Meiji & Togo Invoked

Only the Meiji would know. Firm in this conviction a spruce file of puzzled Japanese Army officers rode out from Tokyo one dawn last week to a pungent park of pine and camphor trees. They crossed a gurgling brook, entered a spotlessly clean quadrangle and faced with awe the Meiji Shrine, an unpainted wooden building, austere, impressive and, to Japanese, sublime.

The puzzled officers had been sitting as a court-martial in Tokyo since July 25. Their thankless job was to mete out justice to eleven Army cadets, confessed conspirators in the assassination of "Pacifist" Premier Ki Inukai (TIME, May 23, 1932). Not only for this are the cadets national heroes. They also plotted a coup to tear up the Japanese constitution, oust "grafting politicians" and restore "direct Imperial rule." Clearly the judges, who might themselves be assassinated should their sentence prove too harsh, faced a delicate predicament. Reluctant to take the responsibility of making up their own minds they turned with relief to the August Spirit of the Meiji Emperor (1868-1912). He gave Japan her Constitution. In his long, glorious reign the Empire sprang from medieval lethargy to modern might. After praying at the Meiji Shrine last week the officers emerged no longer perplexed.

Their decision: the eleven Army cadets are sentenced to imprisonment for four years without hard labor, but provision was made to parole them within a year. Up to last week 357,000 Japanese had petitioned the Government to free the Army cadets. Only 16 Japanese had written to demand that the culprits be put to death.

Meanwhile at Yokosuka Naval Base, near Yokohama, the court-martial of the ten Naval officers who joined in plotting insurrection and committed the actual murder of Premier Inukai worked up last week to a fine pitch of Japanese patriotic frenzy. Arguing that the confessed culprits must go free, Senior Defense Counsel Ichiro Kiyose, a Member of the Imperial Diet, screeched in his final appeal:

"On the decision of this court depends the future rise or fall of our Empire! If the court fails to give full consideration to the pure, patriotic ideals motivating the accused officers, 2,000,000 tons of warships will be useless in defending the nation because the spirit of the Navy will be broken!"

That this was not mere bombast Japan soon found out. When the prosecution closed by demanding death sentences for three of the ten prisoners and long jail terms for the rest, fierce indignation boiled up at Japanese Naval bases, scared the Government into forbidding the Press to print news of what was happening in Naval circles. Tokyo tingled with rumors that Naval hotheads were plotting fresh acts of terror to force out mild Naval Minister Admiral Mineo Osumi. Fire- eating Vice-Admiral Suetsugu, commander of the 2nd Naval Squadron, was supposed to be the plotters' candidate.

With mutiny in the air, Naval Minister Osumi had to call on the greatest living hero of the Russo-Japanese War, grizzled old Admiral Count Heihachiro Togo, to join him in an appeal for discipline. To all Naval yards and stations Minister Osumi manifestoed: "Fleet Admiral Count Togo has just sent us a message concerning the necessity for Navy men to preserve mental composure, being prudent as to their utterances and conduct and ever remaining loyal to their duties. . . . The time is an extraordinary one and we ask you to redouble your efforts in loyal service."

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