Frontmatter

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Page  I STUDIES IN JAPANESE HISTORY AND POLITICS Edited by Richard K Beardsley The Intent of the Charter Oath Robert M. Spaulding, Jr. Japanese Political Reaction to Constitutional Revision 1945-46 Peter G. Cornwall United States Reparations Policy Toward Japan September 1945 to May 1949 Bruce M. Brenn The Origins and Policies of the Japan Teachers' Union 1945-56 Richard J. Smethurst The University of Michigan Press * Ann Arbor * 1967 Center for Japanese Studies * Occasional Papers No. 10

Page  II Copyright~ 1967 by The University of Michigan University of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies Director: Robert E. Ward Associate Editor: John L. Weber The Occasional Papers of the Center for Japanese Studies are published by the University of Michigan Press. Sales correspondence should be directed to the University of Michigan Press, 615 East University Avenue, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Editorial correspondence should be directed to the Center for Japanese Studies, 108 Lane Hall, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104.

Page  III CONTENTS THE INTENT OF THE CHARTER OATH Introduction.......... Article One............ Article Two.......... Article Three........... Article Four............ Article Five............ The Colleagues of the Drafters... Translations of the Charter Oath Successive Drafts of the Charter Oath * * * * @ * * * * * * * *. * * * * @ * * *. * * * * @ Page ROBERT M. SPAULDING, JR................. 3................ 6..................,,. 8................. 9................ 11............................13................ 13................ 17................ 26 *.. *.. JAPANESE POLITICAL REACTION TO CONSTITUTIONAL REVISION 1945-46 Pi Introduction...................... Historical Outline................... Views Held by Political Groups Before the Release of the "Cabinet Draft"................. The Problem of Amendment Within the Diet....... Major Issues in the Diet: The House of Representatives.. Major Issues in the Diet: The House of Peers. Conclusion...................... UNITED STATES REPARATIONS POLICY TOWARD JAPAN, SEPTEMBER 1945 TO MAY 1949 Introduction....................... Documents Which Established Reparations Principles.... The Assumptions of the Pauley Commission........ The Pauley Report's Recommendations and Their Importance A Reparations Policy Dispute. New Assumptions and Statistical Evidence: The Overseas Consultants, Inc. Report.......... Conclusion....................... ETER *. o G. CORNWALL *...... *...... ~......... ~...*...... *......... *......... *......... 39 39 41 50 52 59 67 73 73 BRUCE M. *.. *.. * * * ~ ~ ~ BRENN * ~ * ~ * * ~,..................76.......... 77.......... 82 *......... *........* 88 98 iii

Page  IV iv CONTENTS Page THE ORIGINS AND POLICIES OF THE JAPAN TEACHERS' UNION, 1945-1956 RICHARD J. SMEI Introduction.............................. Teachers Status and Teachers' Organizations Prior to 1945....... Early SCAP Attitude Towards Teachers Unions.............. The Predecessors To the Japan Teachers' Union, December 1945 to February 1947........................... The General Strike: A Reversal of Occupation Attitude......... The Crackdown: The National Public Service Law and the Purge...... The School Board Controversy..................... Post-Occupation Government Nikkyoso Relations............. Communist Influence.......................... Internal Control............................ Conclusion.............................. FHURST... 117... 119... 122... 126 134... 138.. 145... 147 151.. 153... 154

Page  V EDITOR'S PREFACE The Center for Japanese Studies at The University of Michigan, to advance scholarly research focussed on Japan, puts primary emphasis on graduate and post-doctoral levels of training and research. Its program has two mutually supporting phases, one in the University classrooms and library, the other in Japan. On the Ann Arbor campus, staff members present various departmental courses on Japan, while joining in a one-year Multidisciplinary Course that exposes graduate students to a wide range of fields of research on Japan. In Japan, the Center emphasizes advanced language competence and field research experience both for advanced students and for staff members. Some of the research publications of merit that have come out of this program are monographic studies such as Village Japan, by Richard K. Beardsley, John W. Hall, and Robert E. Ward; Takashima: a Japanese Fishing Village, by Edward Norbeck; or Nagauta: The Heart of Kabuki Music, by William P. Malm. Others are research papers in professional journals and in the Center's own series: Occasional Papers. Earlier papers often were based on field work conducted out of the Center's field station that was maintained from 1950 to 1956 in Okayama Prefecture. The field research for many later papers has been done with guidance or collaborative aid from outstanding Japanese scholars in various institutions. This volume offers papers by advanced graduate students trained in the program described above. It continues a policy begun earlier in this series: the grouping together of studies bearing on one general aspect of Japanese culture. The studies in this volume are in modern political history, ranging from early in the Meiji era to the period after World War II. Dr. Robert M. Spaulding, Jr., now a Research Associate of the Center, writes about the drafting of the "Imperial Oath of Five Articles," commonly known in English as the "Charter Oath" of 1868, and about its translations into English. He is spurred into exegesis of each article by noticing that the translations offered in standard works in English manifest startling but unacknowledged differences of phrasing, which convey quite different implications of the aim and intent of the early Meiji government. By returning to primary documents and commentary on preliminary drafts of the five articles, he throws light on the varying attitudes of statesmen who had a hand in composing these preliminary and final drafts of a document that has come to be viewed as the first basic directive of the intent of the Meiji administration. Shifting to the basic directive of the contemporary Japanese government, the present Constitution of Japan enacted under Allied Occupation, Peter G. Cornwall examines controversies at the time of its enactment. He surveys 1945-1946 expressions of organized political opinion on best form of constitutional revision, and studies the Diet record during debate and passage of the Government Bill on Revision of the Japanese Constitution, from June to October, 1946. Operating under explicit and tacit limits on freedom to amend the bill, neither House of the Diet significantly altered the draft despite extensive debate on a range of issues most of which have continued to be sources of controversy ever since. Mr. Cornwall's paper is substantially the same as his Master of Arts thesis, 1963. At present, he is teaching at the University of Western Ontario. Reparations imposed by the United States on Japan were based on premises of political morality that concealed unsound economic premises as Bruce M. Brenn shows in a paper based on his 1963 Master of Arts thesis. Framers of reparations policy aimed to deprive Japan of an "excess" of industry, as much to stabilize economic and political relations in the Far East as to punish the defeated enemy. This punitive instrument unexpectedly failed to serve American and international interest; it was modified and then abandoned in May 1949 as U. S. foreign policy turned from a doc v

Page  VI vi trine of "retribution" to one of "rehabilitation" of Japan. The author gathers together documentary data and the views of men who played parts in formulation and modifying reparations policy. Having analyzed this complex problem in Japan's case, he suggests that the facts of economic interdependence among nations revealed in this case make a reparations policy unlikely ever to serve United States interest. Mr. Brenn has accepted a position with the First National City Bank of New York. Richard J. Smethurst' s paper examines the origin of the Japan Teachers' Union and traces its history during and since the Allied Occupation with view to accounting for its strong, persistent leftist political orientation. His analysis ranges over inequities of teachers' pay, the government's alarm at erosion of its control over education, the union's alienation from the government, the union practices that separate leadership from rank-and-file control, and other matters. This paper is adapted from the 1961 Master of Arts thesis of Mr. Smethurst who has since completed two years of doctoral research in Japan and now holds a position in Japanese history at the University of Pittsburgh. The editing of this volume was done by John Weber. Hirofumi Ando supplied the necessary calligraphy. The cover design was created by Mrs. Marilyn Mihal. Richard K. Beardsley

The Intent of the Charter Oath

Robert M. Spaulding, Jr.pp. 1-36

Page  1 \ THE INTENT OF THE CHARTER OATH by Robert M. Spaulding, Jr. The University of Michigan

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Page  3 INTRODUCTION In the disquieting uncertainty of the early months of Allied occupation of Japan after World War II when the whole structure of Japanese tradition appeared to be disintegrating, Japanese leaders looked about for some rock from the past to which they might cling. They found one in the "Imperial Oath of Five Articles" (Gokajo no Goseimon), dating from 1868 and rather inappropriately known in English as the "Charter Oath." Three successive post-war Prime Ministers -- Higashikuni, Shidehara, and Yoshida -- urged a return to the spirit of the Charter Oath as the basis upon which Japan could be born again. The imperial rescript of January 1, 1946 which repudiated the dogma of imperial divinity quoted the Charter Oath in full, renewed it in the name of the reigning emperor, and again spoke of it as the foundation for a new Japan. These attitudes toward the Charter Oath reflect some ad hoc idealization. They accord remarkably well, however, with the consensus of three generations of Western historians and political scientists, who have said that the Charter Oath was "the visible beginning of constitutional Japan" (Griff is 1915:138), that it became "the corner-stone of the great changes of New Japan" (Treat 1921: 91), "defined Japan's purpose...and clarified her method" (Hardy and Dumke 1949:267). It "furnished the fundamental principles and charted the course for the new ship of state" (Yanaga 1949:48). It was "a hopefully liberal document" (Webb 1955:23) which was designed to "indicate the lines on which future changes were to be made" (Latourette 1957:94) and to provide "a declaration of fundamentals by which the new state would be guided" (Peffer 1958:129). None of these statements is necessarily untrue, in the sense that no supporting evidence can be adduced. But the general impression created by these and similar passages in some seventy-five English-language works (including a few by Japanese authors) is a gross over-simplification. A few writers, the first probably being Captain Frank Brinkley in 1902, have perceived that the Charter Oath did not mean in 1868 what many Japanese (and more Westerners) later thought, or said they thought, it meant. These writers remain a minority. How and why the Charter Oath took on a new and broader significance are historiographical questions of basic importance. The cardinal defect of Western historiography on the Oath is that it has failed to lay a proper foundation even for asking, let alone answering, these questions. The fault is not emphasis on the evolved significance of the Oath, but obscurance of the fact of evolution. The character and meaning of the change cannot be understood unless the point of departure is known and the fact of departure conceded. A growing number of Western historians show encouraging signs of a more cautious interpre - tation of the Charter Oath. But there is still no adequate account in English of what the Charter Oath meant and did not mean in 1868. One reason for this is that most Western writers confine their attention almost entirely to one or two articles -- usually Articie One and either Article Four or Article Five. Articles Two and Three are largely ignored; some of the older books actually omit them from purportedly full translations. 1 It is true that Article One gave rise to most of the subsequent controversy over the meaning of the Oath, and that it includes some of the most disputed phrases. Still, it is only one of five articles and,despite its pride of place, is not necessarily the most important. Another reason is that published English translations of the Oath leave much to be desired, and usually imply more than is either intended or warranted. This is due in considerable degree to the abstruse and ambiguous language of the original, which makes translation extraordinarily difficult and hazardous. But it is also due to the fact that few translators have been willing to resist the influence of their predecessors, and hardly any have been daring enough to seek clues in the origins and 3

Page  4 4 THE INTENT OF THE CHARTER OATH antecedents of the Oath. Upwards of twenty different translations or paraphrases appear in the seventy-five Western books examined. Many of these are repeated (often inaccurately) by several writers (often without credit to the source). Several books offer two translations or paraphrases, usually quite different. 2 Perhaps the one published translation which conforms to the findings of modern Japanese textual criticism is that by Nobutaka Ike in The Beginnings of Political Democracy in Japan (p. 36). Modern textual criticism on the Oath is based largely on the pioneer work of Osatake Takeki, 3 who first documented Kido's role in the drafting of the Oath and first brought together on a large scale the numerous primary sources of information about the Oath. All subsequent scholars, Japanese or Western, owe a great debt to the patient and exhaustive research performed by Dr. Osatake (1880 -1946) and published in a long series of articles and books from 1928 until his death. Even Osatake's painstaking work has been used by various Japanese historians to support several different conclusions, but for Western historiography the immediate need is to re-examine premises rather than conclusions. The Charter Oath is too often considered in isolation from the circumstances of its conception and publication. It was a product not of strength but of weakness -- a weakness accompanied by confidence rather than timidity or despair, but weakness nonetheless. Mutsuhito (Meiji) at the age of fourteen had been proclaimed emperor on February 13, 1867, but there was no imperial government until nearly a year later. The last shogun resigned on November 9, 1867, but the shogunal government was not abolished until January 3, 1868, when the "restoration of royal rule" (osei fukko) was proclaimed. A rudimentary imperial government of "Three Offices" (San Shou) was set up in Kyoto, expanded into seven sections on February 10, 1868, and into eight bureaus just two weeks later. This structure lasted another hundred days, and during this period of governmental flux the Charter Oath was conceived and brought into existence. The instability of its own structure was the least of the new government's worries. The change in regime was still little more than a hopeful fiction, and even its supporters were divided on what it meant or ought to mean. The government had no treasury, no army of its own, and no obvious means of acquiring either. The powerful daimyo who supported it with their private armies held large and important provinces, but these territories were in no sense controlled by Kyoto. Many of those who did not support the new regime were already in open rebellion. A civil war began in January, 1868, and was not concluded until June, 1869. While the forces supporting the government were consistently victorious, their success was by no means assured when the Charter Oath was composed. The Oath was, in fact, scheduled for the day preceding the intended assault on the main Tokugawa fortress in Edo, which did not fall until May 3, 1868. Tokugawa supporters continued to resist in northeastern Honshu until November, and in Hokkaido until the following summer. The imperial government's most dangerous weakness was financial, and while the heavy costs of the civil war seriously aggravated the problem, it would have been difficult enough without a war. During 1868, the government spent nearly seven times as much as it took in through regular revenue sources. Expenditures came to 25 million yen, revenue to only 3.7 million. Loans and "contributions" scraped together from every possible source brought in another 5.4 million, leaving a deficit of nearly 16 million yen in 1868 alone. Even in 1869, the government was still spending twice as much as it received. These huge deficits were met by the wholesale issuance of inconvertible paper money, which at one point in 1868 was being exchanged at a 55% discount from its face value (Allen 1946:33-4), because the public had so little confidence in it. A less measurable but even more fundamental danger was that of dissension within the imperial coalition. The first government of 1868 was not the Satsuma-Choshu-Tosa-Hizen combination so often

Page  5 ROBERT M. SPAULDING, JR. 5 equated with the Restoration, but a league of Satsuma, Tosa, Aki, Echizen, and Owari with the court nobles. This was an alliance without entente. The court nobles, Satsuma, and Aki stood for an uncompromising policy towards the Tokugawa, including the use of force. Tosa, Echizen, and Owari (the last two being led by daimyo of the Tokugawa line who had opposed the shogunate in its final years) still spoke for the policy of accommodation if not compromise. They suspected Satsuma and Choshu of plotting to create their own shogunate, with imperial restoration as a mere smokescreen. The very dependence of the government upon the military power of Satsuma and Choshu aggravated these suspicions. Initial fears that the imperial coalition might not survive the test of war diminished as victory became more likely, but mistrust of Satsuma and Choshu did not. Over and above all these domestic difficulties, the new government had still to cope with the demands of the treaty powers. Except for France, these powers were actively or passively sympathetic to the anti-Tokugawa coalition, but they made it clear that they also expected more effective performance from the new government than from the old. The leaders of the coalition already realized that their former slogan of "expelling the barbarians" was an untenable one, but their supporters were slow to change and continued to perpetrate acts of xenophobic violence which kept the government in a dangerous position. The Charter Oath thus came into existence at a time when the government was unstable, facing the uncertainties of a civil war, bankrupt and going heavily into debt, torn by deep-seated internal dissension and mistrust, and confronted with unrelenting demands by foreign powers for fulfillment of previous commitments and suppression of anti-foreign incidents. To say that all these problems were resolved successfully and in relatively short order is to be wise after the fact. At the time of the Oath, they were all very real and pressing problems, and while the men who drafted the Oath were far from pessimistic, 4 they were also well aware that their best efforts would be needed. The gravity of the crisis explains the Charter Oath. The Oath was intended to help relieve immediate pressures: to promote harmony within the coalition by calming internal feuds, to rally extragovernmental (not really "popular") aid and support by preaching national unity and collaboration, and to reduce diplomatic difficulties by discouraging xenophobia (Osatake 1938:111-16). Subsequent accounts of the origins of the Oath by the three men most responsible for it are contradictory on many points, andw how signs of faulty memory and subsequent changes in thinking. Fortunately for the historian, most of these discrepancies pertain to relatively minor matters (such as the dates of preliminary drafts) and do not materially affect an answer to the question of intent. Three drafts of the Oath survive, and they interlock so clok so closely that there can be no doubt as to their sequence and interrelationship. Several other contemporary documents possibly relevant to the Oath exist or are known once to have existed, but these do not (with perhaps one exception) seem to have direct bearing on the language of the Oath. In addition, Osatake ferreted out a vast array of contemporary letters, diary notations, and antecedent documents which appear to have influenced the drafters. 5 The first of the three drafts was prepared late in January or early in February, 1868, by Yuri Kimmasa (1829-1909), a samurai of Echizen. Yuri, then 39, was a Junior Councillor (San-yo) in the new imperial government and the key official (though not the highest-ranking) in financial matters. His thinking was strongly influenced by Yokoi Shonan (1809-1869), a prominent advocate of foreign intercourse and of some vaguely egalitarian political philosophies. Yuri had gained valuable experience in reforming the Echizen domain administration on behalf of Daimyo Matsudaira Yoshinaga, who in 1868 was a Senior Councillor (Gijo) in Kyoto. Yuri's draft was shown to another Junior Councillor, Fukuoka Takachika (Kotei) (1835-1919) of Tosa, who made some important changes in it, probably early in February, 1868. Fukuoka was a senior retainer of Yamauchi Toyonobu (Yodo), daimyo of Tosa, and had played a major role (as one of Yamauchi's agents) in the 1867 negotiations for the resignation of the last shogun. He was now an official in the legal bureau of the Kyoto government. Yuri held a concurrent appointment in this bureau

Page  6 6 THE INTENT OF THE CHARTER OATH from February 10 to March 13, 1868, and the two men also shared an interest in the ideas of Sakamoto Ryoma (1835-1867), a Tosa samurai who had been an influential figure in the anti-Tokugawa movement until his assassination by extremists. At this point there is a gap in the record which seems significant to some scholars but not to others. Yuri dropped out of the picture, devoting all his time to pressing financial duties. The Fukuoka redraft was evidently discussed within the government, but nothing came of it, probably because other matters seemed more important and more urgent. Whether or not the project was abandoned remains moot. 6 Sometime in late March, 1868, the Fukuoka draft came to the attention of Kido Takayoshi (Koin) (1833-1877), apparently for the first time. Kido, then 35, was a Choshu samurai who had been appointed an advisor to the office of the Supreme Head of the government (Sosai Kyoku: Supreme Head, Imperial Prince Arisugawa Taruhito; Deputy Supreme Heads Sanjo Sanetomi and Iwakura Tomomi) on February 18. Kido held concurrent appointments as Junior Councillor and as an official in the foreign affairs bureau, and was one of the three or four men with greatest influence in Kyoto. Kido made one major change in the Fukuoka text, and either revived or accelerated the project, depending on how one interprets the meager evidence. He later worked out a procedural compromise which saved it from almost certain extinction at the hands of Iwakura; the implications of this compromise are described below. The final text of the Oath differs from the Kido draft in three passages. The person responsible for these last-minute changes is unknown; several writers attribute them to Iwakura, but offer no supporting evidence. Two of the three changes were of no consequence; the significance of the third change has become one of the major points of contention in the history of the Oath, as is shown in the discussion of Article One below. With these changes, the Oath was approved, though we do not know specifically by what officials. The Senior and Junior Councillors, other officials, and court nobles and provincial officers in Kyoto at the time assembled in the presence of the Emperor on April 6, 1868, 7 in the Shishinden or Enthronement Hall in the precincts of the imperial palace. 8 The Emperor presented an offering to the spirits of his ancestors. Then Deputy Supreme Head Sanjo Sanetomi, acting on behalf of the Emperor, read the Charter Oath and a two-sentence statement "swearing to the Deities of Heaven and Earth" that this "national policy" would be followed in order to provide for the "protection of the people," who in turn were enjoined to "strive in unison" to carry out the imperial ideas. Imperial Prince Arisugawa Taruhito, Sanjo, Iwakura, and the assembled dignitaries then filed forward one by one to sign a second oath, a subjects' pledge of compliance with the Emperor's will. Some implications of this procedure will be discussed later, but first it is necessary to examine the language of the Charter Oath itself. ARTICLE ONE "Hiroku kaigi o okoshi, banki k5ron ni kessu beshi." (An assembly [Assemblies? J shall be widely convoked, and all measures shall be decided by open discussion. )9 This is by far the most controversial article of the Oath. The controversy pertains chiefly to the first clause, but it may be useful to examine the second clause first, since it is the older. This second clause was part of the last article of the Yuri draft, which read "Banki k5ron ni kesshi, watakushi ni ronzuru nakare" ("All measures shall be decided by open discussion, not privately"). Japanese scholars agree that Yuri was not talking about public discussion in any sense: neither discussion by the general public nor discussion by the government in the presence of spectators. What he meant

Page  7 ROBERT M. SPAULDING, JR. 7 was simply that decisions should not be made clandestinely by small cliques within the government, but made "openly" with the participation of all factions or domains concerned. The prevalent Western translation, "public discussion," is therefore inevitably misleading, and "public opinion" is even more so. Fukuoka elevated the article to first place, and made some drastic changes in it. Probably he did not consider the changes very drastic himself. The antithetical second half of Yuri's version, which left no doubt as to the meaning of the first half, was dropped by Fukuoka, probably because he considered it tautological -- as, in the strictest sense, it was. Fukuoka then supplied a new opening clause intended to clarify the meaning rather than to change it (Osatake 1928:77). Both Yuri and Fukuoka wanted it understood that all the domains, and not simply Satsuma and Choshu, were to have a voice in governmental decisions. When Yuri said "open discussion," he meant unhindered discussion by an assembly of domain lords or representatives. Fukuoka, like other Tosa men of the time, was among the most vociferous exponents of this idea. It was, in fact, the central theme of Tosa policy and it found warm support from others suspicious of Satsuma and Choshu. Thus, Fukuoka's new clause read "Rekk6 kaigi o okoshi..." -- that is, "An assembly of lords (daimyo) shall be convoked...." When Kido went over the Fukuoka draft, he left this wording unchanged, and the implications of that fact deserve to be explored in future study. Before the Oath was adopted, however, the word rekko (lords, or daimyo) was changed to hiroku (widely), perhaps by Iwakura, though no proof of this has been adduced by those who assert it. A large part of the disagreement over Article One has been caused by this one word. At one extreme, and representing what is distinctly a minority view among Japanese scholars, Ishii Ryosuke argues that the change from rekko to hiroku was a substantive change of major importance, signifying not only that there was to be an assembly of wider scope than Tosa's daimyo assembly, but also that there were to be prefectural and provincial assemblies. In support of this interpretation, he contends that the formation of these regional assemblies resulted from the provision in the June, 1868, government reorganization decree (Seitaisho) that prefectural and provincial government should be based upon the Charter Oath (Ishii 1954:109). But since the Seitaisho does not mention regional assemblies as such, Ishii seems to argue in a circle. At the other extreme, Toyama Shigeki holds that even in its final form, Article One still meant an assembly of lords (T6yama 1951:228). The change from rekk5 to hiroku, in short, did not fundamentally alter the meaning. This seems also to have been the conclusion of Osatake (Osatake 1930:37, 1929:152). Fujii Jintaro, (Fujii 1939:29), Komatsu Midori (Komatsu 1931:394), Kawabara Bisaburo (Kawabara 1938:56-7), and Okubo Toshiaki (Okubo 1956:22) disagree, but the disagreement seems largely technical. Fujii and Komatsu both attribute the change to Iwakura, and construe it to mean simply that Iwakura, as the foremost spokesman for the court nobility, thought Tosa's "rekko kaigi" implied the exclusion of court nobles. That Fukuoka had any such impractical idea at this late date seems very unlikely; his concern was not to keep the court nobles out, but to bring the daimyo (and their samurai) in. Okubo Toshiaki evidently had much the same reaction as Fujii and Komatsu, though he puts chief emphasis on the idea that reference to an assembly of "lords" had become inappropriate because the Oath was to be "Emperor-centered." This in turn reflects Okubo's belief that between the time of the Yuri and Fukuoka drafts and the time of the Kido and final drafts, there had been a basic change in purpose. Instead of a joint project by the vari ous lords, the Oath was to be imperial and the government was to be consciously centered on the Emperor. 10

Page  8 8 THE INTENT OF THE CHARTER OATH Kawabara's interpretation bears some resemblance to Ishii's but may actually be closer to those just described. Iwakura, he says, thought reference to an "assembly of lords" inappropriate because the government was already contemplating a new system of regional administration which would include prefectures as well as domains (provinces), the former being created from exTokugawa lands. All of the interpretations cited above, except Ishii's, are basically similar, and (with the possible exception of Kawabara) appear to construe the word kaigi in the singular: "assembly," presumably a bicameral assembly to avoid mixing ranks too indecorously. Roughly half the English translations which have been published construe kaigi in the plural. In most instances, the translator's reasoning can only be conjectured, but it seems likely that the influence of the word "widely" has had much to do with the use of "assemblies" rather than "assembly." Some translators, on the other hand, have no doubt reasoned as Ishii did, that early appearance of regional assemblies indicates that the Oath contemplated many assemblies and not just one in Kyoto. On the whole, this seems to rely too heavily on the argument post hoc, ergo propter hoc, despite the argument from the Seitaisho. The consensus of Japanese scholars appears to be that the force of hiroku in Article One was not to broaden the meaning of the phrase, but only to make it vaguer and to deprive it of any implication that the daimyo had a vested collective power of government. ARTICLE TWO "Sh5ka kokoro o itsu ni shite, sakan ni keirin o okonau beshi." (High and low shall be of one mind, and the national economy and finances shall be greatly strengthened.) One could never guess, from most English translations, that Japanese scholars regard this as the "economics article" of the Oath. Of all the articles, this one has been most distorted in Western historiography. Most translations imply nearly everything but a financial emphasis. Article Two is peculiarly the property of Yuri, who was at this time concentrating on the government's fiscal problems to the exclusion of nearly all else. It is the same in the final text as in Yuri's draft, except for an inconsequential change in verb and a more interesting change in the first word. Though Yuri put the article in second position, Japanese scholars agree that he regarded it as having paramount importance. 11 The crucial word is keirin, and there has been much dispute over its meaning. The most common English translations, such as "administration of the affairs of state," find abundant support in both old and new Japanese dictionaries. Interpretation is complicated by the fact that Yuri himself assigned to the characters keirin the wholly irregular reading yowatari, which normally means "living" or "subsistence", as in "earning a living" (Osatake 1938:119 and Toyama 1951:228,241) 241). Fukuoka later recalled that at this period, the word keirin was constantly on Yuri's lips, having become almost a clich6 with him (Osatake 1938:119 and Watanabe 1939:113). Osatake quotes a definition written by Yuri himself, in the chain-sentence form common in Confucian writing: The way of governing is to put keirin first. The art of keirin lies in reviving work. Work can be revived only by supplying capital and finding markets (Osatake 1938:119).

Page  9 ROBERT M. SPAULDING, JR. 9 There can be no doubt as to the specific points that were uppermost in Yuri's mind at the time of the Charter Oath. lwakura had asked his advice on the government's financial difficulties as far back as January 18, 1868 (Kawabara 1938:55), and Yuri was ready with an answer. Funds to support the war and meet the growing deficit could come in part from loans and forced contributions from the wealthy merchants and farmers, but would have to come largely from the issuance of new paper money. In both regards, what Yuri needed most was not the approval of the government, but the co-operation of wealthy men in Osaka and Kyoto. They would have to supply the loans, and in effect underwrite the note issue. He got this co-operation only after much argument. Even with the merchants' backing, the new currency (issued in the summer of 1868) proved unpopular, and the government had to threaten severe punishment for anyone refusing to accept it in lieu of specie. Yuri had no doubt that his his program would succeed eventually, but at the moment he could use all the help available. It seems obvious that Yuri meant Article Two to be a plea for support for the government's financial policies: particularly, its plan to issue paper money, and its requests for "contributions" from the wealthy men of the great cities. Osatake, in interpreting the word keirin, concludes that in the Charter Oath "it does not have its usual [i.e., dictionary] meaning, but means 'economy and finances' (keizaizaisei)" (Osatake 1928:75 and 1938:119). Most Japanese commentators agree. Ishii (Ishii 1954:107), Watanabe (Watanabe 1939:113), Toyama (Toyama 1951:241), and Fujii and Moriya (Fujii and Moriya 1939:1, 218), for example, are all very explicit on the matter. A dissent comes from Kawabara, who contends that the meaning of keirin in the Oath "is not limited to economy and finance, but unquestionably includes also transport, manufacturing, communications, trade, armament, and so forth..." (Kawabara 1938:57). Even this is hardly what the sweeping phrases of Western translations imply: "the conduct of the administration," "the administration of the affairs of state," "the advancement of the national interests. " Whatever the modern meaning of keirin, even Kawabara indicates that its connotation in the Charter Oath is much more limited than such Western versions imply. Fukuoka once suggested that "the interpretation of keirin be left up to the interpreting individual," but this was long after the Oath had been reinterpreted for political purposes, and Fukuoka conceded that "the word originally meant 'economy' (keizai) or 'finance' (zaisei) primarily" (Osatake 1938:119). In Western literature, the Ijichi ("Idditti") translation of 1940 ("economic development") and the Ike translation of 1950 ("the national economy and finances") are almost alone in bringing out the original idea of Article Two. Ienaga in 1891, followed by three later translators, spoke of "the principles of social and political economics" but ruined the effect by rendering okonau as "study": economic principles were to be "diligently studied" by people of all classes, as if the drafters of the Oath were concerned about mass education rather than national finances. Finally, there is Fukuoka's revision of Yuri's opening word. This had been shimin, literally "the samurai and the people." Fukuoka changed this to shoka, literally "high and low" and thus by extension "governing and governed," "rulers and ruled," or some similar antithesis. This change, like the one Fukuoka made in Article Three, is construed by Japanese scholars as reflecting a stronger class-consciousness than was felt by Yuri. However, T6yama cautions against over-emphasizing this difference. When Yuri spoke of "the people," T5yama declares, he thought chiefly of the rich merchants and exchange brokers who played decisive roles both in his Echizen projects and in the financial program he was undertaking for the new imperial government (Toyama 1951:228). ARTICLE THREE "Kambu itto shomin ni itaru made ono-ono sono kokorozashi o toge, jinshin o shite umazarashimen koto o Y su." (Civil and military officials together, and the common

Page  10 10 THE INTENT OF THE CHARTER OATH people as well, shall all achieve their aspirations, and thus the people's minds shall not be made weary.) This is by far the longest article of the Oath, and probably the most obscure. Certainly, English translators have given it more widely varied treatment than any other article. Even Japanese exegetes have as little to say about Article Three as possible. 12 This is particularly true of the final clause. Like all other articles except the fourth, Article Three can be traced directly to the Yuri draft. Fukuoka added some words which further complicated it, but the essence and the obscurity of the article derive from Yuri's original wording, all of which remains in the final text except for the terminal verb. Fukuoka's contribution can be disposed of fairly simply, though Japanese commentators concentrate on it to the near exclusion of the main portion. The Yuri draft spoke simply of "shomin..." (the people, the masses), a favorite word of his teacher, Yokoi Shonan. Fukuoka expanded this to "Kambu itto shomin ni itaru made ono-ono sono," and in this case we have a fairly frank statement from Fukuoka as to what he had in mind. This statement comes, of course, from much later; but unlike other Fukuoka comments, it appears to be undistorted by subsequent thinking. Yuri, he says, was thinking chiefly of the common people, but "I rather emphasized the idea that... the Court and the various lords should join in carrying out the government of the realm. This was not because I necessarily depreciated the common people, but because I did not consider them central from a political standpoint" (Osatake 1938:120). This estimate coincides with the conclusion of Japanese analysts, who see in Fukuoka's added wording further proof of his class-consciousness and also an echo of his insistence on the need for bringing the daimyo and their representatives into the government. 13 Osatake calls attention to Fukuoka's use of the rather Chinese term kambu (literally, officials and warriors -- i.e., civil and military officials, by extension) in lieu of the more familiar kobu (court nobles and warriors). Osatake believed that Fukuoka preferred the former because it more accurately reflected the state of affairs in 1868, when the division was no longer between court and military families but between those who were in the government and those who were not (Osatake 1938:121). Fukuoka's phrase includes another word, itto, whose vagueness has caused ambiguity. He himself equated it, in the passage quoted above, to ittai, which implies rather vaguely the idea of collaboration or joint effort. Several translations, including the oldest one known (Japan Herald, 1868) and several more recent ones, bring this out with perhaps more emphasis than the wording actually warrants. Longford's 1913 version, "Civil and military government should no longer be separated," obviously reflects a basic tenet of Restoration philosophy, but seems an over-translation as far as the Charter Oath is concerned. All this controversy has little or nothing to do with the central idea as Yuri conceived it. Despite his preoccupation with economic matters, Yuri considered this article so important that he put it in first place in his draft. 14 Presumably it conveyed an idea he regarded as highly noteworthy. No one seems very sure what this was. Yuri later wrote a long explanation of Article Three, but about all that can be said for the explanation is that it compounds the obscurity. He does say that he considers that "good government, ancient or modern, eastern or western, all boils down" to the idea contained in Article Three. He cites three "heavenly principles" which from ancient times have been the road to achieving the people's aspirations. These three principles are, however, only a Japanese translation of the opening sentence of the Ta HsUeh or Great Learning, the Confucian classic most favored by the Chu Hsi school of Neo-Confucianists. They are too vague in their own right to shed much light on Article Three.

Page  11 ROBERT M. SPAULDING, JR. 11 Yuri's explanation goes on to imply that some people try to achieve their aims in a selfish or self-centered manner, thus injuring or wearying other people. All this is excessively ambiguous, but if it reflects the intent of the Article, then the basic idea must be something akin to the familiar Japanese feeling that the general welfare should take precedence over individual liberty carried to the point of license. Watanabe evidently reaches a similar conclusion, since he paraphrases Yuri's long explanation with the statement that, like Yokoi Shonan, Yuri considered the "happiness of the masses" to be the chief aim of government (Watanabe 1939:113). The great bone of contention among translators is the seemingly endless word umazarashimen, an elaborate inflexion of the simple verb umu, which implies boredom, becoming tired, or fatigue, either mental or physical. Negative forms commonly have the idea of perseverance or persistence. The most common translation of the form in Article Three has been some variation of "discontent" or "dissatisfaction," but several translators have gone off on novel tangents. Ukita in 1909 translated the final clause as "evince their active characteristics," whatever that may mean. Iwasaki in 1921 said "... shall strive to do his work well and not neglect his special calling," though it is hard to say which part of this refers to kokorozashi o te and which to umazarashimen. Many translators have injected in one way or another the idea of "everyone doing his best," but again it is difficult to say what this is supposed to refer to in Japanese. These versions, especially that of Iwasaki, may have something to do with the fact that several able translators in very recent years have advanced the idea that Article Three is a promise of social mobility -- specifically, of freedom to pursue an occupation of one's own choice. 15 This apparently is an interpretation of kokorozashi o toge, and it is an idea worth exploring. Unfortunately, there is little in the primary sources to imply that the drafters were thinking here of vocational freedom. A narrower version of this idea, in a sense, is Ijichi's version of 1940 saying that "public offices, civil and military, shall be open to all." Ijichi elsewhere paraphrases this as "keep the careers open to talent." All this sounds more like the rejected Yuri-Fukuoka version of Article Four (see below) than like anything which can be logically inferred from Article Three. No one would deny that the Restoration samurai, individually and collectively, were determined to open the government service to men of talent regardless of rank, and to break down the class barriers which stigmatized merchants and supposedly barred samurai from commercial pursuits. The question is whether Article Three has anything to do with these ideas. The case has not been proven. ARTICLE FOUR "Kyurai no r5shu o yaburi, tenchi no kodo ni motozuku beshi." (Evil practices of the past shall be abandoned, and actions shall be based on international usage.) Article Four represents Kido's only substantive contribution to the Charter Oath. Its counterpart in the Yuri and Fukuoka drafts deals with an entirely different subject -- that appointments of samurai to the imperial government shall be made for fixed terms and from "men of talent" (i.e. regardless of rank). Japanese commentators disagree as to why Kido deleted this. Ishii (Ishii 1954: 108) and Kawabara (Kawabara 1938:58) think it was merely because the government had already adopted regulations to the effect of the Fukuoka draft (though there is some doubt that such regulations had actually been adopted prior to preparation of the Fukuoka draft). Fujii (Fujii and Moriya 1939:58) and Okubo (Okubo 1956:21) think it was deleted because it seemed inappropriately mundane and out of place in a "statement of national policy." The reason probably does not matter very much, except insofar as it bears on Okubo's thesis that the fundamental character of the Oath project underwent a complete change between January and March. 16

Page  12 12 THE INTENT OF THE CHARTER OATH In any event, there is no doubt as to why Kido wrote into the Oath what he did. The two months preceding the Charter Oath ceremony had seen three serious anti-foreign incidents in or near the capital. On February 2, 1868, Bizen samurai exchanged shots with English troops in Kobe, and when the British minister dashed up to find out what was happening, they shot at him too. On March 8, Tosa samurai murdered eleven (some accounts say fourteen) French sailors in Sakai. At the end of March, an attempt was made to assassinate the British minister as he rode to an audience with the Emperor in Kyoto. Kido's concern with all this was not merely that of an intelligent by-stander who knew what a xenophobic outburst had cost his own domain of Chishu four years earlier. On February 23, 1868, Kido had been appointed to the new foreign office, and thus found himself in the thick of these diplomatic crises. The two March incidents were considered especially grave, and the attack on the British minister affected Kido personally, since he was one of the officials charged with arranging the visit to Kyoto. The fact that the visit was made on Japanese initiative (a joint memorial by the daimyo of Choshu, Satsuma, Hizen, Aki, Echizen, and Tosa) and not at Western insistence made the assassination plot all the more embarrassing. It is too often inferred, perhaps unconsciously, that in Article Four Kido was saying that the past was evil and must be repudiated. The use of the word all in many English translations encourages this inference. To keep the article in proper perspective, it should be remembered that Kido was not condemning all customs of the past, but only those which were "evil" or "misguided" or "absurd" or "bad." Once this is recognized, it is clear that the Article was actually little more than a platitude. The real question lay in deciding which customs were bad, and on this the Oath had nothing to say. Kido anathematized evil without trying to define it. Japanese scholars agree, however, that Kido had something rather specific in mind, and that the original implications of Article Four -- like those of the other articles -- were much narrower than was later assumed. What Kido meant is implicit in the situation described above. He was not calling for a wholesale program of Westernization in which the Japanese would substitute beef for rice, frock coats for haori. He was not then demanding that samurai stop butchering commoners who offended them, or that laborers not appear in public dressed only in loin-cloths. He may, then or later, have thought these changes desirable, but his purpose in drafting Article Four seems to have been much more limited. Before we elaborate on this idea, the second clause of Article Four needs to be examined. In Kido's draft, this read "udai no tsugi ni shitagau beshi." Someone, possibly Iwakura, 17 changed this to "tenchi no kodo ni motozuku beshi," the final version. Japanese commentators agree that the two are identical in meaning, though they are not unanimous in defining this meaning. Osatake, in uncharacteristically dogmatic language, says flatly that the meaning is "international law," and this verdict is accepted by most subsequent scholars, evidently impressed by Osatake's study of the etymology of the various terms. 18 Kawabara again dissents, contending that the meaning is "not limited to international law, but indicates universal reason and justice" (Kawabara 1938:58-60). This broader and vaguer translation is closer to the versions put forth by most Western translators, versions which involve some elaborate metaphysical reference to "the impartiality and justice displayed in the workings of nature, " or something of the sort. Osatake was not one to issue fiats lightly, and his simpler interpretation should come as a relief to Western translators who would like to convert the Confucian grandiloquence of Article Four into something comprehensible. However, it should be remembered that in 1868 no one in the Japanese government knew very much about international law. It seems likely that what Kido actually had in mind could be accurately described as "international usage" or "international practice." If we

Page  13 ROBERT M. SPAULDING, JR. 13 take the two clauses together, the origins of the Oath suggest that Article Four meant that attacks on foreigners must cease, and that Japan's relations with foreign nations must thereafter conform to "international" usage -- that is, to the practices of Western diplomacy. ARTICLE FIVE "Chishiki o sekai ni motome, 5i ni k5ki o shinki subeshi." (Knowledge shall be sought all over the world, and the foundations of Imperial rule shall be strengthened.) Article Five is so relatively straightforward that it seems incongruous in the recondite setting of the other articles. Japanese commentators have practically nothing to say about it. The article began as the third in Yuri's draft. Fukuoka moved it to fourth place, and substituted oi ni for Yuri's hiroku. In this context the two are essentially synonymous, and Yuri's wording survived otherwise unchanged in the final text. Kido, who renumbered all articles except the first, made this one Article Five. In comparison with translations of the other articles, Western versions of Article Five are more or less uniform. Only two words need much comment. Surprisingly few Western translators have been content to render chishiki simply as "knowledge, " which is all it really means. There is a preference for a pair of words, such as "intellect and learning," "intelligence and learning," "wisdom and ability," "wisdom and knowledge," "knowledge and information." One translator uses "wisdom" alone. All of these imply more than the original does. From what has been said about Article Two and Three, it will be apparent that Yuri was too much a Confucian to seek "wisdom" outside the Confucian circle. He was sufficiently a reformer to welcome knowledge from the West, but not with any implication that his own heritage was bankrupt. Those who read into Article Five more than that should remember the Japanese (later Chinese) slogan of "Western methods, Eastern ideas." The other word in Article Five which creates something of a translation problem is koki, literally "imperial foundation." Most translators have rendered this impersonally, with emphasis on the state: "the foundations of the Empire," or "... the state," or "... the royal realm." The Ike translation of 1950, "foundations of imperial rule," has the merit of suggesting more clearly the personal implications of the original. The distinction is subtle, but may be illustrated by analogy with the cognate word kokoku. The Japanese idea of k5koku, conventionally translated simply as "Empire," might more adequately be conveyed by phrases like "the Emperor's country" or "the country ruled by the Emperor." THE COLLEAGUES OF THE DRAFTERS This summary of the evidence should suffice to demonstrate that Yuri, Fukuoka, and Kido were motivated primarily by short-range considerations when they drafted the Charter Oath. They were thinking largely of specific, immediate, concrete problems facing the government and perturbing them personally in the early months of 1868. That they spoke of establishing a "national policy" did not mean they intended the policy to be eternal or to have catholic relevance. They considered the Oath important for its immediate usefulness, not because it might prove a panacea for the indefinite future. This is perhaps best proven by a remarkable incident which took place four years later in Washington, D.C. It is quoted by Osatake from the memoirs of Kume Kunitake (1839-1931), official historian for the Japanese government for two decades, beginning in 1869. Kume and Kido were members of the Iwakura Mission to America and Europe in 1871-1873. One day in the spring of 1872, when the group was in Washington, Kume mentioned the Charter Oath in conversation with Kido. With the air of

Page  14 14 THE INTENT OF THE CHARTER OATH one trying to recall an almost vanished memory, Kido said: "Oh, that's right, there was something like that. Do you still remember it?" Kume produced a copy of the Oath from his suitcase, and Kido borrowed it to read over. The next day he told Kume he had read and reread the Oath, and found it excellent. "We must never change these Imperial instructions," he said; "I shall uphold them as long as I live, on pain of death" (Osatake 1938:104 and 1937:67-8). Osatake adduces this anecdote to illustrate the fallibility of memory, specifically of the later recollections of Yuri and Fukuoka as to the origins of the Oath. He comments, "If Kido had completely forgotten about the Charter Oath after a scant four or five years, recollections are indeed unreliable.,"19 But the really striking implication of the story is surely not that memories are frail, but that once it had served its initial purpose, the Oath seemed to Kido so unimportant that he forgot all about it. At the time of the incident, Kido was only 39, and thus obviously not senile despite his ill health and death five years later. And in the judgement of Osatake (Osatake 1928:78 and 1943:198), Watanabe (Watanabe 1939:113), T6yama (T6yama 1951:243), and especially of Okubo Toshiaki (Okubo 1956:19), it was Kido more than anyone else who brought the Charter Oath into being, though he wrote only one of its five articles. The basis for this judgement is thoroughly documented, and leads into a collateral question of some pertinence. The intent of the drafters is not necessarily the intent of the Oath. Can it be shown that higher-ranking officials, whose approval was essential, saw in the Oath something more or something other than what its drafters saw? Did they consider the Oath important, and if so, in what way? The answer to both questions is no; if anything, they put a lower valuation on it than its authors did. This can be fairly easily demonstrated. The history of the Charter Oath is more notable for the names it omits than for those it includes. Except for Kido and Iwakura, to whom we shall return shortly, none of the foremost leaders of the Restoration had much to do with the Oath. The two men who in later years did most to give the Oath a new and politically explosive interpretation, Itagaki Taisuke (1837-1919) and Okuma Shigenobu (1838 -1922), were not in Kyoto at the time. 20 Neither were Saig5 Takamori (1827-1877) and It5 Hirobumi (1841-1909). 21 - 22 Theoretically higher in rank at the time were twenty-six Senior Councillors (Gijo), 22 including twelve daimyo or daimyo heirs apparent and fourteen court nobles or princes. Some of their names appear at various points in the history of the Charter Oath, but usually in only incidental fashion. Three February, 1868, diary entries by Senior Councillor Date Muneki, daimnyo of Uwajima, for example, provide the earliest confirmed references to what eventually became the Oath, but they do not indicate Date's own reaction. The daimyo of Tosa, Echizen, and Ch5shi, the domains from which came Fukuoka, Yuri, and Kido, were among the most influential Senior Councillors, but surviving documents do not indicate that they took any active part in the project for the Charter Oath. The daimyo of Tosa appears to have been away from Kyoto when the Oath was taken. 23 Senior Councillor Kamei Korekane (1822-1884), daimyo of Tsuwano, planned the actual details of the Oath-taking ceremony (Osatake 1937:83-4) after Kido had laid down the essential principles to be followed. Senior Councillor Nakayama Tadayasu took an active part in the dispute over procedure, to be described shortly. Senior Councillor Shimazu Tadayoshi, daimyo of Satsuma, subsequently issued a proclamation to his domain, emphasizing the imperial letter of April 6, 1868 rather than the Charter Oath (Osatake 1948:157). This was a reaction typical of contemporary opinion, as Osatake has demonstrated from newspapers of the time (T6yama 1951:240-41 and Watanabe 1939:104). At the top echelon of the government, neither the Emperor (then only fifteen) nor Supreme Head (Sosai) Imperial Prince Arisugawa Taruhito had much to do with the Oath. The Emperor was too young, and Prince Arisugawa was, if not a figurehead, largely preoccupied with plans for the "Eastern

Page  15 ROBERT M. SPAULDING, JR. 15 Expedition" he was supposed to command against the shogunal forces. The two Deputy S6sai were court nobles Sanjo Sanetomi and Iwakura Tomomi. The consensus of historians is that Iwakura was the dominant man in the government at this time. His name appears often in the history of the Charter Oath, and each of the drafters evidently regarded Iwakura's approval as essential. But the striking thing about Iwakura's role (though ignored by Japanese commentators) is the extremely narrow scope of his interest in the project. A few Japanese writers have attributed to Iwakura some or all of the textual changes which distinguish the final Oath from the third (Kido) draft, but no one has offered any proof. Even if Iwakura did make these changes, Japanese scholars agree that at most only one of them (insertion of "widely" in Article One) had any real importance, and there is much doubt about that. What did concern Iwakura was something quite different, and he made a major issue of it, with the support of Senior Councillor Nakayama Tadayasu (1809-1888), the Emperor's maternal grandfather. While the evidence suggests that Iwakura was more or less indifferent to the content of the Oath, he took violent exception to its ceremonial form. It is at this point that the irony of frequent Western comparisons of the Charter Oath to the Magna Carta is most obvious. 24 Yuri and Fukuoka had indeed been thinking of something much like Runnymede, though they had probably never heard of John and his recalcitrant barons. All the lords would assemble in the presence of the Emperor, and they and he would then swear a mutual oath. Clear evidence of this is found in the titles which Yuri and Fukuoka gave their respective drafts, as well as in superscriptions in reference to procedure. When Kido revived or reinvigorated the project, the idea of a mutual oath aroused vehement opposition from some of the court nobles, especially Iwakura and Nakayama. They denounced the proposal on grounds that would become the favorite cliche of later ultranationalists: it violated the 'national polity' (kokutai) of Japan. The whole concept of the Restoration, they said, was a return to ancient principles, and the most hallowed of these was imperial absolutism. For the Emperor to swear a mutual oath with his vassals, or to make a pledge to them, would be to ape the odious example of China's feudalistic Chou dynasty; it would betray the Restoration and demean the Emperor. At this point, most Japanese commentators believe, the Oath was almost abandoned. Kido saved it by quickly proposing a change in procedure: the Emperor would swear the Oath, but only to his Imperial Ancestors, not to or with his vassals. The subject lords and nobles would be present, but only for the purpose of learning the august will of their sovereign and pledging their obedience to it. Whatever flavor of Runnymede the project may accidentally have had before was now gone. The evidence suggests that Iwakura would have been content to see the whole project jettisoned. He had shown no enthusiasm when Yuri first proposed a policy statement (Mitsuoka 1916:143), and there is no indication that he showed any two months later. Kido's answer to his procedural objections was a simple and obvious one, and must surely have occurred to a man as astute as Iwakura. Yet he was satisfied to raise his formidable influence against the plan without suggesting any alternative. The fact that Iwakura accepted the Oath with Kido's procedural change can be variously interpreted. But the interpretation which seems best to harmonize with his prior actions is that Iwakura had no strong feeling one way or the other about the substance or the substantive value of the Oath, and consequently saw no harm in letting Kido have his own way, once the mutual aspect of the Oath had been deleted. It is hardly necessary to add that Iwakura may well have regretted approving the Oath when, a few years later, he saw what opponents of the government were going to make of it, and use against him.

Page  16 16 THE INTENT OF THE CHARTER OATH The attitude of Sanjo, the other Deputy Sosai, appears to have been even more passive. Sanj6 was chiefly concerned about finding a procedural precedent for whatever was done about the Oath. He suggested a pledge from the lords to the Emperor, rather than a mutual or imperial oath. He also implied that holding the ceremony in the Enthronement Hall was too grandiose a conception. Kido disagreed on both counts, and Sanjo did not insist. 25 There remains to be mentioned the man who, even at this early date, already rivalled Iwakura for influence within the government: Okubo Toshimichi, then only a Junior Councillor but a key figure nonetheless, and destined to be the center of power during the first decade of Meiji. Okubo was a man with little patience for idealism or theory. His diary entry for April 6, 1868 does not even mention the Oath ceremony. 26 One biographer, commenting on this fact, is no doubt close to the mark when he says that the whole project of the Charter Oath was too "Kido-istic" (Kido-teki) for an ultrarealist like Okubo (Tanaka 1938:274-70). The latter's interest, at this point, was focussed on plans for transfer of the imperial capital, the war against the shogunal forces, 27 and opening government service more widely to men of talent regardless of rank. He evidently did not see how an imperial oath could be of much practical utility, and his silence is eloquent. Finally, it is interesting to examine the signatures on the "subjects' pledge" of April 6, 1868. As already stated, once Sanjo had read the Charter Oath to the Imperial Ancestors on behalf of the Emperor, the assembled lords and officials came forward individually to sign an entirely different oath, pledging their compliance with the Emperor's will. On the day of the ceremony, 411 signatures were affixed, and 421 more were subsequently added, the last on June 21, 1871, more than three years later. 28 The first sixty signatures, beginning with those of Taruhito, Sanjo, and Iwakura, include the names of nearly all the Senior Councillors and some 30 of the 76 Junior Councillors. Again, it is the missing names which are of chief interest. The singular fact is that none of the most prominent Junior Councillors -- for example, Okubo, Got5 Sh5jiro, Hirosawa Saneomi, Inoue Kaoru, Terashima Munenori, Ito, Soejima Taneomi -- is recorded as signing the subjects' pledge either on April 6, 1868, or later, though thirty colleagues did. Even more remarkable is the fact that none of the three chief drafters of the Oath -- not even Kido -- is recorded as signing. This effort to determine what the Charter Oath meant in 1868 is not, of course, intended to imply that it meant the same thing to everyone, even less that it meant the same thing later on. Even the drafters came in later years to see in the Oath implications that they had not intended at the time. Other men saw a great deal more, and tried (with considerable success) to use the Oath for purposes that would have been inconceivable in 1868 -- especially to men like Iwakura. But without understanding the intent of the Oath in 1868, one cannot hope to understand its appearance in such unpromising circumstances, or to appreciate the extent and significance of the myths later built upon this modest foundation. It is in this respect that Western historiography on the Charter Oath has been most disappointing.

