明治後期における地方紡績企業の合併

―一宮紡績株式会社を事例として―

抄録

This paper aims to examine the factors of the merger between the local cotton-spinning companies in the late Meiji era.
Ichinomiya Spinning Company was founded in 1895 by local and Nagoya wealthy persons, and produced gas-thread as its core product. However, its business activity deteriorated because of the depression after the Russo-Japanese War, so Ichinomiya Spinning Company came to depend the debt much more than before. As a result, a large amount of the stocks of Ichinomiya Spinning Company were sold by major stockholders who lived outside the Ichinomiya area.
Since the Meiji government recommended the business combination, Masaka Okuda, who was the then president of Owari Spinning Company, formed Bisei-Rengo which was composed of the cotton spinning companies in the Chukyo area, and promoted the mergers. Okuda negotiated with Shinichiro Saburi, who was the then president of Ichinomiya Spinning Company, about the merger plan, and Saburi decided to merge with Mie Spinning Company. At the same time, Mie Spinning Company tried to acquire Chita Spinning Company.
However, the merger terms for Ichinomiya Spinning Company were inferior to those for Chita Spinning Company. Therefore, the stockholders of Ichinomiya Spinning Company fiercely opposed to merge with Mie Spinning Company. In the end, the merger negotiations between Ichinomiya Spinning Company and Mie Spinning Company broke down, and Ichinomiya Spinning Company merged with Nihon Spinning Company.
In short, the stockholders' will of the merged company played an important role in the merger negotiations between spinning companies. In addition, the corporate merger between Ichinomiya Spinning Company and Nihon Spinning Company helped to control the capital concentration on the big spinning companies and to intensify the competition among spinning companies.