Vol. 76, No. 2

Taro MINABE
Supply and demand of officers in the Japanese shipping industry during the interwar period, 1914-1938

The purpose of this paper is to examine the supply and demand of officers engaged in the Japanese ocean-going shipping industry during the interwar period, and analyze the relationship between the shipping market and the officer supply-demand.

This paper clarifies the following: First, the relationship between the supply and demand of officers lagged far behind the realities of the shipping market. For example, as a result of World War I, the shipping sector witnessed an unprecedented boom in 1916. It was not until 1918, however, that the supply and demand relationship became overstrained. Then from 1930 until 1935, there was a serious oversupply of officers. This was in contrast to the recovery of the Japanese economy from the Great Depression. Second, the officer supply-demand relation was stable in the 1920s. There were two main causes for this: aggressive shipbuilding by major shipping companies and steady increase in imports, especially bulk cargo, which was the most important freight for the Japanese shipping industry. Third, the human resource policy of major shipping companies with regard to officers was consistent with the above findings; obviously it was under the strong influence of the supply and demand relationship.

Satoshi KAWAMURA
What lay behind the merger policy of the Japanese transportation industry in the 1920s?

This article examines what lay behind the merger policy of the Japanese transportation industry (ko-unso), enforced in June 1926, and the reason why carriers accepted it. For this purpose, we investigate the problems that had been pointed out during the early 1920s and the measures taken to solve them.

After the panic in 1920, the Ministry of Railways and consignors often demanded that carriers lower their freight charges. Although the demand had been made since World War I, its meaning had changed from the wartime criticism of overcharging to a demand to lower the standard of the charges. The transportation industry was excessively competitive then, and some rationalization was inevitable in order to adjust the supply to the demand. The government concluded that it was necessary to merge for carriers into large firms in order to reduce freight charges.

Carriers suffered from the cutthroat competition triggered by the postwar decline in demand; they, in fact, had already been forced into an unreasonable lowering of freight charges and resorting to unlawful transactions in order to win orders. They were likely to be receptive of the restrictive policy in the hopes of being liberated from fierce competition.

Hidetoshi MIYACHI
Characteristics of miners in the Japanese coal industry: Hashima coal mine of Mitsubishi Mining Company Ltd., from 1945 to the 1960s

The purpose of this paper is to examine the basic characteristics of miners, especially career, age, and origin, analyzing individual data of miners working in Hashima coal mine.

In the latter half of the 1940s, many natives of the western regions of Chugoku and Shikoku worked in Hashima coal mine in northern Kyushu, just as they did in prewar days. However, in the first half of the 1950s when the coal industry was thriving, young people from the agricultural areas in southern Kyushu moved to northern Kyushu to work in the coal mines. The latter half of the 1950s witnessed a different phase when the coal industry became structurally depressed. Hashima coal mine mainly employed workers born in southern Kyushu who had worked in other northern Kyushu industries or collieries.

In addition, three facts were proven by the analysis of miners’ careers and occupations. First, workers from the agricultural areas were employed as untrained labour, and workers who had work experience in other industries or collieries were employed as skilled labour. Second, many workers’ children were employed in Hashima coal mine as apprentices to skilled workers. Finally, in many cases miners with work experience in small- and medium-sized collieries were employed later in major colliery companies like Hashima coal mine.

Kensuke HIRAI
The refined and white sugar market in East Asia, 1910s-1920s

The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between intra-Asian sugar trade (China, Hong Kong, and Java) and Japanese imperial sugar trade (Japan and Taiwan), focusing on Japanese refined sugar export to China during the period between the 1910s and 1920s. Since the Japanese domestic market was small, export to the Chinese market was important for the Japanese (and Taiwanese) sugar industry to solve the oversupply problem.

The following two points are clarified in this paper. First, until the 1910s, export of Japanese refined sugar to the Chinese market solved the domestic oversupply problem. However, with the rise in demand for the more reasonably priced Java sugar in 1920s China, Japan could no longer export its oversupply.

Second, the reason why Japanese refined sugar lost its competitiveness was that Chinese merchants became fascinated with the more profitable trade in Javanese white sugar, and began to import it heavily, which they sold as falsely labeled “Japanese refined sugar”. As a result, by the 1920s, sugar was produced and consumed within the intra-Asian market, thus making the stable growth of Japanese imperial sugar trade difficult.

Nobuko MITSUMATA
Environmental economic history of night soil in the period of the Industrial Revolution in England: urban waste recycling in The General View of the Agriculture

Sustainability has been a growing concern from the viewpoint of environmental history. The purpose of this article is to examine the recycling process of night soil in the period of the Industrial Revolution in England. By investigating The General View of the Agriculture (1793-1818) and Parliamentary Papers, it is proved that night soil was removed from urban areas and applied to suburban agricultural land as fertilizer, and the transaction of night soil between urban and suburban areas was established as a commercial activity. This paper clarifies that this transaction system of night soil was sustained by three factors: (i) the organisation of disposal systems by urban local governments, (ii) the development of transportation systems between urban and suburban areas, and (iii) the growth of experimental knowledge of night-soil application among farmers. In conclusion, the night-soil transaction system promoted a nutrients cycle from urban areas to suburban agricultural lands and should be considered a precedent of sustainable society. This article sheds different light on an aspect of English society during the Industrial Revolution, which in conventional studies is often described as an unsustainable.

Nobu INANIWA
Journeymen and guilds in early modern England: the case of the cordwainers’ company of Newcastle

This paper examines the situation of journeymen in the cordwainers’ company in Newcastle upon Tyne from the third quarter of the 17th century to the mid-18th century, particularly from the viewpoint of the relations between master, apprentice, and journeymen.

It became obvious from the company’s various records that most of the journeymen employed by the masters in the cordwainers' company were neither bound as apprentices by the masters of the company nor were they sons of the masters. Furthermore, most of the journeymen left their work within one year. These facts indicate that the relations between the company and journeymen were, in most cases, limited to short-term employment and that the fluidity in the journeymen’s labour market was very high. In turn, it can be considered that the organisation of the guild consisted mainly of masters and their reserve forces, i.e., the apprentices and sons who both were would-be masters. This form of organisation made it possible to bring up core members of the guild while operating in response to the market needs within the growing urban centre.