Page  17 ROBERT M. SPAULDING, JR. 17 TRANSLATIONS OF THE CHARTER OATH Translations and close paraphrases of the Charter Oath which appear in the seventy-five books examined are collated here, article by article. The arrangement is chronological, with repetitions or slight modifications listed under the earliest source. Trivial changes are indicated only by an asterisk after the author's name; those of more interest are shown in parentheses. Complete identification of the books cited is given in the Bibliography. The more curious of numerous bibliographic peculiarities encountered here deserve special mention: 1. The translations most often reprinted are those given by W.W. McLaren in his 1914 Japanese Government Documents. McLaren published two translations, labelling one "the older form of the Oath" and the other "the modern form". This unfortunate choice of words is repeated by some later authors (e.g., Quigley, 1932, R. K. Reischauer 1939, and Quigley-Turner 1956) and has no doubt misled many readers into the false conclusion that the Oath itself exists in two different texts. McLaren' s "older form" is simply the earliest known translation, published in the Japan Herald for August 29, 1868. His "modern form" is merely one of the many later re-translations of the same text. 2. The source of this second translation in McLaren is obscure. McLaren's highly ambiguous citation strongly implied that it came from Uehara' s 1910 Political Development of Japan 1867-1909 but this is not so. Perhaps it is McLaren's own work, but if so, the reason for citing Uehara is puzzling, since Uehara expressly took exception to the interpretation of Article One which is reflected in this translation. 3. Sir George Sansom, in Western World and Japan (both British and American editions), quoted a translation described as "Hodzumi's Version, as quoted in Encyclopedia Britannica (1911)." Both Articles One and Four in the Sansom text differ from those in the Britannica, but the real curiosity is in Article Three. The Sansom text contains two alternate translations of Article Three, neither of which appears in either the British or the American edition of the 1911 Britannica. One of them does, however, appear (with slight differences) in the 1911 book by Gubbins. To complicate matters still further: a. Gubbins attributed his translation "in the main" to a 1909 book by Kikuchi, Japanese Education, but the version of Article Three is not that given by Kikuchi. b. Kikuchi attributed his translation to Hozumi ("Hodzumi"). So did the 1911 Britannica, but the two versions are not entirely the same. 4. In the Longford 1913, the translations of Articles Two and Three are jumbled together in this curious sequence: first half of Article Three, then Article Two, then the second half of Article Three.

Page  18 18 THE INTENT OF THE CHARTER OATH ARTICLE ONE HIROKU KAIGI 0 OKOSHI, BANKI KORON NI KESSU BESHI. The practice of discussion and debate shall be universally adopted, and all measures shall be decided by public argument. Herald 1868, McLaren 1914, Quigley 1932, R.K. Reischauer 1939, Nourse 1940, Steiger 1946, Vinacke 1950; Longford 1913 ("public opinion"); Latourette 1918 ("argument and debate", "impartial discussion"), followed by Latourette 1957 and MacNair & Lach 1955. A deliberative assembly should be formed, and all measures decided by public opinion. Satow 1873, Adams 1875, Griffis 1877, lenaga 1891, Longford 1913, Clement 1915, Gowen 1935. Murray 1894 ("shall"); Longford 1923 ("shall be summoned") Brown 1955 (omitting "deliberative"). There should be a deliberative assembly for the consideration of all public questions. Black 1881. Deliberative assemblies shall be established and all measures of government shall be decided by public opinion. Kikuchi 1909 (attributed to Hozumi); Britannica 1911, Gubbins 1911, Gubbins 1922, Fujisawa* 1922, Kitazawa* 1929, SCAP 1949; Yanaga 1949 ("matters shall be"), Sansom 1951 (adding "on an extensive scale" after "established"); Kosaka 1958, Reischauer 1958. Public councils shall be organized, and all governmental affairs shall be decided by public discussion. Ukita 1909, Wakefield 1948 ("general discussion"); Sansom 1951; Linebarger 1956 ("general discussion"). An Assembly widely convoked shall be established, and all affairs of state decided by impartial discussion. Uehara 1910. An Assembly widely convoked shall be established, and thus great stress shall be laid upon public opinion. McLaren 1914, Scherer 1928, Quigley* 1932, R.K. Reischauer* 1939, Akiyama 1941, Borton 1955, Panikkar 1954, Quigley 1956, Linebarger 1956. Initiate public councils to administer important governmental affairs. Sato 1915. A broadly based deliberative assembly should be convened for the purpose of conducting State affairs ia conformity with public opinion. Brinkley 1915.

Page  19 ROBERT M. SPAULDING, JR. 19 An assembly shall be organized on a broad basis; all policies (of the state) should be decided by public opinion. Griffis 1915 (trans. by Harada). Assemblies shall be called into being in which all classes of the people shall be represented. All affairs of state shall be therein discussed and public opinion will thus find expression. Iwasaki 1921. An assembly widely convoked shall be established, and all affairs of state shall be decided by impartial discussion, and in the light of public opinion. Moulton 1931. We will call councils and rule the nation according to public opinion. Year Book 1933, Nakamura 1939, Tiedemann 1955, Linebarger 1956. All measures of national policy shall be determined by public discussion in a popular assembly to be duly established. Ijichi 1940, Akiyama 1940, James 1951. Conference shall be inaugurated widely, and all things shall be settled by public discussion. Year Book 1949. Assemblies shall be widely convoked and all measures shall be decided by open discussion. Ike 1950, Michael & Taylor 1956. ARTICLE TWO SHOKA KOKORO 0 ITSU NI SHITE, SAKAN NI KEIRIN 0 OKONAU BESHI. High and low shall be of one mind, and social order shall thereby be perfectly maintained. Herald 1868, McLaren 1914, Latourette 1918, Quigley 1932, Nourse 1940, Vinacke 1950, Latourette 1957. The principles of social and political economics should be diligently studied by both the superior and inferior classes of our people. Ienaga 1891, Clement 1915, Gowen 1935. Davis 1916 summarizes this as "All ranks were to study the principles of social and political economics. " All classes, high and low, shall unite in vigorously carrying out the plan of government. Kikuchi 1909 (attributed to Hozumi); Gubbins 1911, Britannica 1911, Sansom 1951; Fujisawa 1922 ("the affairs of state" instead of "the plan..."); Kitazawa 1929 and SCAP 1949 follow Fujisawa. All classes, both rulers and ruled, shall with one heart devote themselves to the advancement of the national interests. Ukita 1909, Wakefield 1948, Sansom 1951.

Page  20 20 THE INTENT OF THE CHARTER OATH All administrative matters of state shall be conducted by the cooperative efforts of the governing and the governed. Uehara 1910. All classes of the people should with one mind devote themselves to the national welfare. Longford 1913. The welfare of the whole nation shall be promoted by the everlasting efforts of both the governing and the governed classes. McLaren 1914, Scherer 1928, Quigley 1932, Akiyama 1941, Panikkar 1954, Borton 1955, Quigley 1956, Linebarger 1956. Encourage all classes of the people to promote with one heart public welfare. Sato 1915. Both Government and people shall be united in one heart; every undertaking should be pushed with vigor. Griffis 1915 (attributed to Harada). In future all distinction between the upper and lower classes of the people shall as far as possible be removed for the purpose of securing the order and peace of the Empire. Iwasaki 1921. High and low shall be of one mind in the conduct of the administration. Longford 1923. Men of upper and lower classes without distinction shall be united in all enterprises. Year Book 1933; Nakamura 1939, Tiedemann* 1955, Linebarger 1956. The whole nation from the upper to the lower classes of the people shall be united and shall strive for the progress and welfare of the country. Moulton 1931 (presented as translation of Article Three, but obviously refers to Article Two instead). The whole body of the community, high and low, shall unite in efforts for economic development. Ijichi 1940. All people, both the governing and the governed, shall unite in their efforts to promote the welfare of the nation. Akiyama 1941, James* 1951. Upper and lower classes shall be of one mind, and government administration shall be carried out vigorously. Year Book 1949. The whole nation shall unite in carrying out the administration of the affairs of state. Yanaga 1949. The government and the governed shall be of one mind, and the national economy and finances shall be greatly strengthened. Ike 1950, Michael and Taylor 1956.

Page  21 ROBERT M. SPAULDING, JR. 21 All classes, high and low, shall unite in vigorously carrying out the administration of affairs of state. Reischauer 1958, Kosaka 1958, Peffer 1958. ARTICLE THREE KAMBU ITTO SHOMIN NI ITARU MADE ONO-ONO SONO KOKOROZASHI 0 TOGE, JINSHIN 0 SHITE UMAZARASHIMEN KOTO 0 YO SU. It is necessary that the civil and military powers be concentrated in a single whole, the rights of all classes be assured, and the national mind be completely satisfied. Herald 1868, McLaren 1914, Latourette 1918, Nourse 1940, Vinacke 1950, Latourette 1957. Everyone in the community shall be assisted to persevere in carrying out his will for all good purposes. Ienaga 1891, Murray* 1894, Clement 1915, Gowen* 1935. Officials, civil and military, and all common people shall as far as possible be allowed to fulfill their just desires so that there may not be any discontent among them. Kikuchi 1909 (attributed to Hozumi), Britannica 1911. All the civil and military officials and all the common people shall be allowed to realize their own aspirations and to evince their active characteristics. Ukita 1909, Wakefield* 1948, Sansom 1951, Linebarger 1956. All the people -- officials, soldiers, and others -- ought to be prevented from becoming idle and discontented by encouraging the achievement of their legitimate desires. Uehara 1910. All classes of the people shall be allowed to fulfill their just aspirations so that there may be no discontent. Gubbins 1911; quoted with minor changes by Sansom 1951 and there attributed to Britannica 1911, but this is in error. Civil and military government should no longer be separated. The rights of all classes should be assured. Longford 1913. Civil and military classes with (sic) distinction and also commoners shall each carry out their aims; it is necessary that the spirit of the nation shall not be tired out. Griffis 1915 (attributed to Harada). Every individual, the highest officer of the state as well as the most insignificant man of the people, shall strive to do his work well and not neglect his special calling. Iwasaki 1921. All common people, no less than the civil and the military officials, shall be allowed to fulfill their just desires so that there may not be any discontent among them. Fujisawa 1923, Kitazawa 1929, SCAP 1949.

Page  22 22 THE INTENT OF THE CHARTER OATH Matters shall be so arranged that not only the Government officials and the samurai but also the common people may be able to obtain the objects of their desire and the national mind be completely satisfied. Longford 1923. The civil and military powers shall be centered in a single whole, and, in order that the national mind may be satisfied, equal opportunity shall be assured to all classes. Moulton 1931 (erroneously presented as translation of Article Two). Civil officials and military officers shall be in one accord, and all the common people shall be so treated that they can attain their aims and feel no discontent. Year Book 1933, Tiedemann 1955. Nakamura 1939 omitted from "in one accord" through "shall be". The public offices, civil and military, shall be open to all, and men even of lower rank shall be encouraged to achieve their several aims without creating any cause for popular discontent. Ijichi 1940, Akiyama* 1941, James* 1951. Every person shall be given the opportunity to pursue a calling of his choice. Yanaga 1949. Each and every person, in one and the same manner, beginning with the civil and military authorities and extending to all the masses, shall have opportunity to realize his aspirations, that the human spirit be not frustrated. Year Book 1949. Civil and military officials, as well as the common people, shall achieve their aims, and thus the people's minds shall not grow weary. Ike 1950, Michael and Taylor 1956. Every person was to be permitted to follow the occupation of his choosing. Brown 1955. Freedom of occupation. Webb 1955. The common people, no less than the civil and military officials, shall each be allowed to pursue his own calling so that there may be no discontent. Reischauer 1958, Kosaka 1958, Peffer 1958. ARTICLE FOUR KYURAI NO ROSHU O YABURI, TENCHI NO KODO NI MOTOZUKU BESHI. The uncivilized customs of former times shall be broken through, and the impartiality and justice displayed in the workings of nature be adopted as a basis of action. Herald 1868, Satow* 1873, Adams* 1875, Griffis* 1877, McLaren 1914, Latourette 1918,

Page  23 ROBERT M. SPAULDING, JR. 23 Quigley 1932, Vinacke 1950, Latourette 1957. Civilization and justice should take the place of the old and erroneous system. Black 1881. All the old, absurd usages of former times should be disregarded, and the impartiality and justice displayed in the workings of nature be adopted as a basis of action. Ienaga 1891, Murray 1894 (omitting "old"), Clement 1915, Gowen 1935. Uncivilized customs of former times shall be broken through and everything shall be based upon just and equitable principles of nature. Kikuchi 1909 (attributed to Hozumi), Britannica 1911 ("principles of heaven and earth [nature] "); Sansom 1951 followed the 1909 version, though attributing it to the Britannica 1911; Gubbins 1911 changed "broken through" to "abolished". All base customs of former times shall be abolished and justice and equity as they are universally recognized shall be followed. Ukita 1909, Wakefield 1948, Sansom 1951, Linebarger* 1956. All absurd old usages shall be abandoned; and justice and righteousness shall regulate all actions. Uehara 1910; McLaren 1914 (omitting "old" and the first "and"); the following follow McLaren: Scherer 1928, Quigley 1932, Akiyama 1941, Panikkar 1954, Borton 1955, Quigley 1956, Linebarger 1956. The uncivilized customs of antiquity should be abolished and impartiality and justice administered according to universally recognized principles. Longford 1913. Forsake old customs and manners, follow justice and equity. Sat5 1915. Mean usages of the past should be destroyed; all things shall be founded on the Universal Law (or Way) of Heaven and Earth. Griffis 1915 (attributed to Harada). Old-fashioned and useless manners and customs shall be banned, and efforts made to guide the people in right directions. Iwasaki 1921. All the absurd usages of old should be broken through, and the equity and justice to be found in the workings of nature shall serve as the basis of action. Fujisawa 1923, Kitazawa 1929, SCAP* 1949. The vicious and uncivilized customs of antiquity shall be broken through and the great principles of impartiality and justice, co-existing with Heaven and Earth, shall be taken as the basis of action. Longford 1923. Old unworthy ways and customs shall be destroyed and the people shall walk along the highway of heaven and earth. Year Book 1933, Nakayama 1939, Linebarger 1956. Tiedemann 1955 uses the first clause, but replaces the second clause with that of Kikuchi 1909 (Hozumi).

Page  24 24 THE INTENT OF THE CHARTER OATH The evil usages of old shall be abolished, and civil life shall be constituted on the basis of the law of nature. Ijichi 1940, Akiyama* 1941, James* 1951. Absurd customs and practices of the past shall be discarded and justice shall be based on the laws of heaven and earth. Yanaga 1949. Old absurd customs and practices were to be discarded. Brown 1955. The evil practices of former times shall be broken down, and everything shall be founded on the just and equitable principles of nature. Year Book 1949. All absurd customs of olden times shall be abandoned, and all actions shall be based on international usage. Ike 1950, Michael and Taylor 1956. Evil customs of the past shall be broken off and everything based upon the just laws of Nature. Reischauer 1958, Kosaka 1958, Peffer 1958. ARTICLE FIVE CHISHIKI 0 SEKAI NI MOTOME, OI NI KOKI O SHINKI SUBESHI. Intellect and learning shall be sought for throughout the world, in order to establish the foundations of the Empire. Herald 1868, Satow* 1873, Adams* 1875, Griffis* 1877, McLaren 1914, Latourette 1918, Quigley 1932, Vinacke 1950, Latourette 1957. Longford 1913 and 1923 paraphrase the last clause. Learning should be encouraged, in order that the foundations of the empire might be solid and firm. Black 1881. Wisdom and ability should be sought after in all quarters of the world for the purpose of firmly establishing the foundations of the empire. Ienaga 1891, Clement 1915, Gowen 1935. Knowledge shall be sought for throughout the world, so that the welfare of the Empire may be promoted. Kikuchi 1909 (attributed to Hozumi), Britannica 1911, Gubbins 1922 (quotes only the first clause), Sansom* 1951. Gubbins 1911 ("welfare" changed to "foundations", "promoted" to "strengthened"). Knowledge shall be sought for throughout the world and thus the foundations of the Empire shall be extended. Ukita 1909, Gubbins 1922 (first clause only -- cf. Kikuchi above), Wakefield* 1948, Sansom 1951, Linebarger 1956.

Page  25 ROBERT M. SPAULDING, JR. 25 Knowledge and learning shall be sought for all over the world, and thus the foundations of the imperial polity be greatly strengthened. Uehara 1910. Knowledge shall be sought for all over the world, and thus shall be strengthened the foundations of the Imperial Polity. McLaren 1914, Treat 1921, Scherer 1928, Quigley 1932, Gowen 1938, Akiyama 1941, Borton 1955, Panikkar* 1954, Quigley 1956, Linebarger 1956. Seek knowledge throughout the world in order that the foundations of the empire might be extended. Sato 1915. Knowledge should be sought in the wide world; foundations of the royal realm shall be firmly established (elevated). Griffis 1915 (Harada). Wisdom sought throughout the world in order to establish the foundations of the Empire. Davis 1916. Knowledge from all parts of the world shall be made use of for rendering the state strong and secure. Iwasaki 1921. Wisdom and knowledge shall be sought throughout the world for the purpose of promoting the welfare of the Empire. Fujisawa 1923, Kitazawa 1929, SCAP 1949. Knowledge shall be sought among the nations of the world and the Empire shall be led up to the zenith of prosperity. Year Book 1933; Nakamura 1939, Linebarger 1956. Tiedemann 1955 changed the second clause to "and thus the welfare of the Empire will be promoted. " Intelligence and learning shall be sought for throughout the world, in order to establish the foundations of the Empire. Moulton 1931. Knowledge and information shall be sought for throughout the world for the purpose of strengthening the foundations of the Empire. Ijichi 1940, Akiyama 1941 (omitting "and information"), James 1951 (omitting "and information", changing "the purpose of strengthening" to "the building up of", and changing "throughout the world" to "wherever it exists"). Wisdom and ability should be sought throughout the world for the purpose of promoting the welfare of the Empire. Hall 1949. Wisdom and knowledge shall be sought all over the world in order to establish firmly the foundations of the Empire. Yanaga 1949. Knowledge shall be sought for all over the world, and thereby the foundations of Imperial rule shall be strengthened. Ike 1950, Michael and Taylor 1956.

Page  26 26 THE INTENT OF THE CHARTER OATH Knowledge shall be sought throughout the world so as to strengthen the foundations of imperial rule. Reischauer 1958, Kosaka 1958, Peffer 1958. SUCCESSIVE DRAFTS OF THE CHARTER OATH The following romanizations are based on photographs of the original documents in the writing of Yuri, Fukuoka, and Kido, as reproduced in Osatake, 1928: Boshin 75-76, 80, and in several other works. TT means that no change was made. The sequence, in each instance, is Yuri, Fukuoka, Kido, and final text. The numbers in parentheses refer to the position of the article in the respective draft. The final sequence is that fixed by Kido. banki koron ni kesshi watakushi ni ronzuru nakare. Rekko kaigi o okoshi, " " " kessu beshi. fit TIT TI T T T! TI Tt IT Hiroku " "t I TI IT TI TI (5) (1) (1) (1) (2) (3) (2) (2) Shimin kokoro o itsu ni shite, sakan ni keirin o okonau o yo su. Sh6ka T?" " T " I TT T TI beshi.,T IT TT TT T TiT T Ti T TI T T T t IT TT IT T IT T TI IT TI I*T TI. IT Kambu itto T. TI shomin IT ni itaru made ono-ono sono Ti TI T.IT TIt T kokorozashi o toge, iT TI TT T. IT IT T... IT (1) (2) (3) (3) TI I II I I t! I TTI I j inshin o shite umazarashimuru o hossu. *T.T IT TT I! T. I TI II IT T IT T" " "t umazarashimen koto o yo su. Koshi kigen o motte kensai ni yuzuru beshi. Choshi " " " " " it iT Kyurai no roshu o yaburi, udai no tsugi ni shitagau beshi. T" " " " "IT tenchi no kodo" motozuku " Chishiki o sekai ni motome, hiroku k5ki o shinki subeshi. " " tt oi ni " " " IT IT.T IT.. IT TT IT iT it IT,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ I,,,,,,,,,,,,, (4) (5) (4) (4) (3) (4) (5) (5)

Page  27 ROBERT M. SPAULDING, JR. 27 Note: There is some disagreement among Japanese authors in transcribing the verbal form at the end of the first clause of Article Two in the Yuri and Fukuoka drafts (Yuri's Article Two, Fukuoka's Article Three). Since the difference is only as to the presence or absence of the -te, which would not affect the meaning, I have transcribed them all as shite. The originals would show which is correct, but the reproductions in books are not too clear. NOTES 1. For example, 1875 Adams 127, 1877 Griffis 318 (and also the 1903 edition of this book), 1881 Black; 1915 Sato 6 and 1916. Davis 252 omit Article Three only. 2. Linebarger, Djang, and Burks quote three translations, with some minor inaccuracies and at least one material change which appears deliberate. Other bibliographical peculiarities of note are described on the first page of the Translations section below. 3. Osatake's given name is more often cited as "Takeshi", but the colophon to his 1943 Nihon Kensei Shi no Kenkyf gives the furigana reading "Takeki". Since this was published in the author' s lifetime, it is assumed to be accurate. Other works by Osatake cited here do not indicate the pronunciation. 4. Kawabara 54-55 states that when Hirosawa Saneomi asked Yuri Kimmasa for funds to support the "Eastern Expedition", Yuri (who had the task of raising the money) told him to ask for more -- enough to carry the imperial forces not merely to Otsu, six miles away, but all the way to Edo (Tokyo). 5. The present account relies largely on Osatake' s numerous works; factual information not otherwise credited is from Osatake, especially Ishin Zengo ni Okeru Rikken Shis and Nihon Kensei Shi Taik5. There is a large amount of repetition (and verbatim quotation of his own prior works) in Osatake' s books, but something new is always supplied. 6. Okubo Toshiaki, grandson of Okubo Toshimichi, offers a new interpretation in his Meiji Kemp6 o Dekiru Made. He believes that the original project for an oath by the daimyo, as conceived by Yuri and Fukuoka, became a dead issue almost immediately. Kido, he feels, independently conceived the idea of a national policy oath or statement, and when shown the Fukuoka revision of the Yuri draft, decided this was a good basis for what he had in mind. Okubo' s main point, however, is that it is misleading to speak of the Yuri and Fukuoka manuscripts as drafts of the Charter Oath, because the Oath of April 6, 1868 was originated by Kido as a separate project with a different idea behind it. He attributes the difference not merely to Iwakura's opposition to a mutual oath but chiefly to a change in circumstances between January and March, both for the better (military successes) and for the worse (new anti-foreign incidents). While Okubot s reconstruction of the events is plausible, and does much to account for the gap in the evidence which survives, he over-emphasizes the difference between the two projects or conceptions. Other Japanese scholars see no impropriety in regarding the Yuri and Fukuoka drafts as drafts of the Charter Oath, since it is obvious that the language of the final text came almost entirely from these two drafts (except for Article Four).

Page  28 28 THE INTENT OF THE CHARTER OATH 7. Aside from questions of interpretation and evaluation, the unimpressive quality of Western historiography on the Charter Oath can be illustrated simply by examining the dates assigned to the Oath in various books. Many give no date at all, or only "1868. 1 Those who are more specific are very often mistaken. The variety of erroneous dates reported must be seen to be believed, as this summary will show: Date Sources April 16, 1868 Griffis 1915 April 17, 1868 Gowen 1935; Hardy and Dumke 1949 March 14, 1868 Fujisawa 1923, Akiyama 1941; Linebarger, Djang and Burks 1956 June, 1868 R. K. Reischauer 1939; Sansom 1950 (British ed.) 1869 Gubbins 1922, Nourse 1940, MacNair and Lach 1955. April 17, 1869 Iyenaga 1891, David 1916, Scherer 1928 Spring, 1869 Clement 1915. The British edition of Sansom states (p. 393) that the Oath was "ready for proclamation on April 6," (1868) but that because of a procedural dispute the Emperor did not swear the oath until June. There was (as explained in the present paper) such a dispute, but it was settled prior to April 6, not after. The suggestion of a June date was evidently prompted by the fact that the Oath was repeated verbatim in the June 11, 1868 Seitaisho. The passage referred to does not appear in the American edition of Sansom. 8. Yamaguchi 1873, Adams 1875, Black 1881, and Treat 1921 erroneously state that the Oath was sworn in the Nijo Castle. Griffis 1877 states that the Emperor came to "the council of state" to swear the Oath, but Griffis 1915 corrects this to say that the Oath was sworn in the Enthronement Hall (Shishinden). 9. The translations given in parentheses after the Japanese text of each article of the Oath are based on the Ike translation, but several changes have been made. 10. See discussion of this thesis in Note 6. 11. Fukuoka moved this article to third place; Kido put it back in second position, where it remained. The sequence of all articles in the final text is that fixed by Kido. 12. See for example Kawabara 58. 13. It should also dissipate any lingering doubt as to what Fukuoka had in mind in Article One. 14. Fukuoka dropped it to second place, and Kido to third. 15. See, for example, Yanaga 1949, Brown 1955, Webb 1955, Reischauer 1958, and Kosaka 1958. 16. See Note 6 above. 17. Komatsu 1931:394 attributes the change to Iwakura, but offers no proof. 18. For the etymological study, see especially Osatake 1948:175-6; also Fujii and Moriya 1939:216, Ishii 1954:108, and Watanabe 1939:116, for unqualified acceptances of Osatake's verdict.

Page  29 ROBERT M. SPAULDING, JR. 29 19. It can, of course, be argued that Kume's recollection of this incident may be as faulty as Kido's, Yuri's, or Fukuoka's recollections of the origins of the Oath. However, Kume was a professional historian as well as witness to the incident, and its very improbability seems to lend it credibility. Certainly Osatake implied no doubt as to Kume's veracity. 20. Itagaki was with the imperial forces in the east (see Ishin Shi, V: 177). Okuma was still in Nagasaki (see Baba, 58). 21. Saigo was chief of staff of the imperial forces in the east (de facto commander); Ito was in Kobe. For both points, see Kaneko 1926:372-375. The statement in Scherer 1928 (p. 234) that Ito was the Emperor's chief advisor at the time of the Charter Oath is obviously without foundation. Ito was then still a minor official. 22. Sanj6 and Iwakura were also Gijo, making a total of 28; they are referred to here by their concurrent but higher title of Fuku S6sai (Deputy Supreme Head). 23. He did not sign the subjects' pledge until November 3, 1868 (see Dajokan, Fukko Ki, II: 843). 24. Uehara 1910:57, Gubbins 1911:196, Longford 1913:36, Kitazawa 1929:20, Idditti (Ijichi) 1940:93. Compare Sansom 1950:392 (British edition); Sansom concedes the fundamental difference between the Charter Oath and the Magna Carta, but finds the analogy still of some value. 25. See Osatake 1943:195-198. This is almost the only study of Sanj6's role in the project of the Charter Oath. 26. See Okubo 1927:447. The entry reads simply, "Dajokan shusseki." 27. Tanaka 1938:280 and Zuizan Kai 1912 state (p. 1287) that the daimyo of Tosa, in conversation with Okubo, pointedly criticized the "Eastern Expedition" as "the Okubo War." 28. Signatures are recorded (presumably in sequence) in Dajokan, 1929: II:835-53. I have found no Japanese analysis of or comment on these. A thorough study would present some problems of identification, but might reveal a number of points of interest.

Page  30 30 THE INTENT OF THE CHARTER OATH REFERENCES CITED ADAMS, FRANCIS OTTIWELL 1875 The History of Japan. London, Hewey S. King & Co. AKIYAMA KENZO 1941 The History of Japan. Edited by Shimanouchi Toshiro. Tokyo, Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai. BABA TSUNEGO _A 4 tIr -Ad 1932 Okuma Shigenobu Den %. t 4~ d~ (Biography of Okuma Shigenobu), Tokyo, Kaiz5 Sha. BECKMANN, GEORGE M. 1957 The Making of the Meiji Constitution. Lawrence, The University of Kansas. BLACK, JOHN R. 1881 Young Japan: Yokohama and Yedo. London, Trubner and Co. BORTON, HUGH 1955 Japan's Modern Century. New York, Ronald Press Co. BRINKLEY, FRANK 1902 Japan, Its History, Arts and Literature, Volume IV. Boston, J.B. Millet Co. 1915 A History of the Japanese People from the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era. New York, Encyclopedia Britannica Co. BROWN, DELMER M. 1955 Nationalism in Japan. Berkeley, University of California Press. BUSS, CLAUDE A. 1955 The Far East. New York, Macmillan Co. CLEMENT, ERNEST WILSON 1915 A Short History of Japan. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. DAJOKAN; pa. X (compilers) Fukko Ki 4A P $t (Records of the Restoration), Tokyo, Naigai Shoseki KK. DAVIS, F. HADLAND 1916 Japan: From the Age of the Gods to the Fall of Tsingtau. London, T. C. and E.C. Jack, Ltd. ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA 1911 Eleventh edition, Vol. XV. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. FOREIGN AFFAIRS ASSOCIATION OF JAPAN 1933 The Japan Yearbook 1933. Tokyo, Foreign Affairs Association. 1949 The Japan Yearbook 1949. Tokyo, Foreign Affairs Association.

Page  31 ROBERT M. SPAULDING, JR. 31 FUJII JINTARO i#44fikP AND MORIYA HIDEAKI 2 I U 1939 Meiji Jidaishi b, ~ 4' X. (History of the Meiji Period), Tokyo, Naigai Shoseki KK. FUJISAWA RIKITARO 1923 The Recent Aims and Political Development of Japan. New Haven, Yale University Press. GOWAN, HERBERT H. 1935 An Outline History of Japan. New York, D. Appleton-Century Company. GRIFFIS, WILLIAM ELLIOT 1877 The Mikado's Empire. New York, Harper and Brothers. 1915 The Mikado: Institution and Person. Princeton, Princeton University Press. GUBBINS, J.H. 1911 The Progress of Japan 1853-1871. Oxford, Clarendon Press. 1922 The Making of Modern Japan. London, Seeley, Service and Co. HALL, ROBERT KING, (ed.) 1949 Kokutai no Hongi: Cardinal Principles of the National Entity of Japan. Cambridge, Harvard University Press. HARDY, OSGOOD, AND GLENN S. DUMKE 1949 A History of the Pacific Area in Modern Times. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co. IDITTI (IJICHI) SMIMASA (SUMIMASA) 1940 The Life of Marquis Shigenobu Okuma. Tokyo, Hokuseido Press. ISHII RYOSUKE 4 r g 8 1954 Meiji Bunka Shi: H5sei Hen 5t~'-tC ^j,<(Meiji Cultural History: Law), Tokyo, Yoyo Sha. ISHIN SHIRYO HENSAN KAI. ~Fr.t a4 (compilers) 1942 Ishin Shi.. ~f. (History of the Restoration), Tokyo, Mombu Sho. IWASAKI UICHI 1921 The Working Forces in Japanese Politics. New York, Columbia University Press. IYENAGA (IENAGA) TOYOKICHI 1891 The Constitutional Development of Japan, 1853-1881. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press. JAMES, DAVID H. 1951 The Rise and Fall of the Japanese Empire. London, George Allen and Unwin. KANEKO KENTARO 1926 Ito Hirobumi Den 'f 4 i ' A_. (Biography of It5 Hirobumi), Tokyo, Tosei Sha. KEMPO GOJUNENSHI KANKO KAI, 4Ax, t +1 1T I (compilers). 1938 Kempo Gojinen Shi _.., t $ X_ (Fifty-year History of the Constitution), Tokyo, Kempo Gojunen Shi Kank5 Kai.

Page  32 32 THE INTENT OF THE CHARTER OATH KIKUCHI DAIROKU 1909 Japanese Education. London, John Murray. KITAZAWA NAOKICHI 1929 The Government of Japan. Princeton, Princeton University Press. KO MATSU 1931 MIDORI;l %, Ishin Kakumei Hiwa f ft k f ~t) t Restoration Revolution), Tokyo, Chikura Shobo. (Secret History of the KOSAKA MASAAKI 1958 Japanese Thought in the Meiji Era. Translated and adapted by David Abosch. Tokyo, Pan-Pacific Press. LATOURETTE, KENNETH SCOTT 1918 The Development of Japan. New York, Macmillan Co. 1951 1957 A Short History of the Far East. Revised edition. New York, Macmillan Co. The History of Japan. New York, Macmillan Co. LINEBARGER, PAUL M.A., DJANG CHU, AND ARDATH W. BURKS 1956 Far Eastern Governments and Politics: China and Japan. Princeton, D. Van Nostrand Co. LOCKWOOD, WILLIAM W. 1954 The Economic Development of Japan, Growth and Structural Change 1868-1938. Princeton, Princeton University Press. LONGFORD, JOSEPH 1913 The Evolution of New Japan. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. 1923 Japan: The Nations of Today: A New History of the World. Series editor, John Buchan, London, Waverley Book Co. MacNAIR, HARLEY F. AND DONALD F. LACH 1955 Modern Far Eastern International Relations. New York, D. Van Nostrand Co. McLAREN, 1914 WALTER WALLACE "Japanese Government Documents 1867-1899," in Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, XLII: Part I, May, 1914. 1916 A Political History of Japan During the Meiji Era 1867-1912. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons. MICHAEL, FRANZ H. AND GEORGE E. TAYLOR 1956 The Far East in the Modern World. New York, Henry Hold and Co. MITSUOKA TAKEO E )1 <. j 1916 Yuri Kimmasa Den ' $Ij ~:t 4;t Tokyo, Koyui Kan. (Biography of Yuri Kimmasa), MOULTON, HAROLD G. 1931 Japan: An Economic and Financial Appraisal. Washington, The Brookings Institution.

Page  33 ROBERT M. SPAULDING, JR. 33 MURRAY, DAVID 1894 The Story of Japan. New York, 1894. NAIKAKU KEMPO KYOKU ]r FC - at AK (compilers) 1887 H5rei Zensho (Keio 3.10 to Meiji 1.12) - + /4 Laws and Ordinances). Tokyo, Insatsu Kyoku. (Compendium of NAKAMURA KOYA 1939 History of Japan. Translated by M. G. Mori. Tokyo, Board of Tourist Industry, Japanese Government Railways, 1939. NORMAN, E. 1940 HERBERT Japan's Emergence as a Modern State: Political and Economic Problems of the Meiji Period. New York, Institute of Pacific Relations. NOURSE, MARY A. 1940 Kodo: The Way of the Emperor: A Short History of the Japanese. Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill Co. OGG, FREDERICK A. AND HAROLD ZINK 1949 Modern Foreign Governments. Revised edition. New York, Macmillan Co. OKUBO TOSHIAKI )Kkf: $'1,t\ 1956 Meiji Kempo no Dekiru Made 0 i,^. 3. () the Meiji Constitution). Tokyo, Shibun Do. OKUBO TOSHMICHI t 1I1 jl 1927 Okubo Toshimichi Nikki.-'^ tl JL I L (1 Tokyo, Nihon Shiseki Ky5kai. (Making of Diary of Okubo Toshimichi) OSATAKE TAKEKI / ML 4;2 i^ A. 1928 "Gokaj5 no Goseimon..., " IK-*, t _ $ 3,_ (Imperial Oath of Five Articles) in Meiji Boshin. ]0 A aJ ' (First Year of Meiji), edited by Bummei Kyo-kai. Tokyo, Bummei Ky6kai. 1929 Ishin Zengo ni Okeru Rikken ShisS.,t]frj! I.q 1.. X.- (Constitutional Thought Before and After the Restoration). Third edition. Tokyo, Hokodo. 1930 Nihon Kensei Shi. ) 4 -.:J -. in Japan). Tokyo, Nippon HySron Sha. (History of Constitutional Government 1937 1938 1943 1948 Nihon Kensei Shi Ronshi. [ ~4i- G ~._ - (Collected Essays on the History of Constitutional Government in Japan). Tokyo, Ikusei Sha. Nihon Kensei Shi Taiko. } f- i.t ~1.. (Outline History of Constitutional Government in Japan). Tokyo, Nippon HySron Sha. Nihon Kensei Shi no Kenky-. M I-. 2 -L. (Studies in the History of Constitutional Government in Japan). Tokyo, Ichigen Sha. Ishin Zengo ni Okeru Rikken Shiso. -1fj f, 1 5-i i'/t~(Constitutional Thought Before and After the Restoration), Fourth edition. Tokyo, Jitsugy5 no Nihon Sha.

Page  34 34 THE INTENT OF THE CHARTER OATH OTSU JUN'ICHIRO.jf: ~ J 1927 Dai Nihon Kensei Shi )(jB_ 4 -;. _ (History of Constitutional Government in Great Japan). Tokyo, H6bunkan. OZAKIYUKIO tj ' 1938 Nihon Kensei Shi o Kataru 13 4- H XXJ. ~3 (A Discussion of the History of Constitutional Government in Japan). Tokyo, Monasu. PANIKKAR, K.M. 1954 Asia and Western Dominance. New York, The John Day Co. PEFFER, NATHANIEL 1958 The Far East: A Modern History. Ann Arbor, The University of Michigan Press. PRATT, HELEN 1937 Japan: Where Ancient Loyalties Survive. New York, American Council, Institute of Pacific Relations. QUIGLEY, HAROLD S. 1932 Japanese Government and Politics. New York, The Century Co. QUIGLEY, HAROLD S. AND JOHN E. TURNER 1956 The New Japan: Government and Politics. Minneapolis, The University of Minnesota Press. REISCHAUER, EDWIN 0. 1957 The United States and Japan. Cambridge, Harvard University Press. 1958 Japan, Past and Present. New York, Alfred A. Knopf. REISCHAUER, ROBERT KARL 1939 Japan: Government - Politics. New York, Thomas Nelson and Sons. SATO SHOSUKE 1915 Some Historical Phases of Modern Japan. Sapporo. SANSOM, G.B. 1950 The Western World and Japan. London, The Cresset Press. 1951 The Western World and Japan: A Study in the Interaction of European and Asiatic Cultures. New York, Alfred A. Knopf. SCHERER, JAMES A.B. 1928 The Romance of Japan Through the Ages. Garden City, New York, Doubleday, Doran and Co. STEIGER, G. NYE 1944 A History of the Far East. Boston, Ginn and Co. 1946 "The Historical Background of Present-day Japan," in Japan's Prospect, edited by Douglas G. Haring. Cambridge, Harvard University Press.

Page  35 ROBERT M. SPAULDING, JR. 35 SUPRE ME 1949 COMMANDER FOR THE ALLIED POWERS (SCAP), GOVERNMENT SECTION Political Reorientation of Japan, September 1945 to September 1948. Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office. TANAKA SOGORO tW ^t /2 1938 Okubo Toshimichi K'I. 41 Chikura Shob5. (Okubo Toshimichi). Tokyo, TEWKSBURY, 1949 DONALD G. Source Book on Far Eastern Political Ideologies: Modern Period: China, Japan. Privately printed. TIEDMANN, ARTHUR E. 1955 Modern Japan: A Brief History. Princeton, D. Van Nostrand Co. TOYAMA SHIGEKI 1 AI% 1951 Meiji Ishin Shoten. &%,A 'P it )^ at'at f (The Meiji Restoration). Tokyo, Iwanami TSUNODA RYUSAKU, WILLIAM THEODORE DE BARY, AND DONALD KEENE. 1958 Sources of Japanese Tradition. New York, Columbia University Press. TREAT, PAYSON J. 1921 Japan and the United States 1853-1921. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co. UKITA KAZUTAMI 1909 "The Historyof Political Parties in Japan," in Fifty Years of New Japan, compiled by Okuma Shigenobu. English version edited by Marcus B. Huish. London, Smith, Elder, and Co. UYEHARA (UEHARA), GEORGE ETSUJIRO 1910 The Political Development of Japan 1867-1909. New York, E. P. Dutton and Co. VINACKE, 1950 HAROLD M. A History of the Far East in Modern Times. Fifth edition. New York, Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc. WAKE FIELD, HAROLD 1948 New Paths for Japan. New York, Oxford University Press. WATANABE IKUJIRO /L4l. VV *P 1939 Nihon Kemp6 Seitei Shi K5o ] 4 6*.~*\J I ~ (A Study of the History of the Creation of the Japanese Constitution). Tokyo, Chikura Shobo. WEBB, HERSCHEL 1955 An Introduction to Japan. New York, Columbia University Press. (YAMAGUCHI KEN) 1873 Kinse Shiriaku: A History of Japan from the First Visit of Commodore Perry in 1853 to the Capture of Hakodate by the Mikado's Forces in 1869. Translated by E.M. Satow, Yokohama, Japan Mail.

Page  36 36 THE INTENT OF THE CHARTER OATH YANAGA CHITOSHI 1949 Japan Since Perry. New York, McGraw-Hill Book Co. ZUIZAN KAI 1912 1j ' i (ED.) Ishin Tosa Kinno Shi A ft I _- f- i tin the Restoration). Tokyo, Fuzambo. (History of Tosa Loyalists

Japanese Political Reaction to Constitutional Revision

Peter G. Cornwallpp. 37-70

Page  37 "AA \ JAPANESE POLITICAL REACTION TO CONSTITUTIONAL REVISION 1945- 1946 by Peter G. Cornwall University of Western Ontario An abridgement of a Master's thesis with the same title submitted to The University of Michigan 1963.

Page  38

Page  39 INTRODUCTION The present Constitution of Japan, enacted during the American Occupation, has from its inception been a source of political controversy. In 1945, when the Allied authorities made it clear that fulfillment of the terms of the Potsdam Declaration would involve changes in the fundamental law, contention centered about the extent to which the existing Meiji Constitution should be amended, and about the methods by which such changes should be brought about. To the present, the problem of constitutional revision has continued to be a political issue of some magnitude, with the debate concentrating on the need for revision, the position of the Emperor relative to the sovereign people, the problem of defence, and the possibility of conflict between constitutionally guaranteed human rights and the public welfare. Essentially the same points aroused the interest of the politically conscious sector of the population in 1945 and 1946, when the present Constitution was conceived and enacted, and may therefore be considered fundamental issues which were not resolved at that time. In an attempt to explain this as yet unresolved conflict in Japanese fundamental law, this paper examines both the response of organized political opinion about the need for constitutional revision in the immediate post-war years and the reaction of the Imperial Diet to the Government Bill on the Revision of the Japanese Constitution, introduced in June 1946. Emphasis has been given to those issues which were at that time, and indeed continue to be, considered of major importance. In addition, although it is difficult to analyze individual motivation, this paper compares the earlier views of political parties and individual Diet members with the provisions they endorsed by acceptance of the Government Draft, the comparison indicating to some degree the extent of political autonomy enjoyed by the 90th Session of the Imperial Diet in its deliberations on the Constitution. HISTORICAL OUTLINE The Allied Occupation of Japan, despite its title, was in effect administered and controlled almost entirely by the United States, and it was therefore only natural that American policies should greatly influence the course of Japanese constitutional reform. Neither the Potsdam Declaration of July 26, 1945, which formed the basis for Japan's surrender, nor the United States Initial PostSurrender Policy for Japan (SCAP 1949:11, 413, 423-26), issued on September 6, 1945 as a broad outline of Occupation policy, specifically stipulated that constitutional revision was to be a requirement of the victorious Allies. It soon became apparent, however, that the American Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, General Douglas MacArthur, considered that "...no political reform that did not encompass revision of the constitution would be worth serious consideration (SCAP 1949:190)1. Accordingly, on September 13, 1945, the Supreme Commander informed the Japanese Premier, Prince Higashi-Kuni, and Minister of State Prince Konoye Fumimaro that liberalization of the constitution was a matter of the greatest importance. At a second meeting, on October 4, at which George Atcheson Jr., Political Advisor to SCAP and the State Department's representative in Japan, was present, MacArthur virtually urged Konoye to take the lead in constitutional reform (Takagi 1954:114). With the resignation of the Higashi-Kuni Cabinet and its replacement by that of Baron Shidehara on October 9, Konoye no longer held a cabinet portfolio. However, on October 11, he was appointed by the Emperor to study the problems of constitutional revisional revision, under the offieer of the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, and thus continued to meet with Atcheson and other State Department personnel. Konoye was increasingly becoming, however, the target for attacks from political enemies at home and from critics abroad; and on November 1, SCAP Headquarters specifically announced that the Prince had not been chosen to undertake constitutional revision, thus repudiating his efforts in that direction. This announcement notwithstanding, Konoye continued his investigation. On November 22 he presented to the Emperor an outline of his plans for amendments to the existing Constitution. 39

Page  40 40 REACTION TO CONSTITUTIONAL REVISION, 1945-46 Meanwhile, on October 11, the Supreme Commander had met the new Premier, Shidehara, and again had stressed the need for constitutional revision, stating that political reform would?~... unquestionably involve a liberalization of the Constitution" (SCAP n. d.: III, B, 41). As a result of SCAP pressure, the Cabinet appointed a Constitutional Problem Investigation Committee, under the chairmanship of Dr. Matsumoto Joji, which between October 1945 and February 1946 held some twenty meetings. Naturally, this emphasis on constitutional reform aroused considerable public interest; and political parties, unofficial study groups, and private individuals vied with each other in producing draft constitutions. For the most part, these documents represented a considerable liberalizing of the Constitution of 1889, and thus, when the Mainichi Shimbun on February 1 published a conservative draft which it claimed was the work of the Matsumoto Committee, criticism was widespread. Hastened by this premature disclosure, the Matsumoto Committee submitted, early in February, its "Gist of the Revision of the Constitution" and its "General Explanation of the Constitution Revision drafted by the Government" to SCAP General Headquarters. The official Occupation account claims that these documents were presented "informally" on February 1 (SCAP 1949:1, 101) while Japanese sources indicate they were not submitted until several days later (McNelly 1959:185). This discrepancy assumes considerable importance of the timing of subsequent events. Until February, 1946, SCAP had contented itself with occasional reminders to the Japanese Government on the need for progress in constitutional reform. However, the impending meeting of the eleven-nation Far Eastern Commission, with specific terms of reference on fundamental changes in the Japanese Constitutional structure, led MacArthur to believe that if he wished to retain control of constitutional revision he must act with more haste. A memorandum to the Supreme Commander dated February 1, 1946, from Brigadier General Courtney Whitney, Chief of SCAP's Government Section, indicated that, in his opinion, in the absence of any FEC directive MacArthur had full power to act in the matter of constitutional reform. General Whitney further suggested that if the issue of revision were to originate with the Japanese Government, the Supreme Commander would not be obliged to consult with the Allied Council for Japan (SCAP 1949:11, 622-23). Thus reinforced, MacArthur, who on February 1 had ordered Whitney to prepare a rejection of the Matsumoto proposals, further directed on February 3 that the Government Section prepare a draft constitution embodying those principles which he, MacArthur, considered basic. This document would then provide a guide for the Japanese Government. Working in strict secrecy, and by means of a prodigious effort, the Government Section prepared the so-called "MacArthur Draft" by February 10 and, after approval by the Supreme Commander, presented it to the astonished Japanese on February 13. It is apparent that the Japanese delegates had intended the Matsumoto proposals to be a basis for negotiation, and the presentation of a completely revised and, to their minds, distinctly radical draft came as a shock. SCAP, however, was determined that a constitution based on its proposals should be produced without delay, and brought considerable pressure to bear on the Japanese Government representatives. Tactics used involved the possible publication by SCAP of the proposed draft, and what the Japanese understood to be a threat to the person of the Emperor. When further negotiations revealed that SCAP was adamant in its stand, the Japanese Cabinet, on February 22, reluctantly accepted the Government Section Draft in basic principle. Between February 26 and March 2, 1946, the First Japanese Government Draft of the Constitution was completed, and was submitted to SCAP Government Section on March 4. Then occurred one of the most amazing incidents in a most remarkable sequence of events. From 10:00 A. M. on March 4 to 4:00 P.M. on March 5, at the insistence of senior Government Section officers, the Japanese draft was translated into English, discussed article by article, and re-written as the "Second Japanese Government Draft," or "Cabinet Draft." Submitted as it emerged for the approval of first the Supreme Commander and then the Cabinet, this draft was finally presented to the Emperor at 5:00 P. M. on March 5. On March 6 it was published, with an Imperial rescript, and with the full approval of General MacArthur (SCAP 1949:11, 631-36).

