My opinion this week(74)
The Election of the House of Councils
The election campaign of the House of Councils is going on.
Except the Ruling Liberal Democratic Party and perhaps Communist
Party, there are a number of Opposition Parties that are appealing
the same kind of election promises in this election. Honestly speaking,
I don't know how different they are each others among those opposition
parties. Unfortunately the people are generally showing very little
interest in the election and it is expected that voting rate will be
very low.
There are many difficult and important issues concerning the present
politics. Needless to say, the future of Japan depends on the politics
and in other words, depends on the result of this election also. The
Government and the Ministry of the Home Affairs are trying to improve
the high rate of abstention rate that has continued in the recent elec-
tions. For example, they extended the voting time until 8 P.M. against
6 P.M. before in order to improve the situation.
Regardless, such effort by the Ministry, it is expected that such high
abstention rate will continue this time also. Some parties even welcome
such trend because they can maintain their current position for they
expect no drastic change in the seats they share at the moment.
Abstention is very bad thing at any rate. All of us, the Japanese people
should go to vote, although they cannot find any of the best candidate
to choose. All they have to do is to select the better ones. In order
to improve politics, there are no other way, but go to vote.
The reason why people lose interest in politics is that they have
been disappointed with many barren and sterile argument among political
parties concerning such very important issues today. There are so many
good looking promises presented by many political parties. Some say
the reduction of 5 % consumer tax, the reduction of income taxes and
so on. Some even say that free gift certificates of some value will be
distributed to the people to promote consumption.
That's fine by themselves. It is also right for them to insist the
necessity of administrative reform and financial reform to change the
basic structure of the state economy. However, as far as all economic
policies advocated by the Ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the
rest of the Opposition Parties are concerned, they are not quite
different each others except those of the Communist Party.
I just wonder why there is no party that insist the overall review
on the legislative organs including two parliaments system today. There
are some argument that insist the abolishment of the House of Councils.
Since this is the election of the House of Councils, it is understandable
that no parties are insisting it in the election campaign. But there
should be some argument concerning restructuring of legislative organs
as to the necessity and efficiency of their operations.
Every Western countries are taking two parliaments system in principle.
Japan introduced the same idea 53 years ago when the present constitution
was enforced. The world today have changed greatly in the past 50 years.
With the development of information system and the networking system in
the society, there should be some fundamental review as to the form of
representation of the interest of people. Is it really necessary to have
so many diet members to represent districts and interest groups?
Such review on the legislative bodies is necessary as that is necessary
for administrative bodies to attain national financial reform.Although two
parliaments system will continue to exist ,it seems that it is absolutely
necessary to reconsider the total number of diet members in each parliaments.
I wonder why there are no such argument as to the necessity and the
efficiency of legislative bodies in the politics. The smaller legislative
organ may work better as many diet members assert concerning the administ-
rative reform in question.
1998/7/4
Tadashi HAYASE
My opinion this week(75)
What is a new life style?
Once a year, at this time of the year, the Shikoku Forum is held to
exchange various opinions on the key issues of the current society. I
will attend to it this year also. The theme of the Sub-Committee of
the Forum in which I participate is like this. What is the change of
the life style of people under the change of the environment such as
the development of transportation and telecommunication system in our
society? How can we establish a new and rich cultural and spiritual
life in this change?
It is a very difficult theme to discuss. However, living in this
district of Shikoku where a new infrastructure is being created such
as three bridges between Honsyu and Shikoku and the development of
information networks, although it is not unique to this district.
I think it is very significant to think about such theme as a
general topics of contemporary Japanese society. Japan is now in
serious economic depression. Politics, economy, and our family life
are in chaos. We don't know the answer to this question on how we
should cope with this chaotic world .
The recovery of Japanese economy is being urged by all of the world.
The Government has taken a number of measures so far. They are , for
examples, the reconstruction of financial and banking system by
processing bad loans, several public investment, investment on some
new social infrastructures, the reduction of income taxes, and so
forth.
There are a lot of arguments on those measures, and it is sure
that any of those are helping the recovery of the economy in one way
or the other and contribute to improve some percentage of gross
national products. They will create some additional demand and make up
the so called the deflation gap.
However, according to my belief, the gap to be made up is not
necessarily the deflation gap in terms of money and goods, but the
gap of mind and spirit of the people. Illusion against politics,
corruption of public servants, distraction of family system symbolized
by low birth rate and juvenile delinquencies, devastation of school
education, corruption of ethics and moral in societies, etc. are all
the evidence what I called the deflation gap of mind of people.
The economy of goods and money have destroyed a natural environ-
ment of the earth. The most important matter for human being today
is to recover a beautiful natural environment on earth, isn't it?
In order to attain this purpose, there are hundreds of area in which
public investment must be made. There are so many area of so called
a new social capital investment such as education, welfare, environ-
ment and telecommunications. They are entirely different from those
conventional type public investment which were concentrated in the
construction of roads, railways and bridges, etc. in the past.
We should now concentrate to discuss what are the area as such
to make an investment to establish our new way of life. We should
start discussing this right now. That will partly provide the answer
on what our new life style is in coming new era.
