1600-1997 Japan, 🇯🇵 1912-1926 Taisho Democracy
- 3 different prime ministers in this period, each trying to restore the balance between genro1
- Saionji, Katsura, Yamamoto
- 1912 November: 👤 PM Saionji Kinmochi, forced by economic circumstances to choose between two new military divisions or Seiyukai domestic programme, refuses funding for army
- army minister resigns in protest
- military refuses to supply a replacement → cabinet cannot be formed
- by law, ministers of army and navy need to be active-duty officers
- Saionji, unable to form a cabinet, resigns
- it’s giving Liz Truss
- press and intellectuals viewed the military’s tactics as “an affront to constitutional government”
- 1912: Formation of the League for the Protection of the Constitution by opposition parties, intellectuals, elite businessmen
- second Saionji Cabinet is succeeded by the third Katsura Cabinet after multiple politicians turn down the invitation
- they read the writing on the wall…
- Katsura refused to compromise with the Seiyukai and failed to organise a coalition strong enough to take any meaningful action
- this move caused his opponents to joint he unusually-vigorous Movement to Protect Constitutional Government (the liberal values exemplifying Taisho Democracy)
- 1913 February: Rallies are well-attended and manifestoes are given; reaches a peak
- Katsura tried to remove Yamagata Aritomo (influential genro) – his attempt was viewed as a selfish attempt to consolidate power for himself
- public perception of him nosedived further; he was thought of as a Choshu general perpetuating oligarchic rule (he’s basically Palpatine)
- the navy proceeded to demand battleships and refused to furnish a minister without them → Katsura, at his wit’s end, gets the emperor to issue an imperial edict forcing them to name a minister
- the public viewed this as an opposition to the services and undemocratic/high-handed use of the Emperor’s imperial abilities
- Cabinet was condemned in and out of the Diet
- Seiyukai had their hands tied by their earlier pledge to support Katsura; they sat out of it until Katsura founded his own party
- to begin with, Katsura was extremely unpopular and his original party lacked a Diet majority
- 1913: Seiyukai called for a ==vote of no-confidence== (first in Japanese history); Katsura had no hopeof winning
- Hara Takashi wrote in his diary that he feared a “practically revolutionary riot will occur” if Katsura didn’t resign
- 1913: Katsura resigns, crisis ends.
Aftermath
- surviving oligarchs Yamagata, Matsukata, Saionji asked a navyman Yamamoto Gonnohyoe aka Yamamoto Gonbee to form a new cabinet – with a place for the Seiyukai
- Hara Kei accepted three posts for existing Seiyukai politicians, and three extra sympathetic ministers
- four critical posts belonged to non-partymen – prime minister, army and navy ministers, foreign minister
- Yamamoto made key concessions to Hara Kei to revise regulations that gave the military such outsize power to begin with:
- retired military men could be army/navy ministers
- extended the reach of party influence – the vice-minister was now a political appointment, like the minister
- reduced budget & cut size of bureaucracy
- supporters of the Movement were bitterly disappointed – they viewed Hara Takashi as a sellout for allying with the Satsuma-clique leader + contrary to their demand and several-month struggle to “overthrow the government”
- the Diet’s power was clear – political representatives could no longer ignore them
- Katsura also formed the Doshikai party hastily; its fortunes would later look up
Footnotes
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Elder statesmen. ↩