A Handbook of Modern Japan

by Ernest W. Clement

DEPARTMENTS OF STATE: NAVY; AGRICULTURE AND COMMERCE; JUSTICE; FOREIGN AFFAIRS

The first election under the Constitution took place (whether designedly or accidentally, I know not), by a curious coincidence, on July 4, 1890; and the first session of the Imperial Diet opened on November 29, 1890. On December 2 the House of Peers received the first bill ever presented to a National Assembly in Japan; and on December 4 the first Budget (for 1891) was laid before the House of Representatives by Count Matsukata, Minister of Finance.

Some notice must be taken of the rights and duties of subjects under the Japanese Constitution. All such persons are eligible to civil and military offices; amenable to service in the army and the navy, and the duty of paying taxes, according to law; have the liberty of abode, inviolate right of property, right of trial by law, and freedom of speech, writing, publication, public meeting, association, and religious belief, “within the limits of law”; cannot be arrested, detained, tried, or punished, “unless according to law,” and can claim inviolate secrecy of correspondence. Moreover, “the house of no Japanese subject shall be entered or searched without his consent,” except in due process of law. All subjects may also present petitions, “by observing the proper forms of respect.” The freedom of religious belief is granted “within limits not prejudicial to peace and order, and not antagonistic to their duties as subjects.” These “rights” are old to Anglo-Saxons, but new to Japanese.

Now we often see and hear rather uncomplimentary statements about the Imperial Diet, political parties, cabinet ministers, and Japanese political affairs in general, and are even told that Japan is only “playing” with parliamentary and representative institutions, that her popular assemblies are mere “toys,” her constitutional government is all a “farce,” and her new civilization is nothing but a “bib.” Such criticisms, however, result either from ignorance or from a wrong point of view. It is undeniably true that, viewed from the vantage-ground attained by popular institutions and constitutional government in many Occidental nations, Japan is still lagging behind. It is not fair, however, to judge her by our own standards; the only just way is to estimate carefully the exact difference between her former and her present conditions. This the author has tried to do elsewhere in a pamphlet[96] on “Constitutional Government in Japan,” in which he has given a sketch of the workings of the Japanese Constitution during the first decade, or period, of its history. From that he quotes the following conclusions:—

The progress made during the first decade of constitutional government in Japan was considerable. In the first place, popular rights were largely expanded by the removal of most of the restrictions on freedom of the press and public meeting; as much extension of the electoral franchise as seems warranted was accomplished; and public opinion, as voiced in the newspapers and magazines, was wielding an increased and constantly increasing influence. On this point the “Japan Times” says: “No one who goes into the country and compares the present degree of the people’s political education with what it was ten years ago, can fail to be struck by the immense progress achieved during that interval.”

In the second place, the character of the two Houses of the Imperial Diet has greatly improved. The inexperienced have given way to the experienced, the ignorant to the intelligent; so that, after six elections, the personnel of the House of Representatives is of a much better quality, and the House of Peers has been quickened by the infusion of new blood. Experience, as usual, has been a good teacher.

In the third place, the Cabinet, theoretically responsible to the Emperor because appointed by him on his own sole authority, is practically responsible to the Imperial Diet and must command the support of a majority of that body. Hereafter it would seem that dissolution of the Diet is not likely to occur as often as dissolution of the Cabinet.

The one weak point in this situation is that, although the principle of party cabinets is thus established, its practical application is difficult of realization, simply because there are no true political parties in Japan. There are many so-called “parties,” which are really only factions, bound together by personal, class, geographical, or mercantile ties, and without distinctive principles. One “party” is actually Count Ōkuma’s following; another is Count Itagaki’s; another is called “the business men’s party”; another is composed of politicians of the Northeast; and another tries to maintain the old clan alliances; so in 1913 Prince Katsura assumed leadership of a new progressive party.[97]

But it is, nevertheless, true that “Japan is at length passing out of the epoch of persons and entering the era of principles,” when, of course, will speedily come the development of parties. It is not, perhaps, strange that the personality of the great statesmen who made New Japan possible has been felt for so long a time, nor that the able men of the rising generation have begun to chafe a little under the prolonged control of those older statesmen. But, as the “Japan Times” says, “the conflict between the old and the new elements of political power, the so-called clan statesmen and the party politicians, has been so far removed that the time is already in sight when the country will see them working harmoniously under the same banner and with the same platform.” Such was apparently the case in the Seiyukwai, Marquis Itō’s new party, organized in 1900, the closing year of the first decade of Japanese constitutionalism. And this problem of political parties is the great one to be solved in the second period of constitutional government in Japan.