The Satsuma Zaibatsu Thomas Schalow

University of Marketing and Distribution Sciences, Kobe, Japan ijinkan@mac.com !

!I. Introduction!!“Zaibatsu” is the term applied to a particular type of Japanese business enterprise, the characteristics of of which are not always uniform and often vaguely defined, that existed during the period from about the beginning of the twentieth century to the end of the Pacific War. The zaibatsu generally concentrated capital, production, distribution, and other operations in a centrally-controlled and often family-owned business enterprise, but there were significant variations among companies even in basic organization and business operations. The post-war keiretsu, which are generally seen as direct descendants of the zaibatsu, do not necessarily combine all of these functions under the umbrella of a single company name, but are in some way held together by the same types of relationships that characterized the prewar zaibatsu. !!In this paper I wish to examine one of the lesser-known zaibatsu, referred to by contemporary sources as the “Sasshu zaibatsu”, or the Satsuma zaibatsu. The term “Sasshu zaibatsu” derives from the fact that the controlling members of the group shared a common birthplace, or otherwise identified with, the pre-modern Satsuma clan,

which was located in the area of present-day Kagoshima prefecture. More specifically, however, the group might also have been referred to as the Matsukata zaibatsu, as the companies which were generally recognized to be a part of the group were all under the actual or de-facto control of a member of the Matsukata family. !!An interesting, and perhaps unique, feature of the Satsuma zaibatsu was that control of the business group was not initially in Matsukata hands. In fact, one author has referred to more or less the same group of business as the Kawasaki zaibatsu, due to the fact that the most important business operations were originally in the hands of the Kawasaki family. It was only gradually, over time, that control was wrested from the Kawasaki family, and came to reside with the Matsukata brothers. !!The close relationship between the two families, and their interlocking interests, was a characteristic of the Satsuma zaibatsu since its very inception. It was, in fact, the father of the Matsukata brothers, Matsukata Masayoshi, who endowed the Kawasaki family with the resources from which the enterprise group was created. Soon after the Meiji Restoration Matsukata Masayoshi, employed in a low-level position within the Finance Ministry, was able to divert government funds, as “loans,” to the pocket of businessman Kawasaki Shuzo, the founder of Kawasaki Shipbuilding. Kawasaki, a native of Satsuma, was at the time engaged in trading with the Ryukyu islands, and had

approached Matsukata with a request for funds to expand his operations. matsukata supplied the “loans” (they were never repaid) to an assistant of Kawasaki’s, and the tangled relationship between the two families thus began. The subterfuge of calling the subsidy a loan was designed to blunt potential charges of favoritism to a fellow Satsuma native, but in fact the very basis of the Satsuma zaibatsu was its clan-based system of loyalty. !!Over the course of four years and on sixteen separate occasions the Finance Ministry made a total of 9,042 yen in cash, a substantial amount for the time, available to Kawasaki’s venture. Kawasaki’s subsequent selection of Matsukata Masayoshi’s son Kojiro as the first president of Kawasaki Shipbuilding seems quite understandable given Kojiro’s qualifications, as we shall soon see, and Shozo’s past debts. !!Oddly enough, the relationship between the Matsukata and Kawasaki families was further cemented by the selection of a collateral member of the Kawasaki family, Kawasaki Yoshitaro, as heir to Shozo. Although Shozo himself fathered three sons, two died quite suddenly of illness in 1885 and the third, born the following year, later decided that he did not wish to pursue a career in business. Kawasaki desperately needed an heir to continue his business, but unable to find one among his own sons was forced to adopt his nephew, Yoshitaro. Yoshitaro was neither particularly healthy nor business-