Page  41 PETER G. CORNWALL 41 Paragraph 12 of the Potsdam Declaration had stated that a peacefully inclined and responsible government should be established in Japan "... in accordance with the freely expressed will of the Japanese people," and SCAP evidently hoped that the publication of the draft before the forthcoming general election would make the Government Draft an issue in the election, which would thus constitute a form of referendum. This was not to be the case. Not only was the Cabinet Draft of March 6 published in bungotai, a literary form of the Japanese language used for official documents and unintelligible to the great mass of the electorate; but the political parties, with the exception of the Communists, accepted the draft without question as part of their platforms. The April 10 election centered around the more mundane issues of party and personality, yet both SCAP and the Japanese Government continued to maintain that the election result constituted a vote of confidence in the proposed draft. Following the election, on April 15, a Third Japanese Government Draft, with slight changes and written in colloquial Japanese, was submitted to SCAP. This was approved and was published on April 17. To ensure that the revised constitution could not be criticized at some future date on the grounds of illegal procedure, SCAP insisted that the amendment process authorized by Article 73 of the Meiji Constitution be followed and, in keeping with this provision, the draft was submitted to the Privy Council on the same day, April 17. A special committee of thirteen Councillors examined the draft from April 22 until June 8, with the exception of the period May 24-25, when the draft was withdrawn to enable the new Yoshida Cabinet to make some slight changes. On June 8, 1946, the Privy Council passed the draft without amendment, and on June 20 a slightly altered "Fourth Japanese Government Draft" was introduced in the House of Representatives, meeting in the 90th Session of the Imperial Diet, as a formal Bill for Revision of the Imperial Constitution. From June 25 to June 28 the Bill was debated in plenary session in the House, and on July 1 it was referred to a seventy-two member Special Committee, on which the various parties were represented in proportion to the number of seats they held in the House. A fourteen member Sub-Committee, also representative of party standing, drafted a series of amendments, which were accepted in turn by the Special Committee and, on August 24, by the entire House, where the vote was 421 to 8. On August 26 the amended Bill was forwarded to the House of Peers, where a similar procedure was followed. After an initial debate, which included some penetrating interpellations, the Bill was referred to a Special Committee and then to a Sub-Committee, where the only amendments accepted by the Peers were drafted. These amendments were approved in plenary session on October 6 by a vote of 298 to 2. On the following day the House of Representatives accepted the Bill as amended in the Peers by a vote of 342 to 5, and on October 29, the Privy Council gave its final approval. On November 3, 1946, the Emperor formally promulgated the new Constitution of Japan, to take effect six months later, on May 3, 1947. VIEWS HELD BY POLITICAL GROUPS BEFORE THE RELEASE OF THE "CABINET DRAFT" Official Studies The Konoye Proposals: Prince Konoye undertook the task of constitutional revision with commendable enthusiasm, gathering about him a group of scholars headed by Dr. Sasaki Soichi, a member of the House of Peers and a former professor of Kyoto Imperial University. Working directly under the Office of the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, which was a part of the Imperial Household Ministry, this group, the Constitutional Problem Investigation Committee (Kempo Mondai Chosa linkai) was

Page  42 42 REACTION TO CONSTITUTIONAL REVISION, 1945-46 answerable to the Emperor, rather than to the Diet, and consequently was widely assailed as undemocratic. 3 It was popularly believed that reforms issuing from such a source would be conservative in nature. Konoye's own views, as expressed in interviews with representatives of both the Japanese and American press, indicate that he believed the Emperor's wish to be that the Constitution be considerably revised. Specifically, while wishing to maintain the Emperor's position as the locus of sovereignty, Konoye envisioned an increase in the powers of the elected House of Representatives, with the Cabinet responsible to both the Emperor and to the Diet, and with the House of Peers as a secondary body. Under such a system, the Diet, and in particular the lower house, would plan and implement national policies (McNelly 1952:32-6). Throughout the early stages of the Konoye Committee's deliberations, close liaison was maintained with Ambassador George Atcheson and his staff. At this time, the United States State Department was very active in encouraging constitutional revision in Japan. On October 17, 1945, Ambassador Atcheson received the following instructions from Secretary of States Byrnes: There should be assurance that the Japanese Constitution is amended to provide for Government responsible to an electorate based upon wide representative suffrage. Provision should be made that executive branch of Government derive its authority from and be responsible to the electorate or to a fully representative legislative body. If Emperor institution is not retained constitutional safeguards against that institution will obviously not be required but provision should be made for (1) complete control by an elected congress of financial and budgetary matters, (2) guarantee of fundamental civil rights to all persons within Japanese jurisdiction, not repeat not to Japanese only, and (3) action by head of state only pursuant to authority expressly delegated to him. If Emperor is retained following safeguards in addition to those enumerated above would be necessary: (1) a cabinet to advise and assist the Emperor should be chosen with advice and consent of and responsible to representative legislative body, (2) no repeat no vote [veto?] over legislative measures should be exercised by other bodies such as House of Peers or Privy Council, (3) Emperor should be required to initiate amendments to constitution recommended by cabinet and approved by legislative body, (4) legislative body should be permitted to meet at will, and, (5) any ministers for armed forces should be civilians and all special privileges of direct access to throne by military should be eliminated (McNelly 1959:179-80). 4 Acting on the assumption that the Emperor system was to be retained, Atcheson conveyed essentially the same points to the Konoye Committee, as an indication of American requirements and as a guide to action. How effective this suggestion was may be seen in a comparison between the State Department requirements and the final Konoye proposals. The State Department provision that the executive branch be responsible to the electorate or to a representative legislative body was partly met by Konoye' s Article 15, which stipulated that both the Imperial Diet and the Emperor could hold Ministers of State responsible. Financial and budgetary control by the elected body found expression in a rather vaguely worded article which stated that the practice of continuing the previous year's budget in the event of the proposed budget not being voted into existence was to be changed. Fundamental human rights were in the future to take precedence over law, the emergency prerogative used to suspend the rights of the people was to be abolished, and, as stipulated in the Byrnes instructions, foreigners were to receive the same treatment as Japanese.

Page  43 PETER G. CORNWALL 43 While maintaining that the Emperor was to be the superintendent of sovereignty, Konoye stressed that the exercise of this sovereignty should depend on the support of the people, and that the declaration of war, the making of peace, the conclusion of treaties and "other matters pertaining to the prerogative" should be carried out with the approval of the Diet, thus limiting, to some degree, the action of the head of state. Secretary Byrnes' "additional safeguards" were likewise reflected in the Konoye proposals. Although a cabinet chosen with the advice and consent of the representative legislative body did not appear, it was provided that cabinet organization should be explicitly provided for in the Constitution, and that the choice of the Prime Minister should follow a definite procedure, such as selection by a committee representative of the Diet. Again, the veto power of the House of Peers and the Privy Council was not specifically mentioned; but the Peers' right of budget deliberation was to be limited, and Article 18 made it possible to abolish the Privy Council. The State Department provision that the Emperor be required to initiate amendments recommended and approved by the legislative body was fully met, and Konoye went even further by stating that a form of popular referendum was being considered. Dissolution of the House of Representatives and the opening of the Imperial Diet were to remain an Imperial prerogative; but the Diet was to be enabled to dissolve itself, and to petition the Emperor at any time to open the Diet. Finally, in connection with the Secretary of State's proposals to curtail the power of the military, Prince Konoye suggested that the command and organization of the armed forces be an affair of State and consequently the responsibility of the Ministers of State. Although Prince Konoye's proposals have been criticized as conservative, particularly in reference to the position of the Emperor, (SCAP n.d.: 32-3) they did reflect to a remarkable degree the requirements of the United States State Department, and would have made a sound basis for further negotiation. SCAP's order to Atcheson to cease all activity on constitutional reform and the direct repudiation of Konoye negated the Prince's work, however. Thus these proposals together with their author fell victim to politically inspired attack and to rivalry between General MacArthur and the Department of State. The Matsumoto Draft:. The second official investigating body, the Constitutional Problem Investigation Committee (more generally known as the Matsumoto Committee), pursued its studies simultaneously with those of Prince Konoye, but without consulting the Occupation authorities. Its chairman, Dr. Matsumoto Joji, was known for his conservative outlook and although the Committee worked without explicit direction from the Government, its findings quite accurately reflect the views of the conservative Shidehara Cabinet. In a speech in the House of Representatives on December 8, 1945, Dr. Matsumoto outlined his "four basic principles of constitutional revision," which were to guide the work of his Committee. These have been summarized by Sato Tatsuo, as follows: (1) The fundamental principle that the Emperor combining in himself the rights of sovereignty remains unchanged. (2) A limitation is placed upon the Emperor' s prerogatives; whereas the Diet is made responsible for making decisions for a wider scope of affairs of State. (3) In assisting the Emperor, the Cabinet Ministers assume responsibility for all affairs of State, and are held responsible to the Diet.. (4) The guarantee of the rights and freedom of the people shall be strengthened; and in the case of violation thereof, proper redress shall be granted under whatsoever circumstances (Sato 1956:180). 6

Page  44 44 REACTION TO CONSTITUTIONAL REVISION, 1945-46 At the time of this statement, the constitutional revision issue had not yet attained the level of priority it was to reach later with SCAP General Headquarters, and it appears that this announcement of relatively modest aims aroused no official comment from the American authorities. The Matsumoto Committee was composed of leading law professors and of representatives of Government boards and bureaus. From the first, its deliberations did not progress smoothly. In December, 1945, it was decided that each member would submit his own draft revision to the Committee, and by January 1946 there were two drafts under consideration, one submitted by Dr. Matsumoto himself, and the other, a more liberal document, representing the combined views of the other members. The Mainichi disclosure of February 1 hastened the work of the Committee, and Dr. Matsumoto was able to gain the support of his colleagues and the Cabinet for his plan, which formed the basis for the "Gist of the Revision of the Constitution" submitted early in February to SCAP Headquarters, together with a General Explanation. 7 Many of the revisions contemplated in the Matsumoto proposal involved were changes in terminology, such as the substitution of "armed forces" for "Army and Navy," or reflected changes in emphasis which left the basic meaning of the existing Constitution unchanged. Generally speaking, the submission followed closely Matsumoto's "four basic principles" of December, 1945. The Emperor was to remain the locus of authority, "supreme and inviolable" rather than "sacred and inviolable", with his executive powers reduced but little. The Imperial prerogative of making war and peace and of concluding treaties was to be subj ect to the consent of the Diet, and should the Diet not be in session, such matters were to be referred to a Standing Committee of the Diet. In a similar manner, urgent Imperial Ordinances were to be referred to the Standing Committee. Also, while the Emperor retained the power to dissolve the House of Representatives, this power was not to be used repeatedly for the same cause. The Emperor was still empowered, however, to determine the organization of all branches of the administration, to issue "Ordinances necessary for the attainment of the objects of administration", and to act without the advice of the Cabinet. 8 Dr. Matsumoto's fourth principle, the strengthening of the rights and freedoms of the people, found its expression in a somewhat peculiar manner. While the General Explanation recognized that in the past "evil laws and the abuse of laws" had infringed upon the rights of the people, the Gist of the Revision contained the provision that "....no restrictions of whatever nature may be imposed upon the freedom and rights of Japanese subjects except by law (my italics) (SCAP) 1949:11, 617). Also, freedom of religious belief was to be enjoyed "within limits not prejudicial to peace and order," provisions which neither strengthened the rights of the people, nor prevented the abrogation of these rights by a non-democratic government. A Cabinet responsible to the Diet was proposed in which individual Ministers could be removed from office by a vote of non-confidence in the House of Representatives. The organization of the Cabinet was to be determined by law, but no mention was made of its duties or responsibilities, nor of the method of selecting the Prime Minister. The Privy Council was to be retained, while the House of Peers was to become a House of Senators with little other change. The veto power of the upper house could be overcome only if a draft bill were to pass the House of Representatives three times in succession by at least a two-thirds majority. The principle of budgetary control by the lower house was partly recognized in the provision that the House of Senators could not increase a budget already passed by the House of Representatives. However, the Government was to be allowed to operate on a tentative budget if the regular budget had not been passed, and the expenditures of the Imperial Court, if not increased, were to be defrayed without the consent of the Diet. Finally, any member of either House, with the concurrence of at least one half of the members of the House to which he belonged, was to be able to introduce a motion for revision of the Constitution which, if passed by the Diet, would be sanctioned and promulgated by the Emperor.

Page  45 PETER G. CORNWALL 45 The Mainichi Shimbun report of February 1, while not a verbatim reproduction of either of the plans before the Committee, differed little from them in substance. Public reaction was immediate and widespread, and the tentative draft was sharply criticized as superficial and too conservative (Sato 1956:182). The most serious criticism, however, was that the revision would leave the Constitution flexible and open to repressive interpretation and that it was, in effect, no revision at all (Whitney 1956:248). THE VIEWS OF POLITICAL PARTIES The Liberal Party Outline: The Liberal Party draft, which was published on January 21, 1946, approached the problem of location of sovereignty in a rather ambiguous manner, stating that "The possessor of sovereignty shall be the Japanese State," and that "The Emperor shall be the superintendent of sovereignty" (text in McNelly 1952:387-91). The Emperor was to have no responsibility in either the legal or political sense. Such prerogative matters as the sanction and promulgation of laws, the opening and closing of the Diet and the dissolution of the House of Representatives, the appointment and dismissal of officials, and the conduct of foreign relations were to be performed in the name of the Emperor on the advice of the Ministers of State. The prerogative of issuing urgent, executive and independent orders, the emergency prerogative, and the prerogative of military command were to be abolished. The rights of the people were still to be subject to the provisions of law, although Article 1 of Chapter III did stipulate that "...freedom of thought, speech, religion, scholarship, and art cannot be unreasonably limited by law." A bicameral legislature was proposed, in which the House of Councillors, a stabilizing body to be composed of men of learning and experience, would replace the House of Peers. The organization of both Houses was to be established by law. The superior position of the lower house was to be assured by its prior right of deliberation on the budget, and by a provision whereby a bill, passed by the House of Representatives and amended or rejected in the House of Councillors could, on subsequent passage by a two-thirds majority in the lower house, become law. When the Diet was not in session, a Standing Committee from each House was to legislate informally. The Cabinet organization was to be expressly provided for in the Constitution, and the Ministers of State, of whom the Prime Minister was to be the head, were to be responsible to the Diet. The Privy Council was to be abolished. The independence of the judiciary was to be strengthened, with supervision of the courts under the direct control of the Emperor. Finally, the Diet was to be permitted to propose Constitutional amendments. No mention was made of the Government's right to operate on the preceding year's budget should its own budget bill be defeated. As its outline suggests, the Liberal Party was essentially conservative in outlook. Its proposals take on some importance, however, when we consider that it was a Government headed by Yoshida Shigeru, a Liberal, which sponsored the SCAP-inspired Constitution, and that the principal drafter of the January outline, Dr. Kanamori Tokujiro, was chosen as the Government spokesman to steer the Government draft through the Diet. The Progressive Party Outline: The Progressive Party, the most conservative of the major parties, released its outline for constitutional revision on February 13, 1946 (text in McNelly 1952:

Page  46 46 REACTION TO CONSTITUTIONAL REVISION, 1945-46 392-98). In a policy statement which appeared as Chapter 1 of the outline, the Party reaffirmed its dedication to the preservation of the Emperor system, the "product of long history and of the people' s beliefs." The organ theory of government, by which the Emperor is regarded as an organ of State was rejected, as was the concept of sovereignty shared with the people. The idea of an Emperor existing merely as a ceremonial symbol was unacceptable and, naturally, republican government was emphatically denounced. Blaming the misfortunes of the past on the errors of those responsible for advising the Emperor, the Party, by strengthening the powers of the Diet and by respecting the basic human rights, proposed to prevent future abuses of the prerogative. Specifically, the outline stipulated that the Emperor, "with the assistance of his subjects," should exercise sovereignty in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution. The prerogative of military command and organization, the emergency prerogative, and delegated legislation and independent orders were to be abolished, while the declaration of war, the making of peace and other important matters would be referred to the deliberations of the Diet. A Diet Standing Committee was proposed to cover the period when the Diet was not in session. Individual rights were still to be subject to the requirements of law, but such laws were only to be enacted in cases where this would be necessary to preserve public peace and order. Legal rights were to be extended, and a Japanese subject could not be forced to confess himself a criminal. A House of Councillors, similar to that proposed by the Liberal Party, was to replace the House of Peers, and was to be subordinate to the House of Representatives in debate affecting the budget. Consultation with the Speakers of both Houses would be necessary for Imperial appointment of a Prime Minister, and the Cabinet was to be responsible to the Diet. Again in this outline, the Privy Council was to be abolished. Proposed reform of the Judiciary involved the principle of judicial review, with the Supreme Court to have the power to declare laws and orders unconstitutional or illegal. Interestingly, the Progressive Party was the only political group to introduce this concept, which appeared in the SCAP Government Section Draft submitted to the Japanese Government on the day the Progressive Party Outline was published. Finally, should a new budget not be brought into existence, the outline provided for a temporary budget limited to three months duration and limited in amount. Again, as would be expected from its origin, this proposal was somewhat conservative. Nevertheless, as with the Liberal Party draft, liberalizing features were apparent. The Social Democratic Party Outline: In the immediate post-surrender months, the Social Democratic Party was split over the retention of the Emperor system, with the left wing of the party advocating abolition. However, by early 1946 accord had been reached, and on January 16 the AllJapan Central Committee of the party announced that party policy favored retention, and consequently, when the party outline was released on February 23 (text in McNelly 1952:399-403), such a stipulation was specifically included. For the Socialists, sovereignty was to reside in the State, a corporation which included the Emperor, and governing power was to be divided between the Emperor and the Diet, with the Diet receiving the more important part. The powers of the Emperor were specifically enumerated and were purely ceremonial. As was perhaps to be expected, considerable emphasis was placed on the economic rights of the people, and the State was specifically charged with "the promotion of the security of the people's livelihood. " The people were to have the duty to work. The peerage was to be abolished, property rights were to be limited in the public welfare, and the equality of the people was stressed. Family life was to be protected and women were to have equal rights in marriage. All citizens were to have equal rights of entry to government service, dependent only on their abilities.

Page  47 PETER G. CORNWALL 47 A considerably strengthened Diet was to consist of two Houses, of which the House of Representatives would take precedence. The House of Councillors, a technical advisory body, was to be made up of representatives of the various vocational groups. The Privy Council was to be abolished and the Cabinet made responsible to the Diet. An interesting innovation was the proposed use of the plebiscite to express non-confidence in the Cabinet, and to dissolve the Diet. Judicial power was to reside in an independent system of courts, with justices appointed by the Cabinet. This Socialist Party outline, with its restriction on the power of the Emperor and its emphasis on the rights of the individual, more closely approximated the spirit of the Government Section Draft than did those of the other major parties. The Communist Party and Constitutional Reform: Alone of the political parties, the Communists officially proposed the abolition of the Emperor system, and in late 1945 were advocating the trial of the Emperor as a war criminal. The party stand on a post-war constitution was first made public in the party organ Akahata (Red Flag), on December 30, 1945, as a list of general principles rather than a draft outline (text in McNelly 1952:120-21). No mention was then made of the Emperor. Sovereignty was to reside in the people; and a Democratic Diet, elected on the basis of universal adult suffrage, was to administer sovereignty. The Government was to be responsible to the Democratic Diet, and Diet members in turn responsible to the people. Political, economic, and social freedoms were assured to the people, and concrete facilities were to be created to promote the people's welfare. Class and family distinctions were to be abolished. Early in 1946, as part of an attempt to make their program as attractive as possible, the party moderated its stand on the position of the existing Imperial family. However, the "supreme platform" of the party, adopted at the Fifth National Congress held in Tokyo between February 24 and 26, called for the abolition of the Tenno (Emperor) system and the establishment of a people's republic with a unicameral legislature (SCAP 1946:No. 5, Feb, 34). Thus, when the SCAP-inspired "Cabinet Draft" was published on March 6, the Communists opposed it as an attempt to perpetuate the Emperor system. The final party stand on constitutional revision appeared as a draft published on July 1, the day the Government Bill was referred to the Special Committee in the House of Representatives. This draft again called for a people's republic, and proposed a referendum on the position of the Imperial family (McNelly 1952:123-25). The party made it clear, however, that in their view constitutional revision should be postponed until the "democratization" of the country had been achieved, and that, in any event, constitutional reform was only one step on the road to their ultimate goal, the achievement of a Communist society. Private Group and Individual Studies The Constitution Investigation Society (Kempo Kenkyu Kai): This small, unofficial study group, headed by the noted sociologist Dr. Takano Iwasaburo, advisor to the Social Democratic Party, numbered among its members such prominent men as Socialist leader Morito Tatsuo, the constitutional expert Suzuki Yasuzo, and the publisher of the Yomiuri Shimbun, Baba Tsunego, Their outline, published on December 16, 1945, stipulated that sovereignty should proceed from the Japanese people, and that the Emperor should not personally administer affairs of State, but should rather direct State ceremonies "solely as an agent of the people." Equality of the people before the law was stressed; distinctions arising from birth and position were to be abolished; and the rights and duties of the people were to be specifically guaranteed by the Constitution. A Cabinet responsible to the Diet was to bear all responsibility for government, and was to be headed by a Prime Minister selected on the recommendation of the Speakers of the two Houses of the

Page  48 48 REACTION TO CONSTITUTIONAL REVISION, 1945-46 Diet. The President of the Supreme Court, the President of the Administrative Court, the Chief Public Prosecutor, and the Chairman of the Board of Audit were to be elected by popular vote. The entire Constitution was to be submitted to a plebiscite ten years from the date of promulgation. 9 In addition to publication, a copy of this draft was submitted to the Shidehara Cabinet for its consideration. Takano Iwasaburo's Personal Report: On January 28, 1946, in what resembled a dissenting opinion, Dr. Takano Iwasaburo of the Kemp5 Kenkytl Kai announced his personal recommendations for constitutional revision. He proposed a republican form of government with an elected president whose term in office would be constitutionally limited. Sovereignty would rest with the people. Dr. Takano's individual rights proposals closely resembled those published later in the Socialist Party outline which, incidentally, he helped to draft. This similarity may also be seen in his suggestions for a bicameral legislature with a second chamber representative of the various vocations (McNelly 1952:147). Ozaki Yukio and the Kempo Konwa Kai: Another small unofficial committee, the Kemp5 Konwa Kai or Constitution Discussion Society was formed under the leadership of Ozaki Yukio in January 1946. It issued its tentative proposals on March 5 of that year, the day before the SCAP-inspired "Cabinet Draft" was made public. Said to have been based on Ozaki's understanding of the British "King in Parliament" concept, the draft proposed that sovereignty proceed from the "whole body of the people, who have the Emperor as their head" (McNelly 1952:152). Legislative power was to be exercised jointly by the Emperor and an elected Diet, and administrative power would be exercised by the Emperor on the advice of his Ministers. Judicial power was to be a function of the courts. The rights of the people were recognized, although still restricted by the provisions of law as in the Meiji Constitution (SCAP n. d.:36). The Japan Bar Association: Issued on January 21, 1946, the report of the Japan Bar Association did not specifically mention the locus of sovereignty, but by the retention of the Tenno system it would appear that sovereign power was to remain with the Emperor (Takagi 1954:109). However, the Imperial prerogative was to be limited, while the powers of the Diet were to be extended. Among the report's other provisions, it called for the adoption of the referendum system and for the abolition of the peerage (McNelly 1952:151). The Iwata Proposals: On January 26, 1946, Iwata Chuzo, then Minister of Justice in the Shidehara Cabinet, recommended to the Government that the Emperor's powers be drastically reduced. Specifically, he proposed that the right of supreme power, control over diplomatic activities, and the right to declare martial law be denied (SCAP n. d.: 34). These suggestions were rejected in favor of those outlined in Dr. Matsumoto' s "Draft A." The Cabinet Draft of March 6 Based on the draft prepared by the Government Section of SCAP General Headquarters, the socalled "Cabinet Draft" was considerably more liberal than any of the earlier Japanese proposals. (text in SCAP 1949:II, 631-36). Beginning with a Preamble whose almost religious fervor set the tone for the entire document, the draft followed the general arrangement of the Constitution it was designed to replace. Sovereignty was specifically stated to reside in the will of the people, with the Emperor reduced to a "symbol of the state and of the unity of the people," performing only ceremonial functions

Page  49 PETER G. CORNWALL 49 "on behalf of the people. " Whereas those Japanese proposals which had mentioned the subject had assumed that Japan would be permitted to maintain armed forces in the future, the Cabinet Draft renounced war as a sovereign right of the nation, and stated that land, sea, and air forces would never be authorized. Chapter 3, "Rights and Duties of the People, " became in effect an extremely detailed Bill of Rights which attempted to provide for every contingency. The Diet, consisting of two elected Houses, was to be the highest organ of state power and the sole law-making authority of the State. In cases of dispute and in all budgetary matters, the House of Representatives was to take precedence over the House of Councillors. A Cabinet, headed by a Prime Minister designated by the Diet, was to exercise executive power, and was to be collectively responsible to the Diet. Independence of the Judiciary was established; the principle of judicial review was introduced; and the appointment of judges of the Supreme Court was to be subject to popular review every ten years. All properties of the Imperial Household other than the hereditary estates were to belong to the State, and the Imperial expenses were to be met out of the annual budget. The draft failed to mention, however, the procedure to be followed in the event of the defeat of the Government's proposed budget. Presumably this was to be taken as a vote of non-confidence, and the Cabinet would be obliged either to resign or to dissolve the House of Representatives and call a general election. Provisions for the establishment of local self-government were also incorporated in the draft; the Diet was to initiate constitutional amendments; and, finally, the Constitution was expressly stated to be the supreme law of the State. Although the Anglo-American origins of many of the provisions of this document are readily apparent, evidence of Japanese influence is not so easily seen. Of the Japanese proposals discussed in this chapter, that of Prince Konoye may be ruled out on grounds of its origin, and it appears that the State Department representatives who had co-operated with the Prince were not consulted by the Government Section personnel charged with preparing the so-called MacArthur Draft, 10 on which the Cabinet Draft was based. The Matsumoto suggestions may be dismissed on their content, and of the unofficial proposals, those of the Progressive Party, the Social Democratic Party, and of Ozaki Yukio were published after February 10, the date on which the MacArthur Draft was completed. Such Communist Party proposals as sovereignty residing in the people, and the abolition of class and family distinctions may be identified in the Government Section Draft, but it is probable that in this instance inspiration was drawn from Western liberalism, rather than from the Communist statement of principles. The fact that the Communist proposal of universal adult suffrage, so basic also to Western liberal thinking, was not incorporated in the Japanese Government Draft until introduced as an amendment in the House of Peers, would argue that the Communist proposals were not considered when the original draft was being prepared in General Headquarters. It is likely that the Liberal Party outline, coming as it did from a major party, was carefully studied within Government Section, but its somewhat conservative provisions are not reflected in the Government Section Draft. Of the private proposals, that of the Japan Bar Association would not appear to have exerted any influence. Some of the recommendations of the Kempo Kenkyu Kai, however, such as the sovereignty of the people, the limitation of the Emperor's functions to state ceremonies performed on behalf of the people, and the equality of the people before the law, may be found in the Government Section Draft.

Page  50 50 REACTION TO CONSTITUTIONAL REVISION, 1945-46 THE PROBLEM OF AMENDMENT WITHIN THE DIET Pressures Induced by SCAP From February 13, when the Government Section Draft was presented to Dr. Matsumoto and his colleagues, the Japanese Government came under heavy pressure from the Occupation authorities to accept the American draft as a basis for constitutional revision. This pressure was apparently applied in a particularly effective manner. For example, the import of General Whitney's statement to the effect that General MacArthur would publish the draft if no satisfactory proposal was received from the Cabinet before the general election, was not lost on the Japanese representatives. Such a move could only be taken as an indication of lack of confidence in the Cabinet' s ability to introduce acceptable revision measures, and would undoubtedly bring about the fall of the Government. Given the unsettled state of the country, a subsequent swing to the left in national politics was distinctly possible, and the danger of popular agitation and "rule from the marketplace" was very real to the conservative Cabinet members. The political desirability of retaining the goodwill of the Occupation must also have been a factor of considerable importance. In addition, since any draft submitted by the Cabinet would be subject to Government Section approval, it was reasonable to assume that proposals which deviated in any marked degree from those of the MacArthur model would not be accepted.11 Perhaps the most potent threat, however, was that involving the person of the Emperor. Japanese sources allege that General Whitney intimated at the February 13 meeting that if a draft similar to that drawn up by Government Section was not forthcoming, the security of the Emperor's person could not be guaranteed (Sato 1956:185). 12 While Dr. Matsumoto understood this to be a threat to indict the Emperor as a war criminal, his colleagues do not appear to have gained the same impression; and it is probable that the General was actually referring to the danger to the emperor system posed by the international situation (McNelly 1959:187). The Allied Powers were by no means in complete agreement with the course of American administration of the Occupation, and some among them, notably the United Kingdom and the USSR, were pressing for the trial of the Emperor and the abolition of the emperor system. These nations would occupy positions of importance on the Far Eastern Commission, and with the first meeting of that body only a matter of weeks away, haste was essential if their interference was to be avoided. Both SCAP and the Japanese Government were aware of the dangers of the situation, and SCAP is believed to have emphasized this point in its negotiations with the Cabinet representatives. The then Chief Cabinet Secretary, Narahashi Wataru, has described a meeting with Colonel C. L. Kades and Commander A. R. Hussey of Government Section, in which he was told in the strictest confidence that the Soviet Union and certain other Allied Powers were planning to direct MacArthur to issue a republican constitution for Japan, thereby eliminating the throne (McNelly 1959:188). Also, General MacArthur is said to have told Premier Shidehara on February 21 that the purpose of the American draft was to preserve the Emperor. When it is remembered that the preservation of the Emperor was the one condition made to the acceptance of the Potsdam terms, the telling nature of such arguments will be appreciated. Thus, although the terms of the SCAP draft were none too palatable, their acceptance became, in Japanese eyes, a means of averting an even less desirable alternative.

Page  51 PETER G. CORNWALL 51 The Influence of the Far Eastern Commission The prior publication of an ostensibly Japanese proposal for constitutional amendment, and its endorsement by General MacArthur, presented FEC with a fait accompli when it first met on February 26. This occasioned some dissatisfaction. Members of the Commission believed that SCAP was deliberately forcing the pace of constitutional revision in Japan, although there is no evidence that they were aware of General Whitney's memorandum of February 1 (Jones et al. 1955:349). Convinced that the draft had been prepared in SCAP Headquarters, and wishing to avoid its hasty acceptance by the Japanese Diet, the Commission on March 20 issued a policy decision stipulating that the final draft must be passed by FEC and that approval by the Supreme Commander should not preclude consideration of other drafts. A further policy decision of May 13 required that full discussion of the new Constitution be permitted, that legal continuity with the existing Constitution be assured, and that the method of adoption should express the free will of the Japanese people (texts in Activities of the FEC 1947:63-5). Thus, initially, FEC was concerned with ensuring that pressure was not brought to bear on the Japanese to accept a new Constitution against their wishes. General MacArthur, opposed to any action which would express to the Japanese an outside point of view on method and content of constitutional revision (Blakeslee 1953:53), was nevertheless bound to observe the FEC directives, and accordingly announced their provisions in Japan without, however, mentioning FEC. To the latter body he declared that their conditions had been fully met. The general tenor of his correspondence with FEC indicated that, in his opinion, the Commission should refrain from direct intervention and should limit itself to a review of the situation after all action had been completed. 13 Despite the Supreme Commander's objections, however, the Commission proceeded to review the draft Constitution article by article. It specifically directed SCAP to ensure incorporation into the final draft of provisions stating that a majority of the members of the Cabinet be members of the Diet, and that all Cabinet Ministers be civilians. These requirements were transmitted as FEC directives to the Japanese authorities and despite some resentment were incorporated as amendments while the Constitution Revision Bill was before the Diet. The Far Eastern Commission's stand on full discussion of the draft and on the "freely expressed will of the Japanese people" was thus unknown in Japan, whereas its insistance on specific revisions was a source of direct pressure on the Government. From the first, then, the Far Eastern Commission, as interpreted by SCAP, was seen by the Japanese Government as a body whose actions were to be circumvented if at all possible, and whose later views were accepted only with reluctance. Scope for Amendment Given the Japanese Government' s understanding of the international situation, the acceptance of the SCAP-inspired draft and its passage through the Diet assumed the status of a patriotic duty, an unpleasant but necessary action to defend the Emperor and the "national polity. " This task was made somewhat easier than would otherwise have been the case by the very real political advantages enjoyed by the Government, and by the pressures which SCAP could bring to bear. The major political parties were on record as having approved the Cabinet Draft, and public opinion was further influenced by SCAP s censorship of newspaper reports critical of the document (Kawai 1960:52). The SCAP Purge had removed many conservative political figures who conceivably would have opposed the Government Bill, and the threat of further purges was a sobering influence on both Houses. In addition, should opposition develop in the lower house, both SCAP and the Government held the power of dissolution. General MacArthur's wholehearted support of the proposed Constitution and the fact that all changes initiated within the Diet were to be approved by Government Section (SCAP 1949:1, 111) defin

Page  52 52 REACTION TO CONSTITUTIONAL REVISION, 1945-46 itely limited the Diet's powers of amendment. Finally, there arose the additional problem of the legal competence of the Diet to alter an Imperial proposal for constitutional amendment. The Legality of Amendment within the Diet To preserve legal continuity, SCAP insisted that the proposed new Constitution be viewed as an amendment to the Meiji Constitution of 1889 rather than as a completely new document, and that the correct process of amendment be followed. However, in its fifty-six years of existence, the Meiji Constitution had never once been amended; thus no precedent existed for such action. Under the provisions of Article 73, any project of constitutional revision was to be submitted to the Imperial Diet by Imperial Order, and the competence of the Diet to alter or add to any such proposal was a matter of legal controversy. In the majority view, any change would in effect constitute the introduction of a new proposal, and would therefore interfere with the prerogative of the Emperor. Thus, the Diet could only approve or reject a proposal of amendment. On the other hand, Dr. Minobe Tatsukichi, the veteran liberal and constitutional expert, maintained that the Diet might change articles submitted by the Emperor, but could not add new articles (SCAP n. d.:45-6). SCAP's view, which ultimately was to be controlling, was as follows: (1) Article 73 of the Meiji Constitution did not limit the Diet's scope of deliberating and voting. (2) Only the initiative belonged to the Emperor; as soon as a project was submitted to the Diet, it was as free to vote on the project as on any other bill. (3) The right to amend and supplement drafts was inherent in the legislative assembly. (4) Constitutional amendments were part of the legislative function. (5) Even if the Diet did not legally possess the right of modification and addition, any revisions enacted would be legalized when the Emperor sanctioned and promulgated the changes (SCAP n.d.: 46). More convincing, however, than SCAP's somewhat dubious legal arguments, were the Imperial Rescript of March 5, which gave the necessary formal permission to discuss and amend the Constitution (SCAP n. d.:42), and General MacArthur' s statement of June 21, urging the Diet to exercise the right of free discussion and debate (SCAP 1949:II, 660). Nevertheless, Japanese legal opinion was not satisfied, and this issue was to appear again and again while the draft was under debate in the Diet. MAJOR ISSUES IN THE DIET: THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Areas of Contention Certain major issues dominated the debate on the Constitution Revision Bill in both Houses of the Diet, and thus form convenient bases for an investigation of legislative reaction to the new Constitution. The debates are therefore considered under the following general headings:

Page  53 PETER G. CORNWALL 53 (a) The extent and method of constitutional revision. (b) The location of sovereignty and the problem of kokutai. (c) The position of the Emperor, and his powers. (d) The renunciation of war. (e) Social provisions. (f) The parliamentary system. (g) Financial provisions. Before proceeding to the debate in the House of Representatives, however, the attitude of the Privy Council should be considered briefly. The Revision Bill in the Privy Council As required by law, the Government Bill was submitted first to the Privy Council. Debate in this essentially conservative body centered about the problem of change in the "national polity" (kokutai), and the position of the Emperor under the proposed Constitution. It would appear that the Councillors were aware that, as an extra-Constitutional body slated for abolition, their chances of proposing acceptable amendments were slight, for only a few applied themselves diligently to their task (Sato 1963). After eleven meetings, the Privy Council Deliberation Committee submitted its recommendations to the Council with the following revealing statement: The extent of revision of the constitution is appropriate in view of Japan's acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration. There are portions in the minor regulations which cannot be called ideal, but because there is need, in view of the present situation at home and abroad, to speed the revision of the Constitution, this matter is being ignored. However, in relation to the administration of the revision, it is desired that the Government take all necessary measures in order that no mistakes be made (Quigley and Turner 1956:128). The Privy Council, then, by something less than a unanimous vote, accepted the Bill without amendment, and passed it to the House of Representatives. The Debate in the House Largely reconstituted as a result of the Purge, the House of Representatives devoted four days, June 25 to June 28, to the first reading of the Revision Bill. The Special Committee held twenty-two meetings and the Sub-Committee thirteen, after which the Bill, with the amendments recommended by the Sub-Committee, passed its second and third readings in the House and proceeded to the House of Peers. In general, interpellations in the House were expressive of party views. Liberal and Progressive members tended to criticize the liberal provisions of the Bill, whereas Socialist members were critical of those features they considered conservative. The Government spokesman charged with explaining the proposed Constitution, Dr. Kanamori Tokujiro, was in a most unenviable position. Not only was he required to answer questions on a wide range of subjects without opportunity for consultation or deliberation, but restrictions imposed by SCAP authorship of the draft prevented him from giving the definite answers demanded by his interpellators. When these factors, and Dr. Kanamori's personal views as expressed in the earlier Liberal Party Outline, are taken into consideration, there

Page  54 54 REACTION TO CONSTITUTIONAL REVISION, 1945-46 is little wonder that his answers were often confusing and sometimes contradictory. The Extent of Revision: Among the first questions the Government had to face were those concerning the extent of constitutional revision proposed, and the methods by which these reforms were to be brought about. Even before the Government Bill had been formally introduced into the House, a Socialist member, Katayama Tetsu, in an interpellation directed toward the Prime Minister, stated that in the interests of democracy it would be necessary to amend the Bill to a considerable extent, and asked if the Government would agree to such a procedure (Japan 1946a: No. 2, June 22, 5). In reply, Premier Yoshida affirmed that, in a theoretical sense, the Diet had extensive rights to amend the Bill, but that it was desired that "... all members of the Diet take into consideration the circumstances abroad and at home and decide on any amendment of the Bill" (Japan 1946a: No. 3, June 24, 2). Thus, early in the session, it was intimated that the Diet would not have an entirely free hand to alter the proposed new Constitution. When asked to define Japanese democracy, the Prime Minister stated that in his view it was not exactly true to say that democracy would be established for the first time by the new Constitution, or that it would be imported from abroad. Rather, he saw the Meiji Oath of Five Articles as an earlier expression of Japanese democracy, and further suggested that the Meiji Constitution itself was an admirable document which had, however, been distorted in interpretation (Japan 1946a: No.4, June 25, 15). Asked later why the Government desired to change a document which, if properly interpreted, was not undemocratic, Yoshida repeated that, while the Constitution was sound, misinterpretation had made change necessary. Minister of State Kanamori apparently did not wholly agree with this view, however, for in a subsequent statement he suggested that since the Meiji Constitution had been so often misunderstood it must be partly wrong itself (Japan 1946a: No. 7, June 28, 16). Pressed by Kita Reikichi, Liberal, to explain the effect of foreign relations on the course of constitutional revision, the Prime Minister replied that at the time of the publishing of the Matsumoto Draft the Government had one or two other drafts under consideration, when a sudden change in the international situation made still another draft necessary. Although he did not go into details, the Premier suggested that constitutional changes along lines of pacifism and democracy were necessary to demonstrate to the Allies that Japan would not again endanger the peace of the world (Japan 1946a: No. 5, June 26, 11). Taken to task by Socialist and Communist members for failure to consult freely with political organizations and academic societies, and for not providing opportunities for public discussion, Government spokesmen took refuge again and again in the pressures induced by the international situation without, however, providing a satisfactory explanation of the pressures involved. Nevertheless, from the generally delicate manner in which the majority of interpellators handled this matter, and their ready acceptance of non-specific answers, it would appear that the members of the House appreciated the position in which the Government found itself. The Location of Sovereignty: Government attempts to answer interpellations on the location of sovereignty and the nature of the national polity were not so readily accepted, however. In reply to Katayama Tetsu's direct question on the locus of sovereignty, Minister of State Kanamori stated that, while the term itself was ambiguous, its significance in the draft was clearly meant to be that sovereignty resided in the State, which could be defined as the whole of the people, including the Emperor (Japan 1946a: No. 3, June 24, 3). Tokuda Kyuichi of the Communist Party would have none of this, maintaining that since the Constitution afforded special privileges to the Emperor, it was sophistry to say that sovereignty resided in a people which included the Emperor (Japan 1946a: No. 4, June 25, 24). Nevertheless, Dr. Kanamori stood fast on his position, offering the somewhat weak argument that the spiritual nature of the tie binding the people to the Emperor was a fact that required no explanation.

Page  55 PETER G. CORNWALL 55 Asked by Suzuki Yoshio, Socialist, to clearly state that sovereignty lay with the people, Kanamori evaded the issue by declaring that the term "sovereignty" was not specifically used in the draft because of its multifarious meanings. Believing there was a certain amount of misgiving among the Japanese people, Kita Reikichi, Liberal, declared it to be the duty of the Government to see that everyone understood that the new Constitution did not revolutionize the national character of Japan. Premier Yoshida agreed that the national character would not be altered, stating that the new Constitution was simply the old spirit and thoughts of Japan expressed in different words (Japan 1946a: No. 5, June 26,12). However, while some conservative supporters of the draft were in agreement with this interpretation, other members were not; and once again the Government was forced to reiterate its position without being able to satisfy its questioners. The Position and Powers of the Emperor: Closely linked with the problem of sovereignty, the position of the Emperor was a matter of lively debate in the House. Conservative members called for a return of some of the Imperial prerogatives; the Socialists pressed for still further curtailment; and the Communist Party maintained its demand for the abolition of the entire Emperor system. Expressing the views of the Government, State Minister Kanamori explained that Imperial power was indeed curtailed, and that those matters necessary to the Emperor's prerogatives were clearly defined and were to be exercised with the assistance and approval of tthe Cabinet (Japan 1946a: No. 3, June 24,3). Kita Reikichi contended that, as stated in the Constitution, the Emperor's position was not even that of a symbol of state, for the power to appoint Ambassadors and Ministers was denied to the throne. To more accurately describe the Imperial position, Kita proposed the use of the term "head" of state rather than "symbol", and the restoration of the concept of Imperial inviolability (Japan 1946a: No. 5, June 26,5). In reply, Dr. Kanamori observed that in his opinion the term "head" had a medieval connotation, and that "symbol" was therefore refore preferable. Also, the fact that the Emperor had no political responsibility was obvious and needed no explanation. Then, in a very interesting remark, the Minister of State added, "We thought that to clothe the throne with indispensable but not excessive powers was the best way of preserving the Imperial institution" (Japan 1946a: No.5, June 26,13). Speaking on behalf of the Social Democratic Party, Suzuki Yoshio offered an extremely lucid explanation of the position of the Emperor when he said "The notion of the Japanese people towards the Imperial House transcends all laws and their respect has nothing to do with power, but is purely moralistic and emotional. Their respect and affection towards the Emperor is not affected in the least whether He has administrative power or not" (Japan 1946a: No. 6, June 27,13). Unfortunately, Government spokesmen lacked this clarity of expression. The harrassed Dr. Kanamori constantly accused of giving ambiguous answers, could only reply to specific questions with generalities. Thus, when Nozaka Sanzo, the very able Communist Party spokesman, offered the refreshing suggestion that if the Japanese people wanted the Emperor as sovereign of the country, they should elect him to the Diet, (Japan 1946a: No. 8, June 29, 12) the State Minister replied that it was a more perfect and reasonable procedure that the Emperor's position should derive from the general will of the people. He did not attempt to define this somewhat nebulous term. The Renunciation of War: In general, members of the House endorsed the provisions of Chapter II of the draft Constitution, renouncing war and the maintenance of armed forces, but expressed misgivings over the problems of self-defence and internal security. Directly questioned on the maintenance of peace within the country, State Minister Kanamori replied vaguely that some "other method" might be conceivable, (Japan 1946a: No.4, June 25,27) while Prime Minister Yoshida declared that

Page  56 56 REACTION TO CONSTITUTIONAL REVISION, 1945-46 the renunciation of war did not directly deny the right of self-defence. In the event of an attack, Japan would rely on the assistance of the peace-loving nations of the world (Japan 1946a: No. 6, June 27,4). More practically, and with considerable prophetic insight, Hara Fujiro of the Progressive Party asked if Japan had concluded a treaty for her defence when the renunciation of war clause was inserted in the draft Constitution. In a similar vein, Suzuki Yoshio, Socialist, asked if the Government proposed to take the precaution of entering into peace treaties if Japan were allowed to join the United Nations. The Government did have such an idea, replied Kanamori, but the time was not yet opportune for a clear statement on this point (Japan 1946a: No. 6, June 27, 18). Once again, the requirements of the international situation overshadowed the Diet deliberations. The strongest support for the right of self-defence came, interestingly enough, from the Communist Party. Nozaka SanzU, in a lengthy and penetrating interpellation, suggested that a distinction existed between a war of self-defence and a war of invasion, and declared that Japan should renounce only the latter (Japan 1946a: No. 8, June 29, 14). In refuting this position, Prime Minister Yoshida argued that the recognition of the right of self-defence gives cause for the provocation of war, pointing out that most modern wars were waged in the name of self-defence. The purpose of the renunciation of war provisions, he declared, was to prevent all wars aimed at aggression, through the establishment of an international peace organization. From this point of view, the recognition of the right of self-defence would in itself be harmful (Japan 1946a: No. 8, June 29,15). Social Provisions: Debate on Chapter III of the draft Constitution, the Rights and Duties of the People, developed more or less along party lines, with Socialist members criticizing the measures as incomplete and certain conservatives viewing them as a threat to the family system and to traditional Japanese values. The Socialist position was ably maintained by Morito Tatsuo, who described the Chapter as a mere superficial listing of many rights without solid substance. In particular, cultural, social, and economic rights were lacking (Japan 1946a: No. 7, June 28, 9). Among those provisions which the Socialists wished to see included were the right to rest, an eight-hour day, paid holidays, social insurance at public expense, and, interestingly, the obligation to work. The concept of duty as opposed to right was also approached by Yoshida Yasushi, a Progressive member, who felt that the people should be trained to act always within the limits of their rights. State Minister Kanamori, who earlier had declared that greater emphasis on rights was in keeping with the requirements of the Potsdam Declaration, felt obliged to say that provisions concerning duties had also received full attention in such matters as were necessary (Japan 1946a: No. 7, June 28, 5). Kita Reikichi, Liberal, suggested amid laughter that with the inviolable right to own property the omission of the duty to pay taxes might render the collection of the property tax unconstitutional. (Japan 1946a: No. 5, June 26, 8). Dr. Kanamori, however, maintained that the duty to pay taxes was obvious to common sense, and was, moreover, implied in later articles. A more fundamental issue was raised by Kitaura Keitaro, a Liberal, whopointed out the danger of laws enacted to maintain social order being applied in such a manner as to restrict personal liberty (Japan 1946a: No. 6, June 27,6). Unfortunately, although Justice Minister Kimura had earlier spoken in some detail on the adjustment in criminal and civil law made necessary by the human rights provisions, a specific answer to this interpellation was lost in the reaction to Mr. Kitaura's comments on the Japanese family system. The draft Bill, maintained Mr. Kitaura, was aimed at the wholesale destruction of the family system centered on the head of the house. Family headship would be replaced by individualism, with

Page  57 PETER G. CORNWALL 57 a corresponding weakening of filial piety, the "foundation of all morals" (Japan 1946a: No. 6, June 27, 8). A Progressive member, Hara Fujiro, also wished to know the views of the Government on the family system, inheritance, and property rights under Article 22 of the proposed Constitution, which stressed individual dignity and the equality of the sexes. Premier Yoshida and Dr. Kanamori both assured the House that Chapter III was not designed to lead to a loss of the rights of family heads or parents. Kanamori further stated that these points would be dealt with by legislative means at a later date, and that there seemed to be no necessity to worry about this matter just at the present time (Japan 1946a: No. 6., June 27,11). The Parliamentary System: The two major issues which dominated discussion on parliamentary organization were the composition of the House of Councillors and the position of the Diet as the highest organ of state power. During the discussions which followed the original presentation of the Government Section Draft in February, 1946, the retention of a bicameral legislature had been the major concession obtained by the Japanese representatives, although they had been unable to gain SCAP approval for a second chamber based on anything other than geographic and demographic factors (Ward 1956: 1007). Now, in the House of Representatives, the issue was raised again. The Socialist viewpoint was expressed by Suzuki Yoshio, who stated that, while in theory a single legislative house was quite sufficient, in practice the Socialists favored a bicameral system, with an upper house composed of men of knowledge and experience, representing the various occupations (Japan 1946a: No. 6, June 27,16). Members from the other major parties supported this view, arguing that the upper house should not be a duplicate of the House of Representatives. At first, State Minister Kanamori sought to avoid a direct answer by stating that up the formation in the near future of a Provisional Legislative Research Council, more mature plans would be worked out, with the assistance of experts "both within and outside the Government" (Japan 1946a: No. 3, June 24, 3). When this failed to satisfy his questioners, however, the Minister was forced to answer that even if the principle of vocational representation could be theoretically maintained, he very much doubted if it was practicable in the actual state of affairs then prevailing, (Japan 1946a: No. 6, June 27, 18) a revealing remark in view of SCAP's earlier stand. Article 37 of the proposed draft, which stipulated that the Diet was to be the highest organ of state power, was also the subject of some criticism. Kita Reikichi, Liberal, pointed out that since the Emperor on theh advice the hePrime Minister could dissolve the lower house, and the Supreme Court could declare any law unconstitutional, it was illogical to designate the Diet as the highest organ of the State (Japan 1946a: No. 5, June 26, 9). Dr. Kanamori replied that it had not been intended to call either the Emperor or the people an organ of state power, and the Diet had been called such to indicate, in a brief sentence, its outstanding position (Japan 1946a: No. 5, June 26, 14). Further questions on the respective powers of the two Houses were deferred by stating that these would be provided for in a later Parliamentary Law Bill. Financial Provisions: Article 84 of the proposed Constitution stated that all property of the Imperial Household, other than the hereditary estates, should belong to the State, and that the income therefrom should be paid into the national treasury. Of the entire Chapter this one provision aroused the greatest interest. Conservative members of the House feared it to be an attack upon the position of the Emperor, and wished to know why the Government proposed that property should belong to the Imperial Household in name only. Dr. Kanamori replied by restating his earlier concept of the essential unity of the Japanese nation. The Emperor and the people are one, he argued; therefore it would be inappropriate to think of the property of the State and of the Imperial Household as separate and independent. He reassured the members that the necessary expenses of the Imperial Household would be defrayed by the State Treasury through the budget, and concluded by remarking that he would like

Page  58 58 REACTION TO CONSTITUTIONAL REVISION, 1945-46 to reserve further details for a later occasion (Japan 1946a: No. 6, June 27,4). Additional Areas of Interest: As might be expected, interpellations in the House covered a wide range of topics reflecting the particular interests of the members. Thus, questions were asked on such matters as academic freedom, patent laws, and education, for example. Of the more major issues, the position and function of an independent judiciary aroused considerable comment. Several members pointed out the possibility of conflict between the Supreme Court and the Diet, in the event of the Court declaring any law to be unconstitutional. Government spokesmen agreed that this was indeed possible. However, in a thoughtful and cogent reply, Dr. Kanamori suggested that the role of the Supreme Court might be that of judging the limits to which the public welfare could impose upon constitutionally guaranteed individual rights, and, while he agreed that the decennial popular review of Supreme Court judges was a lukewarm measure, he nevertheless saw it as a positive step toward the adjustment of possible conflict (Japan 1946a: No. 7, June 28, 6). Many members drew attention to the terminology used in the proposed draft, commenting on its general lack of polish and hinting that it smacked of translation. The Government replied that the defects in style were due to the haste in which the document had been drafted, and emphatically denied that it was a translation from English. Acceptance by the House As indicated by the report of its chairman, Ashida Hitoshi, the deliberations in the Special Committee were on essentially the same lines as those in the plenary session of the House (Japan 1946a: No. 35, Aug. 26, 2-6). The report also contained an outline of the amendments to the proposed draft recommended by the Committee, the basic content of which may be briefly summarized as follows: (a) The Preamble and Article 1 were amended to explicitly state that sovereignty resided with the people. (b) To enhance the dignity of that body, the Emperor was to appoint the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, as designated by the Cabinet. (c) Article 9 on the renunciation of war was amended by the addition of two phrases: "aspiring to an international peace based on justice and order" at the beginning of the first paragraph, and "for the above purposes" at the head of the second. (d) The conditions necessary for being a Japanese national were to be defined by law. (e) The people were to be liable to taxation as required by law. (f) Provision was made for redress against unlawful acts of public officials. (g) All people were to have the right and obligation to work. (h) The Prime Minister and the majority of Cabinet members were to be members of the Diet. (i) All property of the Imperial Household was to belong to the State.

