The purpose of this paper is to review the political power struggle for de-veloping a totalitarian single-party system, by analyzing how Fumimamo Konoe, his fellows, and the army coped with political parties' activities to re-organize the political world utilizing Konoe's new party campaign from the late 1930s to the early 1940s, in which the conflict among the national government, the army, and political parties became more fierce. The Shino-Japanese War, which broke out in the wake of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in July 1937, showed the sign of prolongation in 1938. Then, the first Konoe Cabinet resigned en bloc in January 1939. Later, the Hiranuma, Abe, and Yonai Cabinets were established as the national government, with the prime ministers being military personnel and bureaucrats. However, these three cabinets could not improve the situation, and Japan witnessed the deepening of political confrontation due to the prolongation of the Shino-Japanese War. On the other hand, the Japanese army aimed to back up Konoe with the purpose of unifying diplomatic measures in response to the peace overture toward China for terminating the war, and the central government aimed to reorganize the political world by organizing Konoe's New Party. Then, in July 1940, the Yonai Cabinet resigned en bloc, and the second Konoe Cabinet was established based on the supports from the army and political parties. This paper focuses on the domestic political visions and diplomatic policy visions of the army and political parties, elucidates the influences of the relation between the army and political parties on the politics before and after the inauguration of the second Konoe Cabinet, and then discusses the factors in the failure of "Konoe's New Systems" while considering the difference from the political plans of Konoe's fellows.

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In this note the author attempts to classify the 44 Japanese Cabinets in the pre-war period from the first one headed by Ito Hirobumi to the Higashikuni Government of August-October 1945, according to the prime minister's military position. His conclusions may be summarized as follows. Japanese pre-war Cabinets can be classified into two categories. One is headed by a general or an admiral of the Army and Navy and the other is not. The former may be called 'Military Prime Minister Cabinet' (MPMC), and the latter a 'Civilian Prime Minister Cabinet'. Of the pre-war 44 Cabinets, 20 were MPMC's. The MPMC can also be divided into two sub-categories. In type A the prime minister was on active duty in the Army or Navy. In type B he was in the reserves or retired. According to an edict on army and navy officer position and service decreed in 1888, officers appointed to the civil service must have been discharged from military service. However, if the Emperor ordered or permitted by the special decree, a civil servant could remain in military active service. Type A is further divided into 'Yamagata Style', 'War and Surrender Cabinet' and 'Other'. The First and Second Yamagata, the First and Second Katsura, the First Yamamoto, the Terauchi and the Kato Tomosaburo Cabinets are all of the 'Yamagata Style'. The Tojo arid the first half of the Higashikuni Cabinets form the 'War and Surrender Cabinet Style'. 'Other' includes the first half of Kuroda Cabinet (before the prolamation of the 1888 edict). Type B contains 4 sub-groups. The first is 'Katsura-Tanaka Style' (a party cabinet but its Premier was a military general). The Third Katsura and the Tanaka Giichi Cabinets belong to this subgroup. The second is 'Elder Admiral Prime Minister Cabinet' consisting of the Second Yamamoto, the Saito, the Okada and the Suzuki Kantaro Cabinets. The third is 'Army Reserve General Prime Minister Cabinet' which includes the Hayashi, the Abe and the Koiso Cabinets. The Yonai and the latter half of Kuroda and the Higashikuni Cabinets can't be put into any group mentioned above, and therefore should be thought of as exceptions. Using the chronological distribution of the MPMC as an index, a new periodization scheme can be introduced into Japanese cabinet history. The first period is from the First Ito to the First Okuma Cabinet, during which the MPMC form is rarely seen. Its time share is below 25%. The second is from the Second Yamagata to the second Yamamoto Cabinet. In this period the MPMC, especially type A dominated the others. Its time share is 55.0% (type B's is 2.3%). It may be called 'the Age of Type A' or 'the Age of Yamagata Style'. The third is from the Kiyoura to the Inukai Cabinet. The MPMC's time share decreased to 26.0% during this interval. This period overlaps 'the Time of Party Government'. The last is from the Saito to the Higashikuni Cabinet. The MPMC is again dominant. The time share of type A is 21.1% and that of type B is 45.3%. Therefore it may be called 'the Age of Type B'.

