Note Return to text — THE NEW CIVIL CODE OF JAPAN.

As has been the case with many other draft codes this draft Civil Code of Japan was destined to go into oblivion. As soon as it was submitted to the Parliament there ensued a most desperate fight against its adoption. As figuring most prominently among the champions of the opposition I may mention the names of Mr. Kazuo Hatoyama, the present Speaker of the House of Commons of the Imperial Japanese Parliament, and His Excellency Mr. Toru Hoshi, the present Japanese minister at Washington.[3] Inspired by these and other eminent jurists of the English school the entire bar was set against the adoption of the draft code. This was not a case of a bar accustomed to one set of rules and formulas opposing the adoption of a new code for fear that they might be compelled to learn a new set of rules and formulas. On the contrary, the bar was composed of men who had studied law as a science, and science for the sake of science. The spirit of their opposition was very plainly shown by the objections they raised against the code. They said:—“The draft Code was a blind imitation of a foreign Code which itself was far from being free from defects. It abounded in definitions, illustrations, and examples, and presented an appearance more becoming to a text-book of law than the Civil Code of a great nation. It went into too minute details and left too little room for voluntary development of jurisprudence. It incorporated, like the French Code, the law of evidence into the body of the Civil Code, which was totally at variance with the modern theory of evidence, being a failure on the part of the Commissioners to distinguish adjective from substantive law. It made too many innovations upon the Law of Persons hitherto obtaining in Japan. It changed the Family Law of the Japanese from the foundation, which was a gross disregard of the historical principle of jurisprudence,” etc., etc., etc. Such were some of the grounds upon which they opposed the adoption of the draft code, reminding one of the fight in Europe between the historical school and the analytical school, between the jurists of France and those of Germany; of the fight in Germany between the Code party and the anti-Code party, between Savigny and Thibaut. Who can say, then, that the Japanese are childish imitators of anything that looks well? The fact is that this sort of conflict between the more conservative and the more radical, the more scrupulous and the more unscrupulous, the more positive and the more speculative, is going on all the time.