SOCIO-ECONOMIC HISTORY
Online ISSN : 2423-9283
Print ISSN : 0038-0113
ISSN-L : 0038-0113
Volume 45, Issue 4
Displaying 1-13 of 13 articles from this issue
  • MAYAKO ISHII
    Article type: Article
    1979 Volume 45 Issue 4 Pages 357-389,482-48
    Published: December 25, 1979
    Released on J-STAGE: July 15, 2017
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
    As is well Known, Jardine, Matheson and Company (hereinafter to be called as 'the Company') is a famous trading company which started its activities in China in 1830's, dealing mainly in opium at first, and then enlarged its range with its multiple management late in the nineteenth century. This paper deals with the change of its commercial activities and its process of diversification of its management, as it uses it uses Jardine Matheson Archive in the Cambridge University Library, through the good offices of Matheson & Co. The thesis is to find out why the Company became to diversify its management. The figures were assiduously acquired from each year's ledgers and journals of the Company which have hitherto been utilized by very few historians. After enjoying its golden age, winning a reputation of "Merchant Prince" in 1850's, the Company fell into darker days after 1863, when it failed in tea and cotten trades, and was worse still, struck by the economic crisis of 1866. The Company recorded successive losses for years, and hit the bottom around 1870. At the same time, the competition became severer, for smaller merchants came into competition due to the development of communication, traffic and credit. Under such circumstances the Company decided to develop new fields in search of the solution of the deadlock of commerce. For a quarter of century till the first part of 1890's, the Company succeeded in launching into shipping, sugar refining and silk reeling, but could not advance into railway and mining enterprises or cotton spinning and weaving in spite of strenuous efforts, mainly for the reason of persistent objections of the Chinese officials. Throughout these years the Company could hardly get any support either from Home Government or British officials on the spot except for George Jamieson, a consul of Shanghai, who appeared at the last stage. Such experiences of trial and error on the part of the Company, however, opened the door to attain non-Chinese peoples' right of manufacturing in China, which eventually was prescsibed in the Treaty of Shimonoseki, concluded after the Sino-Japanese War (1894-5). After such events it became possible for the British to invest large capital in China, in the midst of imperialistic competition of Western Powers after the said war. Indeed, the Company promoted direct investments, for example, in cotton spinning and weaving enterprises, depending upon Hongkong and Shanghai Corporation to raise large loans acting as an intermediary for home investors and Chinese Government. This was performed through the British Chinese Corporation, established in 1898 as a joint enterprise. However, the Bank owed its prosperity to the Company, which supported the Bank as early as in 1877. The prosperity of the Bank seems to be connected with the process of multiple management of the Company. In conclusion, the Company, once forced free trade upon China through the Opium War, now opened the door to British capital investment there taking advantage of the situations produced by the Sino-Japanese War.
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  • SHIN HASEGAWA
    Article type: Article
    1979 Volume 45 Issue 4 Pages 390-419,481-48
    Published: December 25, 1979
    Released on J-STAGE: July 15, 2017
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    The purpose of this paper is to analyse the market structure of the electrical equipment industry in Japan during the 1920s. In this paper the term of electrical equipment means heavy current machines for power plants such as generators, motors and transformers, and here the competitive position of the Japanese electrical equipment industry will be analysed from the viewpoint of the change in demand condition, that is, the development of the electric power industry. During the First World War the domestic demand for electrioal equipments and the production of the Japanese electrical equipment industry both expanded remarkably, and the Japanese makers could dominete the major part of the market. However they could not make enough of heavy current machines. Soon after the First World War was over, therefore, the import of those machines was reopened, and in the first half of the 1920s the American makers were shead of Japanese ones in that market. In the latter half of the 1920s, however, the competitive condition of the electrical equipment industry got better for Japanese makers. 0ne of the important factors was the change of import duties in 1926, and therefore the tranding companies as the agencies of foreign electrical equipment makers like Mitsui-Bussan started to deal mainly with the Japanese makers' goods. Though the amount of electrical equipment output was reduced by 11% from 1921 to 1927, the production apparently increased because the price of electrical equipments was falling down by more than 40%; the competition in the market was intensified. Here worked the change in demand condition by the development of the electric power industry. While the capacity of power stations and generators increased notably, the Japanese makers could not make enough of the high capacity generator. As a result in the first half of the 1920s the import from the American makers such as General Electric Co. and Westinghouse Electric Co. went with advantage. In the middle of 1920s, however, both Shibaura-Seisakusho and Hitachi-Seisakusho started to make water turbine generators of above 10,000 K. V. A., and Mitsubishi-Denki and Mitsubishi-Zosen succeeded in making high capacity steam turbines and its generators. But Okumura-Denki Shokai could not get along in the market of high capacity generators. Thus the increase of import was caused by the change in demand condition, which worked furthermore to select promising makers in Japan.
