Triumph of the Peace Party in Japan in 1873

The first major schism to rend the inner core of the ruling group which had been in control in Japan since the Restoration in 1868, occurred in 1873 through differences of opinion over the proposal to send an expedition to Korea. For several years previous to 1873 there had been a growing demand, particularly on the part of the ex-samurai group, to make war on Korea. The dynamics, in this case, were neither obscure nor occult; they simply represented another example of the intimate relation which often exists between domestic policy and foreign policy.