The "History of the Empire of Japan" was compiled in 1893, and it is needless to say that since that time the empire has experienced a remarkable development in all aspects of its national activity. The war with China occurred in 1894-1895, the North China campaign in 1900, and the great conflict with Russia in 1904-1905. Through these important events the Japanese nation has undergone an immense change in the last dozen years, in the position it occupies in the comity of nations, as well as in its attitude toward the rest of the world. The industrial and financial life of the people has also made a change hardly anticipated in 1893. Their normal national budget, aside from extraordinary war expenditures, has grown 260 per cent. as large as it then was, and their foreign trade in commodities alone has increased nearly fourfold. The state of internal politics also has taken an evolution correspondingly significant. With this last subject we shall begin our brief survey of Japan's national life during the thirteen years between 1893 and 1906. Before entering into the narrative of the political life of recent Japan, it would be well to acquire a fuller view of the formal, or constitutional, side of that life. The reader will remember that the organization of the two political parties, the _Jiyū-tō_ (1880) and the _Kaishin-tō_ (1881), or, as generally translated, the Liberals and the Progressives, preceded the promulgation of the Constitution, which occurred in 1889. The latter was not granted by the government until the agitation of the parties for its speedy promulgation had run to a considerable height. From this fact, however, it does not follow, as has been asserted by some writers, that the Constitution was wrested by the enlightened nation from the hands of its reluctant ruler. Such a view is apt to be easily formed by the superficial observer, but hardly accords with the facts that stand recorded in history. The agitation of the parties may, to some extent, have caused the Constitution to appear at the particular time it did, but it is evident that the enlightenment had dawned earlier among the authorities than among the parties, for it was in 1867 that the famous Five-Article Oath was pronounced by the emperor, the first two articles of which read as follows: "Assemblies and councils shall be widely established, and all national affairs shall be decided by public discussion; the government and the people shall be of one mind and vigorously prosecute the policy of the nation." If these words may be proven not to imply exactly the future establishment of a regular system of national representation, no student will deny that their author sincerely entertained the desire of consulting by some effective means the intelligent section of the nation at every important step to be taken in the government of the country. Only a detailed knowledge of the modern constitutional form of government seems to have