Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/230

 of devising executive and fiscal systems universally applicable to a nation hitherto divided into a congeries of semi-independent principalities, but also of shaping the country's demeanour towards novel problems of foreign intercourse and alien civilisation. So long as the heat of their assault upon the Tokugawa Shogunate fused them into a homogeneous whole, they worked together successfully. But when, emerging from the storm and stress of the conflict, they had to enter the council chamber and draw plans for the construction of a brand-new political edifice on the partial ruins of a still vividly recent past, it was inevitable that their opinions should vary as to the architectural scheme and the nature of the materials to be employed. In this divergence of views, which will be illustrated by the course of succeeding events, many of the capital incidents of Japan's modern history had their origin.

It has been stated above that the declaration which the young Emperor was invited to make on assuming the reins of government, included a promise constructively pointing to a representative polity, and that the promise was suggested by the mutual jealousy of the planners of the Restoration rather than by any sincere desire for parliamentary institutions. A few zealous reformers may have wished to follow, in this respect, the example of the foremost Occidental nations; but an overwhelming majority of the statesmen of the time thought only of a system