the area around Nagasaki the entire feudal system with all class privileges, han and their independent administrations, samurai with their feudal revenues;

The efforts at modernisation hinged essentially on whether people could be made to accept the goals of modernisation as top national priority. Though the Meiji leaders - this time we include the intellectuals and business leaders - did certainly not have any reflex knowledge of the role of ideologies, they in fact created an ideology of progress and worked for its spread to the masses through diverse measures, such as a general 'mood and enthusi­ asm' for Western things, then above all the establishment of general education, and a generously conceived foreign travel programme.