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The Universal Suffrage Issue in Japanese Politics, 1918–25

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Edward G. Griffin
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Universal suffrage was enacted into law in Japan in 1925 under a coalition government formed the previous year by the two major parties, Kenseikai and Seiyūkai. The law abolished an existing tax qualification for voting, expanding the electorate from three million to twelve and one-half million adult males. The Kenseikai had endorsed universal suffrage in late 1919, after an internal debate which began about a year earlier. The Seiyūkai by contrast accepted universal suffrage only in 1924, after several years of expressly rejecting it. This article traces the stages whereby these parties became committed to the legislation, and also examines the reaction to the issue on the part of other elements which had at least a potential voice in this legislation: the nonparty cabinets which governed from 1922 to 1924, the privy council, the House of Peers, and the genro, or elder statesmen.

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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , February 1972 , pp. 275 - 290
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Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1972

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References

1 Duus, Peter, Party Rivalry and Political Change in Taisho Japan (Cambridge: Harvard, 1968)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, provides an extensive account of party politics in this period. Chapter 3 is devoted specifically to a comparative study of Hara and Katō.

2 According to one account, the Kenseikai leadership was able only with great effort to prevent universal suffrage from being adopted as party policy. Takayoshi, Matsuo, “Daiichiji taisengo no fusen undō, 1918–1920” [The universal suffrage movement after World War I, 1918–1920], in Kiyoshi, Inoue, ed., Trishōki no seiji to shakai [Politics and society in the Taishō period] (Tokyo: Iwanami, 1969), p. 165Google Scholar. Hereafter cited as Taishōkf In addition to the two-yen tax qualification, the Kenseikai bill proposed to enfranchise also males over twenty-five who had a middle school education, provided they were not dependent on others for their livelihood. The bill would have given the vote to an estimated 3,600,000.

3 “Ingai yori futsū senkyo wo kyōyō seyō” [Let us persistently demand universal suffrage from outside the diet], Tōhō Jiron, IV (Jan. 1919), 32–7. In 1917 he had advocated a “tenfold” increase in the electorate. “Senkyoken kakuchō undō no kyūmu” [The urgent need for a suffrage expansion movement], Shin Nihon, VII (June 1917), 13–7. A 1904 graduate from Tokyo University, Imai went to Tientsin in 1907 at the invitation of the Chinese government to teach law. He was dismissed from this position by the Yuan Shih-k+Bai government in 1913 for his support of the southern revolutionaries. He went to China again in 1915 as an adviser to the military regime in Yunnan. After his return to Japan he opened a law practice in Osaka, and was elected to the diet in 1917. His activities on behalf of universal suffrage earned him the appellation of fusen no kami—idiomatically perhaps “Mister Universal Suffrage.”

4 Osaka Mainichi, Jan. 19, 1919, p. 2; Jiji, Jan. 19, 1919, p. 2. (Newspapers cited are Tokyo papers unless otherwise indicated; the word shimbun is omitted from titles.) This group held another meeting on Feb. 2. Matsuo, Taishōki, p. 166.

5 Shugiin Jimukyoku [House of Representatives, General Affairs Office], Teikoku Gikai Shugiin iinkai giroku [Minutes of the committee proceedings of the House of Representatives of the Imperial Diet], 41st diet, sec. 5·7, Feb. 28, 1919, p. 40, and Mar. 1, 1919, pp. 45–46. Hereafter cited as linkai giroku. Miki was a major protagonist of universal suffrage in the Kenseikai debates in January 1919. He had been elected to the Tokyo city assembly in 1914, and was elected to the diet from Tokyo in 1915. He exhibited a lifelong penchant for the mechanics of politics which earned him the sobriquet of yaji shogun—perhaps “king of the hecklers.” He played a leading role in the return to power after 1952 of conservative politicians purged during the allied occupation.

6 Takao, Saitō, “Senkyoken kakuchō oyobi senkyo kusei ron” [Suffrage expansion and the electoral district system], Taiyō, XXV (Feb. 1919), IIIGoogle Scholar; Seizaburō, Shinobu, Taishō seiji shi [Political history of the Taishō era] (Tokyo: Kawade Shobō, 1951–52), III, 858Google Scholar. A member of the diet since 1912, Saitō Takao in later years held important positions in the Minseitō, successor party to the Kenseikai. He was also the author of several treatises on Japanese and comparative government. He gained a measure of international fame as a result of his expulsion from the diet in 1940 for his criticism of Japan's conduct of the war in China.

