The first glimmer of genuine Japanese history dates from the fifth century after Christ, and even the accounts of what happened in the sixth century must be received with caution.  Japanese scholars know this as well as we do; it is one of the certain results of investigation.  But the Japanese bureaucracy does not desire to have the light let in on this inconvenient circumstance.  While granting a dispensation re the national mythology, properly so called, it exacts belief in every iota of the national historic legends.  Woe to the native professor who strays from the path of orthodoxy.  His wife and children (and in Japan every man, however young, has a wife and children) will starve.  From the late Prince Ito’s grossly misleading Commentary on the Japanese Constitution down to school compendiums, the absurd dates are everywhere insisted upon.

This question of fictitious early history might be considered unimportant, like the fact that, with us, parsons have to pretend to believe the Bible, which some people think innocuous.  But it is part of the whole system, which has a political object, to which free thought and free speech are ruthlessly sacrificed.  As this same pamphlet says:—­

Shinto, a primitive nature cult, which had fallen into discredit, was taken out of its cupboard and dusted.  The common people, it is true, continued to place their affections on Buddhism, the popular festivals were Buddhist; Buddhist also the temples where they buried their dead.  The governing class determined to change all this.  They insisted on the Shinto doctrine that the Mikado descends in direct succession from the native Goddess of the Sun, and that He himself is a living God on earth who justly claims the absolute fealty of his subjects.  Such things as laws and constitutions are but free gifts on His part, not in any sense popular rights.  Of course, the ministers and officials, high and low, who carry on His government, are to be regarded not as public servants, but rather as executants of supreme—­one might say supernatural—­authority.  Shinto, because connected with the Imperial family, is to be alone honoured.

All this is not mere theorizing; it is the practical basis of Japanese politics.  The Mikado, after having been for centuries in the keeping of the Tokugawa Shoguns, was captured by the clans of Satsuma and Choshu, and has been in their keeping ever since.  They were represented politically by five men, the Genro or Elder Statesmen, who are sometimes miscalled the Privy Council.  Only two still survive.  The Genro have no constitutional existence; they are merely the people who have the ear of the Mikado.  They can make him say whatever they wish; therefore they are omnipotent.  It has happened repeatedly that they have had against them the Diet and the whole force of public opinion; nevertheless they have invariably been able to enforce their will, because they could make the Mikado speak, and no one dare oppose the Mikado.  They do not themselves take office; they select the Prime Minister and the Ministers of War and Marine, and allow them to bear the blame if anything goes wrong.  The Genro are the real Government of Japan, and will presumably remain so until the Mikado is captured by some other clique.