Mar. 1.
IyTERNAL conditions in Japan are all the more important to! watch because of the small amount, of news that is telegraphed from that country. - For example, in respect of labour unrest, some few strikes, so great that it was impossible ta suppress all mention of them, have been signalled, like that at the Yawata iron works: and a little while back in the Moji district. Yet travellers from Japan have testified to widespread labour disturbance of all kinds during the past autumn, of which through the usual news agencies little or nothing has been communicated. And certainly the comments of the "'Yawata Maini. chi'? to-day on the temporary settlement in the iron strike do not at all suggest that the authorities are handling such troubles in a manner calculated to bring a permanent peace. Again, the demand for universal suffrage has been accompanied by demonstrations, mass meetings and the like, in Tokio and the principal towns, which give rise to much speculation. These things, if deliberate. ly engineered by a political party, cost a good deal of money. Now neither tha Kenseikai nor the Kokuminto, who are the sponsors "of the suffrage movement in the Diet, have large party funds. It looks as if there were considerable spontaneous public demand for the vote, which, taken in conjunction with labour unrest, is decidedly significant.
Most arresting of all is the "Government's sudden decision, on February 26, to dissolve the Diet and go to the country on the suffrage issue before there had been any proper debate of it. Governments do not take such extreme steps, of course, without being fairly confident of victory, which indeed the extreme disentisfa¢tion of the opposition in Japan with the dissolution shows that Mr. Hara's Government is fully expected to gain. The new Election Law passed in the Diet's Jast session is stated to have greatly improved the chances of the Seiyukai, or Government party, at
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.