1930年代の日本工作機械工業
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概要
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The purpose of this paper is to make clear the development of the Japanese machine tool industry from 1930 to 1937. The previous studies have pointed out the dependence on war production and the vulnerability of the machine tool industry as its characteristics. They have not done studies that analysed the market structure and the vulnerable production structure in connection with the increase of heavy industries. The rapid expansion of the market and the production of various types of machine tool capitals in response to it are, therefore, to be examined. In spite of the fact that the start of the expansion of the market in the 1930s was based on the increase of munitions industries, two demand groups sustained the expansion ever afterwards. Army and naval munitions works, automobiles, aircrafts, and big enterprises in the electrical equipment industry constituted one group which needed the diversification of high-grade machine tools. Another was industries relating to the export such as textile machinery, bicycles and the machine tool industry itself. Large, medium-scale builders and some local ones had mainly the former markets and they had developed in size by 1937 showing a technical progress. Growth of some local builders into the medium-scale ones made clear the stratification among the local capitals. Large-scale builders chose small equipment investment in comparison with the tempo of the increase of demand. Economic lessons from the long depression in the 1920s caused the negative investment. By means of the development of subcontracting and mass employment of low-wage workers, the large-scale builders tried to respond the market expansion. The increase of technical level in the large, medium-scale builders was gradual because of their supplementary relationships to imported machines; the core of plants occupied by the imported machines, the fringe by the domestic. The domestic machines, consequently, could not satisfy the demand in both quantity and quality, resulting in the rapid increase of the import. This was accelerated by the sale competition among the European and American builders, exporters who suffered from the depression in the world market. There were great many small-scale builders whose products remained to be very cheap, while the vulnerability of large, medium-scale builders and some local ones were newly actualized in the course of the development of heavy industries. Users for cheap machines were small and petty factories, not having had to be aware of low ability of using machines, that made machinery, instruments and its parts. The weight of small-scale builders in the total production value of machine tools was diminishing, although they were followed by the new entry.
- 1982-10-20