Kita Ikki
AN OUTLINE PLAN FOR THE REORGANIZATION OF JAPAN {nihon KAIZO HOAN TAIK6)
An Outline Plan for the Reorganization of Japan contains Kita Ikki's suggestions for the changes necessary in Japanese society. Written in 1919, while Kita was still in Shanghai, the book was printed secretly and passed from hand to hand by Kita's as­sociates. In 1920 its distribution was forbidden by the police. In 1923, after major excisions, the book .was published, only to be banned again shortly afterward. A third edition came out in 1926, but it, too, was later banned. The outline plan, of which the opening section is translated here, consists of cryptic announcements of steps to be taken, followed by notes justifying the steps and antic­ipating probable objections.
 
At present the Japanese empire is faced with a national crisis unparalleled its history; it faces dilemmas at home and abroad. The vast majority of the people feel insecure in their livelihood and are on the point of taking a lesson from the collapse of European societies, while those who monopolize political, military, and economic power simply hide themselves and, quaking with fear try to maintain their unjust position. Abroad, not England, America, Germany or Russia has kept its word, and even our neighbor China, which long benefited from the protection we provided through the Russo-Japanese War, not only has failed to repay us but instead despises us. Truly, we are a small island, completely isolated in the Eastern Sea. One false step and our nation will again fall into the desperate state of crisis—dilemmas at home and abroad—that mark the period before and after the Meiji Restoration. The only thing that brightens the picture is the 60 million fellow countrymen with whom we are blessed. The Japanese people must develop a profound awareness of the great cause of national existence and of the people's equal rights, and they need an unerring, discriminating grasp of the complexities domestic and foreign thought. The Great War in Europe was, like Noah's Flood, Heaven's punishment on them for arrogant and rebellious ways. . . .
Truly, our 700 million brothers in China and India have no path to independence other than that offered by our guidance and protection. And f Japan, whose population has doubled in the past fifty years, great areas adequate to support a population of at least 240 million or 250 million will be absolute necessary a hundred years from now. For a nation, one hundred years are like a hundred days for an individual. How can those who are anxious about the inevitable developments or who grieve over the desperate conditions of neighboring countries find their solace in the effeminate pacifism of doctrinal socialism? ... At a time when the authorities in the European and American revolutionary creeds have found it completely impossible to arrive at an understanding of the "gospel of the sword" because of their superficial philosophy, the noble Greece of Asian culture must complete its national reorganization on the basis of its own national polity. At the same time, let it lift the virtuous banner of an Asian league and take the leadership in the world federation that must come. In so doing let it proclaim to the world the Way of Heaven in which all are children of Buddha, and let it set an example that the world must follow.

Section 1: The People's Emperor
Suspension of the Constitution. In order for the emperor and the entire Japanese people to establish a secure base for the national reorganization, the emperor will, by a show of his imperial prerogative, suspend the constitution for a period of three years, dissolve both houses of the Diet, and place the entire nation under martial law.
(Note: In extraordinary times the authorities should, of course, ignore harm­ful opinions and votes. To regard any sort of constitution or parliament as an absolute authority is to act in direct imitation of the English and American semisacred "democracy." ... It cannot be held that in the discussion of plans for naval expansion Admiral Togo [Heihachiroj's vote was not worth more than the three cast by miserable members of the Diet. . . . The effect of government by vote that has prevailed hitherto is really nothing more than a maintenance of the traditional order; it puts absolute emphasis on numbers and ignores those who would put a premium on quality.) . . .
(Note: A coup d'etat should be regarded as a direct manifestation of the authority of the nation, that is, of the will of society. All the progressive leaders have arisen from popular groups. They arise because of political leaders like Napoleon and Lenin. In the reorganization of Japan there must be a manifes­tation of the power inherent in a coalition of the people and sovereign.)
(Note: The reason why the Diet must be dissolved is that the nobility and the wealthy on whom it depends are incapable of standing with the emperor and the people in the cause of reorganization. The necessity for suspension of the constitution is that the people seek the protection in the codes enacted under it. The reason that martial law must be proclaimed is that it is essential to the freedom of the nation that there be no restraint in suppressing the op­position that will come from these groups.)

