Honours and Emoluments
Incorporates information from the Japanese Wikipedia
Until the mid-1930s, the Prime Minister of Japan was normally granted a title in the peerage (kazoku) usually just prior to entering office if he had not already been ennobled. Titles were usually bestowed in the ranks of count, viscount or baron, depending on the relative seniority and status of the Prime Minister. The two highest ranks, marquess and prince, were only conferred upon extremely senior statesmen, and were not conferred upon a Prime Minister after 1916. The last Prime Minister who was a peer was Baron Kijuro Shidehara, who served as Prime Minister from October 1945 to May 1946. The peerage was abolished by the Supreme Commander Allied Powers in October 1947.
Depending on tenure, the Prime Minister is ranked in the first place in accordance, or second. Certain eminent Prime Ministers have been awarded the Order of the Chrysanthemum, typically in the degree of Grand Cordon. The highest honour in the Japanese honours system, the Collar of the Order of the Chrysanthemum, has only been conferred upon select Prime Ministers and eminent statesmen, and rarely when they were still alive; the last such award to a living Prime Minister was to Saionji Kinmochi in 1928. More often, the Order of the Chrysanthemum has been a posthumous award; the Collar of the order was last awarded, posthumously, to former Prime Minister Sato Eisaku in June 1975. The most recent posthumous award of the Grand Cordon was to Hashimoto Ryutaro in July 2006. Currently, Nakasone Yasuhiro is the only living former Prime Minister to hold the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Chrysanthemum, which he received in 1997.
Since the 1920s, Prime Ministers have typically been conferred the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun, or the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Paulownia Flowers (until 2003 a special higher class of the Order of the Rising Sun), depending on tenure and eminence. However, honours may be withheld due to misconduct or refusal on the part of the Prime Minister (for example, Kiichi Miyazawa).
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Famous quotes containing the word honours:
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Come hither, and behold your fate.
Let pride be taught by this rebuke,
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