AN OUTSIZE IN BIOGRAPHIES

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 115, 16 May 1936, Page 29

AN OUTSIZE IN BIOGRAPHIES

The official biography of Japan's great Emperor Meiji, to which the author, Count Kentaro Kaneko, devoted eighteen years of his life, probably establishes a world record for length, says the "Christian Science Monitor^" It is] in 260 volumes; and, although these are of Japanese style and therefore shorter thnn the average American or European book, they contain many thousands of pages. . ... A "short, popular" edition of Count Kaneko's work is being prepared and will-consist of two volumes of about 500 pages each. It is expected that this abridged biography will be translated into English and other foreign languages. .' Count, Kaneko ;is, the sole survivor of the committee that compiled the Japanese Constitution, which was promulgated in 1889. He is\a graduate of Harvard Oriiversity and counts many prominent Americans, including the late Theodore Roosevelt, among his friends. .When he received an Imperial command from Emperor Taisho, son of Meiji, to write the biography, it was to Mr. Roosevelt that Count Kaneko turned for. advice. The .Japanese tradition; in writing the lives of Emperors, was to set-down every detail of Court life, omitting ho garden party or audience, but without comment or interpretation. Count Kaneko felt that this tradition would scarcely be suitable for the description of the life of the Emperor whose name is inseparably associated with the modernisation of Japan and with

many extremely important events, such as the wars with China and Russia, the abolition of extra-territoriality, the destruction of feudalism, the complete reorganisation of education and industry, trade, and finance. He searched for models in biographies of American Presidents • and European statesmen, but hesitated as to whether he should disregard entirely •■the- precedents set by earlier Japanese Court biographers, Turning to Mr. Roosevelt for advice, he received the following encouraging answer: "My dear Viscount, ihstead of taking another book as a model, why don't you deliberately start to write the model ..lift yourself? 1 seriously believe you' can do it." .. The final product of Count Karteko's prolonged research in the imperial archives and'in other sources of firsthand information .represents a compromise between Japanese and Western styles in biography.-" Much Of the meticulous detail of the ■ Japanese medieval chroniclers'is there; the foreign student of Japanese history who has access to Count Raneko's monumental work will have little difficulty in reconstructing the precise chronology" of events. At the same time there are long expository passages which reflect the influence of western models. The 260 volumes constitute more than a life of the Emperor Meiji; they represent alsb a history of the Restoration era, as seen by a veteran statesman who took an active part in many of the events which he described.