Another difficulty with which political parties had to contend was the absence of any concrete and well-defined issues upon which politicians could concentrate. As, in the early ministerial rupture of 1873, in which political parties had their genesis, no broad question of principle, so far as reforms were concerned, had divided the retiring statesmen from their colleagues who remained at the head of affairs, so it was with political parties at this time, and for many years afterwards. No clear line of demarcation separated one from another. All alike were in favour of progress and reform, all anxious, though not altogether in equal measure, for the extension of the people’s rights. It is true that the programmes issued by the different parties at the time of their formation, as well as the speeches of party leaders, showed some divergencies, but the views therein expressed were pious opinions, and nothing more. They dealt with things in the abstract, not with practical issues, which had not yet arisen. It is not surprising, therefore, that in the absence of more material concerns time should have been wasted in vague and futile controversy on such abstract subjects as sovereign rights and their exercise; the Liberals declaring that sovereignty lay with the people, the Imperialists that it rested with the Sovereign; while the party of Constitutional Reform contended that it resided in something representing both, namely, a parliament, which had as yet no existence. Under such circumstances popular enthusiasm declined, and even serious politicians lost interest in the welfare of their party.

Much mischief was, also, caused by disunion, the result of inexperience and lack of discipline. This was aggravated in the case of the Liberal Party by the departure on a tour of observation in Europe and America of its president, Itagaki, and Gotō, one of its vice-presidents. The Government was accused of arranging this tour with the double object of weakening the Jiyūtō by depriving it of the services of its ablest politicians, and of creating discord between the Liberals and the Party of Constitutional Reform. If this was its plan, it certainly succeeded. Not only was the Jiyūtō weakened by internal dissensions, but the relations of the two parties became at once estranged. The one accused the other of receiving bribes from the Government, and when they both practically disappeared from the scene, the feud was bequeathed to their successors.

One reason alone, however, in the absence of any others, would probably have sufficed to render futile this first experiment at party making for parliamentary purposes. There was no parliament, and no one knew what sort of parliament there would be. In these circumstances the proceedings of political parties lacked reality, and gave the impression of a stage performance.

The results of the political activity of the nation in the direction we have described were certainly not encouraging. All that was left of the three parties after two or three years of strenuous endeavour was a shattered and leaderless remnant of one, the other two having melted away altogether; and of their work nothing survived save a faint tracing of lines along which the subsequent development of political parties proceeded.

More than once in the preceding pages attention has been called to the embarrassment and danger caused to the country by the large numbers of ex-samurai with little means and less occupation, whom the abolition of the feudal system had left stranded, and who now lay like a blight upon the land. For some of the better educated of these former members of the military class the rapidly developing Press had furnished employment. The restless energies of the remainder had found occupation for a time in the movement for the formation of political parties. As soon, however, as the first impulse of the movement had spent its force, and before the actual dissolution of any of the parties, their attention was diverted to other channels of political activity which promised more immediate results; and the occurrence of several outbreaks and plots following one another at short intervals, testified to the serious mischief still to be apprehended from this unruly class.

The first of these to call for the intervention of the authorities was a rising which took place in 1883 in a prefecture to the north of the Capital. The cause of the trouble was a dispute between the officials and the people of the district in regard to the construction of roads. Into the question of road construction, as into that of all other public works, entered the question of the corvée. This was an important feature of rural administration, dating back to ancient times, and consisted of personal service, or its commutation by a money payment. It opened the door to many abuses, but, if imposed in the form of personal service at seasons when there was little outdoor work to be done, it was preferred by the peasant to other modes of taxation. In the case in question there was no objection in principle to the corvée, but the action of the authorities was resented on the ground that the roads it was intended to construct were not required. Consequently, when the governor called for labour on the roads, the people refused to work, and the disturbances which ensued became so serious as to require the use of troops for their suppression. In pre-Restoration days the trouble would not have extended beyond the compass of a simple agrarian riot. What made it more important, and gave it a political aspect, was the admixture of the shizoku, or ex-samurai, element, which in feudal times could never have occurred. One of the ringleaders in this rising, who escaped with a term of imprisonment for an offence which a few years before would have cost him his head, afterwards became President of the House of Representatives. In this capacity he speedily earned fresh notoriety by headstrong action leading to the immediate dissolution of Parliament, and the extinction of his parliamentary career.

Other risings and plots which had no connection with local grievances, but were the outcome of discontent and lawlessness, occurred in various parts of the country. The most singular, as it was the last of the series, was a fantastic attempt made in 1885 to stir up trouble in Korea, in the hope that this might react on the political situation in Japan, and hasten the establishment of representative government. Those concerned in the plot were all of samurai origin, and subsequently took a prominent part in the proceedings of parliamentary parties.

The complicity of many members of the Liberal Party, both before and after its dissolution, in these insurrectionary movements is admitted by Japanese writers, who are disposed to attribute it mainly to the excessive severity of the measures of repression taken by the authorities.

CHAPTER XVII
Framing of Constitution—New Peerage—Reorganization of Ministry—English Influence—Financial Reform—Failure of Conferences for Treaty Revision.

With the return of the Itō mission in September, 1883, the task of framing a Constitution was commenced. By that time the conservative tendencies in the Ministry had become more marked. They were to increase still further as a result of the study of Western political systems in which the mission had been engaged. Most of its time had been spent in Germany. The rapid progress of that country since its expansion into an Empire, the bureaucratic basis of its administration, the conservative bias of its rulers, and the personality of Bismarck, were presumably reasons that pointed to the adoption of German models in constitutional, as well as other administrative matters, as those best suited to a nation which had just emerged from feudalism. For a Government, too, which wished to retain as much power as possible in the hands of the Crown, a Constitution, such as those of German States, under which the Sovereign and his ministers were independent of Parliament, had a natural attraction. And there may have been a conviction of the necessity of some counterpoise to the democratic ideas derived from intercourse with republican countries, and from Western literature of an advanced type, whose mischievous effects had been shown in the extreme views, and still more extreme methods, of the political agitators who clamoured for representative institutions.