Vol.
64, No. 5
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Masahiro OGIYAMA
Domestic servants in the early stages of Japan's industrialization,
1878-1906
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In the early stages
of Japan's industrialization, the increased demand for labor in industry
caused a labor shortage in domestic service. Nevertheless, domestic
servants remained a large occupational group. The aim of this paper
is to show how families were able to continue to employ domestic servants
through a case study of the Hiroumi family, merchants specializing in
fertilizers and rice in the Sennan district of Osaka Prefecture.
The Hiroumi family normally
employed three to four live-in servants. Most were girls not yet independent
from their parents, who were the ultimate recipients of their wages.
They were recruited from the poorer families of the neighboring areas.
On the eve of industrialization
in the 1880s, the cotton-weaving indus-try had already developed as
a cottage industry throughout the Sennan district. Parents were able
to put their daughters to work as weavers at home instead of sending
them away to domestic service. However, the latter was more profitable
for them, and therefore it was easy for employers to hire domestic help.
But the situation changed
after industrialization began in the 1890s. A cotton-spinning mill built
in the Sennan district was willing to employ large numbers of local
girls at high wages. In addition, the weaving industry began to flourish
owing to a sharp rise in the demand for cotton cloth. It was clearly
more advantageous for parents to send daughters to the spinning mill
to work, or keep them at home weaving, rather than put them into domestic
service. The Hiroumi family was faced with a labor shortage.
Employers of domestic servants
immediately took countermeasures, such as raising wages, or offering
improved payment systems. Although it was not as easy to hire and retain
workers as in the past, the Hiroumi family was still able to employ
as many domestic servants as it needed.
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Yoshifumi SAITO
Child labour in Alsace at the time of the industrial revolution: French
industrialists and the Child Labour Law of 1841
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The Child Labour Law of 1841 is the first case of state intervention
found in nineteenth-century French economic liberalism. However, its
special significance lies in the fact that the impetus for the law came
from a movement formed by industrialists. The object of this article
is to examine the meaning of the law for Alsatian industrialists, who
took a leading role in the movement.
First of all, a clear difference
concerning the justification for state intervention on this issue can
be observed between the industrialists who argued that legislation was
necessary, and those in parliament who actually got the law passed.
The industrialists, who belonged to the paternalistic Societe Industrielle
de Mulhouse, intended to establish a new social order based on industrialization.
For them, the 1841 law represented a partial transfer of company welfare
policy to the state and a modification of the laissez-faire system of
free competition. On the other hand, the main advocates of the law in
parliament were influenced by Social Catholicism and sought to restore
traditional rural society. They saw the law as a social guarantee which
would protect child workers from all sorts of harm.
From the viewpoint of the
industrialists, the significance of the 1841 law can be summarized as
follows: the regulation of factory labour meant the revival of the working-class
family and ensured a good supply of adult workers in the future. Controls
on child labour were also expected to bring about uniform conditions
in production activities and guarantee reasonable profits. A peculiarity
of the 1841 law therefore lies in the fact that a social policy intended
to stabilize the formation of the labour force was linked to an interventionalist
economic policy intended to establish a just system of competition according
to the principles of economic liberalism.
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Tadashi HATAKEYAMA
Urbanization and the construction industry in late-nineteenth century
Russia: a case study of St Petersburg
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In Russia, a period of rapid industrialization and urbanization followed
the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. In this paper, the development
of construction industry in St Petersburg is investigated.
First, the general relationship
between urbanization and construction is surveyed. The growth in population
experienced by late nineteenth-century Petersburg stimulated demand
for house construction and the public amenities necessary to urban life.
Demand grew in the late 1890s after the depression of the 1880s. The
type of building also underwent a gradual change, from small-scale wooden
houses to large-scale brick ones, with running water, gas and/or electricity.
These changes affected the
social composition of construction workers and the industrial organization.
There was a large increase in the number of year-round workers between
the second half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth.
New types of organization also emerged. In the 1890s in particular,
construction companies and artel' (workers' associations) appeared alongside
the traditional podriadchiki (contractors) and tsekhi (guilds). As businesses
grew in scale and the proportion of administrative staff increased,
business organizations became more complex and the self-employed had
to struggle to survive. However, it is important to note here that the
construction industry contained a variety of occupational categories,
and that these developed in different ways.
An examination of actual
cases of construction makes the connection between specific occupations
and types of organization clear. While traditional brickwork and plastering
were undertaken by podriadchiki, newer skills, such as working with
concrete, plumbing or elevator-installation, were the domain of construction
companies. In other words, new technology was mainly introduced by construction
companies. The growing demand in the construction industry led to a
speeding up of construction work, and this in turn brought about an
increase in workers and the growth of business organizations.
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Chiaki YAMAMOTO
Estimates of real wages and consumption in England at the end of the
eighteenth century
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This article offers an alternative approach to the investigation of
the material life of wage labourers in eighteenth-century England. The
emphasis will be on the importance of 'income in kind' in assessing
the standard of living of agricultural labourers. In other words, it
will be argued that the non-monetary aspects of income should be included
when calculating living standards. First, evidence from contemporary
literature, using figures from family budgets and wage surveys, indicates
that Engel's coefficient of workers was very high (over 73%), and moreover
that expenditure on food was income elastic. Secondly, 'income in kind'
amounted to 26% of the average wage rate without board, and was equivalent
to 20% of the average family income. Finally, when allowance is made
for 'income in kind', the regional variance in wage rates becomes wider
than previous estimates have indicated.
Until recently, most estimates
of workers' living standards have been based solely on calculations
of the real wage rates of adult males. However, during the last decade,
this approach has been criticised. For example, wage rates do not reveal
annual income levels because they do not take into consideration under-employment
or seasonal unemployment. Similarly, it is not possible to talk about
household income if the earnings of women and children are ignored.
The present article calls attention to the fact that workers in the
eighteenth-century had many non-monetary alternative sources with which
to supplement their livelihood. For example, they could collect peat,
or graze livestock on communally owned pasture.
While the existence of 'income
in kind' is broadly acknowledged, few efforts have been made to investigate
its impact on the overall standard of living of agricultural labourers.