ABSTRACT
Saionji was not long returned from Paris before domestic and essentially Court issues began to claim his attention. The position of the Genro group had been eroded over the years. Foreign policy decision making, once the major function of the Genro, had become increasingly the preserve of the Government and the Advisory Council on Foreign Relations, and whilst (as the preparations for the Washington Conference showed) the Genro were still consulted on such issues, the consultation appears to have been largely a matter of courtesy. The Prime Minister made explicit reference to the limitations on the role of the Genro in December 1920. Hara, who was trying to dissuade Yamagata and Matsukata from resigning their posts as President of the Privy Council and Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal respectively, told Tanaka Giichi;
Hara’s comments of course reflected as much what he thought the situation should be as what it actually was. Nevertheless, the appointment of Hara as Prime Minister following the rice riots had been indicative of a change in the political climate. The Genro’s choice of prime minister, hitherto based almost exclusively on the need to preserve the balance of power amongst the Genro group, was now forced to take into account the strength of the emergent party elite and the fluctuations in popular
sentiment referred to by Hara. In such circumstances Saionji’s capture of the Court as a power base was to reverse the relative position of influence amongst the Genro in his favour.
