Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 3.djvu/194

 From the very outset the steps taken by the Shōgun's administration were prophetic of its downfall. A council of feudal chiefs was summoned to consider the course that should be pursued. Never previously, since the establishment of the Tokugawa rule in Yedo, had the Shōgun's ministers submitted any question, executive or political, to the consideration of the feudatories. A more signal abrogation of autocratic power could not have been effected. The Shōgun thereby virtually abdicated his position as the nation's administrative sovereign, and placed himself on a level with all the territorial nobles who had hitherto been required to render implicit obedience to his orders. It becomes interesting to determine the motive and source of such a novel departure. Some writers have been disposed to treat it merely as an evidence of thoughtless perplexity. Others regard it as a pusillanimous endeavour to shift to the shoulders of the feudatories a responsibility which the Shogunate found unbearable. Both explanations may be partially true. It is possible that the Yedo Government did not perceive the full consequences of openly recognising the right of the feudatories to a voice in the management of State affairs. It is also possible that the Shōgun's advisers, too well informed to contemplate serious resistance to foreign demands, too timid of public opinion to openly confess their conviction, hoped, by obtaining from the feudatories a declaration in favour