ABSTRACT
Japan became a charter member of the League of Nations in 1920. As one of the Paris Peace Conference Big Five, Japan was awarded a permanent seat on the League Council. Japanese officials and the public had grave misgivings about the emerging peace organisation when Japan adhered to the League of Nations Covenant after the Great War. In policy deliberations and in the press, realists clearly articulated their fear that the status-quo order inherent in the League concept would circumscribe the rise of up-and-coming nations like Japan. Complaints were raised that disarmament schemes would interfere with imperial prerogatives, and that global standards for labour would place late-developing nations at a disadvantage. On the other hand, the cabinet of Prime Minister Hara Takashi believed that sincere League involvement would accord Japan a visible place among the family of peaceful nations, in consonance with the spirit of pacifism that was sweeping a world so recently horrified by the battlefield scenes of Europe. The business community likewise wanted to cultivate harmonious ties with the trading powers. The prime minister also believed that the practice of party government at home would be strengthened and the clique supportive of military adventurism in China would be circumscribed through Japan’s involvement in the world programme of the Western powers.2 Once the Peace Conference took irreversible steps to establish the League, Japan lost no time in positioning itself to play a full and supportive role in the organisation. Though well aware of the nation’s marginal standing among the powers and smarting from the dramatic failure to secure a racial equality statement in the Covenant, Japanese were sanguine that Japan’s international status would be elevated through shouldering the responsibilities of global order.
