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of dual dependency for the welfare of the island people, and petitioned its recognition by Japan more than ten times. Finding all its efforts fruitless, the Liukiu mission now sent letters to the Ministers of China, United States, France, Holland, etc., asking for interference. In these letters China was called ‘the Great Tsin,’ and Japan simply Japan. Such expression as ‘a nation by itself though small’ also occurs. But none of the Powers interfered, not even China, for she then had before her the more important question of regaining Ili (Kouldja) from Russia.

In March, 1879, Matsuda was sent for a third time to Liukiu with some policemen and a detachment of the Kumamoto Division, and required the King to hand over the land and the people to the Imperial Government. The order was carried out in less than ten days. Liukiu is now one of the most docile provinces of the empire.^[1]

The year 1875 is memorable in many ways. Internally this was the year in which the first step towards a constitutional form of government was taken. We have already noticed the retirement of Saigo, Itagaki, Soyejima, Goto, etc., in consequence of the Corean question. The question of Formosa led to the retirement of another of the makers of New Japan, Kido, because in his eyes to have chastised the Formosan barbarians was a contradiction on the part of the Cabinet Ministers, who had opposed the chastisement of the far more delinquent Coreans. The Councillor and Minister of Finance, Inouye, had also retired, because his stringent economy differed from the views of his colleagues. But, with the open-heartedness characteristic of the patriotic statesmen of Japan, the Cabinet Ministers Okubo and Ito had an interview with Itagaki and Kido on the opposition side, and agreed on a plan of reforming the Government on a constitutional basis. This led to the return of Kido and Itagaki to the position of Councillors, and the famous Imperial decree of the 14th of April, 1875, was issued, by which the Supreme Court of Justice was established, and the opening of the Senate and the assembly of provincial Governors were announced as preliminaries for establishing a representative system of government.

The English and the French Governments, which had