Thus

sonation of the national sovereignty. it was that when, as a consequence of the awakening of Japan and the resultant increase of intercourse with other countries, serious complications overtook the Government of the Shogun, all patriotic men, headed by some of the most powerful magnates of the realm, rallied round the Imperial throne and compelled Keiki, the last of the Shoguns, to abdi

cate.

The importance of this Revolution, which was not accomplished without violent enough convulsions of a sort, can only be appreciated by remembering that in Japan the hereditary Major-domoship of the Palace dates back to the earliest times. Its pre-eminently military character had already been acquired under Minamoto Yoritomo, in the year 1185; and after continuous conflicts between the territorial magnates themselves in their efforts to attain to the highest office in the realm, the military dictatorship at last became hereditary in the Tokugawa family, who retained it up till 1867. The Shogun's full title was "Sei-i-tai-shogun," or "grand army-leader

B

against barbarians," an expression, however, which only applied to the tribes formerly inhabiting the north of Japan, and not to foreigners.

It was by an error of judgment, based on faulty knowledge of the history and institutions of the country, that the representatives of other nations, who came in contact with Japan in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, described the Shogun as the real sovereign of the realm. By the travellers and missionaries of those days the Shogun was generally referred to as the Emperor, while even in modern times he was described in English treaties (the Convention, for example, of October 1854) as "His Imperial Highness the Emperor," in the English treaty of August 1858 as "His Majesty the Tycoon," and also in the Prussian treaty of 1861 as "Seine Majestät der Taikun." In this connection it is curious to remark that the designation of "Tycoon" of which the literal equivalent is something like "Serenissimus "-was unknown as a Japanese title, and in the treaties aforesaid was probably adopted from the Chinese,

in order to mask the defective political status of the Shogun.

As the Restoration of the monarchy had been the first step towards national unity and regeneration, so the next was to be the abolition of the feudal system.

The feudal system of Japan, like that of Germany, was based on fiefs and vassalage. As long as the Emperor himself ruled, he was regarded as the feudal superior, who conferred crown estates or conquered territories on his warriors. The Shinto and Buddhist temples were also endowed by him with landed property. In later times, especially under the Shoguns of the house of Tokugawa, the feudal overlordship passed to them, though nominally in their capacity as mandatories of the Mikado. At the opening of Japan to foreigners, a third of the realm was under the direct rule of the Shogun, the remainder being parcelled out among the Daimios, or feudatory lords, who, with their vassals, formed the military nobility (Buke) in contradistinction to the court nobility (Kuge) of the Mikado, who were landless.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century

the division of the country under the feudal system had become strictly marked. The higher nobility consisted of eighteen Kokushu, or superior landed magnates, each of whom, in most cases, ruled a whole province, and exercised the fullest rights of autocratic sway. Thanks to the large number of their vassals, who were devoted to them, they could command as much military power as they wanted. A second class of landed magnates, the Tozama, were assumed by the law to have the same rights and privileges as the Kokushu; but they suffered from want of the necessary power to make themselves as free as the former, and it was only parts of provinces that were subject to them. A third class, that of the Fudai, who were the immediate vassals of the Tokugawa family (of Shoguns) formed their personal adherents, and were liable to be called upon for court and military service. Among these, again, were several families blood-related to the Tokugawa, and entitled to succeed to them in the event of the failure of their direct line.

Inside their own domains these feudal chiefs possessed jurisdiction of the high and

inferior kind, controlling the whole internal administration and exercising financial sovereignty, including, to a certain extent, the right of coinage. At their investiture they received from the Shogun a feudal charter, which also fixed the amount of their income from their domains. The nominal amount of their revenue, accruing mainly from the rent of peasant holdings, was often, it is true, not realised; but, on the other hand, it sometimes happened that the land bailiffs of the magnates in question managed to screw a still higher income out of their tenants. That the latter were often ruined in the process was a minor consideration.

Towards the Shogun himself the obligation. of the territorial lords consisted in the payment of a certain amount of tribute, mostly in kind-the products of their lands and the like; in the performance of military service. and in the construction of public works and buildings, by way, generally, of penal infliction, or in order to reduce the treasuries of the grands seigneurs who had become too opulent. Intercourse with other countries and