[ Speech for the Rotary Club of Tokyo delivered at the Imperial Hotel, Tokyo August 6, 2008 ]
Shibusawa Eiichi was a person of singular appeal. Seventy-six years after since his death, he might have become just another historical figure, but we are finding that his life and achievements still capture the imagination of many people. He is introduced frequently on television, in newspapers and other media in the context of issues facing Japan today. In 1999, a professorship in Japanese studies was established under his name at an American university, and in 2006 the Shibusawa Eiichi Research Center was founded at a university in Wuhan, China. Memorial lectures have been held at Keio University, the University of Tokyo, and Kansai University, and many researchers, including those in France and China, continue to publish studies about him.
The ongoing interest in Shibusawa Eiichi, among the many other great leaders of Japan's Meiji era (1868-1912), can perhaps best be explained, first, by the fact that his activities were not limited to the management of corporations, which is usually considered his primary profession. In reality, his endeavors extended into almost all fields directly affecting people's lives, including social welfare, international relations, education, and culture. In addition, most of the challenges that Eiichi faced in his own time persist today. For example, there was a sudden rise in interest in Eiichi in the 1990s after the collapse of the bubble economy. Lively discussion arose as people studied his accomplishments for clues to finding a way out of the "lost decade."
Eiichi was indeed a man of many talents: his wide-ranging achievements made it difficult to place him in any single category. So, in the hope of compiling a comprehensive record of his life and work, the Shibusawa Eiichi Memorial Foundation set about five years ago to construct a database on his life and activities, investing nearly 400 million yen and involving quite a number of people in the attempt. As a result of these efforts, we can now pinpoint by computer a considerable amount of information about him in the decades following the Meiji era: what he was doing each day, what meetings or events he attended, whom he met and where, and what views he expressed on particular occasions.
We can expect to gain a great deal from this database because Eiichi's long lifespan, from 1840 to 1931, and his activities during that time overlapped closely with the history of modern Japan. In a few more years, a range of resources will become available to both researchers and the general public, including online biographical resources, a database index to the various records that center around Shibusawa-related corporate enterprises, and a database of color woodblock prints (nishiki-e) related to business history in the Edo and early Meiji era. Through these efforts, we hope to provide a true-to-life portrait of Shibusawa Eiichi that will serve to rectify the exaggerated images that have sometimes been drawn of him and focus on important topics aspects of his life and career that are often overlooked.
Here I would like to present some feature of Eiichi's profile that have begun to emerge more clearly in the course of organizing the documents.
At the outset, I would like to emphasize Shibusawa Eiichi's image as a pioneering leader of Japan's modernization. Called the father of Japanese capitalism, he is often recognized solely for activities in the world of business and industry. But Eiichi's sense of mission grew out of his acute awareness of the many different needs and difficulties, not simply economic, Japan faced in his time, and his whole life was committed to grappling with them.
Eiichi developed this sense of mission during a one-year stay in France in 1867. Coming from a country ruled for two and a half centuries by a feudalistic regime under the Tokugawa shoguns, he had in France a chance to closely observe the institutions and practices of a modern Western nation. While he was abroad, a new government was set up in Japan, on his return and in Meiji 2 (1869), he was hired to serve in its Ministry of Popular Affairs Reform Office. There, over a period of several years, he had an opportunity to pursue his mission through on-the-job experience within the government.
The Reform Office had been founded expressly to prepare a blueprint for transforming Japan into a modern nation. Our database shows that, as head of the Reform Office, Eiichi took part in thirty-five projects, most of which were connected to putting in place the foundations of a modern state: reform of weights and measures, the mapping of the country, creation of a modern postal service, construction of railways, establishment of a tariff scheme, and so forth. As part of the abolition of the domain (han) system through which the former regime had been administered, the Reform Office introduced a plan to liquidate the old domain currencies by exchanging them for new national currency at market value. In order to accomplish this, he placed an order with a company in Germany to print 100 million yen worth of banknotes.
