Chapter XVII: Parties and Politics. 1893-19061 (1)

Having examined the salient features of the machinery of the new régime, we are now prepared to follow the history of the men and parties that have operated the machinery, and of the issues which have in turn guided the action of these political agents. Law and constitution are products of history and legislation, but men and parties, as also issues at stake, are the handiwork of mightier powers which can hardly be reduced into syllogisms or molded by mere force of traditions and precedents. Of all the political factors of a nation, the progress of the party and the individuality of the man seem the least subject to human artifice and control, while the problems, which must largely decide the course of action of the different political forces at work, appear continually to baffle one's imagination and forecast. It must then be a matter of great interest to observe the conduct of the most prominent politicians in the field and their eventful relations to the changing parties, and the history of the issues, domestic and foreign, which have sometimes astounded the actors on the scene by their unexpected emergence and sometimes wearied them by their persistent and unwelcome reappearance. What follows is a mere sketch of a period of the most bewildering political vicissitudes that have ever visited a nation in a decade.

The period between 1890 and 1904 might be divided into three epochs. Down to 1894, when the war with China broke out, the relation between the government and the parties in the lower house was in the main one of simple difference of political theories. With the war the nation entered, externally, into the arena of world-politics, while, in the diet, there dawned an era of varied coalitions among the parties and also between them and the government. Desire for power seemed to begin to affect the minds of the politicians whose aspirations had heretofore been comparatively more idealistic. A grand party was finally created by the combined influence of Marquis Itō, on the one hand, who apparently aimed at organizing a model constitutional party, and, on the other, of an enormous number of men the motives of some of whom were anything but a copy of those of their leader. When the whips of this new party, which controlled a majority in the diet, began to manifest unwillingness to accept the discipline and to override the wishes of its founder and leader, Marquis Itō, the politics of new Japan entered its third stage, in which the controlling factors are found to be even more personal and partisan and a matter of interests and feeling, than in the second period. As soon as the nation entered upon the war with Russia, however, the political atmosphere at once changed: the party lines and the traditional differences between the diet and the government were temporarily obliterated, and the nation--the cabinet, the two houses, and the people--seemed to think and feel as one mind. The conclusion of the treaty of peace with Russia, the terms of which displeased many Japanese, has suddenly terminated this union and alienated the cabinet and the privy council from some people, while the dividing lines between the various parties are being again drawn on changed issues. When this critical stage passes away, the political life of constitutional Japan must inevitably enter its fourth epoch, but what its nature will be remains to be seen. At this moment the future progress of the party life of the Japanese nation appears to be as difficult to forecast as it was in 1890, when the first diet was convened.

The first period, then, opens with the existence of two popular parties, the Liberals and Progressives, led, respectively, by Count Itagaki and Count Ōkuma. The members of the parties who sat in the first lower house represented an overwhelmingly preponderant interest of the landowning class of the country, so that a revision of land values and consequently a reduction of the land tax were among their rallying cries. At the same time they aimed at overthrowing the existing cabinet, which they considered under the exclusive control of men of certain provinces of the south, principally Satsuma and Nagato (Chōshū), which had once been instrumental in upsetting the feudal régime and restoring the imperial government. It is remarkable that the party men almost identified the future downfall of sectionalism, as they deemed the foundation of the administration to be, with the cause of the establishment of a responsible cabinet, or a cabinet responsible to the throne as well as to the diet. Needless to say that, from the party standpoint, a responsible cabinet was _ipso facto_ a party cabinet. It will be recalled that the Constitution, which had recently been promulgated and according to whose provisions the diet had been called into being, defined, so far as the explicit verbal meaning was concerned, that the government was answerable for its political conduct to the emperor. The theory of the full sovereignty of the throne was loyally and enthusiastically supported by the entire nation, but the parties did not fail to see the apparent possibility of reconciling it with a practical control of the cabinet by the diet. It is little wonder that they straightway crystallized their principle into the phrase, "a responsible cabinet," which they at once conceived as merely the positive side of another of their mottoes, "the downfall of sectionalism." The government and the Elder Statesmen, it is not improbable, possessed a clearer vision of the foibles of the young parties, and consequently a more conservative but truer foresight of the future progress of the political training of the nation. The question between the parties and the government appears, in the last analysis, to have been largely a question of time, the former harassing the latter for not giving them at once what they probably knew it would cheerfully surrender when the proper time came. Yet, by the law of reaction, the parties rashly attacked the government, and the latter not infrequently resorted to measures of self-defense which appeared to the partisan opponents unwarranted and even arbitrary. Bitter feelings were not seldom aroused, and the sentiment of the people at large was at times so highly wrought that it was by no means uncommon to see neighbors in a village range themselves according to their sympathy with either the government or the party side in their heated controversies by the fireside. Election scenes often presented exciting incidents. It should be noted that the majority of the rural population sided with the anti-government candidates, but that the two parties, the Liberals and Progressives, seldom failed to struggle against each other in the election. Things went on mainly in this condition until Count (now Marquis) Itō became premier of the famous Itō cabinet, which lasted for an unusual period of four years, during which, moreover, the victorious war with China took place.

