The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Hayashi, Count Tadasu
HAYASHI, , Count Tadasu,
Japanese statesman and diplomat b. Sakura, 1850;
d. Tokio, 10 July 1913. As a boy he lived in
the house of an American missionary to learn
English, and later was one of the first students
sent by the Japanese government to London,
where he studied at the University College
School. Entering the civil service on his
return home he became secretary in the Central
government and subsequently governor of
Kagawa-ken and Hyogo-ken. He served as
Vice-Minister in the Foreign Office from 1891 to
1896, when he was appointed Minister at
Peking. In 1898 he was transferred to Saint
Petersburg (Petrograd) and in the following year
to London, During the six years he spent in
London he was largely responsible for the
promotion of the two treaties between Great Britain
and Japan in 1902 and 1905, both of which
he signed. In 1904 the Japanese legation in
London was raised to the dignity of an
embassy, and Viscount Hayashi thus became the
first Japanese Ambassador. The rank of count
was conferred on him in 1907. He held
ministerial portfolios in the Saioryi cabinets in 1911
and 1912. At the farewell banquet given in his
honor by the Lord Mayor of London, the
Ambassador assured his audience that the Japanese
people firmly intended to maintain the word
and spirit of their engagements, and that the
sympathy of the British empire toward Japan
was reciprocated to the fullest extent. Count
Hayashi was the recipient of honorary degrees
from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
In 1903 he published in English a book entitled
‘For his People,’ and has also translated into
Japanese several English and European classical
works on politics and political economy.