Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 3.djvu/272

Rh the peaceful overthrow of the dual system of government and ultimately towards the fall of feudalism itself.

It will be observed that in the edict quoted above no explicit reference is made to the question of foreign intercourse. A seclusionist, reading between the lines, might have detected some covert allusion to the subject; but, at the same time, the contrast between such marked reticence and the outspoken denunciations of the previous Emperor's rescripts, must have forced itself upon the attention of every one perusing the document. The anti-Shogun movement had seemed originally to derive its main force from the nation's anti-foreign mood. Yet the alien-expelling" sentiment did not figure at all upon the stage whereon were acted the last episodes in the drama of the Shogunate's destruction. The reader has doubtless traced the gradual differentiation that took place with regard to this sentiment. On the one hand, those whose position and strength invested their judgment with serious responsibility, as the Satsuma and Chōshiu clans, had been taught by vivid object-lessons the futility of open resistance to foreign intercourse. On the other, the camp-following class, which consisted of unemployed samurai and ignorant adventurers without any stake in the preservation of public peace, had ceased to wield appreciable influence, though they clung tenaciously to the traditional prejudice against everything alien, and stood ready