At first the count found the opposition of the lower house to his so-called sectional government so powerful that he even contemplated the advisability of creating a new political party of his own. Early in 1894 the diet was dissolved; the March election returned a majority of the opposition and was followed by a second dissolution. Under such circumstances it was no wonder that the late Chinese statesman, Li Hung Chang, is alleged to have fancied at the time that Japan's hands were too closely tied by the strife between the diet and the government to resort to a decisive measure against China over Korea, which was then the bone of contention between the two empires. But the war did come, for the successful conduct of which the nation sank their party considerations and supported with one mind the government and the army. An account of this important warfare will be found in its proper place, and it suffices here to point out its interesting effect on the parliamentary politics of Japan. The new position in the comity of nations which the world accorded her after the war naturally brought with it new problems of unexpected importance. One of them was an enormous increase of state expenditures caused by an increased armament and by the plans for the development of the resources of the country. Hereafter financial questions became the central issue to decide the fate of the succeeding houses and cabinets, and their practical and urgent character made it impossible for the cabinet to carry out its proposed measures without the coöperation of the one or the other of the parties in the house. Naturally an era of political coalitions dawned. It may also be surmised that the parties, at least some of their leaders, had been tired of a long fruitless struggle with the government. However that may be, no one will deny that henceforth the desire for power began to be manifested by the parties which, whatever their faults, had in the main fought for a few abstract principles which had originally brought them together. On the other hand, it is only just to point out the important fact that the so loudly denounced sectionalism had in reality become a phantom, particularly after the inception of the constitutional régime in 1890 and the Chinese war in 1894-1895, both of which had a tremendous influence in arousing the interest of the nation at large in its own affairs. The southern provinces could still furnish men of experience and wisdom, but it was less because the so-called sectionalism was still rampant than because these men, who possessed the prestige of service and age, could not well be replaced by the less experienced men of other localities. The Elder Statesmen could no longer control the political situation of the country, nor could they reasonably be charged with being animated with any degree of provincialism. It would be no political apostasy for either party to support a non-partisan cabinet whose policy appealed to its cherished principles. Thus various circumstances seem to have conspired to produce an epoch of political coalitions.

The ninth diet opened early in December, 1895, to which the Itō cabinet proposed the first so-called _post-bellum_ measures to be carried out within the ensuing ten years. Briefly stated, the additional requirements on account of "ordinary" expenditures of states were to be met by an increased taxation aggregating the sum of more than thirty-three and one-half million _yen_; the expansion of the armament and the establishment of an iron foundry were to be paid out of the Chinese indemnity and other "extraordinary" items of revenue, which altogether amounted to over 365 millions; and the improvement and extension of railroads, telephone, and the like were calculated to be covered by the issuance of public bonds. It is essential in our discussion to keep in our minds the three sources of increased revenue. As to the first, that is, the increased taxation, we must note as a matter of great importance that many of the most interesting features of the political history from this time on have been determined by whether it was the landowners or the urban population who were called upon to bear the bulk of the added imposition. In the present case the burden fell on the latter class of people, and this fact was fortunate for the reception of the bill in the house, which consisted almost wholly of representatives of the landowning interest. The passage of the measure was, however, entirely owing to the alliance between the government and the Liberal Party. Unfortunately, some of the financial schemes of the Itō cabinet were soon found to be falling short of the expectations of their authors, and a large deficit of the revenue for the next fiscal year, amounting to nearly ninety-three millions of _yen_, brought about the downfall of the cabinet, which had otherwise proved the most brilliant and powerful that had yet guided the affairs of the state under the new régime.

The succeeding cabinet was headed by the great financier, Count Matsukata, and was for a time supported by the Progressives, whose leader, Count Ōkuma, occupied the portfolio of foreign affairs. The tenth diet (1896-1897) ran its course smoothly, as there appeared no important financial measure to stir up the partisan blood in the lower house, but the next diet, which met in December, 1897, witnessed an altogether different scene. In spite of the painful manipulations of the items of the budget, and of the fact that the issues of the recently raised taxes had reached the exchequer, a large deficit of over fourteen million _yen_ stared the Matsukata cabinet in the face, and, moreover, promised to rise considerably higher the next year. Count Matsukata now resolved to increase the revenue by twenty-five millions by raising the rates of certain taxes, one of which, the land tax, was probably among the fairest sources of an increased income, but was destined to arouse a stormy opposition of the representatives. No sooner was the count's design known than the Progressives, with their versatile leader, deserted the cabinet. This was the first time that the lower house, one of whose old cries had been to revise land values and reduce the land tax, was called upon to discuss a financial measure to which the interest of the constituencies of their overwhelming majority was diametrically opposed. We might perhaps consider the eleventh diet, for this reason, as marking a new stage in which the question of class interests, so promising of ominous consequences, began to manifest itself. The determined opposition of the house against the cabinet was quickly followed by the dissolution of the former and the fall of the latter.