Page  59 PETER G. CORNWALL 59 (j) The Constitution was to be the supreme law of the land. (k) The peerage was to be abolished with the promulgation of the new Constitution (Japan 1946a: No. 35, Aug. 26, 6-8). There were, in addition, changes in terminology and style. Of these proposed changes, the first, clarifying the sovereignty of the people, was apparently made at SCAP insistence, although no mention of this was made in the Diet. Alarmed over the course of the debate on the locus of sovereignty, Government Section is reported to have requested an unofficial conference with Minister Kanamori, and it is likely that at this meeting a definition of the people's will more in keeping with the English original was suggested (Sato 1956:382). Similarly, the provision that the Prime Minister and a majority of the Cabinet be members of the Diet was inserted by the Government at the request of SCAP, in accordance with a requirement of the Far Eastern Commission. However, a further FEC directive, that all Cabinet members be civilians, was rejected by the Japanese Government. This objection was acknowledged by SCAP General Headquarters, and the provision was subsequently reintroduced while the Bill was under discussion in the House of Peers (Sato 1956:384). The amendment affecting the property of the Imperial Household also represented SCAP's point of view, for a Government proposal to allow the income from the hereditary estates to be retained by the Imperial Household had been rejected by General Headquarters. The amendment finally proposed was the result of a GHQ suggestion (Sato 1956:383). With this exception, the Committee' s recommendations were accepted without change by the Occupation authorities. The Bill with its proposed revisions was debated in plenary session in the House on August 24 and, with the exception of Nozaka Sanzi of the Communist Party, spokesmen for all major parties expressed their approval. However, even then reluctance was evident, as when Kita Reikichi spoke of the "international considerations and other factors" which had caused the acceptance of the amendment on Imperial Household properties, (Japan 1946a: No. 35, Aug. 26, 26) and when Oshima Tazo, Shinseikai, mentioned the haste with which the Draft had been drawn up and the lack of time for sufficient deliberation (Japan 1946a: No. 35, Aug. 26, 29). Nevertheless, following the defeat of further proposals for amendment introduced by the Social Democrats, the Bill, amended as recommended by the Special Committee, passed its second and third readings and was referred to the House of Peers. MAJOR ISSUES IN THE DIET: THE HOUSE OF PEERS Numbering among its members some of Japan's foremost scholars in the field of constitutional law, the House of Peers which met in the Ninetieth Session of the Imperial Diet was particularly competent to deliberate on the issue of revision of the Constitution. As would be expected, interpellations were generally more pointed than had been the case in the lower house, and members were less inclined to accept the Government's generalizations. Much of the time during the debate, however, was taken up with long, rambling speeches which showed the erudition of the speaker but contributed little to the matter at hand. In political complexion the upper house was essentially conservative, although the Purge had removed many of its more extreme members. In consequence, the debate tended to be influenced more by the interests or specialities of the interpellators than by party considerations, although the issues which had concerned the House of Representatives developed as general themes.

Page  60 60 REACTION TO CONSTITUTIONAL REVISION, 1945-46 The Debate in the House The Extent of Revision: Although the members of the upper house were generally in favor of revision of the existing Meiji Constitution, some apprehension was voiced on the method by which this amendment was to be brought about. Dr. Yamada Saburo, speaking during the interpellations on the speeches by the Ministers of State, was highly critical of the draft amendment, stating that it was foreign in mode and style, and that many provisions could hardly be understood by the Japanese people. He expressed regret that the Government had not drawn upon the services of constitutional scholars in preparing the draft and in particular criticized the Shidehara Cabinet for circulating reports that "... the draft would not admit of the amendment of a single word or line" (Japan 1946a: No. 2, June 24, 17). In his reply, Premier Yoshida stated that he did not recall such a remark from the Shidehara Cabinet, and declared that the present Cabinet hoped that members of the House would deliberate fully on the Bill. Then in a remarkable commentary on the origin of the Government draft, the Premier said: The Government has conducted deliberations on the draft adequately and carefully, taking into consideration various circumstances, internal and external, and the present situation, to draw up the draft bill. In this connection I would like to arrest your attention to the fact that the draft bill has not been drawn up merely from the constitutional or legal point of view. It has been drawn up by paying full consideration to the point of view as to how to save the country and how to keep the Imperial Family in safety (Japan 1946b: No. 2, June 24, 20-1). The Premier concluded by expressing his desire that members would keep these considerations in mind when deliberating on the Bill. Dr. Nambara Shigeru, President of Tokyo Imperial University, in a penetrating interpellation, took the Government to task for the impetuous manner in which the Bill was being passed. Noting that the former Prime Minister had announced that the draft had been drawn up in close touch with the General Headquarters of the Allied Powers, Dr. Nambara further remarked that the public was gaining the impression that the Constitution was given... not only from the high powers but from the outside." This, he shrewdly observed, would not only injure the stability of the new Constitution but would reflect on the honor of the Allied Powers (Japan 1946b: No. 24, Aug. 28, 2-3). An embarrassed Prime Minister Yoshida could only answer that the Government could not lose sight of the international situation for a moment, and that it could not afford to lose any chance to adjust Japan's international relations. This, he rather lamely concluded, was all he could say at the moment (Japan 1946b: No. 24, Aug. 28, 11-12). Dr. Nambara also had an interesting commentary on the attitude which the House of Peers should take toward amendment of the draft Bill. Agreeing that under Article 73 of the Meiji Constitution the upper house possessed the legal right to introduce amendments, he nevertheless expressed the opinion that the House of Peers, not being representative of the people at large, could not be said to express their will, and therefore should not attempt to change the basic political character of the Bill approved by the lower House (Japan 1946b: No. 24, Aug. 28,9). The extent to which revision of the draft would be allowed was also raised by Baron Sonoda Takehiko, who believed that, as the administrative power of Japan was partially restricted, important amendments to the Bill would not be permitted, although full discussions were authorized along

Page  61 PETER G. CORNWALL 61 democratic lines (Japan 1946b: No.39, Oct. 6,9). As will be apparent from the foregoing, the members of the upper house were less inhibited in their interpellations than were their colleagues in the House of Representatives, and Government spokesmen faced a much more formidable task. The Location of Sovereignty: As had been the case in the lower house, the problem of the location of sovereignty and the nature of the national polity were issues of major importance in the debate in the House of Peers. Members of the upper house were scathing in their attack on the Government stand that the national polity had not changed, describing the transfer of power from the Emperor to the people a revolution, Dr. Kanamori's opinion to the contrary notwithstanding. Despite the quibbling of Government authorities, Dr. Nambara said, national polity was related to national political character, and in the draft the national political character had manifestly changed. Referring to the concept of the people including the Emperor as an "extremely strange interpretation," Dr. Nambara called upon the Government to candidly admit that the sovereignty of the people represented a fundamental change:... if it is considered that no change has been made in the basic political character of our country or in the concept of national character, it it is simply a sort of selfconceit or self-consolation —we can go so far as to say it is a kind of self-deception (Japan 1946b: No. 24, Aug. 28,4-5). When Dr. Kanamori replied by repeating his argument that sovereignty resided in the whole people, including the Emperor,and by inferring that national character was a moral concept and hence unchanged, Dr. Nambara declared that it was no use making further interpellations on the problem (Japan 1946b: No. 24, Aug. 28, 17). Nevertheless, other Peers wished to press the matter. Professor Miyazawa Toshiyoshi declared that, as an individual, the Emperor was undoubtedly one of the people, but as a constitutional institution the Emperor owed his position to the sovereign will of the people. Quoting the Supreme Court definition of "national character" in the Public Peace Maintenance Law of 1925, s....the national character of this Empire [is ] that the Emperor of one family line unbroken for all ages rules over it and holds the reins of its government...," Miyazama forced State Minister Kanamori to admit that, as the Emperor under the proposed Constitution would not hold the reins of government, the national character would indeed be changed (Japan 1946b: No. 23, Aug. 27,20). Abe Yoshinari, Chairman of the Special Committee for the Constitution, summed up the argument when he stated that the problem lay in defining national character: whether it lay in a legal definition, as in the Peace Preservation Law, or whether it was, as the Government maintained, a matter of faith or morality. However, despite the lengthy and learned discussion, Professor Abe was of the opinion that the question remained to be settled later by co-operation on the part of the people themselves (Japan 1946b: No. 39, Oct. 6,3). The Position and Powers of the Emperor: Much of the discussion on the locus of sovereignty and the national polity naturally touched upon the position of the Emperor. Thus, in advancing his view of the change in the national political character, Dr. Nambara stated that under the proposed draft the Emperor had nothing whatever to do with the formation of the political will of the State, but was merely a ceremonial and ornamental figure (Japan 1946b: No. 24, Aug. 28, 4). Baron Shidehara, speaking on behalf of the Prime Minister, replied that the great attractive power of the Emperor could be attributed neither to his power nor to his political function and that therefore change in the political system would not alter the position of the Emperor in the minds of the people (Japan 1946b: No. 24, Aug. 28, 10).

Page  62 62 REACTION TO CONSTITUTIONAL REVISION, 1945-46 Dr. Yamada Saburo was more concerned with the use of the term "symbol" to describe the Emperor's status. Noting that at the election for the House of Representatives, all the parties except the Communist had insisted that the Emperor was the head of Japan, he expressed regret that an amendment to that effect had not been passed in the lower house. Under International Law, Dr. Yamada claimed, the power to conclude and ratify treaties and to issue credentials to Ambassadors must reside in the head of State. The Prime Minister, a Government official appointed by the Emperor on the advice of the Diet, was not qualified to perform this function and thus, to ensure international recognition, the Emperor should have the power of ratificaticon, rather than the mere duty of attestation called for in the proposed draft of the Constitution (Japan 1946b: No. 27, Aug. 31, 20-2). The Government position on this issue was that the term "head of state" was likely to be interpreted as "sovereign of the state" and that such an interpretation would destroy the principle of the revision which aimed at placing the Emperor beyond the sphere of government. On the other hand, the term "symbol" not only had a deep significance but its unfamiliarity to the public ears made it a most appropriate word to explain the position of the Emperor. To the question of diplomatic recognition, the Government replied that, while there was no precedent for such a system as attestation, no difficulties were expected to arise (Japan 1946b: No. 39, Oct. 6, 5-6). Further clarification of the Government's interpretation of the role of the Emperor resulted from the debates of the Special Committee. There, Government spokesmen explained that the Imperial Household Law was identical with ordinary laws, and that "... the Emperor, who succeeds to the Throne by heredity and occupies a position of non-responsibility, should not interfere in government" (Japan 1946b: No.39,Oct. 6,6). Despite "hot controversy in a tense atmosphere," these explanations were accepted by the Committee and by the majority of members of the House, although Dr. Sasaki Soichi, in opposing the Bill, declared that the emperor system in the exact sense of the term was going to be abolished (Japan 1946b: No. 39, Oct. 6,11). The Renunciation of War: As was the case in the House of Representatives, members of the House of Peers were concerned over the practical aspects of the Article renouncing war. Dr. Nambara warned his colleagues that high ideals must be examined in the light of reality. While it was a universal principle of political morals that there should be no war, he said, it was nevertheless a reality borne out by history that as long as mankind exists there will be war. Consequently, it was only natural that Japan should take into consideration the right of self-defence as a nation and the minimum war preparations necessary for this purpose. Further, the Charter of the United Nations recognized the right of self-defence of member states and, in the absence of a U.N. military force, each member nation had the responsibility to provide military power in case of need. This being the case, Dr. Nambara suggested that Japan's entry into the United Nations, if permitted at some future date, might be jeopardized by her inability to meet the necessary obligations. Finally, this extremely able interpellator raised the issue of the maintenance of internal peace and order, for which he believed some military power was necessary (Japan 1946b: No. 24, Aug. 28, 6-7). Another member, Dr. Sasaki S5ichi, questioned the wisdom of a unilateral renunciation of war. While such a provision might be appropriate for a treaty with a foreign power, or with an international league, he said, it was not necessary to make such a declaration by internal legislation (Japan 1946b: No. 26, Aug. 30, 10). Dr. Yamada Sabur5 agreed with this point of view, stating that while such terms might be unavoidable in the case of a nation deprived of its armaments, they should not be stipulated in the constitutional law of any country. With regard to the provisions of the draft Constitution, they "... looked as if the enactment of them was compelled by force or pressure from the outside." Then, anticipating later interpretations, Dr. Yamada declared that the amendments passed in the House of Representatives had improved the Article considerably, for the second paragraph now

Page  63 PETER G. CORNWALL 63 meant that as long as the purpose of the preceding paragraph could be achieved, armament was no longer necessary (Japan 1946b: No. 27, Aug. 31, 20Y. 14 Former Premier Shidehara introduced another prophetic note when he contended that Japan in her peaceful activities would have a great advantage over those nations who were consuming a major portion of their annual expenditures on unproductive armaments (Japan 1946b: No. 27, Aug. 31, 13). Yet the Baron was activated by more than a purely economic motive when he defended Article 9 in the House, and his speeches indicate that he firmly believed in the necessity of Japan taking the lead in renouncing war. In the light of General MacArthur's subsequent statement that the suggestion to insert an article outlawing war in the draft Constitution came from Prime Minister Shidehara, the following speech by the Baron assumes fresh significance: The provision of Article 9 of the draft Constitution is indeed our denunciation of war, which will earn us the foremost position as a champion of the world's peace. Any attempt under the present circumstances to rationalize or legalize some armed sanction as a principle determining the international relations is nothing other than a repetition of the numerous failures in the past, no longer worth while learning. Civilization and war are inconsistent after all. Unless civilization extirpate war quickly, war will extirpate mankind at first. Bearing such a belief in mind, I took part in the responsible task of drafting the new Constitution (Japan 1946b: No. 24, Aug. 28, 11). This was the Government's answer to its practical critics, summed up in the report of the chairman of the Special Committee as "... risking our national existence in the hope of saving ourselves" (Japan 1946b: No. 39, Oct. 6, 6). Social Provisions: In their deliberations on Chapter III of the proposed draft, members of the House of Peers continued their penetrating search for detailed answers to problems of practical application. In this respect Dr. Nambara, while conceding that the draft Constitution guaranteed fundamental human rights to individuals, believed that the problem of social economic life had been less adequately answered. The solution, he suggested, lay in a form of social justice. Specifically, the Government should encourage the right to work in a concrete manner, and provide opportunities for the maintenance of wholesome living, particularly for the masses (Japan 1946b: No. 24, Aug. 28, 7-8). Replying on behalf of the Government, State Minister Kawai Ryosei stated that although the Constitution guaranteed the right of the people to work and to enjoy the necessary facilities of life, the State was not obliged in a legal sense always to provide work or the fundamental necessities. However, from a political point of view the Government was fully responsible for the protection of the people. Accordingly, the Government had prepared legislation on labor problems, unemployment insurance, old age pensions, and health insurance. In an extremely lengthy interpellation devoted almost entirely to the problem of fundamental human rights, Dr. Makino Eiichi considered Chapter III in detail from the standpoint of the civil law and the criminal law. On the whole, he claimed, the Chapter smacked of the nineteenth rather than the twentieth century, was obsolete, and had only a negative significance for the development of fundamental human rights. In addition, its provisions lacked clarity (Japan 1946b: No. 24, Aug. 28, 18-29). Dr. Makino's arguments were taken up by Igawa Tadao, who asked if passage of the Bill would not make the Agricultural Land Adjustment Law and the Disposal Commission on Zaibatsu Holdings unconstitutional. Justice Minister Kimura answered that in his opinion the laws in question were covered by the stipulation that private property could be requisitioned for public use upon just compensation (Japan 1946b: No. 27, Aug. 31, 25). With reference to the same basic problem of common good and

Page  64 64 REACTION TO CONSTITUTIONAL REVISION, 1945-46 individual rights, Dr. Kanamori stated that in all articles of the Constitution the possibility of some restrictions for the sake of public welfare was presupposed, so that the freedom stipulated was not absolute (Japan 1946b: No. 26, Aug. 30, 15). Although the members of the upper house also expressed concern over such matters as the position of religion and the future of the family system under the new Constitution, their major contribution in the area of human rights was to impress upon the Government the need for specific plans to make the exercise of these rights possible and to warn of the dangers inherent in accepting provisions which could not be maintained. The Parliamentary System: The advisory capability of the upper chamber, and the professional knowledge of its members, were again apparent when the suggested changes in the parliamentary system were under discussion. As was to be expected, the composition of the proposed House of Councillors was a matter of immediate and considerable concern, and those members who touched on this point in their interpellations stressed the need for an upper house as a restraining body. Dr. Yamada Saburo saw the upper chamber as transcending political parties and groups, and moderating the excesses of the majority party in the House of Representatives. Thus, if the House of Councillors was to be elected by the same means as the lower house, it would be composed of persons of the same quality, and its essential function would be lost. Observing that the prefecture in Japan was a mere administrative unit, Dr. Yamada stated that the House of Councillors could not be elected on the same basis as was the Senate of the United States, and that other methods would have to be studied. Finally, he urged that the Government prepare a bill concerning the organization of the House of Councillors and submit it to the Diet as soon as possible, declaring that it was virtually impossible to deliberate on the draft amendment to the Constitution until the relations between the upper house and the other arms of government were known. "It is highly regrettable," he said, "that, while the amendment of the Constitution is being expedited, no bill has been proposed with regard to the House of Councillors (Japan 1946b: No. 2, June 24, 20). At a later sitting of the House, Dr. Sasaki S5ichi repeated essentially the same points, with the additional observation that if the upper house also represented the will of the people, it should not be immune from dissolution (Japan 1946b: No. 26, Aug. 30,4). In reply, Dr. Kanamori stated that the people were " multilateral, complicated," and that a system whereby the two Houses would represent the people from different angles should be worked out in the spirit of the Constitution The immunity from dissolution enjoyed by the upper house was, he claimed, appropriate in the light of the fact that the House of Councillors had no Constitutional authority to demand the withdrawal of the Government (Japan 1946b: No. 26, Aug. 30, 18). Several members would not accept this rather weak explanation, however, and continued to accuse the Government of deliberately withholding its draft House of Councillors Act until the Constitutional Revision Bill should pass the Diet. The position of the Diet as the highest organ of state power, and the special status of the Prime Minister as the leader of the most powerful political party were matters of some concern for Dr. Sasaki Soichi, who warned of the possibility of a new dictator emerging, with the backing of a political party similar to the Nazi party of post-World War I Germany (Japan 1946b: No. 26, Aug. 30, 9). A similar concept was expressed in more politically sophisticated terms by Akita Sanichi, who equated control of the Diet with control of state power. By stressing the corruption and illegal practices of the former faction-ridden parties, and by alluding to the emotional nature of the Japanese people, Akita sought to strengthen the case for a separately constituted second chamber (Japan 1946b: No. 27, Aug. 31, 2-3). Nevertheless, despite Mr. Akita's well-informed and well-reasoned argument, the Government response was a statement to the effect that the time was not yet ripe for a disclosure of its views to the "outside circle" (Japan 1946b: No. 27, Aug. 31, 6).

Page  65 PETER G. CORNWALL 65 Financial Provisions: Members of the House were no more successful in obtaining definite answers to their interpellations on the matter of finance than they had been on the parliamentary system. In the course of his first long address, Dr. Sasaki Soichi asked some interesting questions on the nature of the budget and on the provisions affecting the Imperial Household property, to little avail. First, he wished to know how a fiscal year would be defined under the proposed draft, mentioning that whereas the existing Constitution required a budget to be prepared annually, the use of the term "fiscal year" in the draft left this point somewhat obscure. Of considerably more importance, however, was the failure of the draft to provide for the case in which the Diet failed to approve a budget. Dr. Sasaki agreed that such a contingency could be provided for under separate legislation, as in a Finance Law, but expressed his belief that such a serious matter should be settled in the Constitution (Japan 1946b: No. 26, Aug. 30, 8). On these issues, Dr. Kanamori was unable to reply with any degree of assurance. A bill outlining the basic principles of the budget was before the Legislative Enquiry Commission, he stated, and although he did not quote the contents of this bill, he inferred that the term of a fiscal year need not coincide with a calendar year, therefore conceivably permitting it to be more or less than a twelve month period. Should a budget bill be shelved, the Minister agreed, "special hitches" were bound to arise regarding national expenditures. This situation could perhaps be met by the establishment of a reserve fund to meet needs on a temporary basis, or else a provisional budget might be created. However, although he stated that a number of methods were under consideration, Dr. Kanamori felt that the time was not yet ripe for explaining them in detail (Japan 1946b: No. 26, Aug. 30,19). With regard to the Imperial properties, Dr. Sasaki asked for a specific statement as to who would bear the necessary expense of their maintenance, and wished to know why the Emperor was denied the right, freely enjoyed by common citizens, to own property. Dr. Kanamori, in reply, stated that the provision that Imperial Household expenses should be met out of the budget made it clear that such expenses were to be borne by the State. The answer to the second part of Dr. Sasaki's question was not quite so clear, however, for, after noting that an ambiguity existed between official and private affairs of the Emperor, Dr. Kanamori stated that some Imperial assets might be of a public nature, and others private, with use for the sake of the State the governing factor (Japan 1946b: No. 26, Aug. 30,19). Unfortunately, while this was an interesting reply, it did not answer a question based on an Article which reads "all property of the Imperial Household shall belong to the State." Additional Areas of Interest: As had been the case in the House of Representatives, interpellations in the second chamber ranged over a wide area. However, the presence in the House of Peers of specialists in many fields of learning gave a depth to their discourse which had been lacking in the lower house. Thus, an interpellation on the phraseology of the draft might develop into a lecture on the structure of the Japanese language, while discussion on a point of law could become so enmeshed in technical legal terms as to be well-nigh unintelligible to the non-specialist. In a more specific vein, members of the House paid attention to the necessity for reform of the educational structure, wishing to emphasize civic education and, in the words of Education Minister Tanaka Kotaro, to give to students an understanding of the "true purport of freedom and order" (Japan 1946b: No.27, Aug.31,16). The desirability of preserving the existing family system was also expressed, both within the context of Chapter III of the draft Amendment, and in its own right. The role of the Supreme Court in assessing the constitutionality of laws was closely questioned, with Justice Minister Kimura explaining the practical application of this Article as follows:...When a concrete case brought before the court requires the application of a law, if any doubt is entertained as to the constitutionality of such a law, the Supreme Court

Page  66 66 REACTION TO CONSTITUTIONAL REVISION, 1945-46 shall give a just and right decision on this. The Supreme Court does not determine generally whether the law itself is against the Constitution or not. Otherwise, it is clear that opposition and confusion will be brought forth between the Diet and the Court and undesirable consequences will be brought about (Japan 1946b: No. 26, Aug. 30,21). The Justice Minister also defended the decennial popular review of Supreme Court judges on the grounds that this would stimulate the bench and deter idleness and indolence. Acceptance by the House The Special Committee appointed by the House of Peers held twenty-two meetings in all, and a Sub-Committee, established to examine and draft amendments, met four times. As reported by Chairman Abe Yoshinari, the main points of the general interpellations in Committee were: (a) Whether or not the revised Constitution would bring about a change in the national character. (b) The interpretation of the word "Unity" in Article 1. (c) The problem of replacement of the current Imperial Rescript on Education. (d) Definition of the principles which would determine the content of fundamental human rights. (e) The composition and powers of the House of Councillors. (f) The phraseology of the revised Constitution (Japan 1946b: No. 39, Oct. 6, 2-5). Only three amendments were proposed by the Special Committee: (a) The sentence "Universal adult suffrage is hereby guaranteed with regard to the election of the public officials." added to Clause II of Article 15. (b) A stipulation in Article 59 to the effect that a joint committee might be held between the House of Representatives and the House of Peers on the passage of law. (c) The addition of "The Prime Minister and other Ministers of State shall be civilians" to Article 66 (Japan 1946b: No. 39, Oct. 6, 8). The first proposed amendment was inserted at the request of SCAP, and was accepted without objection by the Japanese. However, the requirement that the Prime Minister and all Cabinet members be civilians, originally introduced by SCAP into the House of Representatives and rejected by that body, met with some opposition, and it was necessary for SCAP to point out that this was an urgent requirement of FEC to ensure acceptance (Sato 1956: 385-86). 15 The speeches which followed the Committee chairman's report were scarcely enthusiastic endorsements of the Constitution Revision Bill. Baron Sonoda Takehiko stated that, had Japan been governed correctly, it would not have been necessary to amend the Meiji Constitution. Dr. Sasaki delivered a lengthy speech in opposition to the Bill, based largely on tradition, and Matsumura

Page  67 PETER G. CORNWALL 67 Shinichiro, speaking in favor of the proposed revision, consoled his fellow-members by stating that the national polity would not be altered by the new Constitution. Sawada Ushimaro opposed the Bill on three counts: the timing of revision, the substance of the draft, and the anticipated result. Subsequent speakers all extolled the Meiji Constitution, and had only qualified praise for the new document. Following the members' speeches, amendments to increase the Emperor's powers of ratification and to require respect for family life were voted down after a brief discussion. The amendments recommended by the Special Committee were next approved in order, and without further debate the Constitution Revision Bill was passed by the House, and with the required two-thirds of the members voting in the affirmative. After five weeks of comprehensive deliberation, in plenary session and in committee, not a single significant amendment had originated in the House of Peers. CONCLUSION Government protestations and the final vote notwithstanding, 16 it is obvious from a study of the Diet record that the Constitution adopted in 1946 did not represent the views held by a majority of the members on many issues of fundamental importance. While it was acknowledged that reform was necessary under the peculiar conditions of the Occupation, many believed that this could best be accomplished by a liberalizing of the Constitution of 1889, rather than by a radical change. When compared with the earlier stand of the major political parties, as indicated in their draft outlines, the Government Revision Bill shows differences of such a basic nature that rejection or at least extensive revision could have been expected. That this did not take place is convincing evidence of the effectiveness of the pressure which SCAP was able to bring to bear on the Japanese Government. The foreign nature of the Government draft did not pass unnoticed in the Diet, where criticism of its style often contained the inference that it was a translation from English, rather than a truly Japanese product. That at least some members were aware of the pressure under which they were conducting their deliberations is evident from their acceptance of obviously weak Government explanations and from oblique references to the condition in which Japan found herself. Nevertheless, the bolder spirits, and in particular members of the upper house, criticized the Government for its haste, and expressed indignation at the fact that they were unable to give this highly important issue the attention which it obviously deserved. Yet even where adequate discussion did take place the results were disappointing. Debate on many issues was at a very high level, particularly in the House of Peers, where penetrating observations and valuable suggestions were made. Nevertheless, the amendments proposed and accepted by both Houses affected only matters of relatively minor importance, and touched only lightly upon the issues which had occupied so much of the time and talents of the honorable members. The more meaningful changes originated with the American Occupation authorities or with the Far Eastern Commission, and it is further evidence of the lack of autonomy of the Diet that these were accepted even when universally denounced in debate. It is revealing that the only amendments accepted by the Diet were those suggested by the special sub-committees, and whose content had been approved by General Headquarters. The feeling that the new Constitution was less than satisfactory, and that it was not entirely a product of Japanese political thinking, was admirably expressed by Baron Sonoda Takehito, speaking in the House of Peers on the day before the Revision Bill was accepted by that body.

Page  68 68 REACTION TO CONSTITUTIONAL REVISION, 1945-46 After all however, the Bill is now ready to be passed without any such amendments as would cause a change in its fundamental ideas, although some amendments were made by both Houses to the original bill as introduced by the Government. I hope that the Government would publish everything to the people along democratic lines so that they may well understand. I presume that the Government followed the policy of the former Cabinet and consulted fully with General MacArthur on the Constitution Revision Bill as it was only after his approval was obtained that the Bill was submitted to the Diet (Japan 1946b: No. 39, Oct. 6, 9). That it was less than satisfactory is evident from the controversy which has surrounded the Constitution to the present day. NOTES lFor a more complete treatment of the background of constitutional revision, see Ward 1956: 980-1010. 2lt is therefore possible that rejection of the Matsumoto proposals was ordered before the proposals themselves were received. See McNelly 1959:185. Such an action might have been based on the Mainichi report of February 1, but if so would be difficult to justify in terms of diplomatic usage, even when dealing with the Government of a defeated enemy. 3The Social Democratic Party in particular opposed constitutional reform under the office of the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal. See McNelly 1952:39. 4A list of points similar in intent appears in SCAP 1949, I:91, as "those points which SCAP considered to be basic. T It would appear, however, that these were in fact State Department proposals; significant differences, such as the renunciation of war and a unicameral legislature, appear in the SCAP Government Section draft. An essentially similar list, apparently drawn from memory, appears in Takagi 1954:115. A member of the Konoye Committee, Dr. Takagi worked closely with Atcheson's liaison officers. 5A text of what is believed to be the Konoye proposals will be found in McNelly 1952:382-85. 6A member of the Matsumoto Committee, Sato provides a good account of its work. 7Texts of the Matsumoto Draft, identified as Draft A, the Committee Draft, Draft B, and the Gist of Revision with its "General Explanation," will be found in SCAP 1949,II:605-61. 8In his "Explanation," Dr. Matsumoto claims that the Emperor could only carry out the affairs of state with the advice of the Ministers of State. However, the articles of his outline to which he refers in support of this contention do not support this view. It should be born in mind, though, that the Matsumoto "Gist," like the Constitution it was to amend, is somewhat vague and liable to several interpretations. 9A discussion of the report occurs in McNelly 1952:144-46. The Summary in SCAP n. d.:36, appears to confuse the Kempo KenkyU Kai outline with the later individual report of Takana Iwasaburo.

Page  69 PETER G. CORNWALL 69 10The text of the "MacArthur Draft," in Japanese and English, may be found in Kokka Gakkai Zassi (The Journal of the Association of Political and Social Science), LXVIII (September, 1954), 1-6, 1-37. 11For a more detailed discussion, see Ward 1956:996-99. 12General Whitney makes no mention of this in his book. 13For MacArthur's views on the role of the FEC, see his statement quoted in Blakeslee 1953:51. 14This argument has since been used to justify Japan's rearmament. 15Sato mentions opposition based on the self-contradictory nature of the amendment in the light of Chapter II, Paragraph 2 of the draft. However, no record of this can be found in the minutes of proceedings in the Peers. 16The final vote in the Peers is reported in SCAP 1949, 1:111, as 298 - 2, although a count was not taken by the President of the House. If the House membership is taken as close to 400 (SCAP 1949, 1:181, gives an average of 408 during its last ten years, and 373 for the 92nd Session), it would appear that one quarter of the members chose to show their disapproval by absenting themselves from the final vote. REFERENCES CITED ACTIVITIES OF THE FAR EASTERN COMMISSION: REPORT BY THE SECRETARY GENERAL, FEBRUARY 26, 1946 - JULY 10, 1947. 1947 Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office. BLAKESLEE, 1953 GEORGE H. The Far Eastern Commission: 1945 to 1952. Washington, Printing Office. D.C., U.S. Government JAPAN. OFFICIAL GAZETTE 1946a Extra, English Edition, 90th Session of the Imperial Diet, 1946b Extra, English Edition, 90th Session of the Imperial Diet, House of Representatives. House of Peers. JONES, F.C., HUGH BORTON, AND B. P. PEARN 1955 The Far East, 1942-1946. London, Oxford KAWAI, KAZUO 1960 Japan's American Interlude. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. McNELLY, 1952 1959 THEODORE "Domestic and International Influences on Constitutional Revision in Japan, 1945-1946." Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Columbia University. "The Japanese Constitution: Child of the Cold War," Political Science Quarterly, LXXIV (June), 176-95.

Page  70 70 REACTION TO CONSTITUTIONAL REVISION, 1945-46 QUIGLEY, HAROLD S. AND J.E. TURNER 1956 The New Japan, Government and Politics. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press. SATO, ISAO 1963 Personal Interview, The University of Michigan. SATO, TATSUO 1956 "The Origin and Development of the Draft Constitution of Japan," "Contemporary Japan XXIV, 175-87, 371-87. SUPREME COMMANDER FOR THE ALLIED POWERS, GENERAL HEADQUARTERS Undated Monograph History of the Non-Military Activities of the Occupation of Japan. Washington, D.C., U. S. National Archives, World War II Records Division. 1945-8 Summation of Non-Military Activities in Japan and Korea. n.p. Tokyo 1949 Political Reorientation of Japan, September 1945 to September 1948. Two volumes. Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office. TAKAGI, YASAKA 1954 Toward International Understanding. Tokyo, Kenkyusha. WARD, ROBERT E. 1956 "The Origins of the Present Japanese Constitution," The American Political Science Review, L (December), 980-1010. WHITNEY, COURTNEY 1956 MacArthur: His Rendezvous with History. New York, Alfred A. Knopf.

United States Reparations Policy Toward Japan September 1945 to May 1949

Bruce M. Brennpp. 71-114

Page  71 N UNITED STATES REPARATIONS POLICY TOWARD JAPAN SEPTEMBER 1945 TO MAY 1949 by Bruce M. Brenn First National City Bank of New York From a Master's thesis of the same title submitted to The University of Michigan in 1961.

Page  72

Page  73 INTRODUCTION "The real job of the victors," says W. Macmahon Ball, "is to restore the economics of the defeated countries, in order that they may be able to once again to make their distinctive contributions to the economic welfare of the world." (Ball, 1949:100). This concept of rehabilitating the enemy for a role in a peaceful world is, of course, opposite the negative concept of punitive reparations that has been enforced in the past. The development of the United States post-World War II reparations policy toward Japan is an example of vacillation between these antithetical positions. The purpose of this paper is to follow the development of this reparations policy from its conception during World War II to its suspension in May, 1949. The first section examines the policy documents which established the principles for the United States reparations policy toward Japan. Many of these documents were originally formulated in reference to Germany, but their underlying principles were in many cases applied to Japan. In the second section, the assumptions of the Pauley Commission's Report on Japanese Reparations to the President of the United States are reviewed. The third section examines the Pauley Report recommendations and indicates their importance as guides for United States and Far Eastern Commission policy and action. Section four analyzes a reparations policy dispute between factions of the United States government. In Section five, the assumptions and new statistical evidence of the Overseas Consultants' Report on Industrial Reparations Survey of Japan to the United States of America are reviewed and compared with the Pauley Report. After the United States had openly begun to support Japan's economic recovery, the Johnston Committee was dispatched to Japan and returned with removal recommendations even lower than those of the Overseas Consultants' Report. The Johnston Committee was not a reparations survey group, and its primary purpose was not to make reparations recommendations. The real purpose of the Johnston Committee is also discussed in the fifth section. Limitations of time and source materials prevented elaboration on points that rightly deserve more extensive consideration. No attempt was made, for example, to verify the statistics quoted by the various sources. Neither were the views of specific foreign countries examined in this paper, although needs and desires of other countries were certainly an influence on United States reparations policy. DOCUMENTS WHICH ESTABLISHED REPARATIONS PRINCIPLES On April 27, 1945, Edwin W. Pauley was appointed Ambassador of the United States and Personal Representative of the President on Reparations. He was delegated to represent and assist the President "in exploring, developing and negotiating the formulae and methods for extracting reparations from the aggressor nations in the current war" (Pauley, 1946: Letter of transmittal). Mr. Pauley first undertook to establish the policy and procedures for extracting reparations from Germany. 1 That work was completed in September, 1945, and in November he and his commission began its study of the Japanese economy. The commission's first report, entitled Reparations From Japan, Immediate Program R was submitted to the President on December 18. It is most commonly referred to as the Interim Report, 73

Page  74 74 U.S. REPARATIONS POLICY TOWARD JAPAN and will be so called in this paper. This report was made in order to effect an immediate reparations program because the commission believed that a program of interim removals should be announced to other claimant nations immediately, and the successive actions of seizure, inventory, packing and shipment should follow in the shortest possible time... The sooner the interim removal program is made clear to the Japanese, the sooner they will see that they cannot rely definitely on certain things in order to build a peaceful, democratic Japan... (Pauley 1946:1-2). The final report of the Pauley Commission, entitled Report on Japanese Reparations To The President of the United States, was submitted to President Truman on April 1, 1946. In this paper it will be referred to as the Pauley Report. It was designed to provide an official policy of the Government of the United States' policy decisions made prior to the end of World War II. These decisions profoundly influenced the course of post-war reparations policy. Many of them were made in reference to Germany, but later came to be applied to Japan. The first indication of reparations policy at the end of the war came from the Anglo-SinoAmerican Conference held at Cairo in November, 1943. Japan shall be stripped of all the islands in the Pacific which she has seized or occupied since the beginning of the first World War in 1914, and... all of the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese... (Appendix A, p. 99). At this conference the Japanese Empire was reduced to the four main islands of Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu, and several hundred small surrounding islands. This decision ultimately had repercussions in the reparations issue because it greatly limited Japan's natural resource base. The Anglo-Soviet-American Conference at Tehran n was also held in November, 1943. At this conference the problems of peace with the the Axis nations were discussed (Appendix B, p. 100). The Tehran Declaration, issued December 1, 1943, was the first internationally agreed-upon statement indicating that an earnest consideration of post-war problems had begun. As the defeat of Germany became imminent, a more specific German reparations policy was formulated. The implications of this policy were of a universal nature, applicable to all Axis nations. In February, 1945, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and the United States met at Crimea (Yalta). On February 11, the Crimea Conference Communique2 was released, thus becoming the first policy statement published with more than just a passing reference to reparations. In this communique two fundamental points basic to future United States policy were made. 3 We are determined to... eliminate or control all German industry that could be used for military production;... and to exact reparations in kind for the destruction wrought by the Germans (Appendix C, p. 100). There was no indication that reparations would be linked to the rehabilitation of devastated areas. On March 1, 1945, President Roosevelt, reporting on the Crimea (Yalta) Conference to the 79th Congress of the United States, stated that:... unconditional surrender means that Germany will have to make reparations in kind for the damage which it has done to the innocent victims of its aggression.

Page  75 BRUCE M. BRENN 75 By compelling reparations in kind -- in plants, and machinery, and rolling stock, and raw materials -- we shall avoid the mistakes made after the last war of demanding reparations in the form of money which Germany could never pay. We do not want the German people to starve, or to become a burden on the rest of the world. Our objective i n handling Germany is simple -- it is to secure the peace of the future world. Too much experience has shown that that objective is impossible if Germany is allowed to retain any ability to wage aggressive war (Appendix D, p. 101). At this point in the development of post-war reparations policy, there apparently was as yet no thought of combining reparations with the rehabilitation of devastated areas. That link between reparations and rehabilitation was finally provided by the Anglo-SovietAmerican Conference at Berlin in August, 1945. The document released at the end of the conference4 reiterated the policies established at Crimea, elaborated on specific measures for Germany, but did not tie reparations to rehabilitation. However, President Truman's report on the conference, by delineating two purposes for reparations, indicates that such agreement was reached: The first purpose of reparations is to take out of Germany everything with which she can prepare for another war. Its second purpose is to help the devastated countries to bring about their own recovery by means of the equipment and material taken from Germany (Appendix E, p. 103). Mr. Pauley was President Truman's reparations advisor at the Potsdam Conference (Ratchford and Ross 1947: 69-70). It is therefore not surprising that the Pauley Report on Japanese reparations followed quite closely the policy decisions on German reparations which were reiterated or determined at that conference. On November 2 2, 1946, the State Department issued a statement in which the goals of using reparations (1) as a means of disarmament and (2) as a method of rehabilitation were clearly stated. By working toward these goals, the statement said, the mistakes of World War I reparations policy might be avoided: The significant features of the reparations program may be shown by a comparison with reparations after World War I. Reparation is to be in goods rather than mostly in money, thereby avoiding difficulties connected with monetary exchange. Specifically, it is to consist of a transfer of capital, principally industrial equipment and external assets. This permits rapid completion, avoids the danger of gradual postponement and ultimate default, and permits early concentration on the long-term tasks of reconstruction. At the same time it accomplishes major objectives of economic disarmament and gives prompt and tangible aid for devastated areas (Dept. of State 1946:3). Probably the most important United States document that influenced the Pauley Report and subsequent reparations policy toward Germany and Japan was the United States Initial Post-Surrender

Page  76 76 U.S. REPARATIONS POLICY TOWARD JAPAN Policy for Japan, released on August 29, 1945. This document was a composite of earlier policy decisions. Both the objectives it set forth for the occupation and the means it recommended for achieving them had been mentioned previously in releases from Cairo, Crimea, and Potsdam. The Initial Post-Surrender Policy listed four means of achieving its objectives, each predicated upon one or more earlier policy agreements: (1) The limitation of the Japanese Empire to the four main islands which had been agreed upon in the Cairo Declaration and reconfirmed in the Yalta Agreement (see above, p. 74); (2) Plans for the disarmament and demilitarization of Japan similar to those made for Germany in the Yalta and Potsdam Agreements. The document stated that "We are determined to disarm and disband all German armed forces..." (Appendix C, p. 101) and that "Allied controls shall be imposed.. to carry out programs of industrial disarmament and demilitarization...? (Appendix G, p. 108); (3 & 4) The encouragement of the use of democratic principles by the Japanese people and assistance to them in the development of a viable economy. These stem from precedents developed in the Potsdam Declaration: "It is the intention of the Allies that the German people be given the opportunity to prepare for the eventual reconstruction of their life on a democratic and peaceful basis.... Allied controls shall be imposed... to assure the production and maintenance of goods and services... essential to maintain in Germany average living standards.... (Appendix G, p. 108). It is therefore apparent that policy agreements concerning Germany which were concluded at the Cairo, Tehran, Crimea, and Potsdam conferences, provided the bases of the United States reparations policy toward Japan. There were several important underlying assumptions of the Pauley Report, and an examination of them will provide a better understanding of the programs it advocated. THE ASSUMPTIONS OF THE PAULEY COMMISSION The first assumption of the Pauley Report was theoretically sound: since the Japanese economy had been a war economy, and because war economies require heavy industrial production, there would therefore be an "excess" of industrial productive capacity above the needs of a peaceful Japanese economy. Pauley's emphasis on reparations in kind was based upon the wholesale removal of this "excess". In the first section of Part IV of the Initial Post-Surrender Policy, war industry and heavy industry were to be included in a program of "economic demilitarization." These war and heavy industries were "to be eliminated in accordance with this program, as between conversion to other uses, transfer abroad, and scrapping" (Appendix F. p. 104), as determined after inventory. Pauley proposed that the allocation of any "excess" in these industries "to countries entitled to reparations, especially neighboring Asiatic countries should (work to] improve the economic balance, and contribute to the political stability, of East Asia as a whole" (Pauley 1946:3-4). Pauley went on to state and restate his conviction that the United States must (1) strengthen those Asian countries which neighbor Japan, (2) relieve the Japanese population of the burdens of non-economic, excess heavy industry, and (3) balance the level of industrialization in the Far East

Page  77 BRUCE M. BRENN 77 Presumably these steps would prevent Japan from again becoming militarily aggressive. The countries of Asia would become "sentinels, watching Japan from nearby" (Pauley 1946:1). The desire to accomplish these goals led to Pauley's second assumption -- that the payment of reparations by Japan to the United States be a means to an end, not an end in itself. The problem of Japanese reparations [ stated Pauley] is a problem of contributing to the economic stabilization, and thereby to the political stabilization, of East Asia as a whole. It is not the main purpose to get a post war dividend, in the form of compensation, out of a defeated Japan. For America, anything that Japan could pay in money, goods, industrial plants or services would not compensate for the lives expended in the common effort to put an end to Japanese militarism, once and for all. Consequently, in the American view, we must aim at the rehabilitation of East Asia. In a rehabilitated Asia there will be a place for Japan, though no longer a place of leadership or control (Pauley, 1946:4). Pauley' s third assumption was that there would be a long period of peace during which the Far East would have time to stabilize and to develop economically. (This assumption, of course, is based on the premise that countries which are not well developed economically do not start wars). In his report to President Truman on Interim Reparations Removals, Pauley stated that: Preliminary observations by my staff and myself in China, Korea and the Philippines indicate that the low economic development of the Far Eastern nations generally may make it difficult for them to absorb the excess industrial capacity which we desire to eliminate from Japan by reparations removals. (Pauley 1946:13). Obviously, strengthening neighboring countries, balancing the level of industrialization in the Far East, and tying reparations to a foreign policy of stabilizing and rehabilitating East Asia, were all considered long range proposals for the development and stability of the Far East. At the early date of the Pauley Report (1945-1946), there were few indications that China would fall into communist hands, or that communism would threaten to subvert weak and inexperienced governments in the Far East. THE PAULEY REPORT'S RECOMMENDATIONS AND THEIR IMPORTANCE Having gained some understanding of the bases and assumptions of the Pauley Report, we now can examine its substance and note its effect on United States and Far Eastern Commission (FEC) policy and actions. The following recommendations were made by the Pauley Report, Pauley's Interim Report, or by both. (The fact that only nine recommendations are listed below is the result of combining several original recommendations. The recommended levels of industrial capacity, for instance, are comprised of many recommendations, which are particularized in Table 2.) (1) Pauley proposed a plan of action for the execution of a reparations program for Japan. The steps of the plan were: (a) United States agreement on the Interim Reparations Program; (b) Far Eastern Activity Committee approval of the program of reparations (in the final report theis was changed to Far Eastern Commission approval, but the basic idea of clearing the program through international diplomatic channels remained the same); (c) prompt issuance of orders to the Supreme Commander to prepare for removals in order that there be a minimum of delay when the time came for

Page  78 78 U.S. REPARATIONS POLICY TOWARD JAPAN actual removal; and (d) requests to Allied nations to (i) prepare claims lists (similar to those used in Europe), (ii) to develop an Allied Reparations Commission to negotiate long-range reparations policy, and (iii) to assist China and the Philippines in organization of technical agencies to install and use plants and equipment which were to come as reparations payment. (2) Pauley further proposed the creation of an international cooperative program of reparations in order that the Interim Program "should not be undertaken by the United States Government on a unilateral basis" (Pauley 1946:14). (3) Pauley expressed a desire, closely related to both of the above recommendations, for "the creation of an Allied Commission on Reparations from Japan to be the international reparations policy body, and a Reparations Agency to be the technical and allocating body" (Pauley 1946:10). This recommendation was made prior to the establishment of the Far Eastern Commission, which later replaced the Far Eastern Advisory Commission. Pauley at that time altered his proposal to ask for establishment of an Inter-Allied Reparations Commission comprised of member nations of the FEC which would operate under the policies of the FEC. To execute FEC decisions, Pauley suggested the establishment of an executive agency in Japan to operate as a separate staff section of the Supreme Commander of Allied Powers (SCAP). (4) "War booty" should be defined as it had been for the German situation, i.e., "War booty is limited to finished equipment and supplies produced for and belonging to the enemy armed forces exclusive of any facilities used to produce such equipment and supplies" (Pauley 1946:11). (5) Reparations should be started immediately and executed with finality. (6) In the selection of industrial plant removals priority should be given to the dispersal of Zaibatsu holdings. (7) Japan should not be assisted to the point that its standard of living would be higher than that of the rest of Asia. (8) Japan should be allowed to retain an export industry capable of offsetting its needs for imports. This industry should be supplied from domestic raw materials as muchas possible; and to the extent that imports of raw materials would be needed, they should support labor intensive industries. Theoretically, this was to maintain employment and to keep small the cost of materials relative to finished products. The concept underlying Japan's foreign trade was to decrease dependence on imported materials. (9) Because Pauley's group had had to rely heavily on Japanese Government statistics, the Report's statistics should be thoroughly examined and verified. These recommendations were adopted by the United States and later the Far Eastern Commission as their reparations policy until May 1949 when action was taken to stop reparations removal. Adoption of some of the Pauley recommendations was not without problems. Proposal number one in particular travelled a rocky road. The Pauley Commission had arrived in Japan on November 1945 after Ambassador Pauley, President Truman, and Secretary of State Byrnes had agreed upon the general United States Reparation Policy for Japan (Preliminary Statement), October 31, 1945. On December 6, Pauley wrote to General MacArthur outlining his Interim Reparations recommendations, and cabled this same infor

Page  79 BRUCE M. BRENN 79 mation to Washington. The Ambassador presented his program to the President on December 18, 1945; and on January 14, 1946, the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee (SWNCC) approved its substance, thus completing step one of Proposal number one. Implementing reparations policy through diplomatic channels, step two, was more difficult, however, because it was not popular in all sectors of the United States Government. Initially, fear was expressed that the rapid execution of the reparations policy might be impeded if it was administered through an international body, i.e., the FEC; and later, whenever bottlenecks were encountered, pressures were brought to circumvent the FEC by the use of the interim directive. 5 There were continuous efforts on the part of other government personnel to promote Pauley's recommendation for a semiautonomous reparations agency (Proposal number two), thus evidencing a desire on the part of many to have reparations policy administered by a truly independent group. One week after the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee approved the substance of the Pauley Report, General MacArthur announced the seizure of all Japanese arsenals and special war plants in accordance with the third step of the first proposal. Thus, on January 21, 1946, the third step was accomplished. The first two parts of the fourth step have become notorious chapters on the FEC's extensive reparations' file, and each of these two parts is discussed in detail later. The FEC did, however, adopt part three, the shares list plan, and discussed at length the Allied Reparations Agency proposal. The fourth part, the suggestion that the plants designated for removal be kept in Japan until foreign technicians could be brought in to learn how to run them, was dismissed as an administrative impossibility. Thus, the first three and most of the fourth steps of Proposal number one, which was Pauley's plan of action for the execution of a reparations program for Japan, were accepted and implemented by the United States Government. The second proposal, that the United States refrain from reparations actions on a unilateral basis, was initially supported by the United States, which agreed to acknowledge FEC policy-making power even though it preferred the establishment of a semiautonomous agency. Later, however, as described below, the United States ultimately resorted to the interim directive to expedite reparations removals, under the Advance Transfer Program in 1947. Apprehensive of the perplexing and complicated problem of expediting Japanese reparations removals, the United States undertook to follow a course similar to that existing in Germany. 6 It felt that an inter-allied reparations commission operating within the framework of FEC policies could satisfy the requirement of joint Allied action, but still have the necessary freedom to act. The United States Government pressed for some semiautonomous reparations agency since it believed that the representatives of the Far Eastern Commission, with their restricted powers and their need to refer most matters, even minor matters, to their home governments for instructions, would not be able to settle the many detailed reparations issues (Blakeslee 1953:130). The Initial proposal for such an agency did not materialize since the agenda of the FEC's Committee Number One Reparations, was already under discussion before the United States was able to submit its proposal. Later, however, the United States attempted to form a semiautonomous commitee to deal with reparations on April 25, 1946, when it presented to the FEC policy paper FEC010/1

Page  80 80 U.S. REPARATIONS POLICY TOWARD JAPAN... proposing the establishment of an inter-allied reparations committee which should determine the categories of Japanese assets, "both within and outside Japan, " to be declared available for reparations and the percentages of the several categories to be allocated to each claimant country (Blakeslee 1953:129-30). No conclusive action was taken, due to the objection of the Soviet Union to FEC consideration of Japan's external assets. The Soviet Union's position stemmed from its desire not to discuss the amount of "war booty" it had confiscated in Manchuria. On July 25, 1946, the United States again tried to take the reparations issue out of the FEC and place it in the hands of a semiautonomous organization. This time, in FEC-081, the United States proposed that... the Far Eastern Commission should sponsor a reparations conference for Japan, to be convened not later than August 15, and to remain in continuous session until agreement can be reached regarding: (1) final establishment of the character and extent of Japanese assets available for transfer or allocation on reparations account, (2) final establishment of shares in the total reparations pool to be apportioned to claimant countries, and (3) procedure by which claimant countries obtain those assets which they most want (Blakeslee 1953:130). The first action on Proposal Five, which recommended rapid dispatch of the reparations program, was taken by the FEC Committee Number One on May 13, 1946, when it passed several policy decisions which have since become known as the "Interim Reparations Removals" program. This program permitted SCAP to designate particular plants to be made available for reparations. No actual transfers were ever made under this program, since supplementary policy decisions on the various percentages of available assets which claimant countries were to receive were never made, and the procedures by which such percentage shares were to be filled with specific Japanese facilities were never set up. The passage of the Interim Reparations Removals program indicates the intention of the Far Eastern Commission to act. Nevertheless, the fact that this action came five months after Pauley's Interim Report to President Truman, and four months after General MacArthur had designated the same industries for possible reparations removals, also indicates that the feared "diplomatic lag" of processing reparations through the FEC had become a reality. 7 The FEC accepted the Pauley Report's sixth recommendation, to give removal preference to plants that were owned by Zaibatsu concerns, as a guide in the designation of the industries to be included in the "Interim Reparations Removals." This action complemented the Occupation's objective of dissolving the Zaibatsu holdings. The Committee's seventh proposal, not to raise Japan's standard of living higher than that of the rest of Asia, was in fact already United States policy. 8 The United States Initial Post-Surrender Policy for Japan stated: "The plight of Japan is the direct outcome of its own behavior, and the Allies will not undertake the burden of repairing the damage" (Appendix F, p. 104 ). There is no record in available sources of how Pauley's import-export recommendation was accepted by United States policy makers. The recommendation that Japan maintain export industries capable of offsetting needed imports, the substance of Proposal number eight, was probably never disputed until it became evident that the particular industries involved could not supply adequate exports to balance imports. The concepts of relating to use of domestic resources and supporting of

