Japanese Morgan

Proportionate to the wealth of the U. S. and that of Japan, John Pierpont Morgan has been reputed comparatively less rich than Mme. Yone Suzuki, 73, "the wealthiest woman in Japan." Awful was the catastrophe last week when this frail, slim lady, garbed as always in the mode of old Nippon, announced briefly that the liabilities of Suzuki & Co. total one quarter of a billion dollars, and that the firm will temporarily suspend payment on certain of its obligations. The ensuing crash on the Tokyo bourse was similar to what might be expected in Wall Street should J. P. Morgan & Co. make a similar announcement. At Tokyo all quoted securities registered an average drop of ten yen, and the yen itself moved down a fraction on international exchange. If the agents of Mme. Suzuki took the precaution to sell short before her announcement, she may well have recouped a half dozen millions last week by uttering a few words. . . .

During the War, Mme. Suzuki increased her wealth reputedly, something over $100,000,000 in transactions involving camphor, sugar, shipping, real estate. Like J. P. Morgan, she is her firm, controlling absolutely the three score subsidiaries scattered throughout the world in which Suzuki & Co. own a predominant interest.

Her children and her grandchildren know her as a wise, not very stern old lady; but until a few years ago she was at her business desk every day, brusque, indomitable, and even now she advises with her department heads two or three times a week. Mme. Suzuki is not "self made". . . .

Iwajiro Suzuki, her late husband, inherited a prospering merchant business and died a rich man; but it was his general manager, Kaneko Naokishi, who emboldened Mme. Suzuki to embark on a succession of daring financial coups.

Once their success seemed so doubtful that General Manager Naokishi offered to commit hara kiri, if she felt that he had mismanaged. For answer Mme. Suzuki turned over her entire affairs to M. Naokishi and went off with her children for a summer in the mountains. When she returned bankruptcy had been averted, and soon the War boom made her Japan's richest woman.

Today, with thousands of Japanese dependent on the wisdom of Yone Suzuki and her advisers, she remained at Kobe last week, busy with planning how to pay her creditors 500,000,000 yen ($250,000,000) and still carry on.