To date, the research on the history of the political parties around the time when the "Yokusan Seiji翼賛政治" System was established regards them as a group removed from mainstream of politics. However, we must not neglect the political party statesmen who positively participated in the forming of the "Yokusan Seiji" System. By focusing on the ideas of Yamazaki Tatsunosuke 山崎達之輔 about the political system, the author analyses the relation between the forming of the "Yokusan Seiji" System and those statesmen, and concludes the following. After the "Kensei Jodo憲政常道" collapsed, Yamazaki proposed "Totalitarianism" which denied competition among political parties as a factor that confused party government. Based on this understanding, in the Konoe Shinto近衛新党 movement and the Shintaisei 新体制 movement, he planned the formation of a new party, that aimed to participate in policy-making in advance and to unite the political powers which had become divided under the Meiji Constitution. This plan was instituted by crossing administration and legislation in the Yokusan Seijikai's policy research council. In order that the new party would have this function, Yamazaki utilized the logic that public opinion was reflected in the platform of political party. Because party statesmen had been criticized for political competition and scandal, they needed a reliable way to justify that logic. In this context, the Yokusan election held in the form that the whole nation recommend their candidates created the fiction that the party statesmen and parliament had regained the confidence of the nation. That is to say, behind the fact that party statesmen positively participated in the forming of the "Yokusan Seiji" System, that system had the possibility of stabilizing the political order under the Meiji Consti-tution. It is important that an analogy between pre- and postwar politics can be recognized in the policy-making of the Yokusan Seijikai and that of the Liberal Democratic Party. This means that Japanese politics retained its base of the decision-making from the prewar to the postwar period. The author is of the opinion that the opportunity for political parties to make contact with administration was expanded in the situation of administration expansion or modernization in the pre- and postwar periods.

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This paper is based on a viewpoint developed in a previous paper concerning Diet power during the period of the Japanese-Chinese War, which criticized the opinion that during the Showa wartime era in Japan the National Diet was stripped of any real power, or else functioned merely as a passive reactionary group. In that discussion the author cited actual cases previously ignored, which showed the power of the Diet positively affecting the policy making process during the war in China. As a result of this investigation, the author was able to clarify that 1)the way in which the Diet was able to participate in policy making was not through political parties, but rather by means of suprafactional groups of DMs that based their activities on special interest groups, and 2)even after the dismantling of the political parties during the era of the New Establishment in the summer of 1940, the Diet continued to function effectively through those special interest groups. In the present paper, the author takes up a similar viewpoint in an investigation of the Paciffic War era, specifically during the 77th Session of the National Diet. It was in the autumn of 1941 that the Yokusan Giin Domei was formed by a majority in the House of Representatives supporting imperial rule. The bonds tying this alliance together were weak, and its policy making effectiveness depended mainly on existing special interest groups. This the author shows by means of tracing the issues of how to integrate agricultural associations and how to build an educational promotion system. In the case of integrating agricultural associations, for example, at first the influence of Diet member groups was not able to solve the impasse that had developed within the bureaucracy between the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. However, after the national elections of April, 1942 (known as the "Yokusan" election), when the Yokusan Seiji-kai (hereafter Yokusei) organization was formed, the way in which Diet powers were able to participate in the policy making process was changed around the Yokusei's political affairs investigation committee. Both policy proposals and political compromises began to contain provisions that were not necessarily in line with the demands of special interest groups. This change is shown through examples of administrative simplification, agricultural association integration, and the issue of increasing the food supply. Yokusei embraced a number of different political forces and strongly resembled a ruling party capable of forming consensus opinions. As to the actual policy proposals made by the political forces in the Diet, while they did support the war efforts both in China and in the Pacific, they did oppose the government over the issue of expanding the powers of the bureaucracy. Soon after the fall of the Tojo Cabinet, as the movement to reorganize the political establishment strengthened, the involvement of the Diet in policy making waned. In sum, despite a relative overall weakening of the position of the National Diet in political affairs throughout the Showa wartime era in Japan, it definitely continued to play an important role in the area of policy making. The factors enabling the Diet to play such a role was its strong opposition to radical institutional reforms under the slogan of "national unity" and its influence in the government's choosing a wartime establishment instead.

