To these and other principles of the Constitution the emperor pledges himself and his descendants, in the wielding of their sovereign rights, always to conform (Preamble). In law, the full sovereignty is vested in the emperor alone, and yet, also in law, the sovereignty is as divided as in the subtle doctrine of the Trinity by his voluntary association with the other great institutions of the state. Behind these peculiar principles of the Japanese sovereignty should be discerned the intense loyalty of the nation to the reigning house, which during the last few decades has again and again startled the foreign observers who had not comprehended it. It is not possible for us here to discuss how this sentiment has developed, and how the emperor has proved to be the strongest and the only permanent political institution in the past history of Japan. To-day the precise position which he occupies in the organism of the Japanese nation may perhaps be defined as that of the gracious central figure of the social life and the inspiring personification of the profound unity and absorbing ambition of the people. It is not difficult to fancy that, but for the presence in their midst of this commanding institution of the emperor, the national career of the people would end itself abruptly under the pressure of the excessive competitions abroad and untrained, blundering struggles at home. The new constitutional régime, which began in 1890, has not been without a few interesting incidents illustrative of the political functions of the emperor as an actual organ of the state. One of these incidents follows: In March, 1901, the house of peers had unexpectedly and for the first time rejected a bill, already passed by the other house, for increasing the rates of certain taxes in order to meet necessary expenditures of the state. All efforts of persuasion and mediation miscarried, and the house of peers could not, in law, be dissolved. The deadlock was finally removed by the appearance of an imperial word intimating that the urgent circumstances of the nation made it desirable for the measures of the proposed bill to receive the concurrence of the peers, who now immediately and unanimously passed the bill. Thereupon the opposition in the lower house seized the opportunity to bring forward a resolution censuring the cabinet for having thus necessitated the pronouncement of the imperial word. The speeches of the supporters of the resolution seemed to imply that the cabinet should be held responsible for creating a situation in which the emperor was obliged to resort to a perhaps transconstitutional act on a matter so plainly political, and thus compromise even in the slightest degree his serene dignity, which should stand unsullied and express itself through the normal constitutional channels. The late astute Hoshi, then the house leader of the Liberals, who were supporting the cabinet, quickly seized upon the carefully guarded implications of the opposition, and