There was a sharp contrast between the silk and the cotton industries in England. First of all, although the latter was swiftly mechanized between the end of the 18th century and the 1830s, it was difficult for the former to be mechanized, owing to the technical barrier. Secondly, while the cotton industry was a national one, the silk industry was a local one, in which about 65% of the working population of Macclesfield engaged in 1841. Thirdly, "free trade" for the cotton manufacturer sacrificed the silk industry in two ways: on the one hand, it was forced to compete with the French and Italian silk industries, in spite of its immaturity and, on the other hand, the unemployment of silk weavers became a serious problem, for the silk industry was regarded as an "asylum" of cotton weavers. After glancing over the history of protectionism concerning the silk industry, the author investigates the relation between three locations of the silk industry, i.e., Spitalfields, Macclesfield and Manchester, with relation to the opening of ports. Though the Spitalfields silk industry suffered from the catching-up of the Macclesfield one even before the opening of ports, the former was hit by the importation of French silks. He attributes the superiority of the French silks to the follwing three factors: the systematic discipline of artisans in response to foreign demand, high-class raw silk domestically produced to the amount of four-fifths of total consumption and cheaper wages. The Spitalfields manufacturers declined to produce fashionable goods and began to produce such coarser goods as the gros de Naples, which resulted in serious competition with the manufacturers of Manchester and Macclesfield. How about the silk throwing? Throwsters of Macclesfield suffered from the import of Italian silk. Such a situation seems to have been unavoideble, due to the difference in the cost. In the latter half of the article, the author turns his attention to the industrial relations of Macclesfield silk industry. First of all, it should be pointed out that Macclesfield was honoured to be the model for the local boards of conciliation and arbitration. If there had not been instituted, there would have been continuous labour disputes. It was because there were many sorts of silk product and it was quite possible that each master would pay different prices for the same product. The author is surprised that there was a committee of silk weavers in Macclesfield as early as the 1790s and drew up a price-list, in order to begin something like a negotiation with the masters. Handloom weavers were the so-to-speak labour aristocracy and there wasn't any border which couldn't be crossed between their masters and them. The foundation of the Board of Conciliation in 1826 should be evidence of the existence of the abovementioned spirit. There were those manufacturers who after having their fortunes build up by their weavers' labour, took their work to other places(where prices were lower than in Macclesfield) and left them to live in misery and want. They would have been large-scale manufacturers who made their weavers weave the coaser goods. Both they and their employees were, as it were, not fully citizens. Small-scale manufacturers and their employees, on the contrary, were fully citizens of Macclesfield and kept weaving bandanna. The local Board of Trade, being a sort of local board of conciliation and arbitration, worked to their advantage.

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In this paper, we attempted to reexamine the commonly accepted theory that towns and villages in the Edo era was deprived their administrative position under the "Daiku-Shoku" system, and that, under the "Sanshinpo" system in 1878, the position was retored. In Chapter I, we analyzed the acts and policies of central government on the regulations of "Daiku-Shoku" system and "Kocho" post. In Chapter II, we examined the peculiarities and tacts of "Daiku-Shoku" system in Chiba and Yamagata prefecture. In Chapter III, we examined the administrative position of the towns and villages under the "Daiku-Shoku" system across the nation as for as proving. In conclusion, we thought that the historical meaning of "Daiku-Shoku" system in not to deprive the towns and villages of their administrative position. And the miening of "Sanshinpo" system is not to retore it, neither. The MEiji state ceperated the "unsich combination of government official and residents' delegate, which "Nanushi" or so on had until 1872. And also ceperated the "unsice" combination of administrative unit and community, which was existent in the towns and villages in the Edo era, through the attempt to tix "Daiku-Shoku" system and "Kocho" post into the provincial system. The Meiji state jointed the "Kocho" post, as official side of "Nanushi" or so on, and "Daiku-Shoku", as official side of towns and villages, into the administrative system which was combined with central government and profectures. So, Under the "Sanshinpoo" system, this direction of provincial system was achieved continuously.

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The scheme of the postal savings was established in 1875 after the model of the Post Office Savings in Great Britain. This scheme was from the very beginning expected to target such low-income class as workers and peasants rather than ordinary depositors with a proper level of income whom banking institutions usually deemed as their clients. Nevertheless, such socio-economic factors as prematurity of money economy and concentration of modern banking in cities spurred the development of this scheme centering on rather well-to-do olocal landlords. A change in the nature of the postal savings apparent in those initial years surfaced in the mid-1890s. In this period of the so-called Japanese Industrial Revolution after the Sino-Japanese War, modern banking rapidly expanded into the rural areas. Because of this modern banking's advancement, the postal savings experienced an alarming level of decrease in the amount of saving having lost long-standing depositors, wealthy farmers in particular, to modern banking institutions. What must be noted here is that this decrease led to an increase in relative share of low-income depositors in the total composition of the postal savings clients. At the end of the 19th Century, on the other hand, there emerged a need in the Administrative concerns to increase the savings ratio in the low-income class and then lure their petty savings to the postal savings scheme. While, after the Sino-Japanese War, the Administration expanded the fiscal expenditure year after year, a boom in enterprises occured at the same time which led to a spiral growth of the capital outlay on the top of expansion of personal consumption, altogether resulting in a rapid development of demestic demand. All these factors caused a steep rise in prices and a marked decrease in the specie reserve affected by an adverse balance of trade with a consequence of a crisis of the gold standard which had just been effected in 1897. The Government deemed the growing consumption an unproductive one and was determined to adopt a savings promotion policy with an aim of restriction on consumption. As the boom in enterprises negated a possibility for raising government bonds which should have been used for raising of funds to be earmarked for fiscal projects centering on military and infrastructure as well as national economic management in the post-war era of the Sino-Japanese War, the Government had no other choice to subscribe to the bonds by using the postal savings as the fiscal resource. The saving promotion policy at first did not work so effectively as expected. But when the political relation of Japan and Imperial Russia became aggravated and the war broke out, the Government organized a nationalistic savings promotion campaign and created a network of the thrift and saving association nationwide for rather forced saving among the populace. Thus the Government succeeded in reorganizing the postal savings scheme as a national savings institution concentrating on the low-income class during the Russo-Japanese War. The postal savings began to be recongnized as an effective instrument of maintaining the demand control policy necessary to achieve a rapid economic growth under the low "ceiling" of Japan's international payments capacity.

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