The year 1898 witnessed the most surprising political changes that have taken place in any single year since the beginning of the constitutional régime of Japan. In January Marquis Itō again held the reins of the cabinet. The Liberals would not support him, nor would Count Ōkuma leave his lieutenants behind in order to join the cabinet. The government thus declaring itself clear of entangling alliances, the parties hastened to their constituencies to prepare for the general election of March. The nation had never seen such peculiar political conditions as then prevailed all over the country. The new "transcendental" cabinet had committed itself to no definite policy. There were practically no issues on which the parties could address themselves to the people, who had not been without some misgivings as to the conduct of their former representatives in the lower house, and who could no longer be blinded by the specter of the so-called sectionalism. The election resulted in giving an absolute majority to neither the party members nor the supporters of the government. After the election, however, political issues quickly crystallized themselves as soon as it was known that the cabinet would propose an increase of taxes, mainly the land tax, by more than thirty-five millions of _yen_. The Liberals and the Progressives, hitherto so jealous of each other, joined hands to reject the proposition, for which act the house earned another dissolution, on June 10. With an amazing celerity the two parties voluntarily amalgamated themselves into the colossal "Constitutional Party," with the realization of a party cabinet as its motto.

It will easily be seen that this precipitous move had been caused by the common landed interest which the two former parties represented in the house, and which had risen to its height of intensity at the repeated appearance of the land tax bill, and by the plain fact that power and spoil would fall into their hands the more readily by their combined warfare with the authorities. In order to meet this united front of the opposition, Marquis Itō again had a mind to organize a party of his own, but was strenuously opposed in this desire by the other Elder Statesmen, particularly Count Yamagata, who, together with the majority of the peers, were stanch supporters of the literal interpretation of the Constitution in respect to its theory of ministerial responsibility. Nothing could have been more significant and characteristic of Marquis Itō than his action at this critical juncture of the history of the Constitution and of his own career. The organization of the Constitutional Party had been publicly announced on June 22, and on the 24th the premier tendered his resignation, together with an earnest recommendation to the throne that the leaders of the new party be summoned to form a cabinet. This stroke was natural when we consider that the quick vision of the marquis must have seen the impossibility of building between the two fires of the party and the Elders. He, however, could not have foreseen all the momentous consequences of this adroit _coup_. The lightning speed of his act stunned friend and foe alike. The party found itself utterly unprepared to grasp the opportunity so suddenly thrust upon it. On the other hand, in the inverse proportion that his conduct gratified the party, it was galling to his numerous friends in the house of peers, in the privy council, and in the government and the court, many of whom owed their training and advancement to the veteran statesman, but who must now have felt as if they had been deserted by him at the critical moment. The deep-seated resentment against the marquis which was created among the peers, who had always regarded him as the living exponent of the theory of the non-partisan cabinet hereafter must be particularly borne in mind. Would it not appear plain that they would oppose him if he should again become premier with the aid of a party, and would it not be equally clear that if another cabinet should be formed from among themselves, the party politicians would present an obstinate opposition to it? It will be seen later that all these things have since actually taken place. If we may regard the first introduction of the land tax question into the house in 1897 as the beginning of the controlling influence of a class-interest, the abrupt resignation of Marquis Itō in 1898 may be said to mark the dawn of an era in which human feelings not altogether expressible in words began to play an important rōle in parliamentary politics. When feelings and interests, independent of principles and issues, come to influence the course of events, the conflicts of their agents must inevitably become at times bitter. As to the marquis himself, however, June 24, 1898, was perhaps another of the turning points of his life, through which he successfully extricated himself from a groove and made a leap forward.

