Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/236

 path of progress. The peace party prevailed, and four members of the Cabinet, including Saigo, resigned.

This rupture was destined to have far-reaching consequences. One of the seceders, Yeto Shimpei, immediately raised the standard of revolt. Among the devices employed by him to win adherents was an attempt to fan into flame the dying embers of the anti-foreign sentiment. The Government crushed his insurrection easily. Another seceder was Itagaki Taisuke. He believed in representative institutions, and advocated the establishment of a national assembly consisting half of officials and half of public nominees. His views, premature and visionary, obtained no currency at the moment, but in later years became the shibboleth of a great political party. They need not be referred to here further than to note that at the time when Itagaki advocated this reform, the idea of popular representation can scarcely have been present in his mind. The people did not yet exist in a political sense.

Saigo, the most prominent of the seceders, seems to have concluded from that moment that he must abandon his aims or achieve them by force. He retired to his native province of Satsuma, and applied his whole resources, his great reputation, and the devoted loyalty of a number of able followers to organising and equipping a strong body of samurai. Matters were facilitated for him by the conservatism of the celebrated