head of all authority in the state, and carefully protected his right to rule. This was natural, for the oligarchy had come to power as champions of imperial rule, and the only basis in theory for their continued authority was their status as spokesmen of the emperor, who in a sense had himself become one of the more influential oligarchs.
The great innovation of the Constitution was the bicameral Diet. There was to be a House of Peers, similar to the British House of Lords, made up of elected and appointed members of the new nobility and of a few other privileged groups, such as the highest tax-payers of the land. The lower house was to be elected by males over twenty-five who paid an annual tax of fifteen yen or more. This meant an initial electorate of 460,000, slightly over one per cent of the population at that time.
The first elections were held in 1890, and Japan got off to a belated start in the established occidental path of representative government. In 1892 the new Diet demonstrated that it was beginning to function as an important organ of government when the Cabinet resigned following a defeat in the Diet. However, it should not be assumed that Japan had suddenly become a true democracy. A group larger than the original oligarchy now participated in the work of government, and a little over one per cent of the population had the right to vote, but the young founders of the new government, now grown to solid middle age, still controlled Japan. They had become “elder statesmen,” the surviving leaders of early Meiji days, who added the prestige of long years of rule to their native political talents.
