The verdict of the first Local Government System Research Council, which was described in the previous section, said that the radical reform of the local autonomy system should be discussed in the next Local Government System Research Council. The first issue to be discussed was the "Do and Shu" the concept for the new units of local authorities and this issue was kept to be discussed in the second and third Local Government System Research Council. However, the second and third Local Government System Research Council could not reach to their conclusion. The fourth Local Government System Research Council submitted "The verdict about the reform of local autonomy system" for the first time on October 18,1957 (Showa era 32).

The verdict proposed to introduce the "Chihou" system, which is new local governments system, as a majority opinion in the Council. The "Chihou" system would consist of 7 to 9 Chihou areas instead of prefectures. The majority opinion said as the fundamental policy for the local autonomy reform that "In the modern nation, the administrative fields of government have been increasing in both quantity and quality with the development of society, economy, culture, and some others. In order to respond these administrative demands, especially in order to achieve Japan's evenly distributed economic development and to improve the people's living standard, it is necessary 1) to improve the efficiency to use the limited land and limited resources to maximum extent and 2) to forcefully and efficiently execute the necessary policies, such as development of industrial location policy. Local government system, above all broader-based local governments needs to be established." The majority opinion also said that "Current jurisdictions of prefectures are not appropriate for the local administration as the result of drastic, and unevenly among local governments, development of society, economy, and culture for sixty years. Prefectures have large imbalance of their abilities necessary for executing the local administration affairs. Prefectures are sometimes too small to efficiently execute the broader-based local administrative affairs, such as resource development, national land conversation. In addition, the viewpoints from the efficient execution of the modern high level administration and decreasing the expenditure for the administrative works support broader-based local administrative execution as reasonable." Based on there recognitions, the verdict proposed to introduce the "Chihou" system, which was new local governments system as a majority opinion in the Council.

However, because this majority opinion in the Council would try 1) to make local governments to have characters of local governments and the central government and 2) to introduce the appointment system that the heads of local governments should be appointed by the Prime Minister with the content of the assembly of local governments, there were very strong oppositions to this majority opinion in the Council for that this would be make the local governments, which became the real local governments after WW2, lose its characters as the real local governments. Therefore, the verdict also said as the minority opinion that "Today, when we are going to examine the reform of the local autonomy system, we first need to respect the local autonomy system, which was newly reformed after WW2. Therefore, there is no necessity to change the current local autonomy system that city, town, and village are real local governments as well as prefectures and there will be no necessity in the future. However, there is necessity to examine the change of the jurisdictions of prefectures for the response to the change of the trend. While the characters of prefectures as real local governments should be kept, the jurisdictions of the prefectures should be considered to merge three or four prefectures. It is also necessary for the government to establish the administrative system to can make the central government, prefecture, and city, town, and village to efficiently function without any duplication of functions by redistribution of the administrative affairs among them."

This verdict of fourth Local Government System Research Council caused much argument as revolutionary at the point that it proposed concrete draft for the reform of the prefectural system. However, both majority opinion and minor opinion did not become the final draft. After this, there has been no discussion about the abolishment of prefectures and the alternative system for prefectural system, such as "Do Shu" system, in the Local Government System Research Council. What became the focal point of argument was "coalition" or "merge" of prefectures without changing the prefectural system.

　

Administrative demands from residents have expanded, become complicated, and become broader with the background of expansion of living area and economic block. In order to appropriately respond these administrative demands, there were many administrative affairs which were necessarily executed beyond a prefecture jurisdiction. In this situation, the proposal for merge of prefectures and introduction of "Do Shu" system has been actively raised especially from business community. The oldest one is "The opinion about the reform of the local administrative organizations" proposed by the Kansai Economic Federation in 1955 (Showa era 30). The opinion proposed the abolishment of prefectures and establishment of "Do Shu". After this opinion, some conceptions and opinions have followed as described below:

・"Conception for the merger of three prefectures in Tokai" by the Chubu Economic Federation in 1963 (Showa era 38)

This conception proposed the merger of Aichi-ken, Gifu-ken, and Mie-ken.

・"Opinion about the radical reform of local autonomy system" by the Kansai Economic Federation in 1969 (Showa era 44)

This opinion proposed to create the "Do" or "Shu" with the abolishment of prefectures. Several "Do" or "Shu" should be responsible for divided national areas with respect to their social, economic, and natural situations. "Do" or "Shu" should have the elected heads and the assemblies consisting of the elected members.