ISHIBASHI Tanzan From "Ishibashi Tanzan Nikki. Vol.1"

On 24 November 1945 (Showa 20), GHQ issued a memorandum entitled "Elimination of War Profits and Reorganization of National Finance" (SCAPIN337) and ordered the Japanese Government to impose a tax on wartime profits and put a halt to wartime compensation. The purpose was control the economy to keep inflation in check, while simultaneously aiming at its demilitarization.

ISHIBASHI Tanzan, however, Finance Minister of the YOSHIDA Shigeru Cabinet formed in May 1946 (Showa 21), opposed the GHQ's inflation control policies, and instead favored a positive financial policy. In particular, he clashed on several occasions with the Economics and Science Section (ESS) over the cutoff of wartime compensation and the imposition of a tax on war profits, and before long earned the enmity of some GHQ.

In January 1947 (Showa 22), the purge of undesirables from public office was revised, with the scope now broadened to target people who had been engaged in local government and media. Since ISHIBASHI had been head of the Toyo Keizai Shinposha ("The Oriental Economist") before the war, his name came up for possible exclusion from public office. He was optimistic about his chance, however, on not being purged, believing that GHQ would be aware of the publication's liberal and pacifist leanings. Nonetheless, in May of that year, ISHIBASHI was ordered purge. Feeling it unjust, he submitted to Prime Minister YOSHIDA his letter of resignation as Minister of Finance.