An important political step has been taken within the last few months, during the present year 1869. The Daimios appear to have become aware of the weakness which inevitably accompanies division, and of the strength which would be gained to the country by consolidation and unification under one head. The threatening position taken up by some or all of the foreign nations with whom treaties of friendship had been concluded brought up the subject at some of the recent great councils. The crushing defeats which had fallen upon Satsuma and Choshiu warned individual Daimios of their weakness as units in carrying on operations of war; the enormous expense entailed upon them in procuring munitions of war, and in exercise, and in the purchase of steamers, alarmed these lords in the prospect of annihilation from exhaustion, and they came to the conclusion that such expenses could only be borne by the empire as a whole, and that to gain such an advantage the privileges of the class must in some degree be given up. The removal of the Shiogoon presented a favorable opportunity for carrying out the proposal, and they agreed heartily to restore all their fiefs into the hands of the Emperor, and to give up the exclusive privileges which each held in his own state, that these might all be thrown into one government, with one exchequer, one army, and one navy. The latest accounts confirm this cession of their independent rights--in which cession Satsuma, the most powerful, but the Daimio who suffered most from the independent system in the very severe punishment which he received in loss of men, destruction of steamers, and payment of indemnity, with total loss of prestige and position as a military power, has been foremost. It is therefore reasonable to suppose that henceforth there will be only one responsible ruling power in Japan. CHAPTER XII EVENTS FOLLOWING THE ABOLITION OF THE SHIOGOONATE