The most melodramatic spectacles of the year were yet to come. The new Janus-like Constitutional Party, whose political composition was as incongruous as its two masters, the idealistic Count Itagaki of the Liberals and the nimble-witted Count Ōkuma of the Progressives, suddenly found itself face to face with an opportunity which had for years been its cherished goal, but which it was at this moment hardly prepared to accept with alacrity. A mongrel cabinet was at last organized, with Ōkuma as premier and foreign minister, Itagaki as home minister, two more former Progressives and three Liberals receiving other portfolios, and, finally, Marquis Saigō and Viscount Katsura as ministers of army and navy. It should be noted that the marquis was one of the Elder Statesmen, under whose wings the viscount also had shaped his political career. The party thus failed to form a cabinet of purely its own complexion, which fact must have been especially disheartening in showing that the powerful military institutions of the empire could not be controlled by the inexperienced politicians emerging from the lower house of the diet. Such a matter, however, weighed little by the side of the grave internal difficulties that beset the new party from its start. The traditional sympathies of its two component parts proved too different from one another, and the individual sense of honor and also interest too little subservient to the common cause, for the members of the new government to hold together for half a year. Moreover, the executive authorities of the party at large instituted a shameless movement of systematic office-hunting, in which the old Liberals and Progressives vied against each other and among themselves. The same disorganized condition characterized the general election of August when a concerted action of the party could hardly be found anywhere in the country. What finally precipitated the downfall of the cabinet was a speech of Ozaki, the Progressive minister of education, which roundly denounced the materialistic tendencies of the age, and declared that if Japan should become a republic her people probably would not hesitate to elect a Vanderbilt or an Astor for president. The former Liberals adroitly chimed in with those chauvinists who pretended to have discovered in the speech a sinister, disloyal motive, on the part of the speaker, against the reigning family. When Ozaki's resignation was thus forced, the premier, without listening to the overtures of the Liberals, appointed another Progressive to the vacant post. At the end of October the dissolution of the party began openly amid considerable bickerings, and the cabinet, which had already been deserted by the non-partisan ministers of army and of navy, and could no longer maintain itself, tendered its resignation. Thus the first attempt at a party cabinet in Japan came to an ignominious failure under extremely untoward circumstances. The old parties parted more widely than before, and the unfortunate ministry passed out of existence before it could face the unfriendly house of peers and tackle the enormous national deficit amounting to thirty-seven millions of _yen_.

Field Marshal Count Yamagata, who received an imperial summons, formed a cabinet, on the eve of a new diet, in November, 1898, which consisted entirely of Elder Statesmen and their sympathizers. The duty of carrying out the _post-bellum_ measures had devolved upon the new cabinet. The support of the peers could be safely relied upon, but in the lower chamber nothing could be effected without the aid of some party. Perhaps nothing could show more clearly the possibility of the ultimate ministerial responsibility to the diet than the conduct of the field marshal at this juncture. He and some of his colleagues, as well as the majority of the peers, had been known as the most persistent believers in the non-partisan government and in the responsibility of the cabinet to the crown, and yet they could see absolutely no hope of performing their official duties but by allying themselves with the party which once supported Marquis Itō's _post-bellum_ measures. That party was the Liberal, which now monopolized the name Constitutionalist. It demanded certain portfolios, not from the spirit of office-hunting, but, as it was explained, for the sake of establishing the principle that no cabinet can be "transcendental," or absolutely non-partisan. According, however, to an agreement arrived at between the cabinet and the Constitutionalists, the latter satisfied themselves with a manifesto made by Count Yamagata at a social gathering, to the effect that he believed the coöperation of a party or parties commanding a majority in the diet was essential for the discharge of the business of the state. It was significant enough to hear these words from the mouth of the premier from whom they could otherwise have been least expected, and yet it is not too much to say that no cabinet, not excluding partisan cabinets, has succeeded in making a greater use of a party than his. The success was in no small measure due to Tōru Hoshi, formerly Japanese minister at Washington, and at the time under discussion the house leader of the Constitutionalists, who, with his wonderful talent for political tactics, acted for the government as the trustworthy foreman of his party. By his skillful maneuvers, an increase of the land tax, which had, as we saw, failed after causing within half a year the dissolution of two successive houses of representatives, was now, despite the preponderant sympathy in the house with the landowning class of the country, agreed to by a majority of 161 to 134. But for its passage, the deficit of the next fiscal year would have reached beyond forty-six millions of _yen_.

