Profiles of Our Industrial Leaders
By Tatsu-ichi Hishiyama
Side by side with the ceaseless prosecution of the current total hostilities, the production war of Japan is being intensified with remarkable energy and indomitableness. Our entire industrial set-up is now functioning at top pitch, and war materials are being turned out in increased volumes to feed all our military requirements. Fully realizing the nation's responsibility in safeguarding the defence of greater East Asia, our industrial leaders and magnates, in compliance with the policies of the Government, are ably discharging their allotted duties to keep up the planned production ceilings of wartime industries and advance the output of key materials in step with the rise in demand. Just as the military potents of the fighting front are creating conditions for the attainment of ultimate victory, so the chiefs of the industrial front are successfully conducting the equally important production warfare. The profiles of these industrial heads depict the nature of their leaderships, and also provide an eloquent commentary on the firmness of our total war industrial structure.
I
The safety valve of war production is iron and steel industry. The backbone of this key enterprise in our country is the Japan Iron Manufacturing Company, a semi-official corporation, capitalized at ¥800,000,000. Its president is Admiral Teijiro Toyoda, who is also chairman of the Iron and Steel Control Council and economic adviser to Premier General Hidéki Tohjo in the capacity of counsellor to the Cabinet. Admiral Toyoda is a sailor-industrialist. He switched to this field of work in April, 1941, when he resigned as Vice-Minister of the Navy to assume the portfolio of Commerce and Industry in the second Konoye Cabinet succeeding Ichizo Kobayashi. It must have been an ordeal for an admiral, who had spent thirty years of life in the Navy Department, to have retired from active service, especially since he was at the head of the seniority list with good chance of being
appointed commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet. Premier Konoye and Navy Minister Admiral Koshiro Oikawa entreated Admiral Toyoda to assume the portfolio of Commerce and Industry. He, at first, declined the offer ; but as the Premier and the Navy Minister persistently requested him to accept the office, reminding him of the urgent necessity of converting the Commerce and Industry Ministry into a munition organ, and promised him complete freedom of action, he acquiesced in their proposition. He took up his new career with unyielding sureness of activity, and immediately launched a reconstruction scheme, for which he came to be known in departmental circles as the "Iron and Coal Minister." Unfortunattely, within three months of his assumption of the post, the second Konoye Cabinet resigned en bloc in July, 1941. In the same month, the third Konoye Cabinet was organized with Admiral Teijiro Toyoda installed as Minister of Foreign Affairs and concurrently Minister of Overseas. In the new rôle, the admiral attempted to improve Japan's diplomatic relations with the "democratic" countries. He succeeded in concluding an agreement with France for the joint defence of French Indo-China, but failed to reach an amicable understanding with the United States on account of Washington's attitude of non-compromise. Consequently, the Japanese-American relations underwent a further deterioration, and the Konoye Cabinet, taking the responsibility for the bottleneck, tendered its resignation.
In October, 1941, the present Tohjo Cabinet was formed in succession to the outgoing Ministry. Hachisaburo Hirao, former Minister of Education and economic adviser to North China, resigned as president of the Japan Iron Manufacturing Company, being nominated chairman of the Iron and Steel Control Council. At a general meeting of the shareholders of the Japan Iron Manufacturing Company held in December of the same year, Admiral Teijiro Toyoda was elected president of the concern. He was urged to accept the post by the Army and Navy, as well as by Nobusuké Kishi, Minister of Commerce and Industry, and Hachisaburo Hirao. Thus for the first time an admiral assumed the presidency of a business corporation, a departure from the convention, which was certainly necessitated by the serious tension in the Pacific situation. Visualizing the inevitability of an American-Japanese showdown, Admiral Toyoda readjusted the manufacture of iron and steel for the needful vitalization of national defence. Under his guidance, iron and steel production mounted steadily, and this in turn helped the augmentation of the turnover of war industries.
Admiral Toyoda is in his fifty-ninth year. Hailing from Wakayama Prefecture, he graduated from the Naval Academy in 1905 at the top of his class. Later, he repeated the same performance at the Naval Staff College. On both occasions he was awarded Imperial prizes. During the London Naval Conference, he served as a member of the Japanese technical commission and assisted Viscount Wakatsuki and Admiral Takarabé, Japanese delegates, to press the viewpoints of the Japanese Navy. When the Lytton Commission visited Japan following the outbreak of the Manchurian incident, he was active as chief of the naval administration bureau in the Navy Ministry. He also attended the Geneva Disarmament Conference to assist Admiral Viscount Makoto Saito, chief delegate, as a member of the technical commission, which was headed by Admiral Seizo Kobayashi. On his return from Geneva, he was transferred to Hiroshima as commandant of the Naval Arsenal there, from which post he was shifted to take charge of the Kuré Naval Arsenal. He overhauled the structures of both naval arsenals and placed their productions on a wartime basis. He is credited with the revamping of the naval construction plan during his tenure of office as chief of the general affairs division of the Headquarters of Naval Construction, to which he was subsequently assigned. He played no small part in the building up the naval air force as chief of the Headquarters of Naval Aviation. His brilliant naval career ended with the assumption of the post of Vice-Minister of the Navy under Admiral Oikawa, Navy Minister in the second Konoye Cabinet.
