Same
29
November 20, 1960
54.3
93.2
58.30
Same
30
November 21, 1963
58.3
95.8
60.82
Same
31
January 29, 1967
63.0
99.8
63.11
Same
32
December 27, 1969
69.3
102.7
67.47
Same
SOURCE
: Isomura Eiichi, ed.,
*
(Dictionary of current administrative problems), Tokyo, 1972, p. 705.
?15 was the equivalent of about U.S. $12.30 in 1890. Since it was paid as a direct tax it meant, in essence, that only property owners or the wealthy could vote.
their view, this constitutes 'administration through law,' which is different from the 'rule of law.'
15
In addition to their status, the bureaucrats of modern Japan also inherited from the samurai something comparable to their code of ethics and their elite consciousness. Kanayama Bunji draws attention to the frank elitism and sense of meritocracy associated in contemporary Japan with young men (and a few women) who pass the incredibly competitive Higher-level Public Officials Examination and then enter a ministry. He cites the long hours of work they are expected to perform without complaint, their being sent abroad for postgraduate education in elite universities, the theme of 'sacrifice for the public good' that runs through most ministries, and the lectures to new recruits during their early years in a ministry by their 'seniors,' including those who have retired from public service and have moved to powerful positions in industry or politics. He believes that these customs add up to a 'way of the bureaucrat' (
*) comparable to
Page 40
the old 'way of a warrior' (
*).
16
Of course, many prewar bureaucrats actually came from samurai families, where the ethos of service persisted for decades after the samurai as a class had been broken up. As Black and his colleagues observe, 'With the disbandment of samurai administrations throughout Japan, a civilian bureaucracy was formed, roughly one-tenth as large as the total number of former samurai household heads. For the most part drawn initially from the samurai class, and enjoying high status as the loyal representatives of the emperor, rather than the shogun or daimyo as