Page  81 BRUCE M. BRENN 81 labor-intensive industries were plausible, but the amount of domestic resources relative to domestic needs and the world market was overestimated. Table 1 lists the primary domestic resource products available for export. Although no comparative analysis of the figures is attempted here, a comment about each product will indicate some of the problems involved in reaching the predicted levels. In the world market, nylon and rayon had largely replaced the market for silk. Coal had been mined in Japan during the war using forced labor under hazardous working conditions; after the war mass labor was no longer available, and the condition of mines had greatly deteriorated due to lack of upkeep. Lumber was still abundant but inaccessible, and most of the available timber had been cut. No extensive deposits of gold had ever existed in Japan; in the past it had been exported primarily in ornaments and jewelry and had never been considered an export commodity per se. Finally, Japan had never been able to export food in any large quantities, and an increase in birth rate and reparations immediately placed a burden on Japan's producing ability. Thus, it was unlikely that Japan could supply her export industry primarily from domestic raw materials. The last recommendation was axiomatic. At the time of the Pauley Commission survey, reliable statistics on Japan were scant. Throughout 1946, SCAP was continuously appraising Japan's industrial capacity. Constant changes made in SCAP's list of restricted industries, for example, reflect in part newer, more reliable statistical data. Vitally important to the determination of industrial requirements and consequently to the amount of reparations permitted, was establishment of a definite base year as well as a target year. There is no reference to a defined base year in the Pauley Report. Nineteen forty-eight was selected as the target year and the Report has been credited with establishing the 1930-1934 standard of living as the base level for Japan which was subsequently adopted by the FEC (Ball 1949:98). That base level may have been specified in other documents accompanying the Pauley Report, which were not publically available. Finally, some recommendations were made by the Pauley Commission that led directly to subsequent agricultural reforms, enacted by SCAP. Any study of these reforms should not overlook these Pauley recommendations. There can be little doubt that the Pauley Report was the major policy guide for the United States and the FEC action through 1946 and 1947. Of the nine policy recommendations listed above, all were adopted by either the United States, the FEC, or both. TABLE 1 PAULEY ESTIMATES OF JAPANESE DOMESTIC RESOURCES AVAILABLE FOR EXPORT (1936 million yen) Commodities 1946 1947 1948 Silk and silk fabric 67.6 80.0 95.9 Coal 12 66 110 Lumber 4 30 60 Paper 50 50 50 Gold 22.5 30 37.5 Comestible Canned Goods 12 24 48 Total 168.1 280.0 401.4 Percent of total estimated exports 23% 33% 35%

Page  82 82 U.S. REPARATIONS POLICY TOWARD JAPAN A REPARATIONS POLICY DISPUTE Throughout 1946, SCAP collected new and more reliable information on the productive capacity of Japanese industry. These data, combined with a better understanding of the requirements of the Japanese economy and the institutional changes taking place, began to cast doubt on the practicability of the Pauley recommendations for removals. Notwithstanding, the United States was committed to the application of the Pauley proposals. This awareness of Japan's decreased ability (if not total inability) to pay reparations with industrial facilities combined with the United States' diplomatic obligations created a dilemma United States' policy makers were ultimately unable to resolve. SCAP was logically the first to recognize the developing situation. General MacArthur in communications to the War Department, December 21, 1946, and February 3, 1947, stated that in his opinion the Japanese should not be asked for reparations in excess of the amounts stipulated in the interim reparations removals program (Blakeslee 1953:153). General MacArthur believed the Pauley Report estimates of Japan's excess capacity had been overstated. He therefore recommended that the industrial levels prescribed in the interim removals program should be accepted with minor modifications as the final levels and that Japan's economic recovery should be permitted to develop up to the industrial levels in the interim removals program (Blakeslee 1953:153). At the time that General MacArthur was making recommendations to effect more reasonable reparations demands, the FEC had all but ceased to function due to "diplomatic lag. TT No level for Japanese industry had yet been established, nor had the percentage share of reparations to be allocated to each member been agreed upon. 9 By 1947, the inaction of the FEC had become a matter of concern among United States officials. Disgruntled elements within the United States Government began to promote unilateral action through the use of interim directives to SCAP. Yielding slightly to the pressure, yet recognizing diplomatic responsibility, the United States informally polled the other members of the FEC in order to secure their opinions on the proposed use of interim directives. Most of the member countries accepted the proposal, but with reservation and apprehension, hoping to keep the reparations issue within the jurisdiction of the FEC. They anticipated further difficulty with the Soviet Union since it had previously expressed unofficial disapproval to the United States issuing interim directives. Major General McCoy, United States representative to the FEC, expressed his opinion on interim directives in a letter to the Secretary of State. In it he stated: In the interest of our own Government, of the Far Eastern Commission and of international cooperation, I believe we should now make a new approach to the problem of Japanese reparations. As a first step, I am persuaded, somewhat reluctantly, that it is advisable in view of urgent considerations to adopt the interim directive procedure solely to provide a preliminary distribution of a portion of the Japanese reparations. Even the limited application of the procedure will be opposed by several of the states on the Commission. Thereafter, I believe it to be important that the Far Eastern Commission be informed that it may have a reasonable time in which to reach a settlement of all other aspects of the reparations issue, including an acceptable

Page  83 BRUCE M. BRENN 83 formula regarding external assets (Blakeslee 1953:138). This course of action was adopted by the United States, and on February 13, 1947, it presented FEC201 to the Far Eastern Commission. This paper was entitled, "Advance Transfers of Japanese Reparations. " This draft policy decision provided that the Supreme Commander should effect immediate delivery to war-devastated countries, as Advance Reparations Transfers, of not over 30 per cent of the categories of Japanese facilities and equipment which the Far Eastern Commission, by its policy decisions on Interim Reparations Removals, had already voted to be available for reparations removal. China would receive 15 per cent of available material; the Philippines, 5 per cent; the Netherlands, for the Indies, 5 per cent; and the United Kingdom, for Burma and Malaya, 5 per cent (Blakeslee 1953: 138-39). The other countries of the FEC would receive nothing. 10 After review by FEC Committee Number One, this paper was passed on to the FEC as a whole recommendation. Here it became obvious the policy paper could not pass the Commission because of the veto power of opposing countries such as the Soviet Union and possibly the United Kingdom. Finally, on April 4, 1947, the Advance Transfer policy paper was transmitted to the Supreme Commander as an interim directive. Before the United States took this decisive action it notified the FEC of its decision and the reasons for taking the action. While the Far Eastern Commission was deliberating the interim directive issue, the United States War Department was taking steps to clarify questions of Japan's ability to pay reparations. It employed Clifford S. Strike and a committee of five engineering experts to undertake a one month survey of Japan's industrial capacity. This action may have been a response to General MacArthur's above mentioned communications. In February the Strike group arrived in Japan. The report of this Special Committee on Japanese Reparations stated: "The Committee recommends that the present reparations program in respect to plant removals be abandoned... that a new program should be formulated...." It concluded: "The Committee does not believe the program recommended herein constitutes any softening of attitude but does give recognition to conditions and problems as they exist at present...[ and eliminates] the threat of disaster to the Japanese economy by too drastic reparations removals" (Blakeslee 1953:153). This report, subsequent press releases, and finally an article by Mr. Strike in The American Magazine indicate that a split within the United States Government had developed over the method of handling Japanese reparations. 11 In this paper the two parties to the split are referred to as the War Department faction and the Pauley faction. This does not imply that the War Department as a single cohesive unit was opposed to the Pauley Report. Nor does it mean that either faction identified itself as a unified coalition with specific leaders and objectives. Rather, there were individuals, most likely from various departments, who considered United States reparations policy as outlined by the Pauley Report, non-applicable to the situation in Japan and the Far East. Conversely, there were individuals, possibly from several departments, who believed the United States to be committed to the Pauley recommendations because they appeared to be correct and just. It is reasonable to suppose that there was an undecided group who felt that a change in policy might be needed, but recognized existing diplomatic commitments and could therefore side with neither faction. 12

Page  84 84 U.S. REPARATIONS POLICY TOWARD JAPAN The War Department hired Strike's first engineering team and then rather openly supported the committee's recommendation that "plant removals be abandoned. " The War Department was one of the several departments responsible for the success or failure of the occupation in Japan, and it considered reparations removals a threat to the success of the occupation since removals might hinder Japan's economic recovery. The existence of the War Department faction in early 1947 illustrates that pressure for change in United States reparations policy was mounting. Outwardly, the extent of this policy conflict was not apparent. The United States had forced the issue of Advance Transfers, thus committing itself at least to a partial execution of policy that had been based upon the Pauley Report. This action [Advance Transfer's interim directive] by the United States government appears to conflict with what has been said before about the growing scepticism within the administration as to the practicality of the plan of large scale removals of capital equipment. Its purpose is by no means entirely clear but it is possible that it was carried out from a mixture of motives. Insofar as the United States was already committed to a program of removals of capital equipment, it may have been thought desireable to get it started as soon as possible. The desire to make a political gesture of support for China and the Philippines may have played some part. It may even have been thought that a demonstration of the program in operation on a small scale might prove its impracticability on a large scale (Holmnan 1947:374). This quotation, taken from an article written in December, 1947, illustrates the complexity of the problem. It also indicates how the Advance Transfer's action might have been reconciled in the minds of members of the two factions. On April 1, 1947, an apparent partial conciliation between the two factions was concluded when the various agencies and organizations interested in Japanese reparations agreed upon a "United States position on a final comprehensive Japanese reparations program" (Blakeslee 1953:153). On April 8, 1947, the United States Government approved this program and the following day it was released to the press under the title of Reparations Removals of Industrial Facilities and Merchant Shipping from Japan. 13 The resulting recommendations of this meeting were set forth in State-WarNavy Coordinating Committee (SWNCC) document 236/43. For the sake of brevity the department number is used herein to refer to this document. The conciliation maneuver between the two factions did not satisfy the War Department faction. Two months later the War Department again employed Mr. Strike. This time, heading a commission of eleven engineers and researchers called the Overseas Consultants, Inc., Strike undertook an extensive five month survey of the reparations problem. The results of this survey were published in March 1948, under the title, Report on Industrial Reparations Survey of Japan to the United States of America. The findings of this report appear below in Table 2, where they are compared with the Pauley and SWNCC 236/43 recommendations. In mid-1947 the United States requested negotiations for the determination of a peace treaty with Japan. Why such a proposal was made at that time is beyond the scope of this paper. The action did indicate, however, that the objectives of the occupation, as outlined in the Potsdam Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender, must have been considered fulfilled. The demilitarization and democratization of Japan was probably thought complete. Under such circumstances, according to paragraph 12 of the Potsdam Terms of Surrender, the Occupation should end: The occupying forces of the Allies shall be withdrawn from Japan as soon as these

Page  85 BRUCE M. BRENN 85 objectives have been accomplished and there has been established in accordance with the freely expressed will of the Japanese people a peacefully inclined and responsible government (Appendix H, page 109). By proposing peace treaty negotiations, the "reform" aspects of the Occupation was indirectly declared complete. The United States then concentrated primarily on the problem of stabilizing the Japanese economy. During 1947, the Japanese economy failed to revive as Pauley had foreseen. Inflation was rampant. The price index (1934-36 = 1.00) jumped from 43. 9 to 111. 1 between fiscal 1946 and fiscal 1947 (Cohen 1958:13). Several reasons for this failure to revive have been ventured. Three of the more common are: (1) The very great and absolute centralization of authority in the Occupation of Japan and its sponsorship of a series of admirable basic reforms might have led one to expect equal aptitude in the field of economic stabilization. But the early reluctance of SCAP to intervene in this area, produced an administrative fumbling which, if anything, accentuated the dislocation and impaired recovery efforts provided in other fields by factors such as food and raw material imports (Cohen 1948:264-65). (2) The basic reason for this [economic ] situation is that Japan's wartime economy was regulated through a combination of governmental and private controls which had diminishing effect in stabilizing prices and wages.... To divorce (sic) Japanese economy from the control of the militarists and the zaibatsu, SCAP... made it [ Japanese Government] responsible for "initiating and maintaining a firm control over wages and prices" and for "effecting controlled distribution of commodities in short supply." Unfortunately, many of the wartime controls were prematurely abolished... (Borton 1948:150). (3) Japan's economy is being deliberately sabotaged in order to gain sympathy at the peace conference.... Japanese capitalists, industrialists and possibly government authorities are engaged in a concerted effort to slow down or halt the nation's reconstruction until a peace treaty is signed... (Bisson 1947:245). Obviously, Japan had severe economic problems. Borton went on to list more of the most pressing problems:... increase in raw materials to allow the normal development of peacetime industry; availability of expanded credit resources, both domestic and foreign, to stimulate the rehabilitation of peaceful industries and the increase of exports to pay for necessary imports; and above all, revival of genuine economic incentive among both capital and labor (Borton 1948:151). The economic situation in Japan created two difficulties for the United States. The success of the occupation's reform period would be jeopardized unless economic viability could provide a climate in which the seeds of reform might prosper. Secondly, to prevent the spread of disease and starvation, the United States had begun providing aid to Japan, and 1948 Japan had become a $400 million burden; this was not a situation that the United States wanted to maintain any longer than necessary. Consequently, the United States in January 1948, began openly to support the rehabilitation of the Japanese economy. General McCoy stated the new position of the United States to the FEC with the comments:

Page  86 86 U.S. REPARATIONS POLICY TOWARD JAPAN The framework of a democratic Japanese Government has been established in accordance with the provisions of a new constitution adopted by the Japanese people and a popularly elected Government is now in office. However, the establishment of a self-supporting economy in Japan, without which the achievements of the occupation cannot be consolidated, has not yet been accomplished. Economic chaos in Japan has been prevented only at the expense of the American people who have financed the importation of vital food and other materials required to prevent widespread disease and unrest. It is the view of the U.S. Government that if the fundamental objectives of the occupation are to be achieved, and if there are to be established the conditions necessary to enable Japan to make its proper contribution to the economic rehabilitation of (sic) world economy and to take its place in the community of nations, a much greater effort must be made to bring about the attainment of a self-supporting Japan with a reasonable standard of living (Appendix I, page 109). This decision placed the United States in the difficult position of reversing some of its previous restrictive policies on Japanese industrial capacities. The line between industrial deconcentration (to prevent the rise of militarism) and industrial consolidation (to create internationally competitive industries) had to be drawn, since too much deconcentration would limit competitiveness and too much consolidation would make industry susceptible for future exploitation. A similar situation existed in regard to personnel. Japan's best business minds had been banned from industry because of their part in running Japan's war machine, and they were now badly needed for Japan' s economic recovery. As Secretary of the Army Royall explained it: Such is our dilemma. It is clear that Japan cannot support itself as a nation of shopkeepers and craftsmen and small artisans any more than it can exist as a purely agricultural nation. We can expect a continuing economic deficit in Japan, unless there is at least some degree of mass industrial production (San Francisco Speech, June 6, 1948). It is important to note that in 1948 the United States' long-range foreign policy objective for the Far East was the same as it had been in 1945 -- to stabilize the Far East politically and economically. However, by 1948 the role that previously had been assigned Japan was no longer realistic, both in terms of what Japan required to support itself and in terms of the complementary role a peaceful, industrial Japan could play in stabilizing the Far East. The 1945 decision to suppress Japan is quite understandable. But by 1948 the threat to the stability of the Far East was no longer Japan; it was the rise of communism. Pauley's assumption of a long period in which the Far East could rehabilitate, stabilize, and develop was no longer valid. The communist threat created a new sense of urgency. The solution to Japan's economic plight seemed to lie in the economically complementary role it could assume relative to the countries of the Far East. In September 1948, Jerome B. Cohen wrote: Basic solutions can come only with a complete integration of the Japanese economy with those of all other Far Eastern countries. The longer the United States delays its recognition and sponsorship of this economic rapproachment in Asia, the less successful and more costly will be its efforts in Japan alone. Real economic recovery for Japan waits

Page  87 BRUCE M. BRENN 87 upon the formulation of a comprehensive and coordinated program for the revival of all Far Eastern economies, along the lines which the United States is now pursuing in Europe. Japanese recovery cannot be achieved in a vacuum (Cohen 1948: 279). A partial solution to the new threat of communism appeared to be a strong Japan. As Secretary of the Army Royall stated it: We hold to an equally definite purpose of building in Japan a self-sufficient democracy, strong enough and stable enough to support itself and at the same time to serve as a deterrent against any other totalitarian war threats which might hereafter arise in the Far East (San Francisco Speech, January 6, 1948). Japan had now been appointed the role of "sentinel." As the position of the United States changed, debate began on how the change would be handled at the diplomatic level. Once again the use of the interim directive was advocated to effect needed changes. This plan was opposed by General McCoy, representative to the FEC, on the grounds that such unilateral action would negate FEC achievements, as well as antagonize other members of the Commission. He requested and received time for the FEC to review the new position of the United States. As mentioned above, the Overseas Consultants, Inc., had been employed in June 1947, to undertake an extensive survey of the Japanese reparations problem. By the beginning of 1948 OCT's work had been completed and on February 26, its findings were submitted for review. While this review was underway, FEC representative McCoy was directed that he... should for a time, so far as possible, delay action in the Commission and its committees on all economic policy papers and that [he] should make no commitment as to a United States position on any of these papers (Blakeslee 1953:154). Thus, the pressure for a shift in United States reparations policy that had begun to develop in late 1946 due to economic reasons gained momentum with the growing threat of the spread of cornmunism in the Far East. How to handle the situation internationally was still a delicate problem. Finally, in December 1948, without consulting the FEC, the United States issued an interim directive to General MacArthur calling for the stabilization of the Japanese economy. The FEC was informed afterwards in FEC-329. It was not long until General MacArthur notified the United States Government that this stabilization program could not be carried out... especially in regard to increasing Japanese manufactured products and Japanese exports, [ if we ] at the same time continue to remove from Japan... reparations industrial facilities in accordance with the advance transfers program (Blakeslee 1953:157-8). After careful consideration, the United States Government found that it could no longer adhere to the policy of reparations removals from Japan. Consequently, on May 12, 1949, General McCoy presented to the Far Eastern Commission

Page  88 88 U. S. REPARATIONS POLICY TOWARD JAPAN... a long, carefully considered statement of his Government... which explained its position in regard to reparations and stated the course of action which it would adopt (Blakeslee 1953:158)... The United States Government is impelled to rescind its interim directive of April 4, 1947, bringing to an end the Advance Transfer program called for by that directive. It is impelled also to withdraw its proposal of November 6, 1947, on Japanese reparations shares... (Appendix J, p. 111). By rescinding the Advance Transfer directive the United States Government...without violating any policy decisions of the FEC or the terms of Reference of the Commission and without issuing any interim directive which could be questioned, terminated for the period of the occupation further reparations from Japan (Blakeslee 1953:158-9). This action in effect ended the reparations removals for the remainder of the occupation because any action of the FEC to establish a reparations program would require the vote of the United States. The implication, though it was never stated, was that the United States would veto such action. The Far Eastern Commission had failed to settle the Japanese reparations issue. The causes of its failure were Soviet intransigence; the insistence of the leading states in larger percentages of Japanese reparations than the others were willing to concede; and, finally, the radical change in the position of the United States Government which on May 12, 1949, announced that there should be no further reparations from Japanese industrial facilities (Blakeslee 1953:123). NEW ASSUMPTIONS AND STATISTICAL EVIDENCE: THE OVERSEAS CONSULTANTS, INC. REPORT When the United States Government realized that changes were needed in its economic policy toward Japan, the Overseas Consultants, Inc. was engaged to study the Japanese economy and to make recommendations for solving the problems of reparations and plant dismantling. Any recommended changes in policy would have to be reconciled with the international commitments of the United States, and the OCI' s report was to provide the basis for reconciliation. This was stated by Secretary of the Army Royall in his speech of January 6, 1948: We are bound by certain agreements with other nations. Since last summer we have had a competent group of industrial engineers in the Pacific selecting the specific plants, which, consistent with our obligations, can be dismantled with the minimum of detriment to Japanese economic recovery. In March 1948, the OCI's report was completed. Called the Report of Industrial Reparations Survey of Japan to the United States of America, it was instrumental in revising the previous reparations policy. What were the assumptions of this report? What levels of industry were recommended for re

Page  89 BRUCE M. BRENN 89 moval? How did the assumptions and recommendations of the OCIs report compare with those of the Pauley Report? These are some of the questions that will be answered below. The report of the Overseas Consultants can be said to be two separate reports, since it is divided into two sections, each with its own set of assumptions and recommendations. Section A overtly professes wassumptions: (1) Japan must pay reparations, andovertlyof (2) the productive capacity to be attained was to be the same as that specified in SWNCC 236/43 (see page 94). Although SWNCC 236/43 is not available for examination, the writer believes that as a compromise document (Bennett 1948:188) it was based upon the same same fundamental assumptions as the Pauley report. Apparently, it was a compromise between Pauley' s assumptions and the War Department's desire for higher Japanese retained production capacities and low removals. (For schedules of the recommended removals see Table 2). If this was the case, the Pauley assumptions of (1) reparations as a facet of overall foreign policy for the Far East, (2) the existence of "excess" productive capacities (but less than had been thought earlier), and (3) a relatively long time during which the Far East could stabilize, also are assumptions which underlie Section A of the OSI report. If the above analysis of the assumptions of Section A is correct, then the recommendations of this section are little more than a revision of the Pauley Report, but influenced by new data and a changing perspective. Section B of the OCI Report is predicated upon three overlapping assumptions. The first assumption is that Japan should become a self-supporting nation. The OCI postulated that for Japan to become self-supporting, productive efficiency in 1953 would have to reach the prewar level of the 1930-1934 period. The year 1953 was selected.. as the "target year" upon which to base our estimates of the volume of domestic production and imports needed to support the growing population and make Japan selfsustaining (Overseas Consultants, Inc. 1948:135). Under the assumption of need for self-sufficiency, the OCI recommended for reparations removal "...primary war facilities and other facilities which we do not believe can be effectively used in Japan" (Overseas Consultants, Inc. 1948:13). (See Table 2). This method of determining the amount of reparations that Japan could pay is quite different in approach than the Pauley Report's assumption that Japan automatically possessed "excess" capacity which should be removed. The second assumption of Section B concurs with the Pauley Report's proposition that reparations should not be an end in itself, but rather a part of total foreign policy for the Far East. In one important aspect, however, the OCI Report and the Pauley Report are in disagreement. The OCI Report states that: We realize that other Far Eastern countries are in need of industrial equipment, and the ultimate decision with respect to reparations should be based upon a balancing of needs to obtain optimum benefits for the region as a whole (Overseas Consultants, Inc. 1948:15). The recommended method of "balancing the needs" is the fundamental point of difference between the Pauley and OCI Reports. The OCI Report continues:

Page  90 90 U.S. REPARATIONS POLICY TOWARD JAPAN It is our opinion that this [balancing of needs between Far Eastern countries to achieve optimum benefits] can be achieved most surely by leaving Japan free to reconstruct and use as quickly as possible the bulk of her industrial capacity (Overseas Consultants, Inc. 1948:15). In contrast, the Pauley Report's recommendation is: The allocation of surplus Japanese industrial potential to countries entitled to reparations, especially neighboring Asiatic countries, should improve the economic balance, and contribute to the political stability, of Eastern Asia as a whole (Pauley 1946:3-4). Perhaps this difference is understandable since the contextual framework of the two reports was markedly distinct in both time and international political considerations. The last assumption of Section B is that an industrially strong Japan...would be less dangerous to the peace and prosperity of the Far East than a continuance of the present state of instability and economic maladjustment in this vast populous region (Overseas Consultants, Inc. 1948:8). One can infer from this statement that there was something else more dangerous to the "peace and prosperity" of an "unstable, economically maladjusted" Far East than an economically viable Japan. The danger, of course, was communism. Because of this new threat, the Pauley assumption of a relatively long period of peace during which the Far East could stabilize was no longer valid. The United States reparations policy toward Japan was an issue which was subject to constant review as new data were gathered. For comparative purposes, the findings of the initial report on reparations (Pauley) are listed in Table 2 with the findings of both the compromise figures of SWNCC 236/43 and the figures of the concluding report on reparations (OCI). The first column lists the industries which were under consideration. The Pauley recommendations in column two show what was thought to be "excess" annual productive capacity, but these figures were not necessarily presumed to represent ultimate reparations removals. It is not clear whether or not primary war facilities were included in these estimates. The "To Be Retained" figures of the OCI Section A column are approximately the figures of SWNCC 236/43. Any variance is slight and could be eliminated by rounding off the numbers. The only exception to this is "Merchant Shipping. " The SWNCC 236/43 figure was 1,300, 000 gross tons and the OCI figure was 1, 240,500 gross tons. The capacities of primary war facilities are not included in the figures of this column. The few figures that appear in the Section B column, "To Be Removed," are estimates of the industrial facilities considered not effectively usable by Japan. These figures do not include estimates of the capacities of primary war facilities. 13 The striking decrease in the amounts to be removed and the increase in amounts to be retained is readily apparent. The number of "No Removals" in the last column contrasts strongly to the high removals figures of the first column. But the middle figures of SWNCC 236/43 hold the key to interpreting the change in United States reparations policy toward Japan. As mentioned earlier, these estimates of the productive capacity to be retained by Japan represent a compromise between the two

Page  91 TABLE 2 PAULEY AND OVERSEAS CONSULTANTS' ESTIMATES OF JAPANESE INDUSTRIAL CAPACITY TO BE RETAINED AND REMOVED (ANNUAL PRODUCTIVE CAPACITY) 1 2 3 4 PAULEY OCI SECTION A OCI SECTION B Industries Steel: Blast Furnace (Pig Iron) Open Hearth (Steel Ingot) Electric Furnace (Steel Ingot) Rolling Mill Sulphuric Acid Nitric Acid Soda Ash Unit Metric Tons *7 T7.7 To Be Retained 500, 000 2,250,000 1,500,000 To Be Removed 5,000,000 6,000,000 3,000,000 6,000,000 1,500,000 240, 000 450/500, 000 195,000 600,000 All To Be Retained 200,000,000 3,500,000 2,650,000 3,510,675 30,295 493,000 To Be To Be To Be Removed Retained Removed 1,600,000 2, 900,000 1,550,000 1,245,075 160,945 None No Removals No Removals No Removals it T7 Electrolytic Caustic Soda Machine Tools Ball-Roller Bearings Thermal Power Shipbuilding Merchant Shipping Synthetic Rubber Aluminum: Reduction Fabricating Magnesium Petroleum Refining Petroleum Storage 12,500 300,000 44,000 10,000 None No Removals 30,000 107,000 No Removals Number 1939 Yen Kilowatts Gross Tons 7t Metric Tons T7 7t 2,000,000 100, 000 1,500,000 None None None 2,000,000 (1) 869, 000 8 Plants All All 82,500 10,000 -Y32,500,000* 1,906,000 153,000 1,240,500 None 25,000 None 46, 300 26, 970 Y-69,318,000 366,860** 648,100 59,500 No Removals No Removals No Removals No Removals*** 400,000 385,000 4,000,000 900 None 68,100 110,000 1i Barrels iT None 40,000-day 10, 000,000 All (6,950) Not Avail. Not Avail. None 9,807,550 1,293,000 680 Not Avail. None No Removals 50,000 50,000 1,000 480 No Removals No Removals * 1943-44 Yen. ** Mainly generators without boilers. *** Some arsenal and Navy base generating equipment was designated for removal. (1) All shipbuilding facilities except 10 large yards were to be removed or destroyed. co I-A

Page  92 92 U.S. REPARATIONS POLICY TOWARD JAPAN factions that were contributing to the determination of United States policy. Represented in these figures is the gradual shift in policy that has been termed abrupt. In the sense that the shift was announced without warning, it was sudden. But the suddenness of the announcement does not imply that it was without long and careful consideration. Some of the things indicated by the figures in Table 2 are: (1) the bias inherent in the two reports, (2) a changing approach to the solution of the economic instability of the Far East, and (3) a mellowing of attitude toward Japan. Both the Pauley and the OCI researchers were using their data to validate policy positions. This bias was probably reflected slightly in both reports. The Pauley Report attempted to illustrate what should be removed from Japan. The OCI Report, on the other hand, attempted to show what should remain in Japan. Pauley approached the problem of strengthening the Far East by recom - mending plant removals to various Far Eastern countries. The OCI recommended the exchange of finished goods for raw materials as an arrangement which would strengthen Japan and other Far Eastern countries. The attitude of a cautious, bitter, post-war world is reflected in the Pauley Report's fear of a strong Japan. Resignation and practicality are typified by the 0 CI's Report in its acknowledgment that seeking compensation for war loss is futile, and that a weak Japan could not become a reformed Japan. A close examination of the figures in Table 2 reveals that Pauley recommended facility removals in excess of the total capacity ("To Be Removed" plus "To Be Retained") recognized as existing by the OCI. This dissimilarity of data is more readily illustrated in Table 3. Table 3 lists the estimated annual productive capacities of several of the industries in question. In this table, the capacities of primary war facilities are included in the Overseas Consultants' figures, but again it is not clear if these facilities are included in the Pauley estimates. The disparity of the figures in Table 3 is less than the disparity of the figures in Table 2; yet it is still large. Pauley was the first to recognize the possible inaccuracy of his figures and requested verification. Part of the answer is: (1) If the Pauley figures do include primary war capacity while the OCI figures do not, this would make additional variance. (2) Generally speaking, Japanese war-time statistics were comparatively unreliable, and Pauley relied heavily on such statistics. The OCI reviewed up-to-date SCAP statistics and corrected Government data. (3) The definitions used by both groups were sometimes slightly different. For example, the OCI considered balland roller-bearings to be precision bearings while Pauley considered them to be commercial bearings. (4) Since the OCI Report was made two and a half years after the Pauley Report, it was able to make allowances for deterioration that previously had not been a factor. (5) Pauley in some instances was referring to theoretical, optimum capacity often based upon a peak war year' s production (Pauley 1946:2). The OCI, on the other hand, were calculating real production capacity after plant rehabilitation, assuming a given set of input variables (Overseas Consultants, Inc. 1948:2). All of the above factors may have contributed in some ways to the discrepancies between Pauley and OCI statistics. In any single set of figures, specific reasons for a difference could probably be given; but such a determination is beyond the scope of this paper. It would also require sources not available to this writer. One thing which the Overseas Consultants set out to determine (and which was not considered by the Pauley Report) was the cost of reparations removals both to Japan and to the recipient countries. By such a determination, an approximate valuation of reestablished industries could be compared to the costs of disassembling, transporting, and reassembling. This aspect of the OCI Report

Page  93 BRUCE M. BRENN 93 TABLE 3 JAPAN' S ANNUAL PRODUCTIVE CAPACITY ESTIMATES (capacities in 1000 metric tons) Pauley OCI Steel: Blast Furnace (pig iron) 5,613 4,520 Rolling Mill 7,722 10,930 Open Hearth (ingot) 8,497 6,350 Electric Furnace (ingot) 2,890 1,330 Nitric Acid 250 1 64 Sulphuric Acid 4,900 4,756 Soda Ash 835 493 Caustic Soda 251 184 Chlorine 226 113 Machine Tools (number of tools) 119, 000 36,970 is shown in Table 4, which is divided into two groups. Group I lists the industries designated for reparations in Section A that could readily be reestablished. Group II lists the industries designated for reparations in Section A that would take considerable time to transfer and would involve costs in excess of their estimated reparations value. 14 The total costs listed in Column 4 include the costs to Japan for removal (FOB port of export). According to the United States Initial Post-Surrender Policy for Japan, these costs would have been a burden for Japan to assume. Because of this, it is likely that the Japanese costs would have not been included if the Pauley group had made similar removal cost estimates. If the Japanese costs had not been calculated, the claimant nations' costs (column 6) would have been used for comparison with the reparations value (column 5). Had that been done, the removal cost of three industries -- iron and steel, soda ash, and sulphuric acid -- would still have prohibited reestablishment. 15 Why the OCI included the cost to Japan for removal is understandable, for if it had not, this large drain upon the Japanese economy would have shown in United States' aid figures for Japan. If reparations removals had been permitted and at the same time the United States had undertaken to revive the Japanese economy, in effect the United States would have been paying the reparations, not Japan. One further point the OCI Report calculated was the approximate "total time required to complete the transfer and reinstallation" of the reparations facilities designated under Section A. This is listed in Table 5. Since the Pauley Report did not consider as a restrictive factor the length of time required for the Far East to rehabilitate, the removal and reinstallation time did not need to be calculated. In the politically unstable Far East of late 1947, however, time had become an important factor.

Page  94 TABLE 4 REPARATIONS VALUE AND REMOVAL-REINSTALLATION COSTS* (Thousands of 1939 Yen) Industries Machine Tool Manufacturing Precision Bearing Electric Power Primary War Facilities -- Pooled Items SUBTOTAL 1 Cost of Removal to Japanese 17,155 3, 852 3,115 154, 759 178, 881 2 Cost of Removal to Claimants 1, 599 602 414 16,789 19,404 Group I 3 Cost of Reinstallation to Claimants 12, 114 2,045 2, 820 109,306 126,285 4 Total Cost (1) (2) (3) 30, 868 6, 499 6,349 280, 854 324, 570 5 Reparations Value 145, 695 24,537 7, 851 1,311,677 1,489, 760 6 Total Claimant Cost (2) (3) 13,713 2, 647 3, 234 126,095 145,689 Group II I'd C-3 Iron and Steel Soda Ash Nitric Acid Sulphuric Acid Synthetic Rubber Shipbuilding Light Metals Primary War Integrated Facilities SUBTOTAL TOTAL 303,048 15,627 4,741 25,022 5,781 99,904 117,248 60,952 632,323 811,204 12, 115 4,072 1,054 6,912 311 6, 817 2,293 10,911 44,485 63,889 390, 140 20,369 6,030 24,480 6,782 95,103 149, 899 41, 109 7 33,912 860, 197 705, 303 40, 068 11, 825 56,414 12, 874 201, 824 269,440 112, 972 1,410, 720 1,735, 290 390,314 22, 632 9, 648 25, 201 10, 236 16 3,121 166, 821 164, 210 952, 283(1) 2,442,043 402, 255 24,441 7,084 31,392 7,093 101, 920 152,192 52,020 778,397 924,086 *Source: OCI Report pp. 212-213. (1)Merchant shipping is not included in this figure since the time factor in removal of ships was negligible.

Page  95 BRUCE M. BRENN 95 TABLE 5 LENGTH OF TIME FOR INDUSTRIAL REESTABLISHMENT Industry Months Iron and Steel 36 Soda Ash and Caustic Soda 24 Nitric Acid 18 Sulfuric Acid 24 Synthetic Rubber 12 Machine Tool Manufacture 12 Precision Bearing 12 Electric Power 24 Shipbuilding 36 Light Metals 24 Primary For: Pooled Items 12 Integrated Facilities 30 The time elements in Table 5 are based upon a relatively smooth operation, but the actual time required for reestablishing the industries probably would have been longer. Under such circumstances, reparations removals would have had little to offer to the stability of the Far East in its immediate future. To summarize: The OCI Report was divided into two sections. The first section was based upon the same assumptions as the Pauley Report, but all of the findings of this section were substantiated by the most up-to-date data available. The specific plants that were recommended for removal were selected to fulfill the requirements established in SWNCC 236/43 and were recommended after a thorough, integrated study of the interrelationship of Japan's industries and the requirements of its economy. No opinion in the first section was stated regarding the ability of the Japanese economy to become self-sufficient if the designated plants were removed. The assumption of the second section of the OCI Report was all oriented toward the recovery of the Japanese economy. The data provided in support of the proposition of Japanese economic recovery included: all of the specific and interrelated industrial studies of the first section; the cost of removal and delivery to the Japanese; the cost of removal and reinstallation to the claimant; value of the industries involved; and estimates of the time required to re-engage the various industries in production. In view of the data collected, the recommendation of this section was "against the removal of productive facilities (except primary war facilities) which can be effectively used in Japan (Overseas Consultants, Inc. 1948:224). While the findings and recommendations of the OCI Report were under review, the Department of the Army employed a group of four men to make a three-week survey of the Japanese and Korean economies. This group was formally entitled the Committee to Inquire into Economic Problems of

Page  96 96 U.S. REPARATIONS POLICY TOWARD JAPAN Japan and Korea. Under-Secretary of the Army William Draper accompanied the members of this committee on their tour. The purpose of this committee (often referred to as the Johnston or Draper Committee) is not clearly stated in the committee report, but it is not difficult to surmise. The Johnston Report initially concurs with General MacArthur and the Department of the Army that:.. industrial recovery of Japan on a peaceful basis is necessary to being about a selfsupporting economy; that this program has now properly become a primary objective in the occupation; and that the American Government in the national interest should support a reasonable recovery program (U. S. Committee.... 1948:2). After this statement of the primary objective of the occupation the committee proceeds to isolate the central problem hindering the accomplishment of this objective -- lack of capital necessary for the purchase of raw materials with which to stimulate economic recovery. We find a difficult circle of circumstances in the Japanese productive economy. Insufficient necessary raw materials result in insufficient production; insufficient production results in insufficient exports; insufficient exports result in insufficient foreign exchange to pay for the necessary raw materials. Until this circle is broken Japan's economy will remain prostrate and dependent upon a food dole such as the United States is presently supplying. The best way to break the circle is by supplying sufficient dollar exchange to enable Japan to purchase the initial raw materials (U.S. Committee.... 1948:12). Finally, the Johnston Committee states its support of a program sponsored by the Department of the Army and approved by the Department of State which would provide $220, 000, 000 over a twelve month period for aid in the recovery of Japan, Korea, and the Ryukyu Islands. With this sequence of observations (objective: recovery; bottleneck: no funds, plan: provide funds), the purpose of the Johnston Committee becomes evident: to verify the findings of the OCI Report calling for Japan's economic recovery and to provide official substantiation of the need for aid funds as proposed by the Department of the Army. The amount of time this committee of inquiry was alloted to survey Japan and Korea leads one to believe that it did little more than receive briefings from SCAP personnel. The committee was impressed by the facts that: Japan had been demilitarized; that the seeds of democracy planted by the occupation were taking root; and that the obligation of the United States to "prevent disease and unrest" had developed into an annual $400, 000, 000 effort. The Committee also recognized that an American program of support for the Japanese economy would be a "new departure in American policy in Japan." (U. S. Committee.... 1948:4). In addition to advocating the recovery of the Japanese economy, the Johnston Committee undertook to promote the revival of Japan's merchant fleet. Japan's role in the world economy was acknowledged as that of a processing nation., and as such, a merchant fleet was vital to her economy. The argument has been made that Japan's shipping should be limited because of its war potential. However, Japan's army, navy and air force have been abolished so there should be little fear of future Japanese aggression from the mere existence of

Page  97 BRUCE M. BRENN 97 a merchant fleet. Also, it has been historically the American position, and generally recognized by maritime nations, that world trade and the long-range interests of all nations are best served when the high seas are open to all. Purely competitive considerations do not, in our opinion, justify a prohibition that would prevent the Japanese from developing the-necessary merchant shipping to assist in balancing their foreign trade (U. S. Committee.... 1948:10). With regard to reparations, the committee considered the threat of plant removals as an intensifier of the already-existing uncertainties that shrouded Japanese industry. This threat would be eliminated if the Johnston Report recommendations were accepted. These final recommendations of the report for the handling of reparations included the following: (1) External assets of Japan be released to the countries holding jurisdiction of the territories in which the assets were located at the war's end. (2) Make available for reparations from the home islands primary war facilities except (a) those deemed necessary by SCAP for occupation purposes or the welfare of the Japanese economy and (b) those exempted from interim reparations by the Far Eastern Commission. (3) Make available in the amounts specified certain plants and equipment. (4) Give these recommendations priority over previous directives and direct FEC nations to submit percentage shares of the total that they desire and give them a deadline to do so. (5) Make no equipment other than that specified in this report available for reparations except as might be substituted by SCAP (Overseas Consultants, Inc. 1948:14-15). The industries that the Johnston Report elaborated upon were the same industries recommended for removal under Section B of the OCI Report. These figures appear in Table 6. TABLE 6 OCI SECTION B AND THE JOHNSTON REPORT RECOMMENDED REPARATIONS REMOVALS OCI REPORT SECTION B JOHNSTON REPORT Annual Capacity Value 1939 Yen Industries Nitric Acid Synthetic Rubber Shipbuilding Aluminum and Magnesium Fabricating Magnesium Reduction Annual Capacity 107, 000 Metric Tons 900 Metric Tons 385, 000 Gross Tons Value 1939 Yen 9,648,000 10,236,000 118, 138,000 82, 000 Metric Tons 750 Metric Tons 152,300 Gross Tons 8,000,000 10,000,000 50, 000, 000 SUBTOTAL 50, 000 Metric Tons* 21,688,000 480 Metric Tons 12,559,000 172,269,000 1,475,887,000 1,648,156,000 50, 000 Metric Tons 21,688,000 480 Metric Tons 12, 559,000 102,247,000 Primary War Facilities TOTAL 560,000,000 662,247,000 *No magnesium fabrication is listed in the OCI Report so this figure just represents aluminum fabrication.

Page  98 98 U.S. REPARATIONS POLICY TOWARD JAPAN It is readily apparent that the Johnston group sought to have industrial plant removals from Japan reduced in all cases except aluminum fabricating and magnesium reduction plants. The largest reductions were recommended in shipbuilding and, surprisingly, primary war facilities. Shipbuilding facilities removals were reduced by a little over 60 per cent. This is not unexpected in view of the statement mentioned above concerning Japanese shipping. Primary war facilities removals were also reduced by some 60 per cent (in value). The reason for this is not elaborated upon, and one can only assume that the facilities now recommended to remain in Japan were considered convertible to peacetime use. CONCLUSION The United States reparations policy toward Japan, as we have seen, was based upon concepts originally developed for application to Germany. Little consideration appears to have been given to the levels of economic advancement of the countries that were to receive reparations from Japan. The countries to be aided by reparations removals from Germany were relatively advanced industrial nations; but the countries of the Far East which were to benefit from Japanese industrial removals were economically underdeveloped. This provided for a historically unique situation in which a more industrially advanced nation was to pay reparations to less developed and underdeveloped nations. The assumptions underlying the Pauley Report indicate that the Pauley group failed to evaluate realistically the situation in the Far East. They correctly assumed that reparations should be a part of the United States foreign policy for the Far East, but they assigned a bigger role to industrial removals from Japan than the conditions in Japan would allow or the recipient countries could utilize. The "excess" the Pauley group assumed to exist in Japan simply did not exist, and the various countries of the Far East were in no position, economically, to absorb industrial removals from Japan regardless of a time element consideration. These inherent weaknesses of the Pauley Report in addition to its admitted statistical weaknesses led the United States to tie itself to a reparations policy that became more and more untenable as reliable data were compiled and the realities of the Asian situation became apparent. Accompanying new information and better understanding was the development of factions within the United States Government that debated whether or not a new policy should be formulated. The data provided by the Overseas Consultants verified the need for a reappraisal of the United States reparations policy in light of economic considerations. These data, plus the changing political conditions of the Far East, finally caused a revision of the initial United States reparations policy. Thus, United States reparations policy toward Japan was in a state of constant flux from its conception to its termination. The initial policy was a product of World War II and previous postwar experiences. Changes in the policy were made on a piecemeal basis until finally circumstances required a complete revision of the established policy. In light of this experience, one may justifiably ask if the concept of war reparations is not outmoded. In many ways the whole idea of reparations has become an anachronism. Total war, as waged in this century, is incompatible with the concept of a 'repairing of damages' by the loser. Total warfare requires the mobilization of all the resources of the nation

Page  99 BRUCE M. BRENN 99 and their utilization to the point of exhaustion. Especially as practiced from the air, destruction spreads far beyond the battlefield. The cost to the victor is equalled only by the poverty of the loser. The problems of reconstruction, reconversion, and revival tax to the utmost the courage, energies and resources of any nation that in these days of total war has had to admit defeat. To call in addition for reparations can at best provide no more than a token recompense for the losses of the winner, and at the cost of further impairment of what little chances are left for the reorganization of the economy of the loser so that it can resume its place in a world economy every day more and more closely dependent for prosperity and peace on the strength and stability of every link. (Martin 1948:23). APPENDICES APPENDIX A. ANGLO-SINO-AMERICAN CONFERENCE CAIRO, 1943 DECLARATION Released December 1, 1943 The Several Military missions have agreed upon future military operations against Japan. The Three Great Allies expressed their resolve to bring unrelenting pressure against their brutal enemies by sea, land, and air. This pressure is already rising. The three Great Allies are fighting this war to restrain and punish the aggression of Japan. They covet no gain for themselves and have no thought of territorial expansion. It is their purpose that Japan shall be stripped of all the islands in the Pacific which she has seized or occupied since the beginning of the first World War in 1914, and that all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa, and the Pescadores, shall be restored to the Republic of China. Japan will also be expelled from all other territories which she has taken by violence and greed. The aforesaid three great powers, mindful of the enslavement of the people of Korea, are determined that in due course Korea shall become free and independent. With these objects in view the three Allies, in harmony with those of the United Nations at war with Japan, will continue to persevere in the serious and prolonged operations necessary to procure the unconditional surrender of Japan.

Page  100 100 U. S. REPARATIONS POLICY TOWARD JAPAN APPENDIX B. ANGLO-SOVIET-AMERICAN CONFERENCE TEHRAN, 1943 DECLARATION (Excerpts) December 1, 1943 We - the President of the United States, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, and the Premier of the Soviet Union, have met these four days past, in this, the Capital of our Ally, Iran, and have shaped and confirmed our common policy. We express our determination that our nations shall work together in war and in the peace that will follow.... And as to peace - we are sure that our concord will win an enduring Peace. We recognize fully the supreme responsibility resting upon us and all the United Nations to make a peace which will command the goodwill of the overwhelming mass of the peoples of the world and banish the scourage and terror of war for many generations. With our Diplomatic advisors we have surveyed the problems of the future. We shall seek the cooperation and active participation of all nations, large and small, whose peoples, in heart and mind are dedicated, as are our own peoples, to the elimination of tyranny and slavery, oppression and intolerance. We will welcome them, as they may choose to come, into a world family of Democratic Nations.... We came here with the hope and determination. We leave here, friends in fact, in spirit and in purpose. ROOSEVELT, CHURCHILL AND STALIN APPENDIX C. ANGLO-SOVIET-AMERICAN CONFERENCE CRIMEA, 1945 JOINT REPORT (EXCERPTS) February 11, 1945 The following statement is made by the Prime Minister of Great Britain, the President of the United States of America, and the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the results of the Crimean Conference: The Occupation and Control of Germany...We have agreed on common policies and plans for enforcing the unconditional surrender terms

Page  101 BRUCE M. BRENN 101 which we shall impose together on Nazi Germany after German armed resistance has been finally crushed. These terms will not be made known until the final defeat of Germany has been accomplished. Under the agreed plan, the forces of the three powers will each occupy a separate zone of Germany. Coordinated administration and control has been provided for under the plan through a central control commission consisting of the Supreme Commanders of the three powers with headquarters in Berlin. It has been agreed that France should be invited by the three powers, if she should participate as a fourth member of the control commission. The limits of the French zone will be agreed by the four governments concerned through their representatives on the European Advisory Commission. It is our inflexible purpose to destroy German militarism and Nazism and to ensure that Germany will never again be able to disturb the peace of the world. We are determined to disarm and disband all German armed forces; break up for all time the German General Staff that has repeatedly contrived the resurgence of German militarism; remove or destroy all German military equipment; eliminate or control all German industry that could be used for military production; bring all war criminals to just and swift punishmet and exact reparation in kind for the destruction wrought by the Germans; wipe out the Nazi Party, Nazi laws, organizations and institutions, remove all Nazi and militarist influences from public office and from the cultural and economic life of the German people; and take in harmony such other measures in Germany as may be necessary to the future peace and safety of the world. It is not only when Nazism and militarism have been extirpated will there be hope for a decent life for Germans, and a place for them in the comity of nations. Reparation by Germany We have considered the question of the damage caused by Germany to the allied nations in this war and recognized it as just that Germany be obliged to make compensation for this damage in kind to the greatest extent possible. A commission for the compensation of damage will be established. The commission will be instructed to consider the question of the extent and methods for compensating damage caused by Germany to the allied countries. The commission will work in Moscow. Signed: Winston S. Churchill Franklin D. Roosevelt J. Stalin APPENDIX D. PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT' S REPORT (EXCERPTS) March 1, 1945... The German people, as well as the German soldiers, must realize that the sooner they give up and surrender, by groups or as individuals, the sooner their present agony will be over. They must realize that only with complete surrender can they begin to reestablish themselves as people whom the world might accept as decent neighbors. We made it clear again at Yalta, and I now repeat -- that unconditional surrender does not mean the destruction or enslavement of the German people. The Nazi leaders have deliberately withheld that part of the Yalta declaration from the German press and radio. They seek to convince the peo

Page  102 102 U.S. REPARATIONS POLICY TOWARD JAPAN pie of Germany that the Yalta declaration does mean slavery and destruction for them -- for that is how the Nazis hope to save their own skins and deceive their people into continued useless resistance. We did, however, make it clear at this conference just what unconditional surrender does mean for Germany. It means the temporary control of Germany by Great Britain, Russia, France, and the United States. Each of these nations will occupy and control a separate zone of Germany -- and the administration of the four zones will be coordinated in Berlin by a control council composed of representatives of the four nations. Unconditional surrender also means the end of Nazism, and of the Nazi Party -- and all of its barbaric laws and institutions. It means the termination of all militaristic influence in the public, private, and cultural life of Germany. It means for the Nazi war criminals a punishment that is speedy and just -- and severe. It means the complete disarmament of Germany; the destruction of its militarism and its military equipment; the end of its production of armament; the dispersal of all of its armed forces; the permanent dismemberment of the German General Staff, which has so often shattered the peace of the world. It means that Germans will have to make reparations in kind for the damage which it has done to the innocent victims of its aggression. By compelling reparations in kind -- in plants, and machinery, and rolling stock, and raw materials -- we shall avoid the mistake made after the last war of demanding reparations in the form of money which Germany could never pay. We do not want the German people to starve, or to become a burden on the rest of the world. Our objective in handling Germany is simple -- it is to secure the peace of the future world. Too much experience has shown that the objective is impossible if Germany is allowed to retain any ability to wage aggressive war. That objective will not harm the German people. On the contrary, it will protect them from a repetition of the fate which the General Staff and Kaiserism imposed on them before, and which Hitlerism is now imposing upon them again a hundredfold. It will be removing a cancer from the German body which for generations has produced only misery and pain for the whole world. Quite naturally, the Crimean Conference concerned itself only with the European war and with the political problems of Europe -- and not with the Pacific War. At Malta, however, our Combined British and American Staffs made their plans to increase the attack against Japan. The Japanese warlords know that they are not being overlooked. They have felt the force of our B-29's and or carrier planes; they have felt the naval might of the United States and do not appear very anxious to come out and try it again.

Page  103 BRUCE M. BRENN 103 The Japs know what it means to hear that "the United States Marines have landed." And we can add, having Iwo Jima in mind: They also know what is in store for the homeland of Japan now that General MacArthur has completed his magnificent march back to Manila and Admiral Nimitz is establishing his air bases right in the backyard of Japan itself -- in Iwo Jima. It is still a tough, long road to Tokyo. The defeat of Germany will not mean the end of the war against Japan. On the contrary, Americans must be prepared for a long and costly struggle in the Pacific. But the unconditional surrender of Japan is as essential as the defeat of Germany -- if our plans for world peace are to succeed. For Japanese militarism must be wiped out as thoroughly as German militarism.... APPENDIX E. PRESIDENT TRUMAN'S REPORT (EXCERPTS) August 9, 1945 The Council of Foreign Ministers will also have to start the preparatory work for the German peace settlement. But its final acceptance will have to wait until Germany has developed a government with which a peace treaty can be made. In the meantime, the conference of Berlin laid down the specific political and economic principles under which Germany will be governed by the occupying powers.... German industry is to be decentralized in order to do away with concentration of economic power in cartels and monopolies. Chief emphasis is to be on agriculture and peaceful industries. German economic power to make war is to be eliminated. The Germans are not to have a higher standard of living than their former victims, the people of the defeated and occupied countries of Europe. We are going to do what we can to make Germany over into a decent nation, so that it may eventually work its way from the economic chaos it has brought upon itself, back into a place in the civilized world. The economic action taken against Germany at the Berlin Conference included another most important item -- reparations. We do not intend again to make the mistake of exacting reparations in money and then lending Germany the money with which to pay. Reparations this time are to be paid in physical assets from those resources of Germany which are not required for her peacetime subsistence. The first purpose of reparations is to take out of Germany everything with which she can prepare for another war. Its second purpose is to help the devastated countries to bring about their own recovery by means of the equipment and material taken from Germany.

