Background
Tanzan Ishibashi was born on 25 September 1884 in Tokyo. His father had at one time been chief priest of the Kuon-ji at Minobu, one of the most important temples of the Nichiren sect of Buddhism.
石橋 湛山
Tanzan Ishibashi was born on 25 September 1884 in Tokyo. His father had at one time been chief priest of the Kuon-ji at Minobu, one of the most important temples of the Nichiren sect of Buddhism.
In 1907 Ishibashi graduated from the literature department of Waseda University. In 1957 was awarded an honorary doctoral degree by Waseda University.
Tanzan Ishibashi took a position with a newspaper, the Tokyo Mainichi Shimbun, but left it in 1909. In 1911 he went to work for a magazine of social criticism, the Toyo Keizai Shimpo, publishing in its pages articles embued with a thoroughgoing liberalism and dealing with such issues as universal suffrage or expressing disapproval of the dispatch of Japanese troops to Siberia. He also took a very active part in various social and political movements, joining the Association for the Realization of Universal Suffrage in 1911, the Pacific Problems Study Institute and the Friends of Armament Reduction in 1921, and the Monetary System Study Institute in 1922.
With the beginning of the Showa period in 1926, as Japan’s economic situation worsened, he spoke out frequently in print on such problems as the lifting of the gold embargo or emergency fiscal measures, though his outlook became increasingly less liberal. In 1941 he became president of the company publishing the Toyo Keizai Shimpo. At the same time, he also served as a committee member in a number of important government organizations such as the Investigation Bureau of the cabinet, the Key Industries Control and Operation Committee of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the Cabinet Planning Board, and the Expert Committee of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. In 1944, when it became increasingly apparent that Japan was likely to suffer defeat in the Pacific War, he recommended Finance Minister Ishiwata Sotaro to set up a Special Investigation Office of Wartime Economy within the Finance Ministry. The purpose of this office was to study the question of Japan’s economic reconstruction in the postwar period, a problem that was thus already under investigation before the war had come to a conclusion.
Tanzan Ishibashi served as finance minister in the first Yoshida Shigeru cabinet in 1946 and adopted an inflationary policy. In the same year he resigned as president of the Toyo Keizai Shimpo. In 1947 he was ordered purged from public office by the Occupation authorities. He spoke out in print in protest against this action and in 1951 was depurged. The same year he was accused of antiparty activities and, along with Kono Ichiro, was expelled from the Liberal Party by its president, Yoshida Shigeru, but was reinstated after his election to the Lower House of the Diet. In 1954 he joined Hatoyama Ichiro in helping to form the Minshuto, or Democratic Party, and three times served as minister of international trade and industry in succeeding Hatoyama cabinets. In 1956 he succeeded Hatoyama as president of the Jiyii Minshuto (Liberal Democratic Party) and formed his own cabinet, but he was forced by illness to resign after less than three months and to turn over the office of prime minister to Kishi Nobusuke. He thereafter served as president of Rissho University.
After the end of the war in 1945, Ishibashi participated in the formation of the Jiyuto, or Liberal Party.
Though a member of the conservative camp, he worked to promote cultural exchange between Japan and China and the Soviet Union, serving as chairman of the Japan-Soviet Union Society and urging the restoration of diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China.