His father was a wealthy merchant running a variety of businesses such as sea transport, the brewing industry, fisheries and the like. Devoted to Fukuzawa Yukichi, a noted enlightenment thinker, he entered Keio Gijuku to study economics directly under Fukuzawa, the founder of present time Keio Gijuku University. Right after leaving the school before graduation, he established and bought out electric railway companies and power companies one after another from 1907 to 1927. People called him the “King of the power plant industry in Japan” at that time. Japan plunged into the Second World War, thereafter, all the power companies were placed under the government control in accordance with the worsening war situation. He stubbornly opposed this government policy but it ended in vain. He made a decision to retire from all his businesses, accordingly, and lived in seclusion at his villa in Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture. After the end of the Second World War, an argument about the management right of the power plant industry of Japan happened between the government-management and private management faction led by Matsunaga. He finally defeated the government-management faction in the fierce argument and divided it into nine private power companies as they are now. Because of his stubborn and uncompromising attitude over fierce argument, he has become to be called the “Hot-blood giant in the power sector in Japan”. The photo shows a small part of the house he was born and a retired streetcar from an electric railway company, present time Nishitetsu, which was established by him. These are on display in the front yard of the memorial hall for him built in the site of the big house he was born on Oki Island, Nagasaki Prefecture.
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