中央銀行総裁の政治権力 : 日清戦後における金融と政治

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概要

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• The present paper attempts to identify one aspect of government politics in Japan following the end of the 1st Sino-Japanese War through a discussion of the independence gained by governors of the Bank of Japan (BOJ) from the Ministry of Finance. At the time it was established in 1882 under the Finance Ministry of Matsukata Masayoshi 松方正義, the BOJ was strictly controlled by the Ministry until the appointment in 1889 of Kawada Koichiro 川田小一郎, who after the Sino-Japanese War rose to the position of main policy-maker for the Bank and engineered its independence from the Finance Ministry based on the concept of "trust". In this way, the power base of the BOJ governorship can be found not only in the Banks' relationship with the Finance Ministry, but also from its relationship to the postwar national economy that was experiencing a substantial expansion in investment demand. In actuality, the BOJ was able to tackle in earnest the issues involved in building a national monetary network through the process of returning the banks established under the 1872 National Banking Act to the private sector, which began in 1883. However, the BOJ's economic enhancement, which was enabled by its political prominence, could not ultimately respond to the demand for capital funds in Japan's remotest regions and thus drew a great deal of discontent within the banking industry. The expansion of the unique role of the BOJ as a central bank deeply involved in financial policy-making due to the great economic recovery following the War also prepared the mechanism by which great expectations boomeranged into bitter criticism of the very fundamentals upon which the BOJ stood. The political consequence of this mechanism was the issue of how the BOJ was to be taxed. From the end of 1897, when the first postwar depression began and the political importance of the Ministry of Finance increased in the midst of demands for fiscal austerity measures, it was the Kensei Party's Cabinet 隅板内閣 that had to face the issue of how to control the BOJ, which Finance Minister Inoue Kaoru 井上馨 had failed to solve under the third Ito Hirobumi Government. The Kensei Party's successful solution involved balancing demands for aggressive monetary policy with demands for the decentralization of the banking industry through a plan to establish banks large enough to compete with Japan's central bank. It was in this way that taxing the BOJ was legitimized and the central bank made a part of the fiscal issues of the day. Consequently, the power base of the BOJ governorship was dismantled from the economic side through an offensive waged by a political party intervening in fiscal policy-making through the legislative process, and so on the eve of the Russo-Japanese War, fiscal and monetary policy-making was once more consolidated under the control of the Ministry of Finance.

• 2012-04-20

著者

• 前田 亮介

  東京大学大学院人文社会系研究科

関連論文

• 初期議会期の北海道改革構想 : 第一次松方内閣(明治二四-二五年)を中心に
• 國學院大學日本文化研究所編, 『井上毅傳 史料篇 補遺 第二』, 東京大学出版会, 二〇〇八・三刊, A5, 三八〇頁, 一二〇〇〇円
• 「民力育成論」の再検討 : 初期議会期の陸奥宗光と井上馨(研究発表,近現代史部会,日本史部会,第一〇九回史学会大会報告)
• 三谷太一郎著, 『ウォール・ストリートと極東-政治における国際金融資本-』, 東京大学出版会, 二〇〇九・一二刊, A5, 三〇四頁, 五六〇〇円
• 松本礼二・三浦信孝・宇野重規編, 『トクヴィルとデモクラシーの現在』, 東京大学出版会, 二〇〇九・六刊, A5, 四一四頁, 六四〇〇円
• 中央銀行総裁の政治権力 : 日清戦後における金融と政治
• 岡本真希子著, 『植民地官僚の政治史-朝鮮・台湾総督府と帝国日本-』, 三元社, 二〇〇八・二刊, A5, 九九二頁, 一三〇〇〇円

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