The Minseito cabinet under Hamaguchi came to government in April 1929. Hamaguchi appointed Shidehara as foreign minister and Inoue Junnosuke as finance minister. Hamaguchi carried on the 'internationalist' policy of Shidehara and at the same time he adapted the domestic policy such as lifting the embargo on gold and arranging a rationalization of industry. Hamaguchi started with combining industries and organizing unions. He was making the Japanese economy competitive enough in the international market through mechanization and expansion of productivity. He was trying to seek for an international policy of 'sound finance' by reintroducing the gold standard and was activating Japanese industrialists' trades and business in China. He supported the Japanese economic expansion in China in order to realize the development of domestic industries, the stability and improvement of the people's life. Hamaguchi favored disarmament and took an action over the London naval treaty. The Sumistu-in was against his idea, but he controlled it by force because he had a great support from the public and the Elder Statesman, Prince Saionji. Hamaguchi's purpose at that time was to cut military expenditures and to take on the leadership over internationalism. His vision collapsed after the Wall Street crash of autumn 1929. Hamaguchi was assassinated on the platform at Tokyo railway station in 1930. He recovered to resume his position as prime minister but died the following year.

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This article studies the number of military officers among Imperial Diet members and their influence in prewar Japan. The first half explores the number of officer MPs on the basis of biographical dictionaries edited by the House of Representatives and the House of Councilors. The author finds that 1) their number was not very large, except during World War II ; 2) their number among members of the House of Representatives increased after the fourteenth general election (1920) ; 3) many generals and admirals were made barons after the Russo-Japanese War, and some of these were elected as a member of the House of Peers. The second half of the article analyzes the activities of officer MPs after the year 1920. They did share common interests with the military authorities as servicemen ; however, a conflict of interest arose between ex-servicemen and active-servicemen. Therefore, they were not always loyal supporters of the military authorities. In conclusion, officer MPs had considerable influence as military specialists, representatives of ex-servicemen and supporters of the military authorities in the Diet despite their position as a minority. It was often the case that they were detrimental to parliamentary government due to their anti-liberal and anti-party government tendencies.

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A series of political arguments during negotiation and ratification process of the London Naval Treaty of 1930 was one of the most serious domestic political situations in modern Japan within the Cabinet, the Foreign Ministry, the Navy, the political parties such as Minseito and Seiyukai, the Privy Council, the Kizoku-in, the Army and civilian right wingers. The London treaty fight deeply affected the fate of Japan. This study examines the policy argument over the treaty, focusing on Prime Minister Hamaguchi who was a main player to press for the treaty. It has been pointed out that Hamaguchi was moved by budgetary concerns but those who were against ratification of the treaty like Admiral Kato Kanji, were opposed him from military point of view. My interpretation, however, is that there are other significant factors: Hamaguchi's and Kato's argument over how Japanese policy toward the United States and China should be, or the future of Japan should be as a member of international community. Hamaguchi and his opponents' ideas were so different, and that was one of the reasons for their serious conflict. After all the political argument within Japan, it can be said Japan's new state system operated by political parties including the Navy, the Army, and Privy Council was eventually working under the Hamaguchi Cabinet. At the same time, ratification of the London Naval Treaty of 1930 made it possible for Japan to become one of the leading countries in international society, along with the United States and Britain.

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This article focuses on the relationship between the campaign to set up a cabinet under the premiership of Hiranuma Kiichiro and the Japanese Navy during the years of the Saito Makoto cabinet (25 May 1932-8 July 1934), in order to place this campaign within the context of the strengthening of the military supreme command system from the 1930's onward and clarify the influence of Hiranuma's plan upon the Navy, and the influence the resulting changes in the Navy exerted upon the campaign. In order to overcome a divided structure of governance, in particular control over military authorities, Hiranuma's campaign won faction leaders over to its side and utilized the authority of the imperial family. Therefore, Hiranuma's plan for controlling the military authorities did call for institutional reorganization, but rather depended on personal connections. Hiranuma made Fushiminomiya Hiroyasu chief of the Naval General Staff (NGS) with the cooperation of the Kantai (Fleet) Faction led by Admiral Kato Hiroharu, going as far as to reorganize the system by extending the authority of the NGS. However, the Kantai Faction lost its unifying position in the Navy when it was criticized for politicizing the NGS and politically utilizing the imperial family. Since Hiranuma's plan to control the military authorities involved winning over the leaders of the various factions, the fall of the Kantai Faction from power brought about the failure Hiranuma to act as the unifier of the divided governance system. Therefore, the campaign to form a Hiranuma Cabinet and the reinforcement of the supreme command in the navy developed under interrelationship of mutual influence. The collapse of the campaign after the Kantai Faction's attempt to utilize the authority of the imperial family resulted in the loss of its unifying position in the Navy means no less than the failure of Hiranuma's efforts to overcome the divided structure of governance by means of personal connections. Only the extension of NGS power-in other words, the strengthened independence of Supreme Command-remained after Kato's retreat and the collapse of the Hiranuma campaign.