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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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In 1960, Prime Minister Kishi Nobusuke revised the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty. He was a well known politician, having been Minister of Commerce and Industry in the Tojo wartime cabinet. When Tojo requested Kishi to resign in order to reshuffle the Cabinet, Kishi declined, causing Tojo to yield and dissolve his Cabinet on July 18,1944. After the war, Kishi explained that his anti-Tojo actions were aimed at avoiding accusation as a war criminal after the War. There are only a few studies about his wartime politics. Kishi said that he spent his days in idleness after the resignation of the Tojo Cabinet and every study so far acccepts this explanation. The author of the present article doubts this point. After resignation of the Tojo Cabinet, Kishi and 32 others organized a political club called the "Gokoku Doshikai" within the House of Representatives. It consisted of socialists, generals, admirals, and nationalists. They adopted a committee system, established an office, and held study group once a week. Kishi was the virtual leader of this club. They carried out a nationwide campaign called the "National Defence Movement". Kishi also established an ultranationalist association, the "Bocho Sonjo Doshikai", in his hometown of Yamaguchi city. Author also investigates this group, and concludes that both Kishi and the Bocho Sonjo Doshikai were opposed to the end of war. The Gokoku Doshikai was based on one concept of national defence, a "productive Army", (seisan-gun), which aimed at strengthen the economic control. By unifying the munitions industries, Japan could use the materials more efficiently, in preparation for the decisive battle of the Japanese mainland through self-sufficiency. The Gokoku Doshikai was opposed to the Japanese government, because then Prime Minister Suzuki was aiming at ending the war, they denounced the government's policy vehemently; and when Suzuki decided to surrender, the Gokoku Doshikai and the Japanese army resisted. The author concludes that while Kishi contributed to the anti-Tojo movement, he was opposed to surrender. We can see the root of the Kishi's postwar faction in the "Gokoku Doshikai". After the war, two of its members entered the Kishi Cabinet, and five socialist members became the leaders of the Socialist Party. Here we see another point of continuity and discontinuity between prewar and postwar politics.

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As the inevitability of a "decisive battle on Japanese soil" drew nearer and nearer during what appeared to be the final stages of the Pacific War, a movement arose demanding the declaration of a national emergency as provided for under Article 31 of the Meiji Constitution. Despite the attention that this movement has drawn as of late, there has been yet no attempt to clarify the views on the subject held by the movement's leader and constitutional scholar, Ogushi Toyoo. This article discusses Ogushi's ideas based on his personal archives. Given his interpretation that the emperor possessed unfettered sovereignty (Herrschergewalt) with regard to rights laid out in Article 31, Ogushi deserves to be placed within the Hozumi/Uesugi Legal School on the subject of imperial sovereignty. He was of the opinion that through the imposition of Article 31 a national defense state system would be established with the unification of civil affairs and a supreme military command. In opposition to Ogushi's argument, Odaka Tomoo espoused the idea of Staatsnotrecht (emergency legislation) based on the interpretation of Carl Schmitt and expressed fears about a suspension of the Constitution. Ogushi deemed Odaka's argument unacceptable, for if the powers provided by Article 31 meant Staatsnotrecht, revolutionary forces would be enabled to usurp those powers to deny the sovereignty of the emperor. Meanwhile, the National Science Research Council led by Ogushi drafted a legislative bill to allow the government to implement a state of national emergency, over which the Legislative Affairs Bureau raised problems about 1) the relationship between civil affairs and supreme military command and 2) the relationship of a state of emergency declaration to Article 9 of the Constitution. That is to say, if emergency powers could be exercised to suspend Articles 9 and 55, a state of emergency could not be implemented. In response, Ogushi explained that if emergency powers were exercised by avoiding Staatsnotrecht, no constitutional provision would be suspended, except for the articles of Section 2 concerned with the rights and obligations of imperial subjects. For this reason, the tasks of both solving the legal problems of the draft bill and implementing the actual state of emergency both fell into difficulty. It is on this point that the author shows how Ogushi's application of the Hozumi/Uesugi interpretation of imperial sovereignty to the issue of unlimited powers with regard to Article 31 paradoxically placed limitations on that same interpretation in assisting the nation as it prepared for a fullblown wartime system stressing strong leadership and national mobilization in defense of the homeland.

