Japan Times 1972: Paper tells story behind secrets leak

100 YEARS AGO

Wednesday, April 12, 1922

Prince of Wales shown sincere admiration of people of Japan Empire

With His Imperial Highness, the Prince Regent, waiting on the platform of the Tokyo Station, behind him standing imperial Princes, the Premier and his Ministers and many of the men of the Army and the Navy who have helped make Japan great, the Royal train bringing His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to Tokyo rolled in at twenty minutes to eleven this morning. From it, on to a red plush carpet, stepped a youth clad in the full uniform of a colonel of the Guard, brilliant scarlet tunic, high, towering black busby that came so low on the face as almost to hide the features. He stepped briskly towards the waiting Prince Regent, likewise in full military uniform, who also advanced, and the two young men in whom the hopes and the love of millions throughout the world are centered, after stiff military salutes, clasped hands warmly.

It was an historic occasion the several hundred assembled on the railway station platform were privileged to see. For the first time in the history of Japan, a member of the Reigning Family had gone from his palace to welcome an arriving traveler, while His Royal Highness is beginning the last of what has been an epochal tour, a portion of the education he is undergoing for the most tremendous task of becoming, some day, the King of Great Britain and Ireland, of the Dominions Over the Seas and Emperor of India.

With hands clasped, the Prince Regent and His Royal Highness conversed earnestly for some minutes, while three great cheers were given by the assembled British subjects for their Prince, following the playing by the Imperial Guard band of the British National Anthem, in which the British men and women joined with their voices.

75 YEARS AGO

Saturday, April 5, 1947

Local elections to be held today throughout Japan

Today the people of Japan will go to the polls for the first time in history to elect the heads of 10,583 local self-governing bodies. In the past, governors have been elected by the central government.

The heads to be voted for are for Tokyo Metropolis, the Hokkaido, 44 prefectures, 22 wards of Tokyo, 209 cities, 1,784 towns, and 8,522 villages.

Considerable importance is attached by political parties to today’s balloting, the outcome of which is bound to produce a tremendous effect on the composition of the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors, which will be elected during the month.

All parties have their candidates in today’s elections. There are above all Liberals, Democrats, Social Democrats, People’s Cooperatives, and Communists, in the field.

The various parties, notably the Liberal, Democratic and Social Democratic, the three major political organizations, have considerable at stake in the election of prefectural governors. Their theory is that the party electing the largest number of governors will be at an advantage in the election of the National Diet.

50 YEARS AGO

Saturday, April 8, 1972

Paper tells story behind secrets leak

The Mainichi Newspapers reacted strongly Friday to Prime Minister Eisaku Sato’s charge made in the Diet concerning political bias in Japanese mass media.

Fujio Nakatani, managing editor of Mainichi Shimbun, called a press conference Friday morning to denounce the arrest of Takichi Nishiyama, a Mainichi political reporter, for allegedly having induced a former Foreign Ministry employee to leak classified diplomatic information.

The Mainichi Newspapers also released a report on how Nishiyama and the newspapers had handled the information obtained through Mrs. Kikuko Hasumi, secretary to a senior Foreign Ministry official.

They also said their own investigation had revealed that copies of the secret Government cable messages fell into the hands of Masahiro Yokomichi, a Socialist Dietman, on March 27. Yokomichi used them to attack the Government in the Diet late last month over its alleged secret deal to pay land compensation to Okinawans on behalf of the U.S.

The Mainichi admitted in the report that Nishiyama met Yokomichi on a certain date in December last year through an introduction by a third party and explained what he knew about the Japan-U.S. secret deal to the junior Socialist legislator.

Though Nishiyama did not hand Yokomichi the copies of cable messages in his possession at the time, the Mainichi report said Nishiyama had gradually become inclined to feel that facts about the reversion negotiation should be brought to light through debate in the Diet.

It said Nishiyama felt the Government’s explanations given in Diet deliberations over the processes of the Okinawa reversion negotiations seemed to be falsifying facts and deceiving the Japanese people.

The Mainichi, in the report, did not say how the copies held by Nishiyama were delivered to Yokomichi on the afternoon of March 27, saying the circumstances were not clear because Nishiyama is under arrest.

25 YEARS AGO

Tuesday, April 1, 1997

5% consumption tax becomes effective today

Prices of almost all goods and services sold in the country go up today as the consumption tax rises for the first time, to 5 percent.

The tax had been 3 percent since its introduction in April 1989. Half of the 2 percentage point increase is to be levied as a local consumption tax.

Coupled with the termination of ¥2 trillion worth of special reductions in income and residential taxes, taxpayers are expected to ante up ¥7 trillion in additional taxes in fiscal 1997.

According to Finance Ministry calculations, the increased consumption tax burden on a family of four with a yearly income of ¥7 million will come to roughly ¥67,000 annually.

But some private think tanks have put the figure higher, and concerns remain that the increased tax burden could dampen consumer spending during the first half of fiscal 1997 and lower economic growth figures for the fiscal year.

The government’s economic forecast, released in December, took into account the probability of a slowdown in growth due to the tax changes and put real growth for fiscal 1997 at 1.9 percent.

However, consumers’ rush to buy goods ahead of the tax hike was generally less than anticipated, and officials at the Finance Ministry and the Economic Planning Agency predict that spending during the April-June months will not slacken as much as initially feared.

Compiled by Shaun McKenna. In this feature, we delve into The Japan Times’ 125-year archive to present a selection of stories from the past. The Japan Times’ archive is now available in digital format. For more details, see jtimes.jp/de.