The Truth about China and Japan/Document H
(H)
ARTICLES FROM THE JAPANESE CONSTITUTION DEFINING THE AUTOCRACY OF THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT
Note.—The following Articles from the Constitution of Japan give some idea of the autocratic and unrepresentative character of the Japanese Government and disclose the manner in which power is concentrated in the hands of a military and civil bureaucracy without Parliamentary checks.
This is particularly illustrated by Article 71—even the control of the purse being placed beyond the scope of the Diet, which is made powerless in the matter of supplies by the provision that Budgets can be automatically re-enacted from year to year.
The 'reforms' introduced in 1919 by the present Hara government do not touch these things: the franchise-qualification has merely been lowered from Yen 10 in direct taxes to Yen 3, which will increase the electorate from 1,460,000 to 2,860,000 voters and still leave great classes of educated men without the vote. Ordinary manhood suffrage, on the basis of the present population, would give Japan at least 13 million voters. Ten million men are therefore left without the vote. The increase of the number of constituencies from 381 to 464 is a step in the right direction; but the Koreans are entirely without representation nor has Formosa any voice at all—the three million Formosans being treated like the seventeen million Koreans as a conquered race.
Article 3. The Emperor is sacred and inviolable.
Article 4. The Emperor is the head of the Empire, combining in Himself the rights of sovereignty, and exercising them according to the provisions of the present Constitution.
Article 5. The Emperor exercises the legislative power with the consent of the Imperial Diet.
Article 12. The Emperor determines the organization and peace standing of the Army and Navy.
Article 13. The Emperor declares war, makes peace, and concludes treaties.
Article 55. The respective Ministers of State shall give their advice to the Emperor, and be responsible for it.
Article 67. Those already fixed expenditures based by the Constitution upon the powers appertaining to the Emperor, and such expenditures as may have arisen by the effect of law, or that appertain to the legal obligations of the Government, shall be neither rejected nor reduced by the Imperial Diet, without the concurrence of the Government.
Article 68. In order to meet special requirements, the Government may ask the consent of the Imperial Diet to a certain amount of Continuing Expenditure Fund, for a previously fixed number of years.
Article 71. When the Imperial Diet has not voted on the Budget, or when the Budget has not been brought into actual existence, the Government shall carry out the Budget of the preceding year.