These post-war years, especially after 1921, witnessed a brief
flowering of parliamentary democracy in Japan. None of the architects
of the Constitution, least of all Ito, had foreseen this possibility.
Yet in the late ’twenties it seemed as if the Cabinet might win
unchallenged power, that party government would reign supreme, and that
the House of Representatives would become the true seat of authority.
This change came about quite naturally, through the increasing
influence of the great business houses. By 1925 the industrialists
and the bankers, or their representatives, held many of the leading
offices which the clansmen had formerly made their own. They held the
presidency of the Privy Council, and the key posts in the Imperial
Household Ministry. They were influential in the House of Peers, in
the bureaucracy and even in the Army and Navy. Generals and admirals
could actually be found to support the policies of party governments.
All the Elder Statesmen except Prince Saionji had died. And even he,
being related to the Sumitomo banking house, was in sympathy with the
capitalist outlook. As Prince Saionji was the Emperor’s chief adviser
on the choice of a new Premier, he occupied the most strategic position
in the state. In the 1925-31 period, on his nomination, six consecutive
governments were formed by party Premiers holding majorities in the
Diet’s lower house.