March 23.
Tar quaint, but traditionally correct, step of formally offering it resignation to the Emperor lotion of Kotoka and his fellow-socialists, which was taken by the Marquis Katsura, Premier of Japan, and certain of his colleagues, has been followed by more genuine manifestations of fa belief that responsibility for the ime did not rest solely upon the criminals. As a matter of course the Emperor refused to accept the resignation and graciously overlooked the remissness of the Ministers in permitting dangerous ideas to develop into a plot against his sacrosanct person. While, however, their Imperial Master extended his) forgiveness to the Ministers, popular opinion has not been so easily placated. The opinion has been freely expressed that the assamption by Marquis Katsura and his colleagues of responsibility for the jons which led to the plot was not, in this case, a formal and essentially fictitious confession of fault. Popular indignation with the plotters is properly unbounded; but the view is widely held, and has found unqualified expression, that) the Katsura Ministry is actually responsible for the perpetuation of conditions that are certain to foster the social unrest that has manifested itself in Japan of late years. Traditional deference to authority inherited from the feudal) times, and a system of Government control and regulation that scarcely excludes sumptuary matters, has, with the one dramatic exception of the Kotokn Conspiracy, prevented any marked ebullition of discontent with the changed conditions of life among the poorer desses. But, in spite of official repression and of appeals to suffer in silence in the sacred name of patriotism, mutterings have been heard, and, in the. departments of labour that the more readily lend themselves to such a purpose, there has been a beginning of the organization which, in other UN
705 lands, seeks to secure for the manual labourer a larger share of the freits of his industry. The protracted strikes, ensued and the have become embtered. Deb relations of employer and employee
still from any personal participation in the government of the country by the choice of Parliamentary representatives, chee classes in japan feel that ye & grievance that needs redress; their discontent is vented on the most accessible of their troubles, the employers; but some, more farseeing and, perhaps, more fearless, recognize that the employer is an effect and not a cause.
The question of the degree of responsibility resting upon the Government for the existence of suffering and discontent has been sent session of the Imperial Blot, raised frequently during the pre
Owing to the "capture" by the Government of the Seiyukai, the most powerful party, numerically, in the House of Representatives, criticism in this connexion has been confined to the Nationalists. While this criticism may, in consequence, have lost somewhat in volume, it has lacked nothing in virulence. Speaking in the Lower House on March 9, Mr. Muramaten, a Nationalist member, declared that it was the duty of the Government to take measures to prevent the population becoming infected with dangerous ideas. The heavy pressure of taxation laid upon the people by the Government, if continued longer, might lead, conceivable, to a repetition of the "abominable treason case" The Government, he said, proposed such palliatives as loans at cheap rates to the people and the encouragement of young men's associations, but such temporizing measures would be useless, as dangerous ideas were being fomented by the unfavourable conditions of life of the people. The chief cause of these unfavourable conditions was the excessive burden of taxation, Other Nationalist members spoke to similar effect, and the chief ground of the criticism in every case was that the Government was devoting its attention to other matters, while it took no steps to lessen the load of taxation under which the people were being crushed. For the reason already given, the formation of an alliance between the Government and the Seiyukai, these remonstrances will probably be without direct effect, but indirectly they may exert considerable influence. A striking illustration of the Emperor of Japan's solicitous regard for the welfare of his sub-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.