This hope seems a vain one in the light of all history. Militarism
and the clans are by no means in the last ditch in Japan, and they
will no more surrender their power than would the Russian
bureaucracy. The only argument which is convincing in such a case
is the last one which is ever used; and the mere mention of it by
so-called socialists is sufficient to cause summary arrest in
Japan. Sheltering themselves behind the Throne, and nominally
deriving their latter-day dictatorship from the Imperial mandate,
the military chiefs remain adamant, nothing having yet occurred to
incline them to surrender any of their privileges. By a process of
adaptation to present-day conditions, a formula has now been
discovered which it is hoped will serve many a long year. By
securing by extra-legal means the return of a "majority" in the
House of Representatives the fiction of national support of the
autocracy has been re-invigourated, and the doctrine laid down
that what is good for every other advanced people in the world is
bad for the Japanese, who must be content with what is granted
them and never question the superior intelligence of a privileged
caste. In the opinion of the writer, it is every whit as important
for the peace of the world that the people of Japan should govern
themselves as it is for the people of Germany to do so. The
persistence of the type of military government which we see to-day
in Japan is harmful for all alike because it is as antiquated as
Tsarism and a perpetual menace to a disarmed nation such as China.
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