and class were outlawed—even queues had to be cut,—the outcasts were emancipated, the laws against alienation of land withdrawn, the barriers that had separated fief from fief were removed and Buddhism was disestablished. By 1876 the daimyo and samurai pensions were commuted to lump sum payments which were to become due in five to fifteen years. These payments were either large or small according to the fixed income these individuals had drawn in Tokugawa days and the money made it possible for them to start enterprises in the new non-feudal economy. ‘It was the final stage in the sealing of that peculiar union of merchants and financial princes with the feudal or landed princes which was already evident in the Tokugawa period.'*
反德川幕府的势力取得了胜利。一八六八年的“王政复古”结束了双重统治的局面。按照西方人的标准，新的掌权者将会执行一种极端保守的孤立主义政策。然而，新政府从一开始就采取了与此相反的方针，在成立不到一年的时间里就废除了所有大名对封地的征税权；它收回了这些土地的底账，也就是让农民将“四公六民”的“四公”部分全部交给政府。这次没收财产并不是无偿的，政府发给每个大名一笔相当于他正常年景收入一半的钱，同时政府还解除了大名原承担的供养家臣和公共工程的责任。在其后的五年内，基本消除了各阶级在法律上的不平等，取缔了标志阶级或等级差别的服饰，比如不许再蓄发，解放了贱民阶级，废除了禁止土地转让的法律，拔除封地之间的关卡，佛教也不再作为国教了。一八七六年，发给大名和武士的俸禄被改换成一笔赐金一次付完，这是用公债的形式在五年至十年之内全部付清；数目按照他们在德川时的固定收入而定。这笔钱使他们有了在新建立的非封建秩序下经营的资本。“从而完成了自德川幕府时就已出现的商人及金融贵族与封建土地领主的特殊联盟的最后一步。”引自诺曼：《日本近代国家的形式》，第96页。
These remarkable reforms of the infant Meiji regime were not popular. There was far more general enthusiasm for an invasion of Korea from 1871 to 1873 than for any of these measures. The Meiji government not only persisted in its drastic course of reform, it killed the project of the invasion. Its program was so strongly opposed to the wishes of a great majority of those who had fought to establish it that by 1877 Saigo, their greatest leader, had organized a full-scale rebellion against the government. His army represented all the pro-feudal longings of Imperial supporters which had from the first year of the Restoration been betrayed by the Meiji regime. The government called up a nonsamurai voluntary army and defeated Saigo's samurai. But the rebellion was an indication of the extent of the dissatisfaction the regime aroused in Japan.
处于襁褓阶段的维新政府，这些重大改革并不完全都是深得人心的。相比之下，人们对于一八七一年至一八七三年的“征韩论”的响应远比对这些改革步骤热烈得多。但是明治政府却坚持推行其激烈的改革进程，不惜放弃了侵略计划。由于改革的结果与各处发动它的人的愿望相去甚远，这部分人于一八七七年在主要领导人西乡隆盛的率领下发动了一场大规模的反政府叛乱。西乡的队伍代表着支持天皇的封建势力，而明治政府在实现了“王政复古”后一年之内就开始与他们背道而驰了。政府召募的由非武士组成的志愿军打败了西乡的武士。这次叛乱说明了新政权在日本受到很大的阻力。
The farmers' dissatisfaction was equally marked. There were at least 190 agrarian revolts between 1868 and 1878, the first Meiji decade. In 1877 the new government made its first tardy moves to lessen the great tax burden upon the peasants, and they had reason to feel that the regime had failed them. The farmers objected in addition to the establishment of schools, to conscription, to land surveys, to having to cut their queues, to legal equality of the outcasts, to the drastic restrictions on official Buddhism, to calendar reforms and to many other measures which changed their settled ways of life.
同样，农民的不满也很强烈。从一八六八年到一八七八年，即明治政府存在的最初十年中，至少发生了一百九十次农民暴动。直到一八七七年，新政府才采取了第一个减轻农民赋税的步骤，因此，农民完全有理由认为新政府并不能给他们什么好处。除此之外，农民也不欢迎诸如兴办学校、征兵、丈量土地、剪发、在法律上与贱民平等、严禁以佛教为官方宗教以及历法改革等许许多多与他们以往生活方式相违背的改革措施。
Who, then, was this ‘government' which undertook such drastic and unpopular reforms? It was that ‘peculiar union' in Japan of the lower samurai and the merchant class which special Japanese institutions had fostered even in feudal times. They were the samurai retainers who had learned statecraft as chamberlains and stewards for the daimyos, who had run the feudal monopolies in mines, textiles, pasteboards and the like. They were merchants who had bought samurai status and spread knowledge of productive techniques in that class. This samurai-merchant alliance rapidly put to the fore able and self-confident administrators who drew up the Meiji policies and planned their execution. The real problem, however, is not from what class they came but how it happened that they were so able and so realistic. Japan, just emerging from medievalism in the last half of the nineteenth century and as weak then as Siam is today, produced leaders able to conceive and to carry out one of the most statesmanlike and successful jobs ever attempted in any nation. The strength, and the weakness too, of these leaders was rooted in traditional Japanese character and it is the chief object of this book to discuss what that character was and is. Here we can only recognize how the Meiji statesmen went about their undertaking.
那么，这个贯彻如此激烈而又不得人心的改革的“政府”到底属于谁呢？应该说是属于从日本中世纪特殊政体中孕育起来的下级武士和商人的这个日本式的“特殊联盟体”。其中的武士的家臣，他们在为大名们当管家和随从时便通晓了治家之道；他们又经营过享受封建专利权的采矿业、纺织业和造纸业。其中的商人，他们往往买到武士的头衔，于是就把产业技术和本领带到那个阶级里。这个武士-商人联盟一经形成，便立刻推出他们自己的信心十足且富于才干的政治家，这些政治家们制定了明治维新政策并将它付诸实施。但是，核心问题并不在于他们来自哪个阶级，而在于他们为什么能够识时务并站住脚。十九世纪下半叶的日本正处在脱离封建主义的过程中，当时它像今天的泰国一样软弱，却产生了世界上最富有政治家气概的领袖，他们不仅能够制定而且又能出色地完成其任务。这些领袖的魄力以及弱点都可以从传统的日本性格中窥见，而揭示这一性格的历史沿革正是本书的首要目的。在此我们暂时回到明治政治家如何进行其事业上去。
They did not take their task to be an ideological revolution at all. They treated it as a job. Their goal as they conceived it was to make Japan into a country which must be reckoned with. They were not iconoclasts. They did not revile and beggar the feudal class. They tempted them with pensions large enough to lure them into eventual support of the regime. They finally ameliorated the peasants' condition; their ten-year tardiness appears to have been due rather to the pitiful condition of the early Meiji treasury than to a class rejection of peasants' claims upon the regime.
