ABSTRACT
Hara Takashi formed a Friends of Constitutional Government Party cabinet in September 1918. Although a number of previous governments had been based on political parties, the prime minister had always been a member of the peerage: Count Okuma Shigenobu (his title while in office; this is true for the others as well); Marquis Ito Hirobumi; Prince Saionji Kinmochi. Saionji can be considered to have been a believer in the "normal course of constitutional government" so long as it involved cooperation with Britain and America. Hara's finance minister Takahashi Korekiyo succeeded him as prime minister after the assassination, but he was a relative newcomer to the Friends of Constitutional Government Party and was incapable of leading the massive party. The fact that Chinese and Soviet power resistance was negligible was an important prerequisite for the creation of the Washington system.
