In the 1880s, a lot of railway companies were established in Japan. Many of them were promoted by provincial governors, for the purpose of stimulating of the development of industry in local communities. Therefore, in the early years, the railway companies had problems becoming independent of local interests.
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the formative process of the top-management structure of Kyushu Railway Company from 1886 to 1890, and to shed light on the relationship between a railway company and local communities in modern Japan.The conclusion of this paper is as follows :
1. At the start, the top-management structure of Kyushu Railway Company was a council system, where in the major directors represented local communities. The first aim of the company president was to achieve independence from the representative who disregarded making a profit.
2. At first, the president included stockbrokers in the board of directors. There were two purposes for this. One was for smooth fund-raising, and the other was to increase the number of board members opposed to the representative of local communities.
3. But fund-raising was stymied by the panic of 1890, and the super-vision of local communities was difficult to overcome. Alternatively, the railway president managed to enlist zaibatu capitalists as stock-holders and brought them on to board of directors, moreover the president issue a bond for new fund-raising. These measures achieved their purpose in 1900, after which the Kyushu Railway Company was no longer dependent on the local communities.

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Before World War II, Mitsui-bussan (MBK) was the biggest general trading company in Japan, which used to have a great difference on gross sales from other domestic general trading companies. But nowadays, MBK is one of the five biggest general trading companies (other are Mitsubishi-shoji, Marubeni, Itochu-shoji, and Sumitomo-shoji), so the great lead of MBK from others has been losing gradually after the war.
Instead of decling of MBK, Mitsubishi-shoji (MC) had kept the top position on gross sales in 70's and 80's.
This contrast between two companies was represented on fuel business, especially on oil business after the war. MC had gained gross sales on the oil business by building a close relationship with petroleum exporting countries and international petroleum corporations, and MC succeeded in importing LNG (liquid natural gas) from Alaska and Brunei.
Sales of MBK's oil business were always lower than that of MC. So BMK carried out the project of boring petroleum and producting petrochemical materials at Iran in 70's and 80's. But MBK was suffered heavy losses by failing both of projects.
The gap of two companies was derived from the result of the re-unification. After World War II, MBK and MC were dissolved by Occupation policy. Both of companies were divided in many companies. Later, MC accomplished the re-unfication in 1954, and MBK also did in 1959.
But, in the process of re-unification, most of competent person on oil division of former MBK organized General-bussan company (General oil company now), and they also acquired all of trade rights on oil business of former MBK. And they didn't take part in the re-unification of new MBK. Therefore new MBK failed to gather human resources and trade rights on oil business.
On the other hand, in MC, most of competent person on oil division of former MC moved to other companies, too. But new companies which were founded after dissolution, revived many trade rights on oil business of former MC. And they trained many men talented on oil business. Moreover most of there companies participated in the re-unification of new MC. As a result, new MC successed in gathering human resources and trade rights on oil business.

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