SNA (Tokyo) — From 1926-1927, Reijiro Wakatsuki led Japan’s ruling party, but his tendency to shy away from confrontations helped put him in a weaker position than his predecessor. As the new Emperor Hirohito began his reign, a careless comment by the finance minister triggered a run on banks.

Transcript

On January 30, 1926, Reijiro Wakatsuki became prime minister of Japan.

He possessed a long and distinguished career as a law scholar, bureaucrat, and minister, and upon Takaaki Kato’s death he had little difficulty becoming his successor as leader of the Constitutional Politics Association and gaining appointment as prime minister.

However, compared to Kato, Wakatsuki’s skills as a political leader were weaker, in particular his tendency to try to avoid confrontations—even some which were necessary.

In the reshuffled Kato Cabinet, it had been Takejiro Tokonami and the True Constitutional Friends Party which had effectively given the government a working majority in the House of Representatives, but Wakatsuki was unable to preserve this alliance, significantly weakening his ability to govern.

Worse yet, the administration was under constant attack from the Constitutional Association of Political Friends, now led with determination by its rightwing leader, Giichi Tanaka, as well as other military and conservative figures.

The attacks on Wakatsuki’s government included accusations that he was damaging the national interest. In foreign policy, these attacks were aimed at Foreign Minister Kijuro Shidehara and his emphasis on international cooperation and non-intervention. His unwillingness to deploy the Imperial Japanese Army in China, in particular, was denounced as being weak-kneed.

At home, similar accusations contended that the Wakatsuki government was endangering the national essence by being too soft on political radicalism. The conservative critics called for iron-fisted repression against those deemed to be threatening the integrity of the state.

In spite of these attacks, the Wakatsuki administration managed to muddle through its first year, and did manage to reform the tax system to lessen the burden on poor farmers.

However, on December 25, 1926, the Taisho Era came to an end. The Emperor passed away through illness, after a fourteen-year reign in which he personally exercised no impact due to his physical disabilities and lack of competence…

…Hirohito, the new Emperor, was only 25-years-old when his reign began, and although inexperienced, he was, unlike his father, both physically and mentally fit. Before long, would make an impact on a system in which, in theory, he was the highest authority with a near god-like status.

Reijiro Wakatsuki now became both the final prime minister of the Taisho Era and the first of the new Showa Era, and he wanted to use the opportunity to get a fresh start of his own.

He met with the other major political party leaders and convinced them that it would be unseemly to begin the new Emperor’s reign with political infighting, accusations, and a failure to pass the national budget.

They agreed to such a truce, but the price was high. Wakatsuki secretly agreed that he would resign as prime minister in a few months’ time.

Wakatsuki used the period of the political truce to try to rebuild a constructive relationship between his government and its former partner in Diet affairs, the True Constitutional Friends Party. He made significant headway.

But just as the Taisho Era had launched with a political crisis, so the Showa Era started with a financial crisis.

It was triggered by careless comments in the Diet from Finance Minister Naoharu Kataoka, who declared, falsely, that a major bank had just gone bankrupt. This, in turn, triggered a run on banks in Tokyo region, which soon spread to other areas, most notably the Japanese colony of Taiwan.

The Wakatsuki government prepared legislative countermeasures to deal with the banking crisis and submitted them for approval to the new Emperor.

However, this is when Wakatsuki’s enemies struck. Conservatives in the Privy Council, led by Miyoji Ito and Kiichiro Hiranuma, advised the Emperor not to endorse the legislation, blocking Wakatsuki’s attempt to immediately solve the crisis.

Wakatsuki decided to shy away from confrontation, and he resigned. This occurred on April 20, 1927. His term had lasted 1 year and 81 days.

Reijiro Wakatsuki will return.

Become a Shingetsu News supporter on Patreon.