With the coming into force of the Constitution the ancient monarchy entered upon a new phase in its existence. During the long period of Tokugawa ascendancy the Crown had slumbered, as before, in complete security, its repose guarded by the Shōgunate. Removed from all contact with outside influences, it was free from all possibility of collision with the people. Although after the Restoration the severity of its seclusion was relaxed, the personality of the Monarch made little or no impression beyond the select inner circle of statesmen who constituted the governing oligarchy. The representative institutions now established, while limiting Imperial prerogatives, enabled the Sovereign to come more prominently into view, and to be brought into direct association with his people within the forms prescribed by the Constitution.

CHAPTER XX
Working of Parliamentary Government—Grouping of Parties—Government and Opposition—Formation of Seiyūkai—Increasing Intervention of Throne—Decrease of Party Rancour—Attitude of Upper House.

The stage now reached in our narrative seems to be a suitable moment for giving a sketch of the main features which marked the proceedings of the Diet from the date of its first session up to the present time. By the adoption of this course, instead of adhering strictly to chronological sequence, it may be possible to convey a clearer idea of the character and working of parliamentary government in Japan.

We have seen that the results of the first elections were unfavourable to the Government, the majority of successful candidates belonging to one or other of the Opposition factions. While no single party could point to any decisive numerical superiority as evidence of the favour of the electors, three of the groups—the Daidō Club, the Kaishintō, or Progressives, and the Independents—were nearly equal in numbers, the others being much less strongly represented. Between the date of the elections, however, and the opening of Parliament a further reconstruction of parties took place. Both the Daidō Club and the revived Jiyūtō were dissolved, to reappear in an amalgamated form under the name of Constitutional Liberals. A Conservative Party supporting the Government was also organized. It is unnecessary to refer to the various party manifestos issued at this time further than to say that they covered a wide range of subjects; reduction of expenditure, naval and military policy, finance, questions of local government and taxation constituting the chief points on which attention was concentrated. Owing to the sudden changes which had altered the constitution of parties since the elections, when the Diet met, the new Association of Constitutional Liberals, whose ranks had meanwhile been further strengthened by the adhesion of many independent members, became by far the strongest party in the House of Representatives, the only two others of any prominence being the Progressives and the Conservatives. By the time, therefore, that the first Parliament had settled down to business the members of the Lower House were divided into three main groups: the Liberals, the Progressives, and a Conservative Party, without much cohesion, which supported the Government. This grouping has, in spite of kaleidoscopic changes occurring with bewildering frequency, in membership, nomenclature and political programmes, survived more or less to this day, although both the Liberal and Progressive parties are now known by other names, while the foundations on which they rest have to some extent shifted.

The first session of the Diet passed without a dissolution. Early in its proceedings the question which has furnished the predominant note of all parliamentary sessions, that of finance, came to the front. The Opposition attacked the Budget. In the debates which ensued a crisis was only averted by a compromise involving a recasting of the Budget and a large reduction of expenditure. It was Japan’s first essay in parliamentary government; the new order of things was on its trial. Both sides, therefore, were probably disinclined to push matters to extremities. In the remarks on the Constitution made in a previous chapter it was pointed out that the comparative weakness of parliamentary Opposition parties in Japan was in some degree remedied by the control over the Budget exercised by the Diet, which could force a dissolution by refusing to vote supplies. This is what happened in the second session. No such moderate counsels as those which had led to a compromise before prevailed on this occasion. The Budget was again attacked, the attitude of the Opposition being so hostile and uncompromising that the House of Representatives was dissolved soon after the opening of Parliament. This was the first instance of dissolution. The first Japanese Parliament had thus lasted for only two years.

The history of these two earliest sessions—a record, that is to say, of sustained conflict—is the history of many others, and, indeed, viewed in not too critical a light, it is the history of thirty years of constitutional government. We see the same tactics pursued by the Opposition on each occasion, financial questions being almost invariably the issue which is raised; and the attacks are met in one of two ways—by dissolution or compromise. The aims of popular parties also continue from year to year with little change. Financial retrenchment, taxation, naval and military establishments, education, as well as constitutional reform in the shape of party government and the responsibility of Ministers to the Diet, all figure repeatedly in party programmes; but, with the gradual rise of Japan to the position of a world Power, foreign politics, and the development of national resources, come to occupy a larger share of the Diet’s attention.

