Itō was no longer subject to the calumny which had fallen upon him for his close association with the deceased politician, nor could he again count upon the coöperation of one whose talent and tactics had been the badge of his discipline as leader, and whose concentration of censure upon himself had relieved the marquis from the share which would otherwise have been apportioned him. The political atmosphere was as purified, as was the forecast of its immediate future rendered uncertain, by the resignation of the Itō cabinet and the assassination of Tōru Hoshi. In the meantime the imperial mandate to organize a new cabinet lingered between Marquis Saionji, Count Inouye, and Viscount Katsura, until Katsura succeeded, a month after the fall of the last cabinet, in forming its successor. It consisted of younger men of that school of statesmen whose sympathy was with the Elders and peers, who, like their typical field marshal, Yamagata, were known to be skeptical of the wisdom of the party government. Hardly a more singular spectacle can be imagined than the one afforded by this new cabinet, which was at once as little respected from outside as internally it was united and tactful, and which was as securely supported by the peers as its relation to the representatives was precarious. The latter, particularly Marquis Itō's followers, could not have loved the successor who seemed to have stolen into the post vacated by their leader, whose untimely downfall from the cabinet had embittered them. Nor could the feeling be suppressed that, emerging from the house of peers, the new cabinet now had the use of the very twenty-one millions of increased taxes to which its members were so recently and so stubbornly opposed.