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Dai Hon'ei 大本営 (Imperial Military Headquarters) refers to the highest office organizing wartime military operations. This office was set up in the 1894 Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War, and the War with China which extended into the Pacific War. This paper deals with Dai Hon'ei established at the beginning of the War with China in November, 1937. It has been said that the Dai Hon'ei was very much the same in function as its Russo-Japanese War counterpart, or that it was merely a kind of the General Staff Office whose function was reorganized to meet the demands the war. World War I, as the first total war in human history, however, must have greatly influenced Japanese military authorities and stimulated them to study seriously the war tactics and the wartime systems of the participating countories. We may therefore conclude that the Japanese military authorities took into consideration the results of this careful study when establishing the third Dai Hon'ei. Based on this assumption, this paper discusses the formation process and characteristics of the Dai Hon'ei during the Japan-China War. The first chapter discusses the great changes which took place in the Dai Hon'ei set up in the Japan-China War in comparison with its predecessors. At the time of establishment it increased the authority of such military administrative authorities as the army minister, the vice minister, the director and the chief of military affairs, and the military chief, vis-a-vis the supreme command authorities. The Dai Hon'ei's functional emphasis on the military administrative authorities theoretically should have caused the Prime Minister to be concerned with the Dai Hon'ei, since the army minister was also Minister of State. What leads us to believe that more emphasis was now being placed on the minltary administration is the recognition that in the case of total war the administration and the supreme command should not be separated, but unified in terms of policy and strategy. The second chapter examines the fact that the establishment of the Dai Hon'ei was not an isolated decision, but was made in relation with the Councillor System (Shangi-Sei 参議制), which was created by the government during roughly the same period, and was regarded as a cause of those government reforms which went as far as to totally revamp the cabinet system. Therefore it becomes clear that Konoe Fumimaro and the military authorities attemped to reform the government at the time of the establishment of the Dai Hon'ei, out of consideration that any dualism between state affiars and the military command would cause severe limitations on war mobilization efforts. While the move to the separate the Ministry of State from the Director of the Administrative Affairs was not realized, the successful establishment of the Sangi-Sei, was significant in empowering a minister without portfolio (Muninsho-Daijin-Sei 無任所大臣制). By including the unrealized cabinet reformation plan in the discussion, this paper emphsizes that the establishment of the Dai Hon'ei in the Japan-China War played a number of important roles not only in improving the capabilities for meeting the war demands, but also by being part of the reform plan for a wartime government system.

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The volume in the series Senshi-sosho entitled Headquarters of the Imperial Army I holds the view that the imperial defense policy (IDP) was hardly changed by its first revisions and its nature and policy was maintained. Research conducted after the publication of "Senshi-sosho" also basically reinforced this view. This paper argues that the IDP was fundamentally and drastically revised by its first revisions in 1918. The strategic thought behind the original IDP was formulated on the supposition of a short and limited war against one single country either Russia or the U.S.. Therefore, the Army and Navy requested 50 divisions in wartime and 2 fleets consisting of 8 battleships and 8 cruisers. On, the contrary, the revised IDP was devised on the assumption of a long, all-out war against the U.S., Russia and China at the same time from the lessons Japan learned during WWI. The Army upgraded the strategic force from "divisions" to "corps", and the necessary size was determined as 41 corps in all-out war, and the Navy requested. one more fleet of 16 battleships and 8 cruisers. What changed the nature of the IDP on such a large scale ? "The Necessity of a National Mobilization Plan" proposed by vice-chief of staff Tanaka Giichi was approved in 1917. It assumed that Japan would fight a war against several nations simultaneously and denied the strategic concepts based on the lessons from the Russo-Japanese war. It was proposed to make a defense policy that desired a short and limited war due to limited resouces, but also understood that Japan may have to fight a long and enduring all-out war. In its "Explanation of the Budget" to the Ministry of Finance in 1919 in accordancey with the new IDP, the Ministry of the Army requested funds for the construction and maintenance of a main force of 22 corps in peace time and 41 corps in wartime to fight an all-out war against several enemies. The idea of creating corps-oriented forces, however, was not realized; and the force was returned to the 40-42 divisions structure in 1920, because of popular opposition to any kind of enlargement of the army, the financial crisis caused by the depression, and disagreement inside the Army over how to organize an all-out war posture. The first IDP revision had two significant points. First, the concept of "National Mobilization Posture" made clear the vulnera-bility of Japan's limited resources and low manufacturing capacity. Therefore, a consensus was built up not only within the military, but also among politicians, that Japan should seek its insufficient resources in China and build a self-sufficiency structure. As a result, the strategic area of the new IDP was expanded to all of East Asia, including mainland China. As more and more Japanese made their way into China, the U.S.-Japandde rivalry grew more fierce, and the possibility of Anglo-Japanese confrontation heightened. Soon Japan became internationally isolated. Secondly, ideological confrontation over the posture fot an all-out war emerged within the military. Tanaka Giichi and Ugaki Kazushige found an all-out war posture essential and advocated a transformation of the army, while Uehara Yusaku and Fukuda Masataro regarding an early stage of war as vital, insisted on the maintenance of the status quo. This rivalry continued into the Showa era.

