SNA (Tokyo) — From 1929-1931, the Lion Prime Minister Osachi Hamaguchi brought strength and determination to the more liberal forces in Japan, effectively staring down a challenge from radical officers in the Imperial Navy. His economic policy regarding the Great Depression was equally strong and decisive, but unfortunately quite mistaken. Before his error had become entirely clear, however, he was wounded and ultimately killed by an assassin’s bullet.

Transcript

On July 2, 1929, Osachi Hamaguchi became prime minister of Japan.

He was sometimes called the Lion Prime Minister for his dignity, strength, and mane of hair.

As leader of the Constitutional People’s Government Party, Hamaguchi was effectively the successor to the liberal-leaning administrations of Takaaki Kato and Reijiro Wakatsuki.

Not surprisingly, then, he reappointed Kijuro Shidehara as foreign minister, returning Japan to a diplomacy based on noninterference in China and cooperation with the Western Powers.

As he took office, Hamaguchi’s main concern was economic policy. As he had done as Finance Minister during the Kato administration, Hamaguchi aimed to reduce government expenditures and to bring trade relations into a better balance.

Tapping Junnosuke Inoue as his own Finance Minister, a particular concern was to bring the Yen back to the gold standard, which would show confidence in Japan’s export potential and demonstrate its status as a legitimate Great Power in international affairs. This was accomplished in January 1930.

Capitalizing on this achievement, Hamaguchi called general elections and was rewarded with a firm majority in the House of Representatives, putting his administration in the driver’s seat.

Although it wasn’t immediately apparent, Hamaguchi had made a serious policy mistake. In the latter part of 1929, the US stock market had crashed, signaling the beginning of a global economic downturn that would come to be known as the Great Depression. Hamaguchi’s instinctive policy to reduce government expenditures couldn’t have come at a worse time.

The prime minister, however, did not realize it, and the negative economic impact on Japan began to appear only gradually.

It was a very different struggle which absorbed Hamaguchi’s attentions through the middle of 1930, and that was a battle over the size of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

In April 1930, a delegation led by former Prime Minister Reijiro Wakatsuki attended the London Naval Conference, a naval arms control followup to the Washington Naval Conference which had been held almost a decade earlier.

The London conference involved extending the previously agreed limits on major warships to smaller vessels such as cruisers, destroyers, and submarines.

Japan wanted it to be agreed that its fleet, currently limited to 60% of the size of the US and British fleets, have its ceiling raised to 70%.

The American delegation, however, objected, and in succeeding negotiations a compromise position was reached which, in principle, kept the 60% ceiling in place. Hamaguchi authorized Wakatsuki to go ahead and sign the treaty, knowing that a ratification battle lay ahead.

It turned out that the Imperial Japanese Navy was itself divided between the so-called “treaty faction” which realized that a naval arms race with the United States would be a hopeless endeavor, and the so-called “fleet faction” which chafed at the explicitly inferior position the treaty required Japan to acknowledge.

The bitterness of the struggle became deeper when the Constitutional Association of Political Friends, now led by veteran politician Tsuyoshi Inukai, developed an informal alliance with the Navy’s fleet faction, and hurled many of its accusations about being soft on national security interests at the Hamaguchi administration.

With its majority in the House of Representatives, and quiet support from the Navy’s treaty faction, Hamaguchi could contend with such opposition, but he had more serious trouble dealing with the conservative House of Peers.

However, by playing some hardball of his own—and with the background support of Genro Kinmochi Saionji and, even more quietly, Emperor Hirohito—Hamaguchi prevailed, and the London Naval Treaty was ratified in October 1930.

The Lion Prime Minister had little time to savor his victory, however, because the following month he was shot by an ultranationalist while transiting through Tokyo Station, not far from where Prime Minister Takashi Hara had been assassinated less than a decade earlier.

Hamaguchi was still alive, but his wound was grievous and he would need to spend at least weeks in the hospital.

The ruling party decided not to replace Hamaguchi, but rather to have Foreign Minister Shidehara serve as acting prime minister during his recovery.

It wasn’t until January 1931 that Hamaguchi finally emerged from the hospital and formally resumed his duties, but even then he declined to show up at the House of Representatives, since his physical condition remained serious.

Inukai’s party began to return to the attack, asking publicly if Japan still had a prime minister or not. In the spring, Hamaguchi did finally make some public appearances, but it was all too apparent he was deeply unwell and not getting better.

Osachi Hamaguchi thus resigned as prime minister on April 14, 1931. His term had lasted 1 year and 287 days.

Hamaguchi’s health continued to decline, and he died four months later from complications related to the bullet wound. He had indeed been assassinated, but he suffered for nine months before that was finally determined.

Become a Shingetsu News supporter on Patreon.