PRINCE SAIONJI

Evening Star, Issue 23745, 28 November 1940, Page 15

PRINCE SAIONJI

A FAIRY TALE CAREER LAST OF JAPAN’S ELDER STATESMEN Prince Saionji, wlim-e death 111 J" s ninetieth year i.s reported •'• l|, ‘ ’ was the last of the group known as that country's Kldcr .Statesmen. A w-r'tor u» ‘ Current History ’ thus described his career six years ago: — “ Prince Saionji. the sole aristoci.it among Japan's leaders i.s the greatest democrat of them all. His tit.e of Lld.r .Statesman (Cenro) is based on nothing more substantial than tradition ; yet it makes him. in times of stress, the Jtiuperor's chief adviser and personal representative. Saionji. in his loop; span of life, has witnessed a complete political cycle in Japan. He saw tenda ii.siii break down and. as the eomnianoer of an -.armoured samurai unit, helped to restore the power of the hmperor, which through the centuries had been usurped by the military rulers, the Shoguns. “ Saionji saw constitutionalism established in Japan and helped to set up the Parliament. He assisted the rise of the party system, and later became president of the Sciyukai party. He spurred his country on toward democracy by helping Takashi Hara to become the first Prime Minister of common blood. But be has also seen heavy assaults upon the representative system that he fostered, and in his eighty-third year he had to step in. after the assassination of Premier Inukai, to preserve it by rejecting reactionaries and choosing for the Premiership another upholder of parliamentarism. Admiral Saito. “ The life of the Flder Statesman has resembled that of n story-book prince. A member of a family of courtiers of the most ancient lineage, he started his career as a monarchist of the romantic type by dashing, armour-clad, to the capture of castles. As a reward, the youth was raised to the office of Prefect, but he had felt the adventurous stir of Japan’s Golden Age and quickly put away this dignity to join the ranks of the young men hastening to the Occident to taste its strange, new civilisation. Saionji chose France, and that country so suited his alert and vivacious temperament that he remained there for 10 years, studying and parading the boulevards with young Radicals, including the late Georges Clenienceau. “ Back in Japan at the age of 33. he at first found readjustment to the stricter atmosphere difficult. For a year he daringly blazoned his radical ideas in his newspaper, the ‘ Oriental Liberal.’ Soon, however, he yielded to the pressure of Conservative friends, gave up journalism, and entered politics. In the three following decades he held nearly a score of the highest posts, ultimately becoming Premier for two terms.

“Theoretically, Saiouji retired in 1914. when he gave up the leadership of the Soiyukai. Actually, this was onlv the beginning of a now period of usefulness. Summoned by the Emperor in 1916 for a conference, together with the three remaining Elder Statesmen, he was from that time counted among them. Now, only he remains. Throughout these years so boldlv has ho stood out as a champion of democratic institions that he was one of those marked in 1932 for assassination by patriotic reactionaries. But he escaped, to set the tottering parliamentary system on the forward road again. Little wonder that, as long as Saionji sits quietly in his villa beside the sea at Okitsn, awaiting any call bv the Emperor, the Liberals of Japan feel that any setback they receive must he hut temporary.” Totalitarianism, which is the opposite of Liberalism, has established itself in Saionji’s declining years.