The San Francisco Bulletin states, apparently on authority, that the
Mikado of Japan intended on the 1st of this year to estab- lish a Parliament. The fifty nominees, Princes and Daimios, forming the present Council will remain as a kind of Upper House, but there will be a Lower one of 600 representatives. The object of this scheme is probably to obtain revenue—the difficulty of Japan—and we do not suppose the Mikado will part with his divine authority, but the experiment will have a great interest for the world. There has been no instance that we can recall of a truly representative assembly in Asia, though assem- blies of Notables have frequently been called in Arabia, in Turkey, in parts of India, and in China. The nearest approach to a representative government has been the municipality of a great Indian city, which has occasionally, both in native times and in our own, been in a more or leas rough manner freely elected. The Grand Council of Turkey, though no doubt repre- sentative in a certain degree, has never been elected.
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