Let us pause a moment to examine the nature of the Japanese land tax, without an understanding of which neither the past nor the future of the parliamentary politics will be comprehended with sufficient clearness. The reader will recall how before the fall of feudalism most of the arable land in the country was held in fief, and how the tenants paid to their lords onerous rents, ranging between thirty and seventy per cent. of the product of the soil. When the imperial government assumed the control of the state in 1868, it found itself confronted with the colossal task of reorganizing the machinery of the state in nearly all of its parts, and introducing new, urgent measures, some of which were on a large scale, and all of which demanded a considerable outlay of funds. To do this they were supplied with a miserably small income, which hardly covered one-tenth of the necessary expenditures. It was essential above all to institute a sound system of taxation, whose basis, in those days of an insignificant foreign trade, could not but consist in a reorganized land tax. Nothing could, however, be done in that direction, so long as the local _daimios_ still held their fiefs, to which the authority of the new government could not penetrate. It was only when the fiefs were, in the manner already described in a previous chapter, surrendered to the state that anything toward the establishment of a secure system of taxation could be attempted. Pending the assessing of the values of the arable land, which naturally required time, the government resorted to the issuance of inconvertible notes and other measures of purely temporary and irregular nature. The land tax itself was, however, conceived and finally established in the most remarkable manner, its principle being, in the first place, a complete nationalization of land, and, then, the transferring of the ownership to the individual holders who were actually tilling it. The duty of the new owner to pay a tax to the state for his landed property was evidently conceived by the government as a natural consequence of the ownership so bountifully and so completely conferred upon him on their initiative. With the land tax securely installed, the main structure of the new system of national taxation had been finished, for the issue of this new tax at its first complete return amounted to more than two-thirds of the entire revenue of the state. It now remains to be told how the value of each piece of land was assessed and its tax determined. The assessment of value consisted, first, in taking the average of the harvest for five years, then converting it into money at the basis of the average price of rice ruling in the same period, and, finally, estimating the amount of the capital which would be necessary to yield an interest equal to the price just calculated. The estimated capitalization was considered the value of the land in question. The assessment of land throughout the country was completed in 1881. As to the tax itself, its rate was fixed at three per cent. of the official value, and later reduced to two and a half per cent. It would be difficult to overestimate the benefit that accrued to the farmer under the new law. He passed at once from the position of a tenant to that of an absolute owner, his former lord being at the same time recompensed by the state with public bonds for the fiefs he had surrendered. Thus the emancipation of the cultivator from the feudal bondage of land, which still has a considerable hold upon some of the former feudal communities in Europe, was in Japan definite and final. Nor did the new owner find himself under such restrictions as had existed under the feudal régime, either in the alienation of his estate or in its utilization to the best advantage by raising upon it whatever crop he liked. In return, his due to the state was only a sum, no longer arbitrary or in kind, but fixed and in money, which, as has been pointed out by some writers, was no more than one and one-fourth per cent. of the market value of the land, or equal to a rent assessed on the basis of an eighty-year purchase, which is less than a quarter of the ordinary tenant's rent.[2] Add to this the important consideration that between the time when the land tax law went into effect and the year 1898 the price of rice rose nearly threefold, so that the real burden of the tax lessened correspondingly by two-thirds. The market value of land, also, had increased, even as early as 1888, on the average of five or sixfold. If it be said that the farmer's quota in the expenditures of the local government had in the meantime considerably increased, there still remains the fact that the increase was hardly commensurate with the growth of cultivated area and general land value and the rise in both quantity and price of the crops.

To say, however, that the land tax was lenient is not equivalent to saying that it was the most reasonable source for an increased imposition. That it was so, in the opinion of the fair-minded people, remains now to be shown. It should be remembered, in the first place, that although in 1881 the income of the land tax amounted to more than four-sevenths of the total revenue of the government, it had not since increased, but rather fallen from over forty-two millions of _yen_ to less than forty, while, on the other hand, the expenditures of the state had risen from seventy-one and one-half millions in 1881 to eighty-five and three-tenths in 1895, and then, so rapidly after the advent of the _post-bellum_ measures that in 1899 they stood at 254 millions, or more than three and one-half times as large as they were less than two decades before. Such items of taxes as had been created or increased to meet a part of these enormously swollen expenditures had nearly all fallen on the urban population. The public bonds which were issued from time to time and could not be much multiplied by fresh issues were also absorbed mainly by the merchants and manufacturers, and the burden of the indirect taxes, which in 1899 brought in the considerable sum of sixteen millions, was borne by the consumers of foreign goods, who for the most part lived in the cities. This increased assessment of the urban population can be appreciated in contrast with the greatly lightened land tax of the landowners, who gained much and lost little by the rapid development of the economic resources of the country. Their interests were further strengthened by the new régime, under which the lower house of the imperial diet championed their cause with such a decisive majority of its members that no dissolution could change the situation. Some of the peers may have represented urban interests, but their voice in financial measures was as small as the control over them by the representatives was secure.

By the magnitude of these difficulties should be measured the signal success of the Yamagata cabinet in obtaining the passage in the lower house of the land tax bill, on December 20, 1898, by the majority of 161 to 134. It was, however, bought with a heavy cost both to the cabinet and to its allies, the Constitutionalists. The former had been compelled to relinquish its "transcendentalism," and the latter risked the displeasure of their constituencies. Nor was the bill passed without a hard struggle and serious amendments. The original proposition of the government contemplated a permanent increase of the tax rate to four per cent., but the bill as it was adopted fixed it at 3.3 per cent. (the rate of the house land in the cities being, however, 5 per cent.), and limited its validity to the short period of five years, so that the estimated increase in the income of the tax, after its going into plenary force, was only over eight million _yen_, or less than half the originally intended increase. Even this reduced measure was not agreed to until the government yielded to the demands to revise the land valuation in the country in such a way as to cut the total assessed value by 3,200,000 _yen_, and, what is more, to transfer the charge of the prison expenditures, amounting to four millions, from the local to the central exchequer. The net gain by the increased tax measure would hardly rise above four million _yen_ annually, and this slight gain would be temporary, while the losses entailed on the government from the reassessment and prison expenditure would be permanent. After the expiration of the five years the government would be left worse off than at the beginning of the term.