Sustaining the livelihood of members of the former warrior class was a difficult task that could have brought down the newborn government if mismanaged. For generations, the samurai had been paid regular stipends under a hereditary system. It is said that Eiichi, feeling the urgency of this and other critical problems, spent many sleepless nights writing emergency proposals amounting to several thousand pages. He was under thirty, and his amazing energy and abilities became widely recognized within the government, laying the foundations for strong friendship and trust with top-level leaders of the new government including Itō Hirobumi, Inoue Kaoru, and Ōkuma Shigenobu.
The second striking quality that can be observed in Eiichi from the mountain of documents in our archives was an extraordinary power of persuasion. After working diligently within the new government for a little more than four years, in 1873 Eiichi left to become superintendent of the First National Bank, a newly established Western-style private financial institution. From then on, one of the factors that sustained his work in the private sector was his remarkable ability, demonstrated time and again, to persuade his colleagues as well as opponents to share his views and purposes, in part supported by the grand scale of his objectives. The bank itself fell into a crisis soon after its founding when one of its partners, the Ono-gumi, a wealthy Kyoto-based merchant house, went bankrupt. After intense negotiations with all the parties concerned, Eiichi ultimately pulled the bank back from the brink with only a little less than 20,000 yen in losses.
Expecting increased demand for paper money, government bonds, and newspapers and magazines, Eiichi took the initiative in Meiji 6 (1873) to found Oji Paper, Japan's first paper manufacturer, with initial capital of 150,000 yen. The company lacked the necessary technology, however, and despite its best effort Oji was unable to produce paper that was good enough to sell, resulting in a loss of 40,000 yen the following year. The company suffered further losses for several more years, until an employee named Ōkawa Heizaburō was sent to the United States to learn the latest production techniques. Following his return, ten years after its founding, Oji Company was finally able to turn a profit. Eiichi is said to have been hard-pressed during meetings with the company's shareholders during those ten years, but they maintained their trust in his sincerity and his belief in the potential of the company and, despite the long period when no dividends were forthcoming, continued to increase their investments to cover the losses. In due course, their sacrifices were rewarded, and Oji Paper went on to become one of Japan's leading corporations.
Another quality that distinguished Eiichi was his strong commitment to social reform. He was determined to abolish the deeply entrenched tendency in society to unduly revere authority/bureaucracy and disdain private individuals. In his endeavors to establish private corporations, he wanted from the very beginning to create a system where industrialists with the spirit of independence could work together for common goals, and when needed, put pressure on the government as a group to make improvements in the business environment.
But entrepreneurs at the time were still steeped in the class prejudices that had prevailed throughout the Tokugawa period, and their response to Eiichi's plans was hesitant, at best. Data in the archives regarding the formation of a group of bank managers called the Takuzenkai describe how Eiichi devoted countless hours and tireless energy in a long series of meetings held day in and day out, offering painstaking and detailed explanations to his fellow bankers about the macro-economic context surrounding Japan and the state of foreign competition, reiterating over and over again the need for a system in which they could work together to pursue the national interest and their own simultaneously.
The result of these endeavors was the establishment of a banker's association, chambers of commerce, stock exchanges, and other business networks. In due course, entrepreneurs gradually came to change their way of thinking, and a new breed of businessmen began to emerge. The stature of this business elite, which came to be known as the zaikai, rose. Eventually, not even the government was able to ignore their opinions when pushing forward the group's agenda. And thus, in a society that until only a few decades before had been fully controlled by the government, a totally new power center was born.
One morning in Meiji 36 (1903) Eiichi had a surprise visit from General Kodama Gentarō, a powerful figure who was to serve in the Russo-Japanese War as chief of the general staff. General Kodama explained about the imminent confrontation with Russia, and respectfully asked Eiichi to rally the opinion of the zaikai in support of whatever decision the government would soon make. Essentially, then, the military acknowledged the business community as, to put it in modern terms, a "stakeholder" in the nation. This trend would continue into the post-World War II era, with corporate organizations such as the Keidanren (Japan Business Federation), the Keizai Doyukai (Japan Association of Corporate Executives), and the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry holding enormous influence over government and public opinion.
