Fukai Eigo - Fukai Eigo

A financial strategist during the Taisho and Showa periods. Born November 20, 1871 in Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture. After graduating from Doshisha, he worked for Minyusha and served as secretary to Matsukata Masayoshi before joining the Bank of Japan as an investigator in 1901 (Meiji 34). He became the bank's governor in 1935 (Showa 10), an unusual position for someone from a private school. During that time, he accompanied Takahashi Korekiyo to solicit foreign bonds during the Russo-Japanese War, attended international conferences after World War I, dealt with the financial panic (1927) and the lifting and re-banning of the gold embargo, and worked hard to enact the Foreign Exchange Control Law. He dealt with difficult situations as a capable financial bureaucrat. After the February 26 Incident (1936), he resigned as Governor of the Bank of Japan and became a member of the House of Peers and then a Privy Councilor. Although he left Christianity during his time at Doshisha University, he was also an outstanding thinker who held a unique philosophical worldview that believed that consciousness and matter originate from a common source, and sought to unify freedom and necessity through the concept of probability, and who had an economic theory that foresaw international trends in currency issues.

His major works include "On Currency Adjustment," "Monetary Policy after Leaving the Gold Standard," "Person and Thought," and "A Seventy-Year Review," and his posthumous work includes "Memorandum of Important Privy Council Meetings."

[Yukio Naga]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

大正・昭和期の金融財政家。明治4年11月20日群馬県高崎に生まれる。同志社卒業後、民友社勤務、松方正義(まつかたまさよし)秘書を経て1901年（明治34）日本銀行に調査役として入行、1935年（昭和10）総裁となり、私学出身として異例の地位に上った。その間、日露戦争中に外債募集のため高橋是清(これきよ)に随行、第一次世界大戦後の国際会議に出席し、金融恐慌（1927）や金解禁・再禁止問題に対処し、外国為替(かわせ)管理法の制定に尽力し、有能な金融官僚として難局の処理にあたった。二・二六事件（1936）後、日銀総裁を辞し、貴族院議員、ついで枢密顧問官となった。同志社時代のキリスト教を離れたが、意識と物質とが共通なる本源から発するとみる一元論にたち、自由と必然を確率の概念において統一しようとする独自の哲学的世界観をもち、通貨問題では国際的潮流を見通した経済理論をもつ優れた思想家でもあった。昭和20年10月21日病没。

　主著に『通貨調節論』『金本位制離脱後の通貨政策』『人物と思想』『回顧七十年』、遺著に『枢密院重要議事覚書』などがある。

［長　幸男］

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