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into a conflagration of revolution. Within the next 10 years 18 nations forced an entrance into Japan. The powers at length discovered that they,had been hoaxed and that the sun and center of authority was in the hermit emperor at Kioto. Their support withdrawn, the shogun abdicated, and 16 year old Mutsuhito was swept out of his spiritual retreat and onto a very temporal throne in Tokyo. See Mutsuhito, Emperor of Japan.
Modern Japan. The history of modern Japan dates from 1868, the “Era of Enlightened Peace” as it is known to the Japanese. The 15 years since the western powers forced an entrance had united the country, brought forward a number of remarkable men and fitted them for the task of reorganizing the empire. That Japan was far advanced toward political and social changes at the time was shown by the instant advantage taken of the favorable opportunity. Incensed by the foreign invasion, but far from being frightened by it and, indeed, accepting it and determined to turn it to Japan’s advantage, scores of daring young nobles stole out of the country in the 50’s, a thing still forbidden. In the spirit of scientific explorers they went to observe the occidental world. They travelled, attended colleges, studied governments, inventions and institutions. There seemed no bias of prejudice in their minds that prevented the appropriation of any idea or device useful to them. In a dozen years they returned to Japan to lead the revolution and to form the mind of their holy recluse, the young emperor. Needing time and peace more than independence to mature their plans, they submitted with misleading docility to the impositions demanded by the powers, for a quarter of a century, until they were strong enough to strike a blow for liberty and to win the respect of the modern world.
The first thing the boy-emperor did was to receive the foreign envoys and to permit consuls to reside in the treaty-ports. The second was to appoint Japanese representatives in foreign capitals and ports with instructions to keep their eyes open and report all they saw. Next, he rode through the capital in an open palanquin, and forbade even a coolie to prostrate himself. Then he announced his intention of establishing a constitutional, representative government as soon as the people should be educated in the system of public schools to be opened. The next year he called the daimios to Tokyo and demanded of them, as a patriotic duty, that they give up their feudal estates, titles and privileges, and release their samurai to form a national standing army. This was a bitter dose, and the daimios did not all swallow it willingly. None the less the thing was done, with the result that Japan, like Germany almost simultaneously (1871) became a strong, centralized empire by a federation of states, A new nobility in five orders (princes, then marquises, counts, viscounts and barons) was created from complaisant daimios, including the chastened shogun, and from the patriots and statesmen who formed the new empire. These were to make up the membership of the house of peers under the constitutional government.
The promises made in that trying, formative time were carried out to the letter. For 22 years the emperor remained, in theory, an autocratic ruler, but in fact he acted under the advice of the imperial council, and the machinery of a modern government was installed a wheel at a time. Within a few years courts of justice were established, and public schools from kindergartens to a university were opened. The army was organized on the model of that of Germany; the navy after that of Great Britain; the department of justice and police system after that of France. The United States and England furnished the pattern for the constitution, the model for the legislative and executive functions of government. In 1875 an appointive, deliberative body was formed to discuss measures and make recommendations to the emperor and his council. It served as a school to educate future legislators. In 1890 the constitution, on which Marquis Ito and the elder statesmen had worked for 10 years, was proclaimed, and the first election ordered. The franchise was not universal, but was restricted by educational and property requirements. It is being extended gradually. The first parliament was opened with 364 peers and 375 members of the House of Representatives. Marquis Ito was called to form a new cabinet in harmony with the people’s will.
It was 1895 before the disabilities imposed by foreign powers were removed and Japan had full, internal jurisdiction or adequate revenues. Earthquake, floods and failures of the rice-crop visited her. A war with China was fought to a successful issue, but aside from greater internal independence her victory brought her little advantage. She secured the cession of Formosa and the Pescadore Islands, but the great powers united to check her ambition on the mainland. She was forced to abandon Shantung province, which she had conquered, and the fortified peninsula of Port Arthur, which she had carried by brilliant assault. Within two years, through treaties, Russia occupied Manchuria and was entrenched in Port Arthur, and England and Germany were in Shantung, the three controlling the Gulf of Pechili, the approach to Pekin. Japan felt that her national existence was threatened. But government and people were so quiet that the western world thought her helpless and acquiescent. Viewed in the light of after events 50,000,000 people now seem to have been in a conspiracy of silence during 10 long years of preparation for war. Rus-
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