29th Dec.
Tue opposition vernacular papers in Japan, writing during the week ending the 19th instant, insisted very strongly that a dissolution of the House of) Representatives was the only course open to the government, and this course, as we made known by the telegram which we published op Saturday, has been adopted. The Radical organ, the Jiyu, instanced, the Mail tells us, " the rejection of the proposal for the transfer of Prison Expenses to the charge of the Treasury, and the triumphant passage of the Opposition's Bill for the amendment of the Public Meeting and Political Association Regulations, not to mention the unhappy fate of the Bill providing for the abolition of the inspection of sailing vessels, and the general antagonism of the Diet to} all the measures submitted by the! Government," as overpowering reasons why the Lower House should be dissolved at once. It is also stated that "at present 178 out of 300 members of the Lower House have declared their adhesion to the cause of the people's party,' which number will, in case of dissolution, be increased by twenty to thirty per cent." he Kokkai, an independent journal, advises the present Ministry to let the Opposition try their hands Hy forming a Cabinet: i they may, contrary to expectation, prove quite equal to the task; and it not, it will be very easy for the members of the present Cabinet to pull them down from positions which they are not competent ta occupy. Nhus this result of the experiment—so thinks our contemporary—would be highly beneficial, in either event, to the peaceful progress of the country."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.