Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/249

 had the samurai alone in view. Into their consideration the "common people"—farmers, mechanics, tradesmen—did not enter at all, nor had the common people themselves any idea of advancing a claim to be considered. A voice in the administration would have been to them an embarrassment rather than a privilege. It is true that among the people too—the "commoners" of feudal times—representative principles had long been operative. Their headmen, their elders, and their "five-men groups" had stood between them and the repository of supreme authority, assuming their responsibilities and discharging their public duties. Such functions, however, were limited to parochial and domestic affairs. Farmers, artisans, and traders had no concern whatever with State business, nor ever gave a thought to it. Had they been invited to assume a share in the Government after the fall of feudalism, they would have declined the offer with something like consternation.

Thus the first deliberative assembly convened in accordance with the sovereign's pledge was composed of nobles and samurai only, nor did its composition provoke criticism in any quarter. It accomplished nothing, being in truth a mere debating club, not invested with any legislative authority whatever. Two sessions sufficed to bring it into ridicule, and it was dissolved amid public jeers.

Possibly the parliamentary problem might have