栃木県における60町歩大地主の成立と貸金業

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By 1924, in the rural district of Mashiko, Tochigi Prefecture, the property holdings of the moneylending Kato family had grown to 60 hectares. This study aims to clarify when and how they established their status as large landlords and moneylenders. I focus on the stability of their holdings as large landlords, and the significance of their credit financing between 1890 and 1910. In the 1870s the Katos were moneylenders with only 3 hectares of tenanted land. After the recovery of debts in the 1880s, however, they emerged in 1890 with holdings of 35 hectares, or 10 thousand yen in regal land value. Though some historians consider landowners holding over 10 thousand yen in land value at that time to be large landlords, the Kato family's land acquisition was too recent for them to be ranked as large landlords. Moreover, the yields from their tenanted lands were low for the former moneylender. Even in the 1890s, they faced the possibility of borrowers redeeming or repurchasing pawned land. Villagers' purchases and sales of land up to 1890 were only half of the land transactions which occurred in the Meiji era (1868-1912). By 1910, the Kato family had established their status as large landlords, when their land holdings stabilized at 50 hectares. This process was a part of the formation of large landholdings in Tochigi prefecture. In the 1870s the Kato family met the stratified fund demands of the residents of ten neighboring villages (small sums for peasants within the village, large sums for businessmen and prosperous farmers outside of the village) by lending some seven thousand yen at interest rates of 20 to 25%. The family's assets grew by 20% or so annually, but their financing activities shrank due to deflation in the 1880s. However, between 1890 and 1910 they developed again by meeting the needs of borrowers such as manufacturers, merchants (including Mashiko potteries), and successful farmers (peasants often failed to redeem their mortgages, as they did in 1880s). With the loan of 40 thousand yen in 1905, credit financing became the family's main source of income, together with their tenanted land. As interest rates on such low-risk lending dropped to under 15%, their asset growth fell to under 10% annually. The Kato family's moneylending business illustrates that throughout the Meiji era, when local banking was yet undeveloped, landlords' financial activities helped stimulate rural industrial development.
政治経済学・経済史学会の論文
2005-01-30

著者

大栗行昭
宇都宮大学

栃木県における60町歩大地主の成立と貸金業

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