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- FirConstitution
The father of Japan's constitution was Ito Hirobumi (1841-1909), who began the task of composing the document in 1881. He and his colleagues made several trips abroad to study the constitu�tions of the West. After eight years of research, he gathered what he felt was the best and most current constitutional practices and presented the document in 1889. Although it did contain some features of the German theories of state, it was unlike any other foreign constitution, for it was based on the principle of divine emperor and absolute ruler. The emperor was granted unlimited
Meiji Period Shinto Shrine from Togo Village, Japan; dated 1900; copper, Keyaki wood, sandstone. Purchased with funds provided by the British Columbia Lottery Fund, the Asian Art Society of Victoria and the Volunteer Committee of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, aggv 87.7
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power, and all civil and military officials reported directly to him. The constitution did provide for the election of a represen�tative parliament, the Diet, which consisted of two houses, the nobles and the commoners. This aspect was greatly respected by foreign powers and Japan's prestige continued to grow through�out the world.
Religion
The importance placed on the emperor and state, and one's loyalty to both, was stressed through religious reforms insti�tuted during the period. One of the first acts of the Meiji govern�ment was to make the indigenous Shinto faith the dominant religion in Japan. By emphasizing the divine ancestry of the emperor through State Shinto, the new government hoped to unify the nation and centralize its power. Shintoism and Buddh�ism, which had been intermingling for centuries, were officially separated in an attempt to purify the former and thus reinforce the emperor's divine rule. By the end of the Meiji era Buddhism, which had been imported from China, was no longer the force it had been. Its deities were labelled as foreign and therefore inferior manifestations of native Shinto gods.
In a further attempt towards centralization under the em�peror, the new government dismantled or amalgamated many local Shinto shrines into larger provincial ones. Thus they re�placed loyalties to local shrines with a spirit of nationalism and a fanatical devotion to the emperor.
Japan s Early Modern Wars
The Meiji government glorified its military establishment. In 1872 compulsory military service was introduced and young soldiers were taught that to fight or even to die on the battlefield for the emperor was the ultimate and greatest fate for a Japanese man. The government and the military instilled in their soldiers a vehement nationalism which led to a fanatical devotion in warfare that would last until the middle of the 20th century.
Meiji Japan had highly effective teachers in militarism and imperialism. They watched as the Western powers brutally carved out colonial empires in Africa, Oceania and Asia. Soon Japanese leaders came to believe that the mark of a great nation
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