Soeda Juichi (添田壽一)
Juichi SOEDA (September 15, 1864 - July 4, 1929) was a financer (official of the Ministry of Finance), banker, businessman, economist, and finance specialist at government offices who lived from the Meiji period to the Taisho period. He was originally from Chikuzen Province (Fukuoka Prefecture). He was involved in establishing Nihon Law School, which is present-day Nihon University.
Summary
He was one of those who did distinguish service to the establishment of national finances of modern Japan, and additionally, he has been known as the first 'government economist' (economist who works at a government agency) who greatly contributed to economics education and its popularization.
Until the Graduation from the University of Tokyo
He was born as the third son to Shinzaburo SOEDA, a craftsman who lived in Hirowatari-mura, Onga County, Chikuzen Province (present-day Onga-cho, Onga County, Fukuoka Prefecture), in 1864. Although the Soeda family was very rich when he was born, the family eventually spent their all money as his father Shinzaburo was not interested in his own self-interest but was interested in charity, and then he started to travel from place to place with his family when he was seven years old. He already had such a great talent for calligraphy that he was regarded as a child prodigy calligrapher when he was very young, and he supported the family income with his calligraphy calling himself Chikushisanto when he was eight years old. When he showed his calligraphy to Noboru WATANABE, the then governor of Osaka Prefecture, Watanabe praised Soeda for his talent and tossed away Soeda's ink stone and seal to the yard, and additionally, he told Soeda to devote his mind to study rather than calligraphy in order to achieve great things. This made Soeda make up his mind to gain high social status with academic work, not calligraphy. Soeda went to Tokyo and took evening classes at a foreign language school while working at a wholesaler of dried bonito as an apprentice in Kobuna-cho. He became a scholarship student of the Kuroda clan who had been at the former Fukuoka Domain, and he entered the University of Tokyo after the Preparatory School of the University of Tokyo. He learned rizai-gaku (economics) from Ernest FENOLLOSA and Inajiro TAJIRI at the University of Tokyo, and he finished the Department of Political Science and Economics in 1884.
As a Ministry of Finance Official
After graduating from the University of Tokyo, he started to work at the Ministry of Finance with Yoshio SAKATANI, who finished the school in the same year, on the advice of his former teacher Tajiri, who had joined the Ministry before him. However, he took a leave of absence from his job in that year and went to Europe to study at his own expense. He joined in the trip to Europe of Nagashige KURODA, the 13th head of the Kuroda family, because he was a teacher at Tounkan (present-day Fukuoka Prefectural Shuyukan Senior High School), a private school of the Kuroda family. In England, he entered the University of Cambridge to study political economy, and he took a class of Alfred Marshall. After studying at Heidelberg University in Germany, he returned to Japan from three-year study abroad in 1887, and then he re-entered the Ministry of Finance and was assigned to the tax bureau. Tajiri, his former teacher and his boss, treated him with kindness at the Ministry of Finance, and he accumulated a wide variety of experiences in the field of tax for a time after he entered the Ministry. He worked for banking administration from the 1890s and took care of national banks. He became an extraordinary member of the committee of the currency system research in 1893, and when the government adopted the gold standard system because of the compensation after the Japanese-Sino War, he made a draft report on why the gold standard system should be carried out. He participated in Diet deliberations for the currency law as a government delegate and made an effort to make the opposition group including Ukitchi TAGUCHI understand the system, and as a result, he contributed to the establishment of this law. When the first Okuma Cabinet was inaugurated in 1898, he took over Tajiri and took office as Vice-Minister of Finance. When the Cabinet fell at the end of that year, however, he resigned his position and ended his career as a Ministry of Finance official.
As an Academically-Minded Person and Economist
In addition to working as a regular Ministry of Finance official, Soeda gave a course in economics at Tokyo Imperial University, Tokyo Senmon Gakko (present-day Waseda University), Senshu School (present-day Senshu University), and Gakushuin (at Senchu School, which was established by his former teacher and boss Inajiro TAJIRI, he worked with his colleague, Yoshio SAKATANI, who entered the Ministry in the same year, and they were in charge of classes in history of commerce). In 1889, he was involved in the establishment of Nihon Law School (present-day Nihon University) together with Akiyoshi YAMADA, Michisaburo MIYAZAKI, and Kentaro KANEKO. In addition, he had some other activities such as having discussion on economic matters on magazines in order for a campaign to promote public awareness of economics, and he was generally known as an economist rather than a government official. When the magazine called "The Economic Journal" was launched in England in 1890, he was asked to become a Japanese correspondent, and he wrote some reports on the state of economics in Japan for this magazine.
Interests in Social Policy
Soeda also participated in the Society for the Study of Social Policy, which was organized in response to social matters revealed after the Japanese-Sino War. He acknowledged a need for the enactments of factory acts from the perspective of 'the development of healthy citizens', and he strongly insisted on his opinion in front of those who were against the acts including Eichi SHIBUSAWA (who later changed his position to the consenting party) in a meeting of the Superior Council of Agriculture, Industry, and Commerce held in 1896. He pointed out the importance of the balance between capital and labor in the first meeting of the Society for the Study of Social Policy held in 1907 after he resigned from his position.
