Route of Cave Pioneering (cont’d)
Matsumoto is currently running a sawmill in a place a few miles away from Cranbrook. Indeed, he operates it jointly with two or three other people from Kumamoto and their business is still small in scale, and yet it is rare to see a Japanese business in the interior. From one point of view, we should appreciate it and wish for their future prosperity. Besides being involved in the sawmill, he also owns a hundred acre of farmland, which he manages. He is in the position of true pioneer and regional leader. He is an influential figure in Cranbrook and the president of Yurinkai.
Do not ask how Shinpei Matsumoto gained such funds. He gained them from his cave business. Some people might defend him by saying that even if he was involved in the prostitution business in the past, we should believe his heart if has already returned to a straight business after cutting ties with the cave. I do not hesitate to accept such a thought. Or, in fact, I do wish that all interior devils would return to straight businesses. However, if there is one who appears as a straight businessman on the surface but commits wrongdoings as an advisor of the devil-kinds, this person needs to be denounced in writing, and I do not see any reason to forgive the person. Shinpei Matsumoto is a good example. He is from Kumamoto Prefecture and used to work in California, but he did something bad and hid himself. He escaped to Hawaii and got involved with Oshige, his current wife, there. According to some sources, Matsumoto has his wife and children in Japan and Oshige also has her husband in Japan, which is dumbfounding.
The two moved from Hawaii to Vancouver. Matsumoto was first working at a sawmill and other places but later entered the interior, moved between jobs, and eventually started a cave in Cranbrook. At around the same time, a prostitute from Kishū called Toku Terada also planned to pioneer Cranbrook. They faced off against each other and engaged in fierce competition. This was seven or eight years ago.
Matsumoto built a cave where he had Oshige engage in prostitution and also housed indentured prostitutes. Meanwhile he also threw boys into a sawmill to make profit. But his way of doing things was bad and there were often complaints from the boys. We can conclude that it was his policy to perform as a good person to take the best for himself when it comes to the issue of money, even if that takes ill-actions and inflictions. What is worse, Oshige is also a rough person who is difficult to deal with. It was not just few times when she was involved in the cave business.