The Great Reform

(1950)

 

 

The Soviet-Japanese War's and the I.R.C. rule’s leveling effect on society, which one social notable described as "negative equality" was manifested in more uniformity in clothing, food, and shelter and a greater tendency on the part of the people to criticize what appeared to be undeserved privileges. The peace-time mobilization invoked and reinforced the notions that every person, regardless of his position in society, was expected to make sacrifices and contribute to the general welfare. Political leaders had to be wary of displaying what could be perceived as excessive benefits. An anonymous pamphleteer, for example, criticized Prime Minister Konoye for building a new house and failing to share the hardships of the people.

 

Views about the post-war trend toward "negative equality" and its potential for promoting leftist sympathies were reinforced by the information men like Konoe received from officials –those who could be expected to be knowledgeable about the state of subversive activity. Members of Konoye's wartime coterie have noted that the prince was acquainted with individuals from all walks of life who provided him with detailed information on recent domestic and foreign developments. Arguments about a growing Communist threat were not concocted out of thin air. They were interpretations of certain changes in society and were substantiated by what was accepted as expert information.

 

Therefore, in late 1949 the Imperial Rule Committee, with the probation of the new Emperor, Naruhito, decided that a new constitution, and a vast array of new laws that will touch every aspect of Japanese life should be enacted. Finally, in which today is known as the Great Reform, on February 11th, 1950, the new Constitution was promulgated and the new Diet was convoked in November of the same year.

 

The revival and strengthening of the Japanese democracy was a continuation of what was referred to as the Taisho Democracy –the democratic practices and movements that had flourished until immediately before the 1931 Manchurian Incident. The Great Reform was the natural consecuence of the war: Japan had nowhere to go back except for the Taisho Democracy.

 

The first postwar Cabinet, led by liberal Kisaragi Eiji as prime minister, rallied Kisaragi’s allies from the Taisho Democracy days and launched a set of democratic reforms that had been pending since the Taisho era. With their help, Japan’s newborn democracy could become far more sophisticated and have been allowed to mature confidently on the basis of Japan’s own history and traditions.

 

The new Constitution was a perfection of the British parliamentary form of government that the Japanese had been moving toward in the 1920s. The biggest change was that it declared that sovereignty rested with the people, not the emperor. This is the political basis of democracy. The emperor adopted the role of symbol of Japanese unity and culture, somewhat like the Queen of England in Britain's democracy; His political authority was delegated to the Kampaku and the Prime Minister. The Japanese people began to see him in person. He went to hospitals, schools, mines, industrial plants; he broke ground for public buildings and snipped tape at the opening of gates and highways. In 1948, in a newspaper poll, Emperior Naruhito was voted the most popular man in Japan.

 

One of the most stunning characteristic of the new constitution was the creation of the figure of the Imperial Regent (Kampaku), which received from the Emperor all His prerogatives: to convoke, open, close, and suspend the Parliament; to dissolve the Chamber of Deputies; to issue ordinances which have the force of law, in urgent circumstances when the Diet is not sitting and on condition that they be submitted to it in the next session, to give orders for the execution of the laws, to maintain peace and promote the welfare of the people, to assume command of the forces of sea, air and land and to regulate the organization of both these services, to declare war, make peace, conclude treaties, proclaim a state of siege, to grant titles of nobility, rank at court, decorations, and other honorary titles, to declare amnesty, to commute penalties, and to rehabilitate.

 

The Kampaku could not be appointed arbitrarily by the Emperor, rather the Emperor was forced to consult with the Prime Minister and the Privy Council in the nomination of the Kampaku, and even a good part of the Kampaku powers should be delegate to the Prime Minister and the Chambers. The figure of the Kampaku was created in order to separate the Emperor from the actual exercise of the executive power, and proportionate Him a cover in case the Prime Minister or the Kampaku commit a politically dangerous mistake.