他们根本不把他们的事业作为一场意识形态上的革命，而仅把它当成一项任务。他们设想的目标，是使日本进入列强之列，成为世界上举足轻重的国家。他们不是打碎传统者，他们并没有攻击或彻底剥夺封建阶级，而是用一笔相当可观的薪俸引诱其倒向新政权；而后他们也改善了农民的状况，拖延十年之久的原因在于明治初期政府财政拮据，并不是故意让农民对新政权感到失望。
The energetic and resourceful statesmen who ran the Meiji government rejected, however, all ideas of ending hierarchy in Japan. The Restoration had simplified the hierarchal order by placing the Emperor at its apex and eliminating the Shogun. The post-Restoration statesmen, by abolishing the fiefs, eliminated the conflict between loyalty to one's own seigneur and to the State. These changes did not unseat hierarchal habits. They gave them a new locus. ‘Their Excellencies,' the new leaders of Japan, even strengthened centralized rule in order to impose their own workmanlike programs upon the people. They alternated demands from above with gifts from above and in this way they managed to survive. But they did not imagine that they had to cater to a public opinion which might not want to reform the calendar or to establish public schools or to outlaw discrimination against the outcasts.
但是掌握明治政权的这些人才济济、生气勃勃的政治家团体并不打算根绝日本传统的等级制度，只是通过王政复古、取消幕府，把天皇捧到至高无上的地位，简化了等级秩序。由于废藩置县，“王政复古”的政治家们又排除了忠于国家与忠于藩主的矛盾，但以上变化并没有取消等级制传统的基础，而是重新确定了这一基础。被尊为“阁下们”的日本新领袖们并未削弱等级身份制度，为了在人民中间推行其精心炮制的改革纲领，他们更加强化了中央集权的统治。他们虽然用“欲得之，先与之”的手段得势，却没有料到在实行历法改革、建立公共学校以及废除歧视贱民法律时会触怒公共舆论。
One of these gifts from above was the Constitution of Japan, which was given by the Emperor to his people in 1889. It gave the people a place in the State and established the Diet. It was drawn up with great care by Their Excellencies after critical study of the varied constitutions of the Western World. The writers of it however, took ‘every possible precaution to guard against popular interference and the invasion of public opinion.'* The very bureau which drafted it was a part of the Imperial Household Department and was therefore sacrosanct.
自上而下的恩惠之一，是在一八八九年以天皇的名义向国民颁布的《大日本帝国宪法》，它赋予人民某种程度的政治权利。同时建立了“国会”，这个国会是在“阁下们”详细研究了西方各国政体之后建立起来的。宪法起草人还“千方百计地防止它受到下层的干扰或舆论的左右”引自一日本学者的著作。这位学者说，他是引述宪法起草人之一金子坚太郎男爵的话。见诺曼：《日本近代国家的诞生》，第88页。，起草宪法的机构是宫内省一个局（制度调查局），这是一个神圣不可侵犯的机构。
Meiji statesmen were quite conscious about their objective. During the eighteen-eighties Prince Ito, framer of the Constitution, sent the Marquis Kido to consult Herbert Spencer in England on the problems lying ahead of Japan and after lengthy conversations Spencer wrote Ito his judgments. On the subject of hierarchy Spencer wrote that Japan had in her traditional arrangements an incomparable basis for national well-being which should be maintained and fostered. Traditional obligations to superiors, he said, and beyond all to the Emperor, were Japan's great opportunity. Japan could move forward solidly under its ‘superiors' and defend itself against the difficulties inevitable in more individualistic nations. The great Meiji statesmen were well satisfied with this confirmation of their own convictions. They meant to retain in the modern world the advantages of observing ‘proper station.' They did not intend to undermine the habit of hierarchy.
明治政治家非常明确自己的使命，作为宪法策划人之一的伊藤公爵于一八八○年派木户侯爵专程到英国与赫伯特·斯宾塞讨论日本面临的问题；经过一番长谈之后，斯宾塞在致伊藤的信中写下了自己的看法。在等级制问题上他写道，该制度是日本在以往历史上形成的有利于国富民强的特有基础，应予以维护和加强。他认为，以对天皇效忠为核心的尊敬师长的传统义务向来是值得称道的日本人的美德，日本定能够在自己的长辈和上级的领导下克服任何一个民族国家都会面临的困难，稳步向前发展。明治维新的大政治家们对这些支持他们所持信念的回答非常满意，这意味着他们可以在现代社会中为各自保留某种有利的“适当地位”而无须打破等级制度的传统。
伊藤博文一行去欧洲是在一八八二年，木户李允死于此前五年的一八七七年，所以木户不可能充当此任，这是金子坚太郎子爵之误。金子受伊藤之命，于明治二十二年（一八八九年）与中桥德五郎、木内重四郎、水上浩躬、太田峰三携英文宪法赴欧征求意见，那时会见了斯宾塞。见金子坚太郎：《帝国宪法制定的由来》，国家学会编《明治宪政经济史论》大正八年刊，第40页。——译注
In every field of activity, whether political or religious or economic, the Meiji statesmen allocated the duties of ‘proper station' between the State and the people. Their whole scheme was so alien to arrangements in the United States or England that we usually fail to recognize its basic points. There was, of course, strong rule from above which did not have to follow the lead of public opinion. This government was administered by a top hierarchy and this could never include elected persons. At this level the people could have no voice. In 1940 the top government hierarchy consisted of those who had ‘access' to the Emperor, those who constituted his immediate advisors, and those whose high appointments bore the privy seal. These last included Cabinet Ministers, prefectural governors, judges, chiefs of national bureaus and other like responsible officers. No elected official had any such status in the hierarchy and it would have been out of the question for elected members of the Diet, for instance, to have any voice in selecting or approving a Cabinet Minister or head of the Bureau of Finance or of Transportation. The elected Lower House of the Diet was a voice of the people which had the not inconsiderable privilege of interrogating and criticizing theHigher Officials, but it had no real voice in appointments or in decisions or in budgetary matters and it did not initiate legislation. The Lower House was even checked by a non-elected Upper House, half of them nobility and another quarter Imperial appointees. Since its power to approve legislation was about equal to that of the Lower House, a further hierarchal check was provided.
