Vol. 69, No. 3

Yoh KAWANA
'Formal' and 'informal' in early modern English towns: the case of Leicester in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries

In research into the social organisation of provincial English towns before the civil war, much work has been done on guilds and parishes. However, we still know little about the structure of the relationships of ordinary men and women outside formal urban institutions. This case study examines the neglected patterns of day-to-day economic and social relationships in the public, private and mixed spheres of an English county town, and explores how they affected the formal spatial views manifested in local by-laws and institutions. Analysis of pre-trial examinations conducted by local JPs demonstrates that Leicester was an open society where networks of freemen, non-freemen, and strangers were organised in open markets, streets, and houses for credit arrangements and private dealings. The involvement of freemen in informal society also has significant implications for local governance. As the analysis of Leicester town minutes suggests, the civic elite often incorporated informal relationships into the society of freemen by putting relevant regulations into statutory form. Through examining the situation in a typical inland town under the influence of growing demographic pressure and state power, this article highlights both the tension between and fusion of 'formal' and 'informal' forces in the local context, and brings the informal sphere of urban society to the centre stage of the historical debate on urbanisation.

Tetsuji OKAZAKI and Michiru SAWADA
Bank merger waves and the stability of financial systems: the case of prewar Japan

The purpose of this article is to analyze the activities of the Bank of Japan as lender of last resort (LLR) in the 1920s. During the crisis of 1920 and the banking upheaval of 1922, the Bank of Japan faced an outflow of specie as a result of the rapidly worsening balance of trade, and therefore limited its relief financing. However, after the great Kanto earthquake of 1923 it embarked on large-scale relief financing, with government backing, in order to prevent a financial disaster. As a result, the market stagnated from an excess of currency. Since there was the additional issue of a possible return to the gold standard, when the 1927 crash occurred the Bank of Japan made retrenchment its priority and carried out more relief financing, particularly for the larger banks. In short, the Bank of Japan's activities as LLR in this period were regulated by the logic of the return to the gold standard.

Mariko YAMAGATA
The development of Saga domain?s policy to increase its wealth through domestic and foreign trade at the end of the Edo era, 1830s-1871

It has been assumed that the military buildup of Saga domain was made possible by income from foreign trade at Nagasaki. However, details of the huge payments for warships show that the main source came from the feudal lord?s kakesuzurikata (special account) at Kamigata (Osaka) market.

After the Tempo Reform of the 1830s, Saga reduced its vast debt to ryogae-sho (moneylenders) in Osaka that had been accumulating since the previous century through annual installments over many years and through debt repudiation. In 1856 the domain issued hansatsu (its own notes) based on Saga assets and funds raised from rich merchants within the domain, in other words, without depending on Osaka moneylenders. In a sense it had achieved economic autonomy from Osaka and Hyogo moneylenders.

After 1849, Saga worked for the reconstruction of its finances through strengthening the kakesuzurikata and encouraging domain production through the establishment of monopolies in porcelain and wax. From 1859, the domain involved Osaka and Hyogo moneylenders in the sale of monopoly products and the management of the proceeds. This enabled Saga to reinforce its relationship with the moneylenders so that it could raise vast funds on the Kamigata market. These were the funds which they used in the modernization of their armaments.

Katsutoshi HASHIGUCHI
The development of the domestic market for cotton woven in Chita during the interwar period?the autonomous selling activities of local merchants

The purpose of this paper is to examine the development of a domestic market for the cotton-weaving industry of the Chita region of central Japan. Special attention will be paid to the role of local merchants. The paper makes two main points:

First, Takita Shoten, which was a local wholesaler, is an example of a firm which reorganized its traditional trade system by bringing about changes in the cotton yarn and textile merchants which were its clients. Second, the Chitagun Shiromomen Dogyo Kumiai (Chita Association of Cotton-cloth Traders), an association established by the principal merchants of the Chita region in 1902, made a large contribution to the development of the local cotton-weaving industry, in terms of controls on entry, inspections of product quality, and the regulation of output. In short, the development of the domestic market for cotton woven in Chita was dependent on the activities of local merchants.

Takeshi MATSUMURA
Peasant households in private estates on the Right Bank Ukraine in the first half of the nineteenth century

Many scholars have argued that in Right Bank Ukraine, Prussian type agrarian capitalism was well-developed by the beginning of the twentieth century. They suggest that the semi-proletarian peasants who were needed as a labor force for this type of agrarian capitalism were created through the seizure of land by landlords and the descent of peasants from the upper to the lower classes in the first half of the nineteenth century.

However, all the chronological materials regarding the estates of Podlya (one of the three provinces of Right Bank Ukraine) that are known to exist today show that there were no such land seizures or cases of downward mobility from the end of the eighteenth century to the middle of the nineteenth. Though the number of lower class peasants increased, the number of upper classes peasants remained the same throughout this period, and the number of lower classes peasants grew only on those estates where there was a growth in total population. Moreover, the number of livestock per peasant grew in this period despite the increase in the days of forced labor.

Therefore, the increase in the ratio of lower class peasants was the result of population increase, and not the result of either land seizures or downward mobility.