Ministry of Home Affairs

The Ministry of Home Affairs (内務省, Naimushō) was established on November 10, 1873 by Ōkubo Toshimichi, its first Home Lord, with industrial promotion and public order as its original tasks. As other ministries were split off it settled into the role of the ministry for domestic administration, with bureaus for police (警保局), local administration, shrines, civil engineering and public health. Prefectural governors were career officials appointed from the ministry, so it controlled both local government and policing nationwide and was often called "the ministry of ministries".

Through the Police Bureau it directed the national police and the Special Higher Police (特高, Tokkō), which policed thought and political movements. After the Peace Preservation Law of 1925 the Tokkō was extended to every prefecture in 1928, and communists, labour activists, some religious groups and eventually liberals were targeted; censorship of newspapers, publishing and film also fell to the bureau. The Shrine Bureau administered State Shinto and was raised to an external agency, the Institute of Divinities (神祇院), in 1940.

In the era of total war the ministry was the administrative backbone of civilian mobilisation. Its health and social bureaus were separated as the Ministry of Health and Welfare in January 1938. In September 1940 it issued the directive that organised village and block associations and tonarigumi neighbourhood groups, through which rationing, air-raid drills, labour service and mutual surveillance reached every household. In November 1943 it set up the Air Defense General Headquarters (防空総本部) to coordinate blackouts, building clearance and civil defence.

After the surrender, SCAP's civil liberties directive of October 4, 1945 abolished the Peace Preservation Law and the Tokkō and removed the Home Minister and senior police officials. The ministry itself was dissolved on December 31, 1947 by SCAP directive as an instrument of wartime authoritarianism. Its functions were split among the National Public Safety Commission and the police (today's National Police Agency), the Construction Agency (later Ministry of Construction), and bodies for local finance and elections; the local-government side later became the Local Autonomy Agency and Ministry of Home Affairs (自治省), now part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.