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PERFORMANCE.
CRISIS
J
tury.
APAN HAS had a written Constitution for nearly a half cen-
To a considerable degree, if we think in terms of in conditions prevailing 1889, the year of its promul gation, the document was
Hongkong Hotel worthy to be called liberal.
Garage
Mrs. D. R. Kilben
.B. Chitral
The
p.p.c.
Hongkong Telegraph.
Wyndham St., Hongkong 'Phone 26615 January 6, 1939
Man and the State
The general nature of government under it was
IN
WHAT IS happening in Japan?
TOKYO
There is a Cabinet crisis. Nothing extraordinary, you say. Other nations have Cabinet crises.
Yes. But for a parallel for the present crisis in Japan you may have to go back to Mussolini's March on Rome, or Ilinden- burg's summons to Hitler to take over the reins of Government.
It may be, as bad as that. The fall of Konoye is the result of the latest, and possibly not the last, expression of the feudal spirit which has outlived the feudal system,
If you read the following article by Harold S. Quigley, Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota, you mny form some idea of the significance of events in Tokyo.
policy in all fields but one. On matters of national defence the aupreme command, which wo may best envisage as the aoveral· milltary and naval agencies in collaboration, is empowered to decide.
This power, however, Is limit- ed by the Cabinet's right to frame the budget and to carry on foreign relations.
While the former right does not extend to deleting budget items previously set up, it does. cover new items.
However, the views of the
The Constitution of Japan is, the Diet but to the Emperor. Cabinet must pass the scrutiny
Judiciary. A bill of rights like all constitutions, but in a They may or not be selected from of the Privy Council, of the
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Not mentioned in the
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Phone 27778-9 Stubbs Rd. parliamentary. There was a Diet or Congress, a Cabinet, and an independent
gteater degree than others, large- the membership of the Diet. geuro, and of the palace advisers. carried the familiar protec- ly unwritten.
Three of the Ministers, thos0 At any stage of their progrcas tions to individual subjects Looking first at the written of Foreign Affairs, War, and the toward the imperial signature and their property, includ- portion, we find a Diet of two Navy, are never so chosen, and they may be held up for revision ing religious freedom. Chambers--a House of Repre- the Ministers of War and of the or rejected outright.
Thus the Cabinet is constantly Beyond question, the new sentatives and a House of Peers, Navy are required by law to be
The former is elected by male generals or admirals.
under fire and subject to regime was more liberal
voters, aged at least 25 years,
Con- perplexing variety of controlsy than the old.
who today constitute an elector- stitution but established by law, The embarrassing atrength of and of constitutional import these checks upon the Cabinet ate of 14,400,000 men.
The House of Peers is partly ance, are three high advisera at springs from the age of the res- PICTURE the old regime! At appointed, partly elected. The the imperial, pulace, and the training organs and their closer receive their several agencies of the military kinship with the dominant social Kyoto, secluded from all men appointed peers
forces in the country. save few courtiers,, remote warrants of office from the and naval command,
Of the palace statesmen, the Moreover, Japanese politicat from actual affairs, kowtowed to Emperor but are nominated by
corres- the Premier. The elected peers most influential is the Lord tradition calls for divided respon- AS a god-emperor, but pondingly contemned as an ac- are chosen by the various classes Keeper of the Privy Seal. The sibility. The theory of Cabinet the nobility, by high tax- Imperial Household Minister and government is not yet establish- tual sovereign, reposed the of
payers, and by the Imperial the Lord Chamberlain also are ed in Japan. It can develop titular Mikado.
intimate advisers of the Em- only by understandings over a At Yedo, later called Tokyo, Academy. IF YOU WANT to learn some- another figure-head, the shogun, Thus the two bodies differ peror. The influential military lengthy period.
This development is not ham- the chiefs of staff of the army pered by the imperial proroga- thing about what is hap greatest of the feudal lords (the considerably in social background agencies outside the Cabinet are pening in Japan, rend the article daimyo), and commander of the und attitude.
The Diet has not yet attained and the navy, the Imperial Mill- tive, since the Emperor does not "Crisis in Tokyo" on this page. imperial armed forces, appeared
to be the actual head of the state, to an appreciable influence over try Council and the Board of make decisions on policy. No
Marshals and Admirals.
doubt development would be You will understand, then,
but was in fact the puppet of a national policy, due to the great-
The two chiefs of staff may more rapid if he did. what is meant when you are small coterie of Tokugawa clan ly superior powers of the exe advise the Emperor independent- told that Baron Hiranuma,
cutive und to popular
The absence of imperial deci- Japan's new Premier, is a mem-
democratic ideas, ly of the Cabinet and of the sion results in frequent dead- ber of an old Samurni family.
