YUSUKE TSURUMI

The dominance of the conservatives during forty years created a unique political situation. It meant the preponderance of the executive branch of government over the legislative and tended to centralize power in the hands of a few. These few people in the seat of power began to be closely linked up with the equally small number of people controlling the business enterprises of the country. While, therefore, Japan as a nation was making a steady advance on the Asiatic mainland and in the world at large, the political conscience of the people itself was not given a needed chance to express itself. It gradually created an atmosphere of lamentable indifference to politics on the part of the majority of the people. They were not given suffrage to express themselves and even those few who had votes realized that the exercise of their power did not mean much in formulating the country's policy.

Japan has won a reputation in certain quarters of the world for being imperialistic and aggressive. No impartial student of politics can deny that there were grounds for the criticism.

The foreign policies of Japan in the past half-century revolved around two pivotal points. The one was security and the other equality.

Internal [domestic] changes always precede the change in the foreign policy of a nation.

In the early days of Meiji radical ideas of the West (such as those of the Rousseau school) aroused enthusiasm in the minds of the young liberal leaders of the nation and they went pretty far in their political agitation. The sponsors of these radical ideas were gradually forced to leave the seat of power and went into the ranks of the opposition. But during the forty long years of agitation the liberals were not half as successful in registering popular support as were the conservatives who stood for vigorous foreign policies.

Cynics may say that Japan has been forced by the United States and England to give up her plan for dominating China, in the interest of a wider distribution of the spoils.

As Japanese newspapers derive most of their income by the sale of papers and not by advertisements their natural tendency is to cater to popularity. So they are always on the side of democracy when there is any issue at stake.

Cynics may say that Japan has been forced by the United States and England to give up her plan for dominating China, in the interest of a wider distribution of the spoils.

The dominance of the conservatives during forty years created a unique political situation. It meant the preponderance of the executive branch of government over the legislative and tended to centralize power in the hands of a few. These few people in the seat of power began to be closely linked up with the equally small number of people controlling the business enterprises of the country. While, therefore, Japan as a nation was making a steady advance on the Asiatic mainland and in the world at large, the political conscience of the people itself was not given a needed chance to express itself. It gradually created an atmosphere of lamentable indifference to politics on the part of the majority of the people. They were not given suffrage to express themselves and even those few who had votes realized that the exercise of their power did not mean much in formulating the country's policy.

In the early days of Meiji radical ideas of the West (such as those of the Rousseau school) aroused enthusiasm in the minds of the young liberal leaders of the nation and they went pretty far in their political agitation. The sponsors of these radical ideas were gradually forced to leave the seat of power and went into the ranks of the opposition. But during the forty long years of agitation the liberals were not half as successful in registering popular support as were the conservatives who stood for vigorous foreign policies.

The foreign policies of Japan in the past half-century revolved around two pivotal points. The one was security and the other equality.

As Japanese newspapers derive most of their income by the sale of papers and not by advertisements their natural tendency is to cater to popularity. So they are always on the side of democracy when there is any issue at stake.

Japan has won a reputation in certain quarters of the world for being imperialistic and aggressive. No impartial student of politics can deny that there were grounds for the criticism.

Internal [domestic] changes always precede the change in the foreign policy of a nation.