This paper explores Lloyd George's idea of "compulsory self-help" in the process of formation of the British national health insurance system, in which he took the initiative. Focusing on both the continuities and discontinuities in that process shows that this system inherited the British tradition of "self-help" and its characteristics, while it contrasted with and was in tension with the tradition of self-help, and of "collective self-help" in particular. This system was envisaged as a result of the limitations of collective self-help. But it was impossible to ignore the traditional friendly societies and trade unions which had offered sickness and other benefits for many years. Additionally, there was a cost advantage to using existing organizations. Therefore, Lloyd George proposed a system administered by approved societies such as the friendly societies and the trade unions. In this way, this system inherited the tradition of self-help and adopted a form that compelled workers to join self-help schemes, which meant providing for their own futures. He also insisted that the whole community should be compelled to join and the whole country should help to overcome the limitations of collective self-help, by adopting a tripartite system of contributions from workers, employers and the state. Moreover, he emphasized that self-help organizations would be extended and strengthened by this system. On this occasion, the state was to interfere in the self-government of such organizations to a certain extent. State intervention was important to secure the stability of self-help by preserving self-help organizations in the foregoing system. On the other hand, approved societies which were to operate the system were given a certain level of self-government and autonomy. In this respect, the self-respect of the members of such organizations was secured. Meanwhile, he permitted the commercial insurance companies to become approved societies because he recognized their power to attract insured persons and collect contributions. In other words, he placed more emphasis on including as many workers as possible in self-help and less on entrusting only self-governing organizations such as the friendly societies with the administration of this system. In summary, Lloyd George sought to create a stronger national system in the tension between the tradition of self-help in Britain and the new state compulsion, while he faced and made use of this tradition and the characteristics of various existing organizations.

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This paper examines the efforts of the Wurttembergisch goverment to introduce American-style interchangeable part manufacturing as a measure to support the Black Forest clock industry. The Black Forest clock industry was exposed to competition with the American clock industry as early as the late 1840s, and as a countermeasure the Wurttembergisch government's Central Agency for Industry and Commerce (Die Zentralstelle fur Gewerbe und Handel) promoted the adoption of American-style interchangeable part technology by establishing a parts factory. The Agency was working for the protection of the medium and small-sized firms that were preponderant in Wurttemberg and for the Agency the adoption of this technology was not to convert the clockmakers to mere assemblers, but instead was intended to make their preservation possible through cutting production costs. However the Agency's project collapsed because it was unrealistic in terms of both European market trends and the mentality and labor institutions of the clockmakers. The factory for interchangeable part manufacturing established with the support of the Agency did not adopt the American system with its many quality problems, but instead introduced technology from the French clock industry that was acknowledged as a producer of diverse high quality products. Additionally, the Black Forest clockmakers refused to purchase the interchangeable parts because they wanted to maintain the independence of their businesses.

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This paper aims to elucidate the function of commodity exchanges in index price formation on the spot market during the later Meiji era in Japan. In particular, this paper focuses the function of periodical salt transactions (trading in futures) from October, 1894 to May, 1905 on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange. Historical studies of commodity or stock exchanges in Japan have tended to focus on the Dojima (Osaka) Rice Exchange in the Tokugawa period and historians have paid little attention to commodity exchanges from the Meiji era onward. However, the beginning of transactions in commodities other than rice on the exchanges after the enactment of the Exchange Law in 1893 was one of the important characteristics of 1890s when the base formation of the modern market progressed. Accordingly, hoping to contribute to a better understanding of the process by which the commodity exchange system was established as a general trading system with the rise of capitalism in Japan, I consider periodical transactions on the exchange around the early twentieth century. This paper shows that index price formation function of the Tokyo Commodity Exchange had two limitations. Firstly, periodical transaction price functioned only as an index price of Shinsaida-shio (low-grade salt made in the Seto Inland Sea of Japan) price. In other words, periodical transaction price did not function as an index price of any other salt. Secondly, the function of the Tokyo Commodity Exchange was diachronically unstable especially after around 1900 when salt consumers began to buy more imported than domestic salt. The Tokyo Commodity Exchange was one of the largest commodity exchanges and the center of salt periodical transactions in Japan. We can say therefore, during the later Meiji era, if a trader in the market had used periodical transactions on the commodity exchange to hedge against the risk of price changes, the trader could not have been able to hedge in many cases. Even if traders succeeded in hedging in the short term, they could not use the commodity exchange to hedge stably in the long term.

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