In other
words, it was the leaders of Japan's conscript armies who
inherited the real power, a fact made amply evident by the
crushing of the Satsuma Rebellion by these new corps whose
organization allowed them to overthrow the proudest and most
valourous of the Samurai and incidentally to proclaim the triumph
of modern fire-arms.
Now it is important to note that as early as 1874--that is six
years after the Restoration of the Emperor Meiji--these facts were
attracting the widest notice in Japanese society, the agitation
for a Constitution and a popular assembly being very vigourously
pushed. Led by the well-known and aristocratic Itagaki, Japanese
Liberalism had joined battle with out-and-out Imperialism more
than a quarter of a century ago; and although the question of
recovering Tariff and Judicial autonomy and revising the Foreign
Treaties was more urgent in those days, the foreign question was
often pushed aside by the fierceness of the constitutional
agitation.
It was not, however, until 1889 that a Constitution was finally
granted to the Japanese--that instrument being a gift from the
Crown, and nothing more than a conditional warrant to a limited
number of men to become witnesses of the processes of government
but in no sense its controllers. The very first Diet summoned in
1890 was sufficient proof of that. A collision at once occurred
over questions of finance which resulted in the resignation of the
Ministry.
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