Modern Japanese Agricultural Issues And Agricultural Policy Of The Party's Cabinet: An Analysis Of Party Politics, The Failure Of One Of The Important Reason

Meiji Constitution structure will be bound to mention in mainstreaming view of Japanese history scholars in China when talking about the failure of Party Politics and Military Fascism came into power before World WarⅡ. Some scholars advocate that Japanese Military Fascism is the natural consequence of Japanese modernization. However, was the collapse of Party Politics before WWⅡalso the necessity of historical development? Japan experienced the period of industrialization and economic boom during Taisho Democracy. Why"developing democratic"did not become"democratic consolidation", but step into collapse instead, and then established the authoritarian regime of Military Fascism?With these questions, the author made a systematically analysis toward agricultural policy during the period of Seiyukai Hara and Inukai Tsuyoshi Cabinet (1918-1923). This period is also called establishing time of Party Politics. In this research, the author uses some political theories, such as"democratic consolidation","social stability","Peasantology", etc, combining with the methods of positivist approach of history.The author's standpoint is that the political process of regime transformation is not subject to causation correlation of overall static structure. Instead, it is a highly uncertain process which means the constraints of static structure of Meiji Constitution structure is not the root cause for the failure of Party Politics. The system cannot be changed, but a person is flexible. Whether democracy is consolidated or not depends upon the representatives of democratic forces. In other words, it directly depends upon whether or not the policies and decisions made by party cabinet and leaders can be supported by populace.During the period of Seiyukai Takahashi Korekiyo and Hara Cabinet, from September 1918 to June 1922, the rice price fell and the number of tenancy dispute increased obviously which showed a significant agricultural crisis. Gradually, the agricultural problems became a social focal issue. Even so, all of the parties including party in power and out-parties took negative attitudes toward rural issues, and it was not discussed as an important issue in Imperial Senate. Hara Cabinet came into power because of"rice riots of 1918", but the agricultural policies they made, such as Law of Grain revised edition and establishing Sharecropping Research Committee, did not demonstrate they emphasized agricultural problems. They just wanted to guarantee the low price of food in city. The following Takahashi Korekiyo Cabinet completely inherited the agricultural policies made by Hara Cabinet.After the abdication of Seiyukai Cabinet, the period of Non-partisan Cabinet was established. Until then, Seiyukai and Kenseikai started to focus on the agricultural problems. They stated their own opinions in three aspects: land issues, state contribution for municipalities'cost of compulsory education and giving relief to local government finance. With respect to giving relief to local government finance, Seiyukai advocated transferring of land tax to local government and half the state contribution for municipalities'cost of compulsory education. But Kenseikai opposed, they claimed that land tax rate had a 20% decrease and total state contribution for municipalities'cost of compulsory education. In this way, the issues of increasing state contribution for cost of compulsory education and taxation readjustment are tightly connected together. As for the land issues, Seiyukai stood for maintaining self-cultivated agricultural policy establishment, but Kenseikai·Minseito preferred to set up Law of Tenants and Law of Tenant Union in order to protect tenants'rights of cultivation and organization. Kenseikai·Minseito came into power from June 1924 to December 1931. The governor conciliated tenancy disputes mainly based on Tenancy Conciliation Law of 1924. The Act carried through on the principle of laisser‐faire, and took Civil Code and Customary Tenants as the legal basis of dispute mediation. So, it is impossible to improve the tenancy relationship, not to mention eradication of tenancy disputes. The sharecropper's right to organize cannot be ensured and protected if the Law of Tenant Union was not established. They cannot equally negotiate with landowners if the basic rights cannot be truly guaranteed. Actually, it was also very difficult to improve the sharecropper's cultivating conditions. Kenseikai·Minseito Cabinet tried so many times to establish Law of Tenants to protect sharecropper's cultivation right, but the bill became void because it was not passed by House of Lords. The total state contribution for cost of compulsory education advocated by Minseito only achieved half of its goal by 1931. Due to the blow of"Showa financial crisis"and shortage of financial resource, all the rural relief policies raised by two parties were failed in the end.It shows that Seiyukai and Kenseikai completely inherited the thinking pattern of agricultural administration Meizi which were increasing agricultural production and enlarging agricultural profits through the analysis of the agricultural policies during the period of Seiyukai and Kenseikai·Minseito Cabinet. The policies raised by two parties were barely political strategies, and the confrontations between two parties were merely technical issues on reducing the sharecropper's burden directly or indirectly. Seiyukai advocated distributing 74 million yen of land rent to local government, and Kenseikai preferred that the state contribution increased 20 million yen to reduce sharecropper's burden.Therefore, there were lots of comprehensive effects of complicated factors resulted the collapse of Party Politics. The serious mistakes on agriculture policies made by Parties and the failure of democratic reform on agricultural legislation were important reasons for collapse of Party Politics which means democracy was not consolidated on system level. The populaces, especially sharecroppers, were bitterly disappointed toward democracy. The entrepreneurs and sharecroppers rather to overthrow the inefficient democratic regime and choose centralized military authoritarian regime. Japanese Party Cabinet did not try to solve the fundamental contradiction between the fast development of industrialization and the stagnation of agricultural development in the process of modern development. The rural areas became a place of crisis export instead. The populace did not oppose or resist Minoru Saito Cabinet formed after May 15 Incident in 1932. On the contrary, they considered National Government as a more suitable system to solve rural problems. After all, the reason for the failure of Party Politics is losing the support of the people, especially losing the support of sharecroppers who were more than half of the population. Actually, it was the general public including sharecroppers that overthrow Party Politics and granted the political power to Military Fascism.The short history of Party Politics during the period of Taisho Democracy before World WarⅡdemonstrates again an everlasting truth which is the water that bears the boat is the same that swallows it up.