The True Significance of the Emperor. The fundamental doctrine of the em­peror as representative of the people and as the pillar of the nation must be made clear.
In order to clarify this, a sweeping reform of the imperial court in the spirit of the Emperor Jinmu in founding the state and in the spirit of the great Meiji emperor will be carried out. The present privy councillors and other officials will be dismissed from their posts and, in their place, will come talent, sought throughout the realm, capable of assisting the emperor. A Consultative Council (Komon'in) will be established to assist the emperor. Its members, fifty in number, will be appointed by the emperor. A member of the Consultative Council must tender his resignation to the emperor whenever the cabinet takes action against him or whenever the Diet passes a vote of no confidence against him. However, the council members are by no means responsible to either the cabinet or the Diet.
(Note: Japan's national polity has evolved through three stages, and the meaning of "emperor" has also evolved through three stages. The first stage, from the Fujiwara to the Taira, was one of absolute monarchy. During this stage the emperor possessed all land and people as his private property in theory, and he had the power of life and death over the people. The second stage, from the Minamoto to the Tokugawa, was one of aristocracy. During this period military leaders and nobility in each area brought land and people of their locality under their personal control; they fought wars and made alliances among themselves as rulers of small nations. Consequently, the emperor's significance was differ­ent from what it had been. He now, like the Roman pope, conferred honor on the bakufu, the leader of the petty princes, and showed himself the traditional center of the national faith. Such a development can be compared with the role of the Roman pope in crowning the Holy Roman Emperor, leader of the various lords in the Middle Ages in Europe. The third stage, one of a democratic state, began with the Meiji Revolution, which emancipated the samurai and commoners, newly awakened, from their status as the private property of their shogun and feudal lords. Since then, the emperor has a new significance as the true center of government and politics. Ever since, as the commanding figure in the national movement and as the overall representative of the modern dem­ocratic country, he has become representative of the nation. In other words, since the Meiji Revolution, Japan has become a modern democratic state with the emperor as its political nucleus. Is there any need whatsoever for us to import a direct translation of the "democracy" of others as though we lacked something?) ...
(Note: There is no scientific basis whatsoever for the belief of the democ­racies that a state governed by representatives voted in by the electorate is su­perior to a state with a system of government by a particular person. Every nation has its own national spirit and history.... The "democracy" of Americans derives from the very unsophisticated theory of the time, which held that society can come into being through a voluntary contract based on the free will of individuals; these people, emigrating from each European country as individ­uals, established communities and built a country. But their theory of the divine right of voters is a half-witted philosophy that arose in opposition to the theory of the divine right of kings at that time. Now Japan certainly was not founded in this way, and there has never been a period in which Japan was dominated by a half-witted philosophy. Suffice it to say that the system whereby the head of state has to struggle for election by a long-winded self-advertisement and by exposing himself to ridicule like a low-class actor seems a very strange custom to the Japanese people, who have been brought up in the belief that silence is golden and modesty is a virtue.)
(Note: The imperial court today has restored corrupt customs of the Middle Ages and has, moreover, added others that survived in European courts; truly it has drifted far from the spirit of the nation's founder—a supreme commander above an equal people. The revolution under the great Meiji emperor restored and modernized this spirit. Accordingly, at that time the imperial court was purified. The necessity for doing this a second time is that when the whole national structure is being reorganized fundamentally we cannot simply leave the structure of the court in its present state of disrepair.)
(Note: the provision for censuring the Consultative Council by the cabinet and Diet is required in view of the present situation in which many men do as they wish on the excuse that they are duty bound to help the emperor. The obstinacy and arrogance of the members of the Privy Council are not very different from that of the court officials in Russia before the revolution. The men who cause trouble for the emperor are men of this kind.)

The Abolition of the Peerage System. The peerage system will be abolished, and the spirit of the Meiji Restoration will be clarified by removing the barrier that has come between the emperor and the people.
The House of Peers will be abolished and replaced by a Council of Delib­eration (Shingiin), which shall consider action taken by the House of Representatives.
The Council of Deliberation will be empowered to reject decisions taken by the House of Representatives a single time. The membership of the House of Representatives will consist of distinguished men in many fields of activity, elected by one another and appointed by the emperor.
(Note: The restoration revolution, which destroyed government by the ar­istocracy, was carried out determinedly, for it also confiscated the estates of the aristocracy. ... To abolish the peerage system is to abandon a system translated directly from Europe and to return to the earlier Meiji Revolution. Do not jump to the conclusion that this is a shortcoming we are seeking to correct. We have already advanced further than some other countries as a democratic country.)
(Note: The reason a bicameral system is subject to fewer errors than a uni-cameral system is that in very many cases, public opinion is emotional, uncrit­ical, and changeable. For this reason the upper house will be made up of distinguished persons in many fields of activity instead of medieval relics.)

