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to peace and order”, etc. It may, therefore, be correct to say, as Uyehara says: “The Constitution of Japan provides no absolute guarantee in respect of civil rights and liberties.”[1] He also states rather strongly:
As a matter of fact, that part of the Constitution which deals with the rights and liberties of the people is a mere ornamental flourish, so long as the Government is not responsible to the people.[2]
On the other hand, it must be acknowledged, that, during the first twenty-five years of constitutionalism in Japan, great progress has been made in the extension of popular rights and privileges by laws which have been enacted. If the reader will kindly take the trouble to glance back over the review of the thirty-six sessions of the Diet, he can see for himself that this statement is true. He should notice especially what was accomplished in the fourth, the tenth, the thirteenth, and the fourteenth sessions in the way of extending popular rights and privileges. And this advance is a kind of guarantee of still greater progress under more favorable conditions all along the line of popular government. In appraising the value of what has been accomplished, though it is far from being satisfactory, one must be careful not to pass judgment according to the standard of Anglo-Saxon ideas of individual rights and privileges. It is fair only to compare the Japan of 1915 with the Japan of 1890. The writer was living in Japan (in Mito), when the Constitution was promulgated (1889) and when the first Diet met (1890); and he can testify from personal observation and experience to the progress which has been made in a quarter of a century in the expansion of personal rights and liberty.
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