Now it will be found that there has been very much conscious or unconscious following of this idea in the progress of popular government in Japan. In marked contrast to the history of popular government in the West, where parliaments have been forced on the government from below for the protection of popular rights, popular representation has been granted from above in this country, and the people have grown up to it, or are in process of growing. The truth of this is not affected by the fact that contest between rival clans has been an ever controlling factor in the domestic politics of the country since Restoration days. The agitation of the parties has been not so much directed against the measures of the government as against the fact that the government is not controlled by the representatives of the people. The element of Old Japan in the political parties is seen in the nature of political allegiance. What holds the parties together is men rather than measures. In Old Japan personal allegiance to one’s feudal lord was one of the strongest feelings of the individual, and sufficed to give a distinct character to the life of the time. The most important elements of feudalism, the political and economic organization of the society which was founded upon it, have passed away, but the sentimental part remains in the personal allegiance of men to their party leaders of to-day. What would the _Seiyukai_ have been without Prince Itō, or the Progressive party without Count Ōkuma? No doubt other leaders would be forthcoming if these were not present, the names of the parties might be retained, but the membership would almost certainly undergo enormous changes. ARMY STATISTICS OF JAPAN[218] Surgeon-Major Koike, in a lecture delivered before the Medical Union in the salon of the Musical College in Uyeno, gave some interesting figures relating to the casualties in the North-China campaign as compared with the China-Japan war of 1894-1895. These will be most easily understood by putting them into tabular form. Total number of patients in the North-China campaign 22,080 Total number of deaths out of the above aggregate 1,137 (This, of course, is exclusive of those killed in the field; it shows only the sick and wounded.)