Smile, Tojo

The 81st session of the Japanese Diet closed last week after vesting more military, political and economic powers in Premier Hideki Tojo than any premier has held since Japan emerged from feudalism in 1868.

From the assortment of titles he now holds, Tojo ("the Razor") could easily be mistaken for Tojo, the Dictator: he is Premier, War Minister, Home Minister, production chief. Tojo himself halfheartedly dispelled this interpretation when he explained: "I am not speaking of absolute dictatorship but I would like to make this clear: I possess power as Premier by order of the Emperor, and at present I am the leader of the nation. The responsibility is an important one in every way in the glorious light of the foundation of the empire." Another explanation: Tojo exercised his powers on behalf of the Japanese military, particularly the potent Kwantung Army clique which originally put him in office.

Bowing to Tojo and his Army & Navy colleagues, who are now unassailably entrenched in the Government, the Diet meekly passed four bills which strengthened the military strangle hold:

> A special ordinance gave Tojo the authority to take over the duties of any Cabinet Minister dealing with questions of "labor, materials, motive power and capital." Tojo appointed three new administrative and economic boards, saved the face of formerly powerful Japanese industrialists by making them advisers.

> A wartime criminal law gave the Imperial Rule Assistance Assn. (Japan's two-year-old totalitarian party) apparently unlimited powers to suppress criticism of the Government.

> Another law took away the right of local residents to elect their own officials. These officials hereafter will be selected by prefectural governors.

> A bill "relative to conscription in Manchuria" indicated that Japan, for the first time, is preparing to draft Chinese into Japanese armed forces or into labor battalions, or both. This measure may well have been a part of Japan's effort to convince the Chinese that they will have a coequal place in the Greater Asia (see p. 20).

The Diet adjourned during a Government-sponsored "Smile Week."

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