Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/240

 years previously the wearing of swords had been declared optional and a scheme of voluntary commutation had been announced. Many had bowed quietly to the spirit of these enactments. But many still wore their swords and drew their pensions as of old, obstructing, in the former respect, the Government's projects for the reorganisation of society, and imposing, in the latter, an intolerable burden on the resources of the Treasury. The Ministry judged that the time had come, and that its own strength sufficed, to substitute compulsion for persuasion. Two edicts were issued,—one vetoing the wearing of swords, the other ordering the commutation of the pensions and allowances received by the samurai and the former feudal chiefs.

The financial measure—which was contrived so as to affect the smallest pension-holders least injuriously—evoked no open complaint, what- ever secret dissatisfaction it may have caused. The samurai remained faithful to the creed which forbade them to be concerned about money. But the veto against sword-wearing overtaxed the patience of the extreme conservatives. It seemed to them that all the most honoured traditions of their country were being ruthlessly sacrificed on the altar of alien innovations. Armed protests ensued. A few scores of samurai, equipping themselves with the hauberks and weapons of old times, attacked a castle, killed or wounded some three hundred of the garrison, and then,