著者
三浦 壮
出版者
政治経済学・経済史学会
雑誌
歴史と経済 (ISSN:13479660)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.57, no.2, pp.1-16, 2015

This study traces the funding and management of investments by examining capital formation, fluctuations in holdings, and investments in stocks and land by the former Iwakuni domainal lord Kikkawa in the Meiji period. It aims thereby to bring to light the Meiji-era formation of capital by the nobility. The total assets of the Kikkawa family increased through the Meiji period, with most of the assets in stockholdings by the end of the era. In early Meiji, the Kikkawa's revenue came mostly from government payouts, along with income from loans and landholdings. In mid-Meiji, revenue from public loans became an important source of income, and after 1895, stockholdings rapidly assumed greater importance. The administration of the family property was carried out by relatives and family affiliates under a council system, in which the role of property-holder Chokichi Kikkawa was especially significant. The Kikkawas stressed landholdings in one group of funds and stockholdings in another, enabling the flow of capital to be clearly divided between the two and managed separately. Until 1898, the amount of capital invested in stocks depended on the sale of public loans, land, and the income from loans. Between 1899 and 1902, a system was established for reinvesting the profits from stockholdings back in the industrial sector. The Kikkawa family were successful in their two-pronged approach to investment, significantly increasing their landholdings through the Meiji period and increasing the value of their investments in stocks. The most advantageous investment was recognized to be in stocks, across the board, because of their yield, which was high especially in bank stocks and in railroads. This paper explains why the powerful nobilit of the time invested chiefly in high yield banks and railroads, and in conclusion, divides the history of Meiji-era Kikkawa household management into five periods : 1) dependence on government revenue ; 2) formations of public loan and bans assets ; 3) the shift to investments in stocks ; 4) capital formation in stock- and land-holding ; and 5) the shift to growth in stockholding.
著者
高柳 翔
出版者
政治経済学・経済史学会
雑誌
歴史と経済 (ISSN:13479660)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.56, no.4, pp.1-16, 2014-07-30 (Released:2017-08-30)

By the turn of the 20th century, Russian and German encroachment on the British Empire had significantly threatened Britain's global dominance, and Britain was struggling to defeat the local army in South Africa in the Second Boer War (1899-1902). Aware of the declining power of the mother country, Britain's leading colonies, such as India, Canada, and Australia, sought independence in munitions supplies by launching efforts to develop their own defense industries. They began by constructing small arms factories, since rifles are used in vast quantities in wartime and require mass production. This paper focuses solely on Australia: the Australian Government's Lithgow small arms factory (LSAF), which commenced production in 1912, raises a series of important questions concerning not only military, but industrial and technological issues as well. Australia, which became the independent Commonwealth of Australia in 1901, decided to create the LSAF in 1907 and sought modern machineries of the highest quality, all of which had to be purchased from abroad. As LSAF's main products were British Lee-Enfield rifles and only British makers were capable of manufacturing the gauges and jigs need for maintaining interchangeability of parts, the factory initially intended to order its machinery from Britain. Greenwood & Batley Ltd. (G&B) of Leeds, England was the world leader in the rifle plant business and was expected to win the 1909 bid for LSAF's plant. However, G&B faced unexpectedly strong competition from the American firm, Pratt & Whitney Company (P&W) of Hartford, Conneticut. P&W ultimately won the contract by guaranteeing shorter delivery times and offering machinery with "double the rifle production capacity" of G&B. Australia's decision to introduce U. S. technology was based on the fact that the newest, most efficient machinery had largely been invented in the 'American system of manufacture'. Neverthless, LSAF's rifle production rate proved very low until the First World War broke out. This stagnancy was caused by 'culture shock,' namely an incompatibility in technology standards and disputes between the British craft union and the P&W manager who favored rationalization, or in order words by friction between Britain and the United States. As LSAF was key to Australia's national security, a thorough examination of the problems is critically important. This paper aims principally to demonstrate that Australia erred in its selection of rifle plant and put its defense strategy at risk.
著者
浅井 良夫
出版者
政治経済学・経済史学会
雑誌
歴史と経済 (ISSN:13479660)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.58, no.3, pp.2-8, 2016-04-30 (Released:2018-04-30)
参考文献数
41

