Niihama: Part 2 | Sumitomo’s Journey from Past to Present | About Sumitomo

First Director-General Saihei Hirose’s aspirations and determination

Saihei Hirose continued modernizing the Besshi Copper Mines. In 1872 he bought a small, British-made, wooden steamboat of just 54 tons to ship items for the Besshi Copper Mines and refined copper. He introduced dynamite for mining and coke for copper smelting. He also encouraged the use of plenty of modern machinery, such as steam engines, rock drills, ore crushers, and hoists. The Besshi Copper Mines benefited greatly from this influx of new technology.
As a result, the amount of copper produced from the Besshi Copper Mines increased more than fourfold in the 15 years from 1868 to 1883, rising from 420 tons to 1,800 tons. During the 283 years the Besshi Copper Mines were in operation, the total output is estimated to have amounted to 30 million tons of ore, yielding 650,000 tons of copper.

Yet Hirose’s long-cherished desire to exploit a rich new deposit was fulfilled only after his retirement.
At the Besshi Copper Mines, about 350 meters below the Kanki and Kanto shafts was Misuma, a zone noted for its rich copper deposits. This mineral wealth had remained untouched because the zone had become waterlogged as a result of a powerful earthquake in 1854. Hirose knew that removing the water from Misuma was the precondition for fulfilling his long-cherished desire to exploit this high-quality deposit.
For Hirose, mining the rich deposit at Misuma was the ultimate goal. This is one reason why he endeavored so strenuously to prevent requisition of the Besshi Copper Mines by the government during the Meiji Restoration and objected so adamantly when the House of Sumitomo contemplated selling off the mines. When the Besshi Copper Mines were short of cash, Hirosei issued private banknotes, known as yamaginsatsu, valid only within the area of the Besshi Copper Mines, for the use of the mineworkers.
Hirose’s initiatives were rooted in his conviction that Misuma was of the greatest value and inspired by his unwavering pride in Sumitomo and its capabilities.

Model of the wooden steamship *Hakusuimaru*

However, removing the water from Misuma proved to be such a challenge that the project was not completed until 1895, one year after Hirose had relinquished his position as director-general of the House of Sumitomo and retired from the business world at the age of 67. Apparently, Hirose was delighted to learn of the successful completion of the project.
In a letter to a manager of the Besshi Copper Mines prompted by the good news, Hirose wrote, “I had begun to think that this farsighted ambitious project would not be completed in my lifetime …” In this letter dated March 10, 1895, alluding to the principle that animated Hirose throughout his career, he expresses his view that the project would benefit the nation. The letter ends with words of appreciation and a request that his best regards be conveyed to the former head miner, if he is still alive, as well as to the current head miner.

Saihei Hirose spent over half a century defending the interests of the Besshi Copper Mines. The Besshi mountains with their rich veins of copper must have remained in his mind’s eye until he passed away in January 1914 at the age of 87.
For Hirose, who was the epitome of probity throughout his life, it was axiomatic that “Private and public interests are one and the same.” Inheriting this principle that Hirose had woven into the fabric of Sumitomo, Teigo Iba, the second director-general, who was from a samurai family and a nephew of Saihei Hirose, laid the firm foundation for the Sumitomo Group’s development far into the future.

Visiting Shisakajima, an island in the Seto Inland Sea

With its cupola furnace and tall chimney, the copper smelter on a small island in the Seto Inland Sea was a source of pollution because the smoke it emitted contained sulfurous acid gas. The island, Shisakajima, as well as being an industrial heritage site that looms large in the modern history of Sumitomo, was once home to a thriving mining community.
We boarded Minoshima, a fast vessel of Sumitomo Metal Mining, at the Port of Niihama. After traversing the clear blue waters of the Seto Inland Sea for about an hour, we docked at a pier and stepped ashore at the foot of a cliff composed of the local black rock.

“The best way to deal with pollution is to eliminate it,” said Teigo Iba, the manager of the Besshi Copper Mines who subsequently served as the second director-general of Sumitomo. Acting on this conviction, he took the decision to relocate the smelter to this island. The Shisakajima Smelter started operation in January 1905.
The first smelter located up in the Besshi mountains had been replaced by two smelters, one atop a hill at a place called Yamane between the mountains and the coast and another adjacent to the Port of Niihama, but environmental degradation affecting lowland agriculture and highland forestry was a serious persistent problem. This was the background to Iba’s purchase of Shisakajima, an uninhabited island some 20 kilometers north of Niihama City, as the site for the new smelter.

Although “Shisakajima” originally referred collectively to the four islands of Minoshima, Ienoshima, Myoujinshima, and Nezumishima, reclamation transformed Minoshima and Ienoshima into a single island. Smelting was relocated to Shisakajima with the objective of tackling the pollution problem. The idea was to diffuse sulfurous acid gas emitted from the smelter chimney into the air over the ocean so as to lower its concentration. However, contrary to expectations, wind carried sulfurous acid gas to Shikoku. Thus, damage to crops and people’s health persisted and the affected farmers were in uproar. The problem was finally solved when a desulfurization facility was introduced in 1939 to neutralize sulfurous acid gas emitted during smelting.

