明治初期の政局と宮島誠一郎の立憲政体構想

抄録

The aim of the present article is to focus on the efforts of Miyajima Seiichiro to foster a plan for constitutional government out of his concern for the necessity of a centralized regime centered upon an imperial government, which stemmed from his experience in the Boshin Civil War, his activities to implement that plan, and the results of those activities. The seeds of Miyajima's plan were first planted by his efforts to reform the government of Yonezawa-Han between 1869 and 1871. To begin with, he argued that in order to realize a centralized political regime, it was necessary for the government to establish a rock solid imperial system. Such an argument formed the basis of his constitutional plan and promoted reform through government measures. Next, he called for radical reform that would transcend the feudal "han" 藩 system, like what had been done in Kochi-Han, promoting centralization from the ground up, in which the request for the formation of a national house of parliament, which would take on the task of reform, would be linked to the idea of local administrative assemblies (chihokan-kaigi 地方官会議). These essentials were concreted as "Rikkoku-Kengi" by Miyajima's fears which were shared with local administrators over centralization being obstructed by the sole discretion of the Treasury Ministry. After the presentation of his plan, Miyajima set about the task of promulgating a national constitution and setting up local administrative assemblies, and while neither was realized during the absence of governmental tops between November 1871 and September 1873, the compilation of a national constitution was determined as one of the duties of the Dajokan's Office of Legislative Affairs (sain左院), which was set up in 1871, a directive was sent from Dajokan Minister Sanjo Sanetomi to local administrators to the effect that assemblies would be convened under the Office of Legislative Affairs, and the Office's provisions determined that its staff would be permanent members of the assemblies and local administrators joint members. Miyajima sent his constitutional proposal to Okubo Toshimichi after the latter's return from abroad and through Okubo's efforts, the way was paved to wards the drafting of a constitution after the controversy over the invasion of Korea was settled, but the convening of local administrative assemblies was put on hold. In 1874 Miyajima again demanded that the assemblies be convened as a way of combating the government's arbitrary decisionmaking on key issues, but to no avail. In the end, the following year his relentless efforts did'nt bear fruit. However, with the closure of the Office of Legislative Affairs, the drafting of the constitution was turned over the Genro-In and the administrative assemblies were finally convened.