MITI and the Japanese miracle

Page 242

Seven

Administrative Guidance

Sahashi Shigeru was born April 5, 1913, in Toki city, Gifu prefecture, a small ceramics center about an hour and a half by train from Nagoya. He came from a family of modest means (for some 60 years his father operated a small photographic studio near Toki station), and the fact that he ultimately graduated from the Law School of Tokyo University reflects the considerable openness to talent, regardless of financial capability, of the educational system before the war. Sahashi attended Tokai * Junior High School in Nagoya, commuting daily on the 5:00 a.m. train; after passing the entrance examination to the Eighth Higher School (Hachiko*), in Nagoyacomparable to an American liberal arts collegehe received the support of his father in attending the famous prep school, despite the economic difficulties the family faced in helping him. From Hachiko he went on to Todai*, where he graduated in the class of 1937. Sahashi failed in an attempt during his junior year to pass the Higher-level Public Officials Examination, but he succeeded as a senior. Because of his lack of connections, he applied to all the ministries. He was accepted by both Finance and MCI, and he chose Commerce and Industry on the grounds that even if the country went socialist (as seemed possible during the depression), MCI would have a role to play.

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Four months after Sahashi joined the ministry, Japan was at war with China, and four months after that Sahashi was drafted and dispatched to the central China front. Most graduates of the Imperial universities in this period were found unfit for military service on physical grounds, but Sahashi always had a strong constitution and passed the exam easily. As a Todai graduate he experienced a good deal of physical abuse in the army, but the experience seemed to have hardened himhe participated in the battle for Wuhanand to have