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Success Illgotten? The Role of Meiji Militarism in Japan's Technological Progress

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2010

Kozo Yamamura
Kozo Yamamura
Affiliation:
University of Washington
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Abstract

This study suggests that the militaristic orientation of the Meiji government and the wars fought against China and Russia contributed significantly to technological development in Meiji Japan (1868–1911). The roles played by the arsenals and the government-owned shipyards and factories in adopting and disseminating foreign technology are described to demonstrate their importance in the rapid Meiji industrialization. The article suggests that it is necessary to reexamine the view, primarily based on macro-economic analysis, that Meiji militarism was basically detrimental to economic growth in Japan.

Type
Papers Presented at the Thirty-Sixth Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 37 , Issue 1 , March 1977 , pp. 113 - 135
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1977

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References

1 Among a dozen Japanese sources on the development of the arsenals and other government-owned plants which were established mainly for military purposes, the following two works by Koyama, Hirotake are most useful: Kinsei Nihon gunjishi gaisetsu (A survey of the military history of modern Japan), (Tokyo, 1944)Google Scholar; and Nihon gunji kogyo no shiteki bunseki (A historical analysis of Japanese military industries), (Tokyo, 1972). Facts contained in this and the following paragraphs are obtained from pp. 64–70 of the latter.

2 Despite several isolated efforts made by a few domains (han) during the last decades of the Tokugawa period, technological capabilities attained in metallurgy and machine-making before the Restoration were clearly insufficient for meeting the needs of a modern army as envisioned by the Meiji leaders. See Koyama, A historical analysis, pp. 100–02; and Makino, Terutomo, Meiji-Taisho-shi, (A history of the Meiji-Taisho periods), vol. 3, Keizai-hen (Volume on economy), (Tokyo, 1930), pp. 282–87 and pp. 303–06.Google Scholar

3 Koyama, A historical analysis, p. 69.

4 On the technological changes in the iron and steel industry during this period see Kojima, Seiichi, Nihon tekkā-shi (A history of iron and steel in Japan), Meiji-hen (the Meiji volume), (Tokyo, 1945), pp. 155–82.Google Scholar

5 Ibid., p. 155.

6 This is from an 1875 report of the Ministry of Construction (Kōbushō) as quoted in Koyama, A historical analysis, p. 74.

7 Zōsensho, Mitsubishi Nagasaki, Mitsubishi Nagasaki zōsensho-shi (Tokyo, 1928), pp. 18–20Google Scholar, and Koyama, A historical analysis, pp. 73–74.

8 Koyama, A historical analysis, p. 75.

9 Ibid., p. 79.

10 Ibid., pp. 74, 80.

11 For an elaboration and some useful data, see Koyama, A survey, pp. 251–74.

12 Koyama, A historical analysis, pp. 88–94.

13 Ibid., p. 107.

14 See the company histories cited in nn. 19 and 34 below.

15 Kimura, Yasuichi, ed., Shibaura seisakusho 65-nen-shi (A 65-year history of the Shibaura machine works), (Tokyo, 1940), pp. 16–17Google Scholar. Tanaka–s “factory” became the Shibaura Machine Works in 1893 with the infusion of capital from Mitsui.

16 Koyama, A historical analysis, p. 106. Noda writes of the Ikegai Ironworks of the period: “At the Ikegai, the machines were still operated by manpower, i.e., apprentices were turning flywheels by hand. The ironworks had about ten employees and had not yet succeeded in selling even a single machine in the market.” Noda, Kazuo, Nihon kaisha-shi (A history of companies in Japan), (Tokyo, 1966), p. 243.Google Scholar

