[Footnote 2: A Survey of Financial Policy during Thirteen Years
(1868-1880), by Count Okuma.]

[Footnotes 3, 4, 5: Count Okuma's pamphlet.]

[Footnote 6: Consular Report of the U.S., No. 25, p. 182.]




CHAPTER V.

PROGRESS OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL MOVEMENT FROM THE ABOLITION OF
FEUDALISM TO THE PROCLAMATION OF OCTOBER 12, 1881.


The leaders of the Restoration were of an entirely different type from
the court nobles of former days. They were, with a few exceptions,
men of humble origin. They had raised themselves from obscurity to the
highest places of the state by sheer force of native ability. They had
studied much and travelled far. Their experiences were diverse; they
had seen almost every phase of society. If they were now drinking the
cup of glory, most of them had also tasted the bitterness of exile,
imprisonment, and fear of death. Patriotic, sagacious, and daring,
they combined the rare qualities of magnanimity and urbanity. If
they looked with indifference upon private morality, they were keenly
sensitive to the feeling of honor and to public morals. If they made
mistakes and did not escape the charge of inconsistency in their
policy, these venial faults were, for the most part, due to the
rapidly changing conditions of the country. No other set of statesmen