It is impossible not to feel some anxiety lest affairs should be wrenched from the hands of such experienced statesmen as those of the Satsuma and the Choshiu clans, only to be scrambled for among the groups into which the Chamber is at present divided. This, however, need not make us despair of the success of Parliamentary Government in Japan. We must not forget that the British Parliament was not shaped in a day, and that in all countries in which this particular form of government has been accepted many years have had to elapse before it attained anything approaching perfection, and it is but natural that Japan should go through the same experience. To be just, however, considerable progress has lately been made in the right direction. The parties which possess any kind of adhesion have occasionally participated more or less directly in the Government. Marquis Ito brought Count Itagaki into the Cabinet of 1895, and at the end of his Ministry was himself supported in the Chamber by the Liberals. Then, again, in 1896 Count Matsukata came into power in company with Count Okuma, favoured by the Progressives. Throughout the whole of the Session of 1896–97, thanks to their support and to that of the secondary groups, the Government possessed a decided majority which did honour to the political acumen of the Ministers and to the wisdom of the members. Unfortunately, in the autumn of 1897 the Progressives grew tired of a Cabinet which did not fulfil its promises, and withdrew, carrying with them Count Okuma; but this attempt showed on the one hand that the Government had recognised the importance of an understanding with a party, and on the other that such an understanding possessed some staying power. Since the month of October, 1898, the Yamagata Ministry has had to deal with a very reasonable Parliament, which has unhesitatingly passed those laws which were required to extricate the country from its financial difficulties, and also divers measures necessitated by recently concluded treaties with European Powers. All this seems to indicate that under certain grave circumstances the Japanese Parliament is quite capable of rising to the occasion, and possesses the great quality, as I have said once before, of a spirit of economy often, unfortunately, absent from the more experienced Parliaments of Europe. If the Japanese Parliament ever returns to its old turbulent and boisterous humours, and insists upon governing instead of controlling, and if its irreconcilable Opposition incurs the risk of compromising the interests of the country, it is not at all improbable that the Constitution may be seriously embarrassed by a series of crises, but at present there is not much chance of exceptional measures creating any serious trouble. If the voters of Japan are apt to display an over-exuberance at elections, this is due in the main to the fact that they are new to their business, and moreover they form but a very small proportion of the population.