During the late Meiji era, the Imperial Household Research Committee headed by Ito Hirobumi 伊藤博文 drafted laws and ordinances pertaining to the imperial family system. Imperial Ordinance pertaining to state documentary forms (Koshikirei 公式令) enacted in 1907 is one of the most representative laws the Committee was involeved in. The present article outlines the process involved in the enactment of this ordinance and examines its impact on issues pertaining to the commissioner of coronations, in order to focus attention upon the emergence of debate over the relationship between the "imperial court" and "provincial offices" during the era of Meiji Constitutionalism and upon the perceptions held by the two entities. Deputy Governor Ito Miyoji 伊東巳代治, who interpreted the Imperial Household Research Committee's focus to be one prescribing imperial affairs through a judicial system, worked to reinterpret its affairs in a "constitutional" context by recognizing the existence of ambiguous margins when attempting to categorize matters into those of the imperial court and those of the provincial offices. The Koshikirei was revised to expand the scope of the Imperial Household Ordinance (Koshitsurei 皇室令) further than the Committee's original draft submitted to the Emperor, leading to the creation of the imperial rescript and the imperial writ documentary forms, in addition to the Imperial Household Ordinance itself. This enactment process not only gave rise to contradictions between existing imperial ordinances and the Imperial Household Ordinance, but also became the cause of a debate regarding the commissioner of coronations that occurred later on during the early Taisho era. The commissioner of coronations was responsible for state ceremonial affairs, including the Emperor's enthronement ceremony and Daijo-sai 大嘗祭, the first fruits festival celebrating imperial succession. Regulations Governing the Accession to the Throne in the Imperial Household Ordinance enacted in 1909 provided that the commissioner of coronations shall be appointed by the imperial court, and in 1913, the commissioner was established through imperial order. The above official interpretation also stirred debate concerning the relationship between the imperial court and provincial offices, in addition to its form of promulgation. The Diet and the Cabinet, which constituted the "provincial" entity at the time, debated over the positioning of the two entities. The matter was also referred to the Privy Council after the Imperial Household Ministry filed for mediation. Consequently, both parties came to recognize the subtly inseparable nuances between what should be considered "imperial" and "provincial", which had seemed clearly distinct and in principle contrasting from the time of the establishment of the cabinet system.

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Article 30 of the Meiji Constitution pertaining to petitions filed by imperial subjects specified that "rules" for concrete procedures were to be established; and the Parliament Act (Gi'inho 議院法) concerning petitions to the congress, and the Petitions Act (Seiganrei 請願令) pertaining to petitions filed with the Emperor and administrative bureaus were promulgated as a result. This article examines the process of promulgating the Petitions Act by discussing why the act was passed in 1917. in addition, the article discusses the new link that was established between the Emperor and his subjects (or rather, the nation) through the enactment of the petition system through an examination of the conditions before, during and after the enactment of the Constitution. Because the act of petitioning the Emperor was prohibited prior to the Constitution's enactment, focus was placed more on appeals to administrative bureaus at that time. However, in the process of enacting the Constitution and studying European practices, petitioning the Emperor came to be interpreted as being important as petitioning the legislature and administrative bureaus. After the Constitution was enacted, petitioning the Emperor became the subject of a debate between Ito Hirobumi (伊藤博文) and Ito Miyoji (伊東巳代治) within the process of preparing an imperial household system. The argument concerned how petitioning should be understood in terms of the "will of the people": Would it be a means of "procuring the will of the people" or "probing the will of the people?" Furthermore, heated debates arose on how the Emperor and the legislature should be positioned within the framework of the Constitution. For example, what would be the interrelationship between petitioning the two (i.e., expressing the "will of the people") and perceptions concerning the relationship between the monarch and his subjects. The promulgation of the Petitions Act was also interpreted as a measure responding to a changing society and as a law protecting the rights of imperial subjects. Consequently, the Petitions Act, which attempted to systematically lay out the petition process, was a piece of legislation that "probed the will of the people" and, as a matter, was the first law of its kind to do so under the Constitution. Furthermore, the Act represented a new linkage between the Emperor and the nation, through the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, who was put in charge of handling petitions filed with the Emperor.

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1899年 (明治32年) 3月22日に法律第82号として制定された耕地整理法は, わが国在来の田区改正と西欧の土地整理との結合の産物であるといわれている。
本稿では, 直接的にわが国耕地整理法の制定に関わりを持ったであろう西欧の土地整理のわが国への導入過程を概観しつつ, 石川県石川郡模範農場における区画改正と耕作路改修の実施に関する樋田魯一によりもたらされた西欧土地整理の直接的影響の有無を検証する。また, 耕地整理法の制定過程において, あるいは耕地整理法の成立において, 西欧土地整理法制の中でもどの国のものが法律の構成内容にどのような形で大きな影響を及ぼしたかを検討する。

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In this paper, by focusing upon three Cabinets-the first Okuma Cabinet (the first party Cabinet in Japan), the second Yamagata Cabinet and the fourth Itoh Cabinet, the author attempts to examine how the relationship between the politico-bureaucracy and the cabinets changed. Though many historians have focused on the same era, they give less attention to this change than is warranted. By discovering a new source material related to the Rinji Seimu Chosakai (Special commission for policy affairs research), the author has paved the way to examining such change. He makes the following three points. The first deals with the Kenseito party and its internal conflict. While the Shinpo faction intended to intervene structurally in the bureaucracy, the Jiyu faction intended to cooperate with the bureaucrats to extend its power. This confliction ultimately led up to the collapse of the Okuma Cabinet. Secondly, the second Yamagata Cabinet managed to get along with the Jiyu faction, compromising with them even about the blueprint for a government. Finally, such change in the relationship between the cabinets and the bureaucracy led to the restructuralizing of the Seiyukai party, which was made up of the the Itoh and Jiyu factions and shifted in the relation to bureaucracy. The Seiyukai party tried to wield its influence upon bureaucrats and tried to implants partisan spirit among them. Later on, this effort led to the participation of bureaucrats in party affairs.

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