Abstract
In the early part of 1930s all the world fell into the Great Depression. But Japan got out of the depression quickly after the gold embargo of 1931 and achieved high growth rates. Such high growth mainly depended on a large increase in exports. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the canning industry as an example of the most growing export industries. The canned items which showed a remarkable increase in production especially in the 1930s were those of salmon, tomato sardine, tuna and mandarin-orange. Canned salmon was one of the oldest products in the history of Japanese canning industry, while canned tomato sardine, tuna and mandarin-orange were new products developed in the 1920s. The increase in canned salmon production was brought about by the development of new fishing ground in the northern part of the Kuril Islands and by the progress of canning factory ship of salmon. In the cases of canned tomato sardine, tuna and mandarin-orange, the production increase owed to a rapid expansion of overseas outlets encouraged by a fall in the yen exchange rate after the gold embargo. In this connection it is recalled that fisheries experimental stations played some important roles in the growth of the Japanese canning industry, especially in developing new canned products, improving its quality and bringing up small-medium packers.
