ABSTRACT

MR. HARA TAKASHI, who succeeded General Terauchi as Premier, has sometimes been referred to as Japan’s “Great Commoner,” since he was the first untitled man to hold this important office. He was a man of great force of character, fighting his way through politics as a party man, attached to the Seiyukai, of which he had been the leader for some years before he succeeded in securing the highest constitutional office in the State. Exactly what political views he held it might not be easy to define: not that a great man must needs belong to a schoolhe sometimes shows his greatness by not attaching himself to any. Hara had a gift more useful in the circumstances in which he found himself-that of attaching men to himself in bonds of personal loyalty. He was a party man first and last-identifying himself with the Seiyukai, and the Seiyukai with himself. He was, like most of his countrymen, patriotic, but he could hardly be called scrupulous. Abuses he left alone; he was no great reformer; and he gave countenance to the institution of the political bully by having his own bodyguard of these ruffians.