The Structure of the Household Economy of the Owari House of Tokugawa Early in the Meiji Era

Abstract

Owari house of Tokugawa not only held an important position as the first of the Three Branch Families of the House of Tokugawa in the Edo period, but also actively cooperated with the new Government in Meiji Restoration. This article is concerned with their economic response to the new age after the breakup of the feudalism, and an analysis is made of their household economy between 1869 and 1877. When Owari house voluntarily surrendered their fief to the Emperor in June 1869, abandoning their position of a feudal lord, they received in return from the new Government karoku (an annual stipend) of 26,907 koku of rice. The annual stipend was given for eight years between 1869 and 1876, and the revenue thereof amounted approximately to 670,000 yen, which was 55 percent of that whole revenue. Besides thcy had other income sources, namely (1) shohtenroku (hereditary stipends granted to distinguished services to the Meiji Restoration Government), (2) rentals from their own lands, (3) private properties inherited from their ancesters in Tokugawa period. They employed part of these revenues to purchase land, thus beginning to be a parasitic landlord, and used other part to make loans, acting as a money-lender. The amount of loan at the end of 1877 was about 330,000 yen. After 1871 they actively purchased both residential and cultivated lands. By the end of 1877 the sum total spent to purchase residential sites amounted to more than 70,O0O yen, and the total area of cultivated lands owned by them was about 330 hectares, the value of which was 80,000 yen on the basis of assessment. In 1877 karoku and shohtenroku were capitalized into government bonds, which were used to subscribe for shares of the Fifteenth National Bank. The total face value of the stock held by them amounted to 420,000 yen. In the end of 1877 the total value of their assets consisting of these stocks, cash, lands, and loans amounted to some 960,000 yen, which means that their assets grew 6.5 times as much as what they owned at the time of their returning their fief to the Emperor. Thus it is made clear that Owari house became a parasitic landlord ten years after the Meiji Restoration. Moreover, while they were engaged in business as a premodern commercial capitalist, they became a modern banking capitalist and establised an economic basis sufficient to enable them to cope with the new age.