Party rivalry and political change in Taisho Japan

PARTY RIVALRY AND PO L I TICA L CHANGE IN TAISHO JA PA N

HARVARD EAST ASIAN SERIES 35 The East Asian Research Center at Harvard Universi ty administers research projects designed to further scholarly understanding of China, Korea, Japan, and adjacent areas.

Party Rivalry and Political Change 1n Taisho Japan Peter Duus

HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, 1968

© Copyright rg68 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Distributed in Great Britain by Oxford University Press, London Li brary of Congress Catalog Card Number 68-21972 Pri nted in the United States of America

TO MY PARENTS

ACK N OWL EDG M E N TS

This book owes much to my teachers at the University of Michigan and at Harvard University who led me through my first encounters with modern Japanese history. They brought to my notice the peculiar way in which parliamentary government adapted itself to the Japanese environment and they roused my interest in studying this phenomenon further. I am par­ ticularly grateful to Professor Albert Craig of Harvard University, who supervised the doctoral. dissertation on which the book is based. He has been a constant and perceptive critic, and for his pains has had only the dubious satisfaction of reading the manuscript in nearly all of its revisions. At various stages the manuscript was also read by Professors Robert Bellah, Tetsuo Najita, Edwin 0. Reischauer, Irwin Scheiner, Benj amin Schwartz, and Stanley Spector. All made valuable suggestions about both form and content. I am especially indebted to Professor Naj ita, who shared with me his considerable knowledge of late Meij i politics and with whom discussion and disagreement proved a constant source of ideas. In the editing of the final manuscript Mrs. Olive Holmes worked long and hard to bring order where chaos reigned. My wife, Masayo, also proved an invaluable assistant and stern taskmaster in the preparation of the notes, bibliography, and glossary. I would also like to express my thanks to Mr. Okamoto Taro, who kindly granted permission for the use of drawings by his father, Okamoto �ppei, as illustrations in the text. The original research on which the book is based was supported by a Ford Foundation Foreign Area Training Fellowsh ip, which enabled me to spend two years in Japan. A summer faculty research grant from Washing­ ton University provided financial assistance for the writing of the final version. To all of the above, and to the many others who helped me in less direct ways, I would like to express my appreciation for the generosity with which they gave me their time, advice, and encouragement.

vi

CO N T E NTS

INTRODUCTION 6

THE GROWTH OF PARTY RESPECTABILITY II

THE ORIGINS OF TWO-PARTY POLITICS

28

III

THE RIVALS : KATO KO MEI AND HARA KEI

50

IV

ROOM AT THE TOP

83

v

VI VII VIII IX

X

THE CRY FOR REFORM : THE POPULAR CHALLENGE

1 07

THE CRY FOR REFORM : THE PARTY RESPONSE

133

THE PARTIES IN DISARRAY

162

THE TRIALS OF RESPONSIBILITY

1 88

THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN POLITICS AND REFORM

2 14

CONCLUSION

236

NOTES

252

BIBLIOGRAPHY

283

GLOSSARY

3 05

INDEX

311

vii

TAB L E S Experience o f Seiyukai party leaders 2

Composition of party rank and file

I5

3

Proportion of Diet members with prefectural assembly or business expenence

I6

4

Election expenses

Ig

5

Election offenses

20

6

The development of capital investment and manufacturing capacity, I g i 3 - I g i 8

I22

7

Factory workers by indus try, I gog- I g I g

I 23

8

Number of labor organizations, membership of labor organiza­ tions, and proportion of organized workers by industry, I g 2o- I g 26 I 2 4

g

Wages, prices, and labor disputes, I g i 4- I g i g

IO

I 25

Government expenditure, I gog- I g 2 2

CHART The disbursement of bribery money of candidate N

viii

22

PARTY RIVALRY A ND POLITIC AL CHA N GE IN TAISHQ JAPA N

Democracy is the worst possible form of govern­ ment, except all the others. WINSTON CHURCHILL

Politics is a j ungle-torn between doing the right thing & staying in office-between the local interest & the national good-between the private good of the politician and the general good. JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY

The deepest significance of political parties is that they tend to the creation of new elites, and this restores to the notion of representation its true meaning, the only real one. All government is by nature oligarchic, but the origins and train­ ing of the oligarchs may be very different and these determine their actions. The formula 'Government of the people by the people' must be replaced by this formula 'Government of the people by an elite sprung from the people. ' A regime without parties ensures the permanence of ruling el ites chosen by birth, wealth or position. MAURICE DUVERGER

I NTROD U CTIO N

T

he Victorian West was a fickle mentor for Meij i Japan . Although most Westerners held the unshakable conviction that the "lesser breeds without the law" would someday remake themselves in the Western im age, they often regarded the Japanese attempt to pursue Western ways with a measure of skepticism. No matter how hard the Japanese tried to prove they were on the road to "civilization and enlightenment," there were always carping foreign critics who j udged their efforts superficial. Such com ment was com­ mon when the doors of the Imperial Diet opened in r 8go marking the beginning of a limited constitutional government in Japan. Kaneko Ken taro later recalled that at the time "certain European people ridiculed the idea of Japan's adopting a constitutional government saying that a constitutional government is not suitable for an Asiatic nation, and is only adapted to the cool-headed peoples of northern Europe . " 1 It was less than a generation since the Japanese had abandoned their feudal "despotism ," and there was reason to believe that they could not shed their old habits of min d so quickly.2 Gunboats and frockcoats were easy enough to borrow, but what of repre­ sentative institutions? This early Western pessimism was not borne out by the events of the succeeding decades. To be sure, as Western skeptics continued to point out,

1

I NTRO D U CT I O N

the Diet never played the same role in Japanese politics as Parliament did in England. There was no reason to assume that it should have. Just because parliamentary institutions originated in the West it did not mean that they had to operate in the same way when transplanted to Japan. As one scholar has pointed out in a similar connection, "We would think it absurd were the Chinese, who invented spaghetti, to insist that the Italians eat it with chopsticks. " 3 Rather, what is striking about Japan is the rapidity with which she assimilated the techniques of representative government and parliamen­ tary politics. Public elections, parliamentary debate of national issues, the accession of publicly elected representatives to high government office-all were part of the Japanese political scene long before most non-Western countries (and even a Western country such as imperial Russia) attempted them . Even today, except for those countries that were formerly part of the British Empire, few of the "emerging nations" have shown the remarkable adaptability of the Japanese in this respect. Many of these developments went beyond the expectations of the Meij i oliga.-chs, who created the new structure of representative institutions. Their conception of the Diet's role was a limited one. They had de�ided to establish a popularly elected national assembly primarily in order to create a sense of national unity and to convince the West of Japan's "enlighten ment." Even Ito Hirobumi, the least conservative of the oligarchs, never seems to have thought that the Diet should have a more positive role than that of providing the people with a political education. Consequently, the Meij i constitution and its attendant legislation limited the powers of the Diet and circumscribed the ability of its members to exercise any sort of control over policy or administrative decisions of the government. The Diet was intended to assent to the cabinet's decisions, not to question or oppose them . Indeed, the whole idea of political opposition, especially organized opposition, was itself suspect, since at best it was disruptive of a harmoniously functioning society, and at worst seditious. Given this attitude on the part of the oligarchs, the task of enlarging the political role of the Diet fell mainly to its members. It was they, after a ll, who had the most at stake in such a development. Organizing themselves into political parties from the beginning of the new Diet, they began to press for the establishment of "normal constitutional government," by which they meant cabinet responsibility to the House of Representatives. At first the tactics of the parties were militant and combative because the oligarchs

2

formed a series of " transcendental cabinets" intended to be above politics and responsible only to the emperor. But gradually the men in the parties began to realize that their interests were served better by compromise than by defiance. If the institutions shaped by the oligarchs could not be altered they had to be accepted and used instead . During the first two decades of the Diet, the parties slowly traded oratorical heroics on the floor of the House for the less dramatic and often more sordid task of achieving power and advantage by manipulating the institutional structure to their own ends. This slow but perceptible change in the spirit of the parties was reflected in the change of terms used to describe them . In the 18go's and early 1goo's, while engaged in futile opposition to the oligarchs, they had been called the "parties of the people" (minto) . But as they became more and more involved in the struggle for effective power, newspapers and journals referred to them as the "established parties" (kisei seito) , a usage that was all but universal by the Taisho period. The implication was that the parties had shed their role of protest against the old establish­ ment, the Meij i oligarchs and their proteges, only to become a new establish­ ment of their own. Curiously enough, though much attention has been devoted in both the West and Japan to the creation of the constitutional structure within which the parties operated and to their early confrontation with this structure, relatively little interest has been shown in the "established parties" during the years of the Taisho period when they had seemingly mastered it. This is a lamentable gap in the historiography of modern Japan, since it was during this period that Japan finally seemed to be moving in the same direction as the "cool-headed peoples of northern Europe. " In hindsight, it is easy to say that such a development was of little significance, since it failed to stem the " inevitable" rush of Japan toward fascism and agression, but it was by no means clear at the time that representative institutions and representative government were bound to fail . On the contrary, even a cursory reading of the right-wing tracts of the 19 2 0 's indicates that their authors very much feared that these institutions were only too well entrenched . It might not be too farfetched to suggest that had the political parties not become "established" but instead remained a peripheral element in the Japanese scene, the "inevitable" trend toward fascism might never have occurred. In the pages that follow I will examine the new developments in Diet politics during the years between 1912 and 19 2 7 . Any periodization is.neces-

3

I NTRO D U CT I O N

sarily arbit rary, and many may quarrel with the terminal dates I have chosen, but there were a number of important trends that give these years histo rical unity . First of all, it was during this period that the "established parties" achieved a decisive measure of control over the cabinet. At the outset of the period the influence of the parties on governments in power was already noticeable, but it was still covert in character. Although the parties supported the incumbent premiers from r g r 3 to r g r 8 and in return received assistance from them at election time, party leaders had to assume subordinate positions in the cabinet or even go without a ministerial post at all . The party leaders accepted this situation, which they regarded as only temporary, because they were confident that the day of party cabinets was imminent. Patience had its rewards. Party control over the cabinet finally became overt with the appointment of Hara Kei , president of Seiyukai, as premier in r g r 8 . Admit­ tedly, Hara's appointment did not mark a clean break with the past, but it did establish a precedent and strengthened the belief of the other party leaders that the emergence of party cabinets was part of the " trends of the times . " In 1 9 2 5 , with the appointment of Kato Komei as premier, a new step was made toward the establishment of "normal constitutional govern­ ment," and by 1 9 2 7 many felt it reasonably safe to assume that party control over the cabinet was imbedded in Japanese parliamentary practice. Secondly, the Taisho period was marked by the emergence of "two large parties," the Seiyukai and the Kenseikai. One of the characteristics of the prewar Japanese political parties often pointed out by both critics and casual observers was their constant tendency toward factionalism and splintering. A quick glance at a chart showing the formation of parties in the Diet from r 8go onward does indeed convey an impression that the Diet members grouped and regrouped themselves aim lessly. But such an appearance is deceptive. The constant changing of party names, the perpetual defection of party members, and the persistent recurrence of party mergers masked a tendency of the House of Representatives to divide itself into two camps, each with a relatively stable leadership group and a growing sense of party lineage and continuity. By the r g zo's, the two large parties had squeezed smaller third parties into political oblivion. Moreover, in contrast to the parties of the r 8go's, which had regarded themselves as allies more than as competitors, the two "established parties" were quickened by a strong sense of partisanship. Although the idea of party rivalry had been weak when the

4

parties faced a com mon enemy in the oligarchs and their proteges, it became strong when party government seemed to be around the corner. Finally, the emergence of party cabinets and two-party rivalry coincided with the appearance of a new set of national problems. During the Meij i era, the main task of the men in power had been to meet the real or imagined threat of the West. The overriding concern of the oligarchs was to create the prerequisites of national "wealth and strength " that would enable Japan to stand as an equal partner of the Westerners in the international community. By the Taisho period, however, Japan had become a great power, and domestic issues were becoming more compelling than foreign problems. The country was beginning to feel the social and political dislocations created by her industrial revolution instead of the anxieties of a backward nation fighting its way into the modern world . Because the parties bore an increasing measure of responsibility for the affairs of state, it was they who were most directly faced with this new challenge. They found this difficult to do, not only because most party members had a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, but also because the early struggles of the parties had given their leaders little chance to pursue anything but their own partisan interests. Nevertheless, there were men within the parties who realized that there was a need to correct the abuses of the society through a program of moderate reform . Although most of the new problems remained unsolved in spite of their efforts, the willingness of these reform elements to make even limited and tentative beginnings of solutions suggests that the "established parties" might have moved farther in this direction but for the mounting national crisis of the 193o's.

5

I THE GROWTH OF PARTY RE SPE CT ABI LITY

M ost conventional histories of the political parties in prewar Japan begin

with the formation of the parties of the jryuminken (lit., freedom and popular rights) movement in the 187o's and 188o's and trace their growth into the Seiyukai and the Minseito of the late 192o's. Implicit in this schema is the assumption that not only was there organizational continuity between the jryuminken parties and the "established parties," but that both were sustained by similar motives and goals. No interpretation could be neater-or more misleading. The parties of the late 19 2o's were a far cry from their predeces­ sors. By 1930, save for a few prodigies of longevity like lnukai Tsuyoshi and Ozaki Yukio, nearly all the old participants of the jryuminken movement had either died or retired from politics. More important, the parties of the late 19 2 0 's played a very different role in the political world. They were as unlike their predecessors as a successful middle-aged man is unlike a rebellious adolescent. Without understanding this difference, it is very easy to make

6

the mistake of j udging the "established parties" by the standards of the jiyuminken parties. Functionally speaking, the jiyuminken "parties" were not parties at all, but political associations intended to mobilize a national protest movement against the Meij i government. They remained outside the charmed circle of officialdom with no institutional access to control of the government and without any formal constitutional means to express their discontent. Hara Kei , writing in the late 1 8go's, aptly characterized them as "parties in prepa­ ration" (jumbi seito) ,1 able to speak, but not to act, on questions of national policy. Their unity was negative, spawned by protest against the hambatsu (lit., clan faction) government. As a consequence, they gathered into their ranks many brands of discontent. There were frustrated ex-samurai who found themselves left out of the newly formed bureaucracy ; there were former government officials who parted company with their colleagues on matters of policy, such as the Korean question or the creation of a constitutional system of government; there were young intellectuals whose encounters with the "new knowledge" of the West convinced them that authoritarian govern­ ment was wrong; there were well-to-do members of rural society who chafed at the intrusion of new organs of local government in the provinces, at the invasion of " foreigners" sent from Tokyo to govern them , or at the exaction of new taxes and levies that seemed to profit the countryside but little. But all the participants of the jiyuminken parties, whether moved by populist resentment or stifled ambition, were l t!ss interested in getting into power themselves than chasing the hambatsu rulers out. Being organizations devoted to protest rather than to the pursuit of power, the weapons of the jiyuminken "parties" were those of agitation and education. A few members of the movement were frankly conspiratorial, interested in open revolt. These firebrands on occasion attacked police stations and incited riot, but the maj ority of those in the jiyuminken associations contented them­ selves with organizing petitions, disseminating the literature of Western liberalism, publishing local newspapers and journals, and traveling on speak­ ing tours in the countryside in hopes of organizing local political associations. Because these early "parties" had as little access to political power as most protest movements, they were organizationally weak and vulnerable to defections. National "party " headquarters tended to be ephemeral and short-lived. The " parties" were really decentralized federations, highly au­ tonomous local units loosely tied to a few national leaders, rather than unitary centralized organizations with internal bureaucracies, fund-raising machinery,

7

I

THE G R OWTH OF PARTY R ESPECTABI LITY

and disciplinary powers. The local branches of the Jiyuto, for example, in most cases sprang up more or less independently as self-generating sprouts rather than branches from some larger trunk. The " parties" lacked internal cohesion and frequently fell apart at the top. All this changed with the promulgation of the Meij i constitution and the , convening of the Diet in r 8go. For the first time there was a constitutional nucleus around which a disciplined organization could coalesce. Moreover, parties were no longer highly suspect political associations, but organizations that, though not specifically recognized in the constitution, were free from the disabilities of surveillance and repression. The minto of the first decade of the Diet were more nearly parties in the sense we understand them , organizations dedicated to th � pursuit of political power within the constitu­ tional framework. They found themselves in the position of being able to exercise some influence, albeit largely negative, on the policy of the nation. The old spirit of protest and resistance remained strong at first, not only because of continued hostility toward hambatsu rule, but because many members of the new parliamentary parties had been activists in thejryuminken protest movement. Gradually, during the r 8go's, many within the minto began to realize that they were no longer petitioners hammering futilely on the gates of the oligarchic redoubt but were already within the walls and would some day find seats in the council chambers of their old antagonists. Parliamentary control of the cabinet and party rule no longer seemed a pipe dream. It was merely a matter of time before both were realized. By the early r goo's as the parties became accepted as an inevitable part of the political process, they began to succumb to respectability, the malady of the mature and successful. The men who had j oined the parties in the days of fiery declarations and dramatic contretemps with the Meij i govern­ ment were no longer an asset. Political forthrightness was less at a premium than the careful cultivation of strategic political connections and the building of a strong electoral base (jiban) . The parties became more cautious as they became more secure. As a consequence, during the years following the turn of the century, there began to emerge a new type of party tactics, a new type of party leader, and a new type of party membership. ACCOMMODATION WITH THE HAMBATSU Fundamental to the change in the character of the political parties was the abandonment of the politics of protest. The role of political gadfly may have

