「松島の儀」は、外務省記録局長の渡邊洪基(左の写真)によって1876年に書かれました。その中で、武藤平学によって1876年に提出された"松島"の開拓を願い出る要望書、「松島開拓之議」についての省内での論議を要約しています。武藤の文書についてはこちら(英文)でご覧になれます。渡邊は、武藤の要望書の中の"松島"が、もし鬱陵島であるならば、その島松島は朝鮮に属するものの、もし鬱陵島でなければ、それは日本に属する島であることと、Liancourt Rocksは日本の領土であることを明記しています。渡邊はこの謎を解くために、調査船を当該域へ派遣する事を促します。果たして明治政府は1880年に実際に調査船(軍艦天城)を派遣し、この1876年の武藤による要望書の中の"松島"が事実、鬱陵島である事を確認するのです。
以下は1881年にこうした調査の経緯を記した北澤正誠の「竹島考証」の下巻第11号に載っている「松島の儀」の書き起こし文と口語訳です。
(原文の写真と英訳はこちら)
(渡邊洪基についてはこちら:東京大学のサイト、福井県のサイト)
(この時期の明治政府内の混乱についてのGerryの解説(英文):Lies, Half-truths, & Dokdo Video, Part 5)
松島の議（口語訳）
昔者竹島ノ記事略説多クシテ松島ノ事説論スル者ナシ 而テ今者人松嶋ニ喋々ス 然り而テ此二嶋或ハ一島両名或ハ二嶋也ト諸説紛々朝野其是非ヲ決スル者ヲ聞カス彼竹島ナル者ハ朝鮮ノ蔚陵島トシ幕府偸安ノ議遂ニ彼ニ委ス 故ニ此所謂松嶋ナル者竹嶋ナレハ彼ニ属シ若竹島以外ニ在ル松島ナレハ 我ニ属セサルヲ得サルモ之ヲ決論スル者無シ然ルニ松嶋ナル者我国ト朝鮮トノ間ニ位シ長崎ヨリ浦潮港ニ至リ馬関其他石州因州伯州隠岐ヨリ彼要地タル 「ラサレフ」港ヘノ道ニ当タルヲ以テ頗ル要地ト為シ連綿此近傍ニ英魯其船艦ヲ出没ス若シ夫我国ノ部分ナランニハ之ニ多少ノ注意無ル可ラス 彼国ナラン歟又保護ヲ加ヘサル可ラス 況ンヤ他国我ニ糺ス 之ニ答フルニ決辞ナキヲ如何セン 然ラハ則無主ノ一島ノミ諸書ニ就テ案スルニ竹嶋洋名アルゴナウト嶋ナル者ハ全ク烏有ノ者ニシテ其松島デラセ嶋ナル者ハ本来ノ竹嶋即チ蔚陵島ニシテ我松嶋ナル者ハ洋名ホルネットロックスナルカ如シ然ルヲ洋客竹嶋ヲ認テ松嶋ト為シ更ニ竹嶋ナル者ヲ想起セシ者ノ如シ而テ此ホルネットロックスノ 我国ニ属スルハ各国ノ地図皆然リ他ノ二嶋ニ至リテハ各国其認ムル所ヲ同フセス 我国論又確拠無シ 是実ニ其地ノ形勢ヲ察シ其所属ノ地ヲ定メ而テ其責ニ任スル所ヲ両国間ニ定メサル可ラサル者タリ因テ先ツ嶋根県ニ照会シ其従来ノ習例ヲ糺シ併セテ船艦ヲ派シテ其地勢ヲ見若シ彼既ニ著手セハ 其宰政ノ模様ヲ実査シ然ル後ニ其方略ヲ定メント要ス 請フ速ニ採リテ議スル者アラン事ヲ伏望ス
記錄局長渡邊洪基立案
“松島について
竹島(鬱陵島）についての記述は多数あるが、松島については、論述しているものが無い。しかし、今般松嶋についての論議が活発である。二つの異なる島だと言う者や、二つの名前を持つ一つの島だ、と言う者もおり、諸説あるが、今だ結論が出ていないようだ。この“竹島”は、朝鮮の鬱陵島であるとして幕府が稟議した結果、朝鮮国に取り合えず委ねることになった。そこで、もしこの度話に上っている“松島”が、この“竹島”と同じであるならば、この松島は朝鮮国に属するが、もしこの松島が竹島以外の別個に存在する松島ならば、わが国に属するべきだが、いまだ結論が出ていない。そもそも、松嶋と言う島は、わが国と朝鮮との間に位置し、長崎からウラジオストックへの途中にあたり、馬関(下関)から隠岐の島、島根県、鳥取県などへ到る要所である。ラサレフ（元山）港への航路に当たるために大変重要な場所で、また近隣に英国、ロシア国の戦艦が出没するため、もしわが国の一部でないのなら、多少なりとも注意が必要である。もし朝鮮領であっても、保護を加えるべきである。そうしなければ、他国から島について問い合わせがあったとしても返答の仕様が無い。つまり、この島は、無人である。多くの記録では西洋人の言う“アルゴノート”とは"竹島"のことで、これは存在しない島で、“ダグレット（ダジュレー）”とは実際は"松島"のことだ、と言う人が多い。つまり、我が国が松島(Liancourt Rocks) と呼ぶ島は、西洋人の言う“Hornet Rocks”である。外国の地図によれば、Hornet Rocksは日本の領土であるが、他の2島については、各国間の合意がいまだなされていない。我が国においても結論が出ておらず、確たる証拠も無い。そこで、その地域を調査し、どの国に属すのかを決定しなければならない。まずは島根県に照会してこれまでの経緯を問いただし、あわせて船艦を派遣し、その地理を調べ、もし相手国が既に着手しているならば、どの程度進んでいるのかをかんがみて、どのような方法を取るべきか検討しなければならない。この件に関しては大至急採り上げて論議して頂きたい。
外務省記録局長 渡邊洪基”
Gerry,
ReplyDeleteI added the colloquial version which I translated before. And few links. The man in the picture is Mr.Watanabe.
Kaneganese,
ReplyDeleteI added the picture of Mr. Watanabe to my post, too. Does it look all right, or does it look too crowded now?
By the way, the quoted text in your post is pink on my computer. Are you trying to show your femininity? :)
Gerry,
ReplyDeleteI don't want to be bitchy, but it was you who wrote "firth row". I thought you said "first row", not "fifth row". (^-^)
I'm surprised, too.
Kaneganese,
ReplyDeleteI've read somewhere that ラサレフ was 元山 (Wonsan) in Korea. Maybe ラサレフ was a Russian name of it.
BTW, I thought that Dagelet is ダジュレー in French accent.
Sorry, Kaneganese. I regularly misspell words. :)