Admiral Toyoda's rich and varied experience in the Navy stood him in good stead in mapping out an emergency plan for expanding the production of iron and steel, when he became president of the Japan Iron Manufacturing Company. At that time, this company, though a big concern, was suffering from a slow rate of production. He at once adopted the policy of speed in production, with the result that in the four months from December, 1942, to March, 1943, both inclusive, all the workshops of the company turned out record outputs. The Kamaishi Ironworks, recently set up under its control, has made phenomenal progress in production. Being a sailor, Admiral Toyoda naturally lays added Stress on disciplined and co-ordinated management. All the plants under his supervision are operating satisfactorily. Moreover, as chairman of the Iron and Steel Control Council, he has effected organized unity and co-ordination among the various workshops, thereby facilitating the harmonious distribution of iron and steel to the key war industries. On March 18 this year, he
was appointed economic adviser to the Cabinet. He now enjoys popular confidence as the most capable leader of the iron and steel industry. It is certainly amazing that Admiral Toyoda within a short space of time has made a meteoric rise as an industrialist.
II
Next to the Japan Iron Manufacturing Company, the Japan Steel Tube Company is the largest corporation engaged in the production of iron and steel in our country. Ryozo Asano is its president. He is the second son of the late Mr. Soh-ichiro Asano, the well-known financier during the Meiji era. He established his reputation as a businessman when he was comparatively young. It was in his thirties that he was elected a director of the Kokusai Steamship Company, which was set up with a capital of ¥100,000,000. In those days, there were but few business corporations in Japan which boasted of so big a capital. One of them was the Kokusai Steamship Company and another the Tokyo Electric Light Company. The directorate of the former was composed of sixteen persons. All big financiers and financial leaders were represented on it, including Kanéko, Matsukata, Yamashita, Uchida, Kuhara, Shibusawa and young Asano, the exceptions being the heads of the Mitsui, the Mitsubishi and the Sumitomo corporations.
Ryozo Asano is in his fifty-fifth year. Finishing his course at the Kaisei Middle School, he went over to America, where he graduated from the Harvard University in June, 1912, specializing in economics. As successor to Manzo Kushida and Choh-kyuro Kadono, he played a leading part in the management of the Economic Federation of Japan. In 1934, he attended the International Labour Conference at Geneva as a representative of the business group, and in 1936, he visited Thailand as deputy chairman of the Japanese Economic Mission led by Yunosuké Yasukawa. He is now possessed of rich experience as an industrialist. He assumed the presidency of the Japan Steel Tube Company in place of Motojiro Shira-ishi, his brother-in-law.
On his return from America, young Asano became a small-salaried clerk in the Toyo Steamship Company. He drew only ¥30 a month. He was assigned before long to the San Francisco branch of the company. At San Francisco, he worked at the wharf from dawn to dusk for a couple of years as stevedore supervisor. This experience may have developed an affectionate human touch in him, which he displays in dealing with his employees. He returned to Tokyo in 1914 from San Francisco. In 1916, when the Toyo Steamship Company was organized, he became one of its directors. Later, he became associated
with the directorates of the Asano Cement Company and the Tsurumi Iron Manufacturing Company. He evinced interest in the heavy industry, too, by organizing the Tsurumi Iron and Dockyard Company, whose presidency he assumed. When this company was amalgamated with the Japan Steel Tube Company, he became the latter's vice-President. Last year, when Motojiro Shira-ishi retired as president of the company, he became his successor.
The Japan Steel Tube Company has recently made a spectacular development under his presidency, inasmuch as it has become one of the most important corporations engaged in the manufacture of iron and steel. Ambitious Asano says that the capital of the Japan Steel Tube Company will be doubled shortly to enlarge its production power. It is capitalized at ¥100,000,000, which, however, will be increased tenfold in the future, when it will have undertaken production of ships, aircraft and machines and parts thereof in addition to steel tubes. In the meantime, he adds, ten subsidiary companies will be set up each capitalized at ¥100,000,000. Part of his ambitious scheme has been realized with the Japan Steel Tube Company becoming a holding company for the Akita Steel Manufacturing Company and the Chosen Machinery Company.
Tatsunosuké Takasaki, who has succeeded Ghisuké Aikawa as president of the Manchuria Heavy Industry Corporation, is busy augmenting Japan's fighting power. He possesses business ability of no mean order. As Aikawa's trusted lieutenant, he has made substantial contribution to the stride of the Manchuria Heavy Industry Corporation. He is a self-made industrialist. When leading businessman Ichizo Kobayashi was Minister of Commerce and Industry, Takasaki found an appreciative friend in him. After graduating from the Fishery Institute of Tokyo in 1906, Takasaki engaged in fishery and sometimes worked on a lone island in the South Seas. Later, he decided to start the manufacture of cans for packing marine products. With this in view, he sailed for the United States, where he stayed for five years, studying manufacture of cans in various factories. On his return to Japan in 1917, he organized the Toyo Can Manufacturing Company to produce cans and tinplates. Ichizo Kobayashi was good enough to invest money in his company. This was the beginning of friendship between the two, which has deepened with every passing year. The company grew so prosperous that its capital was soon increased to ¥20,000,000.
