In 1945 Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru was told by General Douglas MacArther that postwar reforms were necessary to eliminate the growing malady that had formed after the Meiji period. When the Meiji emperor was restored as head of Japan in 1868, the nation was a militarily weak country, was primarily agricultural, and had little technological development. It was controlled by hundreds of semi-independent daimyo. The Western powers, Europe and the United States, had forced Japan to sign treaties that limited control over its own foreign trade and required that crimes concerning foreigne…
