There was a practice in the Meiji era (1868-1912), which saw land sellers repurchase lands from their buyers after refunding money, and it was systemized as "land repurchasing" under the civil law. Though a lot of studies on pawn broking that closely resembles this repurchasing practice have been done, little attention has been paid to this practice of repurchasing. The preceding studies established the following doctrine and no further studies have been carried on since; "Land repurchasing was exploited to obtain foreclosed guarantees by usurers. After the prohibition of foreclosure of mortgaged or pawned land, they exploited another guarantee-requiring practice in which debtors deposited the land certificates with creditors as guarantee. After the abolition of the land certificate system, the system of land repurchasing was established and widely prevailed, and farm lands were thus plundered during the depression between the Taisho and Showa eras (1912-l945)." Having doubts about this doctrine, the author contemplates the conditions and history under which the practice of repurchasing was established with case studies of landowners (The Kato family who owned 60ha-land in Tochigi prefecture and the Kawasaki family who owned 55ha-land in Yamaguchi prefecture, and so on). The land repurchasing practice established in the Meiji era consisted of two motives; one was formed to rely on the buyers' leniency and the other was to exploit high interest out of the sellers. In the former case, the debtors who were forced to sell irredeemable pawned or mortgaged lands, or the sellers who sold lands for cash had the senses of inheriting family estates that had been formed in the early modern age, so they asked the buyers to resell land to them for honor. This kind of repurchasing in which main buyers were the landowners coming from prosperous farmers was highly possible when the guarantee foreclosing intensified in the late 10s of the Meiji era (mid-1880s), but started to decline from the 20s of the Meiji era (1887-96) on, as the significance of leniency faded and the buyers' desires for private land ownership strengthened. In the latter case, regardless of leniency, the creditors exploited high interest with refundable deals. This kind of repurchasing remained alive even after the decline of the lenient repurchasing, in response to the debtors who wanted to inherit family estates. The land repurchasing practice had a basis to be established after the approval of purchases and sales of land in the 5^<th> year of the Meiji era (1872), and had been established as the alternative guarantee to pawn broking or mortgaging, or as the second attempt of these guarantees. From the start of this practice, the sellers booked the buyers to resell lands by giving the signed deeds, not depositing the land certificates as guarantee. As the preceding study indicates, it is believed that the land repurchasing practice was exploited to obtain foreclosed guarantees by usurers, giving rise to the land plundering under the depression from the Taisho to Showa eras. However this phenomenon was no more than an aspect of the historical development of this practice that consisted of two motives.

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This paper examines how the accounting contract clause in foreign bonds that were issued by Japanese electric power companies between 1923 and 1931 influenced the depreciation policies of those companies. Prior research on the depreciation policy of the Toho Electric Power Company analyzed the company's non-consolidated financial statements, which did not include the company's subsidiaries. As a result, it highlighted the fact that the Toho Electric Power Company's management increased the depreciation of its fixed assets voluntarily, beginning in May, 1930. This paper, however, reinvestigates the company's depreciation policy based on an analysis of its consolidated financial statements, and finds that Toho began depreciating its fixed assets according to contract in November, 1925, at the latest, and that further depreciation was undertaken voluntarily by the management after May, 1934. In the case of Tokyo Electric Power Company, management decreased the depreciation to such an extent that it constituted a breach of contract, whereupon the underwriting company revised its accounting methods based on reports from professional accountants. Furthermore, a "depreciation problem" arose in the relationship between contractual and real depreciation funds after Japan went off the gold standard in December, 1931. These facts show that the contractual clauses concerning depreciation had a significant impact on Tokyo Electric's depreciation policy. Great Consolidated Electric Power Company, Nippon Electric Power Company, and Shin'etsu Electric Power Company, too, treated the issuing of foreign bonds as an opportunity to institute continuous depreciation of their fixed assets. As the Tokyo Electric case shows, the underwriting companies monitored Japanese electric power companies' implementation of the contracts stipulating depreciation of fixed assets. If the power company broke the rule, as in the case of the Tokyo Electric Power Company, underwriters revised their accounting approach. Their assessments were based on reports submitted to them by accounting professionals who continuously monitored the power companies' depreciation practices. I therefore conclude that corporate governance by debenture holders worked properly in the interwar period with regard to the depreciation policies of Japanese electric power companies, through the contract clauses in the depreciation policies and through the monitoring undertaken by the underwriting companies.

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The Dohna family of East Prussia, whose countship appears in German records dating back to 1127, possessed an entailed estate (Fideikommiss) of almost 20,000 hectares at the end of the 19th century. This essay investigates the Dohna family's fiscal reconstruction from the late Weimar Republic to the early Nazi years, with particular reference to the East Elbian Relief policies (Osthilfe) launched in 1930 for large-scale landowners. As W. C. McNeil points out, small farms of under fifty hectares made a profit between 1928 and 1930, but large estates were losing vast sums. This essay focuses in particular on the effect of the 1920 law "Zwangsauflosungsverordnung," which sought to abolish entailed estates in Prussia, on the Dohna family. The analysis is based on primary materials in the Berlin-Dahlem Archive (Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preuβischer Kulturbesitz). The essay ends with some critical suggestions for Japanese research into Prussian agricultural history.

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