allied parties in the lower house found herein a justification for modifying Marquis Itō's suggestion to carefully study the budget with a view to discovering adequate means to balance the naval expenditure without resorting to the increased land tax. The committee on finance straightway negatived the land tax bill, and in the afternoon of the same day, December 16, when it came before the house, the chair read an imperial mandate suspending the diet for five days. This was followed by another suspension, and during this interval Prince Konoye, president of the peers, and Baron Kodama, military governor of Formosa, sought in vain to effect a compromise between the truculent lower house and the cabinet. The latter, however, having expressed willingness to make reasonable concessions, two representatives of each of the opposition parties met the premier and the ministers of finance and navy, on December 25, to discuss the compromise measure proposed by the latter. This compromise reduced the tax rate to three per cent. and agreed to make up the balance by postponing some public works and retrenching general administrative expenses. When this new plan was submitted to the parties at large, the latter roundly rejected it, Count Ōkuma, the Progressive leader, going so far as to intimate that his party was fundamentally opposed to the cabinet, which it considered unconstitutional. Under these circumstances it was no longer possible for the government to coöperate with the house, which was accordingly dissolved on December 28.