destructive
purposes. They differed about the subject of a national assembly,
some being inclined to attach more practical importance than others
to the Emperor's coronation oath that a broadly based deliberative
assembly should be convened. A small number of zealous reformers
wished to regard this as a promise of a national assembly, but the
great majority of the progressist leaders interpreted it merely as a
guarantee against the undue preponderance of any one clan. In fact,
according to the view of the latter party the broadly based
deliberative assembly was regarded solely as an instrument for
eliciting the views of the samurai, and entirely without legislative
power. Such an assembly was actually convened in the early years of
the Meiji era, but its second session proved it to be nothing more
than a debating club and it was suffered to lapse out of existence.

A more perplexing problem now (1873) presented itself, however. The
Korean Court deliberately abandoned the custom followed by it since
the time of Hideyoshi's invasion--the custom of sending a
present-bearing embassy to felicitate the accession of each shogun.
Moreover, this step was accompanied by an offensive despatch
announcing a determination to cease all relations with a renegade
from the civilization of the Orient. It may well be imagined how
indignantly this attitude of the neighbouring kingdom was resented by
Japan. The prominent leaders of national reform at that time were
Sanjo and Iwakura, originally Court nobles;* Saigo and Okubo, samurai
of Satsuma, and Kido, a samurai of Choshu. In the second rank were
several men destined afterwards to attain great celebrity--the late
Prince Ito, Marquis Inouye, Count Okuma, Count Itagaki--often spoken
of as the "Rousseau of Japan"--and several others.

*The distinction between Court nobles and territorial nobles had been
abolished in 1871.

ENGRAVING: SANJO SANETOMI

The first five, however, were pre-eminent at the moment when Korea
sent her offensive message. They were not, however, absolutely united
as to policy. Saigo Takamori held some conservative opinions, the
chief of which was that he wished to preserve the military class in
their old position of the empire's only soldiers. He had, therefore,
greatly resented the conscription law, and while his discontent was
still fresh, the Korean problem presented itself for solution. In
Saigo's eyes an oversea war offered the only chance of saving the
samura