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Hokitika Guardian, 19 May 1932, Page 4

The wave of violence that has disturbed Japanese political lif e during the last few months has culminated in the murder of Mr Inukai, the Prime Minister of JapiHl, During the present year thofl'e have been a number of violent oubragtiß on notable Japanese, including an attempt on the life of the Emperor, the shooting of Mr Invice, a former Finance Minister, the murder of Baron Dan, president of the groat Mitsui Corporation, and a bomb outrage earlier in May in which several prominent politicians and officials were killed. Owing to a strict censorship it is' difficult to get reliable information on the state of political opinion in Japan ; hut the hints that appear from time to time in the Japanese Press and the dispatches of English and American newspaper correspondents in Tokyo suggest that constitutional government in Japan is in very real danger of being supplanted by a military oligarchy. The root cause of the troub’e is the apparently incurable corruptness of Japanese politics. differences of political opinion hardly ‘exist in the Diet, the Parties- being still merely clans whose main object is the spoils of victory and whose affiliations with “big business” have caused innumerable scandals. Keen disjsati's factum with this state of affairs is felt bv the working class on tlie one hand and the army leadens on the other, and the result has been the development of a Fascist movement in which socialism and militarism are curiously blended. Its programme includes a revival of the autocratic powers' of the Emperor, the withdrawal of Japan from the League, the limitation of private pro-

perty. and the taking over of public utility services by the State.