In 1934, Takasaki formed the Toyo Tinplate Company capitalized
at ¥15,000,000. Its factory was set up in Yamaguchi Prefecture, which fact presented him an opportunity to enjoy Aikawa's favour. In 1939, he organized the Toyo Machine Company with a capital of ¥55,000,000 for the purpose of manufacturing machine-tools. He also extended his activities to other fields of industry with creditable success. When Ghisuké Aikawa transferred the Japan Industry Corporation to Manchuria to organize the Manchuria Heavy Industry Corporation, Takasaki rallied under his banner and became director-general of the Manchuria Aircraft Company, one of the subsidiary concerns of the Manchuria Heavy Industry Corporation. In the spring of 1940, Ichizo Kobayashi led an economic mission to Italy, and Takasaki accompanied him as adviser. When the mission left Italy for Japan, he remained for some time in Europe to observe economic conditions and the operation of control economy in Italy and Germany. On his return home, he fully utilized his acquired knowledge in the management of the Manchuria Heavy Industry Corporation and its subsidiary concerns, particularly the Showa Steel Works. As a hobby, he keeps a small menagerie in the compounds of his residence, and takes intense pleasure in training beasts of prey. When he stayed in a lone island in the South Seas in his early life, he spent his spare time in studying the psychology of beasts of prey, and so he became a good trainer of ferocious animals.
Coal, together with iron, forms the corner-stone of war production. The supreme leader of the coal industry of wartime Japan is Kénjiro Matsumoto, chairman of the Coal Control Council. Although he is seventy-three years old, he carries his age wonderfully well. He was appointed economic adviser to the Cabinet on June 10. Though a financial magnate of Kyushu, he makes his influence felt in Tokyo financial quarters. He was born in Fukuoka Prefecture as second son to Baron Kei-ichiro Yasukawa, mining magnate of Kyushu. He was subsequently adopted into his uncle's family. On his father's retirement, he succeeded to his business, which he has since managed together with his two brothers. Therefore, he is not a self-made businessman. But his father was a typical self-made industrialist, who became a leader of Japan's financial circles during the Meiji era, having established the so-called Yasukawa financial clique. In 1872, Kei-ichiro came up to Tokyo, where he studied at the Keio Gijuku, the predecessor of the Keio University. On his graduation from the institute, he started operating coal mines. He was so successful in his business that he became a leader of the mining world of Kyushu. He substantially contributed to the cause of education by
establishing the Meiji Academy.
As chairman of the Japan Coal Control Council and president of the Japan Coal Company, Kénjiro Matsumoto enjoys the reputation of "the lord of black diamond." In northern Kyushu, particularly in Wakamatsu and Tobata, he has organized various industries successfully. These flourishing concerns, among others, are represented by the Meiji Mining Company, the Meiji Cotton Spinning Company, the Wakamatsu Iron and Steel Company, the Yasukawa Electric Apparatus Company and the Kurosaki Ceramics Company. He is also connected with several business corporations, some of which, dealing in coal and spinning, are located in North China. While a student, he took his post-graduate course on economics at the Pennsylvania University. He has experienced active military service, having participated in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5 and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5. He is now an Army captain on the retired list. His hobby consists of reciting noh librettos of the Kita school, walking, travelling and playing golf. He took a practical interest in the Chinese National Revolution and became a well-wisher of Koki Hirota, former Premier and Foreign Minister, when both were at school together.
Daigoro Yasukawa, a younger brother of Kénjiro Matsumoto and the fifth son of the late Baron Kei-ichiro Yasukawa, is chairman of the Electric Apparatus Control Council. Born in Fukuoka Prefecture in 1886, he studied at the Shuyukan Middle School in Fukuoka and then at the First Higher School in Tokyo, from which he entered the Electric Engineering Department of the Tokyo Imperial University. On his graduation, he entered the service of the Hitachi Engineering Works, where he stayed a year. After that he proceeded to America to inspect diverse electric enginneerig works there. During his twelve-month stay in America, he prepared the ground for his future leadership in our electric engineering sphere. On his return home, he organized the Yasukawa Electric Engineering Works. This concern suffered a great deal from the world-wide business depression, which followed in the wake of the termination of the first World War. Otogoro unaffected by the adverse turn continued to manage his works, which recovered its prosperity in the course of a few years. He is now our top-ranking man for the electric engineering industry. He assumed the present post of chairman of the Electric Apparatus Control Council by resigning as president of the Yasukawa Electric Engineering Works.
III
The Mitsui financial organization is a great economic force in our
country. Its activities cover a wide range, including the heavy industry, in which its representative concerns are the Mitsui Mining Company and the Hokkaido Colliery and Steamship Company. Saburo Kawashima is the president of the Mitsui Mining Company. He is comparatively a new-comer as a business leader, and yet he is as influential as Tadaharu Mukai, president of the Mitsui Bussan Kaisha. Born in Fukuoka Prefecture in 1883, he joined the service of the Mitsuis on his graduation from the Tokyo Imperial University. He has since been connected with the mining department of the Mitsui financial organization. Though his experience in mining, especially in coal mining, is long and sound, it was only recently that he was elected to the directorate of the Mitsui Mining Company.
In contrast, Katsunosuké Shimada is more widely known. He is president of the Hokkaido Colliery and Steamship Company and concurrently chairman of the Board of Directors of the Japan Steel Works, the biggest semi-official ordnance factory in this country. When Seihin Ikéda assumed the post of director-general of the Mitsui Gomei Kaisha, he was appointed a director of the same concern together with Kénjiro Kanéko, who was then director of the Mitsui Bussan Kaisha. When Ikéda retired, he aided Kanéo Nanjo, the then director-general, in reviving the Mitsui business activity on a brisker scale by liquidating the repercussions of the international economic slump. Born in Tokyo in 1884, he is now in his fifty-ninth year. On his graduation from the Tokyo Foreign Languages School, where he studied French, he joined the service of the Mitsui Bussan Kaisha in 1903 at the age of twenty. It was he who arranged for the import of Hongay coal from French Indo-China into Japan for the first time, while he was assigned to the Hongkong branch of the Mitsui Bussan Kaisha. In 1915, he was promoted to become acting manager of the London branch of the Mitsui Bussan Kaisha. Then, he served as manager of the Moji branch from 1917 to 1923, during which time he stabilized the coal industry in northern Kyushu, and thus enabled it to tide over the world-wide business depression.