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I just noticed that I left out the title for Mr. Watanabe's letter. How would you translate 松島の儀?
Also, if you want to make a Japanese language version "Timeline," similar to my English version HERE, you should start a new post and use the Japanese word for "History Timeline" as the title.
Kaneganese,
ReplyDeleteI just checked again and the color I use for my quotes are four rows down and the second column from the right.
Thank you, Gerry
ReplyDelete"儀" means "as for" or "concerning" in Japanese. I don't think of best translation. Pacifist? Any idea?
And thank you for reminding me for creating timeline. I totally fogot it.
Pacifist, thank you.
I will add "ダジュレー" and 元山, too.
Gerry and Kaneganese,
ReplyDeleteThe word 儀 means, as Kaneganese already answered, "concerning" or "matter".
So the direct translation should be "Concerning Matsushima" or "The matter of Matsushima". In my opinion, the former looks smart. How do you think, Gerry?
Pacifist,
ReplyDeleteI like "Concerning Matsushima" and have added it the post.
By the way, have you read Item No. 21 in the 竹島考證 下 ? Here are links to the pages:
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Gerry,
ReplyDeleteYes, I have read it.
I have a copy of the book printed because I want to translate and post some of the articles if there are interesting. It seems there are plenty of interesting articles in the official documents.
Gerry,
ReplyDeleteThe document in which you are interested was written by Tanabe Taichi, the chief of 公信局 which was a department concerning foreign documents and communications.
It only mentions that there are various opinions such as "Matsushima is Usan" etc, so he thought that they need to investigate Matsushima.
Pacifist,
ReplyDeleteThe book I have said that Tanabe Taichi believed that the Matsushima mentioned in Mutoh Heigaku's petition was Ulleungdo, which was Korean territory, and, therefore, the Japanese government had no authority to grant Mutoh permission to develop the island. I think the document also mentioned that some in the ministry thought that the Matsushima in the petition was Usando.
I thought that it might be nice to have a translation of that document since we can attach "Japanese" maps that show that Usando was a neighboring island of Ullengdo, not Liancourt Rocks.
Also, Toadface and others post short quotes from that document to try to manipulate and twist the facts. See Toadface's post HERE. I thought that if we had a translation of the full document, we could show people how people like Toadface twist and distort the facts of that document.
Anyway, I have not read the document, so I do not know if it is worth translating or not. Also, I cannot translate it, so it is your decision to do it or not, especially since it is a fairly long document. Also, Mr. Watanabe's document seems to have covered that area fairly well, so maybe we do not need a translation of Tanabe Taichi's document.
