After World War I, Japanese shipping suffered for a long time from an excess of tonnage and severe competition. How could Japanese shipping companies cope with the depression when they were mostly latecomers with less cargo and with small company size? The smaller trampers and owners were disadvantaged by these circumstances because they could not keep sufficient volumes of cargo to operate their ships. Many of them, of course, went bankrupt. But a considerably large number of small companies survived, changing their strategies; some of them found cargo in Near Seas, and others specialised in ownership. It was the growing demands of in the chartering market that offered them new business opportunities.
S. Tsutsui and Kaiyo Steamship Co., which he established later, were also small owners. Although a very small owner, he became acquainted with G. Hori, a broker in Yamashita and achieved steady growth, chartering out his ship mainly to Yamashita. Kaiyo Steamship took advantage of the government's “scrap and build policy” and acquired bigger ships, which brought good performance to its business. Kaiyo Steamship grew steadily even under the wartime economic controls and built new ships. They chartered them out to the shipping authority and lost most of them in Japan's defeat in World War II.
The growth of small owners was, undoubtedly, a consequence of the development of Japanese shipping. I would like to put emphasis, however, on their contribution. Operators could not have extended their business rapidly and widely without chartering significant tonnage at greatly reduced fees, because they had to play second fiddle in the world shipping market. From this point of view, the activities of small owners are one characteristic of Japanese shipping, though it was evident not only in shipping but also in most manufacturing industries.