Shimada is the coal business expert of the Mitsuis. In 1929, he was promoted manager of the coal department of the Mitsui Bussan Kaisha. In 1928, as manager of the London branch of the Mitsui Bussan Kaisha, he won widespread admiration for his clever deals in raw silk. After the termination of the first World War, he successfully sold surplus shipping abroad at the request of Kojiro Matsukata. In 1934, he was elected director of the Mitsui Bussan Kaisha and in 1935,
permanent director of the Mitsui Gomei Kaisha. Then he was elected president of the Hokkaido Colliery and Steamship Company in succession to the late Toyotaro Isomura He is a sound business man who holds the view that an enterprise should be managed on a scientifically rational basis. At a time when our country is at war and is trying to organize a regional industrial structure on the principie of co-existence and co-prosperity, a man of his type of clear head and clear vision adds to our confidence in undertaking complex and varied rehabiliation projects.
The mining department of the Mitsubishi financial combine, which is as big and as influential as the Mitsui financial organization, is also making substantial contribution to the bolstering of Japan's fighting power. Regarding the mining activities of the Mitsubishis, mention must be made, first and foremost, of Séntaro Kobayashi, president of the Mitsubushi Mining Company. Born in Shimané Prefecture in 1885, he is in his fifty-ninth year. Though he does not attract much public notice, he is one of the leading figures of the Mitsubishi financial combine, with which he has been connected since he left school. On his graduation from the Kobe Higher Commercial School in 1908, he joined the service of the Mitsubishi Mining Company. In 1921, he was transferred to the coal and miscellaneous goods department of the Mitsubishi Trading Company, from which he was promoted to be assistant manager of the coal business department of the Mitsubishi Mining Company in 1924. In 1927, he was ordered by his company to proceed to Europe and America for investigating the coal mining industry in the West. On his return from the eight-month tour of Britain, Germany, France, Russia, America and Canada, he was appointed manager of the Bibai mining office of the company in Hokkaido, which post he held for two years. Then, he was promoted manager of the Wakamatsu branch and later manager of the coal department of the company.
The Mitsubishi financial combine was thoroughly reorganized in 1934, and in consequence, all members of the Iwasaki household, the family which has founded the organization, retired from its management giving place to men of talent and ability. This change in policy proved a blessing to Kobayashi who in 1937 was elected director of the Mitsubishi Mining Company. In 1941, he was made its president. Besides being the president of the Mitsubishi Mining Company, he is connected with a large number of Mitsui subsidiary concerns, including the Bibai Railway, the Yubétsu Colliery and Railway Company, the South Kabafuto Colliery and Railway Company, the Coal Liquefaction Industry Limited, the Kushiro Wharves and Warehouses Company, the
Chosen Anthracite Company, the Japan Light Metals Company, the Moushan Iron Mine Development Company, the Huainan Coal Company and the Shantung Mining Company. This leading industrialist looks like a mediocre man, but behind such a commonplace exterior is hidden his genius which has made him what he is today.
The three largest mining enterprises in Japan are the Mitsui Mining Company, the Mitsubishi Mining Company and the Japan Mining Company. The last named is a subsidiary concern of the Manchuria Heavy Industry Development Corporation, or to be more definite, of the erstwhile Japan Industries Limited, which had been transferred to Manchuria and reorganized under the name of the Manchuria Heavy Industry Development Corporation. The Japan Mining Company has established a unique position in the field of non-ferrous metals, an indispensable line in the augmentation of our fighting power. It is expected to play a vital rôle in the replenishment of the materials need of our war plants. That is why public attention is focussed on Rikichi Shimada, its president. He, too, is a trusted lieutenant of Ghisuké Aikawa. When it was decided to transfer the Japan Industries, Limited, to Manchuria, Aikawa made it a condition that Shimada, then managing director of the Japan Mining Company, should be taken over as president of the Manchuria Mining Company. This shows how highly he was esteemed.
From the standpoint of industrial leadership, Shimada ranks as an excellent technical genius. After graduating from the metallurgical department of the Engineering College of the Tokyo Imperial University in 1907, he joined the Hitachi Mining Company. In 1909, he became chief of the mining section of the company and in 1912, manager of its Osé mining office. It must be pointed out that in 1912, when gold was at par, or one mommé (one mommé is equivalent to 3.7565 grams) was quoted at ¥5, big mining concerns in Japan, including the Mitsuis, the Mitsubishis and the Furukawa Mining Company paid no attention to the mining of gold, because it was not paying. Yet Shimada submitted that his company should do everything possible for mining gold as a national enterprise. He personally explored Korea, Formosa and the Malay peninsula for gold deposits. His painstaking exploration was rewarded with the discovery of rich deposits in Kinka in Korea and Vanguin in the Malay peninsula, which are now being worked satisfactorily. On assuming the presidency of the Manchuria Mining Company, he placed its mining operation on a solid foundation. After Bunkichi Ito resigned the presidency of the Japan Mining
Company to become chairman of the Mining Control Council, Kénji Shimokawabé was elevated as his successor. But circumstances forced him to resign after a short while, and Shimada returned to the Japan Mining Company as its president. Now that the Government, owing to wartime emergency, has ordered the closure of all gold mines, Shimada has been compelled to transfer judiciously all the available technical installations to other mines and thus insure rapid expansion in the production of non-ferrous metals. As a man, this industrial stalwart looks like a simple countryman. His simple demeanour has endeared him to the miners. He is so fond of orchid cultivation that he has discovered a new orchid species which has been named after him.
