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DIPLOMACY
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party in Japan in 1881, Count Inouye became the sole exponent of the revision movement in the Government. His principle was to reform not only the laws and institutions of Japan, but also to Europeanize entirely the manners and customs of the Japanese, in order to make the foreign Powers see the anachronism of the existing treaties. Already in 1882 he invited the foreign Ministers in Tokyo to a preliminary conference for treaty revision, and discussed with them the projects of laws on the privileges of Consuls in Japan, the administration of justice, the lease of land, the reforms of administrative organs, the treatment of the Christian religion in Japan, trade regulations, harbour regulations, and regulations for cabotage, lighthouses, ships, shipwrecks, and even neutrality. But the Corean affairs of 1882 and 1884 and the consequent trouble with China prevented him from resuming the work of the revision itself, until, in 1885, his great friend and fellow-clansman, the present Marquis Ito, became the Minister President of the reorganized Imperial Cabinet.[1]

A more united action being now possible, the plan of Europeanization was carried out on a grand scale. Rokumeikwan was built at the Government expense for social gatherings in European style, the adoption of foreign dresses and coiffure by the ladies was officially encouraged, and, amidst a whirl of soirées, garden-parties, balls, and even fancy balls, the formal conference for the revision of treaties was opened on the 1st of May, 1886. The Ministers of twelve Powers took part in it. After seven sittings it was adjourned, in order to give time to the foreign Ministers to obtain instructions from their Governments, and was resumed on the 20th of October. In the meanwhile a board for the codification of civil and commercial laws, and the law of civil precedence, was established, not in the judicial department, as it ought to have been, but in the Foreign Office, under the presidency of Count Inouye himself. The present Marquis General Yamagata (now Marshal), was entrusted with the reorganization of the system of local government, for which he travelled to Europe, and became the founder of the present system of communal self-government, based on the Prussian model.

In April, 1887, the substance of the revised treaty was agreed upon as follows:

  1. ↑ In December, 1885, the old system of Daijokwan—Great Imperial Government—with its Prime Minister, Ministers of Left and Right, and a set of Councillors over and above the Departmental Ministers, was abolished and replaced by the present system, with its Ministers of State, each responsible for his own affair, subject to the guiding principle of the Minister President.
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