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the lower House, but met strong opposition in the upper House. Such a conservative body as the House of Peers could not brook the idea of having the leader of a political party as Premier, and refused to pass the budget which was sent up from the House of Representatives. When negotiations proved absolutely fruitless, Ito resorted to the extreme measure of an Imperial Rescript, which resulted in the passage of the budget.

The sixteenth session was a quiet one, because Ito, who had been succeeded by Katsura, gave instructions to his party, before he started on a trip abroad, “not to present unreasonable opposition to the Government.”

The seventeenth session was short-lived; it was dissolved because it threw out Katsura’s bill for increased taxation for the sake of securing funds for naval expansion.

The eighteenth session (special) was quiet, because a compromise had been effected between Katsura and the Seiyukai.

The nineteenth session holds the record (with the eleventh session) as the shortest session, of only one day. Mr. Kono, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, had introduced into his reply to the address from the Throne a short clause which amounted to an impeachment of the Government. This use of a purely formal document for partisan purposes could not be overlooked; and dissolution was the punishment.

The twentieth and the twenty-first sessions, meeting during the Russo-Japanese War, showed again a burying of political differences and unanimous support of the Government.

The twenty-second session opened with Katsura still in power, but in only a few days found him succeeded by Saionji, who had followed Ito as leader of the Seiyukai. This was a very important session at which post-bellum measures swelling the budget to 600 million yen, including the great expansion of the national armament and the nationalization of the private railways, were passed by the lower House, practically without any amendment.^[1]

The twenty-third and the twenty-fourth sessions, with