Practical Politics

The Shoko (Merchants and Manufacturers Party) proposed a businessmen's bloc in politics, with the following platform planks:

1) Have less red tape and more business in government.

2) Have less politics in business; more business in politics.

3) Make the Diet a real parliamentary body instead of an impotent joke.

4) Reduce taxes. Reduce government expenditures. Cut out government graft. Establish budgets and audit system. Pay more attention to foreign commerce and less to foreign politics. Put the best men, not the men of so-called "best families," in government jobs.

5) Reduce the army and navy. Prepare for trade, not for war. Build up the merchant marine; subsidize it more, if necessary, instead of building more warcraft.