The political development of Japan gives another illustration of one of the truths which Mr. Herbert Spencer unfolds in his Principles of Sociology.  “Everywhere the wars between societies,” says he, “originate governmental structures, and are causes of all such improvements in those structures as increase the efficiency of corporate action against environing societies."[12]

Experience has shown that representative government is the most efficient in securing the corporate action of the various members of the body politic against foreign enemies.  When a country is threatened with foreign invasion, when the corporate action of its citizens against their enemy is needed, it becomes an imperative necessity to consult public opinion.  In such a time centralization is needed.  Hence the first move of Japan after the advent of foreigners was to bring the scattered parts of the country together and unite them under one head.

Japan had hitherto no formidable foreign enemy on her shores.  So her governmental system—­the regulating system of the social organism—­received no impetus for self-development.  But as soon as a formidable people, either as allies or foes, appeared on the scene in 1853, we immediately see the remarkable change in the state system of regulation in Japan.  It became necessary to consult public opinion.  Councils of Kuges and Daimios and meetings of Samurai sprung forth spontaneously.

I believe, with Guizot, that the germ of representative government was not necessarily “in the woods of Germany,” as Montesquieu asserts, or in the Witenagemot of England; that the glory of having a free government is not necessarily confined to the Aryan family or to its more favored branch, the Anglo-Saxons.  I believe that the seed of representative government is implanted in the very nature of human society and of the human mind.  When the human mind and the social organism reach a certain stage of development, when they are placed in such an environment as to call forth a united and harmonious action of the body politic, when education is diffused among the masses and every member of the community attains a certain degree of his individuality and importance, when the military form of society transforms itself into the industrial, then the representative idea of government springs forth naturally and irresistibly.  And no tyrant, no despot, can obstruct the triumphal march of liberty.

Whatever may be said about the soundness of the above speculation, it is certain that in the great councils of Kuges and Daimios and in the discussions of the Samurai, which the advent of the foreigners called into being, lay the germ of the future constitutional parliament of Japan.

[Footnote 1:  Genje Yume Monogatari.  Translated by Mr. Ernest Satow, and published in the columns of the Japan Mail.]

[Footnote 2:  The original gives names of some prominent officials thus summoned.]