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Y217: Japan 1853–1937

Westernisation and nationalism in Meiji Japan 1868–1912: the 1889 Constitution, industrialisation and education

  • 3 things to know
  • Unit group 2

Overview

Recall questions on the 1889 Constitution and franchise, the genro, the leading export industry, state enterprises and coal, the business combines, Matsukata’s finance, the navy, education reform and the Rescript on Education.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Key term

Why is Meiji Japan described as westernising and nationalist at the same time?

Key term

How democratic was the franchise created in 1889?

Who and when

Which industry earned Japan most of its foreign exchange in the Meiji period, and why did that matter?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    State three features of the Constitution of 1889.

    Model answer

    It declared the emperor sacred and inviolable and the source of sovereignty, created a two-chamber Diet with an elected lower house and an appointed House of Peers, and made ministers answerable to the emperor rather than to the Diet.

  2. 2

    How democratic was the franchise created in 1889?

    Model answer

    Only men over twenty-five paying a substantial level of direct tax could vote, so roughly one per cent of the population was enfranchised.

  3. 3

    Who were the genrō and what power did they hold?

    Model answer

    They were the small circle of elder statesmen from the restoration generation who advised the emperor, chose prime ministers and shaped policy behind the formal constitutional machinery.

  4. 4

    Which industry earned Japan most of its foreign exchange in the Meiji period, and why did that matter?

    Model answer

    Raw silk, whose export to the United States and Europe paid for the imported machinery, raw materials and expertise that industrialisation required.

  5. 5

    Name two things the government built or ran directly in the 1870s to start industrialisation.

    Model answer

    It built model factories such as the state silk-reeling mill at Tomioka, and it opened the first railway, between Tokyo and Yokohama, in 1872.

  6. 6

    Why did coal mining expand so rapidly in Meiji Japan?

    Model answer

    Steamships, railways and factory machinery all needed coal, and Japan's own mines could both fuel industrialisation and earn export income in Asian markets.

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