The next point I would like to make is that, in Eiichi's mind, the founding and managing of companies was a necessary method for modernizing Japan. According to a recent comprehensive study by Professor Shimada Masakazu of Bunkyo Gakuin University, Eiichi was involved in establishment and management of some 470 companies. He would give thorough guidance to those who wished to start a new company, explaining how to take out a loan and how to draw up accurate financial statements. He would lend his name as co-founder to the business and personally put up part of the start-up capital.
The data on Eiichi's and his family's asset management, however, clearly indicate that, once he decided that such a business had gotten off to a sound start and its operations were proceeding smoothly, he would sell the stocks he held and invest that money in the foundation of another enterprise. Showing little interest in making the company his own possession, he appeared wholeheartedly committed to the greater purpose of promoting and supporting the nation's modernization rather than prioritizing his own private wealth.
Another distinctive aspect of Eiichi's life that stands out in the database is his extraordinary perseverance. Once he decided a certain project was in Japan's interest, he might spend thirty or forty years trying to persuade people who opposed the idea or were unenthusiastic about it, and eventually they abandoned their resistance. Good examples from the data are the creation of Tokyo Yoikuin, a public institution to provide relief for the disadvantaged, and the establishment and nurture of various educational institutions such as the school that became Hitotsubashi University. Some of the more unusual examples include the restoration of the rank and status of Tokugawa Yoshinobu, his former lord and last shogun, and the compilation of Yoshinobu's biography, a preeminent cultural project.
After overcoming many difficulties, Tokyo Yoikuin, became successor to the system of relief for the poor under the Tokugawa shogunate, and in Meiji 5 (1872), became the core of Tokyo's poverty relief operations. Eiichi played an active part in its management from Meiji 9 (1876) when he was thirty-six, until his death in November of Shōwa 6 (1931), serving as president for nearly sixty years. Once every month, he would visit its branches in various parts of the country, where he attempted to establish relationships with the homeless and with children with disabilities.
Hitotsubashi University was established in Meiji 8 (1875), originally as the Commercial Training School (Shōhō Kōshūjo), at the instigation of Japanese chargé d'affaires in Washington, Mori Arinori (1847-1889), later to become the nation's first Minister of Education. Eiichi became involved in the project through his connection with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which had supported the ideat from the beginning. The prejudiced notion that merchants needed no formal education still held sway in people's minds, and for such a school to expand its curriculum or be promoted to the status of college, let alone university, was extremely difficult. Eiichi spent over forty years negotiating with the education ministry and many other bureas , as a result of which the school became the Tokyo Higher Commercial School in Meiji 35 (1902) and was accredited in Taishō 9 (1920) as the Tokyo College of Commerce, the predecessor of Hitotsubashi University.
Eiichi began his efforts to restore the reputation of Tokugawa Yoshinobu around Meiji 20 (1887), after coming to an understanding of the true intentions of Taisei Hōkan (restoration of Imperial Rule). Eiichi felt strongly that the way the Meiji government had treated his former lord was both unfair and unethical. At a crucial phase in the changeover to new government in the 1860s, it was Yoshinobu who returned the political power exercised by the Tokugawa shoguns since 1603 to the emperor. Nevertheless, the Meiji government had not only ignored his great contributions to the change but chose to treat him like a second-class citizen, and forced him to live in isolation. After fifteen years of twists and turns and much tenacious groundwork by Eiichi involving Ito Hirobumi and other government leaders and fifteen years of many complications, Yoshinobu's reputation was finally restored in Meiji 35 (1902), and he was elevated to the peerage with the title of duke. It may be of some interest to note that, on the same day, Saigo Toratarō, the son of Takamori, who had led the Seinan War, was given the title of marquis. Without restoring the good name of these two widely respected figures, the Meiji government might not have been able to establish its historical legitimacy.
