Kunitake Watanabe

Japanese: 渡辺国武 - わたなべ・くにたけ

Year of death: May 11, 1919
Year of birth: March 29, 1846
A bureaucrat and politician of the Meiji period. His father was Masatoku, a samurai of the Takashima Domain (Nagano Prefecture). He adopted Watanabe Chifuyu, the third son of his elder brother Watanabe Chiaki. At the end of the Edo period, he studied Western military science and foreign languages in Edo, and in 1870 he began serving in Ina Prefecture. In 1871 he transferred from the Ministry of Civil Affairs to the Ministry of Finance, and from 1876 to 1877 he worked at the Tax Bureau on land tax reform. In 1877 he became governor of Kochi Prefecture, and in 1886 he became governor, suppressing the civil rights movement by expelling aspiring members from the prefectural office and refusing to approve the establishment of a joint district council. In 1887 he arbitrarily decided to merge four districts in the prefecture, and was reprimanded and dismissed from his post. He lived in Kyoto and practiced Zen, becoming familiar with both Eastern and Western philosophies, and calling himself Muhenkyozen. In 1881, he returned to his position as governor of Fukuoka Prefecture, and in 1882, he became director of the Ministry of Finance's Research Bureau, and after serving as director of the Budget Bureau, he became vice minister of finance under Finance Minister Matsukata Masayoshi in 1886. He began to show prominence in parliamentary affairs in 1890, and in 1892, he was selected to succeed Matsukata as finance minister in the second cabinet of Ito Hirobumi, and was in charge of wartime finances during the Sino-Japanese War. In 1893, he was made a viscount, and temporarily handed the position over to Matsukata and became minister of communications, but he returned to that position and drew up the outline of management after the Sino-Japanese War. In order to promote military expansion, steelworks construction, railway construction, and education expansion, he established registration taxes, business taxes, and a tobacco leaf monopoly, and increased the liquor tax. In 1898, he became the founding chairman of the Rikken Seiyukai party, helped president Ito Hirobumi organize, and appointed him vice president. Ito used Watanabe, a former bureaucrat, to balance the party's members with those from political parties. In the fourth Ito Cabinet, which was formed in October of the same year, he ousted the initially planned Inoue Kaoru and became Minister of Finance himself, but he received backlash from the old Liberal Party faction and came into conflict with Hoshi Toru. His insistence on an extremely austere policy for the budgets of fiscal years 1959 and 1960 put him at odds with the Seiyukai Party ministers who were advocating more proactive policies, and in May 1959, due to disunity within the Cabinet, the Cabinet resigned en masse. After that, he withdrew from politics and the bureaucracy, spending his later years in disappointment. <References> Minyusha, Yamagata Aritomo, with Watanabe Kunitake and Okamoto Ryunosuke

(Rikie Shibasaki)

Source: Asahi Japanese Historical Biography: Asahi Shimbun Publications Inc. About Asahi Japanese Historical Biography

Japanese:

没年：大正8.5.11(1919)
生年：弘化3.3.3(1846.3.29)
明治時代の官僚政治家。父は高島藩(長野県)藩士政徳。兄渡辺千秋の3男渡辺千冬を養子とする。幕末に江戸で洋式兵学,外国語を学び,明治3(1870)年伊那県に出仕する。4年,民部省を経て大蔵省に転じ,8～9年租税寮で地租改正事業に従事する。9年高知県権令に転じ,11年同県令となり,立志社員を県庁から追放し連合区会の成立を不認可とするなど,民権運動を弾圧した。12年,県下の4郡合併を専断したため,譴責のうえ依願免官となる。京都に住んで参禅し,東西の哲学に親しみ,無辺侠禅と号した。14年福岡県令に復帰し,15年大蔵省調査局長に転じ,主計局長を経て,21年松方正義蔵相のもとで大蔵次官となった。 23年より議会対策で頭角を現し,25年第2次伊藤博文内閣では松方のあとを襲い蔵相に抜擢され,日清戦争中は戦時財政を担当した。28年子爵に叙せられ,一時蔵相を松方に譲って逓信相に転ずるが,再び蔵相に復帰して日清戦後経営の大綱を立案。軍備拡張,製鉄所建設,鉄道敷設,教育拡充などを推進するため,登録税,営業税,葉煙草専売の創設や酒造税の増税を行った。33年立憲政友会の創立委員長となり伊藤博文総裁の組織を助け,副総裁をもって任じた。伊藤は政党出身者とのバランスをとるため官僚出身の渡辺を利用した。同年10月成立の第4次伊藤内閣では,当初予定された井上馨を排して自ら蔵相に就いたが,旧自由党系から反発を受け,星亨と対立。34年度,35年度予算について極端な緊縮方針を主張したため,積極政策をとる政友会出身閣僚と相容れず,34年5月に至って閣内不統一のため内閣は総辞職することとなった。以後,政界,官界から身を引き,失意の晩年を送った。<参考文献>民友社『山県有朋附渡辺国武,岡本柳之助』

(柴崎力栄)

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