Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/255

 sense the character of popular nominees, nor could it even be said that they reflected the public feeling of the districts they administered, for their habitual and natural tendency was to try, by means of heroic object lessons, to win the people's allegiance to the Government's progressive policy, rather than to convince the Government of the danger of overstepping the people's capacities.

These conventions of local officials had no legislative power whatever. The foundations of a body for discharging that function were laid in 1875, when a Senate (genro-in) was organised. It consisted of official nominees, and its duty was to discuss and revise all laws and ordinances prior to their promulgation. No power of initiative was vested in it. The credit of this body was impaired by the fact that expediency not less than a spirit of progress had evidently presided at its creation. Into its ranks had been drafted a number of men for whom no places could be found in the Executive, and who without some official employment would have been drawn into the current of disaffection. From that point of view the Senate soon came to be regarded as a kind of hospital for administrative invalids, though undoubtedly its discharge of quasi-legislative functions proved suggestive, useful, and instructive.

The assemblies of Governors and the Senate might have sufficiently occupied public attention for some years had not an event occurred which warned the Government to proceed more ex-