8

been morally satisfying for the "popular parties" but it gained them little. From a negative point of view, it was obvious that the unrelenting criticism and opposition to the oligarchs provoked them to counterattack, as Yamagata Aritomo did in the election of I 8g 2 , by using bribery and police intimidation to break the back of party opposition. It was also clear that the continuation of frontal assult on the hambatsu in the Diet was bad tactics in the long run as well . One of the first people to realize this was Kono Hironaka, earlier a firebrand of the jiyuminken movement who had been jailed by the Meij i government for h i s alleged resistance t o local authorities in Fukushima prefecture. Kono did not propose to retreat before the power of the oligarchs but suggested it was better to outflank the enemy than to charge head on into their ranks. He later recalled his state of mind in the early I 8go's as follows: 2 What was the way to overthrow [the hambatsu]? The ordinary method was to face them straight on, and fight and fight with one's bare hands until the last battle was won and they were completely wiped out. But going about it this way meant that . . . sacrifices would be great, and that one could never be certain of achieving one's goal. If one hambatsu cabinet were overthrown , another would appear ; when that was overthrown there would be still another. Wiping them out completely was therefore not easy. If during [the struggle] , we became tired of fighting and lost heart, this might bring about unforeseen failure and might make trouble for the future. For this reason such methods must be avoided ; . . . instead of dividing the political world horizontally with the hambatsu and the parties fighting one another as previously, [the tactics should now be] to divide the political world vertically, draw the leaders of the hambatsu into the parties, and by tearing [the hambatsu leaders] from their roots, open the way for a situation in which two large political parties would oppose one another. The idea is clear: the best way of wresting control of cabinets from the oligarchic generation was to divide them by j oining them . Under the influence of Kono's ideas, indeed through his negotiations with Ito in I 895 , the parties began to establish alliances with the oligarchs with an eye to exercising increased control over the government. The detente between the parties and the oligarchs was made possible in large measure by the pressing need of the government following the Sino-Japanese war to finance its "postwar endeavor" (sengo kei'ei) , a program of heavy arms spend-

9

1

THE G ROWTH O F PARTY R E S P ECTABI LITY

ing in preparation for a possible conflict with Russia. Control of the Diet was essential to the passage of ever burgeoning budgets, and the oligarchs were willing to share a measure of power with the parties in order to achieve it. The parties were not averse to giving this support, since in return they could extract from the oligarchic premiers concessions on policy, appointment of party members to ministerial and other high bureaucratic posts, the granting of economic privileges and advantages to party members, and on occasion even party funds.3 Between 1 895 and I goo, there were three formal party-oligarchic alliances-between Ito and the Jiyuto in 1 895 , between Matsukata Masayoshi and the Kaishinto in 1 89 7 , and between the Kenseito (formerly the jiyuto) and Yamagata Aritomo in 1 8g8. But despite the mutual profitability of such alliances, they tended to break down rather quickly, usually because the o ligarchic premiers were willing to abandon the parties once they had used them. The problems of the party-oligarchic alliances are best illustrated by the last of them , established between Yamagata Aritomo and the Kenseito. In November 1 8g8, Hoshi Toru , the skillful but devious leader of the Kenseito, agreed to persuade his party to support the Yamagata government's legislative program in the Diet, if the government in its turn would prepare the founda­ tion for putting the party's platform into effect and help in expanding the party's local strength . As a result of the agreement, ten important government bills passed the Diet, including a much opposed increase in the land tax, a tax on sake, and a tax on personal income. Yamagata's success was accom­ plished by a substantial advance of money to Hoshi to bring his party into line. According to some reports, Hoshi received at least ¥ 1 0o,ooo (perhaps more) to use in holding the Kenseito together and to build its local strength as well as to buy Diet votes for the land tax increase.4 All this was perfectly legal, since at the time there was no law that prohibited Diet members from accepting government money. But the alliance broke down once the Diet was over. Yamagata, successful in putting his financial legislation through the House of Representatives, immediately turned tables on his party allies by issuing an Imperial Ordinance revising the Civil Service Regulations to reduce the accessibility of party members to the higher echelons of the bureaucracy. This made it clear to Hoshi and the Kenseito leadership that Yamagata, though he was willing to make short-run concessions, had not abandoned his desire to keep government free from party influence. A more stable accommodation between the parties and the oligarchic

10

generation began in r goo when Ito Hirobumi consented to become president of the Seiyukai, a new party recruited not only from the bureaucracy and the business world but from the ranks of the "popular parties" as well. Admittedly, Ito's participation in the organization of the Seiyukai was in­ tended to make management of the Diet easier and to put an end to the laborious negotiations necessary to gain party support in the House of Rep­ resentatives. He was less interested in promoting party rule than in achieving political peace through the formation of one large party that would serve as his tool in the Diet. Nevertheless, the formation of the Seiyukai did mark a split of the hambatsu into two wings : those like Ito and Inoue Kaoru who admitted the necessity of making concessions to the parties and those like Yamagata and Katsura Taro who still regarded the parties as suspect and exerted every effort to thwart them. The former party men who j oined the new party-men like Hoshi, Matsuda Hisamatsu, Hayashi Yuzo, and Kataoka Kenkichi, all veterans of the "parties" of the r 88o's-realized this, and indeed had quite consciously cultivated a tie with Ito after the Kenseito broke with Yamagata.5 They were intent on establishing the kind of "vertical alliance" previously suggested by Kono. By recruiting Ito to serve as party president, the new alliance would be a permanent one and the new party could ride to power on Ito's coattails. By wooing Ito from his fellow oligarchs, the party men could smooth the path to party rule. By the end of the Russo-Japanese War, the relationship between the parties and the hambatsu leaders had entered a new phase. On the one hand, the older members of the hambatsu, those who had participated in the Restoration, began to step aside from direct participation in government, contenting themselves with positions of honor while they exercised only informal control on the affairs of state. Ito, never enthusiastic for the details of party business, nor even very much concerned with the fortunes of the party, resigned from the Seiyukai to become president of the Privy Council and eventually gover­ nor-general of Korea. Yamagata continued to remain actively interested in politics, but to carry out his wishes he relied more and more on his proteges in the military and civil bureaucracies, men like Hirata Tosuke, Katsura Taro and Oura Kemmu. At the same time, the Seiyukai, which had gained its initial impetus under the patronage of Ito, began to develop a considerable amount of independence in its actions. The party came under the control of men who were less interested in serving the oligarchs than in replacing them. The slow withdrawal of the oligarchs from the forefront of politics enabled

11

1

THE G R OWTH OF PARTY R E S P E CTABI LITY

the leadership of the Seiyukai to establish the party in a new relationship with the government. No matter who was made premier the Seiyukai main­ tained friendly relations with the cabinet. This new development in the politics of accommodation with the hambatsu culminated in 1 904 when Hara Kei and Katsura, still regarded as a protege of Yamagata and a leading member of the hambatsu, agreed on a peaceful transfer of power without resort to genro consultation. Saionj i Kimmochi, the Seiyukai president, became premier, without having been selected by the oligarchic leadership. When Katsura returned as premier following the Saionj i cabinet, he found himself forced more and more to rely on Seiyukai support to get desired legislation through the Diet. From r go6 until r g r 5 , the Seiyukai was in effect a kind of " most favored party" which supported nearly every cabinet that came to power. Finding this situation little to his taste, Katsura decided to form a new party of his own as Ito had. The formation of this party marked the final accommodation between the parties and the hambatsu. Though Katsura's party, the Doshikai, like the Seiyukai came under new leadership shortly after its founding, it too began as an attempt to ally one wing of the parties with one wing of the hambatsu. It was no longer possible to make a clear division of the political world between the parties on one side and the hambatsu on the other. These lines of battle, so clear-cut in the early r 8go's, were being redrawn. THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE PARTY MEMBERSHIP As tactics of the parties changed, so did the character of their membership. To describe the change briefly, there was an attrition of "protestors" within party ranks and a concomitant growth in the number of " respectables. " In part, this reflected the dying of enthusiasm among those who had been fiery idealists in their youth, but more important it indicated that party politics was becoming attractive to a new type of person. Men who might have found it uncomfortable to sign a petition calling for the establishment of .consti­ tutional government in the r 88o 's were beginning to make their way into the world of the parties. Indeed , they were ultimately to dominate it. Those who had participated in the political associations of the jiyuminken period had usually been young. They risked persecution, imprisonment, and government harassment with little promise of monetary or material reward .

12

Enthusiastic, they were willing to commit themselves totally to a career in politics simply for the sake of their ideals. Few of them had any other aim in life than politics. Many of these men found it difficult to adj ust to the new tactics of accommodation with the oligarchic generation. Those of them who did not leave politics sank into increasing obscurity and impotence. At the same time, both the leadership and the rank-and-file of the parties came increasingly into the hands of men who entered politics from successful careers in other professions, usually from business, but often from journalism , the free professions, and the civil bureaucracy. Such men had usually not participated in the jiyuminken protest movement nor taken the same risks as the early political activists but rather found in politics a diadem to crown success in other fields. They generally entered the parties in middle age, with little experience in local politics and a less poignant yearning to defeat the forces of hambatsu authoritarianism. Concerned primarily with the honor, prestige, and concrete economic advantages that participation in the parties seemed to promise, they accepted the institutional framework established by the Meij i constitution and worked pragmatically within it. There con­ tinued to be enthusiasts in the parties, of course, but they were gadflies who often found themselves isolated unless they sought out the patronage of an established political figure. The shift of party control from the hands of the old jiyuminken activists to younger men with reputations achieved in other fields was perhaps most striking in the party leadership. The two stalwart party leaders of the I 88o 's and the 1 8go 's, Itagaki Taisuke and Okuma Shigenobu, left the parties by the early I goo's. Itagaki retired from the party movement after the formation of the Seiyukai. Okuma continued to serve as president of the Kenseihonto until 1 906, but he was finally forced from his post by a powerful faction within the party which felt that his continued association with the party was more of a hindrance than an asset. Like ltagaki he seemed a man with little prospect of becoming premier and hence was useless as a party leader. These two heroes of the jiyilminken period were succeeded by men recruited from the national business and bureaucratic elites. Apart from Saionj i , who became president of the Seiyukai at the suggestion of Ito, the successive presidents of the party were Hara Kei, a former government official and newspaper editor who had enj oyed the patronage of Inoue Kaoru and Mutsu Munemitsu ; Takahashi Korekiyo , ex-President of the Bank of Japan ; Tanaka Giichi, a military bureaucrat and " political

13

THE G ROWTH OF PARTY R E S P ECTA B I LITY

general. " (The Seiyuhonto, which split from the Seiyukai in 1 9 24 , was under the presidency of Tokonami Takej iro, a former official in the Finance and Home Ministries. ) After the death of Katsura Taro, a military bureaucrat and protege of Yamagata, the Doshikai came under the leadership of Kato Komei, a former Foreign Ministry official. His successors as head of the Kenseikai and Minseito were Wakatsuki Reijiro and Hamaguchi Yuko, both former Finance Ministry officials. Except perhaps for Hara, who earned his spurs as party leader by astute promotion of the Seiyukai's interests, all these men became party leaders either because they were potential candidates for the premiership or because they were able to raise funds for their parties. The same trend was perhaps less pronounced in the middle range of party leadership, where control over party business and connection with local politics were of some importance. But at this level, too, the influence of the jiyuminken enthusiasts declined as the numbers of those with business and bureaucratic backgrounds increased ; experience and connections in the bureaucracy and in the business and financial centers of Tokyo and Osaka were as important as experience in local politics. Table I shows the changing composition of the Seiyukai. The statistics indicate two trends which confirm the changing nature of party membership: the marked decline in party leaders having experience either

TAB LE 1 . Experience of Seiyukai party leaders (by percentage of total number of leaders).a I 900- I 904

I 90S- I 9 I I

I 9 I 2-I9I 6

I 9 ! 7 - I 92 0

Prefectural assembly members

74

47

37

24

Presidents of prefectural assembl ies

22

I8

I3

9

Higher officials in the central government

3

II

I7

I6

I n busi ness o r with business connect ions

38

42

48

so

Experience

Source: Masumi J unnosuke, "Nihon seito shi ni okeru chiho seij i no shomondai," Kokka gakkai zasshz� No. 76 ( 1 963), p. 38. Party leaders include the party president, party directors (somu), party secretaries (kanji), as well as parl iamentary directors ( innai somu) and parliamentary secretaries (lnnai kanji). •

14

the prefectural assemblies or as presidents of prefectural assemblies; the marked increase in the proportion of party leaders with experience as higher officials in the government (koto kanrz) or with business connections. Those with local political experience, of course, continued to serve important functions in party housekeeping and in exercising discipline over the rank and file, but their influence over the inner circle of party leadership was usually less than that of those entering the party from the national business or bureaucratic elites. Finally, we can discern similar trends in the composition of the party rank and file. First of all, the average age of Diet members rose, an indication that participation in the parties was less the business of ardent young men than of those with an established position in society.

m

TAB LE 2. Composition of party rank and file (by number and percentage of members) .a Age of Diet mem bers

I 890 election

3 I -39 years old 40-49 years old over 49 years old

I 36 (40) I I4 ( 34) so ( 1 7 )

I 924 election 45 I6I 258

( 1 0) (35) ( s 6)

Source: Shimura Gigaishi, ed., Kokka taikan, (Tokyo, 1 954), p. 649· •

Percentages rounded to the nearest whole number.

The average age of Diet members in 1 8go was 4 2 years and four months; in 1 g 2 3 , 5 1 years. The contrast is even more revealing if we look at the distribution of Diet members by age groups in the 1 8go and 1 9 2 4 elections. Nearly half the members of the First Diet were under 40, whereas in 1 9 24 nearly half were over so . By the early 1 9 2 o 's, as one writer pointed out, the "gray heads" outnumbered the "dark hairs" on the floor of the Diet.6 A second trend indicating the increased participation of "respectables" in politics was the growing number of party members with business con­ nections. From the figures in Table 3 we may draw at least two conclusions. ( 1 ) The overall number of Diet members with business experience or business connections increased , particularly after 1 908. Curiously enough this election was also marked by a great influx of " new men" elected for the first time to the Diet ; perhaps this was a consequence of the wartime prosperity during the Russo-Japanese War. In any case the figures indicate that business, both

15

TH E G R OWTH O F PARTY R E SPECTABI LITY

TABLE 3 · Proportion of Diet members with prefectural assembly or business experience (by percentage of total number of Diet members) . Experience of Diet members

1 902

1 903

1 904

1 go8

1912

1915

1917

1 920

1924

1 92 8

Prefectural assembly members

6o

61

66

35

44

42

37

38

35

32

Company executives or other business experience

41

47

47

56

59

51

56

56

55

51

Prefectural assembly members and i n business

34

36

35

35

36

34

32

33

33

28

Source: Masu mi, Kokka gakkai zassh1� No. 75 ( 1 962), p. 435 ; No. 76 ( 1 963), pp. 42-43.

provincial and national, was more and more a route to the Diet. ( 2) The importance of business as a route to the Diet is confirmed by the second trend, a marked decline in the nu mber of those whose main route into the parties was through local politics and election to the prefectural assembly ; even among those who did enter the Diet from the prefectural assemblies, the proportion with business connections was increasing. It should perhaps be added that during the same period, the proportion of ex-officials in the Diet remained at a constant proportion, about 10 percent ; many of these men were ex-provincial governors who ran for the Diet from the prefectures they had presided over. The parties were not flooded with ex-officials, but those who did enter the party tended to occupy positions in the upper echelons of leadership. THE STRENGTHENING OF PARTY DISCIPLINE The accommodation with the hambatsu and the increasing "respectability" of the party membership brought the parties closer and closer to their coveted goal of power. But as the parties became stronger within the structure of power the individual members of the parties grew weaker in their ability to maintain political independence. Party discipline became rigid. In the Diet, party members voted according to the " party decision" (togi) , rarely if ever breaking ranks to express dissent. In 19 20 Ozaki Yukio, one of the few remaining free spirits in the Diet, complained that Japanese political

16

parties were military in their qrgariization. They stressed moderation and discipline at the expense of freedom of conscience and insisted on drill-like unity with no one out of step.7 By and large, the party decision was made by the party president or the small circle of intimates around him. In both the "established parties" the president was aided by a party board of directors (siimu) and a chief party secretary (kanjichii ) , who consulted with him on important matters. Whatever dissent existed within party ranks was resolved outside the Diet so as to maintain a fa:5 amounted to ¥I ,5 24,40o,ooo , a reduction of about ¥g I ,ooo,ooo

