SOCIO-ECONOMIC HISTORY
Online ISSN : 2423-9283
Print ISSN : 0038-0113
ISSN-L : 0038-0113
Volume 41, Issue 3
Displaying 1-9 of 9 articles from this issue
  • OSAMU HONDA
    Article type: Article
    1975 Volume 41 Issue 3 Pages 211-234,328-32
    Published: October 15, 1975
    Released on J-STAGE: July 22, 2017
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
    A new agricultural aspect in Chiang-nan 江南 in the age of Sung was that new fields called wei t'ien 囲田 and yu t'ien 〓田 were reclaimed as a result of development in the marshy districts along the shore of the lakes and the coastal regions. But it cannot be overlooked that regional development by means of irriguous reservoirs called pi t'ang 陂塘 which had been a traditional technique since the age of Han 漢 was also carried out in mountainous districts and other regions where irriguous streams were not available. Che tung 淅東 was a district where pi t'ang were very prevalent, and Wu-chou, located in its center and surrounded by hills on all sides but one, was the place where pi t'ang were most numerous. It is shown in the Ming 明 Ch'ing 清 land data that the reservoir density (reservoir area/cultivated land area) in Wu-chou was 10 per cent, while that in the neighbouring regions was under 5 per cent. Especially high percentages were shown in I wu hsien 義烏県 (14%), Lan ch'i hsien 蘭谿県 (12%), Chin hua hsien 金華県 (11%), and Tung yang hsien 東陽県 and Yung k'ang hsien 永康県 (10% respectively). On the basis of structural characteristics of many of the reservoirs, and because of the fact that the reservoir density was 13 per cent in Lan ch'i hsien at the time of Chin-chieh-fa 経界法 in the age of Nan Sung 南宋, it can be stated that reservoirs had prevailed in Wu-chu as widely in the age of Sung as in the ages of Ming and Ch'ing. In Wu-chou there were two types of the structure of reservoirs. Reservoirs of one type were constructed by means of building a dike on one side or two, with the other sides being surrounded by hills, and those of the other type by means of building a circular dike at flatlands. Respective reservoirs were generally small in area, average area being 20 to 30 mou 畝, and were able to irrigate a field about ten times as large as their own water surface area, which means that the average area irrigated by one reservoir was 200 to 300 mou. The small scale of those reservoirs enabled farmers to build them on their own account. But it can be presumed that there was an inevitable ceiling to the investment on irrigation works because the reservoirs, which for the most part were small and dispersed, were not always very effective against drought or flood. It is plausible that agricultural productivity in Wu-chou had already reached a certain limit in the age of Sung because in Wu-chou after the age of Sung there was no remarkable increase either in the area of cultivated lands or in the number of households. With such situations as its setting, people in Wu-chou directed their effort at regional development to sericulture, silk weaving, tea planting, fruit culture, pisciculture, etc. which they could foster by taking advantage of given natural, geographical conditions.
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  • AKIRA MATSUURA
    Article type: Article
    1975 Volume 41 Issue 3 Pages 235-256,327-32
    Published: October 15, 1975
    Released on J-STAGE: July 22, 2017
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
    Sino-Japanese trade in the Edo era was carried on through Chinese merchants visiting Nagasaki every year. In the earlier days Chinese merchants came to Japan freely, but according as the production of copper, Japanese most important export goods, gradually diminished and its exportable amount fell down after the beginning of the 18th century, Tokugawa Shogunate gave admission to Nagasaki to smaller number of Chinese ships. After the middle of the 18th century, the center of Sino-Japanese trade in China was Cha-pu 乍浦 of Che chiang-sheng 淅江省. The Chinese merchants placed their headquarter there and established the trade system in which consignors in China 在唐荷主, ship owners 船戸, persons like supercargoes 船主, accoutants 財副, navigating officers 総管, and sailors 水主 or 工社 played their respective parts. In those days, the crew of the Chinese merchants' trade ship were supposed to be mere workers on board, but many of them made an attempt at private trade after 1785. In 1784 a fire took place in the Chinese residence 唐人屋敷. Many members of the crew of the Chinese ships lost their havings and they wanted to be paid for the damages. They requested the Magistrate of Nagasaki 長崎奉行 to permit them to sell remains of their havings and buy Japanese goods. The magistrate granted them to do so, and from the next year began the private trade 別段売商法 -selling out the Chinese crew's havings at Nagasaki as imported goods- and it continued till the end of the Edo era. In this paper the writer shows the way crew's goods were recorded in the catalougue of their ship's cargoes. On the crew's articles there were a part of their names recorded, and the Chinese character 記 was put after it. Thus, for example, Chen Guo ji 陳国記 meant that it belonged to Chen Guo-zhen 陳国振. The writer also clarifies that the private traders consisted of supercargoes, supercargoes residing at Nagasaki 長崎在留荷主, accountants, navigating officers, sailors, etc.. As time went by, their cargoes went on increasing, because the control over the crew by Chinese merchants in China turned weaker as the value of copper fell off. And it can be said that this system was similar to that carried on by the crews in English and Dutch Indiamen. In 1861 Sino-Japanes trade ended with the visit of the last two trade ships to Nagasaki.