17 Though spindles and mules were imported, the emerging cotton textile firms experienced serious difficulties in obtaining competent advice for operating the machinery and in finding Japanese producers capable of providing them with suitable steam engines and various other machinery and parts. A detailed account of the above can be found in Kinukawa, Taichi, ed., Itō Denhichi O (The venerable Denhichi Itō), (Tokyo, 1936)Google Scholar and Kaisha, Tōyō Bōseki Kabushiki, Tōyō Bōseki 70-nen-shi (A history of the 70 years of Tōyō Textiles Company), (Tokyo, 1953)Google Scholar. See also Yamamura, Kozo, A Study of Samurai Income and Entrepreneurship (Cambridge, Mass., 1974), pp. 178–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Kondō, Tetsuo, “Shokusan kōgyō to zairai sangyō” (Promotion of industries and traditional industries) in Asao, Naohiro et al. , eds., Iwanami kōza Nihon rekishi, vol. 14 (Kindai, I), (Tokyo, 1975), p. 239.Google Scholar

19 Kaisha, Ishikawajima-Harima Jūkōgyō Kabushiki, Ishikawajima jūkōgyō kabushiki kaisha 108-nen-shi (A 108-year history of the Ishikawajima Heavy Industries Company), (Tokyo, 1961).Google Scholar

20 Sumiya, Mikio, Dai-Nihon teikoku no shiren (The trials of the Japanese Empire), Nihon no rekishi (A history of Japan), vol. 22 (Tokyo, 1966), pp. 20–25.Google Scholar

21 Kojima, A history of iron and steel, p. 161, and Kodama, A survey, p. 454.

22 Koyama, A historical analysis, p. 117.

23 Ibid., p. 126.

24 Since “the Sino-Japanese War did not furnish a useful example because of the weakness of China,” the calculations “estimating the consumption of shells and explosives was made using data obtained from the Franco-Prussian War and the Russo-Turkish War.” Such efforts, however, resulted in a serious underestimate of the needs in the Russo-Japanese War; Koyama, A survey, p. 475. This source also contains revealing observations and data attesting to the shortage of many types of guns, detonators, and other military supplies in 1905, pp. 475–83.

25 Ibid., p. 477.

26 Ibid., p. 478.

27 Further details and several quotations from contemporary military sources concerning these observations are found in ibid., pp. 476–77.

28 Ibid., p. 478.

29 Koyama, A historical analysis, p. 147.

30 Ibid. For a good description of the underdeveloped state of the machine-tool industry during this period, see also Toyosaki, Minoru, Nihon kikai kōgyō no kiso kōzō (The basic structure of Japanese machine industries), (Tokyo, 1941), pp. 25–44.Google Scholar

31 Koyama, A historical analysis, p. 149, and Toyosaki, The basic structure, pp. 43–44.

32 The Heavy Industries Bureau, Ministry of International Trade and Industry, Nihon no kikai kōgyō: sono seichō to kāzō (Japan's machine industries: their growth and structure), (Tokyo, 1960). p. 36.Google Scholar

33 Excluding smaller military ships such as torpedo boats and submarines, 21 “large” warships with a total tonnage of 23,772 tons were produced during the 1896–1905 period. But production rose to 58 “large” warships with a total tonnage of 293,278 tons for the 1906–1915 period. Koyama, A historical analysis, p. 121. The technological progress made by the navy arsenals is described in ibid., pp. 120–27.

34 Arai, Gensui, Tokyo Ishikawajima 50-nen-shi (A 50-year history of Tokyo Ishikawajima), (Tokyo, 1930), p. 36Google Scholar. This source, with Abe, Ichisuke, ed., Kawasaki zōsenjo 40-nen-shi (A 40-year history of the Kawasaki Shipyard) (Tokyo, 1926)Google Scholar contains many descriptions of a wide range of activities that these firms undertook for the navy during this period.

35 Koyama, A historical analysis, p. 142.

36 Ibid., p. 124.

37 For both the bases of these estimates and further quantitative evidence of the growth of these industries, see Koyama, A survey, pp. 483–95; id., A historical analysis, pp. 110, 129; and Koyima, A history of iron and steel, pp. 272–75.

