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Economic Development in Preindustrial Japan, 1859–1894*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Mataji Miyamoto ,
Yōtarō Sakudō  and
Yasukichi Yasuba
Mataji Miyamoto
Affiliation:
Osaka University
Yōtarō Sakudō
Affiliation:
Osaka University
Yasukichi Yasuba
Affiliation:
Osaka and Princeton Universities
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Extract

In this paper we shall try to do three things: first, to describe the economic conditions which prevailed before the arrival of Commodore Perry; second, to survey the economic policy of the Shogunate and the Meiji Government in responding to the impact of the opening up of the country; and third, to make a few general comments on some selected aspects of Japan's economic development between 1859, when three Japanese ports were opened to foreign trade, and 1894, when the Sino-Japanese War broke out. The latter date is chosen because it fairly clearly marks off the beginning of the rapid development of the modern sector of the Japanese economy.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 25 , Issue 4 , December 1965 , pp. 541 - 564
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1965

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References

1 In many of the fiefs the official rates were around 50 per cent. Due to the existence of various allowances and exemptions, the actual rates were often lower. In the Shogunate's domains, where the tax rates are believed to have been lower than in most other fiefs, the actual rates ranged by and large between 30 and 40 per cent. Winter crops were exempt from taxation and are not included in the calculation of these rates.

2 The figures are those compiled by Toshio Furushima. See Kyōgikai, Chihōshi Kenkyū, ed., Nihon Sangyōshi Taikei, Sōron (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1961), pp. 123–24.Google Scholar

3 Shallow cultivation should not be ascribed solely to the lack of animal husbandry. Even where animals were used for cultivation the inadequate ploughs used at the end of the Tokugawa period allowed only relatively shallow tilling.

4 “Nihon Chisan Ron,” in Hattori, Shisō and Konishi, Shirō, eds., Meiji Nōgyō Ronshū (Osaka: Sōgensha, 1955), pp. 427–28Google Scholar.

5 See Furushima, Toshio, “Jinushiseido Tenkai no Chiiki-teki Tokushitsu,” Keizai Hyōron, old ser., Vol. VI, No. 5 (May 1951)Google Scholar. He considers that the ratio of 31 per cent for 1876 is applicable to the late Tokugawa period.

6 Miyamoto, Mataji, Nihon Keizaishiyō (Kyoto: Sanwa Shobō, 1952), p. 133Google Scholar.

7 Tsuchiya, Takao, Nihon Keiei Rinenshi (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1964), pp. 175–76, 182–84.Google Scholar

8 Horie, Yasuzō, “Nihon no Keizai Kindaika to ‘Ie,’” Keizai Kenkyū, XVI, No. 2 (Apr. 1965), 97–103Google Scholar.

9 Sakudō, Yōtarō, Nihon Kahei-Kinyūshi no Kenkyū (Tokyo: Miraisha, 1961), pp. 345, 347.Google Scholar

10 Ishii, Takashi, Bakumatsu Bōekishi no Kenkyū (Tokyo: Nihōnhyoronsha, 1944), pp. 52–53.Google Scholar

11 Kaheiseido Chōsakai's figure of 5.13 yen per koku was used.

12 Most illuminating in this connection is T. C. Smith's finding that landlords' younger sons, who were unable to become landlords under the system of primogeniture, are much more than proportionately represented in the business leaders of present-day Japan. Smith, , “Landlords' Sons in the Business Elite,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, IX, No. 1 (Oct. 1960), Part II, 101.Google Scholar

13 Commodities included are raw silk, silkworm eggs, tea, and silk cloth for export prices; and cotton yarn, cotton cloth, woolen cloth (on which the 1860 figure was used for 1857 import price), sugar, and iron for import prices. Data were taken from the following sources; for raw silk, silkworm eggs, and woolen cloth, Ishii, pp. 22, 273–74; for tea and sugar, Kenkyūkai, Kinyū, Wagakuni Shōhin Sōba Tōkeihyō (Tokyo: Kinyū Kenkyūkai, 1937), pp. 33–34, 82Google Scholar; for silk cloth, cotton yarn, and iron, Miyamoto, Mataji, ed., Kinsei Osaka no Bukka to Rishi (Osaka: Sōbunsha, 1963), pp. 226–27, 237–38, 291–92Google Scholar; and for cotton cloth, Bunko, Mitsui, Kinsei Kōki ni okeru Shuyō Bukka no Dōtai (Tokyo: Nihon Gakujutsu Shinkōkai, 1952), pp. 37–45Google Scholar.

