GOVERNMENT. The government may be de scribed as a constitutional monarchy with repre sentative institutions based largely on German rather than on British or American models. The Constitution on which it rests was promul gated by the Mikado in 1889 in accordance with ids oath in 1868. to give the people representative government. In that year the dual government which had existed for centuries reached its end, and the Mikado became the de facto a. well as the de jure ruler. The instrument consists of 76 articles, 17 devoted to the Emperor. 15 to the rights and duties of subjects. 22 to the Imperial Diet, 2 to the Ministers of State and the Privy Council. 5 to the Judiciary. 12 to Finance, and 4 to supplementary rules. The Premier. or 31inis ter President of State. presides over the Imperial Cabinet. The central Government consists of the imperial Cabinet, Privy Council. and the nine ministries—Foreign. Home, Finance. War. Navy, Justice, Education, Agriculture and Commerce, and Communications. There are also a court of accounts. a tribunal of administration, and the administrative bureaus for the Upper and Lower Houses. In the Provincial Governments division, there are the prefecture of. the police of Tokio, the Department of Colonization of Vezo, the fu and ken (the three cities and 43 prefectures into which Japan proper is divided), and the Government of Formosa. Functionaries are in three grades (eltoku, so and HO. besides many salaried agents, there having been a grand total in 1900 of 92,571 persons, receiving salaries amounting to $12.053,267.
The Parliament or Diet meets annually and has control over the policy and expenditures not fixed by the Constitution. It consists of an Upper and a Lower House. The composition of the Upper House is peculiar, its membership being made up of five classes: (I) Princes of the Imperial family who are twenty-five years of ape or over—they become members for life; (2) princes and marquises of twenty-five years of age and over—also members for life; (3) a certain number of each of the other classes of peers—counts, viscounts, and barons—over twenty-five years of age, elected by their ()Ali] order to serve for seven years; (4) persons who are not peers, nominated by the Emperor for meritorious services to the State. or noted for
scholarship—they are members for life; (5) persons over thirty years of age in each in and ken who are among the fifteen largest taxpayers, elected by the fifteen, and appointed by the Emperor for life. The Upper house contains 300 members; the Lower 3(19, or one for every 118,1100 of the population.
The national trend is toward democracy, and the struggle is to secure party government and to make the Ministers responsible to the Diet and not to the Emperor, as they now are. in the to (first-class cities), Tokio, )saka. and Kioto, and the ken, or prefectures, there are local legisla tures, which have general supervision over local affairs, besides paying their own officers, who in 1900 numbered S001, receiving in salaries $901, 396. subjects who are twenty-live years old, have lived a year in the voting district, and pay $7.50 of direct taxes, are allowed to vote for members of the Lower House. Of 555,53S such taxpayers in 189S, 501,459, or 11.8 to every thousand inhabitants, had the right to vote. The inhabitants of the Colony of Yezo and the in habitants of the Leo-chew Islands have as yet no part in the Parliamentary representation. The franchise is also withheld from functiona ries of the Imperial household, ecclesiastics, police, soldiers, sailors, bankrupts, and out laws. Deputies must be at least thirty years of age, and Japanese subjects.