In a letter to one of his disciples, Mr. Fukuzawa said:  “The liberty of which I have spoken is of such great importance that everything should be done to secure its blessings in the family and in the nation, without any respect to persons.  When every individual, every family and every province shall obtain this liberty, then, and not till then, can we expect to witness the true independence of the nation; then the military, the farming, the mechanical, and mercantile classes will not live in hostility to each other; then peace will reign throughout the land, and all men will be respected according to their conduct and real character."[6]

The extent of the influence exercised with pen and tongue by these teachers upon the nation showed that the reign of sword and brutal force was over and the day of peace and reason had dawned.  The press has at last become a power.  The increase during that period of publications, both original and translations, and of newspapers, both in their number and circulation, is marvellous.  To give an illustration, the number of newspapers transmitted in the mails increased from 514,610 in the year 1873 to 2,629,648 in the year 1874—­an increase of 411 per cent in one year—­“a fact which speaks volumes for the progress of civilization."[7]

These newspapers were soon to become the organs of political parties which were in the process of formation.  The most prominent among these political societies was the Ri-shi-sha, which finally developed into the present Liberal party.  At the head of this party was Count Itagaki, a man of noble character and of marked ability, who had rendered many useful services to the country in the time of the Restoration and had for some years been a member of the cabinet, but who in 1875 resigned his office and became “the man of the people.”  He and his party contributed greatly to the development of constitutional ideas.  Whatever may be said as to the extreme radicalism and childish freaks of the rude elements of this party, the presence of its sober members, who sincerely longed to see the adoption of a constitutional form of government and used only proper and peaceful means for the furtherance of their aim, and boldly and frankly told what they deemed the defects of the government; the presence of such a party in the country, whose masses knew nothing but slavish obedience to every act of the government, was certainly a source of great benefit to the nation at large.

In 1873, Count Itagaki with his friends had sent in a memorial to the government praying for the establishment of a representative assembly, but they had not been heeded by the government.  In July, 1877, Count Itagaki with his Ri-shi-sha again addressed a memorial to the Emperor, “praying for a change in the form of government, and setting forth the reasons which, in the opinion of the members of the society, rendered such a change necessary.”