1939-01-06 — Page 18

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, FRIDAY, JANUARY 6, 1989.

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CRISIS IN TOKYO

tury.

'APAN HAS had & Constitution written

for nearly a half cen-

#

WHAT IS happening in JapanT

There is a Cabinet crisis. Nothing extraordinary, you say. Other nations have Cabinet crises.

YCA. But for a parallel for the present crisis in Japan you may have to go back to Mussolini's March on Rome, or Hinden- burg's summons to Iftier 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 spielt which has outlived the feudal system.

S. Quigley, If you read the following article by Harold Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota, you may form some fifca of the significance of events in Tokyo.

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policy in all fields but one. matters of national defence the supreme command, which we may best envisage as the soveral military and naval agencies in collaboration, is empowered to decide.

This power, however, to 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.

To a considerable degree, if we think in terms of in conditions prevailing 1889, the year of its promul- gation, the document was worthy to be called liberal.

The general nature of government under it was

However, the views of the -Phone 27778-9 Stubbs Rd. parliamentary. There was

a Dict or Congress,

The Constitution of Japan is, the Diet but to the Emperor. Cabinet must pass the scrutiny Cabinet, and an independent like all constitutions, but in a They may or not be selected from of the Privy Council, of the geuro, and of the palace advisers. Judiciary. A bill of rights gteater degree than others, large- the membership of the Dict.

Three of the Ministers, those At any stage of their progress carried the familiar protec- ly unwritten. 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 Thus the Cabinet is constantly under fire and subject to a Beyond question, the new sentatives and a House of Pears. Navy are required by law to be

The former is elected by maie generals or admirals. regime was

more liberal

Not mentioned in the Con- perplexing variety of controls. voters, aged at least 26 years,

The embarrassing strength of than the old. :

who today con titute an elector- stitution but established by law,

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 advisers at springs from the age of the res- PICTURE the old regime! At appointed, partly elected. The the imperial palace, and the training organs and their closer Kyoto, secluded from all men appointed peers receive their several agencies of the military kinship with the dominant social

forces in the country. a few courtiers, remoto warrants of office from the and naval command.

Of the palace statesmen, the Moreover, Japanese political 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 Scal. The sibility. The theory of Cabinet reposed the of the nobility, by high tax- Imperial Household Minister and government is not yet establish- tual sovereign,

payers, and by, the Imperial the Lord Chamberlain also are ed in Japan. It can develop intimate advisers of the Em- only by understandings over a titular Mikado.

Academy. At Yedo, later called Tokyo,

Thus the two bodies differ peror. The influential military lengthy period.

This development is not ham- another figure-head, the shogun,

the chiefs of staff of the army pered by the imperial preroga greatest of the feudal lords (the considerably in social background agencies outside the Cabinet are daimpo), and commander of the and altitude,

The Diet has not yet attained and the navy, the Imperial Mili- tive, since the Emperor does not

the Board of make decisions tary Council and

on policy. No imperial armed forces, appeared to be the actual head of the state, to an appreciable influence over Marshals and Admirals.

doubt development would be 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.

The absence of imperial deci- : cutive small coterie of Tokugawa clan ly superior powers of the exe-

and to popular in-advise the Emperor independent- leaders.

locks and delays, out of which The latter delegated local ad- difference to democratic ideas, ly of the Cabinet and of the aion results in frequent dead- All of these officials are ap- ultimately emerges whatever ministrative powers to the two. en 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.

agency that is dominant at the sway, was only restrained by cus-

moment. tom and the fear that the pea-

At one time that may be the sant would revolt if life became intolerable. The people were THE EXECUTIVE, if we fol

time the genro, since even the others, there is the genre genro cannot always have the bound to the soil, unconscious of low the written Constitution, FINALLY, and above all the supreme command, at another their political potentiality, with- is composed of the Emperor,

the This institution rests upon cus- deciding word. This means that out rights or the institutions of the Privy Council, and

tom alone, having no written

one or the other powerful group Cabinet. representation.

legal foundation.

is likely to be resentfal and

ing religious freedom. Chambers-a House of Repre- the Ministers of War and of the or rejected outright.