Although the conflicts which occurred between the Diet and the Government in the first two sessions continued to be a constantly recurring feature of parliamentary proceedings, in the course of a few years a marked change in the relations between the Government and parliamentary parties took place. The Government began to display more tolerance of popular views which did not altogether coincide with their own, while resistance to Government measures on the part of the Opposition became less uncompromising. The reason for this change of attitude on both sides lay in the fact that the statesmen in power had begun to realize that, in spite of the Constitution having been framed on the principle of the responsibility of Ministers to the Sovereign and their independence of the Diet, as a matter of practical politics the maintenance of this principle on too rigid lines was attended by serious disadvantages. In other words, the position of the Government might be rendered very uncomfortable, and the conduct of affairs seriously hampered, by the constant antagonism of an unfriendly Diet. Consequently from the time of the eighth session (1894–5) a tendency on the part of one of the Opposition parties to draw nearer to the Government was observable, and in the course of the next session the Liberals announced the conclusion of an understanding with the Ministry, and appeared openly as its supporters. From the original standpoint the Government had occupied to reliance on the support of a political party was a significant advance. Two years later the normal routine of parliamentary government was interrupted by a still more significant departure in administrative policy. The two chief Opposition parties, which the Government had, as we have seen, succeeded in holding in check by playing off one against the other, combined against it. Confronted by an overwhelming hostile majority in the Lower House, the Ministry resigned, the formation of a new Cabinet being entrusted to the leaders of those parties, Counts Ōkuma and Itagaki. Since the reconstruction of the Ministry in 1873 the direction of affairs had rested with the Satsuma and Chōshiū clans, this policy being continued without change after the Constitution came into operation. Now, for the first time since the year in question, the government of the country was placed in the hands of men of other clans. But with the important reservation that the control of the army and navy was still confided to Satsuma and Chōshiū clansmen, and that decisions on important questions of State still rested with the inner circle of statesmen who guided affairs. The experiment, for such it was, was not successful. Within a few weeks after the new Ministers entered upon their duties serious dissensions broke out, and the Coalition Cabinet resigned in the autumn of the same year before the opening of Parliament, although the result of the General Elections had assured it of a majority not less than before.

The desire to establish party government has been mentioned as one of the aims kept constantly in view by the parties in opposition. By party government was meant the party system of government as it exists in Great Britain and elsewhere. It is interesting to note that, while the Government in the building up of modern Japan went to Germany mainly for its materials, there was all the time in unofficial circles a noticeable undercurrent of opinion in favour of British ideas and institutions. The establishment of party government would, of course, involve an amendment of the Constitution, nor would it be possible so long as the principle of clan government in its present form survived. Of this the Opposition leaders have always been well aware, and in making the question of party government so prominent a point in their programmes their object has probably been to carry on indirectly a persistent crusade against the two chief obstacles which lie in their path. Although Japanese Cabinets are in theory independent of the Diet, they have, as we have seen, from time to time, like German Cabinets, found it necessary to rely on parliamentary support, the withdrawal of which has usually resulted in the fall of the Ministry. Further than that, however, and the occasional replacement of the outgoing Ministry by one with stronger democratic leanings, the influence of political parties has never extended.

An event of great importance which lent a new aspect to parliamentary affairs was the reconstitution in 1900 of the Liberal Party as the “Society of Political Friends” (Seiyūkai)—a name which it still retains—under the leadership of Prince (then Marquis) Itō, with the avowed object of perfecting constitutional government. The Yamagata Ministry had just resigned, and had been succeeded by a Ministry in which Prince Itō occupied the position of Premier. Coming as it did from one who was the framer of the Constitution, and had identified himself with the doctrine of ministerial independence of Parliament, though he was the first to recognize the necessity of working in the Diet with party support, the step thus taken by Japan’s leading statesman was a surprise to the country. Its futility in the face of existing conditions of administration was evident from the moment his Ministry was formed, for the control of the army and navy being reserved, as before, for the two dominant clans, those departments were virtually independent of the Cabinet. The new Ministry, in fact, found itself in much the same position as that formed in 1898. Its success was scarcely greater. It survived, it is true, one session of Parliament, but it remained in office for only eight months, its resignation being hastened by the hostile attitude of the Upper House. Marquis Itō was not more successful in opposition in the next two sessions than he had been when combining the functions of Premier and Leader of the Seiyūkai; and in the summer of the year 1903 he withdrew from the party he may be said to have created and resumed his former post of President of the Privy Council.

A feature of some importance in the prolonged constitutional struggle which has characterized parliamentary government in Japan has been the increasing tendency of the Government to have recourse to the intervention of the Throne for the solution of ministerial crises arising out of conflicts between the Cabinet and the Lower House, or out of questions that indirectly affect the Diet. This intervention has taken the form of Imperial Decrees recognizable through the circumstances attending their issue as being more or less measures of emergency. Though, as we have seen, the influence of the Throne, as a silent factor in affairs, had counted for much in the Restoration movement, and in the consolidation of the new Government which came into being, the direct intervention of the Sovereign was but rarely invoked. It was otherwise after the Constitution came into operation. The difficulties accompanying parliamentary government rendered appeal for the direct support of the Throne more necessary than had been the case before, although the Government was doubtless fully aware that the influence of the Throne must inevitably diminish in proportion to the frequency of its invocation. The most recent instance of direct Imperial intervention took place when the third Katsura Ministry was formed. The grave crisis then occurring, which had defied all other remedies, was brought about by the resignation of the previous Ministry in consequence of the resistance of the military party to certain projected economies in the Budget.