The streets of Tokio.

Nagasaki it will then be as commonplace an incident to travel by rail as it is from London to Wick; and the jinriksha will relapse into the dusty limbo of the postillion and the stage-coach. Where the iron horse' has rushed in, it may be certain that minor forms of Western invention will not fear to tread. In Tokio tramways clatter along the streets; gas flames in some of the principal highways; and the electric light is uniformly employed in the public buildings, in many of the residences of ministers and nobles, in the tea-houses which figure so largely in the holiday life of the Japanese gentleman, and in quite a number of stores and even small shops. Telephones and telegraphs stretch a web of wires overhead. The long picturesque lines of yashikis or fortified city residences of the feudal lords and their sworded retainers, that covered so great an area within the moats, have almost all disappeared, and have been replaced by public offices of showy European architecture and imposing dimensions. immense pile of scaffolding, surrounding a space much larger than the Law Courts on the Strand in London, conceals what will presently be known as the new Ministry and Courts of Justice, where will be dispensed a jurisprudence that has been borrowed, with a truly Japanese eclecticism, from the codes of half the nations of Europe. The perpetual bugle-note, and the sight of neat figures in white cotton uniforms and black boots, are indicative of a national army, whose mobilised strength in time of peace is 56,000, and whose discipline, physique, and weapons are the admiration of European critics. Out in Tokio Bay the smart white hulls of gunboats, lying at anchor, represent a navy whose creation has forcibly stirred the national ardour, and which is destined in the future to be no mean factor in the politics of the Pacific. Finally, after a twenty years' travail, Japan

has given birth to a Parliamentary Constitution; and an unpretentious but roomy temporary structure, built of wood, like its predecessor which was burnt down in 1891, and with no trace of native art or architecture about it, accommodates the nominees of royalty or the representatives of the people, who, in the two Chambers, created by the Constitution of February 1889, and respectively entitled the House of Peers and the House of Representatives, constitute the Imperial Diet of Japan, and are swiftly introducing her people to the amenities of Parliamentary existence-obstruction within the Chamber, platform oratory out of doors-to the phenomena of Radical and Progressive parties, and to the time-honoured palastra of begging and refusing supplies.1

The Diet.

In the five years of its existence, since its first meeting in November 1890, the Japanese Diet has passed through eight sessions and four General Elections. The two Houses meet in Chambers identical in size and design, almost the only difference being the presence of the Imperial throne behind the President's

1 The Japanese Diet approximates more closely to the Prussian than to any other European or foreign model. The House of Peers is partly hereditary, partly nominated, and partly elected. Under the first heading come the Imperial Princes and the higher nobility sitting in their own right; the second category is composed of persons nominated by the Emperor for meritorious services to the State, or for erudition. The members of both these classes sit for life. Under the third heading are included the bulk of the peerage, sitting only for a terin of seven years, and consisting of a number of counts, viscounts, and barons, elected by their own orders, and of representatives of the various provinces, returned, subject to the approbation of the Emperor, by small electoral bodies composed only of the highest taxpayers. The House of Peers, thus constituted, contains at the present time 270 members. The Lower House, which contains 300 members, and sits for four years, being bound to assemble at least once every year for a session of three months, is wholly elective, and is composed of the repre sentatives of the principal prefectures and towns, returned in the proportion of one to every 128,000 of the people, upon a taxpaying, residential, and age franchise, the qualification for electors being the possession of land of the taxable value of $600, or of an annual income of $1000, a twelve months' residence, and the minimum age of twenty-five.

chair in the House of Peers. Their ground-plan has been borrowed from that of the bulk of foreign Legislative Chambers, the seats and desks of the members being ranged in the arc of a circle fronting a raised platform, upon which are the presidential chair, the speaker's tribune, the desk of the official reporters, and-a speciality of the Japanese Diet-on either side of this centre a row of seats occupied by the Ministers or delegated officials of the various departments, who are in the Chamber, yet not of it, and who sit there not compulsorily, but of their own option, and without votes, to defend their departments, to make speeches, or answer questions.1 The Japanese appear to have acquired with characteristic facility the external features of Parliamentary conduct. They make excellent speeches, frequently of great length, and marked by graces of style as well as by quickness of reasoning. On the whole, considering how immature is the Lower House, and how inevitably, as I shall presently explain, it is by its constitution afflicted with the vices of an irresponsible Opposition, it succeeded till lately in conducting its operations with a

1 The merely optional attendance of ministers in the Lower House has excited an already perceptible irritation among the champions of Parliamentary omnipotence and ministerial responsibility. For instance, the published Report of the Proceedings during the session of 1892-93 contained the following interesting passages. A motion was made by a private member, and was carried, that the President be asked to inquire when the Cabinet Ministers could be in their places. Subsequently, the Government replied, with some curtness, that ministers having the power to attend whenever they pleased, there was no necessity for members to put themselves to the trouble of asking them. On a later occasion a member said he believed that some of the ministers were in an anteroom, and requested that a secretary might be sent to see, as in that case he desired to make an urgency motion. Finally the urgency motion, so moved, was carried, on the ground that the Cabinet had ignored its responsibility to the Emperor, the country, and the Diet. The main reason, other than constitutional law and practice, for the absence of ministers, is that the House of Peers meets between 10 and 11 A.M., and the House of Representatives at 1.15 p.m., i.c. at hours when the ministers are at work in their offices.