Analyses of post-World War II reconstruction and stabilization have focused on advanced countries, but examination of under-developed areas, as well, will provide us with a more comprehensive view of this historical process.Western European reconstruction and stability were achieved fairly systematically. Following the end of the war, Western European countries ran short of dollars to import the machines and raw materials that were indispensable for industrial reconstruction. Currency stabilization and foreign exchange liberalization were regarded as necessary steps to increasing foreign trade. Western Europe was rescued from the 1947 liquidity crisis by emergency loans from the IMF, World Bank and Washington Export-Import Bank (EXIM). Then, from 1948-52, the Marshall Aid Plan supplied dollars to Western Europe. Once they had achieved currency stability around 1949, Western Europe's countries pursued exchange-rate liberalization based on support from the IMF and European Payments Union (EPR). They finally achieved stability in the mid-1950s.In under-developed areas, by contrast, development and stabilization were a fluctuating and disorderly process. In comparison to the developed countries that were at the center of the post-war international economic system (IMF=GATT regime), under-developed areas were marginal. The U.S provided them aid sporadically, on an ad hoc basis. Although Truman expressed enthusiasm for development when he presented his “Point Four Program”, the U.S. hesitated to embark decisively on an aids program. 1956, however, proved a turning point and the U.S. began actively to export an American development model to counter the Soviet model. The World Bank took its part by complementing the U.S. aid.East Asia was a marginal area in the post-war international economic order, but it was at the vanguard of the cold war. Following World War II, “the yen exchange area” was divided into three regions: the communist (China), the under-developed (Korea and Taiwan), and the developed (Japan). In other words, the East Asian economy was characterized by segmentation. Trade among these areas was limited. Although the U.S. offered Korea and Taiwan huge sums of economic and military aid, it had no feasible program for East Asian integration.By the beginning of the 1960s, the U.S. had elaborated an “Economic Growth Model” common to developed and under-developed countries. This model successfully masked the disparities in the post-war international economic system.
著者
大瀧 真俊
出版者
政治経済学・経済史学会
雑誌
歴史と経済 (ISSN:13479660)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.51, no.1, pp.47-62, 2008-10-30 (Released:2017-08-30)
参考文献数
57
被引用文献数
1

The horse industry in modern Japan was consistently lead by military demand for military horses; however the interwar period should be considered. In this period, armaments reduction decreased the political and economic influence of the Army on the horse industry. The purpose of this paper is to clarify how the maintenance of military horses was practiced in the period, and especially how it was related to simultaneous advances in the streamlining of agricultural management. Through analysis of data regarding the Tohoku region, the main source of horse stock in Japan, this study makes clear the following two points. 1) The policy of the horse industry in the inter-war period was to create a demand for militarily-required "improved-horses", in farmers' horse breeding. Due to armaments reduction, the Army was no longer able to maintain military horses by itself. Therefore, it intended to entrust their maintenance to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry by replacing military demand for horses with that of farmers. 2) To carry out this policy, technicians of the Ministry encouraged farmers to increase the use of horses. This was intended to increase their income brought from work performed by horses, and to make them keep improved-horses while streamlining agricultural management. But it was only large farmers that implemented this plan. In contrast, small farmers refused to accept this policy, because their scale of management was too small to exercise the abilities of the improved-horses. Instead, they requested to streamline their management systems by using ponies, which cost less than improved-horses but were not required for military purposes. Nevertheless, their request could not be realized as the use of stallions to produce ponies was prohibited by law. As a result, small farmers were forced to keep improved-horses uneconomically. The supply of many military horses in the following war period would not have been possible without their sacrifice.
著者
細谷 亨
出版者
政治経済学・経済史学会
雑誌
歴史と経済 (ISSN:13479660)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.60, no.3, pp.30-39, 2018-04-30 (Released:2020-04-30)
参考文献数
29

