Ito Miyoji

Count Ito Miyoji, born 7 May 1857 in Nagasaki, Hizen Province, and who died 19 February 1934 in Kojimachi, Tokyo, was a Japanese statesman of the Meiji era and a close protege of the elder statesman Ito Hirobumi, whom he accompanied on an 1882 mission to Europe to study foreign constitutions and governmental structures. He served as Chief Cabinet Secretary from 1892 to 1896, Minister of Agriculture and Commerce in 1898, a member of the House of Peers from 1890 to 1891 and again from 1894 to 1899, and a Privy Council member from 1899 until his death, being elevated to the rank of baron in 1907 and count in 1922. On returning from Europe he assisted Inoue Kowashi and Kaneko Kentaro in drafting the Meiji Constitution, and in his later years his editorship of a conservative newspaper helped turn public opinion against the prime ministers Wakatsuki Reijiro and Hamaguchi Osachi.