Soon afterwards, when the Imperial Court began to better understand foreign manners and customs, the _kuges_, the more intelligent among them, from being antagonistic became their staunchest friends and supporters. Presently the mass of the people, following the lead of their superiors, enthusiastically accepted the new idea that Japan could no longer live isolated. Their rulers had the distinct merit of understanding that in order to become the equal of the Western nations, if only from the simple point of view of material progress, it would not suffice for Japan to borrow their cannons and their guns, or even their military training, an experiment which had signally failed with other Oriental Powers; but that if Western civilization was to be of the least good to Japan, it was absolutely necessary to accept it in all its branches, civil, industrial and commercial, as well as military. The promoters of the movement, the ministers and agents of the great lords, had no more interest in maintaining feudalism than had, after the Revolution, the inferior clergy and squires in the Government of France before 1789. The first step in the suppression of feudalism was the abolition of the privileges of the _samourai_, who might, had they been allowed to retain them, have become troublesome. In 1876 the carrying of the two swords, their erstwhile distinguishing insignia, was prohibited. The stipends which they had previously received from their lords, and of which the State had possessed itself, were capitalized, and the territorial revenues of the daimios, which were at first compensated by annual pensions, were transformed in the same manner. These changes, which were undoubtedly beneficial to the bulk of the population, nevertheless brought about a great deal of misery, by throwing a number of people who had hitherto enjoyed all the privileges of fortune into humble circumstances. The peasantry benefited most by the new form of Government, and became, without having to pay anything, in a very short time owners of the land which they had hitherto only held as tenants, and, moreover, no longer obliged to pay a tribute to their feudal lords, but only a small tax to the Central Government. Needless to say, there was considerable resistance on the part of the two millions of people whom these new laws deprived of privileges which they had enjoyed for centuries, but these were easily and speedily suppressed. From 1869, in order further to mark the rupture between the old and the new order of things, the residence of the Emperor was transferred from Kioto to Yedo, now known as Tokio. In 1872 the first Japanese railway was opened between the new capital and Yokohama. The old-fashioned _samourai_ were at first dreadfully scandalized when they saw the Emperor, against all precedent, driving about among the lower classes in an open carriage. But the invading wave was too strong for resistance, and presently a number of _samourai_ of