JAPAN: All Honorable Men

For Brutus is an honorable man, So are they all, all honorable men!

The six Japanese Bruti who slew Premier Ki Inukai for his “excessive pacifism” (TIME, May 23, 1932) stood in the dock before the Naval Court Martial at Yokosuka naval base last week while their Japanese attorney, in his final defense plea, quoted adroitly from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.

The irony of Mark Antony’s reference to Caesar’s assassins as “honorable men” was lost—as the defense attorney hoped and expected it would be—on a bench full of Japanese naval judges weak in English classics. They assumed that when Shakespeare wrote “honorable men” he meant honorable men. The case before the court last week turned on the pivots of honor, patriotism and Japanese devotion to the Divine Emperor. One by one the six assassins had testified that in slaying Premier Ki Inukai, a clever politician known throughout Japan as “The Old Fox,” they acted “to bring the Emperor into more direct control of the Government.” They also claimed that the assassination was a protest against the “shameful naval ratio” of 5-5-3 provided in existing treaties for the U. S., Britain and Japan—the assassins contending that it ought to be 5-5-5. Surely such an assassination was the act of “honorable men.”

So it was, the Naval Court Martial decided. Instead of death the six Japanese Bruti received prison sentences of from 10 to 15 years.

Among politicians throughout Japan extreme indignation seethed at this decision by the Navy. Only a few days prior the Japanese Supreme Court had sustained the death sentence of the civilian Tomekichi Sagoya who also alleged patriotic motives for his shooting of Premier Yuko (“The Lion”) Hamaguchi (TIME, Nov. 24, 1930). Unlike “The Old Fox” who died instanter at the hands of his Naval petty officer assassins, “The Lion” recovered partially from his wounds, lingered through a winter, spring and summer before dying. Why death for Civilian Tomekichi Sagoya, who almost failed to kill, when mere imprisonment was the sentence of Navy men who did foul, instantaneous murder?

No prominent Japanese dared be quoted on the issue last week, but the Japanese news agency Rengo reported that a highly placed civilian statesman said:

“We are struck dumb on hearing the sentence in the naval case. . . . You know the sentence imposed on Sagoya for shooting Hamaguchi.”

From a high naval personage Rengo obtained this: “It was indeed a pity that Sagoya was condemned to death, contrasting with the just sentence of the Naval men. . . . Had even a single naval defendant been sentenced to death, unrest would have developed among the officers of the Imperial Navy.”

Ridden roughshod by Army and Navy leaders since the occupation of Manchukuo, Japan’s political leaders have been casting desperately about for some means of regaining their lost power. Recently the two great political parties Seiyukai and Minseito—normally as friendly as cats and dogs—made overtures to each other and were working feverishly last week to achieve union and strength against the men of the sword.

Still riding high, War Minister Sadao Araki last week canceled previously announced plans to reduce the number of Japanese troops in Manchukuo to a “peace time basis.” Instead, more troops will be sent, the excuse being that Soviet Russia continues to maintain the large forces she established behind her frontier when Japan occupied Manchukuo and seized most of the half-Soviet-owned Chinese Eastern Railway which serves the northern part of Manchukuo.

Dagger. Naval officers nodded approvingly when the deathless spirit of Japanese fanaticism was shown again last week by one Tokuji Miyata, 26, bespectacled student of political science. With a dagger in his sleeve Student Miyata banged on the door of Admiral Takeshi Takarabe whom most other Japanese Navy officers consider a traitor because he was a negotiator of the London Naval Treaty with its 5-5-3 ratio.

“Admiral Takarabe is not at home!” declared his secretary, speaking truth.

“Very well!” shouted impatient Student Miyata, “I will read my protest against the Treaty to you!”

Courteously the secretary listened. Student Miyata read his protest loud and clear, then whipped out his dagger and slit a wound 15 inches long across his own midriff before Admiral Takarabe’s secretary could interfere.