ABSTRACT
Conscious, perhaps, that their party politicians succeed too well in being grotesque, because their politics are merely a sort of play as yet, Japanese publicists sometimes deprecate the stranger's smile with the observation that it is not necessary to believe that in its evolution in Japan, representative government shall inevitably assume the form and body of the party system. 'In other directions we have proved the fallibility of History/ they say, €why not in this ? * And truly why not ? They propose, these marvellous masters of legerdemain, to produce the Goddess of Liberty from the narrow circuit and the shallow capacity of a divine Emperor's crown ; why not representative, responsible, popular government without
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political parties ? At present our reply is merely this, —that for a country which proposes to cry stinking fish on the party system Japan has quite an extraordinary, nay quite a prodigious, array of parties. And on the basis of this intention of Japan's political evolution what becomes of the game ? If, gentlemen, the game be not a training and exercise for a fight to come, are we not asked, do you not ask us, to view a performance of burlesque ? It is not, then, the jousting lists we look upon, but pantomime.
