Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/272

 ing the limits of electoral districts so as to embrace whole prefectures, and increasing the membership of the Lower House to three hundred and sixty-three. Under this system the number of franchise-holders was raised to eight hundred thousand approximately, and a fairer, though still not fully just, measure of representation was secured for the urban populations.

What enhanced the interest of the situation on the eve of the Diet's first assembly was that the oligarchal holders of administrative power had made no attempt whatever to win for themselves a following in the political field. They knew that the opening of the parliament would unmuzzle the agitators whose mouths had hitherto been partially closed by police restrictions, but who would now enjoy complete immunity within the walls of the assembly, whatever the nature of their utterances. Yet the statesmen of the day stood severely aloof from alliances of every kind, and continued to discharge their administrative functions with apparent indifference to the changes that popular representation could not fail to bring. That somewhat inexplicable display of unconcern became partially intelligible when the Constitution was carefully examined, for it then appeared that the Cabinet's tenure of office might be made to depend solely on the Emperor's will, that Ministers could take their mandate from the Throne, not from parliament. This fact was merely an outcome of the theory underlying every