Page:The constitutional development of Japan, 1853-1881 (IA constitutionalde00iyenrich).pdf/13



The constitutional movement of Japan began in a spontaneous agitation of the whole body politic when the nation was irritated by the sudden contact with foreigners. The sense of national weakness added a force to this agitation. Had not the foreigners come, the Restoration might have been effected, feudalism might have been abolished, but the new Japanese constitution would hardly have seen the day. Had the government of Japan at the time of the advent of foreigners been in the strong hand of a Taiko or an Iyeyasu, the rulers might have been greatly exercised by the extraordinary event, but public opinion for reform would hardly have been called forth, and the birth of constitutional liberty would long have been delayed. As the vices of King John and the indifference and ignorance of the first two Georges of England begat the strength and hope of the English Parliament, so the public opinion of Japan sprouted out of the ruins of the Shogunate régime. We must therefore seek for the beginning of the Constitutional Movement of Japan in the peculiar circumstances in which she found herself between 1853 and 1868.

The advent of Commodore Perry in 1853 was to Japan like the intrusion of a foreign queen into a beehive. The country was stirred to its depth. Let us note what a native chronicler says about the condition of Japan at the arrival of Perry:

"It was in the summer of 1853 that an individual named Perry, who called himself the envoy of the United States of