was a Japanese bureaucrat in the Home Ministry and politician who served as governor of Iwate Prefecture (from 1907 to 1913), Shizuoka Prefecture (1913–1914), and Okayama Prefecture (1914–1919), before becoming Director-General of the Hokkaidō Agency from April 1919 to May 1921. He was then appointed to the House of Peers.
Early life and education Shin'ichi Kasai was born on 19 June 1864 in Fuji District, Suruga Province (now in Shizuoka Prefecture), the third son of Kasai Kanzaburō. Biographical dictionaries describe him as a native of Suruga and state that he graduated from the Faculty of Law of Tokyo Imperial University in 1892.
Bureaucratic and gubernatorial career After graduating, Kasai entered the Home Ministry bureaucracy. He was appointed an official of the Taiwan Governor-General's Office on 7 February 1900 and became secretary of Tainan Prefecture on 2 April 1900.
Kasai was later appointed governor of Iwate Prefecture in 1907, and subsequently served as governor of Shizuoka and Okayama. During his five-year tenure as governor of Okayama from 1914 to 1919, he established the Saisei komon (済世顧問) system in 1917 after Emperor Taishō asked at a conference of local governors about the condition of poor people in the prefecture; the system is regarded as the origin of Japan's later minsei-in welfare commissioner system.
He then served as the 15th Director-General of the Hokkaidō Agency from 18 April 1919 to 27 May 1921. Later in his career he became a member of the House of Peers by imperial appointment.
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