198

or 6 percent of the 1 9 24-25 budget. This was considerably less than the ¥256,ooo ,ooo originally agreed upon by the cabinet and less than the econo­ mies that had been effected by the governments of Takahashi and Kato Tomosaburo in 1 9 2 2 and 1 9 2 3 P For all the heat generated by the budget controversy within the coalition parties, the government's actual accomplish­ ments were scant indeed. Kato's support of Hamaguchi against the demands of party interest exacted a high price-growing discontent in the Seiyukai. As if this were not enough, the budget was to meet further difficulties in the House of Peers, which attempted to use it as a counter in its bargaining with the government over the issue of peerage reform . UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE AND THE PEACE PRESERVATION LAW Although the fight over the retrenchment had been hottest within the ranks of the government and its supporting parties, the government's universal suffrage bill was pushed and mauled from all directions. The passage of the bill was perhaps the policy to which the Kenseikai had committed itself most strongly. Indeed, Kato went so far as to call it the " mission" of the cabinet. Failure to pass universal suffrage, with which the Kenseikai had tried to identify itself since 1 9 2 0 , would have been a serious embarrassment for the government, but tactically it was a ticklish problem, since a suffrage bill had to have the assent of the government parties and of the Privy Council and the House of Peers. This subjected the bill to a constant process of amendment and reamendment. The suffrage enthusiasts tried to pass as liberal a bill as possible, while conservative elements in the Privy Council and House of Peers tried to emasculate it as much as possible. The amendment process also became a tactical weapon for certain elements in the Seiyukai who were attempting to bring down the government and a lever for the House of Peers, which tried to use it as a counterfoil to the government on the issue of peerage reform . Kato's political abilities were seriously taxed as he tried to knot this bag of demons. The original drafting of the government's universal suffrage bill proceeded with relative ease. The "safety valve" argument in favor of universal suffrage had been gaining currency in the past few years. There was a growing feeling among the most conservative that the passage of universal suffrage might serve to placate a popular discontent that otherwise would seek means of expression more vio:ent than the ballot box. The Yamamoto cabinet had

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TH E TR IALS OF R E S PO N S I B I L ITY

spoken of its readiness to enact universal suffrage in 1 9 2 3 . Even the ultra­ conservative constitutional theorist, Uesugi Shinkichi, agreed that failure to pass such a bill would mean continued social conflict and would make the peo ple hostile toward their homeland.l8 The main difficulty encountered in negotiations between the three government parties centered not on the ex­ pansion of suffrage qualifications to include all adult males, but on the question of districting. There were many within the Kenseikai and the Kakushin Club who wished to replace the small district introduced by the Seiyukai electoral law of 1 9 1 9 with the old large district system (coextensive with the prefecture) , which gave advantages to smaller parties. It was finally agreed, however, to adopt the middle-sized district returning three to five members, a compromise between the two extreme views. Adachi , entrusted with the task of drawing up the districting schedule, produced a proposal that drew district boundaries on the basis of population distribution and geography rather than on the basis of advantage to the Kenseikai alone. Prevented by the need for cooperation from gerrymandering the districts, he was able to produce a draft that was j udged fair by the Seiyukai leader­ ship. 19 The government's troubles began when the government submitted the draft bill for approval by the Privy Council. Here the old question of whether or not to add an "independent livelihood " clause cropped up again. Though Kato had declared in May that adding such restrictions to the suffrage would run counter to the intention of universal suffrage,20 the government draft bill agreed upon by the three parties did include a clause excluding from the suffrage "persons who received assistance at public expense (kohi no kyftjo) for their livelihood . " This was aimed specifically at indigent persons on public rel ief rather than at those who depended on parents or relatives for support. The members of the Privy Council, however, perhaps because they knew of Kato's previous stand on the question of an " independent livelihood " clause or perhaps because they wished to obstruct the bill without seeming to do so overtly, sought to broaden this clause by amending it to read " persons receiving public or private assistance (koshi no kyftjo) for their livelihood . " Although Kato was willing t o accept certain other amendments made by the Privy Council,21 he balked at this one, fully aware of the stir it would cause in his own party and possibly in the rest of the coalition. The dilemma was solved by personal persuasion and a dictionary. Kato and Wakatsuki met with the president and vice-president of the Privy Council, both of whom

200

were personal acquaintances of Kato, and agreed to alter the word kyujo to kyujutsu ( that is, from "assistance" in the general sense to "assistance" in the specific sense of aid to the indigent). The compromise retained enough of the Privy Council's original wording to allow it to save face, but had the effect of restoring the government's original intentions.22 By this time, however, the Seiyiikai, aggravated by the controversy over the budget, began to act less in the interest of the coalition and more in the interest of returning to power. Yokota, the key figure in the Seiyiikai who had supported the coalition, died in February, and Takahashi, now sick in bed, was himself a lame duck, not expected to continue long in the party presidency. Both had wished to continue the coalition, but other leaders in the party wished to bring it to an end. Koizumi Sakutaro, who was engaged in negotiations to bring Tanaka Giichi in as a new president for the Seiyiikai, approached Koj ima Kazuo, lnukai's right-hand man, with the suggestion that they try to overthrow Kato on the universal suffrage question.23 What he probably had in mind was to embarrass the government by objecting to the Privy Council amendments and to insist on a more progressive bill. This would have the dual effect of inciting the House of Peers and the Privy Council against the government, perhaps forcing a resignation , and of gaining the Seiyiikai the reputation of being a forward-looking party.24 Were the cabinet to fall, the way would be open for a reunion of the Seiyiikai and Seiyiihonto and for a return to power. Though probably a minority within the party, the anti-coalition faction was probably able to exploit discontent at the government attitude toward pork barrel legislation and Kato's unwilling­ ness to propose a vigorous peerage reform program. The Seiyiikai now insisted on a series of amendments that would restore the bill more or less to the form originally agreed on by the three government parties.25 The general trend of opinion within the Kakushin Club was to support the Seiyiikai amendments. The Kenseikai itself was divided between those who agreed to the proposed Seiyiikai amendments on their merits and those who felt that it would be best to pass the bill in the form amended by the Privy Council in order to assure its passage through the House of Peers. The dispute over the proposed Seiyiikai amendments dragged on to the end of February. Kato had no success in persuading the Seiyiikai leader­ ship to withdraw the amendments, so he finally decided to accept most of them . At the same time, he reached a further agreement with Konoe Fumimaro that the House of Peers restore the bill to the form approved by

201

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TH E TR IALS OF R E S PO N S I B I LITY

the Privy Council and that any differences between the peers and the represen­ tatives could then be resolved in the meeting of a joint committee of the two Houses.26 It proved easier to deal with the "absolutists" than with his own allies in the House of Representatives. The bill that finally passed the House of Representatives was a compromise between the Privy Council amendments and the Seiyukai amendments, but it met with further resistance in the House of Peers. Although the notion of universal suffrage ran counter to the inherent conservatism of many of the peers, who would have preferred limiting the vote to heads of households, the leadership in the House tried to obstruct its passage simply to force concessions on the question of peerage reform. Like the budget, it had become a pawn in the tactical game. The peers delayed action on the measure until the closing day of the Diet session. Kato, determined that the bill pass at all costs, took the unusual step of petitioning the emperor to extend the Diet to allow time for final action on the bill. It finally passed the House of Peers, but with amendments that had to be either accepted by the House of Representatives or reconciled with its demands. The compromise between the two Houses did not come easily. Kato was forced to petition for another extension of the Diet session, and j ust as the time was nearly used up, a compromise was finally achieved . On the one hand, the peerage members of the j oint committee were subjected to pressure from Saionj i and probably also from Mizuno Naoshi , one of the principal leaders of the Kenkytikai. On the other, Okazaki Kunisuke, a Seiyukai leader who shortly afterwards became a new member of the cabinet, proposed an acceptable wording for the controversial disqualifying clause. The House of Peers was successful in raising voter residence requirements from six months to one year, in excluding heads of hereditary peerage families from parti­ cipating in House of Representative elections, and in making alterations in such procedural matters as absentee voting. The main concession won by the House of Representatives was the provision that successfully elected candidates not be held legally responsible for election offenses perpetrated by their campaign managers. But both sides made concessions on the dis­ qualifying clause, which, following Okazaki's suggestion, now denied the right to vote to "persons who receive public or private assistance or relief for their livelihood on account of poverty." 27 Despite the many amendments, the principle of universal suffrage was left uninfringed . All adult male citizens over the age of 25 who had resided in

202

their electoral district for one year and who were not disqualified because of indigence were given the right to vote. The electorate was increased fourfold, from about 3 ,ooo ,ooo voters to about 1 2 ,5oo ,ooo. But had the compromise not been reached in the joint committee, Kato would have been forced to dissolve the Diet or to submit a general resignation of the cabinet; Adachi, Hamaguchi, and Wakatsuki had frequently urged him to do so anyway.28 But because he was reluctant to face the physical rigors and financial burdens of a new election, he reserved this drastic action as an ultimate weapon. Had he used it to threaten the Seiyukai previously, however, he might have brought them into line sooner. Instead he sought to resolve differences by negotiation and cajolery. One point that requires further clarification is the connection between the universal suffrage bill and the Peace Preservation Law that passed the Diet in February 1 9 2 5 . Some have argued that the Peace Preservation Law was part of a conscious "carrot and stick" policy ; the vote was to be extended to the working class, the peasants, and the mass of the people, but the exercise of their new right was to be circumscribed by repressive legislation. Others have suggested more specifically that the government was forced to propose a " thought control" law in order to mollify conservative elements in the Privy Council and the House of Peers.29 During Diet debates it was alleged that the Privy Council had passed a resolution that read in part : 30 Since putting universal suffrage into effect will _result in a worsening of dangerous ideas, the government must establish and put into effect laws and regulations for the rigid control [of dangerous ideas] and must exert itself to prevent evil abuses and practices. Both explanations have an element of truth, but it would be too much to say that the Peace Preservation Law was in any literal way a "precondition" for the passage of the universal suffrage bill ; it would be more accurate to say that it was a long-pending piece of legislation, the passage of which was precipitated by Kato's need to smooth the way for other measures. The ultimate inspiration behind the law was, of course, concern over the "thought problem ," which had become increasingly urgent since the war. Especially after the failure of the universal suffrage bill and the onset of hard times in 1 9 2 0 , anti-parliamentary and anti-capitalist ideas began to gain currency in the labor movement, in the tenant movement, and in intellectual circles. The apparent capture of the country's largest labor organization ( the

203

VIII

T H E TR IALS OF R E S PO N S I B I LITY

Nihon Rodo Sodomei Yiiaikai) by a syndicalist faction, the public formation of the Japanese Socialist League, and the clandestine organization of the Japanese Communist party were symptomatic of a radicalism that, if not immediately harmful, was potentially dangerous. Those in positions of respon­ sibility began to worry about a solution to the problem . Work apparently began on a law for the control of radicals and subversives under the Seiyiikai cabinets. Hara Kei felt there was a need for more stringent regulations to supplement existing laws.31 At the end of 1 9 2 1 or beginning of 1 9 2 2 , anti-subversive legislation, drafted under the supervision of two top Ministry of Justice officials, Hiranuma Kiichiro and Suzuki Kisaburo, was introduced in the Diet by the Takahashi government as the Law for the Control of Radical Social Movements. The government, alleging that the number of persons cooperating with foreign colleagues to propagate radical ideas had increased recently and that existing laws were inadequate to control them, stated that the bill proposed was aimed at suppressing those who wished "to turn the country Red " (waga kuni o sekka suru) and at pre­ venting such people from establishing ties with radical elements abroad (presumably in the Soviet Union) . Quite predictably there was considerable opposition to the law in the press, in academic circles, and in the labor movement. More significant was the opposition in the Diet. The Kenseikai and the Kokuminto attacked the bill alrriost as a matter of reflex, and anti-government elements in the House of Peers objected to it strenuously. It eventually passed the upper House, but the government decided to let the bill die a natural death lest debate on it hinder more pressing legislation in the House of Representatives.32 The feeling that such a law was necessary did not die so easily, however. The police, who were nervous enough to dispatch men to investigate an organization with the sinister name, Rotary lnternational ,33 continued to exercise close scrutiny on the propagation of "dangerous ideas." They used existing laws to suppress the Japanese Communist party in July 1 9 2 3 , and under an emergency ordinance issued by the government after the Tokyo earthquake, they made a more extensive roundup of alleged radicals, includ­ ing the anarchist, Osugi Sakae, who met a cruel death at the hands of a sadistic police officer. Not surprisingly, work again began on an anti­ subversives law when Suzuki Kisaburo became minister of justice under the Kiyoura cabinet. Kiyoura himself spoke of the need to bring under control " those who dare to speak and act in a fashion that upsets public peace and

204

order and contravenes the law of the land . " But the Kiyoura government fell before it could translate this draft into legislation.34 The Kato cabinet was thus heir to a project that had originated some years before in the ranks of the professional bureaucracy. It did not accept in toto the proposed draft of anti-subversive legislation. In July 1 9 2 4 , Wakatsuki, the new home minister, said that a " thought control" bill was under con­ sideration in his ministry but that its content would differ from the one proposed in 1 9 2 2 .35 The main objective to the Law for the Control of Radical Social Movements in the House of Peers had been the vagueness of its wording; i t was a shotgun not a stiletto . The same was true of the draft drawn up by the Home Ministry and Justice Ministry in 1 9 24, which was aimed at those who advocated " the denial of the state, alteration of the national structure, and so forth , which illegally revolutionizes the system established by the constitution" and at those who sought " the illegal revolutionizing of the laws and discipline of society . " Wakatsuki tried to make the draft more specific. He revised it to apply only to those who advocated revolutionary changes in the national structure (kokutai) or the poli tical system (seitm) and those who denied the system of private property. ( Because it was difficult to say what constituted a revolutionary change of the political system, this clause was dropped from the bill as it finally passed .)36 The legislation had been long pending, but the question remains of why the government did not take steps to put it in the legislative mill until the beginning of the 50th Diet. Undoubtedly it was intended to mollify con­ servative elements in the Privy Council and the House of Peers who feared that the passage of universal suffrage and the resumption of relations with the Soviet Union would increase the opportunities for radical agitators to spread their subversive ideas among the people. Kato's biographer calls it the "passport for passage of universal suffrage and the ratification of the Japanese-Soviet Treaty. " 37 Kato himself was probably not worried that an expanded suffrage would lead to the radicalization of the masses, but he did express apprehension lest the resumption of relations with the Soviet Union provide the occasion for legal entry of agents of the Third International into Japan.38 The government might eventually have proposed a Peace Pres­ ervation Law anyway, but these other two government measures required its immediate passage. In any case, it is evidence of the general feeling for the need of such a law that only a handfu l of Diet members voted against it.

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The main criticism that can be made of the Peace Preservation Law was that it was superfluous and that it was liable to be interpreted with excessive zeal by the police ; like most repressive legislation, the main danger lay less in how it was worded than in how it was applied. There seems little reason to doubt that the bill was, as Wakatsuki repeatedly stated, aimed solely at the repression of communism, anarchism, and other extremist forms of radicalism. It was not intended, as he said, to abridge freedom of speech or expression, to hinder scholars in their study, to suppress "serious-minded " (majime) social movements, or to outlaw or place restraints on the labor movement.39 In fact, the Kato government never had recourse to the law, but in more zealous hands, it became an instrument for �epression. This was a lack of foresight on the part of the Kenseikai leadership, not an error of deliberate commission. PEERAGE REFORM The issue that proved to be the most troublesome for Kato was the reform of the House of Peers. Unlike universal suffrage and financial retrenchment, both of which were long-standing demands of the Kenseikai, peerage reform first became the object of widespread public discussion during the second Movement for Constitutional Government. It was the special project of the Seiyukai, particularly of Yokota Sennosuke, who sought to translate the general disgust with the formation of the Kiyoura ministry into an issue and a slogan that could garner support in the coming election. The grievances against the House of Peers were, of course, long standing. Constitutionally the Upper House could block or obstruct any legislation passed in the Lower, a power that was usually of nuisance value but on occasion could force a cabinet resignation. Hara had attempted to circumvent the dangers of facing a hostile House of Peers by establishing his "vertical alliance" with the Kenkyukai, but this only had the effect of accelerating the " politicization" of the House of Peers. On the one hand, party struggle in the Lower House had begun to affect the peers. Not only were there peerage factions such as the Doseikai and the Koyu Club, which were directly linked with the Kenseikai and the Seiyukai, but the whole House itself split into a pro-government and an anti-government coalition during the Takahashi ministry. The peers no longer stood above unseemly party strife but were plunged iDto the midst of it. At the same time, certain members of the House

