Vol. 70, No. 4

Kanji ISHII
The role of merchant capital in the industrialization process

Professor Hisao OTSUKA once argued that merchants could be linked with a variety of economic interests, and that in feudal society they were closely linked with feudal economic interests. However, we should recognize that such feudal merchants could suddenly change their behavior in order to link with modern economic interests. The common theme of the seventy-second annual conference of the Socio-Economic History Society, organized by Kanji ISHII, was the re-examination of this theory of Professor OTSUKA, through analysis of the role of merchant capital in the process of industrialization.

Takafumi KUROSAWA discussed how the industrialization of Switzerland was led by the activity of merchants who imported raw materials and exported products. Kanji ISHII discussed how the moneychangers in Kyoto, Osaka, and Yedo changed their behavior during the Meiji reform era to support the development of modern merchants.

Commenting on these two reports, Saburo SODA observed that Chinese merchants only began to promote industrialization after 1900. Hisashi WATANABE remarked that merchants in other parts of Europe functioned in a way similar to the role of Swiss merchants. Makoto KASUYA asked how the highly developed financial system of the late Edo era influenced the formation of the capital market in the Meiji era.

Kanji ISHII
The financial activities of moneychangers in Kyoto, Osaka, and Yedo during the late Tokugawa and early Meiji periods (the 1860s and 1870s)

After discussing the importance of investment by merchants during the industrialization of Japan, this article analyzes historical materials relating to the firms of Banjin (Kyoto), Mitsui (Osaka, Yedo), Chogin (Kyoto, Yedo), and Hiromi (Kaizuka). It proves that the activities of moneychangers in Kyoto, Osaka, and Yedo continued in spite of the economic disorders of the early Meiji period.

In Osaka, bills issued by merchants on moneychangers stopped circulating after the regime change of 1868. This was because plundering by the victorious armies of the domains of Satsuma and Choshu caused the bankruptcy of the many moneychangers who had been closely linked with the Tokugawa Bakufu or Aizu domain. In Kyoto, the circulation of bills stopped from 1873 owing to the introduction of stamp duties.

Moneychangers who survived such disorders in the money market began to finance the new merchants who invested their accumulated resources in modern industries. After the 1870s, modern banks were established by big moneychangers. These included Konoike, Sumitomo, Hirase, Yamaguchi, and Hirooka in Osaka, and Mitsui, Nakai, Yasuda, and Kawasaki in Tokyo.

Takafumi KUROSAWA
The role of merchants in the financial and industrial sectors in the industrialization of Switzerland from the sixteenth century to the 1830s

The intent of this paper is to clarify the role played by merchants in the industrialization process. The beginning of Swiss industrial development after the sixteenth century was marked by the large-scale migration of Calvinists throughout Europe, and the introduction of cotton and silk manufacturing. Later on, the center of cotton production was transferred to the countryside, where 'bottom-up' development and democratization took place. Urban merchants maintained the initiative in the capital intensive sectors, and some of them founded private banks. The organizers of the Verlagsystem in the countryside and merchants in the city became factory owners. The banks in Zurich were in a fledgling state, and capital demand from the factory sector was still low. In the 1820s and 1830s, capital demand caused by the cultivation of new markets and intensified competition in the factory sector was satisfied by private bankers in Zurich and Basel, who doubled as textile manufacturers or traders. Their resources were supplemented by regional and non-institutional means of finance.

In conclusion, it can be said that merchants in Switzerland supported industrialization in various ways, as organizers of production and distribution, and as founders and leaders in the financial sector.

Hironobu SAKUMA
The honor of craftsmanship: journeymen, handicraft guilds and group formation in Germany from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries

This article aims to explore the connection between German journeymen and the honor of their craft guilds, and the reason why journeymen and guild masters held on so persistently to this notion of honor.

The concept of the honor of the craft guild took shape in southern Germany between the years 1450 and 1500. It comprised a wide range of strict views surrounding the details of one's birth, gender, marriage practices, freedom from debt and rejection of thieving. From the beginning of the sixteenth century onward, these craftsmen began to discriminate against 'dishonorable' people - including executioners, skinners and others. Through the use of strikes, boycotts, or the threat of such actions, journeymen supported notions of honor with more tenacity than guild masters. Yet their actions could achieve legitimacy only after receiving approval from the entirety of assembled guild members. The growing connection between artisans and honor derived not from economic circumstances as demonstrated by the 'closing off of the craft guild', but rather was dependent upon social context. In fact, journeymen wanted to distinguish themselves from other members of the lower social order and 'dishonorable' people through organizing associations and forming homogeneous groups.

Yusaku MATSUZAWA
Poor relief and emergency funds in the early Meiji period, 1869~1871

In 1869, the newly established Meiji government was confronted by a bad harvest. In this article the author analyses how the prefectural governments it had set up responded to the resulting famine.

At first, the prefectural governments followed the practice of the Edo period by inducing wealthy people to aid the poor. But such policies of forced redistribution had reached their limits by this time. The strategies of poor relief and emergency funding that were adopted by prefectural governments developed as alternative ways of dealing with the crisis.

The first alternative was to enlarge the areas of redistribution from a village to a village union or to a prefecture; the second alternative was to introduce opportunities for commercial distribution. Neither alternative was successful, but the attempts indicated the possibility of overcoming the limits of forced redistribution. The Meiji government continued to pursue both directions of welfare policy throughout the 1870s.