Japanese settlement in Manchuria (Japanese immigration to Manchuria) was a national emigration policy implemented by the Empire of Japan from 1932 until Japan’ s defeat in 1945. The history of Japanese immigration to Manchuria has previously been analyzed from various perspectives, though analysis has focused mainly on agricultural history and colonies. Over the past few years, considerable focus has been placed on increased food production as dictated by the expansion of Japan’ s total war effort and the role of immigrants as a means of food production. Immigrants were responsible for increasing food production. This paper examines the circumstances faced by farmers both in their home villages in Japan and in the villages they were sent to establish in Manchuria. Specifically, this paper has ascertained food shortages those immigrants faced and their domination overo ther ethnic groups in Manchuria as the Asian‒Pacific War intensified.Japanese immigration to Manchuria markedly intensified during the Asian‒Pacific War as the shortage of the rural labor force became more evident. Two policy issues, military requirements and increased food production in Manchuria, were crucial to increased immigration. Imperial agencies and village communities pressured farmers to immigrate to Manchuria. This induced bad behavior among immigrants in Manchuria and the return of some farmers to Japan, and it led to greater friction with local residents such as Chinese.In addition to wartime shortages in material and food, Manchuria lacked an adequate system for settlement of immigrants. Immigrants were forced to lead hard lives under appalling conditions. The original aim of immigration was to increase food production, but anticipated results were not achieved. Instead, immigrants were dissatisfied since they had to toil to farm and live, and they became violent toward other ethnic groups. This violence was in addition to Japanese expropriating land when they settled, and local ethnic groups increasingly pushed back. In some instances, Chinese assaulted Japanese immigrants. Living in Manchuria meant enduring a cycle of unabashed violence and retaliation. Japanese immigrants oppressed other ethnic groups in Manchuria, but they were also in a precarious position themselves even though immigration to Manchuria was supposedly backed by Japanese Imperial authority. This may be why food shortages were acutely evident in the Empire of Japan at the time.
著者
権上 康男
出版者
政治経済学・経済史学会
雑誌
歴史と経済 (ISSN:13479660)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.46, no.1, pp.20-37, 2003-10-30 (Released:2017-08-30)

With the spread of deregulation in the business world beginning in the 1980s, the concept of "neo-liberalism" has attracted the interest of more and more people. Our understanding of this idea, as well as the movements or practices based on it, however, is still very limited. In fact, scholarly literature hardly mentions it, and we have no authoritative definition which fulfills both the needs of historical studies and those of economic theory studies. Based on French public archives, and private French archives recently opened to the public, this study demonstrates three points concerning neo-liberalism. First, neo-liberalism has its "official" roots in the "Walter Lippmann Symposium" held in Paris in 1938, in which such famous liberal economists as F. Hayek, L. Mises, W. Ropke, and J. Rueff participated. Second, at this symposium, discussants reached the conclusion that (neo-)liberalism should be based on two key conceptual foundations: that the price mechanism (not the pursuit of maximum utility) should be considered the "fundamental postulate" of liberalism; and that state intervention should not always be eliminated, as some types of state intervention are compatible with the price mechanism, and are therefore acceptable. Third, after the end of World War II, Germany was the first to carry out an economic and social policy involving neo-liberalism, which was called a "Social Market Economy." As early as 1958 France followed, and the successive Gaullist governments, following the recommendations of J. Rueff, the founder of the French School of neo-liberalism, began to grapple with a large-scale "structural reform" in three fields of finances, economy and credit. Therefore, neo-liberalism did not originate in the Anglo-Saxon World as is commonly believed, but in continental Europe.
著者
北村 陽子
出版者
政治経済学・経済史学会
雑誌
歴史と経済 (ISSN:13479660)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.60, no.3, pp.2-11, 2018-04-30 (Released:2020-04-30)
参考文献数
37