206

of Peers, the more ambitious imperial appointees and the young hereditary peers who had overthrown the old leadership of the Kenkyukai in r g r g , attempted to compete with the political parties in the formation of cabinets. The culmination of this tendency toward the active involvement of the House of Peers factions in politics was, of course, the Kenkyukai 's participation in the formation of the Kiyoura cabinet. There were few reformers, if any, who demanded the abolition of the House of Peers. Needless to say, this was a practical impossibility. Rather, most felt it should be made a secondary force in politics and that its main role (as originally intended by the drafters of the constitution) should be to serve as a check or restraint on the rasher impulses of the popularly elected House of Representatives. As Yoshino Sakuzo pointed out, this would have to be achieved primarily by the growth of custom rather than by legislation, but there were certain changes that might be made without reducing the powers of the House by law. Most proposals for reform did in fact center around changing the composition of the House. It was hoped thereby that the preponderant power of the hereditary peers would be diminished, the hold of the leaders of the peerage factions over the rank and file could be reduced, and those who held seats in the House by virtue of mere wealth or birth could be replaced by members who in some way or other were more repre­ sentative of the general populace. The idea of add ing representatives from functional or professional groups was one of the more ingenious suggestions. Changing the composition of the House would thus obviate the need for more extensive surgery to break the hold of its entrenched leadership and induce it to abandon its obstructive tactics.40 Kato was leery of undertaking such reform . He was not opposed to the idea in principle but was concerned with the question of timing and degree, when and how much the present system should be changed. He felt that peerage reform was not as urgent as either universal suffrage or financial retrenchment and that it should not be attempted until these planks of the Kenseikai program had been put into effect. Since he needed the cooperation of the peers to achieve both these goals, he could ill afford to offend them by insisting on a maj or change in either the powers or the membership of the House. His public statements on the matter at the outset of his cabinet were suitably ambiguous, hinting at the need for an " improvement" ( not a reform) of the House of Peers but promising little concrete action other than a "careful study" of the matter. At the same time, he attempted to build

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an understanding with the Kenkyukai, still the most powerful faction in the House of Peers. The day following the formation of his cabinet he met with Konoe Fumimaro, recently elected to the leadership of the faction and generally regarded as a young man with a future, to request the support of the Kenkyukai in the coming Diets. Konoe relayed the message to Aoki Nobumitsu, who with the agreement of Mizuno Naoshi , said that the faction would proceed on the principle of "benevolent neutrality" (koi zezehihishugi) .41 According to Konoe, this neutrality meant that the Kenkyukai would not oppose Kato if Kato did not oppose them. It would not be hard to interpret this as a veiled warning against drastic peerage reform. Caught between the demand for peerage reform within the ranks of the government parties and the unwillingness of the peers to let anyone dabble in their affairs, Kato began to feel the vise tighten on him less than a month after the cabinet was organized. In the extraordinary Diet session, the reform elements within the parties sponsored the passage of a resolution calling for an "improvement" of the House of Peers. They also produced a proposal for reform that attempted to reduce the numerical s � periority of hereditary peers and to place the House of Peers on equal legal footing with the House of Representatives. The number of hereditary peers was to be reduced from 2 1 5 to 1 00 ; imperial appointees were to remain at the number of 1 2 5 but to be limited to a six-year term of office ; the highest taxpayers were to be replaced by 94 members elected by city, town, and village assemblies for a term of five years. The provision of the Regulations Governing the House of Peers which stated that alterations in the organization or powers of the House could be affected only by a resolution of the House itself was to be abrogated; and the Diet Law was to be amended to establish a time limit on debate of the budget in the House.42 This proposal, though it did not require a constitutional amendment, went far beyond what the House of Peers was likely to tolerate. Perhaps incensed at the effrontery of the House of Representatives' demand for reform , the Kenkyukai immediately made trouble for the government in the Diet.43 Allying with the Koyu Club, they refused to pass the govern­ ment's proposals for a new luxury tariff and for the establishment of a system of parliamentary vice-ministers. It is impossible to say whether the intent behind this was to bring down the government or merely to frighten it, but in either case Kato was hard pressed to resolve the crisis. Finally, perhaps because of the efforts of Mizuno Naoshi and perhaps because of intervention

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by Saionj i , the peers relented and passed both pieces of legislation.44 But there can be little doubt that the episode made Kato act even more gingerly on the reform question.45 Although work had begun on both financial retrenchment and universal suffrage by the beginning of the fall, Kato continued to vacillate and pro­ crastinate on the peerage reform issue. In October, after Saionj i had urged Kato to take advantage of the strong public opinion in favor of reform by carrying out some kind of change in the House of Peers, the cabinet set up a committee to investigate the problem. It proved to be of little use either in deciding on concrete proposals or in obtaining an understanding with the House of Peers on the matter.46 Finally, on the eve of the 50th Diet in December, Kato was finally forced by pressure from the government parties, especially from the Seiyukai, to announce that the government intended to present a peerage reform measure in the coming Diet session.47 The task of drafting the government's proposal was done by Yokota with some assistance from Egi Yoku. Though extremely moderate in tone, both Takahashi and lnukai agreed to it. The gist of the proposal was as follows :48 I . Amendment of the Regulations Governing the House of Peers to change the total number of mutually elected hereditary counts, viscounts, and barons from 1 66 to 1 50 ; to replace the highest taxpayers with two members to be elected from every prefecture by those paying over ¥ 1 00 in direct national taxes; to limit the imperial appointees' term of office to seven years ; to add to the number of imperial appointees a number of high officials ( like the prosecutor general, the presidents of Imperial Universities, and so on) as ex officio members and ten members to be mutually elected from certain public bodies (like the Imperial Academy, the National Astronomical Society, and so forth) ; and to lower the age limit on membership in the House from 30 to 2 5 . 2 . Amendment o f the Diet Law t o limit deliberation o f budget bills i n the House o f Peers t o 2 1 days from the beginning of debate. 3 · Amendment of the regulations concerning the mutual election of heredi­ tary peers to the House by changing the form of balloting from a multiple entry ballot to a limited entry ballot and to eliminate voting by proxy. The purpose behind this last proposal was to reduce the numerical super­ iority of the hereditary peers, to eliminate the House's power to obstruct the passage of the budget, and to loosen (rather than break) the hold of the faction leaders in the House over the rank and file members. Far more timid

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than the original proposal by the reform faction in July, it nonetheless failed to win the support of the peers themselves. Although there had been a small number of peers who advocated a modicum of reform in order to escape the backlash of aroused public opinion,49 the maj ority sentiment in the House was against any but the most innocuous change. Indeed, though certain pro-Kenseikai imperial appointees, such as lzawa Takio, urged the House to accept this relatively lukewarm reform rather than risk a more drastic change, the factions in the House almost im mediately formed a "study group," which consisted mainly of persons felt to be hostile to the government.50 To prevent the government from pressing its reform proposal too vigorously, the House, as already noted , began to adopt tactics of obstruction and delay on the budget and the universal suffrage bills. Kato found it difficult to circumvent this resistance. First of all, he tried to persuade the Mizuno Naoshi faction of the Kenkyii.kai to accept some kind of reform. The Kenkyii.kai leadership was split. Those surrounding Aoki Nobumitsu were interested in a reunion of the Seiyii.kai and the Seiyii.honto and were willing to frustrate the government in order to achieve it, whereas those surrounding Mizuno wished to continue the policy of "benevolent neutrality" and accept Kato's reforms as long as they were not excessively radical. Mizuno apparently felt that cooperation with the government was the best way to minimize the effects of reform51 and was willing to agree to universal suffrage. He did not want to bring public opprobrium on the Kenkyii.kai by opposing both attempts at reform. Secondly, although at first he felt it best not to involve the genro, Kato finally tried to have Saionj i exercise h i s influence o n the leadership o f the Kenkyii.kai .52 Saionj i was most anxious that Kato continue in power because he needed to find a suitable successor, and to that end he hoped Kato would get most of his legislation through the Diet. 53 But this tactic was ineffective at best and at worst incensed certain peers who called the attempt to use genro influence "extremely unconstitutional" and "most improper. " Instead of threatening, Kato had chosen to cajole. The result was that the peers whittled away the proposal to alter the membership of the House almost completely. Kato's main tactical failure was his unwillingness to use reform of the regulations governing the mutual election of hereditary peers to the House. These regulations, established by imperial ordinance, could be changed at the discretion of the government without the approval of the House

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of Peers. They were also the principal means by which the leadership of the peerage factions maintained their power. Had Kato threatened to alter them he might have been able to force greater concessions not only on peerage reform but on the rest of his program. Only a limited number of hereditary peers in each rank below marquis could hold seats in the House. A seat in the House of Peers was much sought after by many of the hereditary peers, who had little in the world but their name and status; they were anxious to enjoy the material advantages of a seat in the House with its annual salary of ¥ 2 ,000 and its free railroad passes. Election, however, depended on approval by the leaders of the election organizations (senkyo botai) formed by each rank of hereditary peers. Every hereditary peer was given a ballot on which he could write as many names as there were members to be elected ; in the count rank, for example, which elected 20 members, each count could write 20 names on his ballot; those whose names appeared on the greatest number of ballots were elected . Had the ballot been single entry or limited multiple entry, five or six counts might get together to elect one of their number, but under the multiple-entry ballot, an individual could be elected only with the votes of a maj ority of his fellow counts (of whom there were about 1 oo ). In practice, the leaders of the election organization sent a list of recommended candidates out to all members of the particular rank, who automatically voted for the names on this slate. Aspirants for a seat therefore had to obtain approval of the small group of leaders who controlled the election organiza­ tion and who also served as leaders of the factions themselves.54 Had Kato chosen to alter this system of election by exercise of the cabinet's discretion he could have posed a serious threat to the leadership of the House, but instead he repeatedly promised not to. By giving such assurances, he doubtless hoped to persuade the leadership in the Hou'se of Peers of his rea­ sonableness, but instead it must have been interpreted as a sign of weakness. The attempt to alter the composition of the membership having been diluted by compromise and the proposal to alter the mutual election regu­ lations having been conceded, the plan to limit the House of Peer's powers over budget debate was lost by failure to compromise in the Diet. Alteration of this aspect of the peers' power required assent of both Houses because it required amendment of the Diet Law. The House of Peers finally agreed to the government's original proposal to limit the period of debate to three weeks, but it added the proviso that in the event of urgent necessity, the House could prolong this period up to seven days by resolution. The House of

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Representatives struck this from the bill , and though it was restored by agreement in the joint committee of the two Houses, the House of Repre­ sentatives once more voted it out. Since the two Houses were unable to achieve agreement, the bill failed to become law. Peerage reform , for all the trouble it had caused with the rest of the government's program, proved to be a dismal failure. It was no longer legally necessary for the number of hereditary peers to exceed the number of imperial appointees ; the number of count, viscount, and baron members had been slightly reduced ; the electorate that voted for the highest taxpayers had been expanded somewhat ; and a number of new members were to be elected from the Imperial Academy. But the practical effect of these changes was negligible. The House continued under the control of the leaders of its factions and it continued to exercise its obstructive role. True enough, leaders of the House of Peers could no longer compete with the parties in the Lower House to form cabinets, but this was the consequence of practice not of reform. THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE FIRST KATO CABINET Kato's battles had been bloody but not decisive. The coalition was m parlous condition, and the press reactions to his accomplishments were anything but favorable. Retrenchment had proved to be negligible in its extent, the passage of universal suffrage had been qualified by the exclusion of the indigent from the vote and by the Peace Preservation Law, and peerage reform had been thoroughly emasculated. Perhaps equally important was the damage Kato's reputation had suffered . Although his strong point had in the past seemed to be his willingness to state his views publicly and defend them forthrightly, his conduct as premier had been marked by vacillation, hesitation, and a notable lack of vigor in dealing with both universal suffrage and peerage reform . Furthermore, despite his long-established insistence on "normal constitutional government," he had repeatedly bargained with the leaders of the House of Peers and he had attempted on several occasions to use Saionji's influence as a weapon. He had won the epithet of compromiser, as Katsura and Hara had, without enjoying their success.55 Admittedly, the cards had been stacked against him from the beginning, but there is no question he failed to exploit two of his tactical advantages. One was threatening to dissolve the Diet, or failing that, submission of a general resignation of the cabinet in order to bring the Seiyukai into line.

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A new election would have been a risky undertaking for all the parties, but the Kenseikai , as the plurality party whose leader was premier, would surely have enj oyed a substantial advantage. Furthermore, in view of Saionj i 's anxiety over the lack of suitable successors for Kato, it was not unlikely that Kato would have been reappointed premier even if he had resigned. He also threw away his power to coerce the House of Peers by threatening to alter the mutual election regulations. By settling for peaceful compromise instead of a show of strength he lost momentum and prestige. Had Hara been in a similar position, he might have been more willing to use threats in order to extract concessions from his opponents. Kato himself seemed a beaten man at the close of the Diet. His speech to the Kenseikai membership was defensive, larded with self-pity at the heaviness of the burdens he had borne, and petulant at the carping of the press. The universal suffrage law and the retrenchment budget, he said, were a matter for congratulation ; the peerage reform question had been an extra burden piled on from behind but had been "in some measure a success" ; a n d the Peace Preservation Law could hardly b e called an "evil law," since all it attempted to do was protect private property and the national structure (kokutai) .56 It was not a convincing rebuttal. Might there not have lurked with Kato a sense of guilt and disappointment, a rankling doubt that there was much truth in the criticism levelled against him? Perhaps if his initial position had been stronger, his health better, and his policy goals less ambi­ tious, his performance might have been more creditable, but his wife's com­ ment some years after his death reveals his sense of disappointment. To be premier, she said, may have been the goal of his life, but he was far more happy when he was minister in London.57

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hatever criticisms might be made of Kato's achievements in the 5oth Diet, there is no question that for the first time since the suffrage debate of 1 9 20 politics was enlivened by the debate of issues, rather than by a simple struggle for power and advan tage. Compromise was made to serve the ends of policy not simply of ambition. During the remainder of its tenure of power the Kenseikai government continued to propose a legislative program of moderate reform -revision of the tax system to alleviate the burden of taxation on small incomes, the extension of suffrage reform to include local government bodies, modest improvements in educational facilities, and the introduction of labor union legislation-aimed at the welfare of the middle and lower classes, a program considerably more purposive than Hara's limited goal of expanding Seiyukai power. But this moderate program neither made an impact on the public nor established the Kenseikai as the champion of the people. Part of the reason for this was the relapse of party politics into trivialities and aimkssness. What struck the public eye was not the sincere but colorless

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efforts of Kat6 to pursue a program of moderate reform. Rather it was the Byzantine maneuverings of the party leaders to seize power and hold it, the exposure and counterexposure of political scandal, and the continual public name-calling and mud-slinging between the parties that made the headlines. The subordination of issues to trivia resul ted from the continued division of the Diet among two parties of roughly equal strength ( the Kenseikai and the Seiyukai) and a third smaller party (the Seiyuhont6) whose votes could give either of the other two a maj ority. Yamagata's " triangular party" system had come into being, but there was no one to manipulate it. This balance of power might not have become a problem had the Kenseikai , the Seiyukai , and the Kakushin Club continued to maintain their coalition, but the tem­ porary allies soon had a falling out. The coalition collapsed in mid- 1 9 25 largely because the Seiyukai saw a better opportunity to refurbish its own position by making a break with Kat6. The ensuing political uncertainty was exacerbated by the lack of any unity of purpose (save a desire to come to power) on the part of the Seiyuhont6 and by the timidity of the Kenseikai leadership in facing an election. The balance of power was so precise that all three major parties were locked in a state of immobility. The deadlock might have been broken had the government chosen to call new elections, but the recent passage of the universal suffrage bill had made this an uncertain venture. How would the newly enfranchised voters cast their ballots? There was no way of telling. A bolder man than Kat6 might have cast caution aside in a gamble that the new electorate would support the government that had enfranchised them, but the Kenseikai leader, who in 1 9 2 0 had pointed out that the new voters might have short memories, was not willing to take the risk. It was not surprising that many observers con­ cluded that the parties, for all their willingness to eliminate the tax qualifi­ cations on voting rights, were still afraid of the public.1 It was difficult for the Kenseikai to create an image as a reform party under such circumstances. As usual, the penchant for politicking seemed to triumph over the desire for reform. As had been the case so often in the past, the difficulties of the parties were resolved by tactical realignment in the Diet rather than by an appeal to the public. The instability, immobility, and uncertainty of party politics were finally put to an end by the organization of the Minseit6. As before, the motives behind party formation were those of power, not of policy. The organization of the new party lay in tactical necessity rather than in pro-

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grammatic unity. The result was the final achievement o f a " normal" two­ party system in which the Diet was divided between two parties equal at the polls, on the floor of the House of Representatives, and in the sub rosa negotiations for the formation of cabinets. But paradoxically, the two party system emerged at a time when few outside the parties placed high hopes in the future of government by the "established parties." The opportunity to capture popular enthusiasm, if such a chance had existed at all in the early I g2o s, had long since been forfeited . The mass of voters were probably indifferent to the parties, and those that were not distrusted them; the same was true of the intelligentsia. At the moment the success and effectiveness of the parties seemed assured, the legitimacy of their right to use their power was being called into question. '

THE BREAK-UP OF THE COALITION The coalition on which the Kato cabinet rested was, like most coalitions, a shaky one. Its formation had been dictated by the circumstances of the Movement for Constitutional Government and by the inability of the Kenseikai to manage the Diet without Seiyukai support. By the beginning of 1 9 2 5 , however, its appeal was wearing thin for the Seiyukai. Many of the younger members of the party felt that the Seiyukai was too junior a partner in the alliance and that the Kenseikai reaped most of its benefits, both in policy and personnel matters. They began to urge the party leadership to revive its fortunes and to return to its old position of predominance in the political world, and increasingly the party leadership gave heed to this counsel. Well aware that the days of the alliance were numbered, certain figures within the Kenseikai headquarters, particularly Egi and Sengoku, were beginning to urge that their own party begin to take precautionary measures. Egi, for example, wanted to terminate the coalition completely and form a cabinet made up solely of Kenseikai members, an aim that may also have reflected his desire for a ministerial post.2 It was merely a question of time before one of the two partners made an overt move to end the alliance. The initiative was not to come from the Kenseikai, however. Despite his discouragement at the end of the soth Diet, Kato still felt there was much he wanted to do as premier. Not only did he wish to continue the retrench­ ment policy, he also wanted to put into effect or expand a number of welfare policy measures (such as reduction of excise and consumption taxes, the