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  • KAZUO UEYAMA
    Article type: Article
    1975 Volume 41 Issue 3 Pages 257-278,326-32
    Published: October 15, 1975
    Released on J-STAGE: July 22, 2017
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    In the first half of the second decade of the Meiji era the most important problems by which the Government was confronted were, first, how to orientate opinions of the class of richer farmers and merchants in favour of the Governments, for they were being attracted toward the democratic movement, and secondly, how to build national economic power rapidly so that Japan might be able to take a firm stand against foreign powers. For the purpose of solving the second problem the Government, since the beginning of the Meiji era, had been taking the policy to encourage industry, attempting to introduce and nationalize the Western economic systems and industrial techniques. But by the beginning of the second decade of the Meiji era it was clear that the policy had reached a deadlock, and the Government came to grope for alternatives. Consequently we see a definitely different line of policy appear in the 12th and 13th year of Meiji. Instead of direct encouragement of industry such as granting loans of capital, instituting government enterprises, etc., the Ministry of Home Affairs came to consider it important to organize competitive exhibitions, agricultural debating societies, and trade association (indirect encouragement). The establishment of the Agriculture and Commerce Ministry was intended to precipitate this change in policy in a wholesale way. Soon after being established, the Agriculture and Commerce Ministry undertook to carry out the task, issuing the Ordinance Concerning the Councils of Agriculture, Commerce and Industry, the Regulations of Formation of Societies for Industrial Encouragement and of Their Committees, the Regulation of Trade Associations, etc., by which the Ministry effectively promoted organization of such bodies. Study of the processes through which these regulations were issued and of the actual enforcement of them in some prefectures reveals that the policy of indirect encouragement of industry was developed in the following way. In the first place it was recognized that promotion of enterprises, or granting loans of capital by the Government was inefficient and it came to be believed that no economic progress could be expected unless entrepreneurs themselves actively endeavoured to make industrial improvements. The objective of organizing competitive exhibitions, agricultural debating societies, societies for industrial encouragement, trade associations, and others was to provide for opportunities where entrepreneurs might be induced to assume such responsibilities actively. Such bodies, as expected, went on to tackle with concrete technical improvements, founding for themselves experiment stations and vocational institutes. These organizations for industrial encouragement of various size helped the governmental slogan 'Increase production and promote enterprises,' to infiltrate among business circles. The enthusiasm for business activities roused by that policy among them played a part not to be neglected in the economic development in the Meiji era.
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  • KAZUO KIMURA
    Article type: Article
    1975 Volume 41 Issue 3 Pages 279-305,325-32
    Published: October 15, 1975
    Released on J-STAGE: July 22, 2017
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
    Export of capital from Britain saw the high wartermark between 1900 and 1914. It is well-known that Canada was the greatest importer of the British capital at that time. It was vital for young Canada, who had succeeded in forming a confederation only in 1867 and was confronted with the threat of economic annexation by the United States, to introduce voluminous foreign capital so that she might be able to build up independent 'national economy'. This paper is an attempt to analyze in terms of the process of reproduction the role of the British capital in Canada in the period of her extraordinary expansion, with the intention of detecting structural characteristics (i.e. basic contradictions) of Canadian capitalism. Consequently the subject of study here is confined to railway, iron and steel industry, and agriculture, all of which were most directly connected with the British capital. Canada, at the strong initiative of the Federal Government, concentrated the British capital, on speculative railway ventures to create demand for domestic industrial products, intending to foster iron and steel industry. Although that line of industry attained speedy development by virtue of British rentier capital (Leihekapital), subsidies from the Federal Government, and protective tariff, it gave way to American industrial capital with overwhelming productivity, and the latter came to hold almost complete dominion over the internal market of Canada by the time immediately before the War. On the other hand agriculture was reorganized by the Government in order that it might assume tbe basic part in inducing the British capital, the driving force of Canadian economic expansion, by exporting wheat to Britain. Thus the rapid advance of Canadian capitalism in this period inevitably deepened the following basic contradictions. (1) Managerial crisis, and increased dependence on the state, of the speculative railway ventures. (2) Virtual domination by the United States over Canadian iron and steel industry. (3) Upsurge of farmers' complaints against the state policy of industrialization. When the British capital was manifestly withdrawn from Canada after the First World War, Canadian capitalism hitherto dependent on the British capital was put under the pressure of necessity to make a great structural change, which brought as a corollary complete domination by the United States over Canadian economy.
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  • Sakae Tsunoyama
    Article type: Article
    1975 Volume 41 Issue 3 Pages 306-313
    Published: October 15, 1975
    Released on J-STAGE: July 22, 2017
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  • Tomohiko Harada
    Article type: Article
    1975 Volume 41 Issue 3 Pages 314-316
    Published: October 15, 1975
    Released on J-STAGE: July 22, 2017
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  • Eiichi Horie
    Article type: Article
    1975 Volume 41 Issue 3 Pages 316-319
    Published: October 15, 1975
    Released on J-STAGE: July 22, 2017
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  • Henning Friedrich Wilhelm
    Article type: Article
    1975 Volume 41 Issue 3 Pages 319-322
    Published: October 15, 1975
    Released on J-STAGE: July 22, 2017
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  • Article type: Bibliography
    1975 Volume 41 Issue 3 Pages 324-328
    Published: October 15, 1975
    Released on J-STAGE: July 22, 2017
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