7 linked giroku, 41st diet, sec. 5·7, Feb. 28, 1919, pp. 32, 37.

8 Saitō, p. III. The same point was made by the Kenseikai's Takemura Yoshisada in the committee hearings, linkai giroku, 41st diet, sec. 5·7, Mar. 4, 1919, p. 68. In 1919, the number of persons paying taxes over ten yen was about the same in the land tax category as in the other two—business and income—combined (1,688,497 in the former; 1,620,676 in the latter). However, in the three to ten yen bracket, those paying land tax greatly outnumbered those paying the other two kinds (2,161,923 to 216,532). Ōkurahrō Shuzeikyoku [Ministry of Finance, Tax Bureau], Shuzeikyoku dai yonjūrokkaitōkei nempō sho [Forty-sixth annual statistical report of the tax bureau] (Tokyo, 1920), tables 22, 35. These figures do not permit precise inferences about the impact of the 1919 law, since some taxpayers could be represented in more than one category, and some by reason of age or sex may have been ineligible for the vote in any case. One can state that at the most 216,532 of the approximately 1,500,000 new voters under the 1919 law paid any tax other than the land tax.

9 According to government estimates in 1919, the cities accounted for 12·3% of the total voters under the existing law, and this would drop to 10·1% under the government's 1919 bill, linkai giroku, 41st diet, sec. 5·7, Mar. 1, 1919, p. 46. At the end of 1918 the fifty-six cities which constituted separate election districts (as given in Yamazaki Kazuo, Dai Nihon seisen kiroku shi [A record history of Japanese political campaigns] [Tokyo: Seisandō, 1930], pp. 521–29) alone accounted for over 16% of the population. All cities accounted for over 18%. Naikaku Tōkeikyoku [Cabinet Statistical Office], Nihon Teikoku dai sanjühachi tōkei nenkan [Thirty-eighth statistical yearbook of the Japanese Empire] (Tokyo: Tokyo Tōkei Kyōkai, 1920), tables 18, 19.

10 There were 6,579,546 payers of land tax, and 118,939 payers of other direct national taxes, in amounts under three yen. Ōkurashō Shuzeikyoku, tables 22, 35. The government did not produce figures on the geographic, i.e., rural-urban, distribution of taxpayers under three yen.

11 The Kenseikai bills in 1920 and 1921 restricted the vote to persons who were “earning an independent living” (dokuritsu no seikei wo itonamu). The Ministry of Home Affairs put the number of males over twenty-five meeting this requirement at 9,448,664 as of August 1920. (Asahi, Jan. 22, 1924, p. 2). The clause became a source of intraparty disruption, and was removed from the bills which the party presented in 1922 and 1923. By then, in the eyes of some including the Kenseikai, a proposal containing the clause was not acceptable as universal suffrage. In 1919, however, the issue was not phrased in those terms, and in this sense, from the perspective of the time, late 1919 marks the conversion of the Kenseikai to universal suffrage. The clause was indeed debated at that time among the party's universal suffrage supporters, but they were all inclined to regard it as a secondary detail. Most of them in fact favored the clause, and appear to have expected, incorrectly, that the Kokumintō universal suffrage bill would also include it (Hōchi, Nov. 28, 1919, p. 2). Real pressure on the Kenseikai leadership to remove the clause began only in 1920, and the most prominent argument was the tactical one that the clause prevented the party from joining forces on universal suffrage with the Kokumintō and other groups.

12 Asahi, Oct. 25, 1919, p. 3; Nov. 18, p. 3; Hōchi, Nov. 17, p. 2; Nov. 27, p. 2. Prime Minister Hara did in fact dissolve die diet on February 26, 1920, making an issue of the Kenseikai's presentation of a universal suffrage bill, and in the ensuing election, the Seiyūkai scored a decisive victory, winning an absolute majority of the seats. On the prospective role of the 1919 law in the 1920 general election see Duus, pp. 150–151.

13 On President Katō's hesitation on this score, see Masanori, Itō, Katō Kōmei, II (Tokyo: Katō Haku Denki Hensan Iinkai, 1929), pp. 338–340Google Scholar. For similar views ascribed to an unidentified Kenseikai leader, see Asahi, Dec. 2, 1919, p. 2.