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passage of national unemployment and health insurance laws, and the enactment of legislation to legalize and regulate trade-union activities) . Moreover, he was concerned with other long-range problems of the country, such as immigration, the growth of a population surplus, and the maintenance of acceptable popular living standards, which required some solution. All his projected policies were necessary and useful to the national interest, but none, he felt, could be achieved without continuing the coalition. He therefore resisted the counsel of Egi and Sengoku to end the alliance. If the cabinet were reorganized solely of Kenseikai men, he reasoned , it would have difficulty in managing the Diet where it lacked an absolute majority. The obvious alternative of dissolving the Diet and calling a general election was an equally risky proposition. Although Adachi was a skillful election manager for the party, Kato felt that "the god of elections" had had no experience with elections held under universal suffrage and there could be no certainty that the Kenseikai would be able to increase its strength substantially. He was little inclined to adopt a tactic simply to destroy the rival parties, and there were the additional problems of his deteriorating health and the difficulty of obtaining "provisions" (that is, funds) for a new election campaign.3 Whereas Kato hoped to mark time on the tactical problem, the Seiyukai was refurbishing its political fortunes. Its most immediate problem was the lack of a leader sufficiently prestigious to guarantee a return of the party to power. Takahashi, who had originally accepted the office only as an interim leader, was quite obviously a lame duck, without much support within the party and without much interest in continuing the job. Moreover, the incum­ bent party leaders, Yokota, Noda, and Okazaki did not feel sufficiently confident to replace him. The position required a man with a national reputation and with access to the cabinet makers. Takahashi suggested the possibility of Ito Miyoji, Den Kenj iro, Goto Shimpei, and Tanaka Giichi, all of whom had achieved prominence in the military and civil bureaucracies and who had long been mentioned as possible candidates for the premiership. The final choice was Tanaka, an engaging and apparently forceful man, whose friendship with Hara and whose taste for good fellowship may have swung the party leaders in his favor.4 There were many within the party who had doubts about his suitability, particularly because he was a military man, but finally in April r g 2 6 , after a respectful pause following the close of the Diet, the principal leaders of the Seiyukai unanimously voted him their new president.5

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The appointment of Tanaka gave rise t o a movement for the merger o f the Kakushin Club a n d the Chiisei Club, a small businessman's group, with the Seiyiikai. If all the members of both the smaller parties were to join the Seiyiikai, it would once more become the largest party in the Diet. With Tanaka, a man of sufficient reputation to become premier, as its president, its chances of succeeding the Kenseikai would be immeasurably enhanced . As usual, merger found its main impetus in tactical considerations rather than in unity of policy. The merger movement, led principally by Akita Kiyoshi and Hamao Shohachi, did not appeal to everyone in the Kakushin Club, however. It found favor with many of the provincial Diet members of the Club, who enjoyed secure jiban regardless of their party connection, but some of the Tokyo delegates, who had fought Seiyiikai candidates in countless elections, disliked the idea of j oining with their old rivals. Not only did they bear a long-standing grudge against the Seiyiikai, but many of them feared losing their Diet seats if a merger were to take place ; a number of them also had close ties with the Kenseikai .6 With the Kakushin Club thus divided, the attitude of lnukai , its unofficial leader, was crucial . Since the Kokumint6 split of 1 9 1 3 lnukai's lot had been one of increasing impotence and frustration. His supporters had dwindled to a handful of the faithful, and though still healthy, lnukai at 70 was beginning to feel himself without the physical vigor necessary for fund raising and electioneering. Personally he could have had little further ambition, but being a man with considerable "human feeling" (ninja) , he was worried about the future of the political comrades who had stood by him for so many years. He was therefore inclined to favor merger. He knew that a small group such as the Kakushin Club could attract neither money nor electoral support. "To support a political party you need money," he said. "Our Kakushin Club is not able to raise it. " 7 The obvious solution was to find shelter in the ranks of the Seiyiikai, which was able to raise sufficient funds for its candidates at election time. Inukai also seemed to cherish the hope that the "renovation of the political world ," which had been the original goal of the Club, could best be achieved by infiltrating an established party and reforming it from within. The "new political force," the mass of voters newly enfranchised by universal suffrage, would gradually begin to make their weight felt in the political world by returning Diet members who would represent their interests. A small party like the Kakushin Club could not hope to attract the new voters, but a large

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party like the Seiyukai could. lnukai was able to convince himself that the Seiyukai would change character under the influence of the reform elements who entered it from the Kakushin Club and become more representative of the masses. Merger was not only tactically advantageous, it was a positive step toward reforming party politics.8 Perhaps because of lnukai's persuasiveness the merger of the Kakushin Club with the Seiyukai and the Chusei Club finally took place in early May 1 9 2 5 , about a month after Tanaka's accession t o the Seiyukai presidency. Because certain members of both the smaller groups refused to join, however, the Seiyukai, though it now surpassed the Seiyuhont6 in strength, still remained second in the Diet to the Kenseikai . Nevertheless, the party, fortified with a new president and an infusion of new members, now began to think of its future, reflections that boded ill for the continuation of the coalition. It remained only to find grounds for a break with the government and the Kenseikai . The issue that immediately came to hand was the question of tax reform. Along with its policy of financial and administrative retrenchment aimed at checking and reducing government expenditure, the Kenseikai had long advocated a reform of the tax system so as to reduce the burden of taxation on middle-class and working-class incomes. The purpose was to pass on to the general public the savings made by government retrenchment and to restructure the incidence of taxes in order to reduce public taxes on con­ sumption goods.9 The proposal was j ustified largely as a measure of "social policy," relief for those with small incomes, but it was also a sound policy to advocate in view of the expanded electorate. The Seiyukai, however, had other ideas for tax reform . Since early 1 9 2 3 i t had been advocating the transfer o f revenues from the land tax t o the use of local legislatures and local administrative units in order to bolster their finances. The motives behind this proposal were primarily, if not exclusively, political . Since the onset of recession in early r 9 2 0 , landlord organizations such as the Teikoku Nakai had been demanding government assistance or relief for agriculture. In 1 9 2 3 when the Kat6 Tomosabur6 government proposed a policy of financial retrenchment (partly inspired by the reduction in naval expenditure made obligatory by the Washington Naval Treaty), all three major parties came up with proposals to pass on to the people the benefit of savings in government expenditure. The Kenseikai , consistent with its previously announced policies, advocated simple tax reduction : the reduction

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o f the land tax b y 2 percent, t h e abolition of excise taxes o n cloth a n d shoyu, and abolition of the business tax. Within the Seiyukai , however, Yokota suggested that the party should take a different approach to the question. If the Seiyukai were to propose a somewhat larger reduction in the land tax, say 2 .5 percent or 3 percent, it would be obvious that they were simply imitating the Kenseikai ; he suggested instead that the party should advocate the transfer of land tax revenue to local government. Despite objections by Yamamoto Tatsuo, Tokonami, and other members of the anti-Takahashi faction, " transfer of the land tax" became official party policy . The Seiyukai proposal was quite obviously an act of political one­ upmanship. It was vague on specific details, such as the questions of whether the land tax revenue would be transferred to the prefectural level or lower and whether the right to collect the tax would be given to local authorities or remain in the hands of the national government. Not surprisingly, the Kenseikai attacked the idea as irresponsible. But owing to the need for extraordinary financial measures to provide rel ief for the damage done by the Tokyo earthquake and the emergence of the second Movement for Consti tutional Government, no more was heard of the Seiyukai proposal until the summer of 1 9 2 5 . 1 0 The deterioration of cordial relations between the Kenseikai and the Seiyukai prompted the latter to resusci tate its old proposal, despite the general dubiety with which it was regarded outside the party. Anxious to shoulder aside the uncomfortable harness that yoked it to the Kenseikai , it could claim with some legitimacy that its traditional policy was fundamentally at odds with Hamaguchi's proposal for tax reform . But that the real issue was the continuation of the coalition rather than the tax reform itself is evident from the fact that Tanaka had already decided to have the Seiyukai ministers resign from the cabinet before the details of Hamaguchi's plan had even been presented in a formal cabinet meeting; he was determined to proceed in this direction even should the Kenseikai form its own single party cabinet and call for new elections.U The break finally became overt at the cabi net meeting of July 29, when Ogawa and Okazaki, the two Seiyukai ministers in attend­ ance, raised objections to Hamaguchi's tax reform proposal . After a long debate, which dragged on the next day, Okazaki finally stated the Seiyukai's point of view : "It runs counter to the [ policy of ] cooperation to have drafted a Kenseikai-colored tax reform proposal in complete secrecy and to try to drag the Seiyukai into agreement. Is it not clear that there is a want of

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sincerity compared to the days when the universal suffrage bill was drafted? " Ogawa, with the statement that there was n o further need for discussion and that he was opposed to Hamaguchi, walked out of the meeting. A cabinet crisis was clearly at hand.12 Had the Seiyukai ministers merely resigned at this point, Kato could simply have appointed replacements from the Kenseikai and continued in office , but the Seiyukai leadership was determined to commit "double suicide. " Ogawa and Okazaki, after consul ting with the party leadership, refused either to agree to Hamaguchi's proposal or to resign, hoping thereby to force Kato to resign. There were some in the Kenseikai who suggested that Kato petition the emperor to remove the two recaldtrants from office , but Kato, hesitant to the very end about form ing a minority party government, chose instead to submit a general resignation to the regent. Rather than give the customary reason of age or ill health, he stated that he conld no longer continue in office because of internal cabinet disagreement over policy. For Saionj i , the fall of the Kato cabinet posed once more the vexing problem of constructing a new government. On the one hand, the idea of forming a nonparty government was a risky venture; there were few nonparty politicians capable of heading such a government, and it was unlikely that the parties or the public would tolerate the idea. On the other hand, none of the parties was sufficiently strong to exercise absolute control over the Diet. The Seiyukai and the Seiyuhonto formed a tempo rary alliance in hopes that one or the other would be selected to succeed Kat6 ,13 but there was no guarantee that a bargain struck so quickly would last very long. The Kenseikai, though the largest party , lacked the absolute maj ori ty necessary to carry out its program unchallenged in the House of Representatives. Faced with this crisis, which he had long been apprehensive would co me, Saionj i decided to have Kato continue in office. Although he did not regard Kato with any great respect, his old distrust toward him had dissipated and he felt that Kato was preferable to either Tokonami or Tanaka . He was particularly annoyed by Tanaka, who despite Saionj i 's earlier admonitions had adopted a "rash " course of action, and he had nothing but contempt for the Seiyukai 's attempt to return to power by breaking up the coali tion.14 Kato at least seemed straightforward and it was certain that he was worki ng for the good of the country . Perhaps he felt, as Matsumoto speculated, that Kato was "of a bureaucratic turn" (kanryohada), able to distinguish between his position as a party leader and his responsibilities as premier. As such, he

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would b e able t o subordinate party interest t o h i s conception of national interest and would be unwilling to give undue weight to party considerations in government decisions. 15 In any case, the premier was asked to stay in office and the three Seiyukai ministers were replaced by three Kenseikai leaders -Egi Yoku, Hayami Seij i , and Kataoka Naoharu. THE PARTY DEADLOCK, 1 9 25 - 1 92 7 The break-up of the coalition foreshadowed the main trend o f the next two years-the slow tri umph of poli tics over reform. Although Kato had the intention of pursuing further legislative programs of reform and although he had the taci t backing of the genro , he no longer enjoyed the r:ertainty of Diet support. The House of Representatives was divided more or less evenly among the Kenseikai and its two rivals, the Seiyukai and the Sei­ yuhonto. To create a majority, the premier would have to dissolve the Diet and call for new elections or negotiate a new coalition. The only other choice was resignation. As Kato, and his successor, Wakatsuki, struggled with the tactical impasse, the Kenseikai government gradually lost its legislative momentum . Its program was sacrificed bit by bit to the necessities of ma­ neuver. The Kenseikai leaders worked with the constant awareness that their posi tion was precarious. By the end of 1 9 2 6 , the only fact that m ade the survival of the government possible was the inability of the opposition to come to terms with each other. Kato procrasti nated in dealing with the problem of his Diet backing until the fall of 1 9 2 5 , but by then it was clear that he would have to make some sort of choice. The majority sentiment within the party leadership, and possibly within the party as a whole , favored new electio ns; even an outsider like Matsumoto Gokichi advised Kato to "use the frightful [threat] of dis­ sol ution like a tiger" in order to bring the Diet into line. Indeed, the party was probably now in a better posi tion than ever before to win an electio n. But Kato continued to be hesitant about using this weapon. The precar­ iousness of his health, the problem of raising funds, his disl ike of placi ng party interest above national interest, uncertai nty as to whether the Kenseikai could win a maj ority or not, and the difficulty of predicting the consequences of the tremendous expansion of the electorate , all made him prefer the al ternative of com promise in the Diet to carry out his policy . But by the end of October, as the opening of the Diet grew close, he began to feel that

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dissolution of the Diet might be the only solution to his problems.16 Sengoku Mitsugu , who was close to Kato, suggested that there was another possibility as well-to form a new coalition or at least strike some sort of bargain with the Kenseikai 's erstwhile enemy, the Seiyiihonto. Fortunately for the Kenseikai there were strong reasons why the leadership of the Seiyiihonto would be willing to accept such overtures. Despite i ts initial advantage as the government party under the Kiyoura government, the Seiyiihonto , now long divorced from power, proved to be the least stable of the three m aj or parties. Its leadership had been uni ted principally, if not solely , by common opposi tion to Takahashi and the men around him. But with the resignation of Takahashi from the party presidency and the death of Yokota, his strongest lieutenant and supporter, the road was open to reconci liation with the Seiyiikai . One faction in the party, which included Nakahashi Tokugoro, wished to merge once more with the Seiyiikai now that its leader was Tanaka . Indeed, it was probably the activity of this group that made possible the temporary alliance of the Seiyiikai and Seiy­ iihonto on the day the Kato cabinet fell. Even after Kato was reappointed, this group, encouraged by certain powerful members in the House of Peers (Suzuki Kisaburo, Mizuno Rentaro, Ogi Tokichi, and Yamanashi Hanzo), continued to favor this course of action. Ranged against them were those who wished to support the Kato government. Chief among these was Yamamoto Tatsuo, who had been a personal friend of Kato from the days when both were rising young executives in the Mitsubishi company and whose views on financial policy were perhaps closer to Hamaguchi's than to those of the Seiyiikai. There were also a substantial number of Seiyiihonto members who had been elected for the first time in 1 9 24 in competition with Seiyiikai candidates and who therefore feared that merger with the Seiyiikai might cost them a chance to run again. The Satsuma faction, a loose group of high civil and military officials, disliked the fact that the Seiyiikai was now headed by a Choshii man and they began to put pressure on Tokonami to support the Kato government. Tokonami himself, who had once harbored ambitions of becoming Seiyiikai president, was also little inclined to serve as a subordinate to Tanaka, and though he treated the merger question with his habitual sl ipperiness he did not seem eager to rejoin his old party .17 Certain mem bers of the Kenseikai leadership, hoping to capitalize on this split within the Seiyiihonto, in late October began to sound out Tokonami

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and other leaders of the party on the possibility o f a n all iance, perhaps even a coalition government, between the two parties in the coming Diet. The Seiyuhonto leadership was at first noncommital ; in early December, the party issued a statement, drafted with studied ambiguity, that assured the Kenseikai it had no intention of proposing a no-confidence bill in the coming Diet but asserted that it was not considering an alliance with the Kenseikai . By the end of the month it was clear that some kind of understanding had been reached by the two parties. The Seiyuhonto broke off its negotiations with the Seiyukai over the apportionment of commi ttee chairmanships in the Diet; the Seiyuhonto instead agreed that a Kenseikai man should head the chair­ manship of the crucial budget committee, which would pass j udgment on the tax reform proposal. The strongest advocates of a reunion with the Seiyukai , angered at this, bolted fro m the Seiyuhonto and eventually rej oined their old party. But it now seemed certain that Kato would be able to get through the Diet by maintaining a working cooperation with the remainder of the Seiyuhonto without having to resort to a dissolution . 18 Although the main motive of the Seiyuhonto in cooperating with the Kenseikai was to avoid a dissolution of the Diet, it also exacted terms for its cooperation. The government was forced to make certain concessions on its proposal to reduce the land tax by I percent and to raise the tax exemption level to ¥200. The Seiyuhonto proposed instead to exempt all self-cultivating farmers from the land tax, whatever the size of their holdings, and to appro­ priate ¥4o,ooo ,ooo from the national treasury to help defray the local ex­ penses of compulsory education. Wakatsuki arranged to compromise these differences by having the Kenseikai abandon its plan for land tax reduction and the Seiyuhonto agree to reduce its demand for compulsory education expenditure to ¥3o,ooo ,ooo ; in effect, this meant that the money which would have been cut from the government's income by the tax cut was appropriated to compulsory education.19 Less certain, however, is whether Kato made any further promises to the Seiyuhonto in order to secure its cooperation. Wakatsuki, and perhaps Kato himself, in the course of the negotiations may have intimated that the premier would resign after the close of the Diet and would use his good offices to have Tokonami or Yamamoto Tatsuo appointed as his successor. Kato seems to have hinted his intention to resign to Saionj i in early December, j ust at the time when Wakatsuki Wf!S negotiating with Tokonami.20 But whether such assurances were in fact given or not, Tokonami seems to have felt that