明治政治家们在政治、宗教及经济等各个领域都在国家与人民之间详细规定了“适当地位”的范围。由于他们的整个结构与英国或美国的组织形式相差悬殊，以至于我们对其基本动机往往未加注意。他们根本无须顺从舆论，不言而喻，实行的是自上而下的集权统治。这个受上层官僚阶级操纵的政府自然不会有经过选举产生的成员，在这种情况下，人民全然没有发言权。甚至到一九四○年时，最高阶层政府的成员仍然仅由那些能够“晋见”天皇的人、天皇的枢机顾问以及出身贵族并受天皇直接任命的人所组成；这里的最后一类人包括内阁大臣、县级首脑、司法官吏、国家机关负责人以及其他达官要人。经选举产生的官吏根本升不到如此重要的地位，因此说，选举产生的国会议员在政府中的地位远低于内阁大臣或藏相，甚至无法相提并论。通过选举产生的下议院虽然代表着人民，但仅享有质询和批评高级官员这样一些微不足道的权力；在任命、批准以及财政预算等问题上毫无实权，甚至不负责起草立法，更有甚者，下议院还受非选举产生的参议院的限制。参议院议员的一半出身于贵族，四分之一由天皇任命。由于参议院还在立法通过权上与下议院享有大致相等的权力，这便又设置了一道等级制的关卡。
Japan therefore ensured that those who held high government posts remain ‘Their Excellencies,' but this does not mean that there was not self-government in its ‘proper place.' In all Asiatic nations, under whatever regime, authority from above always reaches down and meets in some middle ground local self-government rising from below. The differences between different countries all concern matters of how far up democratic accountability reaches, how many or few its responsibilities are and whether local leadership remains responsive to the whole community or is preempted by local magnates to the disadvantage of the people. Tokugawa Japan had, like China, tiny units of five to ten families, called in recent times the tonari gumi, which were the smallest responsible units of the population. The head of this group of neighboring families assumed leadership in their own affairs, was responsible for their good behavior, had to turn in reports of any doubtful acts and surrender any wanted individual to the government. Meiji statesmen at first abolished these, but they were later restored and called the tonari gumi. In the towns and cities the government has sometimes actively fostered them, but they seldom function today in villages. The hamlet (buraku) units are more important. The buraku were not abolished nor were they incorporated as units in the government. They were an area in which the State did not function. These hamlets of fifteen or so houses continue even today to function in an organized fashion through their annually rotating headmen, who ‘look after hamlet property, supervise hamlet aid given to families in the event of a death or a fire, decide the proper days for co-operative work in agriculture, housebuilding or road repair, and announce by ringing the fire bell or beating two blocks together in a certain rhythm the local holidays and rest days.'* These headmen are not responsible, as in some Asiatic nations, also for collecting the State taxes in their community and they do not therefore have to carry this onus. Their position is quite unambivalent; they function in the area of democratic responsibility.
由此可见，日本确保了那些掌握了政府高级职位的“阁下们”的尊贵地位。当然，在“适当地位”中也并不是不给自治政府留下一点空位。几乎所有的亚洲国家，不论施行的是什么样的政体，其上层统治总是通过某个中间环节，与来自下层的地方自治政府衔接起来；不同的国家只是在应用民主的程度、自治政府所负责任的多寡和基层领导是对全体地方公众负责还是优先照顾豪门大户的利益这些问题上有所不同。德川幕府时的日本也存在类似于中国那样的由五到十户人家组成的小型组织，现在被称为“邻组”。它是老百姓的基层组织，邻组的首脑由他们自行推举出来，负责所辖居民户的许多事务；防止其成员的不规行为，发现可疑行为要立即报告，并向政府要捉拿的人劝降等。明治政府一度废除而后又恢复了这一制度，并开始称之为“邻组”，而且在城镇也推行过，但现在在农村也基本上废弃不用了。更为重要的组织是“部落”。部落既没有被废除，也没有作为一种单位被正式纳入行政机构，这是一个国家权力所不达的领域。这种由十五户以上的人组成的部落一直延续至今。它的组织形式是每年更换领导，负责“管理本部落的财产，在发生火灾或有人去世时向受灾、出事人家发放部落救济费；决定耕作、修桥筑路等公共工程的适当日子，并按照规定下来的方式敲钟或打梆子，表示节假日的到来” 引自约翰·F安伯利：《大和民族》，第88页。。这些部落首领也同其他两三个亚洲国家一样，不负责征收国税。因此，这个职务并不具有双重身份，他们只在地方民主的范围内起作用。
Modern civil government in Japan officially recognizes local administration of cities, towns and villages. Elected ‘elders' choose a responsible headman who serves as the representative of the community in all dealings with the State, which is represented by the prefectural and national governments. In the villages the headman is an old resident, a member of a land-owning farm family. He serves at a financial loss but the prestige is considerable. He and the elders are responsible for village finances, public health, maintenance of the schools and especially for property records and individual dossiers. The village office is a busy place; it has charge of the spending of the State's appropriation for primary school education for all children and of the raising and spending of its own much larger local share of school expenses, management and rent of village-owned property, land improvement and afforestation, and records of all property transactions, which become legal only when they are properly entered at this office. It must also keep an up-to-date record of residence, marital status, birth of children, adoption, any encounter with the law and other facts on each individual who still maintains official residence in the community, besides a family record which shows similar data about one's family. Any such information is forwarded from any part of Japan to one's official home office and is entered on one's dossier. Whenever one applies for a position or is tried before a judge or in any way is asked for identification, one writes one's home community office or visits it and obtains a copy to submit to the interested person. One does not face lightly the possibility of having a bad entry inscribed on one's own or one's family's dossier.
