Page:The National Geographic Magazine Vol 16 1905.djvu/257

Rh to the rank and influence they enjoyed at the time. Under the feudal system the people were divided into four classes, viz, Samurai, or military class, farmers, tradesmen, and merchants. Of these the Samurai was the privileged class, which was maintained at the public expense of each feudal lord, and it was in the hands of this class that the political activities of Japan found their home.

The feudatories, with the assistance of the retainers or Samurai (who numbered some 400,000 men, and, with their families, 2,000,000 people in the whole Empire), formed the bone and sinew of the nation at that time. While, in the latter part of theTokugawa government, education was diffused more widely among the farmers, tradesmen, and merchant classes and their social status gained some elevation, yet they remained the class of producers for the support of a government in which they had no voice.

In a word, Japan, under the feudal system, can be considered as having been divided into so many states with complete political autonomy within the respective domains of the feudatories as to legislative, administrative, judicial, and military affairs. Every institution was in its nature local and heterogeneous. There existed no single system of law or finance that was common to the nation.

The restoration of the Imperial power meant the unification of the govern- mental powers, and the unification of the governmental powers meant the sur- render of the powers, rights, privileges, properties, and what-not possessed by the feudatories and Samurai, because, without a complete abdication by the feudal lords and vassals of their prerog- atives, a real unification of the govern- mental powers and the restoration of the Imperial authority was impossible. This meant to the feudal lords the sur- render of that exalted position which resembled that of an independent po- tentate, and taking rank not only among their former vassals, but even with the tradesmen and merchants, who, in their eyes, had no place in the political and social existence of Japan. This aban- donment of the high position involved the surrender of the landed property which had been inherited from time im- memorial. The surrender of the pre- rogatives and property by the feudal chiefs meant in the case of the Samurai, a class in whose hands the real political power of the nation rested, the loss of the very means of subsistence to the 2,000,000 of the cream of the population of the nation ; it meant the disposses- sion of their military employment, the privilege of wearing a sword, the mark of a gentleman, the cherished pride of this class ; it meant to them that they had to throw away all that distinguished this order from time immemorial and to step down into the company of the peas- ant or the merchant and to join the ranks of common bread-winners, whom they despised ; and what was the most mar- velous aspect of the situation was that this grand coup d'etat could be carried out only by the efforts of those who had to suffer the consequences of the change.

And yet it was done. Japan of today is perhaps more democratic in its institutions than the most democratic of European nations. Although the descendants of the old Samurai still retain their ancient class name, it has only a historic value in the political and social life of Japan of today. The spirit of equality, liberty, and fraternity pervades the institutions of Japan.

It is almost beyond human power to fully comprehend this most dramatic incident in history, which resulted in