Arima was born in
Tokyo as a son of the former
daimyō of
Kurume Domain (now part of
Fukuoka Prefecture). He studied
agricultural science at the
Tokyo Imperial University, and later became a professor there. He read
Karl Marx and
Max Stirner, and other radical philosophers, and became attracted to the
agrarian movement and radical political ideas. Arima founded the
Nihon Nomin Kumiai (Japan Farmers' Union) together with
Kagawa Toyohiko. He was active in various social programmes, including the establishment and support of
night school,
women's education, farmers' rights, and the rights of the
burakumin, and was chairman of a cultural association aimed at improving education and cultural awareness in rural areas. Arima was elected to the
House of Representatives in the
Diet of Japan in 1924 under the
Rikken Seiyūkai party. In 1929, after he succeeded his father to the title of
hakushaku (
count) under the
kazoku peerage system, he was nominated to the
House of Peers. Arima was a close personal friend of
Fumimaro Konoe, and when Konoe became
Prime Minister of Japan in 1937, Arima was requested to serve as his
Minister of Agriculture. He also participated in Konoe's
Showa Studies Society "Brain trust". In 1936, Arima helped organize the
Tokyo Senators baseball team, and built a
baseball stadium at the site where the present
Korakuen Stadium in Tokyo is now located. Despite pressure from the Japanese military to ban the "western sport", Arima helped sustain it during the war years, and later helped to revive
professional baseball in Japan in the postwar period. Arima became Secretary General of the
Imperial Rule Assistance Association when it was founded in October 1940, but he resigned after five months due to opposition from conservative factions in the government. In the post-war period, he was active in promoting
horse racing and was one of the founders of the
Nakayama Racecourse. He died in 1957 of acute
pneumonia. The
Arima Kinen horserace was named in his honor. He was inducted into the
Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 1969. ==Books==