现在的日本国民政府正式承认市、町、村的地方政权。就是委托“长老们”从中选出一位在所有与政府打交道的场合，代表本市、町或者村出面的人。这里所说的政府既包括省，也包括全国的政府。这种领导人通常是一位老住户，并且家里拥有土地。这个职务虽然无所收益，但能给他带来很大的声望；这样的村长还与其他长老们共同管理村庄的财务、公共卫生和兴办学校，特别是还负责登记财产和记录其成员的身世。村公所是个活动中心，国家发给的小学教育经费由它支配，同时还要额外征收更大一笔数目的资金用于地方学校的开支；此外还负责像经营或出租本村公共财产、改良土壤、植树造林、一切财产交易的登记等项事宜；村公所里还保存着每个居民的记录，因有婚姻、出生、离婚、收养以及违法行为，这些记录不断被补充或更新，其内容包括每个家族对自己家内大事所作的记录。任何人的哪怕很微小的变化都会从日本任何一个地方很快报告给他的原籍，记录进他的档案中；不论是申请职业还是法庭传讯，凡需要材料，只要写封信或派人到有关人的老家的地方机构就行了。因此人人都谨小慎微，生怕让自己或家庭的档案上出现污点。
The city, town, and village therefore has considerable responsibility. It is a community responsibility. Even in the nineteen-twenties, when Japan had national political parties, which in any country means an alternation of tenure between ‘ins' and ‘outs,' local administration generally remained untouched by this development and was directed by elders acting for the whole community. In three respects, however, local administrations do not have autonomy; all judges are nationally appointed, all police and school teachers are employees of the State. Since most civil cases in Japan are still settled by arbitration or through go-betweens, the courts of law figure very little in local administration. Police are more important. Police have to be on hand at public meetings but these duties are intermittent and most of their time is devoted to keeping the personal and property records. The State may transfer policemen frequently from one post to another so that they may remain outsiders without local ties. School teachers also are transferred. The State regulates every detail of the schools, and, as in France, every school in the country is studying on the same day the same lesson from the same textbook. Every school goes through the same calisthenics to the same radio broadcast at the same hour of the morning. The community does not have local autonomy over schools or police or courts of justice.
由此可见，市、町、村都有相当大的权力，这是一种社区自主权。二十世纪二十年代的日本已经出现了几个全国性的政党，如果是在任何其他国家，这种政党的朝野之间的变换都会影响下面，然而日本的地方行政当局却完全未受这种变换的干扰，长老们依旧以居民代表的身份掌握着权力。但是，在三个问题上，地方行政当局无权过问：所有法官均由国家任命；全部警官均由国家雇用；所有学校教师均由国家聘用。由于日本大部分的民事诉讼是通过仲裁形式解决，或者由中间人出面代理，所以法庭在地方行政上的作用微乎其微；警察的地位就更重要了，他们凡是有公共集会的场合每场必到，但这种场合并不常见，他们大部分时间的工作忙于记录居民的身份和作财产登记。国家令警察定期轮换所负责的地区，使他们总处于局外人的地位，以防他们在一个地方扎下根来。学校教师也实行调换制，国家还对学校事务不分大小巨细都有明文规定：和法国一样，全国各所学校都用统一的教材、在同一天开学时教授同一课程，甚至于每天早上在同一时间按广播电台播放的统一音乐做同一套广播体操。总之，地方政府无权过问法庭、警察和学校三方面事务。
The Japanese government at all points thus greatly differs from the American, where elected persons carry the highest executive and legislative responsibility and local control is exercised through local direction of police and police-courts. It does not, however, differ formally from the governmental set-up of such thoroughly Occidental nations as Holland and Belgium. In Holland, for instance, as in Japan, the Queen's Ministry drafts all proposed laws; the Diet has in practice not initiated legislation. The Dutch Crown legally appoints even mayors of towns and cities and thus its formal right reaches further down into local areas of concern than it did in Japan before 1940; this is true even though in practice the Dutch Crown usually approves a local nomination. The direct responsibility to the Crown of the police and of the courts is also Dutch. Though, in Holland, schools may be set up at will by any sectarian group, the Japanese school system is duplicated in France. Local responsibility for canals, polders and local improvements, also, is a duty of the community as a whole in Holland, not of a mayor and officials politically elected.
日本政府在所有问题上都与美国政府截然不同。美国的最高立法权与行政权都是由选举产生的人掌握，基层管理则主要由地方警察和初级法院来执行。日本在理论上大概与荷兰、比利时等一些西方国家的政府结构类似，如荷兰是由女王的大臣起草一切法案，这一点与日本议会不负责起草立法在实际上相似；荷兰法律甚至规定皇家有权任命市镇长，这说明它对地方的统治权比一九四○年前的日本还大，荷兰皇家还在实际上享有任命批准权也更说明了这一点；警察和法院直接对君主负责，这也是荷兰式的。不过，荷兰的学校有结社自由，而日本的学校制度则是仿效法国。在荷兰，运河的开凿、干拓地（在低于海平面的沼泽地筑堤造田）、地方开发等事务，由地方负责，但这是共同体全体的事情，不是由政党选出的市长和官吏的事情。
The true difference between the Japanese form of government and such cases in Western Europe lies not in form but in functioning. The Japanese rely on old habits of deference set up in their past experience and formalized in their ethical system and in their etiquette. The State can depend upon it that, when their Excellencies function in their ‘proper place,' their prerogatives will be respected, not because the policy is approved but because it is wrong in Japan to override boundaries between prerogatives. At the topmost level of policy ‘popular opinion' is out of place. The government asks only ‘popular support.' When the State stakes out its own official field in the area of local concern, also, its jurisdiction is accepted with deference. The State, in all its domestic functions, is not a necessary evil as it is so generally felt to be in the United States. The State comes nearer, in Japanese eyes, to being the supreme good.
从上述情况上看，日本与西方政体的根本区别并不在于形式，而在于政府如何真正行使权力这点上。日本人恪守他们以往形成的尊师敬长的传统习惯，并把它灌输到他们的道德伦理和礼节仪式当中。政府的“阁下们”只有按照日本式的“适当地位”行使权力时，才能承担起管理国家的重任，他们的适当地位才受到尊重。这并不是因为某种政策规定如此去做，而是因为在日本不能容许不顾特权的界限这种错误出现。所谓“公众舆论”在上层政治范围内是没有地位的，政府只注意获得“国民支持”。国家即便在地方性问题上跨出了自己的权限范围，其权力也照样会被顺从地接受。国家在整个国内事务上的作用并不像在美国那样被认为是不得不要的恶魔；在日本人眼里，国家是至高无上的。
The State, moreover, is meticulous in recognizing ‘proper place' for the will of the people. In areas of legitimate popular jurisdiction it is not too much to say that the Japanese State has had to woo the people even for their own good. The State agricultural extension agent can act with about as little authoritarianism in improving old methods of agriculture as his counterpart can in Idaho. The State official advocating State-guaranteed farmers' credit associations or farmers' co-operatives for buying and selling must hold long-drawn-out round-tables with the local notables and then abide by their decision. Local affairs require local management. The Japanese way of life allocates proper authority and defines its proper sphere. It gives much greater deference—and therefore freedom of action—to ‘superiors' than Western cultures do, but they too must keep their station. Japan's motto is: Everything in its place.
