JAPAN'S NEW LAW CODE. FOR many years, as all persons in any wise informed about Japanese affairs are well aware, the Japanese government had desired above all things to secure a re vision of the humiliating treaties with the great powers of the Western world, under which, among other things, those powers have maintained their own judicial estab lishments in Japan in connection with their consulates. It was perceived a long while ago by the Japanese that the revision of these treaties and the establishment of full Japanese jurisdiction on Japanese soil must await the adoption by Japan of a code of law based upon some European system. Says Dr. Masao : — "There were three such systems — the Anglo-American, the French and the Ger manic Roman — each offering itself for adoption. Mr. Yeto Shimpei, who became the Minister of Justice in 1872, seems to have had a personal preference for the French system. He called to his assistance some of the most eminent jurists of France and entered upon the work of drafting a code. At the same time he established in Tokyo a law school known as the ' Department of Justice Annex Law School,' in which French law was taught by those same jurists whom he had called from France. About this time there was also established in the Uni versity of Tokyo a law school in which in struction was given chiefly in English law. It was while teaching in this University law school that Mr. Henry T. Terry (a New York lawyer and an alumnus of Yale College) wrote his memorable book on English law, designed especially for the use of Japanese law students. From henceforth, ' Terry's Leading Principles of Anglo-American Law ' became as familiar to them as are ' Blackstone's Commentaries ' to the law students of this country.
"Thus, side by side, there existed in Tokyo two law schools in which two distinct systems of law were taught — the English and the French. The primary object of the Department of Justice in establishing the French law school being to make it a training school for judicial officers, the stu dents of that school were, upon graduation, to render, for a limited number of years, an obligatory service to the government in various capacities of judges, magistrates, and prosecuting attorneys. On the other hand, the University of Tokyo being a strict ly independent institution in which learning is pursued for the sake of learning, the grad uates of the University or English law school were at entire liberty in their choice of professions. Naturally enough the ma jority of these did not wish to enter the same service which the graduates of the other school were obliged to enter as a matter of fulfillment of contract. Thus it happened that the bench was recruited from the French law school, while the bar was recruited from the English law school. This state of affairs lasted for about twenty years, during which time there was also es tablished a German law school in the Uni versity of Tokyo. Those who know some thing about the rivalry that existed in an cient times between the Sabinians and the Proculians, or even about the rivalry which exists to-day between the Yale method and the Harvard method, between the Waylandians and the Langdellians, can readily im agine what intellectual competition was car ried on between the three Japanese law schools representing three distinct systems of law. "A committee to draft a code had been appointed in 1870. It worked twenty years and reported in 1890. Its work was strenu ously and successfully opposed in the Japan