In spite of these drawbacks, the credit of raising the income of the land, income, and _saké_ taxes by forty-six millions of _yen_, and thus enabling the _post-bellum_ measures to be carried out to any real extent, belongs justly to the Yamagata cabinet. If we add to this remarkable success the establishment of the gold standard in 1898 and the passage of the new election law in 1900, and also remember that the cabinet possessed a strong unity, it becomes difficult to understand why it resigned in September, 1900, at the prime of its success. The reason was probably the characteristic modesty and prudence of the field marshal, who saw that he had attained to a success large enough to satisfy any premier, while the prolongation of his office might involve him in embarrassing relations with the new party just formed by Marquis Itō, with which the retiring premier had little sympathy.

The attitude of Marquis Itō toward the Yamagata cabinet during the latter's tenure of office was one of a cordial adviser to a modest inquirer. When the late Ōkuma cabinet fell, the marquis was summoned by the emperor to hasten back from China, where he had been traveling, but before he touched the shores of the main island of Japan the organization of the Yamagata cabinet had practically been completed. Itō may have been somewhat chagrined, but it goes to the credit of himself and of the field marshal that they maintained all through the twenty-two months of the latter's administration the utmost mutual respect and good-will that ever could exist between two men of temperaments so widely different from each other. But the time came when Itō at last found favorable opportunities to organize a large model party, which the former Liberals (lately styled Constitutionalists) joined in a body. He had seen too well in his tours round the country to what abuses the existing party system had everywhere led, and how far the nation stood, mainly owing to the flagrant defects of the present parties, from an ideal constitutional government, the legal foundation for which he had himself designed. Gradually and with increasing force he seems to have convinced himself that there should exist a party powerful enough to counteract the present evils, sufficiently organized and disciplined to possess a distinct unity of conduct, and actuated solely by the best and most logical motives of national progress. The patriotic intention of the marquis himself in these ideas cannot for a moment be doubted: it must have seemed plain to him that his assumption of leadership in a party must mean a radical severance of himself from his past career and friends, and even the silent resentment of the latter, while his disciplinary measures would, even with his imposing prestige and influence, become less binding on the party as the latter grew in size. As soon, however, as his desires of organizing a new party were made known, on August 25, men of all classes and motives flocked under his standard in irresistible numbers. The public inauguration of the party, under the name Constitutional Political Association (_Rikken Seiyū Kwai_), took place on September 15, and eleven days later was followed by the sudden resignation of the Yamagata cabinet. Upon Itō now logically devolved the duty of taking the reins of the state in hand, but it was only after a considerable hesitation and some unexpected difficulties that the fourth Itō cabinet was finally organized on October 19. Who can deny that this was a genuine party cabinet, in an even fuller sense than the late Ōkuma cabinet, and that Marquis Itō was after all deeply convinced of the futility of a "transcendental" cabinet, which owes everything to the crown and nothing to the diet?

The new cabinet, with its illustrious leader, its absolute majority in the lower house, and its immense following in the country, seems to have been attended from its beginning by no inconsiderable difficulties, some of which, indeed, proved more serious than could have been expected. Foremost among them stood the financial ghost, which would never down, but which now, with the dispatch of troops to North China, made an unusually ominous appearance before the inchoate government. The increased tax measures, mainly in sugar and _saké_ taxes and customs duties, intended to raise twenty-one million _yen_, readily passed through the house of representatives, where the landed interest still outweighed the urban, but met a different treatment from the peers. That these would be cool toward the cabinet may have been expected, but no man had imagined that they would present so stubborn an opposition and such adroit tactics as they did. Their stand was as determined, when it was taken, as it had previously been unsuspected. Between February 25 and March 12, 1901, were employed in vain the persuasion of the premier, reconciliation by four Elders, and two successive suspensions of the diet. Never before in the history of the Japanese Constitution had the house of peers so seriously opposed the government, nor had its action ever caused a suspension of the imperial diet. The anomaly of the situation becomes more evident when one recalls that the upper chamber was now wielding its weapons against its creator, who had called it into being as a conservative force to check the radicalism of the other chamber. Above the fear of a dissolution, as they were, the peers caused a complete deadlock. How it was removed by an imperial word, and how unprecedented the procedure was, has been described in connection with our account of the Constitution. The survival of the Itō cabinet through this crisis, and the conduct of the premier in allowing his trouble to be remedied by an aid from the throne, were not unattended by the increased ill-will of the peers and even by some significant whispers among the rank and file of his own party.

