Another factor was the Japanese Exclusion act passed in 1924 by America to forbid Japanese immigrants. This affected the Japanese attitude that they were being viewed as inferior by the West. This was bolstered further as a series of mishaps at the meetings at Versailles, where it appeared to Japan that Europe was not willing to surrender its possessions in Asia. The Japanese legislation was not used to compromising in situation where it was being viewed weak and where negotiation acts seemed frivolous. Furthermore, the Japanese military had the conception that war with the west was inevitable and compromise was simply a waste of time and effort.
The third aspect was the independent Japanese military that utilized on the Taisho’s democratic efforts that had failed to halt the economic recession and submission of the Japanese government to the west. The Japanese military strenuously maintained that the parliamentarian government capitulated to the west by making an unfavorable agreement about the size of the Japanese Navy (the Five Powers Treaty) and by reducing the size of the military.
Another aspect to the failure of public respect and support for the government is the relationship between Japan and the rest of the world. The West in general was very racist towards the Japanese, who quickly established an ‘us against them’ mentality that fixed into Japanese society. For example, when the Japanese navy successively destroyed the Russian Fleet in 1905, during the Russo-Sino War, the West were not sure whether to applaud their Japanese counter-parts, or suspect that this was a ‘one off’, something that will never happen again, because these men are Asian, and surely were not equal to their European cousins.
The Japanese public became disillusioned and now gained a very Ultra-Nationalistic point of view over the rest of the World, which was massively reinforced by the ‘Military friendly’ Meiji Constitution, which basically put the Army and Navy in control over which government would be best for them.
The public’s respect and support for the Japanese Government started to drastically dissipate as the Population increased. This was because it was made mandatory for all Japanese children to attend school for 4 years (which was soon pushed to 6 years).
Japan’s new generation could now read newspapers, and voice their views on topics such as the problems with the constitutional system, which before would never have been noticed. Japan’s youth were now more politically conscious and felt that the traditional Militaristic Idealism friendly government system was not what Japan needed, because frankly it did not work.
The Constitutional System had a very big flaw to it, which the public started to notice. This was that both the Army and Navy were able to force the government in power to accept any terms that they wanted to suit their needs with the threat of resignation from the Military advisor, which would force the Government Party to fall apart, due to the need for a Military advisor to create a cabinet. The public did not want their government to be focusing its attention on military matters simply to please the Military Advisor, but to focus its attention on social and economic matters instead.
In conclusion, many factors brought out the failure of the political parties in the 1920’s. With the rise of militarism being prominent, and the flawed Constitutional System allowing for the army and navy to have a lot of control, it was inevitable that the public would eventually find the flaw and question the methods of the Government policies. Also, with the increase in education, and the increase in the role of women, followed by the two landmark bills being passed (Universal Manhood Suffrage Law and Peace preservation Law) respectively, the contradictory nature of the Meiji reforms and the ability of 14 million people being able to vote strongly weakened the political parties during the 1920’s.