wise, however, and after Shozo’s death in 1912 he was generally recognized to be nothing more than a figurehead. The real power behind the companies he supposedly headed invariably lay with a Matsukata. As a consequence, control over the Kawasaki empire gradually slipped from Yoshitaro’s hands into the stronger grasp of the Matsukata family. In this article I wish to examine how that transfer of control was effected, and more generally look at the business empire that the Matsukata-Kawasaki family was able to create. I will begin with a discussion of the Matsukata family, which became heir to the Satsuma zaibatsu.!!II. The Matsukata Family!!Matsukata Masayoshi was father to twelve sons, seven of whom became prominent businessmen involved in the creation of the Satsuma zaibatsu. In many respect it was the eldest of these sons, Matsukata Iwao (1862-1942), who was most responsible for continuing the financial support for Kawasaki interests initially provided by the father that eventually made Matsukata control of the zaibatsu possible. Iwao was able to provide this support not on the basis of direct government funds for Kawasaki, as his father had been capable of from his position in the Ministry of Finance, but rather from “old wealth” and his position as president of what had once been the most highly capitalized private bank in Japan - the 15th Bank. It was during Iwao’s tenure of office (January 1915 -

November 1922) that the funds of the 15th Bank were placed at the disposal of his younger brothers through loans to the companies they controlled, and in effect became the lead bank for the Satsuma zaibatsu. By the time the bank failed in 1927 (an interesting story in its own right, which I can not, unfortunately, discus in this article) over one hundred and forty million yen of loans, a full one-third of the bank’s total assets, had been granted to the network of companies under Matsukata control. We shall discuss these loans, and the financial links between the Satsuma zaibatsu and its lead bank, when we look more closely at the financial component of the Matsukata empire later in this article. !!Iwao joined the management of the 15th Bank in July 1898 after returning from nearly a decade of study and experiences abroad. He was initially made a junior member of the board of directors, and demonstrations of competence soon earned him the additional post of vice-president November 1901. Fourteen years later he was ready to assume the presidency of the bank, following the retirement of Sonoda Kokichi. In addition to this position of power, Iwao also served as the president of the Taisho Bank, Imperial Warehouse and Transport, and International Trust, all institutions affiliated with the 15th Bank, and considered members of the Satsuma zaibatsu. !!The third son of Matsukata Masayoshi, and perhaps the most important for our discussion, was Matsukata Kojiro

(1865-1949), who served as the president of Kawasaki Shipbuilding during the transfer of power from Kawasaki family to the Matsukata family. Kojiro, incidentally, was also president of Kobe Gas, Kyushu Electric Railway, Kyushu Real Estate, Asahi Oil, Kawasaki Steamship, and International Steamship, all members of the Satsuma zaibatsu group of companies. He also served as the managing director of the Matsu Trading Company, which was a general holding company for his business interests. !!Prior to entering the business world, Kojiro had gained entrance to the prestigious Tokyo Imperial University, after completion of an elite secondary education. He soon found, however, that his aspirations stretched far beyond the shores of the tiny Japanese archipelago. Midway through his studies, therefore, he decided to leave the university and traveled to Europe and America to study at the Sorbonne, Rutgers, and Yale. After returning to Japan in 1890 he worked as his father’s private secretary, gaining considerable experience and building a large network of important contacts, until the first Matsukata cabinet collapsed in the summer of 1892. After a short employment in the Imperial Household Ministry he accepted, in 1894, his first major business position as vice-president of the Naniwa Fire Insurance Company. Two years later he was invited by Kawasaki Shozo, founder and general manager of Kawasaki Shipbuilding, to become that company’s first president. The next thirty

years of Kojiro’s life were spent at Kawasaki, until he was forced to retire as president in 1929. !!The third of the seven brothers we will be discussing was Matsukata Masao (1868-1942), the fourth son of Matsukata Masayoshi. Masao is go great importance to our discussion because he was, as president of the Naniwa Bank (with which the 15th Bank would later merge), the first to approve the loans upon which Kawasaki Shipbuilding and the Satsuma zaibatsu came to rely. He was also a member of the board of directors of the 15th Bank, International Trust, and International Steamship, was an auditor at Kawasaki, and president of two insurance companies - Fukutoku Life and Daifuku Marine and Fire Insurance. !!Matsukata’s fifth son, Goro (1871-1956), was, next to Kojiro, the most active member of the Satsuma group. He graduated from the Tokyo Imperial University School of Law in 1896 and then followed his brothers Iwao and Kojiro to England and Germany to gain practical experience abroad. After returning to Japan Kojiro gave him a position at Kawasaki Shipbuilding. He perhaps grew weary of working under his brother and so in 1909 began working at Tokai Life Insurance, becoming that company’s president in 1916. From 1910 he also served as president of the Tokyo Gas and Electric Manufacturing Company and two years later established the first of two holding companies, the Joban Trading Company, that was to