The cabinet did not, however, live much longer, as it resigned on May 2 from an entirely unforeseen cause, the like of which it is highly improbable would recur. Within a week after the prorogation of the imperial diet, which had passed the increased tax measures, Viscount Watanabe, minister of finance, stunned the premier by declaring that the only possible way of forestalling the impending financial dangers of the government would be to postpone the public works contemplated for the fiscal year of 1901, mainly consisting of the creation or the extension of the iron foundry, railroads, telegraphs, and Formosan enterprises. His argument was not without a plausible ground, as it was plain that the issuing of the public bonds to the amount of more than sixty millions of _yen_, part of which had been planned to meet the expenditures of the public works, could not have been effected without drawing upon the too scarce productive capital of the nation. But the abrupt proposition of the viscount caused a veritable panic in the cabinet, and in the business world, and was agreed to by his colleagues after a considerable discussion. No sooner, however, did the finance minister carry his point than he gave everyone a fresh surprise by recommending an entire suspension of public works for the ensuing fiscal year of 1902. The breach thus created in the cabinet was complete, and the enigmatical Watanabe would not listen to the plaint of the premier. When all the other ministers tendered their resignation it was seen that the viscount alone was holding to his post, although he also soon joined the rest. It does not seem perfectly clear why the obstinacy of a minister was deemed a sufficient cause for the downfall of a cabinet which commanded an absolute majority in the lower house, and which had survived the deadlock and anomaly of two months before.

However that may be, the party cabinet, for such it was in practice, did not recede from the government service without receiving deep scars on the prestige of the party itself. The internal inharmony of the cabinet so unfortunately caused by the inexplicable conduct of Viscount Watanabe seriously reflected upon the credit of the leaders then in office. For the cabinet and the party at large, however, perhaps no event was of a more serious import than the immense power, followed by the assassination, of Tōru Hoshi. A man of blameless character in his home life and an indefatigable student of the world's new thought, Hoshi, with undaunted courage and consummate talent for party leadership, not unattended by unscrupulous conduct in money matters, had become within a short time a peerless whip of the old Liberals. He was probably the greatest instrument in their secession from the hasty union with the Progressives. During the Yamagata administration the success of the cabinet was mainly due to his efficient maneuvers in the lower house, where he was at once the contractor and the foreman of his party. When the Liberals joined in a body Marquis Itō's new party, no man could have been at once more dangerous and more indispensable to its president than Hoshi. The latter's word was as reliable and his success as assured as his rule in the party was despotic and his means detested. In the proportion that the new association was proclaimed by its founder and expected by the nation to be a model party, the peers and other neutral people deprecated Hoshi for his corrupt deeds and the marquis for allowing them to pass under his eye. The politician, on his part, was too proud to condescend to explain that he retained not a farthing for himself, and that abuses were showered on him some of which should belong to others. The respectable society looked askance at him, but in the political world no one could resist the action of this intrepid and clever politician. During the first months of the Itō cabinet Hoshi was at once minister of state for transportation and a member of the municipal council of Tōkyō, but it was not long before he incurred the ire of the peers and others and resigned his former post. It was mainly as a councilor of Tōkyō, however, that his influence was feared to contaminate the municipal government in all its branches. Finally, on June 21, 1901, he fell victim at the age of forty-one to the dagger of an assassin. The latter, Sōtarō Iba by name, formerly a fencing master and now a man of respectable social standing, and of the same age as Hoshi, had been actuated by the simple fear of the widespread corruption wrought by this engrossing enemy of the public, on whose removal he staked his life. He was later sentenced to life imprisonment. With the passing of Hoshi, the Constitutional Political Association and its president lost their most powerful and most detested figure. Marquis Itō was no longer subject to the calumny which had fallen upon him for his close association with the deceased politician, nor could he again count upon the coöperation of one whose talent and tactics had been the badge of his discipline as leader, and whose concentration of censure upon himself had relieved the marquis from the share which would otherwise have been apportioned him. The political atmosphere was as purified, as was the forecast of its immediate future rendered uncertain, by the resignation of the Itō cabinet and the assassination of Tōru Hoshi.

In the meantime the imperial mandate to organize a new cabinet lingered between Marquis Saionji, Count Inouye, and Viscount Katsura, until Katsura succeeded, a month after the fall of the last cabinet, in forming its successor. It consisted of younger men of that school of statesmen whose sympathy was with the Elders and peers, who, like their typical field marshal, Yamagata, were known to be skeptical of the wisdom of the party government. Hardly a more singular spectacle can be imagined than the one afforded by this new cabinet, which was at once as little respected from outside as internally it was united and tactful, and which was as securely supported by the peers as its relation to the representatives was precarious. The latter, particularly Marquis Itō's followers, could not have loved the successor who seemed to have stolen into the post vacated by their leader, whose untimely downfall from the cabinet had embittered them. Nor could the feeling be suppressed that, emerging from the house of peers, the new cabinet now had the use of the very twenty-one millions of increased taxes to which its members were so recently and so stubbornly opposed.