14 See especially Asahi, Oct. 10, 1919, p. 2; also Hōchi, Nov. 29, 1919, p. 2, and Asahi, Dec. 2, 1919, p. 2.

15 Itō, II, 340.

16 I have discussed this subject in some detail in a paper, “The Safety Valve Argument for Universal Suffrage in Japan,” presented at the Columbia University Seminar on Modern Japan on May 14, 1971. To summarize briefly, this argument was a major preoccupation with many politicians at this time, and yet there were striking variations in the intensity of this concern—including refusal to accept it—and in the terms in which it was expressed.

17 For general characterizations, see Rōyama Masamichi, Seiji shi [Political history], Vol. II of Gendai Nihon bummei shi [History of modern Japanese civilization] (Tokyo: Tōyō Keizai Shimpō Sha, 1940), p. 428, and Myōga Fusakichi, Nihon seitō no gensei [The present state of political parties in Japan] (Tokyo: Nihon Hyōron Sha, 1929), pp. 237, 253, and 287, as well as the statements by Imai Yoshiyuki and the Kenseikai members cited above. The proportion of urban to total support in elections from 1915 to 1924, in terms of both votes cast and seats gained, consistently runs higher for the Kenseikai than for the Seiyūkai, although there are discrepancies between various sets of statistics adduced on this point, and all are not equally conclusive. See for example Kanechika Teruo, “Dai yonjūni gikai e no fusen an no jōtei to kakutō no taido” (The Attitudes of the Political Parties toward the Universal Suffrage Bill presented before the 42nd Session of the Diet), Waseda Seiji Keizai Gaku Zasshi (The Waseda Journal of Political Science and Economics), No. 156 (Apr. 1959), p. 129; Shinobu Scizaburō, Taishō demokurashii shi [History of Taishō democracy] (Tokyo: Nihon Hyōron Shin Sha, 1954–59), III, 913; and Ōtsu Jun‘ichirō, Dai Nihon kensei shi [Constitutional history of Japan] (Tokyo: Hōbunkan, 1927–28), X, 1063–65, 1074–76. Statistics aside, the fact that this appears to have been the image, to some extent the self-image, of the Kenseikai, may have some relevance to speculation about urban support as a source of Kenseikai interest in universal suffrage.

18 Itō, II, 339.

19 Asahi, Nov. 27, 1919, p. 2.

20 The pro-Seiyūkai bias of the districting system in Hara's election law may have stimulated some in the Kenseikai to favor universal suffrage as the best vehicle, although not logically necessary, for changing that law. But it too was already an accomplished fact in the spring of 1919. Moreover, as noted above (see footnote 12), that law was also cited in late 1919 as an argument for the Kenseikai not proposing universal suffrage.

21 Osaka Mainichi, Feb. 20, 1920, p. 1; linkai giroku, 42nd diet, sec. 5·23, Feb. 23, 1920. Similarly, the home minister, Tokonami Takejirō, told the diet committee that the government would change the election law as circumstances required, but did not recognize that the need for such a change currently existed. linkai giroku, 42nd diet, sec. 5·23, Feb. 18, 1920.

22 Nichinichi, Jan. 18, 1922, p. 2, and Jan. 21, pp. 2, 3· This contrasts with the situation, in 1921, when the Nichinichi reported that there was no opposition in the Seiyūkai to the government's policy on the national franchise. Jan. 31, 1921, p. 2.

23 An account of this meeting is given in Asahi, Feb. 18, 1922, p. 18–3. (Hyphenated page citations for Asahi refer to its reduced size library edition, shukusatsuban.)

24 Takahashi continued as Seiyūkai president until shortly after the passage of the universal suffrage law. In the 1930's he served again as finance minister, the position he held at the time of his assassination in the army uprising of February 1936.

25 “Senkyo hō tōshin an no naiyō” [Contents of the draft report on the election law], Hōgaku Shimpō, XXXIII (July 1923), 179–180.Google Scholar

26 Sec several items in Asahi, Oct. 21, 1922, p. 21–2, covering developments over the previous month.

27 Quoted in Nichinichi, Jan. 22, 1923, p. 2.

28 Inukai, a lifelong party politician, had been president of the Kokumintō, and headed the Reform Club at the time he became Yamamoto's minister of communications. Inukai's presence did not make Yamamoto's a party cabinet, much less a Reform Club one, quite apart from the fact that technically the Reform Club was not a political party. For Inukai's views on “national” parties, see Kumakichi, Uzaki, Inukai Tsuyoshi den [Biography of Inukai Tsuyoshi] (Tokyo: Seibundō, 1932), pp. 330–334Google Scholar. Gotō, who had been a physician, colonial official, and president of the South Manchurian Railway, was a major figure in the founding of the Dōshikai, predecessor of the Kenseikai, but pursued his political career mostly outside of the parties: as a member of the House of Peers, mayor of Tokyo 1920–24, and holder of several cabinet posts, including minister of home affairs under Yamamoto. For his views on party reconstruction, see Seizaburō, Shinobu, Gotō Shimpei (Tokyo: Hakubunkan, 1941), pp. 329–330.Google Scholar

