The purpose of this article is to clarify the actions of the South Manchuria Railways Company (SMR) and its shareholders during the period of the 1933 SMR stock issue, using documents from the closed institutional records of its Tokyo branch. My interest in this issue is to establish how the SMR achieved this capital increase from private sector shareholders and investors in general, given the turbulent business environment resulting from the Manchurian Incident and the resulting increased scrutiny of the SMR itself. At the same time, I consider the significance of changes in the shareholder body during the take-up period by examining the reorganization of the SMR. In summary, this article establishes the following four points. First, bids for the newly-issued common stock were distributed approximately into two groups, the majority of bids clustering around the 53 yen mark, below the lower price of the offering. The record of the public offering shows that while some general investors were enthusiastic during the "Manchuria boom," others demonstrated a rather more cool attitude. Second, after the new stock came into circulation, it was rural shareholders who took up new and outstanding stock sold off by urban shareholders in areas such as Tokyo, Osaka, Aichi, Kanagawa and Hyogo prefectures. The proportion of stock held by rural shareholders increased, and the number of shareholders also showed a greater rate of increase in rural areas than in urban. Throughout the take-up period, the relative importance of rural shareholders increased within the SMR shareholder body. Third, the sale of SMR stock by urban shareholders was triggered by political intervention in the SMR from the period of the Manchurian Incident to the time of the stock issue and the resulting management uncertainty and poor outlook. On the other hand, the reason that rural shareholders bought up the stock was that within the context of a widening loss of confidence in regional banks, an improved "environment for investment" brought about the stable circulation of reliable SMR stock which was seen as a haven for investment Finally, the transformed shareholder body successfully demanded the restructuring of the SMR to ensure the recovery of the share price and the payment of dividends Within the context of an increase of issued stock and diversification of the body of shareholders, the SMR could not ignore the specific demands of a large body of shareholders, numbering some tens of thousands of registered individuals, and as such it may be said that the shareholder body was able to exert a form of "governance" over the SMR.

View full abstract

This essay explores the role of Koreans in the process of extending telegraphic services from 1910 to 1937. In contrast to previous studies which have focused on the telegraphic policies of the Japanese Government-General of Korea, I will focus on the role and activities of Koreans in extending telegraphic services during this period. First, as one of several industrial promotion programs implemented by Japan, budget allocation for the implementation of telegraphic policies was relatively high until 1915. Although this spending declined for a while with the introduction of a financial plan for a self-sufficient colonial Korea, it began to increase again after World War I. However, as a result of the "3.1 Independence Movement" in 1919, the budget for telegraphic services was spent almost entirely on facilities for the military and police ruling colonial Korea, rather than on facilities for the public. This trend continued in the 1930s, assigning budget allocations for the construction of a telegraphic network for the government and control of colonial Korea and Manchuria. Second, most new public telegraphic facilities in colonial Korea took the form of telegraphic facilities created by petition (seigan denshin shisetu) and by donation (kifu denshin shisetu), established since the 1920s through investment by Koreans. While programs for telegraphic expansion stagnated as a result of tight fiscal policy, demand for telegraphic services increased dramatically and resulted in the "telegraphic congestion" of 1918. In the face of this congestion, private organizations began action pressing the Government-General for the expansion of telegraphic facilities. Both facilities established by petition and by donation played a significant role in the extension of telegraphic services in colonial Korea from the 1920s to the first half of the 1930s. These facilities established with the encouragement of Koreans, especially public-spirited men of the locality (chiikiyushi), facilitated the transformation of colonial Korea into a market- and information-oriented society. Existing studies have seen the telegraphic service in colonial Korea as a mean of colonial suppression and a part of an imperial telecommunications network connecting Japan with colonial Manchuria This paper argues that the telegraphic facilities created through investment by Koreans also played a leading role in the extension of telegraphic services since the 1920s.

View full abstract