ENLIGHTENED GOVERNMENT
Constitution),—and which had for the cardinal plank in its platform a declaration of ministerial irresponsibility to the Diet. A singular page was thus added to the story of Japanese political development; for not merely did the Liberals enlist under the banner of the statesmen whom for twenty years they had fought to overthrow, but they also erased from their profession of faith its essential article, parliamentary cabinets, and by resigning that article to the Progressists, created for the first time an opposition with a solid and intelligible platform. The whole incident vividly illustrated the fact that persons, not principles, were the bases of political combinations in Japan. Marquis Itō's attraction alone gave cohesion to the Rikken Seiyu-kai. It is true that Mr. Hoshi Tōru, who had become the effective head of the Liberals before they struck their colours to Marquis Itō, treated the latter's disavowal of party cabinets as a mere verbal concession to conservative opinion, and assured his fellow-members that such talk need not distress them. But every one felt that so long as Marquiō Ito lived, the principle he denounced could not be openly re-espoused by the Seiyu-kai.
Regarded superficially, the political situation now seemed to have lost its embarrassing features. The new association commanded an overwhelming majority in the Lower House, and comprised a group of statesmen fully competent to carry on the administration. But between the Seiyu-kai
253
