He was born in the castle town of Fukui, the eldest son of the Fukui retainer Mitsuoka Yoshitomo, and was called Mitsuoka Hachirō. His mother was a wise and capable household manager, and from childhood Hachirō helped her repair the house, work the vegetable garden and tend his father's horse. He also trained hard in martial arts, gaining a practical sense rooted in daily life.
In the year of Perry's arrival he inherited the family headship and served as a Fukui retainer. Under the lord Matsudaira Shungaku, he worked alongside Hashimoto Sanai and others, anxious for the nation's future. With the domain's finances strained and both samurai and townspeople struggling, Hachirō began to think about how the domain and its people could prosper.
He was deeply moved by the policies for promoting industry of Yokoi Shōnan, the Kumamoto thinker invited to Fukui, and studied finance under him. The two traveled through western Japan, studying trade in Shimonoseki, and in Nagasaki they built a domain warehouse and contracted to sell raw silk to the Dutch trading post.
He issued domain notes to lend money to farmers and artisans, and set up a system in which the domain bought up and sold the silk and other goods they produced. Based on the idea that when the people prosper the state prospers, the policy was a great success, turning the strained domain finances into surplus. This skill made Hachirō's name.
When Shungaku became the shogunate's Supreme Councillor, Hachirō served as his close aide, but he lost out in a dispute over domain policy and was ordered into confinement in Fukui. While confined, he devised a cooking stove buried in the ground to retain heat. Strong in heat and sparing of fuel, it was called the Mitsuoka stove and was reportedly used until about the early Shōwa era.
Sakamoto Ryōma visited Hachirō in his confinement, and at an inn they talked from morning till midnight about the economic policy of a new government. Ryōma reportedly said the great men of the realm were Saigō Takamori and Mitsuoka Hachirō. Shortly after, Ryōma lost his life in Kyoto. This bond led to his being invited into the new government.
Joining the new Meiji government as a councillor, he wrote Gijino Taitai, the original draft of a document setting out the principles of the new government. Fukuoka Takachika of Tosa and others revised it into the Charter Oath. Its opening clause, calling for deliberative assemblies to be widely established, expressed the idea of governing by the views of many.
Entrusted with the new government's finances, he issued Dajōkan notes, government paper money valid nationwide, to cover war and administrative costs. He raised funds from merchants and set up an office to oversee commerce, pursuing bold policies. But because the notes had little credit and circulated poorly, criticism mounted, and he resigned the next year.
He became governor of Tokyo, having by then changed his name to Yuri Kimimasa. When a great fire swept the Ginza area the next year, he pushed plans to build many brick buildings and widen the main street to make the district fire-resistant. This was the beginning of the Ginza brick district, a symbol of civilization and enlightenment.
Joining the Iwakura Mission, he traveled to America and Europe and studied local self-government and parliamentary systems. Seeing firsthand how public opinion was brought into government was a great lesson for the man who had drafted the Charter Oath. The experience informed his work after returning home.
With Itagaki Taisuke, Etō Shinpei and others, he submitted to the government the petition for an elected assembly, calling for a parliament of members chosen by the people. It became the starting point of the Freedom and People's Rights Movement. It was an effort to give real parliamentary form to the Charter Oath's ideal of widely establishing assemblies.
After serving in the Genrōin he was made a viscount, and when the Imperial Diet opened he became a member of the House of Peers. He later served as the first president of a life insurance company in Kyoto, leaving his mark in business too. From domain finance to national finance and private enterprise, he spent his life thinking about the flow of money and people's livelihoods.
He died of illness at his home in Takanawa, Tokyo. The Charter Oath's spirit that all matters be decided by public discussion, and his financial principle of enriching the state by enriching the people, were deeply engraved in the starting point of modern Japan. The reading of his name was long debated, but his own signature shows it as Kimimasa.
Matthew C. PerryYokoi ShōnanSaigō TakamoriHashimoto SanaiSakamoto RyōmaEtō ShinpeiItagaki TaisukeMatsudaira Shungaku (Yoshinaga)
Kanō HōgaiTakahashi YuichiSoejima TaneomiNishi AmaneŌkubo ToshimichiKawanabe KyōsaiNakamura MasanaoTerashima Munenori
People of the Meiji period ・ People by period
Based on facts found in textbooks and biographies. Uncertain points are marked as such.