SOCIO-ECONOMIC HISTORY
Online ISSN : 2423-9283
Print ISSN : 0038-0113
ISSN-L : 0038-0113
Volume 50, Issue 2
Displaying 1-13 of 13 articles from this issue
  • Tamotsu Nishizawa
    Article type: Article
    1984Volume 50Issue 2 Pages 131-160,239-23
    Published: July 30, 1984
    Released on J-STAGE: November 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Strong opposition to the resumption of cash payments after the Napoleonic Wars principally came from two sources: Birmingham and agriculture. Thomas Attwood, a Birmingham banker, pointing to the ruinous effects of the return to the gold standard, urged the "inflationism" to secure the full employment of "the industrious classes". Inflationism was also advocated by the agricultural economists, such as Sir John Sinclair, Arthur Young and John Rooke. A coalition of these two in their attack upon the gold standard seems to have been kept throughout the first half of the nineteenth century. It could be called "the Anti Gold Law League", in contrast with "the Anti-Corn Law League" As a sharp decline in wheat prices shows, the British agriculture passed suddenly from prosperity to extreme depression in the Post-Napoleonic period. Attwood and Rooke argued in the Farmers' Journal that the agricultural distress was caused by Pell's Resumption Act of 1819 and that the landed interest should look to the money laws rather than to the corn laws for obtaining the adequate prices for corn. Attwood's views on currency had been adopted by 'Squire' Western, who was to come out as a champion of the agricultural inflationists. In 1822 Western moved a Parliamentary inquiry into the effects of Pell's Bill, which raised "the great debate" concerning devaluation and deflation between the Attwood school and the Ricardian school. The propagation of inflationism was apparently accelerated by the opposition to the monetary and banking acts of 1826, which prohibited the small note circulation and suppressed the country banks. Attwood, Richard Cruttwell and Henry Burgess wrote in defence of the country banking. Blackwod's Edinburgh Magazine also defended the interests of the country against the encroachment of the monopolistic power of the City. Attwood's associates in Parliament were active in debates concerning the small note bill. Sir James Grahanm, Mathias Attwood, C.C. Western, E.D. Davenport, Sir Richard Vyvyan, all contended for an abundant circulation to keep industry and labour fully employed, opposing the deflationary policy of the Wellington government. The currency question was a rallying point of the Tory opponents of the Government, and gave them a vital link with some Whigs and Radicals The "Ultra Tories" were perhaps most responsible for the downfall of the Wellington government in 1830. In the Reformed House of Commons Thomas Attwood moved a Parliamentary committee on the national distress and the monetary system in 1833. Attwood's motion was defeated, but it was only by the majority of 34. It appeared a virtual triumph of Attwood over Sir Robert Peel. A coalition collaboration of Attwood and the Agricultural Economists reached its culmination in the formation of the Central Agricultural Society in 1835-1836. Richard Spooner, a partner of Attwood, Spooner & Co., was Chairman of the Society 'Squire' Western and E.S. Cayley were both Vice President. Attwood and some other Birmingham Economists were the members of it. Attwood and the Agricultural Economists struggled for obtaining the monetary system for the industrious classes, fearing the transferrance of national wealth into the money power. They sought an alternative in opposition to Ricardiansim.
