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No. 3]
The Imperial Diet
21

and are supposed, therefore, to be co-ordinate. It is however provided by the Constitution (Article LXV), that “the budget shall be first laid before the House of Representatives.”

In a hard-fought contest with the House of Representatives in 1892, the House of Peers won for itself an imperial interpretation to the effect that it had the right to reinsert in the Budget items expunged by the House of Representatives, i. e., that it had equal rights of amendment with the latter.

But an absolute equality of the two Houses is difficult to maintain. According to Ito, it was the intention of the framers of the Constitution, in case the House of Peers fulfilled its functions, to make it

serve in a remarkable degree to preserve an equilibrium between political powers, to restrain the undue influence of political parties, to check the evil tendencies of irresponsible discussions, to secure the stability of the Constitution, to be an instrument for maintaining harmony between the governing and the governed, and to permanently sustain the prosperity of the country and the happiness of the people.[1]

The House of Peers is naturally much more conservative and bureaucratic than the House of Representatives; and it has checked not only evil tendencies but also progressive legislation. It almost invariably supports the administration, “no matter who forms it”, unless the latter appears too radical. It has hindered the attempts of the House of Representatives to revise or repeal “repressive and arbitrary laws” against public meetings, the press, political associations, etc. It has also checked attempts to revise the land-tax, to reform the electoral system, etc.; and it has often opposed the House of Representatives in contests over the budget. According to Ito, again: “The House of Peers can stop all legislation, however important and necessary it may be, and it cannot be dissolved.”[2]

A little study of each session of the Imperial Diet may be profitable; and to illustrate such study, a table giving the dates

  1. ↑ Op. cit., p. 66.
  2. ↑ Ibid., p. 166.

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