Scholarly opinion currently evinces disturbing symptoms of latent schizophrenia on the subject of economic growth in the ante-bellum United States. Virtually every student of the era now appears convinced that the long-term rate of growth of aggregate product per capita underwent a significant acceleration “somewhere during the period between 1815 and 1860,” as Douglass North recently phrased it. And, if many economic historians protest W. W. Rostow's labeling the years following 1843 as the period of the U.S. “take-off,” most do not seem to balk at accepting the guess hazarded by Raymond Goldsmith: “a fairly sharp break in the trend of real national product per head … occurred not very long before 1839,” quite probably during the 1830's. To the uninitiated, it might seem obvious that everybody also subscribes to an explicit set of assertions about the secular rate of growth of per capita product during the period from, say, the founding of the nation to the date of the putative acceleration; otherwise, how could all agree that a significant alteration in the trend had occurred?

That the modernization of Japanese political and economic institutions during the Meiji period was spearheaded by the government and the samurai class that manned the government is a widely accepted view. One could, with little effort, assemble numerous quotations (in English or Japanese) reiterating this theme with little or no variation. Government-samurai endeavors such as pioneering in modern technology, subsidy programs (tangible and intangible), dissemination of new knowledge (to include modern business practices), and other aspects of “community-centered entrepreneurship” all support the theme. The purpose of this article is to question this well-entrenched view by submitting the findings of a close examination of the emergence of modern banking in Japan. Although this is only one aspect of the general theme, few students of Japanese economic history would deny that it has been often cited as one of the most typical examples of samurai leadership and of government initiative in the modernization of Japan. Eiichi Shibusawa, a former samurai, has invariably been linked with this development, in an attempt to stress that modern banking was a creation of the samurai class.

In 1829 Zachariah Allen, a lifelong resident of Providence, Rhode Island, published his book, The Science of Mechanics. Neither the title nor a casual glance at the contents of the book suggests that it contains material of major interest to economists or economic historians. Allen's book was intended as a manual for American mechanics and manufacturers. It summarized that portion of the industrial arts of its day which the author considered most useful and relevant for the edification of his American readers. The book contains elementary tables of conversion, arithmetic and geometric rules and formulas, a good deal of simple physics, and extensive descriptions of the workings of machinery—especially water wheels, steam engines, and millwork generally. In particular, Allen attempted to summarize much of what he had learned during a recent tour of the major manufacturing districts of England and France, so as to bring Americans up to date on the “latest improvements in mechanical invention in those countries.’ Unobtrusively placed in the back of this book, however, is a chapter, “Comparative View of the Relative Advantages Possessed by England, France and the United States of America as Manufacturing Nations,’ which records his more strictly economic impressions of his tour, taken in 1825. His observations in this short chapter, often trenchant and occasionally pungent, invite comparison with some of the better known European travelers to the United States. Anyone who can write, as Allen does (p. 355), that “An industrious New-England mechanic commonly appears to take pleasure in his business; but the French mechanic is rather inclined to make a business of his pleasures,’ is obviously entitled to a sympathetic hearing.

Professor Gabriel Kolko in his recent work, Railroads and Regulation, 1877–1916, presents an interpretation or the origin, motivation, and consequences of the movement for federal regulation of railroads which differs in important respects from that which has hitherto been generally accepted. Thus it has generally been held that railway regulation was a response to the demands of farmers and other shippers for protection against monopolistic and discriminatory tactics on the part of the railroads and that regulation was bitterly resisted by the latter. Kolko, on the other hand, holds that regulation was actually welcomed by the railroads as a means of securing the rate and profit stability which they were unable to maintain by their own action, and that “the railroads, not the farmers and shippers, were the most important single advocates of federal regulation from 1877 to 1916” (p. 3). He concedes that “the movement for federal regulation of the railroad system was not, in any strict sense, deliberately initiated by the railroads’ (p. 20) and that legislation could not have been passed without shipper support, but points out that shippers were either inarticulate or divided with respect to the kind of regulation, if any, desired, and that the railroads were always able to secure the support of enough shipper groups to insure passage of the legislation which they favored. Furthermore, the railroads welcomed federal as opposed to state regulation, since they regarded the latter as punitive and restrictive and less amenable to their influence than federal regulation.

It is well known that the average productivity of capital in American manufacturing increased at a comparatively high rate during the 1919–1929 decade. During the same period the accelerated application of scientific information stimulated important changes in manufacturing plant and equipment. This Note investigates the relationship between these two processes. The inquiry is of historical interest for two reasons: First, the study should help to support statistical observations of the increased efficiency of production facilities during the 1920's, thereby connecting observed productivity change as measured by economists with substantive technological improvements as described by economic historians. And second, it may be possible to characterize the 1920's as a period of unique technological growth in the history of American manufacturing.