IV
The Sumitomo business trust has under its control the Sumitomo Chemical Industry, Limited, the Sumitomo Mining Company, the Sumitomo Electric Enterprise Company and the Sumitomo Metal Industry, Limited, each of which occupies a top place in its own field. These four business establishments are presided over by Shunnosuké Furuta, who is also general manager of the Sumitomo business trust. In 1937, the Sumitomo Goh-shi Kaisha was reorganized as a joint stock company. Four years later, the four business houses under its control were readjusted on a war footing. As a result of the readjustment, these concerns, which had hitherto been in charge of managing directors responsible to the Sumitomo Goh-shi Kaisha, were each placed under the control of a president. The new move was the handiwork of Shunnosuké Furuta, and not of Baron Kichizayémon Sumitomo, head of the trust. With the continuance of the China affair, the Sumitomo business trust commenced a reorientation of its enterprises in light of the necessities of national defence. So it quickly turned to war production. At present, most of its enterprises are producing materials required for the prosecution of war in this part of the world.
Shunnosuké Furuta is the seventh general manager of the Sumitomo business trust. His immediate predecessor is Masatsuné Ogura, former Finance Minister and noted industrialist. In appearance, Furuta is the opposite of Ogura, who is thin and bony and has an austere bearing. Furuta has an affable nature and is broad and stout and full of vigour. He is a great favourite of his subordinates, for he sometimes hobnobs with them. His elevation to general managership was strongly opposed by an influential section, but such was his popularity that he won the laurel. Born a second son to Kazuma Inouyé of Kyoto, he has reached his fifty-sixth year of life. When young, he was adopted into
the family of Keitoku Furuta, former president of the Osaka Chain Manufacturing Company. After studying at the Kitano Middle School in Osaka and the Sixth Higher School, he entered the metallurgical department of the Engineering College of the Tokyo Imperial University, from which he graduated in 1910. Then he joined the Sumitomo Copper Works, the predecessor of the Sumitomo Metal Industry, Limited, and worked like a common operative. Furuta does not behave like an aristrocratic industrialist. He is a worker by nature, and so he has something of a "working boss" in him.
From his early career, Furuta has been deeply attached to engineering. He visited Europe and America twice, once in 1914 and again in 1929, to inspect the technical industries of the West. In 1936, he was elected director of the Sumitomo Goh-shi Kaisha, the central organization of the Sumitomo business trust. In 1938, he was promoted managing director. Later, as general manager in succession to Masatsunét Ogura, he assumed full command of the entire Sumitomo interests. At present, in addition to managing the Sumitomo Metal Industry, Limited, and the other three business establishments under the direct control of the Sumitomo trust as their president, he has found time to become associated with a large number of subsidiary Sumitomo companies in Japan proper, China and elsewhere. His position in Japan's industrial circles is unique in that he is at once a technician and business leader. In speaking of the growth of heavy industries in Japan, his services cannot but be recognized.
Kiyoshi Goh-ko is the president of the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Limited, which is one of the largest and most influential concerns in this field in our country. He is also an adviser to the Cabinet and chairman of the Military Aeronautical Industry Association. In business quarters, he is better known as a key man in the aircraft and shipbuilding industries. He has the temperament of an artist, and yet he is a shrewd industrialist. He comes from Mizusawa town in Iwaté Prefecture. In spite of his sixty-two years of life, he displays remarkable energy. On his graduation from the Law College of the Tokyo Imperial University in 1908, he entered the Mitsubishi business organization. In 1914, he visited Europe and America for inspection. After holding the posts of assistant manager and concurrently chief of the general affairs section of the Kobe Dockyard and director and concurrently manager of the business department of the Mitsubishi Goh-shi Kaisha, he rose to become director of the Mitsubishi Aircraft Company. And when the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Limited, was organized
by merging the Kobe Dockyard and the Mitsubishi Aircraft Company, he was elected managing director of the new corporation. In February, 1941, on retirement of Dr. Kohshiro Shiba as president of the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Limited, he was installed in the same office. He has played an important part in extending the activities of the Mitsubishi business combine in shipbuilding and in the manufacture of aircraft and Diesel engines. In fact, it is he who has built up the Mitsubishi aircraft industry.
Kiyoshi Goh-ko jumped into fame some years ago when a heated controversy was going on as to the advisability of separating capital from management. He took the lead in stoutly opposing the proposed separation of capital from management on the ground that "ownership by means of capital is essential for the successful management of an enterprise." He is a constructive economic critic, and always takes the opportunity of pressing his viewpoints on the Government. He has established his position as a financial expert. Due to his activities and spadework, the relation between the Government and economic groups has become close—a relationship which is assisting the smooth operation of our wartime economy. He is a great admirer of the late Count Shimpei Goto, the well-known doctor-statesman, who hailed from Iwaté Prefecture. While attending the Morioka Middle School in Iwaté Prefecture, Goh-ko played in the same school grounds together with Admiral Yonai, former Premier, Vice-Admiral Yasumi, Lieutenant-General Kanjiro Hara, Admiral Oikawa and General Itagaki. This boyhood friendship has now developed into a strong teamwork to discharge best services to the nation.
