PART IV
CONSTITUTIONAL JAPAN. 1893—
Chapter XVI
THE CONSTITUTION IN THEORY AND IN PRACTICE
1893-1906
The "History of the Empire of Japan" was compiled in 1893, and it is needless to say that since that time the empire has experienced a remarkable development in all aspects of its national activity. The war with China occurred in 1894-1895, the North China campaign in 1900, and the great conflict with Russia in 1904-1905. Through these important events the Japanese nation has undergone an immense change in the last dozen years, in the position it occupies in the comity of nations, as well as in its attitude toward the rest of the world. The industrial and financial life of the people has also made a change hardly anticipated in 1893. Their normal national budget, aside from extraordinary war expenditures, has grown 260 per cent. as large as it then was, and their foreign trade in commodities alone has increased nearly fourfold. The state of internal politics also has taken an evolution correspondingly significant. With this last subject we shall begin our brief survey of Japan's national life during the thirteen years between 1893 and 1906.