creditable decorum. Very full and accurate reports of the speeches are published by a Government staff of reporters, whose stenographic attainments are on a par with the most highly-trained experts of Europe or America; and a condensed version of the debates in English appears in the columns of the Japan Daily Mail from the able pen of its well-known editor, Captain Brinkley. Public opinion. The new Parliamentary régime has developed a prodigious mushroom growth of native journals, few enjoying at all an extensive circulation, but each attached to the creed of some party or section, or inspired by some leader. In this way is being manufactured, with almost bewildering haste, a body of public opinion whose movements it is impossible to forecast, and with which Japanese statesmen already find it difficult to grapple. In the country we read of political clubs, of large meetings held in theatres and public places, of eloquent speeches, of cheering audiences, of the virtues and the wickedness of public men; and we realise that in Japan, as elsewhere, Demos, having found belated articulation, is repeating, for the comfort of the scientific historian, the familiar and venerable accents. There are other evidences that Japan is in the bondage of a universal law. Though the level of political intelligence in the Chamber is reasonably high, it does not Parliaappear that that of character or prestige is equally mentary SO. The attraction of a salary (for each member symptoms. of both Houses1 receives a compulsory yearly allowance of $800, equivalent at the present rate of exchange to less than £100 a year—no inconsiderable income in Japan) is 1 Except the ex officio and hereditary Peers, i.e. the Princes and Marquises. The Imperial Princes are in receipt of personal grants from the Emperor; but the remaining Princes and Marquises have no salaries, and are in some cases poor. B not believed to add much to the popularity of a political career, since it is estimated that, though a member receives $800 annually, he has to spend $2000 at least, and since, also, the strongest discredit attaches, theoretically, to any suspicion of pecuniary motives. But the system of education organised after the fall of Feudalism-a system based on the aspiration of bridging, with all possible rapidity, the gulf that centuries of isolation had produced in Japanese knowledge-proved disproportionate to the practical needs of the nation, and called into existence a set of youths who regarded official and political life as the only sphere befitting their superior attainments. From the ranks of this class there has gradually been formed a numerous body of professional politicians, who find in platform and Parliamentary publicity a compensation for the closed doors of rank or office. These individuals are in a position of perpetual freedom and no responsibility; they can enjoy the luxury of attacking and paralysing every Government in turn; and, whilst by their votes they can neither form nor oust a Ministry, they can fetter its limbs with any number of Lilliputian cords. The predominance of this class at first deterred many of the older and more influential men from offering themselves for election; but there are signs that their reluctance is yielding to the necessities of the situation. It may be said, indeed, that the Parliamentary experiment is being watched by the more stable elements of the community from a suspicious though narrowing distance, and that a sense of national obligation to the highest duties of citizenship has not yet been at all widely aroused. At the same time, charges of Government nepotism and Rocks It is electoral tyranny are freely bandied about. ahead. alleged that the Imperial nominations to Lifepeerages, which are reserved by the Constitution for the reward of distinguished public service or erudition, are distributed among Ministerial adherents. At the General Election early in 1892 official interference appears to have been openly and flagrantly exercised. At least, such was the declared opinion of both houses of the Diet; for, whilst the Lower House only failed to pass by three votes a motion for a memorial to the Throne, declaring that in the elections administrative officials had wantonly perverted the authority of their office by tempting and inveigling voters or by resorting to force for their compulsion-and seeking to fix the responsibility upon the Government—a motion which, if carried, would have amounted to a direct direct vote of censure-both Houses passed by large majorities a representation to the Government urging them to punish the implicated officials; and the new Cabinet so far accepted the instruction as to dismiss five of these offenders from their posts. The General Elections of 1892 and 1894 were also distinguished by a good deal of rioting, and by a notable percentage of broken heads. We may detect similar reproductions, as yet in miniature, of Western forms, in the commencement of an agitation for the reduction of the franchise, which is now based upon a high assessment to direct taxation; while the minimum age limit of members of Parliament-viz. thirty years-implies a mistrust of precocious genius which is naturally distasteful to the selfconceit of young Japan. The Min None of these Rocks ahead,' however, can be compared for seriousness with the main question of the relations of the Chamber with the Government, which reproduce in a different but not less acute form isters and Parliament. the controversial impasse that is from time to time presented in England, not between the House of Commons and the Ministry, but between a Radical majority in the House of Commons and a Conservative majority in the House of Lords. Japan, though governed by party men, is not blessed or cursed with party government. The Ministers in Japan, like the President's Cabinet in America, are the nominees and servants of the Emperor. They are not responsible to the Diet, and can remain in office as long as the Sovereign honours them with his confidence. But whereas in America a majority hostile to the Executive in both Houses is a phenomenon extremely rare in occurrence, and certain to be terminated in a short period of time, in Japan there is no a priori reason why such a situation should not exist in the first place, or be indefinitely prolonged. The theory of the Japanese Constitution, therefore, being the rule of a Government legislating through two Chambers, but not responsible to either, and treating their representations with comparative indifference, it may readily be understood that the popular Chamber at any rate, which rests solely upon election, though on a narrow franchise, becomes an almost automatic machine of opposition. There is a more or less rough subdivision of parties, with supposed supporters or adversaries of the Government. But these do not in either or any case sit in groups; nor can their votes be relied upon with any certainty, the 'Below the gangway' attitude being as popular in Tokio as it is in Northampton. The largest combination in the House of 1892 only numbered 96 out of a total of 300; and the two main sections of the Radical party are irreconcilably opposed. So far the Japanese House of Representatives has rendered itself as disagreeable to successive Governments as it could, obstructing their measures, defeating their budgets, and generally betraying an attitude that might have been studied in Irish academies. Nor can I imagine a more fruitful occupation for the student, be he partial or prejudiced, of representative |