Following the Meiji Restoration of 1868 Japan adopted many Western practicesand institutions including a constitution in 1889.The Establishment of theJapanese C... » 

Following the Meiji Restoration of 1868 Japan adopted many Western practicesand institutions including a constitution in 1889.The Establishment of theJapanese Constitutional System discusses how the Constitution actually workedduring its first decade.After the Dietor parliamentwas established the oligarchs who had framedthe Constitution found that the Diet intervened more than they had intended. Inan equally surprising turn the popular political parties who had initiallyopposed the expensive nationalist and industrial expansionist plans of thegovernment eventually became supporters. The reasons for this drastic change inbasic attitudes present a fascinating series of questions which Junji Bannoaddresses in this book.To answer these questions the author analyzes the constitutional framework andthe economic interests of the key supporters of the popular partiestheagricultural landowners. The changing interests of this group in the mid 1890sforced the popular party leaders to modify their demand for cheap government.Variations in the prices of agricultural products greatly influenced theattitudes of landowners towards government financial policies shifting theirfocus away from tax reduction and towards industrialization as an attractivepolicy. «