The Shibaura Electric Engineering Works dominates the field for manufacture of arms, machine-tools and other machines. Kisaburo Yamaguchi is the chief of this important factory. He is a distinguished authority on electric engineering in Japan, and, in a way, is the maker of our modern vacuum industry. He is an "Yedokko" (Tokyo man), and was born in 1874 in the family of a rich tobacco merchant of Shiba. When he was only two years old, a disastrous fire ruined his family. Therefater, he was taken care of by his uncle at Matsuzaka in Isé Province. Without completing his middle school term, young Yamaguchi came up to Tokyo and took employment in the Honjo Copper Works, managed by the Furukawas, receiving twenty sen as his daily wages. He devoted his spare time to the study of physics and chemistry, and attended a night school run by the Y.M.C.A. at Kanda to learn English. His diligence attracted the attention of the manager of the works, who
was kind enough to give him facilities. He soon rose to become a sectional chief of the copper works and in 1899, receiving a company scholarship, left for the United States, where he entered the Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore. He graduated from the university with honours in 1902. The following year he returned to Japan and joined the Furukawa Goh-mei Kaisha. He took an active part in setting up the Nikko Copper Works for the Furukawas in 1906, and it was not long before he was promoted one of its directors. When the Furukawa business organization established the Furukawa Electric Engineering Company, he was appointed its managing director. In 1918, with the formation of the Tokyo Electric Company by the Furukawas and the General Electric Company of America as a joint concern, he was elected its vice-president. Later, he was promoted to be its president. In July, 1939, when the Shibaura Electric Engineering Works came into being through the amalgamation of the Tokyo Electric Company with the Shibaura Engineering Works, a subsidiary concern of the Mitsui business organization, he was elected president of the new concern.
The Shibaura Electric Engineering Works is equipped with all the latest technical installations and has a tip-top research laboratory. No small contribution is being made by the works to the advancement of our armament production and improvement. Large-sized electric apparatus are manufactured by this palnt, while small ones are made at the Mazda Works, which is engaged exclusively in the manufacture of electric bulbs, vacuum tubes and electric calculators. The Mazda lamps produced by the works enjoy international fame. Synthetic black lead and carbon filaments manufactured by the Mazda Works have stabilized the position of our electric bulb industry. Other electric apparatus, including electric transformers, dynamos and engines, electric lighting apparatus, wireless telegraphic and telephonic apparatus and electric metres are also manufactured by the works. Now that our export trade for electrical goods has depreciated considerably owing to war, part of the works' equipment is being used to turn out materials needed for replenishing our fighting potentiality. Kisaburo Yamaguchi, despite his ripe age of seventy, is exerting his best to enhance our technical efficiency through constant research work.
The Hitachi Engineering Works, one of the largest of the kind in this country, is capitalized at ¥358,000,000. The Hitachi Ordnance Company and the Hitachi Aircraft Company are its subsidiary concerns. The president of the Hitachi Engineering Works is Namihei Kodaira. He was born in Tochighi Prefecture in 1874. He graduated from the
Engineering College of the Tokyo Imperial University in 1900 in the same class as Dr. Motoharu Shibusawa, former dean of the Engineering College of the Tokyo Imperial University, and Dr. Bunroku Araki, president of the Kyushu Imperial University. He was at first chief electrical engineer of the Kosaka mine in Akita Prefecture. Later, he became manager of electric generation of the Hiroshima Electric Light Company. In 1905, he entered the service of the Tokyo Electric Light Company, and the following year joined the Kuhara Mining Company at Hitachi in Ibaraghi Prefecture at the request of Fusanosuké Kuhara, with whom he had cultivated close friendship while working in the Kosaka mine. At that time, the Hitachi mine which had been purchased by Kuhara was a small concern. Namihei Kodaira took charge of the machine-tools repair department and in 1910 engaged in the manufacture of machinery. When Ghisuké Aikawa, brother-in-law of Fusanosuké Kuhara, became president of the Japan Industries, Limited, in which the Kuhara Mining Company was merged, he highly esteemed Kodaira's technical ability, and so entrusted him with the management of the Hitachi Engineering Works. Kodaira certainly deserves credit for having developed this company without depending on technical assistance from abroad.
V
In modern warfare, shipping is an important item in the prosecution of total hostilities. The establishment of Japanese supremacy in greater East Asia has thrown into bolder relief the necessity of enlarging our shipping capacity. At this juncture, Toyosaku Kawanami, president of the Kawanami Industry, who has established himself as a leader of our planned shipbuilding, is acclaimed as one of the men of the moment. He is comparatively a young businessman, being only forty-two years old. It was in 1935 that he became a shipbuilder by opening a dockyard of his own at Nagasaki. On his graduation from the Fishery Institute of Toyama Prefecture, he joined the Toyo Can Manufacturing Company in Osaka, where he worked for a little while. In 1931, he invented the system of packing tomato and sardine together. Then he evolved a formula for efficient shipbuilding and made name by constructing three Kawanami type ships of 10,000, 2,800 and 500 tons respectively. In 1935, he became a full-fledged shipbuilder by purchasing the Matsuo Dockyard at Nagasaki, where he started constructing vessels according to his own formula. At that time, all other dockyards in Japan were building ships to suit the taste of the shipowners, but Kawanami began to build ships for increasing our transport tonnage.
