ENLIGHTENED GOVERNMENT
to exist. Therefore, after the surrender of the autonomy of the fiefs, the feudatories were appointed to act as governors in the districts where they had formerly ruled, and the samurai were confirmed in their incomes and official positions. Each governor was to receive annually one-tenth of the revenue of the fief; the pay of the samurai and of the officials was to be taken from the same source, and the residue, if any, was to be passed into the treasury of the central Government. At the same time the distinction of "Court nobles" (kuge) and "military nobles" (buke) was abolished. There had been no such differentiation in ante-feudal days. To those days also the reformers went for models of ministerial organisation. They formed a government consisting of seven departments,—religion, home affairs, foreign affairs, finance, army and navy, justice and law,—and at its head they placed a premier, who must be an Imperial Prince, and a vice-premier, the Cabinet being assisted by a body of eighteen councillors, who, including in their ranks the most active spirits of the revolution, exercised great influence.
It is plain that what had been thus far accomplished towards the abolition of military feudalism was nominal in a large degree. The Throne had not recovered the power of either the purse or the sword, for although the fiefs (han) had been converted into prefectures (ken), their revenues continued to be collected and dis-
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