A Study of Class-Electoral System for Electing City Assemblymen in the Major Cities

根据《帝国宪法》，日本各地都举行了有限的选举。但实行三(两)级选举制度，仅限于市、镇、村三级议员选举。本研究以大阪、名古屋、神户、横滨四大城市的市议会选举为研究对象。本研究的基本数据是基于每个阶层的选民登记册，但令人惊讶的是，这些数据非常少。我只能查阅1889年分别在横滨、神户和名古屋制定的选民登记册。1889年《市政组织法》生效时，市议会选举由三级选举制、半数成员选举和多数票制组成。横滨的头等舱选民最少，他们每人缴纳的城市税率都达到了非常高的水平。当城市随着20世纪的到来而发展起来，它们的发展导致既得利益的增加时，其他城市的上层选民数量显著减少，地方有影响力的人，即所谓的老板，联合起来占据市议会的所有席位，这是有害的。1911年《市政条例》修改时，我们仍然有三级选举制度，但市议员选举改革为全体议员选举制度，并引入了单票制。然而，随着资本主义的发展，有了更多的选区，极少数一流选民可以决定议会成员，结果是政党执行者可以在这样的选区中保住席位；另一方面，出现了有前途的政治家，他们参加了三等选举，进入了政坛。对这四个城市各阶层议员的活动进行研究也是本研究的主题，但尚未进行统计研究。

Limited elections took place universally in Japan under the Imperial Constitution. But the adoption of three( or two-)class electoral system was only limited to the election of city, town and village assemblymen. The present study is to deal with the city council election in four major cities: Osaka, Nagoya, Kobe and Yokohama. The fundamental data for the present study is based on the electoral registers of each class, but it is surprising that there are very few ones. I could refer nothing but the electoral registers drawn up in Yokhama, Kobe and Nagoya respectively in 1889. In 1889 when the municipality organization act came into force, the city counsil election consisted of the three-class electoral system, election of half the members and the plural ballot system. First-class voters are least in Yokohama, and city rates each of them paid reached a very large amount. When cities begandevelop with the arrival of the twentieth century and their growth caused the increase of vested rights, the number of upper-class voters decreased remarkably in other citie, and evils developped that local influential people so-called "Bosses" united to occupy all the seats in city councils.We still had the three-class electoral system when the municipality act was amended in 1911, but the election of city assemblymen was reformed to the system of election of all the members and the introduction of a single ballot system. With the development of capitalism, however, there increased constituencies in which a very tiny minority of the first-class voters could decide assemblymen, with the result that party executivese could hold their seats in such a kind of constituencues; while on the other hand there appeared promising statesmen who ran for the third-class election to enter the political world. To make a study of assemblymen's activitities belonging to each class in these four cities is also the subject of the present study, but a ststistical research is yet to be made.