而且，国家还按照人们的愿望，对“适当地位”进行了详细的规定。为了贯彻其基本统治权力，在国民舆论应该支配的领域里，有关国民切身利益的事情，日本政府是会极力讨好国民的。国家农业发展署在改进旧的耕种方法时，和美国的爱达华州同行们一样，尽量不靠权势。执行政府对农民信用社、农民购销社奖励政策的官员，与当地知名人士促膝交谈，反复讨论，结果不得不服从他们的决定。地方上的事由地方去处理。日本人的生活方式产生了相应的统治形式，也为其限定了适当的职权范围。比较西方文化来说，日本赋予“长上”以更大的尊严，因此使他们的行动较为自由，但他们也必须遵守自己的本分，日本的座右铭是：“各得其所。”
In the field of religion the Meiji statesmen made much more bizarre formal arrangements than in government. They were however carrying out the same Japanese motto. The State took as its realm a worship that specifically upholds the symbols of national unity and superiority, and in all the rest it left freedom of worship to the individual. This area of national jurisdiction was State Shinto. Since it was concerned with proper respect to national symbols, as saluting the flag is in the United States, State Shinto was, they said, ‘no religion.' Japan therefore could require it of all citizens without violating the Occidental dogma of religious freedom any more than the United States violates it in requiring a salute to the Stars and Stripes. It was a mere sign of allegiance. Because it was ‘not religion,' Japan could teach it in the schools without risk of Occidental criticism. State Shinto in the schools becomes the history of Japan from the age of the gods and the veneration of the Emperor, ‘ruler from ages eternal.' It was State-supported, State-regulated. All other areas of religion, even denominational or cult Shinto, to say nothing of Buddhist and Christian sects, were left to individual initiative much as in the United States. The two areas were even administratively and financially separated; State Shinto was in the charge of its own bureau in the Home Office and its priests and ceremonies and shrines were supported by the State. Cult Shinto and Buddhist and Christian sects were the concern of a Bureau of Religion in the Department of Education and were supported by voluntary contributions of members.
相比政治领域，明治政治家在宗教领域所制定的制度更让人难以理解，同时也再次体现了上述座右铭。政府认为作为民族统一和国家主权的专门象征的宗教，应该把它置于国家的管理之下，其他一切宗教则听凭个人信仰。这个接受国家管辖的对象就是日本神道。如同在美国要向国旗敬礼一样，它也是对国家的象征履行某种仪式，所以他们也称神道 “并非宗教”。所以，日本能够与西方信教自由的原则毫不抵触而要求一切国民信奉国家神道，这就像美国要求向星条旗敬礼而毫不侵害信教自由一样，敬礼纯粹是忠诚的象征。由于国家神道“非宗教”，日本人能在学校里讲授它而不用担心受到西方的批评。在学校里，国家神道被编成一套日本从神话时代起就开始崇拜天皇的“万世一统”的历史。它受国家的支持，由国家来推行。佛教、基督教自不用语，即使其它各种宗教教派或祭祀神道都可自由信奉，如同在美国一样。这两类宗教在行政管理和财政资助方面都是截然分开的：国家神道由内务省中的一个专门机构负责，其神官、仪式以及神社都由国家资助；祭祀神道以及佛教和基督教各派则由教育省内的宗教署管理，靠教徒自愿捐赠维持。
Because of Japan's official position on the subject one cannot speak of State Shinto as a vast Established Church, but one can at least call it a vast Establishment. There were over 110,000 shrines ranging all the way from the great Ise Shrine, temple of the Sun Goddess, to small local shrines which the officiating priest cleans up for the occasion of a special ceremony. The national hierarchy of priests paralleled the political and the lines of authority ran from the lowest priest through the district and prefectural priests to their priestly Excellencies at the top. They performed ceremonies for the people rather than conducting worship by the people, and there was in State Shinto nothing paralleling our familiar church-going. Priests of State Shinto—since it was no religion—were forbidden by law to teach any dogma and there could be no church services as Westerners understand them. Instead, on the frequent days of rites official representatives of the community came and stood before the priest while he purified them by waving before them a wand with hemp and paper streamers. He opened the door of the inner shrine and called down the gods, with a high-pitched cry, to come to partake of a ceremonial meal. The priest prayed and each participant in order of rank presented with deep obeisance that omnipresent object in old and new Japan: a twig of their sacred tree with pendant strips of white paper. The priest then sent back the gods with another cry and closed the doors of the inner shrine. On the festival days of State Shinto the Emperor in his turn observed rites for the people and government offices were closed. But these holidays were not great popular fête-days like the ceremonies in honor of local shrines or even Buddhist holidays. Both of these are in the ‘free' area outside of State Shinto.
鉴于日本政府在这一问题上的立场，人们似乎还不能说国家神道是一个庞大的国家教会，但是，至少可以说它是一个庞大的国家机构。从供奉天照大神的伊势神宫，到为举行特别仪式的需要而专门为社司之类的神官净身提供的小神社，在日本多达十一万座以上。全国神职人员的等级制与政治的等级制并行，其组织机构也是从最低级的地区神社起，通过县、府、市、郡，直至被称为“阁下”的最高神官。与其说他们主持民众进行礼拜，倒不如说他们代替民众举行仪式。在神道中完全没有我们熟悉的做礼拜之类的事。正因为神道不是宗教，国家神社的祭主如果传授任何教条，或者按西方人所理解的方式举行教堂仪式都被认为是违法的。在频繁来临的祭日里，地方政府的代表来到神社，立正站在神官面前，让他们用缠上麻绳和纸条的木杖在自己头上摇一摇以避邪气，然后等他对着开着的神社的门高声呼唤请神下凡，享用供品。在这个过程当中，每个到场者都按照身份的高低顺序摆上内容相同的供物：挂满白色纸条被当成圣树的树枝。神官再次高声叫时就表示送神了，随后便关上神社的门。国家神社的祭日也是天皇为人民举行仪式的日子，所以到时政府机关一律放假。这种祭日与地方神社和佛教寺院所举办的民众参加的祭祀不同，后两者都是不属于国家神道的“自由”领域。
In this area the Japanese people carry on the great sects and fête-days which are close to their hearts. Buddhism remains the religion of the great mass of the people and the various sects with their different teachings and founding prophets are vigorous and omnipresent. Even Shinto has its great cults which stand outside of State Shinto. Some were strongholds of pure nationalism even before the government in the nineteen-thirties took up the same position, some are faith-healing sects often compared to Christian Science, some hold by Confucian tenets, some have specialized in trance states and pilgrimages to sacred mountain shrines. Most of the popular fête-days, too, have been left outside of State Shinto. The people on such days throng to the shrines. Each person purifies himself by rinsing out his mouth and he summons the god to descend by pulling a bell rope or clapping his hands. He bows in veneration, sends back the god by another pull of the bell cord or clapping of hands, and goes off for the main business of the day which is buying knickknacks and tidbits from the vendors Who have set up their stalls, watching wrestling matches or exorcism or kagura dances, which are liberally enlivened by clowns, and generally enjoying the great throng. An Englishman who had lived in Japan quoted William Blake's verse which he always remembered on Japanese fête-days:
在那些自由领域里，日本人尊崇许多不同的教派，这种庆典活动也更符合他们的心愿。佛教依旧拥有众多信徒，佛教各派的教条和祖师各不相同，表现各异。甚至神道也存在着许多国家神道之外的派别。二十世纪三十年代，政府开始宣扬国家主义，有的宗教派别在此之前就已笃奉纯粹的国家主义；有的则类似于“基督教科学派”，坚持信仰拯救的观点；有的信奉儒家经典；还有的热衷于追求某种恍惚状态，或是到深山远坳的神社去朝拜。今天，民众的大多数祭祀都不属于国家神道的范围。在这些祭祀的日子里，人们蜂拥而至到神社去，先用清水漱口表示净身，然后拉一下钟绳或击掌表示请神降临，再深深躹躬；最后再拉一次钟绳表示送神，这才开始去做当天要做的事；这就是在摆满小摊的街上买点小饰物或点心，观看相扑角力，或去算算卦或欣赏神乐舞。这种歌舞中有一种生龙活虎的丑角的表演，非常受群众的欢迎。一位曾经在日本居住过的英国人，每当观看日本式祀典时，总禁不住想到威廉姆·布莱克的诗：
If at the church they would give us some ale,
如果教堂里能备有一点啤酒，
And a pleasant fire our souls to regale,
外加一个暖人心扉的火炉，
We'd sing and we'd pray all the livelong day,
我们就将终日欢唱和祈祷，
Nor ever once wish from the church to stray.