In summary, our new life style is the one that we can regain a
kind of richer mind and spirit rather than the richness in terms
of money and goods. What kind of natural and social environments
should be reconstructed so that we will be able to regain the
richness and abundance in mind and spirit as in the past era when
human beings were enjoying a beautiful nature on earth.
1998/7/11
Tadashi HAYASE
My opinion this week(76)
Dissolve the House of Representatives
As a result of the election of the House of Councils last Sunday, the
Liberal Democratic Party suffered a crushing defeat and the Democratic
Party and the Communist Party made a great advance in the seat. Prime
Minister Hashimoto decided to resign the position. Before the election,
there was a great concern on the low voting rate as expected However,
the voting rate had turned to be 58%, which was higher by about 10 points
than that of the previous election of the House of Representatives.
That result was very important phase of the contemporary politics.
Before the election there was some serious concern on the low interest
of people against the politics. It seems that Japanese people who had
been disappointed with the present situation of the politics went to
vote on last Sunday and expressed their disapproval against the policies
and practices of the Liberal Democratic Party.
Having heard of the comment by Mr.Kato, the Secretary of the Party,
concerning the reason for the defeat of the Party, I was quite
disappointed with his misunderstanding on the critical reason for the
defeat of the Party. He said that their trial on the execution of the
various reformative measures which are now under way was hard to be
accepted by Japanese people because of their hardship.
That's on the contrary. Under the current political and economic
conditions, I believe that Japanese people understand the necessity of
those reform works which are the burden to all people of the country.
Probably people are rather irritated with series of ambiguous measures
taken by the Government so far and slow actions to start improving
those deadlocks. They finally expressed their strong dissatisfaction on
their leadership of Hashimoto Cabinet.
Hashimoto Cabinet has recently taken various economic measures to
recover the recession. Under the pressure from outside of the countries
including the U.S. and others, they have taken some of those inconsistent
measures such as additional public investment, countermeasures to cope
with bad loans of banks, reduction of income taxes and so on. The most
important approach was that they should clearly set up all necessary
measures to be taken much earlier to improve the economy and to express
all those measures exclusively to Japanese people. People thought that
their decisions was slow and their actions were not consistent all the
time.
It is not quite desirable to have such political turmoil when the
country is facing so many critical issues. While the Liberal Democratic
Party lost their majority at the House of Councils, they still keep the
majority power at the House of Representative. On the other hand, the
policies and principles of those opposition parties are all different
each others. It is difficult that they are to be united into one opposition
group.
Such political situation make the solution of such urgent economic
problems very difficult. The most important thing today is that a certain
strong political leadership should be established so that some of those
critical economic problems will be tackled by the new political power as
soon as possible.
In this respect, it is requested that the House of Representatives
is to be dissolved as soon as possible and the new political power should
be established to tackle those critical issues to the fullest extent.
1998/7/18
Tadashi HAYASE
My opinion this week(77):
The absolute value to follow
As I wrote earlier, I attended the Shikoku Forum and joined the
Sub Committee to discuss the change of life style. I was a modulator
of the committee in the first day. It was very difficult to modulate
the discussion. Once the discussion started, however, the topics
were concentrated around the importance of education and teaching
manners to children. I personally thought that the direction was
quite right.
Most attendants of the Forum are representatives of leaders in
each fields. All have different views on values and life styles and
on what lifestyle are kind of desirable for people today. That's
fine and it is not necessary at all to define them in some absolute
way. Wide variety of life style is good indeed.
But I had some doubt and concern on what Mr. M, a journalist, said
in his presentation. He mentioned that Japanese people's life style
are changing greatly these days and had changed greatly as a matter
of fact. Then, Mr. K, an attendant from one citizen group asked him.
" So, what? Yes, the life style of people are changing greatly and
becoming quite various. And so what? " No specific answer was
provided by Mr. M. I could not say anything on this because I was
acting as a modulator but I had the same question on that comment
made by Mr. M.
In the last summary meeting of the total group, I reported the
discussion of our group. It is true that people's life styles are
changing and becoming very colorful. Compared with the lifestyle of
other countries, however, Japanese people's life styles still seem
to lack in varieties. It is probably a part of reason for the stagnant
condition of economy today. It is desirable to make our life style
more various in many ways. Values of people on the way of life ,
hobbies and occupation,etc. should be various.
However, it is wrong if people think that such values as ethics
and morals should be more various also. In order to admit the
importance of varieties in life style and values they have on
their life style, such value as ethics and morals should not be
overlooked and lost its function as a compass for human acts.
The lost of such compass is the reason for the chaos of the
contemporary society as I see it. I would call such function of
compass as an absolute value to our life to follow. It was quite
right for the people of sub committee to discuss a lot about the
importance of education and manners of children to establish such
compass in our life.
When the summary conference adjourned for a coffee break, one of
the president of banks in Shikoku approached me and said. " I was
quite impressed with your summary report. I quite agree with what
you said on the importance of that absolute value on ethics and
morals in our life. We have forgot the importance of their value
today."
I was quite happy to hear that and satisfied with making such
talk on the summary session of the Forum.
1998/7/25
Tadashi HAYASE
English Home Page
Japanese Home Page