- 著者
-
高垣 寅次郎
- 出版者
- 慶應義塾大学
- 雑誌
- 三田商学研究 (ISSN:0544571X)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.4, no.4, pp.1-18, 1961-10-31
Michita Nakamura was one of those who played major parts in the economic development of Japan in the early years of Meiji. When he was in Tokyo, he met Yukichi Pukuzawa in the second year of Keio (1866), and since then very confidential contact had been kept betwean them. Though he had not been a regular student at the Fukuzawa School, he became a sincere admirer and follower of Fukuzawa, a theoretical pioneer of Japan's capitalism. When the Western enlightened system of book-keeping was introduced into Japan through the translation work of Fukuzawa titled " Choai no ho", (Booking in Balancing Form), he made an effort with great skillfullness to propagate the method in business circle. He was recommended as the president of Maruya & Co. (now Maruzen Co.), an importer of all sort of Western goods, and contributed to the civilization of new Japan. Nakamura's great achievement in his career was the design and establishment of the Yokohama Specie Bank in 1880, intended as an important one of policies on gold reserves of Shigenobu Okuma, Councillor of State of the time, by the recommendation of Fukuzawa. Nakamura took up the post of the first president of the Bank. It should not be overlooked that he was also one of the founders of the Meiji Insurance Company in 1881. After Okuma resigned his post in October 1881, Nakamura was forced to throw up his duty as the Bank president in the next year. While he was the president of the Tokyo Rice Exchange, he was charged with breach of trust, and had to retire from business life. Though he sank into obscurity in later years, his meritorious works in the earlier days should be noticed. A few years ago, I could find three letters of Fukuzawa at Nakamura's near relatives in Nagoya, which had been unknown among biographers and researchers on Fukuzawa. The present research intends to throw foot-lights on the relations between Pukuzawa and Nakamura, as well. as the latter's life and works which have hitharto been buried into oblivion.