Scheming

At the behest of Premier Takaaki Kato, all Cabinet Ministers forgathered to hear Finance Minister Yuko Hamaguchi expound why all the land tax shall continue to be paid to the Government and not be divided with the provincial administrations as the Opposition desired.

After Finance Minister Hamaguchi had sat down, a Seiyukai Minister arose, said that his party, of which three members form part of the coalition Cabinet, could not support the Finance Minister's contentions. Premier Kato called upon the three Seiyukai Ministers to resign. They refused. To get rid of them, Premier Kato handed the Prince Regent the Cabinet's resignation. The Prince accepted the resignation and asked Premier Kato to form a new Cabinet, which he did merely by appointing three Kenseikai (Government) Party members to fill the places of the dropped Seiyukai members:

Justice, Yoku Egi Commerce, Chukuon Kataoka Communications, Seiji Hayami

But there was far more to the situation than that, and behind the scenes was General Baron Tanaka, President of the Seiyukai Party. Last spring

(TIME, May 18) he managed by process of amalgamation to swell his party's numbers from 100 to 150, making it the second largest party in the Diet. He began negotiations with the Seiyuhonto President, M. Tokonami, urged him to join the Seiyukai Party which would then have an absolute majority of the votes with 266 seats of the 464.

For some time M. Tokonami remained deaf, but recently he wavered, still later agreed to become Vice President of the Seiyukai Party. Baron Tanaka promptly seized upon the tax question to force the Government to end the coalition. This, as described above, was done with the result that Baron Tanaka has the Government at his mercy when the Diet meets next December.

However, it is not thought likely that Premier Kato will die like a rat in a trap, but will dissolve the Diet and hold new elections, relying upon the 9,000,000 extra electors which he recently enfranchised (TIME, Apr. 6) to show their appreciation of his endeavors by voting for his (the Kenseikai) Party.