d into a common treasury; the police and the taxes had to be
recognized as national, not as belonging to petty local chieftains;
the power of the feudal lords had to be broken in order to
reconstitute Japan as a single strong state under a single head. These
are the ideas which led the way to the Restoration of 1868. Thus the
bombardments of Kagoshima and Shimonosheki may be said to have helped
indirectly in the Restoration of that year. But before we proceed to
the history of the Restoration, let us examine what were the great
Councils of Kuges and Daimios, which were sometimes convened during
the period from 1857 to 1868.

The Council of Kuges was occasionally convened by the order of the
Emperor. It was composed of the princes of the blood, nobles, and
courtiers. The Council of Daimios was now and then summoned either by
the Emperor or by the Shogun. It was composed mostly of the Daimios.
These councils were like the Witenagemot of England, formed of the
wise and influential men of the kingdom. As the Daimios had far more
weight in the political scale of the realm than the Kuges, so the
council of the Daimios was of far more importance than that of the
Kuges. But it must not be understood that these councils were regular
meetings held in the modern parliamentary way; nor that they had
anything like the powers of the British Parliament or of the American
Congress. These councils of Japan were called into spasmodic life
simply by the necessity of the time. They were held either at the
court of Kioto or that of Yedo, or at other places appointed for the
purpose. The Kuges or Daimios assembled rather in an informal way,
measured by modern parliamentary procedure, but in accordance with the
court etiquette of the time, whose most minute regulations and rules
have often embarrassed and plagued the modern ministers accredited to
the court of the Emperor. Then these councils proceeded to discuss the
burning questions of the day, among which the most prominent was, of
course, the foreign policy. The earliest instance of the meeting of
the Council of Kuges was immediately after the news of Perry's arrival
had reached the court of Kioto. "Upon this," says the author of
Genje Yume Monogatari, "the Emperor was much disturbed, and called a
council, which was attended by a number of princes of the blood and
Kuges, and much violent language was uttered."

From this time on we meet often with the record of these councils.[10]
A nat