Japan's Greatest Family

The Story of the House of Mitsui Reflects Japan's Feudal History and Recent Industrial Growth

THE HOUSE OF MITSUI, by Oland D.Russell. Little Broxvn if Cos., Boston,1939- PP- 32&- $4-00-

NOT ONLY is The House of Mitsui a very timely book because of the insight which it affords into Japanese life and politics, but it has a partic- ular appeal to Dartmouth men. For, one of the eleven heads of the family, the Baron Takanaga Mitsui was graduated from Dartmouth in 1915, and his son, Takanobu Mitsui, is a member of this year's Freshman Class. According to Mr. Russell, other members of the family have also attended Dartmouth, but this is not confirmed by the records of the college.

"America has her sixty families; Japan has her five—and the greatest of these is Mitsui."

In his study of this greatest Japanese family, Mr. Russell has recognized the supreme importance of the feudal or familistic nature of Japanese culture, where "the family became the basis .... of life, the unit of civilization, and a corporation, the most characteristic mark of which was its perpetuity." Against this feudalistic background he will reveal how one family —the Mitsui—achieved its position of pre- eminence, sometimes by its conformity to, sometimes by its departure from tradi- tion.

Foremost among the forces which gave the Mitsui their unity and their pre-eminence is the antiquity of their lineage. By its ascertainable ancestry the Mitsui line goes back to Kamatari Fujiwara, who belonged to the superior patrican or nonwarrior class of the 7th century. Even more important, in my opinion, is the fact that according to Japanese legendary history, the family through Fujiwara is descended directly from the Gods who created Japan.

Absolutely fascinating is Mr. Russell's study of another great unifying factor, the family Constitution. At his death in 1694, Hachirobei Mitsui "left a remarkable will which minutely prescribed the relations among the members of the family and allotted each branch its position of inheritance and sphere in the fraternal copartnership of managing the Mitsui enter prises." On the basis of Hachirobei's will, his eldest son, Takahira, drafted the original family code, which was revised in igoo, with the assistance of Kaoru Inouye, and adopted as the family Constitution, to which each male member of the family as he comes of age is required to take oath. Because of it, Mr. Russell believes that "in no other large business institution in the world is the power and unity of family so firmly entrenched and safe-guarded."

As Mr. Russell proceeds to a more detailed study of the Mitsui family history, he is led inevitably into what is in effect a condensed history of Japan's feudal growth and the international relations which gave her "Christianity, fire-arms, and a booming foreign trade," and whereby "the foundation for modern civilization and the house of Mitsui was laid." Not only is this historical background essential to an understanding of the Mitsui policies, but it possesses great intrinsic value of its own. Unfortunately, it seems to me, the author hurries over it at times, as though he feared to detract from the greatness of the Mitsui.

For a time the Mitsui abandoned the peaceful polices of their patrician ancestors and attempted to impose their will by force of arms. Probably it is fortunate that they were utterly defeated for they were thereby forced to leave their feudal lands and migrate to the province of Ise, where opportunities for trade were soon to develop. Their conqueror, Nobunaga, quickly suppressed all other warring lords and established throughout Japan the principle of free trade. By his own example, he also revealed to Japan that "sheer ability (not ancestry) was an asset." This lesson the Mitsui have never forgotten, for they have ever made a cult of seek- ing out, training, and even adopting talented individuals.

The Seclusion Era, 1638-1853, was an ideal one for the founding of the Mitsui fortune, based as it was on trade, usury and enterprise. This was a period when, in the Japanese social scale, the merchants stood lowest but one—the Eta, who were the real outcasts. Nevertheless, "Sokubei Mitsui with remarkable fortitude decided to abandon all rank and class and enter a commercial career," and again Mitsui luck came to his aid. His wife Shuko, herself of the commercial class, was the first "of two remarkable women who had much to do with the destiny of the House of Mitsui."

When Sokubei's business venture, the brewing of sake, was "slow in starting," Shuko opened a pawn and money lending shop which, thanks to her strikingly modern methods, soon became one of the town's most prosperous institutions. After her husband's death she continued for forty years to head the house and keep the family in commerce. She trained her sons according to their capabilities for various business enterprises, choosing the youngest son, Hachirobei for "the banking career that was to lay the foundations of the Mitsui family fortune." She selected and trained his wife, Ju-San, who like herself came from the wealthy commercial caste. Together "the two women formed a strange, purposeful unity in setting the House of Mitsui on a firm foundation."

SUCCESSION OF GENIUSES

The struggle over the re-opening of Japan to foreign influences is inextricably interwoven with the political conflict between the Shogunate and the forces of the Restoration. The Mitsui risked everything to gamble with the Restoration and again they gambled to win. The choice, however, led them deeper and deeper into political and financial intrigues, from which there seemed no escape. For a time their luck held and they continued to find the right man for the need for the moment. "Store, bank, trading company,and then mining. That was the orderly development of the Mitsui kingdom. Minomura, Nakamigawa, Masuda,—and then Dan. That was the succession of geniuses behind the expansion."

Though it is perhaps too soon to predict, this may prove in time to be a turning point in the Mitsui history. For it is here that powerfully disruptive influences begin to appear. Public confidence in the Mitsui was undermined by the exposure of their intrigues in English munitions and American air-craft, of their speculations in foreign exchange, and of their close tie-up with the military party.

In return the Mitsui have embarked upon a campaign of goodwill. By supporting Japan's Asiatic program, by humanitarian labor reforms, and by staggering financial contributions to social philanthropies, they hope to regain public acclaim.

Part of this campaign, I suspect, is Mr. Russell's book, The House of Mitsui. Only in this light can I understand much of his first chapter with its naive depiction of the family chiefs, their wealth, their intellectual, scientific, and artistic accomplishments, and their personal graciousness.

Despite this parti pris, Mr. Russell's work deserves unstinted praise. It has made live for us the men and women of this great family against the background of Japan's cultural, economic, and political history. Furthermore, Mr. Russell has succeeded in giving to this vast undertaking a dramatic unity, as it were, by stressing the remarkable ability of the Mitsui to adapt themselves to the exigencies of the moment.

At the risk of being hyper-critical I could wish that Mr. Russell had analyzed more extensively present-day conflicting forces in Japanese foreign policy, and I would suggest that the reader turn to Guenther's Inside Asia for a more com- plete understanding of the dilemma which now confronts the House of Mitsui caught it would seem between the militaristic and the fascist groups.

Reviewed by