In 1893, when Parliamentary institutions were in their infancy, the representative assemblies having met for the first time in 1890, the climax was reached in a furious political agitation by the Lower House of the Diet voting a wholesale reduction of the Government expenditure, to which the Ministry absolutely refused to consent. It was then that the Emperor intervened with a characteristic message impartially addressed to both his Cabinet and to the Diet, pointing out facts which he was resolved to bring to their remembrance. The Emperor declared that the progress of foreign countries in which representative institutions had taken root had been rapid and constant, but that if disputes and bickerings were indulged in not only would time be wasted and energies dissipated but the attainment of those worthy objects for which all were working would be hindered and delayed. He continued;—“We have full confidence in the faith and ability of the servants of Our Crown, and have committed to their care the execution of measures calculated to promote our designs, and We have no doubt but that the representatives of Our people will share with Us in our care for the national welfare. The expenditures mentioned in Article 67 of the Constitution—i.e. those connected with naval and military administration—should not be the cause of any dispute or contention, seeing that they have the express written sanction of Our Decree. In the matter of administrative reform, We have given special instruction to Our Ministers to give the fullest consideration, so that there may be no error in the conclusions they arrive at, and then come to Us for Our sanction to any reforms they may desire to introduce. The question of national defence is one which brooks no delay, and in order to show our own sense of its paramount importance We have directed that the expenditures of Our Household be cut down, so that We may be able to contribute a yearly sum of Yen 300,000 [£30,000] for the next six years to the necessary equipment of the national defences. We have at the same time ordered all officers and officials in Our service to contribute, unless excused by Us for exceptional reasons, one-tenth of their salaries, for the same period of years, towards the expenses of naval construction. We depend, therefore, on the co-operation, along constitutional lines, of Ministers and Representatives, in the accomplishment of our great national tasks; and We call upon Our people, one and all, to do their duties in this matter.”

That proclamation appeared in 1893, one year before the outbreak of war with China, and it had the effect of putting an end to the disputes, for all sides cheerfully acquiesced in the wisdom and impartiality of the sovereign’s decision.

During the war with China in 1894-5, the Emperor’s solicitude for the welfare of his people and the painstaking diligence with which he entered into the minutest details of the naval and military plans for the prosecution of the campaign in Manchuria and Shantung, his unwearying attendance at his desk in the Hiroshima headquarters for more than eight months without change, having left his Court behind him when he took upon himself the serious burdens of conducting the war, endeared him to his people to an extent that no mere words could effectively describe. When at the close of the long struggle he returned to his capital his reception was such as to have satisfied his utmost aspirations and must have convinced him that his subjects feel for him not the traditional reverence they owe to a sovereign but the deep and abiding regard of a loving people.

Her Majesty the Empress has been for thirty-seven years the devoted consort of the ruler, and is esteemed throughout the imperial dominions as the very embodiment of all the womanly virtues. While the Emperor is immeasurably concerned with the welfare of the army and navy, her Majesty takes the utmost personal interest in the Red Cross Society, and continually works for the benefit of the hospitals, her greatest happiness consisting in identifying herself with or aiding with her own hands the undertakings of charitable institutions. In the wars which Japan has gone through the care of the sick and wounded has been the subject of the Empress’s most anxious thought, she and the four young princesses having toiled at bandage-making and other useful occupations day after day. She regularly devotes much time to such tasks, encouraging the sick with cheering words, and she rigorously pared down her household’s expenditure from the outset, in order that the contributions made to benevolent societies might be the more munificent. She has always been a liberal patroness of the arts, and in the direction of education she has been untiring in her promotion of worthy objects. There is not a man or woman in the empire who would allude to her Majesty in terms short of the most profound and respectful regard, and the people yield her homage not more by right of her exalted station than in their universal recognition of her queenly attributes and personal charm.

The Crown Prince has received an education which has among other things fitted him to become in due course of time the Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy. He does not take part in active service, but all the other princes of the blood have by the Emperor’s desire entered the services afloat or ashore, and have very recently been serving as Military or Naval officers in war.

The late Prince Arisugawa, as the chief of the general staff, was at the headquarters at Hiroshima during the China War, and planned all the operations of the campaign. He died at the age of sixty-one from the results of hard work and exposure, during the trying months from September 1894 to January 1895.

He was succeeded in his office by his relative, the late Prince Komatsu, who in March 1895 proceeded to China as Commander-in-chief of the army in the field.

