抄録
A terrible earthquake shook the Kanto area in September 1923. This paper throws light on the resulting unemployment problem in this region and the countermeasures taken by the government. The employment agency had been the main means for assisting the unemployed in Tokyo and Yokohama since 1920. But the relief system collapsed in January 1925. This shows the limits of the employment agency and the reason why the government began to create jobs for the unemployed in fiscal 1925. In the first section of the article, conditions in the earthquake area are described and the steps taken by government and the Tokyo City Office are discussed. The main steps are as follows : collecting jobs from the whole country, limiting entrance into Tokyo in order to reserve jobs for earthquake victims and encouraging people in the Tokyo-Yokohama area to help themselves. In the second section, the policies of the government during October and November 1923 are reviewed. The government watched the movements of the labor unions and gave members priority in finding employment. In the third section, the collapse of this relief system is studied. Victims who had taken refuge in other areas came back to Tokyo, the business recession deepened, and re-employment became more difficult. The government continued to rely on the Employment Agency for relief measures, but in January 1925 rioting occurred. After this the government changed policy and started to create government-sponsored work projects for the unemployed. This was an important policy for the urban unemployed from 1925 to 1942.
