Reorganization of the cooperative silk manufactures and the agricultural communities under the period of Showa crisis

Research Project

Project/Area Number	05660242
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Research Field	Agro-economics
Research Institution	Ibaraki University
Principal Investigator	HIRANO Yasushi Ibataki Univ., School of Agriculture, Prof., 農学部, 教授 (10007784)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	ANDO Mistuyoshi Ibaraki University, S.of Ag., Assistant, 農学部, 助手 (40261747) KASHIWAGI Masayuki Ibaraki University, S.of Ag., A.Prof., 農学部, 助教授 (40204383) NAKJIMA Masamichi Ibaraki University, S.of Ag., A.Prof., 農学部, 助教授 (30250989) TANAKA Manabu University of Tokyo, S.of Ag., Prof., 農学部, 教授 (70012028)
Project Period (FY)	1993 – 1994
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 1994)
Budget Amount *help	¥2,200,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,200,000) Fiscal Year 1994: ¥800,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000) Fiscal Year 1993: ¥1,400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,400,000)
Keywords	cooperative silk manufacture / Inasha / showa crisis / Tenryusha / Automatic silk reeling / machine / high quality silk / silk indstry / 高級格生糸 / 龍水社 / 営業製糸 / 南龍社 / 天龍社
Research Abstract	At the end of Taisho era, the Nagano Prefecture Shimoina District The Cooperative Silk Manufacturers organized a combined union called "Inasha" for the purpose of joing marketing. The union worked for the improvement of small business in each local union, and at the same time, constructed high-quality silk production systems. When the Showa crisis came, however, the instability of the silk price and the bankruptcies of consignees like traders in Yokohama, lead to some major crises at the base of the silk union operation, such as increases in unpaid allotments and overpaid dividends of partial distributed dividends. These facts caused differences in evaluating productive levels for each union, which also lead to differences in business result dividends, both of which caused some serious problems for the basic role of the union. As a matter of course, almost all the leading silkworm-rearing farmers (former cooperative silk management members) faced management crises, and this became one o … More f the major problems for the economical regeneration movement under the Showa era. As a result of this, the Shimoina corperative silk union changed its initial role as a marketing union, and forced itself to nationalize its management by unifing its factories. This was done not only to solve problems in constructing unified factories, but also to solve problems in standardizingtechniques for large-scale silk business. Bringing automatic silk reeling machines into the business, in order to meet the marketing needs for high-quality silk production, allowed the problem of standardizing cocoons as a raw material to be solved in the department of silkworm rearing which had been a long-term problem. At the same time, this also weakened the business of the leading silkworm-rearing farmers. Having these above mentioned problems, reconstructing the cooperative silk managements resulted in the development of "Tenryusha." Regarding the silk industry, which was struck a serious blow by the Showa Crisis, the Government maintained the strategic value of the silk in order to obtain foreign currency, and at the same time offered some financial assistance for the construction of Tenryusha in terms of processing and marketing cocoons for the independent farmers who were facing economic crises. In reality, this was done for the purpose of reconstructing the agricultural community in order to be ready for forthcoming wartime structures, and also for the purpose of developing the leading farmer's capacity for reorganizing the agricultural community with the help of the government. Less