Unearthing Modern Japan’s Subterranean Networks with the National Diet Library’s (NDL) Full-Text Search System (Part 2): Private Capital and the Financing of Historical SMEs

Part 1 can be read here.

The Zaibatsu had dominated Japanese business and industry for decades before WWII. They monopolised capital and production, worked closely with the military, had maternal relationships with politicians, and were active in colonial expansion. This impression has led to the view that the zaibatsu were eager collaborators with Japanese imperialism. Together with other power elites in the ruling coalition, they ignored public opinion to launch and sustain a disastrous war (see for example Bisson 1945, Kinoshita 1953, Lockwood 1968, Fujiwara 1978, Asada 1989, Bix 2001, Yamada 2017). The American authorities who designed the postwar reforms had embraced this view in the first two years of the occupation because of their experience of the New Deal and were influenced by the ideology on which it was based, namely: the ‘trust-busting’ campaign of the Roosevelt administration in the early 1900s. This eventually led to the dissolution of the zaibatsu families as part of the ‘democratisation’ of Japan (Nolte 1987, Takeda 2020a, Donzé and Yongue 2024). There is no doubt that the zaibatsu-affiliated companies dominated the key industries for waging the war, such as mining, chemicals and heavy industry (Yamazaki 1991, Okazaki 1999), but it is questionable whether the zaibatsu families could really dominate these companies when the sources of funding became more complex, diverse, and fragmented, such as after a series of share issues and public offerings in the 1930s and 1940s (Takeda 2020b). At the forefront of Japanese colonial expansion were zaibatsu-affiliated companies or subsidiaries, whose names may bear no relation to their parent companies. These companies operated alongside numerous small and medium-sized non-zaibatsu corporations (Hikita 1995, Shibata 2008, Tanno 2017). Thus, if we want to understand the role of private capital in imperial expansion, it is necessary to examine the shareholders and financing structures of these business entities. For giant corporations, such as Mitsui Bussan, Kanegafuchi Spinning Company, and Japan Mail Ship Company, this information can be readily found in the yearbooks and investment guides published by securities companies and available via the NDL database. What about the majority of companies, though?

In the second post of this series, I will demonstrate the usefulness of the NDL database and its full-text search system in researching Japanese business history. Aside from saving us time spent navigating the monstrous directories, the following case studies illustrate how the NDL database allows us to trace the tiny and inconspicuous nodes in the business networks that spanned Japan’s home islands and far-flung empire.

Nissen Kōgyō: A Zaibatsu’s Forgotten Distant Relative

To find background information on a company operating in pre-1945 Japan, such as the amount of capital, list of shareholders, and year of incorporation, the first place to look would be a business directory, for instance the Imperial Bank Company Directory (IBCD, Teikoku ginkō kaisha yōroku), published annually by the Imperial Credit Agency (Teikoku kōshinjo). The IBCD contained information on thousands of companies, which is impressive by the standards of a 1940s publication, and yet for most companies it provided only a few details including the year of incorporation, the amount of its registered capital and paid-up capital, the number of its shares, the the locations of its headquarters and branches, and the names of its directors. Without the list of shareholders, it would be difficult to investigate the company’s financing. This was the case with Nissen Kōgyō’s entry in the IBCD.

Figure 1: Nissen Kōgyō’s Entry in the IBCD.

Nissen Kōgyō was founded in November 1941 and is headquartered in Taipei. The company’s registered capital was 10 million yen, of which half had been paid up. According to the 1943 version of IBCD, the company has two branches: one is located in Tokyo and the other is in Kaohsiung. Although the list of shareholders is missing, the names of Nissen Kōgyō’s directors provide some clues to its financing. Two of its directors (torishimariyaku) were Akasaki Saburō and Enami Naosaburō, and using the NDL’s full-text search system, we were able to find from the 1943 version of IBCD that Akasaki and Enami also served on the board of several companies under the Nicchitsu (literally ‘Japan Nitrogenous Fertiliser Company’) zaibatsu, one of the ‘new zaibatsu’ (shinkō zaibatsu). Akasaki was one of the auditors (kansayaku) of Nicchitsu Hainan Industry (Nicchitsu Kainan Kōgyō), where Enami was a director. Enami was also a director of Nicchitsu Chemical Industry (Nicchitsu Kagaku Kōgyō), Nicchitsu Securities (Nicchitsu Shōken), and Nicchitsu Fuel Industry (Nicchitsu Nenryō Kōgyō). It therefore seems that Nissen Kōgyō had some connections with, or even was a subsidiary of, the Nicchitsu zaibatsu. This speculation can be verified using the NDL database. The full-text search system returned 106 results for ‘Nissen Kōgyō,’ 75 of which were available online without using the terminals at NDL. Two of the materials, the 1942 Taiwan Economic Yearbook (Taiwan keizai nenpō) and a 1971 book entitled Yoshiya in Yoshi-chō (Yoshi-chō Yoshiya), reveal that Nissen Kōgyō was the successor to a Nicchitsu subsidiary, Taishō Industry (Taishō Kōgyō, formerly known as Taishō Mining Company [Taishō Kōgyō], dissolved in 1941), and was financed by Nicchitsu.