再不会走上偏离教会的迷途。
引自“Songs of Experience” 组诗中“The Little Vagaband”的一节。——译注
Except for those few who have professionally dedicated themselves to religious austerities, religion is not austere in Japan. The Japanese are also addicted to religious pilgrimages and these too are greatly enjoyed holidays.
除对少数决意完全献身于苦行的人，日本的宗教不是一种苦修苦行的宗教。不过日本人的确特别愿意朝拜，朝拜日也是颇受人们欢迎的节日。
Meiji statesmen, therefore, carefully marked out the area of State functioning in government and of State Shinto in the field of religion. They left other areas to the people but they ensured to themselves as top officials of the new hierarchy dominance in matters which in their eyes directly concerned the State. In setting up the Armed Forces they had a similar problem. They rejected, as in other fields, the old caste system but in the Army they went farther than in civilian life. They outlawed in the Armed Services even the respect language of Japan, though in actual practice old usage of course persists. The Army also promoted to officer's rank on the basis of merit, not of family, to a degree which could hardly be put into effect in other fields. Its reputation among Japanese in this respect is high and apparently deservedly so. It was certainly the best means available by which to enlist popular support for the new Army. Companies and platoons, too, were formed from neighbors of the same region and peacetime military service was spent at posts close to one's home. This meant not only that local ties were conserved but that every man who went through Army training spent two years during which the relationship between officers and men, between second-year men and first-year men, superseded that between samurai and farmers or between rich and poor. The Army functioned in many ways as a democratic leveler and it was in many ways a true people's army. Whereas the Army in most other nations is depended upon as the strong arm to defend the status quo, in Japan the Army's sympathy with the small peasant has lined it up in repeated protests against the great financiers and industrialists.
明治政治家谨慎地区分开国家在政治上管理与国家神道在宗教上统治的各自范围。不过，在他们看来是直接关系到国家的事情，则要确保他们的支配权，他们是影响等级制度的最高官吏。在建立陆海军时，他们也面临着同样的问题。如同在其他领域一样，他们也废除了旧的等级制度，而且，对军队进行的改革比其他方面还要彻底，甚至废除了军队中日本式的敬语（当然，实际上，旧的习惯依然存在）。军队里还实行了按功勋而不按家庭出身晋升的办法，从某种程度上说，军队是贯彻此种晋升办法最为彻底的地方，任何其他领域都不及此。这一做法很得日本人的欢心，而且被证明的确收到了良好的效果，并且使这支新建的军队得到了广泛的支持。同时，连、排在编制上都由来自同一地区的人组成，和平时期驻扎在靠近家乡的营地。这样做不仅是为了加强与地方的联系，而且还使每个参军的人通过两年的军事训练，同时体验到一种不同于武士与农民，或者富人与穷人的长官和部下，或者上士与下士之间的上下级关系。军队在许多问题上实行民主平等的方法，所以在一定程度上说，这是一支人民的武装。与许多国家的军队都更倾向于维护现状相比较，日本的军队则更同情小农，并曾多次参加反对大财阀和大企业家的运动。
Japanese statesmen may not have approved of all the consequences of building up a people's army but it was not at this level where they saw fit to ensure Army supremacy in the hierarchy. That objective they made sure of by arrangements in the very highest spheres. They did not write these arrangements into the Constitution but continued as customary procedure the already recognized independence of the High Command from the civil government. The Ministers of the Army and the Navy, in contrast for instance to the head of the Foreign Office and domestic bureaus, had direct access to the Emperor himself and could therefore use his name in forcing through their measures. They did not need to inform or consult their civilian colleagues of the Cabinet. In addition the Armed Services held a whip hand over any Cabinet. They could prevent the formation of a Cabinet they distrusted by the simple expedient of refusing to release generals and admirals to hold military portfolios in the Cabinet. Without such high officers of the active service to fill the positions of Army and Navy Ministers there could be no cabinet; no civilians or retired officers could hold these posts. Similarly, if the Armed Services were displeased at any act of the Ministry, they could cause its dissolution by recalling their Cabinet representatives. On this highest policy level the top military hierarchy made sure that it need brook no interference. If it needed any further guarantees it had one in the Constitution: ‘If the Diet fails to approve the budget submitted, the budget of the previous year is automatically available to the Government for the current year.' The exploit of the Army in occupying Manchuria when the Foreign Office had promised that the Army would not take this step was only one of the instances when the Army hierarchy successfully supported its commanders in the field in the absence of agreed Cabinet policy. As in other fields, so with the Army: where hierarchal privileges are concerned the Japanese tend to accept all the consequences, not because of agreement about the policy but because they do not countenance overriding boundaries between prerogatives.