This article focuses on the development of family relations in Germany during and after the Second World War in terms of care for war victims. Frankfurt am Main (Frankfurt) offers good case study because of its character as a commercial city and a city that had been industrialized (chemicals, metals) since the end of the nineteenth century.The Nazi‒government adopted the policy called “Lebensraum” (living space) to maintain sufficient food supplies for the Aryan Nation for the coming war. They occupied Europe from France to Ukraine and from Denmark to Greece, and seized food, materials and people in those areas as a labour force. Their policy on race caused the mass movement of people (especially Jews) from all over Europe to concentration camps and after 1942, to extermination camps. The Jewish prisoners and civil forced labourers were compelled to work in factories in German cities including Frankfurt.During the war, as Allied bombardment of German cities became more severe, children and mothers were evacuated from the cities. In many cases, each family member was alone in a different site - father at the front, children in the countryside, mother in the city, elder brothers and sisters in the suburbs working at munitions factories. Fathers who returned home with injuries could take a one‒year course to learn the skills needed for a new job. However, only a few disabled veterans acquired new jobs after their discharging. Fathers became deeply depressed when they found themselves without jobs. They became short‒tempered with other family members or withdrew into themselves, becoming unable to draw empathy from their children.After the Second World War, about 12 millions people were on the move across Europe, including forced labourers and concentration camp and extermination camp prisoners returning to their countries, the Volksdeutsch who'd been expelled from their homes, and refugees from Eastern Europe. With many people returning to their homes and many others going to new places, the population of German cities rose dramatically. Under these circumstances, the food supply was not functional and ration systems were still in place.Disabled veterans continued returning home until 1948. They had access to vocational training courses, though, as in the situation during the war, very few of them acquired new jobs. Since they could not communicate rery well with their family members after their long absence, the divorce rate rose until 1950. The war left invisible scars in people’s minds.
著者
田中 光
出版者
政治経済学・経済史学会
雑誌
歴史と経済 (ISSN:13479660)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.54, no.2, pp.16-31, 2012-01-30 (Released:2017-08-30)
参考文献数
108

The Japanese savings rate rose to around 10 percent in the early 20th century. The growth of individual savings supported and stabilized this high savings rate. This paper examines how and why the individual savings grew in modern Japan. The Japanese Postal Savings Bank was the first nation-wide saving bank for ordinary people's small savings, and became generally popular at the beginning of 20th century as the savings rate rose. This paper therefore focuses on the spread of the Postal Saving Bank's individual deposit accounts. Previous studies have revealed that central government policy promoting individual savings affected deposits in the Postal Savings Bank. But government policy was not the only factor which induced people to save. Various local organizations and their actions also widely affected ordinary people's saving behaviors. The experience of Mishima City in Shizuoka Prefecture provides a good example of how saving behavior spread in local society. In Mishima, new modern organizations such as the local post office, elementary schools and local government, were well aware of the central government policy promoting savings, and additionally they had influence in the local community. To give one example, Mishima elementary school cooperated with Mishima post office to promote making small savings to parents through school children. As the government implemented systems to promote postal savings, local community leaders tried to utilize those systems. Additionally, these local leaders did not just accept this policy; to a certain extent they could also give advice to government about it. It was not only the modern but also the older parts of society that joined in the promotion of savings. In Mishima, local small savings organizations such as mujin (pre-modern mutual financing communities) and local residents' unions were promoted by local government and local post offices. Although there were a variety of purposes for savings, these savings movements lead the growth of small deposits in local modern banks, similar to postal savings. As the postal savings system developed in local communities, pre-modern collective savings were integrated to the modern system and the new generation was trained in the concept of saving. This happened all over Japan, not only in Mishima. In the early 20th century, Japanese local society was in many respects being reconstructed. Savings behavior and the promotion of individual saving was one typical trend in this process. This movement affected the Japanese national savings rate, and to a certain extent supported capital accumulation for Japanese modernization.
著者
大島 朋剛
出版者
政治経済学・経済史学会
雑誌
歴史と経済 (ISSN:13479660)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.49, no.2, pp.1-17, 2007-01-30 (Released:2017-08-30)

