Noda Bunichiro (野田文一郎)
Bunichiro NODA (April 12, 1872 - March 9, 1960) was a judge and statesman who was born in Miyoshi-cho (later Miyoshi City), Hiroshima Prefecture. He graduated from Kansai Horitsu Gakko (Kansai Law School, later Kansai University). Shoshii (Senior Fourth Rank), Kun-nito (Order of Second Class), Kyokujitu Jukosho (Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star) was conferred on him.
Career
He was born to a sake brewery in Miyoshi-cho (later Miyoshi City), Hiroshima Prefecture, and after he graduated from Kansai Horitsu Gakko, he became a probationary official of Justice. After he held posts of a judge successively, at first a judge of Otsu Ward Court, next a judge of Kobe District Court, and then a judge of Osaka Court of Appeal, he opened a lawyer's office in Kobe City, Hyogo Prefecture. In 1920, he ran for a member of the House of Representatives from Kensei-kai political party which would later be reorganized into Rikken Minsei-to political party, and he was elected for the first time. But in 1924, he was not elected in the general election, and he separated from the life of Dietman. Therefore, he was persuaded to be the chairman of Kobe Bar Association by the younger group of lawyers, and he assumed the post. After that, he was elected as a member of the House of Representatives five times.
Noda worked successively in different positions such as Counselor of Commerce and Industry in the Hamaguchi Cabinet in 1930, Councilor of Research Bureau of Cabinet in 1935, and so on. After that, he held the posts of Chairman of Daiwa Shintaku (trust business), President of Daiman Kogyo (mining industry), and others, and then, in January, 1942, that is, a month later from the beginning of Pacific War, he assumed the post of the ninth Mayor of Kobe City by winning the runoff election in the City Assembly by only one vote. He shifted the center of the prioritized policy area from the Hanshin (Osaka and Kobe) part to the western part. He advocated constructing the ideal new city in the Akashi plain which stretched out to the west of Kobe City. This concept was the one he originally advocated in his Diet member days immediately after the serious flood disaster in the Hanshin area in 1938, and it was known for the following episode. On the New Year's Holidays of 1943, when Noda stood on the top of Mt. Mekko-san (later Kande-cho, Nishi Ward [Kobe City]) and looked around, the virgin land only dotted with farmer's houses appeared to him to overlap the construction of the town of Shinkyo (Xingjing) he had seen in Manchuria, and so he dreamed the construction of the ideal new city as the region lying inland from the port.
In Harima Province, we have a mild climate and a few earthquakes.'
There is Kobe Port as its front entrance, and it has the perfect geographical conditions.'
It can be said that Mt. Rokko which lies between this area and Kobe is the only traffic obstacle, but it would be resolved by digging a tunnel through it.'
We could construct a subsidiary port of Kobe Port in the coast zone, and we could also construct a new city including cultural facilities like a university, welfare facilities, and residential areas in the hinterland of the port.'
The investigation committee which was set up for the plan included a lot of the elder leaders and influential persons in the political world and the military, such as Sankichi TAKAHASHI, Nobuyuki ABE, Ryutaro NAGAI, Nobumasa SUETSUGU, Kozui OTANI, Kichisaburo NOMURA, and so on.
As the war became intensified, the construction of such a large-scale port city began to change into the Kobe Imperial Headquarters plan, and was developed into the concept of transferring the capital to Kobe by 'digging twofold or threefold moats around Mt. Mekko-san, and building the Rikyu (Imperial Villa) to receive his Majesty.'
In March, 1944, when the operations of Imphal were begun, because the outline of the emergency measures for the decisive battles was issued, the municipal merger was banned and starting to build the city-run suburban electric train became impossible, so the plan was completely up in the air. But after the war, when the construction of Seishin New Town was started, this plan of Noda's began to increase its brilliance.
In 1942, the bureau system was adopted, and, beginning with General Affairs and Defense, nine bureaus, two departments, one room, fifty-two sections, and one place were established, and in December, they were changed into a wartime regime according to the plan of the Government for simplification of the public administration. Under these situations, he made the special accounts of 'Special real estate fund' set up, which would gain a high evaluation later. This became great property as a predecessor of a public developer which would later be one of pillars for the urban management by Kobe City. In 1945, a series of Kobe Air Raids were carried on successively in March and June. As a result of Air Raids in June, the two-thirds of Kobe was burned, and Noda also fell victim at the former residence of Kawasaki in Nunobiki which had been assigned as an official residence. After that, he moved around from one official house for a mayor to another. Air Raids were carried out as many as 130 times by Japan's loss of the war, and more than 8000 people were killed in it.
It was also said that Noda had become filled with phobia about air raids, and in July when the war would be over soon, he asked himself, 'Who could endure the leading position like mine under this situation, if he is not endowed with three conditions that are the strong mental vigor, the physical strength, and the confidence of everyone?'
And he resigned his post six months before his term of service expired. Therefore, he was sometimes called an "ill-fated" wartime mayor, too. Tatsuo MIYAZAKI who would later be a mayor had worked as a secretary of Noda before.
After Noda retired from politics, he went back to his home town Miyoshi, named his own house Koun-ji Temple to make it a Zen temple (a temple belonging to the Zen sect), and spent his remaining years there. It is said that he had liked to draw pictures of Bodhidharma since he held a post of Mayor.