Five years previously the nation had passed through a crisis in its financial affairs due to the difficulties arising from a superabundant issue of paper currency, and trade had been temporarily affected in a way to give the maximum of concern to the Ministry. Brave efforts were made, and with an appreciable measure of success, to economise in every department of State. With the revival of commercial prosperity to some extent in the autumn there was promulgated the imperial decree granting a Constitution, to take effect in 1889, and for the assembly of a Parliament in 1890. These gracious fulfilments of the promise vouchsafed to his people by the sovereign at his accession filled the nation with joy, and it was resolved that steps should be taken to frame a Constitution which should be acceptable to the monarch and at the same time satisfy all the legitimate aspirations of his loyal subjects. To this end it was agreed that Marquis Ito should visit Europe, there to complete his studies of Constitutional law and history, in order that he should be in a position to offer the Emperor advice on every point in connection with which information might be desired. By 1884 the internal progress of the Empire was such as to give the utmost confidence to the administration of which Prince Sanjo remained the head, and it had become practicable to regard the unrestricted opening of the country to foreign commerce and residence as being within the domain of practical politics, and indeed within measurable distance. By the time that it had become desirable, in 1886, to reconstitute the Government on a model more suited to the requirements of a regime based upon parliamentary procedure, the new army of Japan had attained dimensions which warranted the Ministry in entertaining high hopes of its future serviceability as the safeguard of the national interests, and simultaneously the navy had risen to the condition of being a formidable force. The army mustered at this stage over 100,000 of all ranks, and in the fleet there were twenty-six vessels, five of them ironclads, in all mounting some 225 guns. The railway system had grown to a total of nearly 300 miles, and there were 5000 miles of telegraph. In one way and another the outgoing governing council was able to give a thoroughly satisfactory account of its stewardship, for while in Korea there had been rioting resulting in the deaths of a number of Japanese, and the War party at Tokio had clamoured for retaliatory measures at Seoul, a treaty had been negotiated on acceptable terms with the Peking Government and Japan had, by the moderation of her demands for redress, averted the danger which threatened of an open rupture with consequences for which Japan was herself at that period but ill prepared. On being relieved of his office of Dai-jo-dai-jin Prince Sanjo went nominally into retirement, but his services as an adviser to the Crown were not infrequently called for, until his health failed him in 1889.