The cabinet did not, however, live much longer, as it resigned on May 2 from an entirely unforeseen cause, the like of which it is highly improbable would recur. Within a week after the prorogation of the imperial diet, which had passed the increased tax measures, Viscount Watanabe, minister of finance, stunned the premier by declaring that the only possible way of forestalling the impending financial dangers of the government would be to postpone the public works contemplated for the fiscal year of 1901, mainly consisting of the creation or the extension of the iron foundry, railroads, telegraphs, and Formosan enterprises. His argument was not without a plausible ground, as it was plain that the issuing of the public bonds to the amount of more than sixty millions of _yen_, part of which had been planned to meet the expenditures of the public works, could not have been effected without drawing upon the too scarce productive capital of the nation. But the abrupt proposition of the viscount caused a veritable panic in the cabinet, and in the business world, and was agreed to by his colleagues after a considerable discussion. No sooner, however, did the finance minister carry his point than he gave everyone a fresh surprise by recommending an entire suspension of public works for the ensuing fiscal year of 1902. The breach thus created in the cabinet was complete, and the enigmatical Watanabe would not listen to the plaint of the premier. When all the other ministers tendered their resignation it was seen that the viscount alone was holding to his post, although he also soon joined the rest. It does not seem perfectly clear why the obstinacy of a minister was deemed a sufficient cause for the downfall of a cabinet which commanded an absolute majority in the lower house, and which had survived the deadlock and anomaly of two months before.