THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT
127
FAR EASTERN (JAPAN).
May 15, 1939.
CONFIDENTIAL.
SECTION 5,
[F 4588/23/23]
Copy No. 131
Mr. Dodds to Viscount Halifax. (Received May 15.)
(No. 247.) My Lord,
Tokyo, April 5, 1939. IN his savingram No. 3 of the 12th January Sir Robert Craigie expressed disagreement with the views, which were then being telegraphed from abroad to the Japanese press, to the effect that this country had gone over to totalita- rianism by entrusting the reins of government to Baron Hiranuma. A party Government being as yet out of the question, there are few Japanese statesmen qualified for the post of Prime Minister, and still fewer who would be prepared, in present circumstances, to accept that office. There is, in fact, no reason to suppose that the selection of Baron Hiranuma had any connexion with his earlier political convictions.
2. The new Prime Minister has himself been at pains during the Diet session to divest himself of his reputation (which he has acquired not only abroad but also in Japan) as the leader of the so-called "Fascist"
"Fascist" movement in this country. Thus, in the speech, a translation of which was enclosed in Sir Robert Craigie's despatch No. 49 of the 30th January, he categorically affirmed his respect for constitutional government, and asserted his conviction that totalitarianism could find no place in Japan. He repeated these assurances in his reply to Mr. Debuchi on the 18th February (Sir Robert Craigie's despatch No. 207 of the 20th March). There were also speeches by other members of the Government in a similar strain, notably the speech by Admiral Yonai against excessive economic control and intervention by the fighting services in internal politics (Sir Robert Craigie's despatch No. 148 of the 2nd March), and an attack by the Minister of Home Affairs against the abstract basis of the "renovation movement in this country. Marquis Kido urged that preconceived ideological theories should be discarded and that problems should be approached from a strictly rational standpoint.
3. Attention has been drawn on previous occasions to the existence of a strong body of opposition to the reactionary tendencies in this country. I now have the honour to enclose, as a further illustration, a translation(') of a striking editorial which is published unsigned in the April edition of the widely read Central Review.
4. The five authoritarian Governments, which have held office since the suspension of Party Government followed the assassination in May 1931 of Mr. Inukai, the Seiyukai Prime Minister, have attempted, at the instance of and under constant pressure from the fighting services, to carry out a drastic national reorganisation in order to eliminate admitted abuses which had grown up during the liberal era and the prosperity of the World War boom. This renovation" movement ("Kakushin Undo ") represented a strongly nationalistic endeavour aiming at the eradication of political and bureaucratic corruption and a return to the simple life. It involved a spartan revolt against the luxuries of western civilisation, a relentless attack against the court officials and elder statesmen who were supposed to form a barrier between the Emperor and his people and, above all, national sacrifices in the interests of a vast armaments expansion programme. The nation at large, cowed by the domination of a mystical creed and by a long series of political assassinations culminating in the attempted "Putsch
of the 26th February, 1936, had no alternative but reluc- tantly to acquiesce in the course of events while fighting a rearguard action in the Diet and the press against the more glaring extravagances of the army and the bureaucracy. The Diet, however, existed under constant threat of dissolution and its resistance has accordingly been of the feeblest.
[608 p-5]
99
(1) Not printed.