Vol. 75, No.3

Eiichi MOTONO
Conflict over Sino-foreign trademark violation in the late Qing and early Republican periods: with special reference to the relationship between Japanese and Chinese companies

This article is an attempt to reveal what happened between foreign firms and Chinese merchants and firms when Britain led Western European governments in a strong opposition to the Chinese government’s enforcement of the first trademark registration law in China, Shangbiao Zhuce Shiban Zhangcheng ( 商標註冊試辦章程 ), from 1906 until the end of World War I. This article is especially interested in the relationship between Japanese firms and Chinese merchants and firms.

The first theme of this article is: when and how Chinese merchants and firms violated the trademarks of prominent Japanese firms, and what Japan’s response was. Another theme is the conditions under which Japanese manufacturing companies cooperated with Chinese merchants and firms.

It was 1909 when Japanese diplomats failed to prohibit Chinese firms from selling cotton yarn using a trademark that imitated that of Kanegafuchi Cotton Spinning Company. Since then, trademarks of Japanese firms became the easy prey of Chinese merchants and firms selling imitated goods. Meanwhile, manufacturers in west Japan cooperated with Chinese merchants and firms in producing imitations of Western products. Especially after the outbreak of World War I, Japanese manufactures took the initiative to produce and sell imitated goods in China. Under the cover of the Western firms whose products were imitated, they tried to sell Japanese goods in China, where strong anti-Japanese boycott movements were taking place against the 21 Demands made by the Japanese government.

Yuki FUKUSHI
International sanitary activities in Shanghai and East Asia in the 1920s: a study on Shanghai’s response to the movement for revision of the International Sanitary Convention (1912)

The aim of this study is to examine the relation between the creation of a public health administration in modern China and international sanitary activities in 1920s East Asia through an analysis of the reactions of foreign sanitary officers and the Chinese medical establishment in Shanghai to the international movement for the revision of the International Sanitary Convention (1912) (ISC).

In the early 1920s, the League of Nations proposed an amendment to the ISC to make it applicable to the countries of Asia. It included a plan to classify the ports in Asia according to health conditions and facilities, and phased quarantine measures were to be taken according to classification.

If the proposed amendment were adopted, Shanghai would be classified as a lower rank port and would suffer economically, and the foreign sanitary officers in Shanghai International Settlement therefore tried to launch a survey of sanitary conditions in the greater Shanghai area.

On the other hand, the Chinese medical establishment, in an environment of improved international sanitary activities in Asia, recommended the establishment of a nationwide and Chinese-controlled health administration. It is believed that their activities led to the rapid creation of a nationwide public health administration by the Nationalist government from the late 1920s.

Yasuo TAKATSUKI
Concentration and integration of the rice market in Tokugawa Japan: the Dojima and Otsu rice markets

In the Tokugawa period (1603-1868), market transaction grew explosively, and local markets throughout Japan were effectively integrated as a national market. This is the view commonly shared among historians. The important question, then, is did how these markets perform.

To evaluate the performance, this paper focuses on the correlation of rice price indices between the Dojima market in Osaka and Otsu market, which is about 50 kilometers away. Relying on newly constructed daily price indices, this paper shows that the Otsu market reflected Osaka rice prices within two days in the early 19th century, and within one day in the mid-19th century. This change stemmed from advances in communication technology, which by the mid-19th century at the latest, had developed from mail delivery to flag signaling.

The rice merchants' appetite for information made the adjustment of rice prices so rapid that the Otsu market did not even need one trading day to reflect Osaka rice prices. The Osaka market indeed functioned as a central market, and neighboring markets were accordingly quick to follow Osaka prices.

Tomoko FUTAYA
The preventive activities of an influential ship-owner during the 1879 cholera epidemic: the case of the MIYABAYASHI family

This article is based on the letters of Hikokuro MIYABAYASHI, an influential ship-owner, and his partners, whose strategies helped to prevent the wide spread of the 1879 cholera epidemic in Ishikawa prefecture. I demonstrate and analyze how the measures taken by Hikokuro against the deadly disease helped prevent its spread. In addition, I show how the people in the region reacted to the cholera outbreak.

Through his objective judgment, Hikokuro was able to protect both his family and vessel crews from cholera. He did this by availing himself of information from various sources and taking proper preventive measures. He stopped cholera from spreading in his hometown on his own initiative, taking into account the expectations of local government officials. On this point, there is a similarity between his preventive activities and the free medical services offered by other influential families in the region since early modern times. The MIYABAYASHI family, through its experience with the 1879 cholera epidemic, became aware of the need to support the intellectual growth of the area, and Hikokuro thus took proactive measures by opening a free library in January 1880, which was earlier than the establishment of the Ishikawa Local Board of Health in July 1880.