Explaining a Silk Boom and Bust in Meiji and Showa Fukui
Four students are investigating why silk weaving grew so quickly in Fukui Prefecture in the Meiji period and then collapsed. From prefectural statistics they record the following approximate yearly output of habutae silk: 1877, 3,000 tan; 1890, 120,000 tan; 1905, 400,000 tan; 1929, 900,000 tan; 1932, 260,000 tan. They also find that in 1895 a weaving workshop in Sabae employed 40 workers, 34 of them women aged 15 to 22, working 12 hours a day, and that most of the cloth was shipped through Tsuruga and Yokohama to the United States. A prefectural report of 1901 urges weavers to "improve quality for foreign buyers." A note in their textbook says that the United States raised tariffs on imported goods in 1930 and that the world depression began in 1929. One student writes: "Silk made Fukui rich."
1. Explain the growth in output between 1877 and 1905, using conditions inside Japan and the world market.
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Growth came from foreign demand meeting a local supply capacity that had just been created.
- World market: after the ports opened in 1859, Japan's raw silk and silk cloth became a leading export, and demand from the United States, where silk stockings and dresses were widely worn, grew steadily. The 1890 and 1905 figures fit a period when Japan's exports were expanding fastest.
- Transport: cloth moved through Tsuruga and Yokohama to foreign buyers, so a landlocked weaving district could reach the world market.
- Technology and policy: the Meiji government promoted exports, set up model factories and technical education, and the 1901 prefectural report shows local authorities pushing quality improvement, which raised the price buyers would pay.
- Labour: the Sabae workshop shows cheap young female labour, which kept costs low and made the cloth competitive.
Output rose because all four worked together; local effort alone would not have produced the boom.
2. Explain why output fell from 900,000 tan in 1929 to 260,000 tan in 1932. Why was a single prefecture hit so hard?
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The fall is an export shock amplified by specialisation.
- The world depression that began in 1929 cut incomes in the United States, so demand for a luxury textile fell sharply.
- The 1930 United States tariff raised duties on imported goods, making Japanese silk cloth more expensive exactly when buyers were spending less.
- Competition from cheaper artificial silk (rayon) was growing, so even buyers who still wanted silk-like cloth had alternatives.
A prefecture that had concentrated on one export product had no cushion: when that product lost its market, almost the whole industry lost its market at once, as the five-fold fall in four years shows. Compare a region with several industries, where a shock to one is partly absorbed by the others. The figures therefore illustrate both the benefit and the danger of specialising for export.
3. Critique the statement "Silk made Fukui rich," using the evidence the students collected.
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The statement confuses more production with more wealth for everyone.
The output figures show growth, not who received the income. The 1895 workshop record shows 34 of 40 workers were young women working 12 hours a day; if the profits had been widely shared, we would expect evidence of high wages and short hours, which the students did not find. Much of the money also passed through trading houses in Tsuruga and Yokohama, and some of it left the region entirely. The 1932 collapse shows the income was fragile, not accumulated permanently.
A careful claim would be: "Silk exports grew rapidly and supported many households, but the gains were unevenly shared and depended on a foreign market that could disappear." To test this, the students should look for wage records and for the number of workshops and owners, not only output.