Prince Kita-Shirakawa was also in the field as commander of the imperial guards division, and fought at Port Arthur, and in Formosa, where he died before the end of the war from the effects of climate. He was universally popular as an officer, and his early decease was deplored. Prince Takehito Arisugawa was at Wei-hai-wei and the Pescadores, and did good service as the captain of the Matsushima.

Prince Kanin, as a major and officer of the staff, fought bravely in the Liaotung peninsula, and likewise took part in the Russo-Japanese war, in which also three of the imperial princes were under fire, before Port Arthur.

Prince Higashi Fushimi was a commander on board the Chitose, Prince Yamashina on the Yakumo, and Prince Fushimi was on the Hatsusé.

It was a source of immense pride to the nation that these princes of the imperial house were all actively engaged on its behalf in the hour of trial.

Thirty-eight years ago the Emperor began his most auspicious reign with the solemn message to his people, conveyed in the Go-Jo-no-Go-Sei-Mon—i.e. a Decree of Five Articles previously referred to:—

With extreme tenacity of purpose and the most steadfast determination the sovereign has never deviated a hair’s-breadth from the course which he set himself to follow. He cast aside at the outset the ties which might have bound him to an ancient feudalism, resolved to substitute Constitutional and Parliamentary Government for the Absolutism that his predecessors on the throne had exercised, and by his countenance and example rendered feasible the adoption by his people of all the arts and sciences known to modern civilisation, in order that the nation might ultimately raise itself to a pinnacle of greatness never before attained by a purely Asiatic Empire.

Under his Majesty’s wise rule Japan has developed her latent resources and extended her commerce to a degree that has transcended even the most sanguine expectations of her mercantile men, while she has perfected within her borders the essentials of a permanent system of defence, naval and military, ample for her needs.

The address which the Emperor first issued to his Army and Navy made the deepest impression on the minds of all, and its stirring tones have rung in the ears of his soldiers and sailors ever since, as they have braced themselves to measure strength with their enemies on land and sea. The Emperor said:—

This is the “imperial message” the terms of which are graven deep on the memories of men of both services in Japan, inspiring them with ardour in the heat of battle and encouraging them to patiently endure the inevitable privations and suffering of their lot. The root-principle of their conduct is strict conformity with the Emperor’s Message, their one anxiety not to fall short of their duty in executing the ruler’s commands. The imperial charge laid upon them is that they shall be brave and enduring, true and honourable in their actions, simple and frugal in their habits.

In their Emperor they have always had a brilliant example set them, not only of diligence in the performance of daily tasks, but of the practice of that frugality and adherence to a simple mode of life which is enjoined upon all. His menage is noticeably free from ostentation, his wardrobe and table being almost meagrely supplied. Winter and summer he is at his desk by 8 A.M., ready for the transaction of State business, and his endurance is marvellous, for when occasion demands it he will continue at work far into the night, ever ready to receive any of his ministers in audience should matters of serious importance arise. The Emperor is well known to his people to have the habit of closely questioning those who may come before him until he has mastered the facts of a case, and then he gives his decision without hesitation. His fondness for horses is proverbial, and it is always on horseback that he appears at reviews of his troops, or at the annual manœuvres, when he conducts the operations in person, as Commander-in-chief. His Majesty’s sympathies are promptly aroused by the oft-recurring calamities that unhappily sweep over Japan, in the form of tornadoes, earthquakes, tidal waves, conflagrations, or epidemics,—he condoles with the sufferers,—and his privy purse is open to the relief of real distress. His personal attributes have won the respect and affection of his people, now numbering 46,000,000—an increase of 14,000,000 has taken place in the population of his dominions since he came to the throne—and in an intensely practical age like the present it is stimulating to discover that there is a nation in the distant Orient which, while its sons have fought their way to “a place in the sun,” has nevertheless preserved throughout a whole-souled devotion and unquestioning loyalty to its monarch, never exceeded, never perhaps equalled, in the history of the globe.

Allusion has been made to the Emperor’s predilection for writing short poems as a relaxation from the cares of State. They are occasionally given out for publication in the daily journals and appear under the heading of Giyo-Sei—i.e. Imperial Compositions. Those of last year frequently bore reference to the war in which his forces were engaged in Manchuria, and two may here be quoted in illustration of the trend of his Majesty’s thought during that anxious period:—