The Shoho-Ji, which was established within the jurisdiction of the Treasury of the Meiji government in 1868, aimed at controlling the whole organization of internal trade and this had its origin in the Fukui clan where Kimimasa Yuri carried out a similar economic policy for the same purpose at the and of the feudal period. This article aims to make clear the organization and function of the branch office of Shoho-Ji in Yokohama. Members of the Yokohama branch office consisted of twe different types of merchants : that is, such authorized city merchants as Mitsui. Kashima, Ono and Shimada, and such local traders living in Yokohama as Mogi, Hara and Yoshida. This fact means that the Shoho-Ji aimed to control the internal trade by making use of social credit and the mercantile experience of both groups of merchant. Of the members of the office, the greater part were merchants engaged in the export of raw silk and silkworm-egg cards. This was natural since Yokohama's hinterland produced these export items. Government promissory notes (Kin-ken), which were loaned to merchants to cover operating expenses, amounted to 353,000 ryo and this was equal to eighty-two percent of the total expenditure of the Yokohama office. It is often thought that the government promissory notes were issued only for urgent military and political purposes, but, in fact, so far as the Yokohama office was concerned, the money was used to encourage business activities. Most of these funds fell into the hands of big merchants in Yokohama and local merchants who had close connection with them. However, as time passed, rivalry and the crash of interests between big merchants in cities and local merchants had become so severe that this lead to the bankruptcy of Shoho-Ji in spite of the government's strong desire to control them. This is thought that the establishment of national banks was a further outcome of government's policy to regulate the internal trade.
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