The threefold election--namely, for a fraction of the Upper House, for the whole of the national House of Representatives, and for the local assembly--took place in July, 1890. About eighty-five per cent of eligible voters availed themselves of the franchise, and there was a great superfluity of candidates. It turned out at the ballot-box that to be in any way connected with government employment was to invite almost certain defeat, while, on the other hand, few of the old party leaders were chosen as standard-bearers in the new Parliamentary field. We add that, on April 22, 1890, a new code of civil procedure, and the first portion of a Civil Code, were promulgated; since 1881, a new Criminal Code based on the principles of Western jurisprudence has been in successful operation. CHAPTER XIII FOREIGN POLICY OF NEW JAPAN AND WAR WITH CHINA It will be convenient to consider separately the foreign policy which was gradually evolved after the transformation of Japan that followed the Mikado’s resumption of actual power. Scarcely had the Shiogoon been overthrown than the desire of conquest and expansion was reawakened. Representatives of the advanced school of Japanese ideas presently maintained that the national jurisdiction should include not only Yezo, Saghalien and the Bonin islands, but also Corea and the eastern part of Formosa, the last claim being based upon settlements made by the Japanese. The Bonin islands, first occupied by Ogasawara, a Daimio, in 1593, and visited by a party of explorers from Nagasaki in 1675, had been neglected by the Japanese for centuries, though long a noted resort of whalers. In 1878, the islands were formally reoccupied in the name of the Mikado, and a local government established by Japanese officers. Saghalien and the Kurile islands had been a debatable ground between the Japanese and the Russians since 1790, and had been the scene of a good deal of bloodshed. In 1875, Admiral Enomoto concluded at St. Petersburg a convention by which Russia received the whole of Saghalien, while Japan obtained all the Kurile islands. The large island of Yezo was administered by a special department until the year 1882, when it was divided into three ken, or prefectures, which are governed like the rest of the empire. Let us glance, next, at Japan’s assumption of sovereignty over the little island kingdom of Riu Kiu, or Loo Choo, an assumption which subjected the relations between China and Japan to severe tension. These islands are strung like a long thread between Japan and Formosa. For many centuries, these islanders sent tribute to both China and Japan. Toward the close of the sixteenth century, Hideyoshi demanded that they should pay tribute to Japan alone; but he never enforced his demands. In 1609, Iyehisa, the Daimio of Satsuma, conquered the islands, and made their chiefs swear allegiance to his house and to the Shiogoon. Between 1611 and 1850, no fewer than fifteen embassies from Riu Kiu visited Yedo to obtain