'212 REVIEWS OF RECENT BOOKS 



The Working Forces in Japanese Politics. By Uichi Iwasaki, Ph.D. 

 India's Demand for Transportation. By W. E. Weld, Ph.D. 

 New York, Columbia University. 

 The Faculty of Political Science of Columbia University is doing 

 excellent work by the publication of Studies in History. The volumes 

 under review are XCVII and XC and form a worthy contribution to 

 the series. 



Dr. Iwasaki's book is most welcome to students of Japanese 

 history. The period covered by it, 1867-1920, is a most important 

 epoch. The author explains it in a most lucid way, and he lays us 

 under great obligation by such a presentation of the course of 

 politics in Japan. It is treated partly from the view point of 

 sociology. Japan has made phenomenal jumps and a study of the 

 cataclysmic forces that produced these changes should advance the 

 knowledge of political science. It is a matter of special importance, 

 to know how the flood of new ideas suit old institutions. It concerns 

 the whole of Asia directly and all nations indirectly. There have been 

 many misconceptions, such as that there was a complete revolution 

 with the Meiji Restoration. The facts are "As a matter of fact, 

 long established customs cannot be changed in a day. A new society 

 h not to be begotten by the word or act of a group of statesmen. It 

 can be won only after long and painful experience. When circum- 

 stances demand a change in the life of a people, as in the Meiji 

 period, they demanded a change in the life of Japan ; the people, 

 following the line of least resistance, will alter their manners, but they 

 will make the smallest alteration that the exigencies of the moment 

 permit." 



Thus, when the Japanese feudal system was destroyed in 1867 

 there was set up in its stead a bureaucracy that retained the spirit 

 of the shogunate. It is not too much to say that the political and 

 social institutions of the new Japan were only another expression of 

 the Tokugawa system. The rules in old Japan were as follows : 

 (1) The emperor, court and nobles who lived in seclusion, (2) The shogun 

 or feudal overlord, who ruled the entire nation, (3) The daimyo or 

 feudal lords who ruled absolutely over parts of the country, (4) The 

 samurai or knights who formed the intellectual or fighting class. The 

 common people had no power and took no part in the revolution and 

 restoration. The samurai took the lead in playing the shogun against 

 the lords — and themselves coming out top. This accounts for much 

 in the history of Japan and in the present troubles in China and 

 the East to-day. The common people then were out in all these. 

 But now they too are beginning to come in, and are making their 

 influence felt. In time a part of the governing power will be in their 



