en of signal attainments), while the House of
Representatives consisted of three hundred elected members. In the
eyes of party politicians this property qualification was much too
high; it restricted the number of franchise-holders to 460,000 in a
nation of nearly fifty millions. A struggle for the extension of the
franchise commenced immediately, and, after nearly ten years, the
Government framed a bill lowering the qualification to ten yen for
electors; dispensing with it altogether in the case of candidates;
inaugurating secret ballots; extending the limits of the electorates
so as to include the whole of a prefecture, and increasing the
members of the lower house to 363. By this change of qualification
the number of franchise holders was nearly doubled.

ENGRAVING: THE LATE PRINCE ITO

As for the provisions of the Constitution, they differed in no
respect from those of the most advanced Western standard. One
exception to this statement must be noted, however. The wording of
the document lent itself to the interpretation that a ministry's
tenure of office depended solely on the sovereign's will. In other
words, a Cabinet received its mandate from the Throne, not from the
Diet. This reservation immediately became an object of attack by
party politicians. They did not venture to protest against the
arrangement as an Imperial prerogative. The people would not have
endured such a protest. The only course open for the party
politicians was to prove practically that a ministry not responsible
to the legislature is virtually impotent for legislation.

Success has not attended this essay. The Throne continues, nominally
at all events, to appoint and dismiss ministers. As for the
proceedings of the diet, the most salient feature was that, from the
very outset, the party politicians in the lower chamber engaged in
successive attacks upon the holders of power. This had been fully
anticipated; for during the whole period of probation antecedent to
the meeting of the first Diet, the party politicians had been
suffered to discredit the Cabinet by all possible means, whereas the
Cabinet had made no effort to win for themselves partisans in the
electorates. They relied wholly upon the sovereign's prerogative, and
stood aloof from alliances of any kind, apparently indifferent to
everything but their duty to their country. Fortunately, the House of
Peers ranged itself steadfastly on the side of the Cabinet throughout
this struggle