His method of planned shipbuilding has now been adjusted on a mass production scale to satisfy our wartime shipping requirements.
Kawanami is a great exponent of labour economy. He maintains that labour power is the main factor in production increase, and says that the present standard of efficiency can be raised by three or four times, if only full play is given to the spirit of labour. In fact, under the present total war conditions, he sees no distinction between capital and labour. He himself works every day in his dockyard on an isle off Nagasaki, wearing his overalls. He is not only a teetotaler, but also a non-smoker. He never leaves his dockyard except on Saturdays when he returns home. He lives in the same quarters with his workmen and gets up at five every morning with his men and takes breakfast with them, after which he goes to the dockyard with his men. When passing workmen salute him, by raising their hands, he cheers them up : "Good morning. Do your best." From the slips of his dockyard standardized ships are fast rolling down, and this activity is proving a great boon to the boosting of our wartime shipping.
The Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Limited, successor to the Kawasaki Dockyard, is one of the most prosperous concerns in this field. Its president is Shohsuké Itani, who is the Nestor of financial circles in western Japan. He assumed the presidency in succession to Hachisaburo Hirao. Born in Yamaguchi Prefecture in 1880, he is in his sixty-fourth year. When young, he went to Shanghai, where he served with some business firms and learned English at his leisure time. On his return home, he joined the Yamashita Steamship Company as a sort of manager, strangely enough at the age of eighteen. Throughout his long association with the company, he worked untiringly. It would not be exaggeration to say that the Yamashita Steamship Company owes its present development largely to his efforts. It was in 1933 that he retired from the service of the Yamashita Steamship Company and undertook the task of reorganizing the Kawasaki Dockyard as the trusted lieutenant of Hachisaburo Hirao. After the latter's retirement, he assumed the presidency. Itani is short of stature, but in courage and working ability he is as good as any "big boss." His hobby is hunting, especially of wild boars.
The Furukawa business organization can be favourably compared with the Mitsuis, the Mitsubishis or the Sumitomos. The leader of this big business is Suyékichi Nakagawa, president of the Japan Light Metal Industry, Limited, and of the Furukawa Electric Engineering Company, both subsidiary concerns of the Furukawas. Despite his seventy years
of age, this man from Shiga Prefecture is still hale and hearty. He is a judoh expert and holds the fifth grade title. On his completion of an elementary school course, he entered the service of a village office. His initial salary was two and a half yen per month. He worked in the village office for two years and then he was adopted into the family of Takézo Nakagawa, who was connected with the Ashio copper mine. This was the beginning of his long career with the Furukawa business organization, which owned the Ashio copper mine. When he was only fifteen, he accompanied a group of 400 newly-recruited miners to be taken to Ashio from Ohtsu as cashier and keeper of their diary. While en route, he arrived in Tokyo, and Ichibei Furukawa, founder of the Furukawa business organization, taking a practical interest in him, permitted him to work at the headquarters of the Furukawas. He devoted his off time to studies. His eagerness for learning attracted the attention of his master, who was good enough to advise him to attend the Shoh-ko Middle School. On his graduation from that school, he entered the Tokyo Academy, the predecessor of the present Waseda University. However, he did not finish his course at the academy, but went over to America, being accorded a monthly scholarship of seventy dollars by Junkichi Furukawa, the successor to Ichibei Furukawa. He stayed in the United States for six years, studying at the Pennsylvania and Yale Universities. It is said that he made up the deficit in school expenses by giving American students lessons in judoh. On his return to Japan in 1898, he was appointed chief of the sales section of the Ashio copper mine office. The following year, he was promoted chief of the cables and wires department of the headqurters of the Furukawa business organization. In 1912, when a general election for the House of Representatives was held under the second Saionji Cabinet, he unsuccessfully contested the Shiga Prefecture seat. In 1914, he was elected director of the Yokohama Cables and Wires Company, a subsidiary concern of the Furukawas. Taking full advantage of the World War trade boom, he swifty expanded the company's business. In 1917, when the Furukawa Bank was set up, he was appointed its managing director. The following year, when the Furukawa business organization was reorganized, he was made one of its executive members.
In 1935, when the Furukawa Electric Engineering Company was confronted with the urgency of business readjustment, Nakagawa as its president straightened all the difficulties of the company. Further, he organized the Yokohama Rubber Company by merging the Goodrich Rubber Company and a rubber works operated by the Furukawas.
Also he set up the Fuji Electric Apparatus Company by purchasing the Moji factory of the Kyushu Cables and Wires Company and incorporating into the works. This factory had been under operation by the Siemens Schuckert Company of Germany. The disastrous earthquake of 1923 destroyed the factories of the Yokohama Cables and Wires Company and the Yokohama Rubber Plant, but he succeeded in reconstructing them before long. The Yokohama Cables and Wires Company is now the largest of the kind in this part of the globe. Nakagawa has played an important rôle in setting up the Japan Light Metal Industry, Limited, too, of which he is now the president. In addition, he is chairman of the Yokohama Chamber of Commerce and Industry and vice-chairman of the Federation of Industrial Associations.
