Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/251

 the other in Tosa, under Itagaki's guidance. When the Satsuma men appealed to arms in 1877, a widespread apprehension prevailed lest the Tosa politicians should throw in their lot with the insurgents. Such a fear had its origin in failure to understand the object of the one side or to appreciate the sincerity of the other. Saigo and his adherents fought to substitute a Satsuma clique for the oligarchy already in power. Itagaki and his followers struggled for constitutional institutions. The two could not have anything in common. There was consequently no coalition. But the Tosa agitators did not neglect to make capital out of the embarrassment caused by the Satsuma rebellion. While the struggle was at its height, they addressed to the Government a memorial charging the administration with oppressive measures to restrain the voice of public opinion; with usurpation of power to the exclusion of the nation at large, and with levelling downward instead of upward, since the samurai had been reduced to the rank of commoners, whereas the commoners should have been educated to the standard of the samurai. This memorial asked for a representative assembly and talked of popular rights. But since the document admitted that the people were uneducated, it is plain that there cannot have been any serious idea of giving them an immediate share in the administration. In fact, the Tosa liberals were not really contending for popular represen-