Background
Reijirō Wakatsuki was born on 21 /march 1866 in the domain of Matsue; his family name was Okumura, but he was adopted into the Wakatsuki family.
若槻 禮次郎
Reijirō Wakatsuki was born on 21 /march 1866 in the domain of Matsue; his family name was Okumura, but he was adopted into the Wakatsuki family.
In 1892 he graduated from Tokyo Imperial University, having specializing in French law, and entered the Ministry of Finance.
After serving as chief of the Bureau of Revenue, in 1906 he advanced to the post of vice-minister of finance. In 1912 he became finance minister in the third Katsura Taro cabinet and also joined the political party known as the Rikken Doshikai. In 1914, after control of the government had been removed from the hands of the old clan leaders, he became finance minister in the second Okuma Shige- nobu cabinet .
He served as minister of home affairs in the Kato Takaaki cabinet, which was formed from the three political parties participating in the Constitution Protection Movement, and helped to put through the universal male suf-frage law and the peace preservation law. With Kato’s death in 1926, Wakatsuki succeeded him as president of the Kenseikai and, as prime minister, formed a cabinet of his own. Working principally through his foreign minister, Shidehara Kijuro, he sought to promote international cooperation, but it was a time of financial panic, and when the Privy Council refused a proposal to save the Bank of Taiwan from ruin through imperial intervention, he and his cabinet resigned en masse in 1927.
For a time he withdrew from political life, but in 1930 served as head of the Japanese delegation to the London Disarmament Conference and, despite the opposition of naval circles in Japan, signed the agreement that resulted from it. Shortly after the conference, the prime minister at the time, Hamaguchi Osachi, was attacked and wounded by a right-wing fanatic. When his condition worsened, Wakatsuki replaced him as president of the Rikken Minseito (an outgrowth of the Kenseikai) and became prime minister in April of 1931, forming his second cabinet. He attempted to reduce expenditures and restore order to the government, as well as supporting Foreign Minister Shidehara in a conciliatory policy abroad, but he faced strong opposition from the military and the Seiyukai. Following the outbreak of the Manchurian Incident in September of the same year, he found himself unable to curb the willful activities of the army. Meanwhile his Minister of Home Affairs Adachi Kenzo began calling for cooperation in the cabinet among the political, military, and bureaucrat members. This resulted, instead, in dissent among the members, and the cabinet collapsed in December of 1931.
Thereafter, Wakatsuki served as a member of the Upper House of the Diet and enjoyed considerable respect as a senior statesman. He was never able to overcome his bureaucratic background and devote himself whole-heartedly to party affairs, however, and in 1934 he resigned his position as president of the Minseito. He has been looked upon as a supporter of liberal principles, but in the debates that preceded the outbreak and the conclusion of the Pacific War, his ability to speak out effectively and to influence the course of events was highly limited in spite of his senior standing.
He joined Kato Takaaki in becoming a member of the Ken- seikai. In 1924, when Kiyoura Keigo formed a cabinet made up principally of members of the Upper House of the Diet, he became active in the Constitution Protection Movement, which advocated the formation of a party cabinet.