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they had been and on several occasions afterwards complained bitterly that his expectations had been betrayed by Wakatsuki. As was true of so much of the maneuverings between the parties during the following year, it is difficult to tell who was lying and who was not, but there is no doubt that Wakatsuki's alleged "bad faith" toward the Seiyuhonto led to a cooling of relationships between the two parties after the close of the 5 1 st Diet.21 Whether or not Kato would have resigned after the close of the Diet is a moot question, for in January r g 2 6 he finally fell victim to his ill health. Although he was urged to rest when he came down with a cold in the middle of the month, Kato refused to do so because he knew his cabinet's position in the Diet was weak. Under the pressure of work, his condition quickly grew worse. His voice was so feeble during the interpellation after his administrative speech in the House of Representatives that it could hardly be heard beyond the recorder's desk. Unable to remain in his seat on the government dais, he finally had to be helped into his waiting automobile. A week later, on January 2 8 , he died in his bed .22 Kato's end was as symbolic of his political career as Hara's had been. Whereas Hara had been cut down on his way to a provincial party rally by a half-crazed assassin incensed at the corruption of the Seiyukai, Kato died in harness, putting forth his last effort to get his program through the Diet. If Hara's death had temporarily interrupted the trend toward party government, then Kato's temporarily ended the trend toward reform . With Kato gone, Saionj i decided to nominate Wakatsuki as his successor. This decision had its precedent in the appointment of Takahashi to replace Hara in 1 9 2 r . Because the Diet was in session and the cabinet not yet unpopular, he felt it best not to change horses in mid-stream. Though Saionj i had no high estimate of Wakatsuki's ability a n d though h e d i d n o t feel that the cabinet would last long, he did think that Wakatsuki, as a former vice­ minister of Katsura, would be skillful enough to get through the Diet session by compromise if by no other means.23 In many respects, Saionj i 's assessment was correct. Wakatsuki, in contrast to Kato, was an amiable man with no strong personal antagonisms, a gift for setting others at ease, and an ability to bargain and compromise. But although these assets had made him a good lieutenant for Kato (and earlier for Katsura) , they did not prove sufficient to sustain the momentum that Kato's recalcitrance and stubbornness had given the party. Where Kato had some degree of vision in politics, Wakatsuki had none. Moreover, as an

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individual, Wakatsuki quite simply lacked determination. A s o n e astute political commentator later remarked, "If politics is struggle and if there is no aim in struggle other than victory, then Wakatsuki's personality is not suited for politics . " 24 He was always too willing to stop short of complete triumph. If he was able to maintain the Kenseikai in power for another year it was primarily because neither the Seiyukai nor the Seiyuhonto were in a position strong enough to dislodge it. After the close of the Diet, Wakatsuki sought to establish the temporary alliance with the Seiyuhonto on a more permanent basis by offering to form a coalition government. Because Wakatsuki had continued to serve as home minister after he became premier and because Sengoku Mitsugu, angered at Wakatsuki 's failure to support him on a bill to complete an important link in the Chuo trunk line, had made known his intention to resign as railroad minister, Wakatsuki had two posts available to offer to the Seiyuhonto. Both Yamamoto Tatsuo and Motoda Haj ime favored the idea of a coalition, but misunderstandings over the distribution of posts prevented a coalition from coming into being. Using the leadership of the Kenkyukai as go-betweens, Wakatsuki offered the Seiyuhonto two posts, that of railroad minister and one other; though he did not make it clear to Tokonami at first, he apparently had the Finance Ministry in mind as the second post. Tokonami assumed he was being offered the powerful Home Ministry, a portfolio he had held previously and could use to revive the electoral strength of his party ; because many within the party still held out hopes that the Seiyuhonto would be able to form a single-party cabinet of its own, Tokonami insisted that the Seiyuhonto would join the government only if it got the Home Ministry. Within the Kenseikai , however, those who saw Hamaguchi as the future president of the party wanted him to switch from the Finance Ministry to the Home Ministry ; Wakatsuki therefore could not agree to Tokonami's terms. The coalition scheme thus fell through .25 The refusal of the Seiyuhonto to join the Wakatsuki cabinet left the political world in a state of uncertainty even greater than during the previous summer. As before, the only choices open to the government appeared to be resigna­ tion, which it would prefer to avoid, or an election, which would probably require huge sums of money to finance without any guarantee it would win a majority sufficient to control the House of Representatives. The opposition parties, the Seiyukai and the Seiyuhonto, were in an equally ticklish position. A cabinet resignation would, of course, be preferable to an election, but since

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neither of the two parties controlled a majority, there was no certainty which of their presidents, Tokonami or Tanaka, would be selected as Wakatsuki's successor. The only solutions were a compromise between all three parties, both in and out of power, or a merger of the Seiyuhonto with either of the larger parties. That both were tried was a tribute to the tactical resource­ fulness, if not the statesmanship, of the leaders of the three parties. In the summer of r g 26, the Seiyukai began to cast about for an issue with which to embarrass the government. It was not only anxious to return to power but was perhaps goaded by charges made in the previous Diet by Nakano Seigo, a Kenseikai member, that its president, Tanaka, had misap­ propriated secret service funds while he was war minister under the Hara cabinet and that he had accepted a large political contribution from a Kansai businessman in return for promises to work for his advantage. It could little afford to exploit the so-called Matsushima incident, which involved the attempt of certain land speculators to bribe the government to authorize the relocation of a brothel district in Osaka to a plot of land they owned, be­ cause the former Kenseikai minister of transportation and a leader of the Seiyuhonto as well as a director of the Seiyukai itself were implicated ; the Seiyukai, were it to publicize the incident, would only reflect discredit on itself as well. But the Seiyukai could attack the government with little damage to its own reputation on the Boku Retsu case. Boku Retsu , a Korean radical, and his japanese wife, Kaneko Fumiko, had been arrested in the general round-up of subversives after the Kanto earthquake and had been tried and convicted of high treason. The case raised two " issues" of decided triviality. The first was a "questionable photograph" of the couple in a pose of casual intimacy, which was taken by the preliminary trial j udge probably as a means of inducing them to confess; the second was the subsequent reduction of their sentence from the death penalty to imprisonment without term. Though at worst this incident revealed questionable judgment on the part of minor officials rather than major misdoing, the Seiyukai, supported by radical patriotic organizations, attacked the government's actions as an affront to the imperial dignity and prej udicial to popular trust in the propriety of j udicial proceedings in the country. Certain members of the Seiyuhonto urged Tokonami to make common cause with the Seiyukai in bring ing down the government on thi� rather innocuous issue. Though at first reluctant to do so, Tokonami finally decided

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t o j o i n in the attack and in early September both h e and Tanaka reported to Saionj i that a bill to impeach the government in the coming Diet would be inevitable. Tanaka was anxious to broaden the alliance between the two parties into more complete cooperation on policy matters or as he put it in more military language, "a complete offensive and defensive alliance . " But Tokonami, though angry enough at Wakatsuki to wish his downfall, was not willing to go that far. After further negotiations in late November, the two parties set up ad hoc joint committees to discuss the Baku Retsu problem and also " the relief of economic difficulties" and " the restoration of official discipline . " Despite the public protestations of both Tanaka and Tokonami that this temporary cooperation was not aimed simply at overthrowing the government, it was obvious to all that both parties intended to propose a no-confidence bill in the coming Diet, which would force the m inority government either to resign or call new elections.26 There were many in the Kenseikai who were willing to meet this attack head on simply by dissolving the Diet. Adachi, one of the more vigorous supporters of this tactic, went so far as to sound out Saionj i's views on the matter. Saionj i , who had posed no objection to the idea of dissolution when he first learned of the opposition party plans, was positively in favor of dissolution on the eve of the Diet.27 But Wakatsuki was hesitant to do so. Despite Adachi's confident predictions of a Kenseikai election victory, Wakatsuki felt as Kato had that there was no certainty of this at all. Further­ more, unlike Kato, Wakatsuki was bereft of a ready source of funds for the election ; he was on bad terms with Sengoku Mitsugu, who was said to be the main go-between for soliciting contributions from the Mitsubishi interests because of his failure to support Sengoku's railroad bill in the previous Diet and because of the failure to form a coalition with the Seiyuhonto, a project that Sengoku had enthusiastically supported. Wakatsuki put the problem very succintly in his memoirs :28 I was a party president who could not raise money . . . In an election you must use money. If you have money you generally win an election, but I didn't have any. If you ask what a party president without money does . . . , he avoids a dissolution of the Diet at all costs. Not surprisingly, faced with this uncomfortable situation, he resorted to striking a compromise with the opposition.

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The resolution of Wakatsuki's difficulties was the so-called " meeting of the three party leaders, " at which the premier met with Tanaka and Tokonami to call a temporary truce to political in-fighting in the Diet. Ostensibly what happened was this. The Diet session began on January r 8 , 1 9 2 7 , with strong attacks by the opposition on the government; after two more days of inter­ pellation, the Seiyukai and the Seiyuhonto introduced no-confidence reso­ lutions attacking the government for its handling of the Boku Retsu affair, deploring the government's failure to remedy the deepening financial crisis and calling into question Wakatsuki's personal veracity. This seemed the moment for Wakatsuki to resign or to call for new elections. Instead the Diet was recessed for three days, and a conference between the three party leaders was held. According to newspaper reports, they reached agreement that the opposition parties withdraw their no-confidence bills, that all three parties approve the budget with only minor amendments, that there would be no more discussion in the Diet of the Boku Retsu affair, the Osaka brothel scandal, or Tanaka's alleged speculations in order " to put an end to so-called mudslinging and elevate the dignity of the Diet," and that the three parties would endeavor in other ways to get through the Diet session as peacefully as possible. The reasons for the truce, as set forth in a joint statement by the three leaders, was a desire to begin the new reign of the Showa Emperor with " fair and open politics" and " to strengthen the confidence of the people in the Diet . " In fact, however, this unwonted display of sweetness and light was an elaborately stage-managed maneuver to rescue all three parties from what had promised to be an embarrassing situation-the choice between an election that no single party could hope to win or a change in cabinets, which could not guaran tee a stronger government. The original idea for the co mpromise seems to have been that of Matsumoto Gokichi, a man with no official standi ng, who had established himself in the poli tical world as a messenger boy and information gatherer for both Yamagata and Saionj i . Matsumoto was anxious to avoid a dissolution fo r a number of reasons. He seems gen­ uinely to have wanted to avoid sullying the onset of the new reign by a continuation of the trivial and inconsequential political struggles between the parties. But he had other practical reasons as wel l. In the first place, he feared that if an election were held under the Kenseikai government, espe­ cially with Egi Yoku as minister of justice, interference would occur on an unprecedented scale; this would besmirch the con stitution, and it would

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lead t o the prevalence o f irreparable abuses a t a time when popular thought was extremely unstable. Furthermore, the Seiyiikai was bound to lose in such an election, and though he was not a partisan of that party, he felt that Tanaka was far more acceptable as a premier candidate than Tokonami and that it would therefore be best to avoid weakening the party.29 Although Saionj i was dubious about the possibility of arranging a compromise to ward off dissolution and maintained that "from the highest point of view" (which lamentably no one seemed to take) dissolution was best, Matsumoto enlisted the aid of the Kenkyiikai leadership to work out a compromise.30 The negotiations to arrange the compromise began in the first week of January 1 9 2 7 . Wakatsuki, who for reasons already indicated wished to avoid a dissolution, agreed to resign in May or June if he were able to get through the Diet session without trouble. This was a crucial concession, for it meant the Kenseikai would lay down its burden of power without being forced to do so by a no-confidence resolution. Tanaka also agreed to compromise, though apparently not simply on the promise of Wakatsuki to resign ; indeed, he agreed to the scheme before he was informed of Wakatsuki's intentions. He was inclined by training and temperament to heed the patriotic appeal not to upset the beginning of the new imperial reign, and he had been constantly warned by Saionj i not to resort to "rash action" to overthrow the government, lest he find himself and his party bypassed at the next change of cabinets. Only Tokonami seemed intractable at first; he railed against Wakatsuki , complaining that Wakatsuki was a liar and that he had reneged on his promise ·to have Tokonami appointed premier after the s r st Diet. But his vindictive attitude was overcome by the efforts of Aoki, Mizuno, and others, who perhaps pointed out that he had little to gain from a general election, which would surely be called if he did not agree to compromise. When finally agreement was obtained from all three leaders, a detailed timetable of the events already narrated-the anti-government interpella­ tions, the proposal of the no-confidence bills, the recess of the Diet, the party leaders' meeting, and the subsequent withdrawal of the no-confidence bills­ was worked out in the greatest secrecy. Wakatsuki did not even tell his own cabinet ministers, and not unnaturally both Adachi and Hamaguchi, the two principal Kenseikai men in the cabinet, were surprised and angry when they heard of the decision. Events proceeded exactly according to plan and the crisis was circumvented.31

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THE FORMATION OF THE MINSEITO Although the three party leaders' meeting enabled the government and the opposition to avoid the embarrassment of a cabinet crisis and though it en­ abled the government to pass its budget safely , the compromise hardly added to their prestige. If the opposition had made a bad impression by the pettiness of its attack on the government, the cabinet in turn appeared ineffectual and aimless for having struck a bargain in order to avoid an election. But more important, the meeting left the basic cause of political uncertainty unresolved. The balance of power among the three parties had to be overcome. It was the quest to put an end to this balance that finally led to the formation of the Minseito by the merger of the Kenseikai with the Seiyuhonto. After the passage of the budget in early January 1 9 2 7 , Adachi , still anxious to keep the Kenseikai in power long enough to hold an election and to win the party an absolute majority, began negotiations with Sakakida Seibei to establish a new alliance between the Kenseikai and the Seiyuhonto. They came to the conclusion that because the three parties were balanced in strength, it would be difficult to secure a stable political situation no matter which party formed a cabinet ; even if the Diet were dissolved, it was not certain that any single party would achieve an absolute majority ; the best policy therefore would be to form an alliance between the two parties to give Diet support to Tokonami in the event that he was appointed as Wakatsuki 's successor. The critical question, of course, was whether Saionj i would consent to Tokonami as premier. Although this was not likely in view of Saionj i 's often repeated expressions of contempt for Tokonami, the Seiyuhonto leader thought that his chances were good . Perhaps this optimism was due to assurances allegedly given Sakakida by Adachi ,32 who said he had ascertained that Saionj i would nominate Tokonami ; or perhaps it was due to Tokonami's belief that his close connection with Makino Nobuaki , the lord keeper of the Privy Seal, would assure him of the job. Whatever the reason, Tokonami agreed to go ahead with the alliance. The terms of the agreement reached by the two parties at the beginning of March 1 9 2 7 were stronger than the admittedly temporary ties the Seiyuhonto had previously formed with the Kenseikai and the Seiyukai . Both parties agreed to form a "strong alliance" in order to secure a stable political situation , to establish a joint Political Affairs In vestigation Comm ittee to

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make agreements on important policy measures, and " to agree on each other's jiban in the next election in anticipation of victory by the candidates of the allied parties." The latter two provisions, if honored, would make the alliance at least as close as that of the three parties in the second Movement for Constitutional Government, in fact, as close as they could get short of merger.33 Perhaps the alliance would have gone no farther had Tokonami succeeded Wakatsuki as premier, but such did not prove to be the case. When the Kenseikai government finally fell in mid-April after the Privy Council, for a variety of reasons, failed to approve its plan to bail the Bank of Taiwan out of financial difficulties by an emergency ordinance,34 Saionj i bypassed the Seiyuhonto leader. As before, Saionj i continued to waver between the idea of nominating a party leader to succeed Wakatsuki or, depending "on time and circumstances," of appointing a nonparty figure to head a "neutral cabinet" with some support in the Diet. If the cabinet were to be " neutral ," he felt the premier would have to be a man with a reputation abroad, who perhaps had served as a cabinet minister several times or who had been colonial governor in either Korea or Taiwan ; but the only person he seemed to consider suitable among nonparty figures was Den Kenj iro , a former kobun of Yamagata, now a member of the Privy Council. How seriously he con­ sidered the possibility is hard to determine, but it is certain he was prepared to adopt it if it seemed necessary.35 Of the two opposition party leaders, there was no question he preferred Tanaka ; admittedly, he did not regard the Seiyukai president as ideal nor did he approve of the "rash" activities of his party, but he felt him a better man than Tokonami .36 At the fall of the Wakatsuki government, Makino Nobuaki , on whom Tokonami had probably been counting to exert influence in his favor, relayed a message to Saionj i that "according t o t h e normal course of constitutional government" it would be proper to appoint Tanaka as prem ier. Saionj i agreed and power once again returned to the Seiyukai.37 The selection of Tanaka prepared the way for the final consummation of the merger between the two opposition parties because the bypassing of Tokonami by Saionj i indicated that Seiyuhonto did not have a promising future as an independent party. The formation of a new party by a merger offered advantages to both groups in view of the fact that an election was bound to be held by the Tanaka government. A merger would create a party with an abolute maj ority in the House of Representatives, and this surely