Page  104 104 U.S. REPARATIONS POLICY TOWARD JAPAN At the Crimea Conference a basis for fixing reparations had been proposed for initial discussion and study by the Reparations Commission. That basis was a total amount of reparations of 20 billion dollars. Of this sum, one half was to go to Russia, which had suffered more heavily in the loss of life and property than any other country. But at Berlin the idea of attempting to fix a dollar value on the property to be removed from Germany was dropped. To fix a dollar value on the share of each nation would be a sort of guaranty of the amount each nation would get -- a guaranty which might not be fulfilled. Therefore it was decided to divide the property by percentages of the total amount available. We still generally agreed that Russia should get approximately half of the total for herself and Poland, and that the remainder should be divided among all the other nations entitled to reparations.... APPENDIX F. UNITED STATES INITIAL POST-SURRENDER POLICY FOR JAPAN (EXCERPTS) August 29, 1945 Purpose of this Document This document is a statement of general initial policy relating to Japan after surrender. It has been approved by the President and distributed to the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers and to appropriate U. S. departments and agencies for their guidance. It does not deal with all matters relating to the occupation of Japan requiring policy determination. Such matters as are not included or are not fully covered herein have been or will be dealt with separately. Part I -- Ultimate Objectives The ultimate objectives of the United States in regard to Japan, to which policies in the initial period must conform, are: (a) To insure that Japan will not again become a menace to the United States or to the peace and security of the world. (b) To bring about the eventual establishment of a peaceful and responsible government which will respect the rights of other states and will support the objectives of the United States as reflected in the ideals and principles of the Charter of the United Nations. The United States desires that this government should conform as closely as may be to principles of democratic self-government but is not the responsibility of the Allied Powers to impose upon Japan any form of government not supported by the freely expressed will of the people. These objectives will be achieved by the following principal means: (a) Japan's sovereignty will be limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku and such minor outlying islands as may be determined, in accordance with the Cairo Declaration and other agreements to which the United States is or may be a party.

Page  105 BRUCE M. BRENN 105 (b) Japan will be completely disarmed and demilitarized. The authority of the militarists and the influence of militarism will be totally eliminated from her political, economic, and social life. Institutions expressive of the spirit of militarism and aggression will be vigorously suppressed. (c) The Japanese people shall be encouraged to develop a desire for individual liberties and respect for fundamental human rights, particularly the freedoms of religion, assembly, speech, and the press. They shall also be encouraged to form democratic and representative organizations. (d) The Japanese people shall be afforded opportunity to develop for themselves an economy which will permit the peacetime requirements of the population to be met.... Part IV -- Economics 1. Economic Demilitarization The existing economic basis of Japanese military strength must be destroyed and not be permitted to revive. Therefore, a program will be enforced containing the following elements, among others: thef immediate cessation and future prohibition of production of all goods designed for the equipment, maintenance, or use of any military force or establishment; the imposition of a ban upon any specialized facilities for the production or repair of implements of war, including naval vessels and all forms of aircraft; the institution of a system of inspection and control over selected elements in Japanese economic activity to prevent concealed or disguised military preparation; the elimination in Japan of those selected industries or branches of production whose chief value to Japan is in preparing for war; the prohibition of specialized research and instruction directed to the development of warmaking power; and the limitation of the size and character of Japan's heavy industries to its future peaceful requirements, and restriction of Japanese merchant shipping to the extent required to accomplish the objectives of demilitarization. The eventual disposition of those existing production facilities within Japan which are to be eliminated in accord with this program, as between conversion to other uses, transfer abroad, and scrapping will be determined after inventory. Pending decision, facilities readily convertible for civilian production should not be destroyed, except in emergency situations. 2. Promotion of Democratic Forces Encouragement shall be given and favor shown to the development of organizations in labor, industry, and agriculture, organized on a democratic basis. Policies shall be favored which permit a wide distribution of income and of the ownership of the means of production and trade. Those forms of economic activity, organization and leadership shall be favored that are deemed likely to strengthen the peaceful disposition of the Japanese people, and to make it difficult to command or direct economic activity in support of military ends. To this end it shall be the policy of the Supreme Commander: (a) to prohibit the retention in or selection for places of importance in the economic field of individuals who do not direct future Japanese economic effort solely towards

Page  106 106 U.S. REPARATIONS POLICY TOWARD JAPAN peaceful ends; and (b) To favor a program for the dissolution of the large industrial and banking combinations which have exercised control of a great part of Japan's trade and industry. 3. Resumption of Peaceful Economic Activity The policies of Japan have brought down upon the people great economic destruction and confronted them with the prospect of economic difficulty and suffering. The plight of Japan is the direct outcome of its own behavior, and the Allies will not undertake the burden of repairing the damage. It can be repaired only if the Japanese people renounce all military aims and apply themselves diligently and with single purpose to the ways of peaceful living. It will be necessary for them to undertake physical reconstruction, deeply to reform the nature and direction of their economic activities and institutions, and to find useful employment for their people along lines adapted to and devoted to peace. The Allies have no intention of imposing conditions which would prevent the accomplishment of these tasks in due time. Japan will be expected to provide goods and services to meet the needs of the occupying forces to the extent that this can be effected without causing starvation, widespread disease and acute physical distress. The Japanese authorities will be expected, and if necessary directed, to maintain, develop and enforce programs that serve the following purposes: (a) To avoid acute economic distress. (b) To assure just and impartial distribution of available supplies. (c) To meet the requirements for reparations deliveries agreed upon by the Allied Governments. (d) To facilitate the restoration of Japanese economy so that the reasonable peaceful requirements of the population can be satisfied. In this connection, the Japanese authorities on their own responsibility shall be permitted to establish and administer controls over economic activities, including essential national public services, finance, banking, and production and distribution of essential commodities, subject to the approval and review of the Supreme Commander in order to assure their conformity with the objectives of the occupation. 4. Reparations and Restitution Reparations Reparations for Japanese aggression shall be made: (a) Through the transfer -- as may be determined by the appropriate Allied authorities -- of Japanese property located outside of the territories to be retained by Japan. (b) Through the transfer of such goods or existing capital equipment and facilities as are not necessary for a peaceful Japanese economy or the supplying of the occupying forces. Exports other than those directed to be shipped on reparation account or as restitution may be made only to those recipients who agree to provide necessary imports in exchange or agree to pay for such exports in foreign exchange. No form of reparation will be exacted which will interfere with or prejudice the program

Page  107 BRUCE M. BRENN 107 for Japan's demilitarization. Restitution Full and prompt restitution will be required of all identifiable looted property.... APPENDIX G. EXTRACTS FROM THE POTSDAM AGREEMENT AFFECTING REPARATIONS III Germany THE POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES TO GOVERN THE TREATMENT OF GERMANY IN THE INITIAL CONTROL PERIOD. A. Political Principles 1. In accordance with the agreement on control machinery in Germany, supreme authority in Germany is exercised on instructions from their respective governments, by the Commanders-inChief of the armed forces of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the French Republic, each in his own zone of occupation, and also jointly, in matters affecting Germany as a whole, in their capacity as members of the Control Council. 2. So far as is practicable, there shall be uniformity of treatment of the German population throughout Germany. 3. The purposes of the occupation of Germany by which the Control Council shall be guided are: (i) The complete disarmament and demilitarization of Germany and the elimination or control of all German industry that could be used for military production. To these ends:... (b) All arms, ammunition and implements of war and all specialized facilities for their production shall be held at the disposal of the Allies or destroyed. The maintenance and production of all aircraft and all arms, ammunition and implements of war shall be prevented.... (iv) To prepare for the eventual reconstruction of German political life on a democratic basis and for eventual peaceful cooperation in international life by Germany.... 9. (iv) For the time being no central German government shall be established. Notwithstanding this, however, certain essential central German administrative departments, headed by state secretaries, shall be established, particularly in the fields of finance, transport, communication, foreign trade and industry. Such departments will act under the direction of the Control Council.... B. Economic Principles 11. In order to eliminate Germany's war potential, the production of arms, ammunition and implements of war as well as all types of aircraft and sea-going ships shall be prohibited and prevented. Production of metals, chemicals, machinery and other items that are directly necessary to a war economy shall be rigidly controlled and restricted to Germany's approved post-war peacetime needs to meet the objectives stated in paragraph 15. Productive capacity not needed for permitted production shall be removed in accordance with the reparations plan recommended by the Allied Com

Page  108 108 U.S. REPARATIONS POLICY TOWARD JAPAN mission on reparations and approved by the governments concerned, or if not removed shall be destroyed. 12. At the earliest practicable date, the German economy shall be decentralized for the purpose of eliminating the present excessive concentration of economic power as exemplified in particular by cartels, syndicates, trusts and other monopolistic arrangements. 13. In organizing the German economy, primary emphasis shall be given to the development of agriculture and peaceful domestic industries. 14. During the period of occupation Germany shall be treated as a single economic unit. To this end common policies shall be established in regard to: (a) Mining and industrial production and allocations; (b) Agriculture, forestry and fishing; (c) Wages, prices and rationing; (d) Import and export programs for Germany as a whole; (e) Currency and banking, central taxation and customs; (f) Reparation and removal of industrial war potential; (g) Transportation and communications. 15. Allied controls shall be imposed upon the German economy but only to the extent necessary; (a) To carry out programs of industrial disarmament and demilitarization, of reparations, and of approved exports and imports. (b) To assure the production and maintenance of goods and services required to meet the needs of the occupying forces and displaced persons in Germany and essential to maintain in Germany average living standards not exceeding the average of the standards of living of European countries. (European countries means all of the European countries excluding the United Kingdom and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.) (c) To ensure in the manner determined by the Control Council the equitable distribution of essential commodities between several zones so as to produce a balanced economy throughout Germany and reduce the need for imports. (d) To control German industry and all economic and financial international transactions, including exports and imports, with the aim of preventing Germany from developing a war potential and of achieving the other objectives named herein. (e) To control all German public or private scientific bodies, research and experimental institutions, laboratories, et cetera, connected with economic activities.... APPENDIX H. POTSDAM PROCLAMATION DEFINING TERMS FOR JAPANESE SURRENDER July 26, 1945 (EXCERPTS) (1) We the President of the United States, the President of the National Government of the Republic of China, and the Prime Minister of Great Britain, representing the hundreds of millions of our countrymen, have conferred and agree that Japan shall be given an opportunity to end this war....

Page  109 BRUCE M. BRENN 109 (6) There must be eliminated for all time the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest, for we insist that a new order of peace, security, and justice will be impossible until irresponsible militarism is driven from the world. (7) Until such a new order is established and until there is convincing proof that Japan's warmaking power is destroyed, points in Japanese territory to be designated by the Allies shall be occupied to secure the achievement of the basic objectives we are here setting forth. (8) The terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out and Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine. (9) The Japanese military forces, after being completely disarmed, shall be permitted to return to their homes with the opportunity to lead peaceful and productive lives. (10) We do not intend that the Japanese shall be enslaved as a race or destroyed as a nation, but stern justice shall be meted out to all war criminals, including those who have visited cruelties upon our prisoners. The Japanese Government shall remove all obstacles to the revival and strengthening of democratic tendencies among the Japanese people. Freedom of speech, of religion, and of thought, as well as respect for the fundamental human rights shall be established. (11) Japan shall be permitted to maintain such industries as will sustain her economy and permit the exaction of just reparations in kind, but not those which would enable her to re-arm for war. To this end, access to, as distinguished from control of, raw materials shall be permitted. Eventual Japanese participation in world trade relations shall be permitted. (12) The occupying forces of the Allies shall be withdrawn from Japan as soon as these objectives have been accomplished and there has been established in accordance with the freely expressed will of the Japanese people a peacefully inclined and responsible government. (13) We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction. APPENDIX I. MAJOR GENERAL FRANK R. McCOY'S STATEMENT OF THE UNITED STATES POLICY FOR JAPAN, AT THE MEETING OF THE FAR EASTERN COMMISSION January 21, 1948 U. S. Government has reviewed the accomplishments of the first two years of the occupation of Japan in the light of the ultimate Allied objectives as set forth in the Potsdam Declaration and elaborated in subsequent policy statement. This review has revealed that in implementation of the basic policy, SCAP (Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers) has destroyed Japan's ability to make war on the land, on the sea, and in the air. Exceptional progress has been made in establishing political and economic institutions which will permit the development of a democratic and peaceful Japan capable of assuming the responsibilities of a member of the community of nations.

Page  110 110 U.S. REPARATIONS POLICY TOWARD JAPAN The framework of a democratic Japanese Government has been established in accordance with the provisions of a new constitution adopted by the Japanese people and a popularly elected Government is now in office. However, the establishment of a self-supporting economy in Japan, without which the achievements of the occupation cannot be consolidated, has not yet been accomplished. Japanese industry and commerce are not yet sufficient to sustain the Japanese economy, there is not yet final Allied determination of reparations which Japan will be required today and Japan is not yet in a position to participate fully in world trade and to contribute its part to the rehabilitation of world economy. Economic chaos in Japan has been prevented only at the expense of the American people who have financed the importation of vital food and other materials required to prevent widespread disease and unrest. It is the view of the U. S. Government that if the fundamental objectives of the occupation are to be achieved, and if here are to be established the conditions necessary to enable Japan to make its proper contribution to the economic rehabilitation of world economy and to take its place in the community of nations, a much greater effort must be made to bring about the attainment of a self-supporting Japan with a reasonable standard of living. To this end, my Government believes that the Japanese Government and people, the Far Eastern Commission and its member states, and the Supreme Commander, recognizing the conditions which now require that more emphasis be placed on such a program, should take all possible and necessary steps, consistent with the basic policies of the occupation, to being about the early revival of the Japanese economy on a peaceful, self-supporting basis. The Japanese Government, under the supervision of SCAP, must prepare and implement plans under which Japan can become self-supporting at the earliest possible time. Progress has already been made in this direction. Although the primary responsibility of the preparation and execution of such a plan rests on the Japanese Government and people, SCAP must take the requisite steps to ensure that the Japanese Government and people energetically and effectively discharge that responsibility. Greater efforts by the Japanese people, coupled with such assistance as the U. S. Government may be able to provide for a temporary period, should eliminate the burden on the American taxpayer of supporting the Japanese economy. While the American people will not continue indefinitely to subsidize the economy of Japan, the U. S. Government will shortly begin discussions in the Congress of a proposal to provide funds for the fiscal year 1949, in addition to funds requested for subsistence items for the procurement of such imports as industrial raw materials and spare parts to assist Japan to expand the output of its peaceful industries towards status of self-support. The Far Eastern Commission has already agreed on a number of policies directed towards this goal. For example, it has already declared that measures should be taken or continued to stimulate Japan's production of goods required for export and to ensure that goods produced are those in demand in countries requiring supplies from Japan; it recently opened Japan to limit private trade and authorized the establishment of a revolving fund to aid in financing peaceful foreign trade. The U. S. Government, recognizing that the cooperation of the Far Eastern Commission and its member states is essential to the successful accomplishment of a program for bringing about a self-supporting economy in Japan, requests favorable consideration of future policies to be presented to the Commission towards this end.

Page  111 BRUCE M. BRENN 111 APPENDIX J. STATEMENT BY UNITED STATES REPRESENTATIVE ON FEC CONCERNING JAPANESE REPARATIONS AND LEVEL OF INDUSTRY (EXCERPTS) (Press release issued by the Department of State, May 1949)... In view of the above considerations, the United States is forced to the following conclusions: (a) The deficit Japanese economy shows little prospect of being balanced in the near future and, to achieve eventual balance, will require all resources at its disposal. (b) The burden of removing further reparations from Japan could detract seriously from the occupation objective of stabilizing the Japanese economy and permitting it to move towards selfsupport. (c) There is little or no prospect of Far Eastern Commission agreement on a reparations shares schedule despite the repeated initiatives by the United States over the past three years to assist the Commission in reaching such an agreement. Without agreement on a shares schedule the existing Far Eastern Commission policy decisions regarding reparations are incapable of implementation. (d) Japan has already paid substantial reparations through expropriation of its former overseas assets and, in smaller degree, under the Advance Transfer Program. In light of these conclusions the United States Government is impelled to rescind its interim directive of April 4, 1947, bringing to an end the Advance Transfer Program called for by that directive. It is impelled also to withdraw its proposal of November 6, 1947, on Japanese reparations shares, and I am so informing the Secretary General. Finally, the U.S. Government takes this occasion to announce that it has no intention of taking further unilateral action under its interim directive powers to make possible additional reparations removals from Japan.... The U. S. Government plans shortly to submit to the FEC for its consideration proposals for the rescission or amendment of existing and pending FEC reparations and level of industry policy papers so as to bring FEC policies on these matters, should the proposals be approved by the Commission, into conformity with the position that I have set forth. My Government earnestly hopes that the other Member Governments will appreciate the considerations underlying this position and will be able to concur in the new United States proposals. APPENDIX K. STATEMENT BY MAJOR GENERAL FRANK R. McCOY, CONCERNING THE ADVANCE TRANSFER PROGRAM April 3, 1947 The United States Government had decided to issue interim directives to the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers in Japan authorizing him to make immediately available, as advance reparations transfers, Japanese industrial facilities to certain war devastated countries. The directive will provide that four specified countries immediately receive out of Japanese industrial facilities which the Far Eastern Commission has already decided to be available for remov

Page  112 112 U.S. REPARATIONS POLICY TOWARD JAPAN al. Those four countries have been assigned percentages which clearly do not prejudice their own or any other country' s interest in final nations percentage shares of Japanese reparations. China will receive 15 percent of such facilities; the Philippines -- five percent; Netherlands East Indies -- five percent; and Burma, Malaya and the United Kingdom's colonial possession in the Far East -- five percent. The United States will receive nothing for itself under the advance transfer program. The United States Government has concluded that interim directive on advance transfers of reparations fulfill the requirement as to urgency contained in terms of reference. Four states concerned are in extreme need of industrial equipment for immediate relief of their economy. Protracted delay in removing this equipment is resulting in deterioration of assets usable for relief purposes. Also, delay in initiating any program of actual removals of industrial equipment from Japan has impeded the Supreme Commander's occupation program. On February 13, the United States Government submitted to the Far Eastern Commission a proposal embodied in the interim directive which the United States Government has now decided to issue. The United States Government advised the Far Eastern Commission of its view that this was an urgent first move in getting reparations removals started. The start of actual reparations removals from Japan has now delayed for over a year. All members of the Far Eastern Commission agree as to the urgency of commencing such removals. Consistent with the Far Eastern Commission's terms of reference, the United States Government, therefore, has decided to send to the Supreme Commander an interim directive paper on advance transfers of Japanese reparations with an accompanying Japanese reparations allocations procedures for industrial facilities in Japan, which is largely a set of administrative regulations. REFERENCES CITED BALL, W. MacMAHON 1949 Japan, Enemy or Ally. New York, John Day Co. BENNETT, MARTIN T. 1948 "Japanese Reparations: Fact or Fantasy?" Pacific Affairs. XXI, June: 185-94. BISSON, T.A. 1947 "Reparations and Reform in Japan. " Far Eastern Survey. XVI December 17:241-47. BLAKESLEE, GEORGE H. 1953 The Far Eastern Commission. State Department Publication #5138; Far Eastern Series 60. Washington, D. C., U. S. Government Printing Office. BORTON, HUGH 1948a "American Occupation Policies in Japan. " American Academy of Political Science -- Proceedings. XXII, January:397-405. COHEN, JEROME B. 1948 "Japan's Recovery on the Road Back." Pacific Affairs. XXI, September:264-79. 1958 Japan's Postwar Recovery. Bloomington, Indiana, University of Indiana Press.

Page  113 BRUCE M. BRENN 113 DEPARTMENT OF STATE 1946 "United States Economic Policy Toward Germany. " Department of State Publication #2630, European Series 15. Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office. HOLMAN, D.S. 1947 "Japan's Position in the Economy of the Far East. " Pacific Affairs. XX, December: 371-80. MARTIN, EDWARD M. 1948 The Allied Occupation of Japan. New York, American Institute of Pacific Relations. NEW YORK TIMES 1947a "U. S. Taxpayers Aid Held Aim in Japan." XCVI, February 16: p. 12, col. 1. 1947b "Change in Payment by Japanese Urged." XCVI, February 18: p. 11, col. 3. 1947c "Plan Would Leave Japanese Textiles." XCVI, February 19: p. 20, col. 3. OVERSEAS CONSULTANTS, INC. 1948 Report on Industrial Reparations Survey of Japan to the United States of America. New York. PAULEY, EDWIN W. 1946a Report on Japanese Reparations to the President of the United States. Department of State Bulletin #3174, Far Eastern Series 25. Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office. RATCHFORD, B.U. and WILLIAM D. ROSS 1947 Berlin Reparations Assignment. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press. STRIKE, CLIFFORD S. 1947 "Revenge is Expensive." The American Magazine. CXLIV, September: 50-1 UNITED STATES COMMITTEE TO INQUIRE ON THE ECONOMIC PROBLEMS OF JAPAN AND KOREA 1948 Report on the Economic Position and Prospectus of Japan and Korea and the Measures Required to Improve Them. Washington, D. C.

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The Origins and Policies of the Japan Teachers' Union, 1945-1956

Richard J. Smethurstpp. 115-160

Page  115 \ THE ORIGINS AND POLICIES OF THE JAPAN TEACHERS' UNION, 1945-1956 by Richard J. Smethurst The University of Michigan from a 1961 Master of Arts thesis of the same title

Page  116

Page  117 INTRODUCTION All the local power hemming us in on all sides belongs to the conservative and reactionary forces and no "progressive" force is established yet. The prefecture is poor and unprosperous. The conservatives do not consider the reconstruction of education and the stabilization of the teachers' educational life as important and are going to dismiss prefectural staffs of teachers throughout the country. The conservative power, which has gradually regained its power since the stoppage regulation instituted against the 1 February 1947 strike, has attempted to suppress...the nucleus of democratic and reform power.. and is leading the working masses and smaller entrepreneurs toward ruin... to protect the interests of the capitalists. This situation is not peculiar to Japan... The newly developing working class intends to establish a society based on peace, liberty and equality against the old controlling power which only pursues its own profit... In England, a labor party is taking the reigns of government, in the US, President Truman has been returned to office, and in China, the Communists are coming to power. This proves... that the wheel [of world history] is turning against the international power of monopoly capital... Especially in isolated districts, [capitalism] may show a fascist like tendency in order to maintain control. It is in a district such as this [ Kochi ] that we live now. Against this policy of pressure and disruption being brought upon labor unions and progressive influences by the conservative and reactionary political power represented by the Yoshida cabinet, we [JTUJ fight in the fields of politics, economics and culture on every occasion and at every place, strengthening and consolidating ourselves with the support of any influence which cooperates with us (Kochi Prefecture Teachers' Union 1949:102). This long passage, taken from a document published by the Kochi Prefecture Teachers' Union states the general attitudes and aims of the Japan Teachers' Union (Nihon Kyoshokuin Kumiai or Nikky5so) and its immediate predecessors from the beginning of the teachers' union movement in the closing days of 1945. One of the basic tenets of this union was that education cannot and will not be truly democratic, and that teachers will not earn a living wage and work in decent surroundings until the conservative government and the forces that keep this government in power are overthrown and replaced by "progressive" political parties and organizations. Hence, Nikky5so felt that it must resort to direct, "struggle" activity rather than depend on the ballot box to gain its objectives and was willing to unite with any force which would help it gain these ends, including other labor unions, the left-wing Socialist party, and the Japan Communist Party. Conversely, the government was willing and sometimes seemed even eager to limit academic freedom in order to curtail the activities of teachers, which it felt had become excessive, for there was little doubt that the teachers' union was a threat to its success. Some say that the only reason the union resorted to violent, anti-government activity is that the conservatives forced it into a position where it had no other alternative if it wanted to maintain any semblance of academic freedom, while others say that the government attempted to suppress Nikkyoso only because the union presented a threat to the government's very existence. Determining which force began this battle is like the old puzzle of the chicken and the egg. One thing, however, is clear: the history of Nikky sogovernment relations from 1945 until 1956 was one of struggle, for the goal of each group during 117

Page  118 118 THE ORIGINS OF THE JAPAN TEACHERS' UNION this period was to bring about the destruction of the other. Somewhere between these two forces, until the end of the occupation in 1952, stood a third force, the American occupation authorities. The position of this third force was not nearly as rigid as that of either the government or the teachers' union. In the early days of the occupation in 1945, the staff members of Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander for Allied Powers (SCAP), feeling that the hope for the future of Japan lay with democratization, actively encouraged the organization of the teachers' union and, thus, abetted a force which was to become a grave problem to SCAP in the closing years of the occupation. During the seven years of the occupation, the SCAP viewpoint gradually shifted from one of complete sympathy with the teachers' union to one of agreement with the conservative government. Among the many reasons which can be given for this change in SCAP' s point of view, are the gradual intensification of the cold war and the outbreak of the Korean war. One basic reason for SCAP's change in attitude became evident long before the Korean War broke out, however. SCAP and the Japan Teachers' Union (as well as other unions and "progressive" elements) had different definitions of the meaning of the term "democracy. " To the union, democracy meant freedom from the "militarists", "bureaucrats", "landlords", and "capitalists" whom it thought controlled Japan before and during World War II. It meant the freedom to oppose these elements, if they were in power, by any means available. The use of elections to "turn the rascals out" was not enough. The union's conception of democracy also included the right to demonstrate forcibly, if necessary, to gain the union's ends. To the members of this union, "class struggle" was inevitable. In a democracy, said the union, the members of the working class, to which the teachers should belong, have not only the right, but the duty to struggle against the bourgeois, capitalist class. The occupation authorities' concept of democracy was different. To SCAP, democracy implied both rights and duties. Although members of a democracy were free to do largely as they pleased, society did place limits on this freedom. The SCAP concept of democracy did not include the right to riot in the streets in order to gain an end. According to their concept, the individual should try to gain his objectives by electing representatives to government who support the ideas he did. If a government were elected which was not to his liking, it was his duty to obey. His only recourse was to attempt to bring about a change of government in the next election or by other peaceful constitutional means. If he objected to the actions of the government, he had the right to protect, but not by violent action aimed at overthrowing the government. The SCAP point of view is probably best described in this excerpt from a speech given by the Shikoku Military Government Region Civil Information and Education Officer at Kotohira on 10 October 1947: My second point in this talk today is also based on my observation and experience in Japan. This is that many Japanese think that democracy means license —the license to do whatever one wished without restraint. This is especially the fault of the younger generation.... Democracy is orderly government which represents the will of the people expressed through elected representatives. Japanese have complained to me that such and such a man who was the head of their organization was no good and that they would therefore disobey his rulings. I have then asked them whether they elected the person in question. When they replied that they had or that a majority of their organization had, I have had to answer them that in that case they should obey this man's rulings, but when the time came, they should elect another man who better represented their will. But no individual or small group of individuals has the right to take the law into his or their hands and defy elected authority. This is not democracy. It is anarchy (Kotohira speech 1947).

Page  119 RICHARD J. SMETHURST 119 Needless to say, the union's actions were based on their conception of democracy, not SCAP's. Because of this, and for other reasons, SCAP' s attitude toward Nikky5so gradually changed during the seven years of the occupation. As we shall see, as early as the middle of 1946, less than a year after the beginning of the occupation, SCAP was beginning to be alarmed by the forerunner of the Japan Teachers' Union as well as by the other newly organized unions in Japan. And from their own points of view, the occupation authorities and the Japanese government had reason to fear the activities of the Japan Teachers' Union. With the gradual intensification of the "cold war," with two camps polarizing around the United States and the Soviet Union, Nikky5so came to be viewed as a tool of the Japan Communist Party. The teachers' union has frequently been called a tanch5-zuru or "red crested white crane", reflecting the feeling that the unions' leadership is communist controlled, while its rank and file members are not. This charge is difficult to prove since Communists do not make a point of admitting when they have infiltrated an organization. The organization did, however, become more and more anti-American and pro-Soviet. The reason for this may be that the United States' foreign policy gave more and more support to the very government which the teachers' union detested and also because the United States urged the Japanese to rearm, a move which the union felt would help bring about a return to prewar militarism. The union had not always been anti-American, however. in the early days of the occupation the union was decidedly pro-American and even later recognized that the occupation had given it much of the freedom which it enjoyed (Kawakami 1954:34). Despite government and SCAP opposition, the teachers' union became a powerful influence, not only in education, but on the national political scene as well. Concerning Nikky5so's influence in the field of education, Fred N. Kerlinger, a former CI&E officer in Shikoku, said, If that powerful organ of the teachers' interests, the Teachers' Union, is taken into consideration, it is safe to say that the teachers of Shikoku not only had a powerful hand in determining educational policy and making educational decisions, but they also were more directly influential than the people. The participation of the teachers in all educational affairs was exceedingly well organized; the Teachers' Union was a powerful pressure group with systematic organization and internal discipline. It succeeded, in short, in establishing itself as the single most powerful education group in Japan (Kerlinger 1953:127). This article will trace the origins of the Japan Teachers' Union, its subsequent history, and its policies in relation to the attitudes of SCAP and the Japanese government towards this union. It will also touch upon the unions' affiliation with the Japan Communist Party and its methods of internal control in so far as available information will allow. TEACHER STATUS AND TEACHERS' ORGANIZATIONS PRIOR TO 1945 Before the end of the Pacific War, teachers' unions were unnecessary since the central and prefectural governments determined all educational authority. Teachers were but the instruments of this policy and had no role in determining educational affairs, working conditions, or salaries. Hence, any independent teachers' unions which existed were quickly suppressed as potentially sub

Page  120 120 THE ORIGINS OF THE JAPAN TEACHERS' UNION versive. The only teachers' organization which was allowed to exist was the Greater Japan Education Association (Dai Nippon Kyoiku Ka), originally founded in 1883 by the Ministry of Education. The association was under government control and was used to indoctrinate and organize the teachers for the purposes of the government. The headquarters of this organization was in the Ministry of Education and its president was chosen by the Minister. All other unions were ruthlessly suppressed. In 1919, a conservative, independent union was founded, but, although its goals were similar to those of the government, it was quickly dissolved by the police. Between 1928 and 1933, several more attempts were made to form independent unions; but as soon as they were set up, the police closed them down, often jailing the founders. After 1933, no attempts were made to found teachers' unions until the autumn of 1945, when SCAP cleared away the obstacles. Interestingly enough, the Greater Japan Educational Association continued to exist after the war, despite its bad wartime record, and did not go out of existence until after Nikky so was formed at Nara in June 1947. The Mombush5 continued to support the organization financially until SCAP forbade government support in 1946. Nowhere can one find specific reference to why the government continued to sponsor this organization, but the reason may well have been that the Ministry hoped to be able to maintain some control over the teachers at a time when radical, anti-government unions were being formed. If this were the reason, the government was completely unsuccessful. Teachers viewed this organization as a Mombusho propaganda arm and resigned by the hundreds. Even those members who did not resign remained as merely passive, nonactive members. While conservative leaders were mildly critical of the organization, radical leaders were unrestrained in their criticism. Hani Goro, 1 a liberal intellectual who later became a member of the House of Councillors, claimed the organization was maintained by the government to crush the initiative of the teachers and to make them submit to totalitarian authority. The government, he said, intended to limit academic freedom behind the guise of sweeping but empty ideals. Under Nikky5so pressure, the Japan Educational Association, as it was renamed after the war, died a gradual death. Although no teachers' unions existed until late 1945, there was a need for some group to advance the interests of the teachers. Teachers, traditionally underpaid in normal times, were in dire straits because of the spiraling inflation in which living costs were increasing far more rapidly than salaries. Of course, virtually all urban dwellers and non-agricultural people were caught in this web, but teachers and other government workers seemed to be especially hard put. In the years 1945 -46, says Miriam Farley, while the cost of living increased 850%, the salaries of factory workers increased 200-400%, but the salaries of government employees increased only 20-40% (Farley 1950:137 -38). Furthermore, among government employees, teachers were the most underpaid. Other government workers received about 80% more pay than teachers at the same age. Between 1936 and 1945, teachers received approximately 10% increase in salary, not nearly enough to cover the rise in the cost of living over that period (Farley 1950:9,13). A limited SCAP study of teachers' salaries from April 1945 to 1946, shows that teachers' salaries during that period were not adequate. Although the statistical data for this study are admittedly incomplete, they still tend to indicate a disparity between salary and the cost of living. According to this study, in December 1945, among teachers and professors between the ages of thirty and forty, the monthly deficit between expenditures and wages was considerably larger than the average salary. Elementary school teachers in this age group received an average monthly salary of 143 yen and had monthly expenses of 450 yen. Middle school teachers had an income of 217 yen and 600 yen expenses. High school teachers, imperial university assistant professors, and professors had even greater deficits of 602, 675, and 787 yen respectively (SCAP 1948b:9-10).

Page  121 RICHARD J. SMETHURST 121 While teachers' salaries had barely increased in the ten years before the end of the war, expenses rose rapidly and after the war' s end in September 1945, inflation became rampant. According to a Tokyo Price Board (Bukkach5) study quoted in SCAP's history of education for the 1945-1948 period, (Appendix I), the average monthly cost of all items for a family in 1937 was 55 yen; in April 1946, 1500 yen; and in January 1947, 1871 yen. The retail price index of the price board (Appendix II) showed that in October 1945, prices were 2 1/2 times those of June 1937; in May 1946, 15 times those of June 1937; and by June 1946, 16 1/2 times those of June 1937. Although rationed food at uninflated prices was enough to avert starvation, teachers were nevertheless in drastic straits in the years 1945-1947 (SCAP 1948b: 11). A study conducted by the Greater Japan Education Association showed that a 600 yen minimum monthly wage was needed for an individual merely to exist at the subsistence level in 1946. Another study in November 1946 showed that 920 yen were needed for an unmarried person to exist. Yet in the November 13, 1946 Mainichi Shimbun, Tanaka Kotaro, then Education Minister and later World Court judge, was quoted as saying: "those who are paid less than 600 yen are the 90,000 assistant teachers whose average pay is 340 yen, and 160,000 regular teachers of the third class who constitute 60% of the total number of teachers, whose average pay is 500 yen." Tanaka estimated that from April 1945 to March 1946, teachers received enough salary to pay for about one third of their needs each month (Farley 1950:12). Conditions did not appear to improve in the years 1947-1948. The March 19, 1948 Ehime Shimbun reported that in the rural Ehime Prefecture many teachers were either giving up their jobs or taking second jobs because of low salaries. The newspaper reported that according to the Ehime Prefecture Teachers' Union statistics, between April 1947, and January 1948, 441 teachers gave up their jobs. The same article reported that 452 more intended to follow suit in the next few months. Although some of the resigning teachers were women who were marrying, the majority gave as their reason for resigning the fact that they could not earn a living as a teacher. The article reported that 6943 teachers were employed in the prefecture; thus the resigning teachers represented a large percentage. The same Ehime Shimbun article reported that only 2473 of the Ehime Prefecture teachers supported themselves by their wages as teachers alone. Most of the others had second jobs and a few received financial support from relatives or friends. 1272 of the teachers farmed during their off-duty hours or worked at other side jobs such as knitting, and repairing radios and watches. According to an article in the April 27, 1948 Asahi Shimbun similar conditions existed in Tokyo. On the basis of a Tokyo Metropolitan Teachers' Union study of 205 teachers, conducted on March 31, 1948, it reported that while the majority of teachers held second jobs as private teachers, farmers, dressmakers, and day laborers, there were even cases of teachers resorting to working as shoeblacks, night club musicians, and goat herders. Although these figures are far from conclusive, it is not difficult to see that teachers were in dire financial straits in the years 1945-1948. Of course, almost all Japanese had difficulty making ends meet during those years, but teachers appear to have had more trouble than most. It is because of this that conditions were ripe for the rapid growth of teachers' unions after the restrictions against such organizations were lifted. There are several other related reasons why teachers' unions developed so rapidly in 1945 and 1946. Immediately following the beginning of the Occupation in 1945, many teachers considered their jobs insecure because of their own prewar and wartime political activities and affiliations and resigned. Of the 400, 000 teachers in Japan in August 1945, 115, 778 had resigned by May 1, 1946.

Page  122 122 THE ORIGINS OF THE JAPAN TEACHERS' UNION Furthermore, the purge directive of October 27, 1945, and the purge ordinance of May 7, 1946, eliminated more allegedly ultranationalist and conservative elements from Japanese educational circles. At the same time, many teachers who had been forced from the teaching profession because of liberal thought in the prewar and wartime period, regained their status as teachers under an October 22, 1945 directive. This directive restored to the teaching profession many of the 300, 000 former political prisoners and many of the 600, 000 persons who had had their civil liberties restored by the October 4, 1945 directive, Removal of Restrictions of Political, Civil and Religious Liberties. Consequently, at the same time that economic conditions favored the development of organizations to promote the teachers' interests, the proportion of liberal to conservative teachers increased. Although these reasons were all important in the development of teachers' unions, the main reason for the successful organization of these groups was SCAP's open encouragement of union organization. EARLY SCAP ATTITUDES TOWARDS TEACHERS' UNIONS Because of the difficulty in obtaining information concerning SCAP' s attitude toward teachers' unions, most of the information contained in this section which concerns the SCAP attitude toward unionization will deal with the union movement in general and not the teachers' union in particular. However, as the development of teachers unions was considered to be an integral part of the trade union movement, one can judge to some degree the occupation authorities' feelings towards the organization of educational personnel in particular by a study of the attitude towards trade union in general. Within several months after the Japanese surrender, SCAP took active steps to clear the way for union organization. On October 11, 1945, General MacArthur set the pattern for United States policy in a brief statement to Baron Shidehara Kijuro, then Prime Minister. General MacArthur stated that, based on the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, the occupation authorities through the Japanese government hoped to free the Japanese people from the traditional social order, to liberalize the Constitution, and to extend to them all of the democratic freedoms. As one of these freedoms, SCAP hoped to encourage "the unionization of labor —that it may be clothed with as much dignity as will permit it an influential voice in safeguarding the workingman from exploitation and abuse and in raising his living standard to a higher level (Farley 1950:43-4, Osaka Mainichi 1945:1)." Already, on September 22, 1945, SCAP had ordered the Japanese government to eliminate all control over workers, to reinstate protective legislation, and to remove all legal hindrances short of those which would protect the goals of the occupation from union activity. Thus while SCAP retained the right to prohibit strikes which interfered with the security or operations of the occupation authorities, it otherwise insured the workers the freedom to organize, and the freedoms of speech, assembly, and press. Furthermore, SCAP ordered the government to abrogate all repressive laws such as the Peace Preservation Law, which the government had used to imprison labor leaders, and the Public Peace Police Law, which had been used to enable the police to disband unions and prohibit public meetings. Also, as mentioned above, the Occupation authorities ordered all political prisoners released from prison. Many of these men became extremely active in union organization (SCAP n. d. a:n. p.). On November 10, 1945, General MacArthur' s public relations office was able to announce that the"Japanese government's repressive laws and wartime controls over Japanese labor have been abolished. It is expected that liberal elements will introduce and establish labor legislation to encourage organization since old laws have been destroyed (SCAP 1945:p. 10)."

Page  123 RICHARD J. SMETHURST 123 Although General MacArthur himself, and, at least theoretically, the Far East Commission, set up general occupation policies, the day to day implementation of these policies in so far as labor was concerned was carried out by the Labor Division of the Economic and Scientific Section, and in the case of the teachers' unions, by the Civil Information and Education Section of SCAP. For instance, when the first attempt to organize a teachers' union was made at the Yotsuya Sixth Primary School in Tokyo, on October 2, 1945, SCAP was represented by Brigadier General Ken Dykes, Chief of the Civil Information and Education Section, and by Mark Starr, Chief of Labor Education of the Labor Division. The Labor Division worked with the philosophy that the working class was the only reliable base for democracy in Japan. In order to insure democracy in Japan, the members of this division thought that it was necessary to promote the incentive and ability of this group to organize in order to build a bulwark against resurgent nationalism in Japan. It is interesting to mention here that the present Japanese government which the United States considers one of its closest allies in Asia is made up of people the labor division excluded from its "reliable base." Moreover, the "reliable base" today considers this government not only labor's greatest enemy, but also a grave threat to the future of democracy in Japan. This reflects to some degree the great change in the United States policy toward labor in Japan during the seven years of the Allied Occupation. One more step was necessary in order to clear the way for unhindered labor organization. On February 8, 1946, SCAP instructed the Home Ministry to keep out of labor affairs. No longer could the police investigate a union just because it was a union. It is difficult to judge to what extent the police and the Home Ministry complied with this order, but it is clear that violations did occur. SCAP was able to reduce but never to eliminate police intimidation. For example, after the prohibition of the February 1, 1947 general strike by SCAP, the police began to investigate unions, claiming that the occupation authorities had sanctioned the investigations. Because the occupation authorities were not able to halt this type of activity by the police, SCAP lost some of labor's confidence. The military authorities did not stop at clearing away the former Japanese government controls of labor, for SCAP strongly urged the Japanese government to pass legislation which would establish a legal framework for free labor unions, collective bargaining, and the peaceful settlement of disputes. With this prodding, the Japanese legislature passed the Trade Union Law in December, 1945, to be effective March 1, 1946. This law provided for the organization of members of any profession, except policemen, firemen, and employees of penal institutions. The law defined a trade union as an organization of workers whose main aim was to improve the economic status of its members; thus, if persons representing the employer's interests were allowed in the union, by definition, it was no longer a trade union. All unions had to register with the government and to submit their constitutions and lists of officers. Unions were to be exempt from taxes and no member of a union could be dismissed from his job because of union activity. This legislation did not completely free the worker from the hands of his employer, however. The law contained no prohibition of coercion by the employer, did not require him to bargain in good faith, and established only a weak enforcement machinery. Hence, the employer still held the upper hand. This was even more true in the case of the teachers' union than of others since the employer in this case was the government. In partial keeping with the basic concepts which were set up by the American occupation authorities and followed to some degree by the Japanese legislature, the Ministry of Education took limited steps to remove controls from the organizational and political activities of teachers. Hence, on April 11, 1946, the Mombush5 published hatsu gaku Number 187, which stated that teachers should be allowed to organize self-aid organizations as long as these organizations did not become too radical. "Teachers are at liberty to identify themselves with any of the political parties according to their choice, but they must be very careful not to forget their fundamental mission of education and not to cause any conflict in the schools, thereby disrupting the education of young people." Although

Page  124 124 THE ORIGINS OF THE JAPAN TEACHERS' UNION the Ministry limited both the right to organize and the right to belong to political parties and to participate in party activities, they did not clearly define these limitations. A January 17, 1946 proclamation, hatsu gaku Number 106, spelled out more clearly the rights and limitations placed on teachers' political activities: "Students, teachers, and school officials may enter political activities, and join political organizations. Such political activity, however, must not be allowed to interfere in any way with their normal duties. Although free discussion on politics will be allowed in schools, political canvassing or recommending of specific political parties or personnel will not be allowed during school time (Ministry of Education January 17, 1946:3). " Hence, SCAP and the Japanese government with SCAP' s encouragement had created a framework in which a labor movement, including a teachers' union movement, could exist and possibly even flourish. The possible consequences of the limitations placed on the labor movement were not sufficiently understood to alarm Japanese educational unionists in the flurry and excitement of organizational acitvities. It was not long before the SCAP attitude towards unions became somewhat less friendly. The unions developed differently than most Americans had expected; as early as May, 1946, less than eight months after the beginning of the occupation, SCAP began to take steps to curb the very unions which it had created. Although the occupation reaction to labor unions developed rather slowly and did not crystallize until the time of the February 1, 1947, general strike, this reaction began almost a year beforethe general strike. When the general strike. When the unions developed more radically political and militant aspects than most Americans had expected, many members of the occupation forces became alarmed. Little was done by SCAP in the way of open opposition to unions before February, 1947, but high ranking SCAP officials made numerous statements decrying the violent aspects and alleged Soviet influence. In May, 1946, several disorderly "food riots," in which many unions including the All Japan Schoolteachers' Union (Zen Nihon Kyoin Kumiai or Zenkyo, the earliest forerunner of Nikky5so) participated, led General MacArthur to say in a May 20, 1946, press statement, "I find it necessary to caution the Japanese people that the growing tendency towards mass violence and physical processes of intimidation, under organized leadership, present a grave menace to the future of Japan. While every possible rational freedom of democratic method has been and will be permitted,... the physical violence which undisciplined elements are now beginning to practice will not be permitted to continue. I shall be forced to take the necessary steps to control and remedy such a deplorable situation.. and it is my sincere hope that the sane views of this predominant public opinion will exert sufficient influence to make it unnecessary to intervene (Farley 1950:45). t In the same week, George Atcheson, Jr., United States chairman of the Allied Council for Japan, made a speech that further reflected this changing reaction of SCAP toward labor activity in Japan. A manifesto had been presented at the May Day 1946, labor demonstration that stated that "the bureaucrats", "capitalists", "landowners", and other controlling interests were hindering the efforts of.the farmers and laborers to gain the freedom to protect their own interests. Mr. Atcheson claimed that this manifesto had been written in a foreign language. At a meeting of the council he told the Soviet representative, Lieutenant General Kuzma Derevyanko, that he thought the Soviet Union had had a hand in preparing the manifesto, and that the United States and SCAP opposed communism in every form. At the next meeting of the Allied Council, Atcheson further clarified his statement of the previous week, by saying:

Page  125 RICHARD J. SMETHURST 125 "... Labor has been encouraged to organize. I may say that while there now exist labor unions in Japan under Communist influence, the labor movement in this country is not Communistic. It has been my observation that in general labor and Communism are neither bedfellows or (sic) fellow travelers. Any kind of totalitarianism is no friend of labor and it is well-known that the brutalism of labor has been most widespread under totalitarian regimes. As I mentioned during the last meeting there has been no endeavor on the part of the Occupation authorities to suppress the peaceful activities of the Communist Party. Its freedom to participate with equal rights in the political life of the nation has not only been permitted but has been defended. Freedom of expression, religion, thought, assembly and respect for fundamental human rights are becoming established in a country which not long ago knew of these things only by hearsay. These freedoms and these rights will become secured so long as the Japanese people do not again let themselves be regimented into unthinking and fanatical servants of any militant minority which seeks power for its own purposes (SCAP 1946a:n. p. )." In other words, SCAP frowned on militant unions which employed "struggle" tactics. The third incident indicating a shift in SCAP feeling towards Japanese labor unions occurred in July 1946. At the July 10 meeting of the ACJ, Soviet General Derevyanko presented twenty-two recommendations on labor policy which Chairman Atcheson turned down as Communist propaganda. Atcheson stated in answer to Derevyanko that the Allied Council "was not pledged to further Communism in Japan" and that the Soviet proposals had "a color which we have seen before. " He went on to say, "Certain elements here are trying by the usual methods of exaggerated propaganda, the application of terrorism, and the prevarication of the truth to assume leadership of this labor movement in hope of reestablishing the regimentation of the Japanese masses under the leadership of the left in lieu of the former regimentation under the leadership of the right." However, not all observers branded the Soviet proposals as "Communist propaganda." W. MacMahon Ball, the British representative, stated that the Soviet proposals were "designed for the good of the people" and did not show "any signs of Communist propaganda." He went on to say, "It is unfortunate that such a proposal, designed for the good of the people, should be automatically stigmatized as Communist propaganda (SCAP 1946b:n. p. )." A study of the Soviet proposals reveals that they represented, with one exception, concepts already put into effect by SCAP. Thus, Chairman Atcheson's reaction reveals that SCAP either felt that its original labor policy was too lenient, or that SCAP automatically branded any Soviet proposal as Communist propaganda. However, not all occupation officials were of one mind. The Labor Division still appeared to be friendly towards and proud of its creation. At the inauguration ceremonies of two labor federations in August and September, 1946, Theodore Cohen, Chief of the Labor Division, reaffirmed SCAP's friendly attitude towards unions and said that he personally was happy with the development of Japanese unions (Farley 1950:49-50). The initial policy of the occupation towards the settlement of labor disputes was one of nonintervention. SCAP reserved the right to interfere to settle disputes, but only in areas where it was felt a strike would be inimical to the goals and activities of the Occupation and Occupation forces. As the authorities never defined "inimical to the Occupation," Japanese government and labor officials were confused as to what SCAP policy was. Occasionally Japanese government officials would use the ill-defined SCAP policy to coerce unions through the threat of SCAP action. SCAP, however, did not intervene for the first year and a half of the Occupation. It was only on February 1, 1947, that SCAP first used this power, to call off the planned general strike. However, it was

Page  126 126 THE ORIGINS OF THE JAPAN TEACHERS' UNION widely rumored that SCAP had threatened to interfere to preserve order as early as November 20, 1946, when Zenky5 threatened to call a strike. The strike was settled before the situation came to a crisis so that SCAP's first intervention was delayed until two and one half months later (Farley 1950:49-50). Before discussing the general strike, which was the first concrete manifestation of a change in the Occupation attitude towards the labor movement and the teachers' union, let us turn to the early development of teachers unions and view it within the framework of SCAP' s attitude as outlined thus far. THE PREDECESSORS OF THE JAPAN TEACHERS' UNION DECEMBER 1945 - FEBRUARY 1947 In late 1945, the conditions were ripe for the organization of a teachers' union. Munakata Masaya, writing in the Asahi Hy5r n, may have overstated the case when he said, "Teachers had to organize to protect themselves from the dictatorial power of government. Teaching is no longer the 'divine calling' it once was, as the teachers' union activities prove; moreover, a noble name does not provide food" (Munakata 1947:198). Nevertheless, to a certain degree what he said was correct — the Japanese government would certainly not pay the teachers much more than it could be prodded into giving up. In 1945, teachers had a rare opportunity -- a governing authority willing to help them to organize to gain a living wage and to become an important element of society. Hence, the teachers set out early in the Occupation to organize themselves into a cohesive, powerful force and were successful as evidenced by the fact that, according to SCAP, in June 1948, 515, 863 teachers were welded into a single union, a number including over eighty percent of Japan's teachers. They formed the largest union in all of Japan at that time (SCAP, 1948a: 178). As mentioned before, after 1933, and prior to December 1945, the only teachers' union in Japan was the government-controlled Greater Japan Education Association. After the war, the Education Ministry tried to keep this association alive by changing its name and rationalizing its existence in order to increase its popularity with the teachers. However, this group evoked memories of the wartime police state, and try as it did, the government could not make the association effective. The Ministry even tried to subsidize the organization to keep it alive; but in early 1947, SCAP forbade this government control, so that, in March of that year, the Ministry ended its subsidization. In the same month, the association yielded its office space in Tokyo to representatives of the National Conference of Teachers (Zenkoku Kyoin Kyogikai, or Zenkyokyo), a successor to Zenkyo and the immediate predecessor to Nikkyoso, the present Japan Teachers' Union, when Zenkyokyo representatives threatened to move inwithout permission. The property of the association was promptly appropriated in some twenty prefectures and the Japan Education Association died a quick and quiet death. At this point, it may be useful to pause and detail how Nikkyoso and other forerunners came into existence. On December 1, and 2, 1945, the previously mentioned All Japan Teachers' Union (Zenkyo) was established by a group of teachers meeting at the Education Hall (Kyoiku Kaikan) in Kanda, Tokyo. The group, led by Hani Gor5, at that time a history teacher at Jiyugakuen, and Ono Shunichi2, president of the Minshi Shinbun, attempted to weld all educators into one group. Although "fascists", ultranationalists, moderates, "radical leftists", and Communist Party members all were to be welcome in the union, no significant number from the right joined, and the organization had an extremely "left wing" orientation from the beginning. It may be significant to mention here that one of the founders, Hani Goro, was a Communist Party member, and the other Ono Shunichi, ran an extremely anti-government newspaper (Hidaka 1956:151).

