"Premier inundated with faxes of advice"

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

From: Bruce Hahne <bruce () jise isl melco co jp>


> From the Daily Yomiuri, 5/15/94, originally published in the Yomiuri Shimbun:


"Premier inundated with faxes of advice"


Prime Minister Tsutomu Hata's idea to set up fax machines to allow the
public to directly voice their opinions to the government has proven
popular, with 771 faxes received in three days as of Friday.


According to the Primer Minister's Office, about 70 percent of all the
faxes were related to government policy...


The faxes did not come primarily from members of specific organizations
as was originally feared but from a variety of people both young and
old, from both sexes, and from within and outside the country...


Hata's instruction Friday... to try to answer as many of the faxes as
possible has made government officials uneasy...


Hence, some bureaucrats are lukewarm about the idea since responses to
questions on a single topic will require much discussion and
consideration from relevant ministries and agencies and may take as long
as two to three weeks.




[Sounds as if some Japanese ARE interested in speaking out.  Also sounds
as if the bureaucrats aren't used to having to respond to the public.]