STRIPPED OF EMPIRES

Evening Star, Issue 25634, 7 November 1945, Page 5

STRIPPED OF EMPIRES

JAPAN'S GREAT INDUSTRIAL FAMILIES (Rec. 11.15 a.m.) TOKIO. Nov. G._ Japan's four greatest financial _ industrial families—Miteui, Mitsubishi. Yasuda, and Sumimoto—were stripped of their commercial empires to-day by an order from General MacArthur directing the dissolution of all mono.polist combines. The Japanese Government is required to establish a "holding company liquidation association." under Allied control. General Mac-Arthur's survey showed that there was close pre-war association between the'powerful big five Japanese banks and American banking institutions. The report also linked tho American .Westinghouso companies

and Tidewater Associated Oil with Mit-, subishi. also the Aluminium Corporations of America and Canada and the International Western Telegraph Corporation with Sumimoto. Westinghouse held 3 per cent, of Mitsubishi electric stock and received 378.,000 dollars in royalties in 1940. Tidewater supplied crude oil to the Mitsubishi Oil Corporation, in which it held stock worth 2,100,000 dollars. The Aluminium Corporation of Canada owned 30 per cent, of the Sumimoto aluminium stock. International Standard Electric held 20 per cent, of the Sumimoto electric .industries stock and reserved the right to elect one-fourth of the directors.