garchs, but as time passed the small ruling circle found it increasingly necessary to win the support of this new politically conscious public. Gradually the great financial and industrial interests began to take control of the parties, although the oligarchs still remained their nominal leaders. At the same time the electorate was expanded by lowering the tax requirement for voting. At the end of the First World War, the tax qualifications stood at only three yen, and the electorate had risen to 1,500,000, thus including the bulk of the middle classes, but not the peasantry and urban proletariat.
Despite these political gains of the middle classes and the appearance of new intellectual trends, Japan entered the First World War apparently under the firm control of a small oligarchy, and then, as the war ended and Japan entered the post-war world, it suddenly became evident that there was no longer a small, clear-cut ruling group, but instead, thousands of bureaucrats, military leaders, business men, and intellectuals, all contending for control of the government. There was even a growing demand that all classes be allowed to participate in politics. Within a few years it also became evident that the intellectual life and even the social patterns in the cities of Japan had become strongly westernized. A new Japanese culture, hinted at in the writings of men like Natsume Soseki, seemed to be emerging.
One reason for this rather sudden change was the disappearance of the original oligarchs. The Meiji emperor died in 1912, leaving the throne to his mentally deficient son, who ruled in name until 1926 under the reign title of Taisho. The Taisho emperor was incapable