Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (48 page)

Under the Sh
wa emperor, therefore, the operating conditions for correct governance required extreme secrecy and constant simulation, dissimulation, indirection, and conniving on the part of high palace officials; unity, restraint, and profound humility on the part of ministers of state and heads of the emperor's advisory organs, some of whom were deeply antagonistic and suspicious toward one another; and the embrace by the emperor of the dual morality that princes and politicians have practiced from time immemorial. For this convoluted approach to work, the prime minister had to be willing to consult constantly with the emperor and heed his intentions, even when they might not coincide with his own—but as the living god was the emperor, and vice versa, that was more than appropriate.

II

The Fifty-second Imperial Diet, which had adjourned following Emperor Taish
's death, had reconvened on January 18, 1927. Hirohito and his entourage lost no time in trying to influence political trends and make the political world aware of his presence.

First, on January 19, 1927, the idea of a fourth national holiday
was proposed in the House of Peers as if it had originated there rather than in the court. Two days earlier, however, Privy Seal Makino's secretary, Kawai, had visited Prince Konoe and suggested that both houses of the Diet consider designating a holiday to commemorate the great virtues of the Meiji emperor.
¹⁸
A short time later, the Diet approved a bill establishing November 3 as Meiji's holiday (
Meiji setsu
), and the sanctioning announcement was made by imperial ordinance on March 3.

The tenth anniversary of Meiji's death, July 30, 1922, had passed relatively unnoticed by the court and the public, except for visits by the regent to Kyoto and the Momoyama mausoleums.
¹⁹
Why now the new holiday? Because Hirohito's enthronement was in the offing, and his entourage needed every device it could muster to invest him with greater charisma and blot out Taish
's image. Hirohito could hardly be sent back in time to participate in great victories that had been won when he had been only four years of age. But Meiji could be transported, via the new holiday, and the appropriate fanfare, to a new generation and era, and Hirohito thereby made to shine brighter, if only by reflected radiance.

Due to the official mourning for Taish
, the first national celebration of Meiji's birthday could not begin until the following year. The honoring of Meiji therefore would occur during the enthronement and deification of his grandson, the noncharismatic Hirohito, whom the press was describing already as the new “incarnation of Emperor Meiji.”
²⁰
Before the year of mourning for Taish
had even ended, the public had grown accustomed to thinking of the preen-thronement emperor as the new Meiji, and as the grandson who would perfect his imperial legacy.
²¹

Later, intending to remind the young emperor of the toil rice cultivation required, and so identify him in the public mind with the plight of rice farmers in a period of agricultural depression, Kawai invented a new court ritual. He suggested that Hirohito cultivate rice
within the palace precincts. Hirohito agreed and a field was prepared inside the Akasaka Palace grounds for this purpose. On June 14, 1927, Hirohito received rice plants from different regions of the country and staged his very first rice-planting ritual. Later, after his enthronement, he moved his residence to the palace, and seventy and eighty
tsubo
(280 and 320 square yards) of dry and wet field, respectively, were reclaimed for the purpose of ceremonial rice planting. A small mulberry grove beyond the wet fields was also prepared for Empress Nagako to engage in sericulture, thereby identifying her with Japan's most important export commodity, silk.
²²

The second series of political interventions by Hirohito and the court group concerned Prime Minister Wakatsuki's management of the Diet. In early 1927 leaders of the Seiy
kai and Seiy
Hont
renewed their attack on the Wakatsuki cabinet over the issues of the Osaka brothel scandal and the Pak Yol affair. Just before their formal motion of no confidence in the government came up for debate, however, Prime Minister Wakatsuki announced a three-day adjournment. He then met secretly with Tanaka of the Seiy
kai and Tokonami of the Seiy
Hont
and requested that political fighting stop out of consideration for the beginning of the new emperor's reign.