(See front cover)
Some of the presents showered by expectant political job-seekers on Japan's new Premier Ki ("Old Fox") Inukai last week were: eight sets of silverware; 80 baskets of fresh fish; 46 boxes of dried fish; 43 casks of sake; 33 baskets of fruit; 18 cases of beer; 15 cases of wine and 614 dozen rice cakes.
Cackling with delight at all these presents the 77-year-old Fox hobbled with the aid of his long staff about his home (where everyone calls him "Honorable Father") lavishly dispensing good cheer.
"Drink! Drink!" he urged the importunate politicians. "Drink and eat, oh most honorable friends, partakers of my joy!" Soon joy was unconfined as the
Premier dismissed from office 41 of Japan's 47 Governors of Prefectures and bestowed upon 41 of his friends the plums he had thus created.
First act of the new Inukai Cabinet fortnight ago was to take Japan's yen off the Gold Standard (TIME, Dec. 21). Last week the outgoing former Finance Minister, thrifty Junnosuke Inouye, famed for wise and adroit retrenchment, boiled over in helpless rage. "There was no technical reason for the action taken by the new Cabinet!" he charged. "It enabled a small number of persons to reap huge profits,* but it will do irreparable damage to our country's financial position!" Blandly the incoming Finance Minister, venerable Korekiyo Takahashi, said that he would not trouble to draft a new budget but had decided to appropriate Mr. Inouye's budget.
"Keeping Faith." As helpless as ousted Finance Minister Inouye last week was ousted Foreign Minister Baron Shidehara, who looks as much like Theodore Roosevelt as a Japanese can and who has tried in vain for the past three months to win Japanese militarists to his "Peaceful Policy" respecting China and Manchuria.
It was Baron Shidehara who warned the Army that Japan, by a tactless invasion of Manchuria, would tarnish her bright chance to force recognition by China of what Japan considers her "treaty rights'' in Manchuria by appealing to the World Court of which a Japanese, Mineichiro Adachi, is now President. It was Financier Inouye who warned that Japan's budget can scarcely be expected to stand both the cost of invading Manchuria and the resultant Chinese boycott which, more successful than all previous boycotts, had cut Japan's sales to her best customer 60%. Both warnings went unheeded, and popular approval of the Army's dramatic move put Premier Inukai in power. Last week he hobbled around to the Foreign Office and personally took it over from Baron Shidehara who made a last shrill speech to his former subordinates, urging "peace . . . conciliation . . . keeping faith."
The new Foreign Minister, Kenkichi Yoshizawa, is the Old Fox's son-in-law. He was in Paris last week where as Japanese Ambassador he has stubbornly defended Japan before the League Council (TIME, Oct. 5 et seq.). Recalled by his father-in-law, tiny Mr. Yoshizawa who incessantly puffs enormous black cigars, took a ticket for Moscow where he will talk Manchuria with Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Maximovitch Litvinov, then hurry across the trans-Siberian Railway to Manchuria and finally to Japan.