Again it was through the financial question that the struggle opened between the government and the diet. The accounts of the fiscal year 1901 showed a deficit of 44 millions, and the proposed war loan of 50 millions to be floated in the United States failing at the eleventh hour, the difficulty was tided over by ingenious manipulations. In the budget for the next year, however, it was proposed to transfer from the "extraordinary" to the "ordinary" class of accounts the works to be defrayed by public bonds, representing 18 millions, as well as the net income to the government from the Chinese indemnity, amounting to 38 millions. The Associationists opposed this budget on rather unimportant grounds, but, at Itō's advice, consented to its passage with the pledge of the cabinet to reorganize the official system of the government with a view to eliminating spurious posts and retrenching administrative expenditures. The marquis had, however, started, on September 18, on his tour round the world, leaving an advice to his party that a friendly neutrality should characterize its attitude toward the cabinet. He attended the bicentennial celebration of Yale University, where he was honored with the degree of Doctor of Laws. Thence he sailed to Europe, receiving warm greetings from the governments of the countries through which he passed. Shortly before he returned home on February 25, 1902, however, an event took place which for the time being arrested the attention of the whole world--the Anglo-Japanese alliance, agreed on January 30 and published February 11.

The full contents and import of the agreement of this alliance will be discussed later in connection with the diplomatic history of Japan. In short, it declared unequivocally that the two governments were for peace and order and against territorial aggressions in China and Korea; and that, if one of them should be compelled to go to war with a third power in order to protect its now vested interests in those countries against the threatening conduct of the enemy, the other party would be neutral and make efforts to prevent other powers from joining in hostilities against its ally; but that if any other power or powers should join in war against the ally, then the other party should come to its assistance, and conduct the war in common. It may well be imagined with what enthusiasm the news was received by both friends and foes of the cabinet in the two houses of the diet, as it was there for the first time made known to the world on February 11, when even the peers broke their usual decorum and applauded. Nothing could have strengthened the position of the Katsura cabinet more than this successful culmination of a series of negotiations carried on in absolute secrecy with a great power whose policy of "splendid isolation" had seemed to be traditional. It would be only fair to say, however, that but for the international fame which Japan had won for herself in the Chinese war of 1894-1895 and latterly in the North China campaign of 1900, coupled with the tact and influence of Viscount Aoki and Mr. Katō, former Japanese ministers at London, even the increased common interests of the two powers in the East and the combined effort of Baron Komura, the foreign minister, and Viscount Hayashi and Sir Claude MacDonald, the respective representatives of the two governments at London and Tōkyō, would not perhaps have been sufficient to bring about the consummation of the great diplomatic enterprise. It was even suspected in some quarters that Germany also may have been instrumental in promoting the new alliance, as her well-known policy of setting England and Russia against each other for her own benefit would be best served in the Far East by wedding England to the inveterate object of Russia's jealousy. A more interesting question for us here regards the position in this affair of Marquis Itō, who had recently held conferences with the Russian foreign minister, Count Lamsdorf, at St. Petersburg, and had just been honored by Edward VII. of England with a Grand Cross of Bath. Whether the former fact indicated his preference for a Russian _entente_, or whether the latter was a conclusive evidence of an eminent service he had rendered toward the successful conclusion of the British agreement, has been a matter of much speculation. There exists authoritative evidence to show as conclusively that his negotiations with Lamsdorf had been carried out with the full knowledge of the Katsura cabinet, as to prove that, on the other hand, the latter's _pourparlers_ with the British government were also continually intimated to the marquis during his tour. Probably his negotiations at St. Petersburg were less successful, while the cabinet's agreement with Great Britain was more readily concluded than he had expected. Immediately after his return to Japan the tactful statesman somewhat checked political gossip by intimating his agreement with the cabinet in its British policy.

The formation of the alliance must have had some bearing on the success of the Japanese government in floating the fifty million _yen_ ($25,000,000) public bonds at London in the autumn of 1902, which had been rejected a year before from the financial market of New York. The income of this foreign loan was not devoted to new public works, but employed to refill the deficiencies of the old accounts.

Aside from these successes, the path of the Katsura cabinet was thorny. It could count upon no partisan support in the lower house, nor could its personnel and prestige command high respect. Its main strength lay in its remarkable unity, silence, tact, and apparent fairness. The last quality was manifested anew in its impartial attitude during the general election for the seventeenth diet. The previous diet was the first in its history that had served its full term of four years without dissolution, and the present election saw the first operation of the new election law. Of the 376 elected representatives, the Constitutional Political Association returned the absolute majority of 192, while the Progressives numbered about 80. The house contained entirely new members to the number of 227, but aside from this one fact, no particular faction had made any appreciable gain or loss, so that the _status quo_ of all the parties was in fact maintained. Once convened, however, the conduct of the house demonstrated how precarious therein was the condition of the cabinet. The opposition of the house would probably not have been so precipitate had not the interest dear to eight-tenths of the representatives been directly assailed by the government's proposition to retain the increased rate of the land tax, which, as will be remembered, had been intended to return in 1904 from 3.3 to 2.5 per cent.