Liberal Party (Japan, 1881-1884)
| Liberal Party | |||
| Jiyūtō | |||
| Party presidency ( sōsai) | Itagaki Taisuke | ||
| Deputy Chair | Nakajima Nobuyuki | ||
| founding | October 18, 1881 | ||
| resolution | October 29, 1884 | ||
The Liberal Party ( Japanese 自由 党 / contemporary 自由 黨 , Jiyūtō , English Liberal Party ) was a political party in the Japanese Empire in the Meiji period .
history
The first Liberal Party of Japan was founded on October 18, 1881 by Itagaki Taisuke and other members of the Movement for Freedom and Civil Rights ( 自由民 権 運動 , Jiyū Minken Undō , English Freedom and People's Rights Movement ) to fight for the establishment of a national assembly , whose membership is based on the ideals of liberal democracy under a constitutional monarchy . It attracted a large following of ex- samurai who were dissatisfied because they were no longer an elite class and were no longer receiving government scholarships. The Liberal Party had also targeted samurai suffrage and an elected assembly in each prefecture. Itagaki was party leader and Nakajima Nobuyuki was vice president. Other notable members were Gotō Shōjirō , Baba Tatsui, Suehiro Tetcho, Ueki Emori and Nakae Chōmin .
The Meiji government viewed the growth of the Liberal Party with concern and suspected that it was harboring tendencies toward republicanism . The party has also been made vulnerable to rural peasant uprisings led or inspired by local party members. The Liberal Party voted on October 29, 1884, on the eve of the Chichibu incident, to dissolve the party.
In 1878 the government granted the nationwide establishment of elected prefectural assemblies, in 1881 it also promised the establishment of a constitution and a national assembly within ten years, which was finally implemented in 1890 with the entry into force of the Meiji constitution in the form of the Reichstag with at least one elected chamber . In preparation for this, the politicians of the liberal movement reorganized themselves: In 1887 Gotō Shojirō organized some members of the former Liberal Party into a prototypical party called the Daidō Danketsu movement . This group split into two groups in March 1889: Daidō Club under Kōno Hironaka and Daidō Kyōwakai under Ōi Kentarō and Nakae Chōmin. In 1890, Itagaki Taisuke merged them to form the Constitutional Liberal Party , which was later renamed the Liberal Party. Some politicians who supported Gotō did not join this party and founded the National Liberal Party ( 国民 自由 党 , Kokumin Jiyutō , English National Liberal Party ).
literature
- Marius B. Jansen: The Making of Modern Japan . Harvard University Press , Cambridge 2000, ISBN 978-0-674-00334-7 .
- Donald Keene: Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852-1912 . Columbia University Press , New York 2002, ISBN 978-0-231-12340-2 .
- Thomas Weyrauch, The political landscape of East Asia , Longtai, Heuchelheim, 2018, ISBN 978-3-938946-27-5
Individual evidence
- ^ Richard Sims: Japanese Political History Since the Meiji Renovation 1868-2000 . Palgrave Macmillan , New York 2001, ISBN 978-0-312-23914-5 .
- ↑ Thomas Weyrauch, The Party Landscape of East Asia , Longtai, Heuchelheim, 2018, ISBN 978-3-938946-27-5 , pp. 25 ff., 37; Thomas Weyrauch: Itagaki Taisuke - 100 years later . In: Association of German-Japanese Societies from May 16, 2019, https://www.vdjg.de/itagaki-taisuke-100-jahre-danach/