CO129-575-3 Japanese affairs 2-1-1939 - 21-12-1939 — Page 164

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3. Mr. Taki, the president of the Planning Council, has resigned with Prince Konoye and he has been succeeded by the vice-president, Mr. Kazuo Aoki. Mr. Rokuzo Takebe, a high official in the Kwantung Leased Territory, who was at one time prominently mentioned as a candidate for the post of director-general of the Asia Development Council, is to succeed Mr. Aoki as vice-president. There is much talk of an impending reorganisation and reinforcement of the Planning Council, for which the military authorities appear to be pressing.

1. Baron Hiranuma has retained the Cabinet Advisory Council, which was inaugurated by Prince Konoye. Admiral Suetsugu, Mr. Ikeda and Mr. Shimada of the Seiyukai, replacing Mr. Maeda, who has entered the Cabinet, have been appointed to serve on this council, bringing the number of its members to the original complement of ten (please see my despatch No. 544 of the 25th July, 1938). 5. The new Prime Minister, who is 73, is to a large extent an unknown quantity. After a distinguished career in the judicial field which brought him to the post of Minister of Justice in the Yamamoto Cabinet in 1923, he became president of a Nationalist Society known as the Kokuhonsha in 1924. Originally a highly respectable association, to which Liberal statesmen, such as Admiral Saito and Mr. Ikeda, belonged, the Kokuhonsha underwent a progressive swing towards the Right under the influence of Baron Hiranuma, who became the acknowledged idol of the reactionaries. Offered the post of president of the Privy Council in March 1936, Baron Hiranuma demonstrated the extent to which the Kokuhonsha had fallen under his personal control, by dissolving it (please see Sir Robert Clive's despatch No. 341 of the 18th June, 1936). As president of the Privy Council the baron has held aloof from active politics, although he has invariably been mentioned as a candidate for the premiership on every subsequent change of Government.

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6. In view of these antecedents, Baron Hiranuma was received as Prime Minister with considerable suspicion. He has, however, been at pains, through a series of talks to the press, to set these misgivings at rest by pledging respect for constitutional government and for the political parties. Similarly, he has pro- ceeded with marked caution in the matter of appointments and, although a number of his former reactionary associates were mentioned by the press as certain to be given Cabinet posts, none of the Hiranuma faction have been brought forward even Mr. Shiono, the Minister of Justice. who is a protégé of the Prime Minister, has not been promoted in the Government. On the subject of his policy. the Prime Minister has so far confined himself to abstruse remarks regarding morality as the basis of administration" and the Heavenly Way in politics" which are strikingly reminiscent of the tenets of General Hayashi in 1937. A more concrete exposition of policy is expected when the Diet reassembles on the 21st January. It is certain, however, that the National Council proposal will be abandoned and that Prince Konoye's measures for the reform of the House of Peers, the revision of the Elections Law and the reform of the parlia- mentary system will either be dropped or very substantially modified (please see my despatch No. 501 of the 12th July, 1938).

7. The inclusion in the Government of Prince Konoye, who succeeded Baron Hiranuma as president of the Privy Council, has given rise to much criticism on constitutional grounds. This step was taken, largely at the instance of the Minister of War, in order to minimise the effect of the Cabinet crisis both in Japan and abroad, and it is, in fact, doubtful whether Baron Hiranuma would have succeeded in forming a Government without the support of Prince Konoye and the majority of his colleagues. The critics hold that the independence of the Privy Council, as the highest advisory organ to the throne, has been impaired by this expedient and that the office of president of the Privy Council is constitu- tionally incompatible with that of a Minister of State. The issue is expected to form the subject of heated debate in the Diet.

8. In view of the existence of organisations such as the Planning Council and the Asia Development Council, real control of administration and policy is passing out of the hands of the Cabinet, and the effect of a change of Government in this country is correspondingly minimised. The China policy and the national mobilisation policy are therefore unlikely to be materially affected. In the present instance, the principal feature of the change is the elimination of the reactionary Admiral Suetsugu, and there is little justification for the view that the advent of the aged Baron Hiranuma to power will presage an acceleration of the trend towards

fascism." The new Prime Minister lacks the personal prestige of his

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predecessor and he will be closely watched by a suspicions public. Without infor- mation as to its causes, the press has deplored the resignation of Prince Konoye, while consoling itself with the view that the new Government, though less spectacular, may prove to be more efficient than its predecessor. Various opinions have been expressed as to the probable duration of the Hiranuma Government, none of which appear to be very sanguine.

I have, &c.

R. L. CRAIGIE.

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