14 Rosovsky's figures for the period before 1919 are hardly usable since they are based on the very misleading Nagoya Kōshō index of production of machinery and equipment. The index represents the domestic consumption of a few basic metals, mainly iron and steel. Since the input of metals as the proportion of total input in the production of producers' durables was negligible in the 1870's and overwhelming in the 1920's, Rosovsky's estimates of the production of, and the investment in, producers' durables represent a gross understatement of the actual figures in early years. Rosovsky, Henry, Capital Formation in Japan (New York: Free Press [Macmillan], 1961), pp. 318–21.Google Scholar

15 Quoted in Kazuma Hattori, “Meiji 10-nen-zengo no Nihon Sangyō,” Nihon Sangyōshi Taikei, Sōron (cited in n.2), p. 348.

16 Paul Meyet, “Nihon Nōmin no Hihei oyobi sono Kyūjisaku,” Meiji Nogyō Ronshū (cited in n.4), pp. 220–21.

17 As late as 1897, only 36,000 of 1,041,000 weavers worked in factories. The total number of operatives in silk reeling is unknown; but the fact that there were, in the same year, 421,864 silk-reeling establishments and households as against 110,306 operatives working for silk factories, clearly suggests the importance of non-factory production. Only in cotton spinning was factory production predominant.

18 A factory is considered as an establishment employing ten or more operatives.

19 “Industry” consists of manufacturing and public utility. Figures for operatives were taken from Kōgyō Tōkei 50-nenshi. Shiryōhen, II (Tokyo: Tsūshōsangyō-Daijin-Kambō Chōsatōkeibu, 1962), 434–35Google Scholar, and figures for capital were compiled from Teikoku Tōkei Nenkan for each year.

20 First, individual quantity indexes were computed for those commodities (marked with *) for which they could be computed either directly from quantity figures or indirectly by deflating value series by relevant price series. Then, an unadjusted quantity index for each major industrial branch was computed with value added as weight. The latter was computed by multiplying the value of the product in each year by the value-added ratio in 1935. (Source: Ministry of International Trade and Industry, “Shōwa 10-nen Kijun Seisan-shisū Weight Sanshutsu Kiso Shiryō,” mimeographed, 1959.) Solomon Fabricant's coverage adjustment was made so as to arrive at the adjusted branch index (cf. The Output of Manufacturing Industries, 1899–1937 [New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1940], pp. 362–69)Google Scholar. Finally, the production index for the whole manufacturing industry was computed in a similar way combining all the computable branch indexes and making the coverage adjustment for those branches for which no quantity index could be computed.

Products included are: (1) textiles: raw silk,* spun silk yarn, cotton yarn, hemp and flax yam, silk thread, cotton thread, silk cloth,* silk-and-cotton cloth, linen and hemp cloth, woolen cloth, floss silk; (2) metals: iron and steel,* copper;* (3) machinery and equipment: total value (nonmilitary); (4) glass and clay products: pottery, glass,* cement, bricks, Japanese roofing tile, looking-glass; (5) chemicals: paper (Western), paper (Japanese)* leather, sulphuric acid, vegetable oil,* fish and animal oil, soap, wax,* fertilizer (fish origin), fertilizer (vegetable origin), chemical and mixed fertilizer, charcoal,* petroleum products; (6) lumbering arid wood products: lumber, wood products; (7) food ana beverages: sake,* beer, soy sauce,* sugar,* tea,* canned and bottled food, salt,*kanten, dried bonito, tobacco and cigarettes; (8) miscellaneous: lacquerware, matches, bamboo and vine products, tatami tops, straw mats, toys.

