Elections in Japan
Much bustle and confusion has been caused in Japanese political circles by the Prime Minister's decision to dissolve the Diet and to hold elections for the House of Representatives on October 1st. Mr. Yoshida's move, which was wholly unexpected, seems to have been largely influenced by his fear of the acknowledged aspirations and the expanding influence of Mr. Hatoyama. The Liberal Party, although after three-and-a-half years in office its popularity is on the down-grade, still dominates the electoral scene, and is unlikely to be seriously challenged at the polls by its weakling rivals. But Mr. Yoshida's position as its leader is not so secure since the return to political life (from which he had until recently been excluded by the American occupation authorities) of Mr. Hatoyama. The position within the party framework of these two men is not dissimilar to the position within the British Labour Party of Mr. Attlee and Mr. Bevan, the main difference being that if Mr. Hatoyama challenges his leader successfully there will be (among other things) more, not less, rearmament. Meanwhile the impending elections have created a convenient vacuum in which the case of the two imprisoned British sailors at Kobe has automatically to be shelved, an outcome which will give the Japanese, among whom the renascence of nationalism is being inevitably accompanied by a more or less covert xenophobia, the agree. able feeling that they have scored, in a clever and irritating way, off one of their erstwhile conquerors. Whatever happens at the polls on October 1st, the trend of Japanese feeling and action towards foreigners is likely, on a long view, to become increasingly arrogant and intolerant.
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