The Reconstruction of Sericulture and the International Market : 1882-1886

Abstract

The export of silk to U.S. surpassed that to France in mid 1880s. While that to France was composed of the greater part of traditional silk, the most of which were Hanks, and of extra Filatures, that to U.S. was composed of Filatures, main part of which was Shinshu, and of Re-reels of Joshu etc. from the first, and in that to U.S. Filatures overwhelmed Re-reels gradually. Therefore, as the background of growth of that to U.S. there was the capitalistic reconstruction process of the sericulture, where sericulture-Hanks silk reeling combination was brought up and sericulturists came to concentrate on the supply of cocoon as the material of Filatures. The pivots of this reconstruction process were, 1) the formation of the objective condition of the reduction of Europe market and the expansion of U.S. market after the French panic of 1882, 2) the conversion into supply of cocoon in sericulture-traditional silk reeling management meeting this condition, say, the transformation of structure of market and the industrial-organizational reconstruction meeting it. And the fall of international silver quotation as the exogenous condition smoothed this process. Then, this process had two stages; the first stage was 1882-1884, which was marked by the formation of the objective condition; the second stage was 1885-1886, which was marked by the full-scale reconstruction. This paper analyzes this reconstruction process concretely along these stages.