Page:Japanese plays and playfellows (1901).djvu/49

Rh to divide the spoils of office, to which they had been summoned by the astuteness of Marquess I to, prompt to cover personal chagrin at his own defeat by advocacy of his opponents' claims to Imperial recognition, the followers of Counts Okuma and Itagaki found it impossible to reconcile the claims of contending office-seekers. Indeed, so bitter did the dissensions become, that the alliance was dissolved, and the first Ministry based on a majority in the Lower House disbanded before the Diet met. Power has since reverted to the same men, whose sagacity has made Japan triumph alike over armed foes and treaty-allies. Seeing that no more than eight per cent, of the population have votes, participation in home politics is confined to a comparatively small circle; and not to all of them, since most of the merchants with whom I conversed on the subject were content to leave their interests in the hands of the authorities, and expressed great resentment at the action of the soshi or professional agitators employed by politicians to cajole or threaten a constituency. It is inevitable at present that place and power should be the goal of all parties, and that politics should present the aspect of a scramble for office. There is no dividing-line between political parties, as elsewhere. No one desires to return to the feudal régime, or to camper with the Constitution, or to limit the royal prerogative. In the face of national danger it is easy for all parties to unite, since nothing divides them but such questions as the incidence of taxation and the distribution of posts. In the course of time, should the last vestige of acquiescent docility on the part of the toilers be swept away, the industrial sphinx will pose its question to the Japanese as to all other modern communities; the rich will be ranged against the poor,