figure so prominently in the Matsukata empire. Needless to say, the money for the creation and expansion of these ventures was supplied by the 15th Bank and, somewhat later, by its subsidiary, the International Trust Company. !!We end our discussion of the Matsukata family with reference to the seventh and eighth sons of Matsukata Masayoshi, Otohiko and Shokuma. The latter, Matsukata Shokuma (1881-1969), was the first of Matsukata’s sons who did not share the same mother with his elder brothers. He was the child of the first of three concubines that Matsukata kept in his later years. Nonetheless, Shokuma was treated as a full member of the Matsukata business fraternity and contributed the skills he learned at Tokyo Imperial University’s agricultural college to the advancement of those interests. In 1910 he joined the Imperial Sugar Company as a member of its board of directors and seven years later ascended to the presidency of the company. !!Matsukata Otohiko (1880-1952) was of minor importance in the actual business affairs of the empire his brothers were building but was, nonetheless, a very useful member of the Satsuma group. After graduating from Harvard University he returned to Japan to serve on the board of directors of Tokyo Gas and Electric Manufacturing, osaka shamitsu Manufacturing, and Japan Oil. He was not particularly active in the business world, however, and is best remembered for his marriage to the daughter of

Naval Minister Yamamoto Gonnohyoe, also of Satsuma origins. Satsuma connections with the Naval Ministry had traditionally been strong and proved to be of great use to Kawasaki during its darkest days, when the company faced bankruptcy.!!III. The Struggle Between the Matsukata and Kawasaki! Families for Control of the Satsuma Zaibatsu!!When Kawasaki Shozo incorporated Kawasaki Shipbuilding in 1896 he reserved over seventy-one percent of the company’s stock for his own family. He himself held half of the forty thousand shares, 4,700 shares belonged to the husband of Shozo’s younger sister, his eldest daughter’s son held three thousand shares, and Yoshitaro was given one thousand shares. Matsukata Kojiro, president of the company, was also allotted one thousand shares. However, the Matsukata family gradually gained greater control of the company’s stock through loans provided by elder brother Iwao from his position as president of the 15th Bank. The following chart shows how Matsukata influence grew over time while Kawasaki family control was diluted. !!Year Total Shares Held by Matsukata Family Held by Kawasaki Family !1896 40,0000 1,000 2.5% 28,700 71.7% !1913 200,000 9,363 4.6% 70,514 35.4 % !1916 200,000 17,126 8.5% 66,754 33.3% !1920 900,000 105,767 11.8% 125,876 14.0% !1921 900,000 161,467 17.9% 66,916 7.4% !1926 1,800,000 323,934 18.0% 129,932 7.2% !!

!As the above chart shows, by 1921, when the existence of a Satsuma zaibatsu was generally recognized, majority stock control of the primary manufacturing arm of the group, Kawasaki Shipbuilding, had passed from the Kawasaki family to the Matsukata family. !!As noted earlier, financial control of Kawasaki Shipbuilding by the Matsukata family became possible as a result of funds provided by the 15th Bank. The 15th Bank was thus more than a lead bank for the Satsuma zaibatsu; it was also a jewel to be coveted, as control over its funds made control of the zaibatsu possible. Matsukata interests were most strongly entrenched at the bank, and thus came to dominate the Satsuma zaibatsu. !!This did not, however, prevent the Kawasaki family from making an attempt to seize control of the jewel. Kawasaki Yoshitaro was not only a figurehead behind which the Matsukata family could operate, but was also a link to the 15th Bank itself. Yoshitaro’s eldest daughter was married to the eldest son of Naruse Masayasu, who succeeded Matsukata Iwao as president of the 15th Bank in 1922. Naruse was also, of course, from Satsuma and had previously served as the president of the Teiyu Bank, which merged with the 15th Bank in 1919. The 15th Bank came to be, therefore, in some respects a battleground upon which the struggle for control of the Satsuma zaibatsu was played out. !

