In the meanwhile, Premier Katsura had tendered his resignation on the just plea that an adequate conduct of the government was incompatible with the slender means in which the diet had left the exchequer. Neither this argument nor the somewhat reduced physical condition of the viscount would, however, induce the throne to relinquish its confidence in him. Thereupon the premier reminded the emperor, and it was agreed to by his majesty, that his retention of the portfolio could mean nothing else than a drastic retrenchment of the administrative and financial expenditures of the state. This colossal task the cabinet set about with characteristically quiet determination. The arduous and cheerless life of the cabinet was somewhat brightened when it received into its community, in July, General Baron Kodama, military governor of Formosa, and latterly the able chief of Field Marshal Oyama's staff, and, in September, three other able young men. Nothing, however, could have been more gratifying to the cabinet than the fact that, while its hold upon the lower house of the diet was next to nothing, its apparent patriotism and sincerity, as well as its fair degree of ability, had begun to be appreciated by the throne, the Elders, and the peers, and perhaps somewhat by the people at large. The confidence with which its general purpose was regarded by the nation was best demonstrated in 1903-1904, during its protracted and otherwise exasperating negotiations with Russia regarding Manchuria and Korea. It was remarkable that, in spite of the increasing irritation which one report after another of the Russian aggression in these territories caused in the national mind, the Katsura cabinet appeared so little inclined to stray from its policy of a firm but fair treatment of the question, as did the people to force its hands to a rash action. If this remarkable phenomenon was, in part, due to the deeper and more mature feeling which was now inspiring the nation than had been experienced before, it none the less redounded to the honest purpose of the cabinet. Nor were its care and precision in all lines of its policy less remarkable than its general sincerity.