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  • SEIJI ABE
    Article type: Article
    1979 Volume 45 Issue 4 Pages 420-436,480-47
    Published: December 25, 1979
    Released on J-STAGE: July 15, 2017
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    In September, 1853 (by the Russian calendar), Imperial Russia occupied Kushunkotan, now called Korsakov, on Sakhalin Island. Kushunkotan was the center of Matsumae Han's administration in Sakhalin. Though the occupation was a part of Russian expansion toward the Far East, the Russian goverment had been taking a non-aggressive policy in the Far East until the middle of the nineteenth century. This contradiction is explained by the fact that there were two courses the Russians were taking; one of them was remaining on the best possible terms with the Chinese and the Japanese, and the other was undertaking territorial expansion by force. The Russian occupation of Sakhalin must be considered in the context of the whole Russian Far Eastern policy of those days. The overland trade between Russia and China through Kiakhta began in the middle decades of the eighteenth century. Until the late 1850s this was the only Russo-Chinese trade authorized by the Chinese government. In the entire Russian Empire, the trade at Kiakhta was fourth in volume after St. Pertersburg, Riga and Odessa in the middle of the nineteenth century. Textiles came to hold first place among all the Russian goods exported to China in the first half of that century. In the 1840s about half of all the Russian manufactured cotton goods were exported to China. At that time, mechanization had started in Russia's cotton industry in advance of other industrial fields. China as well as Central Asia was one of the most important export markets for Russian cotton goods. As for the export of woolen cloth, that which was sent to China amounted to more than 90 percent of Russia's woolen exports. Not only was Kiakhta one of the four biggest centers of Russian foreign trade, but it also was an especially important center for Russia's export of factory-made textile goods. Therefore, the Russian government was apprehensive that aggression in the Far East might destroy the Kiakhta trade. From about 1849, Russian naval officers, including G. I. Nevelskoi, undertook some military action, namely, surveying the area and setting up military posts in the region of the lower Amur. Although the Russian government did order this activity out of fear of British and American penetration into the Far East, it hoped to avoid dissension in the area. Nevertheless the naval officers often acted arbitrarily and on their own suthority. As for the Russian occupation of Kushunkotan, Nevelskoi carried it out in disregard of instructions issued by N. N. Muravev-Amurskii, the then governor-general of Eastern Siberia, which ordered him not to interfere with the Japanese in Sakhalin. Thus, it can be said that at least until the time of the Crimean War the main policy of the Russian government was directed toward promoting the Kiakhta trade. It was certain that the Russian military activities in Kushunkotan meant a great threat to the Japanese at that time; however, in fact they were not sanctioned by the Russian government
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  • Tsuyoshi Hara
    Article type: Article
    1979 Volume 45 Issue 4 Pages 437-454
    Published: December 25, 1979
    Released on J-STAGE: July 15, 2017
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  • Ryoosin Minami
    Article type: Article
    1979 Volume 45 Issue 4 Pages 455-457
    Published: December 25, 1979
    Released on J-STAGE: July 15, 2017
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  • Hironori Yagi
    Article type: Article
    1979 Volume 45 Issue 4 Pages 458-460
    Published: December 25, 1979
    Released on J-STAGE: July 15, 2017
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  • Hirofumi Yamamoto
    Article type: Article
    1979 Volume 45 Issue 4 Pages 460-463
    Published: December 25, 1979
    Released on J-STAGE: July 15, 2017
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  • Ken-ichi Kasuya
    Article type: Article
    1979 Volume 45 Issue 4 Pages 463-465
    Published: December 25, 1979
    Released on J-STAGE: July 15, 2017
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  • Taketoshi Sato
    Article type: Article
    1979 Volume 45 Issue 4 Pages 466-468
    Published: December 25, 1979
    Released on J-STAGE: July 15, 2017
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  • Mio Nakayama
    Article type: Article
    1979 Volume 45 Issue 4 Pages 468-471
    Published: December 25, 1979
    Released on J-STAGE: July 15, 2017
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  • Tomoo Matsuda
    Article type: Article
    1979 Volume 45 Issue 4 Pages 471-474
    Published: December 25, 1979
    Released on J-STAGE: July 15, 2017
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  • Hiroji Nakanishi
    Article type: Article
    1979 Volume 45 Issue 4 Pages 474-476
    Published: December 25, 1979
    Released on J-STAGE: July 15, 2017
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  • Article type: Bibliography
    1979 Volume 45 Issue 4 Pages 479-482
    Published: December 25, 1979
    Released on J-STAGE: July 15, 2017
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