幕末・維新期における「経済的集中」と地域商業資本 <シンポジウム : 近代化諸過程における社会的結合とその担い手>

The commission agent circle in Onomichi who had established their own close relationship on the basis of the trading business was forced to face the crisis of breaking it by the 'Economic Centralization' which happened from the late Edo Era (from Tempo Period) to the early Meiji Era. To be concrete, Han (feudal clan) authority and the merchants under its patronage, and then Meiji New Government and the Merchant's Capital of "San-To" played the part of suppressing the old-time commission agent circle as a distributive machinery to be removed, executing the policy of engrossing the national market at the early stage of manufacture.

However, depending on the local principle of uniting together, the commission agent circle tried to regenerate its power in cooperation with wealthy farmers and merchants in the neighboring villages and towns, and all social strata in Onomichi. Here we can find an opposing relation in the aspect of distributing machinery between the State and the local community in the formative period of modern Japan. It is this role that the local trading capital played in the modernization of Japan.