Page:EB1911 - Volume 15.djvu/229

Rh A special feature of the Diet’s procedure helps to discourage oratorical displays. Each measure of importance has to be submitted to a committee, and not until the latter’s report has been received does serious debate take place. But in ninety-nine cases out of every hundred the committee’s report determines the attitude of the house, and speeches are felt to be more or less superfluous. One result of this system is that business is done with a degree of celerity scarcely known in Occidental legislatures. For example, the meetings of the house of representatives during the session 1896–1897 were 32, and the number of hours occupied by the sittings aggregated 116. Yet the result was 55 bills debated and passed, several of them measures of prime importance, such as the gold standard bill, the budget and a statutory tariff law. It must be remembered that although actual sittings of the houses are comparatively few and brief, the committees remain almost constantly at work from morning to evening throughout the twelve weeks of the session’s duration.

Divisions of the Empire.—The earliest traditional divisions of Japan into provinces was made by the emperor Seimu (131–190), in whose time the sway of the throne did not extend farther north than a line curving from Sendai Bay, on the north-east coast of the main island, to the vicinity of Niigata (one of the treaty ports), on the north-west coast. The region northward of this line was then occupied by barbarous tribes, of whom the Ainu (still to be found in Yezo) are probably the remaining descendants. The whole country was then divided into thirty-two provinces. In the 3rd century the empress Jingō, on her return from her victorious expedition against Korea, portioned out the empire into five home provinces and seven circuits, in imitation of the Korean system. By the emperor Mommu (696–707) some of the provinces were subdivided so as to increase the whole number to sixty-six, and the boundaries then fixed by him were re-surveyed in the reign of the emperor Shōmu (723–756). The old division is as follows :—

I. The Go-kinai or “five home provinces” i.e. those lying immediately around Kyōto, the capital, viz.:—

II. The seven circuits, as follow:—

1. The Tōkaidō, or “eastern-sea circuit,” which comprised fifteen provinces, viz.:— 2. The Tōzandō, or “eastern-mountain circuit,” which comprised eight provinces, viz.:— 3. The Hokurikudō, or “northern-land circuit,” which comprised seven provinces, viz.:— 4. The Sanindō, or “mountain-back circuit,” which comprised eight provinces, viz.:— 5. The Sanyōdō, or “mountain-front circuit,” which comprised eight provinces, viz.:— 6. The Nankaidō, or “southern-sea circuit,” which comprised, six provinces, viz.:— 7. The Saikaidō, or “western-sea circuit,” which comprised nine provinces, viz:— III. The two islands, viz.:—

Upon comparing the above list with a map of Japan, it will be seen that the main island contains the Go-kinai, Tōkaidō, Tōzandō, Hokurikudō, Sanindō, Sanyōdō, and one province (Kishu) of the Nankaidō. Omitting also the island of Awaji, the remaining provinces of the Nankaidō give the name Shikoku (the “four provinces”) to the island in which they lie; while Saikaidō coincides exactly with the large island Kiūshiū (the “nine provinces”).

In 1868, when the rebellious nobles of Ōshū and Dewa, in the Tōzandō, had submitted to the emperor, those two provinces were subdivided, Dewa into Uzen and Ugo, and Ōshū into Iwaki, Iwashiro, Rikuzen, Rikuchū and Michinoku (usually called Mutsu). This increased the old number of provinces from sixty-six to seventy-one. At the same time there was created a new circuit, called the Hokkaidō, or “northern-sea circuit,” which comprised the eleven provinces into which the large island of Yezo was then divided (viz. Oshima, Shiribeshi, Ishikari, Teshibo, Kitami, Iburi, Hiaka, Tokachi, Kushiro, and Nemuro) and the Kurile Islands (Chishima).

Another division of the old sixty-six provinces was made by taking as a central point the ancient barrier of Osaka on the frontier of Ōmi and Yamashiro,—the region lying on the east, which consisted of thirty-three provinces, being called Kwantō, or “east of the barrier,” the remaining thirty-three provinces on the west being styled Kwansei, or “west of the barrier.” At the present time, however, the term Kwantō is applied to only the eight provinces of Musashi, Sagami, Kōzuke, Shimotsuke, Kazusa, Shimōsa, Awa and Hitachi,—all lying immediately to the east of the old barrier of Hakone, in Sagami.

Chū-goku, or “central provinces,” is a name in common use for the Sanindō and Sanyōdō taken together. Saikoku, or “western provinces,” is another name for Kiūshiū, which in books again is frequently called Chinsei.

Local Administrative Divisions.—For purposes of local administration Japan is divided into 3 urban prefectures (fu), 43 rural prefectures (ken), and 3 special dominions (chō), namely Formosa; Hokkaidō and South Sakhalin. Formosa and Sakhalin not having been included in Japan’s territories until 1895 and 1905, respectively, are still under the military control of a governor-general, and belong, therefore, to an administrative system different from that prevailing throughout the rest of the country. The prefectures and Hokkaidō are divided again into 638 sub-prefectures (gun or kōri); 60 towns (shi); 125 urban districts (chō) and 12,274 rural districts (son). The three urban prefectures are Tokyo, Osaka and Kiōto, and the urban and rural districts are distinguished according to the number of houses they contain. Each prefecture is named after its chief town, with the exception of Okinawa, which is the appellation of a group of islands called also Riūkiū (Luchu). The following table shows the names of the prefectures, their areas, populations, number of sub-prefectures, towns and urban and rural divisions:—