The regrouping of the political parties in Japan is now
complete. By the merging of the Progressists—the party founded by Count Okuma thirty-two years ago—and the party of business men into the new Constitutional Popular Party, or Rikken Kokumin-to, the parties are now reduced to three, corresponding roughly to Right, Left, and Centre. The curious fact remains, however, that the avowed supporters of the Ministry are limited to the Central Club, the smallest of the three parties, while the "Unionists, who number exactly four times as many, though out of office and nominally in opposition, have in fact remained ultimately in power all the while. This strange anomaly is due, as the Tokio correspondent of the Times points out, to the fact tha the stability of Cabinets has long been regarded as of more importance than the triumph of party,
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