38 Though the difference in horsepower per worker cannot by itself serve as a measure of the technological gap, the private firms' slower rate of increase in, and the low level attained even in 1912 of horsepower per worker reflected the smallness of the scale of operation and the relatively low degree of mechanization achieved by these firms.

39 Serious shortages of skilled workers, especially in the industries discussed in this essay, continued to be a major problem facing Japanese industries, and even more acutely during the First World War years. For example, Toyosaki wrote that a constant shortage of “good engineers and skilled workers” was one of the main reasons why “the machine tool industry remained technologically backward” in comparison to those in the West; Toyosaki, The basic structure, p. 293.

4 Kojima quotes the following speech made in the 1891 session of the Diet by Prime Minister Masayoshi Matsukata in support of the navy proposal for a large steel mill: “To meet the needs of our national defense, the army urgently requires more weapons, better explosives, and the construction of batteries, and the navy is in dire need of warships. However, as of this time, we heavily depend on imported iron and steel in producing weapons and ships. This is not only extremely costly, but also exposes us to a high risk of not being able to obtain required [iron and steel] in the event of national emergency” (Kojima, A history of iron and steel, p. 189). Also, for a description of the explicit military motivation, see Makino, A history of the Meiji-Taisho periods, p. 306.

41 Kojima, A history of iron and steel, p. 190.

42 The Nihon Steel failed principally because the financial backers seriously underestimated the large initial capital requirement and were unable, owing to the recession of 1891, to borrow needed funds during the critical first year. Contributing causes of the failure included unanticipated technological difficulties and speculative investors who chose to withdraw their financial support as soon as it became clear that no chance for a quick profit-taking was in the offing. For a full discussion of this episode see Kojima, A history of iron and steel, pp. 162–68. Before deciding to support a government-financed steel mill, Kentaro Kaneko, then Vice Minister of Commerce, is known to have approached both Mitsui and Mitsubishi to see if they were interested in starting a steel mill either independently or jointly. Kaneko was informed that neither was interested in the venture “because of the extreme difficulties involved in such an undertaking,” ibid., p. 234.

43 While the fact that the Chinese reparations aided the yen in achieving a fully convertible status is often recognized, little attention has been paid to the specific disposition of the huge windfall. Of the 364,868,586 yen, as much as 53.8 percent was allocated to “the expansion costs” of the military, with the navy taking a lion's share of 38.2 percent. Furthermore, the military received an additional 32.6 percent for “emergency expenditures,” “improvement of the transportation capacity,” and “a supplement to the construction of torpedo ships” (Koyama, A historical analysis, p. 465). To the extent that such expenditures aided the rapid growth of Japan's technological capabilities as its by-product, one is perhaps justified in arguing that the Sino-Japanese war both stimulated and financed Japan's technological progress following 1895.

44 Noda, A history of companies, p. 194.

45 The story of the Yawata, including the problems relating to its establishment and technological and labor difficulties experienced before the First World War, is fully told in Hitotsuyangi, Masaki, Kanʼei seitetsujo monogatari (A story of the government-operated ironworks), vol. I (Tokyo, 1958)Google Scholar. The most relevant pages concerning the observations made in the text are pp. 209–25, 305–19, and 511–24.

46 Kojima, A history of iron and steel, p. 249.

47 Imports of iron also rose similarly. For the data on total demand and on imports of iron and steel, see ibid., pp. 293–94.

48 Revealing quotations, relating to the tactical and supply problems created by the delayed delivery of guns and shells ordered from Krupp, are found in ibid., pp. 360–62.

49 Ibid., pp. 438–44 and Hitotsuyanagi, A story, pp. 449.

50 The data and observations in this paragraph are taken from Kojima, A history of iron and steel, pp. 455–72. These pages also include detailed discussions of import prices, competitive pricing by German, U.S., and English exporters during the first decade of this century, and the technological disadvantages Yawata still suffered vis-à-vis its Western competitors.

