“Taranaki Central Press” MONDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1937. THE JAPANESE CABINET.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 354, 8 February 1937, Page 4

“Taranaki Central Press” MONDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1937. THE JAPANESE CABINET.

The historian of the future will not find it easy to mark the exact point at which representative government passed out of existence in Japan. Since the assassination of Mr. Inuaki by patriotic” naval officers in May, 1932, no purely party Cabinet has held power; and in each of the many political crises which have occurred since that time party representation in the Cabinet and party influence over government policy have declined a little further. Mr. Hirota’s Cabinet, formed after the army rebellion which broke out a year ago, was in effect a body of officials responsible to the Emperor rather than to the Diet. Of its 1 1 members, only four were politicians; of the rest, four were civil servants, two were army officers on the active list, and one was a banker. Moreover, the politicians held portfolios of minor importance and no attempt was made to give the poltical parties a representation roughly proportionate to their strength. The Seiyukai party, which has a large majority in the Diet, adopted the somewhat feeble policy of voting against the Government on all unimportant issues and agreeing to all policV measures for fear of provoking a final suppression of constitutional liberties. In the new Cabinet there are no politicians and only one civilian, a banker. So far, only five names have been announced; but since one of the points in the army’s programme of "constitutional refor m” is the substitution of a smalldirectorate for the usual Cabinet of a dozen or so members, it is possible that General Hayashi s task has been completed. Though it is obvious that the Hayashi Cabinet bears no relation to party groupings in the Diet, it seems to have some relation to party groupings in the army. The selection of General Hayashi as Prime Minister is significant and in a sense reassuring. He has always been an opponent of the "progressive” movement in the army, the leaders of which hold that the army should play a larger part in the politics of the country and that some form of State socialism should be substituted for the peculiarly Japanese system of monopoly capitalism. General Hayashi’s strength was first revealed during the political crisis caused by the Nagata murder in 1935, at which time he was Minister for War in the Okada Cabinet. Holding that the Nagata murder revealed a decline in army discipline, he instituted a drastic purge, some 4700 officers being removed from their posts. General Magaki, the Director-General of Military Education, attempted to obstruct these reforms and was replaced in this office by General Nakamura, who now becomes Minister for War. Shortly after the purge, General Hayashi resigned, but this was due not so much to the opposition aroused by these reforms as to the Japanese convention which requires a man who has sacrificed others in the cause of duty to sacrifice himself as a mark of good faith. In view, then, of General Hayashi’s record and of the appointment of General Nakamura to be War Minister, it is a reasonable assumption that, although the army has taken over the government of Japan, it is the conservative section of the army which is in the ascendant.