29 On the “independent living” qualification, see footnote II, above. The liberal view in the cabinet was ascribed to Gotō, Inukai, and the justice minister, Hiranuma Kiichirō. Asahi, Dec. 27, 1923, pp. 27–1, 27–2. Hiranuma was noted as a protagonist of traditionalist ultranationalism in the 1930's. His position on suffrage came as a surprise to Inukai who, upon broaching the subject to Hiranuma, was told forthwith that the latter had favored the measure for “many years.” Hisashi, Iwasaki, Hiranuma Kiichirō den [Biography of Hiranuma Kiichirō] (Tokyo: Kaisei Sha, 1939), p. 263.Google Scholar

30 Asahi, Oct. 20, 1923, p. I, and Oct. 20 (P.M. ed.), p. 1. As of October 1923 there were 13,429,663 males over twenty-five meeting a six-month residence requirement; of these, a total of 8,653,016 would meet the household head requirement. Shōju, Koyama, Fusen gikai [Commentary on universal suffrage] (Tokyo: Nagoya Shimbun Sha, 1925), p. 122.Google Scholar

31 Shinobu, Taishō seiji shi, IV, 1112–14, describes such a meeting as taking place December 6. So also does Kisaka Jun‘ichirō, citing the newspaper Kyoto Hinode, Dec. 8 (P.M. ed.). “Kakushin Kurabu ron” [On the Reform Club], Taishoki, p. 310. Asahi, Dec. 13, 1923 (P.M. ed.), p. 3, reported a meeting “recently” with the same personnel. Shinobu also gives a direct quotation (without a source) in which the Seiyūkai's Okazaki Kunisuke expressed to Yamamoto vivid, if not hysterical, concern lest universal suffrage come into force immediately. Shortly thereafter, in early 1924, Okazaki sought unsuccessfully to persuade the Kenseikai to a more conservative view on universal suffrage. See below, footnote 37· Ironically, he played a key role, at some cost to his position in the Seiyūkai, in achieving passage of the universal suffrage law in 1925.

32 For an extensive discussion of the Kenkyūkai, see Fahs, Charles B., “Political Groups in the Japanese House of Peers,” American Political Science Review, XXXIV (Oct. 1940), 896–919.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33 There is no indication that the dissolution was aimed at delaying action on the suffrage. The overt cause of the dissolution was a riot that broke out in the diet over charges that the government had connived to wreck a train carrying leaders of the three opposition parties.

34 Ishida Takeshi states that the parties did not get involved in the universal suffrage issue until after the formation of the joint movement against Kiyoura. Kindai Nihon seiji kōzō no kenhyū [Studies on the political structure of modern Japan] (Tokyo: Mirai Sha, 1956), pp. 168, 180Google Scholar. This appears to refer to the parties without exception, but it must be read in the light of the Kenseikai's official adoption of universal suffrage in 1919, and the subsequent yearly presentation of universal suffrage bills in the diet by the Kenseikai and the Kokumintō or the Reform Club. Ishigami Ryōhei outlines the situation precisely, in stating that at this time, the Seiyūkai alone did not come out for universal suffrage, and that therefore a joint three-faction universal suffrage plank could not be issued. Hara Kei botsugo [After Hara Kei] (Tokyo: Chūō Kōron Sha, 1960), p. 148.Google Scholar

35 Ōtsu, Dai Nihon kensei shi, IX, 486–488.

36 Asahi, Feb. 9, 1924, p. 9–2.

37 Ōtsu, IX, 492–493.

38 The bill, being an amendment to the Law for the Election of the House of Representatives, constituted legislation supplementary to the constitution, and therefore came under the competence of the privy council. For a discussion of the council's competence and procedures, see Colegrove, Kenneth, “The Japanese Privy Council,” American Political Science Review, XXV (Aug. and Nov. 1931), 589–614, 881–905.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 The original government draft disqualified for the franchise “persons receiving public assistance (kyūjo) for their livelihood.” The privy council amendment changed this to “persons receiving public or private assistance for their livelihood.” The compromise disqualified “persons receiving public or private relief (kyūjutsu) for their livelihood.” Kyūjutsu connoted relief to a disaster victim or to an impoverished person. See Itō, II, 578–80, and Wakatsuki Reijirō, Kofūan kaikoroku [The memoirs of “Kofūan”] (Tokyo: Yomiuri Shimbun Sha, 1950), p. 292.