Page  127 RICHARD J. SMETHURST 127 The program of the new union contained not only demands that would raise the living standards of the teachers, but also others which would create an entirely new educational system in Japan. In the teacher welfare field, the union called for five-fold pay increases, relief for teachers who lost their homes in air raids, medical and unemployment insurance, and the right of collective bargaining with the Mombusho. In the political sphere, the union called for the abolition of the Greater Japan Education Association on the grounds that it was a "tool of the militarists," for the punishment of the "educators responsible for the war," the reeducation of "nationalistic" and "militaristic" teachers, the reappointment of "progressive" teachers, the abandonment of government compiled textbooks, the control of the schools by the union, election of school principals by the public, and the rejection of all officials appointed by the Emperor on the grounds that they were, because of the source of their appointment, automatically "despotic and corrupt" (Osaka Mainichi 1945:1). The general aims of Zenkyo sounded as if they were directly from the writings of the Civil Information and Education Section files. The union favored democratic education and not the type which trained citizens to be amenable to the purposes of "feudal" society. The freedom of teachers to instruct how and what they wanted was essential to their aim. Moreover, the union demanded the elimination of school inspectors, whom they compared to secret police. As long as these inspectors existed, they said, academic freedom was impossible in Japan. The union also set up a periodical, Japan Teachers' Journal (Nippon Kyoiku Shimbun), to publish the union "line." In the first issue, Hani Goro, one of the founders, wrote an article which incurred the wrath of moderate teachers. He proclaimed first of all that teachers were members of the proletariat and should move forward in a common front with the other workers of Japan. In addition, he demanded the abolition of the Emperor system and attacked the Emperor as a war criminal who had not the courage to admit his war guilt. Thirdly, he attacked the Mombusho as an organ of propaganda, not of education. Although the union itself never took an anti-Emperor stand, the fact that one of its leading members had published an article attacking the Emperor system in a publication sponsored by it showed that at least some of the Zenkyo leadership were opponents of the system. However, this does not demonstrate, as the SCAP history of the early development of teachers unions suggests, that Zenkyo was a Communist dominated union, even though many moderate and conservative teachers were apprehensive about joining it. From the second to the fourth of December, 1945, a rival union to Zenkyo was formed at the Kuramae Industrial Hall in Tokyo. This union, named the Japan Educators' Union (Nihon Kyoikusha Kumiai, or Nikkyo), was founded by a group of teachers, prof essors and other educators, led by Kagawa Toyohiko3 Although the union also had some political ambitions, most of its demands were in the economic and teacher welfare sphere. The union program called for a five day school week, increased study time for teachers, equal teaching and studying opportunities for both sexes, public education for administrators, farm land for teachers and students to work, a 500 yen allowance per teacher and a 100 yen allowance per family member for immediate relief to teachers, and the abolishment of the Greater Japan Education Association. It is interesting to note that although the Nikkyo demands were far more moderate and realistic than those of the Zenkyo, the Ministry of Education was not any more willing to fulfill Nikkyo demands. As a matter of fact, because Nikkyo rejected the use of the strike and "struggle" tactics to gain its ends, it actually fared worse in the long run than the more radical Zenky5. On the basis of this, one might be justified in thinking that actually the Mombusho had little interest in teacher welfare and democratic education. The failure of the Ministry to meet even moderate demands, except when they were forced to do so, also seems to substantiate the view that Nikkyoso, after it was founded several years later, became extremely radical and anti-government because there was no other way for its demands to be met.

Page  128 128 THE ORIGINS OF THE JAPAN TEACHERS' UNION Like Zenkyo, Nikkyo had political ambitions, although they were never presented as a clearcut political program. In the elections of 1946, the union supported selected candidates, usually of the Socialist Party. Kagawa himself was a member of this party. Nevertheless, Nikkyo was a moderate union, and it had a tendency in its official statements not to associate itself with the masses. The union endorsed the Emperor system and rejected strikes as tactical weapons. While both unions had the same basic goals: the relieving of unsatisfactory working conditions for teachers and the raising of teaching salaries, and while both were not particularly concerned with professional improvement, their approaches to the problem of gaining these goals were very different. Zenkyo pictured teachers as members of the working class, struggling in unity with other labor unions against the "bureaucrats" and "feudalism" which were oppressing the teachers and using education for indoctrination and "militaristic" ends. To Zenky5, the postwar government was just a continuation of the prewar and wartime "bureaucratic" and "militaristic" one. Nikky5 considered teaching a dignified profession, claimed no unity with the rest of organized labor, and rejected the theory of class struggle. But despite the difference in tactics, neither union was immediately more successful than the other. Therefore, in the spring of 1946, both unions joined in an effort to keep 800 Tokyo elementary school teachers from being dismissed and to gain pay increases and, because of their unity, were able to avert the dismissal of some of the teachers and to win a small, special bonus in February 1946, and a temporary allowance in April 1946. These pay increases, however, did not begin to offset the increase in the cost of living which took place at that time. From the beginning, efforts had been made to merge Nikkyo and Zenkyo into a single teachers' union in order to increase their effectiveness. After the unions found in the spring of 1946 that joint efforts were more successful than individual ones, the attempts to merge were intensified. However, Nikkyo would not merge before Zenkyo met two demands, neither of which the latter was willing to accept. Nikkyo demanded that the merged union support the Socialist Party as opposed to a more radical party and that Kagawa Toyohiko be president of the new union. Below these surface differences lay the ideological split discussed above. Zenky5 favored a revolutionary change in Japanese society while Nikkyo wanted to preserve and reform the existing form of government, retaining the Emperor system. The Nikkyo leaders worried about the Communist Party members and other radical elements associated with Zenky5 and were apprehensive about merging. The failure of this merger led to bitter recriminations between the two unions. Zenkyo called Nikky5 a "pseudo-union," a government union, a union of principals and not teachers, and a fascist and bureaucratic union. Nikky in turn called its opponent a Communist association financed by the Communist Party and, in turn, by the Soviet Union. Their differences seemed irreconcilable. The more radical union, Zenkyo, used several techniques in its attempts to force concessions from the Ministry of Education. First of all, the union staged frequent demonstrations at the Ministry, often breaking into the building and camping outside the door of the Minister's office until he agreed to see the union's representatives. Once the union representatives were admitted to see the minister or the vice-minister, the discussions usually became very heated, but rarely did either side make any concessions. On at least one occasion, in May 1946, the Zenky5 representatives forced their way into the office of the vice-minister and used such abusive language in stating their demands that the Minister was forced to escape from the Ministry to evade possible bodily injury. On other occasions they staged sitdown strikes in the hallways of the Ministry in an effort to force government compliance to their demands. The second frequently used tactic was the protest demonstration. Usually the demonstration would be staged in a conspicuous location and the participants would carry placards with both the demands of the union and other inflammatory slogans written on them. The participants would listen to speeches by union leaders or prominent politicians, usually from the Communist or Socialist par

Page  129 RICHARD J. SMETHURST 129 ties and then either march to the ministry or send representatives to present their demands to the minister or the vice-minister. One such demonstration was held by Zenky5 on January 28, 1946, in Hibiya Park in Tokyo. Union representatives had previously visited the Ministry and presented demands, calling for the reinstatement of 1300 teachers who had been laid off, for a five-fold pay raise and for 50 yen per teacher family allowance. When the demands were rejected, the union called a protest meeting for the 28th. The teachers met and protested the government's action by issuing a series of general statements of protest. One speaker called for the people's control of food distribution and schools in order to insure democratic education, to eliminate bureaucratic influence in education, and to allow the teachers to maintain an above subsistence standard of living with their teaching salary alone. Naka Sukematsu of the Liberal Party promised his party's support for the teachers' struggle, and Mizutani Chozaburo4, of the Social Democratic Party, told teachers that they were underpaid and should struggle for their goals. After the speeches, the teachers marched noisily to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office where they presented a resolution containing their demands to the governor, Fujinuma Shohei. Demonstrations of this sort became the generally accepted method of protest against the government, not only for labor unions, but for any organization which opposed some government operation. A third technique, although rarely used, was the hunger strike. In December 1949, Nikkyoso was not able to join a scheduled general strike because of a SCAP order against strikes by government employee unions. In protest, the five leading officials of the Japan Teachers' Union went on a public hunger strike in front of Tokyo Central Station. At the same time, representatives of the post office clerks' union were conducting a hunger strike at the central post office and representatives of the communications workers' union at Shimbashi Station. The teachers' union officials remained at their post for seventy hours until finally some of their demands were met by the ministry (Kochi Shimbun 1947:n. p.). These three techniques became and remained the standard operating procedure for the teachers' union. Of the three, the protest demonstration became the main union modus operandi; the other two were implemented only occasionally. Needless to say, the government opposed the use of this sort of technique by the unions and made every effort to curb it. In February 1946, the government announced it would prevent public disorder and violation of property rights in labor disputes which the left wing parties and the unions immediately labelled a reactionary step intended to set back the process of the democratization in Japan. The occupation authorities, on the other hand, while protesting the use of violence by the unions, maintained a hands-off policy. On February 23, 1946, efforts made to form a single federation of all the nation's unions succeeded in the establishment of the National Congress of Industrial Organizations (Sangyo Betsu Soshiki Kaigi, or Sanbetsu) made up of the Government Railroad Workers' Union, National Communications Workers' Union (Zen Teishin Jigyoin Kumiai, or Zentei), Japan Coal Miners' union (Nihon Tanko Rodo Kumiai, or Tanro), Japan Publishing Workers' Union, National Metal Workers' Union, Japan Seamen's Union, Zenkyo and others. While Zenky6 did not hesitate to join the new federation, Nikkyo split internally over the issue. Chairman Kagawa wanted Nikky6 to align with the General Federation of Labor (Nihon Rodo S5domei, or Sodomei), a moderate labor federation; but a powerful element of his union wanted to join Sanbetsu, the more militant grouping. The dispute within the union led to the dismissal of Kagawa as chairman and its eventual demise. Membership waned quickly to around 30, 000 and in July 1946 the group changed its name to the Japan Teachers' Union League (Nihon Kyoikusha Kumiai Rengo). By the autumn of 1946 the union was ineffective. [The authors of the SCAP history of teachers' unions do not think that the Nikkyo failure came about because of a lack of conservative teachers, but because of the union's internal problems. Without the dissension they say, Nikky6 might have become a powerful teachers' union (Nippon Times 1946:n.p.]

Page  130 130 THE ORIGINS OF THE JAPAN TEACHERS' UNION With Nikkyo out of the way, Zenkyo attempted to spread its influence over a larger segment of the teaching profession. In the early months of 1946, the union established a women's branch and encouraged women to join the movement in order to fight "every vestige of feudalism. " Moreover, Zen-, whose success at proselytizing outside of the cities had not been exceptional because of its Communist label also made an effort to bring in independent prefectural groups. With Nikkyo on the downgrade as an influential rival, Zenkyo was quite successful and by March 1946, according to Nihon Rodo Tsushin, Zenkyo had a membership of around 60,000 teachers (SCAP 1948b:23). With the ascendancy of Zenky5 and the beginning of the collapse of Nikkyo after February 1946, many uncommitted, moderate teachers wanted a union whose interests were limited to advancing teacher welfare and whose concern was not political. Acting upon this desire, a group of Tokyo youth teachers, on March 15, 1946, set up the Youth School Teachers' Union (Seinen Gakko Kyoin Kumiai, or Seikyo). The goals of this independent, non-political union were to improve the economic welfare of the teachers and to gain the right to bargain collectively. Seiky6 also wanted a five-fold increase of real income over that received in November 1945, a one hundred yen allowance per family member, teachers' housing and an end to salary discrimination against women. By August 1946, most of Tokyo's 1400 youth school teachers were represented by this union (SCAP 1948b:24). [Not long afterward, as one of SCAP's reforms, youth schools and youth school teachers were absorbed into upper secondary or high schools under the 6-3-3-plan. Before and during the war, youth schools had been but one of the five educational tracks above the six compulsory years of education, a category created in 1935 to serve the needs of the state for indoctrinating labor class youth and in mobilizing labor for efficient utilization. The schools provided a kind of vocational training for those who could not advance in academic or technical fields. During the war these schools became devoted to military ends; e. g., the classes were often used in toto in war factories. SCAP, as one of its first reforms set up a single track system, integrating youth schools into high schools in order to increase equality of educational opportunity. Nevertheless, in 1946, before and immediately after the United States Education Mission came to Japan, youth schools still existed, and youth school teachers played an important role in the early teachers' union movement. I Soon after Seikyo was founded, two more non-radical unions were formed, one for middle school teachers and the other for elementary school teachers. On March 19, 1946, the Tokyo Middle School Educational Personnel Union (Tokyo-to Chito Gakko Ky6shokuin Kumiai, or Chukyo) and on April 25, 1946, the Tokyo National Schoolteachers' Union (Tokyo-to Kokumin Gakko Kyoin Kumiai, or K5kky5) were formed as anti-Zenkyo unions, which rejected all interest in politics and the theory of the inevitability of class struggle. Both unions had similar economic demands to those of Seikyo, opposed the Japan Education Association or any other government controlled teachers' organization, and wanted all teachers in Japan unified into one union. Because of the impotency of the Japan Educational Association, the Ministry of Education had lost almost all influence over the teachers and was not in any position to increase government influence. The Ministry felt that it faced an aggressive union, Zenkyo, although it also felt that the views of the union leadership did not reflect those of the majority of the teaching profession. For example, Sawada Tatsuo, chief of the ministry investigations section, remarked that Zenkyo had been a good union until the political leaders and Communists had moved in and gained control. Ministry officials decided, therefore, to try to gain some support among the teachers themselves by sponsoring the new conservative unions. The ministry felt that if the conservative teachers could be successfully organized, the Zenkya leadership would lose considerable influence among moderate teachers. At any rate, the ministry did not want to let Zenky5 dominate the field without a fight. The ministry did not directly participate in the formation of the new unions, but it did try to give at least tacit support to the organizers of Chuikyo, Kokkyo, and Seikyo. On April 2, 1946, a

Page  131 RICHARD J. SMETHURST 131 conference of all the teachers' unions, including Zenkyo, was called by the chairman of the new middle school union, Chikyo. Hoping to win some teacher support, the ministry sent word to the conference that it agreed that teachers needed salary increases and a higher standard of living, but it mentioned no specific increases. However, any hope of the unions becoming reconciled with the ministry was lost when Inagaki Masanobu, the Zenkyo representative, made a speech calling the ministry a "hotbed of bureaucracy" and saying that the "bureaucrats were war criminals. " He went on to say that the ministry was undemocratic and all teachers' union organization work should be done by the teachers themselves. Even the conservative unions failed to reach an agreement with the ministry. But since all were opposed to Zenky5, because of its affiliation with the Communist party, its "struggle" tactics and its concept of the necessity of class struggle, Seikyo, Chukyo, and Kokkyo, merged on April 26, 1946, into one conservative union, the Tokyo Federation of Educational Personnel Unions (Tokyoto Kyoshokuin Kumiai Kyogikai, or Tokyokyo) which Zenkyo immediately branded as a puppet of the Mombusho which was attempting to destroy, rather than to further, the teachers' union movement. Although Zenky5 had competition from conservative unions, this "progressive" union was still the most successful at gaining members in 1945-46. The mass resignation from the teaching profession of over one hundred thousand nationalistic and ultraconservative teachers and the reinstatement of many teachers who were imprisoned or fired because of liberal beliefs were not the sole reasons for Zenkyo's relative success in organizing. Zenkyo operated from a position of unity, being the only liberal teachers' union and having few, or at least controlled, internal divisions. Nikky wracked with dispute and rapidly disintegrating, and the newly formed Tkyokyo, still a fledgling union, each spoke only for part of the conservative teachers. Moreover, the growth of trade unions and the chaotic and desperate living conditions of the early occupation years all aided the "radical" union, by helping to breed the idea that only radical measures would bring order out of chaos. Finally, the government's tacit support of the newly organized Tkyokyo scared away many moderate teachers who feared government control of education more than they feared the leftist and allegedly Communist dominated union. Because of these and other reasons, by July 1946, some 80% of the teachers in Japan were organized into unions, a plurality belonging to Zenkyo. Since many teachers belonged to independent, rural unions which were not affiliated with any of the large unions, Zenkyo easily dominated the field. This union also seemed to have more success than the others in recruiting outside of Tokyo, especially in the metropolitan areas of Japan such as Kyoto, Osaka, Fukuoka, Nagoya, and Yokohama; its claims of success in rural areas were, however, highly disputed. Tanaka Kotaro, Education Minister during the later part of 1946, disagreed with union claims of success at organizing rural teachers and even said that those rural teachers who did join the movement did so without knowing what it stood for. Nevertheless, many did join and added to the force which the Zenky5 leaders were able to wield. In May 1946, beginning with its participation in the first May Day labor demonstration in postwar Japan, Zenkyo began a new drive to force the ministry to accede to some of its demands. Zenkyo joined the May Day parade demanding living wages and popular control of education. While the unions' demand for popular control of education may be said to have been a fairly radical and impracticable one5, there can be little doubt that the teachers were badly in need of a salary with which they could support themselves and their families. Even Education Minister Tanaka admitted this. Nevertheless, the SCAP authorities involved with teachers' union affairs, believed that Zenkyo was a dangerously radical union, not only because the union's members had paraded with "inflammatorily worded placards" but also because some had carried red flags. It appeared that the union was quickly losing SCAP support. This SCAP attitude towards Zenyo, plus the previously mentioned incident at the Allied Council for Japan meeting (where U. S. Chairman Atcheson stated to the Soviet representative that the U. S. authorities suspected outside interference in the May Day gathering) tended to show that SCAP's attitude towards both Zenkyo and unions in general was stiffening.

Page  132 132 THE ORIGINS OF THE JAPAN TEACHERS' UNION Throughout the rest of the month of May, Zenkyo took part in a series of demonstrations in an effort to gain concessions from the ministry. On May 4, a group of Zenkyo leaders arranged to see the Minister of Education in order to discuss some of the union-ministry differences of opinion, and asked the minister for pay increases and for the distribution of food to teachers. The minister replied that the ministry did not have a large enough budget to give the teachers a pay raise, an answer which was unsatisfactory to the unions' representatives. The union, its economic demands rejected, next demanded that its members be given control of all schools. Needless to say, the minister refused to accede to this request also. The infuriated union representatives warned the minister not to interfere with union activities. The minister answered by saying that the government would interfere whenever the situation warranted and that unions which aimed at political or social movements would not be recognized as real unions. He added further that if their activities should expand beyond what the government thought were legitimate labor activities, the ministry could not be indifferent. The Zenkyo representatives would not accept the minister's explanation of why he could not meet their demands, and hundreds of the union's members invaded the ministry by force and camped for several nights in the hallways. The union's representatives were so persistent, that the minister, afraid of physical injury, was forced to hide for several days (as described above). The unions even brought reinforcements from the prefectures in order to provide relief for the members camping in the ministry halls. Despite the high-powered Zenky5 tactics and its arrogant method of negotiating6, the union gained no concessions from the Ministry of Education. All that the unruly tactics brought about was an increased willingness on the part of the ministry to negotiate with the newly formed conservative f rederation. made the Zenkyo leaders unhappy, since they hoped to get the ministry to recognize them as the sole representative of the teachers. The government absolutely refused and Minister Tanaka even said that he doubted that the union represented a majority of the teachers. The union was able, however, to gain the sympathy of many of the newspapers, which were traditionally anti-government, and even Minister Tanaka admitted that Zenkyo was able to stir up the "prejudices of the public and of the educational world against the Ministry of Education." Thus, the May 1946 drive was not without its compensations (SCAP 1948b:35). In June 1946, efforts were again initiated to unify the conservative and liberal teachers' unions into one union, in the hope of enhancing the teachers' bargaining power. Both Zenkyo and T6kyokyo felt that a strong Tokyo union would be able to bring the prefectural unions under its control, thus giving the central union tremendous bargaining power. The only difference between the June unification efforts and the earlier one was that now the federation rather than Nikkyo represented the conservative teachers. Nevertheless, similar ideological differences stood between the two unions: one union believed that political activity and "struggle" tactics were necessary to insure the improvement of teacher welfare and the other union rejected both. In addition, the federation objected to Zenky5's use of children and parents for political purposes and to its alleged affiliation with the Communist Party. Despite the differences, however, leaders of both unions hoped for unification and scheduled a mass meeting of representatives of both unions at the Imperial Palace Plaza in Tokyo for June 1, 1946, after agreeing that no controversial matters would be discussed at the meeting. When the delegates met on the appointed day, hundreds of Zenkyo-organized children and parents showed up carrying signs demanding food and aid for teachers and once the meeting had begun, Nozaka Sanz57, a Communist Party leader, rose to deliver Communist support to the teachers. The federation leaders were mortified and withdrew their union from the meeting, protesting that Zenkyo had broken its promise. Once again, efforts at unification failed. Each side blamed the other for the failure. After the failure of the unification efforts, both unions turned to recruiting strength throughout the country. Each made special attempts to gain the support of the unaffiliated prefectural unions. On June 21, 1946, a group of "nonradicals," moderate unions met in Tokyo, under the leadership of

Page  133 RICHARD J. SMETHURST 133 Tokyokyo, and established a federation of several prefectural and city unions as the National League of Teachers' Unions (Kyoin Kumiai Zenkoku Renmei or Ky5zenren). The new Ky5zenren renewed the federation demands for the immediate grant of 100 yen per member of each teacher's family, the abolishment of salary discrimination between men and women teachers, salary increases, and help for undernourished children. While maintaining the Tokyoky5 stand that the union be non-political, the union sent representatives to visit many members of the legislature, including Communist Party members, in order to win political support. The SCAP historians of the teachers' unions were quite surprised by this seeming paradox; however, the union leaders themselves saw nothing at all contradictory in the action. On June 26, several days after Kyozenren was formed, Zenkyo also called a conference in Tokyo in an effort to gain the support of independent prefectural unions. Non-urban prefectural unions were extremely reluctant to join Zenkyo because of its reputation as a left-wing union with a strong Communist Party affiliation. Because of this, the name of Zenkyo was changed to the Japan Educational Labor Union (Nihon Kyoin R5d5 Kumiai, or Nikkyoro). After this, although there was no evidence to prove that the leadership or the principles of the union had changed at all, the "progressive" labor union had some success in inducing prefectural unions to join. The union movement in general had expanded from a movement confined to Tokyo and other large metropolitan areas to a nationwide one. Nikkyoro, as Zenkyo before it, made determined efforts to gain popular support. Zenkyo, in March 1946, set up the Council for the Democratization of Education in an effort to use the prestige of the United States Education Mission,which was in Japan at the time, to gain popular support. The union also set up the Society for the Study of Democratic Education (Minshushugi Kyoiku Kenkykai) and decided to publish a magazine entitled Bright School (Akarui Gakko). The organizations were short lived, making no noticeable contribution to the popularity of Zenkyo, but Akarui Gakko continued to be the organ of the union and its "progressive" ideology. Akarui Gakko appealed almost entirely to teachers, especially Zenky5 and NikkyorU teachers, and had little success with the general public. Zenkyo and its successors had more success in winning popular support when the Ministry of Education made attempts to suppress the union than when it made efforts on its own part to win support. Thus, Nikkyoro was gradually gaining some popular support in the middle of 1946, probably because of the Ministry of Education's determined efforts to curb the union's anti-government activities. SCAP was holding to its non-intervention policy, even while becoming more and more disenchanted with Nikky5r5, but the Japanese government was clearly opposed to the union. In July 1946, Education Minister Tanaka Kotaro urged that teachers be included in the terms of the Labor Relations Adjustment Bill, drawn up for presentation to the Diet to outlaw strikes by civil servants. Both KyGzenren and NikkyorU, not to mention the smaller independent unions, opposed the Minister's aim, for they did not want to be deprived of their right to strike and bargain collectively. Ky5zenren, even though it opposed the use of strikes, argued that the law would reduce the unions to mere "cultural and social institutes" while Nikkyoro, as usual, took a stronger stand and protested that this move was an attempt by the ministry to "put education again under the despotic control of the bureaucrats." Under pressure from all sides, the government surrendered and teachers were excluded from the provisons of the bill. Fresh from their victory over the ministry, the unions joined in opposition to the government to try to gain new concessions, this time in the form of a salary increase. Although the government had granted special allowances in February,*April, and June, it made no efforts to reform the salary schedule until September 1946. Even then, the reform consisted of only a changed method of determining salaries and, consequently, slight increases for elementary school teachers. As usual, the ministry almost entirely ignored the unions' demands. However, the government could in part justify

Page  134 134 THE ORIGINS OF THE JAPAN TEACHERS' UNION its policy because only limited funds were available. In October, Kyozenren called a conference and renewed its demands for salary increases, income tax exemptions, pay discrimination against women teachers, and the cessation of unwarranted teacher dismissals. Shortly afterward Nikkyoro too called a conference and set up the Council for All Japan Teachers' Unions to secure the Minimum Standard of Living (Zenkoku Ky5in Kumiai Saitei Seikatsuken Kakutoku Ky5gikai, or Zenky5so) to represent Nikky5r5 and several unaffiliated unions in an attempt to secure practically the same objectives as Nikky5r5. The ministry was immediately willing to negotiate with the delegates of Kyozenren because of the cooperative attitude they adopted, but it refused to even meet with Zenkyoso. Minister Tanaka called Zenky5so a "political expression of communistic elements in the educational world," and was in turn accused by the union of holding "bureaucratic prejudices. " After being rebuffed by Tanaka, Zenky5so began a campaign to sell their point of view to the public by making speeches, selling journals, and visiting parents to familiarize them with union problems. The campaign must have been successful, for on November 1, the Minister decided that he would meet with a Zenkyoso delegation. The meeting was held at the ministry and the union handled itself in a surprisingly conciliatory manner, staging none of the usual demonstrations and sitdown strikes. On November 2, Minister Tanaka the salaries of all public officials must also be raised, (2) resume discussions concerning salary increases after the fiscal condition of the nation was improved, (3) refer the income tax exemption question to the financial authorities, and (4) curtail the dismissals of teachers (SCAP 1946b:44-5). Zenkyoso termed Tanaka's reply unsatisfactoy and on November 6, 1946, held a national convention and adopted a resolution to strike if necessary to gain its aims. Zenkyoso's next step was to call upon Ky5zenren to conduct a commo n against the ministry. The feeler was rejected, however, because the league objected to Zenkyoso's strike tactics and did not want to lose its independence of action. Several days later, Minister Tanaka informed Ky5zenren that the ministry would meet its minimum salary demands although no date was set for the pay increase to go into effect. Chairman Iwama Masao8 of Zenky5so immediately protested that the ministry had informed only the rival union of the pay increase and claimed that his union represented 300, 000 teachers while the opposition union represented only 20, 000. The Education Minister, however, still refused to recognize Zenkyoso as the sole bargaining agent for the teachers and refused again to meet its demands9. Its demands not having been met, Zenkyoso scheduled a strike for late November 1946. After this announcement, rumors spread that SCAP planned to prohibit the strike if it occurred. However, before the strike was effected, the union decided instead to join the February 1, 1947 general strike, then in the planning stage. Whether rumors about SCAP were true or not is unknown, but if it had called off the strike, it would have been the first time SCAP had intervened in a labor dispute since the beginning of the occupation. THE GENERAL STRIKE: A REVERSAL OF OCCUPATION ATTITUDE Zenky5so, fearing SCAP intervention, called off the strike, and instead, out of a desire to strengthen its position by acting in unity with others, decided to join with the government office workers, railroad workers, and communications workers in a joint campaign to gain salary increases. In December 1946, a joint strike committee was set up to plan for a strike to be held early in 1947. Kyozenren was asked to join this contemplated strike, but declined because of its objection to the use of "excessive" tactics. The unions which planned the 1947 strike quickly gained the support of the

Page  135 RICHARD J. SMETHURST 135 Social Democratic Party led by Nishio Suehiro and Katayama Tetsu. This party demanded that the cabinet resign and a general election be held. On December 17, 1946, a gigantic labor rally was held in the Imperial Palace Plaza, with almost half a million persons participating. The rally called for a new government, based on the Social Democratic Party, a minimum wage law, collective bargaining agreements between the government and all government employee unions, income tax revisions, and full employment. On the same day, the Social Democratic Party submitted a resolution to the Diet calling for the resignation of all the members of the cabinet. This motion was quickly voted down, but when all the major national newspapers supported the demands for new elections, Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru attempted to bring some Social Democrats into the cabinet. This play to head off a crisis was unsuccessful because the opposition party would not compromise its demands in order to make the terms agreeable to the government and, therefore, did not join the cabinet. Meanwhile, on December 22, 1946, Nikkyro- and Zenkyoso were dissolved, and a new national union, the Council of All Japan Teachers' Unions (Zenkoku Kyoin Kumiai Kyogikai or Zenkyokyo), was established, containing all the elements of the old union plus several new prefectural unions. All in all, the new union claimed to represent 320, 000 teachers, including many non-radical ones. The moderates within the "radical" union made a determined effort to gain control and were at least partially successful. The new executive chairman was a moderate. However, Iwama Masao remained as head of the central campaign committee, the new union did not reject "struggle" tactics, and its demands were the same Zenkyo-Nikkyoro-Zenkyoso ones. On December 28, the joint strike committee of the various government workers' unions met to work out their strike plans and decided to submit an ultimatum to the government, stating that if an answer were not received by January 11, 1947, the committee would meet to set a date for a general strike. On January 11, the committee met, set the strike date for February 1, and once again submitted an ultimatum to the government, this time with thirteen demands for which they requested answers by January 15. On the fifteenth, the government answered, promising to investigate the arrests of Zenkyokyo members (including Iwama Masao) during a December demonstration, to halt dismissals of teachers, to end pay discrimination between male and female teachers, to agree to collective bargaining, and to study pay increases and tax allowances. In addition, Prime Minister Yoshida apologized for his critical remarks towards labor10. The answer was considered unsatisfactory by the unions, however, and February 1 was fixed as the date for the strike. It was decided, however, that the occupation forces union workers would not strike and that the government office workers would comply with the prohibition against striking established in the Labor Relations Adjustment Act. The thirty unions and three major federations involved in the planning of the strike represented four million workers. The unions and members seemed united on general objectives but not on the tactics to be used. The Communists and their militant sympathizers, including the leaders of Zenkyokyo, wanted a concerted nationwide strike. The more moderate unions opposed this idea. In the end, each union was allowed to decide on the tactics it would employ during the strike and as a result, some unions decided not to join the general strike, but instead to have only 24 or 48 hour sympathy strikes. Because of this, the planned strike never approached the proportions of a complete general strike (Farley 1950:145-47). Although all prefectural branches of Zenkyokyo decided to follow the decision of their national leadership and to join the general strike without any reservations, the decision in most prefectures was made by extremely close margins. Furthermore, in at least one prefecture, Ehime Prefecture, it appears that few local branches ever actually voted on whether or not to strike. When the union leaders met at a prefectural conference to decide whether or not to participate, the local union chiefs voted as they thought their members would have voted. In other words, in at least one prefecture, the rank and file members may have very well opposed to participation in the general strike (Special Report 1947:n.p.).

Page  136 136 THE ORIGINS OF THE JAPAN TEACHERS' UNION On January 18, 1947, the objectives of the strike were announced. The unions requested: (1) a minimum monthly wage, (2) immediate payment of the balance of the year end allowances, (3) immediate collective bargaining agreements, (4) no unreasonable discharges, (5) no discriminatory treatment, (6) cash payments of all salaries and allowances, (7) abolition of the Labor Relations Adjustment Act, (8) abolishment of income tax on wages, (9) payment of salaries during strikes, and (10) guarantees against police oppression of labor. Furthermore, the joint committee stated that the workers were suffering because the government was not interested in helping labor at all, that the ideals of democracy was not being attained because the country was under the control of persons completely in sympathy with the wartime militaristic government, and that radical agitation was the only effective weapon under such conditions. One of the slogans to be used during the strike read, "Down with the Yoshida Cabinet —establish a people's government. " Many moderate unions dropped out of the strike when they saw that their less radical tactics were being swept aside, but many other moderate unions were pressured into participation along with the moderate members of radical unions (Farley 1950:145-47). SCAP, having maintained a hands-off policy towards labor disputes from the beginning of the occupation, was reluctant to intervene openly in the government-union dispute. Nevertheless, the occupation authorities believed that the shaky Japanese economy would be in danger of complete collapse if the strike were to take place. Therefore, they made efforts behind the scenes to have the strike called off, mainly by attempting to get both sides to compromise and reach an agreement. On January 22, 1947, the government announced temporary wage increases amounting to 650,771,000 yen for January, February, and March, 1947, which, although short of the unions' demands, were higher than in any previous government offer. On the same day, Major General W. F. Marquat, chief of the Economic and Scientific Section of SCAP, called the members of the joint struggle committee to his office and advised them to continue negotiations and not to strike. Even though he told the union representatives that SCAP would call off the strike if it were held, the unions rejected the government demands and continued to plan for the scheduled general strike. The unions did, however, continue to negotiate for better pay terms, and, by the twenty-ninth of January, the difference between the government's offer and the unions' demands had narrowed greatly. At this time, Prime Minister Yoshida once again tried to bring the Social Democrats into his cabinet, but again they refused, so that at this point it appeared as if the strike were inevitable unless SCAP called it off (Farley 1950:151). SCAP did not intend to let the general strike take place. On January 30, General Marquat called the union leaders into his office once more and ordered them to call off the strike. The unions were told to comply by the next day, but SCAP refused to issue a written order prohibiting the strike. As of 2:30 p. m. the next day, the unions had not complied, so General MacArthur issued a formal order, marking SCAP's first open intervention in Japanese labor disputes. Although General MacArthur's statement said that the prohibition of the strike in no way limited the freedom of labor in pursuing legitimate goals, the tenor of the statement was extremely critical. Despite the general's attempts to show that SCAP was intervening impartially, there can be little doubt that SCAP's attitude was changing and that SCAP's interests were now more closely identified with the conservative government than with the labor movement. The government seized upon this SCAP move to attempt to crush the labor movement. Although the government and the Prime Minister for several months took a conciliatory stand towards labor, the police used the MacArthur statement to initiate an allout attempt to crush the unions. Although SCAP probably did not intend to have the prohibition used in this way, the occupation authorities made little effort to control this police action. SCAP appears to have been mainly motivated by a fear of communists, whom the authorities thought were influential in the labor movement. In addition, General MacArthur appears to have felt that the general strike and its goals were a direct criticism of SCAP's efforts at democratization,

Page  137 RICHARD J. SMETHURST 137 since the unions thought that Japan was controlled, not by democratic elements, but by the same militaristic and bureaucratic elements that they said had controlled Japan before and during the war. Not all members of the SCAP team were of this mind. Many, especially in the labor division, felt that the strike should not have been prohibited and that in the long run it would have benefited Japanese democracy. Miriam Farley, a former SCAP official, for instance, felt that the youthful and militant progressives who pushed for extreme tactics were not Communists, but were only attracted to communist slogans and knew nothing of party philosophy or discipline. Their advocacy of extreme tactics was more a manifestation of their hatred of the old regime and the Yoshida Cabinet, she thought. Despite their immoderate ideas, Miss Farley felt that these young people represented a good reservoir of leadership for future Japan. As she viewed the 1946-47 labor movement, it was not a drive created by Communists, but a democratic expression of public opinion, even though it was not within the limits of democratic procedure as SCAP saw it (Farley 1950:46, 51-2,159). At least one SCAP official, Richard L. G. Deverall, chief of the labor education branch of the Economic and Scientific Section of SCAP, saw the general strike as a Communist effort to instigate a coup d'etat in Japan and to overthrow the democratic form of government set up by SCAP. Because of the Communist domination of labor, he said, SCAP was forced to deprive two million government workers of their right to strike (Deverall 1954:269). The threatened strike and its prohibition by SCAP proved clearly that if the occupation authorities wanted their experiment in Japan to follow certain lines, a policy of non-intervention would not be sufficient. There was no way to insure "democracy's " developing along the lines they intended, unless SCAP forced the development into the mold by which it hoped to shape the system. Therefore, SCAP was forced to take an apparently non-neutral action and to appear to condemn only one party involved for its tactics and objectives. In short, SCAP was forced to take seemingly non-democratic steps in order to insure the development of the democracy it wanted. Of course, as stated above, new factors, mainly the "Communist threat" and the "cold war" which had developed since the occupation had begun, had altered SCAP's goals and its conception of democracy for Japan. According to a public opinion poll conducted by the Nippon Times in Tokyo on February 1, 1947, the Japanese public was grateful for the SCAP action. The paper did not, however, give any statistical results of its poll. Yet, it seems clear that the unions did not have great popular support. This attempt to coerce a change in government was probably a mistake from labor's point of view. While their aims gained considerable public sympathy, their general strike tactics did not. The calling of a general strike without public support actually hurt the labor movement's chances of reaching its goals, for it helped to crystalize support for the government against the labor unions. While the public tended to applaud SCAP's decision, it is clear that the members of the strike committee and the leaders of the unions involved did not. The SCAP order was a bitter disappointment to them, and Ii Yashiro, chairman of the Joint Strike Committee, was reported to have broken down into tears while announcing that the strike had been cancelled by SCAP. Despite the committee's bitterness, few advocated disobedience, and the committee voted to comply with the order. Only two brief work stoppages occurred on February 1st. The newspapers also appear to have been grateful for SCAP's order, although they were continually critical of the policies of the Yoshida government and sympathetic with the objectives of the unions. Prime Minister Yoshida, in deference to the unions, dropped Zen Keinosuke, director of the Economic Stabilization Board, the unions' chief target, from the cabinet, but also forced the resignation of Wada Hiro, Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, the most liberal member of the cabinet. After the strike, the Yoshida government if not the police, for a time took a more conciliatory policy towards both labor in general, and Zenkykyo in particular, and both unions, Kyozenren and

Page  138 138 THE ORIGINS OF THE JAPAN TEACHERS' UNION Zenky6kyo, continued their efforts to gain concessions from the Mombusho. On February 5, the moderate union presented demands to the ministry calling for a pay raise and larger dependent allowances, making stronger demands than ever before. Shortly thereafter, Zenky6kyo followed with its own demands. After stalling for several weeks, on February 17, the ministry announced a temporary pay scale with a 100% increase for teachers earning 600 yen or less. The ministry also promised to discuss a permanent pay scale increase within a month. Both unions accepted the offer, but did not give up their demands for greater increases. Because of Zenkyoky5 pressure, on March 8, 1947, the ministry agreed to recognize the union as the sole bargaining agent for its members, to abolish salary discrimination because of sex, to reduce classes to forty students each, to broaden welfare benefits, to guarantee a 42 hour work week, and to give maternity and menstrual leave to teachers (SCAP 1948b:51). Three days later, Kyozenren signed a similar agreement. After the general strike was crushed by SCAP, Zenkyokyo also renewed efforts to unify the movement by merging with Kyozenren. The government unwittingly played a key role in bringing about the success of the efforts for reunification when a government committee for educational reform recommended that a society similar to the Japan Education Association be established. Both unions were upset by this move and protested to the ministry forcing abandonment of the plan. At the same time, they jointly requested clarification from the ministry of certain points in their newly won contracts. Because of this cooperation and its success, both unions saw that it would be to their best interests to merge. Thus, on June 8, 1947, the two unions met at Nara and the long desired amalgamation took place. It is impossible to estimate accurately the number of members in this new union, but it appears that there were about 400, 000 teachers organized into the Japan Educational Personnel Union (Nihon Kyoshokuin Kumiai or Nikkyoso). We can make this estimate from the fact that the membership of Zenky~kyo before amalgamation had been about 278, 500 teachers and that of Kyozenren, 98,500 (SCAP 1948b:53). Few known Communists won office in the new union. Most of the key offices seem to have been held by "conservatives, " although it appears that when the writers of the SCAP history of the teachers' union movement wrote of labor union "conservatives, " they had in mind right wing socialists, as opposed to labor union radicals who were usually affiliated with the left wing of the Socialist Party or the Communist Party. Thus, it would probably be safer to say that many of the key offices of the new union were held by moderates, while some were held by left wing socialists and Communists. None, however, were held by conservatives of the "government official type. " The platform of the union, as drawn up by the delegates at Nara, was much less extreme than the old Zenky5kyo one. Although the union did not give up the right to strike, it limited the use of the strike as only a last resort tactic. The union also rejected the policy of collaboration with other labor unions and made as its overall aim the goal of advancing teacher welfare. It rejected political objectives as outside its scope of activities. Although the moderate elements were able to temper the union's activities for a short while, gradually the radical elements gained control of the union again and within months of its founding, Nikkyoso's goals and tactics became more and more like those of Zenky5ky5 (Edwards 1956:257-58). THE CRACKDOWN: THE NATIONAL PUBLIC SERVICE LAW AND THE PURGE In the closing months of 1947 and in 1948, it became more and more clear to Japanese labor unions, Nikkyoso included, that SCAP was no longer their ally. The continuing cold war, the need to build a bulwark in the Far East now that it seemed inevitable that the Communists would win the

Page  139 RICHARD J. SMETHURST 139 civil war in China, and the need to strengthen the Japanese economy to relieve the burden Japan placed on the American taxpayers brought a drastic change from the "hands off" policy of the early occupation to one of placing every possible restriction on the political activities of the labor unions. Since the unions felt, with some justification, that political tactics were a necessity in order to gain economic concessions from the government, SCAP's restrictions limited the effectiveness of Japanese unions even in legitimate labor union fields of interest. In July 1948, SCAP suggested to the Japanese government that the National Public Service Law be revised so that government workers would be deprived of the right to strike and bargain collectively. SCAP further recommended that this revision also stop government workers from devoting time from government duties to union activities (Levine 1958:27). On July 22, 1948, General MacArthur himself wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, suggesting that these recommendations be made into law. Because it reflects just how far SCAP' s attitude towards government workers' unions, of which Nikkyoso was the largest, had changed, I include the following, extensive quotation from the text of the letter.... There is, however, a sharp distinction between those who have dedicated their energies to the public service and those engaged in private enterprise. The former are the very instruments used for the exercise by government of the people's sovereign power, and as such owe unconditional allegiance to the public trust imposed by virtue of their employment... No person holding a position by appointment or employment in the public service of Japan or in any instrumentality hereof should resort to strike or engage in delaying or other dispute tactics which tend to impair the efficiency of governmental operations. I feel that any person, holding such a position, who resorts to such action against the public of Japan thereby betrays the public trust reposed in him and forfeits all rights and privileges accruing to him by virtue of his employment. For as President Roosevelt stated, "all government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or bind the employer in mutual discussions with government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of law enacted by their representatives of Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances, restricted, by personnel matters." It must be clearly understood, however, that this concept does not mean that public servants are deprived of the untrammelled right individually or collectively, personally or by chosen representatives, freely to express their views, opinions or grievances for the purpose of seeking a betterment of their conditions of public employment. Such rights are inherent in a democratic society and inalienable and I believe are adequately provided for in the proposed revision of the existing law. Moreover, the special restrictions which protection of the national interest impose upon the employees of a government make it all times incumbent upon government to provide adequate safeguard to the welfare and interest of such employees (MacArthur 1948a:n. p.). Needless to say, the Yoshida Government, which seemed to view Nikky5so as a threat to its very existence, welcomed the SCAP recommendation; several months later the administration submitted a bill to the Diet which would revise the National Public Service Law so that government employees could neither strike nor bargain collectively. Furthermore, the proposed bill did not allow educational public service personnel to engage in duties other than the educational ones, if

Page  140 140 THE ORIGINS OF THE JAPAN TEACHERS' UNION doing so impeded the execution of their regular duties. The decision as to whether these extracurricular activities would lessen the effectiveness of teachers and other educational personnel was left under provisions of the law to "competent authority," which was interpreted to mean the National Personnel Authority and the Ministry of Education. Thus, the government could restrict teachers from playing important union roles while holding public service teaching jobs, if it so desired. On November 30, 1948, at 8:00 a.m., the lower house of the Diet passed the revised National Public Service Law after a riotous all night session. Later in the day, the House of Councillors passed the law also (although the upper house approval was not necessary to make the bill law), and several days later the law went into effect. Although the Socialists, Communists, and Labor-Farmer Parties with union support vigorously opposed the law, the Democratic-Liberal, Democratic, People's Cooperative Parties had enough of a majority in the House of Representatives and in the House of Councillors to pass the law handily. Because of this law, teachers' unions were no longer recognized as labor unions, and although teachers could still organize, they lost many of the labor union freedoms and tactical weapons which might have made possible the fulfillment of their demands. The passage of the revised law was met with mixed emotions. On December 2, 1948, the Far East Commission ordered that a full copy of the law be sent to them for study, since several delegates, including those from the Soviet Union, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, expressed the feeling that this law might restrict the right to bargain collectively in Japan. Not long afterwards, the Soviet representative presented a proposal stating that the laws not only contradicted the Commission's directives concerning labor union principles, but also deprived workers and employees of government enterprises and institutions of their elementary rights to strike and to bargain collectively. Although most other delegates thought that the Soviet complaints were too strong, all of the delegations with the exception of that of the United States opposed the law which the Japanese government had passed at SCAP's urging. Australia submitted a proposal which, although slightly modifying the Soviet demand, if passed, would have required a revision of the National Public Service Law. This Australian proposal would have returned the right to strike to "workers in Japanese government enterprises" but, unlike the Soviet proposal, not to civil servants including teachers. The British delegate supported the Australian point of view whole-heartedly at a meeting of the steering committee. The United States delegate, Major General Frank R. McCoy, stood alone in support of the law, claiming that the Occupation authorities had been forced to urge this law because of strikes which threatened the very success of the occupation. General McCoy's arguments reached deaf ears and the representatives of every nation on the council opposed the United States view, although at the same time they were firmly opposed to the Soviet view. Debate on the subject continued until November 1949, but the issue was never brought to a vote, probably because of Australian reluctance to create council disharmony and to embarrass the United States (Blakeslee n.d.: 170-75). The unions themselves, especially Nikkyoso, naturally felt that the passage of the law was totally unfair and unwarranted. Nikkyoso made it immediately clear that they would curtail neither their efforts to resolve their problems nor their desire to overthrow the Yoshida Government. Their new drive would be to gain larger representation in the coming elections to the House of Representatives. The union did not reject political tactics at all; as a matter of fact, it thought there was no other channel for future efforts (Ehime Shimbun 1948:n. p.). According to the Nippon Times, the nation as a whole welcomed the new law, although a small but vociferous minority opposed the bill (Nippon Times 1948b:n.p.). It seems doubtful that too great a segment of the population was aware of the law and its implications, however, and certainly the vocal urban and intellectual elements which were did not welcome it since they tended to be in sympathy with

Page  141 RICHARD J. SMETHURST 141 the cause of the teachers and students. The Asahi Shimbun editorialized that the law was necessary, as General MacArthur's letter of July 22 had stated, to set up a democratic and efficient public service, but feared that the law put too much power in the hands of the National Personnel Authority and the government, which had proven that it was only too willing to go to extremes to repress labor. If administered in a democratic way, said the Asahi, the law would prove to be beneficial; nevertheless, the paper doubted that the law would operate democratically (Asahi Shimbun 1948b:n. p.). General MacArthur hailed the enactment of the law revision as a major victory for those who sought the integrity of representative government over those who would make government an easy prey to minority subjugation. The general said that the new legislation had been misrepresented "both here and abroad as a negation of fundamental workers' rights in the trade union movement." He went on to point out that it did not apply to labor in the private enterprises, but rather provided the Japanese people the "protection of an orderly, efficient, and politically moral public service" and granted a "high standard of dignity, responsibility and security" to the public servant. On the panorama of Japanese legislative history few measures have emerged with greater significance to the cause of representative government than is found in the legislation just enacted establishing norms and standards governing public employment. By it the public service is at once elevated to a new dignity befitting its station as the instrument of sovereign power with security against the invasion of licentious minority pressures and individual protection above that granted any segment of Japanese society (Nippon Times 1948b:n. p.). Despite the General's statement, it was clear that the main interest of the occupation authorities was no longer only the cause of democracy and representative government in Japan, but also the rebuilding of the Japanese economy and industrial machine so as to make Japan a bulwark for the free world against the Soviet bloc. Labor was able to and did take strong exception with some of his ideas. First of all, it felt that the law did to some degree negate fundamental workers' rights in the trade union movement. Of course, the law did not prohibit all workers from striking and bargaining collectively, but it did take these rights away from members of the labor movement who had had these rights in the past. SCAP argued that public servants in most countries did not have these rights; however, as SCAP had seen fit to give these rights to Japanese public servants in 1945, to take them away made it a deprivation. Therefore, despite General MacArthur's phraseology, SCAP policy toward labor was changing, and SCAP was becoming more of a friend of business and an opponent of labor. It seems as if SCAP had wanted the natural development of a labor movement in the image of the American one, and when SCAP did not get this, it attempted to mold the movement into the form desired. In the next two weeks, SCAP made perfectly clear what its real intentions had become in Japan. On December 11, 1948, SCAP announced that it was cancelling the regulation which had effected the dissolution of the zaibatsu. For a week or two after this the authorities step by step made pronouncements which showed that their foremost aim was now the economic rebuilding of Japan. On December 12, SCAP approved the government policy opposing any wage increases which might cause inflationary tendencies. Chester W. Hepler, chief of the labor division, stated that the unions must "accept joint responsibility for the economic salvation of their nation. " This meant, that unions should, at least for the time being, desist from making wage demands. On December 20, 1948, General MacArthur announced that he had received a Far Eastern Commission directive stating that the "prompt economic stabilization of Japan is a primary objective common both to the Allied Powers and the Japanese people. " The General went on further to state that "there will be no place for interference...by labor with the acceleration of production, for the burden will be shared by every segment of society. Nor will there be any place for ideological opposition as the purpose to be pursued is common to all of the

Page  142 142 THE ORIGINS OF THE JAPAN TEACHERS' UNION people, and any attempt to delay or frustrate its accomplishment must be curbed as a menace to the general welfare" (Nippon Times 1948c:n. p.). As SCAP's attitude changed, the Occupation authorities wanted to restrict the political activities of the teachers' union as well as its powers to bargain collectively and strike. SCAP viewed these political activities as outside the limits it thought appropriate for a teacher's organization. The Occupation authorities believed that Nikkyoso should not be a union whose aims were the economic betterment of its members, but a professional teachers' organization whose goals should be limited to matters of educational methods, teaching standards, and the like. On November 6, 1948, Frank A. Hollingshead, the commanding officer of the Tokyo military government team, made a speech to the Tokyo Private Secondary School Teachers' Union at the Kyoiku Kaikan in Kanda, in which he stated the SCAP attitude towards the union's political activity. Colonel Hollingshead said: On 16 September 1948, in addressing a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Tokyo-to Federation of Teachers' Unions at Nagata-cho Primary School, I made the following statement: 'As teachers and as union members you would gain public confidence if you devoted your efforts to improving educational methods and teaching standards instead of fighting to obstruct the democratization of education...' Both (private and public teachers' unions) are professional teachers organizations, and, as such, have the same two primary overall objectives: (1) to provide better educational services for the children in the schools, and (2) to provide proper standards and working conditions for teachers. Your unions have discredited themselves in the eyes of the public by engaging in politically inspired issues having nothing to do with legitimate functions of teacherst unions (Hollingshead 1948:n. p.). Before leaving SCAP's attitude toward the union in 1948 and going on to review union policy for the next few years, it seems worthwhile to discuss briefly an idea mentioned by both General MacArthur and Colonel Hollingshead -- that the government employees' unions and the teachers' union had completely discredited themselves by engaging in political activities in the first three years of their existence. Based on the material available, this idea of SCAP does not appear to have been entirely justified. First of all, it does not seem likely that the average citizen agreed with Colonel Hollingshead in regard to the goals of the teachers' unions. All the experience of the Japanese public with teachers' unions had been with either the government-controlled Japan Education Association or with Nikkyoso and its predecessors, while the SCAP official judged the union's aims in the light of his knowledge of the goals of American teachers' organizations. In short, it does not seem likely that the general public had lost confidence in teachers' unions because the unions were aiming at objectives which were outside SCAP's idea of legitimate teachers' union interests. If the unions had discredited themselves in the eyes of the public, it would more likely have been because the public objected to the violent tactics the union used and not to its political or economic objectives. To be more specific, several indices of public opinion are available to show that teachers in general still had the confidence of the populace. First, in October 1948, the Japanese public in fortysix prefectures (including five large cities, twenty-one smaller cities, sixteen towns, and nine villages) went to the polls to elect members of school boards for the first time in Japanese history. Of the 296 elected officials, 98 or about one-third were teachers and many others were former teachers. Since most teachers were members of Nikkyoso by late 1948 and since Nikkyoso campaigned vigorously therthe boards, the public must have known that, in voting for teachers, they were voting for union representatives (Werth 1949:20). Second, on July 17, 1948, the An

Page  143 RICHARD J. SMETHURST 143 alysis and Research Division of the Civil Information and Education Section of SCAP published the results of public opinion polls in the field of education. One poll, conducted throughout the nation, measured the attitude of the public towards teachers on the basis of teacher interest, ability, and character. In all cases, the concensus of the persons questioned was that the teachers? interest, ability, and character were overwhelmingly satisfactory. Of the parents of public school students interviewed, for instance, 44% thought the teachers' ability satisfactory as opposed to 11% who thought it unsatisfactory; 58% thought the teachers' interest satisfactory as opposed to 12% who thought it unsatisfactory; and 52% thought the teachers' character satisfactory as opposed to 7% who did not. For the parents of private school students interviewed, the percentages for the three categories were 64% to 3%, 70% to.5%,and 65% to 3%. In other words, if the SCAP pollsters' sample was valid, one could valid, one could say that in July 1948, the teachers, most of whom were union members, were in good repute with the public (SCAP, 1948d:5). Of course, this statistical data must be utilized with care, for public opinion in regard to teachers and teachers' union policy were two different things. SCAP may have been right in its contention concerning the union. However, the conclusion is not as clear as some believed at the time. Despite the anti-teachers' union attitude of the Occupation authorities and the Japanese government and despite the new law which restricted union activity severely, Nikkyoso had no intention of stopping its efforts to obtain its political and economic goals. At the annual meeting in Kanazawa in May 1948, and again in December, after the passage of the Public Service Law, the union decided to develop a strong movement for the purpose of raising teachers' salaries and for "democratizing education." Despite SCAP restrictions, the union set up the Central Struggle Committee (Chuo T5so Iin Kai) to lead the fight for these goals. The union carried out periodic demonstrations to emphasize its demands, culminating in one at the Imperial Palace Plaza on April 8, 1949 which was attended by 30, 000 persons from labor unions, Nikkyoso, the Parent Teachers' Association, and other interested groups. The demonstrators delivered messages to the Prime Minister, Finance Minister, Education Minister, Welfare Minister, and the chairmen of both houses, calling upon the government to bear all the costs of the educational system (while at the same time holding little or no control over the system). Because the government now had SCAP approval for its policy of limiting pay increases and because the government was committed to crushing the anti-government teachers' union movement, their tactics gained the teachers little or nothing in the way of government concessions. Thus, when the union met for its annual convention in Fukushima Prefecture in April 1949, the program drawn up was virtually the same as that of 1948. Although the government tactics were, if anything, causing the Nikkyoso leadership to battle the government more intensively, there were those who thought that the government efforts were scaring many of the rank and file teachers from supporting the union's vigorous action. Hirayu Kazuhito, a "leftist" writing in the magazine, Bright Education (Akarui Kyoiku), thought that because of the government's attempts to suppress the Japan Teachers' Union, the teachers were losing their ardor for the "reconstruction of education" and were becoming servile to the local political bosses in order to make a living wage. Hirayu went on to say that the Education Minister (at this time Amano Teiyu) was lazy and incompetent and that only labor and teachers through a joint "struggle" effort could democratize education (Hirayu, 1949:n.p.). Iwama Masao, one of the early Zenkyo leaders and a Communist Party member of the House of Councillors, went even further in his criticism of the government by placing on it full responsibility for the crisis which he saw in education. According to Iwama, teachers were not drawn from the ranks of outstanding people, because teachers' salaries were inadequate. The government, by constantly cutting the educational budget, was largely responsible for this situation. "All disorder in education," Iwama said, "derives from the severe restrictions in the educational budget. By careful study, we know that it is the result of the maladministration of previous cabinets and particularly of the educational policy of the Yoshida Government" (Iwama, 1949:7).