!This is not to say, however, that the competition between the Kawasaki and Matsukata families was fierce, or that there was no cooperation between the two. In fact, the families owed a strong allegiance to their Satsuma origins, which is why the group was more widely known as the Satsuma, rather than Matsukata, zaibatsu. The Matsukata family may have been large, but it was limited in the numbers of people whose services it could provide to the group, as was equally true of the Kawasaki family. The group, though, was populated by many people who could trace their origins, or their loyalty, to the larger Satsuma family. !!In the final analysis, however, it was the money link with the 15th Bank that provided the means for control of the Satsuma zaibatsu, and it was the Matsukata family, rather than the Kawasaki family, that held a firm control over the bank itself. The following chart will illustrate the degree to which the Matsukata family plundered the bank for its own use, allowing for the control and expansion of the Satsuma zaibatsu. !!

Matsukata Loans from the 15th Bank as of May 1927 !(millions of yen) !!!!!

Personal Company Total !Matsukata Iwao .148 .148 !______________________________________________________________________!

Matsukata Kojiro 2.421! Kawasaki shipbuilding 40.811 ! Matsu trading company 13.240 ! International Steamship 10.969 ! 67.441 !______________________________________________________________________!!Matsukata Masao .883 .883 !______________________________________________________________________!Matsukata Goro .544 ! Joban trading company 32.261 ! Kuji steel 5.098 ! Tokyo Gas & Electric Mftg. 21.066 ! 58.969 !______________________________________________________________________!Matsukata Otohiko 2.109 2.109 !______________________________________________________________________!Matsukata Shokuma .954! Imperial Sugar 11.078 ! 12.032 !______________________________________________________________________!Matsukata Yoshisuke .185 .185 !______________________________________________________________________!Totals 7.244 134.523 141.767!!!IV. The Components of the Satsuma Zaibatsu!!Zaibatsu, by their very nature, are not easy organizations to understand. It is often difficult to decide which companies ought to be considered a part of the zaibatsu group, and which companies, though related or in some way controlled by other members of the group, nonetheless remain peripheral. This applies to the Satsuma zaibatsu as much as it did the Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, or Yasuda groups. In this section I will not undertake to list all member companies of the Satsuma group. It is my hope that another author will take up the

challenge to identify other members of the Satsuma zaibatsu. I merely offer a partial listing of some of the most important or noteworthy companies, beginning with kawasaki Shipbuilding, the most important manufacturing company within the group.!!A. Kawasaki Shipbuilding!!Kawasaki Shipbuilding, which was the parent company to all of Kojiro’s remaining interests in the shipping industry, was established in 1887 by Kawasaki Shozo from the plant and equipment acquired from the Meiji government’s Hyogo shipbuilding facilities and Kawasaki’s own Hyogo operations. It became a joint stock company in 1896 with a capitalization of two million yen. It expanded rapidly, probably to rapidly, in the following years and during the 1908-1909 recession it relied upon government orders of railway car engines and warships to pull it out of difficulty. !!This act of official largesse may have caused the company, and Kojiro, to believe that the government would always be ready to place orders when overcapacity threatened it or the shipbuilding industry in general, and it repeated its earlier mistake once again during the First World War. The government was not so eager to absorb excess production after the war, however, and was, indeed, severely limited in its ability to do so after agreements on naval limitations were reached at the Washington Conference of 1921-1922. !

!Kawasaki’s problems were not all related, however, to naval limitations agreements or the end of the war. During the war years its business practices served to alienate it from the domestic market and lay the foundation for future difficulties. In the early years of the war, for example, it insisted on building nothing except “stock boats,” which were highly profitable, mass-produced vessels. These ships were easily sold ion the early years of the war due to the shortage of commercial vessels, but were never popular with buyers. When alternate choices became available the shipping companies that purchased the vessels began to place their orders elsewhere. Kawasaki still refused to accept orders for custom-built ships, however, and insisted that while shipping companies might know the shipping business it best knew how to build those ships. Such arrogance infuriated companies such as OSK, which made a firm decision to place no more orders with Kawasaki. !!Kawasaki compounded the problem brought about by its “stock boats” by choosing to ignore other significant developments. There has been a general trend, for example, for shipping companies to acquire control of the stock of shipbuilders during the war. Nihon Yusen thus acquired the stock of Yokohama Dockyards, Osaka Shosen purchased shares in the Osaka Iron Works, and Yamashita Steamship bought the stock of Uraga Dockyards. Following these acquisitions shipping

companies began to place orders with their affiliated shipbuilders. Kawasaki made no effort to court shipping companies and actually alienated them even further by deciding to form its own shipping company, Kawasaki Steamship. By the end of the war Kawasaki found itself unable to sell its ships to anyone except American shipping companies, which were obliged to buy from Japan under provisions of a steel-for-ships agreement.!!B. Kawasaki Steamship!!Kojiro brought the idea for Kawasaki Steamship back to Japan after a two year sojourn in Europe at the end of the war, during which time he was able to observe conditions in the shipbuilding industries in the world’s most advanced merchant countries. In Europe Kojiro realized that if his ships could not be sold, they might nonetheless be disposed of. This was to be done by establishing a subsidiary shipping company, Kawasaki Steamship, to “purchase” Kawasaki vessels in exchange for stock shares and future revenue. The sleight of hand possible with “creative accounting” was thus adopted as the answer to Kawasaki’s problems. No one cared to suggest that the company might actually need to limit growth or even shrink somewhat in order to address those problems.!!C. Matsu Trading Company!!

The Matsu Trading Company was established by Kojiro in october 1920 with a capital of five million yen. It continued operations until 1935, though the majority of its holding were in escrow for much of the period following the 1927 banking crisis. The Matsu Trading Company was, strictly speaking, more a personal trust fund for Kojiro than an investment trust for Matsukata interests, and Kojiro used the funds supplied to the company solely for his own purposes. The immediate cash needs of the company were supplied by the Kobe office of the 15th Bank (8.069 million yen), the Osaka branch of that bank (4.082 million yen), the Shinbashi branch (840,000 yen), and the Nihonbashi branch (249,000 yen). !!With this money Kojiro was able to acquire a six percent share of Kyushu Real Estate, a ten percent shar elf the Kyushu Electric Railway, a twenty-four percent share of Kobe Gas, and minor shares in Imperial Sugar and Fukutou Life Insurance. The Matsu Trading Company was primarily used, however, as a means for Kojiro to acquire stock for his own account in kawasaki Shipbuilding. By 1922 Kojiro held 16.5 percent of all Kawasaki stock through the Matsu Trading Company.!!D. Joban Trading Company!!Kojiro may actually have been inspired to form the Matsu Trading Company as a result of his brother Goro’ success with the Joban Trading Company. This company was

established in 1912, also with a five million yen capitalization. It was originally founded as a representative office for a foreign fire insurance company, but with the upturn in steel prices due to the First World War it became involved in the import of steel from America and eventually shifted into production. In order to supply its mills it purchased a mine in Iwate prefecture’s Kuji city, borrowing heavily from the 15th Bank for these new operations. Goro was not inclined to use normal channels for these loans, however, and chose to tap the resources of the 15th Bank’s subsidiary company, International Trust, for a majority of the thirty-seven million yen in funds supplied.!!E. International Trust Company!!The International Trust Company was established on 20 May 1920 by Matsukata Iwao, former 15th Bank president Sonoda Kokichi, Maruse Masayasu and his younger brother Masayuki, Matsukata Kojiro, Matsukata Masao, Matsukata Yoshisuke, and a few othe rpersons of lesser eminence. It was the largest trust company in Japan at the time it was created, dwarfing even the great Nichi-Bei Trust controlled by the Suzuki trading house. It was capitalized at fifty million yen, of which 12.5 million was paid in, and issued one million shares of stock, though only thirty thousand of those shares were offered for public subscription. The remaining shares were primarily controlled by the Matsukata family, through the 15th bank, or their close group of associates. The goals of its

founders were ambitious but strictly defined. From tis prestigious Ginza 4-chime location the International Trust operated almost exclusively as an alternate source of funds for Matsukata companies.!!F. Tokyo Gas & Electric Manufacturing Company!!Goro’s other major business venture was the Tokyo Gas and Electric Manufacturing Company, which used the steel the Joban trading company had begun to manufacture during the war for a variety of purposes. Although the company, established in 1910, was initially engaged in the production of sundry items used by the gas and electric industries, when World War I began it expanded into the armaments, automobile and airplane parts, and other heavier manufacturing businesses. !!In order to finance this expansion Goro borrowed heavily, once again, from International Trust. The company used these funds prudently but the downturn in the economy after the war severely depressed profits and the 1923 Kanto earthquake heavily damaged a number of the company’s manufacturing facilities. In 1927 this company, along with so many other companies within the Matsukata group, found itself deep in debt and with far more industrial capacity than the economy at the time demanded.!!!

G. Imperial Sugar!!Matsukata Shokuma’s contribution to the mountain of debts that the Satsuma zaibatsu had accumulated resulted from his investments in Imperial Sugar, a small company engaged in the processing of raw sugar cane from its base in Taichung in central Taiwan. Among the Matsukata companies it was the most consistently profitable, even after the downturn in sugar prices at the end of the First World War. Shokuma was not content to remain a minor producer of sugar, however, and in 1919 a sister company, Hokkaido Sugar, was formed.!!H. Hokkaido Sugar!!Hokkaido Sugar proved to be an unprofitable venture from tis very inception, but Shokuma decided he would use Imperial Sugar’s healthy line of credit to borrow funds and increase capacity in the hope of eventually achieving a profit, rather than admitting to the failure of the project. The company thus borrowed indirectly, through Imperial Sugar, from both the 15th Bank and International Trust, and in the process succeeded in crippling the healthier Imperial Sugar.!!I. Kobe-Kawasaki Bank!!The final entry on my short list of member companies of the Satsuma zaibatsu is the Kobe-Kawasaki Bank. It is an

interesting entry in that it, like kawasaki Shipbuilding, was originally under the control of the Kawasaki family. However, it too soon fell under Matsukata control with funds provided by the 15th Bank. It was formed in 1905 by the Kawasaki family as a limited partnership, and became a full corporation only in 1917, at which time the 15th Bank agreed to purchase half of the shares offered by the company. The 15th Bank also insisted that a number of its own board members, including Sonoda Kokichi and Naruse Masayasu, be allowed to join the bank’s board of directors at that time. These conditions, along with the fifty percent stock control, provided the 15th Bank, itself under the control of the Matsukata family, with control over the Kobe-Kawasaki Bank. It was eventually merely absorbed into the 15th Bank itself, and became another part of the Matsukata zaibatsu, a fate that was common to most if not all companies that had once been considered components of a Kawasaki zaibatsu.!!V. An Assessment of the Satsuma Zaibatsu!!The Matsukata brothers proved to be masters of the art of “indirect financing” for their companies. This type of borrowing allowed them to disguise their true purpose for acquiring funds and hide the abysmal performance of certain companies. Goro was able to fund Kuji steel through his Joban Trading Company, Shokuma funded Hokkaido Sugar with money the banks made available to the more profitable Imperial Sugar, and Kojiro made use of

funds provided to Matsu Trading Company to acquire everything from art to stock in other companies. In order to tap these funds the Matsukata brothers made use of their extensive ties with relatives and loyal Satsuma natives within the 15th Bank. !!Shokuma’s daughter, Haru Matsukata Reischauer, in her biographical sketch of her uncle Kojiro, has said that if one were to “mention the name Matsukata in Japan today… the response is likely to concern the ‘Matsukata collection’” of art. If one were to have mentioned the name in the 1920s, however, the response would have been likely to be concerned with kawasaki Shipbuilding or the Satsuma zaibatsu. One might have even heard something about the Matsu trading Company, with whose funds, it is said, Kojiro purchased the Matsukata art collection. !!As I have previously shown, however, the funds for the art, Kojiro’s Matsu Trading Company, along with the funds for expansion at Kawasaki Shipbuilding, Goro’s Joban Trading Company, and countless other ventures, actually came from the 15th Bank. By controlling that bank the Matsukata family was able to wrest control of the Kawasaki zaibatsu away from the Kawasaki family. Although it may have all been part of the same Satsuma zaibatsu anyway, depending on one’s definition and viewpoint, I hope this article has been able to suggest why the Satsuma zaibatsu was in fact merely a disguise for the business interests of the Matsukata family. Although the