In addition to working to reestablish Yoshinobu's status, beginning in Meiji 26 (1893), Eiichi undertook an academic project: compilation and publication of Yoshinobu's comprehensive biography. His intent was to accurately record the role played by Yoshinobu amid the chaos and conflict that led to the collapse of the shogunate. He set up an editorial office in his own home in Kabuto-chō, where the work took place under the leadership of historian Hagino Yoshiyuki of Tokyo Imperial University. In Taishō 7 (1918), the eight-volume Tokugawa Yoshinobu-kō den (Biography of Tokugawa Yoshinobu) was published, later to earn high regard as a magisterialhistorical record of the last days and years of the Tokugawa period.
We believe that Eiichi's vigorous involvement for twenty six years in this cultural project of reexamining history in which he invested tens of thousands of yen, from his private funds is a remarkable achievement worthy of special mention. Details regarding restoration of Yoshinobu's social standing and the compilation of his biography are provided in volumes 27 and 47 of Shibusawa Eiichi denki shiryo (Shibusawa Eiichi Biographical Materials), covering a total of 255 pages of recollections by Yoshinobu himself and lively question and answer sessions with the work's editor.
In Shōwa 5 (1930), when Eiichi was ninety years old, he received a special honorary invitation to a private luncheon with the then-young Shōwa emperor. According to what Eiichi later told his grandson, Shibusawa Keizo, in the course of reminiscencing about his long life in response to the emperor's questions, Eiichi talked about Napoleon III, whom he had met during his stay in France in Keiō 3 (1867), and about Napoleon's subsequent fall from power. Keizo got the impression that Eiichi was probably delivering a gentle message to the emperor that there was no guarantee that the Japanese imperial system would continue forever.
The Shibusawa Eiichi Memorial Foundation's database archives in minute detail innumerable lectures and talks given by Eiichi. Skillfully shifting topics and contexts depending on the audience and the occasion, he spoke with candor and sincerity, appealing directly to people's hearts.
I would like to conclude with a word about Eiichi’s final years. This is actually a topic beyond my capacity to comment on, so I would like to borrow the words of my father Shibusawa Keizo, who, as his successor, spent much time with Eiichi.
Keizo told me that by the time Eiichi reached over eighty-five years of age, he had developed a distinctive, well-rounded character. He was still full of energy in his seventies: for example, he would take his grandson, a student at the time, to dinner, eat an entire dish of deep-fried conger eel, and delight in a juicy rare-grilled steak. He was gentle on the outside, always smiling, but when he was advising others or asking others to do something, Keizo said he could vividly sense an irresistible pressure emanating from his grandfather's personality.
But toward the end of the Taishō era (1912-1926), when Keizo returned from a three-year stint of business overseas, he observed that Eiichi ceased to exert such obvious pressure on people around him. Even when he did not ask for anything, people seemed to know what was needed and followed his wishes intuitively. This allowed things to go along smoothly with hardly any friction or frustration around Eiichi. "He seemed to have grown clear and transparent," Keizo wrote, ''and what you might call the glare of worldliness, or whatever it was that had driven him so forcefully, had disappeared, which in turn made him seem much more human than before.''
I believe that the fact that a person of such admirable qualities remained intellectually alert to the end and continued performing his intermediary role in economic affairs was welcomed not only in the world of business but also in society in general. That is perhaps the factor behind the mysterious influence that Eiichi still wields in the world today, seventy-six long years after his death. Thank you very much for your attention.
Originally uploaded February 28, 2011, Revised March 18, 2022. Original English translation by Center for Intercultural Communication 2011, revised by the Shibusawa Foundation in December 2023.
Last updated on December 15, 2023
公益財団法人 渋沢栄一記念財団〒114-0024 東京都北区西ヶ原2-16-1Copyright Reserved by Shibusawa Eiichi Memorial Foundation
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