We have now noticed the chief features of local self-government as applied in Japan to prefectures, counties, cities, towns, and villages. Although there are many enactments against which the democratic ideas of Americans would revolt, the system is certainly well adapted to the present needs and capabilities of Japan. It is an interesting fact that Japan’s political institutions have been developed, since the Restoration of 1868, from the top downward. In Japan the people are conservative, and the government is progressive; and the people are simply under the necessity of growing up to political privileges that are gradually bestowed upon them. And we may feel assured that, as the people show themselves capable of exercising power, their privileges will be gradually extended. We should not find fault with Japan, because in only a few years she has not leaped into the enjoyment of political privileges which the English and American people obtained only after centuries of slow and often bloody development; but we should congratulate Japan, because by peaceful measures she has gradually removed herself entirely out of the pale of Oriental absolutism, beyond even despotic Russia, and may be classed with her model, Germany. BIBLIOGRAPHY. Especially helpful are Iyenaga’s “Constitutional Development of Japan,” Wigmore’s articles in the “Nation,” and several papers in the Transactions Asiatic Society of Japan. See also the author’s “Local Self-Government in Japan” in the “Political Science Quarterly” for June, 1892, and “A Japanese State Legislature” in the “Nation” for February 27, 1890. On the subject of Formosa, besides Davidson’s book already mentioned, see chap. xiv. of Ransome’s “Japan in Transition,” pp. 167, 169, of Diosy’s “New Far East,” and Takekoshi’s “Japanese Rule in Formosa.” CHAPTER XI JAPAN AS A WORLD POWER OUTLINE OF TOPICS: Standards of world-power; conscription; draft and exemption; army; arms and ammunition; officers of the army; navy; types of Japanese war-vessels; coal supply; “Blue-jacket Spirit”; Japan as a sea power; growth of cosmopolitan spirit; Anglo-Japanese Alliance,—natural, guarantee of peace, confession of England’s weakness, admission of Japan’s strength; Japan’s responsibility; meaning for Christianity; the United States a silent partner.—Bibliography.