the keeping of
the Tokugawa Shoguns, was captured by the clans of Satsuma and Choshu,
and has been in their keeping ever since. They were represented
politically by five men, the Genro or Elder Statesmen, who are sometimes
miscalled the Privy Council. Only two still survive. The Genro have no
constitutional existence; they are merely the people who have the ear of
the Mikado. They can make him say whatever they wish; therefore they are
omnipotent. It has happened repeatedly that they have had against them
the Diet and the whole force of public opinion; nevertheless they have
invariably been able to enforce their will, because they could make the
Mikado speak, and no one dare oppose the Mikado. They do not themselves
take office; they select the Prime Minister and the Ministers of War and
Marine, and allow them to bear the blame if anything goes wrong. The
Genro are the real Government of Japan, and will presumably remain so
until the Mikado is captured by some other clique.

From a patriotic point of view, the Genro have shown very great wisdom
in the conduct of affairs. There is reason to think that if Japan were
a democracy its policy would be more Chauvinistic than it is. Apologists
of Japan, such as Mr. Bland, are in the habit of telling us that there
is a Liberal anti-militarist party in Japan, which is soon going to
dominate foreign policy. I see no reason to believe this. Undoubtedly
there is a strong movement for increasing the power of the Diet and
making the Cabinet responsible to it; there is also a feeling that the
Ministers of War and Marine ought to be responsible to the Cabinet and
the Prime Minister, not only to the Mikado directly.[49] But democracy
in Japan does not mean a diminution of Chauvinism in foreign policy.
There is a small Socialist party which is genuinely anti-Chauvinist and
anti-militarist; this party, probably, will grow as Japanese
industrialism grows. But so-called Japanese Liberals are just as
Chauvinistic as the Government, and public opinion is more so. Indeed
there have been occasions when the Genro, in spite of popular fury, has
saved the nation from mistakes which it would certainly have committed
if the Government had been democratic. One of the most interesting of
these occasions was the conclusion of the Treaty of Portsmouth, after
the Sino-Japanese war, which deserves to be told as illustrative of
Japanese politics.[50]

In 1905, after the battles of Tsushima and Mukden, it