CHAP.  IV.  INFLUENCES THAT SHAPED THE GROWTH OF THE REPRESENTATIVE IDEA OF GOVERNMENT

John Stewart MILL’S enumeration of the social conditions necessary for
the success of representative government

Japan of 1871 not yet ready for the adoption of representative government

Political activity of A nation not isolated from other spheres of its activities

Japan’s political development greatly aided by her social, educational, industrial and religious changes

Sketch of the development of these non-political institutions from 1868 to 1881

1.  Means of Communication

a.  Telegraph b.  Postal System c.  Railroad d.  Steamers and the Coasting Trade

2.  Educational Institutions

3.  Newspapers

CHANGES IN LAW AND RELIGION

CHAP.  V. (1871-1881).  PROGRESS OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL MOVEMENT FROM THE ABOLITION OF FEUDALISM TO THE PROCLAMATION OF OCTOBER 12, 1881

LEADERS OF THE RESTORATION

EFFECT OF THE OVERTHROW OF FEUDALISM

THE IWAKURA EMBASSY

IWAKURA, ITO, INOUYE

FUKUZAWA

THE PRESS AND ITS INFLUENCES

RI-SHI-SHA AND COUNT ITAGAKI

MEMORIALS OF RI-SHI-SHA TO THE EMPEROR

ESTABLISHMENT OF LOCAL ASSEMBLIES

The proclamation of October 12, 1881, to establish A parliament in 1890

INTRODUCTORY.

The power which destroyed Japanese feudalism and changed in that country an absolute into a constitutional monarchy was a resultant of manifold forces.  The most apparent of these forces is the foreign influence.  Forces less visible but more potent, tending in this direction, are those influences resulting from the growth of commerce and trade, from the diffusion of western science and knowledge among the people, and from the changes in social habits and religious beliefs.  The truth of the solidarity of the varied interests of a social organism is nowhere so well exemplified as in the history of modern Japan.  Her remarkable political development would have been impossible had there been no corresponding social, educational, religious, economic and industrial changes.  In order to trace the constitutional development of New Japan, it is therefore necessary: