| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.3

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Asia

Richard H. Mitchell. Justice in Japan: The Notorious Teijin Scandal. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press. 2002. Pp. xiii, 264. $46.00.

In 1934, as the army plotted mischief beyond the borders and extremists plotted coups within, Japanese police rounded up more than a dozen prominent bureaucrats, politicians, and businessmen—decidedly not the usual suspects. For criminal charges, they and prosecutors tagged a stock sale. The aggressive Suzuki trading firm had failed a few years earlier. When it did, as creditor the (Japanese government-affiliated) Bank of Taiwan had taken title to Suzuki's 225,000 shares in the Teijin textile firm. In exchange for a loan from the Bank of Japan, it had then posted the Teijin stock as security and to repay that loan had sold the stock. Argued the prosecutors, the defendants rigged the sale. 1

The trial scandalized the country, but for the prosecutors it brought only grief. Although several defendants initially admitted to the crime, they soon hired counsel and retracted their confessions. By December 1937, the court had acquitted the defendants. Indeed, it not only acquitted them but forthrightly declared that no crime had occurred. To retell this story, Richard H. Mitchell combs various accounts of the trial record, the press coverage, and defense statements. He tells the story straightforwardly enough; the puzzle is whether he tells it too straightforwardly. . . .

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