decisive factor of wasen production in the traditional

decisive factor of wasen production in the traditional sector before

the Second World War.

In addition to these characteristics of the ship-building industry, I

would like to touch briefly on the characteristics of the technological

structure of ship production. Traditional Japanese sailing ships have

one or two masts and horizontal sails, and thus can move ahead only

with a tailwind. Their structure is small and simple, for they were

used mainly as sailing boats for coastal trade around the country

until the middle of nineteenth century. The traditional boat was, for

the most part, made of straight timber which was provided from

neighbourhoods of the shipyards, and the Sotoita (outer board) system with a needle stitching style was adopted for the construction of

the ship's body. Contrastingly, Western sailing ships can advance by

steering because of their vertical sails irrespective of either tailwinds 

or head winds. They are constructed by the Rokkotsu (strong rib)

system with a nail sewing style, and curved timbers are used for the

central parts of the ship's body. As this kind of ship is large and firm

in structure, it can endure long ocean voyages.

It was very difficult for many traditional ship-makers to shift from

wasen production to large-scale yosen production in the beginning of

the modernization era. It cost a lot of money to make the shift and

it also took a long time to learn production methods thoroughly

enough to be able to complete the final product satisfactorily. Only

small-scale Western-type sailing ships could be made in small quantities by those ship-makers. It should be stressed here that the technologies of ship production are quite dissimilar between the two

sectors and therefore it was an urgent necessity in the early Meiji Era

to establish large-scale dockyards which could produce yosen of good

quality.

There were two types of yosen in those days, the sailing ship and

the steam ship. Although steam ships were introduced to Japan at

the same time as sailing ships, due to their more complicated technological structure the management of steam ship production was

much harder than that of sailing ship production. The steam ship is

superior in speed and load capability to the sailing ship, yet the former

requires far greater costs of fuels and other items than the latter.

Therefore, it took a relatively long time adequately to settle the

technology of steam ships in Japan.

As mentioned above, the ship-building industry has a close connection with the shipping industry. During the initial phase of modernization in the modern yosen sector, there was not a big demand

for either sailing ships or steam ships of the Western type that were

produced by domestic makers. Most shipping traders gave their ship

orders to foreign companies and continued to import ships made in

developed Western countries because imported products were cheaper

and of better quality than domestic ones. Furthermore, it took

considerably more time to complete the final product through the

production process in domestic shipyards, chiefly due to the low level

of technology. Undoubtedly, the scanty orders from the shipping

industry contributed to the slower progress of the ship-building

industry in Japan.

The Meiji government felt a strong need to promote every aspect

of the development of the modern ship-building industry, and so the

Promotion Law of both Shipping and Ship-Building were enacted in

1896.2 According to the revised Promotion Law of Shipping in 1899,

shipping traders who purchased large-sized steam vessels made in