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In 1933 the Imperial Japanese Navy went through a comprehensive restructuring of its organization, through the process of revising its Naval General Staff Regulations and Protocol for Naval Ministry-Staff Liaison Affairs. What these revisions amounted to was the Naval General Staff attaining autonomy from a system formerly dominated by the Naval Ministry. Although we find some mention of these revisions in the research to date on the Imperial Navy, the relative inavailability of source materials has hindered any full-scale, detailed treatment of the subject. Here the author attempts to fill the existing gaps by offering a more detailed account of the response of the Navy's top mind's in an analysis of the information offered by the diary of Iwamura Seiichi, then senior adjutant in the Naval Ministry. In time of war with the establishment of Imperial Headquarters, the Naval General Staff was to be the agency for implementing IH's naval functions, while during peacetime, the Ministry was in charge of naval affairs. Although there was dissatisfaction within the ranks concerning such an arrangement, the Ministry refused to address the problem, thus maintaining the status quo. However, the situation began to change surrounding the issue of supreme command raised at the first London Naval Disarmament Conference of 1930. Over the issue of troop strength, the Naval General Staff demanded that the Ministry make concessions, resulting in the implementation in 1933 of measures expanding the authority of the Naval General Staff. These revisions were particularly important for the issues of troop strength and who controlled the flow of military developments. The former issue, which was the source of attacks on the government from the Seiyukai Party and right-wing organization, had not been provided for in the existing Liaison Affairs Protocol; however, provisions were made as the result of a proposal submitted by the Chief of Staff and successful negotiations with the Minister of the Navy. Control over the flow of military developments had been in peacetime part of the Naval General Staff's regimental command authority. For example, when the need arose to protect Japanese citizens residing abroad, the Naval Minister would request the despatch of troops and after cabinet approval, the Naval General Staff would begin strategy planning under the leadership of the Naval Minister. However, following the Protocol revisions, the Naval General Staff was permitted to propose troop deployment independently. In other words, within the revision process, the Naval General Staff was able for the first time to establish autonomous authority over naval affairs.

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In modern times, especially after the Russio-Japanese War, how to deal with China was one of the most important problems for Japan. It was not just as a common diplomatic problem, but also was closely related to Japan's secuity-its independence and national security-and also to matters influencing daily life in Japan, such as resources, population, provisions, and foreign trade. Most of the research so far on the history of Sino-Japanese relations has focused on the antagonism between the Japanese Army and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, while the Navy's policy towards China has been almost neglected. In order to grasp the whole image of this history, however, it is necessary to restudy it from the viewpoint of the Navy by examining the role it played in Japan's policy-making towards China. Because Japan's policy towards China, as above mentioned, bore great in those days, the Navy also had to grapple with the China problem after the Russio-Japanese War, the Navy had foresaw that the outbreak of a Japanese-American War could be caused by the China question, Modern Japan's diplomatic policy was mostly decided in the tripartite meeting by the Army, the Navy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This is the matter to be examined in the present article which focuses on the Navy's activities before and after the time when Japan made its North China maneuver which led to the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War. After the Manchurian Incident, the Army had an increasingly powerful voice on the issue of China, and "the policy towards China" began to become a "synonym of the policy towards the Army." It has been said that the Navy function-d as "a brake" to control the Army, but recent studies, mainly of the Meiji and Taisho eras, have begun to focuson the cooperative relations between the Army and the Navy on the China problem. This matter is taken up here by considering the aspect not only of the Navy's role of slowing the Army down, but also of advancing into China under the cooperation with the Army.After 1935, the Navy shifted its policy towards China to a more moderate one. Up to 1935, it had proceeded with the "South China maneuver" that aimed to make that region's local governments pro-Japanese, just like the Army had done in Manchuria and North China. The Navy forcefully urged the Kuomintang government to adopt a pro-Japanese attitude by using the pressure of the North and South China maneuvers, since they had already planned a Sino-Japanese united front against the United States in the midst of friction over naval disarmament. On the other hand, after the Second London Naval Conferenceof 1935, the Navy began to grope for detente with the U.S. and they suspended its plan to partition of China. It can be said, however, that the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War meant that the Navy failed to moderate Japan's policy towards China. Considering also that up to 1935 the Navy had carried out a China partition policy like the Army, its role did not serve as a brake on Japan's hardline measures, but rather accelerated them. And, in the view of China, the Navy's policy constantly forced China to take stronger measures against Japan before and after 1935. This is because the Navy had up to 1935 caused anti-Japanese sentiment in China by carrying out the partition policy, while after 1935 it encouraged the Kuomintang govern-ment to unify China.

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