—'Yes, I said so.'
—'And I agree with you,' continued the duchess. '"Revolution" means upsetting and destroying everything, but you never had anything of that kind. Your emperor assumed a new authority, but it was only a restoration, or, in other words, unification of power; then, too, the sovereignty of his majesty's family is so antique that there is again a great continuity of power: those are the points which make Japan so fine a nation.
—'Well,' I continued, 'we do not like to apply the term "revolution" to our great change, because that term is usually applied to a big, popular movement against established governments, which, while destroying one, sets up another. That is to say, the term is generally used in a political sense. The history of our great change differs from that, because, although the Shogunate Government was upset, the other Government, namely, the Imperial, which was reinvigorated and had come to exercise again its full authority, had always existed, and the sovereignty had continued to rest with the heads of that Government, namely, the emperors; that you know very well. Nevertheless, with regard to the social aspects of the change, one cannot say there has been no upsetting of things. As a matter of fact, almost everything has been upset; restoration and innovation were the two currents of thought then prevailing. The main work was restoration, but almost everything else was innovation, or at least renovation. Hence, almost every institution and material object which was old was destroyed, or nearly destroyed, beyond all necessary limit, almost in the same way as was experienced by England under the Long Parliament, and France in 1789. I don't mean there was in Japan any such sanguinary deeds perpetrated as those by the Jacobins, but the general social currents of events were something like those of French and English experience. There was even a suggestion made by serious people of cutting down the big trees of a fine park in the middle of Tokio and turning it into mulberry fields, on the argument that the latter would be beneficial to the nation, whilst the former was a useless luxury. At one time, indeed, even the word civilisation was much abused: of course, not in such a way as Madame Roland lamented the abuse of the term "liberty," because our abuse of the word "civilisation" was neither political nor serious. It was chiefly so with small social matters. For instance, when one wished to dispense with some of the old customs and manners, which he deemed too rigid and inconvenient, he would cast them away light-heartedly, with the remark that "it was not a civilised method." Of course, a great change like the one we have made can only be carried out under such circumstances as those, accompanied necessarily by great sacrifices. Without doubt, it would not do if the same thing went on endlessly. Fortunately we have managed to tide over that transitory state, and have produced the Japan of the present day.'
—'Whatever may have been the social aspects of your great change,' said the duchess, 'one thing is undeniable, and that is, that its best results have been brought about by the unification and continuity of the pouvoir—I mean, authority. But by saying this, I must not be misunderstood, especially in this country, as saying that a continuity of authority is necessarily to be connected with heredity, for I maintain, for instance, that the Catholic religion is a specimen of continuity in the person of the Pope. But, baron, was there any outcry for "Liberté, Egalité, and Fraternité" at the time of your great change?'
—'No, not exactly,' I replied. 'Our struggle was not one of the lower classes en masse against the upper classes. Besides, our lower classes were not in such a desperate condition as those of France in her troubled days.'
—'You know already,' proceeded the duchess, 'that those three terms contradict each other if carried out literally.'
—'That is true. But by similar reasoning, all terms of virtue are contradictory if carried out to the letter. Thus, the extremity of patience makes one a fool; that of bravery, foolhardy; that of charity, lavish; and that of extensive love of all things, makes one a sentimental weeper. Forgive me if I am a little polemic. However, there is one thing that I think I have not told you, and that is this: Although there was no definite cry for the three "té's" during our great change, some vague notion of them was observable during that event and some time after. It was during that transition period that the French notion of personal right based upon the civil law got into the Japanese mind a little too strongly in opposition to the idea of public laws based upon the principles of State and common good. Thus, for instance, a man did not scruple to cut down whatever forests belonged to him, no matter whether or not by doing so irreparable public injury should be occasioned; his notion being that his proprietary right of the forests stood over any other right. In other words, the notion of private laws was not reconciled with that of public laws. We have had to bring about an amelioration, and to enact fresh laws to regulate the forest question, much on the same lines as the old regulations which had previously existed in many parts of the country. There have been many other matters much similar to this. I may also add that proper respect between inferior and superior, and younger and elder, was also slackened at one time, which is a sort of misuse of equality and fraternity.
'But to return to our discourse: all the arguments I have heard from you to-day remind me of an anonymous political pamphlet which I happened to glance at. It speaks of the necessity of unification and continuation of authority. It speaks of the advisability of non-dependency of the Ministry on the Chamber, and it speaks of the self-contradiction of the three terms. I almost suspect that the writer of the pamphlet is influenced by you, or you by him, or is it a coincidence?'
—'No matter,' said the duchess lightly, and continued; 'I think there are no Socialists in Japan—at all events, not worth speaking of, as a party?'
—'Very true,' I interposed.