Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/262

 enemies the political education of the constituencies. The apparent explanation is that, in the first place, they looked to be judged by their deeds solely, and left the task of talking to their adversaries; in the second, they contemplated a Cabinet independent of parliament and taking its mandate from the Emperor alone.

The campaign was not conducted always on lawful lines. There were plots to assassinate Ministers. There was an attempt to employ dynamite. There was a scheme to incite an insurrection in Korea. In justice to the Liberal and the Progressist leaders it must be stated that they never countenanced or condoned such acts. The extent of their fault was failure to control their followers. On the other hand, dispersals of political meetings by order of police-inspectors, and suspension or suppression of newspapers by the unchallengeable fiat of the Home Minister were frequent occurrences. So greatly indeed was public tranquillity threatened, that the Government found it necessary to issue an Ordinance empowering the police to banish doubtful characters from the capital without any form of trial, and even to arrest and detain them on suspicion. Thus the breach widened steadily. It is true that Ōkuma, the leader of the Progressists, rejoined the Cabinet for a time in 1887, but after a brief tenure of office he resigned under circumstances that aggravated his party's hostility to officialdom. In short, during the ten