POLITICS IN JAPAN.

Evening Star, Issue 19848, 23 April 1928, Page 6

POLITICS IN JAPAN.

“ That East is East and West is West ” becomes most difficult to believe when we read the cable news dealing with Japanese politics. Except lor a dilleronco in the names of parties, it might ho nows from London or Melbourne or Ottawa. Japan is enjoying a political crisis, but there is nothing distinctively Oriental about it- As the result of elections fought on the basis of universal manhood franchise, the Government has been loft with a majority which it counts as eight, bub which on a first vote reduced itself to four. At the best, it amounts to less than a sale working majority, and certain smaller parties have been given an influence, through their power to affect the balance, out of all proportion to their numerical strength, ft is a de\clopmen t which frequently results from elections in English-speaking countries. It is accounted an advantage to the Government that it has been able to get one of its followers elected as Speaker. Jn the West it would not be so. A Government in a British dominion, for example, anxious to make the best of a precarious majority, would move heaven and earth to get cither an opponent or au independent appointed to that position. In that way it would avoid the loss of a vote. Possibly the rule which requires impartiality of a Speaker has not been developed so far in Japan as in those countries where the parliamentary tradition has been of longer growth. The chief consideration there would appear to bo that his sympathies should be on the right side. On the whole, however, the Japanese, in politics as in other respects, seem to have followed Western models with quite remarkable closeness. That impression is confirmed when we read that, despite the incesBancy of their conflict, there is little

real difference between the Seiyukai and the Minsoito, the two main parties in Japan. Tho first is supposed to bo a Conservative and the second a Liberal Party, but no stmrp differences of policy were revealed in their programmes for the election. Japanese political parties, it has been said, are really aggregations of personal adherents, and their loaders are not the exponents of differing creeds so much as rival aspirants tor power—which would be as true or politics in the United States and not a few other countries. In ]‘J24 there was a general election in Japan which resulted in tho defeat of a party representing tho bureaucracy, tho great clans, the peers, and privilege in general- At fir.., it seemed that something like a revolution had been brought about, but the policy of the new Government did not differ materially from that of its predecessor. Tho elections held in February last were the first to be held in Japan under the system of universal manhood suffrage. At one stroke 8,000,000 voters were added to Ike electorate, but the result has been just the same sort of balance of parties as lias been frequent in the past. The Japanese Prime Minister, Baron Tanaka, will not lack experience in making the best of something less than a natural working majority. Ho has been in that position since his party took office after tho banking crisis of last year. The practice which he followed was one of not meeting the Diet more often than he was compelled. Several new parties have been formed recently in Japan, but they do not seem to have succeeded yet in attracting any marked enthusiasm among its voters, despite the extension of the franchise which might have been expected to assist them.

There will be no publication of tho ‘Evening Star ’ on Wednesday (Anzac Day).

Enjoyable sport at .bake Te _Anau, angling for Atlantic salmon, is reported by Mr W. F. James, his two brothers, and Air James Alain (the South Cantcrburv ranger). _ They found tile fish plentiful, particularly near the points where the Waiau and other streams emerge. In three days and a-half the party with which they were fishing took twenty-nine salmon, and could have had many more, but for the regulation that no one may take more than six a day. As found in Te Anau, the salmon is a wonderful fighter. “1 always thought the rainbow a bit of a champion for sport,” says Air W. F. James, “but one day wo got a rainbow and a salmon on the same lino, and the rainbow was in the boat ten minutes before the other fellow.” It is an additional inducement to anglers to bo told that the hotel accommodation there is really good.

The opinion recently expressed by a well-known Christchurch angler that the present Government policy in allowing the unlimited netting of salmon in the Wairankariri River is “killing the gooso that lays the golden egg” is hcartilv agreed with hy many Christchurch anglers. On Saturday another ardent fisherman stated that the general opinion was that wholesale netting was decidedly premature, and should certainly bo ‘stopped until the supply of fish was mnro assured. The feeling on this question was very strong, he said, and was not confined to Canterbury people alone. Tourists had written in emphatic terms to the department protesting against the policy, and it was to bo hoped that some preventive action would bo taken at an early dale. The fish were by no means in such numbers as to be able to survive netting, and it was quite possible the same result as that experienced in the Eraser River in British Columbia would follow in the Waimakariri if the policy was not discontinued or greatly modified.—Christchurch correspondent.

A Gisborne Association message states that in tho Police Court a youth employed in the Opotiki Post ■ Office, whoso name the magistrate suppressed, pleaded guilty to two charges of theft of moneys handed to him in payment of telephone account, and was admitted to probation for twelve months.

To-day was a bank" holiday, St. George’s Day. St. George is the especial patron of chivalry and tho tutelary saint of England. His cross, red on ‘ a white ground, was worn as n badge over the armour of English soldiers in tho fourteenth and subsequent centuries, and this cross is in tho Union Jack. The accepted story about St. George is that he was bom of noble Christian parents in Cappadocia, became a. distinguished soldier, and, after testifying to his faith before Diocletian, was tortured and put to death at Nicomedia on April 2d, 303.

Comparatively few of our citizens know the beautiful bit of ramble-invit-ing country on Ihe hills between St- ‘ Clair and Concord. Go there any time, and you have the roads to ‘yourself, cveip on a holiday, except in the immediate region of the golf links. Ninety-nine out of a hundred who visit St. Clair are content with the beach, the baths, and the lupins. During the winter now close upon ns, when beach-lounging will bo more beneficial if followed by a brisk walk in the upper air, it would provide a novel and invigorating experience to breach the slope to the west by any of the half-dozen roads (alt of vvliicli are lit for motoring if so desired), and see the fine stretch of farm land that lies in the folds of the hills. Follow the road past the hack of M'Larcn’s and the links, and to the right there are views of the ocean, whilst to the left are lands leased from the Sidcy Trust by Mr Malcolm Stovonson, and by him converted, as a result of sub-soiling and top-dressing, from a waste into the richest pasture. Off one of the big paddocks the lessee is getting a second crop of the most succulent’ clover, already knee high, that the grazing of eighty horses has not oaten down,' and in another paddock stand six oat stacks the like of which for prolificness or quality _ would be hard to match on the Taien. All within rifle shot of the city. Hereabouts, also is to be found a private road leading down 1o the eaves by way of the tunnel that “Johnny Jones cut to give access to the bench. I bis private road runs through Air Robert Sims’s dairy farm. It might bo a good idea to try to arrange with the occupier to open this road to the public at a charge of twopence or threepence. Ts it worth the while of the Otago Expansion League to look into tins suggestion. A waterfall is one of the sights.

Most of the pepper that is used m New Zealand is grown in the Malay States and shipped from Singapore, and it is in that part of the world that inquiries must be made if housewites who arc wondering why the price has „oue up so rapidly think it worth while to pursue the causes to their source. New Zealand merchants who grind and packet the pepper of everyday use now have to pay the Singapore shippers 2s .‘id per lb for the whole peppers that a short while ago were sold at 7d. The producers’ selling prices have varied so much during the past fifteen years as to completely mystify our importers, and to this day no explanation is assignable but the supposition that, the Malay States output is controlled by an all-powerful syndicate. If such a combine exists it is on fairly secure ground, since, while everybody uses pepper, the demand per head or per family is so small that nobody bothers about the matter further than to growl when Is -Id is charged /or a smaller tin that used to be obtainable for Bd.