Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/41

 public. That this outcry was merely a convenient weapon for attacking the Cabinet and courting favour with the constituencies, was amply proved in the sequel, when these same agitators voted to increase the land tax and to augment official salaries. But they had sustained the clamour so vigorously and incessantly during session after session of the Diet, that the world ultimately learned to think of Japan as a country crushed by a weight of taxation which the people's representatives were vainly struggling to lighten, and preyed upon by a number of overpaid officials whom the Diet was seeking to deprive of their excessive emoluments. Accepting the estimates made by the Japanese themselves, Europe and America regarded Japan as an embarrassed State, instead of recognising the abundance and elasticity of her resources.

The wealth of Japan is a subject which has not yet been investigated so thoroughly that an altogether trustworthy statement can be made. The following figures are the closest approximations possible at present: —