National Mobilization Law Enacted

After the Sino-Japanese War broke out in July 1937 and turned into a protracted conflict, the government set out to concentrate manpower, materials and capital on the war, with the Cabinet Planning Board drafting mobilisation legislation. Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe's first cabinet introduced the State General Mobilization Law (国家総動員法) to the 73rd Imperial Diet on 19 February 1938.

The bill delegated almost all concrete measures to imperial ordinances, and Diet members such as Saito Takao and Makino Ryozo attacked it fiercely as stripping the Diet of its legislative power and as unconstitutional. On 3 March, during committee deliberations in the House of Representatives, Lt. Col. Sato Kenryo of the Army Ministry shouted 'Shut up!' (damare) at a member, causing an uproar; on 16 March Nishio Suehiro of the Social Masses Party, speaking in favour, urged Konoe to lead like Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin, and he was expelled from the House on 23 March. Under intense military pressure the bill nonetheless passed the House of Representatives on 16 March and the House of Peers, unamended, on March 24, 1938. It was promulgated as Law No. 55 on 1 April, took effect on 5 May 1938, and was applied by ordinance to Korea, Taiwan and Karafuto at the same time. During the debate the government stated that the law would not be applied to the current 'China Incident', but it was invoked soon after enactment.

Its fifty clauses authorised the government, in wartime (including an 'incident' equivalent to war), to conscript labour and control civilian organisations and working conditions, to manage strategic industries and the production and distribution of goods, to impose price controls and rationing, and to restrict what newspapers and other publications could print, all without requiring further legislative approval. Many ordinances followed, including the Factory and Workplace Management Ordinance (May 1938), the National Service Draft Ordinance (8 July 1939), the Price Control Ordinance (18 October 1939), the Electricity Distribution Control Ordinance (30 August 1941) and the Enterprise Reorganisation Ordinance (13 May 1942). An amendment of March 1941 changed twenty-five of the fifty articles and greatly widened the government's powers.

After the defeat, under the Allied occupation, the Imperial Diet passed a law abolishing the National Mobilization Law and the Wartime Emergency Measures Law on December 20, 1945 (Law No. 44 of 1945); the abolition took effect on 1 April 1946. The law is often regarded as the symbol of Japan's wartime controlled economy and of the hollowing-out of parliamentary government, and the draft ordinances issued under it form part of the legal background to later disputes over labour mobilisation and forced labour.