5 
though they were not allowed to have any priest regularly appointed, and theii 
worship and dogmas were more or less changed. 
Suppression of Feudalism. 
We have seen what Japanese feudality was and we naturally a9k ourselves why 
the frame of government so suddenly broke down, which the genius of Yeyas had 
so scientifically constructed, and which had given to his country 250 years of 
peace. 
Many explanations have been given. It has been suggested that the compli¬ 
cated organism created by Yeyas contained within itself the germs of destruction. 
The real explanation is much more simple, the result was due to a brutal fact: 
the apparition of foreigners in steamships who could venture without fear into 
these dangerous seas and touch those inhospitable shores. Europe and America, 
in their commercial expansion, had an equal desire for Japan as a solid link to 
join them across the Pacific Ocean, and they were about to exact from Japan the hos¬ 
pitality they required. 
In 1853 the American Commodore Perry arrived in Yedo Bay with four ships 
of war, and demanded, by means of a letter from the President of the United 
States, a treaty of friendship and commerce. 
The following is the melancholy account of this matter given by a native 
historian:— 
“ The Japanese law was explained to the American Envoy • • • • but 
ne wouldn’t listen to it. • * * The object of his mission was reported at 
Kioto, and the Imperial Court ordered the priests of the great temple Ise to offer 
their prayers for the removal of the barbarians. But it was henceforth all up 
with the inviolability of the soil of the gods, and we should now never cease to 
see the great black ships furrowing our seas and vomiting their torrents of 
smoke.” 
Commodore Perry departed, announcing that he would come back the follow¬ 
ing year for a reply. All the Daimios took up arms ; forts were built and bells 
were melted into guns. 
However when Perry returned in 1854 they had reflected that resistance was 
impossible and risked the exasperation of an enemy against whom they could 
not fight without borrowing from him Iris weapons. The Taicoon therefore re¬ 
plied to the letter which the President had addressed to the “ Emperor of Japan ” 
by a letter which suggested that he was invested with sovereign rights. He 
subsequently signed analogous treaties with Great Britain, Kussia and France, 
and opened to foreigners five ports of the Empire (1857). 
There was the error already alluded to, of believing in the existence of a tem¬ 
poral Emperor in conjunction with the Mikado. However the Mikado did 
nothing to remove this false impression, and his silencp has caused surprise. 
But for one who knows the Japanese character there appears to be no doubt that 
the Mikado was not sorry to let the Europeans deal with a “ man of straw ” who 
could afterwards be disavowed. The Mikado thus gained the necessary time to 
look about him and select a line of conduct, without having compromised himself 
by negotiations with these western barbarians, whose manners and ideas were 
unknown at the Imperial Court. 
Dangers of the Feudal Organization. 
However, certain Japanese, far-seeing statesmen, understood that in presence 
of all these foreigners who had forced an entry into their country it was indis¬ 
pensable—even at the price of very existence—to substitute for the complicated 
feudality a central power holding in its hand all the forces of the Empire. 
