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examination of the financial business of the Government, the Board of Audit must possess an independent character. Accordingly, its organizations and functions, like those of Judges, shall be determined by law, and placed beyond the reach of the administrative ordinances. However, rules by which verification is to be conducted shall be determined by Imperial ordinance.

73. The Constitution has been personally determined by His Majesty the Emperor in conformity with the instructions transmitted to him by his ancestors, and he desires to bequeath it to posterity as an immutable code of laws, whose provisions his present subjects and their descendants shall obey for ever. Therefore the essential character of the Constitution shall undergo no alteration. But law is advantageous only when it is in harmony with the actual necessities of society. Thus, although the fundamental character of the national policy is to continue unaltered for all ages to come, yet it may become necessary at some time in the future to make more or less great modification in the important parts of the political institutions, so as to keep them in touch with the changing phases of society. The present article does not prohibit the amendment of the provisions of this Constitution at some future time, but establishes certain special conditions for the operation. The draft of a proposed amendment of the Constitution is submitted to the Diet by an Imperial order, though the projects of ordinary laws have to be laid before the Diet by the Government, or initiated by the Diet itself, because the right of making amendments to the Constitution must belong to the Emperor himself, as he is the sole author of it. Although the power of amendment is vested in the Emperor, it is submitted to the Diet for the reason that the Emperor’s great desire is that a great law, when once established, shall be obeyed by the Imperial Family, as well as by his subjects, and it shall not be changed by the arbitrary will of the Imperial Family. The ordinary way of arriving at a decision by a majority of votes of the members present is not practised in this matter; the presence and a majority of at least two-thirds of the entire number of all the members is required for so doing (in each House), for the reason that the greatest caution is to be exercised in regard to matters relating to the Constitution. From the express provisions of the present article, it is to be inferred that, when a project for the amendment of the provisions of the Constitution has been submitted to the deliberations of the Diet, the latter cannot take a vote