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  • Noritaka Ikeda
    Article type: Article
    1984Volume 50Issue 2 Pages 161-184,238-23
    Published: July 30, 1984
    Released on J-STAGE: November 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The purpose of this paper is to clarify the actual condition and features of the warship building in Japan after the Russo-Japanese War. Though the warship building in Japan started at the begining of the Meiji period, the chief warships were built in foreign countries. But the warship building developed rapidly after the Russo-Japanese War, so that most warships were built within the country before World War I. What was the cause of this development? First, Navy Expenditures in the General Account increased in spite of difficult situations of public finance. The greater part of those expenditures was made for warships. Secondly, Navy yards were expanded and mechanization furthered. Thirdly, shipbuilding in private enterprises grew, consequently the main shipyard could build large-scale warships. Fourth, material industries for warship-building gradually developed. But this process was not simple outcome. Because dreadnought was done completely in England. This warship was not only great but also speedy. Moreover, many big guns were loaded. It followed that other ones became old-fashioned. Then japanese Navy requested British shipyard (Vickers) to build the superdreadnought-class warship (Kongou) to introduce the new technique. The important feature of this munitions industry was vertical and horizontal combination in goverment enterprises with private ones. It had the merit of saving expenditures by specializing in a specific occupation in the former, getting stable orders without being controlled by business cycle in the latter. The above-mentioned matter suggests that the munitions industry in Japan established itself in this period. Thus the imports of the warships from abroad decreased remarkably, and specie payment for finished goods, namely warships, diminished in this process. But specie payments for munitions didn't diminish generally. Because the imports of material, machines and the other arms increased. It implies that the specie problem caused by expantion of armaments still continued.
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  • Kohei Wakimura
    Article type: Article
    1984Volume 50Issue 2 Pages 185-203,237-23
    Published: July 30, 1984
    Released on J-STAGE: November 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    During the last fifty years of the nineteeth century there were many famines in India. According to the statistics collected, there was a major famines in India. According to the statistics collected, there was a major famine once every ten years and a severe scarcity once every five years in one part of India or another. The famine of 1876-78 in particular affected a very large part of India. More than five million people are said to have died during these years. In response to the catastrophe, a Colonial Government set up the famine commission, which produced a report in 1880. This report contains the examination of the background of the famine as well as the nature of relief operations, and is considered to have laid foundation of the subsequent famine policies of the Government for the rest of the century. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the main lines of argument of the report and, by so doing, examine the character of the Government's famine policy. The first part of the paper looks at "the famine relief policy", which includes relief works, gratuitous relief, food policy etc. It concists of the short-run policy of the Government, and was obviovsly strongly influenced by the principles of laisses-faire. The principles operating behind the Poor Law in Britain were adapted in the policy-making. The concept of free trade also played a considerable part in the formation of the policy of non-interference with the grain market. The second part of the paper summarizes the Famine Commission's views of the long-run policies. The report is concerned about the land revenue policy, landlord-tenant relations, agriculutural indebtedness, technological improvement, irrigation and the development of the railways. The irrigation and the railway development were considered to be a major remedy for the disastor, although various socio-economic factors were of also taken into account. While it can be said that the majority were of the opinion that the causes of the famine were largely outside the control of the Government7s policy, some observers such as J. Caird clerly recognized the link between the British impact on the Indian rural society and the frequency of the famines, and argued that the change in the rural social structure such as the disappearance of traditional ties in the landlord-tenant relations, for example, was a major factor affecting the occurence of nation-wide famines.
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  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    1984Volume 50Issue 2 Pages 204-205
    Published: July 30, 1984
    Released on J-STAGE: November 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    1984Volume 50Issue 2 Pages 205-208
    Published: July 30, 1984
    Released on J-STAGE: November 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    1984Volume 50Issue 2 Pages 208-213
    Published: July 30, 1984
    Released on J-STAGE: November 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    1984Volume 50Issue 2 Pages 213-216
    Published: July 30, 1984
    Released on J-STAGE: November 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    1984Volume 50Issue 2 Pages 216-219
    Published: July 30, 1984
    Released on J-STAGE: November 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • [in Japanese], [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    1984Volume 50Issue 2 Pages 219-223
    Published: July 30, 1984
    Released on J-STAGE: November 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    1984Volume 50Issue 2 Pages 223-227
    Published: July 30, 1984
    Released on J-STAGE: November 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    1984Volume 50Issue 2 Pages 227-230
    Published: July 30, 1984
    Released on J-STAGE: November 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    1984Volume 50Issue 2 Pages 230-233
    Published: July 30, 1984
    Released on J-STAGE: November 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • Article type: Bibliography
    1984Volume 50Issue 2 Pages 236-239
    Published: July 30, 1984
    Released on J-STAGE: November 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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