抄録
As for the Mitsui around the Meiji Restoration, it has been emphasized that they changed their occupation from drapery and exchange to banking and that they carried out various reforms and at last established Mitsui Bank in 1876. One purpose of this paper is to make clear how their family property was reorganized from a financial point of view. In I871, Omotokata at Tokyo (head office in the Meiji era) was established by governmental funds. It invested in Mitsui Bank and later absorbed 0motokata at Kyoto (head office in the Edo era) which had invested and loaned in both drapery and exchange shops. However, Kyoto Omotokata's investments and loans in their shops were irrecoverable, since these shops had lost almost all of their own net assets. Tokyo Omotokata in effect inherited nothing of the family property other than real estate from the Mitsui in the Edo era. 0n the other hand, the financial situation of Mitsui Bank was very bad at the start because of a lot of bad loans its ancestor Kawaseza (banking company) had held. Another purpose of this paper is to show how Mitsui Bank improved its financial situation. Mitsui Bank selected borrowers of its funds carefully not to hold new bad loans (because the amount of deposits remained almost the same between 1880 and 1884, Mitsui Bank could not increase the amount of loans.) And it set up voluntary reserve accounts and reserved the profit from governmental bonds which it held. As a result, its financial situation began to improve gradually.
