東京市街電車の市有化をめぐる政治過程 : 桂園時代の一側面

抄録

In the post Russo-Japanese War period, streetcars in the city of Tokyo became a political issue with respect to fare increases and municipalization. The streetcars were a necessity for the city's residents, so this issue received a great deal of attention from the masses. One important aspect is the campaign which rose up against the Tokyo Railway Co. (Tokyo Tetsudo Kaisha 東京鉄道会社), the firm which controlled the Tokyo city council through pro-Seiyukai 政友会 party aldermen. Conventional scholarly accounts explain that fare increases, company mergers and municipalization were enacted by the Seiyukai. in conspiracy with their political cronies on the city council, a number of business cliques and a group of bureaucrats. However, in fact, a variety of different expectations and motives, not unrelated to the downturn in the economy of the time, played an important role in the alliances which were formed and the conflict which arose between the bureaucracy, the political parties, the business world and the masses. Here we see such cases as non-Seiyukai factions welcoming the social policy thinking of the bureaucracy, and the Seiyukai itself backing the interests of monopoly firms. For example, the nationalistic foreign expansionist faction (kokuminshugiteki taigaikoha 国民主義的対外硬派), which has been described as holding an anti-bureaucracy and therefore anti-Seiyukai position, was actually more flexible in its politics. Where they elected to throw their support between these two positions differed depending on the particular issue at hand and the general circumstances of the time. This complicated position taking was a result of the fact that the breadth of political choice was often determined by such factors as economic conditions and the Government's basic economic policies. This is exactly the case in the issue of Tokyo Railway during the era of the first Saionji 西園寺 and second Katsura 桂 cabinets (Jan. 1906-Aug. 1911). The economic and political problems which complicated this issue included : (1)the Tokyo city council majority faction (i.e. the Seiyukai faction), which reflected the wishes of Tokyo Railway, (2)the opposition city council minority, which backed municipalization, (3)the close relationship between the Seiyukai itself and Tokyo Railway, (4)the Katsura cabinet's policy direction favoring municipalization, (5)the municipalization policy of Goto Shimpei 後藤新平, which was designed to eliminate the political influence of the Seiyukai from the Tokyo city council and fully realize public utility company service, (6)the political movements of the masses. While this paper takes up the specific issue of Tokyo streetcars, the major problem itself is hardly confined to one region alone. The major issue for Japan as a whole following the war with Imperial Russia was the creation of prosperity and strength in connection with the establishment of a militarily powerful nation. In order to accomplish this task, it was necessary to harness the people's energy into some sort of organizational form. The mere recognition of this problem was identical to the quest for political power. Those politicians, like Goto, who raised urban issues, took up the pros and cons of fare increases and publically sponsored utilities as one link in overall urban policies, in order to give full play to the people's energy and to eliminate the barriers to the development of local-government. Therefore, these issues formed one aspect of how to re-integrate the Japanese empire as a whole. It was in this sense that the social policy considerations of bureaucratic factions took a critical position vis-a-vis Seiyukai control of the Tokyo city council, and were able to team up with the non-Seiyukai minority in designing a plan for the municipalization of puplic utilities.