Sources for specific products are as follows. Output figures for 1874, for bricks, soy sauce, tea, are taken from Yamaguchi, Kazuo, Meiji Zenki Keizai no Bunseki (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppanlcai, 1963)Google Scholar, ch. i; other figures from Mataji Umemura, “Meiji 7-nen Seizōgyō Seisangaku” (unpublished discussion paper for the Hitotsubashi-Rockefeller project, C-10), pp. 1–5. Output figures for 1909, for spun silk yarn, hemp and flax yarn, cotton thread, cement, sugar, are from Kōjō Tōkeinyō; for iron and steel, copper, are from Nihon Keizai Tōkei Sōkan (Osaka: Asahi Shimbunsha, 1930), pp. 1220–21Google Scholar; and for soy sauce, sake, and beer are from Teikoku Tōkei Nenkan; other figures from Nōshōmu Tokeihyō, with the exception of those for machiney (Kōjō Tōkeihyō's total output figure adjusted for the production of excluded small-scale enterprises, plus Henry Rosovsky's value of governmental nonmilitary repairs (Capital Formation in Japan, p. 205), and for lumber and wood products (Yasuba's unpublished estimate based on Nōshōmu Tōkeihyō and various local statistics). Individual quantity series, except those for bricks and soy sauce, are obtained by deflating value series. Deflators are taken from Ginkō, Nihon, Meiji 20-nen-Showa 37-nen Oroshiuri Bukka Shisū (Tokyo: Nihon Ginkō 1964)Google Scholar. passim, and Nihon Keizai Tōkei Sōkan, pp. 1108, 1109, 1113.

21 According to Yasuba's estimate, the rate of growth of manufacturing output in this period, based on the production index with a 1935 value-added weight, is 6.5 per cent. This figure is comparable with the growth rate of 4.1 per cent for the earlier period.

22 In what follows, the whole Meiji period (1868–1912), rather than the period before the Sino-Japanese War, will be treated. For, unlike the case of industry, agriculture did not reach any turning point in the war period.

23 Nakamura, James I., “Agricultural Production in Japan, 1878–1922,”Conference on the State and Economic Enterprise in Modern Japan,Estes Park, Colorado,June 1963.Google Scholar Since the paper “Growth of Japanese Agriculture, 1875–1920” (in Lockwood, William D., ed., The State and Economic Enterprise in Japan [Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1965]CrossRefGoogle Scholar was not published until quite recently, it was not possible for us to take it into consideration.

24 See Niwa, Kunio, Meiji Ishin no Tochi Henkaku (Tokyo: Ochanomizu Shobō, 1962) pp. 398ff, on the case of YamaguchiGoogle Scholar. See also Nihon Nōgyō Hattatsushi, IX (Tokyo: Chuokoronsha, 1956), 682.Google Scholar

25 “Kōchi Menseki no Suikei, 1883–1944” (unpublished discussion paper in the Hitotsubashi-Rockefeller Project, D-25), p. 26. Since no allowance was made in this study for the more gradual upward revisions of acreages such as those accompanying the remeasurement of consolidated fields, this figure should be taken to represent the minimum amount of underreporting.

26 “Nōji Tōkei” in Nihon Keizai Tōkei Sōkan (cited in n.20), p. 683.

27 Ibid.

28 Nihon Nōgyō Hattatsushi, VII (Tokyo: Chūōkōronsha, 1955), 513Google Scholar.

29 Ibid.

30 Hayami, Yūjirō, “Hiryō Tōkaryō no Suikei,” Nōgyō Sōgō Kenkyū, XVII, No. 1 Jan. 1963), 253Google Scholar.

31 Yamaguchi, Kazuo, Nihon Gyogyōshi (Tokyo: Seikatsusha, 1947), pp. 111–12.Google Scholar

32 Ohkawa, Kazushi and associates, The Growth Rate of the Japanese Economy since 1878 (Tokyo: Kinokuniya, 1957), p. 32Google Scholar.

33 Saburō Yamada, who has estimated the gross output of agriculture from government statistics, removing apparent internal inconsistencies, gets the growth rates of gross output of 2.3 per cent based on the deflated value series, and 1.7 per cent based on the production index with a 1955 price weight (“Nōgyō Sanshutsugaku no Suikei,” Keizai Kenkyū, Vol. XV, No. 1, [Jan. 1964])Google Scholar. To the extent that the underreporting of acreage and yield was gradually reduced during these years, these growth rates overstate the actual rates.