Universal Suffrage. All men twenty-five years of age, by their rights as people of Great Japan, will have the right, freely and equally, to stand for election to and to vote for the House of Representatives. The same will hold for local self-government assemblies. Women will not have the right to participate in politics.
(Note: Although a tax qualification has determined suffrage in other coun­tries and this system was first initiated in England, whose Parliament was orig­inally established to supervise the use of tax money collected by the Crown, in Japan we must establish it as a fundamental principle that suffrage is the innate right of the people. . . . Suffrage is a "duty of the people" in the same sense that military service is a "duty of the people.")
(Note: The duty of the people to defend the country cannot be separated from their duty to participate in its government. Because this is a fundamental human right of the Japanese people, there is no reason why the Japanese should be like the slaves in the Roman Empire or like the menials driven from the imperial gate during the monarchial age—simply ruled, having to live-and die under orders from a ruling class. Nothing can infringe on the right and duty of suffrage under any circumstances. Therefore officers and soldiers on active service, even if they are overseas, should elect and be elected without any restrictions.)
(Note: The reason for the clear statement that "women will not have the right to participate in politics" is not that Japanese women today have not yet awakened. Whereas the code of chivalry for the knights in medieval Europe called for honoring women and gaining their favor, in medieval Japan the samurai esteemed and valued the person of a woman on approximately the same level as they did themselves, while it became the accepted code for women to honor the men and gain their favor. This complete contrast in de­velopments has penetrated into all society and livelihood and continues into modern history—there has been agitation by women for suffrage abroad while here women have continued to be devoted to being good wives and wise moth­ers. Politics is a small part of human activity. The question of the place of women in Japan will be satisfactorily solved if we bring about an institutional reorganization guaranteeing the protection of a woman's right to be "mother of the nation and wife of the nation." To make women accustomed to verbal warfare is to do violence to their natural aptitude; it is more terrible than using them in the line of battle. Anyone who has observed the stupid talkativeness of Western women or the piercing quarrels among Chinese women will be thank­ful that Japanese women have continued on the right path. Those who have developed good trends should let others who have developed bad trends learn from them. For this reason, one speaks today of a time effusion between Eastern and Western civilization. But the ugliness of direct and uncritical borrowing can be seen very well in the matter of woman suffrage.)

The Restoration of the People's Freedom. The various laws that in the past have restricted the freedom of the people and impaired the spirit of the consti­tution—the Civil Service Appointment Ordinance, the Peace Preservation po­lice law, the Press Act, the Publication Law, and similar measures—will be abolished.
(Note: This is obviously right. These laws work only to maintain all sorts of cliques.)

The National Reorganization Cabinet. A reorganization cabinet will be or­ganized while martial law is in effect; in addition to the present ministries, it will have ministries for industries and several ministers of state without portfolio. Members of the reorganization cabinet will not be chosen from the present military, bureaucratic, financial, and party cliques; instead, this task will be given to outstanding individuals selected throughout the whole country. All the present prefectural governors will be dismissed from their offices, and national reorganization governors will be appointed by the same method of selection as the preceding.
(Note: This is necessary for the same reasons that the Meiji Revolution could not have been carried out by the Tokugawa shogun and his vassals. But a rev­olution cannot necessarily be evaluated according to the amount of bloodshed. It is just as impossible to say of a surgical operation that it was not thorough because of the small amount of blood that was lost. It all depends on the skill of the surgeon and the constitution of the patient undergoing the operation. Japan today is like a man in his prime and in good health. Countries like Russia and China are like old patients whose bodies are in total decay. Therefore, if there is a technician who takes a farsighted view of the past and the present and who draws judiciously on East and West, Japan can be reorganized through no more than a pleasant talk.)

The National Reorganization Diet. The National Reorganization Diet, elected in a general election and convened during the period of martial law, will deliberate on measures for reorganization.
The National Reorganization Diet will not have the right to deliberate on the basic policy of national reorganization proclaimed by the emperor.
(Note: In this way, since the people will become the main force and the emperor the commander, this coup d'etat will not be an abuse of power but the expression of the national determination by the emperor and the people.)
(Note: If a general election were to be held in our present society of omnip­otent capital and absolutist bureaucracy, the majority of the men elected to the Diet either would be opposed to the reorganization or would receive their election expenses from men opposed to the reorganization. But since the gen­eral election will be held and the Diet convened under martial law, it will, of course, be possible to curb the rights of harmful candidates and representatives.)
(Note: It is only because there was such a divine emperor that even though the restoration revolution was carried out with greater thoroughness than the French Revolution, there was no misery and disorder. And thanks to the exis­tence of such a godlike emperor, Japan's national reorganization will be accom­plished a second time in an orderly manner, avoiding both the massacres and violence of the Russian Revolution and the snail's pace of the German revolution.)

The Renunciation of the Imperial Estate. The emperor will personally show the way by granting the lands, forests, shares, and similar property owned by the imperial house to the nation.
The expenses of the imperial house will be limited to approximately 30 million yen per year, to be supplied by the national treasury. However, this amount can be increased with consent of the Diet if the situation warrants such action.
(Note: The present imperial estate began with holdings taken over from the Tokugawa family, and however the true meaning of the emperor might shine forth, it is inconsistent to operate such medieval finances. It is self-evident that every expense of the people's emperor should be born by the nation.)
[Kita, "Nihon kaizo hoan," in Nihon kaizo hoan taiko, pp. 6-14; MJ1