The house elects its president and vice president, and submits to the imperial decision the names of the three candidates for each position who have received the highest votes for it, of whom the sovereign invariably selects the first. The members then divide themselves into committees, each with an elected chairman, which transact the more important part of the business of the house before it reaches the general session. The seats are decided by lot and without regard to the division of parties. Disorderly scenes on the floor are said to be as rare as specimens of grand oratory. Thrilling incidents are not, however, wanting, particularly when an important interpellation of the government or an address to the throne is under discussion, or on any occasion when the concerted move of a large party is directed by its leaders against the government, or against another party. The sentiment of the house rises to its height when, as in October, 1894, and on March 25, 1904, the partisan spirit is for the moment sunk, opposition to the government is laid aside, and the members, unanimously and enthusiastically, voice the urgent wishes of the entire nation, the latter itself being eminently capable at critical times of standing like one man. The gallery is on such occasions thronged by interested spectators, and the debate and its report arrest the attention of the whole country.
Most of the officers of state, including cabinet members, are eligible for seats in the lower house, but the ministers seldom appear as candidates, and, in one solitary case, when one of them was elected representative, he nearly always absented himself from the house. The cabinet members may, however, voluntarily or on request make their appearance to present the views of the administration on questions under deliberation, and on such occasions they occupy seats assigned for government officials. The presence, in this manner, of the various ministers, as well as premier, is usually a sign of an important, or perhaps exciting, session.
It is unnecessary to say that the representatives are not in theory regarded as delegates from their constituencies, and the local interests have not been found particularly engrossing. As to the practical position which the house occupies in the national life of the people—that is, as to the questions: What are the preponderant interests represented therein, and in what way; what have been the watchwords of the opposition, and how are the party lines drawn; how much has the existence of the house helped or hindered the progress of the nation during the past decade; what have been the effects of the continual struggle between the house and the government on the tactics and discipline of each, and which has shown the higher ability and greater continuity of purpose; and what have been the mutual effects of the action of the house and the more important domestic and foreign problems of the empire—these queries may be only imperfectly answered after the actual political history since the promulgation of the Constitution is thoroughly mastered. The more direct and practical question concerns the relation between the house or the diet in general and the cabinet. Is the latter responsible to the former for its political conduct?
Perhaps nothing in the fundamental law of Japan can be of greater interest and importance than the question just stated, all the more so because the text of the Constitution and Marquis Itō's "Commentaries" on it, as well as his public utterances, seem, when closely examined, significantly to leave much room for future development. Nor are the eight changes of the cabinet which have taken place since the birth of the diet all of a character to decide this momentous question. "The respective ministers of state," says Article LV. of the Constitution, "shall give their advice to the emperor, and be responsible for it." What the last clause signifies is by no means made perfectly clear by the commentator, who says: "He alone can dismiss a minister, who has appointed him.... The appointment and dismissal of them [i. e., the ministers] having been included by the Constitution in the sovereign power of the emperor, it is only a legitimate consequence that the power of deciding as to the responsibility of ministers is withheld from the diet. But the diet may put questions to the ministers and demand open answers from them before the public, and it may also present addresses to the sovereign setting forth its opinions. Moreover, although the emperor reserves to himself in the Constitution the right of appointing his ministers at his pleasure, in making an appointment, the susceptibilities of the public mind must also be taken into consideration. This may be regarded as an indirect method of controlling the responsibility of ministers. Thus, in the Constitution the following conclusions have been arrived at:
"First, that the ministers of state are charged with the duty of giving advice to the emperor, which is their proper function, and that they are not held responsible on his behalf; second, that ministers are directly responsible to the emperor and indirectly to the people; third, that it is the sovereign and not the people that can decide as to the responsibility of ministers, because the sovereign possesses the rights of sovereignty of the state; fourth, that the responsibility of ministers is a political one and has no relation to criminal or civil responsibility, nor can it conflict therewith, neither can the one affect the other. Save that all criminal or civil cases must be brought before the ordinary courts of law, and that suits arising out of administrative matters must be brought before a court of administrative litigation, the cases of political responsibility are left to be dealt with by the sovereign as disciplinary measures." The marquis further emphatically repudiates the theory of joint responsibility of the cabinet as a state of things that can never be approved of according to the Japanese Constitution. The argument here again is that the ministers are individually appointed by the sovereign, to whom they are individually responsible for the business of their respective departments, and that for the same reason the minister president, or premier, cannot have control over the post of each minister, nor shall the latter be dependent upon the former. The reader will readily see that the whole line of Itō's argument is consistent with the fundamental theory of the Japanese body politic, that is, the full sovereignty of the emperor. No one can, however, fail to perceive between the lines here quoted a great latitude for the future growth of another theory whose gradual expansion might, imperceptibly, perhaps, but none the less steadily, reduce the political responsibility of the minister to the throne to the position of a mere legal fiction. As has already been intimated, the past changes of the cabinet have not always been directly occasioned by the opposition of the diet, nor has the majority of the opposition in the lower house newly elected after its dissolution always forced the ministers from their chairs. As will be seen in the next chapter, the second Yamagata cabinet (1898-1900) resigned despite its commanding a majority in the diet, and was succeeded by the fourth Itō cabinet (1900-1901), which also retired for reasons quite independent of the conditions of the legislative chambers, where it had the following of an absolute majority of the representatives. On the other hand, nearly all of the eight changes of the cabinet have been caused by difficulties more or less financial in nature, and these are, it will be remembered, under the effective control of the lower house, so that the "indirect" responsibility of the cabinet to the diet already bids fair to become more logical and perhaps less indirect. Moreover, the sovereign has never appointed individual ministers of state at his pleasure, but at the resignation of a cabinet he invariably summons the statesman whose succession to the premiership is the most logical, though not always desired by the latter himself, and leaves to him the task of forming a new cabinet. It would not be too much to suppose that if in the future a cabinet was compelled to resign under the powerful and reasonable opposition of a great popular party in the lower house, the leader of the party would receive the imperial mandate to form a new cabinet. We feel almost safe in predicting that with the growth of an adequate party system, which in Japan is still in its formative stage, the ministerial responsibility to the diet will have become an established usage.
