著者

荒井 悦郎

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.43, no.3, pp.295-313,328-32, 1977-09-30 (Released:2017-07-22)

---

In 1880s, most of the Japanese exports and imports had been handled by foreign trading companies with offices in Yokohama. The Yokohama Union Silk Depository Incident (Yokohama Rengo Kiito Niazukarijo Jiken) between Japanese and foreign silk merchants took place under such circumstances. This article aims at giving an outline of the affair, with special references to direct export movements (jika-yushutsu undo) by the Japanese merchants and the activities of the Japanese silk-trading companies. Established in 1879 by Kenso Hayami, Dohshin-kaisha was a typical Japanese direct export company which had branches both in New York and Lyon. Hayami, as an ex-government official in charge of industrial policy, promoted direct export movements and organized silk producers and local merchants to set up the company. The Meiji Government offered some financial assistance in such a way as giving the loan in the form of documentary bills (nigawase) to promote the expansion of the Japanese direct export. Such facilities induced silk producers and local merchants to subscribe to the company.As a result Japan's direct export of raw silk grew rapidly between 1881 and 1883. In 1882, the Japanese trading companies jointly accounted for 27.6% of the Japanese raw silk export in volume. But despite the fact that the total volume of the Japanese raw silk export expanded substatially, the share of direct exports did not increase satisfactorily in the latter part of 1880s. This was partly caused by the inability of the Japanese trading interests to cope with the fluctuating world markets and their lack of funds to give sufficient loans to producers. Furthermore, the government closed financial aids to the direct export companies in 1889. The Japanese silk producers and local merchants eventually gave up their direct export efforts. The Japanese merchants thus failed to rectify the trading inequality vis'-a-vis the foreign companies. In 1880s the Japanese direct export companies were hardly a worthy opponent for the foreign traders.