Michiya Kato

Prewar Japanese colonial bureaucrats referred to British colonial rule in order to gain "practical wisdom" to help Japanese colonial rule. They saw British colonial rule as a kind of "ideal form" that could balance "freedom" and "unification," but Irish rule as a "failure." This is because the "trust" was not established there. Colonial bureaucrats scrutinized the Irish problem as a reference that should be avoided to achieve stable rule in the Japanese Colonies.

The unemployment insurance system was a representative policy by the industrialized nations of the time against mass unemployment that became a serious problem in the 1920s and 1930s. However, in Japan, it was not established until 1947, and it was thought that Japanese policy makers were not positive about establishing a social security system like the unemployment insurance system. In fact, the Japanese government at the time was cautious about establishing such system because the European countries which had such systems had shown that the unemployment insurance system could lead to a financial crisis. Entrepreneurs opposed to the unemployment insurance system because of a possible negative impact on the labor-management relationship. It is not well known that debates for establishing a compulsory unemployment insurance system like European countries by the progressive bureaucrats of the Social Affairs Bureau. This report focuses on the arguments by such bureaucrats in interwar Japan and emphasizes its significance.