Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 6.djvu/287

RV 257 has often held a portfolio in the ministry, making a specialty of matters of internal improvement. He was raised to the peerage in 1885.

Isbikawa Goyemon, a famous robber who flourished at the end of the sixteenth century, and was noted for his physical strength. He was finally captured and boiled in oil with his only son, a child.

Itagaki, Count (1838—), a member of the Tosa clan, took a prominent part in the Revolution of 1867 and in the suppression of the Satsuma rebellion. He was created a count in 1887, and during his short-lived ministry in 1898 held the Home Office. (For his interest in representation and responsible ministry, see the Index.)

Itō, Marquis (1840—), was one of the young reformers of the Chōshiu clan, directing his agitation not only against the shogunate, but in favour of foreign intercourse and the assimilation of Western civilisation, a secret journey to Europe having convinced him that this was necessary to the progress of his country. He has been called the constructive statesman of the Meiji epoch. Several visits to Europe and America and a comprehensive study of their polities have furnished him with the material from which he has sifted out the principles of government that seem best suited to Japan; but his reforms have been too radical at times for the nation to follow, as was the case in 1890, when a conservative reaction drove him from the premiership. He had entered upon the duties of this office in 1886, and has held it at intervals since, his last short ministry being in 1901. Previous to his being called to the head of the government, he held the portfolios of Public Works and of Home Affairs. He drafted the Constitution. The German system of government, rather than the looser, many-sided system of America or Great Britain, is the one he has taken as his model. When the new orders of nobility were inaugurated, he was made a count; later he was raised to his present rank.

Iwakura, Prince (1825—1883), a Court noble, was but moderately opposed to the introduction of foreign intercourse, and a firm ally of the clan reformers who looked to the overthrow of the shogunate. After the Revolution of 1867, he was at the head of the new government and led the embassy sent to the treaty powers in 1872. He opposed the threatened invasion of Korea in 1874, and an attempt was made to assassinate him by some of the samurai, instigated by his no-war policy and by his attitude on the military-class pensions.

Iyemitsu (1604—1651), the third Tokugawa Shōgun, succeeded to the title in 1624, and firmly established the autocracy of the shogunate.