Yamagata Aritomo - Political Career

Political Career

Yamagata was one of the group of seven political leaders, later called the genrō, who came to dominate the government of Japan. The word can be translated principal elders or senior statesmen. The genrō were a subset of the revolutionary leaders who shared common objectives and who by about 1880 had forced out or isolated the other original leaders. These seven men (plus two who were chosen later after some of the first seven had died) led Japan for many years, through its great transformation from an agricultural country into a modern military and industrial state. All the genrō served at various times as cabinet ministers, and most were at times prime minister. As a body, the genrō had no official status, they were simply trusted advisers to the Emperor. Yet the genrō made collectively the most important decisions, such as peace and war and foreign policy, and when a cabinet resigned they chose the new prime minister. In the twentieth century their power diminished because of deaths and quarrels among themselves, and the growing political power of the army and navy. But the genrō clung to the power of naming prime ministers up to the death of the last genrō Prince Saionji in 1940.

Yamagata and Itō Hirobumi were long the most prominent of the seven, and after the assassination of Itō in 1909, Yamagata dominated the genrō. But Yamagata also held a large and devoted power base in the officers of the army and the militarists. He became the towering leader of Japanese conservatives. He profoundly distrusted all democratic institutions, and he devoted the later part of his life to building and defending the power, especially the political power, of the army.

During his long and versatile career, Yamagata held numerous important governmental posts. In 1882, he became president of the Board of Legislation (Sanjiin) and as Home Minister (1883–87) he worked vigorously to suppress political parties and repress agitation in the labor and agrarian movements. He also organized a system of local administration, based on a prefecture-county-city structure which is still in use in Japan today. In 1883 Yamagata was appointed to the post of Lord Chancellor, the highest bureaucratic position in the government system before the Meiji Constitution of 1889.

Yamagata became the third Prime Minister of Japan after the opening of the Imperial Diet under the Meiji Constitution from 24 December 1889 to 6 May 1891. During his first term, the Imperial Rescript on Education was issued.

Yamagata became Prime Minister for a second term from 8 November 1898 to 19 October 1900. In 1900, while in his second term as Prime Minister, he ruled that only an active military officer could serve as War Minister or Navy Minister, a rule that gave the military control over the formation of any future cabinet. He also enacted laws preventing political party members from holding any key posts in the bureaucracy.

He was President of the Privy Council from 1893–94 and 1905–22.

Attending the coronation of the Russian Czar Nicholas II on November 1, 1894, Yamagata made a tentative offer to Spain on buying the Philippines for 40 million pounds.

In 1896, Yamagata led a diplomatic mission to Moscow, which produced the Yamagata–Lobanov Agreement confirming Japanese and Russian rights in Korea.

Yamagata was elevated to the peerage, and received the title of koshaku (prince) under the kazoku system in 1907.

From 1900 to 1909, Yamagata opposed Itō Hirobumi, leader of the civilian party, and exercised influence through his protégé, Katsura Tarō. After the death of Itō Hirobumi in 1909, Yamagata became the most influential politician in Japan and remained so until his death in 1922, although he retired from active participation in politics after the Russo-Japanese War. However, as president of the Privy Council from 1909 to 1922, Yamagata remained the power behind the government and dictated the selection of future Prime Ministers until his death.

In 1912 Yamagata set the precedent that the army could dismiss a cabinet. A dispute with prime minister Marquis Saionji Kinmochi over the military budget became a constitutional crisis, known as the Taisho Crisis after the newly enthroned Emperor. The army minister, General Uehara Yūsaku, resigned when the cabinet would not grant him the budget he wanted. Saionji sought to replace him. Japanese law required that the ministers of the army and navy must be high-ranking generals and admirals on active duty (not retired). In this instance all the eligible generals at Yamagata's instigation refused to serve in the Saionji cabinet, and the cabinet was compelled to resign.