SOCIO-ECONOMIC HISTORY
Online ISSN : 2423-9283
Print ISSN : 0038-0113
ISSN-L : 0038-0113
Volume 47, Issue 4
Displaying 1-8 of 8 articles from this issue
  • Sakae Tsunoyama
    Article type: Article
    1981 Volume 47 Issue 4 Pages 351-357,476
    Published: December 20, 1981
    Released on J-STAGE: July 15, 2017
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
    During the nineteenth century Asian countries pushed out a great population. The Chinese and Indians were the biggest group. Though there are no accurate population estimates, a maximum guesstimate of emigration put the total figure of both Chinese and Indians at about 47millions. This suggests that there was the great mass migration in Asia to be compared with the emigration from Europe to the American Continent, its figures amounting to about 50 millions. The migration movements in Asia took place mainly in response to the demands of the international market: while many countries in Asia were forced to be under the colonial control or undeveloped peripherv economies of the world capitalism, the great mass of the poor people was constrained to be out of their countries. There were two types in the Asian migration; emigrants as coolie in the plantation estates and mines, and emigrant groups engaged in the service sector and commercial activities in South East Asia, Chinese communities in particular. The case of Japan was not exceptional with the Asian types, but it was unique in its emigration policy that Japan made use of emigration for the purpose of her colonial invasion and the market expansion of her industrial products.
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  • Kaoru Sugihara
    Article type: Article
    1981 Volume 47 Issue 4 Pages 358-375,476-47
    Published: December 20, 1981
    Released on J-STAGE: July 15, 2017
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
    This paper tries to show the basic pattern of Indian emigration and the role it played in the process of integration of South and South-east Asia into the world economy during the period of 1890 to 1920. A brief examination of relevant statistics reveals that emigration of unskilled workers from the Madras Presidency to Burma, Ceylon and Malaya under "the kangany(or maistry) system" was numerically by far the most important, over shadowing and partly replacing "indentured emigration" mainly via Calcutta to the more distant British colonies. Thus the first part of the paper compares the nature of the kangany and maistry recruited emigration with that of the indentured, and argues that the deliberate and extensive adaptation of patriarchal and caste-oriented social system developed in South India to the production process of capitalist enterprise as a form of labour control was the main cause of former's success, while the way in which the latter controlled coolie emigrants, despite the more individualist-looking form of contract, was essentially a centuries-old coerced one. The second part of the paper looks at the economic basis of the kangany and maistry systems. That work in South India and Burma was of a seasonal nature, and that the demand for labour was heavily male-oriented were main factors that explain the constant and huge flow of temporary male labour in both directions, which enabled both the sending and host economies to keep down the total cost of reproduction of labour power. Such flow was essential to the growth of export economies, as it not only provided them with cheap labour but helped its effective control through the retention of the Indian social system.
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  • Yasukichi Yasuba
    Article type: Article
    1981 Volume 47 Issue 4 Pages 376-382,475-47
    Published: December 20, 1981
    Released on J-STAGE: July 15, 2017
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
    In the period between the middle of the nineteenth century and the First World War, there were large-scale internal and international migrations in Southeast Asia. Among the international migrations, streams from China to various parts of Southeast Asia and those from India to Burma and the Straits Settlements were most important. In this comment, some description and analysis will be made mainly on the Chinese migrants to Siam, in response to the questions posed by the keynote speaker of the session. Total Size of Gross Migration from China to Southeast Asia In this period most of the Chinese migrants were sojourners, staying in Southeast Asia for a limited time before thety could go home with substantial savings. This fact makes the estimation of net migration rather misleading and that of gross migration quite diffrcult. Skinner's classic estimate of gross migration of the Chinese to Siam between 1824 and 1917 was about two million. The number of the overseas Chinese in the 1970's was, according to a Taiwanese source, 4.2 million in Thailand and 16.6 million in the entire Southeast Asia. If the ratio of