Even in today's society, it is common for governor and councils to be conflicts each other. But now that both legislators and governor are elected officials, the debate tends to turn into a "which comes first,the egg or the chicken?"
On the other hand, prefectural governors in the Meiji era were bureaucrats dispatched by the central government.
So, the main role of the governors was to reflect the central government's intentions in the provinces. Specifically, it was to prevent and suppress the expansion of the civil rights movement. In the early times, these movements were gentle, but gradually became radical and over-emphasis. That's when it happened, "Kabazan Incident ". This was a terrorist attack by radicalized civil rights activists in which they attempted to bomb Mishima Tanemich, the Tochigi prefectural governor,and the ministers who had come to the inauguration ceremony of the prefectural government built in Utsunomiya.
To say that there was tremendous resistance is to say that there was tremendous oppression.
Although there was no evidence that Shozo Tanaka was directly involved in this incident, he was imprisoned by order of Mishima as an example, so to speak.
