The present article is an attempt to shed light on the logic and development of a unique phenomenon characterizing the era of stagnation experienced by the Japanese civil rights（minken 民権）movement between 1883 and 85, by focusing on the behavior of political parties in Western Japan and the formation of political clubs（konshinkai 懇親会）there.
　It was in 1883 that the first political club, the Kansai Konshinkai, was organized and convened under the leadership of the Jiyuto and Rikkenseito parties. By touting itself as a broad-based, non-partisan association, the Club was extremely successful in attracting a large membership from a majority of areas comprising the Kansai Region, thus bringing members of the four major political parties under one convivial roof. By transcending both party faction and regional politics, the Club aimed specifically at creating an unfettered sense of solidarity, by embracing people sharing common ideas on the broadest level and providing venues promoting continuing ties of camaraderie and sociability. It was by virtue of such characteristics that the Club presented the possibility for overcoming problems faced by the political party movement after the amendments made in 1882 to the 1880 Public Assembly Ordinance, geared to restricting political organizations: namely, the estrangement of regional-central relationships and the inter-party hostility generated in the wake of the movement to eradicate the proliferation of bogus parties.
　Moreover, the Club as so constituted was much more than an association merely aimed at deepening friendship among its members, in its political organizational attributes based on a definitive statement of purpose and ideological stance.
　That is to say, the Rikkenseito Party, which assumed leadership of the Club, regarded its political nature to be a “nonmaterial political association” of like minded people, in contrast to the political party per se with such “material” characteristics as party membership registers and strict bylaws. For the rest of the period in question, the Rikkenseito and its fellow travelers would form similar political clubs in not only the Kansai Region, but the Tohoku and Kyushu Regions as well, ultimately resulting in a long-term vision of a greater Japan regional network of “nonmaterial political association”.
　It was in this way that a form of action, in which friendship and camaraderie were gradually proliferated, encompassed a logic in striking contrast to the turbulent incidents marking the time in question and won an entrenched amount of social support. Although conventionally characterized as an era of stagnation in party politics, the period should also be recognized as a time during which a unique movement arose enabling the possibility of the formation of bipartisan, consensus political organizations.

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The present article aims at depicting one subjective aspect of farm families in Hokkaido facing immigration policies instituted by the Hokkaido Development Agency（Hokkaido-Cho 北海道庁）between 1932 and 1934, in order to discuss the conflicting relationship between immigration measures geared to privately owned unreclaimed land development projects under the Second Hokkaido Reclamation Plan and policies related to immigration to Brazil.
　It was in 1932 that the Japan Ministry of Reclamation Affairs（Takumu-Sho 拓務省）offered to allocate relocation allowances to Hokkaido farm families suffering from crop failure and flooding in order to move to Brazil. The increase in immigration to Brazil between 1932 and 1934 indicates that there was a relatively large number of farm families which selected the Ministry’s relocation option. After all, from the standpoint of farm families unable to earn their livelihoods, accepting relocation funds which required no capital would have been preferable to participating in privately owned unreclaimed land development projects which required investment capital.
　Next, the actual decision to relocate and resettle farm families was not made by the policy-makers in the Development Agency or Reclamation Ministry, but rather by the objects of the policies, the farm families themselves, as clearly shown by the case of the township of Nayorocho under the Kamikawa Branch of the Development Agency. For example, although public relations efforts were made in Nayorocho during September, 1932, to garner unanimous support for relocation funding, not one local farm family actually decided to emigrate. At the same time, only a limited number of farm families outside of Hokkaido decided to take advantage of the Development Agency’s unreclaimed land development program and resettle in the midst of the region’s crop failures and flooding.
　The author concludes that the most important factor in the relocation and settlement of farm families under these two policies was whether or not each individual family was freely willing to act.

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