Figure 2: Search Results of Enami Naosaburō.

Iwata Sangyō: Trading on the Empire’s Frontier

We can find important, but often incomplete, information on many medium-sized trading companies in IBCD, such as the aforementioned Nissen Kōgyō and the following case study: Iwata Sangyō (literally ‘Iwata Industry’). Iwata Sangyō was headquartered in Osaka, and had registered capital of 5 million yen, all of which was paid-up. Although Nissen Kōgyō and Iwata Sangyō had the same amount of paid-up capital, the latter had many more branches. In 1943, Iwata Sangyō had branches in Keijō (now Seoul), Shanghai, Fengtian (now Liaoning), Qingdao, Tianjin, Jinan, and Kobe. The senior managing director (senmu torishimariyaku) was Iwata Sōjirō. Who financed the company and what was the relationship with the Iwata family?

Figure 3: Iwata Sangyō’s Entry in the IBCD.

The enterprise was previously known as Iwata Shōji (literally ‘Iwata Trading Company’). Further information on the company can be acquired in the NDL database. According to a 1940 publication, Iwata Shōji was a textile trading company founded in Osaka in July 1881 (it became K. K. in 1918) by Iwata Sōzaburō. Iwata Sōjirō was the third son of Iwata Sōzaburō. Iwata Shōji acted as a holding company for the Iwata family, with three subsidiaries: Manchuria Iwata Trading Company (Manshū Iwata Shōji, 480,000 yen registered capital), Aichi Twisted Yarn Company (Aichi Nenshi, 100,000 yen registered capital), and Asahi Industry (Asahi Sangyō, 100,000 yen registered capital). The Iwata family was also involved in the operation of Bishū Bank (later absorbed by Sanwa Bank), where Iwata Sōjirō was president. Iwata Shōji was one of the eight representative medium-sized textile trading companies in Osaka before 1945, known as the ‘Eight Companies of Semba’ (Semba hassha). The other seven were Tatsuki Shōten, Maruei Shōten, Yagi Shōten, Toyoshima Shōten, Takemura Mengyō, Takenaka Shōten and Mataichi Shōten (Miyamoto and Uchida 1980), of which Tatsuki, Maruei, and Mataichi were founded and operated by Ōmi merchants. Some of the Ōmi merchants were known as actively traded on the empire’s frontier (Uchida 2023).

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This post shows that the NDL database and its full-text search system is a powerful tool that allows us to conduct in-depth but quick research into the background of a specific historical company as well as its branch networks. For those interested in the history of pre-1945 Japan, the NDL database can be a tool for locating the business entities and their employees who operated and traveled on the empire’s edges, which could enrich our acquaintance with areas such as war economy, trading networks and settler colonialism. The next part in this series will demonstrate how the full-text search system can be used to read modern Japanese diaries.

Glossary

Aichi Twisted Yarn Company 愛知撚糸

Akasaki Saburō 赤崎三郎

Asahi Industry 朝日産業

Auditor 監査役

Bishū Bank 尾州銀行

Director 取締役

Eight Companies of Semba 船場八社

Enami Naosaburō 榎並直三郎

Imperial Bank Company Directory (IBCD) 帝国銀行会社要録

Imperial Credit Agency 帝国興信所

Iwata Sangyō 岩田産業

Iwata Shōji 岩田商事

Iwata Sōjirō 岩田宗次郎

Iwata Sōzaburō 岩田惣三郎

Japan Mail Ship Company 日本郵船

Kanegafuchi Spinning Company 鐘淵紡績

Manchuria Iwata Trading Company 満洲岩田商事

Maruei Shōten 丸永商店

Mataichi Shōten 又一商店

Mitsui Bussan 三井物産

New zaibatsu 新興財閥

Nicchitsu Chemical Industry 日窒化学工業

Nicchitsu Fuel Industry 日窒燃料工業

Nicchitsu Hainan Industry 日窒海南興業

Nicchitsu Securities 日窒証券

Nicchitsu 日本窒素肥料（日窒）

Nissen Kōgyō 日扇興業

Ōmi merchants 近江商人

Sanwa Bank 三和銀行

Taishō Industry 大正興業

Taishō Mining Company 大正鉱業

Takemura Mengyō 竹村綿業

Takenaka Shōten 竹中商店

Tatsuki Shōten 田附商店

Toyoshima Shōten 豊島商店

Yagi Shōten 八木商店

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