Mercantilism in a Japanese Domain

Simple pleasures: food consumption in Japan and the global comparison of living standards

“…Nonetheless, from the early eighteenth century, domestic cultivation of sugar cane was being promoted, with a number of domains attempting to establish it, and the quantities marketed through Osaka were growing fast up to the late Tokugawa period. 79 The quality of Japanese-produced sugar was not high and once imports of cheaper and better white sugar became more freely available, after the opening of the ports, domestic cultivation largely died out. 80 However, domestically produced brown sugar could be used for processing and it was in the form of Japanese-style o-kashi confectionery that sugar began to enter everyday life more widely in the Tokugawa period.…”

Asia in the World Economy 1500–2030 AD

“…In the spring of 1694, a time of Edo residence, the domain population statistics recorded 4,556 Tosa people in Edo. It can be said without exaggeration that well over half of Tosa's expenses were related to the costs of the alternate residence system.’ (Roberts 1998:18)…”

Multiple Choices: Rural Household Diversification and Japan's Path to Industrialization

“…11 10 For examples in English, see Wigen (1995), especially ch. 3, on textile, paper and lacquer products; Roberts (1998), especially ch. 8, on paper products, and Hauser (1974) on cotton textiles.…”

“…However, it could equally be argued that the maintenance of the household unit, especially within the context of generally rising incomes and living standards, was intimately connected with the possibility of diversification and thus depended on the existence of markets for the kinds of goods that could be produced on a relatively small scale using more-or-less part-time rural labour. Although national markets for some types of agricultural produce, such as rice and raw cotton, had already emerged during the Tokugawa period and goods were transported by land or water throughout the country, markets for many processed and manufactured products remained fragmented by the existence of distinct domain economies 'trading' with other domains and urban centres within the national economy as a whole (Roberts 1998). As a result, producers needed either to produce to meet local market demand or to manufacture a sufficiently distinctive product to find an 'export' market.…”

“…Local business leaders used the newly established local government and political institutions as means to implement local industrial policy -for example, training for local industrial workers, promotional fairs and exhibitions, and so on -and to resist national policies that adversely affected them. 25 Eventually even officials at the national level were converted to the view that small-scale local industry represented an important pillar of the economy and society and should not be 24 For the example of Tosa domain, see Roberts (1998), especially ch. 8.…”