Page:The National Geographic Magazine Vol 16 1905.djvu/261

Rh servative, anarchistic, and destructive spirit pervaded all classes of the people. The Samurai of different Daimios severed their allegiance with their former lords in order to carry out their own conviction by the use of swords and violent means. Misunderstandings, jealousies, and intrigues were rampant, and assassinations were of common occurrence. In a word, the whole Empire was in a state of chaos. To tame these unruly elements, to infuse order and harmony among them, and to graft on them an order and regime entirely for- eign to the soil, and to develop them to the condition in which they are now within the short space of the last 37 years is the grandest of the achievements that man has ever accomplished.

The men who conceived and achieved this unique revolution were chiefly Samurai of inferior grade, without offi- cial rank or social standing. The most prominent of them do not exceed 55 in number, and among them only 13 are aristocrats ; but these latter played only a secondary part in the movement, with the exception of Sanjo and Iwakura. The other 42 men were all young Samu- rai. The average age of the 55 men did not exceed 30 years.

The four great clans of southern Japan — Satsuma, Choshiu, Tosa, and Hizen — promoted the revolution, and the prominent persons of the present era came chiefly from the Samurai of these four clans, and more particularly from those of Satsuma and Choshiu. Many great statesmen of this period have already departed from this world, but such names as Saigo, Okubo, Kido, Iwakura, and Sanjo cannot justly be passed over without mention. Still alive and actively taking part in the affairs of state are Marquis I to, who was one of the younger members among the promoters of the revolution and a statesman of the greatest constructive genius of the Meiji era, whose name is connected with nearly every great work in the history of new Japan, and whose legislative career is crowned by the drafting of the consti- tution ; Marquis Yamagata, to whom the nation is indebted for the organiza- tion of the efficient army now fighting in Manchuria and to whom was en- trusted the chief command of the Im- perial army against China in 1894; Mar- quis Oyama, a most genial, loyal, and brave general and statesman, now lead- ing the Imperial army in Manchuria ; Count Inouye, a resourceful, undaunted, strong-willed statesman, who held the portfolio of foreign affairs for nearly ten years at the most troublous time of Japan's foreign relations ; Count Mat- sugata,an eminent financier, whose name has covered the title page of the history of the gold-standard system of Japan ; Count Okuma, now leader of the pro- gressive party and a politician of the most subtle, versatile, and vigorous in- tellect ; Count Itagaki, formerly leader of the liberal party and the most ardent advocate of the constitutional govern- ment. The careers of these men are full of incidents most entertaining and in- structive, but I have no time to dwell upon them here.

It would be improper to close this speech without some allusion to our most beloved and revered sovereign, who was suddenly called to the actual duties of the head of the nation at the age of sixteen and at the most turbu- lent period in Japan's history. During the last thirty-seven years of his most marked and enlightened reign he has given the nation the enjoyment of all the best fruits of the civilization of the West, and, above all, has raised the country, in the face of the immense ob- stacles, from the position of an insignifi- cant oriental state to that of a formid-