ABSTRACT

This chapter examines several important industries of the Meiji period. Silk reeling was the top export sector of Japan throughout the Meiji and up until the early Showa period, exporting silk yarns to the United States was the principal market. At the same time, the cotton textile industry was a dynamically emerging sector shifting from traditional, largely family-based technology to modern factory production, thereby achieving import substitution, overtaking the British industry and leading Japan's Industrial Revolution. Meanwhile, the machinery industry was gradually taking root but was still relatively weak. Late Meiji was a period of learning for the producers of railroad locomotives, modern ships, electrical equipment, steel and automobiles. In Tokyo and Osaka, manufacturing medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) began to emerge in certain areas and spontaneously formed industrial districts. In the early years of the twentieth century, most Japanese machinery was cheap but low in quality, and could hardly compete with American or European products.