Japan Aspects Destinies by Watson

Author:Watson [Watson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Anthropology, General, Ethnic Studies, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9781136204111
Google: edvGBQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-10-28T04:53:12+00:00

XX

PARTY POLITICS PRO FORMA

LET the country’s constitution be no more than an excuse for the ruling Oligarchy, you yet find that in Japan you need not be deprived of the amusement of party politics. In a way they are as interesting as the party politics of England; in their own way, with their own background of Japanese history, they are more so, or differently. I mean no disrespect in saying that they are often something besides interesting; that they are amusing. This is the same as to say that they are the party politics of the Revolution. It is more of a fault that the party politics of Japan are terribly confusing to the outsider who tries to understand them. The ordinary outsider is usually content to be interested and amused; he rightly stops short at understanding. I have heard of one qualified outsider, resident in Japan from the time they began to have political parties there. He went into the subject with some thoroughness: party origins, party cleavages, party politics, party leaders, causes of the disappearance of parties and of the rise of the parties which succeeded the defunct—the whole subject. This outsider was not overwhelmed in the midst of his inquiry. Only he confessed that at the end of it all, at the end of twenty or twenty-five years’ study of Japanese political parties, he understood less about them than he did at the beginning. So it is not without reason that the stranger may lay this fault to the charge of Japanese politicians—the charge that their politics and their parties are confusing. I have written enough to exempt the Oligarchy from the charge, but the Oligarchy is not the politics or the parties of Japan. The Oligarchy is the Government, and easily understood. It is another question with the country’s politics, with its parties. When after long study one arrives at some slight proficiency in their esotericisms, and when, upon the basis of this proficiency, one tries to settle privately in one’s own mind what the whole caboodle means, the reflection—it can scarcely be an opinion—into which one’s impressions subside or crystallise, as embodying the only feasible formula, is in this wise:—’ The Oligarchy says, has said’ to itself and the politicians, “We, you, will play at party politics and the constitutional idea in order to find out if they are practicable; in the meanwhile we will manage the country’s affairs.” ‘‘Let us have lay figures at first,’ the Japanese politicians say to each other; ‘afterwards we will have real parties if it’s worth while. Let us meanwhile play the game with counters; afterwards the stakes may be in gold.’ And the game is played, with immense zest; sometimes even with such gravity and appearance of conscious responsibility that one is tempted to think it is being played for honest gold—tempted until an interlude of Comedy or Farce breaks the spell. And yet by way of qualification, by way of justice, let it be said that many

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