Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/281

 normal intercourse of life sanctions these material aids, abnormal occasions are likely to demand them in much greater profusion. All evidence thus far obtained goes to prove that Japanese officials of the highest and lowest classes are incorruptible, but that the middle ranks are unsound. A Japanese police constable will never take a bribe nor a Japanese railway employé a pour-boire, and from Ministers of State to chiefs of departmental bureaux there is virtual freedom from corruption. But for the rest nothing can be claimed, and to the case of tradespeople, inferior agents, foremen of works, contractors, and so on, the Japanese proverb may probably be applied that "even hell's penalties are a matter of money." At moments when the conflict between the Ministry and the Diet was sharp, and when such weapons as suspension, prorogation, or even dissolution could not turn the scale in the former's favour, Walpolian methods were certainly employed by the men in power, though so dexterously as to defy accurate estimate. But as such abuses provoked vehement remonstrance and condemnation, it was possible to regard them as occasional rather than chronic. From the time of Mr. Hoshi Tōru's ascendency [sic], however, a creed prevailed that political influence was a valuable asset which its possessor might turn to his own profit provided that public loss did not evidently ensue. This dangerous doctrine soon exercised a widely demoralising influence. Nearly every service came to be con-