On the occasion of the ceremony to form our “Public Party of Patriots” in Tokyo on May 5th 1890, we declare the following.

Our Party was made public in 1874 for the first time. We pledged to ensure innate universal human rights to make people free and independent in the “Pledge” at that time.

Our party has been taking the initiative in advocating liberalism since then to realize a government based on liberalism.

There have been a lot of changes and our circumstances have also changed since 1874, however, we have always kept the same ideals consistently.

We hereby establish “Public Party of Patriots” again with the same name as we once had. The cause of the Party remains completely the same.

Liberalism is one of the biggest principles in politics in the first place. There is nothing without principle in the universe, and politics is not an exception. The purpose of our party is to realize good politics by shaping a principle and clarifying our cause.

Politics must make the best decision corresponding to the situation at hand. While the principle does not always apply, a political party is sure to make mistakes in its direction if it disregards its principle and ignore its cause, taking makeshift measures. That’s the reason why a political party needs its cause.

A country is made by people. People love themselves. This means that people have nature to love their country. Love for the country is a synonym for philanthropy: loving people throughout the country.

Comrades of our party advocated liberalism ahead of others and sacrificed their lives for the country because they knew that a country is more important than a person. The main goal of liberalism is to enjoy public peace through love for the country which is as strong as love for oneself.

Liberalism is universal reason. Our party never hides this reason nor employs makeshift policies. People must enjoy liberty in order to achieve true peace of the country. It is against universal reason to prevent people from enjoying liberty for alleged dangerousness of liberalism.

Our party advocated a government by the party with the largest number of seats before others so that the prime minister, not the Emperor, will be in charge of the administration of the country, and the Imperial Family will be in a peace environment regardless of political situation. Judging from the situation of each country in the world, which is safer for a monarch; a country with liberalism or one with absolutism? Liberalism gives the Imperial Family true peace. Liberalism we tout is the only way to increase honor of the Imperial Family, to increase happiness of the people, to maintain independence of our country and to achieve public peace at the same time.

We have the ceremony to form the Party today because we are determined to achieve above purposes based on liberalism. A party needs to make a consistent cause, to consider public benefit of the country and to follow opinions of the citizens. A party must aim at realizing public benefit based on its cause. In order to consider public benefit, a party should have discussions that are open to society to hear opinions of the citizens. A party cannot be decent if it lacks any of those three elements.

Our party is determined to be the largest political party by acting together based on liberalism. The party cabinet in the United Kingdom is working because there are major parties. A party cabinet system is not introduced in Germany because there are only fragmented small parties there. A cabinet must be formed by the largest party and its power in order to ensure strong foothold to apply its policy.

Since our party has consistent cause, we need policy direction based on the cause. However politics has to make the best decision which meets the needs of the time, so it is difficult to prearrange uniformly. Moreover, our party should never fix important things regarding our country’s stake for a hundred years with empty words written in limited time and space. But if we are to put what our party has done in years together into provisions, those will be the following.

1. Intervention to people should be minimized when the government carries out a policy.

The original role of the government is to protect rights of the people and enforce people to fulfill their duties. But sometimes the government has to somewhat intervene in rights of the people in the field of education, communication, agriculture and commerce for the sake of public benefit. With that being said, we restrain intervention and interference as much as possible for we are determined to engage in politics based on liberalism.

2. Decentralization of power, not centralization should be the linchpin in domestic politics.

Each country has its own system depending on the situation in the country. Our country was excessively decentralized in the feudal age before the return of political power to the Emperor by the Tokugawa shogunate. Powers of feudal clans were so strong that no one could control them to make a country. The rivalry among feudal clans went out after the return of political power and the Meiji Restoration. But as centralization is now preferred, political power of local body has declined.Our party aims at decentralization to a desirable degree by actively constructing the system for local autonomy.

3. Equal rights and duties with other countries should be ensured in foreign policy.

Independence of our country should never be dismissed from foreign policy. It is against our ideal to be obsequious to powers and look down minor powers, to give benefit to powers and harm minor powers, and to offend sentiment of a country while trying to give good impression to another country, ending up having narrow views that will never be reviewed.It is our principle to maintain reciprocal rights and duties in concluding treaties and trade: when a country fulfills its duty to our country, we will give rights to that country.

4. Armaments should mainly focus on defense.

The government has to seek better armaments to protect independence from foreign countries. However our party never spends too much for armaments ignoring strength of our country, or plan to invade a country, bring disasters to the country.Should our sovereignty be violated and we could not stop them, we should regain sovereignty by military force, but that is based on the principle of rightly defending national sovereignty.

5. Moderation should be the basics of public finance. Expanses have to be adjusted to national resources.

Public finance has impact on hardship of people’s lives, therefore it is the most important issue. In order to streamline public finance, it is necessary to revise various tax laws to reduce people’s burden as much as possible and make it equal for all taxpayers.Of course the government should spend national expanses for those who in need but our party never bloats functions of the government ignoring national resources. Our party aims at saving expanses and fostering national power.