Man and the State IF YOU WANT to learn some

thing about what is hap- pening in Japan, read the article "Crisis in Tokyo" on this page. You will understand, then, what is meant when you are told that Baron Hiranuma, Japan's new Premier, is a mem- ber of an old Samurai family.

He is a bachelor, 72 years of

age.

BAVC

vice.

He is one of Japan's most fer- vent apostles of nationalism, which means Fascism. Hiranu- ma onco founded a nationalist 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

cans. Significantly, La Founder dissolved the order.

Will totalitarianism, as apposition to membership, by elec- of 26 elderly men,

89 plied in Germany and Italy, tion of their neighbours, in a life by the Premier from the man" and the holder of the posi- when a new issue arises.

the tion, Prince Saionji, now come to Japan as a result of the tional, provincial, and municipal ranks of the bureaucracy, change in Cabinet?

assemblies, under the reorgani- military services, and the pro-years old, is the highest adviser

of the Emperor. zation laws of the late nineteenth fessions. century.

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. That Act encountered consider- able opposition in Japan's Diet. It was passed only after Prince Konove promised that its provi- Rions 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.

Thore is no shadow of doubt now but that the entire Act will be applied.

Sayonára?

It was a long stride from that The Privy Council is a body The word means "elder states eager to redress the balance

chosen for

லு

His half dozen colleagues of THE ROLE of the Diet in the The Cabinet is a group of a

contest for power is a minor his remarkable influence

In old Japan the cult of Shinto dozen ministers of state, each carlier years have passed on, but

sur- onc. was the dominant religious and heading a department, together vives. His approval is sought Impotent from the start, it social influence in the lives of with a premier.

by every executive agency for has had to rely upon the growth The Premier is appointed by every major proposal. the people.

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 Unhappily, although there has cended; and especially to their

formulation of national been a considerable development tenno, the Emperor, himself a members are responsible not to the

along desired lines, it has not Egod and vicegerent of the gods.

been fruitful because the House and the 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.

Loyalty to him meant, of course, obedience to the man- GRIN AND dates of the officials, humility in times of depression, sacrifice in war.

How to preserve the attitude, while tolerating the growth of national discussion of govern- mental policies, was a problem for the men to whom the powers |

of government were transferred

when feudalism fell.

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

and Satsuma, financial them Choshu

AP

position has become so desperate which had forced out the Toku- that mobilisation of all the na- | kawa. Lion's resources is imperative.

Even the totalitarian form of

Their model for the Japanese Constitution was that of Prussia,

Correa-

Communism may not Bavo an absolutist system with a very Japan. Remember, for the next limited suffrago and a 360 days she is committed to pondingly weak national legisla finding £1,000,000 a day. She ture. has no ovorsens markets from which she can borrow money or credit.

Has she a sufficient reserve of internal resources to stave of bankruptcy, even with mobilisa- tion of all her private resources?

If not, it's Sayonara for Japan's hopes of victory in China

They purported to maintain the oligarchy, substituting them- 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 Diet. They' would let the prople's delegates talk but not decide policy or con |trol, administration.

BEAR IT

By Lichty of Representatives

"He's really a wonderful doctor-only this morning he sold se look moralika (sisters than mother and daughter!"

لله

THE REAL OPPOSITION to

military extremism is sup Iplied by the bureaucracy.

The permanent civil service, ramifying through the entire governmental structure, from the

Tokyo departments in through the provincial adminis- trations, including the police, and highly centralised through the Ministry of Home Affaire, provides the warp and woof of government.

The strongest men in the poli- tical parties were formerly in the civil service, while the Privy Council and the House of Peora take their tone from promoted bureaucrats. Even when the Cabinet is made up almost wholly of party members, the bureaucracy controls it.

The real contest for power in modern Japan has always been one between two great bureau- cracies, the civil and the mili- tary.