group of companies the Matsukata family created could not rival the conglomerates built by the Mitsui, Sumitomo, or Yasuda families in most respects, the Satsuma zaibatsu does present an interesting study in the importance of controlling access to funds. The Matsukata family essentially commandeered the 15th bank, and with its funds was able to outbid the Kawasaki family for control of the Satsuma zaibatsu.!!Endnotes!!1 The reader is advised to consult Morikawa Hidemasa, Zaibatsu: The Rise and Fall of Family Enterprise Groups in Japan. (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1992), for a more detailed discussion of the general attributes of the zaibatsu.!2 Eleanor Hadley, Antitrust in Japan. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), has shown, for example, that the Occupation authorities had great difficulty in deciding exactly what constituted a zaibatsu. While it was generally acknowledged that a Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo and Yasuda zaibatsu existed, a consensus was lacking regarding other groups focused around the Shibusawa, Furukawa, and other families, some of which became the target of “zaibatsu dissolution,” and others of which did not.!3 See Miyashita Kenichi and David Russell, Keiretsu: Inside the Hidden Japanese Conglomerates. (New York:

McGraw, 1993), for an explanation of present-day keiretsu.!4 Both the Economisto and s used this term in the 1920s. See Mishima Yasup, “Sasshu zaibatsu no spirits to hokai,” Kei-ei shigaku, 15 (April 1980), page 1. (Hereafter this source will be referred to as Mishima.)!5 see Mishima Yasuo’s chapter on “Kawasaki zaibatsu” in his book Nihon zaibatsu kei-eishi: Hanshin zaibatsu - Nomura, Yamaguchi, Kawasaki. Tokyo: Nihon keizai shinbunsha, 1984.!6 Mishima Yasuo. “Kawasaki Shozo: seisho kara zosen-o e” in Nihon no kigyoka. Yasuoka Shigeaki, et al. eds. (Tokyo: Yuhikaku, 1978), volume one, page 141.!8 The 15th bank was, of course, better known as the Peers’ Bank, as a result of the fact that it was created from capital provided by former daimyo and the feudal aristocracy. For a general history of the 15th Bank, see Thomas R. Schalow, The Role of the Financial Panic of 1927 and Failure of the 15th Bank in the Economic Decline of the Japanese Nobility. Princeton University Ph.D. dissertation, 1989.!9 See Haru Matsukata Reischauer, Samuraio and Silk: A Japanese and American Heritage (Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle, 1986), page 265, for a short biography of Iwao. (Hereafter this source is to be referred to as Reischauer.) !See Reischauer, pages 275-298 for a more detailed biography of Kojiro, along with the Kobe shinbunsha’s Karin no uni: Matsukata Kojiro to sono jidai. (Kobe: Kobe shinbunsha, 1990). Okubo Tatsumasa, as editor of the

Matsukata Masayoshi kankei mono (Tokyo: Gannando shoten, 1986), volume 7, pages 617-651, provides letters written by Kojiro to his parents whir he was abroad. The same source also provides letters by Iwao, Masao, and Shosaku written during their sojourns abroad.!11 Haru Reischauer indicates that Kojiro happened to be without a job and in the Matsukata home when Kawasaki Shozo paid a visit to ask for some business advice. This apparently led to Kawasaki’s decision to hire Kojiro. Reischauer, page 278. Yamanouchi Sei-i. Hyogoken jinbutsu retsuden Kobe: Wakansha, 1914, pages 344-347, however, indicates that Kojiro began his employment at Naniwa Fire Insurance in the year previous to this encounter and was already ensconced in the Hyogo region.!12 Mishima, page 20.!13 Reischauer, page 103.!14 Mishima, page 21.!15 For a discussion of Satsuma’s role in the navy during the Meiji period see David Christian Evans, The Satsuma Faction and Professionalism in the japanese Naval Oficer Corps of the Meiji Period, 1868-1912. Stanford University Ph.D. dissertation, 1978.!16 Mishima, page 11.!17 Mishima, page 12.!18 Yano Soro. Zaikai no hito hyakuninron. Tokyo: Jiji Hyoronsha, 1915.!19 Nihon ginko chosakyoku. Nihon kinyushi shiryo: Showa hen. Tokyo: Nihon ginko chosakyoku, 1969, volume 24,