日本的政治家们大概并不完全肯定为建立国民军而产生的这些结果。他们认为在等级制度里确保军部的至上权是适当的，但并没有想到会达到这种水平。他们在最高领域里通过一定措施确实达到了目的。他们并没有把这些措施写到宪法里去，而是作为军部首脑独立于政府的惯例而保持下来。陆海军大臣与外务省或者内务省大臣的地位极不相同，他们可以直接晋见天皇，也可以在自己的权限范围内用天皇陛下的名义发号施令，而无须通知或征求文官阁僚们的意见。不仅如此，军部还直接插手历届内阁，他们对他们不信任的内阁组阁，只要拒绝派陆海军将官入阁，就轻而易举地阻止了内阁的形成。因为如果这些陆海军高级军官不能到内阁任职，内阁就无法正常工作了。这些职务不能由文官或退职军人担任。军方如果不满意内阁的行动，还通过召回他们代表的办法抵制，致使一届内阁被迫全体辞职。在决定最高政策，军部首脑想方设法不受任何干扰，如果还需要更牢靠的保证，他们就将它写入宪法，比如“当国会在批准预算提案相持不下时，上一年度的政府预算仍自动有效”的条款就是一例。因此，即便内阁反对某项政策，军部依然能够成功地发布军事命令，如出兵满洲就是在外务省反对的情况下发动的。正是这一毫无任何限制的权力使日本人民后来不得不吞下它所带来的全部苦果。军部在其他领域也是这样做的。其原因并不是全体一致都同意这样做，而是在于他们不可避免地受其特权的驱使。
In the field of industrial development Japan pursued a course which is unparalleled in any Western nation. Again their Excellencies arranged the game and set the rules. They not only planned, they built and financed on government money the industries they decided they needed. A State bureaucracy organized and ran them. Foreign technicians were imported and Japanese were sent to learn abroad. Then when, as they said, these industries were ‘well organized and business was prosperous,' the government disposed of them to private firms. They were sold gradually at ‘ridiculously low prices'* to a chosen financial oligarchy, the famous Zaibatsu, chiefly the Mitsui and Mitsubishi families. Her statesmen judged that industrial development was too important to Japan to be entrusted to laws of supply and demand or to free enterprise. But this policy was in no way due to socialistic dogma; it was precisely the Zaibatsu who reaped the advantages. What Japan accomplished was that with the minimum of fumbling and wastage the industries she deemed necessary were established.
日本工业化的进程也遵循了一条与任何西方国家都不同的道路。他们的阁僚们制订计划，确定实施步骤。他们不仅制订了计划，还用政府的钱创办和资助他们感到急需的工业项目，由国家官僚机构经营和管理。他们在聘用外籍工程师的同时，还派遣日本人出国学习；很快地把这些工业发展到他们自认为“管理精良、生意兴隆”时，又将其移交给私人公司，也就是说，用“奇低无比的价格”引自诺曼：《日本近代国家的诞生》，第131页。这一节的观点是基于诺曼透彻的分析。把这些工业逐步地转让给以三井和三菱家族为主体的大财阀。政治家们明确感到工业的发展对日本来说事关重大，不能靠按需供给的法则或自由企业的原则。然而这项政策决不是基于社会主义的信条，它使财阀们坐收渔利。日本以最少的代价和浪费完成了建立它所急需的那些工业的过程。
Japan was by these means able to revise ‘the normal order of the starting point and succeeding stages of capitalist production.'? Instead of beginning with the production of consumer goods and light industry, she first undertook key heavy industries. Arsenals, shipyards, iron works, construction of railroads had priority and were rapidly brought to a high stage of technical efficiency. Not all of these were released to private hands and vast military industries remained under government bureaucracy and were financed by special government accounts.
通过这些办法，日本能够改变“资本主义生产方式的最初和其余各阶段所需要的一般秩序”引自诺曼：《日本近代国家的诞生》，第121页。。它不是以生产消费品和轻工业产品为开端，而是首先发展重工业，使军工、造船、冶炼和铁路修建优先得到发展，并将这些很快发展到较高的技术水平。这些工业并非全部落入私人之手，庞大的军火工业就依然由官僚政府直接控制，由政府出资兴办。
In this whole field of the industries to which the government gave priority, the small trader or the non-bureaucratic manager had no ‘proper place.' Only the State and the great trusted and politically favored financial houses operated in this area. But as in other fields of Japanese life there was a free area in industry too. These were the ‘left-over' industries which operated with minimum capitalization and maximum utilization of cheap labor. These light industries could exist without modern technology and they do. They function through what we used to cadi in the United States home sweat-shops. A small-time manufacturer buys the raw material, lets it out to a family or a small shop with four or five workers, takes it back again, repeats by letting it out again for another step in processing and at last sells the product to the merchant or exporter. In the nineteen-thirties no less than 53 per cent of all persons industrially employed in Japan were working in this way in shops and homes having less than five workers.* Many of these workers are protected by old paternalistic customs of apprenticeship and many are mothers who in Japan's great cities sit in their own homes over their piecework with their babies strapped on their backs.
在政府所支持得到优先发展的那些工业领域中没有小商人或非官僚资产者的“适当地位”，只有国家和他们政治上信任、经济上给予特别优待的大财阀们的立足之地。但是，像日本人生活的其他领域一样，在产业方面也有自由领域，那些所谓的“边角”工业使用的是小股资金和得到最充分利用的廉价劳动力。那些轻工业在不采用现代化技术的情况下也能生存，而且至今仍存在。这种工业正如我们美国曾经有过的靠极度的劳动力榨取而维持的家庭工场那样，即由一个小本经营的制造商买来原料，送到一个家庭或有四五个人工作的作坊加工，然后再送到另外一家也具有差不多生产规模的地方完成余下的工序，最后将成品卖给商人或出口公司。在二十世纪三十年代，日本的工业雇佣人口中有至少百分之五十三的人是以这种方式在不超过五人的小工厂和家庭作坊里工作。上田教授统计，转引自米立安·S法利：《侏儒工厂》，《远东评论》1937年6月刊，第2页。这些工人的绝大部分受传统公权制行会的保护，其中许多是那些居住在日本各大城市里，坐在家中背缚着孩子的母亲。
This duality of Japanese industry is quite as important in Japanese ways of life as duality in the field of government or religion. It is as if, when Japanese statesmen decided that they needed an aristocracy of finance to match their hierarchies in other fields, they built up for them the strategic industries, selected the politically favored merchant houses and affiliated them in their ‘proper stations' with the other hierarchies. It was no part of their plan for government to cut loose from these great financial houses and the Zaibatsu profited by a kind of continued paternalism which gave them not only profit but high place. It was inevitable, granted old Japanese attitudes toward profit and money, that a financial aristocracy should fall under attack from the people, but the government did what it could to build it up according to accepted ideas of hierarchy. It did not entirely succeed, for the Zaibatsu has been under attack from the so-called Young Officers' groups of the Army and from rural areas. But it still remains true that the greatest bitterness of Japanese public opinion is turned not against the Zaibatsu but against the narikin. Narikin is often translated ‘nouveau riche' but that does not do justice to the Japanese feeling. In the United States nouveaux riches are strictly ‘newcomers'; they are laughable because they are gauche and have not had time to acquire the proper polish. This liability, however, is balanced by the heartwarming asset that they have come up from the log cabin, they have risen from driving a mule to controlling oil millions. But in Japan a narikin is a term taken from Japanese chess and means a pawn promoted to queen. It is a pawn rampaging about the board as a ‘big shot.' It has no hierarchal right to do any such thing. The narikin is believed to have obtained his wealth by defrauding or exploiting others and the bitterness directed toward him is as far as possible from the attitude in the United States toward the ‘home boy who makes good.' Japan provided a place in her hierarchy for great wealth and kept an alliance with it; when wealth is achieved in the field outside, Japanese public opinion is bitter against it.