This paper clarifies the reasons and conditions for the entry of large-scale sake brewers into local markets after the 1900s, in relation to the competition among production centers, makers and wholesalers, and the Tokyo and local markets. Considering the comparatively rich literature of studies analysing the structure of production of the modern Japanese brewing industry, this study aims at a more comprehensive understanding of the dynamic linkages of production, distribution and market through the medium of local distributors. Particular attention is paid to the role of distribution in the reproduction of the whole economy centering on change in distribution systems, focusing on the business history of local distributors. Nada and Chita are two regional centers of Japanese sake production, both of which had already been established in the Edo period. However, they showed different trajectories of development during the Meiji period. Nada accomplished further growth and expanded its market throughout the country. On the other hand, Chita did not expand, but narrowed its market. For example, Tatsuuma-Honke in Nada, which had led the Japanese sake brewing industry during the pre-World War II period, was able to take the initiative in transactions with local wholesale stores, which would not have been possible in Tokyo, and this led to rising sales in local areas after the Meiji 30s. This paper shows that the shift of the predominant position from wholesale stores to makers progressed in local areas first, before it happened in Tokyo. Another significant factor in the change of market structure was the large role played by local wholesale stores like Nakano-Saketen. This was also connected with the change in the Japanese sake market structure. Although they had from the very beginning integrated the functions of production and distribution, local distributors installed by brewing capital developed rapidly, demonstrating that they could function independently as wholesalers. This became the condition for the opening up of local markets to large-scale Japanese sake brewers. This conclusion is the key point of this paper and represents a new contribution to the history of this field of research.
著者
西村 雄志
出版者
政治経済学・経済史学会
雑誌
歴史と経済 (ISSN:13479660)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.47, no.4, pp.33-49, 2005-07-30 (Released:2017-08-30)

Between 1893 and 1913, the currency system of the Straits Settlements was transformed from one based on the silver standard to one based on the gold-exchange standard, and became part of the international gold standard framework, which had London as its center. In 1903, following the recommendation of the final report of the Currency Committee chaired by D. Barbour, the Straits Settlements Government abandoned the silver standard. Three years later, it fixed the Straits dollar at a higher-than-previous rate of 2s 4d(2 shillings, 4 pence) per dollar, to guarantee that the currency in circulation would not be disturbed by the rise of silver prices. Thus, a new system, based on the gold-exchange standard, was created. In 1899 the Straits Settlements Government began issuing government notes, which were immediately accepted and circulated. By 1910 they constituted about one half of all currencies in circulation, while the circulation of the silver dollar inside the Settlements sharply declined. By shortly before 1913, the majority of currencies in circulation were government notes and subsidiary coins. The currency system of the Straits Settlements was not only implemented in the areas legally decreed to utilize it, such as the Federated Malay States and the State of Johor, but was also informally adopted in areas closely connected to the colony, such as the rest of Malay Peninsula, East Sumatra and the southern part of Siam. The colony's silver coins had traditionally circulated widely in these areas, although neither government notes nor gold coins, which were circulated within the colony, were readily accepted there. The newly minted 1903 Straits dollar was also widely accepted in these surrounding areas. However, in response to the international fluctuations of silver prices, the Government decided to fix the Straits dollar at a higher rate in 1906. At the same time, it decided to debase the silver content of the Straits coin by 25 per cent, in order to prevent the coins from being melted down for ingot. As a result, the new Straits silver dollar became unacceptable as the currency in the surrounding areas. Instead, their own currencies came to be used, and the Straits silver dollar rapidly disappeared from these areas. Concurrently, the silver dollar was replaced by government notes inside the colony. The currency system in South-east Asia as a whole thus came to be reorganized, in accordance with territorial boundaries.