The Formation of the Political party System Before and After the Establishment of the Imperial Diet : The Case of Oi Kentaro

Abstract

In the present paper the author analyzes Oi Kentaro 大井憲太郎 in the period before and after the opening of the Imperial Diet in 1890 as a proponent of what political parties should be in the parliamentary system, which was alternative to those often regarded as the mainstream. Oi always thought that the Diet was necessary as an system to realize political participation of patriots. This idea was an extended version of the idea of public opinion 公議輿論 which had spread in the period of the Meiji Restoration. In 1889 Oi left the Union-at-Large 大同団結 and formed a non-association party 非政社, because he disagreed with the decision by the majority of the Union to organize a political association 政社 with no firm principles for forming a majority party. Oi believed that every patriot, and so every political party, must choose and hold fast to its principles. He thus planned an alliance 連合 with any party agreeing on practical questions, without organizing one association from them. In fact, his party nearly cooperated with the Constitutional Reform Party 立憲改進党. This way of allying lead to the Alliance-for-Progressive-Group 進歩派連合 Movement ; but the Government restricted the movement's activites by enacting the Assembly-and-Political-Association law 集会及政社法 which made alliances impossible. This was why the focal point of the early Imperial Diet was fixed on forming a majority party. Oi planned to bind the party's Diet members to party decisions made by members outside the Diet, to enable those not franchised to take part indirectly in the Diet as effectively as possible. His plan worked well for the Constitutional Liberal Party 立憲自由党 just after the Diet opened, because its Diet members were still not organized well and because Oi put pressure on them through his young followers. However, soon Diet members grew more and more dissatisfaction, and Oi's plan gave way to Hoshi Toru(星亨)'s plan that gave authority over party decisions to Diet members. Moreover, the Liberal Party under Hoshi's leadership put the treaty revision question under a party decision incompatible with Oi's opinion, though the question had been regarded as the issue in which patriots should have a voice and one transcending the area of party interests. Thus Oi was excluded from the party. After restrictions on alliances was loosened, however, six parties, including Oi's, formed an alliance based on a hardline foreign policies 対外硬六派連合, not least of which was the treaty revision question. Although merely a countermeasure against the Liberal Party's compromise with the Government, this alliance showed that the public consensus of patriots Oi had been hoping for was indeed possible in the Diet.