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２００９年９月，１９５５年の結成以来，ほぼ政権の座にあり続けた自由民主党の一党優位体制が崩壊し，民主党を中心とした鳩山由紀夫内閣が発足した。政治報道も変化した。とりわけ派閥という存在は，従来の自民党政権と，新しい民主党政権の断絶あるいは連続性を考える上で，興味深いテーマである。本稿は，この問題を考える前提作業として，自由民主党における非公式組織である派閥の機能について歴史的に検討する。その際，総裁選出過程における派閥の役割を，１９２０年代，１９４５－５５年，１９５５年以降の三つの時代に分けて， 分析した。その結果，派閥のあり方を規定したのは，第一に，大日本帝国憲法や日本国憲法のもとでの運用，第二に，総裁選出方法との強い関連が明らかにされた。そして，派閥は，非公式の組織でありながら確固たる存在となったことが判明した。

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In March 1943, during the Pacific War, an Administrative Inspection system was enacted. The purpose of this system was assigning a minister of the state or cabinet adviser as a inspector, to examine the production and to point out problems to productivity increase. Such Administrative Inspections were carried out 13 times in all by the end of the war. Each one was characteristic of the war situation at the time of it implementation. The first inspection was carried out on government policy penetration into the iron and steel industry in Kanagawa Prefecture. As the result of this inspection, the government established a region administrative council. The third inspection aimed at increasing aircraft production in contrast to the first one which had had put emphasis on the administrative aspect. The inspection report said that aircraft production was certain to rise 2.5 times utilizing the existing facilities and labor. The result of this third inspection exerted influence on. the establishment the Munitions Ministry. The eighth inspection was performed on provisions. This time, unlike former inspections, it pointed out the need to revise the existing uniform policy, and regain the people's trust in the food administration. Administrative Inspection helped to gather data on the Japanese economy in order to formulate government policy. The goal of Administrative Inspection was wartime productivity increase. There were a few sectors that did increase output temporally, but all decreased after; and confused production fields can also be found. The government provided incentives for an increase in productivity by helping to supply equipment, raw materials and labor, relaxing restrictions, and correcting irrational policies. However, there existed a restrictive factor in the pressure to increase productivity from the military and the bureaucracy. Therefore, there were both incentives and restrictions factor in the policy to increase wartime productivity, resulting in policy failed to invoke spontaneous cooperation from the Japanese people.

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　In 1902, Tokyo Senmon Gakkō celebrated the 20th anniversary of its foundation, when it was re-named Waseda University. It was two years later, i. e. in 1904, when Lafcadio Hearn was invited to teach at the University.

　The aim of this article is to inquire into what his days at Waseda meant to himself as well as to the University. It seems to me indispensable for the study of Lafcadio Hearn to bring to light his days there, which was in fact the last stage of his life in Japan. To this day a lot of articles and books on his life and works in Japan have been published, but there are few, if not none, that treat of this theme.

　Referring to the documents I have recently found in the University, I have tried here to clarify what the circumstances surrounding him at that time really were.

　They were as follows :

(1) Tsubouchi Shōyō, who was one of the leading figures in the University, played an important part in inviting Hearn to Waseda.

(2) The students of the Department of Literature petitioned the University to invite him.

(3) He was invited with an exceptionally high salary to serve as the University’s “figurehead”.

(4) The subjects he taught were;

　 I. March-July, 1904. a. History of English Literature in the 19th Century. b. Modern English Poems.

　 II. Sept. 1904 - July 1905. (during which term he was to teach but died on 26th September 1904) a. History of English Literature. b. Modern English Literature.

　(5) From among those students whom he taught there emerged a number of well-known poets, writers and men of letters.

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