SNA (Tokyo) — From 1918-1921, Takashi Hara skillfully led Japan’s first modern government which was truly commanded by elected politicians, a major step forward for democracy. Hara’s administration, however, was very cautious and conservative. It exerted much of its effort trying to navigate international challenges unleashed by the Great War and, in particular, by US President Woodrow Wilson.

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On September 29, 1918, Takashi Hara became prime minister of Japan.

Hara was the true political genius of the Taisho Era. He had played a long and patient game to reach the top office, and he became known as the Commoner Prime Minister because he was the first non-aristocratic, pure political party man to lead Japan.

Even at this late stage, Genro Aritomo Yamamoto made a half-hearted attempt to stop Hara, trying unsuccessfully to convince Kinmochi Saionji to return as prime minister for a third term. Yamagata understood that Hara’s ascent symbolized the rise of political party power, even if he otherwise had grown to respect Hara’s talent.

Hara took the reins in a difficult and complex period.

Just as he was coming to office the Spanish Flu began taking hold in Japan, running for nearly two years and ultimately taking about half a million lives.

Within days of Hara taking over, the Great War ended unexpectedly with the defeat of the Central Powers. Japan was part of the victorious Entente, and preparations began for the Paris Peace Talks, which would do much to decide the shape of new world order.

What most worried Hara and other Japanese leaders was US President Woodrow Wilson, whose ideas about national self-determination and on many other topics were regarded as threatening to the security position which Japan had achieved in recent decades in East Asia and the Pacific.

Hara sent his old boss, former Prime Minister Saionji, to lead the Japanese delegation at the peace conference.

The Japanese delegation did receive a degree of recognition for its positions in Manchuria, China, and the Pacific Islands, and it joined the League of Nations. But it had also been painfully rebuffed on its symbolic call for a Racial Equality clause within the charter of the new League.

Wilson’s call for self-determination shook the Japanese Empire in other ways as well.

In Korea, it inspired the March First Movement, protests which represented the first major stirring of the Korean independence drive and a refusal to accept Japanese assimilation policies on the peninsula. Thousands were killed in the brutal Japanese police and military repression which followed.

Similarly, in China it sparked the May Fourth Movement, an anti-imperialist cultural and political movement which was a key step toward the development of Chinese nationalism, spelling serious trouble ahead for the overall Japanese position.

At home, one point which surprised many people about the Hara Cabinet was its deep conservatism and unwillingness to make sharp breaks with past policies. Although it did work to put political appointees into more bureaucratic posts and it convinced the military to allow civilian administration in territories such as Taiwan, other changes tended to be cautious and gradual.

For example, Hara maintained repressive policies towards labor unions, which were becoming more restive than ever before in the postwar period, as well as against socialists and other more radical forces.

Also rising at this time were calls for universal male suffrage in House of Representatives elections. Leading the charge was Takaaki Kato and his Constitutional Politics Association, but there was also support from the smaller third party, the Constitutional Nationalist Party led by Tsuyoshi Inukai, as well as most newspapers.

Hara and his Constitutional Association of Political Friends opposed the granting of universal male suffrage at this time. Hara wasn’t dead set against the concept, but, as on many other topics, he was a cautious gradualist. He wanted to expand public education first, and only then open the vote to all males who were 25 years old and older.

At any rate, Hara knew that Kato was also an elitist, and that his advocacy of universal male suffrage was more about demagoguery and a thirst for power than about democratic principle.

One important benefit which Hara received from his approach is that many bureaucratic conservatives were willing to work with him constructively—not only because they shared his distaste for radical change, but also because they viewed him very much as the lesser of two evils, especially when compared with Kato.

Thus when Hara called a general election for May 1920, his Constitutional Association of Political Friends won a crushing victory, gaining an absolute majority of 278 seats in the now 464-seat House of Representatives. Both Kato and Inukai saw their parties’ strength diminish.

One of the most difficult issues that Hara grappled with during his term was the Siberian expedition and the Russian Civil War. The decision to make a limited deployment of troops had been agreed in the final months of the previous administration, but the Army General Staff had gradually expanded the mission.

Indeed, this was very much an initiative of the Imperial Japanese Army, and they were running the show, flexing their political muscles with questionable willingness to obey the instructions civilian government in Tokyo. In the Army’s view, their loyalty was reserved for the Emperor, who at this time happened to be mentally incompetent.

Hara managed to keep a tenuous grip on the military hardliners, working closely with Genro Yamagata and his now leading Army protege, Giichi Tanaka. Gradually, as the Soviets began getting the upper hand in the civil war, the Army agreed to pull back.

In late 1921, Japan was invited to join the Washington Naval Conference, which was to be an unprecedented effort at arms control. Many observers had started to worry about a naval arms race in the Pacific, particularly between Japan and United States. More than that, the conference was intended to settle all major diplomatic disputes between the Great Powers in the Pacific region.

Hara sent his Minister of the Navy, Admiral Tomosaburo Kato, to lead the delegation.

In a move that would have been unthinkable in earlier years, Hara, a civilian politician, even took over management of the Ministry of the Navy portfolio while Admiral Kato was out of the country.

But before the Washington Naval Conference had opened, Hara was dead. He became the first Japanese prime minister to be assassinated while in office.

On November 4, 1921, while preparing to catch a train at Tokyo Station, a rightwing railway employee stabbed the prime minister in the chest, killing him almost immediately.

Hara’s 3 years and 37 days in office, which could easily have been much longer, nevertheless still turned out to be the longest tenure of any premier in the Taisho Era.

In good health at age 65, Hara’s loss was one from which the Japanese political system could not recover. There was no party politician of his era who could match his experience and his brilliance.

This article was originally published on January 29, 2023, in the “Japan and the World” newsletter. Become a Shingetsu News supporter on Patreon and receive the newsletter by email each Monday morning.