migrants to the 1970's population can be assumed similar in various countries, gross migration from China to Southeast Asia before the First World War turns out to be about 8 billion a figure probably smaller than the actual number. The Push-Factor and the Pull-Factor There were some Chinese who substituted for slaves in the first half of the nineteenth century in Central and South Amelica, but their number was limited. Most of the Chinese migrants who went to Southeast Asia were more or less free labour except in the earry years. Particularly, in the case of Siam, the status of Chinese immigrants was high. There was strong demand for male unskilled labour in mines, constuction, services and trade. Consequently, wages in Bangkok were three times as high as in Japan and probably highest in Asia toward the end of the nineteenth century. The royal encouragement of Chinese immi-gration was another pull-factor. The push-factor was the difticulty of ife in South China. Unlike in European countries where the strength of the push-factor rose and fell according to the stages of economic development, there is no evidence, in the case of the Chinese migration, to show that the secular rise and fall of the push-factor were responsible for the swings of the migration. The migration swelled continuouely until the 1930's When the pull-factor was suddenly weakened due to the Depression. World Capitalism and Siamese Economic DeveloPment There is little doubt that Siamese economy was drawn into the network of the world capitalism by the free trade of the nineteenth century and that the Chinese immigrants were drawn by the forces working in the course of development of such capitalism. The Siam economy more ftnd more specialized in the production and export of rice which supported the producers of rubber, spices, tea, tin, sugar and other tropical products in Asia. The Chinese migrants provided labour for the distribution of rice and for other rlated activities. Some Chinese in Siam were involved in the production and distribution of tin, rubber and sugar. In these cases, they were more directly involved in the formation of world capitalism, since these products were exported, to the center of world capitalism.
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  • Toshikatsu Ito
    Article type: Article
    1981 Volume 47 Issue 4 Pages 383-406,473-47
    Published: December 20, 1981
    Released on J-STAGE: July 15, 2017
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    The rapid growth of a rice export economy in the Irrawaddy-Sittan Delta was achieved because large numbers of migrants came to the region from Upper Burma and the Indian Subcontinent. In this paper, we trace first the trends of immigration to the Delta. Secondly, we discuss the 'Pull-push' factors of migration, but will concentrate on the 'push' factors of migration from Upper Burma. Thirdly we shall discuss the relationship between 'push' factors and colonial policies. The number of migrants from Upper Burma reached a peak in the 1890s when migrants claimed swamp, forests and grew rice. Most of the agri-cultural labourers w'ere Burmese, but the number of Indian immigrants sharply increased in the period 1881-1931. They worked mainly in the rice mills, the dock yards, etc. although a few did become agriculturists. In other words, Burmese migrants contributed to the rice export economy of Burma by cultivating the paddy fields and Indian immigrants by processing and transporting the rice. It has been said that great acceleration of migration must be attributed primarily to the 'pull' factors-rapid economic growth, improved transportation facilities, the promise of abundent and fertle land, and incetives such as low taxes and consumer rewards-which developed after annexation of the the Delta. But according to our investigations, these 'pull' factors in the Delta disappeared in the early phase of the development. Migration within the Delta, caused by the spread of agrarian indebtedness, began in the first half of 1880s, and the ratio of internal migrants to all immigrants was relatively high from 1881. We must conclude that the reasons for migration into the Delta are to be found not in the 'pull' factors but in the 'push' factors. According to the latest study, the 'push' factors were drought, food shortages, and periodic famines which occured in the Dry Zone of Upper Burma. But those occurrences which caused the cultivaters distress, tended to be man-made calamities. The tariff policy of the colonial government to the Kingdom of Mandalay until 1862 caused the price of staple commodity to rise in Upper Burma. Also the export of surplus rice from the Delta to the English colonial settlements of India, Ceylon, Straight Settlement, etc. led to food shortages in Upper Burma. Farmers and peasants in the Dry Done had to leave their homeland because of hardship caused by a colonial policy which destroyed the indigenous circulatory systems needed for daily life.
