| Prefecture. | Area in sq. m. |
Population. | Sub- Prefectures. |
Towns. | Urban Districts. |
Rural Districts. | |
| Iwate | 5,359.17 | 726,380 | 13 | 1 | 23 | 217 | |
| Aomori | 3,617.89 | 612,171 | 8 | 2 | 9 | 159 | |
| The above 7 prefectures form Northern Japan. | |||||||
| Kiōto | 1,767.43 | 931,576 | [1] | 18 | 1 | 20 | 260 |
| Osaka | 689.69 | 1,311,909 | [1] | 9 | 2 | 13 | 289 |
| Nara | 1,200.46 | 538,507 | 10 | 1 | 18 | 142 | |
| Wakayama | 1,851.29 | 681,572 | 7 | 1 | 16 | 215 | |
| Hiōgo | 3,318.31 | 1,667,226 | 25 | 2 | 29 | 403 | |
| Okayama | 2,509.04 | 1,132,000 | 19 | 1 | 29 | 383 | |
| Hiroshima | 3,103.84 | 1,436,415 | 16 | 3 | 27 | 420 | |
| Yamaguchi | 1,324.34 | 986,161 | 11 | 1 | 10 | 215 | |
| Shimane | 2,597.48 | 721,448 | 16 | 1 | 14 | 276 | |
| Tottori | 1,335.99 | 418,929 | 6 | 1 | 8 | 227 | |
| The above 10 prefectures form Southern Japan. | |||||||
| Tokushima | 1,616.82 | 699,398 | 10 | 1 | 2 | 137 | |
| Kagawa | 976.46 | 700,462 | 7 | 2 | 12 | 166 | |
| Ehime | 2,033.57 | 997,481 | 12 | 1 | 18 | 283 | |
| Kochi | 2,720.13 | 616,549 | 6 | 1 | 14 | 183 | |
| The above 4 prefectures form the island of Shikoku. | |||||||
| Nagasaki | 1,401.49 | 821,323 | 9 | 2 | 15 | 288 | |
| Saga | 984.07 | 621,011 | 8 | 1 | 7 | 127 | |
| Fukuoka | 1,894.14 | 1,362,743 | 19 | 4 | 38 | 340 | |
| Kumamoto | 2,774.20 | 1,151,401 | 12 | 1 | 33 | 331 | |
| Oita | 2,400.27 | 839,485 | 12 | — | 28 | 251 | |
| Miyazaki | 2,904.54 | 454,707 | 8 | — | 9 | 91 | |
| Kagoshima | 3,589.76 | 1,104,631 | 12 | 1 | — | 380 | |
| Okinawa | 935.18 | 469,203 | 5 | 2 | — | 52 | |
| The above 8 prefectures form Kiūshiū. | |||||||
| Hokkaidō | 36,328.34 | 610,155 | 88 | 3 | 19 | 456 | |
Local Administrative System.—In the system of local administration full effect is given to the principle of popular representation. Each prefecture (urban or rural), each sub-prefecture, each town and each district (urban or rural) has its local assembly, the number of members being fixed in proportion to the population. There is no superior limit of number in the case of a prefectural assembly, but the inferior limit is 30. For a town assembly, however, the superior limit is 60 and the inferior 30; for a sub-prefectural assembly the corresponding figures are 40 and 15, and for a district assembly, 30 and 8. These bodies are all elective. The property qualification for the franchise in the case of prefectural and sub-prefectural assemblies is an annual payment of direct national taxes to the amount of 3 yen; and in the case of town and district assemblies, 2 yen; while to be eligible for election to a prefectural assembly a yearly payment of 10 yen of direct national taxes is necessary; to a sub-prefectural assembly, 5 yen, and to a town or district assembly, 2 yen. Under these qualifications the electors aggregate 2,009,745, and those eligible for election total 919,507. In towns and districts franchise-holders are further divided into classes with regard to their payment of local taxes. Thus for town electors there are three classes, differentiated by the following process: On the list of ratepayers the highest are checked off until their aggregate payments are equal to one-third of the total taxes. These persons form the first class. Next below them the persons whose aggregate payments represent one-third of the total amount are checked off to form the second class, and all the remainder form the third class. Each class elects one-third of the members of assembly. In the districts there are only two classes, namely, those whose payments, in order from the highest, aggregate one-half of the total, the remaining names on the list being placed in the second class. Each class elects one-half of the members. This is called the system of ō-jinushi (large landowners) and is found to work satisfactorily as a device for conferring representative rights in proportion to property. The franchise is withheld from all salaried local officials, from judicial officials, from ministers of religion, from persons who, not being barristers by profession, assist the people in affairs connected with law courts or official bureaux, and from every individual or member of a company that contracts for the execution of public works or the supply of articles to a local administration, as well as from persons unable to write their own names and the name of the candidate for whom they vote. Members of assembly are not paid. For prefectural and sub-prefectural assemblies the term is four years; for town and district assemblies, six years, with the provision that one-half of the members must be elected every third year. The prefectural assemblies hold one session of 30 days yearly; the sub-prefectural assemblies, one session of not more than 14 days. The town and district assemblies have no fixed session; they are summoned by the mayor or the head-man when their deliberations appear necessary, and they continue in session till their business is concluded.
