Illustration of former President Ulysses S. Grant and former First Lady Julia Grant being formally introduced to Emperor Mutsuhito and Empress Haruko( also known as Empress Shokun).
Hamilton-Jefferson split over Hamilton’ s financial plan for the nation.
Okuma would be replaced, but not until 1881. This enabled him to go on to serve the regime for many years( as prime minister, as well as foreign, finance and industry ministers). The Iwakura appointee to replace Okuma was Masayoshi Matsukata; he was selected because— like Grant and Mutsuhito— he possessed a personal conservative approach to finances that was directly reflected in his approach to state finances. Under Matsukata and his successors at the Ministry of Finance, Grant’ s stance on foreign loans as an impediment to national sovereignty( which aligned with the beliefs of Emperor Mutsuhito and Iwakura) held sway from 1881 to 1897. In 1897, Japan achieved what Grant and Boutwell had sought for America through their commitment to“ hard money”( currency fully convertible to specie) and entered the gold standard. It did so by securing of a massive ¥ 365 million in indemnity from victory over China in the Sino-Japanese War( 1894 – 1895).
In his oversight of the Ministry of Finance, Matsukata executed institutional reforms like those undertaken by Grant and Boutwell within the US Treasury in relation to advancing its human capital and enhancing the federal( central) government’ s capacity to drive economic development. These established the Ministry of Finance as the Meiji state’ s most powerful central governing bureaucracy— a position it retained throughout the Meiji era and into the post- 1945 era as Japan reconstructed itself from its Pacific War defeat.
Ian Austin is a senior lecturer in International Business at Edith Cowan University in Perth, Australia and the author of several works on Alexander Hamilton and Asian capitalism.
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Keene, Donald. Emperor of Japan Meiji and His World 1852 – 1912. New York: Columbia University Press. 2002.
Kume Kunitake. 1871 – 73. The Iwakura Embassy 1871 – 73: A True Account of the Ambassador Extraordinary & Plenipotentiary’ s Journey of Observation Through the United States and Europe. Vol. 1 – 5.( Editors-in-Chief Graham Healey & Chushichi Tsuzuki, 2002: Tanaka Akira. 2002.“ Introduction”)( Translated: Volume 1. The United States of America. Martin Collcutt).
Nakamura, Naofumi. Trading Locomotives: The Global Economy and the Development of Japan’ s Railroads, 1869 – 1914. New York: Columbia University Press. 2023.
Sylla, Richard and David J. Cowen. Alexander Hamilton on Finance, Credit, and Debt. New York: Columbia University Press. 2018.
Young, John Russell. 1877, 1878, 1879. Around the World with General Grant. A Narrative of the Visit of General U. S. Grant, Ex-President of the United States, to Various Countries in Europe, Asia and Africa in 1877, 1878, 1879 to which added Certain Conversations with General Grant on Questions Connected with American Politics and History. Volume 2. New York: Subscription Book Department. The American News Company.
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