From the Meiji era onward, Sumitomo devoted considerable financial resources and engaged in research and repeated experiments, all with the aim of stopping the pollution, and efforts did eventually lead to a definitive solution, namely, the process for neutralizing sulfurous acid gas. Copper smelters around the world had been struggling with the same problem without success. Determined to solve the pollution problem as a matter of management policy, Teigo Iba and subsequent director-generals of the House of Sumitomo worked tirelessly to accomplish this objective.

But it would be wrong to view Shisakajima solely through the prism of pollution. As the home to the smelter for the Besshi Copper Mines, Shisakajima experienced remarkable development. The population exceeded 5,500 in the Taisho era (1912-1926) and was still almost 4,000 in the mid-1950s. Walking around the island, we noted that most of the 1,000 or so houses were no longer standing, although the remains of the terraced company housing were visible, some even bearing the still legible names of the families that had once occupied them. We also came across the remains of amenities such as a theater, a community center, a public bath that had used seawater, and a street of shops.
The Shisakajima Elementary School still stands and some classrooms are much as they were left when the school closed. Sumitomo built this school for the children of the smelter employees. A jungle gym, now largely obscured by flourishing ivy and Fatsia japonica, stands in a corner of the playground. Although the school building rests on hefty timber supports, it leans sharply and looks precarious. An employee of Sumitomo Metal Mining who guided us commented, “We are doing our best to preserve things.” This sentiment reflects respect for the people who used to live on the island.

At present, although the island has no permanent population, some 50 employees of Sumitomo Metal Mining commute to the island by boat from the Port of Niihama each day. As a result of afforestation, Shisakajima is once more largely tree-covered. After hosting industry for a century, Shisakajima has reverted to its former tranquility, a verdant island out in the Seto Inland Sea under a blue sky.

Second Director-General Teigo Iba: his personality and management philosophy

“Sumitomo’s property is nothing special. The family became wealthy by refining copper. You don’t need to worry about being the last of the line.” (Source: Shunsui Sumitomo edited and published by Hosenkai)

This is what Teigo Iba, who was then the general manager of Sumitomo Head Office, told Takamaro, the sixth son of the Tokudaiji family, a kuge family, to persuade him to marry into the Sumitomo family. Takamaro must have had some reservations and concerns about the contemplated marriage. His anxiety allayed by Iba’s reassuring words, Takamaro became the 15th head of the Sumitomo family, changing his name to Tomoito (while using the name Shunsui for his artistic endeavors).

Whereas first Director-General Saihei Hirose had a rather top-down management style that served Sumitomo well during the period of dramatic change, employees warmed to second Director-General Teigo Iba, attracted by his engaging personality and management philosophy.

In Sumitomo Memoirs, Jun Kawada, who had served as a managing director of Sumitomo Goshi Kaisha and was also a poet, alludes to the affection that people felt for Teigo Iba: “As the Tokaido train crosses the iron bridge over the Seta River, any Sumitomo people on board will likely note the Karahashi Bridge downstream and then gaze intently at a small tree-clad hillock on the right bank and recall with nostalgia, ‘There’s the villa where Mr. Iba spent his last years.’ Such is Teigo Iba’s enduring appeal.”

Kakkien, a residence in Ishiyama, Shiga Prefecture, where Iba led a quiet life after he retired, stands on a hill near the Karahashi Bridge over the Seta River to the south of Lake Biwa. The pines and maples in its garden cast beautiful shadows. Sumitomo Kakkien was designated as a national important cultural property in 2002. (Sumitomo Kakkien is open to the general public on just a few days each year.)
Jun Kawada characterized first Director-General Saihei Hirose as a “man of power and tactics” and second Director-General Teigo Iba as a “man of the utmost integrity.” According to books on Sumitomo’s history, it is apparent that Iba was a down-to-earth man who emphasized harmony in everything. His guiding principal, quoted from Shūmon Mujintō Ron (Treatise on the Inexhaustible Lamp of Zen, was: “A man of noble character esteems wealth and is scrupulous in seeking the ethical way to acquire it.”)

Iba’s management philosophy as director-general was: “Make utmost efforts to gain profit as Sumitomo is in business for profit. However, there is an ethical way of earning profits. Profit must be earned in accordance with moral principles and never be detrimental to society and the national interest.” Iba’s management philosophy is of a piece with Sumitomo’s business philosophy handed down through the generations: “Benefit self and benefit others, private and public interests are one and the same.” Iba remained true to this creed, which informed all his actions.

Illustrative of this posture is Sumitomo’s afforestation project driven by the determination to restore forests devastated by smoke pollution attributable to mining operations and reflecting appreciation of nature’s bounty. Another example is the bronze statue of Kusunoki Masashige in front of the Imperial Palace presented to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the opening of the Besshi Copper Mines.

Iba also pursued “planning imbued with a farsighted perspective,” another guiding principal underlying Sumitomo’s conduct of business.

Proceed to Niihama: Part 3