A Sketch of Viscount Kato:
The Business World of Japan Comes into Its Own in the Work of Government By Ove Toxio Born of an old Samurai family} named Hatton, in Nagoya in 1800, Viscount Kato, the new premier, is now 62 years of age. Ho is closely, connected with the Iwasaki family '<whose three firms, the Mitsu Bussan, the Mitsu Bishi and the! Mitsu Gomei are world wide—having married the eldest daughter of the house. The Iwasakis\ are the!
Rothschilds of Japan. Viscount fon igners in connexion with the re-mame is best known to
vision of the—Anglo-Japanese
he played a major part, and in con-Alliance in the eonelading of which nexion with the much-discussed Twenty-One Demands which he, when Foreign" Minister in the Okuma Cabinet, presented to China 1915.
The significance in the appointment of Viscount Kato to guide the Japanese ship of state lies in the fact that, through him, the financial ud business interests of the Empire re now stepped into a position in which, if they do not have full eontrol of the affairs of the nation, they certainly occupy a position of immonse advantage and are on a par the clan chieftains who, hitherto, have had the biggest say in the political life of Japan. Family and clan connexions are of paramount importance in Japan still, as may well be imagined when it is remembered that all life in Japan, political, social, commercial, hinges on the family system and these con-noxious completely eclipse party affiliations, Viscount Kato's alliance with the rich Iwasaki family by marriage, one can. safely say, is bound to increase the influence' of the commercial and business element of the country in the nation's affairs. It is still premature to try pierce the future, but the indleations are that the commercial barons and merchant princes of the Empire are well on the way to unseat the clan chieftains. The battle between these elements has been pronounced and protracted, and the appointment of Viscount Kato! can be regarded as a signal victory, of new order over the old that did yeoman service in the past, but that the nation thinks has now outgrown its usefulness.
The nation hus already begun to call the Kato Cabinet the "Iwasaki Baron Shidehara, for jears Japan's representative ashington, who is now Foreign ter in Viscount Kato's official family, is also closely connected with the Iwasaki interests, for Baron Shidehara, like his chief, married a daughter of the Rothe. childs of Japan. Thus the Premier of Japan and his Foreign ister are brothers-in-law—for the first time in the country's history.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.