The chief function of the assemblies is to deal with all questions of local finance. They discuss and vote the yearly budgets; they pass the settled accounts; they fix the local taxes within a maximum limit which bears a certain ratio to the national taxes; they make representations to the minister for home affairs; they deal with the fixed property of the locality; they raise loans, and so on. It is necessary, however, that they should obtain the consent of the minister for home affairs, and sometimes of the minister of finance also, before disturbing any objects of scientific, artistic or historical importance; before contracting loans; before imposing special taxes or passing the normal limits of taxation; before enacting new local regulations or changing the old; before dealing with grants in aid made by the central treasury, &c. The governor of a prefecture, who is appointed by the central administration, is invested with considerable power. He oversees the carrying out of all works undertaken at the public expense; he causes bills to be drafted for discussion by an assembly; he is responsible for the administration of the funds and property of the prefecture; he orders payments and receipts; he directs the machinery for collecting taxes and fees; he summons a prefectural assembly, opens it and closes it, and has competence to suspend its session should such a course seem necessary. Many of the functions performed by the governor with regard to prefectural assemblies are discharged by a head-man (gun-chô) in the case of sub-prefectural assemblies. This head-man is a salaried official appointed by the central administration. He convenes, opens and closes the sub-prefectural assembly; he may require it to reconsider any of its financial decisions that seem improper, explaining his reasons for doing so, and should the assembly adhere to its original view, he may refer the matter to the governor of the prefecture. On the other hand, the assembly is competent to appeal to the home minister from the governor’s decision. The sub-prefectural head-man may also take upon himself, in case of emergency, any of the functions falling within the competence of the sub-prefectural assembly, provided that he reports the fact to the assembly and seeks its sanction at the earliest possible opportunity. In each district also there is a head-man, but his post is always elective and generally non-salaried. He occupies towards a district assembly the same position that the sub-prefecture head-man holds towards a sub-prefectural assembly. Over the governors stands the minister for home affairs, who discharges general duties of superintendence and sanction, has competence to delete any item of a local budget, and may, with the emperor’s consent, order the dissolution of a local assembly, provided that steps are taken to elect and convene another within three months.
The machinery of local administration is completed by councils, of which the governor of a prefecture, the mayor[2] of a town, or the head-man of a sub-prefecture or district, is ex officio president, and the councillors are partly elective, partly nominated by the central government. The councils may be said to stand in an executive position towards the local legislatures, namely, the assemblies, for the former give effect to the measures voted by the latter, take their place in case of emergency and consider questions submitted by them. This system of local government has now been in operation since 1885, and has been found to work well. It constitutes a thorough method of political education for the people. In feudal days popular representation had no existence, but a very effective chain of local responsibility was manufactured by dividing the people—apart from the samurai—into groups of five families, which were held jointly liable for any offence committed by one of their members. Thus it cannot be said that the people were altogether unprepared for this new system.
The Army.—The Japanese—as distinguished from the aboriginal inhabitants of Japan—having fought their way into the country, are naturally described in their annals as a nation of soldiers. The sovereign is said to have been the commander-in-chief and his captains were known as The Ancient System. o-omi and o-muraji, while the duty of serving in the ranks devolved on all subjects alike. This information is indeed
