Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/276

 held up to public obloquy as self-seeking usurpers, and were declared to be impeding the people's constitutional route to administrative privileges, when in reality they were only holding the breach until the people should be able to march into the citadel with some show of orderly and competent organisation. That there was no corruption, no abuse of position, no clinging to office for the sake of office, is not to be pretended; but, on the whole, the conservatism of the "Clan Statesmen" had for main object to provide that the newly constructed representative machine should not be set working until its parts were duly adjusted and brought into proper gear. On both sides the leaders understood the situation accurately. The heads of the political parties, while publicly clamouring for parliamentary cabinets, privately confessed that they were not yet prepared to assume administrative responsibilities. In fact, neither the Liberals nor the Progressists—to say nothing of the other five or six coteries into which the Lower House was divided—had a working majority, nor could the ranks of either have furnished men qualified in public estimation to fill all the administrative posts. The so-called "Clan Statesmen," on the other hand, while refusing before the world to accept the Diet's mandates, admitted within official circles that the question was one of time only.

The political situation did not undergo any