page 493. Hereafter this source will be referred to as Nihon kinyushi.)!20 Nihon kinyushi, volume 24, page 493.!21 Haruki Watsuji, Fune no omoide Tokyo: Kobunsha, 1948, pages 206-209.!22 SHiba Takao. “Fukyoki no ni dai zosen kigyo: Taisho koki no Mitsubishi zosen to Kawasaki zosenjo,” Kei-ei shigaku 18 (October 1983), page 5.!23 Ibid, pages 4-5.!24 Mishima, page 19.!25 Nihon kinyushi, volume 24, page 505.!26 Mishima, page 20.!27 Nihon kinyushi, volume 24, pages 503-504.!28 Asajima Shoichi. Nihon shintakugyo hattenshi. Tokyo: Yuhikaku, 1696, pages 460-461.!29 Asajima Shoichi. “Jugo ginokei no shintaku kaisha,” Shintaku (July 1968), page 21.!30 Nihon kinyushi, volume 24, page 502.!21 Nihon kinyushi, volume 24, page 504.!32 Jugo ginko enkakushi. Taisho period, volume 2, pages 57-60 (my pagination) provides a very brief history of the bank.!33 Reischauer, page 298.!34 The reader ight wish to compare the discussion of the origin of those funds presented by Reischauer, page 293, and Nihon kinyushi, volume 24, page 505.!!Bibilography!!

_____. Jugo ginko enkakushi. Unpublished Manuscript.!!Asajima Shoichi, “Jugo ginkokei no shintaku kaisha,” Shintaku (July 1968), 16-69.! _____. Nihon shintakugyo hattenshi. Tokyo: Yuhikaku, 1969. !!Evans, David Christian. The Satsuma Faction and Professionalism in the Japanese Naval Officer Corps of the Meiji Period, 1868-1912. Stanford University Ph.D. dissertation, 1978. !!Hadley, Eleanor. Antitrust in Japan. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970. !!Haruki Watsuji. Fune no omoide. Tokyo: Kobunsha, 1948. !!Kobe shinbunsha. Karin no umi: Matsukata Kojiro to sono jidai. Kobe: Kobe shinbunsha, 1990. !!Mishima Yasuo. Nihon zaibatsu kei-eishi: Hanshin zaibatsu - Nomura, Yamaguchi, Kawasaki. Tokyo: Nihon keizai shinbunsha, 1984. “Sasshu zaibatsu no seiritsu to hokai,” Kei-ei shigaku 15 (April 1980), 1-27. !!Miyashita Kenichi and David Russell. Keiretsu: Inside the Hidden Japanese Conglomerates. New York: mcGraw, 1993. Morikawa Hidemasa. Zaibatsu: The Rise and Fall of

Family Enterprise Groups in Japan: Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1992. !!Nihon ginko chosakyoku. Nihon kinyushi shiryo: Showa hen. Tokyo: Nihon ginko chosakyoku, 1969. !!Okubo Tatsumasa, ed. Matsukata Masayoshi kankei monjo. Tokyo: Gannando shoten, 1986. !!Reischauer, Haru Matsukata. Samurai and Silk: A Japanese and American heritage. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle, 1986. !!Schalow, Thomas R. The Role of the Financial panic of 1927 and Failure of the 15th Bank in the Economic Decline of the Japanese Nobility. Princeton University Ph.D. dissertation, 1989. !!Shiba Takao, “Fukyoki no ni dai zosen kigyo: Taisho koki no Mitsubishi zosen to kawasaki zosenjo,” Kei-ei shigaku 18 (October 1983), 1-28. !!Yamanouchi Sei-i. Hyogoken jinbutsu retsuden. Kobe: Wakansha, 1914. !!Yano soro. Zaikai no hito hyakuninron. Tokyo: Jiji hyoronsha, 1915. !!

Yasuoka Shigeaki et. al., eds. Nihon no kigyoka. Tokyo: Yuhikaku, 1978.