of motors in use, whilst the horse-power developed increased fifty-fold during the decade.
Shipbuilding.—In 1896 the Diet passed the Navigation Encouragement Law, and from that time onwards remarkable progress in the shipbuilding industry was made. In 1898 a steamer of 6,000 tons, the first large boat to be built in a Japanese yard, was completed by the Mitsubishi dockyard at Nagasaki for the Nippon Yusen Kaisha. Subsequently the same dockyard and the Kawasaki establishment constructed steamers of over 10,000 tons, as well as cruisers for the Imperial Japanese navy and for China. In 1912 these two dockyards had reached such a pitch of development that each was entrusted with the building of a dreadnought of 27,500 tons.
In 1913 there were six shipyards, with 17 slipways and employing 26,139 workers, and a year later the output of ships of over 1,000 tons gross was 16, the total tonnage being 78,010. In the following five years, owing to the great demand for bottoms to replace the wastage of war, the shipbuilding industry worked with an intensity and vigour which overcame the serious difficulties of lack of skilled workers and of sufficient iron and steel material. Table 12 is eloquent of the results achieved.
With regard to her steam merchant fleet, Japan advanced during June 1914 to June 1920 from sixth to third position among the world Powers, since at the latter date she possessed 2,996,000 tons as against 1,708,000 tons in 1914, thus emerging after the war with an increase of 1,288,000 gross tons. Japan also established a world record in shipbuilding speed during the war. On Oct. 7 1918 at 7 a.m. the keel was laid in the Kawasaki shipyard at Kobe of the “Raifuku Maru,” a steamer of 9,000 tons dead weight, length 385 ft., breadth 51 ft., moulded depth 28 ft. At 6 a. m. on Oct. 30 1918, or only 23 days later, the vessel was successfully launched, and later achieved a mean speed of 17.39 knots on two trial runs of 3 m. each.
The principal shipyards in Japan are as follows: The Mitsubishi Dockyard, Nagasaki, is the oldest and most important dockyard in Japan with up-to-date equipment. It has a water-frontage of about 1½ m. and is nearly 115 ac. in extent. This yard also possesses its own power station with turbo-generators developing 2,000 kw., as the chief machines, machine tools, shop and wharf cranes are all electrically driven. About 10,000 hands are employed and the firm holds the licence for building Parsons turbines. The Kawasaki Dockyards cover about 40 ac. of land, with a water-frontage of about 1 mile. Although formerly only medium-sized steamers and torpedo craft were built here, the capacity is now sufficient for any vessel up to 27,000 tons. At Hyogo the same company has a steel foundry, with a 20-ton Siemens furnace, producing very fine steel castings. The firm has also secured Italian patents for submarine construction and for motors. The Osaka Ironworks, founded in 1880 by the late Mr. E. H. Hunter, was converted into a joint-stock company in 1914, and now consists of separate engineering, shipyard and repairing departments, with a branch at Innoshima, on the Inland Sea. The shipyard covers nearly 16 ac., with a water-frontage of over 1,000 feet. The firm formerly specialized in the construction of dredgers, shallow-draught steamers, trawlers, etc., but now builds passenger and cargo boats up to 10,000 tons. The annual capacity of the yards is 200,000 tons, and the firm has specialized in the Isherwood type of vessel, having purchased the patent. The Asano Dockyard at Tsurumi, near Tokyo, was started to meet the war emergency and has a number of slips for ships of 12,000 tons. Its yearly capacity is almost equal to the pre-war total of the Japanese dockyards. The Suzuki Dockyard comprises the Harima and Toda yards, which were purchased by the Suzuki Co. of Kobe. When completely reorganized, the capacity of the former will be five vessels of 5,000 tons, and of the latter two of 3,000 and one of 1,000 tons. The Ishikawajima Dockyard at Tokyo has been reorganized to build ships of 6,000 tons. The Uraga Dockyard has a capacity of six vessels; between 5,000 and 10,000 tons. It should also be mentioned that the Yokohama Dockyard, which formerly confined itself to repairs, has now started building. Two other yards, of considerable size, are the Asahi, under the firm of Masudaya, Yokohama, and the Uchida yard, owned by Messrs. S. Uchida of Kobe.
