The object of this article is to study the historical features and significance of the "Peerage Capital" which has not been fully discussed. We can summarise its characteristics at the stages of capitalistic development as follows. The characteristic at the first stage of capitalistic development (the original capital accumulation) was that main peers invested their money and annual revenue in banks and companies, or managed their business under the control of the "Souzoku" (relatives from early times) system in spite of their being also "Rentner". In regard to the next stage of capitalistic development (establishment and development of capitalism), we can point it out that not only they invested their money actively in securities, but also they took part in the management of the companies to some extent. And they obtained and maintained some amount of rent from tenant farmers and changed the former "Souzoku" system to "council" system (consisted of their former relatives, etc.). As to the stage of monopolistic capitalism, we can point out the remarkable development of "Peerage Capital" such as mine-owners. They mainly took the ranks as princes and marquises (sometimes counts) who had heavy responsibility as the major peers among all peers. They maintained a certain social influence as "Peerage Capital" possessing both credit and fortunes. While most of the other peers were to be reckoned as so called "middle class" people. The characteristics of Japanese "Peerage Capital" were mainly due to the pecuriarity of Japanese peerage. So the most important obligation of Japanese peerage was to protect the Emperor. Let's investigate further this problem from the two sides-privileges and regulation of Japanese peerage. lt was true that Japanese peerage had such privileges as the right to be member of the House of Peers, to take greater honors, to establish a household regulations by law, etc. These privileges were not small in general. Therefore they had been always in the fear of the special punishment since the establishment till the abolition of peerage institution, besides the criminal law. In other words Japanese peers were more strongly regulated than English ones because the Japanese Emperor was powerful as a political sovereign. Such a contradictory image was also due to the process of creation of Japanese peerage. By "Hanseki Hokan" (institutional "abolition of feudal system"),feudal lords were separated from local public government organs and were limited to manage their private household affairs. On the other hand, they were appointed a new public position-"Kazoku" (peerage). This duality prevented them from devoting themselves to be a big capital like "Zaibatsu".

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The purpose of this paper is to clarify the process that occurred during the period from the beginning of the Meiji era to Meiji 30 whereby customary relations between the employer and employees changed to those more suited to the age of industrialization. The interrelated development of middle and small scale merchants, the Mitsui Bank and the cotton spinning industry will be examined. At the beginning of the Meiji era, the government abolished the customary system of employer-employee relations in an attempt to change over to a modern labor management relations, that is from a traditional system determined by social position to a system based on contracted labor. This alone, however, did not lead to the establishment of more modern management relation. For example, it became extremely difficult for middle and small scal merchants who had formed the "guilds" (kabu-nakama) in the Edo period and who received the greatest shock that came with the abolition of the customary system, to control employees, and so they made a strong cry for the reinstatement of the old system. In reality there were many merchants who violated the government's regulations and continued to operate in the traditional manner. In Meiji 17, a revision was made that allowed only merchants involved in the production of major products to form associations of like industries. This led to the establishment of a number of such associations. As a result, the continuation customary practices was recognized, and employer-employee relations which had been in a turmoil to some extent regained stability. The cotton spinning industries are considered to be modern industries, but they continued to carry out traditional emploper-employee relations of the small-middle scale merchants of the Edo period. The cotton spinners also formed associations through which they were able to control over workers. Along with the advancement of industrialization, it became clear that it would not be possible to stabilize empIoyer-employee relations solely through strengthening controls of employees. At that time, the more stabilized employer-employee relations brought about by the Kanegafuchi Cotton Spinning Company as a result of their "Good Working Conditions Policy" came to attract attention. This policy was modelled after a similar policy directed toward white-collar employees by Nakamigawa Hikojiro of the Mitsui Bank. The policy of the Kanegafuchi Cotton Spinnig Company had a great impact on the cotton spinning industry which was attempting to stabilize employer-employee relations through the strengthening of regulations among companies and the control of workers. And in Meiji 29, a conflict arose between the Kanegafuchi Cotton Spinning Company and other cotton spinning companies. This developed into a major incident which shook the entire industrial world of Japan. This conflict can be seen as a struggle between "The old" and "The new". It might be said that for the cotton spinning industry this was a necessary step in the process of moving away from customary practices to management systems more appropriate to modern types of industry. After this, the more cooperative labor management practices of the "Japanese employment system" came to be used in the management of white-collor employees and blue-collar workers. This led to the period of "Familistic Labor Management".

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During the first half of the 19th century, England tried to force other countries to adopt the free trade policy and to make them exporters of raw products for England. But her attempt didn't always succeed. Because in the same period Germany began to develop her industry and consequently she became a rival industrial state. The purpose of this paper is to clarify how British free traders recognized the German Zollverein and how their recognition changed according to the process of industrialization and the movement for the tariff protection in Germany by analyzing the articles on the German Zollverein written for the contemporary reviews and the views in Parliament. When the Zollverein was formed, some insisted that it was formed in order to retaliate on England and injurious as a whole, but others thought its duties moderate. At this time the Zollverein less interested British free traders than in the early 4O's. From the late 30's many free traders became aware of industrialization in Germany and began to point out the depression of the British textile industry.The so-called Bowring Report, in which Bowring insisted that the Zollverein would reduce its duties reciprocally and estimated the Zollverein highly because of its achievement of the internal free trade, had a great effect on the views on the Zollverein at the time and many reviews welcomed the expansion of the Zollverein. In the mid-40's the movement for the tariff protection in Germany became furious and import duties on British manufactures was raised by the Zollverein. After all British free traders gave up forcing the Zollverein to reduce its duties reciprocally and began to insist that their country should adopt the free trade policy unilaterally.

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In this essay, we have focused our attention on two aspects of Russian petroleum industry, first, the effects of the excise tax on the kerosene trade, and second, the different strategies of fhe Nobel Company before and after this imposition. 1. The re-introduction of the excise tax in 1888 resulted in subsequent contraction of the domestic consumption and fostered the kerosene export at dumped prices. The Minstry of Finance, which sponsored the industrialization with various means, recognized the non-subsidized development of the petroleum industrialists, who, according to the Minister, Vishnegradsky, had "gained all the greater success year by year" during the 1880s. The imposition of this tax appeared monstrous. All the kerosene exported was exempted from it but was under the control of the authorities. As Beeby-Thompson described: "an obligation note was obtained from the officials to the value of the duty on the exported oil" that allowed the consigner "nine months in which to pay." And that amount was to be credited only after "satisfying the authorities that the kerosene was exported." The oil industrialists, therefore, were forced to export the surplus immediately after refining, at much lower prices compared to the home market. 2. The Nobel Brothers Petroleum Company, at the head of the industry, had already exported its kerosene prior to 1888. This company, which established itself to the monopolistic position through a Rockfellor-like expanding policy, had considered the export market as an extented part of the domestic market, and had created even some subsidiary companies to sell its products in Europe. After the imposition of the tax, however, the Nobels had to change its view of exportation and reconsidered it as a complementary to the Russian market. As one of its directors wrote to Fred Lane, "we want to get rid of the surplus which we have on our interior markets, in order to be able to put prices up in Russia." By following this new strategy, the Nobel Brothers achieved the monopolistic hegemony in Russia and attained always higher profits than the Rothschilds, whose aim was centered on the export and on the introduction of chief products into Europe.

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