海運不況と定期船の合理化 : 大阪商船のケース

抄録

Shipping industries all over the world suffered from unfavourable performances through the 1920's and 1930's, because of the excessive tonnage and the reduction of seaborne cargoes. Even under those depressive conditions, the Japanese shipping industry extended its routes and increased its cargo share. O.S.K.performed the best. This is why I took O.S.K. as a case study. O.S.K. opened a New York express line and bartered its Puget Sound line for a South America (East Coast) line with N.Y.K. in 1931. As a result of this negotiation, O.S.K. got a favourable performance on not only its New York line but also its South America line, because competition was suspended on both lines.Here I discuss why O.S.K. planned the New York line and how it succeeded in it. The company constructed six high-speed motor ships, and put them on this line in 1930. It aquired high competitiveness in collecting cargo, especially raw silk from China and Japan to the United States. Moreover, it could carry raw silk entirely by water to New York because of its short transit time, the freight of which was twice as much as that of the Pacific Coast route. These resulted in a larger sum of freight revenue for the company than the former New York line, and its performance was better than that of other companies' across-the-Pacific lines. It also could cut costs, reducing labour, fuel and capital expenses. Though motor ships were expensive to construct, the company offered service every two weeks on the New York line, with only six vessels, while it took six reciprocal vessels for ten sailings a year. As the transit time was shortened, labour costs were also diminished. Moreover, ten boiler men were laid off because of the adoption of diesel engines. O.S.K. achieved high pro-ductivity through the opening of the line with newly built motor ships, and consequently gained considerable profits even under the unfavourable circumstances after the Great Depression.O.S.K. also put newly built motor ships on the Australia line. A closed freight conference existed there between A & E, N.Y.K. and O.S.K. O.S.K. could have used its new ships to increase frequency, but it didn't. Instead, it prolonged the line to New Zealand. It achieved a good performance even under the unstable conditions of Australia/Japan trade. In this case, too, O.S.K.'s streamlining was successful. Thus the main factors were the adoption of high-speed motor ships and the reorganization of routes coordinated with the transformation of trade.