The purpose of this note is to analyze the composition of inhabitants as labour force in Japanese industrial cities in the 1920s. In order to throw light upon the process of formation of the modern wage-labour, what is important seems to be not so much the study of the rural district where expropriated agricultural population drained out, as that of the towns and cities where working population forms a labour reservoir. It might be an effective method, though the previous studies has been generally forcused on the rural districts. Therefore, taking up Imabari City in Ehime Prefecture as an example of an industrial city, I have paid attention to the years 1907 to the 1910s when the modern cotton weaving industry was established there, and tried to analyze the change of occupational composition of the inhabitants with the increase of population, the arrangement of newcomers in this old castle town, the relation between the formation of wage-labour and the ancient urban lower classes, and so on. Moreover this note makes it its difinite aim to make clear the characteristics of amassment of wage-labour, to make clear the nature of the newcomers' settlement and family structure in Imabari in the 1920s. For this purpose, in addition to Imabari, looking at two other cities of Yahata and Maebashi which grew up mainly with the development of industries different from cotton weaving, we try to grasp the characteristics of the composition of the inhabitants in the respective cities. The differences among these should make clear the characteristics of Imabari. To this end, using Population Census of Japan in 1920, '25, '30 and a labour statistics survey (Rodo Tokei Jitchi Chosa Hokoku) in 1924, '27, '30, the population composition in those cities and the conditions of the labour population which characterize it are analyzed. On the basis of this analysis, from the viewpoint of the composition of the inhabitants, it is showed that, in Japanese industrial cities in the 1920s, two different types are found. One is "the heavy industrial city" where newcomers settle and immediately reproduce offspring, and the other is "the light industrial city" where newcomers hardly do so. These two types exist at the same time, and Imabari is classified as the latter.
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