ABSTRACT
THE years 1919 and 1920 were so crowded with activities that it is difficult to disentangle the significant ones even for the purpose of making such a mosaic of fragments as this without a chronological chaos resulting. One of the great causes of this ebullition was the wealth that had been brought to Japan by the war. In 1919 exports and imports each totalled over two thousand million yen, and as 1920 dawned, more than a year after the armistice, there was a greater craze for investment than ever. Banks increased their capital most recklessly, and their agents competed for the business of financing merchants and manufacturers. There was an orgy of company flotation and of capital inflation of already existing concerns. Even concerning things that had hopelessly slumped, like iron-smelting, there were plans for gigantic combinations to save everybody, generally at the expense of the Government.