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This study aims to clarify the characteristics of the readers' column in the Japan Times during World War II. Founded in 1897 with the support of the government, businessmen, and researchers, the newspaper was expected to produce Japanese propaganda after the Manchurian Incident in 1931. Previous studies have tried to examine Japanese propaganda through the analysis of the editorials in the newspaper. However, very little has been written about the readers' column, which was laid out beside the editorial and was supposed to be a forum for free speech. This article focuses on the Asama Maru Incident (January 21^<st>, 1940) - a scandal that provoked an anti-British campaign in the Japanese-language press and eventually propelled Japan into World War II - to reveal how the readers' column in the Japan Times was a forum for open international discussion. From when the incident occurred (January 21) to when some of the captured Germans were released in Yokohama (March 2) , 13 out of a total of 66 letters published in the readers' corner were about the Asama Maru Incident. An analysis of the writers, who were from England, Japan, and Germany (in addition to a few anonymous writers) , reveals that eight were pro-Britain and five were anti-Britain. In comparison, the Japanese-language press was completely anti-Britain and the two other English papers were completely on the side of Britain and the U.S. during the same period. I conclude that this column functioned as an 'asylum for foreign people's free speech' in order to make the Japanese propaganda in the rest of the paper more effective and palatable. I also point out that the messages in the column, the editorial and the translations from the Japanese press functioned in a mutually complementary manner to each other with regard to the propaganda in the Japan Times. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding public diplomacy in English-language media.

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The Cabinet Planning Board (CPB : October 1937-November 1943) continued for the longest period and was the most extensively developed office of the so-called "Offices for the Integration of National Policy" (OINP). These offices were established to strengthen the Cabinet in the period of the post-Party Cabinets in Japan. Moreover, the CPB continued throughout one of the most important periods of the Japanese modern history, from the Sino-Japanese War to the Pacific War. Accordingly, we must examine the actual condition of the CPB in order to study the decision making process of national policy during that period. But the image that is derived from past studies about the formation process of the CPB is that it was simply "an Office for General Mobilization" (OGM) or was "weak". This image does not coincide with that of an "active" CPB in the period of the Konoe New Organization (Konoe Shin-taisei) in 1940. Therefore, the author describes the actual condition of CPB from October 1937 to the end of 1939 in this paper. The CPB was established as a result of the amalgamation of the Resources Bureau (Shigen-kyoku) as OGM and the Cabinet Planning Agency (Kikaku-cho) as OINP. The Army had taken the lead in establishing it. But it still maintained the "structual" weak point of OINP. The CPB did not have authority over the other government offices. But the weak point was overcome through the roles which the CPB was allowed to play during the Sino-Japanese war. It planned the National General Mobilization Plans (Kokkasodoin-keikaku), which were at the heart of the Material Mobilization Plans (MMP ; Butsudo-keikaku), and it spearheaded the application of the National General Mobilization Law. The CPB was the real power behind the National General Mobilization Business Committee which organized each ministry for the purpose of mobilization, and the CPB also established the Temporary Materials Coordination Bureau as a external unit of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry for the application of MMP. The CPB also held the real power of making the budget for the subdivision of MMP around the first half 1939. That is, the CPB became the center of "the System for the application of the Mobilization Law" which included the National General Mobilization Council. Moreover, the CPB was closely connected with the establishment and operation of government offices for the National General Mobilization in the broad sense of the word. These offices included the Second Committee, the Third Committee, the Science Council (Kagaku-shingikai), the East-Asian Laboratory (Toa-kenkyujo), and the Asian Developement Board (Koa-in). And the CPB came to control a group of government offices which should be called "the CPB System". In order to see how much political influence the CPB had in the "circumstantial" sense, the author concentrates on two issues : 1)the expansion of the CPB from the autumn of 1938 to the spring of 1939 ; and 2)the establishment of the Trade Ministry in the autumn of 1939. It became clear that CPB had more considerable political influence over the contemporary political scene as the proposer and promoter of "reformatory" policies. However the outcome of these two issues was not as the CPB and the Army had expected or wished. The CPB was not simply an OGM. Besides, such CPB actions were caused by some of "the Reformists" among the bureaucrats and military officers who served in CPB. "The Reformists" increasingly entered the CPB through "the CPB System".

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1. After "Utage" and Before "Utage" 2. Before the first legal proceeding of privacy judgement, "Utage no ato" affair 3. After the first legal proceeding of "Utage no ato" affair 4. Conclusion-feeling to privacy

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