The present Diet is an imitation of the mock-parlianient that Bismarck gave the Germans, and wag imported here by Prince (then Marquis) Ito who was specially sent by the late Emperor Meiji, father of the present sovereign, to make a study of the various constitutions granted by their rulers to European peoples. He came back and an_ elaborate imitation of Germany'y toy parlia_ ment was soon after granted to the Japanese to play with once a yean, every vestige of power being. withheld from. the elected representatives of the. nation and carefully concentrated in the hands of the few officials and elder statesmen that run the country. The Japanese constitution is go framed that even if the suffrage Is enjoyed by every one, male as well as female, the real control will yet continue to remain in the hands of the select few who are the true power behind the Throne. Thus the extension of the suffrage will only tend to make the debating society called the Diet a bigger arena for annual philippics against the Government and for the exchange of unsavoury compliments by the various political parties that is so comic a feature of the Japanese Diet. In plain words, the people will have a bigger shadow, while the ruling few will continue to stick to the substance. There is no way out of this impasse except for the constitutién—the one imported from Germany some 50-odd years ago along with the imitation of te then Reichstag—to be amend-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.