Foreign News: Empire Tempo

Quiet, steady progress toward a wider democracy and a stronger commercial structure is now the tempo of Japanese affairs.

Progress loomed even in the perfunctory opening of the Imperial Diet, last week, by the ugly but sublime "Son of Heaven," His Majesty the Tenno (Emperor) Hirohito. All present knew that the present session is the final one of the last diet to be elected under a law which enfranchised only 3,000,000 property owning Japanese. The new law, to become operative when a new Diet is elected this spring, enfranchises 9,600,000 adult males. Hereafter the unenfranchised will...

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