May 12.
Waite the results of the Japanese elections are still unknown at the time of writing, it is a foregone conclusion that the Government will be returned with a substantial majority. When the Diet was dissolved on February 26 last, it was generally recognized that the universal suffrage question was merely a pretext for seeking an election which, owing to the Electoral Law passed in the Diet's previous session, was certain to give the Seiyukai, or Government party, a new extension of power. But what is most curious to observe is that this universal suffrage question has fallen flatter and flatter with every week of the election campaign. To judge by the ardent speeches of Opposition leaders last February, the whole nation was thirsting for the vote and would only be blocked from getting it by the rigid system stifling popular opinion at the polls which the election laws imposed. But the very reverse of this appears now to be the case.
Various causes have been assigned for this phenomenon. The financial crisis, the seriousness of which can hardly be exaggerated, resulting in widespread bank. tuptey and the discharge of large numbers of industrial workers, has put political issues, vague and unimportant as compared with the need of daily bread, out of men's minds. It appears, also, that, the vote being limited in Japan, those who possess it are by no means anxious to have it given to those who do not. Another explanation, suggested b the "'Kokumin"' of Tokio, which is one of the strongest advocates of suffrage, is that the methods of political canvassers have been unfortunate. ''Candidates of the present day (it says) know nothing better than to flatter and fawn upon their constituents and do not hesitate to pay personal calls on the electors, begging and kowtowing for votes, while the electors regard the franchise in the light of class privilege and are loth to share it with the rest of the nation. This is the case not only in country districts but even in cities." Yet again, it is argued that the new Electoral Law, by splitting up the large electoral districts into smaller constituencies, has destroyed interest by making results too ensily foreseeable. Formerly each prefecture returned a dozen members by single-entry ballots and there was a greater chance for the candidate from outside, the "'carpet-bagger.'' Now the prefectures are cut up into small districts, in which the man on the spot, whose family has lived there for generations, has an impregnable advantage over candidates perhaps of much greater ability, but unknown. This, of course, is a common feature of elections in any country.
But while universal suffrage failed to appeal, it is remarkable that no other public question appears to have been made a live issue, One would have said that there were plenty ready to hand the undoubtedly unpopular expedition to Siberia; the boycott in China; high prices; high taXation. None of them, however, seem to have been used by Opposition candidates as might have been expected. And the upshot is to cast an atmosphere of. unreality over all government by popular representation in Japan. Frequently we have had the spectacle of the Government being defeated in the Diet and remaining tranquilly in power; and again of Governments retiring because of some big popular outcry, as, for example, when the Terauchi administration made way for that of Mr. Hara consequently.on the food riots of last year. The plain fact of the matter is that democratic ideals are still far from being realized in Japan. The system restricts the voting power to a very small percentage of the nation, and that section is not yet sufficiently educated to see any particular advantage in spreading the vote over a wider circle. Government thus remains in the hands of an oligarchy, a limited number of noble families, just as it was in England sixty or seventy years ago; and everyone is free to decide according to his own feelings whether this system is good or bad. In Japan, we believe that the immediate results are likely to be good; for of the growing strength of liberal tendencies among the ruling class there is visible doubt.
this Teader was written before the actual figures began to come in. Those so far to hand have upset the predictions of critics in Japan on which the article was based, in respect of the vote cast for suffrage. Enthusiasm for this appears to have flared up at_the Jast minute in the big towns, Substantially, however, the" conclusions. of the article are fairly well justified,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.