Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 3.djvu/249

Rh its suicidal policy. Under the influence of the new advisers whom, in compliance with its pledge to Kyōtō, it had summoned to preside at its councils, measures were taken that could serve only to weaken its authority. Many of the time-honoured forms and ceremonies which contributed to lend dignity to official procedure and held a high place in popular esteem for the sake of their spectacular effect, were abolished, or curtailed, on grounds of economy, and for the same reason the rule was greatly relaxed which required the feudatories to live in Yedo every second year and to leave their families there in alternate years. This law had been one of the strongest buttresses of the Shōgun's power. It was abrogated precisely at the moment when the feudatories were disposed to abuse every access of liberty.

Nor did the almost abject submissiveness of the Yedo statesmen have the effect of appeasing their enemies. On the contrary, the extremists in Kyōtō were so emboldened by these evidences of weakness that, without waiting for the Shōgun to fulfil his promise of proceeding to Kyōtō, they obtained from the Emperor a new edict requiring the Yedo Court to announce to all the feudatories the definite adoption of the "alien-expelling" policy, and further directing that a date for the practical inception of that policy be fixed and communicated to the Throne. A few months previously it had been commanded that