There are three new institutions in Japan's governmental structure, all the members of-which are appoint tive, which. the Japanese press has rather mistakenly dubbed Prince Wonoye's, "brain. trust". 'These. are the Planning Board, the Central Economic Council and. the Price Policy Commission. They are in-hented by Prince Konoye from his Immediate predecessors, but he has So altered them as to' make them peculiarly his own and far more acceptable to the general public than was previously the case.
Heading the Planning Board, which!
escentlallysto the Government now what the General Staff is to an Army, is Mr. Koki Hirota, Minister of Foreign Affairs. There was much' talk "a year or so ago about the appointment of a Vice-Premier to assist the Prime. Minister in his arduous duties. The idea was quite unpopular. and it was dropped, nothing more being heard about it. In actual fact, Mr. Hirota as head of the Planning Board is Vice-Premier of Japan in all save name.
'His Board is charged with working' cut and approving all plans _and policies to be taken up for considera~ tion and adopted or rejected by' the Government Itself. It is a powerful, extra-constitutional organ, and reverts to the typical Japanese scheme of government by committee, a scheme that has functioned during! the greater part of Japan's many centuries of recorded history.
Empire Military Unied Economic Polley The strengthening of the two branches of the defence force in arms land equipment, in mechanized tech-que, perhaps' in personnel Is_30. obviously a major part of this pre-aration for possible war, whether: defensive or offensive, that there is Uittle use to dwell. on it, nor can: be intelligently done. Such matters are closely guarded military secrets ''n this Empire, and the layman Knows nought of them..If he should by accident stumble on to knowledge thereof, discretionary silence is the ly wise and sensible course for him to follow. Leaving, therefore, such questions entirely to one side,' inter. est centres on how the State is t prepared in a political, an econo-nile and other ways for' this semi-wartime basis which the whole nation considers so desirable and so) inevitably necessary to its future welfare, In my last letter to the "North-China Daily News" attention was drawn to the fact that harmony and united ce-operation "now. prevail under the Premiership of. Prince Konoye, scion of one of the old Court families of Kyoto and not of the military. aristocracy under the Shogunate system. How long such tunity may continue is problematical, but the fact that parties and military alike are fully conscious of the vantage of working together and are at present willing to make some mutual sacrifice in order to do so is promising for the future, It would! seem at the moment that if a split fs to arise it will come over the Budget for the fiscal year of 1938-30, the military are demanding an} enormous otitlay of State funds, in part directly for the defence services: and in greater part for the expansion of productive industry for the dual purpose of serving the wants of the defence services and for increasing the national wealth so that military pilils can be paid.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.