740.00119 Control(Japan)/11–1545: Telegram
The Acting Political Adviser in Japan (Atcheson) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 17—2:20 p.m.]
138. While there are a number of good political signs in the situation, there is also recurring and persistent indication of widespread and effective effort on part of the ruling oligarchy to preserve the [Page 855] substance of the old order behind new “democratic” window-dressing.
The present oligarchy still has the old background of aristocrats, bureaucrats, zaibatsu and supporters of militarism and, as should be expected, seems to be endeavoring to continue its control by supporting and perpetuating the traditional habits of thought and belief among the people in regard to the “peculiar” and therefore unchangeable character of the Japanese policy (Kokutai).
For example, there is being widely accepted in official, big business and conservative educational circles the social dictum that, notwithstanding freedom of speech, it is not “etiquette” to discuss the Emperor, and not long ago the Minister of Education issued orders that no adverse comment on the Emperor would be made from the school platform.
The Communist Party’s brutally frank program for abolition of the Imperial institution has played into the hands of the reactionaries and both the new Democratic Party (reborn from the former Nippon Seijikai) and the so-called Liberal Party (sponsored and controlled by traditionalists) as well as other new parties, are in the position of giving lip service to democracy and at the same time being vehement defenders of the faith against the proposals of the Communists.
Announcements by Konoye, Higashi-Kuni and Kido that they wish to relinquish their titles of nobility and “descend” to the status of “subject” or “commoner” is indication of how little sympathetic understanding such men have of the meaning or nature of democracy. The widely published thesis that the turning of a prince into a commoner manifests the “oneness of the Emperor with the people” is a flagrant argument in favor of the theory of both the divinity of the Emperor, the sanctity of the state and the God-descended nature of the Yamato race as a whole.
The same forces appear to be strongly at work in connection with the question of the revision of the constitution. Some time ago Shidehara let it be known that he considered that the constitution needed merely a new interpretation rather than basic revision—a theory being publicly argued by Minobe28 and others.
The head of the Cabinet Committee for Constitutional Revision recently made a press statement that “if the Emperor system is abolished, there is every danger of Japan’s being doomed to extinction” and there have been various pronouncements by “liberals” and educationists to the effect that the initial articles of the constitution require no change.
Against the force of this propaganda from positions in the hierarchy whence the Japanese people are accustomed to receive guidance for their thoughts and with a backward Cabinet and a reactionary diet, [Page 856] the people, still unused to freedom or independent thinking, will have little to say about the revision of the constitution.
We can accordingly expect that, unless some miraculous change is wrought in the minds and hearts of the oligarchy, the draft revision when presented will fall short of providing a practicable framework for the development of democracy and will in fact seek to perpetuate insurmountable obstacles to the realization of real democracy.
The above estimate of the situation does not reflect that of the Supreme Commander, his main commanders or his staff sections. Their view is very much more optimistic.
- Tatsukichi Minobe, Japanese constitutional theorist.↩