SNA (Tokyo) — From 1908-1911, Taro Katsura led a second relatively long and stable administration of Japan. The most consequential event was his government’s decision to fully annex the Korean Peninsula, wiping out that neighboring nation’s independent legal existence.

Transcript

On July 14, 1908, Taro Katsura returned as prime minister of Japan.

As would be expected, political party men were flushed out of the Cabinet and bureaucratic figures monopolized the senior posts.

In contrast to past experience, however, the bureaucratic regime was not fiercely resisted by the elected politicians in the House of Representatives.

Although Katsura declared himself to be above party politics, he was able to get some cooperation from the majority-wielding Constitutional Association of Political Friends, mainly because it was led by Kinmochi Saionji, who played the double role of Genro and political party leader.

Katsura tried to bring government revenues and expenditures into better balance, with a moderate degree of success in a process of give-and-take with the elected politicians.

A thunderbolt hit Japan in October 1909 when Hirobumi Ito, four-time prime minister, was assassinated by a Korean independence activist at Harbin railway station in Manchuria while on a diplomatic mission.

Japan thus lost the more liberal and engaging of the two most important Genro, and one of the greatest statesmen the nation produced in modern times.

Related to Ito’s assassination had been his role as the inaugural Japanese Resident-General of Korea, a post he held for three-and-a-half years.

Ito had endeavored to make the Korean Peninsula into a Japanese protectorate, with the model of British Egypt firmly in mind, with his role analogous to that of Lord Cromer.

But in the Japanese Imperial Army and elsewhere in more conservative circles, political momentum was building for a full annexation of Korea, the feeling being that no foreign power should ever be able to interfere with Japan’s hold on the peninsula ever again.

A year after Ito’s assassination, the Katsura government decided on the annexation of the Korean Peninsula.

At home as well, the Katsura government could be very repressive.

Case in point was the so-called High Treason Incident of May 1910. Police appear to have uncovered a plot among a handful of leftists to assassinate the Meiji Emperor. Although the true facts of the case are murky, the evidence suggests that the government used this as an opportunity to get rid of some people on the basis of their radical thought as opposed to any connection to the assassination plot. Twelve leftists were executed by hanging.

As his administration continued, Katsura became increasingly reliant on support from Saionji and his political party. Indeed, Katsura grew more distant from his patron, Aritomo Yamagata, at this time, and he and Saionji began to function like a new generation of Genro, taking oversight of the nation away from the older men.

Taro Katsura resigned on August 30, 1911, after a term of 3 years, 48 days. Without consulting the older Genro, as had always been done, he recommended to the Emperor that Saionji form the next government.

Taro Katsura will return.

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