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the Cabinet and the Liberal Party (Jiyuto), the first in the history of constitutional government in Japan. In accordance with the terms of this alliance, the Liberal leader, Count Itagaki, and other Liberal politicians, were admitted into the Cabinet. But this coalition ministry was soon broken up by internal dissensions; and Count Matsukata, with the aid of Count Okuma and the Progressives, organized the next ministry.

When the tenth session of the Diet began, it was supposed that the new Cabinet was in a minority in the lower house; but it soon gained the support of a good working majority and put through its measures with remarkable ease and celerity. Although the session was interrupted by frequent recesses on account of the death and funeral of the Empress Dowager, a great deal was accomplished. A national taxation law, a new tariff law, the adoption of the gold standard, a radical revision of the press law and the law of public meetings in the interests of larger freedom, and the budget, were among the important measures carried through both Houses.

But one year later, when the eleventh session was opened, the condition had so materially changed that a resolution of want of confidence in the Cabinet was able to command a good majority, and was on the point of being voted on the second day of the session, when the Ministry forced a “dissolution” and then itself resigned. In the following month Marquis Ito was again at the helm, with a Cabinet supposed to be able to command the support of the Liberals.

The twelfth (special) session, however, was not of very long duration. The bone of contention was the subject of taxation: the Ministry wished to obtain a larger amount of revenue by increasing the land tax; but the Liberals, who in the first few sessions of the Diet had been ardent supporters of a reduction of that tax, did not dare to put themselves in an apparently inconsistent position. The result was that the Government was unable to get many supporters for its bill, and, after one suspension, again resorted to dissolution, in less than six months after the previous one, and then, like the preceding Cabinet, resigned office. Although this sudden end of the