Our party will stir up discussion based on political principles mentioned above to improve politics. The list of things to improve which our party should work on is endless.But the government and people in our country are not used to representative government, and the research on specific policies is not yet complete. That is why detailed research that can take several months must be conducted before making a bill on important issues for the country.If we were to introduce overall reform at once under such a circumstance, the reform could become an end in itself. It is impossible to complete research for overall reform in a short time. That is why our party aims at keep reforming many things gradually by making proposals for reform one by one once the research for the reform finishes.

But for our top priorities, we will make a plan on each of them. Once our party members are elected as representatives of the people, they will deliberate and discuss on the plans based on the research, and decide which ones to be submitted.

The following are the items which our party is going to make proposal for reform:

1. Reduce land tax
2. Economize administrative expenditure
3. Revise laws on tax collection
4. Revise regulatory laws on newspaper, assembly and press
5. Abolish Regulations for the Reservation of Law and Order
6. Improve police institutions
7. Improve prison institutions
8. Refrain from giving protection to specified private companies

The first priority is revision of laws on tax collection among those. While we already have fair ideas on what to improve, we have not completed studying the laws as a whole. Thus we will determine the draft revision another day.Today, prison institutions are defined by the imperial ordinance. We propose to improve it by making it a law.

Regulatory laws on newspaper, assembly and press are obstacles for realizing representative politics and stimulate public discussions on policies.Large and complicated police institutions are harmful.

Simplifying the institutions leads to reduced expanses.It is our party’s cherished opinion that land tax should be reduced. Members of our party all over Japan adamantly insisted that in the movement triggered by the petition calling for establishment of three pillars.

There are other taxes that should be reduced. But land tax accounts for about a half of government revenue and most of it are farming tax in a way because it is paid by farmers. Imposing tax on farmers was a practice in feudal age, but the government did not change that practice and kept relaying on farming tax, which ended up being such disproportionate.

Today is different from feudal age, therefore everyone has to admit that tax laws are unjust if tax burden on people under constitutional government system is unequal.

The revenue will fall down when the government reduces land tax, so the government will save expenditure. In order to do so, the government has to decrease the number of civil servant and streamline public offices.

There are other measures to cope with reduced revenue. Giving protection to specified private companies, as mentioned in clause 8 above, has great impact on expenditure. In addition, there is misunderstanding about significance on protecting businesses.

The government protects shipping and railways in order to bring public benefit. On the other hand, giving favorable treatment to specified private companies wastes public funds. Moreover, the industries are controlled by few companies and others cannot compete with the privileged companies, which impairs development of self-reliant private economy.

Those mentioned above are just our urgent priorities and there are more issues which our party requests for improvement while we lead politics to be liberal. We want to submit our draft revisions on priority items to the national assembly this year and attract support from many legislators.

Considering elaborately, there are many other policy proposals of our long-held ambition. But we regretfully propose improvements on only priority items above, because we know that they are the most difficult issues to improve. It is a task of extreme difficulty because interpretation of the Constitution is at stake.

The national assembly has the authority to deliberate on public finance in every constitutional country. If it does not have such authority, it exists only in name. In addition, the House of Representatives which consists of representatives of the people should have the primary authority of deciding upon public finance. That is why Japanese Constitution stipulates that the Budget shall be first laid before the House of Representatives, and the expenditure and revenue of the State require the consent of the Imperial Diet by means of an annual Budget.

Our party believes that representatives in the House have the voting rights on public finance, based on principles of constitutional politics and interpretation of the Constitution. If we were to approve “predetermined expenditure” decided by the government before deliberation of the national assembly, there would be almost no authority of the assembly to decide upon public finance.

As we take part in the assembly, we want to achieve our objectives by fair means.

Those mentioned above are our principles, policies and political agendas. We will proceed to realize those without compromising, being prepared to face difficulties.

On the day we achieve our goals, Japanese people maintain innate universal human rights and obtain free and independent way of life. At the same time, representative democracy in which the people send their representatives to the national assembly for discussion is established and a parliamentary cabinet system by political parties is realized. Then honor and respectability of the Imperial Family will be even higher. Happiness of people will be respected. The sacredness of the Emperor will be maintained. Our country will be prosperous. Only then, our country stands at the same position as the developed countries.

As our party’s principles are put into practice, an atmosphere of freedom will fill the country, showing the sign of happiness. In such atmosphere, the Emperor who benefits everyone like the wind in every corner of the country, and the people who respect the Emperor, unite in harmony to renew the old absolutism into constitutional politics, realizing firmly independent country representing the East.

Japan is isolated islands from the world but if the energy for freedom is fully released, Japan can be proud before the whole world. Here, we the members of the party make pledge to each other. We shall never allow this declaration to end up in remaining just a fantasy.

英訳：一般社団法人ユースデモクラシー推進機構

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