在日本人的生活方式中，日本工业体系的这种二元性，如同日本的政府制度和宗教体制中都存在着的双轨现象一样重要。与此相似，日本政治家们认为在财政事务上他们也同时需要一个寡头统治与其他统治并存，于是他们便为自己建立了具有战略意义的金融业；选择一些政治上可靠的金融寡头，赋予他们与其他各个领域的统治阶层平起平坐的“适当地位”。在与政府有十分紧密联系的同时，这些财阀又依旧从旧式的行会制度中获得好处，真是名利双收。依照传统式日本人对钱财的态度，财阀们不可避免要受人们的鄙视，虽然政府竭力在正统官方观点上对他们加以维护，但是仍然不能彻底改变人们的观念，比如财阀就曾受到军部里的“少壮军人团”和来自农村的攻击。然而实际上，在日本公众眼中最不受欢迎的还不是财阀，而是所谓“成金”。“成金”常常被翻译成“暴发户”，但是这个译名与日本人的本意是有出入的。美国的暴发户的严格定义是“新富人”，这种人常常由于不善交际，不适应新局面而被引为笑柄。但是当人们想到他们从小木棚中爬出来，从赶骡车发展到控制着上百万桶石油时，他们的缺点又为举世瞩目的财富所抵消了。日本的“成金”是日本式棋艺中的一个术语，是指从小卒变成国王的意思；这样的小卒能够在棋盘上横冲直撞，俨然一个“显赫的角色”，它完全违反按部就班地获得地位的等级制度。因此，“成金”常常被误以为是靠欺骗或者抢占等手段获取财富的人，人们对他们的反感同美国人对待“成功的仆人”迥然不同。日本的等级制度中给予了巨富应占的位置，但如果财富来自等级以外其他渠道，就要受公众的激烈抨击了。
The Japanese, therefore, order their world with constant reference to hierarchy. In the family and in personal relations, age, generation, sex, and class dictate proper behavior. In government, religion, the Army, and industry, areas are carefully separated into hierarchies where neither the higher nor the lower may without penalty overstep their prerogatives. As long as ‘proper station' is maintained the Japanese carry on without protest. They feel safe. They are of course often not ‘safe' in the sense that their best good is protected but they are ‘safe' because they have accepted hierarchy as legitimate. It is as characteristic of their judgment on life as trust in equality and free enterprise is of the American way of life.
日本人的世界观总脱离不了等级的传统，在家庭里或社会上人与人的关系中，年龄、辈分、性别和阶级占据了主导地位。无论政府、宗教、军队还是企业，到处都按等级的标准严格区别开来，如果有人敢越雷池一步，就会受到惩罚。只要有某种“适当地位”存在，日本人就会毫不犹豫地维护它，因为这样他们才感到安全保险。当然，如果从保护他们的最大幸福出发，他们也常常有不“安全”，但是，他们以承认等级制度为前提，所以又是“安全”的。他们对这种典型的生活标准正如美国生活方式中人们对自由、平等的竞争一样确信无疑。
Japan's nemesis came when she tried to export her formula for ‘safety.' In her own country hierarchy fitted popular imagination because it had moulded it. Ambitions could only be such as could take shape in that kind of a world. But it was a fatal commodity for export. Other nations resented Japan's grandiloquent claims as an impertinence and worse. Japan's officers and troops, however, in each occupied country continued to be shocked that the inhabitants did not welcome them. Was Japan not offering them a place, however lowly, in a hierarchy and was not hierarchy desirable even for those on the lower steps of it? Their War Services continued to get out series of war films which figured China's ‘love' for Japan under the image of desperate and disordered Chinese girls who found happiness by falling in love with a Japanese soldier or a Japanese engineer. It was a far cry from the Nazi version of conquest yet it was no more successful in the long run. They could not exact from other nations what they had exacted of themselves. It was their mistake that they thought they could. They did not recognize that the system of Japanese morality which had fitted them to ‘accept their proper station' was something they could not count on elsewhere. Other nations did not have it. It is a genuine product of Japan. Her writers take this system of ethics so much for granted that they do not describe it and a description of it is necessary before one can understand the Japanese.
当日本向外输出其“安全”的模式时，它受到了应得的惩罚。在日本国内，由于长期灌输的结果，等级制主宰了人们的意识；只有在日本这种社会，野心才有可能而且也的确产生了。但是等级制度是根本不能输出的产品，一旦将之输到国外，其他国家则把日本狂妄的要求看成为极其无礼和凶恶的东西。日本官兵在所占领的每个国家都被当地居民的仇视所震惊；日本自认为也为他们提供了一定的等级，虽然非常缓慢，自认为连那些原来无法指望得到某种等级的处在下层地位的人也被包括在内。他们的军部接二连三地炮制出来的战争影片中，总是虚构出大胆和不顾礼法的中国姑娘因为爱上日本士兵或什么日本工程师而得到幸福之类中国“爱”日本的情节。这比纳粹的征服观更加荒唐，而其结局则和纳粹是同样的失败。他们不可能用要求他们自己的事去强求其他民族，正因为他们误以为能够如此才犯了错误，他们不懂得适用于他们自己的“各得其所”的日本道德规范不能适用于其他国家，别的国家并不存在这种道德规范，它只是日本独自具备的。日本自己的作家因为认为这种伦理道德如此天经地义，所以根本无须赘述，而其他人要想懂得日本人，则必须首先认识它。