Stratification

The prewar Japanese bureaucracy was a veritable caste system. It embraced distinct classes of persons, and the status differences and social distances between the classes were wide. The most basic distinction was between officials (kanri ) and nonofficials (hikanri ). The officials, who were appointed either by the Emperor or by the government to which authority had been delegated, owed an unlimited loyalty to the Emperor and were regulated by public law. The nonofficials, on the other hand, lay outside the scope of the Emperor's appointment authority and were subject to the rules of employment contract in private law.^[17]

The officials were divided into four distinct classes: (1) shinninkan , (2) chokuninkan , (3) soninkan , and (4) hanninkan . The main criterion of this classification was the distance from the Emperor or, alternatively, the mode of appointment. Shinnin officials were awarded their letters of appointment, signed by the Emperor and countersigned by the prime minister, in a palace ceremony called the shinnin shiki and attended by the Emperor. Chokunin officials, too, received letters of appointment bearing the signatures of both the Emperor and the prime minister but without a palace ceremony. Sonin officials, on the other hand, were appointed by the prime minister acting on behalf of the cabinet and on

[15] Spaulding, Imperial Japan , pp. 265, 268-69. Some relevant statistics will be presented later in this chapter (see table 2).

[16] See, for example, Fukumoto, Kanryo , pp. 80-95; Mori and Yazawa, Kanryosei no shihai , pp. 162-65 and passim.

[17] Watanabe, "Nihon no komuinsei," pp. 112; Miyake Taro, Gyoseigaku to gyosei kanri [Public Administration and Public Management] (Tokyo: Sakai Shoten, 1974), pp. 78-88.

authority delegated by the Emperor. Finally, hannin officials were appointed by the individual ministers exercising delegated authority. The first three classes of officials were collectively known as kotokan (higher officials). There were nine grades among the kotokan and four among the hanninkan .^[18] Table I displays the ranks and grades of the higher officials, together with their corresponding positions. The barrier between the higher and ordinary officials was so great as to be all but insurmountable; they could be compared with commissioned and noncommissioned officers in the armed forces.^[19]

Because they were outside the realm of public law, the nonofficials (hikanri ) were subject to the vagaries of the changing needs and budgetary resources of individual ministries. Neither their qualifications nor their duties were precisely defined. Nonetheless, there were generally three types of nonofficials: (1) koin , (2) yonin , and (3) shokutaku . The koin performed routine clerical tasks, but many of them aspired for promotion to the hannin rank eventually. The yonin engaged in manual

[18] Watanabe, "Nihon no komuinsei," pp. 112-13; Miyake, Gyoseigaku to gyosei kanri , pp. 79-82; Murobushi Tetsuro, Kokyu kanryo [Higher Civil Servants] (Tokyo: Sekai Shoin, 1983), pp. 28-29.

[19] For a comparison of the kotokan-hanninkan dichotomy to the distinction between commissioned and noncommissioned officers in the military, see Spaulding, "The Bureaucracy as a Political Force," pp. 37-38 and Johnson, MITI and the Japanese Miracle , pp. 57-58. For an inside account of the privileges of kotokan , see Hayashi, Nihon kanryo kenkoku ron , pp. 5-10.

labor. Finally, the shokutaku typically had special ties with a cabinet minister or a parliamentary vice-minister, serving him for the duration of their terms of office. Many shokutaku were retired officials and persons engaged in specialized research activities for the government.^[20]

We have already seen that civil-service examinations were the principal means by which civil officials were recruited. Those who passed the higher civil-service examinations were eligible for appointment as soninkan trainee (shiho ), whereas those who passed the ordinary civil-service examinations could become hanninkan apprentice (minarai ). In neither case was appointment automatic. Passing these examinations simply certified that the successful candidates were qualified for government service. The actual hiring was done by each government ministry or agency, typically following an interview. In most cases the candidates themselves had to take the initiative. From 1887 to 1893, graduates of Tokyo Imperial University were exempt from the higher civil-service examinations. In a sense, graduation from Todai could be viewed as the chief means of recruitment into the higher civil service, whereas passing the examination was the auxiliary means. For Todai was intended from the outset to serve as a training school for the core members of the bureaucracy.^[21]

Another important mode of civil-service recruitment was senko (evaluation), which was applied to teachers, engineers, physicians, and other technical personnel. Until 1899, moreover, all chokunin officials, which included not only section chiefs, bureau chiefs, and vice-ministers but also the chief of the cabinet secretariat, the chief of the cabinet legislation bureau, and prefectural governors, were subject to "free appointment." The scope of discretionary appointment, however, steadily dwindled in subsequent years. Finally, the significance of the ordinary civil-service examinations was considerably diluted in 1913, when all graduates of middle schools were granted exemption; previously, only public-middle-school graduates had been exempt. In addition, all koin with five years or more of experience became eligible for hannin positions.^[22]

Behind the veil of seeming complexity stood one simple fact: the prewar Japanese bureaucracy contained distinctly unequal strata. At the bottom of the pecking order were "nonofficials." Then came ordinary

[20] Watanabe, "Nihon no kanryosei," pp. 113-14.

[21] Ibid., pp. 114-15; Wada, "Bunkan nin'yo seido no rekishi," I, pp. 11-13.

[22] Watanabe, "Nihon no komuinsei," pp. 115-16; Wada, "Bunkan nin'yo seido no rekishi," II, Jinji-in geppo 96(Feb. 1959): 13-15.

or hannin officials. Above them all reigned higher officials or kotokan . Although the wall separating the ordinary and higher officials was by no means impenetrable, it was nonetheless high. After the abolition of the "imperial university privilege" (teidai tokken ) in 1893, nearly all aspirants for elite administrative positions had to scale the heights of the higher civil-service examinations.