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would be a considerable asset at election time. A few members of the Seiyuhonto leadership, particularly Motoda Haj ime and Kawahara Shigesuke, opposed the merger, as did many members of the Kenseikai, but the consensus of the top leaders in both parties was in favor of it. The only question that remained to be settled was who was to be the new party's president? It was unlikely that the Kenseikai would tolerate Tokonami as president because he represented the smaller of the two merging parties. But Wakatsuki was equally unsuitable, not only because of personal unpopularity within his own party, but because, as we have already seen, he was a "party president who could_n 't raise money." The obvious candidate was therefore Hamaguchi Yuko, who enj oyed an excellent reputation both within and without the party and whose candidacy was supported by the all important money raiser for the party, Sengoku Mitsugu. Although at first reluctant to serve because of poor health, Hamaguchi was finally prevailed upon to serve. That difficulty settled , the new party, the Rikken Minseito, came into being in early June 1 92 7 . Few observers harbored il lusions about the motives behind the formation of the new party. As �n the cases of the Doshikai and the Kenseikai, the organization of the new party was precipitated by a change in cabinets, conceived with the aim of achieving an absolute majority in the Diet, and intended to secure a competitive advantage in a coming election. The tactical purposes of the merger were all the more striking because the Kenseikai and the Seiyuhonto stood at the opposite wings of the political spectrum . "Of all the bourgeois parties," wrote Yamakawa Hitoshi , "the Seiyuhonto was the most blatantly conservative and had traded on its conservatism . The Kenseikai , at least in its days in opposition, . . . was the party which advo­ cated the extension of the suffrage and sought the votes of the commercial and industrial classes ; it was relatively-and only relatively-a progressive bourgeois party. Why then did these two parties, each on the opposite extremes of the bourgeois parties, gather to gether under a banner which displays a modicum of newness, and why were they able to do so? . . . The answer is simple ; it goes without saying that it was the surest means and the shortest path to taking power next. " 38 The Jiji Shimpo was even more specific and more succinct in its appraisal : "That the merger talks were settled quickly was the result of the stimulus of the unexpected appearance of the Tanaka cabinet ; if power had passed to a [party] other than the Seiyukai, such a sudden turn of events would not have occurred. " 39

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Despite its obviously tactical inspiration, however, the organization of the Minseito did seem to hold some promise for the future. Its formation promised to end the " most petty and evil politics" that had accompanied the division of the Diet into three parties of more or less equal numerical strength. The compromises, temporary alliances, and imperfect unions that had been forced on the Seiyukai and the Kenseikai by the fickleness of Tokonami ceased to be necessary. No longer could the Seiyuhonto twist the two larger parties by the tail. More important, however, the formation of the new party not only ended the political uncertainty that had plagued the parties since 1 9 2 5 , i t marked the opening of the path toward normal two-party politics. Assum­ ing that Saionj i continued to nominate party premiers, he now had to make a choice between only two possibilities. The Jiji Shimpo saw the formation of the new party as an opportunity to institute " the excellent practice of opposition between two large parties." "We rejoice at the merger of the Seiyuhonto and the Kenseikai into one large party as a step forward. We believe that with the opposition of two large parties, one in power and one in opposition, not only can we expect a stabilization of the political situation, but also the groundwork has been laid for the automatic transfer of power. " 4° From now on, it seemed likely that the cabinet would rotate between the two parties as it did in England . Beyond this, the nature of the new Minseito program seemed to indicate that the alternation of parties in power would mean an alternation in policies as well . The name of the party itself struck many as significant. Whereas parties had called themselves "associations" (kai) in the past, the new party was to be called a " party of popular government" (Minseito) . Moreover, its platform was striking in its freshness and its commitment to forward-looking policy. The new program, first of all, made explicit the party's commitment to the parliamentary system and to democratic politics. It set forth a demand for the " firm establishment of Diet-centered politics (gikai chushin seiji) under the sovereign power of the emperor, in which the demands of all the people are centralized in the imperial Diet by means of universal suffrage. " Govern­ ment was not only to embody the "general will of the people" (kokumin no soz) , but it was also to be responsible to the people. Second , the platform promised to support diplomacy based on " international j ustice," which would lay the foundation for world peace. Third, it promised " to increase the efficiency of industry by rationalization, to end the instability of popular livelihood in both city and country by basing distribution on social j ustice,

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and to root out the sources of class struggle by establishing the principles of social cooperation (shakai kyozon) . " Fourth, in order to give "proper guidance to ideas, " it proposed to "equalize opportunities for education" and create an educational system for the people. And finally, it pledged itself to democratize · the internal organization of the party by "establishing the principle of the public election of party officials, by placing trust of party members in the party officials, and by making responsibilities clear. " The goal of this was to make sure the party acted in accordance with the "general wil l of the party members . " 4 1 The Minseito, in sum, had taken as its goals many of the demands presented a decade or so before by those who wished to bring about a "reconstruction" of Japan. There was little doubt that "?he new platform was drafted with an eye to the new electorate that had been created by universal suffrage and would shortly cast its ballots for the first time. For some this attempt to capture the votes of the new voting masses seemed one more expression of the cynicism of the politicians in the "established parties. " Baba Tsunego remarked that the Minseito was bbund to fail in its appeal for popular support, since "a sixty-year old lady, no matter how she powders her face does not look like a lass of eighteen. " 42 The accumulated disgust of the masses was not likely to be dispelled by such obvious strategems. But others were willing to see the formulation of such a program as being as much a step forward as the emergence of two large parties. Aso Hisashi, long distrustful of the parties himself, interpreted the " repainting of the [Minseito's] signboard " as the harbinger of a great change in the political world .43 In the past, the established parties . . differed neither in their ideo­ logical stands nor with respect to principles and policy. Now, however, . . . the ideological positions of established parties are defining their differences. While the Seiyukai is showing its conservative coloring, the Minseito . . . is showing a liberal coloring . . . It is difficult to deny the fact the Japanese political world is advancing beyond the opposition of two bourgeois parties centering only on the meaningless exchange of political power. To the extent that two-party opposition involved the exchange of power as well as competition on substantive issues, the foundations for " normal" constitutional government had been laid. How long it would last was another question, but it is indicative of the strength of the "established parties" that no political commentator in 1 9 2 7 thought to raise it.

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he first generation of Japanese liberals assumed that a poli tical party was founded upon and held together by common principles. Okuma Shigenobu gave this view a classic statement in his memorial on constitutional govern­ ment in I 88 I . The members of po litical parties, he wrote, "come together because of a general agreement on principles of policy (shisei shugi) " ; the rise and fall of political parties "depends on whether their principles of policy capture the sentiments of the public"; consequently party struggles are "battles of principles of policy." 1 Implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, the idea of party was contrasted with that of faction, a group whose members were held together not by common principles, but by the pursuit of private or personal interests. More often than not, this led to the lament that in Japan there were no true parties, but only factions, indifferent to the interests of the state and heedless of the demands of the public. Such was the source of Ozaki Yukio's oft-quoted dictum, " Here in the Orient we have had the conception of a factio n ; but none of a public party . " 2 The distinction between party and faction, o f course, was neither new nor original with the Japanese liberals of the Meij i era. One can find it as far back as the writings of Ou-y � ng Hsiu.3 But it was doubtless Edmund Burke who inspired the Japanese . In his pamphlet Thoughts on the Cause of the Present

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Discontents, he had defined a party as a "body of men united for promoting by their joint endeavors the national interest, upon some particular principle on which they are all agreed . " By contrast, factions, he said , were "knots and cabals of men who have got together without any publicke principle, in order to sell their conj unct iniquity at the higher rate." For Burke, as for men like Ozaki, this definition was less an empirical category than a moral one ; it was a statement of not what parties actually were, but what they ought to be. Burke hoped for an end to the domination of the House of Commons by factions or "connections" that were held together by marriage, \ friendship, and bribery. Similarly, when Ozaki attacked the "established parties" for partaking of the nature of factions (in the Burkian sense) , his goal was reform. He wished to "purify" Diet politics by the creation of " true" parties, bound by the cement of principle, and indeed much of his political career after his break with the Kenseikai was devoted to this end. Yet Ozaki was no more successful <JlS a reformer than Burke, for both failed to realize that there was more to a political party than a parcel of ideas. The Burkian definition of a political party, though persuasive in its sim­ plicity, is no surer guide for the student of politics than it is for its practi­ tioners. It is difficult to maintain a rigid distinction between " party" ( based on principle) and "faction" (based on material or personal interest) because most political parties partake of the nature of both.4 Rarely does a political party come into being simply because like-minded men decide to embark on a joint course of action. Even the Jacobins, whom we usually associate with a rigid ideological viewpoint, had their origins in a group of Breton deputies to the Estates General who at first clubbed together simply because they all came from the same region.5 Doctrinal parties, though they have existed , seem to be the exception rather than the rule. But more important, the Burkian distinction leads us to ignore the fact that the critical functions of a political party, whatever the motives behind its formation, are related to the pursuit, attainment, and exercise of political power. Whether a man j oins a party to fight for a particular legislative program, to win a ministerial post, to secure profitable government contracts, or simply to satisfy a sense of self-importance, he does so because he realizes that the organizational strength of a party provides him with the means to fulfill these private aspirations. The majoritarian principle that lies behind both the elective process and the conduct of decision making in a represen­ tative body makes this inevitable. Minobe Tatsukichi, who had a rather more

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detached view of politics than Ozaki, put this very succinctly. "The parlia­ mentary system is a system of maj ority rule," he wrote. "Under the rule of the maj ority, numbers govern . . . The power of an individual, no matter how excellent that individual may be, is extremely weak, and it is not possible for him to put his views into practice. To make one's views powerful under a system of majority rule, it is absolutely necessary to rely on the power of a group. " 6 The group, of course, is a political party. Most men in the Diet realized that parties were formed for the reasons Minobe described . Although Ozaki could claim there was no concept of " public party" in the Orient, and more particularly in Japan, it is clear that in their political function the "established parties" were not so different from their counterparts in the West. Like professional politicians in England and the Uni ted States, those in Japan knew that the party organization provided a vehicle for the pursuit of power and a means to put that power to their individual ends. If we wish to delineate the peculiarities of party politics in the Taisho period, we must not measure them against some ideal model but instead examine their response to the special features of their social and institutional setting. We must raise questions that can be answered from historical evidence, not by moral assertions. Otherwise it will be all too easy to slip, as Ozaki often did, from analysis to polemics. THE TWO-PARTY PATTERN Perhaps the most obvious question to raise is why there emerged a two-party pattern in Diet politics. Though common to England and the United States since the early nineteenth century, biparty politics are a rarity outside the Anglo-American democracies. What prevented Japan from developing multiparty politics on the model of France or Germany? What were the factors that militated against the formation of a large number of small parties on the basis of ideological , regional, or class differences? There were, I think, three basic reasons that Japan moved in this unusual direction. First of all, the electoral system was of the type usually associated with the development of a two-party pattern. Since the inception of representative institutions, the Japanese had adopted the simple-plurality single-ballot system of voting such as was used in the United States and England . No attempt was made to introduce the system of proportional representation that sustained the multiparty system in Fra nce. In order to win a Diet seat in

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a given electoral district, a candidate had to receive a plurality or maj ority of the ballots cast at election time. Parties were not assigned seats in the Diet in proportion to their total popular vote either in a local district or in the national constituency. This made it difficult for a small party to secure Diet seats unless its voting support\ was concentrated in a circumscribed locality. Admittedly, the effects of this type of voting system were diminished under the large electoral districts that were in operation from 1 900 to 1 9 1 9 . The candidate of a small party or even an independent candidate could win a Diet seat if he had sufficient backing within a single prefecture. But the introduction of the small district in 1 9 2 0 throttled the smaller parties that ' had survived under the large district system. A vote for a small party or an independent became a "wasted vote . " This effect of the small district on voting behavior has been described very succinctly by V. 0. Key in his analysis of the American party system. 7 In a single member district only two parties can contend for electoral victory with any hope of success; a third party is doomed unless it can manage to absorb the following of one of the two major parties and thereby becomes one of the two parties itself. Parties do not thrive on the certainty of defeat. His description of the American case is certainly borne out by the Japanese. After 1 9 1 9 , the number of independent Diet members declined sharply, and the members of the small parties found it convenient to merge with one of the larger parties in order to enj oy the financial and electoral strength such a party could offer at election time. Such, for example, were the motives behind lnukai's decision to disband the Kakushin Club and enter the Seiyukai in 1 92 5 , and such were the reasons that the Seiyuhonto mem­ bership was quickly reabsorbed into the Seiyukai or the Kenseikai before the onset of the 1 9 2 8 general election. The small district system made the prospects for reelection outside either large party very slim indeed . Secondly, the emergence of a two-party pattern was made easier by the homogeneity of the Japanese electorate before 1 9 2 8 . Although the electoral system was not conducive to the proliferation of small parties, a multiparty system might nevertheless have been sustained by irreconcilable cleavages within the electorate based on class, religious, geo graphical, or economic

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differences. Yet a l l these sources of potential divisiveness were conspicuously absent in the voting public. Social division existed , of course, but given the property restrictions on the suffrage down until r g 2 8 , such divisions had no opportunity to find expression within the framework of parliamentary politics. Because all the voters were propertied and because property was commonly landed property, there was little likelihood of a tenants' party or a working-class party orga­ nizing itself in the Diet to oppose the interests of the middle and upper classes. Those among the urban working classes or the landless peasantry who had developed a sense of class antagonism or class interest sought expression of their views by extraparliamentary means, either through popu­ lar demonstrations or through the formation of mass organizations because otherwise there were no constitutional channels for political participation open to them. It was not until the mid- r g z o 's, when the passage of universal suffrage seemed imm inent, that there emerged effective movements to orga­ nize parties explicitly dedicated to achieving the goals and interests of the "propertyless classes" ( musan kaikyu) . "Class parties" were difficult to or­ ganize if all the voters belonged to the same class. At the same time, because the electorate was propertied and also pre­ dominantly rural in character, a marked urban-rural split did not emerge in the Diet. Any party that sought to achieve a majority in the House of Representatives had to cater to the bulk of the voters in the countryside or in provincial towns where many of them lived. Conversely, no party could hope to base its support exclusively on the cities, since the number of votes to be won there could not guarantee a Diet maj ority. It is often alleged that the Seiyukai was the party of the countryside, and the Kenseikai (as well as the Minsei to) was the party of the city, but such generalizations are difficult to substantiate from the voting statistics. If one looks at the areas that each represented it is obvious that the margin of difference between the two was not great. Just before the first universal suffrage election in r g z 8 , for example, one observer calculated that about 86 percent of the Seiyukai Diet members were elected from rural election districts but that about 75 percent of the Kenseikai Diet members represented similar areas.8 Significantly, the only parties that drew disproportionately large support from city districts and the major metropolitan areas of the country were the Kakushin Club and the Jitsugyo Doshikai, both of which were extraordinarily weak when compared with the two major parties.

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The predominantly rural character of the electorate may also have pre­ vented parties from developing along strong regional cleavages. The economic interests of all rural areas did not vary greatly. Landlords, provincial business­ men, and local bankers in Kagoshima, by and large, sought the same things from the government as those of Aomori. They wanted railroad lines, irri­ gation works, new roads and schools, the improvement of harbors, the sta­ tioning of local army garrisons, and the like, and they were willing to support whichever party promised to deliver them through political log-rolling and pork barrel legislation. Because the arena of electoral competition was never larger than the prefecture and because the interests of all prefectures (save for the metropolitan ones) were relatively uniform , economic regionalism never had an impact on Japanese politics as it had in, say, American politics. The third and final precondition for the emergence of a biparty system was the relative homogeneity in outlook of the men who made their careers in party politics. Political success, indeed any sort of success, in Taisho Japan depended on the possession of certain basic views. No one who hoped for election to public office in Taisho Japan could question the appropriateness of the imperial institution or suggest the need for republican forms of govern­ ment. Neither could he attack the notion of private property, suggest the need to abolish capitalist institutions, or express doubt as to whether Japan should protect its "special rights and interest" on the Asian mainland. Similarly, it would not have made sense for a party politician to call into doubt the suitability of party government for Japan or to inveigh against the idea of party cabinets. Men like Goto Shimpei, who held the latter view, found rather quickly that it was not compatible with participation in a political party. Professional politicians therefore operated within a well­ defined consensus that did not admit of sharply defined ideological differ­ ences, and such differences played little or no role in the formation of parties. All this is not to say that there were no differences of opinion among Diet members or between parties on matters of policy, but usually such differences touched on how best to preserve shared values rather than on more fundamen­ tal issues. In the debate on electoral reform in r g r g and r g 2 o , for example, no spokesman for either party absolutely opposed the extension of the suffrage nor was there much discussion of female suffrage. Rather, debate centered on the problems of the timing and extent of such reform , and even here the range of difference was modest. It was a case of " small differences within a larger similarity" (daido shoi) .

