The Japanese statesman and politician Shigenobu Okuma (1838-1922) was one of the early leaders of the Meiji government. He later broke with it to become one of its most eloquent and respected critics.

Born on Feb. 16, 1838, in Saga, the castle town of the Hizen domain in western Kyushu, Shigenobu Okuma was the son of a middle-rank samurai. In 1855, shortly after his father's death, he abandoned his studies at the domain academy and turned his interest to Dutch (Western) learning. As a member of the imperial loyalist faction within Hizen, he supported the policy of union between court and shogunate. He also studied English, mathematics, international law, and other Western subjects under Guido Verback, a Dutch Reform missionary at Nagasaki.

Although his domain did play a leading role in the restoration, Okuma became an official of the new government by reason of his Western knowledge and his forceful personality...