Page:The constitutional development of Japan, 1853-1881 (IA constitutionalde00iyenrich).pdf/48

44 nowhere else in the history of nations do we see "nonpolitical institutions" exerting such a powerful influence upon the body politic as in New Japan. In this chapter we shall therefore note briefly the growth of so-called "nonpolitical institutions" during a period of about a decade and a half, between 1868 and 1881, and mark their influence upon the development of representative ideas.

1.Telegraph. At the time of the Restoration there was no telegraph in operation, and "for expresses the only available means were men and horses." In 1868 the government began to construct telegraphs, and the report of the Bureau of Statistics in 1881 shows the following increase in cach successive year:

All the more important towns in the country were thus made able to communicate with one another as early as 1880. In 1879 Japan joined the International Telegraph Convention, and since then she can communicate easily with the great powers of the world through the great submarine cable system. "Compared with the state of ten years ago, when the ignorant people cut down the telegraph poles and severed