40 “Peers” is used hereafter synonymously with “House of Peers.”

41 The peers also proposed to exclude heads of noble houses, which probably would have affected few people, the issue being largely symbolic (Shinobu, Taishō seiji shi, IV, 1253); and to raise the residence requirement from the government bill's six months, to one year. There were an estimated 13,400,000 males over twenty-five meeting the former requirement, and about 200,000 less meeting the latter. Koyama, p. 116; Saka Chiaki, “Futsū senkyo hō yōkō” [The gist of the universal suffrage law], Kaizō, VII (May 1925), 87. By contrast, the peers' livelihood qualification would probably have cut the electorate to about 9,600,000. Asahi, Mar. 25, 1925, p. 25–2 and Mar. 29, p. 29–2; Shinobu, Taishō seiji shi, IV, 1255.

42 Itō II, 592. This account of the committee and sub-committee proceedings is also based on Ryūkichi, Koike, Banko Okazaki Kunisuke (Wakayama: Shōunsō Bunko, 1937), pp. 262–265Google Scholar, and Kingo, Ishii, “Ryōin kyōgikai ni okeru fusen shingi” [The deliberations on universal suffrage in the conference of both houses], Kaizō, VII (May 1925), 167–168Google Scholar. Ishii was a Seiyūkai House of Representatives member, and sat on the conference.

43 Asahi, Apr. 24, 1925, p. 24–2; May 1, 1925, p. 1–1. Council proceedings were supposed to be secret, but by this time leaks had become institutionalized, and reports appearing in the press were held to be generally reliable. Colegrove, p. 608.

44 Asahi, May 8, 1925, p. 8–2.

45 As described by Duus, pp. 142–143.

46 With at least male enfranchisement thus removed as an excuse for further revision of the law, the small district system might reasonably have anticipated a long life. The middle-sized district system which was introduced with universal suffrage has survived, with a brief lapse, until this writing—longer than all of its predecessors combined!

47 Early reports indicated some inclination under the Yamamoto cabinet toward the large district system. Asahi, Oct. 12, 1923, p. 12–3, and Oct. 16, p. 16–3. However, on October 18, five cabinet ministers delegated to study an election law agreed that the small district system should be retained. Asahi, Oct. 19, p. 19–3. In early December, the home minister Gotō Shimpei stated that the government favored the existing district system and had no intention of changing it. Quoted in Asahi, Dec. 9, 1923, p. 9–1.

48 Renzan, Maeda, Tokonami Takejirō den [Biography of Tokonami Takejiro] (Tokyo: Tokonami Takejirō Denki Kankōkai, 1939), pp. 576, 579Google Scholar; Ryōzō, Makino, Nakahashi Tokugorō (Tokyo: Nakahashi Tokugorō Ō Denki Hensankai, 1944), I, 397, 404Google Scholar; Shinobu, Taishō seiji shi, IV, 1080.

49 In the final negotiations between the House of Representatives and the House of Peers, Saionji telegraphed influential members of the latter urging that the universal suffrage bill be passed. Itō, II, 594.

50 Osaka Mainichi, Feb. 20, 1920, p. 1; linkai giroku, 42nd diet, sec. 5·23, Feb. 23, 1920. Tetsuo Najita has cited Hara's approach to universal suffrage as an example of Hara's general approach to politics, which he articulated as early as 1880: “To alter or not to alter the political structure is simply a question of what the conditions of the time are.” Hara Kei in the Politics of Compromise (Cambridge: Harvard, 1967), pp. 22–23.Google Scholar

51 See for example Uehara Etsujirō, “Konki gikai no futsū senkyo mondai” [The universal suffrage issue in the current diet], Nihon oyobi Nihonjin, Jan. 15, 1920, pp. 23–26; Miyake Setsurei, “Fusen ni taisuru kanryō to seitō [The bureaucrats and the political parties on universal suffrage], Kaizō, V (Dec. 1923), 179. Najita, p. 59, describes the unsettling effect on politicians of the rapid increase in persons paying sufficient tax to qualify for the vote in the first decade of the century.

52 See the accounts in Itō, II, 579–580, and Wakatsuki, p. 292.

53 Seiji shi, p. 430.