He was thought to be one of members of the right wing at the Society for the Study of Social Policy as he proposed policies based on a master-pupil relationship, familism, and paternalism, and he was criticized by extremists such as Iwasaburo TAKANO and Tokuzo FUKUDA in the above-mentioned first meeting. Still he had such great prescience that he focused on a need for social policies before other people noticed it, and his teacher Tajiri and his colleague Sakatani did not have it. It can be said that he was an enlightened government official who had a wide field of vision.
From His Retirement till His Death
After resigning from his office, Soeda continued various activities as a banker, businessman, statesman, and academically-minded person. In 1899 when he was granted the degree of Doctor of Laws (as they did not have Doctor of Economics in those days), he participated in the establishment of the Bank of Taiwan, the central bank of Taiwan, which was under Japanese rule, on the recommendation of Shigemaru SUGIYAMA, his friend from his hometown. He became the first President of the bank. Afterward, he also participated in the establishment of the Industrial Bank of Japan in 1902 and the establishment of Japanese-French Bank in 1912, and he worked as the president of the former bank.
In the Taisho period, he became the president of Ministry of Railways of the second Okuma Cabinet in 1914, and he took over the former president Mitsugu SENGOKU and aimed at widening of the track gauge, which was eventually failed. He became an imperial nominee to the House of Peers in 1925 and he had been at that position until he died. In addition, his above-mentioned interests in social matters made him have further activities such as participation in the establishment of workers' organization called Yuai-kai (in 1912), assumption of office as an adviser of Yuai-kai, participation in a research institute for labor-management cooperation called Kyocho-kai (established in 1919), and participation in a group called Jitsugyo Doshi-kai, which was established by Sanji MUTO, a businessman who had the same ideals, in 1923.
He died in 1929 (at the age of 66). "The Economic Journal", a magazine that Soeda worked for as a correspondent, carried a written memorial for Soeda (he was the only Japanese whom this magazine wrote a memorial piece for, and additionally, he was the only Japanese whom John Maynard Keynes wrote a memorial piece for). His graveyard is at the Aoyama Cemetery.
Chronology
1864: He was born.
1884: He was graduated from the Department of Political Science and Economics, the University of Tokyo. He entered the Ministry of Finance and was assigned to the tax bureau.
1884: He took a leave of absence from his job at the Ministry of Finance. He studied at some foreign schools such as the University of Cambridge in England.
1887: He returned to Japan from studying abroad. He was assigned to the tax bureau and he worked at the research division.
1890: He was assigned to the audit department of the tax bureau. After that, he became a counselor of the Ministry of Finance.
1891: He became a private secretary of the Minister of Finance.
1893: He was appointed as the acting director of the audit bureau. After that, he became a secretary and counselor of the Ministry of Finance and the manager of the third department of the Office of a Minister.
1897: He was appointed as the director of the audit bureau of the Ministry of Finance.
1898: He was appointed as Vice-Minister of Finance. He resigned from his post at the end of this year and also left the Ministry of Finance.
1899: He was granted the degree of Doctor of Laws. He became the first president of the Bank of Taiwan (he had been at this position until 1901).
1902: He became the first president of the Industrial Bank of Japan (he had been at this position until 1913).
1913: He became the president of Chugai Shogyo Shimpo (present-day Nikkei Inc.). 1915: He became the president of the Railway Bureau (he had been at this position until 1916).
1916: He was appointed president of Hochi Shinbun (Newspaper).
1925: He became a member of the House of Peers and auditor of the Bank of Taiwan, and he kept these positions until he died.
1929: He died.
His Major Works
"Yosanronko" (The Principle of Budget) Hakubunkan, 1891
"Saikeiron" (The Essay on Annual Budget) (The Encyclopedia of Politics, Economics, and Laws: the 22nd volume) Hakubunkan, 1891
"Zaisei Tsuron" (The Outline of Public Finance) (the first and second volumes) Kinkodoshoseki, 1892
"Hosei Keizai Taii" (The Outline of Law System and Economics) (the volume of law system and the volume of economics) Kinkodoshoseki, 1899
"Hakaishiso to Kyujisaku" (Destructionism and Remedy) Hakubunkan, 1911
"Fukokusakuron" (A Strategic Plan for Increasing National Prosperity) (oral statement, edited by Gyotei KIKUCHI) Maruyamasha, 1911
"Jitsuyo Ikka Keizaiho" (Practical Method of Family Budget Management) (oral statement, edited by Gyotei KIKUCHI) Daigakukan, 1913
"Saishin Tsuzoku Keizaikowa" (The Latest Popular Economy Lessons) (edited by Gyotei KIKUCHI) Daigakukan, 1914
"Kokka Kojin Fukyosaku" (A Measure for Increasing National Wealth and Citizens) (edited by Gyotei KIKUCHI) Daigakukan, 1914
"Sengo Kokumin Keizaisaku" (The National Economic Measures after the War) Taikaikaku (大鎧閣), 1919
"Zaisei Keizai Kowa" (Lessons in Finances and Economics) Nihonshoin, 1924