Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/49

 might be appointed from any of the feudal houses.

The Premier became the real repository of administrative power after the days of the third Shōgun, Iyemitsu. It cannot be said that he usurped the functions of the Shogunate as the Fujiwara had done in Kyōtō, the Vicegerents at Kamakura, and the Constables under the Ashikaga. Shōguns like Yoshimune (1716–1745) and Iyenari (1787–1838) enjoyed as full a measure of autocratic authority as had their great predecessors, Iyemitsu and Iyeyasu. But it was the Premier's spirit that informed the laws of his era and modelled the policy of the Government. Neither he nor his colleagues, the Senior and Junior Councillors, were responsible to any one save the Shōgun himself.

The Tokugawa Court was not free from the vices of clique and cabal, but its administrative capacity encountered no obstacle from the interference of parties or the restraints of parliaments. The student of this epoch's history nevertheless perceives, in proportion as the records become familiar to him, that abuses of ministerial power are conspicuously absent. Under a feudal system when the farmer, the tradesman, and the artisan pay for the support of a large military class which contributes nothing to the wealth of the State and has not even the pretext of insuring safety against foreign foes, it is inevitable that certain hardships should be associated with the