The name of Chuji Suzuki may not be familiar to many people, but his "ajinomoto," a well-known condiment, is popular with all housewives who use it extensively in cooking flavoured dishes. Suzuki is president of the Showa Electric Engineering Company. He was born in Kanagawa Prefecture in February, 1875. On his gradution from the Yokohama Commercial School, he helped his elder brother in conducting a not much paying business. In 1909, when the late Dr. Kikunai Ikéda invented a condiment, Suzuki undertook its manufacture on a commercial basis and put it on the market as "ajinomoto." At first, the public did not take kindly to the new condiment, which, however, in due course of time, became a favourite not only of the Japanese people, but also of foreign residents. The factory which was set up at Kawasaki, a suburb of Tokyo, for the manufacture of "ajinomoto" was enlarged and reorganized as a joint stock company capitalized at ¥3,000,000. While manufacturing "ajinomoto" in increasing quantities, the two brothers extended their activities to the chemical industrial field. In 1931, when his elder brother died, Suzuki became president of the company. He was so successful in his business that he established a firm position in Japan's industrial and financial circles, and became the major investor in the Showa Electric Engineering Company. Now as its president, he is engaged in the manufacture of light metals, which are essential for the augmentation of our fighting power. The Showa Electric Engineering Company is one of the two largest concerns engaged in the manufacture of aluminium in Korea, the other being a subsidiary company of the Sumitomos.
VI
Like shipping, oil enjoys a key position in industrial prosperity.
On account of the current war, Japan's oil industry has assumed an unprecedented importance. The Japan Petroleum Company, the biggest of the kind in this country, has as its president Keizaburo Hashimoto. He was born the eldest son to Yajiro Hashimoto, a retainer of the feudal lord at Nagaoka in Yéchigo Province in September, 1865. In his boyhood, he became a friend of the late Fleet-Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, who hailed from the same province. As his family was poor, he had to work for meeting the expenses of his elementary school education. After his graduation from the Ikuyeisha Institute at Nagaoka, he studied at the First Higher School in Tokyo, from which he entered the Tokyo Imperial University. He worked his way all through his school and university career, sometimes becoming a newspaper delivery-boy, a shoeblack, a casual labourer, or a teacher at a night school. The school of adversity ennobled his character. On his graduation from the Tokyo Imperial University in 1890, he entered the service of the Government. He successively filled the posts of a probationary official of the Legislation Bureau, secretary of the Privy Council, secretary of the Finance Ministry, sectional chief of the Tobacco Monopoly Bureau, supervisor of the Bank of Japan, Customs Commissioner of Yokohama and director of the Bonds Consolidation Bureau. In 1911, he was appointed Vice-Minister of Finance to assist Baron Tastuo Yamamoto. In 1913, when Baron Yamamoto was appointed Minister of Agriculture and Commerce, he again assisted him as Vice-Minister of Agriculture and Commerce. The following year, with the Cabinet resignation, he retired from Government service. In 1916, he was nominated by the Emperor a member of the House of Peers and the same year he became a businessman by assuming the presidency of the Hodén Petroleum Company. Under his able management the company's business conditions, which had been stagnant, steadily regained prosperity. He amalgamated it with the Central Asphalt Company. In 1921, the renovated concern was merged with the Japan Petroleum Company on an equal footing, and Hashimoto was elected vice-president. In 1926, when Hisahiro Naito resigned as president of the Japan Petroleum Company, he became its president.
It was Hashimoto who took the lead in advocating the vital importance of the petroleum industry from the national viewpoint. Under the stress of total war, the Japan Petroleum Company has already become the largest concern of the kind in the country, its capital being increased to ¥150,000,000 following its annexation of the Ogura Petroleum Company. Working of new oil-fields in Japan is now being carried
on by the Imperial Petroleum Company, a semi-official concern, set up in 1941 with a capital of ¥100,000,000. The first president of the Imperial Petroleum Company was Yoshi-aki Hatta. On his acceptance of the office of the Minister of Railways in the Tohjo Cabinet, Hashimoto was appointed governor of this semi-official concern, which post he holds in addition to the presidency of the Japan Petroleum Company. The Imperial Petroleum Company is operating to secure an ample supply of liquid fuel in wartime by accelerating the development of oil resources, exploring new oil resources and advancing funds to, or investing in, the oil industry.
Hashimoto is our "oil man." He is also the president of the Chosen Petroleum Company and of the Manchuria Petroleum Company, besides being connected with some twenty other business corporations as director. Especially noteworthy is his activity as chairman of the Toh-a Fuel Industry, Limited, which was set up in 1939 as a semi-official concern to speed up coal liquefaction. He is showing keen exhusiasm in the increased liquefaction of coal in order to obtain a smooth supply of liquid fuel, particularly aviation gasoline. The governor of this semi-official concern is Miki Ohbuchi, who started his business career as an official of the South Manchuria Railway Company. On his graduation from the political department of the Law College of the Tokyo Imperial University, he joined the service of the South Manchuria Railway Company. He visited America and Europe twice for inspection purposes. Later, he was promoted to be manager of the Tokyo branch of the company, whereafter he was elected its director. In 1939, when the Toh-a Fuel Industry, Limited, was set up, he was appointed its vice-governor. In January last on the demise of the sitting governor, he was made his successor.
From the afore-pictured profiles of our industrial leaders, it is clear to any observer that the wartime industrial structure of Japan has been made solid and sound under the guidance of an array of front-rank experienced experts. Our industrial leaders in efficiency and capability can stand comparison with the "big business" heads of other foremost nations. The way they are gearing up the production potentiality of our war industries to meet the diverse contingencies of war and defence reveals to what extent Japan has become a reckonable industrial nation. It is undeniable that our industrial leadership in this part of the Orient is the propellent force in the reconstruction of greater East Asia on the principle of regional understanding and economic reciprocity.