Since the opening of the first Diet, the efforts of the parties have in general been directed towards the securing of control of the administration,—the establishment of parliamentary government. Except during the period of the war with China, when all party differences were for the time set aside, the parties have all been in more or less constant opposition to the government. Until within the last year or two, however, no party has possessed for any considerable length of time an absolute majority of the membership of the Lower House, sufficient to enable it to control the votes of that body. Political parties have now become a distinct power in the land which no statesman can afford entirely to neglect. From small and unruly beginnings, they have gradually progressed in influence and in organization. As by degrees they have been getting rid of their unruly and dangerous elements, and learning to a greater extent the lesson of responsibility, they have more and more gained the popular confidence. Possessing practically the power of the purse,—for in the Diet the House of Representatives has the first say as to the details of the budget presented by the government,—they have always to be reckoned with.... That there have been no distinct and well-defined party issues may be traced to the fact that feudalism gave place so suddenly to a modern state of society. The leaders of thought and those who have taken up the work of national rejuvenation have all been men of progressive tendencies. That the parties have frequently opposed the government in cases where opposition for its own sake has been the only recognizable principle cannot be denied. It must be remembered that they have all along been struggling for a share in the administration. The political parties have well illustrated the intensely democratic character of the Japanese people side by side with marked reverence for the Emperor. The desire for equality and the revolt against the controlling influence of a narrow coterie has all along been exhibited.... I[217] may perhaps take this opportunity to mention two characteristics of Japanese political parties which have impressed themselves upon me in the course of my own, as yet comparatively slight, study of the politics of this country. As in so many other aspects of Japanese life, so also in politics, I think we can see a curious blending of Old Japan with the very latest and most advanced which the West has to offer. It was a remark of the most influential, if not the greatest, English political philosopher of the nineteenth century, John Stuart Mill, that, even if we could be assured that an autocrat, an all-powerful individual ruler, would govern more wisely than a popular government, we ought, nevertheless, to prefer the popular government for the educative effect which the effort to govern produces upon the people.