Gold Bar Incident

…The word 'saga' originally meant a case where it was unclear whether or not the perpetrator would be imprisoned and the criminal facts were ambiguous. Since this type of case more or less affected the political, bureaucratic, and financial circles, it is now a general term for cases involving vested interests that have become politicized. A characteristic of saga cases is that they are widely covered by society as political issues, and in exchange for loud criticism by the press, they are rarely prosecuted as criminal cases. In the early Meiji period, there were cases where the clan-based government and political businessmen were directly connected over the provision of special privileges, such as the Yamashiroya Incident, in which Yamagata Aritomo is said to have been involved, and many of these cases did not come to light. …

*Some of the terminology used in reference to the "Gold Bar Incident" is listed below.

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

…〈疑獄〉という言葉は，元来入獄させるか否かが明確でなく，犯罪事実があいまいな事件を意味する。この種の事件は多かれ少なかれ政･官･財界に波及するため，現在では政治問題化した利権関係事件の総称となっている。政治問題として社会的に大きく取りあげられ，ジャーナリズムによる声高な批判を代償として，刑事事件としては訴追されることがきわめて少ないのが疑獄事件の特徴といってよい。　明治初期においては，山県有朋が関与したといわれる山城屋事件など，藩閥政府と政商とが特権の供与をめぐって直接結びついたケースがあり，多くは表沙汰にならなかった。…

※「金塊事件」について言及している用語解説の一部を掲載しています。

出典｜株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典 第２版について | 情報