epresentative Government" was early translated, and read by all the
thinking men of the day. These ideas were also keenly studied in their
actual workings in the West. The consequence was that feudalism was
utterly rejected and the new ideas, more or less modified, were
speedily adopted, even down to the production of a constitution and
the establishment of local representative assemblies and a national
diet. In other words, the theories and practices of the West in regard
to the political organization of the state supplied Japan with those
new intellectual variations which were essential to the higher
development of her own national unity.

A further point of importance is the fact that at the very time that
the West applied this pressure and supplied Japan with these political
ideals she also put within her reach the material instruments which
would enable her to carry them into practice. I refer to steam
locomotion by land and sea, the postal and telegraphic systems of
communication, the steam printing press, the system of popular
education, and the modern organization of the army and the navy. These
instruments Japan made haste to acquire. But for these, the rapid
transformation of Old Japan into New Japan would have been an
exceedingly long and difficult process. The adoption of these tools of
civilization by the central authority at once gave it an immense
superiority over any local force. For it could communicate speedily
with every part of the Empire, and enforce its decisions with a
celerity and a decisiveness before unknown. It became once more the
actual head of the nation.

We have thus reached the explanation of one of the most astonishing
changes in national attitude that history has to record, and the new
attitude seems such a contradiction of the old as to be inexplicable,
and almost incredible. But a better knowledge of the facts and a
deeper understanding of their significance will serve to remove this
first impression.

What, then, did the new government do? It simply said, "For us to
drive out these foreigners is impossible; but neither is it desirable.
We need to know the secrets of their power. We must study their
language, their science, their machinery, their steamboats, their
battle-ships. We must learn all their secrets, and then we shall be
able to turn them out without difficulty. Let us therefore restrict
them carefully to the treaty ports, but let us make all the use of
them we can."