Page:A handbook of modern Japan (IA handbookofmodern01clem).pdf/189

Rh of a city [town or village] include "all those who have their residence in the city [town or village], without distinction of sex, age, color, nationality, or condition in life. A "citizen," however, must be "an independent male person," that is, one who has completed his twenty-fifth year and has a household; he must be "a subject of the empire and in the enjoyment of his civil rights"; and for two years he must have been a resident of the given local division, must have contributed toward its common burdens, and must have paid therein a "national land-tax of 2 or more yen in other direct national taxes." The rights of a citizen over and above his rights as a resident are simply but comprehensively stated. They consist in the privilege of voting in the local elections, and of eligibility to the honorary offices. There is, however, a slight qualification of this seemingly universal citizen suffrage. Those whose citizenship, for reasons to be given later, is suspended, and "those who are in actual military or naval service," are disfranchised. Companies, however, and "other juristic persons" are entitled to the suffrage on similar conditions with individuals.

But when we come to consider the duties of a citizen, we find peculiar conditions. The citizen of a Japanese city, town, or village, is under obligation