The memorable vote of the daimios was a renunciation of class privileges. Of the forty amendments in the new constitution of the Japanese Empire, twenty-six tend to reform the abuses of class legislation. The nation controls two-thirds of its mines. Stockholders of a telegraph monopoly have been forced to accept a time limit of their contract. Six hundred and twenty miles of railroads are managed—and successfully managed—by a national board of administration. The Government, in the name of the nation, builds its own warships and welds its own armor-plates, instead of farming out jobs to the highest briber. The Ways and Means Committee of 1901 reduced direct taxation almost on the exact plan of the system recommended by the reformer Bakunin—reserving building lots in new cities and granting tenures from two to ten years at gradually increasing rates of rent. Populist reforms have rendered the Government popular enough to make the nation invincible. And the world-wide need of those reforms has been repeatedly urged by Japanese travelers, and with the emphasis of strong personal conviction, especially by a keen observer who visited Europe and North America in the summer of 1903. Professor Yashinto Korioky, agent of a Tokio reform club, explored the United States without the assistance of the guides trained by our Star-spangled Uncle and with often remarkable results. “Surprises,” he says, “indeed, began before we had set foot on the soil of the great moral Republic. Above the sea mist and above the gathering clouds a fire gleamed like a meteor on the western horizon, and one of the Chinese steerage passengers, venturing to inquire, ascertained that it was a statue of liberty, furnishing light to the world. The next moment a sailor struck him between the eyes, and he admitted that he saw several starlike, luminous objects.” A TEST OF RIGHTEOUSNESS “The next morning,” he continues, “I got my traveling scrip, but was informed that our boat was moored on the wharf of an island, where immigrants are assorted according to the degree of their rectitude. Some pass the ordeal of scrutiny with ease, others with difficulty, for reasons which I was not always able to discern. I noticed, however, that the Government has coined shekels of silver with inscriptions expressing sentiments of virtue—“In God we trust,” or similar words—and whenever a traveler came provided with a goodly number of these tokens, his righteousness seemed to be taken for granted.” PATERNAL SOLICITUDE “The investigations of the learned officials in some cases extended to articles of wearing apparel. One Canton trader had underlined his tunic with eighty yards of fine silk, which, being discovered, were unwound and confiscated to enforce a lesson of modesty in the matter of dress.” WORLDLINESS SUPPRESSED