51 The importance of the navy order is demonstrated, for example, in Kihachirō Okura's decision to abandon his plan to start a firm specializing in steel pipes when he discovered that he was unable to obtain from the navy a prior commitment for the purchase of his products. Ibid., p. 473.

52 Ibid., p. 473.

53 Lockwood, William W., The Economic Development of Japan: Growth and Structural Change, 1868–1938 (Princeton, 1954), p. 577Google Scholar. The quoted passage is his observation on the entire 1868–1938 period and is not limited to the Meiji period.

54 Rosovsky, Henry, Capital Formation in Japan, 1868–1940 (Glencoe, Ill., 1961), pp. 22–23.Google Scholar

55 Emi, Kōichi, Government Fiscal Activity and Economic Growth in Japan, 1868–1960 (Tokyo, 1963), p. 33.Google Scholar

56 Oshima, Harry T., “Meiji Fiscal Policy and Economic Progress,” in Lockwood, W. W., ed., The State and Economic Enterprise in Japan (Princeton, 1965), p. 372Google Scholar. Oshima, who did not explicitly refer to the views of Rosovsky and Emi, went on in support of his view to cite a 1922 study sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace which examined the impact of Meiji militarism on “prices, taxes, money and credit, public debt, foreign trade, and wages” (p. 376). Like most other authors, nowhere did he consider the effects of the Meiji militarism on technological change. Similarly, many non-Marxist Japanese economic historians generally stress the negative effects of Meiji militarism on these macro-economic grounds. See, for example, Nakamura, Takafusa's Senzenki Nihon deizai seicho no bunseki (An analysis of the prewar Japanese economic growth), (Tokyo, 1971), pp. 13–14Google Scholar, which emphasized the effects of war-related taxes in depressing private consumption. He notes, however, the possible importance of military demand as “a factor in economic growth” (p. 26).

57 Kelley, Allen C. and Williamson, Jeffrey G., Lessons from Japanese Development (London and Chicago, 1974), p. 127.Google Scholar

58 Rosovsky, Capital Formation, p. 27. Rosovsky chose not to speculate on the magnitude of this “tremendous stimulus.” The full passage reads: “Throughout Japanese industrialization, the government was ready to buy and produce vast quantities of military equipment. It is, of course, impossible to say precisely what effects this policy had on private heavy industry, but it must have been a tremendous stimulus.” He continued: “Military demand probably became more important as technology developed, and military demand undoubtedly played a larger role in countries which industrialized after the new technology reached a certain state of maturity.” In the context of these quotations the purpose of this essay has been to suggest the desirability of making more precise the “tremendous stimulus,” placing a special emphasis on the technological impact of the policy which was not considered by Rosovsky.

59 Kelley and Williamson, Lessons from Japanese Development, p. 109. It should be pointed out that their criticisms are not directed to the most recent work, Rosovsky, H. and Ohkawa, K., Japanese Economic Growth—Trend Acceleration in the Twentieth Century (Stanford, Cal., 1973)Google Scholar, but to their earlier works, “Postwar Japanese Growth in Historical Perspective: A Second Look,” in Klein, L. and Ohkawa, K., eds., Economic Growth: The Japanese Experience Since the Meiji Era (Homewood, Ill., 1968)Google Scholar. As indicated in the title of their book, the 1973 work by Rosovsky and Ohkawa no longer contains the observations and analyses criticized here by Kelley and Williamson.