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These three factors-the electoral system, the homogeneity of the electorate, and the homogeneity of the elected-all militated against the pulverization of the Diet into small parties. But the main question still remains: Why did "two large parties" finally emerge? The answer should be clear from the cases of party formation considered in the preceding pages. Because differences in class, economic interest, and political values among the Diet members were minimal, cleavage within the Diet was determined primarily by the com­ petition for control of an absolute majority in the House of Representatives. Parties were not alliances of local caucus groups formed at the grass-roots level but coalitions of Diet members coming together under the impetus of tactical goals. The overriding consideration in organizing a party was that of number, and because the formation of an absolute maj ority was the primary object, it made sense to organize large parties rather than small ones. As I have suggested; the first and most successful of these large coalitions of Diet members was the Seiyukai . But its very success gave the other disparate elements in the Diet an urge toward unity. In reaction to the rise in strength of the Seiyukai, there emerged a series of second parties, beginning with the Doshikai and ending with the Minseito, all of which were aimed at matching and besting the Seiyukai in the competition for votes, for Diet seats, for funds, for patronage of the genro, and for influence over the government. Such an interpretation may strike some as too mechanical. It may be objected that if the pursuit of power was the only consideration that brought the Diet members together in parties, it was only natural that they splinter and fragment when their party was out of power. To this, one can reply that although the pursuit of number and power was the main motive which brought parties into being, there were other factors that kept them together as organizations. Perhaps the most important of these was the expectation of the party rank and file that the party president, though out of power temporarily, had a good chance of some day becoming premier. For example, this motive accounts for the solidarity of the Kenseikai during its " ten lean years. " It was only in 1 9 24, when Kato had been bypassed three times for the premiership, that factionalism threatened the party. But significantly enough, the solution proposed to retrieve the party's fortunes was not to disband the party or defect to the Seiyukai, but rather to organize a new anti-Seiyukai merger and n;place Kato with a new leader. Moreover, and this is matter that is likely to remain tantalizingly obscure, no matter how

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dim his prospects of becoming premier might be, a party leader could continue to hold his party together if he were able to raise funds. To revert to the internal troubles of the Kenseikai in 1 9 24, it was Kato's hint that he might cease to supply "provisions" to the party were he eased from the leadership that brought the merger movement to a final halt. A major party split was possible only if the leaders of the dissident or anti-headquarters faction had financial backing of their own. Although it is not possible to document this, it seems likely that the leaders of the Seiyukai faction that split off to become the Seiyuhonto in 1 9 24 had such funds at its disposal . One can also surmise that party solidarity began to rest more and more on a growing sense of party identity among its members. In-group ties, sustained partly by the distribution of funds and partly by personal friend­ ships, gave rise to a sense of party loyalty and in turn promoted the growth of a party self-image. It is nearly impossible to document such an assertion, but now and then we get a glimpse of subjective feelings of the party members toward their party. Arima Yoriyasu, for example, decided to join the Seiyukai partly because he felt that in contrast to the leadership of the Kenseikai, who tended to be cool and impersonal, the members of the Seiyukai had a strong sense of giri and ninja; he wrote that though he wouldn't hesitate to go to Adachi or Kato on some bit of straightforward business, he felt he wouldn't be able to approach them for a loan he didn't want his wife to know about. By contrast, he said he would feel no such constraints with Takahashi or Tokonami, and much less so with Noda Yutaro, all leaders of the Seiyukai.9 Very probably such subjective attitudes strengthened the allegiance of other men to their parties. THE EMERGENCE OF PARTY CABINETS A second important question that can be raised is how the "established parties" were able to secure control over the cabinet. The Meij i constitution made no provision for party cabinets, and though the party politicians were united in their feeling that party rule was both desirable and necessary, this feeling was not shared by the other elites in Japanese society. The high­ ranking civil officials and military officers who regarded themselves as dedi­ cated "servants of the emperor" looked upon the vote-grubbing party poli­ ticians, backed by the moneybags of selfish business interests, as unfit for positions of responsibility. Moreover, in contrast to England and the United

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States, both of which had long observed the practice of subordinating military officials and civil bureaucrats to the control of popularly elected officials, the Japanese party politicians had to contend with exactly the opposite tradition. How then were they able to secure the formation of party cabinets? Perhaps basic to the parties' success in this respect was the diffuse dis­ tribution of power under the Meij i constitution. Far from being a monolithic "absolutist" state, the governmental structure created by the Meij i oligarchs was a truncated Leviathan. To be sure, all legal power ultimately rested in the hands of the emperor, who in theory ruled as well as reigned , but outside of a few passionate academics like Uesugi Shinkichi and the lunatic fringe of the mystical right wing, most politicians were well aware that he was rarely, if ever, able to exercise it. In every act of state, from a declaration of war to the award of a decoration, the emperor relied on the "advice and assist­ ance" of his ministers or of men like the genro who exercised considerable informal power. The emperor was not too powerful in law, he was too weak in practice. In the absence of a central unifying force within the state, the power to make and carry out decisions was divided not in Montesquieuean fashion, but among an autonomous military high command , an independent professional bureaucracy, the leaders of the House of Peers, the Privy Council, and the parties in the House of Representatives. While the oligarchs lived , they managed to hold together this welter of competing elements by a kind of '' government by crony. " But once they had passed from the scene, the problems created by the fragmentation of power within the state became acute. The political leaders who emerged in the Taisho period were divided not simply by policy differences, but by different bases of power and in some cases by radically opposite philosophies of government. The result was a continual struggle for control of the cabinet. The parties possessed several advantages in this struggle. First of all, the oligarchs had not created any single group of political heirs capable of succeeding to their mantle of prestige or their extensive personal connections. None of the oligarchs' proteges had an indisputable claim to head the government, or even to assume all the functions that the oligarchs had performed . Consider the effect of Yamagata's death on the political scene. His function as genro was taken over largely by Saionj i ; his role as behind­ the-scenes manipulator of the House of Peers was inherited by no one and the House disintegrated into factional conflict ; the same was true of the army where Yamag ata had exerted consid erable influence even during the First

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World War; his own personal proteges-men like Den Kenj iro, Hirata Tosuke, and Kiyoura Keigo-either made their peace with the parties or sank into political obscurity. No one person was able to plug into all Yamagata's old connections. The state builders, in short, were not followed by a generation of custodians as prestigious or powerful as they had been. Even Saionj i felt himself to be far less powerful than the older genro . Because there was not an obvious set of political heirs or an institutionalized system for recruiting them , the parties were able to compete on an equal footing with the other political elites in Taisho Japan. Second, the parties did not have to contend with a sense of national crisis that might have made it easier for their rivals to come to power. The Taisho period was one of peace. With the signing of the Portsmouth Treaty no major international crisis threatened the country until the late 1 9 2 0 's and early 1 930 's. Participation in the World War was only token, and the Siberian expedition touched no obvious national interest and generated no widespread concern. It was difficult to convince anyone that these were extraordinary times which required extraordinary leadership of a kind that the parties were not equipped to provide. Nor was there any temptation on the part of the parties to agree to a political truce as they had in 1 894 and 1 904. Though some attempt was made to justify the appointment of Terauchi in 1 9 1 7 , and later the three "transcendental cabinets" of 1 9 2 2 , 1 9 2 3 , and 1 9 24, by appeals to "national unity," the parties were not willing to accept the notion that there was any real mandate for nonparty prem iers. Indeed, it was the appointment of Kiyoura Keigo as a man "above politics" on the heels of the attempted assassination of the emperor that led to the eruption of party anger in 1 9 24. Finally, as a result of the relative tranquillity of foreign affairs, control over the House of Representatives emerged as the key to assuring cabinet stability and the uninterrupted formulation of policy. Despite its relatively weak constitutional position, the consent of this body was necessary to expe­ dite governmental legislative programs in normal times, and more important, it was necessary for the approval of the national budget. To get things done, a premier had to have some measure of support in the House and the parties were willing to exploit this situation to enlarge their own influence. Further­ more, though its power to redress grievances against the cabinet was weak, the House of Representatives could cause a govern ment serious embarrass­ ment by passing no-confidence resolutions or resolu tions callin g for the

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removal of certain ministers, including the premier himself. These resolutions had no legal force, but no premier could relish the thought that they might pass the House of Representatives. It was such threatened resolutions that brought the resignation of Katsura in r g r 3 and that prompted Terauchi to dissolve the Diet in r g r 7 . By the mid-Taisho period, few potential nonparty candidates for the office of premier remained , and those who did normally sought the support of one of the major parties, or perhaps both of them, before agreeing to organize a cabinet. Despite these advantages, all of which made the appointment of party premiers possible, the final decision still lay in the hands of the genro. This meant that the personal inclinations of the cabinet makers remained a crucial factor in the emergence of party government. The tactics and personality of the party leaders, however vexed and irritated they might be by the continued interference of the oligarchs, had to be tempered to meet the character of the genro. While Yamagata still lived, the threat of obstructionist tactics or open public attacks on the genro were likely to achieve little ; rather it was of the utmost importance to cultivate a friendly and cordial relationship with the old man. For this reason, it was Hara rather than Kato who became the first party premier, and even Hara was successful only because Yamagata was looking for a temporary expedient. When only Saionj i was left, matters became much easier for the parties because the last genro lacked the interest or determination of Yamagata to maintain the principle of " transcendental government." He was also more sensitive to outside pressure. His decision to nominate Kato , whose views and reputation he personally regarded with mistrust, came largely as a result of the second Movement for Constitutional Government, which made it clear that the parties were not likely to counte­ nance another nonparty government. In spite of this, however, he continued to hold out for the possibility of appointing a " neutral cabinet" headed by a nonparty premier, and it was only the lack of a suitable candidate that kept him from doing so. In any event, it is clear that without major institu­ tional reform the continuation of party government had to depend on the development of precedent, as the English cabinet system did, and precedent needed the nourishment of time. THE USES OF POWER This brings us to one final question : To what ends did the parties use their power once they had achi eved it? First of all, and most obviously, both parties

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were compelled by the desire to maintain or increase their Diet strength to build local electoral support. In this they were largely effective. Success at the polls was a natural corollary of their growing control over the cabinet, not merely because "the government never lost an election" but because access to influence over national budgets strengthened their ability to cater to local economic interests. Although the "established parties" had neither highly articulated or bureaucratized local organizations, they were nonetheless able to mobilize the votes of the relatively apathetic voting public. It is difficult to say how much party identification or interest in campaign issues affected the electorate, but it is clear that voters were readily influenced by the candidates' personalities or reputation, by pressure from local yuryokusha, or by vote-buying. The parties were not popular in the sense that they aroused widespread public enthusiasm, or even respect, but it is clear that they were " popular" in the sense that they monopolized the support of the voting public. The local supremacy of the "established parties" at election time by the end of the I g 2 o 's faced no serious challenge from either the right-wing or left-wing political organizations. Even after the passage of universal suffrage, which undermined the homo­ geneity of the voting public, the " proletarian parties" did not succeed in establishing a significant hold on the electorate. At best, in the late 1 93o's, the proletarian parties were unable to win more than about 10 percent of the total popular vote. Even had their leadership not been divided by incessant doctrinal and tactical disputes, it is unlikely that they could successfully have competed with the Seiyukai and the Minseito. Their constituency was mainly urban, but the majority of the voters continued to remain in the countryside. There the " proletarian parties" made little headway against the older parties. The peasantry were inherently distrustful of the "Reds," and the " pro­ letarian parties" could neither raise the vast sums necessary to campaign in the countryside nor break the ties between the rural voter and the local yuryokusha. The right-wing radicals by and large regarded the crass job of winning votes as unnecessary. Theirs was the psychology of the putschist who bypasses the regular legal and constitutional cham1els in the pursuit of power. They pinned their hopes not on mass support but on the strategic use of "direct action. " Ultimately, of course, it was the radical right that did most damage to the parties, but ironically, what successes they achieved were due largely to their sense of frustration at the local strength of the parties. They knew

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that they could n o t w i n m an election fight a n d never bothered t o cloak themselves in constitutional propriety as the Nazis did in Germany. It was perhaps a testament to the electoral strength of the parties in the 1 9 2 0 's that the right resorted to terrorism on the one hand and to pressure on nonparty elites on the other. But when one turns from the matter of vote getting to the question of public policy, it becomes far less easy to generalize about the parties because each reacted differently to the responsibilities of power. For the Seiyukai under Hara, domestic policy consisted mainly of promoting the policy of "national wealth and strength" that had been begun by the oligarchs. A man of great political acumen but limited political vision, he was never able to transcend his early experience as party leader. His mind was always concerned with the fate of his own party, and he failed to understand that the Japan of his youth and middle age was very different from the Japan he governed as premier. By contrast, the Kenseikai under Kato proved far more sensitiv

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-1t

(The financial goals of the new cabinet); Kensei, Vol . 7, No . 7 (July 1924). ------Zuikanroku r� l� 4$.,. (Reminis cences ) . Tokyo , 1931 . Hara Kei nikki

f!r, � a

-$(_. (The diary of Hara Kei) .

9 vols . ;

Tokyo , 1950-1 951 . Hara Kei zenshu f!r,

�.t_, � .1,

(The collected works of Hara Kei)�

285

2 vols . ; Tokyo , 1 929. Harada Kumao � l'fJ -��- 71:1! . 't

Saionji Ko to se ikyoku dE 11]

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);

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itti) (Prihce Saionji and the political situati on)". 8 vols . ;

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i: JJ:._ ; � td � Lf� .::.. ..., , �

no mocho11 .Jl:_

� (1'\\0 blind guts

in

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•

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.

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1=

(On the problem of prices ); Kensei Koron, Vol . 1 , No. 7

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i_ f.;._ �f

.

Nihon seito shi

(A his tocy of Japanes e political par ties ) .

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8

4>-

·t :(_

2 vols . ; Tokyo ,

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•

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(The biography of Nakamura Taihachiro).

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ro

hatten L\ ;f.j. lj_ ffJ 4'l � Jl

(The deve lopme nt

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.4�

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�

�

univers al suffrage move me nt and the understanding of univers al suffrage). Tokyo, 1 92 5. Igarashi Eikichi JJ. t � Sit t

.

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(The Taisho biograp hi c al dictionary ) . Ike Nobut ake.

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.

chii ni tsuite " A_ ..if. $.A

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lmai Yoshiyuki



a

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� �i) ;/l 5�

.

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(A critical biography of Takahashi Ko rekiyo).

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regulations for the Counts , Vis counts

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s

(1925 ). lrie Kan 'ichi A.. 5:r.. 1

-

.

Yama gata Ko no omokage cl!

��, 1l::-

CTJ

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287

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1l •:J J� f.

!!)

;i;{i .

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!ft. t e�

t'i

�!fl.- (The historical character of

the cons e rvative political p:�. rties ); Sekai, No. 120 (December 1 9 55). ------Kimai Nihon seiji kozo no kenkyu lit .ft

a J-

��;� tlt ct_

(A study of the political structure of nDd ern Jap:�.n).

Ishida Yoshio ;G Ill � .t.fi . nijliikka mandai

0

d)

'fl.

1ft

Tokyo , 1 9 59.

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megurite" 1\, r� ;t 1}.

'!!

11" i_ ?j.... � ; iff 1 �

-=-

+ - t � r.,

�,t ..,.. :{ ;;.t_ :(_

{The constitutional history of Greater Japan).

10 vols. ;

Tokyo, 1 927 -1928. Our a Kemmu den J\.. ;;ff

,jf, -1\, 1-£.

(A biography of Oura Kemmu).

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•

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� � iJA t,o::·;f� (A manual of

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modern Japanese political history). Tokyo , 1 9 6 1 . Tsurumi Yusuke 1iU_A;t .f;jf

Goto Shimpei

1j__;J. i.fr f

.

4 vols . ; Tokyo , 1 9 37 .

Turner , John E .

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Far Eastern Quarter ly , Vol. 9 , No. 3 (May 1 9 52 ) . Uchidl Shin'ya rtJ

111

H -tt. .

fi.l � .iJ. -t .if (Fifty

Fils etsu gojunen

stormy years ) . Tokyo , 1 9 51 . Uehara Etsujiro U !fl. i:JL

f"-t 'r 7

5 -t B _.$.. .,

tp .

;

Demokurashii to Nihon no kaizo

et.. i.!! (Democracy and the re const ruction of

Japan) . Tokyo , 1 9 1 9 . Ugaki Kazushige f �i - A_

.

Ugaki nikki 'f :l:j.

9

it, (The Ugaki

diary). Tokyo , 1 9 54 . Uzaki Kumakichi Jj, .lo� .�1 i

Inukai Tsuyoshi den }( -l 4t 1i
9 J1,.,lt Hirata Too uke -f Hoshi Toru £ Imai Yoshiyuki

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