ABSTRACT
The Meiji government instituted a programme of wide-ranging reforms to economic institutions and policies, aimed at bringing civilisation and enlightenment, as well as modern industrial, military and technological capabilities, to Japan. This chapter suggests there is evidence that the government factories were subject to poor management, confused objectives, and inappropriate techniques, difficulties in recruiting and retaining workers and in dealing with foreign advisers. It describes state investment in particular targeted industries that was undertaken, it was in the field of infrastructure investment that government capital spending was most significant. Much more complex and controversial is the assessment of the more direct role which the state sought to take in promoting individual industries within that framework. Such an approach ran against the grain of a central-government strategy still focused on heavy and military-related industry and producer organisations in their efforts to improve their technology and the quality of their output.