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  • Yoshinobu Shiba
    Article type: Article
    1981 Volume 47 Issue 4 Pages 407-422,472-47
    Published: December 20, 1981
    Released on J-STAGE: July 15, 2017
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    This is to deal with the activities of Chinese merchants who settled in the city of Hakodate, a treaty port of Japan, with its opening for the international trade in 1854. Due to the fact that the marine products, especially dried or salted ones, were in great need among vast Chinese populace along the Yangtze River Valley, and that goods of high quality were almost solely available in abundance on the Hokkaido coast, the port of Hakodate was soon able to grow up to be an early and important center of the Sino-Japanese trade of the day. At the beginning, the pioneering group of Chinese in Hakodate were the mixture of those from Kwangtung and Shanghai-Ningpo areas. They came there as the compradors of the British or Anrerican firms who had their bases of business at Canton or Shanghai. But before long, the business was moved to the hands of merchants from Shanghai-Ningpo areas. As they came from the emporium of the East-Asian trade, and were well-equipped with capitals and full informations about marketing situations in inland China, their competitors were no match for them. This was also true with others like Western and Japanese dealers. At first, in order to improve their inferior trading position, the Japanese tried to organize both sectors of producers and wholesalers into a firm unity, and this won some partial success. Then, in accordance with the growth of shipping industry, the state-sponsored export-componies were established at Hakodate. They aimed at tight control of thorough processes of production, collection and shipping of Japanese sea-products. But again, with the luck of detailed informations about marketing processes, this plan ended in failure. The Russo-Japanese war marked a new stage in the history of this Sino-Japanese conflicts about the export of sea-products. With the acquirement of the fishing-ground of northern seas, Japanese grasped the chance to develope her fishing manufacture. The amount of products now set to grow to a tremendous size. Coincidentally, Japanese merchants in Hakodate formed the Chambers of Commerce, and later succeeded in integrating unions of producers, collectors and exporters into an united front. The Chinese countered this with the formation of their own Chambers of Commerce, or Chung-hua Hui-kuan. In parallel with such trends there was a new rising wave of nationalism in both countries. Finally the dead heat of commercial conflicts reached its climax during the early 1910s, and ended with the withdrawal of the main force of Chinese dealers to Shanghai at the end of the 1920s.
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  • Masa-aki Kodama
    Article type: Article
    1981 Volume 47 Issue 4 Pages 423-449,471-47
    Published: December 20, 1981
    Released on J-STAGE: July 15, 2017
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
    Broadly speaking, Japanese emigrants had two courses in the Meiji era. One emigrated to the New Continent, another to the Japanese colonies such as China, Korea and so on. In this article, I deal with Japanese emigration to U.S.A that was the main current of the former from the time of the start of Government contract emigration for Hawaii (1885) till the time of the conclusion of the Gentlemen's Agreement between Japan and U.S.A (1908). The fault common to the traditional ways of the studies of the emigration is that they omitted the economic historical analysis of the background of the emigration, so that, in this article, I concentrate on the analysis of the social and economic base of the emigration in the period of the Industrial Revolution in Japan, and deal with the policy of the emigration both in Japan and U.S.A. And so, dividing the peliod into two parts, I deal with the changes of the charactaristics, the actual condition and the bases in both parts. I choose Hiroshima prefecture that had the most emigrants in Japan at the period as the material of the analysis. Using the fruits of the studies of the regional history in the time when capitalism in Japan came into existence and established, I analyse the regions that had a lot of emigrants in Hiroshima prefecture and try to approach to the history of emigration.
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  • Kenji Kimura
    Article type: Article
    1981 Volume 47 Issue 4 Pages 450-467,470-46
    Published: December 20, 1981
    Released on J-STAGE: July 15, 2017
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
    The number of the Japanese emigrants to Korea in 1880 amounted to 934, which represented 61.9 per cent of the whole sum of the Japanese emigrants. Although the emigrants to Korea were less than those to Hawaii after that, in 1910 they amounted to 25,396, and the number of residents, 171,543 in Korea reached the top, being far more than 98,048 in Formosa or 70,764 in Hawaii. The Japanese residents in Korea mainly consisted of foreign traders, brokers and retail dealers, who obtained the base of penetration, settling there with the help of the Japanese government's adjuvant policy on behalf of the residents and with the support of privileged big seisho (businessmen with political affiliation). Such a feature made a striking contrast to the agricultural emigrants to Hawaii who hardly enjoyed the support of the Japanese government. It was because there was a national demand, in the stage of nascent penetration of big capitalists, to establish a Japanese footing in Korea by the leading of 'influential merchants'. And those 'influential merchants', through the activities of their chambers of commerce, not only exerted a great influence upon the goverment policy but privately established the bases of penetration and settlements by co-ordinating their interests with the Japanese residents Koreans.
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  • Article type: Bibliography
    1981 Volume 47 Issue 4 Pages 469-476
    Published: December 20, 1981
    Released on J-STAGE: July 15, 2017
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
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