BARON OKURA DEAD

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 337, 24 April 1928, Page 11

BARON OKURA DEAD

JAPANESE FINANCIER (United P.A.—By Telegraph—Copyright i (Australian P.A.—United Service) TOKYO, Sunday. The death is announced of Baron Kihachiro Okura, aged 91. Deceased was a notable business man and financier.

The late Baron Kihachiro Okura was born in a village in Echigo in 1537. He was the son of a poor fish dealer, and at first worked with his father. After a few years he began to deal in arms and munitions. He is said also to have been the first Japanese to start a European tailoring business. In 1872 he made his first visit to Europe and America. Through his army contracts, notably the war against China in 1894-95 and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5, he amassed great wealth. Baron Okura visited Europe and America again in 1900 and extended his operations to every branch of industry and commerce. He also took a large part in the colonising of Mongolia and Manchuria, where he owned factories, rice fields, iron mines and ironworks. At Tientsin he had a spinning mill. At Mukden he owned the tramways. In Japan he was the proprietor or controller of 34 firms, and in China of 19. He was created a baron in 1915, and received many other distinctions. In 1926 he had a bodyguard to take care of his possessions in Mongolio. He presented his famous collection of art objects to the City of Tokyo, where he also founded the Okura Business School.