著者

杉浦 勢之

出版者

社会経済史学会

雑誌

社会経済史学 (ISSN:00380113)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.52, no.4, pp.514-542,604-60, 1986

被引用文献数

1

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The scheme of the postal savings was established in 1875 after the model of the Post Office Savings in Great Britain. This scheme was from the very beginning expected to target such low-income class as workers and peasants rather than ordinary depositors with a proper level of income whom banking institutions usually deemed as their clients. Nevertheless, such socio-economic factors as prematurity of money economy and concentration of modern banking in cities spurred the development of this scheme centering on rather well-to-do olocal landlords. A change in the nature of the postal savings apparent in those initial years surfaced in the mid-1890s. In this period of the so-called Japanese Industrial Revolution after the Sino-Japanese War, modern banking rapidly expanded into the rural areas. Because of this modern banking's advancement, the postal savings experienced an alarming level of decrease in the amount of saving having lost long-standing depositors, wealthy farmers in particular, to modern banking institutions. What must be noted here is that this decrease led to an increase in relative share of low-income depositors in the total composition of the postal savings clients. At the end of the 19th Century, on the other hand, there emerged a need in the Administrative concerns to increase the savings ratio in the low-income class and then lure their petty savings to the postal savings scheme. While, after the Sino-Japanese War, the Administration expanded the fiscal expenditure year after year, a boom in enterprises occured at the same time which led to a spiral growth of the capital outlay on the top of expansion of personal consumption, altogether resulting in a rapid development of demestic demand. All these factors caused a steep rise in prices and a marked decrease in the specie reserve affected by an adverse balance of trade with a consequence of a crisis of the gold standard which had just been effected in 1897. The Government deemed the growing consumption an unproductive one and was determined to adopt a savings promotion policy with an aim of restriction on consumption. As the boom in enterprises negated a possibility for raising government bonds which should have been used for raising of funds to be earmarked for fiscal projects centering on military and infrastructure as well as national economic management in the post-war era of the Sino-Japanese War, the Government had no other choice to subscribe to the bonds by using the postal savings as the fiscal resource. The saving promotion policy at first did not work so effectively as expected. But when the political relation of Japan and Imperial Russia became aggravated and the war broke out, the Government organized a nationalistic savings promotion campaign and created a network of the thrift and saving association nationwide for rather forced saving among the populace. Thus the Government succeeded in reorganizing the postal savings scheme as a national savings institution concentrating on the low-income class during the Russo-Japanese War. The postal savings began to be recongnized as an effective instrument of maintaining the demand control policy necessary to achieve a rapid economic growth under the low "ceiling" of Japan's international payments capacity.