Raw Silk and Silk-Weaving.—The manual dexterity peculiar to Japanese women is a factor which ensures the lasting prosperity of Japan’s raw-silk industry, and when full advantage has been taken in modernizing the various processes of production in silk filiatures, enhanced benefit should accrue. Japanese silk goods have made great progress, and particularly silk pongee, which has now practically driven the Chinese product from the markets of the United States. At the end of 1918 there were 3,848 factories engaged in the silk industry, employing 64,188 male and 430,110 female operatives.
Cotton-Spinning, Cotton Textiles and Knitted Goods.—In spite of the difficulties during the World War of importing from Great Britain and the United States sufficient machinery to meet the enhanced demand for cotton yarn, the spinning-mills of Japan prospered exceedingly. The paid-up capital invested in the mills at the end of June 1920 was 248,180,000 yen, equivalent to an increase of 288% over the pre-war figure, whilst the number of spindles in use in 1918 was 3,384,800, and in June 1920 3,689,000, compared with 2,409,900 in 1914. At the end of 1918 there were 6,710 factories, with 65,316 male and 218,041 female operatives, the total number of workers in the textile industries being therefore 777,655. The latter figure includes about 25,000 who are engaged in the production of knitted goods, consisting principally of gloves, stockings and underwear, in which a large trade, chiefly with British India, has grown up in the last few years. As knitting was formerly entirely a domestic industry, there have been difficulties in producing goods of uniform quality for export, and a system of inspection was therefore instituted towards the end of 1917, under which it was prohibited to export articles of inferior quality. Previous to the war, the average output of knitted goods was 6,660,000 doz., valued at 8,937,000 yen, but during the five years of the war the output averaged 15,143,000 doz., of a value of 23,073,000 yen.
Iron-foundries.—Before the war there were only some 20 iron-foundries in Japan, but the difficulties during the war in obtaining from abroad the large quantities of iron and steel required to meet the boom in industry resulted in the establishment of over 250 foundries before the close of 1919. In 1914 the output of pig-iron amounted to 302,000 tons and of steel materials to 283,000 tons. In spite of the slump in the iron industry which occurred after the Armistice, in the year 1919 613,000 tons of pig-iron and 553,000 tons of steel materials were produced.
Machine- and Tool-Making.—At the end of 1918 about 2,700 factories were engaged in various forms of machine making; and also in many branches of metalwork and metalware. The manufacture of machinery for the production of electric apparatus and lamps, as well as the construction of dynamos, telephones, railway signals and measuring instruments, are practically new growths of iron and steel industrial activity. Table 14 shows the position of four representative concerns engaged in machine construction in the second half of 1918.
Dyestuffs.—The manufacture of dyestuffs was an untried industry in Japan prior to the war, and in 1913 no less than 6,000 tons of dyestuffs, valued at 8,000,000 yen, were imported for use in the cotton and silk industries. After the outbreak of the war the cessation of foreign supplies, chiefly derived from Germany, compelled Japan to make an effort to become, to some extent, self-supporting. In 1915 certain dyes were produced, the largest quantity being sulphuric black, then alizarin, acid blue and aniline salt. These were followed by yellow, red, and blue acid, yellow and red direct, and purple, blue and brown basic colours. Early in 1916 the Japanese Government started and subsidized the Japan Dyestuff Manufacturing Co., which later succeeded in producing an artificial indigo, though only on a laboratory scale. By the end of 1918 nearly 100 factories, with a paid-up capital of 14,000,000 yen, had come into existence, and the annual output, including some 80 varieties of dyestuffs, reached 5,400 tons.
