Campaign text-book of the National Democratic party, 1896

What follows is, I believe, the first step-by-step outline of the business and planning of monuments in either Japanese or English. Government subsidies underpin it all. With construction so lucrative to bureaucrats and politicians in charge, building mama has overrun every part of Japan. Most of the «pork» goes to the countryside, since the Liberal Democratic Party, heavily dependent on the rural agricultural vote, has governed Japan with only slight interruptions for a half century, and it supports a policy of special rural subsidies, most of which are earmarked for construction. That is why the more remote the countryside, the greater the damage. A tiny mountain village like Iya Valley in Shikoku depends on construction for more than 90 percent of its income; government handouts for building dams, roads, and kominkan (community halls) are its very lifeblood. In the case of halls and monuments, the Ministry of Home Affairs'Bonds for Overall Servicing of Regional Projects (chisosai bonds) channel much of the subsidies to local entities ...»