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.
A very noticeable feature of Japanese parliamentary government is the
increasing tendency towards moderation observable in the political
world—shown, that is to say, at elections, in parliamentary proceedings,
and in the Press. During the earlier years of the Diet’s existence
elections were conducted amidst scenes of violence and disorder. Party
polemics both inside and outside of Parliament were carried on with an
absence of decorum and self-restraint which augured badly for the future
working of parliamentary institutions; political passions were inflamed
by the recriminations of party journals; and a new class of political
rowdies, called _sōshi_, stood ready to intervene whenever their
services might be required. Bands of these rowdies carrying wooden clubs
escorted popular leaders in the Lower House through the streets of the
Capital, and during two or three of the stormiest sessions the precincts
of the Diet presented the singular spectacle of rows of gendarmes and
police confronted by regiments of _sōshi_. The political rowdy of those
days is fast disappearing, his occupation, like that of his predecessor,
the _rōnin_, having gone; while turbulence, riotous conduct, and
intemperate writing are no longer regarded as the necessary
accompaniments of parliamentary life. One of the moderating influences
in Japanese public life has been the existence usually of a general
understanding, more tacit, perhaps, than expressed, between the
Government and people on broad questions of national policy. Another may
be found in the rapid progress of the nation. A people so busily engaged
as the Japanese have been in making up for the time lost by centuries of
seclusion is disinclined to pay too much attention to such matters as
jealousy of “clan government,” or objections to naval and military
expansion, more especially if the policy pursued in both respects is
attended with success, as in Japan’s case.
From this brief sketch of Japanese parliamentary history it will be seen
that circumstances have conspired to focus attention on the proceedings
of the Lower House. It is there that the struggles between rival
factions, and between the Diet and the Government have chiefly been
conducted, and issues involving the fate of parties and of Cabinets
decided. Although, however, the Upper House has consequently played a
less conspicuous part in parliamentary affairs, this has not been due to
any hesitation to assert its authority when necessary. It has never
shrunk from joining issue with the Lower House in regard to matters
within its competency, pushing its claims so far as to assert
successfully its right to amend money bills. Differing from the other
Chamber in its composition, in the grouping of its members which has no
relation to parties in the Lower House, and in its greater exposure,
through the class of Imperial nominees, to powerful bureaucratic
influences, the Upper House has never concealed the fact that its
sympathies are with the Government; and it was its whole-hearted support
that brought the latter safely through the parliamentary crisis of 1901
and 1902.
In view of the short interval which separated the establishment of
representative institutions from feudalism, and the unsettled condition
of affairs that prevailed for some years after the Restoration, the
nation has good reason to be satisfied with the results which have so
far attended the working of parliamentary government.