Lighthouses on the Western system had been begun as early as 1870, and a short experimental line of telegraph had been constructed from Yedo to Yokohama in the same year, followed by one joining Osaka with Kobé. And in the ensuing year, prior to the departure of the Iwakura Mission, the postal system had been inaugurated on an American model, and from Hong Kong the entire machinery of a mint had been procured, it having been available for purchase in consequence of the British Government having determined to cease coining in the Colony. Docks were being established in Japan, and newspapers were beginning to make their appearance. Into the whole of these varied fields of enterprise, as Minister of Public Works, Ito Hirobumi now threw his entire energies, with the best possible results, and Japan soon had her own printing establishment (the In-satsu-kiyoku) for the execution of Government work, her own Official Gazette for the promulgation of orders and regulations, her own specially designed coinage, her own State-maintained line of railroad, her own telegraphs to every part with submarine cables connecting the larger islands one to another. In his capacity of Minister the practical knowledge that he had acquired in Europe served the rising statesman in excellent stead, and he was able personally to concern himself with every branch of the important department over which he presided. At that time the number of his countrymen who might lay claim to share his intimate acquaintance with these matters was small indeed. During his stay in Great Britain in the year 1872 arrangements were made for the inauguration of a College of Engineering at Tokio, and a brilliant staff of Professors, headed by Mr Henry Dyer, was shortly afterwards engaged to fill the chairs of Mining and Metallurgy, Geology, Mechanical, Railway, and Electrical Engineering, Architecture, Chemistry, etc., and some hundreds of cadets commenced a six years’ course to fit them for the duties of carrying on the multifarious undertakings on which it had been decided to embark. The next few years of Marquis Ito’s strenuous life were spent in active preparation for the still more onerous duties that were to fall to his lot when Japan should be in a position to take her place as one of the leading nations of the earth, by right of her advancement in all the arts and sciences that tend to make a people great and powerful. He continued to avail himself of every opportunity of enlarging the field of his own knowledge and experience, making an especial study of the Constitutions of the several European States. For a time he was Minister of the Interior, having been succeeded at the department of Public Works by his friend and fellow-clansman, Inouye Kaoru.