The latter delegated local ad- difference to
locks and delays, out of which All of these officials are ap- ultimately emerges whatever He is a bachelor, 72 years of ministrative powers to the two- an indifference which has been Ministers of War and Navy. sworded samurai, whose despotic carefully fostered by the edu
pointed by the Emperor upon ad- line of policy is favoured by the cational authorities.
vice. away was only restrained by cus-
agency that is dominant at the He is one of Japan's most fer- tom and the fear that the pea-
moment. vent apostles of nationalism,sant would revolt if life became which means Festitionalist intolerable. The people were THE EXECUTIVE, if we fol- ma once founded a bound to the soil, unconscious of society which attracted many leading figures in Japanese naval, military and financial circles. It differed from real Fascism in that it advocated totalitarianism by constitutional
ледва. Significantly, tounder dissolved the order.
lage.
leaders.
Cabinet.
i31-
The word means "elder states-
cager to redress the balance
89
At one time that may be the...
at another low the written Constitution, FINALLY, and above all the supreme command, their political potentiality, with is composed of the Emperor: This institution rests upon cus- genro cannot always have the others, there is the genro, time the genro, since even the Council, and the out rights or the institutions of the Privy
tom alone, having no written deciding word. This means that one or the other powerful group representation.
It was a long stride from that
The Privy Council is a body legal foundation.
is likely to be resentful and position to membership, by clec- of 26 elderly men, chosen for tion of their neighbours, in nu- life by the Premier from the man" and the holder of the posi when a new issue arises. tional, provincial, and municipal ranks of the bureaucracy, the tion, Prince Salenji, now Will totalitarianism, as apzation laws of the late nineteenth fessions.
assemblies, under the reorgani military services, and the pro-years old, is the highest adviser
of the Emperor. plied in Germany and Italy,
His half dozen colleagues of The Cabinet is a group of a carlier years have passed on, but G ROLE of the Diet in the come to Japan as a result of the
contest for power is a minor In old Japan the cult of Shinto dozen ministers of state, each his remarkable influence change in Cabinet?
was the dominant religious and heading a department, together vives. His approval is sought social influence in the lives of with a premier.
Impotent from the start, it by every executive agency for has had to rely upon the growth the people.
The Premier is appointed by every major proposal.
of popular political consciousness. It inculcated loyalty to the the Emperor upon the advice of
How do these several agencies to provide it with a leverage for manage to function together? constitutional reform. gods from whom they were des- certain elder statesmen.
He and the other Cabinet The Cabinet is responsible for cended; and especially to their
More than probably, Japan is already on a semi-Fascist basis. The power to completely subordinate the freedom of the community to the will of the State is provided by the Na- tional Mobilisation Act, which became law five months ago. Tint Act encountered consider- able opposition in Japan's Diet. It was passed only after Prince Konore promised that its provi- slons would not be enforced in toto unless an emergency much graver than that provided by the conflict with China was forthcoming.
Konoye kept his promise and invoked only certain provisions of the Act.
There is no shadow of doubt now but that the entire Act will be applied.
Savonara?
AP
century.
sur- one.
Unhappily, although there has
tonno, the Emperor, himself a members are responsible not to the formulation of national been a considerable development god and vicegerent of the gods.
Loyalty to him meant, of
course, obedience to the man- GRIN AND BEAR IT dates of the officials, humility in times of depression, sacrifice in
war.
while tolerating the growth of How to preserve the attitude,
national discussion of govern-| mental policies, was # problem for the men to whom the powers of government were transferred | when feudalism fell.
ཕ
were op- FOR THOSE MEN
posed to democracy. Natur- ally so, since they were samurai PART FROM other consider- of the feudal clans, chief among
ations, Japan's financial them Choshu and Satsuma, position has become so desperate which had forced out the Toku- that mobilisation of all the na- kawa. tion's resources in Imperative.
Even the totalitarian form of Communism may not save Japan. Remember, for the next 860 days she is committed to finding £1,000,000 a day. She has no overseas markets from
which she can borrow money or
credit.
Has she a sufficient réserve of Internal resources to stave off bankruptcy, even with mobilisa tion of all her private resources?
If not, it's Sayonara for Japan's hopes of victory in China.
Their model for the Japanese Constitution was that of Prussia, an absolutist system with a very limited suffrage and a corres- pondingly weak national legisla-¡
ture.
the oligarchy, substituting them-
They purported to maintain]
selves for the ousted men.
They would build up a power- ful bureaucracy, Indebted to them for position rather than to the people and the Dlet. They would let the people's delegates talk but not docido policy or con- troj administration.
along desired lines, it has not been fruitful because the House
By Lichty of Representatives and the
-"He's really a wonderful doctor-only this morning he said sae
look, more like:risters: than mother and daughter)”,
parties have steadily lost credit, due to their demonstrated lack of principles and willingness to sacrifice the cause of Liberalism for party success and individual' enrichment.
THE REAL
OPPOSITION to military extremism is sup-- plied by the bureaucracy.
The permanent civil servico,. ramifying through the entire governmental structure, from. the departments in Tokyo through the provincial adminis- trations, including the police,. and highly centralised through the Ministry of Home Affairs,. provides the warp and woot of government.
The strongest men in the poll- tical parties were formerly in the civil service, while the Privy- Council and the House of Peers tako their tone from promoted bureaucrats. Even when tho Cabinet is made up almost wholly of party members, the bureaucracy controls it.
The real contest for power in modern Japan has always been ong between two great barėnų– oracles, the civil and the mili- tary.
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