Page:The constitutional development of Japan, 1853-1881 (IA constitutionalde00iyenrich).pdf/43

461] Tokugawa arose it divided the country amongst its kinsfolk, and there were many who founded the fortunes of their families upon it. They waited not to ask whether the lands and men that they received were the gift of the Emperor; for ages they continued to inherit these lands until this day. Others said that their possessions were the prize of their spears and bows, as if they had entered storehouses and stolen the treasure therein, boasting to the soldiers by whom they were surrounded that they had done this regardless of their lives. Those who enter storehouses are known by all men to be thieves, but those who rob lands and steal men are not looked upon with suspicion. How are loyalty and faith confused and destroyed!

"The place where we live is the Emperor's land and the food which we eat is grown by the Emperor's men. How can we make it our own? We now reverently offer up the list of our possessions and men, with the prayer that the Emperor will take good measures for rewarding those to whom reward is due and for taking from those to whom punishment is due. Let the imperial orders be issued for altering and remodelling the territories of the various clans. Let the civil and penal codes, the military laws down to the rules for uniform and the construction of engines of war, all proceed from the Emperor; let all the affairs of the empire, great and small, be referred to him."

This memorial was signed by the Daimios of Kago, Hizen, Satsuma, Choshiu, Tosa, and some other Daimios of the west. But the real author of the memorial is believed to have been Kido, the brain of the Restoration.

Thus were the fiefs of the most powerful and most wealthy Daimios voluntarily offered to the Emperor. The other Daimios soon followed the example of their colleagues. And the feudalism which had existed in Japan for over eight centuries was abolished by the following laconic imperial decree of August, 1871:

"The clans are abolished, and prefectures are established in their places."