MODERN JAPANESE POLITICS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1477, 25 November 1915, Page 4

MODERN JAPANESE POLITICS.

Many novel features, unknown iu previous elections, marked the recent general election in Japan. It was formerly the custom for Japanese statesmen to appear but seldom in public, and even then to make only a few laconic remarks. But Count Okuma, the present Prime Minister, threw tradition to the winds, took a leaf out of the history of electioneering in America, and made rapid tours through the country, shaking hands with the country folk and addressing the crowds from the platform of the car. Not satisfied with this, he spoke to the phonegraph and distributed the records broadcast so that his political ideas might be heard in the theatres and other amusement places. At the end of the campaign he despatched, on the eve of the election, thousands of telegrams to the leading electors throughout the country, bidding for support. Some ot these methods, especially the telegrams to the electors, were severely criticised by a section oi the Japanese press, but, on the whole, the campaign was admitted to be the most wholesome one iti the constitutional history of Japan. The most significant feature of this political struggle was the active part taken by the Japanese women. In Tokio, iu particular, wives, mothers and sisters of certain candidates busied themselves in canvassing the constituencies. This new factor in Japanese politics is hailed by Mrs Aki Yosano, editor of the woman’s department of the Tokio newspaper, the Taiyo, as the dawn of a new era in the social Hie of Japan. She is jubilant over the “unmistakable sign of the awakening of our sisters, as indicated in the recent political campaign.” She adds : —“The appearance of women on the political stage of out country is a salutary sign. It must mean that our sisters are turning from apathy to earnestness, from sluggishness to intellectuality, from ignorance to enlightenment.”