UEHARA Yusaku 1908 (Meiji 41) From "Gensui Uehara Yusaku Den Vol.1" ("NDL Digital Collections")

Crowd assembled before the House of Representatives gate, February 5, 1913 (Taisho 2) From "Mede Miru Gikai Seiji 100nenshi"

The first document shown here is YAMAGATA Aritomo's Opinion Brief delivered to the Army authorities, which was forwarded by Army Minister UEHARA Yusaku to KATSURA Taro along with a letter, before the 30 November 1912 (Taisho 1) Cabinet meeting convened to discuss the fiscal 1913 (Taisho 2) budget.

In the waning days of the 2nd SAIONJI Cabinet, the gulf widened in the Cabinet between two sides on the issue of costs of government, with on the one hand, the Army demanding two extra divisions and the Navy also wanting to expand, and on the other those calling for reducing costs. Yet, not everyone in the Army was convinced of the need for additional divisions. In the final analysis, YAMAGATA, TERAUCHI Masatake and others wanted to effect a compromise with the Seiyukai on the issue. KATSURA, however, who had been forced into political obscurity, saw this issue as his chance to make a political comeback. He therefore, forcefully pleaded the case for the added Army divisions to UEHARA.

Given this, YAMAGATA wrote the Opinion Brief shown above in an attempt to get the Army to speak with one voice. Nonetheless, Army Minister UEHARA, on his own initiative, delivered the demand for the additional divisions at the aforementioned Cabinet meeting. The Cabinet ended up voting against the extra Army divisions, leading UEHARA alone to tender his resignation. As the Army failed to recommend his successor, the 2nd SAIONJI Cabinet resigned en masse on 5 December 1912 (Taisho 1).