**WAKATSUKI Reijiro--Bureaucratic Prime Minister Who Resisted the Ideals of Party Politics and the Shadow of the Military (1926-1931)**

**WAKATSUKI Reijiro--Bureaucratic Prime Minister Who Resisted the Ideals of Party Politics and the Shadow of the Military (1926-1931)**

Reijiro Wakatsuki (March 21, 1866-November 20, 1949) was a politician who struggled between the ideals of party politics and the rise of the military at a turning point in modern Japanese politics. Born in Matsue City, Shimane Prefecture, he graduated from the Law School of Tokyo Imperial University and entered the Ministry of Finance, where he played a central role in fiscal and financial administration. His skills as a practical bureaucrat were highly regarded, and he continued to be trusted as a calm and collected financier after entering politics, and in 1920 he was first elected to the House of Representatives from the Constitutional Democratic Party. As a leading figure in the Constitutional Democratic Party, he gained a certain popularity among intellectuals and newspapers as a "serious politician," but he lacked the familiarity and charisma of the common people and was somewhat lacking in enthusiastic support from the general public.

On January 30, 1926, the first Wakatsuki Cabinet was formed following the sudden death of Prime Minister Takaaki Kato. His tenure lasted from January 30, 1926 to April 20, 1927. However, during his tenure, the problem of dealing with "earthquake bills," which were issued to support reconstruction from the Great Kanto Earthquake, became more serious. Earthquake bills were notes issued by financial institutions in the aftermath of the earthquake to provide loans to businesses affected by the disaster, and they were putting pressure on the operations of financial institutions that were having difficulty redeeming them. While the government's response was delayed and financial markets were becoming increasingly anxious, then Finance Minister Naonen Kataoka made an unconfirmed statement that the Tokyo Watanabe Bank had failed, which spread through newspapers and triggered a "mounting racket" in which depositors nationwide withdrew their deposits from the bank. This triggered a nat
ionwide financial panic, and many small and medium-sized banks went bankrupt in a chain reaction.

To deal with this crisis, Wakatsuki asked the Emperor to issue an emergency imperial decree to rescue the Bank of Taiwan, which was on the verge of bankruptcy, but the Privy Council rejected the request. The rejection of the cabinet's request left the administration unable to stand, and the Wakatsuki cabinet resigned on April 20, 1927. This incident symbolized how the party cabinet had caused friction with the old bureaucracy and the emperor's institution, and was a moment that exposed the structural limitations of party politics in Japan.

On April 14, 1931, Wakatsuki was again appointed prime minister and formed the second Wakatsuki Cabinet. Shortly thereafter, however, the Manchurian Incident (the Lake Yanagijo Incident) broke out in September of the same year. Wakatsuki tried to encourage the military to exercise restraint by adopting a "policy of non-expansion" in response to the outburst of the Kwantung Army, but the local military's arbitrary actions and the belligerence of public opinion rendered his administration impotent. Combined with the disagreements and lack of control within the cabinet, Wakatsuki resigned just eight months later, on December 13, 1931. The second cabinet's tenure lasted from April 14 to December 13, 1931.

Wakatsuki was a moderate liberal who consistently tried to follow the "normal course of constitutional government. His political stance was supported by respect for the will of the people in power and vigilance against tyranny by the bureaucracy and military. But the times did not permit a moderate idealist like him. The rise of the military and the decline of the political parties precisely symbolized the end of his political life.

After retiring from politics, he continued to serve the nation as a Privy Counselor and a member of the House of Peers, but quietly passed away in 1949, after World War II, at the age of 83. Reijiro Wakatsuki's life is a microcosm of the development and demise of party politics from the Meiji to Showa periods, and of the trials and errors of Japanese democracy, and still holds profound lessons for history today.