60 The full-length version of this essay will include an examination of the roles played by the machine and machine-tool industries as the “conveyers” of new technologies. As one can readily envision, assisted by Rosenberg's insights, the impact and implications of the ready availability of low-priced domestic lathes and steam engines, for example, were large and wide-ranging in promoting technological levels of the users of these products. See Rosenberg, Nathan, “Technological Change in the Machine Tool Industry,” this Journal, 23 (Dec. 1963), 414–43.Google Scholar

61 Kaisha, Mitsubishi Jūkōgyō Kabushiki, Shin-Mitsubishi jūkōgyō kabushiki kaisha-shi (A history of the new Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Company) (Tokyo, 1967), p. 6Google Scholar. The quoted statement applies to the Mitsubishi Shipbuilding Co., the Meiji forerunner of the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

62 Kelley and Williamson, Lessons of Japanese Development, p. 126.

63 Rosovsky and Okawa, Japanese Economic Growth, pp. 212, 216, and 218–21.

64 One can show, I believe, that the rapid transformation of the Japanese economy during the First World War years and the growth of electric machinery, electric power, and heavy machinery industries during the interwar years owed a significant debt to the technological foundation built during the Meiji era. See Kozo Yamamura, “The Decade of Sowing: Absorption of Western Technology by the Electric Machinery and the Machine Tool Industries of Japan During the 1920s,” paper presented at the Conference on Japanese-American relations during the 1916–1931 period, held under the auspices of the Social Science Research Council in Kauai, Hawaii, Jan. 1975.

65 See, for example, Kajinishi, Mitsuhaya et al. , Nihon shihonshugi no hatten (The development of Japanese capitalism), vol. II (Tokyo, 1957), p. 307Google Scholar, for the decline in interest rates observed before and after the victory over Russia. A neglected but important topic for future research is the contribution made by foreign capital in increasing the total electric generating capacity in Japan. Since the reduced cost of electricity during the interwar years played a significant role in the growth of the chemical industry and others, one should not, as we have often done, neglect the importance of foreign capital simply because the total amount was relatively small. For both a good description and relevant data concerning the role of foreign capital in the electric power industry during the interwar years, see Miyake, Haruaki, Denryoku kontserun dokuhon (A reader on electric power konzern), (Tokyo, 1937), pp. 85–118Google Scholar. On the close relationship that existed between the declining cost of electricity and the growth of the chemical industry, see Fujino, Shōsaburō, Nihon no keiki junkan (Business cycles in Japan), (Tokyo, 1965), 435–49.Google Scholar

66 For detailed descriptions, see The Heavy Industries Bureau, Japan's machine industries, cited in n. 32. The effects of the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars on the machine, machine-tool, and shipbuilding industries are discussed on pp. 103–06, 110, and 125–27.

67 This is another important topic that has long been neglected by non-Marxist economic historians. In English, good studies on the topic are limited to the effects of Japanese colonialism and its contribution to the agricultural productivity in Korea and Taiwan. For an example of such works and for citations of the related literature, see Nakamura, James I., “Incentives, Productivity Gaps, and Agricultural Growth Rates in Prewar Japan, Taiwan and Korea,” in Silberman, Bernard and Harootunian, Harry, eds., Crisis in Japan (Princeton, 1974), pp. 329–73.Google Scholar

68 Emi, in agreement with Lockwood, wrote that the subsidies were relatively unimportant because they were “limited in scope and usually confined to a short period of years” (Emi, Government Fiscal Activity, p. 76, and Lockwood, The Economic Development, p. 528). Rosovsky noted that “a subsidy is an official vote of confidence in an enterprise: It may mean additional investment funds from private sources, better banking connections, and perhaps even a larger share of the private market” (Capital Formation, p. 22). In several important industries, such as the shipbuilding, machine-tool, and chemical industries, what was crucial was the effect of subsidies in enabling the firms to survive and to adopt new technologies despite the limited scope and duration of the funds provided. In this essay I can only suggest the importance of the topic in relation to technological change.

69 For the rapid and measurable increase in the financial power of the zaibatsu resulting from the First World War see Yamamura, Kozo, “Japan, 1868–1930: A Revised View” in Cameron, Rondo, ed., Banking and Economic Development: Some Lessons of History (New York, 1972), pp. 186–97.Google Scholar

70 For the focus of and literature on this debate, see Kozo Yamamura, A Study of Samurai Income, pp. 137–62.