 

But the most important reform was the definite codification and the will to respect the Rights of the People: every Japanese subject without distinction may be promoted to any civil or military rank or public office. No Japanese subject may be arrested, held, or punished except according to law. Except in cases provided for by law, every Japanese dwelling is inviolable and is not subject to any domiciliary visit. Secrecy of mailed letters and rights of property are inviolable. The Constitution further grants liberty of religious belief in all that is not prejudicial to peace and order and the duties of a subject, freedom of speech, of the press, of public assembly, of association, and the right to present petitions in a respectful manner. The supreme political institution was now to be Japan's parliament, the Diet, which was to be made up of freely elected representatives of the people. Women were given the franchise in the first post-I.R.C. general election in November 1950, and 38 women were elected to the Diet.

 

The reforms also tried to make workers in the industrial sector more independent by changing the laws to allow free trade unions. Before the war there were only a few small unions; by 19, about half of all industrial workers belonged to a union. The labor policy had a double goal: to encourage the growth of democratic unions while keeping them free of  communists. Union organization was used as a balance to the power of management. They also sought to debilitate the great Zaibatsu trust as a means of fomenting Japan's competitiveness. There were about 15 Zaibatsu families such as Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Yasuda, and Sumitomo: the Diet passed the Deconcentration Law in December 1950, which spread to some extent the giant business corporations.

 

In prewar Japan, two-thirds of the agricultural land was rented, not owned, by the farmers who farmed it. The farmers, who made up over 50 percent of the labor force, often rented the land from landlords who lived in distant cities and paid them as much as half of the crops they grew. Since the average "farm" was little more than an acre, many farm families lived in poverty. A program of land reform, designed to give the tenant farmers an opportunity to purchase the land they worked, was approved by the Diet and was in operation by 1951: the first step was the Farm Rent Reduction Act, which limited rents on farm land to 37.5 percent of the value of crops, marking the first stage of Japan's land reform program. It was done with the help of the "United Committee of Japanese Rural Reconstruction" under the Imperial. Aid Program. The Farm Rent Reduction policy reduces the rents which the tenant used to pay the landlord from 50% to 37.5%.

 

Also, the government announced the "Regulations for Disposing Public Land", based on which, lands owned by government or public industries were disposed to the farmers who actually tilled the lands. The conditions for farmland disposition were: (1) Price of land set at 250 percent of the value of annual crops, (2) Price of land payable in a ten year installment plan, (3) Total annual repayment and rents limited to less than 37.5 percent of the annual crops.

 

The government organized the "Land-to-the Tiller Program", a second phase of land reform. "Land-to-the-Tiller", meaning to take away land from landlords and dispose it to tenants, was revolutionary among the land reforms. The methods were:

 

(1)  Allow landlord to retain 2.700 square meters of rice field and 5.400 square meters of other tillable land .

(2)  Except for lands retained by the landlords, all the remainder of lands are to be purchased by government and distributed to tenant farmers.

(3)  The price of land purchased from the landlords is 2.5 times of annual crops, same as the price of public land disposition.

(4)  Payment to the landlord was to be made 70 percent in bonds of rice or other crops by installment for ten years and 30 percent in the stocks of public industries.

(5)  Farmers who received the disposition and became land-owning farmers would repay the government in rice or other crops by ten year installment.

 

These measures served to uplift the pauper conditions of the peasants, and defuse the potentially destabilizing influence of the newly legalized Communist Party’s agitators.

 

In order to improve the international situation of Japan, and over the violent objections of the more right-wing factions within the government, Japan announced its renounce to all claims and relinquished any special rights and interests in Korea, China, the Soviet Far East; and Japan accepted in principle the validity of reparations claims, to be paid in goods and services in view of the country's still insufficient financial resources. In example, Japan agreed to pay 34 billion yen to China as Second Sino-Japanese War reparations. There were even more changes, implemented along the 1950s, dealing with the armed forces, foreign policy, incentives to small and medium-sized business, etc.

 

In spite of these reforms, foreign critics insists that the education system and the laws regulating families must be revised. They claim that "moral training" in schools should be completely abolished, and the laws giving the head of the household complete control of every family member (for example, he could withhold his consent when his children wished to be married) must be changed to make each family member more equal. But most Japanese doesn’t pay attention to these people, who shamelessly and publicly admit their ignorance of Japan's history and traditions.

 

After the Great Reform, Japan faced a transformation from the militarist era to the highly industrialized and regional power of today, and despite the many changes of the past decade, it is a testament to Japanese resilience that traditional social structures have either adapted or remained intact.