Gerry,
ReplyDeleteTo follow is a rough translation of the document. It included three opinions (甲乙 & 丙; A,B & C), not Tanabe's ipinion.
After #22, the 23 document included another ipinion (丁 or D). After considering these opinions, they decided to investigate Takeshima and Matsushima with Amagi.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
第21号
松島巡視要否ノ議
公信局長 田邊 太一
#21
The Arguments concerning pros and cons of Inspection of Matsushima
Tanabe Taichi, the chief of the official communication bureau
Opinion A (甲): We should argue about whether we need the inspection (of Matsushima) or not after we decided the general policy as to whether the island should be opened or not. As I’ve heard that Matsushima is the name we Japanese named but it was actually Usan which is an island belonging to Ulleungdo (蔚陵島). As to the belonging of Ulleungdo (蔚陵島), there was a dispute in the era of the former government (= the shogunate) and they communicated each other for a long time and in the end the shogunate promised that they won’t own it. It was written in the history of the both of the countries. To dispatch someone to inspect it without any reasons is like to count some other one’s treasures. And it is like to cross the border. Although we, Japan and Korea, have just begun to communicate each other, there are still some doubts in them. To open the gap between us, doing this (inspection), is hated by the sociable persons. If we hired English or Russian ships and dispatched them, they would hate it more. Even if the island we are talking about would not in the Korean territory, when we opened the uninhibited islands in the south and made them Ryukyu county, some knowledgeable people argued that it was not right. We should make the prospect of our country calm. To stimulate Chosun and to make them worry is not advantageous. We can’t open Matshushima, and we should not open it. To inspect it after knowing that is useless, isn’t it? And it may bring harmful effects later.
Opinion B （乙）: To open it or not can’t be decided until we inspected it. Theory on maps must be accomplished when you actually saw it. You can not say that it’s right to believe a theory only on the paper. And the island is located in the sea near our shore. It is the important route when our people go on voyage to Korean mainland or to Russian locals. So it is our negligence to pass it over without investigating the details of its geographical features. Therefore, we should inspect not only the island (Matsushima) but also Takeshima (Ulleungdo), and we should know every present detail of them. Inspection is needed. However, it is needless to say that it is stupid to hire English or Russian ships and only anchor there for one day or half a day and make one or two officials land it and make them inspect it. It is not urgent, so if there would be a time for the Navy to be free, after quelling the Seinan war (the local war inside Japan), we would dispatch Naval officers who are experts of survey and drafting and government officials who are experts of products and let them inspect the island. After making reports and maps, then we would recognize for the first time whether Matsushima is a part of Ulleungdo (蔚陵島), whether it is Usan, or whether it is an ownerless island. Then we could think about the profit when we cultivate it in the future.
Therefore, it is not impossible to decide whether we should open or not, before we inspect it. We can not help inspecting Matsushima definitely. However, the argument by Wakisaka doesn’t dare to make it right (to inspect it) but it would be regrettable in the future.
Opinion C (丙): There was a theory in an English newspaper that (UK) needs a Naval base in the north part of Pacific Ocean in order to prevent from Russia’s eastward expansion. They may pay attention to the island like Matsushima. And I’ve heard that the official English ship made a voyage from Nagasaki to Korea. We don’t know what route they went, as there was no Japanese interpreter-official on the ship. We can’t say that there is no possibility for them to inspect the island. When a UK minister or somebody else talked about the corresponding island, it is shameful to say that we don’t know. It is troublesome. Therefore, we should think that it is our most urgent task to know the status quo of the corresponding island, apart from the arguments to open or not open like opinions by A and B. So I hope anybody available should inspect the place, if there is somebody who goes near the island and would like to anchor there, we would permit him to do so and it is possible to hire him. But it doesn’t always seem to be a good idea because even if he could succeed, he must stay at the place we mentioned, it would be expensive. After considering it is worth getting done the task soon, it would be good to give some money to Mr. Sewaki and order him to do the task using the pre-paid money without exceeding it. Although we can’t deny a possibility that Korean government may increase their doubt if Japanese reached on a foreign ship, Korean people on the island can’t differentiate Japanese and other foreigners, so I believe that there won’t be an obstruction on the friendship of neighbors.
Wow! Thanks, Pacifist. That is a very interesting document, and it shows that the Japanese were very concerned about maintaining good relations with Korea.
ReplyDeleteI will try to edit it tonight, or maybe tomorrow.
By the way, I should be finished with all my grading by the middle of next week, so I should have more time available this coming week to work on the blog.
Thanks, again.