ABSTRACT
PRINCE KATSURA had no sooner formed his Cabinet than meetings began to be held to denounce it. The situation was all the more uncomfortable because the annual session of the Imperial Diet was due to begin shortly, and the new Government had all its programme, including the budget, to prepare in a few days. Even Saionji spoke vigorously in public against the new Government, and the Seiyukai leaders Ozaki and Motoda carried on a campaign for constitutionalism which created a degree of political excitement hitherto unknown. The Diet began with its customary false start. Summoned at Christmas, it performed the preliminary parliamentary exercises, and adjourned till Japan should recover from the annual paralysis of the newyear holidays. It was January 21, 1913, when excitement really began. In a joint interpellation in the Diet, Messrs. Ozaki and Motoda asked who, at a time when Prince Katsura himself was Lord Privy Seal and Grand Chamberlain of the Court, advised the Emperor to command Prince Katsura to form a Cabinet. Who, they asked, recommended the Emperor to order Admiral Saito to retain the navy portfolio? And would the Government, they also inquired, bring in a bill embodying the army expansion scheme?