Page  144 144 THE ORIGINS OF THE JAPAN TEACHERS' UNION It quickly became evident both to SCAP and the Japanese government that the National Public Service Law of 1948 had not tempered Nikkyoso activity one bit and that further efforts would have to be made in order to curb the union. According to Hidaka Daishiro, 12 former Vice Minister of Education, the law only drove the Japan Teachers' Union to more intensive political tactics and further to the left. He estimates that in January 1949, 3, 000 members of the union were concurrently members of the Communist Party and that half of the Central Executive Committee were in the left wing of the Socialist Party. At a time when SCAP and the Japanese government were trying to rebuild the Japanese economy and hoping to rearm Japan as a free world defense "bastion" in East Asia, the union was becoming affiliated with Sohyo under a "united democratic labor front" banner and was adopting the policies of "struggling" for wage increases, of opposition to rearmament and United States bases in Japan, and of neutrality between the free world and the Communist bloc (Hidaka, 1956:151-52). It soon became evident that SCAP and the Japanese government intended to take greater efforts to weaken Nikky5so, too. Efforts to control the union were presaged by a speech given by Dr. Walter Eels, educational adviser to SCAP. at Niigata on July 17, 1949. The main point of Dr. Eels' speech was that if universities in the United States were purging Communist professors and teachers, there was no reason why Japanese universities and schools should not do the same. The Eels speech was decried by teachers, students, and many other elements of the vocal Japanese public; but this did not stop the government from quickly taking action to effect this recommendation. A special committee was set up in the Education Ministry to study the problem, and when the new school term began in September, many professors and teachers were forced to resign their posts (Battistini, 1956:66-9). The Japanese government slowly and efficiently purged about one thousand teachers, professors, and administrators who were thought to be Communist Party members or sympathizers. The government did not openly dismiss teachers because of their political leanings and affiliations, but instead used as a pretext the fact that it was necessary to eliminate surplus employees. In schools below the high school level, the prefectural assemblies and education committees set personnel quotas for each school and then usually found the Communists and their sympathizers to be among the extra personnel. At the same time, the government cracked down on the political activities of teachers. In June 1949, the Ministry of Education made a ruling which interpreted Article 8 of the Public Education Law as prohibiting teachers from visiting childrens' parents to conduct political conversations, promoting political round table discussions among students, singing political songs with students, or drawing the attention of students to the propaganda of any political party. This ruling also gave the prefectural police and educational authorities wide powers to discipline teachers. SCAP maintained a policy of quiet approval of the government policy at this time, although occasionally an occupation official would make a statement which showed that SCAP was in complete approval with it. In October 1949, for instance, Paul Dupell, a CI&E official, stated that SCAP would "back without limit schools that summoned police" to deal with teacher and student demonstrations. Moreover, SCAP stood by in tacit agreement when the government set up a special police group, the Board of Special Investigations (Tokubetsu Shinsa Kyoku), to investigate subversive student and teacher activities (Reed-Collins, 1954: 20). When the Korean War broke out in June 1950, SCAP gave full and open support to the efforts to purge Communists from every walk of life. SCAP ordered Communists out of government, union leadership, industry, education (if any were left), and almost every other field. By the end of 1950, over 12, 000 Communist Party members or sympathizers had been purged. Under the purge directive, Communists were barred from elective public office, political parties, public writing, speaking on political questions, and attempts to influence those who replaced them in the offices from which they were purged. In addition, publication of the Communist newspaper, Akahata, was suspended. By this step, SCAP ended all visible signs of Communist influence in Nikkyoso (Levine, 1958:27-8).

Page  145 RICHARD J. SMETHURST 145 THE SCHOOLBOARD CONTROVERSY There is no better place to study the Nikkyoso-government strife than in the history of the local school boards between 1948 and 1956. School boards in Japan were the brainchild of both the Civil Information and Education Section of SCAP and the United States Education Mission of March 1946. Locally elected boards were introduced in order to decentralize control of education from the Ministry of Education to the citizenry who would then vote for the members of the boards. The Board of Education Law was passed by the Diet in July 1948, under strong SCAP urging. However, because of the strong pressure groups interested in the board law, the school boards which were eventually set up were greatly different from American ones, after which they were modeled. For instance, the Ministry of Education wanted school boards to which the members were appointed. The teachers' union wanted teachers to be allowed to run for the boards and also wanted the members of the boards to be paid a salary and an expense account. When the law was passed, both Nikkyoso recommendations were included and a compromise was made with the Ministry demand. Prefectural boards could have seven members with one member appointed and six elected, and local boards could have five members with one member appointed and four elected. School boards were given extraordinary powers and responsibilities within their jurisdiction. Prefectural boards were especially powerful, since they were empowered to certify teachers and administrators, to approve textbooks for public schools, to give technical and professional advice to local boards, and to procure foodstuffs for the school lunch program. Local boards at the elementary and lower secondary school level, as in the United States, could establish and maintain schools, determine curricula, choose textbooks, and buy instructional materials. Furthermore, school boards could play a major role in the hiring, firing, promoting and demoting of teachers. Thus, if any substantial number of teachers were elected to the boards, the teachers could become their own employers, sitting on both sides of the bargaining table. This situation came to be one of the major reasons for the abolishment of elective school boards eight years later. The first school board elections took place in the fall of 1948, in all prefectures and major cities, but in fewer smaller cities and hardly any villages. The Japan Teachers' Union took an active part in the campaign, using students and teachers to conduct a door to door campaign. In addition, the union poured vast amounts of money into supporting its candidates. Because of this effort and because it sold the public on the idea that teachers were best qualified to be members of boards, the union candidates were extremely successful. As mentioned above, teachers held approximately onethird of the seats, a larger share than any other professional group. Only businessmen with fortynine seats and public officials with 33 came close. Although under the provisions of the law the teachers had to give up their teaching jobs after the election, they still as members of the boards tended to support the interests of their former profession. Despite the success of Nikkyoso in placing members of their union on boards of education, the union did not gain control of the boards. As a matter of fact, almost from the start, boards were dominated by the conservative local leaders and not by the minority of teachers. Thus, when the boards began functioning, the teachers brought a great deal of pressure to bear on the members. The union drew up demands in every phase of education, leaving no educational problem unscrutinized. Both the boards and the union were powerful forces, sensitive to their rights and powers. Both at least theoretically wanted to improve education, though by different means, and both were aggressive, hard-hitting organizations. The boards had one great advantage -- they had the legal authority to make educational decisions; the union did not. Nevertheless, as many board members were exteachers, and as the union brought a great deal of pressure to bear on the boards, the former were forced to yield slowly in many areas. For example, at the 1949 meetings of all four Shikoku prefectural boards of education, in Kochi, Kagawa, Ehime, and Tokushima, the union demanded that it be

Page  146 146 THE ORIGINS OF THE JAPAN TEACHERS' UNION consulted whenever the board revised teachers' salaries and all four boards agreed to this request. This, of course, did not mean that the boards took the union's advice on the matter, but only that they listened. Faced with union pressure, the boards gradually began to take the position of the government in relation to the teachers and hence the union's view of the boards came to be similar to its view of the government and the Ministry of Education. The following quotation from the unpublished doctoral thesis of Fred N. Kerlinger, former Civil Information and Education officer on Shikoku, based on his observations at a Kochi Prefecture School board meeting, demonstrates the attitude of the union towards at least one school board: At the January 1949 meeting of the board, hearing the Teachers' Union representative who was to present the Union demands was the first item on the agenda. His speech was a vitriolic and vituperative attack on the Board based on the ideas that the Board was bureaucratic and undemocratic and that it had taken no significant action for the three months of its existence.... The writer attended this meeting of the Kochi Board of Education and heard the attack on the Board. Actually, the Union's charges were well founded, if a bit exaggerated (Kerlinger, 1953:129). The decentralized system of educational control in Japan did not work nearly as well as its creators had hoped. For one thing, despite the intensive efforts of SCAP to educate the public concerning school boards, a great percentage of the public had no idea or only a very sketchy idea of what the boards actually were. In a poll conducted right after the school board election of 1952, it was discovered that about half of the voting populace had not heard of the boards of education or did not know what their purposes were (Anderson, 1959:87). Although SCAP had pushed the school board issue because of their belief that school boards in the United States helped to insure democratic education, the system was not immediately enforced at the local level, for the Japanese government was able to stall the extension of school boards to all levels until 1952. When, however, it was finally decided to complete the establishment of locally elected school boards, the measure was opposed, not only by the left and right wing Socialists, but also by many government officials who saw democracy actually hindered by too great decentralization. Nonetheless, the Yoshida government, viewing the school boards as a weapon to curb the Japan Teachers' Union, pushed the program through. In the spring of 1956, the Hatoyama Cabinet, successor to the Yoshida Cabinet, but representing the same party, took steps to abolish elective school boards. Ironically, the conservative government which had supported elective local school boards in 1952 now was the opponent of these boards, and the Socilist Party, and Nikkyoso which had opposed the boards in 1952 were now fighting vigorously for their retention. The reason for this turnabout appears to be that the government had come to realize that while locally elected conservative school boards were useful in controlling Nikkyoso, locally appointed conservative school boards would be even more useful for this purpose and would enable the perennial majority party to eliminate from the boards the one-third of the membership which was made up of union-dominated teachers. This move coincided with the other measures the Ministry was sponsoring in order to centralize education more fully: the recentralization of textbook control, the reestablishment of morals courses, and soon after, a teacher evaluation system. The bill to make the school boards appointive and one to establish textbook control met with great opposition not only from the Socialist Party, Nikkyoso, Zengakuren, and the majority of Japanese intellectuals, but also from the press and a large portion of the public. These diverse groups were fearful of a return to the prewar state-controlled education. In the face of this opposition, the government withdrew the textbook control bill, but in June 1956, despite riotous Socialist opposition, passed the new school board bill. The new law, which went into effect in October 1956, eliminated another Nikkyoso source of power, for it reduced the number of members on the board, replaced direct election of members with

Page  147 RICHARD J. SMETHURST 147 appointment by the governor or local chief executive, directed the governor to appoint prefectural superintendents with ministry approval, directed the prefectural board of education to appoint the local superintendents, and gave the prefectural boards of education the right to hire and fire teachers. Conservative control of education was thus virtually assured as long as the conservative forces maintained control of the central government. POST OCCUPATION GOVERNMENT-NIKKYOSO RELATIONS If the history of the union from 1945 to 1950 can be viewed as the struggle of the government and Nikky5so to counter each other, the subsequent history can be viewed the same way, only with intensified struggle. Nikky so, as we have seen, considered the use of "struggle" tactics and the involvement in political affairs as essential to the success of the union. Demonstrations were often held by the union alone, especially when demonstrating for a particular union goal, but also were often held in collaboration with other unions or organizations, especially on such occasions as May Day. Other types of "struggle" tactics included the hunger strike and the sitdown strike at the Ministry of Education. The concept of "struggle" was partially based on the Marxian concept that class warfare between the proletariat and bourgeoisie was inevitable and that the government was of the "oppressive" middle class. Thus, as stated earlier, based on this concept, the union leaders were of the belief that "democracy" and a government "for the people" were impossible unless the conservative government were overthrown and replaced by a government of the masses. Of course, these tactics were also used because the union felt that they represented its best weapon for gaining union goals. In 1952-1953, the union came into open conflict with the government over the issue of the government's efforts to reestablish morals (shishin) courses in the school curriculum. Morals courses had first been instituted in the curriculum of Japanese schools in 1886, for the purpose of inculcating precepts of good conduct in the students. Although the first morals textbooks stressed the importance of the values of individual morality and self-reliance, gradually, as the books were revised, the texts began more and more to stress nationalistic goals, conformity, and the goals of society as a whole more than individual values. Furthermore, in addition to being taught in separate courses, the values which the morals course tried to inculcate were incorporated into the subject matter of other courses such as history, geography, literature, and even mathematics (through the use of word problems), so that in the late 1930s and during the war years it came to be the core of the curriculum. The courses stressed such values as patriotism and loyalty to the point of fanaticism, thus helping to breed, in the eyes of SCAP and many post war Japanese, the ultranationalism and militarism which drove Japan into World War II. One of the first SCAP reforms in 1945 and 1946 was to abolish the teaching of shushin and to replace the history and geography courses in the curriculum with a social studies course which they hoped would be used to teach democratic values. In 1952, the government party adopted the reestablishment of morals courses as one of its platform planks and made strong efforts to initiate the courses against vigorous and widespread opposition. In 1957, the government was successful in establishing a modest morals course for the following reasons. First of all, the government stated, because of the increase in juvenile delinquency after the war, parents were concerned over the morality of their children. Secondly, the government feared that critical thinking on Japanese social problems which was encouraged in social studies courses encouraged youth to rebel against the status quo. This government fear became more and more intense in the light of subsequent events such as the Yamaguchi Diary Case which will be described below. Thirdly, parents and parent teacher associations were dissatisfied with the social

Page  148 148 THE ORIGINS OF THE JAPAN TEACHERS' UNION studies courses which had replaced the geography and history courses, because these courses made it difficult for students to pass factual type college entrance examinations in these subjects. The government effort to reestablish morals courses was not haphazard. The ministry attempted to marshal all the evidence it could to support its contentions, making a strong effort to win public support. The government was careful to point out that the planned morals course would not be anything like the prewar one, but would actually enhance the chances of the success of democracy in Japan by teaching students that democracy entailed obligations as well as rights. Several polls conducted by a branch of the Prime Minister's Secretariat found strong support for the establishment of some kind of morals course. The first held in 1955 showed that of the 3000 parents interviewed, 72% favored the teaching of better manners and using stricter disciplines in elementary and lower secondary schools and 66% thought that schools should try to teach students to have more respect for their parents. While younger parents were almost evenly divided for and against teaching manners and the value of respect for parents in the schools, middle aged parents were almost three to one in favor of this teaching. Another poll, conducted in 1957, showed that 70% of the 3000 persons over 20 years old who were interviewed wanted to see some sort of morals course taught in the schools. Eleven percent even advocated a return to the prewar type (Anderson, 1959:94-7). Three successive education ministers in three successive Yoshida cabinets, Amano Teiyu, Okano Kiyohide, 14 and Odachi Shigeo, 15 urged the reestablishment of shuishin and separate history and geography courses. As far back as the summer of 1952, Minister Amano had told the Educational Curriculum Investigation Committee that a morals course was desired by the government. Needless to say, Nikky so opposed this ministry move, calling the effort, in usual Nikkyoso terminology, an attempt by the "bureaucratic" and "militaristic" government to reestablish a police state. The union established educational committees in almost every city, town, and village to fight the reinstitution of shfishin. But, despite the union's vigorous efforts in cooperation with other unions, the Socialist Party, and many moderate segments of society who normally opposed Nikkyoso's objectives in 1957, the ministry decided to require one hour a week of morals education in elementary and lower secondary schools beginning in the new school year of 1958. The Nikkyoso opposition to the institution of morals courses was but one phase in the union's fight to halt the reverse course (gyaku kosu), the government's attempt to abolish many of the reforms established by SCAP. The government made it clear that it thought that the Fundamental Law of Education, the "constitution" of Japanese education passed at SCAP' s urging in the early years of the Occupation and the whole concept of education established by the occupation were badly in need of modification. In January, 1956, Kiyose Ichiro, Minister of Education in the third Hatoyama Cabinet, openly labeled invalid the whole philosophy underlying the Fundamental Law. It was his opinion that the law needed amendment because it disregarded the ideas of filial piety and patriotism. Furthermore, he and the majority of the members of the government party thought that it needed amendment because the constitution and the Fundamental Law supported the idea of individualism rather than group values. Based on this philosophy, the government was taking many steps to bring education more under its control and to reshape it into the desired form. Since Nikky5so opposed each of these changes, feeling that the government was trying to reestablish the prewar type of education system, the government tried at the same time as it reshaped the educational system to crush the union. The Japan Teachers' Union used every weapon at its disposal to attempt to head off the gyaku kosu and maintain the educational reforms established by SCAP. In addition to the tactics discussed earlier, the union used two other types of tactics which presented such a threat to the government that the party in power intensified its efforts to suppress union activities. The first of these types falls in the political field. In 1952, the union formed an organization called the Japan Teachers' Political League (Nihon Minshu Kyoiku Seiji Renmei, or Nisseiren) with which to carry out its political

Page  149 RICHARD J. SMETHURST 149 activities. The union hoped to use the league to rally public opinion behind "peace education"16 and to engage in political activities without breaking the educational neutrality laws. The league was made up of all the members of Nikkyoso, three hundred thousand students and many PTA members, parents, and university professors. According to the Asahi Shimbun of February 15, 1955, Nisseiren's influence was so pervasive throughout Japan that it may actually have been the most powerful single political influence at the time. The group s main function was to support and help elect favorable candidates to both houses of the legislature. In one election the league was reported to have spent thirty million yen on fifty-three candidates. If true, Nisseiren spent more money than any single group with the exception of the Liberal Party. The money was raised from the dues of the members and from contributions from the Japan Teachers' Union. Needless to say, most of the money was spent supporting the candidacy of Communist and left-wing Socialist Party members. In the 1954 election, thirteen upper house members and eleven lower house members were elected by Nisseiren. Although the union claimed that Nisseiren was a separate and unaffiliated organization, in 1953, Nikkyoso spent twenty-five million yen supporting Nisseiren activities. In addition, the JTU urged all teachers to contribute to the organization. After the government passed laws to curtail the political activities of teachers in 1954, Nisseiren became the main Nikkyoso channel for making union influence felt in politics. The second Nikky5so tactic used in the early post-occupation years which drove the government to further efforts to suppress the union was the attempt to indoctrinate children, both in the classroom and out, to support the principles and aims of the union. The union offered a great deal of advice to its members on how to teach the Nikkyoso line in school, but it is not known to what extent the teachers followed it. There are, however, a number of notorious cases where teachers blatantly taught the union's anti-American, anti-government, pro-Soviet ideology in the schools. Teachers were urged to incorporate into their lectures such ideas as the shortcomings of capitalism, the glories of socialism, evil caused by United States bases, American colonialism, race prejudice, and descriptions of the "perfect societies" which existed in the Chinese People's Republic and the Soviet Union. How many teachers taught as the union desired them to and how many teachers followed the union line with enough subtlety not to get caught is not known. The number of cases, however, of teachers who did get caught gave an excuse to the government to pass another law further curtailing JTU activities. The most notorious of the cases was the Yamaguchi Diary Case which occurred in May 1953. It is the habit of Japanese schools to give students homework over the summer vacation, which runs from the middle of July to early September. This work takes many forms, although it is most often a workbook with questions requiring standard answers or a diary keeping day by day accounts of summer activities about which the student must report in the fall. In the summer of 1953, elementary and lower secondary school students in Yamaguchi Prefecture in Western Honshu were given diaries published by the cultural department of the prefectural teachers' union for use that summer. The diaries contained art work and footnotes including much useful information; but mixed in with this, were such statements as the Soviet Union is a much better place to live than "capitalist America and Japan," that capitalism aims to benefit only the rich, while socialism aims to bring about the happiness of all, that Syngman Rhee with the help of America attacked North Korea but was defeated, and that the influence of United States bases in Japan is corrupting the morals of those people who live near them. The following quotation is an example of the type of "information" these diaries contained: On June 25, North Korea beat back the attacking South Koreans and penetrated deep into South Korea; this was the beginning of the Korean War.... At one time it appeared as though a reconciliation would be worked out through an armistice agreement, but whereas North Korea wanted to return all prisoners in accordance with international treaties, the UN forces disagreed and wanted to leave it to the free

Page  150 150 THE ORIGINS OF THE JAPAN TEACHERS' UNION will of the prisoners. The war is still going on. To be pitied are the people of Korea, whose homes are being burned and who get nothing to eat. Whether the footnotes in the diary were Communist propaganda in the sense that the party had a hand in writing the diaries cannot be determined. There is no doubt, however, that by the skillful use of truth, half-truth, and deliberate falsehood, the writers of the diary painted a disparaging picture of the United States and the Japanese government. In June 1953, the parents of a number of the students using the diaries complained to the prefectural board of education and an investigation was instigated. The diaries were quickly called in and destroyed, but the government was able to use this incident as one of the reasons for taking strong action against the union. The JTU claimed that the objections of the government to the diaries was a vicious attempt on the part of the government to break up the union and ruin its reputation in the public eye. The union claimed without "true" knowledge of "peaceful" countries such as Communist China and the Soviet Union, peace and neutrality were impossible (Brinkman 1954:177). In the same year, a number of other incidents occurred which aroused the government to move against Nikkyoso. In December, a number of parents of students attending Asahigaoka Lower Secondary School in Kyoto, found a distressing change in the attitude of their children and questioned school authorities if ideological and political education were being given. An investigation found that the Communist Party newspaper Akahata was being used as a text by several teachers advocating "peace" and opposition to United States bases and Japanese rearmament. In the same month, parents of students in Daishogun Primary School in Kyoto complained that teachers were advocating to students that they slight the rising sun flag, insult the imperial household, and disobey their parents. On November 4, 1954, a teacher of Wabukamura First Primary School in Wakayama held a demonstration class for his colleagues in which he had his students criticize capitalist society and praise Communist China and socialist societies. A few more incidents bear mentioning. One of some notoriety was the publication in 1953 of the book Children of the Bases (Kichi no ko). The book was a collection of essays written during summer vacation by a number of "students" who lived near United States bases and was extremely critical of the bad effects of the bases on local morals. Although it is not unlikely that a young and impressionable Japanese, living near a base and the inevitable row of bars and houses of prostitution, would have a bad impression of American bases and soldiers, the essays may have been written by adults for political ends since the vocabulary and ideas were not those of children. Another JTU activity which aroused government opposition was the release of the union sponsored film Hiroshima. Filmed with the aid of money and using 79, 000 volunteer students and teachers in the cast, the film was subtly anti-American. The film was not, however, very popular because it was too gruesome, and its export was forbidden by the Finance Minister, Ikeda Hayato. To the government, and to many other observers, it was difficult to see any educational value in these JTU activities, but easy to see political motivation. The government felt that the union was attempting to propagandize school children in order to create an indoctrinated youth to carry out a revolution at some future date (Edwards 1956:297-98, 300-301, 307). Another objection the government had towards Nikky5so was the union's use of children in union activities. For example, in the 1952 May Day parade, some children participated along with the union's teachers. In addition, in the same year, students were used to collect signatures for the Stockholm Peace Petition. In the campaign leading up to the October 5, 1952, school board election, students were used to raise signatures for candidacy petitions for JTU candidates for the boards.

Page  151 RICHARD J. SMETHURST 151 Despite the great number of such incidents in which Nikkyoso teachers followed union instructions and attempted to use education to further union goals, it is difficult to determine how pervasive was union influence over its teachers, and thus, whether the incidents described above and other similar ones were widespread or only isolated occurences. Some observers think that these incidents were caused by a small minority of leftists within the union and that the government itself publicized the occurrences in an attempt to win public support for efforts to crush the union (Brinkman 1954:177). The truth of this matter is hard to determine. In June 1954, however, a bill to curb the political activities of the teachers was passed. This bill, The Law to Secure Political Neutrality of Education in Public Schools, made it a crime for teachers or organizations to support openly a particular candidate. It also became a crime for a person or organization (e. g., Nikky6so) to incite educational personnel to conduct education which would cause pupils of public schools to support or oppose a specific political party. The penalty for such activity was up to one year imprisonment and up to a thirty thousand yen fine (Soukup, 1957:198-200). The bill was extremely unpopular with the populace, including a vast segment of the population which had no sympathy with Nikky5so. The press was very critical of the government and a poll conducted by the Mainichi Shimbun prior to the passage of the law indicated that a majority of local school boards, PTA' s, and teachers' unions opposed the legislation. Most of those who opposed the law feared that the teachers' rights as human beings were being abused by it. Education Minister Odachi Shigeo's answer to this was that the law did not violate the teachers' rights, for "teachers, once they left the teaching field, can have their freedom returned at any time." The new law did not preclude all teacher activity in indoctrination of the children, however. If anything, it intensified the union's efforts to indoctrinate children, made more teachers willing to follow the line established by the union's leaders, and drove the teachers to more subtle uses of propaganda (Edwards, 1956:310). Since 1954 several additional methods have been used by the government in its attempt to control Nikkyoso. As early as 1954 the union uncovered a number of cases in which the police were secretly investigating teachers in order to find out if they were trying to press the political beliefs of any one party on the students or were violating teacher neutrality in any other way. Each one of these cases was protested by Nikkyoso and the Socialist Party as an infringement of the civil and political rights of teachers. Public opinion generally sided with the union because of the fear on the fear on the part of the populace of the reestablishment of a police state. Nevertheless, the government felt that it could not let what they felt was educational subversion go unchecked, and in 1958, attempted to revise the Police Duties Law in order to restore many of the emasculated powers of the police. The government effort to revise this law was defeated in the Diet because public opinion was almost unanimously opposed to the revision. Surprisingly, many members of the government party itself opposed this bill (Hook, 1958:10). Another method devised by the government to control the union was the reestablishment of textbook control by the ministry. Although an attempt to bring textbook selection under ministry control failed in 1956 at the same time as the school board system was revised, the ministry subsequently brought about a partial recentralization. The ministry enforced a system where it selected a number of books from which teachers were allowed to pick the one they wanted to use. In this way, the ministry could at least make sure that books which were not acceptable were excluded from the list (Anderson, 1959:119-123). COMMUNIST INFLUENCE Although the Japan Teachers' Union has been compared to a red-headed, white-bodied crane -- the leadership is said to have been Communist dominated while the rank and file teachers were not themselves indoctrinated -- it is very difficult to prove whether or not this organization was in fact

Page  152 152 THE ORIGINS OF THE JAPAN TEACHERS' UNION Communist infiltrated unless one has access to the reports of the confidential informants of investigative agencies, or the union files themselves. The union itself denies any Communist leadership, saying that it is only a coincidence that its goals and the goals of the Communist Party closely resemble each other. At the same time, many competent observers of the Japanese political and educational scene believe that Nikkyoso is Communist dominated. For example, Fred N. Kerlinger, former military education officer in Shikoku, has stated that the JCP was the single most dangerous threat to the SCAP educational policy, mainly because of its influence on the teachers' union. The Communist Party, Professor Kerlinger thinks, was especially influential in Nikkyoso during the early years (1946-8) of its formation (Kerlinger, 1953:127, 196). Professor Hidaka Daishir5, formerly ViceMinister of Education and presently on the faculty of International Christian University in Tokyo, thinks that in January 1949, 3000 Nikkyoso members were also members of the Communist Party; and that if the union was not under actual Communist influence, it was certainly under definite left wing Socialist domination (Hidaka, 1956:151-52). According to Professor Paul F. Langer, the Communist Party had great influence among elementary and secondary school teachers. In 1947, he said the Party made a bid for the leadership of Nikkyoso and had some success. The chairman of the Union's "struggle committee, " Iwama Masao, was then a Party sympathizer who later became a member of the Party. Furthermore, according to Professor Langer, it was common for teachers to spread the party line in the classroom and to hand out propaganda materials on the school grounds or in visits to the homes of students (Langer and Swearingen, 1952:170). Kitaoka Juitsu, Dean of the Political Science and Economics Faculty of Kokugakuin University, said that although some prewar teachers who respected the government and tradition had high positions in the new union, generally Nikky so was a "cat's paw" of the Communists. 17 Professor Kitaoka also thought that a few Communist Party members controlled the union. While he thought that Communism per se was not necessarily bad, he felt that the Soviet Union and the Chinese People's Republic might invade Japan and kill and enslave the people during the transitional period of socialism. Therefore, he opposed Communism because of the threat of these two countries rather than on theoretical grounds (Edwards, 1956:325). Otawa K5ki, writing in 1956, also saw the JTU as Communist-dominated. This, he said, was evident in the textbooks which the union published. The textbooks, he thought, were slanted to awaken class consciousness, to misrepresent history, to deprecate Japan's past, to portray the emperor as a despot bent on furthering class interests, and to study all historical events in the perspective of social development whether these events were stimuli or deterrents of this development, and to picture Japan as the chief instigator of every war it has fought. Moreover, said Otawa, in the 1956 Sohyo convention the union fought for the rejection of a neutral attitude towards the Japan Communist Party in favor of a policy of cooperation (Otawa, 1956:522-25). In addition to the above authorities, many government officials were of the opinion that the union was Communist dominated. In September 1953, Justice Minister Inukai Ken18 stated that "The JCP's maneuvers to approach the JTU are being intensified all the more recently -- so much that the party has instructed its faction within the JTU to carry out the so-called 'business-control system' through boycotting the policies of education committees, inspiring pupils with specific thought in classrooms, and the like. The Yamaguchi Diary problem is an example of this sort." In 1953, Education Minister Odachi, speaking to the board of directors of the national Parent-Teachers' Association, said, Throughout the nation today, education tending to one particular ideology is being enforced. In plain words, it is an attempt to teach the doctrines of the Communist Party. It is most dangerous that teachers force their own ideas on their pupils

Page  153 RICHARD J. SMETHURST 153 whose faculty of judgment is not yet fully developed. I firmly believe that, whatever the obstacles may be, it is absolutely necessary to bring back to normalcy the education of our children. I believe a legislative action for that purpose is necessary. Four months later, in January 1954, the minister reiterated his statement saying, "It is a grave matter that the views of a specific party, the JCP, are entirely worked into the teaching materials" (Edwards, 1956:328-29). The JTU denied it had any Communist influence. As a matter of fact, Nikky5so claimed that the ideas which the union supported were not even necessarily Communist ideas, but ideas in keeping with the basic ministry directives on democratic education to train peaceful and productive citizens. Nikkyoso openly admitted, however, that the union was in opposition to the conservatives and wanted to overthrow the government; but that this was not because of Communist influence, but because of a feeling that democracy was possible only under a socialist system. In addition, the union charged that the government called the union Communist-dominated in order to win popular support for its efforts to crush Nikkyoso and that the laws against the union and those permitting police investigations in the homes and schools of teachers revealed the government's desire to reestablish a police state in Japan. INTERNAL CONTROL By 1956, Nikky5so had some 593, 000 members, making it the largest union in Japan. It had organized itself into forty-six prefectural federations and eight district councils. It had ceased being a legal labor union in 1948 with the passage of the National Public Service Law and had operated since as a private association of teachers. Nevertheless, the union continued to operate like a labor union and acquired a great deal of political power. In the years before the end of the occupation, it was generally considered that a large segment of the members of the union supported neither the political goals of the union nor the ideology based on class struggle. In 1949, Naka Torata, chairman of the Kumamoto Prefecture Teachers' Union, stated that the greatest weakness of the union was that the great mass of teachers did not fully realize the necessity of class warfare. Although the teachers in 1949 generally supported the union's anti-government goals, he continued, "there is fear that many of them may give up the union in the future when economic conditions are improved.... The greatest task for union leaders will lie in the education of such members, to make them conscious of their position in the ranks of general labor" (Naka, 1949:9). A military government educational officer, reporting on a meeting of the Ehime Prefecture Teachers' Union held January 20, 1947, to decide whether or not to follow the lead of the national leadership and participate in the February 1, 1947 general strike, stated that the motion on participation barely passed. It was the opinion of many of the representatives present and the military government representative that if all the member teachers in the prefecture had been polled, the union might have voted not to participate in the general strike (Special Report 1947:n. p. ). Other occupation officials were even stronger in their opinions concerning rank and file support of union objectives. The education officer of the Tokyo Military Government Team reported on September 9, 1948, that the average teacher was ignorant of the policies and objectives of the union, and that, despite SCAP's urging, the leaders made no effort to educate union members (Nippon Times, 1948a:n.p.). A secondary school teacher, Hirazawa Minoru, in the January 20, 1954, edition of the Asahi Shimbun, stated that the average teacher like himself had no contact with Nikky5so headquarters and that most teachers who belonged to the union disagreed with the views of the union's leaders (Edwards, 1956:336).

Page  154 154 THE ORIGINS OF THE JAPAN TEACHERS' UNION Although the union's objectives might not reflect the true feelings of its membership, no serious threats to the union leadership and its views appeared after its origin in the early years of the occupation. It is to be expected that if a dissident majority existed, it would have rebelled against the controlling minority if it held ideas greatly at variance with the leadership. Thus, it is pertinent to ask how the leadership was able to maintain control. Although it is not possible on the basis of the material available to comb to a conclusion, many possibilities have been mentioned by writers of articles on Nikkyoso activities. One writer, for example, has stated that "some of the teachers maintain that dissent from the pro-Communist leadership, particularly if accompanied by attempts to combat it organizationally, is physically dangerous in certain regions" (Hook,1958:10). Some other methods of circumventing opposition, suggested by various writers, are: 1) The election of union officers is not by secret written ballot. 2) The meetings are not held at stated times, but only as called by the chairman. 3) Meetings are dominated by one or two speakers and often take the form of labor rallies. 4) Proper accounting for money paid as dues is not readily available to members of the union (Special Report, 1947:n.p.). One other possible reason for the ease with which the union officers controlled the rank and file may be that union leaders have played upon the traditional Japanese tendency to follow authority and to be overawed by large organizations. Because of this tendency, teachers did not participate in union meetings. Moreover, the leaders did not take the initiative to help the rank and file overcome this traditional hesitancy to participate for fear of losing control of the movement and thus, as a small minority was able to control and use the union to further its own political and revolutionary ambitions (Van Staauveren, 1952:235). CONCLUSION The history of Nikkyoso-Japanese government relations from 1945 through 1956 is one of constant struggle. The avowed aim of the union was to overthrow the government and set up a "democratic" government, for although many people viewed the governmental system in Japan as democratic, the union leaders believed that the conservative party in power was nothing but an extension of the prewar "bureaucratic" and "militaristic" government and that democracy was not possible until it had been overthrown. Moreover, the union did not limit the means of overthrowing the government to the ballot box, but also advocated the overthrow of the government by revolution, if necessary. On the other hand, the government was using every weapon at its disposal to try to destroy, or at lease neutralize, Nikky6so. In the light of Nikkyoso's attitude towards the government, one may conclude that this policy was justifiable; however, in the light of the government attitude towards the union, one must allow that the union was also justified in fighting to protect its own existence. SCAP policy towards Nikkyoso during most of the occupation coincided with Japanese government policy. Although SCAP's early support made the existence of the union possible, several factors brought an about-face in occupation policy. Basing its view of how a labor movement should operate on the American movement, SCAP was shocked by the union's almost immediate acceptance of the theory of the "inevitability of class struggle" and the need to use violent tactics. In addition, the intensification of the "cold war", especially after the outbreak of the Korean Conflict in 1950, caused SCAP to disapprove any movement or group which was controlled by, influenced by, or even sympathetic with, Communist aims. Thus, the teachers' union movement in Japan, created with the backing of SCAP, by the end of the occupation in the early 1950' s, was struggling not only with the Japanese government, but also SCAP. The battle with the government, moreover, seems destined to continue until the government

Page  155 RICHARD J. SMETHURST 155 is changed or the union crushed. Judging by the success the government has had in passing antiunion legislation in the years since the war, the advantage appears to be with the government. APPENDIX I LIVING COSTS PER MONTH OF LABORERS IN TOKYO April 1946 - January 1947 Average 1946 1947 Item__ _______ 1937 Apr Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Total - All Items Y55.31 Y1,499 Y1,706 Y1,799 Y1,612 Y1,496 Y938 Y1,494 Y1,300 Y1,870 Food 20.96 1,213 1, 404 1,548 1,317 1,186 661* 1,185 946 1,479 Housing 12.02 35 45 42 43 40 44 47 50 56 Light and Heating 3.66 40 32 23 41 53 42 53 86 65 Clothing 3.77 67 70 37 45 53 47 52 56 63 Hygiene 4.15 47 48 35 58 55 59 49 55 75 Education and Recreation 4.77 27 30 33 34 37 35 38 44 49 Travel and Communication 3.99 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 Other 1.99 54 61 65 58 54 34 54 47 67 The October drop in prices followed a heavy distribution of food at officially fixed prices. Prepared by the BUKKACHO (Price Board) Tokyo, 5 May 1947.

Page  156 156 THE ORIGINS OF THE JAPAN TEACHERS' UNION APPENDIX II TOKYO PRICE INDEX FOR WHOLESALE AND RETAIL ITEMS FOR SELECTED PERIODS June Sept May June Item 1937 1945 1946 1946 Wholesale Average -- All Items 100.00 2 28.7 1,054.2 1,084.4 Retail Average -- All Items 100.00 253.3 1,491.5 1,650.9 Food 100.00 241.1 1,660.1 1,897.9 Fuel 100.00 260. 1 1,305.8 1,305.8 Clothing 100.00 192.4 1,528.8 1,528.2 Other 100.00 2294.6 1,267.0 1,428.6 Source: BUKKACHO (Price Board), "Monthly Report on Price Index, March 1947," Tokyo, 15 April 1947. NOTES 1Short biographies will be presented of many of the persons mentioned in this paper. The biographies have been omitted in the case of well known personalities as Prime Minister Ikeda or Shidehara Kijuro or in cases where information is not available. Hani GorU was a member of the House of Councillors who studied philosophy at Heidelberg University, and taught at Nihon University and Jiyu Gakuen. He is the son-in-law of the founder of Jiyu Gakuen and a historian of the Kozaha. 20no Shunichi is a student and translator of Russian literature who studied at Tokyo, Kyoto, and Petrograd (1916) Universities. He writes under the pen name of Takita Yonosuke. 3Kagawa Toyohiko is an adviser to the Socialist Party, a Christian minister, and a prewar advocate of peace, who toured the United States in 1936. He studied at Meiji Gakuin, Kobe Theological School and Princeton Theological Seminary. Kagawa is one of the founders of the Japan Farmers' Union. 4Mizutani Ch5zaburo is a seven time Socialist member of the House of Representatives who graduated from Kyoto University, is a lawyer and was Minister of Commerce and Industry in 1947. He is an adviser to the Japan Farmers' Union.

Page  157 RICHARD J. SMETHURST 157 5In the years immediately following the war, many, including the radical teachers' union, wanted the principals of schools to be elected by the teachers. It was felt by the government that this would lead to a breakdown of discipline. 6The Education Minister reported that he was repelled by the negotiation techniques of Iwama Masao and Zenky;'s other negotiators. They did not even use common everyday honorific terms, but spoke in a contemptuous way to the Minister. 7Nozaka Sanzo is a graduate of Keio University and a leader of the Japan Communist Party. He joined the party in England in 1921 and was deported for his Communist activities. Imprisoned several times in prewar days, he spent 1935-1940 in Moscow, and 1940-1945 in Yenan with Chinese Communist Party. 8Iwama Masao is a Communist Party member of the House of Councillors, and was a former JTU leader. 90n one occasion during the 1946-1947 government-teachers' union negotiations, Minister Tanaka Kotaro told the negotiators that women received less money than men because they did not smoke or drink and thus needed less money. 10During late 1946, Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru made numerous slighting remarks to labor and on February 1, 1947, in a New Years' Speech, he called labor the main cause of low production, inflation and unrest, and charged the unions and labor with being disloyal, rebellious elements. 1Wada Hiroo is a graduate of Tokyo University who served as Minister of Agriculture and Forestry in one Yoshida Cabinet. In 1949 he became a member of the Socialist Party, and is a member of the House of Representatives. 12Hidaka Daishiro is a graduate and former dean of Kyoto University who served as Vice Minister of Education and is a professor of education at International Christian University. 13Under the terms of Article 9 of the 1946 Constitution, the Japanese government renounces the right to wage war as an instrument of national policy or to form an army. Although the article was included in the Constitution at SCAP' s urging, it subsequently became evident that it was to SCAP' s best interest to rearm Japan. The Socialist and Communist Parties, labor unions, intellectuals, and teachers have opposed any amendment to the Constitution which would make rearmament possible. 140kano Kiyohide is a banker and graduate of Tokyo University who formerly served as governor of the Bank of Japan and president of the Sanwa Bank before becoming Minister of Education in 1951. 15Odachi Shigeo is a career public servant who served as governor of Fukui Prefecture (1932), an adviser in Manchukuo, mayor of Singapore (1942), governor of Tokyo (1943) and as Home Minister in the Koiso Cabinet (1944). Odachi was purged but later reinstated and elected to the House of Councillors. 16"Peace Education" was a term which was used by the union to identify an education which would be pro-Soviet, pro-Socialist, and anti-government, anti-American, and anti-capitalist. Under this view, the US represented a country which wanted war while China and the Soviet Union were "peace loving" countries. It was the object of "peace education" to instill these values in the students.

Page  158 158 THE ORIGINS OF THE JAPAN TEACHERS' UNION 17Kitaoka Juitsu is a graduate of Tokyo University who served as a public servant, an economics professor at his alma mater, a member of the Japan Science Council and a director of many corporations. In 1958, Kitaoka was Dean of Politics and Economics Department at Kokugakuin. 18Inukai Ken (Takeshi). is the son of a former prime minister who was assassinated in 1932. He studied at Tokyo University, was involved with the establishment of the anti-Chiang, collaboration government in China during World War II, was purged and later became head of the Democratic Party after Ashida Hitoshi stepped down under fire at the time of the disclosure of the Showa Denka scandals. Ten times a Diet member, Inukai was Justice Minister in the fifth Yoshida Cabinet. REFERENCES CITED ANDERSON, 1959 RONALD S. Japan: Three Epochs of Modern Education. Washington, D. C., U. S. Government Printing Office. BATTISTINI, LAWRENCE H. 1956 The Postwar Struggle in Japan. Rutland, Vt., Tuttle and Co. BLAKESLEE, GEORGE H. n.d. The Far East Commission, A Study in International Cooperation: 1945-1952. Washington, D.C., U. S. Government Printing Office. BRINKMAN, ALBERT R. 1954 "Teacher Status in Japan's Schools'."' Harvard Educational Review, XXIV (Summer), 176-87. DEVERALL, RICHARD L. G. 1954 "Labor Politics in Japan." America, XCI (June 5), 269-71. EDWARDS, 1956 MARIE ALICE Political Activities of Japanese Postwar Labor Unions. (Unpublished doctor's dissertation.) Evanston, Illinois, Northwestern University. FARLEY, MIRIAM S. 1950 Aspects of Japan's Labor Problems. New York, J. Day Co. HIDAKA, DAISHIRO 1956 "The Aftermath of Educational Reform." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, CCCVIII (November), 140-55. HIRAYU, KAZUHITO 1949 article in Bright Education (Akarui kyoiku), translated in Allied Translator and Interpreter Section, Publications Analysis, No. 282, July 26, p. 7. HOLLINGSHEAD, FRANK A. 1948 Speech to Tokyo Private Secondary School Teachers' Union. at Kanda Kyoiku Kaikan, Tokyo, November 6.

Page  159 RICHARD J. SMETHURST 159 HOOK, SIDNEY 1958 "Education in Japan." The New Leader, XLI (November 24), 8-10. IWAMA, MASAO 1949 article in Educational Society (Kyoiku shakai), as translated in Allied Translator and Interpreter Section, Publications Analysis, No. 282, July 26, p.7. KAWAKAMI, CLARKE H. 1954 "Anti-Americanism in Japan." The Reporter, X (February 16), 30-35. KERLINGER, 1953 FRED The Development of Democratic Control in Japanese Education: A Study of Attitude in Shikoku, 1948-1949. (Unpublished doctor's dissertation.) Ann Arbor, The University of Michigan. KOCHI PREFECTURE TEACHERS' UNION 1949 A Plan Answering the Kochi Prefecture Educational Committee (Kochi-ken Kyoiku iinkai ni taisuru Kankokubun). Kochi, Japan, January 26. LANGER, PAUL, AND RODGER SWEARINGEN 1952 Red Flag in Japan: International Communism in Action, 1919-1951. Cambridge, Harvard University Press. LEVINE, SOLOMON B. 1956 "Labor Patterns and Trends." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, CCCVIII (November), 101-02. MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, GOVERNMENT OF JAPAN 1946 Political Movements and Electoral Campaigns on the Part of Students, Teachers, and School Officials. Hatsu gaku No. 106. Tokyo, January 17. MUNEKATA, MASAYA 1947 "Criticism on Education Reform," as translated and reprinted in Contemporary Japan, VI (April-June), 198. NAKA, TORATA 1949 article in New Education and Culture (Atarashii kyoiku to bunka), as translated in Allied Translator and Interpreter Section, Publications Analysis, No. 282, July 26. NEWSPAPERS OTAWA, KOKI 1956 Asahi Shimbun. March 19, 1948a; December 1, 1948b. Ehime Shimbun. April 27, 1948a; August 11, 1948b. Kochi Shimbun. February 27, 1947. Nippon Times. February 23, 1946; September 10, 1948a; December 2, 1948b; December 20, 1948c. Osaka Mainichi. December 5, 1945. "Japan Teachers' Union and School Children," as translated in Contemporary Japan, XXIV (July-September), 522-25.

Page  160 160 THE ORIGINS OF THE JAPAN TEACHERS' UNION READ-COLLINS, NICHOLAS 1954 "Crisis in Japanese Education." Eastern World, VIII (September), 18-20. SPECIAL REPORT 1947 Meeting of Ehime Prefecture Teachers' Union to Determine Strike Policy. To Commanding Officer, Shikoku Military Government Regional Headquarters, January 24. SOUKUP, JAMES R. 1957 Labor Politics in Postwar Japan. (Unpublished doctor's dissertation). Ann Arbor, Michigan, University of Michigan. SUPREME COMMANDER FOR THE ALLIED POWERS (SCAP) n.d. a History of the Non-Military Activities of the Occupation of Japan. Vol. I, Part A, "Development of the Trade Union Movement." Tokyo. n. d. b History of the Non-Military Activities of the Occupation of Japan. Vol. II, Part A, "Education." Tokyo. 1945 Public Relations Officer Release. Concerning Teachers' Associations. Tokyo, November 10. 1946a George Atcheson, Statement to ACJ Concerning the People's Meeting. Tokyo. May 1. 1946b George Atcheson, Statement Concerning Japanese Labor Legislation. Tokyo. July 15. 1947 Speech given at Kotohira to representatives of Japan Teachers' Union by Shikoku Military Government Civil Information and Education Officer. Tokyo. October 10. 1948a Summation of non-Military Activities in Japan. No. 35. Tokyo. August. 1948b Civil Information and Education Section, Analysis and Research Division. A History of Teachers' Unions in Japan. Tokyo. 1948c Civil Information and Education Section, Education Division. Education in the New Japan, Volume I. Tokyo. 1948d Civil Information and Education Section, Analysis and Research Division. Current Japanese Public Opinion Surveys, No. 6. Tokyo. 1948e Douglas MacArthur, Letter to Prime Minister of Japan Concerning the National Public Service Law. Tokyo. July 22. VAN STAAVEREN, JACOB 1952 "The Educational Revolution in Japan." The Educational Forum, XVI (January) 229-40. WERTH, RICHARD 1949 "The Development of Boards in Japan." The American School Board Journal, CXVIII (March), 19-23.