A Study on the Commercial Capital in the Late Tokugawa Period and Early Meiji Era

Abstract

In the course of Tokugawa regime, especially from the second half of the 18th century onward, it seems to be certain that commodity production in agriculture was widespread all over the country, and that specialization of agriculture and rural industries developed steadily. In spite of such development of agriculture, the landlord system began to spread, and even-tually since the 1890's the social institution had taken root in Japan's rural villages. Though we have some excellent works on the commercial capital and the landlord system of this period; it is not clear what part the merchants played during the transition period when the agricultural development resulted in the establishment of the landlord system as a social institution. Firstly, this paper intends to find a clue to the solution of this problem by throwing light on the role of commercial capital from the late Edo period to the early Meiji era. The writer takes as an example the case of the Miki family, who lived at Itano county in Tokushima prefecture. The Miki family was one of the biggest wholesale merchants who dealt in the Awa indigo (Awa-ai). The manufacturing and trading in Awa indigo by the Mikis made a start in the latter half of the 18th century. The business activities of the Miki family in the middle of the 19th century were chiefly composed of purchase of raw material of Awa indigo (that is dried leaves of indigo plant) and production and sale of Awa indigo. The important point to be examined is the way in which the Mikis gathered raw material of Awa indigo from rural villages which were situated north of the Yoshino River. The raw material of Awa indigo was obtained through Verlagssystem-in this transaction, the purchase of its raw material was tightly combined with money or fertilizer lending ill advance. But, without the detachment of the former from the latter; the Miki family's business would not have shown any expansion from the Koka period to the Kaei. The separation between the purchase of its raw material and money or fertilizer lending began to display itself and spread steadily. Along with the structural change of the Awa indigo industry toward the end of Tokugawa Shogunate, the Mikis tended to withdraw from the manufacturing of Awa indigo and to confine their business activities only to selling Awa indigo made by the middle or lower class of producers. Secondarily, this paper intends to Show the change of the market structure in the Kanto district where the Awa indigo the Mikis dealt in was mainly exported. Lastly, on the basis of these analyses, the writer tries to consider the historical significance or reason why the Miki family rapidly extended landholdint from the Meiji Restoration onward.