It is probable that when this Association was formed its founder intended that it should be a party of such wide scope that it would embrace all the then contending factions, and that thus while seeking to promote the principles of party government it would at the same time do away with the friction that was so much to be deplored. Nominally it did unite the factions under one leadership, but, sad to say, the friction in great part remained, and dissension was still rife within the party, to the manifest impairment of its capabilities for the attainment of the general weal. By Marquis Ito it has always been claimed that the Constitution was not a matter of agreement between the sovereign and his subjects, but a magnanimous grant of privileges to them by the Emperor purely on his own initiative, and it is not for the people, therefore, to question any of its provisions. Its sole aim, regarded from this lofty standpoint, is the substantial progress and well-being of the country, and it was because the leaders of political parties became too eager in their strife for the possession of power, to the detriment of their usefulness as regarded the advancement of the nation, that the idea of forming the Sei-yu-kai arose in the first place. Marquis Ito in former years was stoutly opposed to the theory of party government, and though he headed the association with which he was for two or three years closely identified, it may be held with some show of reason, perhaps, that he was never entirely enamoured of the system, for he has often alluded to the mischief which the friction inseparable from party rule is apt to create as altogether regrettable, and calling for the introduction of some form of administration of the country’s affairs that should be free from the drawbacks which he recognises and deplores. Marquis Ito, in truth, assents to the proposition that party government has its advantages as well as its disadvantages, but he is by no means a whole-souled convert to the doctrine that it is the best that could be devised for Japan. He aims at something higher and nobler, and though he is prepared at all times to admit that excellent work has been done in the thirty-eight years of his present Majesty’s reign, he would ascribe the national progress to the circumstance that the people have acted together under the guidance of the Imperial Oath, taken at the beginning of the Mei-ji era, when the present ruler ascended the throne, in which it was proclaimed that “a deliberative assembly should be formed; that the uncivilised customs of former times should be abandoned; that the impartiality and justice displayed in the workings of nature should be adopted as a basis of action; and that learning should be sought throughout the world in order that the foundation of the Empire should be firmly established.” There has never been discernible any slackening of the marvellous energy with which Japan entered upon the quest of those