JAPANESE SUFFRAGE

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 149, 27 June 1925, Page 16

JAPANESE SUFFRAGE

NUIIEER OF VOTERS INCREASED.

The. demand whidt has been growing in. Japan for universal manhood suffrage has just been fulfilled. -The agitation for-this extension oE voting rights has been especially insistent during the past threo or four years.

-The new law will -inereasoW number of voters -in Japan from less- than 4,000,----000 to approximately 12,000,000, and this will probably mean important chanses, particularly, iv the internal economy of the Empire, in matters relating to domestic 'and',social-welfare and -benefits to .tho working classes. Ever since the passage of' tho firsts electoral law in 1890, shortly after tho establishment, of the constitutional monarchyl there has been a property or tax ciimli-' fication for voters, this .bavins.been ,rc'A duced from time: to. time, nu'til in 1920 it was the payment of a direct tax of not •less-than -.three, yen. „tinder, the hew law the tax restriction is absolutely.-re-! moved, and all male Japanese are eligible to vote, the only exceptions boinothese ; dependent on public or., private ciianty : The voting - ago is . 25 years, which has ,been the requirement ever since suffrage .was granted in Japan. It_ is believed that the vast major'itv--01 Uiosd who have been given this ri"h't will elect to oxcrciso it. The maasc.s°oftho Japanoso. people arc a.blo' to read and write;.they are interested in public a^ffa.u-a,- and they telieve that they should participate in elcclions and vci'ster thoir views at the polls. There" is no thought or agitation as vet in J ana v :fos ,femal§ s.u^Eac^ ■-.-,• * ••.-■-■-.