It is interesting to note that Marquis Itō himself remarked, in his address, in February, 1899, to the delegates from the cities, that the English cabinet and party system must be more or less adopted in Japan if a harmonious coöperation were to be secured between the cabinet and the diet, and that the practice of government by party would in no way impair the authority of the throne. The same statesman had an occasion two years later to declare in the lower house, when an already mentioned resolution censuring the cabinet for having caused an imperial word to be pronounced was under discussion, that the passage of a resolution would not shake his position as premier, which he owed to the confidence of his majesty. "If the aim of the resolution is my resignation," exclaimed he, "why do you not propose an address to the throne, instead of a resolution?" These statements made by the same framer of the Constitution at two different occasions may not be interpreted as necessarily contradictory to one another, for, if in 1901, an address had been made to the throne, and if the throne had seemed still to uphold the premier in spite of the diet, it is not impossible to imagine that Itō would have quietly resigned. Weighing his statements side by side, might it not be surmised that in the mind of the veteran statesman the responsibility of the cabinet to the people must be commensurate with the political training of the latter, especially in the form of a well-organized and trained party system? At any rate, it would seem inevitable that the actual state of things under the present régime should move in that direction. As to the state of party politics in Japan, to whose development the marquis himself has made a notable contribution, we shall discuss it at length in the following chapter.
Finally, a reference should be made to the privy council, whose members, twenty-five more or less in number, are appointed by the emperor, in order to deliberate upon important matters of state. The ministers are ex officio privy councilors, but the cabinet is an administrative body, while the privy council is a deliberative one. To the latter is assigned the "task of planning far-sighted schemes of statecraft and of effectuating new enactments, by leisurely meditation and calm reflection, by thorough investigation into ancient and modern history, and by consulting scientific principles" according to Itō's "Commentaries." The councilors, therefore, must be men above party and of wide experience and knowledge, and so conservative and impartial as to be "the palladium of the Constitution and the law." Its opinions are not given publicity, but when they are embodied in an imperial ordinance, the latter states the fact in its preamble. The emperor in theory may accept or reject at will the recommendations of the council, but in practice has in no case overridden them, nor even shown his personal preferences.
Those who are at all familiar with the political conditions of Japan cannot fail to see through this institution of the privy council a group of men who have in a large measure molded the destiny of new Japan. They are collectively termed Genrō, or Elder Statesmen, and include those who were prominent about the time of the revolution of 1868, and also those who have since rendered eminent services to the state. At one time they numbered among them the great Katsu, the most heroic and dramatic figure of the revolution and the most sage-like statesman of modern Japan. Marquis Itō now stands head and shoulders above the rest of the veteran statesmen, and beside him are found Field Marshal Yamagata, Count Matsukata, and others of equal note. It is highly significant that the Constitution has created an institution by means of which those very men whose wisdom and energy have tended to make Japan what she is were attracted together around the person of the emperor. The ship of the state is piloted by their far-sighted loyalty and patriotism, and the influence these statesmen exercise over the fundamental policy of the empire cannot easily be overestimated. The latest example of this influence was the advice of the council to the throne to instruct the peace envoys at Portsmouth to make large concessions in order successfully to conclude a treaty with Russia. These concessions, which made the restoration of peace possible, were radically opposed to the wishes of the majority of the people, but were boldly counseled by the Elder Statesmen regardless of personal consequences upon themselves. Neither the diet nor the political parties could, however, effectively assail the position of the council as such, for it was no executive institution, but a purely deliberative organ closely in touch with the throne. When the treaty was signed by the envoys, the council approved it and the emperor ratified it, despite a great popular demonstration for its rejection.